Committee on Divine Worship
July12, 2016
Your Eminence / Your Excellency:
As you are no doubt aware, some comments made at a London talk on July 7 by His Eminence Cardinal Robert Sarah, the Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, quickly became the source of much speculation and debate concerning the proper orientation of the priest celebrant in relation to the assembly during the celebration of the Eucharist in the Ordinary Form.
In the whirlwind of media attention which has followed, there has been no small
amount of confusion as to whether his remarks, in which he encouraged bishops and priests to celebrate Mass ad orientem when feasible beginning on the
first Sunday of Advent of this year, constitute an actual change to the
rubrics of the liturgy.
In a statement released on Monday, July 11, Fr. Federico Lombardi, the outgoing
Director of the Holy See Press Office, has clarified on behalf of the Holy See that no liturgical directives concerning the orientation of the priest in respect to the assembly at Mass were to be
Although permitted, the decision whether or not to preside ad orientem should take into consideration the physical configuration of the altar and sanctuary space, and, most especially, the pastoral welfare of the faith community being served. Such an important decision should always be made with the supervision and guidance of the local bishop.
anticipated before Advent of this year.
As a result, no changes to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal
are expected at this time, nor is there a new mandate for the celebrant to
face away from the assembly.
As a final comment, n. 299 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal
does show a preference for the celebrant’s facing the people “whenever possible” in the placement and orientation of the altar. That configuration will most likely continue to be the norm at most parishes, as it has been for decades now.
However, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has clarified on earlier occasions that this does not prohibit the
However, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has clarified on earlier occasions that this does not prohibit the
celebration of the Eucharist in the Ordinary Form ad orientem. In fact, there are rubrics in the Order of Mass which reflect the real possibility that the celebrant might be facing away from the assembly (see for example n. 29 before the Prayer over the Offerings: “Standing in the middle of the altar, facing the people, extending then joining his hands, he says ...”).
Although permitted, the decision whether or not to preside ad orientem should take into consideration the physical configuration of the altar and sanctuary space, and, most especially, the pastoral welfare of the faith community being served. Such an important decision should always be made with the supervision and guidance of the local bishop.
Fraternally yours in Christ,
Most Rev. Arthur J. Serratelli
Chairman
165 comments:
I have to say this, and it may sound extreme, but a bishop who interferes with a priest following the time honored practice of Holy Church, ad orientem celebration, that bishop is bordering on committing a grave sin, particularly when that bishop turns a blind eye to priests who change the words of the Mass and who otherwise disregard the rubrics. I would agree that it would be reasonable for a bishop to insist that a priest catechize their congregation before implementing ad orientem celebration to avoid the terrible spiritual damage that was inflicted on most of us old enough to remember the dictatorial way in which the "reforms" (I prefer the word deforms) were implemented.
Hate to change the subject but it just might be worth pointing out that the GOP just adopted the most pro-life party platform in its history....and announced that they'll seek to overturn the Johnson amendment to the law that keeps churches from uttering any political opinion for fear of the IRS. Both are YUGE.
http://www.lifenews.com/2016/07/18/republicans-adopt-most-pro-life-platform-ever-condemning-abortion-and-planned-parenthood/
Meanwhile the DNC are going full bore pro-abortion, pro-sodomy, pro-sexual revolution and thus necessarily anti-family, anti-marriage, and anti-Christian.
But I'm sure 48% of Catholics will vote Democrat again because "reasons".
I do respect Fr. Kavanuagh, and do think he's one of the smartest priests I know and I know we have our differences here on politics and policies, but I would respectfully like to ask him to walk us through the logical steps he takes to conclude that Catholics can continue to support the National Democratic party given their platform (distinguishing local Democrats which in any event have little direct impact on major moral questions).
How does one put the DNC next to the GOP platforms, see 7+ intrinsic evils being praised and promoted by one party next to the other party that doesn't promote any intrinsic evils.... and conclude that we must support such a party for the sake of some lesser good like wealth redistribution, tinkering around the edges of the environment, or some other lesser important issue?
Unfortunately the USCCB takes the mistranslation of GIRM 299 a stage further; 'ubicumque' does not mean 'whenever', it means 'wherever', an important distinction. The CDWDS has made it clear that 'quod expedit ubicumque possibile sit' refers to the placement of the altar and not to 'celebratio versus populum'.
Furthermore, the last sentence has sinister implications, as it suggests that the local bishop can prohibit a practice which has the authority of nearly two millennia of more or less universal practice. He cannot. It might be remembered that the USCCB tried to make celebration of the Novus Ordo in Latin contingent on the decision of the local Ordinary; it was overruled by Rome in short order.
John Nolan,
Thanks for reminding us about the USCCB and the Novus Ordo in Latin. If I were Pope I would excommunicate any bishop who tried a stunt like that and place the USCCB under interdict. It is truly disgusting that St. John XXIII's motu proprio, Veterum Sapientia is not respected by the vast majority of the bishops.
JusBellum, if Pius XI were alive he would condemn the modern Democratic Party like he did the nazis and fascists and FORBID Catholics from voting for Democrats upon pain of excommunication until the Party abandoned its intrinsically evil platform. Sorry lefties, the minimum wage nor global warming rank that high in the spiritual realm
'As a result, no changes to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal are expected at this time, nor is there a new mandate for the celebrant to face away from the assembly.'
This means that priests, who bother to follow the GIRM rubrics, are still expected to turn and face the people at certain points of the of liturgy (whether the altar is free-standing, wherever this was possible, or attached to the wall). Which in turn means that the priest (following the GIRM rubrics) will - at other times - face the altar .. not the people. Nothing, therefore, has changed .. except that now the American bishops now seem to want to further supervise those priests who follow (or who might like to follow) the GIRM rubrics, and thus that these priests must now seek episcopal permission - to do what is already asked of them in the liturgy.
YEs, Justin, and the pro-life platform has zero chance of enactment. Zero. Nada. A constitutional amendment will never get through Congress and 38 states...it is a pipe dream, like the chances of a Republican defeating my ultra-liberal Democratic congressman up here in Atlanta, John Lewis. It is regretful we even are talking about abortion 43 years after ROE as we had a chance in 1992 to overturn it and send the issue back to the states where it belongs. But we got stabbed in the back by 3 Republican appointees to the Court---O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter.
Jus - I vote for candidates, I don't support parties.
Also, I think that National Party platforms, Republican and Democratic, aren't worth the lumber they are built of. They are "Show Documents" by and large, and intended to be so.
There is also the matter of what might be called "political epistemology." I cannot be made to know something in the way another comes to know it, is aware of it, or understands it rationally. Different people perceive differently, therefore, they come to knowledge differently. Coming differently to knowledge, two people may, in the matter of casting a vote, come to differing conclusions.
If you vote Democratic you are voting for a number of intrinsic evils like abortion and gay marriage. I wouldn't expect our priests to be fake Catholics but such is the age we live in
When I read "there has been no small amount of confusion as to whether his remarks...constitute an actual change to the rubrics", I'm left wondering, who are these mysterious people who thought the rubrics suddenly changed?
Jusadbellum, You don't know very many smart Priests, do you...
Kavanaugh @ 2:25....you just out did yourself with double talk. You and Anon 2 must have fallen off the same honey wagon.
Fr. Kavanaugh doesn't answer a question, Gene goes into full rant.
Fr. Kavanaugh does answer a question, Gene goes into full rant, with scatological references.
And they wonder...
TJM:
“If you vote Democratic you are voting for a number of intrinsic evils like abortion and gay marriage”
The USCCB document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” makes it very clear that Catholics may not “vote for” such intrinsic evils:
34. . . . . A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who favors a policy promoting an intrinsically evil act, such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, deliberately subjecting workers or the poor to subhuman living conditions, redefining marriage in ways that violate its essential meaning, or racist behavior, if the voter’s intent is to support that position. In such cases, a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil.
As the document says, this means that a Catholic voter cannot vote for such a candidate with the intention of supporting the objectionable position. It does_not_say that the Catholic voter cannot vote for that candidate, period. I find it helpful to think of the issue in terms of the doctrine of double effect (analogous, then, to performing a hysterectomy to remove a life-threatening cancerous womb even though a pregnancy will thereby incidentally be terminated), and I have already set out on another thread the passages in the USCCB document that seem to reflect this doctrine by circumscribing (as opposed to prohibiting outright) a Catholic’s freedom to vote for such a candidate for other “good” reasons.
Gene:
Please notice: double effect, not double talk.
Moreover, as the USCCB document also makes clear, it is necessary to “weigh” both sides of the equation, with respect to the evils and goods involved, the character of the candidates themselves, and various factors that may constrain or facilitate their ability to effect change. As Father Kavanaugh explains, much of this calls for the exercise of judgment and reasonable people may differ in their judgments.
A_2
In this country, the Democrat Party "officially" stands for abortion. They glory in their stance. A Catholic voter, and vote we must, has a very easy choice: he cannot vote for Democrat representative because, ultimately, such action leaves no hope at all for a change for the better even in the remotest future.
Republicans are tainted too. However, some can be shamed into acting for the good from time to time. Furthermore, the new non-Democrat party is in flux. With careful voting the new brand of representatives could do better for the moral and economic life of the nation.
Fr. K
Spoken like a true neuropsychologist. Do not be so pessimistic! God can bring us miracles. I do hope he does since that seems to be the only hope at least in the short run.
