Canon Law - Strict Interpretation Helps Avoid Harshness

A lot of apologist sources like to utilize canon law to push their agendas rather than seek to properly understand the principles of proper interpretation. For this reason, the above article written by a titan in the canon law world can be of aid in correctly understanding how various canons{1} are to correctly be applied.

Note:

{1} There is one typo which got missed before publication. Namely, the reference in the article to Canon 925 is actually intended to reference Canon 915. 

Here Is Why the Democrats Are Totally Panicked About the Arizona Audit

Queen’s speech: voters will need photo ID for general elections

To be blunt, only a complete moron has a problem with voters in an election having to provide photo ID. 

Democratic Death Watch: 'Biden’s agenda is pretty much dangling by a thread'

Vatican warns US bishops over get-tough Communion proposals

My father in law Frank Barone passed away a year ago this morning. If those who read these words would say a prayer for him, it would be most appreciated.

Eternal rest grant unto his soul oh Lord and may thy perpetual light shine upon him...May his soul and all the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Points to Ponder:

A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government. [Alexander Hamilton]

Pete Carroll and John Schneider are not who they once were

One year ago, I prayed this prayer for my father in law Frank Barone who was in the hospital. As today would have been his wedding anniversary to my mother on law Raffaelina Barone, I repost it anew at this time and request prayers for the eternal repose of their souls...

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light [Dylan Thomas (published 1951)]

It's empty now, no friendly face
And nothing lives within
I look around and I find no trace
To tell me what has been

So far I've come to find there's no one here
No life and fear
I came for nothing, they have gone
And nobody's home

I am contemplating a name change for this site. Whether it will be as an add-on to the current name or sonething different altogether, on that I do not currently know. But something will be changing, it is only a question of when on that front, not if.

I came to learn, perhaps to teach
But I can tell somehow
The world that I was sent to reach
Has got no future now

All things change and this site even in its nearly nineteen years of existence{1} has undergone numerous changes in layout, topics covered, etc. 

The one constant is that this site has served as a kind of journal of sorts where subjects of interest to me were published here. I referred to written projects once as writing photographs and this site in its older materials does serve as a kind of writing photo album. As with picture albums, there are non flattering shots in the book along with the more favouring ones but that is life. And life has a way of going on and in directions one does not expect. I have certainly had probably more than my share of that over the years. But I look at several things differently now than when this site began. 

Across the galaxy to spread the word
And no one heard
I came for nothing, I'm alone
And nobody's home

Muhammed Ali once said "a man who looks at the world at fifty the way he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of their life." I have certainly avoided that and thank God I am not like those who have not if which there are sadly, many.{2}

A requiem was never sung, no elegy was read
No monument was carved in stone in memory of the dead
For those who made this place do not remain
They feel no pain
A stranger fate was never known

This site started as a part of a community that basically does not exist anymore. Whatever one thinks of that or wishes, it is what it is. And for that reason, one must operate in accordance with what is and not on the basis of what one wishes. 

Notes:

{1} We debuted on August 22, 2002 and were in operation until an indefinite suspension in operations on December 19, 2009. We then resumed operations on April 4 2017 to the present day.

{2} To the degree I have avoided this is due to grace and I therefore cannot claim the credit.

Insomnia 3: Beyond Thunderdome!

As the rain tapdances on the roof and I lay wide awake, today's shipwreck is the SS America. Built in 1939 and launched in 1940 by United States Lines, the 723 foot 11 deck luxury liner had a brief stint before being commandeered by the military in 1941 after Pearl Harbor. Renamed the USS Westpoint, the ship served in many roles until discharged in 1946 when it resumed the name SS America under United Stated Lines and its luxury liner status. For a brief period, the SS America was the queen of the American fleet until 1952 when the much larger and faster SS United States was launched. 

