Guest Post by Joseph Morris
The current debate over health care reform in the United States is centered around the question, “Who should pay, and how do we cover those who cannot pay?”
I believe the more directed question should be “How do we get health care to those who cannot pay?” As most of the country is covered by private health insurance and is happy with the cost and care they are receiving, let us only address that minority who are uncovered and leave the rest alone. What they need is free care.
A simple proposal:
Allow every health care professional; doctors, nurses, chiropractors, physical therapists, homeopaths, etc. to deduct from their personal federal income taxes, dollar for dollar, at their going rate, for every hour of free care that they give.
Allow every care facility; hospitals, clinics, etc, and manufacturer/distributor; pharmaceutical companies,. pharmacies, wheelchair companies, bandage mmanufacturers, etc. to deduct from their corporate income taxes, dollar for dollar, at their market rate, for every product or service that they give.
The Results:
Patients who cannot pay will be provided with private, local care unencumbered by federal or state government bureaucracy.
Medical providers can donate their services to whatever income level they seek to achieve. 50/50 to pay no taxes, 60/40 to pay some taxes, donate all their time in order to offset other income streams, etc. They can schedule their free hours within their offices, or spend time at free clinics.
Medicare/Medicaid will be rendered obsolete before they become insolvent.
Enforcement falls to the IRS which carries an established reputation and would only audit the hours given in service and would not be concerned with the care given.
This will be a new incentive for prospective medical professionals to enter the field. Watch the no tax days at the beginning of the school year to understand the inordinate joy that the public takes in sticking it to the government.
Accessibility to free care will be limited by provider choices and thus will serve as an incentive for those who can pay to stay insured.
Health care providers will advertise for uninsured patients as the fiscal year closes.
Even if every provider overstated his donations by 100% every year, it would still be cheaper than anything else being proposed.
Joe Morris, small business owner
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Tin Foil Hats
In February, 1904, Scientific American provided a description of N-rays:
We could shoot fish in a barrel by pointing to eminent MSM nutcases like Dan Rather. He not only insisted that George Bush's military service in the Air National Guard was bogus, he sued CBS for forcing him to drop the story:
And during one of Joe Biden's more recent trips to his vacation retreat in the Land of Aluminum, he insisted Barack Hussein Obama would be seriously tested within six months of his swearing-in. The clock is ticking to a close on that six months, but no world-wide disaster-level test for Barry seems to be in the making. I guess the world just isn't that into him.
As I say, we could take the most obvious cases of MSM conspiracy theory, roll our eyes and call for the men in white suits. But the charge merits a deeper look. After all, when you think about it, the MSM is really a major tin-foil hat manufacturing industry.
Consider MSM insistence that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer. The tin-foil hats that head up the MSM and at least one American cancer institute refuse to engage the reality of dozens of scientific studies. Instead, Americans deny that there is any correlation, despite mountains of evidence that abortion does cause breast cancer.
Why the state of denial? Because these "mainstream" tin foil hats fear that admitting the truth would allow the camel's nose into the tent. Religious types would take over science or the United States or their bedroom or... whatever. So they deny any aspect of reality that comports too closely with what religion teaches to be true.
As a result, we keep being told that condoms are a solution the the AIDS crisis, that abortion is essentially harmless (in their world, it never causes subsequent pre-term birth, increased incidence of cerebral palsy, or post-traumatic stress disorder), and that promoting abstinence or monogamy is a bad idea.
In all of these cases, various elements of the "mainstream" refuse to engage the reality and instead insists that these facts are not actually facts, rather, these facts are really part of a larger conspiracy, a nefarious attempt by Rome or the Southern Baptists or the Mormons to go on the rampage and enslave people. Religious patriarchy and all that.
The liberal tin foil hats even have a Council of Elders now, I suppose to combat the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's hard to say really, especially considering that at least one of the members the new Council (a former American President) once swore he was visited by a UFO.
So, why do "mainstream liberals" (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one) take hold in the public psyche? Because they shout their conspiracy theory loudly. Because MSM'ers believe a conspiracy of powerful religious interests want to take over everyone's lives.
Whether it's Dan Rather, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Whoopi Goldberg, or Barack Obama, they are all various degrees of nuts.
So, what can we conclude?
1) The "main-stream media" is already conspiracy-theory driven.
2) The "main-stream media" is essentially becoming a minority fringe group,
3) It really is appropriate to describe people who follow MSM positions as tin-foil hat groupies.
Why mention all of this?
Well, today, we face another MSM tin-foil hat conspiracy theory.
The MSMer's insist that anyone who questions Barack Obama's eligibility to be President is part of a vast, right-wing (is there any other kind?) racist conspiracy intended to turn America away from its marvelous upward course towards enlightened atheistic secular humanism. MSM'ers are terrified that such questions about Barack Hussein Obama's person will instantly turn the good old US of A back instead towards the Dark Ages of Religious Intolerance (tm).
Uhhh.... yeah.
I'm sure.
Let's try to be rationale, shall we?
My brother-in-law is a cop. If he were to pull me over, he would ask for my driver's license. He expects to get it.
Now, he knows I have a driver's license. But if he knows I have one, why does he ask for it? Indeed, why ask anyone for it? Isn't the fact that someone has a car proof enough that they must have a driver's license? What possible reason would anyone have to give a car to someone without a license?
Someone must have vetted the driver! It would be crazy to let anyone have a car without vetting the driver. There are laws against that sort of thing! So, asking for a driver's license... it's crazy talk, I tell ya'! That cop is a right-wing conspiracy theory NUT! And I can prove it! After all, he actually asked for my driver's license!
Keep in mind that the person behind the wheel almost always does have a license. My brother-in-law still asks because... well... because that's the law. He has to ask for it, I have to produce it.
So, which is more bizarre? To ask a man to release his medical records, his college transcripts, his writings, his birth certificate, if he decides he wants to run for or be sworn in as President? Or to insist that even allowing the human mind to form such questions is the sign of incipient insanity?
Now, the Constitution itself stipulates that you need only be a "citizen" to be a Senator or Representative, but you must be a "natural born citizen" to be president. So, which is more bizarre? To insist that the Law of Nations, the US Constitution, and continuing American legal precedent has already defined the phrase "natural-born citizen" to mean a man who is BOTH born on US soil AND whose parents are BOTH US citizens, or to ignore all of this history and legal precedent and instead insist there is no difference between being a "citizen" and being a "natural-born citizen"?
What is this "natural born citizen" law?
The Constitution’s Article 1, Section 8, Clause 10 states that a power of Congress is to “define and punish… offenses against the law of nations.” The Law of Nations has been international law, which as documented by Emmerich de Vatel (1758) states, in Chapter XIX, paragraph 212, “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rig
hts.”Vatel follows with paragraph 215, in which he asserts, “It is asked whether the children born of citizens in a foreign country are citizens? The laws have decided this question in several countries, and their regulations must be followed.(59) By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers, and enter into all their rights (§ 212); the place of birth produces no change in this particular, and cannot, of itself, furnish any reason for taking from a child what nature has given him; I say ‘of itself,’ for, civil or political laws may, for particular reasons, ordain otherwise.” The chief framer of the related 14th Amendment of the Constitution, John A. Bingham corroborated this dual criteria stating, “every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.”
In the 1st Congress, second session, Chapter 3, the issue of who might be a natural born citizen, as opposed to just a citizen, was again defined:
In Elk v. Wilkins, 83 US 36 (1872) the Supreme Court denied Elk, a Native American, the right to vote as a US citizen even though he was born on US soil, because he was born on an Indian reservation. Elk was not born subject to the jurisdiction of the US, because he “owed immediate allegiance to” his tribe, a vassal or quasi-nation, and not to the United States. The Court held Elk was not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States at birth.
Barack Obama's father was British, Barack was a dual citizen at birth.
In Minor v. Happersett (1874), the court pointed out that
In other words, both parents have to be citizens and the child has to be born on US soil in order to be a "natural born citizen," as distinguished from a regular citizen. Barack's father was not a US citizen.
In Perkins v. ELG, U.S. 325 (1939) the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that Marie Elizabeth Elg, who was born in the United States of Swedish parents naturalized in the United States prior to her birth, had not lost her birthright US citizenship because of her removal during minority to Sweden and was entitled to all the rights and privileges of that U.S. citizenship. In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decree that declared Elg "to be a natural born citizen of the United States."
Elg was "natural born" because she born of two American parents on American soil. Barack Obama's father was Kenyan. It sure seems unlikely that Barack matches a definition which is so heavily weighted against him.
So, why would anyone insist that it is crazy to ask for simple bona fides to be produced? Why would anyone insist it is crazy to look to previous legal precedent to determine the meaning of a Constitutional phrase? When even the liberal pro-abortion lesbian Camille Paglia sees a birth certificate problem, why is it unreasonable to ask for the problem to be addressed?
People who oppose the "Birther" request and arguments do so on the basis that Birthers are really just a conspiracy of ultra-right wing freaks who mean to overthrow the democratic government of the United States and replace it with a religious oligarchy.
The MSM, a veritable zoo of tin foil hat conspiracists, are terrified by their imaginary conspiracy of religious freaks.
The people who oppose these reasonable requests for information don't have anything to support their opposition. Instead, like the motorist who refuses to produce a license, they simply keep insisting that the cop is nuts to ask for it.
No matter how much evidence is brought forward to show the MSM types that their blind support of Obama's eligibility is based more in religious fervor than in law, the MSM'ers refuse to accept it. There's no way to demonstrate the logic or the law to a tin-foil hat type. Whether it be abortion, sodomy, contraception, history or Obama eligibility, they won't pay attention to the facts.
Instead, they continue to insist that the conspiracy is out there, in the dark, and it will eat them all up if they give even an inch to the request for documentation or concede even one jot or tittle to the legal arguments brought forward.
Nothing can convince these people.
They're just nuts.
The facts, on the other hand, are easy to ascertain.
Barack Obama is an inveterate liar, thief and murderer.
Even now, as National Review testifies, he lies to the American people about what is in his health plan.
He stole General Motors from its own executives.
He actively spoke out in favor of murdering born children on the floor of the Illinois Senate when he opposed the Infant Born Alive Protection Act.
The facts show Barack Hussein Obama cannot be trusted.
Consequently, if he told me the sky was blue, I would look up to check.
Now, we must concede that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. It is always (barely) possible that the tin foil hat MSM'ers are right about the birth certificate or the law. Perhaps Barack is, indeed, eligible to be POTUS.
But, the law has so far demonstrated Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen within the meaning of the Constitution.
Barack Obama's birth certificate has not been produced, nor has his college records, his medical records or, in fact, any other record concerning his past. To a degree unmatched in presidential politics, Barack Obama is a cipher, his history known only through his own two autobiographies.
The only thing we know about him is what he told us.
Comforting, eh?
As soon as Barack Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate is released to the general public, I'll stop supporting the request to see the birth certificate.
As soon as the Supreme Court rules on the meaning of "natural born citizen," I'll stop questioning his eligibility to be President due to his father's, and his own, British-Kenyan citizenship at birth.
But until these questions get resolved, I refuse to back down from a bunch of MSM tin-foil hats conspiracy nuts, even if they are the anchors of major television news programs, even if they do claim to be expert political commentators, even if they are elected officials.
Sorry Dan, Hillary, Joe.
There just isn't much evidence any of you are sane.
CHIMERICAL RAYS--"M. Aug Charpentier brings out the interesting point that the rays given out by living organisms differ from the N-rays discovered by M. Rene Prosper Blondlot, and the thinks they are formed of N-rays and another new form of radiation. This is especially true of the rays from the nerve centers or nerves, whose striking characteristic is that they are partially cut off by an aluminum screen. A sheet of 1/50th of an inch is sufficient to cut down considerably the rays emitted by a point of the brain..."Well, it turns out that N-rays don't exist, but the "tin foil hat" subsequently took on a life of its own. It is now the mark of the conspiracy theorist. It is usually applied to anyone who opposes the worldview of "Main Stream Media" (MSM) journalists. But just how mainstream are those journalists?
