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Saturday, March 14, 2020

Points to Ponder:

Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds. [John Perry Barlow]

Thursday, March 12, 2020

On Rash Judgments:
(A Lenten Reflection -Part I)

It helps in the Lenten season for folks to reflect more on themselves and their particular tendencies to better get a grasp of where improvement is needed spiritually as well as otherwise. The purpose of this reflection is to consider the subject of rash judgment. It was very briefly handled in a reflection from last year but this year, I want to go into the matter in more depth. For this is a problem not infrequent among people in general but it has particular currency among folks who consider themselves More Faithful Than Thou. Often these sorts of folks can be just as bad in this area (if not worse!) than many of those they would presume to lecture on matters of ethics and morality. This is the first of a four part series. Without further ado...

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged," said the Saviour of our souls; "condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned:" {S. Luke vi,37} and the Apostle S. Paul, "Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts." {1 Cor. iv,5}

Of a truth, hasty judgments are most displeasing to God, and men's judgments are hasty, because we are not judges one of another, and by judging we usurp our Lord's own office. Man's judgment is hasty, because the chief malice of sin lies in the intention and counsel of the heart, which is shrouded in darkness to us.

Moreover, man's judgments are hasty, because each one has enough to do in judging himself, without undertaking to judge his neighbour. If we would not be judged, it behoves us alike not to judge others, and to judge ourselves. Our Lord forbids the one, His Apostle enjoins the other, saying, "If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." {1 Cor. xi,31} But alas! for the most part we precisely reverse these precepts, judging our neighbour, which is forbidden on all sides, while rarely judging ourselves, as we are told to do.

We must proceed to rectify rash judgments, according to their cause. Some hearts there are so bitter and harsh by nature, that everything turns bitter under their touch; men who, in the Prophet's words, "turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth." {Amos v,7} Such as these greatly need to be dealt with by some wise spiritual physician, for this bitterness being natural to them, it is hard to conquer; and although it be rather an imperfection than a sin, still it is very dangerous, because it gives rise to and fosters rash judgments and slander within the heart.

To Be Continued...
Briefly...

With the next post being one of Lenten Reflections, I have decided to debut at that time a Lenten Reflections seasonal subtag and apply it to both future as well as past posts specifically designated as such on this site.
Miscellaneous Musings on Defining "Normalcy":

This was posted to social media yesterday and reposted here except for some material that was moved to footnotes. Without further ado...

So Clarence Oveur...err...Joe Biden is going to run on a campaign of "returning to normalcy." It is not an original idea as Warren G. Harding ran a "return to normalcy" campaign in 1920 after eight years of Woodrow Wilson and the drama and fatigue of The Great War. Harding won big that year actually. But what is "normalcy" in the modern environment?

For example, oil prices are falling big, gas prices continue to fall as a result, Trump's policies{1} played a definite role in that, and the US is more energy independent than at any time since the mid twentieth century. Is "normalcy" a return to Obamas policies here and once again due to overregulation, a returning of the US to being under the thumb of OPEC and the other Middle East cartels?

Also, for all the talk about Trump being a dangerous trigger happy and unstable warmonger, he has turned out to be the most anti-interventionist president since Coolidge militarily. Is a "return to normalcy" a return to regular military interventions around the globe?

Consider as well that the economy is overall doing the best it has been in about twenty years and wages on the lower end are rising for the first time since Monica was under Bill's desk. Is a "return to normalcy" a return to a sinking or tepid at best economy which flattens those trying to rise from the bottom?

For a variety of reasons, the problems with unchecked or lax enforcement of immigration laws in this country have declined and we have other countries{2} policing our mutual borders better which has fixed some of the prior problems of recent decades in this area. It would be foolish to pretend that no Trump policies has a role in this. So, is a "return to normalcy" a reversal of Trump's policies here and a return to the Obama/Bush 43/Clinton failures in this area?

Finally, there is as a result of Trump's tremendous originalist judicial appointments a greater judicial restraint at all levels of the legal system than we have seen in decades. Is a "return to normalcy" a return to the days of judicial activism and the appointment of activist justices who invent rather than apply the law?

Joe Biden plans to campaign on "a return to normalcy." It therefore is only appropriate that he be pressed on this point to explain what he means by that and if the supposed "national nightmare" we are supposedly living through right now includes any of the examples noted above.

Notes:

{1} Including reversing a number of Obama's executive actions that hampered exploration, drilling, and development, etc.

{2} Such as Mexico.