The SS America remained in service cruising the transatlantic routes from 1946 until 1964 when it was bought by Chandris Group who renamed it the SS Australis. It then ran the circuit from Southampton, England to Australia from 1964-1977 when it was sold to Venture Cruise Lines in 1978 where it was renamed the SS America but attempts to relaunch the ship were an abysmal failure. Chandris Group reacquired the ship in 1978 renaming it the SS Italis where after a few renovations, it was chartered in 1979 for three 14 day cruises out of Genoa and Barcelona to Egypt, Israel, and the eastern Mediterranean. After those cruises, it was laid up in Piraeus, Greece in September of 1979. 

From there, the ship was bought by Intercommerce Corporation in 1980 and renamed the SS Noga underwent a dizzying array of name changes and plans for use while the ship was laid up in port. (Including converting it to a prison ship to be anchored in Beruit.) It was then bought by Silver Moon Ferries who got nowhere with it except to change one side of the ship to Alferdoss and after a busted bilge pump had to move the ship to avoid it sinking while it could be repaired. Once fixed, it was taken back to its original mooring place in Piraeus. The ship was then sold for scrap in the late 1980s but after they barely got started, the scrappers defaulted on their loans so they pulled out. So the now-named Alferdoss or Noga (no one knows which!) remained until 1993 when it was bought a final time.

Now the plans were ambitious: refit her to become a five-star hotel ship off Phuket, in Thailand. Despite years of drydock neglect, the hull was found to be in remarkably solid condition so her propellers were removed, the remaining funnel painted red, and she was renamed American Star. She left Greece under tow in late December 1993 but bad weather forced a return to dock. After things calmed down, American Star left Greece under tow. It was estimated that the tow would take 100 days but not long after, the tugboat and liner ran into an Atlantic storm and the tow lines broke. Six crew members were sent aboard the American Star to reattach the tow lines while two additional tugs assisted. The crew members were rescued by helicopter on January 17, 1994 while the ship was left adrift.

On January 18, American Star ran aground at Playa de Garcey, off the west coast of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. While the owners were furiously deciding what to do, the ships bow got wedged in a sandbar. Two days of pounding sea broke the hull in half and the ship was declared a total loss. The stern collapsed to port and sank in 1996 while the now section remained intact and deteriorating. 

The port side collapsed in November of 2005 which caused the remaining hull to break up and nearly collapse the ship to port side. In April 2007, the starboard side collapsed and the remaining wreck broke in half and sank at sea. A very small section of the bow and keel are visible now at low tide but after thirteen years of pounding waves, the remaining wreck of the once great SS America is no more.

Points to Ponder:

A renegade apologist can do grave damage to the Catholic Church and Her reputation. [Dr. Art Sippo (circa 2006)]

Briefly...

I have two principles which have long guided how I view economic matters of commerce and trade. The first is simple: Buy quality wherever that quality comes from. The second is a bit more complex: When you cannot for logistics or other reasons make a product yourself, do business with those countries who are your friends first and give them preference over more neutral nations which should get preference over those nations which have proven to not be trustworthy.

BREAKING: Sources Confirm Shock G Of Digital Underground Dead At 57 

"All right! Stop whatcha doin' 

'Cause I'm about to ruin 

The image and the style that ya used to 

I look funny 

But yo I'm makin' money, see 

So yo world I hope you're ready for me 

Now gather round 

I'm the new fool in town 

And my sound's laid down by the Underground 

I drink up all the Hennessey ya got on ya shelf 

So just let me introduce myself..."  

#RestInPeace "Humpty Hump"!

Points to Ponder: 

(On Banking and Investments) 

Does not the social function of the bank consist in making it possible for the individual to render his money fruitful, even if only in small degree, instead of dissipating it, or leaving it sleep without any profit, either to himself or to others? That is why the services that a bank can render are so numerous: to facilitate and encourage savings; to preserve savings for the future, at the same time rendering them productive in the present; to enable savings to share in useful enterprises that could not be launched without them; to make as simple and easy as possible the regulation of accounts, exchanges, commerce between the State and private organisms and, in a word, the entire economic life of the people. [Pope Pius XII: Address to Italian Bankers (circa April 25, 1950)]

Briefly...

