tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post1548388702780660475..comments2024-03-28T05:17:04.006-04:00Comments on southern orders: RETRO IDEOLOGUES OR MOVING FORWARD WITH POPE FRANCIS; THERE'S REALLY ONLY ONE SOUND CHOICE!Fr. Allan J. McDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16986575955114152639noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-21631212712112510152013-07-21T22:36:00.628-04:002013-07-21T22:36:00.628-04:00I prefer Orthodoxy vs Heterodoxy, but I don't ...I prefer Orthodoxy vs Heterodoxy, but I don't have a problem with "Moving forward", depending on<br />what is meant by that. This is the problem with Progressivism. Progress toward what?<br /><br /><br />The Church can move forward and adapt to the times but only up to a point and only in a certain respect. Thomas Aquinas moved things forward by "going back" to Aristotle.<br />The Creed is not to change. The style can change but not the substance. Truth will always be truth.<br />The Church which once believed in the Divine Right of Kings certainly today<br />has no problem with Democratic governance . <br /><br />Labels can fail<br /><br />The Republican Party in the U.S. today is not at all like the Republican party of the<br />1950's when it was considered to be progressive. Although society has changed so much<br />in the last number of decades that any fair comparison between the two would find the <br />difference to not be all that great. <br /><br />Jgrnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-18317268613593344822013-07-21T19:06:43.146-04:002013-07-21T19:06:43.146-04:00John Nolan: All good points, but I'm here spea...John Nolan: All good points, but I'm here speaking not so much of the Whig tradition in Anglo-American historiography as the general subconscious sense of American culture and politics. It was there from the time of John Winthrop. Politicians pretty much have to propagate it and pay lip service to it because nobody would elect a president who promised that things will be worse in the future, and parents want to believe as an article of faith that their children will be better off then they themselves are. The harsh realities that I'm in the first generation of Americans that is economically worse off than its parents, and the next generation will have it still worse, is something that the public sphere is utterly in denial about because it simply doesn't know how to handle this particular truth. It doesn't fit the model we've lived by for 400 years.<br /><br />I do agree with you that to be a self-conscious whig in the wake of the 20th century is to be a bit naive. The purest ideological example of "progress is good" is definitely the Marxist-Leninist dialectic, and look how that turned out. Hammer of Fascistshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08647227447212096501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-82250268391421385112013-07-21T17:58:37.513-04:002013-07-21T17:58:37.513-04:00Anon 5
An interesting post. But surely the experi...Anon 5<br /><br />An interesting post. But surely the experience of the 20th century killed off the Whig school of history (the last of the great Whig historians was GM Trevelyan) and although belief in 'progress' persisted, it had a harder edge in Marxist-Leninism and Fascism, which are in fact closely related.<br /><br />The Whig school had its advantages in that it provided a framework conducive to supporting a clear narrative, and since its demise we are struggling to find an alternative.<br /><br />Ironically, the great landed magnates in the 18th century who supported the Hanoverian dynasty as it suited their economic and political interests, were Whigs. Dr Johnson, who famously identified the Devil as the first Whig, and John Wesley were Tories, as were many of the lesser landed gentry.John Nolanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09027156691859606002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-39802698839256198942013-07-21T16:39:42.653-04:002013-07-21T16:39:42.653-04:00Another point--how on earth could I have forgotten...Another point--how on earth could I have forgotten this? The two original tyrannies of the past that first produced whiggery were monarchy/aristocracy/class and Catholicism. In a sense, whiggery has its genesis in the same movement that had such French Enlightenment figures as Diderot and priest-turned-athiest Jean Meslier say that man wouldn't be truly free until the last king was strangled with the guts of the last priest.<br /><br />Also, consider the final verse of a hymn I often hear in Catholic churches these days:<br /><br />O beautiful for patriot dream<br />That sees beyond the years<br />Thine alabaster cities gleam<br />Undimmed by human tears!<br /><br />Not at all clear that these alabaster cities that we're moving forward to are part of the New Jerusalem. Seems we are to build them ourselves in America. Who needs heaven if the cities here are going to be that good? that good? Dangerous stuff.Hammer of Fascistshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08647227447212096501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-52812199883750858352013-07-21T16:12:12.333-04:002013-07-21T16:12:12.333-04:00Forward and backward are just as bad as, if not wo...Forward and backward are just as bad as, if not worse than, liberal and conservative. The forward/backward mindset reflects the deleterious influence of American whiggery, i.e., what comes next will always be better than where we are/were. To put it another way, the past (read: Tridentine Mass) consists of flaws, shortcomings, failings, and downright evil, and we must move forward to escape those things. The irony is that the Whig approach borrows heavily from the linear Judeo-Christian view of time, but Whiggery perverts that view horribly, ultimately leading to a dangerous, Pelagian utopianism.<br /><br />It isn't that simple. Is it wrong for someone who has fallen away to go "back" to Mass and Confession? Is it wrong for someone to move "forward" in her prayer life so that, like the LCWR, she is beyond Jesus? The words really have no inherent meaning and can be filled up with whatever we want, but the tendency--and this is the dangerous part--is to automatically associate "back" with "bad" and "forward" with "good." But that's simplistic. It is a good thing to go back if one has made a mistake by going forward in the first place. So this whole post about going "forward" with Pope Francis is flawed from the outset in that it just leads us to debate, yet again, if what the Church has done liturgically in the past forty years was a mistake. There we're on old ground: most of the regulars here will say yes; Pater and the odd drive-by troll will say no.<br /><br />Case in point: with the new English translation, did we move forward to a more correct translation, or back to the concepts conveyed by the original text?<br /><br />It's far better to phrase such issues in terms of orthodoxy and heterodoxy.Hammer of Fascistshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08647227447212096501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-23831356055273948612013-07-21T14:59:40.287-04:002013-07-21T14:59:40.287-04:00Well said Padre, but I think we need to understand...Well said Padre, but I think we need to understand something: The geriatric hippies clinging to the 70's honestly believe that they ARE moving forward and that anything against their agenda is a step backward. They believe that we need to be "liberated" from such outdated concepts as dogma, magisterial teaching, canon law and discipline. I know it's hard for us to wrap our minds around this, but they seem to think you can be a Catholic and surrender everything that defines one as a Catholic.<br /><br />I honestly don't know WHAT the Holy See is preparing us for, but it would be nice to see a bit more consistency between the last pontificate and this one.Julius Rosenbergnoreply@blogger.com