Why Those Who Hold Out For Peaceful Solutions With Iraq Are Wrong:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

[Explanatory Note: Most of this was written before General Powell's revelations to the UN. I have therefore sought to not include Powell's evidences in this analysis as a way of showing that they are not intrinsically necessary to argue for war with Iraq - ISM 2/06/03]

I was wading my way through perhaps the best series of arguments for not going to war - as posted by Eve Tushnet yesterday last week. However, I spotted a few apparent flaws in the slaw if you will with the following statements by Miss Tushnet. (However, I am throwing this together much as she claims to have thrown her entry together; thus my position here may not be free of glitches either.) Her words will be in darkgreen font, my words in regular font, and any citations from sources in shale font.

Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator who has violated UN decrees. This is absolutely, 100% true, and doesn't tell us anything about whether we should go to war.

I am about to do something I never thought I would do and that is quote liberally from UN sources. First of all, Miss Tushnet agrees that Saddam has violated UN decrees. What she does not point out though - presumably she is not aware of this - is specifically what decrees Saddam has continually flouted. Whether we like it or not, we agreed to go in with the UN on the Gulf War and they were the legislative body that sought to secure a ceasefire. I will quote from one of the longest UN resolutions in recent memory (if ever). However, first I need to set this up properly so here goes.

There are several headings that this thesis falls under. I will start with the section on chemical weapons. The primary resolution governing the ceasefire mentions the following in this regard:

Conscious...of the statements by Iraq threatening to use weapons in violation of its obligations under the Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, signed at Geneva on 17 June 1925, and of its prior use of chemical weapons and affirming that grave consequences would follow any further use by Iraq of such weapons,

Recalling that Iraq has subscribed to the Declaration adopted by all States participating in the Conference of States Parties to the 1925 Geneva Protocol and Other Interested States, held in Paris from 7 to 11 January 1989, establishing the objective of universal elimination of chemical and biological weapons,

Recalling also that Iraq has signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, of 10 April 1972,

It is worth noting that one of the provisions in this Charter specified that Each State Party to this Convention undertakes never in any circumstance to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain: Microbial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes; Weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict. Iraq signed this agreement and has for twelve years (or longer) been flagrantly violating it. (They even used chemical weapons on the Kurds in violation of this Charter.) But there is more.

Noting the importance of Iraq ratifying this Convention,

Noting moreover the importance of all States adhering to this Convention and encouraging its forthcoming Review Conference to reinforce the authority, efficiency and universal scope of the convention,

Need I remind the reader that Saddam in using mustard gas in the late 1980s violated the Geneva Protocol which Iraq signed back on Sept. 8, 1931??? That is the first piece of justification for militarily disarming him. If he does not respect his own people, why should we expect him to treat us or anyone else any better - should he develop the capability to launch weapons of mass destruction (WMD)??? Moving on with the resolution.

Recalling the objective of the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region of the Middle East,

Need I remind the readers that Saddam's attempts to develop nuclear capabilities is in continual violation of the aforementioned UN objective.

Conscious of the threat that all weapons of mass destruction pose to peace and security in the area and of the need to work towards the establishment in the Middle East of a zone free of such weapons,

Ditto to my previous comments.

Stressing the importance of an early conclusion by the Conference on Disarmament of its work on a Convention on the Universal Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and of universal adherence thereto,

Aware of the use by Iraq of ballistic missiles in unprovoked attacks and therefore of the need to take specific measures in regard to such missiles located in Iraq,

Concerned by the reports in the hands of Member States that Iraq has attempted to acquire materials for a nuclear-weapons programme contrary to its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968,

Another treaty violated by Iraq. Part of this treaty specified that Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. This is another significant treaty that they violated. Indeed they violated this one as early as the late 1970's when they constructed a nuclear reactor which - thankfully - Israel destroyed in 1981. Since that time, they have resorted to more secretive ways of acquiring materials for nuclear weapons and the treaty above expressly forbids this practice both in what I noted above.

Now this treaty is not set in stone for there is an out clause; however it specifies that Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests. Hussein has never sought out of this treaty by the legitimate means allowed; therefore, he is in clear and unmistakable breach of it.

Now let us see, they have (i) violated the Geneva Protocol of 1925 - which they entered into in 1931 and they have gone against the "Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, of 10 April 1972". (A pretty self-explanatory piece of legislation.) Further still, they have (iii) violated their obligations under the "Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968". They would be in violation even if they had never built a nuclear weapon but only had the parts to build one - or sought to acquire these parts thereof.

So we have three breaches of international accords that Iraq signed and thereby is expected to comply with. And this resolution "invited" Iraq to reaffirm their adherence to these previously signed agreements as well as noted the following "decisions" to be made:

8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of:

(a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities;

(b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;

This is why Iraq's clear failure to account for stockpiles of chemical weapons is a violation of three previous agreements but also of this resolution. (More on the latter in a while.)

9. Decides, for the implementation of paragraph 8 above, the following:

(a) Iraq shall submit to the Secretary-General, within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution, a declaration of the locations, amounts and types of all items specified in paragraph 8 and agree to urgent, on-site inspection as specified below;

(b) The Secretary-General, in consultation with the appropriate Governments and, where appropriate, with the Director-General of the World Health Organization, within forty-five days of the passage of the present resolution, shall develop, and submit to the Council for approval, a plan calling for the completion of the following acts within forty-five days of such approval:

(i) The forming of a Special Commission, which shall carry out immediate on-site inspection of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile capabilities, based on Iraq's declarations and the designation of any additional locations by the Special Commission itself;

(ii) The yielding by Iraq of possession to the Special Commission for destruction, removal or rendering harmless, taking into account the requirements of public safety, of all items specified under paragraph 8 (a) above, including items at the additional locations designated by the Special Commission under paragraph 9 (b) (i) above and the destruction by Iraq, under the supervision of the Special Commission, of all its missile capabilities, including launchers, as specified under paragraph 8 (b) above;

What about those empty missile canisters found last month??? Are they somehow exempt from destruction of ALL their offensive missile capabilities??? I think not for if (i) you have missile canisters then (ii) you can put chemicals or other weapons in them and (iii) you have a weapon of mass destruction. This is why Hans "Inspector Clueso" Blix's B grade for Iraq was in and of itself additional justification for military action: because the resolution does not allow for grading on a curve. It is either completely comply or be in breach: pass or fail in other words.

(iii) The provision by the Special Commission of the assistance and cooperation to the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency required in paragraphs 12 and 13 below;

Here are paragraphs 12 and 13:

12. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material or any subsystems or components or any research, development, support or manufacturing facilities related to the above; to submit to the Secretary-General and the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution a declaration of the locations, amounts, and types of all items specified above; to place all of its nuclear-weapons-usable materials under the exclusive control, for custody and removal, of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with the assistance and cooperation of the Special Commission as provided for in the plan of the Secretary-General discussed in paragraph 9 (b) above;

Do not be fooled by the mention of nuclear weapons here. The resolution already covered chemical and biological weapons in paragraphs 8 and 9 above. Thus, even without proof of nuclear capabilities, Iraq is already in breach of three international treaties that they signed.

to accept, in accordance with the arrangements provided for in paragraph 13 below, urgent on-site inspection and the destruction, removal or rendering harmless as appropriate of all items specified above; and to accept the plan discussed in paragraph 13 below for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of its compliance with these undertakings;

It is clear by Blix's B grade that Iraq still has some of the items of the above list. Otherwise they would have an A grade and we would not be talking about going to war. Chalk this up as another area that Iraq has failed in.

13. Requests the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, through the Secretary-General, with the assistance and cooperation of the Special Commission as provided for in the plan of the Secretary-General in paragraph 9 (b) above, to carry out immediate on-site inspection of Iraq's nuclear capabilities based on Iraq's declarations and the designation of any additional locations by the Special Commission; to develop a plan for submission to the Security Council within forty-five days calling for the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless as appropriate of all items listed in paragraph 12 above; to carry out the plan within forty-five days following approval by the Security Council; and to develop a plan, taking into account the rights and obligations of Iraq under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968, for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq's compliance with paragraph 12 above, including an inventory of all nuclear material in Iraq subject to the Agency's verification and inspections to confirm that Agency safeguards cover all relevant nuclear activities in Iraq, to be submitted to the Security Council for approval within one hundred and twenty days of the passage of the present resolution;

But lest we get ahead of ourselves here, paragraphs ten and eleven were skipped over to try to provide less bureaucratic jumble of the resolutions intentions. Here they are now:

10. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally undertake not to use, develop, construct or acquire any of the items specified in paragraphs 8 and 9 above and requests the Secretary-General, in consultation with the Special Commission, to develop a plan for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq's compliance with this paragraph, to be submitted to the Security Council for approval within one hundred and twenty days of the passage of this resolution;

11. Invites Iraq to reaffirm unconditionally its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968;

All of this bureaucratic blather is summed up in paragraph 14 which reads as follows:

14. Takes note that the actions to be taken by Iraq in paragraphs 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 of the present resolution represent steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons;

And what does the cease-fire depend on to remain in force??? The resolution itself specifies in one of its last paragraphs:

33. Declares that, upon official notification by Iraq to the Secretary-General and to the Security Council of its acceptance of the provisions above, a formal cease-fire is effective between Iraq and Kuwait and the Member States cooperating with Kuwait in accordance with resolution 678 (1990);

Let us now look at what resolution 678 said about this matter:

Mindful of its duties and responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations for the maintenance and preservation of internationalnd peace and security,

Determined to secure full compliance with its decisions,

Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter,

1. Demands that Iraq comply fully with resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions, and decides, while maintaining all its decisions, to allow Iraq one final opportunity, as a pause of goodwil, to do so;

2. Authorizes Member States co-operating with the Government of Kuwait, unless Iraq on or before 15 January 1991 fully implements, as set forth in paragraph 1 above, the foregoing resolutions, to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area;

3. Requests all States to provide appropriate support for the actions undertaken in pursuance of paragraph 2 of the present resolution;

This is the the resolution that the UN gave that authorized the Gulf War start after January 15, 1991. So if resolution 687 stated that (i) a "ceasefire" would be declared contingent upon Iraq's compliance with the proscriptions of that resolution and if (ii) that ceasefire was to be interpreted in light of the previous resolution 678 and if (iii) resolution 678 declared the intention to use "all necessary means" to implement its resolutions and that resolution itself was a "last resort" then (iv) violation of the above proscriptions of resolution 687 would annul the ceasefire and call the member states to support action against Iraq.

