On Natural Born Citizenship:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

When this website was suspended, your host continued involvement on Facebook and from time to time wrote notes on various matters. Some of them have been published here after this website was reactivated and others have not but perhaps at some point will be. One of the subjects to which your host devoted a bunch of writing to was that of presidential eligibility back in 2012 when among the subjects treated were as follows:

On Natural Born Citizenship, Barack Obama, Marco Rubio, Etc. 

On Natural Born Citizenship, the Supreme Court, Common Law, the Founders, and Birther "Champion" George D. Collins 

On Birthers and Some Fundamental Problems With the Kenyan Birth Hypothesis 

On Barack Obama II and His Post-Birth Citizenship Status 

On the Issues of Eligibility, Birthers, Conspiracies, Various and Sundry "Posses", Methodologies of Interaction, Etc.

Dispatching With the Vattel Canard, Etc. 

Some Rational Answers To A Few Additional Questions About Barack Hussein Obama II

This material was also revisited in 2016 with a reworked version of the second note's material from above:

Revisiting the Subject of Natural Born Citizenship For 2016 and Beyond

What you are about to read is the material from the first note above originally published on April 24, 2012. As in that format, all words of my interlocuters were in bold font so I will leave that unchanged in this re-visitation. Without further ado...

My God, how dense can you people be? Read a little bit before spouting off stupidity!

Whenever I see someone respond like this, I immediately become a grammar and fact-checking fiend on whatever they write.

Read Marbury v. Happerset.

There is no Marbury vs. Happerset case. There was Marbury vs. Madison. There was Minor vs. Happersett  -the latter with two t's not one by the way. There is something rather amusing about those who cannot get their basic facts like this right when they are calling other folks stupid but I digress.

Read the Supreme Court's rulings on this.

I have. They do not say what you claim they do.

A Natural Born citizen is born in the United States of parents who are BOTH citizens.

This is not correct.

It is why Obama is not eligible and the same rule applies to Rubio. Being born here is not enough.

The Supreme Court does not agree with you on this.

You have to have BOTH parents as citizens too.

There is no law in this country that says that, the Founders did not understand the concept of natural born citizenship that way, and there is no Supreme Court case has ever made a ruling of that sort. Not even the oft-misunderstood Minor vs. Happersett  case which was a case involving voting rights of a specific individual. The Supreme Court made it very clear in that case that they were not making a ruling on the full franchise of what constituted a natural born citizen. Or to quote from the Court itself in Minor vs. Happersett  (all emphasis is mine):

Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides that

"No person except a natural-born citizen or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution shall be eligible to the office of President,

and that Congress shall have power "to establish a uniform rule of naturalization." Thus, new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.

The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts.

Why was it not necessary to solve the points noted above in the case of question? The reason was because Virginia Minor was asserting that she had a constitutional right to vote. The Supreme Court therefore had to resolve two questions in this case and they were (i) was Virginia Minor a citizen of the United States and (ii) did the Constitution grant her if she was a citizen of the United States the right to vote. On the first point the Court pointed out that there were different classifications of citizens who were viewed as natural born. There was one such group of which there was no doubt and that was children born to two parents who were themselves citizens. The other group the Court noted{1} was one which included as natural born citizens children born within the jurisdiction of the United States without reference to parental citizenship.

The aforementioned category did not share the same absence of all possible doubt as the first one did; however, since Virginia Minor was a child born in the United States to two citizen parents, the Court recognized that she qualified as a natural born citizen under even the most narrow of definitions and therefore saw no reason to go any further on the matter. In fact, they explicitly said they were not going to do so in the case of Minor vs. Happersett.{2}

However, in 1898 the Supreme Court did have to decide on the matter of citizenship with someone whose situation was not the same as Virginia Minor. That person was Wong Kim Ark who was born around 1873 in the United States to Chinese parents. He had as a very young man made a couple of short visits to China and upon his return from the second trip was denied entry into the country under the claim that he was not a citizen of the United States. Wong Kim Ark sued on this matter and when it got to the Supreme Court, the Court was required to take up the issue of a child born in the United States whose parents though legally in the country were not themselves either born in the United States or naturalized citizens. The name of that case was United States vs. Wong Kim Ark  and the Court in its decision ruled in favour of Wong Kim Ark in 1898. Here is the essence of the decision:

A child born in the United States who has alien parents who are domiciled in the United States and not serving in a diplomatic or other official capacity acquires United States citizenship at birth by way of the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause.

Now I am aware of how birther sorts will try and raise the "natural born citizen" line but as usual, they do not know what they are talking about. To cover this matter briefly, there are only two ways you can become a citizen in this country. One is being natural born and the other is being naturalized. And there are two ways a child can meet the criteria of natural born citizen (i) at birth and (ii) by birth. To touch on each of them in bulletpoint form:

• To become a natural born citizen "at birth", the child needs to be born in the United States regardless of the citizenship status of their parents as long as said parents were not diplomats or in some other official capacity in service to a foreign country. This is what is called jus soli or "right of soil" insofar as the child is born on United States soil.

• To become a natural born citizen "by birth", it happens whereby the child is born overseas or in some jurisdiction of the United States but not on US soil but of whom at least one of their parents is a United States citizen who has also met the proper residency requirements. This is what is called jus sanguinis  or "right of blood."{3}

In either of the situations noted above, it involves the child being properly considered a natural born citizen according to the English legal tradition that the Founders themselves were educated in. And for those who are not familiar with it, here is how the concept was outlined by William Blackstone in his Commentaries  series on the Laws of England{4} of which the Founders themselves{5} were thoroughly familiar with:

The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such. In which the constitution of France differs from ours; for there, by their jus albinatus, if a child be born of foreign parents, it is an alien. [Commentaries of the Laws of England (circa 1765)]

In other words, no matter where Barack Obama was born{6}, he still meets the criteria of being a natural born citizen of the United States and therefore is not ineligible to be President of the United States. As far as other persons mentioned in relation to the presidency or vice presidency, Senator Marco Rubio fits the jus soli  requirement of natural born citizenship insofar as his parents though non-citizens were domiciled in the United States when he was born. Another who meets the jus soli  criteria in the fashion of Sen. Rubio is Louisiana Governor Pyush (Bobby) Jindal who was born in Louisiana to non-citizen parents who were domiciled in the United States.

Incidentally, there was a controversy in 1968 when Willard Mitt Romney's father George Romney ran for president about his eligibility to be president because of his birth in Mexico City.{7} George Romney met the natural born citizen criteria courtesy of jus sanguinis  and his son Willard Mitt Romney meets the natural born citizen criteria to run in 2008 and also in 2012 courtesy of jus soli  with Detroit, Michigan being his birthplace.

There is in other words no credible foundation for the claim that any of these persons{8} was/is ineligible to run for or hold the office of President of the United States.

Why do you think Obama has fought this so hard? Don't just guess whether something is true or not. Read up on it and learn something before pissing your country away out of frikking ignorance.

Oh I have done more than my fair share of reading up on this stuff and it is quite obvious to me that you have not. In the words of the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, "you have the right to your opinion sir but not the right to your own facts." And the facts on these matters do not in any sense of the term support your interpretation of these things.

LEARN THE LAWS!

There is nothing more delicious than being berated as stupid by someone who has themselves manifested stupidity to a mind-numbing degree on the matter with which they would purport to lecture others but I digress.

Notes:

{1} This was not mentioned in Minor vs. Happersett  because it had no bearing on the standing of Virginia Minor who was jus soli  regardless of the other factors involved.

{2} Therefore, Minor vs. Happersett  cannot be used as evidence for what constitutes natural born citizens beyond the limited inquiry that it made into those who fit the parameters that Virginia Minor found herself in.

{3} This is incidentally how Senator John McCain met the "natural born citizen" criteria to run for president in 2000 and 2008.

{4} Certainly every barrister at the Constitutional Convention  knew Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England  well -by some counts as many as 16 of them knew the work by heart.

{5} Even many of the Founders who were not themselves barristers (such as James Madison) had done some rudimentary studies in law using Blackstone's Commentaries.

{6} I do not intend in this note to enter into the particulars of the Kenyan Birth Hypothesis.

{7} There was also a controversy in 1964 with Senator Barry M. Goldwater who was born in the territory of Arizona three years before it became a state.

{8} Whatever one thinks of any of them.

To the Nattering Nabobs of Negativity Necroposting:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

Since there are those who want play this game, let me be crystal clear: I have raised exactly one point on this stuff where it is clear Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano either prevaricated or was otherwise flat out disingenuous. I have cared not a whit about much of the rest because I do not have an ax to grind unlike certain parties who are butthurt because Pope Francis was critical about how wide their phylacteries are and the ornate nature of their tassels (cf Matthew xxiii,5).