Fr. Kavanaugh,
It would be a bold move towards inclusivity if the Democratic Party, once the home of poor Catholics, would soften it stance on abortion. There's no reason for the platform to be so determined in is favor for this particular evil. I have a feeling the Republic Party will eventually adopt a neutral position on abortion.
Anon 1 - Divine Providence can accomplish amazing things, no doubt!
The USCCB, the old Democratic Party at prayer. Although less true today, many bishops are hardened lefties, whom I would never take the sacraments from because they are apostates. The USCCB's doctrine is weaker than St. John Paul II's document, Catholics in Public Life, no surprise. The soul of the Democratic Party is enunciated in its evil platform, Abortion on Demand!!! I guess since so many of their natural voters, i.e. African Americans have abortions, that's why they need illegal immigrants to pick up the slack. Sorry, no sale.
This is from the Magisterium, not the steaks and eggs bishops in the US:
"In this context, it must be noted also that a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals. The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the Church’s social doctrine does not exhaust one’s responsibility towards the common good. Nor can a Catholic think of delegating his Christian responsibility to others; rather, the Gospel of Jesus Christ gives him this task, so that the truth about man and the world might be proclaimed and put into action."
So to be clear, since we almost got an avowed Socialist as the Democratic nominee, if we get an avowed Fascist calling for rounding up Muslims and sending them to concentration camps and ovens, but he was also for hiking the minimum wage to $25, for a guaranteed minimum income of $25,000, universal health care (paid for by only taxing the 'evil rich' (as determined by the infallible IRS), and the elimination of nuclear weapons while simultaneously pushing for zero fossil fuel use to save the planet....a voter could vote for the Fascist racist not because he's a fascist racist but because his policy on climate change was preferable to the status quo?
So voting for Hitler wasn't a bad thing provided one didn't vote for him for the wrong reason?
If this is so, why isn't this line of reasoning invoked to defend those who vote for conservative candidates? It's always "don't vote for X he's said bad things about women!" But how could saying something crude about women even matter if no amount of intrinsic evil positions, policies, and past behaviors disqualify a politician from Catholic votes so long as these Catholics can point to some minor good thing as their sole reason for voting for the man?
In terms of voting for candidates rather than parties, Fr Kavanaugh is right in respect of representative democracy as it is understood in England and America.
On moral issues political parties do not have a 'party line' although the left/right divide can be discerned in their approaches.
In England David Cameron, a Conservative, pushed through same-sex 'marriage' with the support of the Labour opposition despite the fact that many in his own party opposed it. A senior Catholic MP, Sir Edward Leigh, actually quoted the CCC on the floor of the House of Commons. I have known Edward since we were history undergraduates at Durham University (1969-1972).
Although he (Cameron) regards what he calls 'equal marriage' as one of his major achievements, he alienated grass-roots Tories to the extent that they brought about his downfall by voting against him in the recent EU referendum.
"Although less true today, many bishops are hardened lefties, whom I would never take the sacraments from because they are apostates."
As if TJM were in a position to judge . . .
And as if TJM "refusal" maters . . .
If a Catholic cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump, then they should just stay home. I believe Trump's position is anti-abortion except in the case of rape. This is certainly better than the Dem abortion on demand platform. Besides, the Dem party is a socialist platform that is anti-religion, pro-homosexuality/gay marriage, and condemned in CCC along with Communism and other tyrannies. Any Catholic voting Democratic is a hypocrite and an apostate. But, that won't stop the likes of Anon 2 and Kavanaugh, who will BS themselves and others into thinking they are somehow Christian.
Here's the GOP's platform: https://prod-static-ngop-pbl.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/DRAFT_12_FINAL%5B1%5D-ben_1468872234.pdf
It contains zero intrinsic evils and spells out the many cases where the Democratic party or sizable portions of Democrat politicians do indeed favor and promote intrinsic evils or threaten basic human rights.
I've never understood how one could be Catholic and support a politician who makes being pro-abortion a central aspect of their lives (involving not just voting for promoting abortion overseas, sending money to Planned Parenthood, but also hiring staff members who are vociferously pro-abortion and promoting judges, and bureaucrats with the same litmus test mindset).
How does one vote for a politician who subscribes to the LGBTQ agenda on sexuality and marriage redefinition? Who promotes a hedonistic and immoral vision of morality via all public schools and uses the force of government to crush anyone who might beg to differ?
How does one vote for politicians who favor shutting people up via threats (and actual persecution via the federal bureaucracy) under the umbrella of "campaign finance reform"?
Surely some policy preferences are more important than others - so what 'balances' out support for abortion? What makes up for support for the whole LGBTQ agenda? How does one make up for the cost to human rights of an ever expanding federal bureaucracy that runs up a 18 Trillion federal debt (which will eventually collapse the country)?
It only took the second commenter to change the topic of Father McDonald's thread. Is that the record for Father's blog? Now, to return to the topic of Father's post, has anybody seen my cat, Mr. Meow? If you have, keep him.
Anon, anyone is free to ignore my posts. Since most commenters ran with it, the people have spoken! Subsidiarity works.
TJM (9:23):
Precisely, which is why the USCCB document quotes this passage from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in support of its approach in paragraph 30. See further paragraphs 21-30, especially paragraphs 27-30.
http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship/upload/forming-consciences-for-faithful-citizenship.pdf
JusadBellum:
To answer your hypothetical and questions you would follow the USCCB guidelines to make your decision. It is as simple (and as complicated) as that. See especially paragraphs 31-37.
On a point of terminology, I know of no-one who is “pro-abortion.” Try telling a woman who is contemplating an abortion or has had an abortion that she is pro-abortion and we will come and visit you in hospital. Better yet, talk to a priest who has counseled women in such situations.
The term “pro-abortion” is a cheap rhetorical trick intended to obfuscate the tragic choice involved and prevent clear thinking. Come to that, the term “pro-life” is also misleading if it is just focused on the actual decision regarding abortion (thankfully we Catholics are not so narrow in our focus, however).
Gene:
I am not BSing myself or anyone else into voting a particular way. I am merely drawing attention to the relevant standards and guidelines promulgated by the USCCB, standards and guidelines that apparently you (and several others here) choose to ignore. So, who is doing the BSing?
Please tell us where the CCC condemns any U.S. political party, and please do let the Bishops know as well.
The Democrat Party is extremely racist. They use slavery to entitlements to control minorities and force them to vote Democrat. "if you don't vote for us, the Republicans will take your money away and leave you on the streets."
People who vote Democrat in order to help minorities and the lower classes are only fooling themselves.
Jus:
P.S. I should add that I do not especially care for the term “pro-choice” either. Someone who is truly pro-choice would want a woman to receive all relevant information, so that the decision could be a properly informed one, and I suspect that this is sadly often not the case.
Anonymous 2
It is clear that a Faithful Catholic cannot vote for a party that promotes abortion on demand. Stop playing the Jesuit. The Catholic Church in the US weakened itself considerably by not taking on the pro-abortion Catholic politicians. A young, pregnant woman might elect an abortion because Catholic bishops sat by and did nothing about Pelosi, Kennedy, etc., so she might reasonably conclude having an abortion is not that serious of a matter. After all, there were no consequences to these folks.
How can you not be "pro-abortion" if you freely walk into a clinic of your own free will and ask the abortionist to get rid of your unborn child?
Euphemisms (and threats of force) are stupid. Unless the woman was drugged and carried into the clinic by the death-scorts, every woman who goes in for an abortion has chosen an abortion and thus is "pro-abortion".
Every politician, priest, and useless husband/boyfriend who encourages her to "choose" "to terminate the pregnancy" are choosing abortion. They're pro-abortion.
As for being sent to the hospital by post-abortive women.... ha! You feckless men who cower behind word games, sophistry like "oh no, I'm just pro-choice(of what? who knows) not pro-abortion" are ridiculous. The only CHOICE on the menu is abortion. Ergo, to be "pro-choice" is to be "pro-abortion".
Choosing to sanction the private killing of the completely innocent and defenseless and weakest human beings imaginable for any reason is to choose an intrinsic evil.
You can color it up, dress it up, and cower behind every manner of sophistry you please but at the end of the day, your "choice" is for a dead baby.
But I suppose being pro-abortion is the price to pay for the trains (or EBT) running on time?
There's a reason we don't see many debates anymore on the topic anonymous: we'd mop the floor with people like you in ANY venue.
The USCCB and CCC don't condemn parties. They condemn position.
So to connect the dots, line up the platforms of the DNC vs. the GOP and use a sharpie to highlight the various positions that all national candidates for federal offices sign off on for the respective parties....
Then go to each Presidential candidate's website and do the same thing.
The DNC and Hillary campaign are on record supporting 6+ intrinsic evils including such staples of the culture of death like:
- abortion
- IVF/embryo-killing research
- sodomy/"gay" marriage
- Euthanasia
Nothing in the GOP platform or Trump's website comes close to endorsements of intrinsic evil actions that never have any justification like these.
Plus we are encouraged by the Pope and USCCB to use our citizenship as Catholics to effect social change for the advancement of the Gospel....not to further undermine the Gospel!
Between the two parties and candidates, one side is decidedly anti-Catholic in favor of the sexual and socialist revolutions whereas the other is not.
The bishops aren't allowed by law to connect the dots. We laity are mandated to.
I just did. Your move: how can an informed Catholic in conscience justify his or her voting for the Democratic party and Hillary's candidacy?