We could shoot fish in a barrel by pointing to eminent MSM nutcases like Dan Rather. He not only insisted that George Bush's military service in the Air National Guard was bogus, he sued CBS for forcing him to drop the story:
"Rather alleges that he was forced to apologize for the Bush story as part of a conspiracy by top CBS management to ensure that no further damaging revelations about the president’s time in the Texas Air National Guard would become public."Similarly, Hillary Clinton's tin-foil hat was showing when she started making rambling comments about the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that sought to destroy her family. That was right about the time Bill told us what the meaning of "is" is.
And during one of Joe Biden's more recent trips to his vacation retreat in the Land of Aluminum, he insisted Barack Hussein Obama would be seriously tested within six months of his swearing-in. The clock is ticking to a close on that six months, but no world-wide disaster-level test for Barry seems to be in the making. I guess the world just isn't that into him.
As I say, we could take the most obvious cases of MSM conspiracy theory, roll our eyes and call for the men in white suits. But the charge merits a deeper look. After all, when you think about it, the MSM is really a major tin-foil hat manufacturing industry.
Consider MSM insistence that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer. The tin-foil hats that head up the MSM and at least one American cancer institute refuse to engage the reality of dozens of scientific studies. Instead, Americans deny that there is any correlation, despite mountains of evidence that abortion does cause breast cancer.
Why the state of denial? Because these "mainstream" tin foil hats fear that admitting the truth would allow the camel's nose into the tent. Religious types would take over science or the United States or their bedroom or... whatever. So they deny any aspect of reality that comports too closely with what religion teaches to be true.
As a result, we keep being told that condoms are a solution the the AIDS crisis, that abortion is essentially harmless (in their world, it never causes subsequent pre-term birth, increased incidence of cerebral palsy, or post-traumatic stress disorder), and that promoting abstinence or monogamy is a bad idea.
In all of these cases, various elements of the "mainstream" refuse to engage the reality and instead insists that these facts are not actually facts, rather, these facts are really part of a larger conspiracy, a nefarious attempt by Rome or the Southern Baptists or the Mormons to go on the rampage and enslave people. Religious patriarchy and all that.
The liberal tin foil hats even have a Council of Elders now, I suppose to combat the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It's hard to say really, especially considering that at least one of the members the new Council (a former American President) once swore he was visited by a UFO.
So, why do "mainstream liberals" (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one) take hold in the public psyche? Because they shout their conspiracy theory loudly. Because MSM'ers believe a conspiracy of powerful religious interests want to take over everyone's lives.
Whether it's Dan Rather, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Whoopi Goldberg, or Barack Obama, they are all various degrees of nuts.
So, what can we conclude?
1) The "main-stream media" is already conspiracy-theory driven.
2) The "main-stream media" is essentially becoming a minority fringe group,
3) It really is appropriate to describe people who follow MSM positions as tin-foil hat groupies.
Why mention all of this?
Well, today, we face another MSM tin-foil hat conspiracy theory.
The MSMer's insist that anyone who questions Barack Obama's eligibility to be President is part of a vast, right-wing (is there any other kind?) racist conspiracy intended to turn America away from its marvelous upward course towards enlightened atheistic secular humanism. MSM'ers are terrified that such questions about Barack Hussein Obama's person will instantly turn the good old US of A back instead towards the Dark Ages of Religious Intolerance (tm).
Uhhh.... yeah.
I'm sure.
Let's try to be rationale, shall we?
My brother-in-law is a cop. If he were to pull me over, he would ask for my driver's license. He expects to get it.
Now, he knows I have a driver's license. But if he knows I have one, why does he ask for it? Indeed, why ask anyone for it? Isn't the fact that someone has a car proof enough that they must have a driver's license? What possible reason would anyone have to give a car to someone without a license?
Someone must have vetted the driver! It would be crazy to let anyone have a car without vetting the driver. There are laws against that sort of thing! So, asking for a driver's license... it's crazy talk, I tell ya'! That cop is a right-wing conspiracy theory NUT! And I can prove it! After all, he actually asked for my driver's license!
Keep in mind that the person behind the wheel almost always does have a license. My brother-in-law still asks because... well... because that's the law. He has to ask for it, I have to produce it.
So, which is more bizarre? To ask a man to release his medical records, his college transcripts, his writings, his birth certificate, if he decides he wants to run for or be sworn in as President? Or to insist that even allowing the human mind to form such questions is the sign of incipient insanity?
Now, the Constitution itself stipulates that you need only be a "citizen" to be a Senator or Representative, but you must be a "natural born citizen" to be president. So, which is more bizarre? To insist that the Law of Nations, the US Constitution, and continuing American legal precedent has already defined the phrase "natural-born citizen" to mean a man who is BOTH born on US soil AND whose parents are BOTH US citizens, or to ignore all of this history and legal precedent and instead insist there is no difference between being a "citizen" and being a "natural-born citizen"?
What is this "natural born citizen" law?
The Constitution’s Article 1, Section 8, Clause 10 states that a power of Congress is to “define and punish… offenses against the law of nations.” The Law of Nations has been international law, which as documented by Emmerich de Vatel (1758) states, in Chapter XIX, paragraph 212, “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rig
hts.”Vatel follows with paragraph 215, in which he asserts, “It is asked whether the children born of citizens in a foreign country are citizens? The laws have decided this question in several countries, and their regulations must be followed.(59) By the law of nature alone, children follow the condition of their fathers, and enter into all their rights (§ 212); the place of birth produces no change in this particular, and cannot, of itself, furnish any reason for taking from a child what nature has given him; I say ‘of itself,’ for, civil or political laws may, for particular reasons, ordain otherwise.” The chief framer of the related 14th Amendment of the Constitution, John A. Bingham corroborated this dual criteria stating, “every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.”In the 1st Congress, second session, Chapter 3, the issue of who might be a natural born citizen, as opposed to just a citizen, was again defined:
And the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States. And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States... (emphasis added) Approved, March 26, 1790.The Constitutional Framers clearly understood and distinguished the differences between what it means to be a "citizen" and what it means to be a "natural born citizen." Obama's father never applied to become a US citizen. He was always a citizen of Kenya and always owed allegiance to Kenya or Great Britain, when Kenya was a colony of Great Britain.
In Elk v. Wilkins, 83 US 36 (1872) the Supreme Court denied Elk, a Native American, the right to vote as a US citizen even though he was born on US soil, because he was born on an Indian reservation. Elk was not born subject to the jurisdiction of the US, because he “owed immediate allegiance to” his tribe, a vassal or quasi-nation, and not to the United States. The Court held Elk was not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States at birth.
Barack Obama's father was British, Barack was a dual citizen at birth.
In Minor v. Happersett (1874), the court pointed out that
"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be... had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first."
In other words, both parents have to be citizens and the child has to be born on US soil in order to be a "natural born citizen," as distinguished from a regular citizen. Barack's father was not a US citizen.
In Perkins v. ELG, U.S. 325 (1939) the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that Marie Elizabeth Elg, who was born in the United States of Swedish parents naturalized in the United States prior to her birth, had not lost her birthright US citizenship because of her removal during minority to Sweden and was entitled to all the rights and privileges of that U.S. citizenship. In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decree that declared Elg "to be a natural born citizen of the United States."
Elg was "natural born" because she born of two American parents on American soil. Barack Obama's father was Kenyan. It sure seems unlikely that Barack matches a definition which is so heavily weighted against him.
So, why would anyone insist that it is crazy to ask for simple bona fides to be produced? Why would anyone insist it is crazy to look to previous legal precedent to determine the meaning of a Constitutional phrase? When even the liberal pro-abortion lesbian Camille Paglia sees a birth certificate problem, why is it unreasonable to ask for the problem to be addressed?
People who oppose the "Birther" request and arguments do so on the basis that Birthers are really just a conspiracy of ultra-right wing freaks who mean to overthrow the democratic government of the United States and replace it with a religious oligarchy.
The MSM, a veritable zoo of tin foil hat conspiracists, are terrified by their imaginary conspiracy of religious freaks.
The people who oppose these reasonable requests for information don't have anything to support their opposition. Instead, like the motorist who refuses to produce a license, they simply keep insisting that the cop is nuts to ask for it.
No matter how much evidence is brought forward to show the MSM types that their blind support of Obama's eligibility is based more in religious fervor than in law, the MSM'ers refuse to accept it. There's no way to demonstrate the logic or the law to a tin-foil hat type. Whether it be abortion, sodomy, contraception, history or Obama eligibility, they won't pay attention to the facts.
Instead, they continue to insist that the conspiracy is out there, in the dark, and it will eat them all up if they give even an inch to the request for documentation or concede even one jot or tittle to the legal arguments brought forward.
Nothing can convince these people.
They're just nuts.
The facts, on the other hand, are easy to ascertain.
Barack Obama is an inveterate liar, thief and murderer.
Even now, as National Review testifies, he lies to the American people about what is in his health plan.
He stole General Motors from its own executives.
He actively spoke out in favor of murdering born children on the floor of the Illinois Senate when he opposed the Infant Born Alive Protection Act.
The facts show Barack Hussein Obama cannot be trusted.
Consequently, if he told me the sky was blue, I would look up to check.
Now, we must concede that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. It is always (barely) possible that the tin foil hat MSM'ers are right about the birth certificate or the law. Perhaps Barack is, indeed, eligible to be POTUS.
But, the law has so far demonstrated Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen within the meaning of the Constitution.
Barack Obama's birth certificate has not been produced, nor has his college records, his medical records or, in fact, any other record concerning his past. To a degree unmatched in presidential politics, Barack Obama is a cipher, his history known only through his own two autobiographies.
The only thing we know about him is what he told us.
Comforting, eh?
As soon as Barack Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate is released to the general public, I'll stop supporting the request to see the birth certificate.
As soon as the Supreme Court rules on the meaning of "natural born citizen," I'll stop questioning his eligibility to be President due to his father's, and his own, British-Kenyan citizenship at birth.
But until these questions get resolved, I refuse to back down from a bunch of MSM tin-foil hats conspiracy nuts, even if they are the anchors of major television news programs, even if they do claim to be expert political commentators, even if they are elected officials.
Sorry Dan, Hillary, Joe.
There just isn't much evidence any of you are sane.
Friday, July 24, 2009
The End of the Obama Presidency
In just six short months, Barack Obama's effective presidency is drawing to a close.
The stimulus package he insisted would save the economy instead produced unemployment rates much higher than even his worst forecasts.
The health care package that HAD to pass if the nation was going to survive has been delayed until the fall. Given how quickly the tide of public opinion has turned against it as the details become clear, it will arguably never see the light of day.
The questions about his legitimacy are finally hitting the main-stream media (MSM), even if only to be ridiculed. There are now more news stories running about Obama's Constitutional eligibility than there were at any time during his candidacy.
But the real end of his presidency came when he asserted, without bothering to learn all the facts, that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly" in arresting a screaming man in his own front yard. Normally, arrests of individuals who appear publicly deranged attract little notice, but this particular candidate for psychiatric examination happened to be a black Harvard professor.
Now, being an Ivy League professor does not make one immune from suffering psychological problems, as any number of examples demonstrate, but since Henry Louis Gates Jr. had the good fortune to be a Friend of Barack, the President put the highest office in the land in the service of his own friends by publicly accusing the Cambridge police of racism.
Normally, anyone accused of racism rolls over and apologizes. But this time, the black police chief of Cambridge is championing the actions of his white officer. The wonderful irony of the situation is lost on the MSM: in Cambridge, the races have come together to oppose two common, obnoxious and ignorant foes: a Harvard professor and the President of the United States.
The Cambridge police are now demanding an apology from the President of the United States.
And herein lies the rub.
What is POTUS to do?
He can't apologize to a lowly municipal police department. If he does, he will have admitted to having mis-used his office. The Great Orator will have lost his voice.
Worse, every dictator in the world is watching. If POTUS can be forced to back down by a beat cop and his boss, what could Hugo Chavez and his oil, Iran and its budding nuclear weapons, or China and its growing navy be able to make him do? Barack Obama will be publicly unmasked as a pushover who can be rolled for loose change any time you need a cup of coffee.
On the other hand, if he DOESN'T apologize, he will clearly torpedo the support of a significant number of the people who put him in office. Even now, his popularity is rapidly tanking below 50% among likely voters. Given his inability to back down from his flawed economic plans or apologize for his ludicrous remarks, this number isn't going to go higher anytime soon.