Those who wonder why I have so heavily dealt with resolution 687 will note how prominantly it factors into resolution 1441 - Iraq's "last chance" to comply:

Resolution 1441

The fact is, Iraq has been and remains to this day guilty of three distinct breaches of resolution 687 - the resolution that established the provisions required for the ceasefire. The resolution itself even states that in its resolution 687 (1991) the Council declared that a ceasefire would be based on acceptance by Iraq of the provisions of that resolution, including the obligations on Iraq contained therein, So if the ceasefire is based on criteria that Iraq has continually failed to meet, then the ceasefire is effectively over. When a ceasefire is over, war resumes. That is how wars operate for better or for worse. And considering how atrocious the UN's trackrecord has been in recent years they need to make good on their endless barrage of resolutions here. If they fiddle with Hussein, they have forfeited any hope of being viable in the future. If they force Bush to commit US troops without their approval, they are exposed as a toothless tiger that lacks the backbone to enforce their own resolutions.

[P]ressing danger from a common enemy (that's us) is more likely to drive the otherwise quite distinct Saddam and Al Qaeda breeds of hideousness into alliance.

Eve, this is slippery slope argumentation. This is akin to saying "if we go to war against Hitler, the Americans of German descent might ally with the Fatherland against us". If your approach was taken in the 1930's and 1940's, we would either be speaking German today or be lampshades. Besides, we do not know if those fellas are not already in an alliance.

I think it's a given that Saddam would have to be crazy to actually nuke us or Israel. Forget about turning the desert to glass--we'd turn him to glass. He'd be a shadow burnt onto a palace wall.

But (to turn your previous argument against you) would that not get Al Queda to come after us??? What further proof would they need that we are The Great Satan than if we nuked Iraq??? And it even would not matter if Hussein nuked someone first, he would be doing "Allah's work" and we would be tools of the devil in their view. In short, it would be a lose-lose situation for us.

This is why a lot of the pro-war arguments rest on the belief that Saddam Hussein is deranged and/or he is seeking a glorious death.

My arguments are that he is in material breach, has been for over twelve years (of UN resolutions: if we count international accords then we could go back to at least 1979 if not earlier), and we cannot continue to make a mockery of the notion of "keeping the peace" if all we issue to this guy is papers saying "this is your last warning". At some point that statement has to be treated like it means what it says. Besides, do you honestly think Hussein has not worked out contingency plans for these kinds of events??? The man was/is a student of Joseph Stalin.

Now you may want to claim that we are to some extent responsible for what has transpired with Hussein. I would of course not dispute this notion at all. If you recall, it was out of fear that another fellow would come up in the Bath party to replace Hussein who was even worse than him which is one reason that they did not try to finish Hussein in 1991. So we have gotten to where we are with him under the same premises as you are now seeking to justify not going to war. So now we have (i) left Hussein in power out of fear in 1991 (ii) watched him make a fool out of us and the international community - including three flagrant violations of international weapons accords that Iraq signed. (Two for chemical weapons and one for nuclear weapons.) And now he has gotten to where he is because of our fear of what the rest of the Middle East would do if we finished the job and (iii) he is from all appearances manufacturing chemical weapons and intends to manufacture a nuclear device. Now you want to hold out further out of fear.

I am sorry Eve, but this is how we got to where we are now with him. I shudder to think of what he would have to do before you would view war with Iraq as the necessary evil it is at this time. I am afraid that too many people opposed to war are treating Hussein's chemical and nuclear weapon development aspirations as some sort of "price to pay" to keep the peace. Need I remind my readers of how Europe treated Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938??? Please pardon those of us who do not want to give into this modern day anschluss and believe that we have gotten to the point where this fellow needs to be dealt with without any further delays.

Note:

{1} For those unfamiliar with various blogging terms, Miss Tushnet is using a term that denotes someone on the extreme edge of whatever their viewpoint happens to be. Such people are at times referred to as "barking moonbats". Someone once said that "the definition of a 'barking moonbat' is someone who sacrifices sanity for the sake of consistency". Whatever one wants to say about Hussein he is not a moonbat though Kim Jong II of North Korea may well be. But that is another story altogether.

"Reform of the Tridentine Missal II"

This is to build upon my comments on suggested reforms of the Tridentine Missal which I listed at Envoy in December and which I blogged HERE. I would recommend reading that short entry before reading this one because I intend to build upon that one a bit here with an alternative to my original calendar proposal.

The common calendar - with moving all feasts that were initially moved unnecessarily back to their original days of celebration - is one way to provide a stronger foothold for the TM in the current liturgical climate than the using of separate calendars. It is true that a universal calendar was a seventeenth century novelty but I believe it is of assistance in bridging the gap on this issue.

Not only would this make it possible to celebrate masses for those who were canonized since 1962 (as canonization to some degree mandates veneration by the universal church) but this idea would make the TM functionally less of an "accommodation" and more of an integrated rite in the universal church. (The notion that the Tridentine worshippers are "stuck in 1962" would thus be refuted as a viable criticism.) However, there is also the reality that the typical Latin edition of the Third Roman Missal was recently approved by the pope so perhaps my idea above is for fifty years down the road. In the interim, there is another idea that would achieve virtually the same thing and could serve as a "bridge" between what we have now and what I noted in the other entry as a good idea to do.

The other option would be to celebrate separate feast days as done now but simply adding feasts to the 1962 calendar to update it and dropping certain feasts that were suppressed in 1969 from the TM calendar of feasts. The TM Missal already has certain formularies for feasts depending on the type of saint. (To name a few examples there would be "feast for a martyr not a bishop", "feast for a bishop", "feast for one or more Supreme Pontiffs", "feast for a confessor not a martyr", "feast for a widow", etc.). Thus the template feast that is applicable - including the epistle and gospel readings from the TM Missal - could be duplicated for the new feasts added. All that would be needed would be (i) a date for the feast (ii) an OT reading (iii) a written "Prayer" preceding the OT reading and a "Post Communion" prayer where the servant being venerated is mentioned by name. Other then that there would of course be a mention of the servant's name in the Canon but the Canon already accommodates in that area.

The placement of the feast would be either on or as close as possible to the celebration in the Pauline calendar. (If the feast falls on a day where there is already a saint celebrated whose feast was not suppressed by the 1969 reforms, the date would be the closest non-feast day to the celebration in the current calendar.)

Anyway, that is my proposed alternative to my original idea for uniforming the calendars. Hopefully in about fifty years time they can do my original idea - which would ironically mean retaining whatever fixed feast days are established in the TM calendar and moving all feast days unnecessarily moved previously back to their traditional days. (For example, St. Pius X would be moved from August 21st back to September 3rd, Pope Gregory the Great would be moved from September 3rd back to March 12th (which is currently open). And August 21st would be freed up to be used for another feast day, etc. It might sound confusing but a lot of feast days were unnecessarily moved and this mistake should be rectified when it is feasible to do so - say fifty years from when the Third Edition of the Roman Missal begins celebration in its (hopefully noticeably improved) vernacular text.

"Toying With An Amazingly Intolerant (and Misinformed) Liberal" Dept.

This is my response to the second "fisking" victim from yesterday. He responded to Jeanetta in her comments box. The following is his comments interspersed with my responses to them.

Did you know that heresy in greek means choice.

Yes I did. It means making a choice against truths that are held as divinely revealed by the Catholic Church.

This is the crux of the difficulties we face in our church today. Responsible dissent has been stifled.

There is no such thing as "responsible dissent". It is a lie fabricated by late sixties pseudo-Catholics and wannabe theologians. (Most of whom are not worth the gunpowder to blow them to the moon.) A theologian has a responsibility to pass on what the Church teaches. External assent is required at all times or else they are no better than Korah.

No one dare say the emperor has no clothes

Oh your logic, consistency, and grasp of the facts are as barren of substance as the "clothes" on Hans Christian Anderson's fabeled emperor. Without a doubt.

and too much of this insanity flows from Vatican I and Pio Nono.

Phuleeze, this old canard. Are you going to whip out the "Strossmeyer speech" too??? This is as predictable as the sun rising in the East...

When you have time log on to Lord Acton and his role on Vatican I. He is the one who gave us the dictum,"All power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." He was referring to Pio Nono and Infallibility. Acton and Newman were nearly excommunicated for opposing the Pope and 61 Bishops left the Council in protest.

