Freedom

One is not free when one sins, because sins necessarily enslave

Freedom understood as autonomy is an illusion

Go Patriots!

Today is a great day.

Tomorrow not so much.

Pray for the overturn of Roe v. Wade

How a Christian Confronts Evil

One of the most important elements of Jesus's kingdom ethic was, accordingly, the praxis of forgiveness: "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; anf if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give him your cloak as well... Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt. 5:39-44). As Walter Wink has pointed out, these recommendations have nothing to do with passivity in the face of evil; rather, they embody a provocative but nonviolent manner of confronting evil and conquering it through a practice of coinherent love.

- The Priority of Christ, Robert Barron, pp. 112

Ron Paul is not "the most honest politician"

“I voted for Ron Paul because he is the most honest politician I have ever known,” Ann Buckman, 27, said outside Ward 11's Gossler Elementary School.

Not true, says I! Ron Paul has been caught on numerous occasions manipulating or distoring the record of other candidates. Furthermore, he is guilty of a type of manipulation that can only be called hypocrisy. Ron Paul has the nice benefit of saying he's voted against everything - because he has. However, Ron Paul the politician knows that his no votes often mean nothing, because no one else agrees with him. Ron Paul does not care about the common good, which requires the careful application of prudence in pursuit of the best course of action. Ron Paul effectively abstains from making these types of decisions, opting to point to revolution instead. This can rightly be called selfish. He is a hypocrite, because while voting "no," he nevertheless participates in earmarking bills with benefits for his district. He still cooperates with the beast and takes money when he can get it so he can stay in office. He has it both ways, and this is a sign not of man who acts with no concern but for his principles, but of a careful, calculating politician who wants to get re-elected, just like everyone.

A Good Essay on Discernment

Here!

A taste:

But such popular talk of one’s “calling” also betrays a crucial misunderstanding of discernment, a cardinal error that is entirely foreign to the great tradition of the Church...

The confusion is rooted in the oft-overlooked sin of presumption. For when a Christian goes to prayer with the expectation that God will reveal to him a personalized plan for his life, he presumes that God will make him the recipient of a miraculous private revelation. Now, our Christian history has seen numerous instances of his doing exactly that, particularly with some of the Church’s most venerable mystic saints. But God is under no constraints to act in this way, and far be it for me to deem myself worthy to receive so extraordinary a message from Our Lord.

Naive Young Catholic People Who Believe and Practice the Church's Teachings

In the latest issue of Commonweal, the editor Paul Baumann recounts his mother's story of the period of her life when she practiced adherence to the Church's teachings about sexuality. During this time, his mother was pregnant 7 times and had 2 miscarriages. She suffered severe endometriosis and "the deliveries were not always easy". It does sound like his mother had some serious trouble with her pregnancies, and it is clear from the story that an inability to control or regulate pregnancies was a source of great suffering for her mother. This is a serious story that deserves a serious response.

The primary ethical point of his storytelling is that the Church's teaching on the impermissability of contraception is inhumane and immoral. Mr. Baumann believes his mother had no choice but to suffer through the pain and suffering of perpetual pregnancy in the absence of birth control. It is clear he thinks there are no alternatives, and that her life could not have been lived in a different way, if she wanted to remain faithful to the Church. But surely some part of him knows he is ignoring some obvious things.

First, his mother and father could have avoided getting pregnant by practicing abstinence. Abstinence is indeed possible and is guaranteed to prevent pregnancy! His father, if he was cognizant of the health issues his wife was suffering, should have acted in her defense and they could have cooperated to avoid pregnancy when it would cause serious harm. This is likely perceived by many to be yet another "inhumane" suggestion, because our culture views self-denial as something of a vice, especially with regards to sex. And if one rejects abstinence, then the Church would recommend NFP. NFP is, when used properly, effective. It's just difficult, and people don't like that either. But the suffering that comes with NFP is surely better than risking one's life for a pregnancy (a baby).

If these options are not good enough, if we are incapable of joyfully living the teachings of the Church, then I believe that the Church must not teach the truth. If the Church is wrong about human sexuality, and specifically the claim that contraception is immoral, the Church can be wrong about anything morally. And if the Church can be wrong about anything morally, then She really doesn't teach with the authority of Divine, Omniscient, and Perfect God.

Baumann says he tells the story so that young people might hear it(although if that's the case he shouldn't be writing it in Commonweal). He says: "this is an all-too-familiar story for Catholic women of a certain age, and I think it should be better known, especially among younger, more fervent Catholics whose idealism [emphasis mine] - and naivete - is pandered to by the current emphasis on the Theology of the Body." OK, duly noted, Mr. Baumann. I'd rather be naive than believe in a God who isn't perfect.