These folks seem to want to relish publicly gloating and making sport of this akin to what Ham did to his father Abraham (Gen ix,22) rather than act more like Ham's brothers who had more decency and common sense than their brother in how they handled the scandal before them (Gen ix,23). One with a proper spiritual and ethical disposition would rather act in these matters like Seth and Japheth but that is neither here nor there.

Having gotten preliminaries out of the way, let us now look at what Archbishop Vigano originally said versus how he has subsequently spun his story on the main point in question. From the first testimony we have these words:

"Pope Benedict had imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by Pope Francis: the Cardinal was to leave the seminary where he was living, he was forbidden to celebrate [Mass] in public, to participate in public meetings, to give lectures, to travel, with the obligation of dedicating himself to a life of prayer and penance... In any case, what is certain is that Pope Benedict imposed the above canonical sanctions on McCarrick and that they were communicated to him by the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Pietro Sambi..."

The Archbishop clearly speaks of imposed binding sanctions above because the pretext he draws from this was twofold. The first is that these supposed "sanctions" were "lifted" by Pope Francis:

"It was also clear that, from the time of Pope Francis’s election, McCarrick, now free from all constraints, had felt free to travel continuously, to give lectures and interviews... In any case, the Pope learned about it from me on June 23, 2013 and continued to cover for him. He did not take into account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him."

And of course as a consequence of this supposed "lifting" of sanctions:

"Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick's abuses and resign with the rest of them."

This is the sequential chain which Vigano constructs to get to his request of papal resignation. Here is the problem with the chain so constructed: the goal posts have been moved repeatedly since the publication of the Archbishop's first testimony. When it was pointed out that then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was present with Archbishop Vigano at public events and even had traveled to Rome and hung out with Pope Benedict, this seriously undermined the claims in Vigano's first testimony. When it was further pointed out that there were no actual sanctions imposed, the problem then was not how flat out wrong (either via prevarication or deliberate duplicitousness) the original claim was but instead how can this be spun to try and salvage the original narrative? This is hardly the actions taken by those who are honest brokers on this matter.

Now the ploy is to play a game of "well maybe they were just private requests" which of course is not the same thing as anyone with a normal intact functioning brain who is honest knows. And adding further difficulties for the original narrative is that the same pope that supposedly imposed these "sanctions" which were then "lifted" cannot even remember what he supposedly did! The Archbishop in his second testimony begs Cardinal Marc Ouellet to vindicate his claims from his first testimony and the Cardinal flat out refutes him on the central chain of Vigano's first set of claims. Again:

"The former Cardinal, retired in May of 2006, had been requested not to travel or to make public appearances, in order to avoid new rumors about him. It is false, therefore, to present those measures as 'sanctions' formally imposed by Pope Benedict XVI and then invalidated by Pope Francis. After a review of the archives, I find that there are no documents signed by either Pope in this regard, and there are no audience notes from my predecessor, Cardinal Giovanni-Battista Re, imposing on the retired Archbishop the obligation to lead a quiet and private life with the weight normally reserved to canonical penalties. The reason is that back then, unlike today, there was not sufficient proof of his alleged culpability. Thus, the Congregation’s decision was inspired by prudence, and the letters from my predecessor and my own letters urged him, first through the Apostolic Nuncio Pietro Sambi and then through you, to lead a life of prayer and penance, for his own good and for the good of the Church."

So what is Vigano's response to this crystal confutation of the core of his initial claims? From the third testimony, he has spun his original very forceful claims down to this:

"Cardinal Ouellet disputes that it is false to present the measures taken against McCarrick as 'sanctions' decreed by Pope Benedict and canceled by Pope Francis. True. They were not technically ‘sanctions’ but provisions, ‘conditions and restrictions’ but to quibble whether they were sanctions or provisions or something else is pure legalism. From a pastoral point of view, they are exactly the same thing."

Once again the bullshit meter rings out loud and clear. To claim there is no difference between sanctions (what Vigano originally claimed) and "provisions, conditions and restrictions" (what he has now claimed) is double-dealing of no small degree! And obviously there is a difference because Vigano has ceased since his first testimony to call for the resignation of Pope Francis! If there is no difference between what he claimed in the first testimony and what he has claimed since, he would have no reason to move from his original demand. But here is the rub: as there were no sanctions actually imposed, there were therefore no sanctions to lift. So his entire original claim collapses and he knows this; ergo, the manner in which he has moved the goalposts repeatedly on this point.

It is understandable to some extent that those easily confused or who have a vested interest in maintaining an agenda regardless of such inconveniences as facts might be excused if they were of good faith (emphasis on the if in that sentence). But considering that Archbishop Vigano possesses not only a lifetime of service to the Church and also is well credentialed in the area in question (he has a doctorate in canon law!), he ought to know the difference between the two. If he does not then his training is deficient. If he does, than he was being doubly duplicitous at the very least as he was not only playing slipshod with the truth but he was also hoping to skate by on the ignorance of most of those he was appealing to. Misrepresentation of private requests to keep a low profile as having anything akin to actual sanctions is a very grave defect in his original report and no amount of spinning like a top since that time can change that one iota.

Now I am aware that those who are dug in so deep on this that they cannot extricate themselves without having to embarrassingly admit that they were wrong. They have after all been propagating a grave defect and are not likely to want to man up on this which is to their discredit. It is no different than what conspiracy theorists do with their pet hypotheses whereby they stubbornly cling to what they want to believe and either ignore, downplay, or ridicule whatever inconsistencies and/or denials contradict them. What is important after all is not the truth but instead the agenda, advancing the chosen narrative at all costs whatsoever including that of their basic integrity.

For you see, the accuser (Vigano) and those that blindly cling to the accuser's claims can play semantic games while they try to slyly switch the burdens of proof by demanding the accused (Francis) prove their innocence rather than the accuser proving the guilt. The demand is made for documents of unverified existence (but are based solely on the claims of Vigano) to be released to "vindicate" the accuser (see Vigano's second testimony). But then, when documents are not released, the accuser claims this "vindicates" them as the Archbishop claimed in his second testimony. When it is then asserted that there are no documents to be released to substantiate the original claims of the accuser (see Ouellet's response to the second testimony), then the original claims are spun to claim that well there would not be documents anyway because they were not actually sanctions you see but instead were merely "provisions, conditions and restrictions." (Notice the slithering shift there!) And if by chance later on documents were found that did not match the claims of Vigano, then the problem would not be the Archbishop's original testimony you see but instead, it would be the documents so released were somehow doctored and therefore are not reliable anyway.

All of this is textbook protocols of disingenuous and unethical conspiracy theorists and it is how they make sure their claims are self-sealing and thus unable to be debunked. And this sort of practice is highly unethical on the part of not only those who engage in these charades but also those who publicly propagate these matters in smoke and mirror fashion to try and get any answer they want to confirm their preconceived biases. At bottom, to adhere to such a methodology involves both detraction as well as calumny: seemingly virtues in the mindset of those who act this way or by their examples encourage others to. I could go into detail on the profound spiritual diseases that permeates such folks but I question whether the effort would be worth the investment of my time. After all, those who are blind will only fall into the pit of their errors nonetheless (cf. Luke vi,39) so the best recourse is likely prayer. (I would rather as a rule invest my energies there these days where matters such as the above are concerned.)

So in summary, there is not much more that needs to be said here other than that I can admit the possibility that there may be some things of worth in Viganos screed despite the very grave defect noted above. However, those who have made a golden idol out of the Archbishop's original testimony and take glee in every subsequent testimonial release like an adolescent releasing on a nudie magazine centerfold are incapable of doing the converse. Why? Because they are afraid it would undermine their agenda. So these folks can continue to post whatever distractions they want on other points or play the "well it was not a sanction like he said in his letter but really private requests but they are the same thing so there is no spin going on" flimflam bullshit. They are not fooling anyone really. They can try and claim a circle is really a square but it is both disingenuous as well as beneath them to do so. Furthermore, it shows that on this issue they are nothing even remotely approaching honest brokers and need to be kept in prayer as possibly the only way to reach them (cf. Mark ix,29).

Another year gone
Another birthday arrives
Childhood more distant

It used to be said
Living in interesting times
Curse not a blessing

Points to Ponder:

"A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed — what gospel is that?" [St. Oscar Romero]

Points to Ponder:

"Perhaps the Lord has called me and preserved me for this service not because I am particularly fit for it, or so that I can govern and rescue the Church from her present difficulties, but so that I can suffer something for the Church, and in that way it will be clear that he, and no other, is her guide and saviour." [Pope St. Paul VI]

Cocaine Mitch Nets 15 Judicial Appointments As Payment For Recess 

So as part of his ransom demand, the #Mitchfather not only got 15 judges confirmed this week but also 21 additional executive branch appointments. And that's not all...

