COMMENTARY: Servant of God Luigi Giussani can help us see that the road past ecclesial division does not go through some sort of political compromise, but through a deeper awareness of the heart of our faith.
Our Pope Francis is boldly embracing radical initiatives regarding liturgical practices that cause confusion and un-necessary conflict in the Church. Why? There are hundreds or perhaps thousands of bishops and not a few Cardinals who view the doings in Rome with and shake their heads in disbelief. The Holy Father backs up this liturgical pogrom on the faithful concerned with a sham Survey.
Surveys are conducted after the decission has been made but need something to keep the critics quiet.
He is a Peronist, first and foremost. He will be remembered in the same category as the Borgia Popes, only not quite as intelligent or cultured. His branch managers will not be remembered at all.
Nice to see you citing The Guardian as a source. -:)
Whether or not it is all the Democrats have, it is also a moment of truth for Republicans, As the article says:
“Additionally in our research we found there are a lot of cross-pressured Republicans on the question of abortion legality. While there are a small number of Democrats who hold positions on abortion in tension with their party – eg less than 10% approve the overturning of Roe v Wade – the percentage of Republicans uncomfortable with their party’s policies on abortion reaches anywhere from 30-50%. When abortion policy was more or less settled law, it was easy for cross-pressured Republicans to ignore the conflict between their party’s position and their own, but now that Republicans are enacting highly restrictive laws and outright abortion bans, such contradictions will be harder to ignore. How will cross-pressured Republicans respond?”
By the way, with all this talk about the political tribalism and even an impending civil war in the United States, here is a thought for the day (week, month, year, decade):
Politicians have enough power as it is. Why give them even more power by letting them determine and control our relationships? They don’t deserve it.
Sophia here: I sincerely hope that the Bishops' gravely important message will still be seen/heard by enough Catholics and other Christians in time to make a difference in Tuesday's elections. Fr Chris Alar - "Bishops Name Biden, Blood Moon, NPR Live Abortion on Radio, and Voting Pro-Life" - YouTube
Well I cited the Guardian because they are a leftist bastion. I do keep up with what the crazies are saying. I trust you follow the National Review and the Federalist. The law on abortion is settled for now. States are free to become infanticide meccas if they chose. It is disturbing that 90% of Dems are pro infanticide. That should cause you pause.
Fyi, no committed Christian should vote for a Party committed to infanticide or the sexual grooming of young children. Those are deal breakers in my judgment.
Dems want to control every aspect of your lives save for abortion. The Republican Party is the freedom party. I would also point out that lawlessness which harms the poor and working classes occurs mostly in large cities, almost all controlled by Democrats for decades. The media tried to point out that Red States have high crime while burying the crucial fact that the high crime are in cities in Red States controlled by Democrats like St. Louis and Houston, to point out a couple of examples.
Yes, I read broadly. I also watch FOX News prime time so I can keep up with those crazies (like Tucker Carlson).
IMHO we will make no meaningful progress on abortion, etc. unless and until we have a more honest and less corrupt politics. Until then, it is all force and coercion and manipulation of voters by power-hungry (and often greedy) politicians, although more governmental supports for mothers and children will certainly help with converting hearts and minds.
Funny thing freedom. Don’t we also need to be concerned about potential restrictions on freedom imposed by those quasi-governmental concentrated power centers called corporations? They too can have horrendous bureaucracies that deliver a truly Kafkaesque experience to those unfortunate enough (all of us?) who must deal with them or who are employed by them. Even navigating the automated telephone system, and then the frequent lengthy wait that follows before we finally get to talk to a human being (assuming it is the right one, that is) is an imposition on our time (and freedom). And so often, that’s just the beginning of the bureaucratic nightmare, no? To take another routine example, try renegotiating a “take it or leave it” standard form consumer contract with corporations that have an oligopoly in the sector. Good luck. So, which is worse in late-stage capitalism, governmental power, or corporate power? More to the point, how can we improve matters? Of course, some governmental entities and corporations are indeed service oriented. But shouldn’t more of them be like that? And I haven’t even mentioned the near record high corporate earnings (during a period of inflation), corporate stock buy backs, and the increasing income disparities between CEO earnings and those at the bottom of the ladder. Where is freedom when people have to work three jobs just to make ends meet? Yes, funny thing freedom.