I'll tell you what would work. If a lay group would start an online map of parishes going ad orientem this Advent, with some means of confirming updates, then a momentum would build in favor of orientation. Cardinal Sarah's invitation could well be the final opportunity to save the Catholic Church in the West, so someone needs to do something. If laymen just sit back and take no concrete steps such as I suggest, then nothing will come of the good cardinal's proposal.
The identity of priests is now largely centered around versus populum, so much so that even the thought of directing attention to our Eternal Father during the canon can deeply disturb them. Many priests will not even know who they are anymore if they orient themselves. Therefore, there needs to be some sort of spiritual counseling provided for priests disturbed by the reorientation movement, even for those priests who do not intend to make the change, but who live near priests who plan to do so.
Anon 2, I did not say the CCC condemned the DEm party; I said that CCC condemns socialism and communism, which the Dem party represents.
The question that those who favor the procedure do not want to truthfully answer is "What is abortion?" When I look at a 3D sonogram of an unborn in a woman's womb, I see a human being. An innocent human is present to my sight. If those who favor abortion still favor the procedure after viewing such an image, then they deny the reality in front of them. Of course many such people do not seek to view such images. "Out of sight out of mind", as the saying goes. Others have such hardened hearts that it doesn't matter, they are all too predisposed to denying what is before them if it suits their purpose. So what is a great offense to God is a "right" to them which cannot be abridged or restricted in any way. It is also to be acknowledged that there were those who did not recognize the gravity of the situation when they procured an abortion, or who relented under pressure from spouse or family.
There are grave consequences to violating God's law in such a serious way and these are consequences, both individually and collectively, that we in the world are facing now, and will continue to do so long into the future. So we can talk about reducing or ending abortion, but we must persevere in work and prayer that those who favor it turn their hearts back to God, and recognize and acknowledge that it is a child that a woman carries, and that we will then begin to see the end of such a procedure. Men and women who have been involved with the taking of unborn life can pray for a contrite heart and the knowledge that God will forgive their sin in confession.
Boring! This blog is slipping big time. To safe. Don't ruffle any feathers.
My attention when celebrating versus populum is to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit with the People of God gathered for the celebration of the Eucharist.
My identity comes not only from the celebration of the Eucharist, but also from the priestly service I offer in many and varied ways, primarily the Sacraments.
I think I do know who I am. That identity doesn't arise from nor is it centered on the direction I face when offering the Sacrifice of the mass.
Kavanaugh, your humility is...well...astounding...
There are those who will justify abortion and all matter of evils if it will suit their purpose. What we are discussing here has to do with the natural order and working of things as they developed according to God's plan and His unfathomable design and which in addition includes the effect of the Sin of Adam on the world we inhabit.. God, who knows all because it is He who created all, and Who, if He were to withdraw from existence, by His departure would cause all to cease to exist, is not pleased with our rationalizing and disposition toward the taking of unborn life. Let us consider and ponder that in the natural order of all that is sustained in existence by God, that through His marvelous design and His providential workings, we were conceived,born, and baptized, and now live as His adopted sons and daughters, who unfortunately are not always obedient to His commands. Great distress and calamity has befallen the world, and if not for the Masses, the prayers and sacrifices of the faithful, things would be much, much worse. If greater chastisements and calamities were to come about, because God allowed them we know they would not be undeserved.
JusadBellum:
“Your move: how can an informed Catholic in conscience justify his or her voting for the Democratic party and Hillary's candidacy”
You must ask the Catholic in question. If they do indeed seek to justify such a vote on the basis of the USCCB guidelines, their answer, no doubt, would likely suggest that they have connected more dots than you have, and in particular that they have looked beyond websites and platforms intended to woo votes.
Gene:
I am sorry I misunderstood. Your sentence was ambiguous. However, your clarification does not improve your assertion. To suggest that the Democratic Party represents communism or socialism is ridiculous and illustrative of the use of labels as substitutes for thinking. What do you know of living under socialism? I grew up under socialism in Britain (so did John Nolan). We certainly do not want it here but the Dems (and people like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren) are not even close.
George:
I agree with everything in your two posts. As you suggest, it is imperative that we find effective ways to transform hearts and minds so that not one child is aborted.
JusadBellum (at 3:42 p.m.):
I stand to be corrected but I seriously doubt you will find many women who are considering, or have had, an abortion who also consider that killing the developing life within their womb is a positive good, as opposed to a regrettable and necessary evil. By analogy, how many people are really “pro-war”?
We are fast becoming a welfare state. The current Dem candidate wants to erase the Second Amendment. Anti-capitalist rhetoric is everywhere in their rants. Remember the frog in the pot analogy?
Anon-2
No serious Christian of any denomination or sect would ever consider voting for the Democrat party. That party is inherently atheistic in its ideology and fervently in favor of radical individualism, relativism, gender fascism, and a whole other list of anti-democratic, anti-life programs.
Its adherents at places of higher education turned those places into liberal reductional camps. The mainstream media, government offices -especially in Washington- are full of zealous liberal apparatchiks ready take one to court or worse if one does not enthusiastically endorse the latest bloody-minded liberal nonsense.
Evidently, your exposure to that ideology in England severly damaged your sense of judgement if you think the current Democrat political elite is worthy of support. Ali Baba and his 40 thieves posses more moral right to public regard than the present Democrat leadership. And I do not like many Republican ideologues either.
"No serious Christian of any denomination or sect would ever consider voting for the Democrat party. That party is inherently atheistic in its ideology and fervently in favor of radical individualism, relativism, gender fascism, and a whole other list of anti-democratic, anti-life programs. Its adherents at places of higher education turned those places into liberal reductional camps. The mainstream media, government offices -especially in Washington- are full of zealous liberal apparatchiks ready take one to court or worse if one does not enthusiastically endorse the latest bloody-minded liberal nonsense."
Savonarola and two of his supporting friars were imprisoned. Under torture, Savonarola confessed that he had invented his visions and prophecies. On May 23, 1498, Church and civil authorities condemned, hanged, and burned the three friars in the main square of Florence.
There is no such thing as a necessary evil. If it's "necessary" then it's not evil.
Take the classic and utterly vital distinction between killing and murder.
All human beings are endowed by their creator with the right to life and there is only one condition in which a person forfeits this right (and the obligation of others to respect him) and that is in the event they become an unjust aggressor threatening the life of an innocent.
It's not their being unjust or their aggression but the combination of being both unjust and aggressive. The moment they cease to pose an immediate threat to others, one may not harm them.
But the unborn child is by definition neither unjust nor an aggressor. She was called into the world by the choice of her mother and father to have procreation, her soul was created out of Love by the Lord, the Giver of Life (Holyu Spirit) and an incredible destiny was rolled out in time and eternity for this life....
Her life might be inconvenient. Her birth may be painful to her mother. She may require the sacrifice of time, liberty and money, but her life is the reason the planet itself has any value.
Whatever an unborn child is, she's not an unjust aggressor. To kill this innocent and defenseless human being is to murder.
Now, should she grow up, become unjust and eventually snatch up a knife and run towards you or your loved one.... then and only then might you intervene with force to stop/disarm her. If one fires a gun it's not to commit evil but to stop an imminent evil. The moment she stops one must render first aid because we are not to hate our enemies or the criminally aggressive - our goal is not their death but their ceasing to be hostile.
Until 1973 most people understood this distinction. We used it repeatedly in warfare where surrendering troops had to be spared, had to be accepted. Gunning down surrendering enemy soldiers is considered murder - even though one might have been trading gunfire with them just moments before.
But to accept abortion as a "regrettable evil" one turns moral theology on its head!
It opens a Pandora's box of evils because morality is universal, it involves principles of universal application. If I may choose to privately execute the absolutely innocent and defenseless among us, then who might I not privately execute? If my right is to eliminate the defenseless in peacetime, what might I do in wartime?
If the unborn child, the innocent and defenseless, the harmless and non-aggressive has no right to life then NO ONE DOES and we live in a world where rights only come from MIGHT or worse, the ever shifting sands of who is popular with those who are mighty.
Well put, Jusadbellum!
We have before us two candidates. One is not just "pro-choice" she is adamantly pro-abortion because that's what Margaret Sanger was about: abortion. It's what Planned Parenthood does in its clinics: abortion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4o4WizW2mQ
Of course Sanger was also a white supremacist and an anti-Catholic, anti-Semite, anti-black/Hispanic racist who believed in sterilization, contraception, and abortion as ways to 'perfect' the species via eugenics. It was her vision that sought to get black ministers involved in the sterilization and abortion business so as to limit the growth of the minority population....which is why African Americans are still only 13% of the US population...
This is the candidate half the country and half of Catholics are going to vote for?
Alexander P.P VI.
"Under torture"...well, smart guy, under mere water boarding you would retract your smart a...ss comment too. Just saying'.
JusadBellum:
I don’t disagree with any of that, but in talking to me you are preaching to the choir. I share your Catholic premises. The problem is that so many people do not (or, as you suggest, no longer do), and it is_their_self-perception and use of terminology I was addressing. Thus, given their own premise, which does not regard the developing life within the womb in the same way you and I do, they can consistently say they are not “pro-abortion” and can regard abortion as a “regrettable and necessary and evil.”
In short, you don’t need to convince me, you need to convince them. Now, how do we do that most effectively?