"Sen. John Kennedy told reporters Wednesday that his understanding is that McConnell wants to clear all of the outstanding judicial and executive nominations during the lame-duck session and is willing to hold senators in Washington through Christmas if needed.

'He is mad as a mama wasp, and he is determined to get these nominations through,' the Louisiana Republican said. 'And I don’t think he’s bluffing'.”

#CocaineMitch
#TheLegendContinues

Points to Ponder:

"If one can clarify one need not agitate. Just to state facts is the most terrible thing that can be done to an injustice...Fact has this advantage over rhetoric -- that time strengthens the one and weakens the other. Tell the truth and time will be your eloquence." [Will Durant]

I Was A Never Trumper Until Democrats Went Gonzo On Kavanaugh. Now, Hand Me That Red Hat

While not exactly my view, there is plenty of convergence of the latter with the above statement. Here is just a taste from the article and of which I concur 100%...

"...The Republican rejection of Merrick Garland was political hardball; the sliming of Kavanaugh was categorically different and much worse. The Democrats crossed the line from policy disagreement to personal destruction, and in doing so they nuked any middle ground between themselves and conservative Trump skeptics. And they put every conservative on notice: You could be next.

If the Democrats will do this to a man as respected and mainstream as Kavanaugh, they will do it to anyone who gets in their way. The left has embraced mob justice that disdains our culture of due process and the presumption of innocence, and merely disagreeing with the mob provokes its wrath. At Facebook, the mob is after an executive who stood by his friend. At my alma mater, a dean was punished for tweeting skeptically about the woman accusing Kavanaugh of running a gang-rape ring in high school. Ordinary people are being targeted for having opinions the mob hates..."

Click here to read the rest.

Briefly...

Since the British tried to exterminate my Irish ancestors and Tsarist Russia brutalized my Ukrainian ancestors that in the spirit of the Christine Ford fan club, I am going to find a Brit and a Russian to curbstomp the shit out of.

Points to Ponder:

"Even if you believe the Bishop of Rome to be in error, that does not give you the right to judge him, for only God can judge the Pope. No mortal man may accuse him of faults." [Pope Pius II: Allocution Multa Hic Hodie (circa November 21, 1459)]

SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN

"I want to give a shoutout to my homie Brett Kavanaugh, way to go 'Special K'"

Taylor Swift Inspires 200 Million Fans To Register To Vote In Tennessee

Mitch McConnell: Forget Merrick Garland, GOP can confirm a Supreme Court justice in 2020 if it wants

To summarize the above article in brief:

"I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it further!" [#CocaineMitch]

The best argument for President Donald Trump moves forward...

ChuckGrassley
@ChuckGrassley

The judic cmte just sent 8 more judges to the full Senate for final votes Total judges on floor now 49: 4 circuit + 43 district + 2 fed claims nominees Lots of work to do Senate shld stay in session til ALL 49 judges are CONFIRMED / work comes b4 campaigning


11:41 AM - 11 Oct 2018

On Brett Kavanaugh and the Accusation of Perjury:

My words will be in regular font.

Lying about slang under oath is still perjury.

You have to prove that he lied. Merely saying he did is not sufficient. Evasive and non-responsive answers, even if misleading, are not perjury.

Lying about not drinking under age is perjury. He was 17 the summer in question and that summer the drinking age was raised to 21. He lied about what the law was.

He said the law was 18 for most of his time in high school and was 18 in DC for all of his time in high school. All of that was true; ergo, no lie involved.

He lied when he said that he didn't go to the types of gatherings with the people Ford mentioned.

"Types of gatherings"? That is very vague phrasing by you. I could accuse you of lying by the same standard you are accusing Kavanaugh of lying. But then I happen to know that evasive answers even ones intended to mislead are not perjury.

Small gathering with Mike Judge and PJ is on his calendar for July 1.

Since your prior comment was very vague, its not possible to say for sure that it correlates with the one above.

He lied about not living near the country club when he lived closer to it than Ford.

Terms like "near" and "far" are far too imprecise to be involved in a charge of perjury. You could feasibly claim Kavanaugh was being evasive or even disingenuous. However, none of that constitutes perjury.

A lie under oath is perjury

Nope, its not that simple. Perjury to use one definition of the term I have seen is "the willful giving of false testimony under oath or affirmation, before a competent tribunal, upon a point material to a legal inquiry." You would have to prove several things with a charge of perjury including:

1) The testimony under oath was given that was proven false.{1}

2) The person giving the testimony made the proven false testimony wilfully.{2}

3) The point in question would have to be material to the inquiry.{3}

Nothing you have posted about Kavanaugh above meets the burden of proof for a probable perjury charge.

Notes:

{1} This has to be proven, not merely asserted.

{2} If there was not a wilful giving of false testimony or if the false testimony was given under duress, it would not be perjury.

{3} If the point is not proven to be material to the inquiry, again perjury would not apply.

Cardinal Ouellet Writes Open Letter to Archbishop Viganò

As I have suspected all along!

"...It is false to present the measures taken against him as 'sanctions' decreed by Pope Benedict XVI and annulled by Pope Francis. After reviewing the archives, I note that there are no documents in this regard signed by either Pope, nor a note of an audience of my predecessor, Cardinal Giovanni-Battista Re, which would have given a mandate to the archbishop emeritus McCarrick to live a private life of silence, with the rigor of canonical penalties..."

Click here to read the rest.

Briefly...

So #DukeLaKavanaugh is going to be FBI investigated for a 7th time? Fine. I want an FBI investigation opened on Christine Blasey Ford and Michael "Pimp Train" Avanatti's client as well. I want to see ALL of Dr. Ford's calendars, every bit of her wiped social media accounts subpoenaed, the permit for the door she claimed she told her husband she needed in 2012 because of her presumed trauma, every scrap of her therapists notes subpoenaed, her therapist and husband subpoenaed along with her parents and siblings to testify with sworn affidavits, and everything else that goes into an FBI investigation. I also want her charged with perjury if it is found she lied during her testimony previously. I also want Senator Dianne Feinstein cited for contempt and investigated as well.

Fair is fair!

Points to Ponder:

"I have to admit I find the outrage over Kavanaugh's polemical tone from people already convinced of his guilt to be weird.

I can't picture any circumstances yesterday under which people so convinced would have said 'Aw, it's too bad he's an evil raping alcoholic--because he really has the judicial temperament for the job'." [Dale Price]

Imagine that, the Democrats trying to #MoveTheGoalPosts!

Joel B. Pollak
✔
@joelpollak

@ChrisCoons, yesterday, reassured Brett Kavanaugh it only took a "four day delay" for the FBI to investigate Clarence Thomas.

Today, Dr. Ford's attorneys are blasting "artificial" time limit of one week.

5:31 PM - Sep 28, 2018

Prosecutor who questioned Christine Ford says she wouldn't prosecute Brett Kavanaugh

Points to Ponder:

"Under our system of justice, a person is innocent and remains innocent until proven guilty.

Any person who would say that they need to wait until the evidence is heard before declaring someone innocent would be stricken from a jury for cause." [Richard Cahill, Esq.]

Yes folks, #CocaineMitch the #JudicialTerminator is going there!

More on Third Party Fantasies:
(From Facebook)

This sorta follows another recent thread on the subject of third parties and is from a comments thread discussion the other day. My words will be in regular coloured font with the words that prompted the original response italicized. Without further ado...

At some point, Libertarians need to realize that 45 years of never getting above 1.5% means they are NEVER going to win federal or state elections.

Gary Johnson won 3.27% of the popular vote in 2016.

I double checked and you were right on this.

Three times the previous record by a Libertarian candidate.

You have inadvertently made my point. That in a year like 2016 where both of the dominant parties truly scraped through the bottom of the barrel to nominate ghastly candidates, the Libertarians STILL could not compete. (And they got voters they are not ordinarily gonna get that year such as myself, my spouse, and a few others I managed to persuade not cause I was a huge Gary fan but mainly because the other choices were so damn awful he stood out by default.) The odds are as high as they are that in 2020 Libertarians are back below 1% again as usual no matter whom they nominate. At what point do they conclude that their party is an abysmal failure?

Ross Perot as an independent took 19% in 1992.

I remember that well as I was among the 19%.

There is room for third parties if the media portrays them as viable contenders

Here is the problem: they are not viable contenders. You have to be viable before you can be treated as such. Even the low threshold of 5% to qualify for federal election matching funds: they cannot even clear that. If you cannot even get 5% of the vote, how can anyone seriously consider you a viable candidate?