And here's the danger.
If Barack Hussein Obama is truly suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, as has been alleged, we are entering a most dangerous period.
Narcissists are least problematic when they receive the adulation and support they believe they richly deserve. They become the most dangerous as this adulation and support evaporates. When this support evaporates, when the population "turns" on a lunatic, he will lash out at them, he will punish them for daring to disrespect him, he will punish them because they failed to give him his proper due.
Hitler famously tried to burn Paris, he famously advocated a scorched earth retreat policy, and he famously succeeded in destroying Berlin. Why such massive destruction? Because he intended to punish his supporters for having grown cold in their support of him. It's only reasonable. After all, why else would a man of his stature lose, except his old supporters refused to recognize the reality of his greatness? He had to punish them, force them to face the truth of his greatness. If he punished them enough, they would realize their error, return to him, and he would lead them to victory. Paris had to burn. It was the only way to win.
To accomplish this massive destruction, he demanded unswerving loyalty and fanatical action from the dwindling numbers in the Tinfoil Hat Brigades who still followed their Beloved Leader.
If Barack is really on the borderline between sanity and chaos, the events of the next few months may well tip him over the line. Before his support completely collapses, he will be forced to order his dwindling faithful to act in increasingly illegal and violent ways. It will be the only way to prevent the total destruction of his illusory world.
Do you think it won't happen?
There is recent precedent.
At the order of Congress and in accord with its Constitution, Honduras recently used its military forces to oust a sitting president for precisely this breach. Barack Obama, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, the three most narcissistic leaders of the Western Hemisphere, strenuously objected to the ouster. If it is allowed to stand, they know what it portends.
As he watches his healthcare initiative go down in flames, he has begun calling names: doctors are now thieving liars, cops are stupid. Anyone who opposes him has a serious defect. This is not how a sane man talks.
So, could the United States find itself facing a similar situation?
Why not?
The stimulus package he insisted would save the economy instead produced unemployment rates much higher than even his worst forecasts.
The health care package that HAD to pass if the nation was going to survive has been delayed until the fall. Given how quickly the tide of public opinion has turned against it as the details become clear, it will arguably never see the light of day.
The questions about his legitimacy are finally hitting the main-stream media (MSM), even if only to be ridiculed. There are now more news stories running about Obama's Constitutional eligibility than there were at any time during his candidacy.
But the real end of his presidency came when he asserted, without bothering to learn all the facts, that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly" in arresting a screaming man in his own front yard. Normally, arrests of individuals who appear publicly deranged attract little notice, but this particular candidate for psychiatric examination happened to be a black Harvard professor.
Now, being an Ivy League professor does not make one immune from suffering psychological problems, as any number of examples demonstrate, but since Henry Louis Gates Jr. had the good fortune to be a Friend of Barack, the President put the highest office in the land in the service of his own friends by publicly accusing the Cambridge police of racism.
Normally, anyone accused of racism rolls over and apologizes. But this time, the black police chief of Cambridge is championing the actions of his white officer. The wonderful irony of the situation is lost on the MSM: in Cambridge, the races have come together to oppose two common, obnoxious and ignorant foes: a Harvard professor and the President of the United States.
The Cambridge police are now demanding an apology from the President of the United States.
And herein lies the rub.
What is POTUS to do?
He can't apologize to a lowly municipal police department. If he does, he will have admitted to having mis-used his office. The Great Orator will have lost his voice.
Worse, every dictator in the world is watching. If POTUS can be forced to back down by a beat cop and his boss, what could Hugo Chavez and his oil, Iran and its budding nuclear weapons, or China and its growing navy be able to make him do? Barack Obama will be publicly unmasked as a pushover who can be rolled for loose change any time you need a cup of coffee.
On the other hand, if he DOESN'T apologize, he will clearly torpedo the support of a significant number of the people who put him in office. Even now, his popularity is rapidly tanking below 50% among likely voters. Given his inability to back down from his flawed economic plans or apologize for his ludicrous remarks, this number isn't going to go higher anytime soon.
And here's the danger.
If Barack Hussein Obama is truly suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, as has been alleged, we are entering a most dangerous period.
Narcissists are least problematic when they receive the adulation and support they believe they richly deserve. They become the most dangerous as this adulation and support evaporates. When this support evaporates, when the population "turns" on a lunatic, he will lash out at them, he will punish them for daring to disrespect him, he will punish them because they failed to give him his proper due.
Hitler famously tried to burn Paris, he famously advocated a scorched earth retreat policy, and he famously succeeded in destroying Berlin. Why such massive destruction? Because he intended to punish his supporters for having grown cold in their support of him. It's only reasonable. After all, why else would a man of his stature lose, except his old supporters refused to recognize the reality of his greatness? He had to punish them, force them to face the truth of his greatness. If he punished them enough, they would realize their error, return to him, and he would lead them to victory. Paris had to burn. It was the only way to win.
To accomplish this massive destruction, he demanded unswerving loyalty and fanatical action from the dwindling numbers in the Tinfoil Hat Brigades who still followed their Beloved Leader.
If Barack is really on the borderline between sanity and chaos, the events of the next few months may well tip him over the line. Before his support completely collapses, he will be forced to order his dwindling faithful to act in increasingly illegal and violent ways. It will be the only way to prevent the total destruction of his illusory world.
Do you think it won't happen?
There is recent precedent.
At the order of Congress and in accord with its Constitution, Honduras recently used its military forces to oust a sitting president for precisely this breach. Barack Obama, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, the three most narcissistic leaders of the Western Hemisphere, strenuously objected to the ouster. If it is allowed to stand, they know what it portends.
As he watches his healthcare initiative go down in flames, he has begun calling names: doctors are now thieving liars, cops are stupid. Anyone who opposes him has a serious defect. This is not how a sane man talks.
So, could the United States find itself facing a similar situation?
Why not?
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Truth in Charity
Some highlights from Pope Benedict XVI's "Truth in Charity" encyclical, released today:
#4 A Christianity of charity without truth would be more or less interchangeable with a pool of good sentiments, helpful for social cohesion, but of little relevance. In other words, there would no longer be any real place for God in the world. [Preach it, brother]
#19 As society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbours but does not make us brothers. [What a GREAT quote...] Reason, by itself, is capable of grasping the equality between men and of giving stability to their civic coexistence, but it cannot establish fraternity. This originates in a transcendent vocation from God the Father, who loved us first, teaching us through the Son what fraternal charity is. Paul VI, presenting the various levels in the process of human development, placed at the summit, after mentioning faith, “unity in the charity of Christ who calls us all to share as sons in the life of the living God, the Father of all”
#26 Let it not be forgotten that the increased commercialization of cultural exchange today leads to a twofold danger. First, one may observe a cultural eclecticism that is often assumed uncritically: cultures are simply placed alongside one another and viewed as substantially equivalent and interchangeable. [Benedict hits this theme frequently: all cultures are not created equal]
#27 The right to food, like the right to water, has an important place within the pursuit of other rights, beginning with the fundamental right to life. It is therefore necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination [Echoes of John Paul II's statement that the terminally ill cannot be denied food and water. Sustenance is neither a medical treatment nor a commodity. It is a right.]
#28 Not only does the situation of poverty still provoke high rates of infant mortality in many regions, but some parts of the world still experience practices of demographic control, on the part of governments that often promote contraception and even go so far as to impose abortion. [This section got me to thinking... in developing countries, plague causes high infant mortality. In our country, we kill one-third of our children. We are our own plague. Is there really any difference in child mortality rates between Sweden, the US and, say, Zimbabwe or Haiti? ]
#29 If man were merely the fruit of either chance or necessity, or if he had to lower his aspirations to the limited horizon of the world in which he lives, if all reality were merely history and culture, and man did not possess a nature destined to transcend itself in a supernatural life, then one could speak of growth, or evolution, but not development. ["Development" is not a biological term, it is a spiritual term. That gives rather a different light to the phrase "economic development," especially when we realize that the Church habitually uses the phrase "sacramental economy" in regards to the seven sacraments and the graces they endow.]
#30 Charity is not an added extra, like an appendix to work already concluded in each of the various disciplines: it engages them in dialogue from the very beginning. The demands of love do not contradict those of reason. Human knowledge is insufficient and the conclusions of science cannot indicate by themselves the path towards integral human development. [Science, whether biological or economic, does not love. It is a technique, not a person.]
#35 It is in the interests of the market to promote emancipation, but in order to do so effectively, it cannot rely only on itself, because it is not able to produce by itself something that lies outside its competence. It must draw its moral energies from other subjects that are capable of generating them. [See? He spends the intervening articles building to the conclusion he already telegraphed in #30]
#36 The Church has always held that economic action is not to be regarded as something opposed to society. In and of itself, the market is not, and must not become, the place where the strong subdue the weak. Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations. Admittedly, the market can be a negative force, not because it is so by nature, but because a certain ideology can make it so. [This is key. He begins to build a discussion which creates the idea of interlocking ecologies. The financial economy can be looked on as a social ecology, as much deserving of protection as the rainforest or the wetlands. In fact, by the end, you can see a vision of Nature, society and economics all acting as interacting ecologies worthy of respect and protection, with man at the center of all three, stewarding all three. God creates Nature, man creates finance, God and man create society. Each ecology has its own grammar, but the terms in each are analogous to those in the other two.]
#38 What is needed, therefore, is a market that permits the free operation, in conditions of equal opportunity, of enterprises in pursuit of different institutional ends. Alongside profit-oriented private enterprise and the various types of public enterprise, there must be room for commercial entities based on mutualist principles and pursuing social ends to take root and express themselves. It is from their reciprocal encounter in the marketplace that one may expect hybrid forms of commercial behaviour to emerge, and hence an attentiveness to ways of civilizing the economy. [In short, subsidiarity HAS to apply to the economy. This is a rather resounding support for a lot of capitalists. But watch where he takes it.] Charity in truth, in this case, requires that shape and structure be given to those types of economic initiative which, without rejecting profit, aim at a higher goal than the mere logic of the exchange of equivalents, of profit as an end in itself. [(emphasis added) There is nothing unjust about taking a profit.]
#40 business management cannot concern itself only with the interests of the proprietors, but must also assume responsibility for all the other stakeholders who contribute to the life of the business: the workers, the clients, the suppliers of various elements of production, the community of reference. [Emphasis in the original. We aren't just responsible to shareholders, no matter what the by-laws say.] ... There is no reason to deny that a certain amount of capital can do good, if invested abroad rather than at home. Yet the requirements of justice must be safeguarded, with due consideration for the way in which the capital was generated and the harm to individuals that will result if it is not used where it was produced. [Capital is in some way tied to the geographical region that created it. This makes sense, as this principle is also invoked in other documents in reference to immigration/emigration. Countries cannot just skim the intellectual cream from someone else's population, taking all their doctors and physicists, for example, while forbidding entry to the rest.]
#44 Suffice it to consider, on the one hand, the significant reduction in infant mortality and the rise in average life expectancy found in economically developed countries, and on the other hand, the signs of crisis observable in societies that are registering an alarming decline in their birth rate. [Is there a reduction in infant mortality in America? Is there REALLY?]... In either case materialistic ideas and policies are at work, and individuals are ultimately subjected to various forms of violence. [A link between contraception and violence] ...smaller and at times miniscule families run the risk of impoverishing social relations, and failing to ensure effective forms of solidarity. These situations are symptomatic of scant confidence in the future and moral weariness. [Amen.]
#48 When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. ... human salvation cannot come from nature alone, understood in a purely naturalistic sense. [Nor from economics alone.] This having been said, it is also necessary to reject the opposite position, which aims at total technical dominion over nature, because the natural environment is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure; it is a wondrous work of the Creator containing a “grammar” which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless exploitation. [He seems to be saying that we fail to appreciate our roles as sub-creators. We create the natural ecology of the economy. Barack Obama's attitude, and the attitude of all communists, towards the ecology of the economy is identical to that of many capitalists towards the natural environment - it doesn't matter what I do to this ecology as long as I get what I want from the other ecology. Benedict implies that the financial economy has its own "grammar" that must also be respected.] Reducing nature merely to a collection of contingent data ends up doing violence to the environment and even encouraging activity that fails to respect human nature itself.[See?]
