Brother Alexis Bugnolo and Ordo Militaris

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – “Why don’t you tell the people at home, start wherever you wish, Brother, with the inspiration that caused you to think that you needed to do something about what is going on with the insurgency or the rise of what I call orthodox Islam, doing what is done for 1200 years against the Christian people in France, in one instance, and certainly all across the Middle East and in Africa?”  Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  I’ll let Brother Alexis Bugnolo of – I need to ask Brother which order he is in.  I don’t want to mispronounce it or misstate it.  First of all, Brother Alexis, it’s a pleasure to have you on the program, my friend.  How are you?

Brother Alexis Bugnolo:  I’m fine.  Please to be with you, Mike.

Mike:  Your order, I just assumed you were Franciscan because you’re in the brown tunic and the sandals and the rope around the waist.  I might have assumed wrong.  What order are you in?

Br. Bugnolo:  I am a Franciscan Hermit.  I wear the Franciscan habit.

Mike:  I even told someone, I said: The Brother is the real deal.  It was about 45 degrees that morning and he had sandals on and no socks.

Br. Bugnolo:  No, I never wear socks.

Mike:  I said: Only a real man who was used to living as a hermit outdoors could possibly accomplish that.  It was a pleasure to see you talk.  We did broadcast it.  Some people are familiar with some of what you said.  You were interviewed by Brother Andre Marie for an episode of ReConquest.  Everyone that I have told, and I even introduced this segment last night to our Latin Mass Society group.  I asked them all to tune in and consider supporting you.  Everyone that I have told has been fascinated and gone: Well, is the government going to let him do that?  What are the Feds going to say about that?  I think it’s a fair question.  Why don’t you tell the people at home, start wherever you wish, Brother, with the inspiration that caused you to think that you needed to do something about what is going on with the insurgency or the rise of what I call orthodox Islam, doing what is done for 1200 years against the Christian people in France, in one instance, and certainly all across the Middle East and in Africa?

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Br. Bugnolo:  You probably all know about Father Jacques Hamel, how he had his throat slit in front of his altar during mass in France, in Normandy, at the end of July.  It was all over the news in Europe.  I was in Europe at the time.  It just brought back to me – many an inspiration has come to me over the years that Catholics need to do something to defend Catholics.  Since the French Revolution, we have been basically disarmed.  You can defend someone for human rights, but you can’t defend them because he’s a Catholic, that’s basically the unwritten doctrine of the West.

I, like tens of millions of us, have been waiting for the governments of the West to do something about ISIS, something about the persecution of Christians.  It’s genocide really.  In Iraq there was, at one time, three million Catholics in the country.  There are now only 600,000 because the rest have been murdered or driven out of the country.  They have been pleading, the Chaldean Catholics, the Syrian Catholics, the Syriac Catholics, the Christians, for the West to do something.  How can you stand and do nothing?  With that horrible murder of Father Jacques, I said: I’ve got to do something, but what can I do?  I’m only a Hermit.

I prayed to our Lord.  It seemed like he was telling me: Go gather the men.  They’re out there.  Bring them to hell.  That’s how it all began.  It’s a very simple inspiration.  I’m not a military leader.  The First Crusade was promoted by a Hermit, so I can’t see why a crusade against ISIS cannot be promoted by a Hermit.  Just to specify, we’re not out to do war with Islam.  We’re not out to retake Jerusalem.  I am not calling the crusade.  The pope calls a crusade, or a bishop could call a crusade.

It’s a private effort of Catholics, you could say with money and guns, to help Catholics who need money and guns to defend themselves.  So many humanitarian organizations that help in this way or other with food, clothes, housing, medical care.  There’s no one helping the two Christian militia in Iraq, approved by the government, and work with the government in the Iraqi Army, to give them guns and weapons.  They have 20 minutes of ammunition.  You couldn’t take a village with 20 minutes of ammunition.  They have US military advisors, but the US doesn’t give them a single bullet.

They’re right smack in the midst of everything.  Their homeland, the Nineveh Plains, around Mosul.  They call Mosul Nineveh.  It’s actually a few miles upriver from where the ancient city is.  You can read all about Nineveh in the book of Job.  It’s right smack between the three powers that all have foreign backers.  You have the Kurds in the north, the Shia in the south in the central government, and the Sunnis in the Anbar Province.  Right smack in the midst where all these three meet are the Christians, the Assyrians.  No one is helping them.  Someone has to help them.  If they get the help, that will bring about the defeat of ISIS.

As a private effort at Ordo Militaris, we can only help where our countries allow us to help and where the countries want the help.  People ask me: What about Syria?  Right now the great powers of the world are at loggerheads over Syria.  We couldn’t help.  Most of us are from one side of the war, countries that are supporting one side of the war there that are funding jihadis.  We would never promote jihad.  Iraq is a place where there is a desperate need.  It has a very large Catholic population.  They’re getting no help.  That’s what we’re proposing.  In each country I hope to set up a group of Catholics who would found a private military corporation, raise the funds, and send men and arms over there, or send men over there with funds so they can buy arms in country, depending on what the laws of the country allow.

