Spy Wednesday: A chilling warning from the man who betrayed Christ



Since the earliest times, the Catholic Church has commemorated the Wednesday of Holy Week as Spy Wednesday, the day Judas Iscariot slipped away to negotiate the traitor’s price to turn Jesus Christ over to the chief priests in Jerusalem.

The betrayal of Judas deserves plenty of attention as we prepare to recall Christ’s Passion and death on Good Friday. The remembrance of Judas’ treachery serves as a warning to all, important enough to have its own commemoration on a weekday traditionally associated with bodily mortification.

'They weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver.'

The chief priests were actively looking for a means to seize Jesus without triggering a riot. As they deliberated, suddenly Judas appeared, seeking an audience.

“The chief priests and the scribes sought how they might put Jesus to death; but they feared the people,” wrote Dom Prosper Guéranger, the late French abbot and author of the comprehensive 15-volume series "The Liturgical Year."

“And Satan entered into Judas, who was surnamed Iscariot, one of the twelve; and he went, and discoursed with the chief priests and the magistrates, how he might betray him to them. And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money. And he promised; and he sought opportunity to betray him in the absence of the multitude.

“They admit him and he says to them, ‘What will you give me and I will deliver him unto you?’” (from Matthew 26:15) Guéranger wrote. “They are delighted at this proposition and yet, how is it, that they, doctors of the law, forget that this infamous bargain between themselves and Judas has all been foretold by David in the 108th Psalm?

Judas Iscariot settled for 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave, to betray Jesus Christ.P. Molnar/Wikimedia Commons

“They know the Scriptures from beginning to end — how comes it,” Guéranger wrote, “that they forget the words of the prophet, who even mentions the sum of thirty pieces of silver?”

Thirty pieces of silver was typically the price of a slave. The amount of this shameful bargain is mentioned in Zechariah 11:12, “And they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver.” The words of the prophets, which would have been clear to these men who plotted against Jesus, did not give them pause as they prepared to carry out the gravest crime in history.

“On this day, Judas leaves his Master, and takes the devil for his guide,” Guéranger wrote. “The love of money blinds him. He fell from the light, he became darkened; for how could he be said to see, who sold the Light for thirty pieces of silver?”

According to the Jewish historian Josephus, there were about 2.7 million people in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. The people had welcomed Jesus as a king on Palm Sunday, laying their cloaks and palm branches along the path as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

Jesus was determined to eat the Passover alone with his apostles. So he frustrated Judas’ scheming by the way he selected the place to eat the Passover meal.

'This sort of talk is hard to take. Who can stand it?'

“Our Lord knows that Judas had sold him and is about to betray him and Judas therefore is laying plans,” said Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in one of his Holy Week discourses. “Our Lord now begins to thwart his plans.”

How does our Lord do it? He says to some of his disciples, go into the city and you will find a man with a water pot on his head. Ask him, where has he prepared the house for the Passover meal? The disciples went into the city. They found a man with a water pot on his head. Why did our Lord use that particular sign?

Well, because men never carry water pots on their head. Women carry water pots on their head. That would be just like saying, go into the city and find a man who's carrying a pink parasol. So the disciples then found the man who had prepared the upper room. Judas therefore did not know where he was being led. Our Lord wanted the last meal alone with his apostles, and Judas would now have to come with him and no one would know except the disciples who met the man with a water pot on the head.

The Agony in the Garden.Giovanni Bellini, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Why did Judas go on his spy mission, scheming to betray his Redeemer? Sheen said a popular theory was that Judas had succumbed to avarice. But despite some evidence for this in Scripture, Sheen said the downfall of Iscariot’s faith came when Christ introduced the Holy Eucharist while teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

“In truth, in very truth I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you can have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood possesses eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. My flesh is real food; my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells continuously in me and I dwell in him” (from John 6:52-57).

This core mystery of the Catholic faith became an insurmountable stumbling block for Judas and other followers of Christ, according to Fr. William Patrick Casey of the Fathers of Mercy.

“Jesus said this over and over again, and the Jews heard him,” Fr. Casey said in a popular audio talk on the Holy Eucharist. “They knew what he was saying, but it was just too much for them. It was too much even for some of his own disciples. They just couldn’t believe it. They said, ‘This sort of talk is hard to take. Who can stand it?’ He said, ‘If you don’t eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’”

Archbishop Sheen places the start of Judas’ fall on this day in Capernaum.