49 Questions linked to the care and preservation of the environment today need to give due consideration to the energy problem. [Or, for the Fed, the money problem. At this point, you begin to realize that whether he's talking about finances, physical resources or human beings, it's all of a piece. He's treating each as an example of a larger set of principles. This is the theological equivalent of Newton's calculus.]
#52 Truth, and the love which it reveals, cannot be produced: they can only be received as a gift. [Persons don't reproduce, they procreate. They participate in the gift of creation.]
#53 A metaphysical understanding of the relations between persons is therefore of great benefit for their development. In this regard, reason finds inspiration and direction in Christian revelation, according to which the human community does not absorb the individual, annihilating his autonomy, as happens in the various forms of totalitarianism, but rather values him all the more because the relation between individual and community is a relation between one totality and another [It should be noted that the point of both Hinduism and Buddhism is the annihilation of the self, the absorption of self into a greater being or into a great no-thing-ness. Both are forms of spiritual totalitarianism.]
#54 This perspective is illuminated in a striking way by the relationship between the Persons of the Trinity within the one divine Substance. The Trinity is absolute unity insofar as the three divine Persons are pure relationality. [He gives a wonderful little exposition on the Trinity in the middle of this encyclical on finance. The word "economy" comes from a Greek word referring to the way a household is run. There is a Trinitarian economy as well as a sacramental economy.]
#55 Some religious and cultural attitudes, however, do not fully embrace the principle of love and truth and therefore end up retarding or even obstructing authentic human development. There are certain religious cultures in the world today that do not oblige men and women to live in communion but rather cut them off from one other in a search for individual well-being, limited to the gratification of psychological desires. [Both Islam and Orthodox Judaism forbid men and women from praying together - Islam is especially harsh about segregating the sexes in all things through purdah]... At the same time, some religious and cultural traditions persist which ossify society in rigid social groupings, in magical beliefs that fail to respect the dignity of the person, and in attitudes of subjugation to occult powers. ["Rigid social groupings"... hmmm... Hindu caste system, anyone?]... Religious freedom does not mean religious indifferentism, nor does it imply that all religions are equal
#56 Reason always stands in need of being purified by faith: this also holds true for political reason, which must not consider itself omnipotent. For its part, religion always needs to be purified by reason in order to show its authentically human face. Any breach in this dialogue comes only at an enormous price to human development. [Remember, "development" is a spiritual term. This is a commentary on both Protestantism and Islam, both of which have historically rejected the role of reason in faith.]
#57 Hence the principle of subsidiarity is particularly well-suited to managing globalization and directing it towards authentic human development. In order not to produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity, articulated into several layers and involving different levels that can work together. [Sounds like he expects the state to continue to exist. No world government fan is he.]
#58 Economic aid, in order to be true to its purpose, must not pursue secondary objectives. It must be distributed with the involvement not only of the governments of receiving countries, but also local economic agents and the bearers of culture within civil society, including local Churches. ["Churches" capitalized in the original. Hmmm... no mention of ecclesial communities... hmm...] ... It should also be remembered that, in the economic sphere, the principal form of assistance needed by developing countries is that of allowing and encouraging the gradual penetration of their products into international markets, thus making it possible for these countries to participate fully in international economic life.[We should help other countries become competitors! The pure capitalists aren't going to have it all their way... "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens a man..." Proverbs 27:17. Talk about Be Not Afraid!]
#60 One possible approach to development aid would be to apply effectively what is known as fiscal subsidiarity, allowing citizens to decide how to allocate a portion of the taxes they pay to the State. [Mr. Obama, are you LISTENING?]
#61 The term “education” refers not only to classroom teaching and vocational training — both of which are important factors in development — but to the complete formation of the person. In this regard, there is a problem that should be highlighted: in order to educate, it is necessary to know the nature of the human person, to know who he or she is. [In short, they need to be Catholic or this isn't going to work.]
#62 Obviously, these labourers cannot be considered as a commodity or a mere workforce. They must not, therefore, be treated like any other factor of production. Every migrant is a human person who, as such, possesses fundamental, inalienable rights that must be respected by everyone and in every circumstance. [Too many Catholics forget this.]
#64 The global context in which work takes place also demands that national labour unions, which tend to limit themselves to defending the interests of their registered members, should turn their attention to those outside their membership, and in particular to workers in developing countries where social rights are often violated. [Labor unions are still useful.]
#65 Furthermore, the experience of micro-finance, which has its roots in the thinking and activity of the civil humanists — I am thinking especially of the birth of pawnbroking — should be strengthened and fine-tuned. [Pawnbrokers should be happy with this article!]
#66 It is good for people to realize that purchasing is always a moral — and not simply economic — act. Hence the consumer has a specific social responsibility... forms of cooperative purchasing like the consumer cooperatives that have been in operation since the nineteenth century, partly through the initiative of Catholics. [Benedict mollifies the social justice types.]
#67 One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. [Subsidiarity again.]
#68 Technology — it is worth emphasizing — is a profoundly human reality, linked to the autonomy and freedom of man. In technology we express and confirm the hegemony of the spirit over matter. “The human spirit, ‘increasingly free of its bondage to creatures, can be more easily drawn to the worship and contemplation of the Creator'” [See? He is emphasizing our roles as sub-Creators here.]
#69 [the price of over-reliance on technology ...] Were that to happen, we would all know, evaluate and make decisions about our life situations from within a technocratic cultural perspective to which we would belong structurally, without ever being able to discover a meaning that is not of our own making.
#75 While the poor of the world continue knocking on the doors of the rich, the world of affluence runs the risk of no longer hearing those knocks, on account of a conscience that can no longer distinguish what is human. [Ain't that the heart of the problem?]Hope you all found this little precis useful!
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Bizarre Virtue
A lot of secular political types in Washington claim to be bemused by Sarah Palin's resignation. Perhaps they really are bemused by it. But Christians understand what she is doing.
Every believing Christian is concerned about offending against the Ten Commandments. We are not supposed to steal or to lie. Sarah Palin is aware of this.
One of the numerous complaints made about Barack Obama was precisely that he was a thief. Although elected as the junior senator from Illinois, Obama famously failed to show up for work most days of the week. Instead of doing his job, he went travelling around the country on the taxpayer's dime, triple-dipping his salary, his book sales and his election fundraising.
And he had it easy. After all, he was based out of the heartland. Sarah Palin is not. Just flying from Alaska to New York can take ten to fifteen hours - a whole day of travel.
If she wanted to take her place on the national stage, as she deserves to, she would be spending literally days in travel time down and back. Literal weeks could easily pass in which she was not in the governor's mansion in Alaska.
That's not only inefficient use of time, it's stealing.
People inside the Beltway have stolen from the taxpayer for so long that Palin's resignation looks like stupidity to them. Why not keep gathering taxpayer money while drumming up more for your own purposes elsewhere? What's the problem with this woman?
Just as none of the Democrats could understand why she didn't kill that little Trig baby when she had the chance, they can't understand why she doesn't steal paychecks now that she has the chance.
From the perspective of Democrats, Sarah Palin is bizarre, twisted, unstable, untrustworthy.
From the perspective of decent people, she's honest, smart, and trying hard not to sin.
That's the thing about Sarah Palin and her liberal opponents.
Sarah just isn't their type.
Every believing Christian is concerned about offending against the Ten Commandments. We are not supposed to steal or to lie. Sarah Palin is aware of this.
One of the numerous complaints made about Barack Obama was precisely that he was a thief. Although elected as the junior senator from Illinois, Obama famously failed to show up for work most days of the week. Instead of doing his job, he went travelling around the country on the taxpayer's dime, triple-dipping his salary, his book sales and his election fundraising.
And he had it easy. After all, he was based out of the heartland. Sarah Palin is not. Just flying from Alaska to New York can take ten to fifteen hours - a whole day of travel.
If she wanted to take her place on the national stage, as she deserves to, she would be spending literally days in travel time down and back. Literal weeks could easily pass in which she was not in the governor's mansion in Alaska.
That's not only inefficient use of time, it's stealing.
People inside the Beltway have stolen from the taxpayer for so long that Palin's resignation looks like stupidity to them. Why not keep gathering taxpayer money while drumming up more for your own purposes elsewhere? What's the problem with this woman?
Just as none of the Democrats could understand why she didn't kill that little Trig baby when she had the chance, they can't understand why she doesn't steal paychecks now that she has the chance.
From the perspective of Democrats, Sarah Palin is bizarre, twisted, unstable, untrustworthy.
From the perspective of decent people, she's honest, smart, and trying hard not to sin.
That's the thing about Sarah Palin and her liberal opponents.
Sarah just isn't their type.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Have Spine, Will Travel
The president of the Canadian Catholic Bishops Conference (CCBC) is upset. It seems the CCBC has been providing enormous financial support to organizations that promote abortion in South America, financial support so enormous that the bishops of Peru have actually told the CCBC to stop killing South American Catholics. And Catholic bloggers have found out.
Bishop Weisgerber is upset that this whole story is becoming very well-known in North America through the tireless work of John Pacheco, Lifesite News and other Catholic media outlets.
1) Catholic bloggers do have a mandate. This mandate is endowed on us through baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, the sacraments of initiation, which empower every Catholic to preach the Gospel to all nations. Certainly a Catholic bishop should know this.
2) Catholic bloggers do have authority. This authority is endowed on us through baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, the sacraments of initiation, which authorize every Catholic to preach the Gospel to all nations. Certainly a Catholic bishop should know this.
3) Catholic bloggers are accountable. If the local ordinary over any Catholic blogger doesn't like what that blogger writes, he can call that blogger into his office and chew him out. Catholic bloggers are exactly as accountable as Catholic politicians, Catholic book publishers and Catholic universities. Of course, most bloggers are safe in the knowledge that a bishop who won't even get rid of the homosexuals on the parish staff or the pro-abortion parish priest is unlikely to be willing to tangle with a Catholic blogger.
But, the lack of courage on any particular bishop's part is not a commentary on the accountability of the Catholic blogger. If bloggers aren't held accountable, that would be the bishop's fault.
4) More Catholics would follow their bishops instead of their bloggers if Catholic bishops taught the Faith with the same level of assiduous care that is found amongst Catholic bloggers. Everyone gravitate towards people who are serious about being orthodox because the Truth is enticing. Everyone ignores "politically astute" types who, for fear of offending others, never take a stand for Truth. We ignore them if only because they make us throw up a little bit in our mouth.
It's also a sad commentary when the very bishops who claim to be in tune with "the spirit of Vatican II" seem to be completely unaware of the actual contents of Vatican II.
Bishop Weisgerber's commentary reminds me of nothing so much as the whining whimper made by the MSM as it slowly declines into obscurity, if only because the reasons for obscurity are identical in both cases.
The politics of major North American newspapers and television shows are indistinguishable from the politics of many North American bishops. Anyone who holds views like Bishop Weisgerber's are going to be ignored. That's not a call to ignore him, it's just a simple statement of fact, a fact that he has already implicitly acknowledged.
As Vatican II remarks, we have to "read the signs of the times."
And today's sign is, "Nobody likes a whiner."
Bishop Weisgerber is upset that this whole story is becoming very well-known in North America through the tireless work of John Pacheco, Lifesite News and other Catholic media outlets.
The Catholic Register reports: "The role of web sites in stirring controversy has become a challenge for bishops." Weisgerber told the Register: "These bloggers who claim to be more Catholic than anyone -- I think first of all they're not part of the church, they're not Catholic in the sense that they have no mandate, they have no authority, they have no accountability. And they speak very, very definitively about what it means to be Catholic, and they're followed by so many people."It is sad that a Catholic blogger like myself must point out the theological blunders of a bishop but, at the risk of being excommunicated for telling the truth, here goes:
1) Catholic bloggers do have a mandate. This mandate is endowed on us through baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, the sacraments of initiation, which empower every Catholic to preach the Gospel to all nations. Certainly a Catholic bishop should know this.
2) Catholic bloggers do have authority. This authority is endowed on us through baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, the sacraments of initiation, which authorize every Catholic to preach the Gospel to all nations. Certainly a Catholic bishop should know this.