This is a lie sir, Newman did not have problems with the definition after it was voted and promulgated. He had problems before the definition because he did not think it was opportune and he was concerned about the Neo-Ultramontaine elements that were shaping the agenda of the Council. There were three drafts on papal infallibility, the first was Neo-Ultramontaine and favoured by Pio Nono. The second was very narrow and rejected as untraditional. (Coincidentally most Catholics today think this is the sense of the definition.) The third was more midrange and was the one defended by the relator and voted on by the Council.

As far as Lord Acton goes, like Newman he fought against the definition previously. Unlike Newman, Acton was not a nuanced thinker. He was just as uncompromising as Pio Nono was; however since you agree with his brand of extremism you laud him. It also does not hurt to point out that the heretic Dollinger was Acton's teacher. But he was not as unforgiving as Acton was for he noted "[n]o one in the whole world knows me better than Acton and knows more about me. But the difference between us is that I am tolerant towards people while he is an absolutist in judging them and is totally intolerant". So while "absolute power corrupts absolutely", it can also be said that "intolerance is itself a form of absolute". You can surely do the math on that one and figure out where it inexorably leads.

Finally, some bishops had to return to their dioceses and the rest left not because they opposed papal infallibility but were opposed to the timing of the definition. (Like Newman was.) They also feared that it would create large schisms in the Church which - as we subsequently know now - never occurred. There was also the fact that they did not want to be on record opposing the pope by voting against the schema but could not in conscience vote for it. But once it was ratified, virtually all of them gave their assent to it because they recognized that the Holy Spirit had spoken through the Council. There is a HUGE difference between feeling that a definition is not opportune (as I feel for example about defining the Mediatrix doctrine) and opposing the doctrine itself. Apparently you cannot make that distinction or (if you can) you are choosing not to simply out of animosity for Pio Nono.

These men made a choice to stand up for the truth and were trampled by a Pope who was terrified of all things modern (like democracy)

Another standard revisionist account. I find it interesting that those who are critical of Pio Nono are inevitably ignorant of the kind of liberalism that he opposed. Yes, believe it or not democracy has its valid and its invalid formularies. I would suggest that you actually acquaint yourself with what Pius opposed before you write off his views with these kind of Sophisms.

and who issued a 200 item Syllabus of Errors

No, there were 80 propositions in the Syllabus.

which still stands as a beacon to his lack of vision and his anger at losing the Papal States.

More ignorance. First of all, the Church still condemns the very pseudo-democratic models that Pio Nono was opposed to. And you clearly have no idea what he really opposed but instead see him condemning "democracy" and you supporting "democracy" and think the two are univocal rather then equivocal. That is your first egregious blunder. The second is your horrendous sense of history.

The Syllabus was appended to the Encyclical Letter Quanta Cura, which was published in 1864. (It was a summation of errors previously proscribed by Pio Nono dating back to 1846 in some cases.) The papal states were not lost until 1870. Not much more is needed to point out how inept you are to be throwing criticisms around.

Again, I am trying to point out that the very human side of the church is always with us.

Yes, lies, fabrications, and hysterical exaggerations are very human elements. You have done a good job of demonstrating them here.

But so is Christ as He promised even to the consummation of the world, so we have powerful reasons to hope. God does write straight with crooked lines.

Yes he does. But this "we have reason to hope" is rather ambiguous. What are you hoping for, a Church made in your image??? A foolish man you are if that is the case. The Syllabus is still in much of its parts relevant today. I would suggest that you educate yourself on issues before you put on the "apocalypse now" music. You remind me of a dyspeptic "trad" - except from the liberal fringe. Oh and before I forget, just as I remind "trads" that it is Blessed John XXIII, I remind you: it is Blessed Pius IX.

If this is the best that these folks can do, we are going to have to start "handicapping" matches. But I digress...

"Hap-py Birth-day Ron-ald-us Mag-nus" Dept.

It is good to see a tribute to President Reagan on his 92nd birthday today from Blog from the Core. (I will in the spirit of the day today spare him the reiteration of last month why I took issue with his view that Bush is "Reagan II" - check the archives for that if interested.)

What surprises me is that more people have not written tributes. Do I have to spell it out for you all: Reagan was the best president of the second half of the twentieth century, one of the three best presidents of the twentieth century, and one of the seven or eight best of all time. (I figured once he was seventh but that ranking may be higher now that I have had time to better assess him.)

It is my belief that Sen. Barry Goldwater would have made for possibly our greatest twentieth century president - even better than Teddy Roosevelt who was the best president of the century. The problem was, Sen. Goldwater was an honest man going up against one of the worst politicians of that era: Lyndon Baines Johnson. Johnson was more a kingmaker than a king. (He never would have been elected president prior to assuming the job upon Kennedy's death.) Senator Goldwater was good friends with John F. Kennedy and noted that he would have won against Kennedy in 1964 because it would have been a debate on issues. The moment Johnson was sworn in as president, Goldwater knew that he could not win because Johnson was one of the dirtiest players in the game. Nonetheless, he gave it his best shot out of principle.

Literally days before the election (on October 27, 1964), a last minute impassioned speech was given by a newcomer to Republican politics on behalf of Sen. Goldwater. I want to post that speech now in its near-entirety. For it put Ronald Wilson Reagan on the national political map and led to him winning two terms as California govenor, missing the presidency by a gnat's hair in 1976, and two overwhelming election victories in 1980 and 1984. This is the man who put courage back into the American psyche after the debacle of Vietnam and the desolate economic wilderness of the post-Watergate era. Without further ado, I give you The Great Communicator himself and significant portions of his speech "Rendezvous with Destiny" delivered on October 27, 1964 and almost certainly written with his own hand.{1}

I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this.

It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government."

This idea? that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we're always "against," never "for" anything.

We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments....

We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world.

We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward I restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him.... But we can not have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure....

Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector's share is 37 cents of -very dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what's at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits-not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

Does anyone care to tell me that the above speech is less relevant today than it was thirty-nine years ago???



Happy Birthday President Reagan. And thankyou for your tremendous service for the forces of good in the culture wars of America and throughout the world.

Note:

{1} Before he was president, Ronald Reagan wrote a lot of his own speeches.

I am almost done with the critique of Eve Tushnet's arguments for not going to war. I worked on it a bit earlier and I do not intend in the critique to deal with anything General Powell's UN address earlier today revealed. I should have it done and able to be posted tomorrow evening on the birthday of Ronaldus Magnus.

"Laying the Smack Down" Dept.

I have long believed that any decent conservative can effectively dispatch two or more liberals in a debate. Thus when we have one on one confrontations, they are less a dialogue and more a "fisking". (Blog term which basically is synonymous with "laying the smack down".) Here are two examples of what I refer to. The first is from our good friend The Mighty Barrister:


It’s been too long since I fisked a deserving target, so let’s have a go at Dr. Marcia Good Maust, a “health specialist” at St. Mary’s, which is somehow associated with Notre Dame (where the famous Fr. Richard Mc’Brien sends forth his liberal screeds).

The occasion of this fisking is that Notre Dame/St. Mary’s apparently paid to send five students and the good Ms. Good Maust to a NOW Student Conference, which was really just a cover for an abortion-rights indoctrination conference. In contrast, Notre Dame/St. Mary’s did not pay for students to attend the March for Life. A debate then ensued in The Observer, the official print medium of both institutions... For More Go Here

Our second one is from one of the weblogs I recently discovered that I am enjoying the content of:

[Ratzinger and JP II] have systematically gutted Vatican II and beatified some very unlikely heroes, Pius XII and Pio Nono.

Have you read any of those documents from Vatican II? Vatican II talked about preserving Sacred Traditions and called us to become holier in the face of a world becoming increasingly hostile to the Divine. And as for the situation with Pope Pius XII, revisionists really work on my nerves. Perhaps this quote from the New York Times on December 25th, 1941 will help you see why. For More Go Here

To An Athlete Dying Young:

(By A.E. Housman)

THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade, 
The fleet foot on the sill of shade, 
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

Rest in Peace...

"For Whom the Blog Tolls" Dept. on the Strain of Website Maintenance/Blogging:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

It seems that I am not the only one who has made a conscious effort to scale back my blogging. (Anyone who looks in the archives will see that I have blogged noticeably less than I did prior to about mid November.) Part of that is that I had so much editing to do with previous writings - including a couple of serious and detailed revisions - that blogging naturally became a case of doing less.{1} Right now it is simply a case of having so much on my plate that blogging will have to be scaled back - though I am not aware at this time how much or when this will happen.

I note that here lest anyone wonder if I go for a spell or three without blogging as to the situation: I will still be here I assure you. But after another family death,{2} after a while one becomes numb to the whole affair. Blogging is as much an exercise in discipline as it is focusing my mind on many issues including ones I do not like to think about but have to. Getting started is much easier than it looks but there is strain in maintaining a weblog long term.

I want to muse on this for a moment because there have been several good people who are suspending blogging or shutting down completely. As usual if anything said here helps that is great but if not, well at least it helps me organize my own thoughts so the exercise is not in vain.

To start with, there are advantages to knowing shortcuts as I do for this kind of thing. Much as I did when involved in forums and websites, there are ways to achieve the illusion of time being on one's side when in reality it is not. This is especially the case with someone such as myself who is competent with computer stuff but by no means an expert.