P.S. I was responding to your 9:39 a.m. post. I have not yet had time to watch the video (and will be unable to do so until this evening)but are you suggesting that those in the so-called pro-choice camp today share Sanger’s worldview and program?
JusadBellum:
My 3:00 appointment had to be cancelled/postponed, and I have now had time to look at the video in which Hillary Clinton praises Margaret Sanger (as apparently many people do). I also did a bit of research about her. Did she hold some unsavory views? Absolutely. She was, unfortunately, a creature of her times. The real question is: Would she hold those same objectionable views if she were alive today?
For those who want to get a bit more background on Margaret Sanger rather than just rely on your rather selective presentation of certain facts, here is a link to the Wikipedia article on her:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger
Please understand, I am not holding a brief for Margaret Sanger or her objectionable views on eugenics, etc., just (as usual) trying to promote a clearer understanding and better information about a topic. It is my natural instinct as an educator as opposed to a polemicist.
"A creature of her times?" So, that justifies anything, I guess.
What does it mean to be "a creature of her times"? Does being properly situated in history excuse promotion of genocide for racial purity purposes?
These are serious questions.
Jusadbellum:
" If I may choose to privately execute the absolutely innocent and defenseless among us, then who might I not privately execute?
If the unborn child, the innocent and defenseless, the harmless and non-aggressive has no right to life then NO ONE DOES."
What you say above seems logical enough, but one does not necessarily follow the other.
I brought this up on a thread before, but most of the states that have eliminated the use of the death penalty since 1973, are also among those with the highest abortion rates. Eleven states have ended the use of the death penalty since Roe vs Wade (two of these have have since reinstated it- Nebraska ended it in 2015, eight others prior to Roe). Isn't it interesting that just about all these nine states are the among the ones with the highest abortion rates in the country (NY, MA, Ill, MD etc.). So the governors and legislatures of these states have chosen not to execute those who were given the death penalty while continuing to permit and tolerate legalzed abortion, with little or no restrictions.
Jusadbellum:
"It was her vision that sought to get black ministers involved in the sterilization and abortion business so as to limit the growth of the minority population....which is why African Americans are still only 13% of the US population..."
Looking at US Census population statistics from 1970 to current estimates, whites (which includes white Hispanics) went from 87.7 % of the population to around 77% today. So the share of the white population (even when including Hispanics) declined during that period. African Americans went from 11.1% to 13.2%. Their share increased throughout the period of legalized abortion. I agree that what you say does represent Margaret Sangers eugenic philosophy, but the statistics paint a much more damning portrait of the white community which would even look more dire without the increase of immigration into the country.
Gene:
Two points:
(1) There is an important distinction between justification and explanation.
(2) Most people are, to some extent at least, a creature of their times. Jefferson was a creature of his times. Hitler was a creature of his times. Margaret Sanger was a creature of her times. I am a creature of our times. And so are you. Thus, your own outrageous views about nuking every city in the Middle East, for example, are to some extent explicable because you are a creature of these times.
So, the real evaluative question is: Is Margaret Sanger (or Gene?) more like Hitler or more like the slave owner Thomas Jefferson?
Marc:
As I understand it, Sanger promoted “negative eugenics,” not genocide, for racial purity (and other) purposes. The Wikipedia article explains as follows:
Eugenics
After World War I, Sanger increasingly appealed to the societal need to limit births by those least able to afford children. The affluent and educated already limited their child-bearing, while the poor and ignorant lacked access to contraception and information about birth-control. Here she found an area of overlap with eugenicists. She believed that they both sought to "assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit." They differed in that "eugenists imply or insist that a woman's first duty is to the state; we contend that her duty to herself is her duty to the state." Sanger was a proponent of negative eugenics, which aims to improve human hereditary traits through social intervention by reducing the reproduction of those who were considered unfit.
In "The Morality of Birth Control," a 1921 speech, she divided society into three groups: the "educated and informed" class that regulated the size of their families, the "intelligent and responsible" who desired to control their families in spite of lacking the means or the knowledge, and the "irresponsible and reckless people" whose religious scruples "prevent their exercising control over their numbers." Sanger concludes, "There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped."
Sanger's eugenic policies included an exclusionary immigration policy, free access to birth control methods, and full family planning autonomy for the able-minded, as well as compulsory segregation or sterilization for the "profoundly retarded". In her book The Pivot of Civilization, she advocated coercion to prevent the "undeniably feeble-minded" from procreating.
Although Sanger supported negative eugenics, she asserted that eugenics alone was not sufficient, and that birth control was essential to achieve her goals.
In contrast with eugenicist William Robinson, who advocated euthanasia for the unfit, Sanger wrote, "we [do not] believe that the community could or should send to the lethal chamber the defective progeny resulting from irresponsible and unintelligent breeding." Similarly, Sanger denounced the aggressive and lethal Nazi eugenics program. In addition, Sanger believed the responsibility for birth control should remain in the hands of able-minded individual parents rather than the state, and that self-determining motherhood was the only unshakable foundation for racial betterment.
Sanger also supported restrictive immigration policies. In "A Plan for Peace", a 1932 essay, she proposed a congressional department to address population problems. She also recommended that immigration exclude those "whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race," and that sterilization and segregation be applied to those with incurable, hereditary disabilities.
_____________________
[continued]
As for the claim that Sanger advocated genocide of Black people in the United States, based on a sentence that may or may not have been taken out of context, the Wikipedia article states:
From 1939 to 1942 Sanger was an honorary delegate of the Birth Control Federation of America, which included a supervisory role—alongside Mary Lasker and Clarence Gamble—in the Negro Project, an effort to deliver birth control to poor black people. Sanger wanted the Negro Project to include black ministers in leadership roles, but other supervisors did not. To emphasize the benefits of involving black community leaders, she wrote to Gamble, “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea, if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” While New York University's Margaret Sanger Papers Project, argues that in writing that letter, “Sanger recognized that elements within the black community might mistakenly associate the Negro Project with racist sterilization campaigns in the Jim Crow South;” Angela Davis uses the quote to support claims that Sanger intended to exterminate the black population.
I think that Anon 2 means that eugenics and social Darwinism was fashionable once but is now out of favour. Anthropogenic climate change and 'gender theory' are fashionable today; phrenology was in vogue in the mid-nineteenth century.
Don't believe everything the scientific establishment tells you.
Here Anonymous 2 goes again "As for the claim that Sanger advocated genocide of Black people in the United States, based on a sentence that may or may not have been taken out of context".
Anonymous 2, how about defending Catholic teaching for a change rather than letting your political bias in favor of Hill Clinton lead you to defend the indefensible? Here are a few cherry-picked quotes (no doubt taken out of context) to give you the flavor of the woman you are supporting:
On blacks, immigrants and indigents:
"...human weeds,' 'reckless breeders,' 'spawning... human beings who never should have been born." Margaret Sanger, Pivot of Civilization, referring to immigrants and poor people
On sterilization & racial purification:
Sanger believed that, for the purpose of racial "purification," couples should be rewarded who chose sterilization. Birth Control in America, The Career of Margaret Sanger, by David Kennedy, p. 117, quoting a 1923 Sanger speech.
On the right of married couples to bear children:
Couples should be required to submit applications to have a child, she wrote in her "Plan for Peace." Birth Control Review, April 1932
On the purpose of birth control:
The purpose in promoting birth control was "to create a race of thoroughbreds," she wrote in the Birth Control Review, Nov. 1921 (p. 2)
On the rights of the handicapped and mentally ill, and racial minorities:
"More children from the fit, less from the unfit -- that is the chief aim of birth control." Birth Control Review, May 1919, p. 12
On the extermination of blacks:
"We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," she said, "if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America, by Linda Gordon
On respecting the rights of the mentally ill:
In her "Plan for Peace," Sanger outlined her strategy for eradication of those she deemed "feebleminded." Among the steps included in her evil scheme were immigration restrictions; compulsory sterilization; segregation to a lifetime of farm work; etc. Birth Control Review, April 1932, p. 107
On abortion:
"Criminal' abortions arise from a perverted sex relationship under the stress of economic necessity, and their greatest frequency is among married women." The Woman Rebel - No Gods, No Masters, May 1914, Vol. 1, No. 3.
On the Catholic Church's view of contraception:
"...enforce SUBJUGATION by TURNING WOMAN INTO A MERE INCUBATOR." The Woman Rebel - No Gods, No Masters, May 1914, Vol. 1, No. 3.
"The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race (Eugenics Publ. Co., 1920, 1923)
Jan:
Here you go again. How about being committed to discovering actual facts and the search for truth in all its forms for a change, as a Catholic should, instead of allowing your obvious biases influence you to spread unverified wild assertions and misleading or even deceptive source materials ripped out of the context that confers their proper meaning on them?
And Hitler was just misunderstood. He was just a creature of his times, after all.
Anonymous 2, seriously?
You're excusing Sanger's ideology as a produce of her times? She was a leader of those 'times' ("times" is just shorthand for "what the elites think").
The Nazis took a lot of their ideas from these American elites, so it's not that Sanger was a dim reflection of Hitler but that Hitler and the Nazis were ideological allies of Sanger and her friends.
What this means is that Hillary as a person started her young life with devotion to Saul Alinsky and soon became a devotee of the entire sexual revolutionaries' creed of abortion on demand. She's an ideologue. She's thought long and hard about these issues and has decided that abortion is the hill to die on in defense of. Every other constituency is negotiable but abortion. Ditto for Obama.