3) Catholic bloggers are accountable. If the local ordinary over any Catholic blogger doesn't like what that blogger writes, he can call that blogger into his office and chew him out. Catholic bloggers are exactly as accountable as Catholic politicians, Catholic book publishers and Catholic universities. Of course, most bloggers are safe in the knowledge that a bishop who won't even get rid of the homosexuals on the parish staff or the pro-abortion parish priest is unlikely to be willing to tangle with a Catholic blogger.
But, the lack of courage on any particular bishop's part is not a commentary on the accountability of the Catholic blogger. If bloggers aren't held accountable, that would be the bishop's fault.
4) More Catholics would follow their bishops instead of their bloggers if Catholic bishops taught the Faith with the same level of assiduous care that is found amongst Catholic bloggers. Everyone gravitate towards people who are serious about being orthodox because the Truth is enticing. Everyone ignores "politically astute" types who, for fear of offending others, never take a stand for Truth. We ignore them if only because they make us throw up a little bit in our mouth.
6. The Church's mission is concerned with the salvation of men; and men win salvation through the grace of Christ and faith in him. The apostolate of the Church therefore, and of each of its members, aims primarily at announcing to the world by word and action the message of Christ and communicating to it the grace of Christ. The principal means of bringing this about is the ministry of the word and of the sacraments. At a time when new questions are being put and when grave errors aiming at undermining religion, the moral order and human society itself are rampant, the Council earnestly exhorts the laity to take a more active part, each according to his talents and knowledge and in fidelity to the mind of the Church, in the explanation and defense of Christian principles and in the correct application of them to the problems of our times. (Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People, Apostolicam Actuositatem, Pope Paul VI, Nov 18, 1965).It's a pretty sad commentary when you hear more about the doctrines of the Faith from the laity then you do from their leaders.
It's also a sad commentary when the very bishops who claim to be in tune with "the spirit of Vatican II" seem to be completely unaware of the actual contents of Vatican II.
Bishop Weisgerber's commentary reminds me of nothing so much as the whining whimper made by the MSM as it slowly declines into obscurity, if only because the reasons for obscurity are identical in both cases.
The politics of major North American newspapers and television shows are indistinguishable from the politics of many North American bishops. Anyone who holds views like Bishop Weisgerber's are going to be ignored. That's not a call to ignore him, it's just a simple statement of fact, a fact that he has already implicitly acknowledged.
As Vatican II remarks, we have to "read the signs of the times."
And today's sign is, "Nobody likes a whiner."
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The Bishop, the Pope, and Chris West
When John Paul II wrote Love and Responsibility as archbishop of Krakow, he included a section with a fairly detailed discussion of the sexual act. It shocked a lot of the people he sent drafts of the manuscript to, but he included it anyway, despite warnings against the idea.
Today, Chris West and other TOB advocates point to this when they themselves engage shocking language.
Probably the most shocking passage in John Paul II's papal audiences on the theology of the body is his July 4, 1984 audience.
Many people have used this audience to argue that "sex is liturgical" or "sex is a sacrament." In fact, it should be noticed that JP II doesn't call sex a sacrament in this or any other audience, nor does he say sex is liturgical, although the uncareful reader could easily come away with either idea. Instead, he says conjugal life is a SIGN of the sacrament.
Furthermore, he says, "The spiritual maturity of this attraction is none other than the blossoming of the gift of fear - one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which St. Paul speaks of in First Thessalonians (cf. 1 Thes 4:4-7)."
He keeps insisting that the liturgy is what elevates marriage, and it does so through "chastity as a virtue and as a gift.In this way, through the virtue (of chastity) and still more through the gift (of chastity) the mutual attraction of masculinity and femininity spiritually matures...."
He ends the audience by pointing out that "the light of truth and beauty, expressed in liturgical language" is transferred to the body through chastity which he defines here as "the language of the practice of love, fidelity, and conjugal honesty," but even then notice how JPII hedges the ending: "conjugal life becomes in a certain sense liturgical." But only in "a certain sense."
In my first conversation with Chris West, lo!, these many years ago, Chris got rather upset when I referred to the phrase, "in a certain sense" as Pope John Paul II's favorite weasel words. But they are. When JP II wanted to say something that sounded shocking or odd without getting nailed for it, he used the phrase "in a certain sense." That kept him from violating the Magisterium while still allowing him to say things that sounded edgy.
So, does he say, as some like to assert, that sex is as important as the Mass for saving the world?
No, he doesn't.
Instead, he says that the liturgy empowers chastity in such a way that it has the capacity to transform "conjugal life" into something that is somewhat liturgical.
Or, to put it more simply, the liturgy is lived in chastity and chastity lifts marriage up towards the liturgy.
And when we remember that the whole series of talks is supposed to be commentary on Humanae Vitae, what he's really saying is "contraception is unchaste, so stop it."
But it isn't particularly shocking if said that simply, so JP II gussied it up with a lot of PhD talk.
As a result, uncareful readers have a greatly increased probability of totally misreading the audience. And they do.
Did John Paul II really mean to be edgy?
Well, remember, that he had taken a lot of hits for his Love and Responsibility as archbishop. Also, keep in mind that, as Pope, he cannot overcome the charism of his office. He can't mis-teach to the whole Church on matters of faith and morals. And, even the Pope is not impeccable. He is at best only infallible.
Now, the TOB teachings were certainly a matter of faith and morals.
But was he teaching to the whole Church? Well, that can be argued.
He certainly didn't invoke his full Petrine authority during the audiences.
Some would argue that the TOB teachings aren't infallible because Wednesday audiences are not normally considered a vehicle for infallible teachings. This argument ignores the fact that any communication CAN be the vehicle for infallible teachings. Heck, any time even you or I say "God is one Divine Nature in three Divine Persons," we have taught infallibly, even if it's just in an e-mail to our sainted aunt, because that particular doctrine is an infallible part of Church teaching. We don't have the charism by our office, as the Pope does, but we have the capacity to participate in the sensus fidelium simply by virtue of the gift of reason and our baptism.
So, "in a certain sense" every person has the capacity to teach infallibly, as long as what we teach accords with what the Church has always taught.
Now, the phrase "in a certain sense" is clearly meant to sharply limit the phrase it modifies.
JP II was a wordsmith in multiple languages - he knew darned well how to keep wiggle room alive in his phrasing as needed.
That particular phrase was a favorite of his in the Wednesday audiences, to an extent that's virtually unequalled in any of his other papal works.
I've read probably a third of his encyclicals, by no means all, but a fair number, and the only place you really find that phrase consistently is in the TOB audiences.
Remember, he had ALREADY shocked fellow churchmen with his Love and Responsibility, he KNEW it shocked his fellow churchmen, and he published it anyway, despite advice that he shouldn't. That was as archbishop. Archbishops can commit sins just like anybody else.
Was that chapter a sin? I don't know.
All I'm saying is that it didn't necessarily represent good judgement on his part.
Maybe it was a good idea, but just because Karol Wojtyla wrote it doesn't make it a good idea.
As a priest once remarked to St. Teresa of Avila, a man can go to hell by imitating the imperfections of the saints.
Now, once a bishop becomes a pope, the Holy Spirit is going to sharply curtail certain lapses in judgement that the bishop might previously have made. For instance, more than one bishop has become pope because the cardinals who elected him knew that he had always taught councils had greater authority than popes, that is, men have been elected Pope because they taught conciliarism. But invariably, as soon as the man got consecrated, his mind cleared and he stopped advocating conciliarism. You can't judge a pope's teachings by what he wrote when he was just bishop of Timbuktu. Or Krakow.
As an aside, a couple of years ago, right after Pope Benedict XVI got elected, John Allen of NCR came to town to give a talk on Benedict's attitude towards Islam. I asked him, "Pope Benedict hasn't said much of anything about Islam yet. Won't you have a short talk?" He replied, "Well, Cardinal Ratzinger has written quite extensively on the subject."
I didn't want to be rude, so I didn't point out that Cardinal Ratzinger's writings were not necessarily going to coincide with Pope Benedict's attitude. Before the talk started, I predicted to a friend that Allen, being a smart man, would say virtually nothing about Benedict and Islam during the talk, no matter the title for the evening. In fact, while he discussed Islam and he discussed Rome, John Allen never did discuss Benedict's attitude towards Islam, or even Cardinal Ratzinger's attitude, for that matter. But no one noticed (or they were too polite to notice) because John Allen is also a good wordsmith.
All of this is to note that when we get to the Wednesday audiences, they are not just a toned down version of Love and Responsibility. They are DIFFERENT. In the Wednesday audiences, he says he's giving us a "theology of sex" on at least one occasion, but he doesn't mean "sex" the verb, he means "sex" the noun, what we today incorrectly call "gender." And even in saying something as mundane as "liturgy empowers us to be chaste in marriage", which is really all the July 4 audience says, he recognizes that the converse is not going to be true in the full sense - conjugal life is never going to be fully liturgical, if only because the liturgy is participation in heaven and there is no sacrament of marriage, no conjugal life in the human married sense, in heaven.
He seems to WANT to make the connection go full bore both ways, heaven to earth and earth to heaven, but his office and his judgement prevents him from saying it. So, what he ends up saying is correct, as long as it is understand "in a certain sense."
And that's the difference between John Paul II and Chris West.
You might be able to argue that Chris West is just picking up where Karol Wojtyla left off.
I don't know that I would argue against that position very strongly.
I suspect that "in a certain sense" that is true.
I would just note two things:
a) Even as archbishop, Karol Wojtyla DID leave off there - he didn't continue into the territory that Chris West has so energetically entered,
and
b) John Paul II didn't go anywhere near where Karol Wojtyla went. In fact, JP II arguably began to walk away from some of Karol Wojtyla's work.
Too much stress is placed on Love and Responsibility.
Not enough stress is placed on the papal encyclicals.
The context for John Paul II's papal encyclicals is not Love and Responsibility, nor even the theology of the body Wednesday audiences. The context for John Paul II's papal encyclicals is 2000 years of Magisterial documents.
That's why the Catechism quotes writings of the Fathers and Doctors, other encyclicals and ecumenical councils. It doesn't quote from Love and Responsibility. Indeed, it doesn't even quote from the TOB Wednesday audiences. In fact, I can't recall a single encyclical or apostolic letter of Pope John Paul II that does make reference to his Wednesday TOB audiences. Not even his encyclical on human suffering, Salvifici Doloris, which is written and released while he's giving the TOB audiences, refers to them or is referred to by them.
Indeed, in his closing TOB audience, John Paul even notes that the TOB audiences are woefully inadequate because they don't address important themes like human suffering, but even in making this remark, he still refuses to refer even to his own document on human suffering. Instead, he keeps pointing us to Humanae Vitae and Familiaris Consortio, and the latter doesn't reference the Wednesday audiences at all. This is all the more interesting given that Familiaris Consortio does reference Humanae Vitae eight times, and footnotes a Paul VI General Audience once (footnote 152).
Is it the case that John Paul II built his whole papacy around Love and Responsibility and/or the Wednesday Theology of the Body audiences? That assertion has been made by people who style themselves scholars, but it is remarkably difficult to find explicit evidence to back it up. Indeed, one might easily argue the reverse: that the whole of his papal teaching is walled off from those particular Wednesday audiences.
In any case, if we are going to use Love and Responsibility to justify how we address the subject of human sexuality, we have to remember that Love and Responsibility is not Magisterial - it is just some local bishop writing his thoughts on sex and marriage.
The local bishop ends up getting consecrated pope.
OK, but his prior writings didn't get consecrated with him.
Like the "conciliar" popes before him, we have to remember that some ideas may have gotten changed when the charism of his office cleared his mind.
Today, Chris West and other TOB advocates point to this when they themselves engage shocking language.
Probably the most shocking passage in John Paul II's papal audiences on the theology of the body is his July 4, 1984 audience.
Many people have used this audience to argue that "sex is liturgical" or "sex is a sacrament." In fact, it should be noticed that JP II doesn't call sex a sacrament in this or any other audience, nor does he say sex is liturgical, although the uncareful reader could easily come away with either idea. Instead, he says conjugal life is a SIGN of the sacrament.
Furthermore, he says, "The spiritual maturity of this attraction is none other than the blossoming of the gift of fear - one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which St. Paul speaks of in First Thessalonians (cf. 1 Thes 4:4-7)."