I used to compose my web posts to Microsoft Word so that I could work on them on and off throughout the day without concern for losing them or other problems that plagued forum participants.{3}

Though I got away from that kind of forum in 2002 - and in May of 2002 my harddrive crashed and I lost everything both business and hobby-related - that was my "big secret" for the many people who emailed to ask where I had the "time" to do so much. Conjurers tricks my friends, that was part of it. This is not to say that I did not work at these things of course because I did (and do). But to write a few books worth of essays in 2000 and 2001 - not to mention having more than enough material in dialogues for a half dozen books or so in a five year span on top of business matters and regular life: well when one does not have 24/7 time for writing or cannot type 200 words per minute, one has to find shortcuts. And they are always there even if sometimes it calls for creativity.

Believe it or not, I am quite the subpar typist - and I have to work on that because I have gotten away from proper typing in recent years. Though not the stereotypical two finger typist, I have fallen from proper form and resorted to four to six finger methods which does not make for speed in that realm.{4} When I am alert the speed is not bad but when I am tired or just waking up, my fingers can be somewhat clumsy.

I have nonetheless found many ways to make up the difference in the way I utilize my computer notepad, my bookmark files which are saturated with source links, and of course the ability to cut and paste - created on the eighth day by the Almighty (and it was good). But enough about me since I wanted to primarily address the exodus and/or scaling back of several noteables from websiteville and blogdom.

I did a scan of some of my semi-daily reads and saw that Mark Shea will be scaling back his blogging also so I am hardly alone in that regard. (Mark is one of St. Blogs' biggest Kahunas unlike this humble weblog.) My good friend Pete Vere told me by phone the other day that he is scaling back his involvement on some lists we are on and also on blogging for the time being at Catholic Light and Envoy Encore. (He needs a breather and wants to spend some more time with his family: two sentiments that I can certainly understand.)

I mentioned earlier in late December that John Betts was taking a few months off from blogging to focus on college courses. Likewise, Jeff Culbreath is training for a vocation so he will be seldom blogging in the near future. Now Jeff Miller is shutting his blog down too a few days after celebrating his six month anniversary at St. Blog's.{5} But that is not all.

Stephen Hand has closed TCR after a few years of marvelous work. (And one of my favourite "watering holes" on the web if you will.) And now someone whom I have never mentioned before but if ever a time warranted it this is the time. If St. Blogs' has a "Big Kahuna", it is arguably Amy Welborn who is closing down her weblog. If anyone at St. Blogs' deserves induction into a "St. Blogs' Weblog Hall of Fame" it is Amy. Hopefully she will take some time off and return to blogging in a few months or whatever time she needs. (I also hope that Stephen can return to running TCR after a good three to six months of deserved sabbatical.)

Blogs and websites can be a good exercise. Though I was running on empty in much of 2002, blogging reminded me of previous ideas for writing and also generated not a few new ideas for later in 2003.{6} But this gets back to the activity of blogging and Amy is to some extent the prototype for the "active blog". (Much as Stephen's TCR was the prototype of the "active website" - though Stephen for a while ran his "not a blog" weblog too.) Which brings another thought to mind.

I do not understand the kind of "all or nothing" approach that many people have about these endeavours. Amy Welborn (who coined the Protocol that has become a mantra at St. Blogs' - see my side margin for details) was known for blogging thirty to forty odd times a day or more. (Usually links but she would comment on plenty of stuff too - sometimes at reasonable length.) That does not include her involvement in the comments box option which she chose to go with on her weblog.

On a blog as popular as hers is, you get twenty or more comments - sometimes a lot more - on some topics.{7} Thus, managing the comments boxes as well as blogging a hellacious amount of entries: heck is it any wonder that people who blog so much over the span of six months or a year or whatever get burned out??? I am not at all surprised by that phenomenon.

Jeff Miller did not blog nearly as much as Amy did but he seemed to do several in a day too on average. I am not being critical of course - since I have had days where I blog up a storm of sometimes lengthy cogitations - but I think many people fall into the pattern of thinking that if they do not blog for a day or two that they are somehow "guilty" of "letting down the cause". In reality nothing is further from the truth - or at least should be further from the truth. I can only speak for myself here but I believe my attitude on this is one that people who blog or run websites should have.

First of all, unless they are getting enough tips in the jar to buy a new computer as Bryan Preston of the JunkYard Blog was able to do recently, they should never look at being tipped for writing in this enterprise: at least not in silver and gold unless they are publishing books or articles for periodicals.{8} There is also the subject of frequency of blogging or website updating.

Speaking only for myself, I do not feel a sense of guilt if I go for a day or two (or three or whatever length) without blogging. Initially I did but then it dawned on me (and fortunately this happened very early in the life of this blog) that the moment I worry about that is the moment any edge I have (if I even have one) is blunted. It would then become a case of doing what is needed to "verify" visits and the like.

In that frame of mind, I would be installing a counter and several other features to "track" the number of people who visit. Some people do this and of course they have a right to do it but I believe it is excessive and ultimately self defeating. For I know this blog is read cause I get email about it. (Not reams of it but handfuls here and there.) Also, people link to the weblog and/or to individual posts.

I doubt even 1% of a blog's readers actually email people so one can judge their exposure probably by multiplying their emails by 100 or so - probably more. Again, it is not something I can think about or want to because it plays into the "sweeps week" mentality which assures the end times of any site or weblog. (Or a kind of "built-in obsolete" feature which is not a good idea at all.)

I do not know what subjects elicit the most readership and which do not and frankly, I have no interest in finding out. For the moment I do that is the moment my impulse to blog my mind becomes to some extent compromised. Which brings up another subject altogether.

I remember the first time I did not blog for a few days and I thought "geez, I am not giving anyone stuff to read". You blogging or website voyeurs out there may find this conclusion strange (even self absorbed) but I assure you that one cannot blog or run a website and not have some sense of the "me" element involved.

Blogging is an activity that can give people a sense of exaggerated self importance. There is also the issue of content. I try to keep the subjects mixed and I try to balance my (occasional) scathing anathemas and excommunications with positive stuff both theological and political/social issues. Some people handle primarily news items, some theological, others spiritual. And of course others mix it up a bit but each has a pattern that reflects to some degree their personality or interests or both. Anyway, before this musing goes into the murky realm of incoherence (if it has not already), I want to wrap this entry up in brief.

I hope after whatever degrees of rest they need that Stephen, Amy, Jeff, and Jeff return to the blogosphere (and that Mark and Pete continue to contribute to the economy of ideas) even if at a reduced degree. The Faith teaches us the virtue of moderation and if a sabbatical or scaling back helps in achieving that, it is a good thing.

But I believe for a writer (and at least four of those I mentioned are writers) running a website, interacting with mail, blogging, and other endeavours is a good stimulus for writing. As one who is planning some currently uncertain degree of scaling back from blogging, I say this as much for myself as for anyone I have referred or alluded to above. Hopefully what is noted here can provide food for musings and is to some degree beneficial. And before I close, I have another "secret" for you.

I went against the grain on every convention I normally follow with this entry. I wrote this from scratch, did so without the use of my notepad or archived sources, without cutting and pasting, without jottings or a pre-planned approach of any kind: indeed without any gadgets or tricks whatsoever. In the process, it took almost ninety minutes to write out on the "blog this" screen including minor adjustments where I messed up the HTML and had to fix it. Thus it is not as "polished" as a normal blog entry of length or one of my essays/message board posts/comments box entries. I hope however for that reason it is more "human" if you will. And if y'all do decide to not return to the economy of ideas on the web, be assured that this is one individual who has appreciated your contributions even if seldom it was commented on. God bless.

Notes:

{1} Hopefully the average post for post in that interim remained reasonably good.

{2} This time my dog but hey: it adds to the list of about a dozen family members/friends of the past three years including my father, two close uncles, a grandmother, and three step grandparents.

{3} I also saved a lot of them to hard drive so I had a lot of material for essay writing or for reiterating the same arguments with minor modifications in the usual cycle of apologetics: the same topics come up again and again so why reinvent the wheel right???

{4} Usually thumb, index, and middles fingers of both hands - though I use the ring finger of my left hand often to compensate for the tendency to use only thumb and index fingers of my right hand unless I think about using the other fingers: this is a bad habit that I need to overcome admittedly.

{5} They are three of my favourites. Unlike Jeff Miller whom I came across at St. Blogs', Jeff Culbreath and I - along with John Betts - were mostly familiar with one another from our days at Steve Ray's board before they messed that place up.

{6} Unlike 2002, I do intend to write some actual essays this year - at least three not counting some smaller projects planned with one of my friends.

{7} Not a few times I saw an entry at her site with fifty, eighty, even ninety plus comments. And those who comment in comments boxes are a small percentage of all readers of a blog: probably at most 5% and even there the number is probably liberally skewed to the upside.

{8} There may well be spiritual benefits in the form of people's prayers and that is probably the currency that should be most sought after if any is to be looked for in these endeavours as "primary currency" if you will.

[For an update on these bloggers, see this post. -ISM]

Points to Ponder:

I'm reminded of Archbishop Sheen's frequent comment, that there are but a handful of people who hate the Catholic Church, while there are millions who hate what they mistakenly believe her to be. I think there is something similar at work in this crisis of the faith: many, many Catholics are rejecting teachings of a Church that they've really never come to know. The obstacles of ignorance, of contrary cultural values, of misunderstandings, of counter-example by other Catholics, and of emotional or psychological stumbling-blocks (I think these latter need to receive much more attention than they currently do) all have a large role in the acceptance that people are able to offer the whole faith at a given point in their lives: thus, the partial rejections (or, perhaps better, the partial withholding of assent) do not automatically equal mala fides. The standard moral principle applies: as these obstacles to full knowledge and freedom of action increase, the subjective culpability incurred for rejecting the teachings decreases. Conversely, as we work to remove these obstacles, their freedom and knowledge are able to grow, and they will be readier to give the complete assent of faith.