The only third party in the past 100 years to be viable was the Reform Party in 1992 which at that time consisted of Ross Perot. Because he vaulted above 5%, the Reform Party got federal matching funds to compete in 1996. Running when the economy was good and with a candidate with national recognition heading the ticket, they still could not get traction and slipped to about 8.6% of the vote. They however still cleared 5% so more federal matching funds. They then really got stupid and nominated Pat Buchanan and were destroyed. They still limp on life support to this day but they are functionally dead and irrelevant as a viable third party. No other party of the past hundred years even comes close to the viability that the Reform Party had between 1992 and 1999 and the Libertarians are not based on their history going to buck that trend anytime soon.

and if they are given the opportunity to debate.

Well, if you are not viable, you are not going to be given the opportunity to debate nor should you be. See what I said above about viability.

The weather cools down
Pumpkins, leaves turn, football games 
Fall is finally here 
[Written just now]

Vatican Signs Potential Historic Deal With China on Bishops

The one thing Trump can’t sell: A booming economy

For those of the #Trumpidian persuasion who wonder why many others are not so enthusiastic about this president, here is a key example of why: the economy is doing great but the president is ruining a fantastic election message for fall with his usual Twitter bullshit distractions with about seven weeks to go until Election Day 2018.

When you have the law, pound the law and when you have the facts, pound the facts. Its only when you have nothing that you pound the table which is why seeing the president squander a great midterm message to throw red meat at his rubes with his Twitter table pounding is so damn annoying!

#Facepalm
#Headdesk

Points to Ponder:

"There's something about smoking a cigar that feels like a celebration. It's like a fine wine. There's a quality, a workmanship, a passion that goes into the smoking of a fine cigar." [Demi Moore]

Demonization of Nunes Is a Window Into Our Times

Points to Ponder:

"A good smoker, like a good lover, always takes his time with a cigar." [Guillermo Cabrera Infante]

Pope Francis convokes world-wide meeting of bishops on abuse crisis

Well, something needs to be done. I am admittedly jaded that much will come out of this (as I seriously trust no one on any side of this issue!) but nonetheless I will at least strive to keep an open mind about it.

Points to Ponder:

"Cigar smoking by it's very nature is much more reflective than interactive." [Michael Douglas]

For Preserving the Historical Record:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

[Disclaimer: Five weeks ago today, I publicly announced my resignation from the project WherePeterIs in a detailed expository musing. I am with the present posting republishing at this humble website that debut column because it was expunged from the website it was originally published on. I am also republishing it because the principles I outlined in it are ones I will expect any future projects I undertake of an ecclesial nature to embody. -SM]


Lighting Candles Instead of Cursing the Darkness…

“The world is full of people who are bridge destroyers. They want to destroy the bridges that already exist. That’s not me.” [Rt. Rev. Archimandrite Fr. Robert F. Taft, SJ]

As an invitation was extended to me to contribute to this project, it seems appropriate to say a bit about myself for those who may not know or who perhaps have forgotten. Along with Pete Vere, I was also once affiliated with the SSPX and we became familiar with one another collaborating on projects in that area as well as a few others. I am almost certain that in discussing my background straddling the eastern and western ecclesial traditions with him that I am at least partially responsible for Pete venturing east in his spiritual journey. (So if for some reason that bothers you, go ahead and blame me!)

Many years ago, I was involved in apologetics but I have been distancing myself from that for about fifteen years now. Fundamentally this was due to the limitations involved in mere apologetics. However, there was also the factor of too many involved in that endeavour revealing a disturbing degree of intellectual dependence on the Church’s magisterium to try and navigate complex subject matter. There is also an equally disturbing tendency of not a few folks to try and dogmatically impose an artificial uniformity onto others which creates unnecessary divisions. This is hardly in line with “the common saying, expressed in various ways and attributed to various authors…recalled with approval: in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity” (Pope St. John XXIII: Encyclical Letter Ad Petri Cathedram); ergo, I want nothing to do with that crowd.

Among the ecclesial areas I have done a fair amount of study in are the areas not often familiar to apologists or indeed many theologians. For example, what is involved in the principles of authentic dialogue? (It is one thing to throw the term around and another to actually understand what it involves!) What is and is not involved in a magisterial intervention and what is and is not considered (properly speaking) “magisterial”? What are the general norms of theological interpretation involved in properly understanding the theological qualifications of magisterial interventions? What are the situations where someone can take issue with magisterial interventions and the recognized methodology thereof? And furthermore, what sort of spiritual dispositions should be involved in all such endeavours? These are areas worth delving into and are among those I intend to address from time to time here at Where Peter Is.

I have observed over the years that there is a greater frequency of coarseness in discourse in society generally speaking. What is even more disappointing is that I see it just as prominent among Catholics who should know better. To quote the words of a soon-to-be canonized saint, “[i]t would indeed be a disgrace if our dialogue were marked by arrogance, the use of bared words or offensive bitterness” (Bl. Pope Paul VI: Encyclical Letter Ecclesiam Suam). While I will at times bluntly call out such things when I see them, that is as a rule not how I have preferred over the years to go about these or other matters.

I have also seen a growing coarseness in discourse among Catholics with the proliferation of labels intended to stigmatize others. It is my hope that all contributors to Where Peter Is reflect not only on the words I referenced from Pope John XXIII above but also these from Pope Benedict XV and Pope John Paul II:

“[It is] Our will that Catholics should abstain from certain appellations which have recently been brought into use to distinguish one group of Catholics from another. They are to be avoided not only as ‘profane novelties of words,’ out of harmony with both truth and justice, but also because they give rise to great trouble and confusion among Catholics.” [Pope Benedict XV: Encyclical Letter Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum] 

“There must be charity towards one’s partner in dialogue, and humility with regard to the truth which comes to light and which might require a review of assertions and attitudes.” [Pope St. John Paul II: Encyclical Letter Ut Unum Sint]

To be blunt, most of what passes these days for commentary in virtually any sphere be it political, social, ecclesiastical, or other such areas often does not interest me as I have no patience for the gimmicks of pundits, agenda provocateurs, and apologists of various stripes. As long as I feel that can be avoided here at Where Peter Is, I will from time to time make contributions to this website. The goal: to help light some candles of greater understanding amongst those of good will who participate on this page or who read the articles posted here by either myself or by others.

Briefly Addressing the "Republicans Were a Third Party" Nonsense:

Let us deal with this nonsense once and for all as I hear this a lot from Libertarian or other third party pushing sorts.{1} Without further ado...

lincoln was a 3rd party... little tiny rag tag group no one had heard of called the republicans

Actually that's not completely true. Most of the new Republican Party of 1854 was members of the old Whig Party which though they continued until 1860 officially had nonetheless fizzled as a political force by 1852. The rise of the Republican Party from the ashes of the old Whig Party in 1854 was a result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act submitted by Stephen Douglass in January of 1854 and being debated in Congress at the time. The 1856 election consisted of the Democrats and two new parties, the Republican Party{2} and the Know Nothing Party.{3} The party you call a "tiny ragtag group no one had heard of" ran their first presidential candidate in 1856{4} and dominated the northern states by 1858. When they won the presidency and the congress in 1860, they were far from a "tiny rag tag group no one had heard of" as you claim. They were also not a 3rd party by any stretch of the imagination at that point -however much that tag may have applied when they were founded.

The 3rd party in 1860 was the Constitutional Union Party. By 1860, the Know Nothing Party had been in decline for five years{5} and had dissolved into a coalition of various factions as one part of the Constitutional Union Party. The Republican Party had become the second party in the United States by 1860 and were not a third party at all.{6}

In short, your attempted example to prove a third party is possible fizzles and fizzles badly. Unless they are replacing a sinking second party, third parties never succeed in American politics.{7} Period.

Notes:

{1}And yes as I have admitted to in the past, I have on occasion voted third for third party candidates.

{2}Founded in 1854.

{3} Founded in the 1840's but only ran a presidential candidate for the first time in 1852 and performed in the pathetic way third parties tend to.

{4} Tallying 114 out of 296 electoral votes and winning 11 of 30 states.

{5} They were divided sharply over the issue of slavery.

{6} The Constitutional Union Party only got 8 electoral votes and won 1 state dying out in 1861 and was absorbed back into the Democratic Party.

{7} I wish it was otherwise and even at times have been seduced by the idea myself; however, reality is reality on this matter however much one wishes otherwise.

The Senate Election Map Right Now Courtesy of Real Clear Politics:

37 Safe Democrat Seats, 46 Safe Republican Seats

Likely Dem
MI: Stabenow (D)
PA: Casey (D)
OH: Brown (D)
Safe Dem Seats


Leans Dem
MN2: Smith (D)
NJ: Menendez (D)
WI: Baldwin (D)
WV: Manchin (D)

Toss Up
AZ: Open (R)
FL: Nelson (D)
IN: Donnelly (D)
MO: McCaskill (D)
MT: Tester (D)
NV: Heller (R)
ND: Heitkamp (D)
TN: Open (R)
TX: Cruz (R)

Likely GOP
MS2: Hyde-Smith (R)

Points to Ponder:

"A good cigar is as great a comfort to a man as a good cry to a woman." [E.G. Bulwer-Lytton Darnley]

A Brief Civics Lesson For #Resistbots...