He keeps insisting that the liturgy is what elevates marriage, and it does so through "chastity as a virtue and as a gift.In this way, through the virtue (of chastity) and still more through the gift (of chastity) the mutual attraction of masculinity and femininity spiritually matures...."
He ends the audience by pointing out that "the light of truth and beauty, expressed in liturgical language" is transferred to the body through chastity which he defines here as "the language of the practice of love, fidelity, and conjugal honesty," but even then notice how JPII hedges the ending: "conjugal life becomes in a certain sense liturgical." But only in "a certain sense."
In my first conversation with Chris West, lo!, these many years ago, Chris got rather upset when I referred to the phrase, "in a certain sense" as Pope John Paul II's favorite weasel words. But they are. When JP II wanted to say something that sounded shocking or odd without getting nailed for it, he used the phrase "in a certain sense." That kept him from violating the Magisterium while still allowing him to say things that sounded edgy.
So, does he say, as some like to assert, that sex is as important as the Mass for saving the world?
No, he doesn't.
Instead, he says that the liturgy empowers chastity in such a way that it has the capacity to transform "conjugal life" into something that is somewhat liturgical.
Or, to put it more simply, the liturgy is lived in chastity and chastity lifts marriage up towards the liturgy.
And when we remember that the whole series of talks is supposed to be commentary on Humanae Vitae, what he's really saying is "contraception is unchaste, so stop it."
But it isn't particularly shocking if said that simply, so JP II gussied it up with a lot of PhD talk.
As a result, uncareful readers have a greatly increased probability of totally misreading the audience. And they do.
Did John Paul II really mean to be edgy?
Well, remember, that he had taken a lot of hits for his Love and Responsibility as archbishop. Also, keep in mind that, as Pope, he cannot overcome the charism of his office. He can't mis-teach to the whole Church on matters of faith and morals. And, even the Pope is not impeccable. He is at best only infallible.
Now, the TOB teachings were certainly a matter of faith and morals.
But was he teaching to the whole Church? Well, that can be argued.
He certainly didn't invoke his full Petrine authority during the audiences.
Some would argue that the TOB teachings aren't infallible because Wednesday audiences are not normally considered a vehicle for infallible teachings. This argument ignores the fact that any communication CAN be the vehicle for infallible teachings. Heck, any time even you or I say "God is one Divine Nature in three Divine Persons," we have taught infallibly, even if it's just in an e-mail to our sainted aunt, because that particular doctrine is an infallible part of Church teaching. We don't have the charism by our office, as the Pope does, but we have the capacity to participate in the sensus fidelium simply by virtue of the gift of reason and our baptism.
So, "in a certain sense" every person has the capacity to teach infallibly, as long as what we teach accords with what the Church has always taught.
Now, the phrase "in a certain sense" is clearly meant to sharply limit the phrase it modifies.
JP II was a wordsmith in multiple languages - he knew darned well how to keep wiggle room alive in his phrasing as needed.
That particular phrase was a favorite of his in the Wednesday audiences, to an extent that's virtually unequalled in any of his other papal works.
I've read probably a third of his encyclicals, by no means all, but a fair number, and the only place you really find that phrase consistently is in the TOB audiences.
Remember, he had ALREADY shocked fellow churchmen with his Love and Responsibility, he KNEW it shocked his fellow churchmen, and he published it anyway, despite advice that he shouldn't. That was as archbishop. Archbishops can commit sins just like anybody else.
Was that chapter a sin? I don't know.
All I'm saying is that it didn't necessarily represent good judgement on his part.
Maybe it was a good idea, but just because Karol Wojtyla wrote it doesn't make it a good idea.
As a priest once remarked to St. Teresa of Avila, a man can go to hell by imitating the imperfections of the saints.
Now, once a bishop becomes a pope, the Holy Spirit is going to sharply curtail certain lapses in judgement that the bishop might previously have made. For instance, more than one bishop has become pope because the cardinals who elected him knew that he had always taught councils had greater authority than popes, that is, men have been elected Pope because they taught conciliarism. But invariably, as soon as the man got consecrated, his mind cleared and he stopped advocating conciliarism. You can't judge a pope's teachings by what he wrote when he was just bishop of Timbuktu. Or Krakow.
As an aside, a couple of years ago, right after Pope Benedict XVI got elected, John Allen of NCR came to town to give a talk on Benedict's attitude towards Islam. I asked him, "Pope Benedict hasn't said much of anything about Islam yet. Won't you have a short talk?" He replied, "Well, Cardinal Ratzinger has written quite extensively on the subject."
I didn't want to be rude, so I didn't point out that Cardinal Ratzinger's writings were not necessarily going to coincide with Pope Benedict's attitude. Before the talk started, I predicted to a friend that Allen, being a smart man, would say virtually nothing about Benedict and Islam during the talk, no matter the title for the evening. In fact, while he discussed Islam and he discussed Rome, John Allen never did discuss Benedict's attitude towards Islam, or even Cardinal Ratzinger's attitude, for that matter. But no one noticed (or they were too polite to notice) because John Allen is also a good wordsmith.
All of this is to note that when we get to the Wednesday audiences, they are not just a toned down version of Love and Responsibility. They are DIFFERENT. In the Wednesday audiences, he says he's giving us a "theology of sex" on at least one occasion, but he doesn't mean "sex" the verb, he means "sex" the noun, what we today incorrectly call "gender." And even in saying something as mundane as "liturgy empowers us to be chaste in marriage", which is really all the July 4 audience says, he recognizes that the converse is not going to be true in the full sense - conjugal life is never going to be fully liturgical, if only because the liturgy is participation in heaven and there is no sacrament of marriage, no conjugal life in the human married sense, in heaven.
He seems to WANT to make the connection go full bore both ways, heaven to earth and earth to heaven, but his office and his judgement prevents him from saying it. So, what he ends up saying is correct, as long as it is understand "in a certain sense."
And that's the difference between John Paul II and Chris West.
You might be able to argue that Chris West is just picking up where Karol Wojtyla left off.
I don't know that I would argue against that position very strongly.
I suspect that "in a certain sense" that is true.
I would just note two things:
a) Even as archbishop, Karol Wojtyla DID leave off there - he didn't continue into the territory that Chris West has so energetically entered,
and
b) John Paul II didn't go anywhere near where Karol Wojtyla went. In fact, JP II arguably began to walk away from some of Karol Wojtyla's work.
Too much stress is placed on Love and Responsibility.
Not enough stress is placed on the papal encyclicals.
The context for John Paul II's papal encyclicals is not Love and Responsibility, nor even the theology of the body Wednesday audiences. The context for John Paul II's papal encyclicals is 2000 years of Magisterial documents.
That's why the Catechism quotes writings of the Fathers and Doctors, other encyclicals and ecumenical councils. It doesn't quote from Love and Responsibility. Indeed, it doesn't even quote from the TOB Wednesday audiences. In fact, I can't recall a single encyclical or apostolic letter of Pope John Paul II that does make reference to his Wednesday TOB audiences. Not even his encyclical on human suffering, Salvifici Doloris, which is written and released while he's giving the TOB audiences, refers to them or is referred to by them.
Indeed, in his closing TOB audience, John Paul even notes that the TOB audiences are woefully inadequate because they don't address important themes like human suffering, but even in making this remark, he still refuses to refer even to his own document on human suffering. Instead, he keeps pointing us to Humanae Vitae and Familiaris Consortio, and the latter doesn't reference the Wednesday audiences at all. This is all the more interesting given that Familiaris Consortio does reference Humanae Vitae eight times, and footnotes a Paul VI General Audience once (footnote 152).
Is it the case that John Paul II built his whole papacy around Love and Responsibility and/or the Wednesday Theology of the Body audiences? That assertion has been made by people who style themselves scholars, but it is remarkably difficult to find explicit evidence to back it up. Indeed, one might easily argue the reverse: that the whole of his papal teaching is walled off from those particular Wednesday audiences.
In any case, if we are going to use Love and Responsibility to justify how we address the subject of human sexuality, we have to remember that Love and Responsibility is not Magisterial - it is just some local bishop writing his thoughts on sex and marriage.
The local bishop ends up getting consecrated pope.
OK, but his prior writings didn't get consecrated with him.
Like the "conciliar" popes before him, we have to remember that some ideas may have gotten changed when the charism of his office cleared his mind.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Nixon and Obama: Blood Brothers
Alright, I don't get it.
Nixon is getting razzed because he said he was fine with abortion in cases where a white woman would otherwise be punished with a black child.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, was praised for saying that he didn't want his own black daughters to be punished with his (presumably) black grandchild.
And the difference is....????
Nixon was, once more, ahead of his time, channeling the One-der of the World.
See?
Big Tent Republicans and Democrats really CAN get along.
Richard Nixon was America's first Black President!
Nixon is getting razzed because he said he was fine with abortion in cases where a white woman would otherwise be punished with a black child.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, was praised for saying that he didn't want his own black daughters to be punished with his (presumably) black grandchild.
And the difference is....????
Nixon was, once more, ahead of his time, channeling the One-der of the World.
See?
Big Tent Republicans and Democrats really CAN get along.
Richard Nixon was America's first Black President!
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Philosopher, Healy Thyself
In his wild attempts to defend the indefensible Chris West, Dr. Michael Healy, a philosophy professor at Franciscan University, has now taken to providing inadequate quotes to moral theology texts, in much the same way that Drs. Janet Smith and Michael Waldstein deliberately mis-referenced Dr. Schindler's response to West.
Watch how this works. It is instructive.
Dear Steve,
Thanks for the sarcasm, but I’m afraid you are displaying your own ignorance. Are Janet Smith and Michael Waldstein also to be lumped with Grisez, West, and myself as suckering, deceiving heretics? [No. While Grisez is someone who already deliberately misteaches Catholic theology, as he explicitly denies the hierarchy of good, Drs. Healy, Smith and Waldstein are just Kool-Aid drinkers] Janet Smith mentions the same facts that I do about incomplete anal-genital contacts (while noting that both she and West find such acts completely unappealing, not to be recommended, and rather to be cautioned against, as do I); she also mentions that West’s books have received the Nihil Obstat after being reviewed by no less that Bill May. Is he also a heretic? If so, then we are rapidly running out of good theologians. [Notice the logical fallacy of "morality by acclamation." Everyone supports me, thus it must be true, an argument Arians used to excellent effect during a time when we rapidly ran out of good bishops.Janet Smith has failed to back up her claims that sodomitical foreplay is morally acceptable. You have failed to do this as well, Dr. Healy. As for Bill May's opinion and the nihil obstat, I don't really care a fig for either. Neither is an expression of the infallible Magisterium. Bill May isn't even a bishop.]
Concerning the object of your ire here, it is certainly true that any orgasm, or even unjustifiable risk of orgasm, outside normal intercourse would be a grave sin against chastity. Everyone mentioned above fully agrees with this, so it is hardly parallel to denying the sin of abortion. [Straw man. The question isn't about orgasm, it's about the moral acceptability of sodomitical foreplay.]
Concerning such contacts as incomplete, preparatory acts, let me quote extensively [but not completely, as we shall see - click the link and check for yourself] from Frs. Ford and Kelly (both impeccably orthodox and writing in the late 50’s and early 60’s for seminarians, again with nihil obstat and imprimatur from Patrick O’Boyle, Archbishop of Washington, at a time when there was certainly no “fudging” in the granting of an imprimatur):
“Practises such as these [Already he's implemented the bait-and-switch - used at all the finest used car dealerships - and you don't even know it's been done. Yet.] are repugnant and shocking to a great many people, and intolerable to some, but their morality cannot be decided on the basis of emotional reactions which, though normal, are apparently not universal. People differ very widely in their estimates of what is shameful or disgusting in sexual matters, these differences being the result of differing cultural backgrounds, family attitudes, sexual education, natural temperament, and other factors.” They go on to say that while no one should ever “speak as though there were no objections to these practises [which practices?] from the viewpoint of the Christian law,” neither is it justified to make “any universal a priori judgment as to sinful or inordinate hedonism” here, though these are the dangers. Further, of course, it would always be a grave sin against charity and justice to try to force such acts on an unwilling partner; they are not part of the marital debitum. It seems to me that all the authors mentioned above, including West, fit solidly within these guidelines. [What did the good Dr. Healy leave out of the quote? Why the sentence that preceded "Practices such as these" of course! But, because I'm a spoil-sport, I'll throw it in for you:
"As a practical matter, we feel it would be unrealistic nowadays to pretermit altogether discussion of the morality of oral-genital contacts preparatory to intercourse." (emphasis added)
See? There moral theologians being quoted are NOT referring to anal-genital contact at all. Drs. Healy and Smith being unable to distinguish the mouth from the anus, think anal-genital contact is parallel to oral-genital contact. In fact, while oral-genital contact is described as permitted above, NO ONE prior to 1970 has ever said anal-genital contact, whether as completed act or merely as foreplay, is anything other than a sin.