In many ways, this is a missionary endeavor. We need to ask ourselves what the general obstacles are in our culture that keep people from rendering full assent. The obstacles, we should note, are not only outside the Church (bad values, secularization, hatred of authority): many are inside (poor catechesis, haughty churchgoers, bad liturgy, heartless priests, institutional stupidities, scandal). Our approach needs to address not only the obstacles to the mind, but also the stumbling blocks of the heart. [Fr. Jim Tucker of "Dappled Things"]

Points to Ponder:
(...Ozzy Osbourne censor activated!!!...)

"Religion is the opiate of the masses," said Marx. Well, Marxism is the opiate of f*****g morons." -Damian Penny

On Quizzes and Running Down America:
(by the "people of peace" falsely so-called)

I took the Wild Monk quiz (courtesy of Bill Cork), the results of which I will reveal in a moment. Bill Cork himself apparently is among the most ruthless of warmongers or a patriot hawk depending on your political viewpoint. As he notes at the above link:

I scored 97 out of 100, which places me in the "Patriot Hawk" catagory, along with 27% of the other people who have taken it. Not all the questions are about war. Some are about the 2000 presidential election, September 11, and the war in Afghanistan. Peter Nixon scored 69, he tells us, or "Center-Right."

While not the patriot hawk or warmonger that Bill apparently is, I did score an 88 with a "10" on the "rational" scale. (Bill did not reveal his "rational" score.) Apparently 20% of those who took the test scored in the same range that I did. So rest assured my readers, I am not the "extremist" that Bill is as I rate at the outermost limits of the next category. (Which is "realist" if you are conservative and "capitalist stooge" if you are liberal.)

Nonetheless, though I can sympthize for people who in conscience have problems with going to war, I have no sympathy for those who try to run down our country by any means fair or foul. (That includes so-called men of peace like Nelson "try my petrol-soaked tire necklace, wanna match???" Mandela.) This is summed up perhaps best in the following early 1970s country ditty written by Merle Haggard:

I hear people talkin' bad,
About the way we have to live here in this country,
Harpin' on the wars we fight,
An' gripin' 'bout the way things oughta be.
An' I don't mind 'em switchin' sides,
An' standin' up for things they believe in.
When they're runnin' down my country, man,
They're walkin' on the fightin' side of me.

Yeah, walkin' on the fightin' side of me.
Runnin' down the way of life,
Our fightin' men have fought and died to keep.
If you don't love it, leave it:
Let this song I'm singin' be a warnin'.
If you're runnin' down my country, man,
You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me.

I read about some squirrely guy,
Who claims, he just don't believe in fightin'.
An' I wonder just how long,
The rest of us can count on bein' free.
They love our milk an' honey,
But they preach about some other way of livin'.
When they're runnin' down my country, hoss,
They're walkin' on the fightin' side of me.

Yeah, walkin' on the fightin' side of me.
Runnin' down the way of life,
Our fightin' men have fought and died to keep.
If you don't love it, leave it:
Let this song I'm singin' be a warnin'.
If you're runnin' down my country, man,
You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me.

Yeah, walkin' on the fightin' side of me.
Runnin' down the way of life,
Our fightin' men have fought and died to keep.
If you don't love it, leave it:
Let this song I'm singin' be a warnin'.
If you're runnin' down my country, man,
You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me.

Remember this when you start flapping your gums you peacenik idiotarians: if people like you got their way in the 1930's and 1940's you would either be speaking German today or be a lampshade. Think about that the next time you go to your little "anti-Bush" rallies because that is all they are. I go over this here in brief so I will not reiterate those points in this entry. I hope to finish this evening an expose on Eve Tushnet's rationale for not going to war for posting tomorrow. Unlike the communist-sympathizing anti-Bush crowd she at least makes an informed stand. I will go over why I believe her stand is wrong in that entry should I finish it this evening. (If not I will finish and post it during the early part of the week sometime.)

Bryan Preston's commentary on political and social issues (as well as occasionally on religious issues) is always one that We at Rerum Novarum take note of - publishing bits and pieces worth noting. Today his comments on the Columbia disaster are worth noting particularly since he works for NASA.

Fr. Rob Johansen is finally back to blogging after three months nearly four months off. Here is his return post - which highlights well the distinction between being proactive and the too-common mentality of being reactive:

Fr. Rob's Return

And for those who are interested, here is one of his posts from the "Thrownback Archives":
New Hope for Translation of the Mass

Reiteration of Guest Editorial Policy:

From the archives circa September 30, 2002:Guest Editorial Policy Since the George Weigel two part guest editorial on Catholicism In America and the Century Ahead,which ran November 6th-7th: there have not been any guest editorials run at this weblog. Nonetheless, I want to reiterate the feature and extend it to the readers of this weblog should they want to comment on an issue that they feel is not being covered somewhere or another.

My policy has been to split these about 50-50 theological and political/social. To that end, we are thus far at three theological and two political-social editorials. Therefore, I am most inclined towards possible socio-political editorials at this time to regain the 50-50 balance. Anyway, mull it over and let me know if you have something you would like to run. The guidelines for this are at the link above.

New Amazon Book Review of George Weigel's 2002 book "The Courage to be Catholic":
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

This is "hot off the presses" as it was posted to Amazon literally less than five minutes ago.

(5 Stars) The timeliness of this book could not have been better...

...and for that reason, I was worried that the quality of the work would not be up to par. Fortunately my concerns were ill-founded and the work being reviewed here can be given four and a half stars for content and a half a star for its timeliness. My only real criticism is that George Weigel almost seems to fall into the trap of equating "Catholic" with "Latin rite". Thus when he speaks of the celibacy of the Catholic priest - and while giving a cursory mention of the eastern tradition - he does not do full justice to the complexity of the eastern and western traditions on this subject. (He is right though that celibacy of the western clergy is not the problem that many of the contemporary ignorant portray it to be.) But I am getting a bit ahead of myself here.

George Weigel starts off by identifying the crisis under four headings:

1) The three-headed monster of pedophilia, priests having illicit sexual relations with women - including some minors, and "homosexually oriented priests, seemingly incapable of living the celibacy they had promised to God and the Church, and abusing teenagers and young men committed to their care" (cf. Weigel).

2) Crisis of Priestly Identity

3) Crisis of Episcopal Leadership

4) Crisis of Discipleship

He then goes on to highlight what the crisis is not and deals well with the red herrings of (i) Celibacy (ii) the "authoritarian Church" model (iii) a "failure to implement Vatican II" - according to its so-called "spirit" (iv) the crisis being "a pedophilia crisis" - as it is much more then that (v) the "problem" being the Catholic Sexual Ethic itself. From there he delves into the problems of dissent from magisterial teaching which started with Humanae Vitae in 1968 and continues today by both "liberals" as well as so-called "traditionalists" and how the Vatican ended up hamstringing American bishops in 1968. The fear of creating a schism was of course legitimate but the results of the policies to address the problems have created in essence an implicit schism in the American Church at many levels.

Weigel deals well with how the aforementioned dissent filtered down from not a few theologians to the faithful, influenced the seminary development of a generation of priests, problems with certain psychological attempts to fix the problem, and the Vatican's moves under the pontificate of Pope John Paul II to reverse this trend which started turning around in 1984. (And how more recent seminarians have benefitted from the changes made thus far.) Weigel also identifies well the culture of dissent that has developed and points out how it in all of its manifestations - from liberal to self-styled "traditionalist" - have played a role in the deepening of this problem. The lie of "faithful dissent" is not detailed as well as it could have been but Weigel sought to cover a lot of subjects so in that respect can be pardoned for only covering the above subject in a brief overview manner.

From there, the author goes on to examine in detail the reasons why the bishops failed in their ministry, the role of Rome in the Crisis, the beginning of reform in the Seminaries - starting with the 1985 Apostolic visitations, the elements that go into priestly reform (here he touches on the rich teaching of the Council and Pope John Paul II on the priesthood), and the selection of bishops - including an idea for some lay participation. (Hardly the "novelty" that many Catholics may presume that it is.) Weigel sums the work up with a call to renewal by being authentically Catholic and not "Catholic Lite" - the latter being what is sadly not uncommon today with the cafeteria Catholicism of picking and choosing what the individual likes and disregarding the rest: for it is that very element that was the genesis of this crisis and what has prolonged it. It therefore is a mentality that needs to be killed and buried and Weigel outlines in this book a good program for doing that that is in essence "back to basics".

In short, this is a good book that all Catholics concerned with the problems in the Church today should read. Crises after all are only cured by a renewed fidelity and that is of course what George Weigel means by "the courage to be Catholic" - and this is something that all Catholics need to take into account and strive to do.

Eve Tushnet on Tradition vs. the Past:

As I have noted in my writings, authentic Traditionalism "is not and cannot be found in externals - even those which may have the hallowed sanction of time" because it is an integral element. Eve blogs on this subject, a small taste of which I present here:

TRADITION VS. THE PAST: When people talk about tradition and "traditionalism," they're often thinking of something that I would consider to be closer to nostalgia than to love of tradition. Jaroslav Pelikan has the sharp one-liner, "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living," and I think there's a lot of truth there. I had never entered into an explicitly traditional institution until college, and so figuring out what tradition is, how it operates, its development and its beauties and its characteristic drawbacks and tensions, has interested me for years.