“Where is the first mention of the fall of Judas?” Sheen asked in one of his audio talks. “The day our Lord announced the Eucharist. When did Judas leave? The night our Lord gave the Eucharist. He broke at the announcement of the Eucharist. As a matter of fact, that was the critical moment in the life of our blessed Lord. When he announced the Eucharist, he lost the masses, because he refused to be a bread king.”

At the Last Supper, Jesus asked Judas to sit near him.

Engraving of the Last Supper.Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons

“Christ chose Judas to be an apostle,” Sheen said. “He did not choose him to be a traitor, but to be an apostle.”

Judas had worked out a sign with the brigands who would seize Jesus in the Garden of Olives: a kiss.

“How shall they, who are sent to seize him, be able to distinguish him from his disciples?” Guéranger asked. “Judas will lead the way; he will show them which is Jesus, by going up to him and kissing him!”

Judas thought Christ to be a coward who would retreat into the olive grove when soldiers came to seize him. But when death came for Christ that night, He went out to meet it face to face.

Judas’ betrayal was no kiss of peace or friendship.

“The Lord came forward and Judas reached out his arms and threw them around the Lord's neck,” Sheen said. “And the Greek word in the Gospel is καταφιλέω; he smothered him with kisses. Divinity is so sacred, it is always betrayed by some sign of affection. And our Lord says, ‘Friend, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?’”

On the traditional calendar, the Church keeps a penitential fast on Spy Wednesday as a reminder of Judas’ betrayal of Christ, according to Dom Benedict Baur, the late German Benedictine theologian.

“What a spectacle! Christ betrayed by one of His own apostles and handed over to His enemies,” Dom Baur wrote in a reflection published in the Mass companion "Benedictus." “That act sounded the depths of ingratitude, hypocrisy, and baseness. The act was made more despicable by the fact that it was performed for money.”

Baur said the stakes are high for all Christians who neglect and lose their faith or chase after worldly gains.

“Often they forsake religion and neglect the sacraments,” he wrote. “What remains to them from all the temporal advantages they may gain? They soon prove empty; this discovery drove Judas to despair."

A ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ budget reform bill becomes the joke of the decade



Congress is about to pass what was billed as a once-in-a-generation budget reconciliation bill to rein in inflation. Instead, Republicans have delivered more spending, more debt, and a grab bag of random, inefficient tax cuts. After promising to slash the Biden-era debt explosion, GOP leaders have produced a plan with no major reforms and a laughable 0.004% spending cut over 10 years — after increasing spending.

Conservatives reluctantly backed the House reconciliation bill under pressure from President Trump. The bill didn’t promise immediate savings, but it instructed committees to identify between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in mandatory spending cuts over a decade. In exchange, Republicans agreed to raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion and handed out $4.5 trillion in tax cuts — largely just an extension of existing tax breaks with a few extras tacked on.

After the most consequential election of our lifetime, conservatives are simply asking for one thing: a reconciliation bill that actually means something.

But there’s no repeal of Obamacare. No serious health care reform. No direct strategy to move people off welfare. Nothing resembling a bold or transformational policy. The top-line number might nudge future welfare reform, but that’s speculative at best. Meanwhile, the bill greenlights $300 billion in new spending for the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security — without meaningful offsets or reforms.

A Senate bait and switch

This was a modest plan — far too modest — given the projected $89 trillion in federal spending over the next decade. That estimate assumes no recessions (despite the fact that we’re likely entering one now) and no major natural disasters, which occur almost annually.

Even under those rosy assumptions, the House budget accepts more than $20 trillion in new deficits over 10 years. And it banks on implausible economic growth, driven not by structural reforms, but by the simple extension of current tax rates and a few marginal changes — such as excluding tips, Social Security benefits, and overtime from taxation and boosting state and local tax deductions. These are hardly the hallmarks of a pro-growth revolution.

Still, conservatives recognized that with their so-called once-in-a-lifetime shot at a “new golden age,” this underwhelming package might be the best they could get.

Then came the Senate with a bait and switch.

The Senate passed a bill that technically allows the House to keep working under its budget instructions, but it directs Senate committees to cut just $4 billion. That’s billion with a “B,” not trillion with a “T.” In a projected $89 trillion budget, $4 billion represents a pathetic 0.004%.

Meanwhile, the same bill raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion — the largest increase in U.S. history — and authorizes $5.3 trillion in tax cuts. Of that, $3.8 trillion is classified as an extension of current rates and therefore magically excluded from being scored as a revenue loss.