And as for the crime statistics, well, we are all familiar with the famous expression about statistics. I agree with you that focusing on states rather than cities within those states is misleading, and that Democrats and some in the media have been guilty of making misleading arguments. But then so have Republicans:
“Among the 50 states, murder rates were often well above the national average in many Republican-controlled states and cities. Jacksonville with 176 homicides and a murder rate (19.776) more than three times that of New York City (5.94) has a Republican mayor. Tulsa (19.64) and Oklahoma City (11.16) have Republican mayors in a Republican state and have murder rates that dwarf that of Los Angeles (6.74). Lexington’s Republican mayor saw record homicides in 2020 and 2021, with a murder rate (10.61) nearly twice that of New York City. Bakersfield (11.91) and Fresno (14.09) each have Republican mayors and murder rates far higher than either San Francisco or Los Angeles.
Of course, some cities controlled by Democrats have alarming murder rates, like Chicago (28.49) and Houston (17.32). But we hear about these and other Democrat-run cities all the time. We aren’t getting the whole picture.”
As I said above, we need a more honest and less corrupt politics.
Just to drive home the last point, in the following article Marc Thiessen rightly criticizes Democrats and the media for misleading arguments focusing on states rather than cities, but then he mischaracterizes the Third Way study and conveniently omits mention of the Republican led cities where crime rates are so high, instead burying them in an “average” figure. Back to the famous expression again, no?
Sophia here: For those who are as ignorant of the "Third Way" mentioned in Mark's Comment at 6:40 PM as I was. -"Third Way (United States) - Wikipedia Third Way is a Washington, D.C.-based public policy think tank founded in 2005. Third Way develops and advocates for policies that it claims represent "modern center-left ideas".. Third Way was honoured as the 2013 North American Think Tank of the Year by Prospect, a British monthly current affairs magazine, for its "original, influential, and rigorous work on the most pressing challenges." Why was I not surprised by this?
Sophia here: Mark, thank you for including the AEI link because reading Mr. Thiessen's "The ‘Red State Murder Problem’? That’s Just a Democratic-Driven Myth." more than adequately addresses the central fallacy in the Third Way discussion- the half truth.
Sophia here: Mark, if you have not yet looked at the Fr. Alar's "Bishops name Biden...." video, may I encourage you to do so? Fr. Alar's courage is very inspiring!
Regarding the paragraph on freedom, a few years ago I was part of a De Tocqueville reading group. We considered the following passage, which seems to be a favorite of those who like to think of themselves as conservatives:
“I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world.
The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest – his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens, he is close to them, but he sees them not – he touches them, but he feels them not; he exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.
Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing.
For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances – what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
I asked suggested that had de Tocqueville foreseen the rise of vast corporate power unleashed by capitalism and consumerism, he might have extended his observations, mutatis mutandis, to apply to such corporate “governments” as well. My comment did not go over well with the “conservatively” inclined.
Yes, the Marc Thiessen piece does a good job of exposing the intellectual dishonesty of those who just focus on murder rates in red states without breaking down the murder rates in cities within those states. I just wish he had not exhibited his own intellectual dishonesty by suppressing the high murder rates in several cities run by Republicans.
As I have said before, a pox on both their houses! Why, oh why, cannot we just all agree to be committed to the truth instead of, as you say, half-truths? Why can’t we adapt and then adopt the legal expression for swearing witnesses in court (I am paraphrasing here): “I do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” Now, wouldn’t that be refreshing? Starting with Trump, who again repeated the Big Lie yesterday. Every time I hear him repeat that Big Lie, it makes my blood boil because he is gaslighting the entire country. And it is straight out of Hitler’s playbook. The technique of the Big Lie is well described in the following Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
Thank you for the link to the video, which I will watch this evening.