And it makes sense, because once we posit that a) "golly, we have no clue when human life begins" and b) human rights don't come from the fact that an individual is a human being, they only come when the government decides to allow an individual to be described as a human person -which currently we deem to be at the moment of birth.... it follows that the political constitution of government and society de facto rests on MIGHT=RIGHT rather than inalienable human rights.
The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Catholic Church all accept that human beings have rights precisely because they're human beings. That rights begin or 'inhere' in people "qua" people. That our humanity, our individuality begins with conception. We acknowledge this by saying "born at 9 months" rather than "born at zero".
This conception of inalienable human rights is a historic anomaly and it's almost non-existent outside of Christendom. That MIGHT=RIGHT is the default position of human history and human religions, which is why anti-Christian and anti-American forces have worked so hard to broom it from our consciousness via a host of Overton window moves.
We've had a POTUS with "kill lists" ordering the drone strike killings (via anti-tank rockets) of US citizens without a trial and even far from actual battlefields for about 5+ years now.... He's also on record being in favor of infanticide and giving non-citizens more de facto rights than citizens. It's irrational until you consider that if the parameters of right is what is expedient and possible for those in power.... then there's no contradiction. Whatever the King wants is good and right because the King wants it.
This change in the ground rules explains the largest civilian arms race in world history. 30 million people have bought guns since 2008 for this reason: they've concluded that the Law is now arbitrary and that if might=right, then ultimately rights are only as secure as the people with deadly weapons defending them will allow.
And most people are completely oblivious to this. War is coming folks - because we have largely ceded the point on this bedrock presupposition. If Might=right, then the only arbiter of right and wrong is who's in power.
Jusadbellum, you nailed it!
I think Anon 2 is undergoing some kind of regressive process in which, each time he posts, he loses IQ points. Or, perhaps, he is following Hillary so closely that his nasal passages are blocked and he is suffering an oxygen deficit.
I have a certain sympathy with Anonymous 2 in that he is not prepared to take statements at face value but submits them to analysis. Had we been prepared to do this in the 1960s we might be a lot better off. Unfortunately the ultramontanist spirit of the age carried all before it. There was a rupture - I might have been only a teenager at the time but I sensed it - but we were told that it was what the pope wanted and we had no choice but to obey.
The fruits of Vatican II have been poisonous. Anyone who looks at the history of the last half century can hardly gainsay that. But V2 has rarely been analysed in historical terms. People still pore over the documents, giving them more authority than they ever claimed to have, and don't make a connection with the present chaos.
They even try to suggest that V2 cannot possibly be a cause having an effect. Some have even argued that the fallacy 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' negates the principle of cause and consequence, which is absurd.
John Nolan,
Like you, I was fairly young when the "deforms" came about. Unlike perhaps many parishes, my parish was into the liturgical movement. The normative Mass on Sunday was a Missa Cantata and there was excellent participation. I could chant 5 Latin Ordinaries by heart by age 10. Then the deforms came with little or no explanation. When I read Sacrosanctum Concilium, it appears my parish was already doing what the reforms talked about in terms of active participation. In a few years following the deforms, our parish was just like any other with the 4
hymn sandwich replacing the singing or saying of the Propers (a big irony, given the Council's focus on the scriptures) and we settled into 50 years of banality.
Jusadbellum"
"The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Catholic Church all accept that human beings have rights precisely because they're human beings."
No...even atheistic evolutionists recognize the human-ness of our being. We have certain fundamental rights precisely because those rights come from a power greater than any secular state or earthly power, which is to say God, and so they are not dependent on, or conferred on us by other human beings .
JusadBellum (at 12:37 p.m.):
As far as I know, I have not excused or justified anything. What I_have_tried to do is to provide some more balanced background information on Sanger, challenge more extreme assertions that may well be inaccurate (such as Marc’s implied assertion that Sanger promoted genocide for racial purity purposes), and generally to ask some probing questions.
In serious discussion one gains little, but only loses credibility and gives hostages to one’s opponents, by repeating falsehoods or other distortions and by relying upon sources that are questionable for various reasons, including because they are presented devoid of the context necessary to give them their proper meaning. Moreover, I detest, and will resist, attempts to manipulate me, and so should everyone.
I carry no brief for Margaret Sanger, or for Hillary Clinton for that matter—or, I should add, for Donald Trump. And to recur to our earlier discussion of socialism and Savonarola’s suggestion (July 21, at 6:57 a.m.) that “your exposure to that ideology in England severely damaged your sense of judgement,” politically I always voted for the Conservative Party in British elections, either directly or by proxy. My instincts are non-ideological, however, so that over here in U.S. elections, and given that the entire political spectrum is shifted so much further to the Right than in Britain, like Father Kavanaugh I vote for candidates, not parties, and I value the virtue of practical wisdom in a candidate (and generally in worldly affairs) above all else because without this virtue little else is of much consequence, at best, and serious harm can be done, at worst.
And thank you, John Nolan, for expressing some understanding of what I am trying to do here. We inhabit language as language inhabits us. It both reflects and constitutes how we think and it thereby constructs us and our world. So let’s try to pay particular attention to how we use (or misuse/abuse) it. For further commentary, read or re-read Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four.
Anonymous 2, Snopes Com - the husband and wife duo with no credentials - who aim to discredit statements - usually against liberals - have obviously purchased the New York Times' article and they quote Sanger:
"Birth Control is not contraception indiscriminately and thoughtlessly practiced. It means the release and cultivation of the better racial elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extirpation of defective stocks — those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization." http://www.snopes.com/margaret-sanger-weeds/
It shows, at least, Sanger would have made a great Nazi! Snopes proves that!
Pathos also has that quote but a couple of others as well and I agree with their comment
"“The unbalance between the birth rate of the ‘unfit’ and the ‘fit,’ admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation… On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.” (October 1921: http://goo.gl/XRUC0)
“Knowledge of birth control is essentially moral. Its general, though prudent, practice must lead to a higher individuality and ultimately to a cleaner race.” (From the NYU archive of her papers, in 1918: http://goo.gl/KaFVv)
These quotations speak volumes about Sanger’s views on eugenics. It is clear that she believed that she had found a solution to the “problem” of the “over-fertility” of the “mentally and physically defective,” of whom African-Americans were a part. This is material that should shock us, burn in our hearts, and cause us to peaceably and prayerfully oppose the work of Planned Parenthood and other abortion practitioners"
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thoughtlife/2011/11/margaret-sanger-wanted-to-eliminate-human-weeds/
So this is the woman that Hillary Clinton eulogizes - who was at a minimum a good Nazi in the making. Not to mention photos of her addressing KKK meetings and her letter about the Negro project is open to the interpretation that she was indeed involved in a project that was aimed at reducing the Negro population.
Jan (and Others):
I have already acknowledged that Margaret Sanger had some unsavory views (about eugenics), as did many people in our history, including the Founding Fathers (about slavery). But what exactly is the point of all this? Is it to suggest that Planned Parenthood subscribes to such views today? Or that Hillary Clinton does? If not (and surely it isn’t), then what_is_it other than to intimate—darkly and fallaciously—a sort of vague guilt by association in some sort of rhetorical sleight of hand? At worst, Hillary Clinton should have done her homework and perhaps should have acknowledged the less appetizing side of Sanger before praising her.
In UK elections the candidate's party was not on the ballot paper for a hundred years following the introduction of the secret ballot in 1872. Then in the 1970s someone changed his name by deed poll to ERG Heath and stood against the then Conservative leader in his Bexley constituency. This, coupled with the proliferation of non-serious candidates who were prepared to lose the £150 deposit which had not been increased in line with inflation, led to parties being included on the ballot paper.
The first election where one voted for a party rather than a candidate was in the election for the European parliament in 2004. No-one bothered to canvass my vote, so I stayed at home. Thankfully such elections will soon be a thing of the past, and should they ever introduce PR in domestic elections, I shall not vote on principle. If the House of Lords were to be elected, at least in part, using PR that would be a different matter.
So I'm with Anon 2 and Fr K on this. I would not go so far as did Evelyn Waugh who refused to vote in General Elections on the grounds that 'it is not for the subject to advise the Sovereign on her choice of ministers.'
For more context read the litany of horrors in the following Wikipedia article on Eugenics in the United States. Sanger was hardly alone and indeed many others advocated far worse programs than she appears to have done, including euthanasia of the unfit, which Sanger steadfastly rejected. Based on the listings here, it seems there are many people and Foundations we should no longer praise if they are to be damned for their unsavory views and policies on eugenics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
Perhaps one might more generally take away from this sad history that Americans should be very careful before self-righteously so easily condemning others in the world (Muslims for example). This “Christian” nation does not fare so well in the judgment of (relatively recent) history.
Anonymous 2, if Hillary is not to be accountable for her support of Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger then I am sure you can hardly criticise Donald Trump for wanting to keep out drug runners and for suggesting a ban on immigration until their bonafides can be confirmed.
Jan
Anonymous 2, from your defense of Sanger, I have to take it that you are fine with Planned Parenthood, on the basis that there may be others that in your view are committing much worse murderous acts - Muslims for example - so in you're okay with (a)moral views on abortion etc? Jan
To those who have ever subscribed to Margaret Sanger's or similar philosophy, or something similar I would say "be careful what you wish for."