Phony cuts

We always knew even the modest $1.5 trillion in proposed spending cuts over 10 years would be too much for tepid Republicans. Still, we expected them to negotiate that number down — maybe to $1 trillion. Instead, Senate Republicans came to the table with an opening bid of just $4 billion. That microscopic figure signals they have no intention of cutting more than a few hundred billion over the next decade — at most.

For perspective, that amounts to about $30 billion in cuts from an annual budget nearing $7 trillion and expected to hit $10 trillion by the end of the 10-year window.

But even those paltry cuts aren’t real.

The Senate bill already authorizes $521 billion in new, immediate spending for defense and the border. Lawmakers would need to find an equal amount in savings just to break even. As it stands, the only firm commitment in the legislation is to pile another $5.8 trillion onto the national debt — beyond Biden’s already bloated baseline.

Even under the most generous dynamic scoring — such as estimates from the Tax Foundation — the bill would still leave us with an additional $5 trillion in red ink after accounting for $710 billion in recouped revenue.

Remember, once the House agrees to adopt the Senate’s budget, it forfeits any leverage. Under budget reconciliation rules, any split in proposed spending cuts between the House and Senate committees defaults to the Senate’s numbers. That means the Senate’s meager $4 billion in cuts — not the House’s higher target — will carry the day.

— (@)

The result? Republicans will effectively codify all of Biden’s spending levels. The only area left to negotiate will be tax policy — a dubious consolation, especially in an inflationary environment that demands deficit reduction.

A gift to blue states

Even that tax policy falls short. These aren’t bold, growth-oriented reforms. They’re narrow, parochial carve-outs for select workers and retirees. Worse still, Republicans plan to burn through revenue by expanding the deduction for state and local taxes.

Their top priority? Giving high earners in blue states a break.

The GOP’s moderate wing refuses to accept even a proposal to raise the SALT cap from $10,000 to $25,000. Instead, these Republicans want unlimited deductions — a gift to the wealthy in California and New York, disguised as fiscal policy.

Tax cuts aren’t the same as spending increases — they can spur economic growth. But in a time of sustained inflation, reducing the deficit matters more. Most Americans now lose more to inflation than they pay in taxes. And not all tax cuts are equal. Growth-focused policy doesn’t mean carving out special breaks for retirees, tipped workers, or high earners in blue states.

House conservatives have already taken one hit after another. At Trump’s urging, they passed a continuing resolution in December that included $200 billion in supplemental spending with no offsets. Then, they backed another CR in March — again with no cuts. Now, with budget reconciliation on the table, it’s time to make good on all those earlier compromises.

Trump should stop pressuring conservatives and instead focus on Senate Republicans. He needs to demand that Senate moderates adopt the House version of the bill.

He must also make the case — clearly and forcefully — that runaway welfare spending is a major driver of inflation. That means pushing for meaningful reforms: repealing elements of the Green New Deal, overhauling health care and welfare, and delivering tax cuts that benefit a broad base of working Americans and small businesses.

We’re not asking for much. After what was billed as the most consequential election of our lifetime, conservatives are simply asking for one thing: a reconciliation bill that actually means something.

Critics lay into Dem senators for killing bill that would keep male cross-dressers out of women's sports



The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act is a piece of legislation that passed the U.S. House in a 218-206 vote in January that would have prohibited federally funded school athletic programs from allowing men to participate in programs intended for women or girls, effectively codifying an executive order President Donald Trump issued last month.

Democrats led by Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) blocked the corresponding bill in the U.S. Senate on Monday, demonstrating both their apparent indifference to opportunistic cross-dressers' brutalization of female athletes and to the supermajority of Americans' desire to see athletes compete in sports teams that conform to their sex.

To overcome a Democratic filibuster of the legislation, 60 votes were needed. Every single Democratic senator voted "no," to the great satisfaction of non-straight activist groups like the so-called Human Rights Campaign, which characterized the vote as a "major victory."

Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), who introduced the Senate version of the bill, stated that "it is shameful that Democrats refuse to stand up for women and women's sports. This is far from over, and I will NEVER stop fighting to permanently restore Title IX protections."

'Name and shame them all.'

The Independent Council on Women's Sports stated that "it's shocking that not a single Senate Democrat will vote to keep girls' sports female-only. This is not representative of the people."

Riley Gaines, the All-American swim star who not only had to compete with the transvestite formerly known as William Thomas but found herself sharing a locker room with him, shared a list of the Democratic senators who voted against advancing the bill, noting, "Name and shame them all."