I watched the video, and of course as a Catholic I agree with most of what the priest says. Where I differ somewhat is in how he (and some of the bishops he quotes) responded to Joe Biden’s statement that no-one knows when life begins. As a Catholic, Joe Biden should certainly believe that life begins at conception. But I suspect Biden had in mind the following statements from Roe v. Wade, which are on the USCCB website:
Like you (and I hope Joe Biden), I believe that human life begins at conception, which is also what science tells us. BUT there are millions of people in this country who do not believe this. So, the real question is how can they be persuaded to understand this truth? Arguments from Catholic faith will not work for those who are not Catholic or even religious at all. You and I would certainly respond to the notion that everything we have (including one another) is a gift from God and that we should be good stewards of these gifts, but they won’t. So, is there a way to reach those who are otherwise spiritual or even secular in their worldview and to convert their hearts and minds? I happen to think there is, but it won’t be achieved through legal compulsion and coercion; instead, I fear that force will just engender opposition and doubling-down, as indeed it already has.
If Biden (or indeed Trump if he is reelected president) wanted to show real leadership on the abortion question, how about convening a “presidential forum” or a series of such forums on prime time, in which those on both sides of the issue would dialogue in good faith and with a commitment to respecting the facts and the truth—ALL the relevant facts and relevant truth, on each side? This would require courage to do, and it would also require humility from those who participated.
I’m not holding my breath that either Biden or Trump is willing or able to transcend partisan political advantage in this way—in which case, isn’t it up to us to engage in such conversations at the grassroots level all across the country?
18 comments:
Our Pope Francis is boldly embracing radical initiatives regarding liturgical practices that cause confusion and un-necessary conflict in the Church. Why? There are hundreds or perhaps thousands of bishops and not a few Cardinals who view the doings in Rome with and shake their heads in disbelief. The Holy Father backs up this liturgical pogrom on the faithful concerned with a sham Survey.
Surveys are conducted after the decission has been made but need something to keep the critics quiet.
Don’t elect a political lefty, ersatz Catholic
John,
He is a Peronist, first and foremost. He will be remembered in the same category as the Borgia Popes, only not quite as intelligent or cultured. His branch managers will not be remembered at all.
Father K's sole hope:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/04/abortion-midterms-democrats
That is all the Party of Intrinsic evil has
TJM
One more Pope with a modernista agenda could give us George Soros as Cardinal. He might sort out the Vatican's realestate business.
TJM:
Nice to see you citing The Guardian as a source. -:)
Whether or not it is all the Democrats have, it is also a moment of truth for Republicans, As the article says:
“Additionally in our research we found there are a lot of cross-pressured Republicans on the question of abortion legality. While there are a small number of Democrats who hold positions on abortion in tension with their party – eg less than 10% approve the overturning of Roe v Wade – the percentage of Republicans uncomfortable with their party’s policies on abortion reaches anywhere from 30-50%. When abortion policy was more or less settled law, it was easy for cross-pressured Republicans to ignore the conflict between their party’s position and their own, but now that Republicans are enacting highly restrictive laws and outright abortion bans, such contradictions will be harder to ignore. How will cross-pressured Republicans respond?”
By the way, with all this talk about the political tribalism and even an impending civil war in the United States, here is a thought for the day (week, month, year, decade):
Politicians have enough power as it is. Why give them even more power by letting them determine and control our relationships? They don’t deserve it.
Sophia here: I sincerely hope that the Bishops' gravely important message will still be seen/heard by enough Catholics and other Christians in time to make a difference in Tuesday's elections. Fr Chris Alar - "Bishops Name Biden, Blood Moon, NPR Live Abortion on Radio, and Voting Pro-Life" - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOzvWyGSu90
Mark,
Well I cited the Guardian because they are a leftist bastion. I do keep up with what the crazies are saying. I trust you follow the National Review and the Federalist. The law on abortion is settled for now. States are free to become infanticide meccas if they chose. It is disturbing that 90% of Dems are pro infanticide. That should cause you pause.