If by some miracle you were able to see your dream of President Trump both impeached as well as removed from office (or if he were to resign), the succession of the presidency would be as follows:

Vice President Mike Pence
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan
Senate Pro Tempore Orrin Hatch

Just so you know...

To Clarify a Previous Posting:
(On the Death Penalty)

I stated in a recent expository musing on the death penalty and Pope Francis' changes to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) the following words:

As far as capital punishment goes, there have been some developments sure but there has also been agenda driven attempts to force the issue in ways that are both historically untenable as well as theologically problematical. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa August 21, 2018)]

What I had in mind there was many things but in the back of my mind was something that may be more evident when one looks at the sorts of rare exceptions I have in mind for recourse to the death penalty. To wit:

I can think of a few categories of people who could legitimately circumvent the rubric of mandatory non-bloodless means. Those people are (i) convicted multiple or serial murders, (ii) drug dealers convicted on multiple charges who targeted children, (iii) sexual pedophiles convicted of multiple crimes of pedophilia, (iv) pornographers convicted on multiple charges who targeted children, (v) anyone who engages in or directs violations in the aforementioned areas who is already in prison...

Those who are convicted of drug dealing who have multiple charges of targeting children and convicted sexual pedophiles of multiple crimes of pedophilia are along the lines of my overriding principle of protecting the innocent. Children are the most innocent among us and those who would do this sort of damage to them in their most formative and vulnerable of years deserve the harshest punishment possible for their crimes as Our Lord made clear (Matt 18:6; Mark 9:42; Luke 17:2). [Excerpts from Rerum Novarum (circa October 27, 2017)]

In short, I find in certain cases very much reason for admissibility of the death penalty and it just so happens to correspond in one area to recent news on the sex abuse front. I have to say that it is impossible for me to not view this latest CCC change as an attempt to cover the asses of prelates who deserve the worst possible punishments for what they did and/or allowed to be done and I am sure life imprisonment will soon be the next "affront to human dignity" coming from these folks as they attempt once again to skirt accountability. But I digress.

Points to Ponder:

"A good smoker, like a good lover, always takes his time with a cigar." [Mark Twain]

Points to Ponder:

"A cigar ought not to be smoked solely with the mouth, but with the hand, the eyes, and with the spirit." [Zino Davidoff]

Ocasio-Cortez Mourns Restaurant Driven Out Of Business By Minimum Wage Law She Backs

She is a complete and utter cretin ignorant of the most basic tenets of economics and an embarrassment to sound rational thought!

Mexican cardinal says abuse victims should think about skeletons in their own closet

Mexican cardinal should be flogged with 50 lashes in the public square!
#EminenceAsshole

Points to Ponder:

"A cigar numbs sorrow and fills the solitary hours with a million gracious images." [George Sand]

Briefly...

Something is not constitutional or unconstitutional, biblical or unbiblical, orthodox or heretical, impeachable offense or non-impeachable, real news or fake news, etc., based on the personal whims of you people.

Seahawks defense clearly shifting it’s focus from back to front

Briefly...

Those who make the PA situation about politics or ideology or use it to try and score cheap apologetics points are themselves part of the problem.

This is a churchwide issue and ALL sectors have their offenders and enablers. Cleaning this up and placing safeguards in place to make future incidents much rarer (if not nonexistent) should be everyone's goal. That means slaying some sacred cows on ALL sides where applicable  and everyone facing the reality that some of their heralded "good guys" will be in the mix as well.

On Pope Francis, the Catechism, and the Death Penalty:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

I made a point last year to revisit in October in a lengthy expository musing the subject of the death penalty for a couple of reasons. First of all, I had last done so more than a decade prior at that point and considering the long period of time this website was mothballed, it seemed appropriate to do so because it was again in the news. The second reason was the talk by Pope Francis of possibly revising the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) to take an even more stringent position than the one outlined in the revised text of the CCC from 1997.

Pope John Paul II made the aforementioned change when he revised the original text of the CCC from 1992 with the aid of then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) Prefect Cardinal Ratzinger to take a position that presumably was also held by Cardinal Ratzinger when the latter became Pope Benedict XVI. That is where things stood for a good twenty plus years until just a few days ago over a couple of weeks ago. And it would not be an exaggeration to say that my position on the death penalty has evolved a lot from the time when I thought if anything we did not use it nearly enough: a position that I have not held for probably close to twenty years as of this writing. Certainly the archives of this site attest to a fairly consistent overall position of mine with regards to this subject much as with virtually all others that I can think of{1} and on the subject of the death penalty, if I was to condense my view of it to a single sentence it would read as follows:

The death penalty should be safe, legal, and rare.{2}

Obviously however one fit that under the rubric of the prior formulation in the CCC, that changed on August 2, 2018 when Pope Francis had his CDF Prefect Cardinal Luis Ladaria present a new formulation to replace #2267 in the CCC on the issue of the death penalty. What brought about this writing was a discussion on a Facebook thread of a friend of mine where someone tried to compare what Pope Francis just did to the church's supposed "changed position" on slavery. Or to quote their precise words with the balance of this note comprising my response to them coupled with further points of consideration. To wit:

If the Catholic world and the integrity of doctrine didn’t implode over the evolution of teaching on slavery, then I don’t think it will over the death penalty.

The church's position on slavery is often misunderstood. The prohibition was on chattel slavery, not all forms of slavery indiscriminately. This is why the Holy Office in 1866 proclaimed the following:

"Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery and these are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons. It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given. The purchaser should carefully examine whether the slave who is put up for sale has been justly or unjustly deprived of his liberty, and that the vendor should do nothing which might endanger the life, virtue, or Catholic faith of the slave." [Holy Office: Instruction (circa June 20, 1866)]

The condemnations of Vatican II of slavery do not contradict this at all but is nothing more than a reaffirmation of the papal condemnations of chattel slavery issued by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839, Pope Pius VII in 1815, Pope Benedict XIV in 1741, Pope Innocent XI in 1686, Pope Urban VIII in 1639, Pope Gregory XIV in 1591, Pope Paul III in 1537, and Pope Eugene IV in 1435. Vatican II did not proclaim any dogmas{3} or give any indication of condemning slavery except in passing so we cannot under general norms of theological interpretation take such a condemnation any further than was previously the case.

As far as capital punishment goes, there have been some developments sure but there has also been agenda driven attempts to force the issue in ways that are both historically untenable as well as theologically problematical and that does not even get beyond a couple of weak and unsupported claims made by Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae on the matter.{4} But Pope Francis has gone further and his CDF's arguments are even more forced and weak{5} than those from his predecessor because at least Pope John Paul II recognized the long-established principle of recourse to the death penalty even if he argued{6} for minimizing its use dramatically.

But the latest ploy is setting a very bad precedent and makes a mockery of the notion of development of doctrine. In fact, I predict that the same folks who have long argued for life imprisonment of the most serious of offenders (like serial killers) will next #MoveTheGoalposts to claim that life imprisonment is also "contrary to human dignity" and claim this too is because of "development of doctrine" on "human dignity."

To put it bluntly and I take no joy in saying this: I cannot remember ever being profoundly disappointed in Pope Francis before as I am right now. I suppose there is a first for everything.{7}

I do not see at this point what more I can say than what I concluded last year's note with so I will reiterate it here in concluding the present posting:

I have some serious questions on whether or not Pope Francis or any of his recent predecessors has/had "taken into immediate consideration every aspect or the entire complexity of [this] question" (cf. Donum Veritatis 24) and with all due respect, until that is squarely faced and dealt with, their absolutist position on the matter is internally contradictory and I cannot pretend it is otherwise.

In accordance with magisterial teaching[...], I do not present my own "opinions or divergent hypotheses as though they were non-arguable conclusions" (cf. Donum Veritatis 27). Nor do I go about "giving untimely public expression to them" (cf. Donum Veritatis 27). I strive indeed to be both respectful as well as discreet when publicly saying anything about these matters at all -that is part of the reason why I waited a few weeks for this issue to move out of the headlines before posting this material.

