Cigar Thoughts, Game 11: DK slays Philadelphia as Seahawks pluck Eagles 23-17

Reasons why the 2020 presidential election is deeply puzzling

This article to a macro extent encapsulates my view as I have been thinking along similar lines in recent weeks.

Points to Ponder:

Worship and charity are the paths, embodying the love of God and love of neighbour.

5 Qs and 5 As with Bleeding Green Nation: Is it time to bench Carson Wentz?

Reports: Israel Assassinates “Father” Of Iranian Nuclear Bomb Program Mohsen Fakhrizadeh

A Thanksgiving Poem

The sun hath shed its kindly light,
Our harvesting is gladly o’er
Our fields have felt no killing blight,
Our bins are filled with goodly store.

From pestilence, fire, flood, and sword
We have been spared by thy decree,
And now with humble hearts, O Lord,
We come to pay our thanks to thee.

We feel that had our merits been
The measure of thy gifts to us,
We erring children, born of sin,
Might not now be rejoicing thus.

No deed of our hath brought us grace;
When thou were nigh our sight was dull,
We hid in trembling from thy face,
But thou, O God, wert merciful.

Thy mighty hand o’er all the land
Hath still been open to bestow
Those blessings which our wants demand
From heaven, whence all blessings flow.

Thou hast, with ever watchful eye,
Looked down on us with holy care,
And from thy storehouse in the sky
Hast scattered plenty everywhere.

Then lift we up our songs of praise
To thee, O Father, good and kind;
To thee we consecrate our days;
Be thine the temple of each mind.

With incense sweet our thanks ascend;
Before thy works our powers pall;
Though we should strive years without end,
We could not thank thee for them all.

[Paul Laurence Dunbar]

Points to Ponder:

Obedience is easy when you like what is asked of you, a lot harder when you do not. But the latter is actually more meritorious than the former according to the masters of the Catholic spiritual tradition.

Briefly on Non-Dogmatic Statements of Fact: 

My words will be in regular font.

No. when the Church rules that the conditions do not exist in these times, claiming that they do is disobedience.

You are ascribing to the Church a power beyond its competence. There is no special protection by the Holy Spirit when it comes to non dogmatic statements of fact. Period.

Pretending there is such a charism is basically is to fulfill William Gladstones nineteenth century caricature of Catholics as mind numbed robots completely dependent on Rome. The church is no more qualified to pronounce on the efficacy of modern penal systems than she is on the best way to build a dam, design a ship, conduct meteorological experiments, or prepare breakfast.

Prudential judgment helps us determine *how* to best obey Church teaching, not *whether* to obey  it.

Prudential judgement is subjective. It is also not free from possible errors as even the Vatican admits in Donum Veritatis.{1} It is certainly erroneous to automatically dismiss any and all prudential judgments of the Church the way many do. But it is no less erroneous to treat every prudential judgment as if it is carved on stone tablets from Mt. Sinai as you are in essence doing. The truth is between the Scylla of frequent and flagrant disobedience and the Charybdis of your kind of faith asphyxiating neo-ultramontanism.

Note:

{1} For further reading on this and other magisterial matters, see the following thread:

On the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, Obedience, and the Requirements of Faithful Catholics

Miscellaneous Musings on Neoscholasticism:

Whatever one wants to say about the Second Vatican Council, the intentions of the Fathers, of Pope St. John XXIII and all, one thing bears nothing. Namely, whatever fits and starts, whatever incomplete elucidation were involved in the process, one unquestionable good was the Second Vatican Council smashed neo-scholastic crap and more or less buried it. However good the intentions of its promoters were initially in wanting to recover authentic scholasticism, the actual result was a sham and at best a shell of authentic scholasticism. 

This increasingly fraudulent form of scholasticism was dominant in the Church in roughly the century prior to the Second Vatican Council. The Council to its great credit oriented the Church towards viewing the faith in a far more genuinely traditional way: incarnationally and a faith manifested through charitable service. What was so damaging about neoscholastic methodology is it asphyxiated the faith by making of it not a lived faith but instead a series of dogmatic theological propositions.{1} When the latter become the primary point of focus to the detriment of an incarnational understanding, it causes ones faith to become very sterile and unlifelike. 

We can all take issue with some of the things that came out of the Council, things that could have been said or expressed or formulated better. However, one undeniable benefit was the Second Vatican Council to its great credit smashed the sclerotic neoscholastic approach to the faith and set about expressing the faith more incarnationally as a faith that is lived through embodying the corporeal and spiritual works of mercy, not merely a jumble of verbal formularies.

Note:

{1} It was also based less on the original scholastic sources than on later commentators and various glosses they put on their commentaries on original sources which were often erroneous but confused with the thoughts of the schoolmen. 

Points to Ponder:

Do not ever forget or forgive those who sought to make 2020 as miserable as possible for the sake of playing politics!

 The Dogma Doesn't Live Loudly In Him

To take a bit of issue with the above article, pastoral theology presupposes dogmatic theology. What many of my fellow conservatives fail to grasp is repeating dogmatic formulations into a void accomplishes next to nothing in moving people towards the faith. Faith without works is dead. For his occasional stumbles Pope Francis understands this. It often seems many conservatives do not or at least beyond paying lip service to the concept at best.