Fyi, no committed Christian should vote for a Party committed to infanticide or the sexual grooming of young children. Those are deal breakers in my judgment.
Dems want to control every aspect of your lives save for abortion. The Republican Party is the freedom party. I would also point out that lawlessness which harms the poor and working classes occurs mostly in large cities, almost all controlled by Democrats for decades. The media tried to point out that Red States have high crime while burying the crucial fact that the high crime are in cities in Red States controlled by Democrats like St. Louis and Houston, to point out a couple of examples.
TJM:
Yes, I read broadly. I also watch FOX News prime time so I can keep up with those crazies (like Tucker Carlson).
IMHO we will make no meaningful progress on abortion, etc. unless and until we have a more honest and less corrupt politics. Until then, it is all force and coercion and manipulation of voters by power-hungry (and often greedy) politicians, although more governmental supports for mothers and children will certainly help with converting hearts and minds.
Funny thing freedom. Don’t we also need to be concerned about potential restrictions on freedom imposed by those quasi-governmental concentrated power centers called corporations? They too can have horrendous bureaucracies that deliver a truly Kafkaesque experience to those unfortunate enough (all of us?) who must deal with them or who are employed by them. Even navigating the automated telephone system, and then the frequent lengthy wait that follows before we finally get to talk to a human being (assuming it is the right one, that is) is an imposition on our time (and freedom). And so often, that’s just the beginning of the bureaucratic nightmare, no? To take another routine example, try renegotiating a “take it or leave it” standard form consumer contract with corporations that have an oligopoly in the sector. Good luck. So, which is worse in late-stage capitalism, governmental power, or corporate power? More to the point, how can we improve matters? Of course, some governmental entities and corporations are indeed service oriented. But shouldn’t more of them be like that? And I haven’t even mentioned the near record high corporate earnings (during a period of inflation), corporate stock buy backs, and the increasing income disparities between CEO earnings and those at the bottom of the ladder. Where is freedom when people have to work three jobs just to make ends meet? Yes, funny thing freedom.
And as for the crime statistics, well, we are all familiar with the famous expression about statistics. I agree with you that focusing on states rather than cities within those states is misleading, and that Democrats and some in the media have been guilty of making misleading arguments. But then so have Republicans:
https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-state-murder-problem
“Among the 50 states, murder rates were often well above the national average in many Republican-controlled states and cities. Jacksonville with 176 homicides and a murder rate (19.776) more than three times that of New York City (5.94) has a Republican mayor. Tulsa (19.64) and Oklahoma City (11.16) have Republican mayors in a Republican state and have murder rates that dwarf that of Los Angeles (6.74). Lexington’s Republican mayor saw record homicides in 2020 and 2021, with a murder rate (10.61) nearly twice that of New York City. Bakersfield (11.91) and Fresno (14.09) each have Republican mayors and murder rates far higher than either San Francisco or Los Angeles.
Of course, some cities controlled by Democrats have alarming murder rates, like Chicago (28.49) and Houston (17.32). But we hear about these and other Democrat-run cities all the time. We aren’t getting the whole picture.”
As I said above, we need a more honest and less corrupt politics.
Just to drive home the last point, in the following article Marc Thiessen rightly criticizes Democrats and the media for misleading arguments focusing on states rather than cities, but then he mischaracterizes the Third Way study and conveniently omits mention of the Republican led cities where crime rates are so high, instead burying them in an “average” figure. Back to the famous expression again, no?
https://www.aei.org/op-eds/the-red-state-murder-problem-thats-just-a-democratic-driven-myth/
Sophia here: For those who are as ignorant of the "Third Way" mentioned in Mark's Comment at 6:40 PM as I was. -"Third Way (United States) - Wikipedia
Third Way is a Washington, D.C.-based public policy think tank founded in 2005. Third Way develops and advocates for policies that it claims represent "modern center-left ideas".. Third Way was honoured as the 2013 North American Think Tank of the Year by Prospect, a British monthly current affairs magazine, for its "original, influential, and rigorous work on the most pressing challenges." Why was I not surprised by this?