Mike:  Talk for just a moment, Brother, if you would, and refresh my memory, or introduce what you talked about on Friday.  At the time of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein – we’re not elevating Saddam Hussein for canonization or anything of the sort.  Saddam had protected the ancient Christian and Catholic cults, if you will, in Iraq from the jihadis, from the Mohammedans.  You gave some statistics as to how many Catholics there were at the time of Saddam and how many there are today.  Can you recall?

Br. Bugnolo:  There were three million, and today there are 600,000.  Iraq was liberated, but the Christians were persecuted.  Most people think that Saddam Hussein was a Muslim.  He was actually a member of a small sect.  He didn’t agree with any group.  The Catholics he protected.  As a matter of fact, his bodyguard, I heard, was mostly Catholic.  They were the only people he could trust.  He was a tyrant, but he allowed religious liberty.  The US came and gave democracy and de facto religious liberty evaporated.  They still have the right of worship, but they’ve lost their homeland.  They’ve been driven out.  There’s so much sectarian violence.  Even in Baghdad, if you go to the market every day you’ll be blown up eventually in one year because there are bombs going off.

On top of it, there’s a strong idea in Iraq that Christians shouldn’t arm themselves; everyone else should.  There’s a lot of Christians who have that idea.  Consequently, so many Christian fathers of their families took their wives and kids and fled the country because if I can’t arm, how could I stay here?  There are some really tough and loyal fighters, Assyrians, in Iraq.  They have two militias, Dwekh Nawsha and the Nineveh Plain Protection Unit. They both invited me to come over and pay a visit.  I’m going at the end of this year to see what their needs are, so we can find out how we can help them, what we can do for them.

We’re not a political organization.  We don’t get involved in politics.  Our sole mission is to help Catholics who are being persecuted where that help requires military intervention or a security solution.  We’re not a nonprofit because in the United States a nonprofit cannot buy guns and weapons.  That’s not considered humanitarian in the masonic scheme of things here in the US and in most Western countries.  We organized as a for-profit so that we can supply that.

Mike:  It’s a fascinating story.  The effort is, I believe, going to become more fascinating.  Brother Alexis Bugnolo of the Franciscans is on the Dude Maker Hotline.  He is a Hermit.  He has been called, as you’re hearing, and now has a mission to aid Catholics in Iraq and places where the government will allow them to assist.  To do this, one of the things you’re trying to do, Brother, is to start an order here, or to have a place for your order to recruit, to train, and to prepare here in the United States.  I saw something about a place, I want to say in New Mexico, but you’re currently in Cheyenne, Wyoming, right?

Br. Bugnolo:  We’ve incorporated as a private military corporation in Cheyenne, Wyoming because they have a favorable tax structure for corporations in the country.  There’s no state taxes for companies there and corporations.  They’re kind of like the Old West used to be before the tax-and-suppress kind of politics got going in America.  We are legally erected in Wyoming, although physically we don’t own a building.  We have a secretary of services there.  We need a headquarters because we need a place where the men can sleep, can be vetted, can visit.  We need a place to store things that we want to sell.  We’re a for-profit corporation, so promotional things.  We need to train our men in desert warfare.  A benefactor said: I was looking for houses in New Mexico and this house looks like a monastery.  I looked at it and said: It is a monastery.

Mike:  It is a monastery.  I saw the picture.

Br. Bugnolo:  I said: They’ll never sell us that.  When you see a Catholic Church for sale, usually the dioceses is trying to sell it.  No, it’s owned by a Mormon.  It’s a historic site, so it has to be preserved as a Catholic Church.  In fact, there’s three altars in the church, wooden altars, one to the Sacred Heart, one to Our Lady of Lourdes, and one of the high altar.  You have to maintain it as a church.  It really would be great for us because as one calling the men to arms, I wrote a rule for the men to keep them on the straight path.  One obligation I’m asking all the military recruits to keep is to go to daily mass when they can.  Our headquarters would need a place for daily mass.  This place is great.  It has a church.  It’s 6500 square feet and it’s only $299,000.  Someone is coming forward to buy it.  I don’t know what they’re going to use it for.  We have to rush.  I’m going down there the end of this month to sign a deal.  I’m looking for benefactors to help me make it a reality.

Mike:  Where would someone go to assist you?  I know on Facebook it’s Ordo Militaris.  There are several different organizations.  I saw one in Kansas, one in Canada even.