On the Feast of The Holy Family (A Message from the NEW New Hampshire Bishop!)

NH has a new Bishop, and it seems he has a willingness to preach the Gospel! This is great news for our diocese. This Sunday is the Feast Day of The Holy Family, and the Bishop uses this as an occasion to call for a restoration of our understanding of marriage. The whole article is worth reading, but check this part out:

Plea to Strengthen Marriage and Family

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” I do now add to this prayer: help us to rediscover and strengthen the bonds of marriage and family. Human attempts to replace or redefine marriage do not respond adequately to the present situation of isolation, grief, and confusion. The wisdom of many millennia of human experience is not to cast aside truth, but to uphold it if society is to prosper and find peace.

In this regard, I am encouraged that the New Hampshire General Court will have the opportunity in this coming year to vote to restore the traditional understanding of marriage, and I sincerely hope that the General Court will accomplish this important task. And if such will be the case, then we must, as a people dedicated to the common good, “be there” as our young people say, for married couples and their family bond. May the year 2012 be a year in which we recapture the age-old knowledge of the place of marriage and the family as the foundations of society.

The Surveillance State

In this season of the “holidays,” it was announced several days ago that Fairfax County schools would be permitted to install video surveillance cameras in High Schools. Fairfax County is frequently lauded as being one of the best public school counties in the nation, but, as residents of the county, we receive regular updates of various assaults, thefts, “gang-banging” and near-riots taking place in the High Schools.

A civilization reveals its deepest commitments through its education – enculturation – of its young. We have whitewashed not only God and religion from the schools, but all questions of the Good in favor of a embrace of relativist toleration and non-judgmentalism, along with an ethic of entitlement, self-realization, and a utilitarian view of education. It has been argued since the beginning of the liberal era that the “bracketing” of questions of the Good would result in civil peace and toleration.

Instead – as Thomas Hobbes told us – we increasingly live within a surveillance State, an all-seeing Leviathan. In lieu of self-sustaining standards of respect, modesty, manners and maturity, we are surrounded by evidence of cultural pollution, social dissolution and irresponsibility. Into the breach fills the State to enforce by diktat what social decencies once governed.

This is the consequence of several centuries of the liberal vision of toleration and peace in place of God and Good – our children “surveilled” where instead they should be gaining deeper understanding and practices of adulthood and even the beginnings of wisdom. But, do not mention the name God or say “Merry Christmas” – that might cause discomfort. Better to turn our schools into panopticons, our children into inmates.

- Patrick Deneen

What do people think of "The Servile State"?

Wilhelmson in ISI, circa 1978:

But The Servile State still runs through edition after edition and men today still ponder the sobering thesis advanced by its writer: there is no liberty, political or social, unless there is economic liberty, which means the restoration of property, not paper property owned by usurers, but real property owned by proprietors, by men who in one fashion or another eat and drink their own. Nothing less is worth the dignity of Christian men.

I am currently overwhelmed by this book.

RIP Christopher Hitchens

Can't Support Newt and Romney is Blahhhh

Two reasons I can't support Newt:

1. "Christian conservatives, in the toxic atmosphere of the culture wars, cannot afford to have as a public face a figure who for most of his adult life has shunned the virtues and ways of life that Christian conservatives want to advance in the public square. " Francis Beckwith, quoting Rod Dreher at The Catholic Thing

2. Intellectuals tend to make bad rulers, and Newt's record as Speaker of the House is not compelling evidence he refutes this stereotype.

And Romney, oh Romney.

I want to believe you, but I cannot. You've never been able to to persuasively articulate conservative ideas, and the analogy of business and business and government runs thin in my book. And Massachusetts is a big pile of poop thanks to policies you helped to implement.

Newt Gingrich has a PhD?

Who knew!

Letter from a Holy Priest to His Parish

... Dear Brothers and Sisters, I am writing this on Thursday, the 17th. It is the feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the patroness of the Secular Franciscan Order. Even though there were proper readings for this feast I privately read the readings from the ordinary day. The first reading was from the Book of Maccabees (2:15-29), which is in the Catholic Bible. In this passage Mattathias is refusing to obey the evil king`s orders and he says,

"Although all the Gentiles in the king`s realm obey him, so that each forsakes the religion of his fathers and consents to the king`s orders, yet I and my sons and my kin will keep to the covenant of our fathers. God forbid that we should forsake the law and the commandments. We will not obey the words of the king nor depart from our religion in the slightest degree."