On the Chauvin verdict, I thought second degree manslaughter was most likely, third degree murder feasible, and second degree murder would be unlikely. I was wrong on the latter, Chauvin was found guilty on all counts.

Insomnia 2: Electric Boogaloo!

Here is another of the shipwrecks, the Ozlem. Built in 1969 and originally named the Christina I, it was a tanker which went through a few owners and name changes (including the Charles Cruz) until it was wrecked near the Georgian coastal town of Batumi in 2005 where it has remained and slowly decomposed ever since. 

I had a bit of insomnia this morning so I was awake looking at pictures of shipwrecks. This is the SS Maheno beached at Frasier Island off the coast of Australia in 1935. A former luxury liner, it was converted into a hospital ship and served during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. 

Points to Ponder:

I can relate to so much of this and have for quite some time. But 2020 sharpened my perceptions if you will. Without further ado...

It’s all dead to me. Celebrities. Sports. Concerts. Bars. Travel. None of it matters anymore. During 14 days to stop the spread, which turned into 7 weeks of lockdown, I would have done ANYTHING to go to a concert.

But now? I count it as loss. It means nothing to me anymore. The people I once idolized are puppets. The politicians I once applauded are imbedded in their own interests and have sold us out. The companies I once shopped with are colluding against us.

The celebrities I once looked up to I know [I] can’t look at. It’s all gone. 2020 changed me. And I don’t miss any of it. I only wish I had ditched all of these false idols sooner.

The truth is is that I’d give up any of these things sooner if I had truly understood. But now I do. And it set me free. I’ll walk the narrow road with my eyes fixed on the finish line. None of what is here matters. The earth and everything here is temporary.

There is life after death. So I count this all as loss. 2020 was the year that separated the wheat from the chaff. There are still people straddling the line, soon they will have to choose where they stand too.

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it." 1 Corinthians 9:24

If disagreeing with what is happening causes me to lose my seat at the table and to lose my status in society, I’m willing to sit alone. [Nina Leone]

Four Questions For Distributist/Distributivist Apologists...

This is the text of an unfinished Facebook note primarily composed on April 12, 2012. As it seemed appropriate to revisit the subject, the thread below was finished in roughly the form originally envisioned for publication at this time.

As one who has over the years interacted may times (and often in depth) with distributist/distributivist (D/D) apologists, inevitably you hear these sorts of responses such as I have heard earlier this year from a couple advocates when writing yet another lengthy critique of D/D philosophy:

Shawn, you know nothing of distributism to make such claims.

Shawn, I don't think you know what Distributism is.

Now this is what D/D love to say when their economic weltanschauung is challenged in any detail. So before I get to the four questions I have, here is how some D/D apologists describe their own system on one of their advocacy sites:

While in a socialist society none are owners, and in a capitalist society only a few are owners, in a Distributist society most are owners of productive property. This is the defining characteristic of Distributism: the widescale distribution of productive property throughout society, such that ownership of it is the norm, rather than the exception. Such distribution is the best way of ensuring that the economic rights of man are respected; that men can pursue their livelihoods with the greatest possible independence; and that society can exist as a single harmonious whole, without the vicissitudes of class hatreds and constant economic unrest which plague all of our current systems.{1}

Notice that the describe the way their society looks but not how they actually get there and therein lies the rub!

For this is the same problem the atheist has in accounting for how existing systems came into being in the absence of creation by some higher Intelligence. In like manner, D/D sorts have to explain exactly how their system that they envision becomes a reality instead of merely fantasizing about what they think it would look like. That is the core problem that both of those sorts of advocates have for their respective systems when you take it down to brass tacks.

So I will ask now (albeit in shorter form) essentially what I always have asked D/D but boiled down to four question that they need to answer before I can invest any serious effort or energy into such a hypothesis. Without further ado...