West supporters consistently twist the texts they quote. WHY?
If, as Augustine said, "God does not need my lie," why does God's messenger, Christopher West, ALWAYS require what Dr. Healy just did?]
Now this is not to deny that in the past even such incomplete acts have been condemned as intrinsically wrong by some theologians—and if you think so too, you also have support within the Catholic tradition. [Notice how he completely sidesteps the fact that his quote is deliberately taken out of context and actually refers to something else. He accuses me of being ignorant, and I cannot deny it - I am. But I prefer being called ignorant to dealing with the charge that can now be laid firmly at Dr. Healy's door.] But this is a question which has not been finally decided and closed—compared to the question of artificial contraception for instance. [Father Bernard Haring said abortion is not finally decided and closed. Drs. Janet Smith and Michael Healy would like to add anal-genital foreplay to the list, so as to cover Chris West's... back... with their waggish... words...] And as Ford and Kelly say (before Vatican II, before the massive rejection of Church teaching on sexuality), “most theologians today” would not describe them as always intrinsically wrong, but simply as dangerous and to be cautioned about. This is a fine distinction, but one that theologians have to make. [Would that these theologians had actually made the distinction Dr. Healy pretends they have.] However, as Janet Smith says, we really should not take up any more space about such topics in connection with Chris West, as such things are completely tangential to his message and his work. Yet if he is accused of betraying the Catholic teaching here, he has to be defended, despite the fact that I too, like Janet, would prefer not to mention the topic. (Quotes from Ford and Kelly are from Contemporary Moral Theology, Vol. II, Marriage Questions, Ch. 11, Special Problems of Conjugal Intimacy, pp. 228-230). [In short: don't bother about the man behind the curtain, the one who has been passing sin off as virtue. That's really not an issue. Let's move on to something substantive. Like where to buy a Krispy Kreme.
On the other hand, I am SURE that neither Dr. Smith nor Dr. Healy is interested in talking about this subject, since they can't defend it and it keeps coming up to bite them in the ... well... ]
In surveying one of the Anglican defenses of contraception, we pointed out that the author's refusal to define coitus makes his arguments open to serious objections. In particular, since he refuses to concede even the minimum definition of coition as an actus per se aptus ad generationem, he must logically admit that any practice that has "relational value" for spouses (e.g., coitus interruptus and anal intercourse) is licit. (emphasis added)This, of course is right up Chris West's alley. John Paul II's TOB audiences famously fail to discuss the generational aspect of the sexual act to any great degree. It is one of the odd but true aspects of those Wednesday audiences that those audiences, a commentary on Humanae Vitae totaling in excess of a quarter million words, mention the word "family" only once, whereas Humanae Vitae itself uses the word "family" 15 times in just 7000 words. Similarly, the words "parents" or "parenthood" occurs ten times in HV, but only three times in the TOB audiences (TOB figures based on the index in the first St. Paul edition of the TOB audiences).
The Theology of the Body audiences are 40 times longer than HV, but discuss the primary purpose of the sexual act between much less frequently in absolute terms. Yet isn't the point of contraception precisely the cutting off of any need to discuss family?
If TOB is not about the generational aspects of sex, then what is it about? It's emphasis is all on relationship - the "relational value," that the good priests warn against above.
As a result, the TOB audiences, while fine insofar as they go, do have huge theological holes in them, holes large enough to drive an ocean liner through.
Someone who primarily studies the TOB audiences and spends very little time with other JP II documents, or other Magisterial teachings in general, is very likely to mistake the importance of the relational aspects of the sexual act. That is, someone who is a largely self-taught "expert" on the Theology of the Body is likely to make precisely the mistake Chris West makes, and label anal foreplay acceptable.
Worse, Drs. Smith and Healy have leapt to defend West's statements not because they are defensible, for there is no defense available from the Magisterial documents. Rather, they have begun a "theology of personality", in which Chris West's statements have to be defended because of he who made them. Catholic theology is being bent to fit the predilictions of a specific personality.
I am a graduate of Franciscan University, but I was fortunate enough to never have Dr. Healy as an instructor. I'm sure he counts himself lucky he never had me as a student.
This is the kind of nonsense that is all too prevalent in Catholic institutions: mistaking fad theology for Magisterium, inability to distinguish between the orifices for nutritive intake and waste disposal, he literally doesn't know his ... from a... well... you get the idea.
This is often what passes for philosophy at Franciscan University. As a former graduate student, I can firmly attest and witness to the fact that, while Franciscan University's theology department is competent, their philosophy department has only a few decent thinkers. Far too many are of Dr. Healy's stripe. That's why I have never recommended the university to people.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Shooting Shea's Own
Mark Shea recently expressed frustration about the Catholic outcry over Christopher West's appearance on ABC's Nightline. In that 7-minute video, Chris said some amazingly silly things.
But Mark, relying on imprimaturs and his own sense of things, responded by saying, "Why do we Catholics so often bayonet our own troops?"
In fact, Mark did exactly this to me ago during the Da Vinci Code flap a few years ago. In the course of those discussions, I pointed out that Carl Olsen and Sandra Miesel, both friends of Mark, were in error regarding their labelling of DVC as Gnostic. Subsequently, Mark not only wielded that "but we're on the side of the angels!" line like a sword, at least one Catholic magazine editor deliberately set me up so that Carl Olsen could beat me up in the pages of a Catholic magazine.
But, I'm not interested in re-hashing that old fight. What I am interested in is this idea of "shooting (or bayonetting) our own."
Consider: I am sure Mark Shea has said vitriolic things about Nancy Pelosi, Sam Brownback, Joe Biden, et. al. over the last few months.
Now, those people are all baptized Catholics. Why would Mark denigrate them? Why would he engage in "shooting our own"?
"Ah,"he may argue, "But they are NOT our own - they are flouting the teachings of the Church!" I agree. But a lot of people felt the same way about Christopher West. A lot of people feel that way about people Mark happens to like.
So, what's the difference between whaling on Nancy Pelosi and whaling on Sandra Miesel or Christopher West? They're all baptized Catholics!
When Mark rolled out his line on me, wasn't he shooting ME by using the line?
What was the difference between me and Sandra Miesel except Mark happened to like the latter's position (and the latter) more than the former's position?
This "bayonetting our own" line is just a variant of the old pro-abortion argument, "No one has a right to impose their morality on others." Well, what if my morality says I DO have that right? By telling me what to do, aren't you assuming that YOU have the right to force this arbitrary standard on me? If you REALLY felt that way, you would have to remain silent, recognizing that I may not share your sentiments.
So, if the argument is so stupid from a logical standpoint, why would anyone say it? Well, it serves three purposes:
This "shooting our own" gambit accomplishes precisely the same objectives. Mark is really just demonizing his opponent as someone who doesn't understand the Faith, while he places himself in the moral high ground of someone who understands every aspect, and is capable of judging behaviour. Best of all, he doesn't have to address any of the arguments brought forward. Indeed, as he himself points out, he doesn't even have to read the book or hear the talk that's being attacked. He generally rolls this argument out when
Not necessarily, but he DOES like West's publisher.
In this case, Chris West is being published by Matt Pinto. Matt Pinto and Mark Shea go WAY back. In fact, Matt Pinto's Ascension Press, Tom Allen's Catholic Exchange (where Mark Shea is chief editor) and Alan Napleton's Catholic Marketing Network are all joined at the hip, from a business perspective. That is, they've done a fair bit of business together. Quite a lot, actually.
So, was Mark's defense of West a business decision? It doesn't have to be. People work together because they like each other and hold similar views. It could be Mark just wanted to cover Matt's back.
So, what Mark Shea really means here is, "I have some sympathy with the person being attacked or his position. I don't like the fact that you are engaging in a proxy attack on me by attacking my friend, who holds the same position." When seen in this light, the phrase "shooting our own" becomes La Cosa Nostra, to which those who Do Not Think Rightly are excluded.
The key question: who constitutes "our own"?
Different people are going to have different judgements about where, prudentially, the line should be drawn in various debates. I'm not saying there isn't an absolute standard. I'm just saying that a lot of us engage in self-serving spin, myself included.
So, the next time Mark Shea or any of his minions roll out that line about "let's not start shooting our own," ask them who they include in that "our own" category. And if you are included, ask them why they are attacking you by saying YOUR position is wrong.
If you aren't part of the group, why are they shooting you?
Because they don't like you as much as they like the other guy.
And they aren't honest enough to say it out loud.
But Mark, relying on imprimaturs and his own sense of things, responded by saying, "Why do we Catholics so often bayonet our own troops?"
In fact, Mark did exactly this to me ago during the Da Vinci Code flap a few years ago. In the course of those discussions, I pointed out that Carl Olsen and Sandra Miesel, both friends of Mark, were in error regarding their labelling of DVC as Gnostic. Subsequently, Mark not only wielded that "but we're on the side of the angels!" line like a sword, at least one Catholic magazine editor deliberately set me up so that Carl Olsen could beat me up in the pages of a Catholic magazine.
But, I'm not interested in re-hashing that old fight. What I am interested in is this idea of "shooting (or bayonetting) our own."
Consider: I am sure Mark Shea has said vitriolic things about Nancy Pelosi, Sam Brownback, Joe Biden, et. al. over the last few months.
Now, those people are all baptized Catholics. Why would Mark denigrate them? Why would he engage in "shooting our own"?
"Ah,"he may argue, "But they are NOT our own - they are flouting the teachings of the Church!" I agree. But a lot of people felt the same way about Christopher West. A lot of people feel that way about people Mark happens to like.
So, what's the difference between whaling on Nancy Pelosi and whaling on Sandra Miesel or Christopher West? They're all baptized Catholics!
When Mark rolled out his line on me, wasn't he shooting ME by using the line?
What was the difference between me and Sandra Miesel except Mark happened to like the latter's position (and the latter) more than the former's position?
This "bayonetting our own" line is just a variant of the old pro-abortion argument, "No one has a right to impose their morality on others." Well, what if my morality says I DO have that right? By telling me what to do, aren't you assuming that YOU have the right to force this arbitrary standard on me? If you REALLY felt that way, you would have to remain silent, recognizing that I may not share your sentiments.
So, if the argument is so stupid from a logical standpoint, why would anyone say it? Well, it serves three purposes:
- First, I get a chance to take the moral high ground - when I use the argument, I can pretend that I am serving a higher standard than grubby little you.
- Second, because you have just been "shamed" you will probably shut up. After all, how are you going to fight against these "higher morals" I have just revealed?
- Third, if I use that argument, I don't have to answer any of YOUR grubby little charges. I've attacked YOU, not your position.
This "shooting our own" gambit accomplishes precisely the same objectives. Mark is really just demonizing his opponent as someone who doesn't understand the Faith, while he places himself in the moral high ground of someone who understands every aspect, and is capable of judging behaviour. Best of all, he doesn't have to address any of the arguments brought forward. Indeed, as he himself points out, he doesn't even have to read the book or hear the talk that's being attacked. He generally rolls this argument out when
- he doesn't have a counter-argument and
- the person he intends to demonize is attacking someone he likes, as opposed to someone he doesn't.
Not necessarily, but he DOES like West's publisher.
In this case, Chris West is being published by Matt Pinto. Matt Pinto and Mark Shea go WAY back. In fact, Matt Pinto's Ascension Press, Tom Allen's Catholic Exchange (where Mark Shea is chief editor) and Alan Napleton's Catholic Marketing Network are all joined at the hip, from a business perspective. That is, they've done a fair bit of business together. Quite a lot, actually.