Why did this strike me like a rock between the eyes? because the government in this country and other forces are trying in every way to erode the free exercise of religion ? not in matters of faith ? but in matters of morals. The government is forcing Catholic social service agencies to provide medications and procedures that are contrary to Catholic moral teaching. The government wants our money, our facilities and our personnel, but NOT our morals. They want us to keep our morals in the sacristy. We must remember that there is a dual purpose to our religion; the proper worship of God and the proper living of our lives according to God`s expectations as handed on to us through the Catholic Church. This Church has not only the right but the responsibility to teach and encourage and expect goodness and virtue under the leadership of the Pope.

Our government, like any other government wherever the Church has been established in the past 2000 years wants to usurp that right and responsibility so that they can promote their own set of agendas. Perhaps we should be looking at the illusion of "euthanasia" ??? How many of us will not just be pushed to the sidelines of medical care but possibly even killed because we are a drain on society ??? Brothers and Sisters, the Catholic Church is the only force that will stand as a whole to oppose these trends. We must all stand together if we like Mattathias will be true to the religion of our fathers. As I have said many times? know the Faith, know what God expects of each of us Catholics and pray for the courage to fulfill His laws and commandments.

God bless you all.

What a great holiday

No Class

Part of me really likes the Roots. But this is just pathetic. I'm no fan of Michelle Bachmann, but to play a song whose lyrics are "she's just a lyin' *ss b****" when the woman walks on to the stage is completely without class.

Lame. See here

Revolution

The "occupy" movement is fed up. They don't like the way things are going these days, and they are camping in public places to make everyone aware of their feelings. But what's the movement about, ultimately? There's some class-envy stuff going on and some general sense that things are not fair. But the diagnosis - that "the system" is the reason things are so bad, is a dangerous one. It's all well and good to have a conversation about how awful things are. We absolutely need to think critically about the way we organize our lives together; this is what politics is about. However, critical thinking cannot be criticism alone. In order to avoid being dangerous it must also be constructive. What the occupy movement really needs to be successful is a plan! What would they do to fix our society? Is their a political solution? Do we take more money from rich people using the power of the government? Does that ultimately solve the problem? I think most occupy folks would say, no, that's not enough. They want to flush the toilet and start all over again. They want revolution - regime change. No more American way, which in their view has lead to a large power differential between the ruling class and the ruled. I'm not exactly sure there is a specific idea they have in mind. Like in 2008, these people want "change," and really any radical change will do. The open-endedness of it all makes us vulnerable to tyranny.

Watching Europe Die

I find myself wondering what will actually happen? In America, anyways, it seems there are no consequences for anything. Caught in a lie? Deny it until everyone forgets. Make bad business choices? The government will bail you out. Spend too much money? Print some more! After all, truth is something we impose on the world.

What could go wrong?

Peter Lawler Expands Upon The Obvious

College is for technical education these days.  It's not for liberal education, or education intended to free a person from the prejudices of the dominant culture.

So far we've concluded, following Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, that most of what we call higher education is really technical education.  It's the acquisition of indispensable skills for people in a middle-class democracy.  That technical education at our brick-and-mortar colleges typically includes some "liberal education," but that part of college education is getting smaller and somewhat vaguer or more perfunctory  That's because we no longer know what the humanities are for, beyond sharpening basic skills in critical thinking, effective communication, and so forth.  The sciences, as far as I can tell, are more confident and meritocratic than ever, the humanities more dazed and confused and so angry and suspicious of the 'logocentrism" of meritocracy.

Tocqueville adds that identifying science with technology is basically a democratic prejudice  We tend to value science as useful for generating the power required to make us more comfortable, secure, and free from material drudgery.  But the truth is that there's also pure science or theoretical science, which can be distinguished even from experimental science.  (The importance of this distinction is one reason among many I admire TV's The Big Bang Theory--with the intellectual superiority of the theoretical Sheldon to the experimental Leonard always being displayed, although Leonard is a nicer guy with more normal human emotions.)

 AND that's just too bad.  But really, what else could we possibly expect?  College is, as democrats believe, for everyone.  And everyone is not meant for liberal education.  So education becomes technical; education becomes that which gives persons the power to succeed and to have power over other persons, which is what democracy is reduced to in the perceived absence of God.

Questions for the Heretic

Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and is God Himself?

Do you believe that Jesus Christ established a Church on this earth?

Do you believe that Jesus Christ appointed apostles to rule and teach his Church?

Do you believe that these apostles teach and rule with Jesus’s authority, and therefore God’s authority?

Do you believe that the Church Jesus Christ established is the Roman Catholic Church, and that this same Church has persisted throughout the ages in a continuous line of apostolic succession, starting with Peter and ending with Benedict XVI?

Do you believe the teachings of this Church in faith and morals? If no, why not?
Do you not believe the Church Jesus Christ established teaches with divine authority?

Does God lead us astray? Does God leave us without authoritative moral guidance?

Note

I think Betty Duffy is one of the best writers on the internet