The first and most basic point is that tradition is not about restoring some real or imagined past era. Tradition gives an institution (a nation, a debating society, a university) a persona; it makes the institution more like a person. And this is necessary in order to make the institution a possible object of human loyalties, since all our loyalties are to persons. (This was what I found the most interesting insight of Reflections on the Revolution in France.) But like a personality, a tradition-based persona must be adaptive and constantly renewed. Traditions need to link the present to the future as well as to the past. A society with a living tradition is instantly distinguishable from a Miss Havisham society desperately trying to capture the past... Click here for more...

Reforming the Tridentine Missal:
(aka "Stirring Up A Hornets' Nest" Dept.)

These suggestions back at the Envoy weblog got some rather strident objections from a few self-identified "traditionalists". The most hilarious was Mark Cameron who implied that my suggestions were of dubious merit since I do not attend the Tridentine liturgy. Short memo to Mark: I doubt it is an exaggeration to say that I have almost certainly attended more Tridentine liturgies than probably you, Jeff Culbreath, and David Smith combined. (I am not sure whom you thought you were conversing with but I am no stranger to the Tridentine liturgy - a mass I have not only attended but used to serve and also was a sacristan for.)

Having gotten that out of the way, it is worth noting that these people love to postulate on what to do with the Pauline liturgy but if anyone talks about changing a hiccup of the Tridentine liturgy, they tend to not take that suggestion well. Nonetheless, here are the suggestions that I made at the Envoy weblog back in December:

(i) Encouraging the dialogue mass format and discouraging private devotions during mass. (With of course respect shown for the elderly who are either too infirm or otherwise not in a condition to adapt accordingly.)

(ii) Eliminate the Latin reading of the Epistle and the Gospel at the altar preceding the vernacular at the pulpit. This is unnecessarily duplicative and fosters the myth that the readings *have* to be in Latin. Moving this part of the liturgy to the pulpit makes far more sense.

(iii) Revising the calendars so that the two Roman Missals have the same feast days. (Including moving all feast days initially moved unnecessarily back to their original dates of celebration.)

(iv) Adding an OT reading to the Tridentine Missal and giving the Tridentine users the option of retaining the traditional Epistle and Gospel readings from the Pius V Missal. (Over the three year lectionary of the Pauline Missal.)

(v) Making the Leonine Prayers optional.

I should add here that I meant to include the Last Gospel in the statement on the Leonine Prayers. Anyway, there are suggestions for improving the Tridentine Missal. Does someone care to tell me what is unreasonable about any of them???

Points to Ponder:

If there is one phrase that stands before history as typical of Thomas Aquinas, it is that phrase about his own argument: "It is not based on documents of faith, but on the reasons and statements of the philosophers themselves." Would that all Orthodox doctors in deliberation were as reasonable as Aquinas in anger! Would that all Christian apologists would remember that maxim; and write it up in large letters on the wall, before they nail any theses there. At the top of his fury, Thomas Aquinas understands, what so many defenders of orthodoxy will not understand. It is no good to tell an atheist that he is an atheist; or to charge a denier of immortality with the infamy of denying it; or to imagine that one can force an opponent to admit he is wrong, by proving that he is wrong on somebody else's principles, but not on his own. After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours. We may do other things instead of arguing, according to our views of what actions are morally permissible; but if we argue we must argue "On the reasons and statements of the philosophers themselves." [GK Chesterton: From his book Saint Thomas Aquinas]

Courtesy of Bryan Preston is this making of the Michael Jordon Superbowl commercial. The technology and intricacies of method alone in such a project are staggering. (Certainly they befuddle this "reasonably-computer-literate-but-not-spectacularly-so" computer user.) But the best parts of the piece are in some ways the psychological elements that the author touches on:

Every one of us can imagine (probably has imagined) being where MJ is in this moment. Were we more powerful back then, when our reflexes were quicker, when we could jump and reach a little (maybe a lot) higher than we can now? Or is experience the thing? Can we think our way into and out of possibilities and scrapes now that we would only have stumbled through then? And is that the power?

Anyone who remembers the vigor of their youth and the experience of their later years has asked these questions. (Particularly when it comes to sports competitions.) For example, I think back at how strong physically I used to be and - while never a bastion of endurance I certainly had significantly more of that then than I do now. As of this very moment I am pretty sure the younger me would prevail in such a matchup - if the older me avoided underhanded tactics. Nonetheless, I hope in the coming year to approach my old conditioning - possibly even be stronger physically though I doubt that the endurance element can be fully regained. (And I know the durable element of youth is to some extent irretrievable.)

On the whole I prefer being older and wiser to younger and less wise. (Particularly since my knowledge of human physiology and physical development is much better now than it was then.) My father used to say that "old age and treachery will beat youth and strength and skill every time". And while I have no doubt that is the case with the high school Shawn, I am not so sure about if the current "me" went up against the young adult Shawn. (He was quite a bull.)

But like the ad itself perhaps, the answer is likely one that can be debated continually and never settled - at least not in this life. (And not even cloning could settle it.) That is one of the things that makes sports debates so interesting sometimes. But yet again I digress...

"I'm With Stupid" Dept.

Guess who will be chairing the UN's Disarmarment Conference??? If you said it could not possibly be Iraq...well...the UN is out apparently to prove that they really are as braindead and inept as many of us have claimed for years.

Brief Comments on the State of the Union Speech:

Well, W did a very good job tonight. I thought covering the domestic stuff first was an excellent way to silence those who thought he was going to make the war issue predominant. And the war subject was covered adequately enough - I think Hans "Inspector Clueso" Blix actually made W's life easier in that he did not have to detail the war subject as much as he would have otherwise.

Oh and as a Washingtonian, I most assuredly do not endorse Gov. Locke's Democratic rebuttal. I never once voted for the man either by the way. Further still, it was hilarious to hear Gov. Locke speak of reducing class sizes when that was only done in Washington State by Initiative as Locke and the Democratic legislatures would not do it. Yet he has challenged this Initiative by seeking to enact other legislation that will roll back the classroom reductions in two years time. Can anyone say "hypocritical"???

In summary: Bush did well. Locke demonstrated why the Democrats are - to paraphrase that great western philosopher Tom Petty: "rebels without a clue"...

On Death Camps and Dead 'Traditionalism':
(A Response to My Friend Albert)

Shawn,
In an NBC story about North Korean death camps here: http://www.msnbc.com/news/859191.asp

our milquetoast President Bush is described as being able to generate a "visceral reaction" to that Communist country's barbaric ways such that he included it in his "axis of evil."

Yet the Church cannot mention it.

The Church has mentioned communism many times. Communism was condemned directly by Popes Leo XIII, Pius XI, and Pius XII. Lots of condemnations but little in the way of a functional agenda for following the traditional Catholic assimilation procedure with communism. Your criticism here is akin to the criticism of the critics of Pope Pius XII who castigate him for not speaking out forcefully against the Nazis. The Church had done so with the communists in the 1930's and they continued to butcher people left and right. The Dutch bishops explicitly condemned the Nazis and the Nazis responded with even worse persecution and butchering. But this is of course no big damn deal I suppose to an armchair abstract philosopher/critic.

Vatican II reiterated the Church's condemnations of communism but not explicitly. Further still, the social teachings of John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II opposed Communism generally in similar non-direct ways. But of course like the so-called "silence of Pius XII", these popes taking a very indirect policy with the Communists as Pius XII did with the Nazis is another example of giving a "get out of jail free" card to Pius while you lambaste his successors right??? All of this is sad yet predictable.

It is too busy having conferences on how to deal with its own sex crimes. The pope, leader of the Church that our Lady of Fatima said must confront Communism, was even unwilling to "confront" the criminally complacent Cardinal Law by "asking" him to resign.

That is right, the popes have done *nothing* about Communism at all right??? I really wonder sometimes how you think you are credible on these issues when you make monumentally boneheaded statements such as this. You somehow think that if Vatican II and the popes are not vocally condemning communism that somehow they are not fighting it. This is an example of what happens when you do not care to see the forest for the trees.

For there is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that the Communists would have laughed at a condemnation from the Council and it would have been a pious and empty gesture. Because you see, typically condemnations of communism had achieved nothing in the way of proposing viable alternatives. It is not enough to simply say to do something anymore - indeed the fact that I have to state the obvious with you here is evidence of that. Why do you think that the Communists or communist sympathizers would somehow obey the pope when you personally disobey him at every turn??? (And I will not enumerate the ways you do this here for the sake of economy of response to the extent that this is possible.)

The more indirect references to communism actually started in the pontificate of Pius XII. John XXIII reiterated indirectly the condemnation of Pius XI in his social encyclical, Paul VI reaffirmed the Church's position against atheistic socialism in his first encyclical letter in 1964. (Written before the Third Session of the Council.) He also mentioned the problem of "totalitarian ideologies" in his first social encyclical. John Paul II likewise was critical of communism both as Archbishop of Krakow and as Supreme Pontiff both in words and in actions. (If not for time constraints I could detail this pope's brilliant undermining of communism both politically as well as in his social teachings.) But enough on the popes and let us turn now to Vatican II.