I cannot speak for others but I can say that the tensions between my view and that of Pope Francis "do not spring from hostile and contrary feelings" (cf. Donum Veritatis 27) and I am conscious of a right "to make known to the Magisterial authorities the problems raised by the teaching in itself, in the arguments proposed to justify it, or even in the manner in which it is presented" (Donum Veritatis 30). As my prior writings on this matter spanning fifteen odd years should more than adequately demonstrate, I have sought on these as with all pertinent matters "serious study, undertaken with the desire to heed the Magisterium's teaching without hesitation" (Donum Veritatis 31). However, for reasons outlined above, on the issue of the practical stance of recent popes on the death penalty, "[my] difficulty remains because the arguments to the contrary seem more persuasive" (cf. Donum Veritatis 31).

I await such time as Pope Francis or anyone else in the church hierarchy, church theologians, church apologists, etc are willing to deal with the actual sociological and scientific realities on this subject and take them seriously. Until they do, their absolutist position is one which I cannot in conscience give my intellectual assent. I recognize however "the duty to remain open to a deeper examination of the question" (cf. Donum Veritatis 31) and ask of those who espouse the more absolutist position to likewise engage in an "intense and patient reflection on [their] part and a readiness, if need be, to revise [their] own opinions and examine the objections which [their] colleagues might offer [them]" (cf. Donum Veritatis 29). [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa October 27, 2017)]

Considering what happened the other day a few weeks back, the above material is particularly relevant now.


Notes:

{1} The number of exceptions to this general rule is very small. I can however offhand think of one such example which I will post here as an exception to the rule:

On the Changing of One's Positions (circa January 31, 2018)

{2} To appropriate the phrase used by not a few pro-abortion advocates.

{3} Though truthfully, the way some folks treat the Second Vatican Council on some matters where it barely said anything at all, you would not know this.

{4} To put it quite bluntly.

{5} They are heavily conjecturally based and therein lies the rub. And before anyone takes issue with my claim, they would do well to consider what the Vatican itself has said about these sorts of interventions:

[I]n order to serve the People of God as well as possible, in particular, by warning them of dangerous opinions which could lead to error, the Magisterium can intervene in questions under discussion which involve, in addition to solid principles, certain contingent and conjectural elements. It often only becomes possible with the passage of time to distinguish between what is necessary and what is contingent [Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Instruction Donum Veritatis on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, Section 24 (circa May 24, 1990)]


The degree of conjecture on this matter is quite high and therefore of dubious objective validity. Furthermore:

When it comes to the question of interventions in the prudential order, it could happen that some Magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies. Bishops and their advisors have not always taken into immediate consideration every aspect or the entire complexity of a question...

Even when collaboration takes place under the best conditions, the possibility cannot be excluded that tensions may arise between the theologian and the Magisterium. The meaning attributed to such tensions and the spirit with which they are faced are not matters of indifference. If tensions do not spring from hostile and contrary feelings, they can become a dynamic factor, a stimulus to both the Magisterium and theologians to fulfill their respective roles while practicing dialogue.

In the dialogue, a two-fold rule should prevail. When there is a question of the communion of faith, the principle of the "unity of truth" (unitas veritatis) applies. When it is a question of differences which do not jeopardize this communion, the "unity of charity" (unitas caritatis) should be safeguarded.

Even if the doctrine of the faith is not in question, the theologian will not present his own opinions or divergent hypotheses as though they were non-arguable conclusions. Respect for the truth as well as for the People of God requires this discretion (cf. Rom 14:1-15; 1 Cor 8; 10: 23-33 ) . For the same reasons, the theologian will refrain from giving untimely public expression to them. [Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Instruction Donum Veritatis on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, Sections 24-27 (circa May 24, 1990)]

{6} See footnote five.

{7} The material in this note with the exception of the seventh footnote was written and otherwise assembled in the days following the new of the change in the CCC and shortly before the post outlining my public resignation from WherePeterIs. It therefore did not take into account the news involving former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick or the just-released grand jury report from Pennsylvania outlining in lurid detail the pedophilia and systematic coverups that occurred in that dioceses over a seventy-odd year period. Suffice to say, I am even madder at Pope Francis and all church leaders who either engaged in or facilitated by their silence or downright systematical coverups right now than I was when the rest of this note was written.

Miscellaneous Dyspeptic Mutterings:

For those who think the Pennsylvania revelations are somehow curable with a "return to the old ways", restoring the so-called TLM, or other such inanities, etc., explain to me the following please:

--The Holy Office Instruction Crimen Sollicitationis issued in 1962 by Cardinal Ottaviani and approved by Pope John XXIII. (Subtitled On the Manner of Proceeding in Cases of the Crime of Solicitation.)

--The Holy Office Instruction Crimen Sollicitationis issued in 1922 by Cardinal Merry Del Val and approved by Pope Pius XI. (Subtitled On the Manner of Proceeding in Cases of the Crime of Solicitation and more or less identical to the 1962 Instruction.)

--The Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Poenitentiae of Pope Benedict XIV treating on matters of confessional solicitation "lest that which has been given by divine beneficence as a means of rescue of shipwrecked and wretched sinners after the innocence of baptism is lost, results [instead] in woeful destruction through the deceit of demons or the malice of men who use the privileges of God perversely; and so that which has been established by Our Lord, who is rich in compassion, for the salvation and healing of souls not be turned by the execrable improbity of wicked priests toward the ruin and damnation of these souls" (Pope Benedict XIV circa 1741).

--The Brief of Pope Gregory XV issued in 1622 extending a prior Bull of Pope Pius IV (issued prior to 1565 to the Spanish Catholic Church) to the entire church and dealt with "any priests delegated to hear confessions who solicited shameful and dishonourable conduct" (Pope Benedict XIV circa 1741).

We have texts spanning 340 years prior to the Second Vatican Council (where I might add, a planned distribution to the bishops of the 1962 version of Crimen Sollicitationis for some reason never occurred). So kindly explain to me again how returning to "ye good old days" pre-Vatican II is supposed to magically fix things when these texts and their prescriptions were ALL issued back in the "TLM days" and (in the cases of the 1922 and 1962 Instructions) kept ultra secret, not published in the Acta, and were never to be written of or spoken of publicly whatsoever.

Over 300 priests in PA accused of sexual abuse in grand jury report

I am still feeling the effect of yesterday's gut punch on this stuff (to put it mildly).

Politico: There Are No Bombshells About Trump Or His Family On The Tapes Omarosa Has

A Few Points to Note On Elections Special and Otherwise...

I am seeing the usual sorts try to put on the election results whatever spin they feel helps their agenda so let us clear a few things up right now:

1) There is no such thing as a moral victory in elections, only winning and losing. So those who love, hate, or fall somewhere in between on the Trump scale, trying to spin a given election to fit the #narrative you want is what hacks do. A win is a win whether its by 50 votes or 50,000 votes. PERIOD.

2) #Trumpbots, when you crow about a win in a district that favours the party in question, that shows insecurity on your part. Stop it.

3) The party out of power usually wins more seats than not. For that reason, #Resistbots and #NeverTrumpbots need to stop acting as if a win of any given seat or two is necessarily indicative of anything larger on the horizon. Again, the party out of power usually wins more seats than not in midterm environs.

4) Special elections are always unique animals, particularly congressional races. I have seen folks who hate Trump spinning OH-12 as if its a disaster because the GOP candidate did not win by a requisite margin. Likewise, I have seen Trump supporters acting as if winning OH-12 means there is no so-called "Blue Wave" coming and its all #MAGA as far as the eye can see. Its all about feeding a chosen narrative and not seeking to approach these things objectively. I understand there is some elation to get from a win or frustration from a loss but again, special elections are rarely if ever indicative of how the bigger fall elections will go so stop pretending they are on all sides.

Points to Ponder:

Where is it written that one cannot criticize others (even seriously at times) without detesting them as people??? [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa September 21, 2006)]

On My Resignation From Where Peter Is, General Concerns For The State Of Public Discourse There and Elsewhere, Etc.
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

To begin with, this situation has been on my mind since nearly the very beginning of my involvement at Where Peter Is. And as I sketched some of this out in my introduction column at Where Peter Is (WPI), I will use what I said there to explain why I have decided to with this posting formalize my decision concretely at the present time. To wit:

Many years ago, I was involved in apologetics but I have been distancing myself from that for about fifteen years now. Fundamentally this was due to the limitations involved in mere apologetics. However, there was also the factor of too many involved in that endeavour revealing a disturbing degree of intellectual dependence on the Church’s magisterium to try and navigate complex subject matter. There is also an equally disturbing tendency of not a few folks to try and dogmatically impose an artificial uniformity onto others which creates unnecessary divisions. This is hardly in line with “the common saying, expressed in various ways and attributed to various authors…recalled with approval: in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity” (Pope St. John XXIII: Encyclical Letter Ad Petri Cathedram); ergo, I want nothing to do with that crowd.{1}

What I outlined above are areas that I believe should be well understood by all but indeed they are not. Even among those who can cite the relevant texts, understanding is usually lacking because merely citing a text does not mean its actually understood very well. Much as the Bible is used as a prooftext-fest for not a few of our brethren (separated and otherwise) against one another, the same is the case with magisterial interventions by Catholics. I begin seeing very early on these same problems in the manner whereby WPI was operating. But in keeping with the title of the column{2}, I sought to explain the alternative which is what I intended to focus on after getting my feet wet with a few columns first. I made reference in the inaugural column to both general areas of interest{3} as well as problems I had seen over the years{4} both methodological{5} as well as attitudinal{6} in the various Catholic spheres I had inhabited over the past twenty years. It was hoped that touching on these matters at the get-go could help alert site participants to look for them in their own writings and attitudes but this does not appear to be the case. Therefore, my involvement even as a silent lurker would appear to give a tacit approval to the very same problems I had outlined in the inaugural column.