Looking at U.S.population statistics over the last forty years ( above @July 21, 2016 at 9:04 PM), it seems that according to the numbers. the majority population group is the one that has enthusiastically embraced abortion and contraception. It is the same in many European countries which have had negative population growth rates (below replacement levels) for some time now.
Ms Sanger and others of her persuasion sought to bring about limits the population of among others, racial minorities for (in her words) the purpose of racial "purification,". Just the opposite in fact has happened, which, if she was unrepentant in what she called for, sees the fruits of her efforts only adding to her torments.
Jan:
As I have already explained in my response to JusadBellum, I am not “defending” Sanger, just trying to get the facts straight and to understand the context in which she formulated her objectionable views.
By the same token, by all means criticize Hillary for her support of Planned Parenthood (or at least that part of its work that runs counter to Catholic teaching), just don’t try to parlay her praise for certain aspects of Margaret Sanger’s life and work into support for all of her views unless you have independent evidence that Hillary does support and promote these views.
Anon 2, If I hauled off and said "screw you" to your face, you'd have to filter it through a "context" before you could process it.
Gene:
Yes—and no:
See https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555
“In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation―each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions.
Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives―and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic.”
Anon2 that book does not sound very ground breaking. Has modern man led a life so devoid of introspection that he is unaware of how to train himself?
Anonymous 2, I am sure that there were some Nazis who did not share every one of Hitler's views but the fact that even if they upheld only one or two of his views is enough to find them totally unacceptable, and so it is with Hillary Clinton. We don't need to drill down into what she accepts or does not accept of Sanger, the fact that Hillary praises her is enough ...
Sorry Jan, I have to disagree, and I am old enough to have met former Nazis (i.e. those who for one reason or another joined the NSDAP in the 1930s).
The Nazis believed in full employment. They were opposed to contraception and abortion and actually paid women to stay at home and rear children. This policy was popular with most women. They believed that individuals have a duty to society which overrides narrow self-interest.
I think that these are values which most of us would share. This does not mean we sign up to all the National Socialist ideology - far from it.
Rcg:
Your question probably call for an affirmative answer, as demonstrated (again) by Jan’s response that follows yours (one can always trot out good old Adolph when bankrupt of anything else by the way). In my view Jan is a prime example, as are some others here, of the perils of thinking fast when one should be thinking slow. To be fair, sometimes I may be an example of the perils of thinking slow when one should be thinking fast. But the first step in correcting an imbalance is to become aware of the problem in the first place, wouldn’t you agree?
Contemporary Modern Man (for all the many wondrous technological and social achievements of Modernity) has forgotten much ancient wisdom and thus nowadays is often condemned to reinventing the wheel. This comes, I believe from an almost willful ignorance of history rooted in arrogance—a lack of humility—that then forgets that we are pygmies standing on the shoulders of giants. Such hubris can take many forms, and most of them lead to disastrous consequences. Moreover, social media are making us even more arrogant and even more stupid because the sheep can now more easily encourage one another in their bleating as they head for the cliff edge. The combination of arrogance and ignorance is lethal. But now we are once again approaching the topic of the invasion of Iraq and I am sure you do not want to go there today. Let us just say that a bigger dose of slow thinking would not have hurt.
Consequently, much of my professional work (along with others) is dedicated to rehabilitating the virtue of practical wisdom, which may take the form of either fast thinking or slow thinking, depending on the situation and on the degree of experience (and intelligence and other natural aptitudes) being brought to bear.
P.S. Correction—I should have said “The combination of arrogance and ignorance can be lethal.”
Jan:
When you have to make “the Hitler move” in an argument, you know your argument is in trouble.
You all enjoyed it.............. admit that you did.
Try to support each other without this continuous calling names.
Every now and then get off the subject of liturgy and talk of Jesus.
Did you see how many posts were just about Adam and Eve?
Talk about things that matter in life and quit insulting each other.
Stop using this blog for racists remarks and insulting jokes.
And just remember you never know who you are talking to on a blog.
Fr. McDonald we wish you the Best in Your new Church Assignment.
God Bless you All (Even Gene and John Nolan)
The Catholic Ladies Study Group
We are ALL devout Catholics.
Pax
Come on ladies, make your minds up! A couple of days ago you were all for leaving the Church.
Anonymous @ 5:44, I did enjoy watching you try to write complete sentences with proper grammar and punctuation. It was actually pretty hilarious. LOL!
It was an Experiment.
You sound like you wish we had really left the church.
Gene: We are not English teachers. We are 75 year old Catholic Grandmothers.
We have earned the right to ignore complete sentences and punctuation.
Anonymous, devout Catholics? No clueless, fake catholics. Quit boring us with your simpleton, left-wing drivel. Now thank George Soros for paying you to post here
John Nolan, do your comments mean that you accept some Nazis and don't share the general overall condemnation of them?
Anonymous 2, just pointing out to you what I deduce from your argument.
Anonymous@ 6:59 and 7:05, So, you lied. You never "earn the right" to bad grammar and punctuation. Either you all are barely literate products of sub-standard education, or you are simply rude and lazy...or both.
Why should we stop using a blog for racist remarks? How else can we examine them and show that they are wrong? Same for positions on liturgy, homosexuality, abortion, marriage, etc. You will notice that when something offensive to many is written that the emotional grnade goes of, several people swoon and.......no one dies. We revive to examine these radioactive thoughts and learn to deal with them applying the teachings and precepts of the Church.
If you are a real Catholic ladies group then your faith and confidence will grow. If you are only an i ternet hoax then I repeat the offer. If you can be honest with yourselves while you mock and bait You will be converted.
Anonymous 7.06 pm, and 5.44 pm, hopefully you have learned some truths about the Catholic Faith and will incorporate that into your study, and, if you are devout Catholics as you claim to be, you will certainly want to know what the Church teaches and what you are obligated as Catholics to believe, most of which has been espoused on this blog and already denied by yourselves. At 75 years of age, you are older than most on this blog and have no real excuse not to know Catholic teaching better than you claim to know.
So, I am more of the opinion that you are protestants who come knocking at the door asking questions and then, when the person answers sincerely, are told the error of their Catholic beliefs. Usually the door knocker says they were a former Catholic. One such group used to approach my aunt who tolerated them out of kindness when they gave her the Watchtower etc, which she took politely and binned after they left. They came regularly each month until one day one of them said to my Aunt, "I stopped going to the Catholic Church because you have to buy Masses". Well, my truly devout Catholic aunt who is normally a very quiet person ordered them off her property telling them never to return and said to them, "I'll have you know there is not enough money in this world that could ever purchase one Mass". So devout Catholics know their stuff.
You "ladies" have acted in exactly the same false manner as those time wasters at people's doors who think they are ever going to convert devout Catholics. Go back to your studies "ladies" and find out the truth about the Catholic Faith. There are plenty of good books you can bone up on.
Anonymous, you may be 75, but you are not Catholic in the true sense of the word. My very Catholic grandmother would reject your custom-made catholicism. You are more accurately a Democrat, with a thin,very thin, "catholic" veneer. It is very apparent to the sentient that for you religion is merely a prop,like Bill Clinton, fornicator par excellence, who held a Bible as a prop to trick simpletons that he was a devout Christian. The evil, corrupt media lapped it up!
TJM So you would like to have a president that has been married three times. You would like to have a first lady who was a former Playboy Bunny. You would vote for an Evangelical VP rather than a Catholic. Smart Boy....
Jan If it had not been for us you were not even smart enough to know that you were responding to vulgar jokes.
Have you been "gathering nuts in May?
Gene.... You are one to call someone ignorant. You are the most ignorant of all.
Don't spend you life as a protestant and then act like you in the last 8 years are the savior of the Catholic Faith.
You know nothing. Nothing at all. Anyone can spout the words. If you don't live the life it does little to talk about it.
You ruin Father McDonald's blog. You talked so badly about him in RCIA classes. You are so rude to Fr. K. You for
sure are not someone who needs to tell others how to be Christian. You are no Catholic at all. You are what you
preached for 20 years. We are tired of hearing all that you learned in school. It was all Protestant.
Jan:
I understand that. The problem is that you deduced Hitler and Nazis.
And this is without even pointing out that the entire maternal side of my family is German and my mother grew up in Hitler’s Germany, or that she would sometimes express her admiration for some of Hitler’s achievements in addressing Germany’s dire condition after her defeat in World War I and the chaos of the Weimar Republic.
Fellow Bloggers:
Steady on about the ladies group. In terms that have been the subject of some recent posts, is this an occasion for thinking fast or thinking slow? Is there (another?) unwarranted rush to (harsh) judgment here? Do we really know the full story?
Jan:
Hitler liked dogs.
I like dogs.
Ergo, I am a Nazi.
I am sure you can see the flaw in this argument.
Anonymous @111:04, You are a liar. Find one person from the three years I taught RCIA who evert heard me say anything negative about Fr. MacDonald...one person. I never presume to tell others how to be Christian...besides it is pretty simple.
Anon2: Hitler; Fast and Slow - The problem with a Hitler argument or model is the huge amount of baggage it carriers that one must attend to rather than the analysis at hand. Germans ran their country well. Facists, even in Italy, made the trains run on time. But we reject the Nazi model for discussion as unsutable and distracting to the real point, a divergation. By knowing that ahead of time we can use that same conclusion concerning the Nazi comparison as reason to reject a Nazi comment and perhaps substitute a more suitable one in future discussions. We have already proved the point, and the proof, like a good theorem, is always handy. We avoid 'reinventing the wheel'. Managing this slow thought and deeper analysis actively and a priori allows us to remain engaged with the developing present situation applying all our wits assisted and leveraged by the slow thoughts we developed to give context to our reactions.