Sophia here: Mark, thank you for including the AEI link because reading Mr. Thiessen's "The ‘Red State Murder Problem’? That’s Just a Democratic-Driven Myth." more than adequately addresses the central fallacy in the Third Way discussion- the half truth.
Sophia here: Mark, if you have not yet looked at the Fr. Alar's "Bishops name Biden...." video, may I encourage you to do so? Fr. Alar's courage is very inspiring!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOzvWyGSu90
Regarding the paragraph on freedom, a few years ago I was part of a De Tocqueville reading group. We considered the following passage, which seems to be a favorite of those who like to think of themselves as conservatives:
“I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world.
The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest – his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens, he is close to them, but he sees them not – he touches them, but he feels them not; he exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.
Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing.
For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances – what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
I asked suggested that had de Tocqueville foreseen the rise of vast corporate power unleashed by capitalism and consumerism, he might have extended his observations, mutatis mutandis, to apply to such corporate “governments” as well. My comment did not go over well with the “conservatively” inclined.
Funny thing despotism.
Sophia:
Yes, the Marc Thiessen piece does a good job of exposing the intellectual dishonesty of those who just focus on murder rates in red states without breaking down the murder rates in cities within those states. I just wish he had not exhibited his own intellectual dishonesty by suppressing the high murder rates in several cities run by Republicans.
As I have said before, a pox on both their houses! Why, oh why, cannot we just all agree to be committed to the truth instead of, as you say, half-truths? Why can’t we adapt and then adopt the legal expression for swearing witnesses in court (I am paraphrasing here): “I do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” Now, wouldn’t that be refreshing? Starting with Trump, who again repeated the Big Lie yesterday. Every time I hear him repeat that Big Lie, it makes my blood boil because he is gaslighting the entire country. And it is straight out of Hitler’s playbook. The technique of the Big Lie is well described in the following Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
Thank you for the link to the video, which I will watch this evening.
Sophia,
I watched the video, and of course as a Catholic I agree with most of what the priest says. Where I differ somewhat is in how he (and some of the bishops he quotes) responded to Joe Biden’s statement that no-one knows when life begins. As a Catholic, Joe Biden should certainly believe that life begins at conception. But I suspect Biden had in mind the following statements from Roe v. Wade, which are on the USCCB website:
https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/abortion/supreme-courts-response-to-the-question-when-does-life-begin
Like you (and I hope Joe Biden), I believe that human life begins at conception, which is also what science tells us. BUT there are millions of people in this country who do not believe this. So, the real question is how can they be persuaded to understand this truth? Arguments from Catholic faith will not work for those who are not Catholic or even religious at all. You and I would certainly respond to the notion that everything we have (including one another) is a gift from God and that we should be good stewards of these gifts, but they won’t. So, is there a way to reach those who are otherwise spiritual or even secular in their worldview and to convert their hearts and minds? I happen to think there is, but it won’t be achieved through legal compulsion and coercion; instead, I fear that force will just engender opposition and doubling-down, as indeed it already has.
Here is one idea:
If Biden (or indeed Trump if he is reelected president) wanted to show real leadership on the abortion question, how about convening a “presidential forum” or a series of such forums on prime time, in which those on both sides of the issue would dialogue in good faith and with a commitment to respecting the facts and the truth—ALL the relevant facts and relevant truth, on each side? This would require courage to do, and it would also require humility from those who participated.
I’m not holding my breath that either Biden or Trump is willing or able to transcend partisan political advantage in this way—in which case, isn’t it up to us to engage in such conversations at the grassroots level all across the country?
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