Here is my dilemma: the same big media and big tech sources insisting all is well and there is nothing to see here viz potential widescale fraud and all have proven themselves repeatedly over the years to be a bunch of untrustworthy fucking liars and scum. 

So when proven untrustworthy fucking liars and scum march in lockstep trying to censor legitimate inquiries, I instinctively will support the latter because I have zero trust with the untrustworthy fucking liars and scum of big media and big tech. I would not piss on them if they were on fire and I will immediately distrust apriori everything they say about anything.

Vatican report reveals omissions in Archbishop Vigano’s ‘testimony’

I have been pretty clear from the get-go that I did not trust Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano the way not a few should have known better who frequently raised his name as some all-certified shibboleth in years past did. Rather than spell it out anew at this time, I will put in a footnote{1} links to prior postings where his material was touched on in varying degrees of detail.

The release of the long awaited McCarrick Report has no shortage of interesting material in it but among the most interesting is a signal failure of Archbishop Vigano in late 2012 to initiate an investigation as requested by Cardinal Marc Ouellet of the Congregation of Bishops.{2} This and other oversights by Archbishop Vigano listed in the McCarrick Report provide ample vindication of my prior enunciated positions on Vigano.

Notes:

{1} I went over in detail a couple of years ago the red flag that from the outset poisoned the well in my eyes where Vigano's credibility was concerned. Subsequent testimony installments of his or responses of other clerics to installments of his did not acquit him any better to put it nicely.

{2} See the McCarrick Report pgs 380-389 for details.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

[Lt. Col. John McCrae (1872 – 1918)]

Vatican report tracks McCarrick’s rise despite allegations of abuse and misconduct

I may have more to say on this subject after familiarizing myself more with the contents of the report. 

Dear Democrats: Here's What You Can Do With Your Unity Candle

This article sums up a lot of what I am currently thinking{1}; ergo, I post it here as a reliable representation of my views on the issues it covers.

Note:

{1} To a macro extent anyway.

Drift Compatible Podcast: The Election. Yaaaaay.

Suppose They Stole An Election And Nobody Noticed

Purgatory Project Names 2020:

Richard Dunn McElhinney
Margaret Dianne McElhinney
Anna Maria McElhinney
Shawn McElhinney
Teresa Marie McElhinney
Frank D. Barone
Raffaelina Barone

Bobby Kanski

Silvana Barone

Sean Donovan

Harry Kanski
Mary Kanski
Paul McElhinney
Mildred McElhinney
Mark Usher
Virginia Usher

Joan Lucas

James Dunn McElhinney
David Kanski

Mark Cribbs

Ed Flynn
Cecilia Flynn
Hugh Dunn

Mel Denny
Hattie Denny

Sharon Colson

Ginny Riley

Steve Paul

Hugh Dunn

Don Hellstrom

Leta Allen
Steve Paul
Marlene Eiden

Natalie Holderness

Gail Kanski

Ann Ripplinger

Alice Romanick

Sharon Yotter
Lisa Yotter
Bob Kanski

Jessie Kanski

Brent McElhinney 

Denise Leese

Jody McElhinney

Judy Spence

Ann Spence 

Jack Spence 

Claudia McElhinney

Jerry Usher

Larry Usher

Pat Kane
Chris DiSomma
Mic Greubel
Jim Greubel
Cindy Greubel
Kathy Hanks
Shane Rasmussen
Tim Tull
Charles Tull
Daniel Tull

Bill Walkling

Pauley Perrette
Mike Mentzer
Ray Mentzer
Jack DeLisle
Larry Gonczy
Keith McDonald
Mona McDonald
Michelle Bigliatto

Melody Walkling

Yvonne Goodwin
Diana Louie Taylor
Marc Taylor
Beth Cleaver
Kender McGowan
Misha Lynn Nicastro
Miki Odendahl
Bob Klaus
Deborah Klaus
Art Sippo

Michael Lopez
F John Loughnan
Fr. Robert Taft SJ
Don Hale

Betty Hale
Linda Hale
Dave Altier
Vangie Altier
Fr. Augustine Hartmann
Fr. Christopher Hunter

Emilio Barone
Fr. Angel Sotelo
Kevin Tierney
Gwen Stefani
Fr. John Rizzo
Albert King
Albert Collins
Freddie King
Albert Cipriani
Rick Wright

The Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous site has been updated!!!

The above site is rarely updated but when it is, the material posted there is basically in a final form and I have no intention of revisiting the substance of those materials again. In this case, I have taken the unprecedented step of linking four Rerum Novarum expository musing threads to that site as these are subjects of no small importance. Those threads are as follows:

On Magisterial Interpretation (circa January 4, 2020)

On the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, Obedience, and the Requirements of Faithful Catholics (circa February 26, 2020)

On Clarifying and Retracting Some Prior Statements on the Magisterium (circa March 8, 2020)

More On Magisterial Interpretation (circa October 23, 2020)

I have said all I ever plan to say on the subjects contained therein. Ergo, it seems appropriate to post them there considering how much misunderstanding persists on the material covered in those threads.  

All things to the contrary notwithstanding.