So, was Mark's defense of West a business decision? It doesn't have to be. People work together because they like each other and hold similar views. It could be Mark just wanted to cover Matt's back.
So, what Mark Shea really means here is, "I have some sympathy with the person being attacked or his position. I don't like the fact that you are engaging in a proxy attack on me by attacking my friend, who holds the same position." When seen in this light, the phrase "shooting our own" becomes La Cosa Nostra, to which those who Do Not Think Rightly are excluded.
The key question: who constitutes "our own"?
Different people are going to have different judgements about where, prudentially, the line should be drawn in various debates. I'm not saying there isn't an absolute standard. I'm just saying that a lot of us engage in self-serving spin, myself included.
So, the next time Mark Shea or any of his minions roll out that line about "let's not start shooting our own," ask them who they include in that "our own" category. And if you are included, ask them why they are attacking you by saying YOUR position is wrong.
If you aren't part of the group, why are they shooting you?
Because they don't like you as much as they like the other guy.
And they aren't honest enough to say it out loud.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Talking With An Obama Supporter
Barack Obama at Notre Dame: " ... [on abortion] I didn't change my position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website... that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.... [because we know] the views of the two camps are irreconcilable."
I sent the advertisements for my book, Debunking Obama's First 100 Days, to several thousand people a few days ago.
This was one response:
ObamaCatholic: Get a life!Contemplating it later, I reflected that, perhaps this could be another point for our dialogue? Our positions are irreconcilable - you don't want dialogue, I do - but we should seek common ground. How about I keep talking and you just shut up and listen?
Me: Feeling a little guilty, are we?
ObamaCatholic: No. Just tired of slander and gossip. Both are sinful behavior.
Me: Indeed. That's why everything about that bastard (and he is, you know - his mother wasn't married when she conceived him), is documented in the book.
ObamaCatholic: Wow! You leave me breathless. You have a great day!
Me: I'll have a great day the minute he leaves office. Until then, we all just pray for deliverance from evil.
ObamaCatholic: And I'll have a great day the minute you take me off your email list! Please do not reply. Thank you.
Me: I will make sure that I don't.
ObamaCatholic: You just did.
Me: Oh my heavens! But you Obama supporters are always interested in dialogue, right? So, being open-minded and willing to seek common ground, as you are, that isn't a problem.
As The One stated in his Notre Dame address, sure, our positions are irreconcilable - you think he's cool, I think he's a lying bastard - but that shouldn't prevent us from dialoguing and seeking common ground.
How about we agree that he's a really cool, lying bastard?
See?
I'm trying to be like you and engage in dialogue.
Except you didn't want dialogue.
Hmmm....
Man!
No wonder it's so much fun being an ObamaCatholic!
I feel a pull to the Dark Side...
Monday, May 18, 2009
The Wedge
George Weigel is now insisting that Obama's speech is intended to separate Catholics from their bishops, driving a wedge between them. Weigel's concept is so popular, it has even hit the secular blogs. There's only one problem.
George Weigel is wrong.
Obama is not driving a wedge between Catholics and their bishops, rather, he's taking advantage of a pre-existing wedge between Catholics and their bishops, a wedge the bishops themselves created. Much as it pains me to agree with anyone from America magazine, Fr. Reese hit the nail on the head: no one is listening to the Catholic bishops, and they haven't been listening for a very long time.
But, Reese is also wrong - the bishops didn't lose their credibility during the sex abuse crisis. They lost it long before that crisis began. Indeed, part of the reason the bishops covered over the sex abuse crisis is precisely because most Catholics paid no attention to them as it was, and they couldn't afford to look like even greater idiots than they already had done.
As Joseph Bottum pointed out in his First Things article last week, the bishops stopped leading over 40 years ago. Today, as in the time of the Arian heresy, the faithful lead and the bishops follow as best they can. I go into much greater detail (if only because I have more space to explain it), in my book Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America, but here's the thumbnail of the problem: when chemical contraception became possible, the American bishops became docile. They agreed to Lyndon Baines Johnson's suggestion that they shut the hell up on contraception in exchange for him conducting a war on poverty. So, while they were allowed to be in opposition to abortion, they would not speak a public word against the root cause of abortion, contraception. As I pointed out in 2004, they have kept that promise for over forty years, and still adhere to it today.
In fact, they liked LBJ's deal so much, many of them are still in the political tank. Out of over 200 bishops in the United States, less than 80 publicly made statements that were clearly in opposition to Obama's election. A different group of less than 80 bishops publicly made statements that were clearly in opposition to his speaking at Notre Dame. As CultureWarNotes.com points out, at least one bishop publicly came out in favor of Obama's Notre Dame speech.
Weigel could just as easily have argued that Obama is trying to drive a wedge between two groups of Catholic bishops, and he would have been just as right (or, in this case, just as wrong).
In fact, there is already a divide in this country, and it is due precisely to the American bishops themselves. The American Catholic bishops caved back in 1968. They stopped teaching the Faith in order to satisfy American politicians. When they stopped teaching Catholic doctrine in exchange for political favors, Catholics stopped listening to them.
Today, nobody really cares what America's Catholic bishops think. After all, how many Catholics in your parish have read any doctrinal encyclical from their own bishop within the last five years, apart from perhaps an instruction on how to avoid the swine flu? How many even know that their bishops produce doctrinal encyclicals?
And of those few faithful who have read those encyclicals, the writing generally hasn't improved their view of the bishops. What orthodox Catholic was not entirely ashamed of the USCCB's Always Our Children instruction on how to affirm homosexual identity? What of the frankly diosbedient attitude displayed in their instructions concerning Holy Thursday's liturgy? Or the most recent embarrassment, their attempt to instruct married couples in how to put spice back into their marriage? I literally know only a half-dozen people who have even visited the USCCB-sponsored website on marriage. Of those who have, everyone has been embarrassed by the juvenile attitude of some aspect of it.
The "Obama at Notre Dame" event will not drive a wedge between Catholics and their bishops, because the separations are already there, but it does highlight the problem bishops have in communicating with their flock. For instance, at least one Catholic friend of mine is of the opinion that some of the bishops who spoke against Obama at Notre Dame weren't really opposed, they were just jumping on the bandwagon because (a) they knew it would make no difference anyway - Obama and Jenkins would do what they wanted, and (b) it made them look good to the orthodox crowd in the diocese, the only ones who actually feel an obligation to pay any attention to the bishop. A bishop using this cynical ploy could then continue to allow abuses of the liturgy or silence on points of Catholic doctrine, while gaining points for orthodoxy in reference to Barack Obama's murderous attitude and legacy.
Is this really what is happening in certain dioceses?
I don't know.
But I will bet my whole bank account that if it is, you'll never hear George Weigel say it.
Update: A reader pointed out a very salient fact -
"I think the bishops' failure to teach goes a little further back that 1968. Try 1945. On March 10th of that year the 20th US Army Airforce attacked Tokyo with three hundred B-29's. The incendiaries they dropped started a fire storm that killed 100,000 people in six hours, the greatest loss of life in that time span in all of recorded history. Owing to the fact that all men of anything like military age were away, the victims were mostly women, children and the aged. The general who ordered the attack, Curtis E. Lemay admitted later that if Japan had won the war he would have been tried and executed as a war criminal. His candor was not reflected by a single American bishop. Granted, many historical elements contributed to this silence. Still, it's nothing to brag about."
I agree with the addendum. As I point out in the book, Catholic bishops in this country have had a long history of political collusion with the American (as opposed to the Catholic) concepts of various aspects of life, including ideas on how to handle:
George Weigel is wrong.
Obama is not driving a wedge between Catholics and their bishops, rather, he's taking advantage of a pre-existing wedge between Catholics and their bishops, a wedge the bishops themselves created. Much as it pains me to agree with anyone from America magazine, Fr. Reese hit the nail on the head: no one is listening to the Catholic bishops, and they haven't been listening for a very long time.
But, Reese is also wrong - the bishops didn't lose their credibility during the sex abuse crisis. They lost it long before that crisis began. Indeed, part of the reason the bishops covered over the sex abuse crisis is precisely because most Catholics paid no attention to them as it was, and they couldn't afford to look like even greater idiots than they already had done.
As Joseph Bottum pointed out in his First Things article last week, the bishops stopped leading over 40 years ago. Today, as in the time of the Arian heresy, the faithful lead and the bishops follow as best they can. I go into much greater detail (if only because I have more space to explain it), in my book Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America, but here's the thumbnail of the problem: when chemical contraception became possible, the American bishops became docile. They agreed to Lyndon Baines Johnson's suggestion that they shut the hell up on contraception in exchange for him conducting a war on poverty. So, while they were allowed to be in opposition to abortion, they would not speak a public word against the root cause of abortion, contraception. As I pointed out in 2004, they have kept that promise for over forty years, and still adhere to it today.
In fact, they liked LBJ's deal so much, many of them are still in the political tank. Out of over 200 bishops in the United States, less than 80 publicly made statements that were clearly in opposition to Obama's election. A different group of less than 80 bishops publicly made statements that were clearly in opposition to his speaking at Notre Dame. As CultureWarNotes.com points out, at least one bishop publicly came out in favor of Obama's Notre Dame speech.
Weigel could just as easily have argued that Obama is trying to drive a wedge between two groups of Catholic bishops, and he would have been just as right (or, in this case, just as wrong).
In fact, there is already a divide in this country, and it is due precisely to the American bishops themselves. The American Catholic bishops caved back in 1968. They stopped teaching the Faith in order to satisfy American politicians. When they stopped teaching Catholic doctrine in exchange for political favors, Catholics stopped listening to them.
Today, nobody really cares what America's Catholic bishops think. After all, how many Catholics in your parish have read any doctrinal encyclical from their own bishop within the last five years, apart from perhaps an instruction on how to avoid the swine flu? How many even know that their bishops produce doctrinal encyclicals?
And of those few faithful who have read those encyclicals, the writing generally hasn't improved their view of the bishops. What orthodox Catholic was not entirely ashamed of the USCCB's Always Our Children instruction on how to affirm homosexual identity? What of the frankly diosbedient attitude displayed in their instructions concerning Holy Thursday's liturgy? Or the most recent embarrassment, their attempt to instruct married couples in how to put spice back into their marriage? I literally know only a half-dozen people who have even visited the USCCB-sponsored website on marriage. Of those who have, everyone has been embarrassed by the juvenile attitude of some aspect of it.
The "Obama at Notre Dame" event will not drive a wedge between Catholics and their bishops, because the separations are already there, but it does highlight the problem bishops have in communicating with their flock. For instance, at least one Catholic friend of mine is of the opinion that some of the bishops who spoke against Obama at Notre Dame weren't really opposed, they were just jumping on the bandwagon because (a) they knew it would make no difference anyway - Obama and Jenkins would do what they wanted, and (b) it made them look good to the orthodox crowd in the diocese, the only ones who actually feel an obligation to pay any attention to the bishop. A bishop using this cynical ploy could then continue to allow abuses of the liturgy or silence on points of Catholic doctrine, while gaining points for orthodoxy in reference to Barack Obama's murderous attitude and legacy.
Is this really what is happening in certain dioceses?
I don't know.
But I will bet my whole bank account that if it is, you'll never hear George Weigel say it.
Update: A reader pointed out a very salient fact -
"I think the bishops' failure to teach goes a little further back that 1968. Try 1945. On March 10th of that year the 20th US Army Airforce attacked Tokyo with three hundred B-29's. The incendiaries they dropped started a fire storm that killed 100,000 people in six hours, the greatest loss of life in that time span in all of recorded history. Owing to the fact that all men of anything like military age were away, the victims were mostly women, children and the aged. The general who ordered the attack, Curtis E. Lemay admitted later that if Japan had won the war he would have been tried and executed as a war criminal. His candor was not reflected by a single American bishop. Granted, many historical elements contributed to this silence. Still, it's nothing to brag about."
I agree with the addendum. As I point out in the book, Catholic bishops in this country have had a long history of political collusion with the American (as opposed to the Catholic) concepts of various aspects of life, including ideas on how to handle:
- slavery (American bishops were silent while the Vatican opposed it),
- just war (see above),
- voting issues (American bishops emphasized individual conscience instead of informing yourself on Catholic teaching),
- contraception and abortion (see above and the book).
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