Just as we dress for the day and benefit from a bit of deliberation in that preparation we must prepare ourselves constantly in leisurely moments for what will happen in the future. While we can be sure that the future is not entirely known we can certainly reduce the possibilities to a manageable set. I recall during a particularly busy time in my life waking up and being unsure where I was. I lay quietly in the cot until I heard people outside my room speaking. I recognized the language and knew then what to do that day.
But if I allow my model to simply accrue information that fits the existing model I risk overlooking information that belongs in the set yet does not agree with my existing model. My fast mind must be trained to notice these bits of information and I will return again to my slow mind to evaluate and rebuild the model. This is repeated daily.
A good pilot does not need to look for a switch, button, or control because he has prepared himself thoroughly to know where each of these items are in the cockpit. He may then keep his head up and eyes looking out of the cockpit for anything that might, going until unnoticed until too late, ruin an otherwise otherwise wonderful day.
Thanks A2 We got it. We think the world of you.
John, I think you have missed the point. I mean substitute the KKK or Planned Parenthood - both evil organizations. I am saying that groups such as that - and those who support them - warrant the vilification and condemnation that is rightly ascribed to them.
Quite frankly, as a Catholic, I can't agree with Anon 2 supporting Sanger in any way. I mean, he has tried to justify her at every turn. Even if we limit ourselves to Sanger's promotion of abortion and obviously wanting to get rid of the weakest in society - which can be totally proven - one would have to question a politician like Clinton that supports a woman like Sanger and praises her to boot.
I am not saying that Hillary Clinton [or Sanger for that matter] are Nazis but that, as Clinton upholds Sanger and Planned Parenthood, that puts her into a category of being pro-abortion and so she deserves the condemnation that is rightly given to such groups.
But, when all is said and done, Planned Parenthood a group that harvests body parts from live babies must be considered as corrupt as the Nazis were.
Anonymous at 10:57 PM - all you prove by understanding that joke is that you are no lady ...
Gene, anonymous at 11.04 has already proven to be a liar with everything that he/she has stated and I think we've wasted enough time on them. Leave them to whitter away to themselves. They will soon grow tired of it. Of course, the classic was the one who was supposed to have turned up in tears at the pastor's office. I can just imagine it: "With tears and sobs she sorted out those of the largest size, holding her pocket handkerchief before her streaming eyes" ...
Anonymous 2, I doubt any of us want to know the full story - rather it is probably better to leave them as RCG suggests lying, "quietly in the cot until they hear people outside their room speaking. They may recognize the language and know then what to do for the day".
Rcg:
Thank you for your response. I agree.
Jan (at 11: 48 a.m.)
I realize that one of the typical rhetorical techniques nowadays is to double down on and repeat falsehoods and distortions but this does not increase their accuracy one iota. So it is with your assertion that I have “tried to justify [Sanger} at every turn.” Please re-read my post of 1:35 p.m. on July 23. And please—for once have the grace to admit when you are wrong about something. I don’t think you have ever, not once, accepted correction (but in this you are not alone). You are only entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Anonymous (at 11:35 a.m.):
Thank you for your kind comment. If I understand correctly, you have not given up on the Catholic Church. I am glad. The Catholic tradition, one that can trace its origins to the very beginning of the Faith in an unbroken continuous line of development, offers spiritual riches and resources beyond compare. It is this fullness of the tradition that attracted me to the Faith almost forty years ago and it is this that keeps me rooted in it while doing my small part to forge (in my view) necessary links to promote mutual understanding with those in other faith traditions, both Christian and non-Christian.
Jan (at 12:07 p.m.):
You may not want to know the full story but perhaps you should not judge before you do.
A2 No I have not given up on the Catholic Church and never will. I do however have questions and doubts at times.
I am a Democrat and proud of it. I think you can be a good Catholic as well as a person who votes their conscious. I did come here to ask questions that worried me. I was shocked at the anger and name calling. But oh well.
I do think the world of you A2 and yes indeed there really is a story. The story was why I came here.
The story does not matter because I found you, and Father K and Father McDonald allowed me to get some deep anger out.
I am tho shocked at how angry I did become at times. That is not in my nature.
Fr. McDonald How wonderful that you celebrated the Latin mass in Savannah. Perhaps that is the reason God wanted you to move to Richmond Hill. You are so close to Savannah and perhaps you will become an important part of the Savannah Church.
Church Ladies are now signing off!
Thanks A2
Anonymous at 8:40 said, "I do think the world of you A2 and yes indeed there really is a story. The story was why I came here. The story does not matter because I found you, and Father K".
This sounds like a love story in the making, fraught with emotion and hyperbole. Unfortunately for the ladies, I believe A2 - and definitely Fr K - is already spoken for. Still there is always Gob ...
Anonymous 2, well, as someone who himself is judgmental of most people on this blog, I don't think you have any room to manoeuvre.
Anonymous 8:40 pm states, "I think you can be a good Catholic as well as a person who votes their conscious". But the Church has always stated that it has to be a well formed conscience which yours obviously isn't, not as far as Church teaching goes. Who would risk their soul by voting for pro-abortionists? I mean you could arrive at the pearly gates only to be turned away. That is the choice Catholics face at the polls.
Jan you are 100% correct. This was a love story but not in the vulgar way that you imply.
It was a love story about the Catholic Faith and someone who was deeply hurt.
You judge and you don't know one thing about which you speak.
Jan you might be the person shocked when you "reach the pearly gates". I don't recall God giving you permission to judge his children. You are just plain rude with no life. You would not know a "love story" if it was right in front of your face LOL
Anonymous 1:32 pm You appear to have been commenting under many different guises on this blog. One minute you are asking questions, one minute you say you don't accept what the Church teaches. You have chimed in as the Ladies, as Baptist Sarah, etc, and now you claim to have a love affair with the Church. You take issue with people who tell you what the Church's teaching is and then claim to be hurt and upset by being told the truth.
It is a strange "love affair" when you reject the Church's teaching on abortion, homosexual "marriage" etc. A person truly in love with the Church does not reject Her teaching. From what you have said about Fr K and Anonymous 2, it does seem to me that you are more in love with those who reject the Church's teaching than you ever will be with the Church. What you say and the manner you have acted on this blog leaves you with absolutely no credibility. If you truly want the truth I suggest that you find an orthodox priest who will set you on the right path.
Jan:
“Anonymous 2, well, as someone who himself is judgmental of most people on this blog . . . “
“From what you have said about Fr K and Anonymous 2, it does seem to me that you are more in love with those who reject the Church's teaching than you ever will be with the Church.” The clearly implied assertion here is that Father Kavanaugh and I reject Church teaching.
Jan, I see three possible explanations for your (continuing) wild and inaccurate assertions:
(1) Vivid and mistaken imagination.
(2) Unconscious projection onto others of characteristics you possess yourself.
(3) Conscious, deliberate projection of the same onto another in an instance of what has become a very cheap rhetorical technique nowadays.
Although I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and ascribe it to (1) or (2), because (3) would not reflect well on you at all, I don’t really know which is actually at work in your case but I hope you will take the necessary corrective steps soon so that this sort of nonsense can stop.
Jan, we need to stop replying to this " Anonymous"; it is futile and only gives it/her/him/them legs.
Jan, most of the anonymous comments are from 'gob' who has admitted to being a troll.
Anon 2 is one of the most balanced commentators on here. He knows both England and America and has a forensic mind. He is less acerbic than I am, which is no bad thing.
John Nolan, Re: Anon 2...surely you have read Hamlet...
PS John Nolan...do not be his Polonius and, for God's sake, stay out from behind the drapes.
Gene, yes, I'll watch my arras.
John Nolan, LOL!
John Nolan:
Thank you for kind words.
As for Gene’s comment and your witty and amusing response, isn’t the notion of watching one’s arras, let alone being behind it, somewhat contorted?
And assuming arguendo the accuracy of Gene’s comparison, it would hardly be all my fault. In the words of one of Gene’s heroes, it takes a village to raise a Hamlet.
Anon 2, re: village/Hamlet...quite clever. The only things I enjoy about your posts is your wit.
John Nolan, you need to read Anon 2's posts more closely. The fact that he and Fr K sidle up each other should be enough of a clue ...
Jenny, you are right.
Gene, then you don't really regard Anon 2 as the village idiot?
Jan:
No, Jan,_you_need to read my posts more closely.
Village idiots perform a vital psycho-social function in the community (only Monty Python experts will get this one).
Jan, no, Anon 2 is no idiot. That is why he is so dangerous.
Anonymous 2, sorry, I never enjoyed the humor of Monty Python, except perhaps for the huge foot doing the crushing and, oh, of course John Cleese who famously said in 2011 that London was no longer an English city ... how right he was. No wonder Sidiq Khan is now Mayor!
Anonymous 2, do you do the vital training for the role described here?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhDJxEPRDek
Gene:
Thanks, I think.
Jan:
Perhaps one needs to be English to appreciate Monty Python fully (as you have never responded to my question about where you live, my working theory is that you are Australian, although your relishing of the foot crushing suggests you might be German—I get to stereotype like this because my mother was German and she found it very funny, for example, whenever my father stubbed his toe =)).