"Specifically, I want to highlight GA Democrat [Sen. Jon Ossoff]. You have a daughter. Have you no shame?" wrote Gaines. "Georgians are watching. I will make it my mission to do what I can to remove you from your senate seat in 2026."

Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R) shared a video to X calling Senate Democrats' betrayal of female athletes "mind-blowing."

"On one side, I'm very upset as a father," said Mullin. "On the other side I'm like, 'Hey, good. Keep voting this way. We're going to keep winning elections on the Republican side because you guys are absolutely crazy. You have lost your ever-loving mind to think it's OK for men to participate in women's sports, for men to go into a women's locker room and change, for men to go into a women's bathroom and use the bathroom in front of our daughters."

The White House suggested the Democratic senators responsible for killing the bill were cowards and noted, "Never let them forget it."

"They disgust me," responded conservative commentator Megyn Kelly.

The supermajority of Americans support keeping opportunistic cross-dressing men out of women's sports.

According to a survey conducted last month by the Pew Research Center, 66% of respondents support policies requiring transvestites to compete on teams that match their actual sex. A January New York Times/Ipsos poll found that 79% of Americans — 94% of Republicans, 67% of Democrats, and 64% of Independents or "something else" — said that male transvestites should not compete against women.

While the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act is presently dead in the water, Trump's Jan. 20 executive order titled "Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government" and his Feb. 5 executive order titled "Keeping men out of women's sports" have already had an impact, prompting the NCAA, for instance, to revise its policy regarding male transvestites' participation in women's sports.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Democratic Sen. Coons admits who was behind the campaign to kick Biden out of the race



Jill Biden revealed in an exit interview published by the Washington Post this week that because her husband "has an incredible capacity to forgive," she has become for both of them the de facto "holder of grudges," recalling "every slight committed against the people I love." The outgoing first lady identified the individual she apparently believes dealt her husband the unkindest cut of all and set the stage for his ouster from the 2024 presidential race.

After noting that she has been reflecting on relationships, Jill Biden — apparently adopting her "teacher's voice" — stated in the Post interview, "We were friends for 50 years," adding that "it was very disappointing" to watch California Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D) suggest in July on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that, despite the president's stated intention to stay in the race, "it's up the president to decide if he's going to run."

Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware appeared to confirm the identity of Biden's long-suspected betrayer Wednesday, telling Kaitlan Collins of CNN's "The Source" that Pelosi orchestrated the campaign to eliminate Biden from the race.

Collins noted that Jill Biden "is very careful with how she uses her words," then asked what Coons made of "that moment."

"What I make of it is that she may well have wished that Speaker Pelosi had engaged directly with them, rather than orchestrating a campaign to try and get President Biden to step down from the race," said the senator. "Ultimately, it was the right thing for him to do, for his candidacy, for the country, for the party. But I do think there were some hard feelings."

'I learned a lot about human nature.'

Multiple sources told NBC News in the wake of the Democratic mutiny that while New York Democrats Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries were pressuring Biden to drop out, Pelosi was the one "fanning the flames."

Pelosi reportedly refrained from publicly calling on Biden to call it quits, but worked behind the scenes, impressing upon various lawmakers and elements of her vast Democratic donor network the importance of the geriatric president's exit from the race, advising them to "speak their conscience."

Concerning the July 19 call by 13 congressional Democrats for Biden's exit, one House Democrat who had been in contact with Pelosi told NBC News, "That groundswell on Friday of members calling for him to step down was all Nancy's doing."

The unnamed House Democrat noted that Pelosi was at least 50% responsible for the end of Biden's race, stating, "The gist was that she felt our ability to take back the majority was at risk."

"It was a very hard couple of weeks, as folks who felt urgently about this decision increasingly spoke up, first privately, then publicly," Coons previously told CBS News following Biden's withdrawal from the race in July. "And in the last conversation we had of the co-chairs of the campaign, and in some conversations with fellow senators who, like me, were deeply committed to continuing this campaign with Joe Biden as our nominee, [we] were quite angry and hurt."

Adding insult to injury, Pelosi attacked Biden after Kamala Harris' landslide electoral defeat, telling the New York Times, "Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race."

"Let's just say I was disappointed with how it unfolded," Jill Biden told the Post. "I learned a lot about human nature."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

David French Can’t Resist Firing On Former Allies

I would never bite the hand that once fed me, even if that hand has given me a few slaps to the face.