What the Second Vatican Council did was get at atheistic totalitarianism by addressing all of the constituent elements which fueled the philosophy and gave it life. Then the popes subsequent to the Council reaffirmed and developed these and other contingent themes. One advantage that John XXIII and his successors had is that they were not merely engaging in ivory tower abstractions as many of their predecessors had but instead had experienced totalitarianism to some extent directly. John XXIII as Apostolic Nuncio to Turkey and Bulgaria, Pope Paul VI as one of the most powerful men in the Curia for nearly thirty years and then as Archbishop of Milan for nine years. (The largest dioceses in Italy and one where Paul VI successfully undermined communism with his pastoral policies. Prior to his appointment to the Chair of St. Ambrose the communist menace had been growing in Milan for many years.)

And of course the exposure of Pope John Paul II to this menace directly is a well established fact beyond credible debate. But of course the question is, how much of the truth do you really want to know if it casts a funeral pall over the mythical "trad" world that you want apparently to adhere to???

Vatican II, which was supposedly called to reconcile the modern world to the Church, in all its voluminous documents, did not even mention the word "Communism" once.

Your presumption here is in error. Vatican II was called to (i) reaffirm the corpus of Catholic doctrine (ii) present the Catholic Faith in its entirety to the world in a comprehensible manner (iii) develop doctrine where needed to deal with certain contemporary situations (iv) establish a functional agenda for the reunion of the Churches that was in conformity with Catholic tradition (v) by extension reinvigorate the missions - particularly in those areas of the world where the Church had failed so miserably in previous centuries. Dialogue with the modern world was only one element of the equation - and an element that was at least a hundred and fifty years overdue.

Besides, John XXIII simply put into action what his two predecessors had wanted to do but were not able to. And when the definitive history of the Council is written, many 'trads' will be shocked to see that Popes Pius XI and Pius XII - particularly the latter - planted many of the seeds that came to fruition by the early 1960 with the preparation for the Council and the final texts which were promulgated.

And that was at a time when the Communists had just finished precipitating the Cuban missile crisis that nearly blew up the entire world. Yet the Church dared not even mention the menace responsible for virtually all the ills of the modern world. Why?

I just explained why. Sometimes when sent out as sheep amongst the wolves, it helps to be as wise as serpents and as guileless as doves (cf. Matthew x,16).

The pope promised not to mention Communism if the Communists would send their Orthodox bishops (KGB agents in robes) to the council.

Even if you were right about this assertion, what I outlined above highlights exactly why this approach was one which conformed to the advice given by Our Lord above (wise as serpents and guileless as doves).

That is what passes as the new and improved Catholic Church today which has become reconciled to the ever-new and ever-improving modern world. That is the Church I am no longer a part of.

Then you are without hope of salvation my friend. I suggest you innoculate yourself of this festering disease and do so soon. You can start with this writing. I know you read the first version but this one is a much better product in every parameter. I will pray for you certainly but I am tired of reinventing the wheel with people who continue to read spiritual pornography (i.e Remnant, Angelus, etc) and who seem intent on not properly informing themselves. Much as I noted earlier, there are certain things I expect now from people I am going to dialogue with. The first link above now serves as a "pre-requisite" in my mind because you and I have gone in circles on some of these issues for nearly three years now. For the sake of my sanity, I have to make sure you are at least meeting me halfway now and that includes informing yourself properly and from reputable sources before you decide to be critical.

I was going to respond to this letter on the Lidless Eye Inquisition blog but I changed my mind since however affiliated with the Lidless Eyes you are, we are nonetheless good friends and therefore a courtesy should be extended that I would not normally do for that reason. While the first link above is not exhaustive, at least the material there provides a foundation for moving up the ladder of theological discourse.

I am afraid I do not know what else there is to discuss if you do not take a serious attempt to look at things both with informed eyes and also with eyes of faith. Both of these are constantly lacking in your syllogisms and philosophical speculations. As St. Thomas Aquinas noted (and as I have told you at least fifty times): philosophy is the handmaiden of theology. Further still (as I have also told you countless times), while faith and reason do not contradict, faith does transcend reason much as the supernatural transcends the natural. Therefore, to constantly come at these matters from a predominantly rationalistic, naturalistic, and philosophic approach is to do yourself and your audience a disservice. I will close this response by citing some of your own words:

Whether you pull citations from the bible or from magisterial documents makes no difference. It is no substitute for being theologically logical. It is no substitute for taking up the challenge of harmonizing selected citations with ALL citations, integrating conclusions with conscience, and reconciling God's ways with justice. An unwillingness to do this is to reveal that one is afflicted with the fundamentalist mindset and is fair game to the cult of rattle snake handlers who do what they do without fear, cuz the bible says so. [Mark 16:18]

I truly hope that you can learn to do this with the charade of 'traditionalism'. But I cannot continue to play "musical topics" if the root and matrix issues are continually passed over. And I think after nearly three years of patience my request for you to meet me halfway is not at all unreasonable.

A Discourse on Leisure:

Dear Shawn,

HI AAAAAA:

I thought in light of this email that it would be fitting to respond to you today - as it is the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Here's what Dr. Peter Chojnowski had to say about leisure in the August 1994 issue of The Angelus entitled "Leisure as the Basis of Culture":

Angelus Magazine has much more chaff in it than wheat.

“The contemporary refusal to acknowledge the contemplative core of the faithful’s participation in the Holy Sacrifice is perhaps the principle cause of the contemporary liturgical chaos in the Church.

It is in this refusal that we can discern the final result of viewing man solely as a worker. The contemplative watching of the sacred action is denigrated as attributed to the spiritual immaturity of a past age. Participation must now involve the physical doing of the whole community. The worshiper must be doing or he is not engaged.”

This is a fine example of a half-baked half-truth.

1) The faithful were more active in the liturgy the first eleven centuries of Church history than they subsequently were. (The function of the choir at High Mass used to be the function of the lay active participation.)

2) The manner whereby the SSPX celebrates mass is for this reason untraditional.

3) While there is some truth to the assertion that the way in which active participation is sometimes misunderstood is based on a false Kantian notion of virtue consisting in action per se (a topic for another time perhaps), it is manifestly false that there is an "either/or" factor involved here.

For the idea of all liturgical functions being reserved to the priest was an early second millennium innovation born out of the abuse of private masses and increasing recourse to the Low Mass format. This is not even debatable for anyone who has studied liturgical history from sources that give at least a modest attempt at objectivity. (Which disqualifies virtually all "trad" sources out there.)

The puerile principle of active participation that is the basis of the modern Mass clashes with St. Thomas Aquinas who understood the most perfect form of participation to be man’s perfect intellectual contemplation of God’s Essence in the Beatific Vision (Summa Contra Gentiles III, 37).

This is an egregious misrepresentation of SCG III §37. (As far as "puerile", well it is standard fare for the "wise and prudent" to despise the "little ones" as per Our Lord's discourse ala Luke x,21-23.) Here is the text in its entirety:

SCG III §37: That the Final Happiness of Man consists in the Contemplation of God

IF then the final happiness of man does not consist in those exterior advantages which are called goods of fortune, nor in goods of the body, nor in goods of the soul in its sentient part, nor in the intellectual part in respect of the moral virtues, nor in the virtues of the practical intellect, called art and prudence, it remains that the final happiness of man consists in the contemplation of truth. This act alone in man is proper to him, and is in no way shared by any other being in this world. This is sought for its own sake, and is directed to no other end beyond itself. By this act man is united in likeness with pure spirits, and even comes to know them in a certain way. For this act also man is more self-sufficient, having less need of external things. Likewise to this act all other human activities seem to be directed as to their end. For to the perfection of contemplation there is requisite health of body; and all artificial necessaries of life are means to health. Another requisite is rest from the disturbing forces of passion: that is attained by means of the moral virtues and prudence. Likewise rest from exterior troubles, which is the whole aim of civil life and government. Thus, if we look at things rightly, we may see that all human occupations seem to be ministerial to the service of the contemplators of truth.

Now it is impossible for human happiness to consist in that contemplation which is by intuition of first principles, -- a very imperfect study of things, as being the most general, and not amounting to more than a potential knowledge: it is in fact not the end but the beginning of human study: it is supplied to us by nature, and not by any close investigation of truth. Nor can happiness consist in the sciences, the object-matter of which is the meanest things, whereas happiness should be an activity of intellect dealing with the noblest objects of intelligence. Therefore the conclusion remains that the final happiness of man consists in contemplation guided by wisdom to the study of the things of God. Thus we have reached by way of induction the same conclusion that was formerly established by deductive reasoning, that the final happiness of man does not consist in anything short of the contemplation of God.

St. Thomas' entire discourse is on the final happiness of man. To appropriate this in a discussion on the liturgy is manifestly disingenuous. It would have been far more honest to have referenced SCG III,119 which touches directly on the subject of latria - or worship of God. (For that is what we are supposed to do at mass.) Here are the relevant parts of SCG III,119.