Br. Bugnolo:  We’re setting up chapters all over.  The best thing is to come to our website, Ordo-Militaris.us.  Our website, there’s a donation button there.  If you have a credit card you can make a donation.  You can see our address.  You can write us.  If you’re interested in investing, we have an investment page.  It tells you ways you can invest with us since we’re for-profit.  That’s the way you can help out right now.  Any kind of generous donation you’d like to give – unlike your local parish or church where you give a donation, you can buy stock with us.  That enables us to have the capital necessary to buy this and do other capital investments.  A couple years down the road, if you need your capital back, we can buy the stock back from you.  You can help us that way.  It’s something we need to do.  We’d like to recruit men who want to fight against ISIS.  I would encourage any vets out there, Catholics, who have military training first of all, especially officers who’d like to sign up with us, we’re following all the laws in the United States, all the laws in Iraq, and all international laws.  We’re not doing anything illegal.  We don’t take people who have been involved in vigilante groups or have criminal records.  It’s a strictly above-board, dot the I’s, cross the T’s, legal stuff.  Our military operations, the military guys are going to be running it.

Mike:  When I saw you on Friday, you made a great point about this, and you explained it in great detail.  Let the radio guy assist you for just a moment here.  Those of you that have military experience, especially those of you that have combat military experience in leadership positions, meaning you were officers, this is where Brother needs the real assistance here in forming the men and keeping them in an order, thus Ordo Militaris.  I think that’s what Brother is trying to communicate to you.  From then, once Brother has established he has a good core of officers, a good plan, and that these men are accomplished and going to teach your son proper military conduct.  He might even learn a little bit about his faith.  He might even learn a little bit about –

Br. Bugnolo:  He definitely will.

Mike:  He’s going to be participating in something that is going to save physical lives and, since those lives won’t be taken, maybe even save some souls in the process.  Instead of the US Army, which we all know to be falling into the most vile sorts of corruption that can be visited upon a military institution, what Brother is saying is there is now an option.  If you really want to fight ISIS or go after the terrorist bad guys and fight them over there and not here, this, to me, is a marvelous option, and one that has deep historical roots as well.  Those of you that have sons who are considering a career or some sort of service in the military, I think you should talk to Brother.  I think you should hear what he has to say.  You should consider: What are you telling your child to enlist in?  He’s going to enlist in the American Army, where he’s going to be force fed all kinds of stuff that you are personally and as a Christian Catholic are diametrically opposed to.

Br. Bugnolo:  Right now it’s so crazy that if your fellow soldier says he’s a woman and he’s in a man’s body, you have to call him she, otherwise it will be an offense.  Your chaplain can’t even read out parts of the Bible; it’s considered hate speech.  They prepare the troops for battle by giving them pornography.  Fight, die for your country, and go to hell.  It shouldn’t be that way.  I’m a firm believer that God gives men a calling to every state of life and every occupation.  There are men out there who have the grace from God to be a warrior, to be a soldier, and yet to be a Catholic warrior and Catholic soldier.  In the last 200 years, that’s been impossible unless you’re in a country that’s extremely Catholic and they’re not opposed to having overt expressions of the Catholic faith in the military service.  Even in modern times, warfare is no longer Christian warfare.  It’s mass warfare, killing the innocent, even forming battle plans that make it necessary for the grunt soldier to kill innocents.

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I was just talking to a vet the other day.  He was explaining to me what this posttraumatic stress syndrome is and what it causes.  A lot of it was because we were asked to do things that were objectively immoral.  We couldn’t talk about it because classified.  That’s not something we’re getting involved in.  We’re going to make sure that it follows Catholic morals to the letter so that we exercise a warfare that is truly moral and truly upright.  Surprise is not so important as saving innocent lives.  You can’t shoot innocents.  Modern warfare, for example, they could justify blowing up a dam even though they know it’s going to kill thousands of people downriver.  We as Catholics, we would never get involved.  If that’s the way you can win, your plan is bad.  You don’t have good strategy.

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So we’ll give the men good religious formation, good military formation.  Some of the officers who serve with us would only be advisors.  Some might be on our board of directors in the United States.  Some might be our liaisons overseas.  Some might help train the men in the US and never go overseas.  Different things.  Some might handle logistics.  They have so much expertise, these guys.  When I see the resumes, I’m like: Boy, the things you can do.  You jumped out that many planes?  You must be crazy.

There are men, God has given them the constitution where when bullets are flying all over, they’re perfectly calm, when most of us would be screaming like madmen or freezing with terror.  These are the men God has created and given to the Church for the defense of his own.  In modern times, they don’t have a way.  In our order, they could pursue a full military career.  If we get big enough, we could have our own military camps, our own military academy.  Our sole goal is to defend Catholics who are being persecuted where we can participate in a conflict.  We’re not about overthrowing governments.  We’re not starting civil wars.  We’re not about liberating Texas from the United States.  However, however worthy you think any cause is, we’re apolitical.  We’re about defending Christ’s own, to be like his royal army on earth when it’s necessary.  I have special ops that would like to join.  I said: Yeah, if a bishop gets kidnapped, I’d like it so I can call up the dioceses and tell the vicar: We have 20 special ops I can send you in a week.  We can rescue that bishop so you don’t have to worry about him being murdered or kidnapped.

End Mike Church Show Transcript