• Tell me how you get Distribution without some kind of "Distributor."

If this cannot be done, then the proposed system could not be implemented at all and that would make all the advocacies for it nothing but pious nonsense.

Of course if we assume that the D/D recognizes that some sort of "Distributor" (however it is constituted) is needed to make their system work in reality instead of just some nostalgia driven fantasy land, that brings us to this question:

• Who is empowered to be the "Distributor" and how (and by what authority) are they so empowered?

Once this question is answered, then there is the issue of how those who took issue with the proposed system would be treated as we can assume such a radical overhaul of the existing order would prompt no small degree of opposition. Ergo:

• What would be recommended to be done with those who have land and other resources that they claim is theirs and who tell the "Distributor" and their advocates{2} to take their ideas for attempting to coerce public behaviour (and/or said property from them) and blow it out their collective pie holes? 

That is a reasonable question to ask because the system they are advocating would in a number of cases do just that and if they are going to complain about being compared to socialists and the latter's redistributist schemes, they will have to explain that in some detail and in a fashion that is logically coherent and not purely arbitrary. And finally, there is the issue that so many of those who advocate for this system happen to be those who would not have to or actually do not live in it themselves:

• When are we going to see those who advocate for this "glorious lifestyle" actually practice what they preach? 

For those who endeavour to try to advocate for this sort of system or otherwise push it onto others can start by divesting themselves of all the trappings of the economic system they despise, get a farm plot in the middle of BFE, and eke out some subsistence living in all the splendour of the Middle Ages they so longingly wish they were a part of.{3} I am not talking about doing this as some part time thing or jovial little experiment{4} but instead to actually live the life they preach that everyone should be living.

That means:

• Do not buy food from the market, grow/raise it all yourself. 

• Do not buy clothes and shoes, make them all yourself. 

• Etc.{5}

This sort of thing in the overwhelming majority of cases can only be lionized by those who have never had to live it but those of who would advocate for such a system or bemoan the current system or misrepresent it egregously{6} to push their pet notions{7}, how about they go about making a living via the one they claim everyone should be living in.{8} For until I start seeing D/D moving en masse to buy farms and making a lot of (if not all of) their own stuff, do not be surprised if such apologists are summarily (and properly) dismissed as unworthy of consideration in the arena of ideas.

Notes:

{1} Donald P. Goodman: Excerpt from An Introduction to Distributism (circa August 9, 2011)

{2} Who basically try to invent fancy ways to steal it from them under the guise of some "higher morality" or whatever.

{3} And any who actually do try to do this at the very least have my respect for endeavouring to practice what they preach. (If nothing else, they deserve credit for walking the talk unlike most of their comrades who talk in a similar fashion and do not back their words up with deeds.)

{4} For example, my time on a cousins farm one vacation.

{5} I suppose in some aspects they could argue that a kind of collective could be established wherein those who are either better equipped resource-wise or in some fashion more proficient in some areas than others could form reciprocal arrangements with like-minded folks with different skills and better function societally that way. However, as that notion is simply much too close to David Ricardo's Enlightenment era theory of comparative advantage and therefore any who would smear or demean economic theories or principles from the Enlightenment era would be best to leave such things out of their calculations lest they "pollute" their "pristine civilizational model." Or to be blunter: make the damn shit yourselves!

{6} To note five postings from 2007 on the subject:

Revisiting "Distributivism" (circa May 25, 2007)

"The Empire Distributivist Strikes Back" Dept. (circa May 27, 2007)

On Fundamental Rights, Private Property, and Authentic Dialogue (circa May 31, 2007)

On the "Phantom Menace" of Distributivism (circa September 8, 2007)

"From the Mailbag" on Distributivism and Economic Systems in General (circa September 10, 2007)

{7} For example, the historically ignorant who preach the idiotic idea that capitalism started either in the Enlightenment period or in the post-reformation when in reality its earliest developments preceded both of those periods.

{8} Whether they want to or not!