There is also the issue of the general thrust of the way the site had been operating. Even apart from some of the specific columns that I found profoundly problematical{7} is the general atmosphere as presented on the site and on the message thread. I made my good friend Pete Vere aware of some of these matters very early on in an email communication:

I have been doing a lot of pondering on this writing relationship with the group page Where Peter Is (WPI). When I came aboard, it looked very promising. Since that time, I have only seen things that lessen my motivation for being involved there. I do not like the idea of having to wait for many days for simple columns to post. When I joined that was not an issue but over the past week it has become one. I also do not like basically being told what to write about or when to publish something.

I support Pope Francis but that does not mean I support every sentence that comes unformed from his mouth -particularly when it is in areas that fall outside of his divinely vested competence. However, I also have serious problems with the attitude of so many who take issue in the latter areas in the manner they far too frequently do so. And the free passes folks on all sides give to their chosen comrades to engage in detraction, calumny, and general belittling of chosen "outcasts" while excoriating "the other side" for the same offenses: this too does not meet with my favour.

Also, I am not even remotely interested in the political-themed stuff I am seeing with greater frequency on the group messenger. It is too similar to what I see in virtually every other sphere and as I am reducing significantly my involvement in that stuff in other places, I am hardly going to take on more of it [here]...

It appears that the aim of WPI is to act as a general apologetics site for all things Pope Francis. However, I have no interest in general apologetics whatsoever. It is too simplistic and too divisive. I went over this in the inaugural column so my stance on this should not be surprising. I was also told in a more veiled way that material needs to be shaped for a pro-Francis audience or something like that. I operate under the assumption that the dialogue that Pope Francis and his predecessors have spoke of going back explicitly to the pontificate of Pope Paul VI is one they take seriously and furthermore, that they want Catholics to take part in. I do not see how that can be the case if the goal is just to create an echo chamber of nodding yesfolk who take turns complaining about what the yesfolk of other echo chambers say and vice versa.

This is a serious problem today: too many echo chambers and far too few who try to bridge these chasms in a productive fashion. That is what I saw myself doing as a member of WPI. I am interested in helping build bridges, not helping destroy them. There is a reason I started the inaugural column with that passage from Fr. Taft. I am not interested in creating unnecessary conflict but instead to help find ways to resolve it. It does not seem to me that WPI and I in that respect are on the same page and the goal of members of the former seem to be the antithesis of what I aim to do.{8}

For his own reasons, Pete has decided to part ways with WPI as well as the rest of public social media. Apart from what I thought WPI could be as enunciated in my inaugural column, I got involved in the project to collaborate with an old friend as we used to in the old days when we wrote web content as well as columns for periodical publications. We may be able to resume collaboration in the coming year but obviously that will not be happening at WPI. I therefore for the reasons specified above formally resign from Where Peter Is as of this column's publication and its notation on the messenger thread of its site participants. I thank them for the original opportunity but in the end, it simply is not the right fit for me; therefore, I wish them well and bid them adieu.


“The world is full of people who are bridge destroyers. They want to destroy the bridges that already exist. That’s not me.” [Rt. Rev. Archimandrite Fr. Robert F. Taft, SJ]

Notes:

{1} Excerpt from Lighting Candles Instead of Cursing the Darkness (circa June 16, 2018)

{2} Lighting Candles Instead of Cursing the Darkness

{3} Among the ecclesial areas I have done a fair amount of study in are the areas not often familiar to apologists or indeed many theologians. For example, what is involved in the principles of authentic dialogue? (It is one thing to throw the term around and another to actually understand what it involves!) What is and is not involved in a magisterial intervention and what is and is not considered (properly speaking) “magisterial”? What are the general norms of theological interpretation involved in properly understanding the theological qualifications of magisterial interventions? What are the situations where someone can take issue with magisterial interventions and the recognized methodology thereof? And furthermore, what sort of spiritual dispositions should be involved in all such endeavours? These are areas worth delving into... [Excerpt from Lighting Candles Instead of Cursing the Darkness (circa June 16, 2018)]

{4} I have observed over the years that there is a greater frequency of coarseness in discourse in society generally speaking. What is even more disappointing is that I see it just as prominent among Catholics who should know better. To quote the words of a soon-to-be canonized saint, “[i]t would indeed be a disgrace if our dialogue were marked by arrogance, the use of bared words or offensive bitterness” (Bl. Pope Paul VI: Encyclical Letter Ecclesiam Suam). While I will at times bluntly call out such things when I see them, that is as a rule not how I have preferred over the years to go about these or other matters. [Excerpt from Lighting Candles Instead of Cursing the Darkness (circa June 16, 2018)]

{5} See the material from footnote one.

{6} I have also seen a growing coarseness in discourse among Catholics with the proliferation of labels intended to stigmatize others. [Excerpt from Lighting Candles Instead of Cursing the Darkness (circa June 16, 2018)]

I unfortunately in following the private messaging thread of WPI seen this sort of thing proliferate there as well as some of it creep onto the site itself.

{7} It is not my interest to go into this matter in any depth. Suffice to say, I hope bringing this matter to the attention of others on the site will make them more attuned to what they write and the manner in which it is presented in the future.

{8} Excerpts from an Email Correspondence (circa June 24, 2018)

Points to Ponder:
(This is the conclusion of the series started HERE. Without further ado...)

Love your dad because he’s your father, because he made you, because he thinks for himself, and most of all because he is a person. Have the strength to doubt and question what you believe as easily as you’re so quick to doubt his beliefs. Live with a truly open mind — the kind of open mind that even questions the idea of an open mind. Don’t feel the need to always pick a side. And if you do pick a side, pick the side of love. It remains our only real hope for survival and has more power to save us than any other belief we could ever cling to. [Andrew W.K. (circa August 6, 2014)]

Points to Ponder:

I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value. [Alexander Hamilton]

Briefly...

Though this website resumed activity last year, nothing was done about the state of the site template in a significant manner.{1} As a result, there was a lot of fat in the side margins from years past of projects previously involved in, old webrolls which were no longer active, duplicate prior post postings, and more or less other general and assorted stuff that was expired or otherwise simply not germane anymore. I have now trimmed things down a lot so the side margin is far less encumbering and much easier to read.

Note:

{1} I did make some changes to the template last year but nothing that affected the side margin and addressed the lingering issues there.

Points to Ponder:
(This is a continuation of the series started HERE. Without further ado...)

But the truth is, the world has always been and always will be on the brink of destruction. And what keeps it from actually imploding is our love for life and our deep-seeded desire not to die. Our love for our own life is inextricably connected to our love of all life and the miracle of this phenomenon we call “the world.” We must give all of ourselves credit every day for keeping things going. It’s an incredible achievement to exist at all.

So we must protect and respect each other, no matter how hard it feels. No matter how wrong someone else may seem to us, they are still human. No matter how bad someone may appear, they are truly no worse than us. Our beliefs and behavior don’t make us fundamentally better than others, no matter how satisfying it is to believe otherwise. We must be tireless in our efforts to see things from the point of view we most disagree with. We must make endless efforts to try and understand the people we least relate to. And we must at all times force ourselves to love the people we dislike the most. Not because it’s nice or because they deserve it, but because our own sanity and survival depends on it. And if we do find ourselves pushed into a corner where we must kill others in order to survive, we must fully accept that we are killing people just as fully human as ourselves, and not some evil abstract creatures. [Andrew W.K. (circa August 6, 2014)]

To be continued...

Briefly...

Today concluded the fiftieth anniversary of a trilogy of cartoons that involved Franklin's first appearances in the comic strip Peanuts. That this sort of thing would have ever been controversial shows us how far we have come. A Twitter comment on the third strip saying "this wounds my heart with its care, its love, its gentle sadness, and the fact that it feels just as important today as it did fifty years ago" tells us how far we still have to go...

Briefly...