SCG III,119: That by certain Sensible Rites our mind is directed to God

BECAUSE it is connatural to man to gather his knowledge through the senses, and most difficult for him to transcend sensible things God has provided for man that even in sensible things there should be made for him a commemoration of things divine. To this end sensible sacrifices have been instituted, which man offers to God, not as though God needed them, but to bring home to man the lesson that he ought to offer himself and all he has to God, his end, Creator, Ruler, and Lord of all. There are also exercised upon man certain hallowings through certain sensible things, whereby man is washed, or anointed, or given to eat and drink, along with the utterance (prolatione) of audible words, to represent to man by these sensible signs the augmentation of spiritual gifts wrought in him from without, namely, by God, whose name is expressed in audible words. Also certain sensible rites are performed by men, not to rouse God to action, but to prompt themselves to divine service. Of this nature are prostrations, genuflections, vocal cries and chants: which things are not done as though God had need of them, who knows all, even the affection of the mind, -- whose will is unchangeable (Chap. XCV), and who moreover does not accept the movement of the body for its own sake: but we do these things on our own behalf, that by these sensible rites our intention may be directed to God and our affection inflamed. At the same time also we hereby make profession of God being author of our soul and body, in that we pay Him acts of homage spiritual and bodily.

Hence it is not surprising that the [Manichean] heretics, who say that God is not the author of our body, blame these bodily observances being paid to God. In which censure they evidently fail to remember that they themselves are men, not seeing that sensible representations are necessary to us for inward knowledge and affection. For it is experimentally shown that our soul is excited by bodily acts to think and feel: hence we properly use such acts to raise our mind to God.

In the payment of these bodily observances the cult, or worship, of God is said to consist. For we are said to cultivate those objects to which we pay attention by our works. Now we busy ourselves in paying attention to the things of God, not as though we were of service to Him, as is the case when we are said to tend, or cultivate, other things by our attentions, but because such actions are of service to ourselves, enabling us to come nearer to God. And because by inward acts we go straight to God, therefore it is by inward acts properly that we worship God: nevertheless outward acts also belong to the cult, or worship, of God, inasmuch as by such acts our mind is raised to God, as has been said.

No more needs to be referenced to refute Dr. Chojnowski's manifest abuse of St. Thomas Aquinas to prop up his obvious ignorance of liturgical history.

According to Dr. Chojnowski, “True leisure is activity which culminates in the silence and joyful repose of those who affirm and celebrate the whole, the Creator of the whole, and our respective individual places within the whole. False leisure only involves and leads to more activity.”

There is some truth to the above statement. It might help to point out that the Greek word for leisure is "skole" which means literally "school". It is a kind of passive reception of knowledge and wisdom and is strongly contemplative. However, Dr. Chojnowski appears to come dangerously close to espousing a kind of Manichaean dichotomy between spirit (good) and matter (bad).

The Scholastics claimed that leisure and sloth (acedia) are spiritual conditions directly opposed to one another.

Correct.

If we were the autonomous master and fashioner of our world as the contemporary world imagines, then to be at ease would be synonymous with laziness. If, however, one of the most perfect acts of the human soul is to calmly affirm the order given to reality by God, then true leisure, which is precisely this affirmation, can in no way be equated with laziness.

This touches on the fallacious view of virtue and action as espoused by the Enlightenment rationalists.

It is the refusal to affirm the order given to creation by the Creator which is, according to St. Thomas, the highest instance of slothfulness (Summan Theologicae, Part II - II, Question 21, Article 4). It is precisely modern man’s resltessness amidst the created order which is a true instance of laziness.

ST II,II Q 21, Art 4 discusses the sin of presumption. There is no mention whatsoever of slothfulness, laziness, or the like anywhere in the reference that is give above. Instead it is another non-applicable citation of St. Thomas - spiritual malpractice by this "Dr" yet again.

What is fundamentally refused is the gift of reality. St. Thomas identifies sloth as the well-spring of despair.

Yes sloth is the well-spring of dispair. And as (i) dispair is the opposite of presumption and (ii) the citation by the Dr. above was on presumption and vainglory then (iii) he has apparently not read the sources he is quoting very closely. Very shoddy work indeed but par for the course in Angelus Magazine.

Having deprived himself of the joys of the spiritual life, modern man inevitably succumbs to the mundane sadness which Sacred Scripture describes as the tristitia saeculi (Quest. disp. de malo, 11, 3).

Well, at the very least I can agree with the Dr. in his conclusion, though virtually all of his arguments to support the conclusion are manifestly faulty.

"Hap-py Birth-day Ca-non Lawwww" Dept.
(Okay, I am admittedly three days late here...)

Though probably not on the average family's feast calendar, I am wondering if January 25, 2003 was a particularly festive day for the Vere family. After all, that was the twentieth anniversary of the signing into law of the 1983 Code of Canon Law:

Pope John Paul Signing into Law the 1983 Code on January 25, 1983

Which of course bring to mind the question of exactly how canonists celebrate feasts anyway. Methinks the combination of beer and a game of "name that canon" factors into the equation somehow...

In anticipation of upcoming war, I added Bill Cork's Flag banner to the top of this weblog so that my position is made eminently clear. I go into details in several archive posts - some of which are in the margin column of this weblog and the most recent (not in the margin) comment on this was January 25th. Nonetheless, if there is any preceived ambiguity to my stance at the present time, hopefully adding the flag will remove any remaining doubts on the matter.

"JunkYard Blog" Dept.
(A Rerum Novarum Triple Spin)

UDAY'S SMOKING GUN

Saddam's son has just given us the "smoking gun." He has said approximately: If America attacks Iraq, we will produce devastation in America that will make 9/11 look like a minor problem.

Well now.... since we know that Iraq has no
long-range ICBMs, and doesn't have enough bombers to get through our air defenses, this can only mean one thing: Iraq has a terrorist network already in place within the US. For more go here

How serendipitous that I discussed the subject of treason just a couple of days ago on this very weblog. See the January 25th Bill Cork entry for details on that.

FERRETTING OUT THE AXIS OF WEASEL

I've speculated a bit on the motivations behind French obstinance when it comes to war with Iraq. I believe their current position, that they will do everything in their power to avert war not by forcing Saddam's compliance but by thwarting us, is based on oil and the cheap supply of it they get from Saddam. In the past few years France has become Saddam's leading oil customer. In part, French obstructionism is also a result of its antipathy toward the US, rooted ultimately in its jealously of our position. To France, we are the "cowboys," the young upstarts who inherited the world in the ashes of World War II. To them, their culture is superior, their history more glorious, their cheeses smellier (on that last point, they're right). We're Johnny come latelys to them, without any right to the position we hold. Thus, when English words enter common usage in Paris, the French government bans them. When American companies try to do business in Europe, Paris puts up barricades, even nixing the GE-Honeywell merger a couple years back, a move that resulted in layoffs here in the US.

But there's more to the story. And Saddam's former bomb-maker, Dr. Khadir Hamza, lays it out: France wants to avoid invasion because in our victory its own role in Saddam's nuclear program will at last be exposed... For more go here

JIMMAH CARTER'S TRUE NATURE REVEALED

I posted a response to a sedevacantist who emailed me this morning at the following link: "Wasting Away in Sedevacantaville" Dept. - a Lidless Eye Inquisition exclusive.

Points to Ponder:

Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of "touching" a man’s heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it. [G.K. Chesterton]

The Domestic Abuse/Abortion Connection courtesy of Pete Vere JCL

I made a few minor changes to the weblog this morning including (i) Removing my "Open Letter to Albert" from the margin links (ii) Adding my essay contra sedevacantism - which was just revised as of last night - to the side margin in its place (iii) Added the link to a new group weblog "The Lidless Eye Inquisition" in the side margin. The "Letter to Albert" was added to my "Writings" link in the side margin. Anyway, those are the modifications made as of this morning.

I have issued a clarification on interaction with regards to self-styled 'traditionalists' at my Miscellaneous BLOG. The link can be read HERE.

Writings Update:

I mentioned in passing back in November and December that I was revising my treatise. Well, the end result is more than a mere revision but instead it is a substantial modification of the work. I also made revisions - albeit mostly of a minor nature - to twelve other essays. (Though three of the essays which received more substantial revisions in the form of additions or deletions - or both - were my essays on various 'traditionalist' subjects.)

I sent a revised "Writings of I. Shawn McElhinney" url to Matt last night but forgot to change the date on it. So do not let the "Last Revised November 28, 2001" line of the current url fool you as I revised that list yesterday. (Hopefully Matt will have the url I just sent him which made that correction up shortly.)

I plan to add some material to url 3 of the treatise later in the week. It will almost certainly be in the form of an Addendum and will simply be additional reinforcement of one of the points in that treatise url. My goal initially was to have an average url page length of 30 pages. Upon calculation, the average url length in this version is 23.5 pages; ergo, the most common criticism of the previous versions of this work (that the urls were too long) is hopefully no longer of any merit whatsoever.

Bill Cork goes over his recent about-face on the war issue here. I have to admit that these so-called "war protesters" have moved me towards a more hawkish stance myself then even the one I outlined here. I anticipated in that entry the war protesting angle and my view has not changed about protesters.

If Bush was handling this as Johnson handled Vietnam, then to some extent I could grant the protesters some leeway. But in my gut I know this is simply liberal idiots trying to play politics. After all, where were they when Clinton was bombing Kosovo???

If they were truly against the war then they would be carrying signs demanding that Saddam cooperate with his disarmarment or go into exile. Because that is the way to guarantee that there will be no war. But they are not going to do this which tells me that they are not truly anti-war but are instead anti-Bush. And that brings me to the subject of what to do with protesters should we actually go to war.

If we do go to war and these people try to gum up the machinery, they should be treated the same way a soldier would be treated if he tried to abandon his unit in battle. That is all I will say on the matter at this time because I am starting to get livid thinking about these clowns and that is not a good mindset to be in for blogging. Read this article and see if your blood does not start boiling too.