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Points to Ponder:

Obedience has a wet nurse, true humility, and the soul is as obedient as she is humble, and as humble as she is obedient. This humility is also charity’s governess and wet nurse, and she nurtures the virtue of obedience with the very same milk. The garment this nurse gives the soul is self-abasement, the clothing of disgrace and mockery and abuse, the choice of my (God the Father’s) pleasure over her own. In whom will you find all this? In the gentle Christ Jesus, my only-begotten Son. [St. Catherine of Siena: From Her Dialogues]

Sunday, March 08, 2020

On Clarifying and Retracting Some Prior Statements on the Magisterium:
(From My Essays and Other Web Writings)

I originally planned to write an expository musing consisting of clarifications and retractions of prior statements on the magisterium. The problem is, the time it would take to sift every piece I have written over the past twenty odd years in various mediums would make such an effort both tedious and counterproductive. I can think of more productive things to do with my time.

However, it seems appropriate to still say something about the fact that there will be some undeniable divergences from time to time from things I have written in the past on this subject. (With what was covered in the detailed exposition on the magisterium which was published on Ash Wednesday of this year.{1}) The nature of development is one reason as greater understanding of a subject inexorably involves a greater precision in explication. Another is a convergence of events and circumstances as well as a perceived need that was more real today than in years past. Certainly the need for a different direction on these matters is one that I explained in an email circular to many folks involved in Catholic apologetics many moons ago{2} in the following words:
Considering that religious submission to all non-definitive teaching of the ordinary magisterium is required under the new Profession of Faith, it is high time that Catholic apologists rethink how they approach the subject of potential "errors" in the magisterium at any level. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa September 11, 2003) as originally published in an Email Correspondence (circa October 2002)]
That is a position I hold in substance to this day. One difference perhaps in my view now versus my view then is I have become aware of greater shadings in statements by the pope and others who participate in his authority than I possessed at that time. And while I apparently planned for some time on writing on the subject of the ordinary magisterium{3}; at the same time, I cannot remember having that intention firmly in mind until recently.{4} But the value of site archives is they can remind one of what they may have forgotten.{5} The reasons this endeavour likely got derailed are undoubtedly many but truthfully, I am sure some degree of Providence was involved. I had studied this matter a lot in years past. However, it is clear to these eyes as I perused some older writings on this subject{6} that I was not ready then to handle it with the degree of completeness and nuance that a subject such as this would require.

Nonetheless, the project which has been to varying degrees in my conscious mind to do since I returned to publishing material on this website{7} is now completed. I have decided against attempting a St. Augustine style list of Retractions on all magisterium related subject matter in this archive and elsewhere from years past. Instead, I have decided to publish this brief entry and stipulate that with the recent publication of the magisterium project, any past statements I have made on that subject on this site or anywhere else that in any way contradicts what was recently published can be considered to the extent there is a genuine contradiction thereby obrogated.

Let this posting suffice to deal with any clarifications or retractions necessary on this subject from any past writing of mine in any medium whatsoever in perpetuity.


Notes:

{1} Which in a certain sense distills the subject down and covers it in a detail and with a systemization that I never remotely approached before.

{2} Yes, much as I am loathe to admit it nowadays, there was a time I was really involved in apologetics and actually had a positive outlook on that endeavour. To say that my view is nearly 180 degrees different now than it was back in the late 1990s-early 2000s is no exaggeration as I have long had a far more jaded view of apologetics and those who spend an inordinate amount of time in that realm than I once did.

{3} "The part about the 'next planned essay' is no longer true - as the long planned essay on the ordinary magisterium has again been shelved in favour of working on another long-planned essay first." [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa September 1, 2003) as Originally Published to a Discussion Forum (circa April 15, 2003)]

{4} Pinpointing the precise moment that my interest in this subject was rekindled is difficult. I remember discussing it privately during my time with WherePeterIs which formally spanned June 16, 2018 to August 6, 2018. But the genesis of the aforementioned rekindling was spawned by two events of 2017: the drafting of three lengthy responses to the Correctio which though published in April of 2019 were first composed in first draft form during the month of October in 2017. (As well as a revisiting of the subject of the death penalty published in late October of 2017.)

{5} This is another reason why preserving one's archives is a good idea -even if on occasion some of the material can make one wince when reading it later on. Another is writing helps the memory and for reasons I have explained before, my memory of things in the mid 2001-late 2003 period is less reliable than of the time periods prior to and subsequent to that time range.

{6} With the idea of utilizing where feasible past writings on this subject to avoid completely reinventing the wheel.

{7} See footnote four.