Tomorrow starts August and the time of year where not a few Catholic sorts who live in a fantasyland rather than reality will publicly engage in a masturbatory ritual of anachronistically virtue signalling their ignorance about certain long ago war events as a way of trying to appear More Virtuous Than Thou.

Hopefully we see less of it this year for a change...

Points to Ponder:
(This is a continuation of the series started HERE. Without further ado...)

At its best, politics is able to organize extremely complex world views into manageable and communicable systems so they can be grappled with and studied abstractly. But even the most noble efforts to organize the world are essentially futile. The best we can usually achieve is a crude and messy map of life from one particular vantage point, featuring a few grids, bullet points, and sketches of its various aspects and landmarks. Anything as infinitely complex as life, reality, and the human experience can never be summed up or organized in a definitive system, especially one based on “left or right,” “A or B,” “us or them.” This is the fatal flaw of binary thinking in general. However, this flaw isn’t just ignored, it’s also embraced, amplified, and deliberately used as a weapon on the very people who think it’s benefiting their way of thinking.

Human beings crave order and simplicity. We cling to the hope that some day, if we really refine our world view and beliefs, we can actually find the fully correct way to think — the absolute truth and final side to stand on. People and systems craving power take advantage of this desire and pit us against each other using a “this or that” mentality. The point is to create unrest, disagreement, resentment, and anger — a population constantly at war with itself, each side deeply believing that the other is not just wrong, but also a sincere threat to their very way of life and survival. This creates constant anxiety and distraction — the perfect conditions for oppression. The goal of this sort of politics is to keep people held down and mesmerized by a persistent parade of seemingly life-or-death debates, each one worth all of our emotional energy and primal passion...[Andrew W.K. (circa August 6, 2014)]

To be continued...

RBe
@RBPundit

Protip: Anyone arguing in support of "Medicare for All" is telling you, in no uncertain terms, that they have no idea how the real world works.
9:42 AM · Jul 30, 2018

Some take issue with the claim that no one who thinks there is universal health care anywhere knows how the real world works so to clarify...

Where America is not subsidizing the defense of other nations, the answer is no.

There are some nations which who are skimping on their nations defense budgets as well as their NATO obligations who do but even in those glorified welfare cases, their systems are either in financial dire straits or are going bankrupt.


Hopefully this clarification helps...

Points to Ponder:
(This is a continuation of the series started HERE. Without further ado...)

When we lump people into groups, quickly label them, and assume we know everything about them and their life based on a perceived world view, how they look, where they come from, etc., we are not behaving as full human beings. When we truly believe that some people are monsters, that they fundamentally are less human than we are, and that they deserve to have less than we do, we ourselves become the monsters. When we allow our emotions to be hypnotized by the excitement of petty bickering about seemingly important topics, we drift further and further away from the fragile and crucial human bond holding everything together. When we anticipate with ferocious glee the next chance we have to prove someone “wrong” and ourselves “right,” all the while disregarding the vast complexity of almost every subject — not to mention the universe as a whole — we are reducing the beauty and magic of life to a “side” or a “type,” or worst of all, an “answer.” This is the power of politics at it’s most sinister... [Andrew W.K. (circa August 6, 2014)]

To be continued...

EDITORIAL: Oh, the irony: Democrats in deep blue states sue to protect the rich

In defense of Trump’s foreign policy

Briefly...

I am starting to think that between #AlwaysTrump and #NeverTrump that I am becoming more annoyed with the latter than the former these days.

Trump's Art Of The (Trade) Deal: U.S.-EU Trade War Averted — For Now

I discovered last night that an old friend had passed away a few years back and I was unaware of it. Rest in Peace F. John Loughnan and thank you for your help with project editing and other matters in years gone by.

You will be remembered often in prayer.

Points to Ponder:
(This is a continuation of the series started HERE. Without further ado...)

Go back and read the opening sentences of your letter. Read them again. Then read the rest of your letter. Then read it again. Try to find a single instance where you referred to your dad as a human being, a person, or a man. There isn’t one. You’ve reduced your father — the person who created you — to a set of beliefs and political views and how it relates to you. And you don’t consider your dad a person of his own standing — he’s just “your dad.” You’ve also reduced yourself to a set of opposing views, and reduced your relationship with him to a fight between the two. The humanity has been reduced to nothingness and all that’s left in its place is an argument that can never really be won. And even if one side did win, it probably wouldn’t satisfy the deeper desire to be in a state of inflamed passionate conflict.

The world isn’t being destroyed by democrats or republicans, red or blue, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist — the world is being destroyed by one side believing the other side is destroying the world. The world is being hurt and damaged by one group of people believing they’re truly better people than the others who think differently. The world officially ends when we let our beliefs conquer love. We must not let this happen... [Andrew W.K. (circa August 6, 2014)]

To be continued...

I await the usual "its not real socialism/communism" claims from the usual gang of idiots on this kind of stuff...

Ortega’s Reign of Terror

'Welcome to hell.' Former Venezuelan political prisoner says he was tortured in jail

Briefly...

Just as Finkle is Einhorn (and Einhorn is Finkle), Podesta is Manafort. Ergo, the idea of giving immunity to Tony Podesta of all people fundamentally undermines the idea that the Muller investigation is anything resembling an honest and impartial investigation as opposed to a partisan fishing expedition and witch hunt.

"One From the Vault" Dept.

The following is a flashback to the archives of this website from 2004...

Most who call themselves "traditionalists" make the mistake of not handling problematical issues with a proper Catholic way. Hence, they gripe about Assisi and incidents like that forgetting that it is contrary to the dogma of the papal supremacy to refuse assent to the Apostolic See not only in matters of faith and morals but also in matters which concern the Church's general good as well as her rights and discipline.

Catholic dogma is clear that the pope has full authority in the areas of "feeding" (teaching), ruling (directives or disciplines), but also in "guiding" the Church. These distinctions were spelled out by Pope Pius IX in Quanta Cura: an encyclical that "trads" like to prooftext but obviously have not read very carefully...

That same pope condemned those who would appeal to the press or media outlets against a judgment or directive of the Holy See...

Returning to the subject of Quanta Cura and the threefold division it makes (feeding, ruling, and guiding), the trads usually toe the line with the first one and sometimes with the second one. But even people...appear to me to be falling short of the third one which deals with the Pope's ability to set the agenda for how the Church is to handle issues in a given epoch of time...

In closing, I agree with you that the concern that animates their positions is important. However, a lot of it is simply a lack of spiritual maturity on their side -something I made note of in many of my writings... [Excerpts from Rerum Novarum (circa May 7, 2004)]

Briefly...

I pointed out to some folks on Twitter that if the standard is no president can appoint a SCOTUS nominee when under federal investigation that Stephen Breyer (appointed after Attorney General Janet Reno opened an investigation into Whitewater in 1994) needs to resign.

Somehow I doubt these "principled" folks are going to demand that now which tells us all we need to know about them!

Briefly on an Upcoming Points to Ponder Series:

I came across a Q and A from The Village Voice that I contemplated posting in its entirety as a Points to Ponder installment but then realized if I did that, so much of what it would contain would be lost due to the volume of the text. For that reason, I will over the next month or so at various intervals post a small part of the piece for reflection by both you the reader as well as for your humble servant at Rerum Novarum for we can all use some material for pondering from time to time to both stimulate the mind's activation as well as exhort us to be better people. I will start the process in this posting by quoting in full the letter that served as the impetus for the response to follow in the series. Without further ado...

Hi Andrew,

I’m writing because I just can’t deal with my father anymore. He’s a 65-year-old super right-wing conservative who has basically turned into a total asshole intent on ruining our relationship and our planet with his politics. I’m more or less a liberal democrat with very progressive values and I know that people like my dad are going to destroy us all. I don’t have any good times with him anymore. All we do is argue. When I try to spend time with him without talking politics or discussing any current events, there’s still an underlying tension that makes it really uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong, I love him no matter what, but how do I explain to him that his politics are turning him into a monster, destroying the environment, and pushing away the people who care about him?


Thanks for your help,
Son of A Right-Winger

Stay tuned for more as the answer to the above letter is unfolded piece by piece in the upcoming Points to Ponder series.

Senate Resistance To Judge Kavanaugh Is Collapsing

If you are a socialist at 20, you are still a clueless ahistorical dumbass.


Michelle Ray
@GaltsGirl

Replying to @instapundit

"If you're not a socialist at 20... "

3:32 PM · Jul 3, 2018

How Do You Spell “Hypocrite?:” O-C-A-S-I-O-C-O-R-T-E-Z

Baasically, there is no socialist out there who is not a hypocrite but some (like Cortez) are worse than others.

SCOTUS pick Brett Kavanaugh used credit cards to buy baseball tickets and Shannon Watts is suspicious