This said, I find some of the Monty Python œuvre too much, beyond the pale as it were—either in poor taste generally or unpalatable to me as a Christian and a Catholic. I have never watched The Life of Brian, for example, although I do not have the same negative reaction to Monty Python and the Holy Grail (probably because it is a spoof on medieval culture and times rather than the foundation of Christianity per se). Within those (wide) limits, I still find them hilariously funny, and quite clever. During my college years, those who were not early enough to secure a seat in the TV cellar would stand on the stairs and spill out into the quad just trying to hear a snatch or two, something I neither could nor would do now, all these years later, of course.
The Monty Python troupe owe a great deal to the Goons—Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, and Michael Bentine. In case you do not know them, let me introduce you with this classic “What time Is It, Eccles?” Enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tjHlFPTwVk
Gene and Jan:
More seriously now—and I do want you to think very seriously about this—we do not really disagree much on ends; our disagreements are almost exclusively about means to achieve the same shared ends.
Jan:
Ah, I see you tracked down the Village Idiot sketch. I thought about including that link myself but was concerned that the later parts (with the naughty bits) might offend some of my fellow Bloggers’ sensibilities. But if you think it is okay to post, then I was probably worrying unnecessarily.
RE: Monty Python, I always liked the Fish Slapping Dance. Cleese was once asked which skit was his favorite, and he cited that one because, "It is irreducible." I like python because they understand that, sometimes, the only possible response to our modern world and its politics is absurdity.
Actually, Anonymous 2, I didn't watch the sketch to the end and so hope I haven't scandalized people. As I recall now, that was one of the reasons why I didn't take much to Monty Python. British humor, unfortunately, can be pretty basic and raw, where actually there is no need for it because they have had some great comedy shows - Last of the Summer Wine, for instance, Dad's Army - some episodes may have been a bit smutty but now a lot of the humor is very vulgar and tasteless.
Anon 2
I didn't find Monty Python nearly as funny as the radio comedies which preceded it, 'I'm sorry, I'll read that again', 'Listen to this space' (which was reputedly dropped by the Beeb when Harold Wilson complained they were sending him up too often) and the incomparable 'Round the Horne'. The Sunday lunchtimes of my adolescent years would not have been the same without Julian and Sandy, Charles and Fiona, not to mention the unforgettable Rambling Syd Rumpo whose takes on the English folk-song I can still recall after only hearing them once half a century ago: 'Her possets fine, her grunge divine, the way her moolies tick; I'd give a groat for one quick scrote, sweet lass of Hackney Wick ...'
Priceless. Occasionally (very occasionally, DG) I will be in a church where some middle-aged codger will pick up a guitar and I imagine him saying 'Well, me dearios, I've had a rummage in my gander-bag and pulled out a little ditty which goes after this fashion' and find myself desperately and unsuccessfully trying not to laugh.
Jan,
You mention 'Dad's Army'. The writers, Perry and Croft, followed it with an even better sitcom, 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum', which played from 1974 to 1981 and followed a Royal Artillery concert party in India and Burma. Again it was based on the writers' wartime experiences.
The BBC will not rerun it. Why not? Because an Indian character is played (brilliantly) by Michael Bates, who was brought up in India but was an Englishman. The PC morons, like the Anonymous on this blog, will cry 'racist', and the Beeb is scared of them.
How utterly absurd and pathetic.
Billie the Kid:
The Fish Slapping Dance is wonderful.
Many of the Monty Python sketches are irreverently clever and, as you suggest, are not just intrinsically funny but are effective social and political satire. In this they follow the venerable tradition of the Fool in Western culture—the one who punctures pretensions and speaks Truth to Power (in all its many forms in the modern world). For example, can one imagine a better parody of the excesses of governmental overreach and bureaucracy than the Ministry of Silly Walks or of inept or corrupt businesses than The Cheese Shop or Dead Parrot, or of pseudo-science than Brontosaurus, or of the disconnect between theory and practice, between intellectuals and the real world, than The Philosophers Football Match? This last is so good, let’s watch it again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur5fGSBsfq8
Jan and John,
Stop, it's too much! You are making me very nostalgic! Those were all great shows.
Among the symptoms of the parlous state of our culture is, of course, the debasement of political conversation. Another is the debasement and coarsening of much popular entertainment. With increasingly rare but sometimes excellent exceptions, humor has been reduced to sex or other bodily functions and crime shows have been reduced to tiresome variations on the single theme of gun violence. On this latter, what would contemporary crime show scriptwriters in the U.S do without the ubiquitous gun culture? Use their imagination, as crime show scriptwriters elsewhere have to do, and as such writers in the U.S. used to do? It bears thinking about.
But don’t get me started. =)
Anon 2
Many British cop dramas are not much better, and there seems to be an unwritten rule that the boss has to be female.
Back in the days when police cars were black Wolseleys with bells, there was a drama about the Flying Squad called 'No Hiding Place'. When the dependable Inspector Lockhart encountered an armed criminal he would say quietly 'Just give me the gun, sonny. Pull the trigger and it'll be a topping job.'
Less than fifteen years later 'The Sweeney', also about the Flying Squad, had a car chase and a shoot-out in every episode, as well as a large measure of police brutality towards suspects.
Another of my favorites is, "Four Yorkshire Men." Priceless. And, if you have ever been on a package tour, I had to remind myself that "The Travel Agent" was satire and not reality..."...and if you're not at your table spot on seven, you miss the bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, the first item on the menu of international cuisine." LOL!
"...and after paying your money to a licensed bandit in a taxi, you get to the bloody resort and there's no water in the lavatory, there's no water in the taps, and there's only a bleeding' lizard in the bidet..."
B the K:
AND Watney’s Red Barrel!
John Nolan:
I am sorry to hear about the deterioration in British crime shows. Oh for the days of Dixon of Dock Green and Z-Cars, or even Inspector Morse and Miss Marple! No Hiding Place (8:00 p.m. Monday evenings as I recall, just after Coronation Street at 7:30) was one of my boyhood favourites (the U is just for you).
And dating myself who remembers Steptoe and Son - a classic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8a40OZtH0M
Last of the Summer Wine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZukXEMxkhE
"...and fat German businessmen barging into the queues and doing acrobatics by the pool frightening the children, and rubbing Timothy White suncream oil all over their puffy, swollen, purulent bodies..."
British humour is by turns whimsical and understated (Steptoe, Porridge, Last of the Summer Wine) and bawdy and suggestive with innuendoes and double-entendres galore (Benny Hill, the 'Carry On' films). American sitcoms translate well, and the political satire of the likes of PJ O'Rourke is incredibly funny. Brits and Americans actually laugh at the same things. Did 'Fawlty Towers' ever make it across the Atlantic? It should have.
Turning to our Continental neighbours it appears to us that the Germans have two types of humour, Galgenhumor and Schadenfreude. 'There are two good things about AIDS. What are they? One, homosexuals get it. Two, it kills them.' Thirty years ago this was regarded by the Krauts as hilarious.
The French are more subtle than their Teutonic neighbours. Perhaps Fr McDonald might tell us what jokes appeal to the Italians.
The only thing to take into account about a joke is whether or not it is funny. It may well be 'racist', 'sexist', 'ageist', 'homophobic' or whatever categories the humourless PC brigade care to pin on it, but it must make you laugh. Psychologists tell us that humour releases feelings that may have been suppressed because they are in 'bad taste'. So a joke in 'good taste' is a contradiction in terms.
John:
Here are some of the Britcoms imported over here to the States:
Monty Pyton of course, also Good Neighbors, Fawlty Towers, As Time Goes By, Open All Hours, Keeping Up Appearances,Are You Being Served?, Butterflies, Coupling, Mr. Bean, Benny Hill,Blackadder, Vicar of Dibley, and To the Manor Born.
Yes indeed, George. We are grateful for PBS.
One of the greatest one-liners who has no respect for PC is the Duke of Edinburgh, now aged 95. When visiting a centre which trained 'assistance dogs' he remarked: 'I'm told they have "eating dogs" for the anorexic'. This is funny on more than one level.
Regarding the Germans, I have just recalled a joke which a few years ago appealed to them to the extent that they voted it first in a poll.
A dog walks into a post-office to send a telegram. The clerk takes out his pad and asks what he wants to send.
Dog: Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof.
Clerk: That's nine woofs - you can have an extra woof for the same price.
Dog: Don't be silly. It wouldn't make sense.
John Nolan:
I love it. That is as good as the joke on that theme I heard years ago (on the same theme) about the man who walks into a theatrical agent’s office with a dog:
Man: “I have a talking dog.”
Agent: (this being the ninth talking dog he has seen this week); “Oh, yeah; what can it do then”
Man: “Rover, when they build a house, what is the last thing they build?”
Dog: “Roooof”
Agent: (showing signs of exasperation): “What else can it do?”
Man: “Rover, when there is a high wind, what is the sea like?”
Dog: “Ruuuuf”
Agent: “Get out of my office.”
Dog: (looking up at Man after they leave the office): “Did I say something wrong, boss?”
Anon 2
Reminds me of 'Canine Mastermind'.
What is the name of the starched linen collar worn in Tudor times?
Ruff!
Correct. What is the acronym for the Royal Air Force?
Raf!
Correct. What are Manchester United supporters?
Riff-raff!
Correct. Rover, you have scored three points and no passes!
This one is very interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qf6Sv3A9zs
Was that Peter Sellers?
Post a Comment