Dark Brightness

More on Benedict…

Neither side, however, seems ready to take Benedict’s theology — his own field of expertise — seriously. Part of this is a result of our habitual, liberal-democratic tendency to separate Church and State and not let theological arguments influence our politics. This tendency invariably blinds us to the pope’s combination of respect for life with the demands of social justice.

Such a synthesis is not easy nor is it likely to satisfy partisans. It’s hard enough to imagine an international authority that can command universal support – not even the pope has that within his own Church. In many ways our current systems of democratic governance are more modest because they do not assume any such unanimity, theological or otherwise. But the real question is whether a society built solely on competing interests will ultimately be worth the trouble. Will it reflect Benedict’s insistent demands for human dignity? Experience keeps telling us something more is clearly needed.

Our political categories of left and right originate from the French Revolution, which infamously saw the Catholic Church as its great enemy. Which makes it all the more remarkable that the modern social teachings of the papacy may provide the soundest moral defense of liberté, égalité, et fraternité in today’s world.

We often make utilitarian arguments in favor of freedom, especially in the area of economics. We support the market economy and the profit motive because they produce more goods and services and increase our standard of living. We criticize the same system when we see others or ourselves less well-off materially, such as in this time of crisis. The system is judged moral or immoral because of what it does for us.

This is not Benedict’s approach. Like his predecessors, he starts with a certain understanding of human nature. Human beings are free and equal in dignity because they are created in the image and likeness of God. And as children of God, they have a social nature that compels them to live and prosper together, despite their tendency to pride and selfishness. Human beings still have a “vocation” together. On this basis, Catholic social teaching developed a moral understanding of human freedom that rightly warns against utopian or overly idealistic schemes: The Church knows there is nothing more evident than human sin and weakness.

On past occasions, Benedict has avoided what he calls “cheap moralism” that takes no account of the technical side of economics and shows no willingness to integrate ethics into the everyday world of business — it remains on the outside looking in. Instead of partaking in simple, “prophetic” (in hindsight) calls against capitalism, Benedict has chosen to engage us with “an adult faith,” as he said on the eve of the encyclical’s publication.

via Benedict’s (Non-partisan) Truth – Kishore Jayabalan – The Corner on National Review Online.

My theology is reformed. I do not go as far as the great Swiss Frog and argue that all popes are antichrist. However some (such as Medici) are worse than this description of the Kennedys.

The Kennedy family has infected the American body politic for three generations. By and large it is composed of adulterers, fornicators, drunks, liars, socialists, traitors, rapists, parasites, habitués of rehab centers and other assorted riff-raff. They have prospered in only two professions, bootlegging and politics, proving Balzac’s rule that “behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”

This nation would have been better off had the Kennedys never been born. Mary Joe Kopechne certainly would have been. The Kennedys are to a man an embarrassment, a scandal and an outrage. A decent people would have sent them all to the gibbet years ago. As it is an avenging fury has been occupied over the years in knocking them off one by one. Still so many to go, alas

The latest piece of flotsam to parade the Kennedy imbecility in public is Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. She most recently demonstrated her knowledge and wisdom by writing this piece of trash. Here is a catchy line:

Why Barack Obama represents American Catholics better than the pope does.

One hardly knows where to begin to deconstruct such a tissue of illogic and stupidity.

Like all Kennedys, Townsend claims to be Catholic. Like all Kennedys, the Catholicism is just for pretense. Townsend neither practices it nor believes in it nor uses it to guide her life. Her Catholicism is a sham, nothing more than a dog and pony show to garner Catholic votes. She shares this use of Catholicism with John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi and Mario Cuomo. None of these believes what the Church teaches and has taught for 2000 years.

Scipio and I are on other sides of the Tiber. I agree with this analysis…

Catholicism is not Protestantism. There is only one Catholic Church. One either takes it all or refuses it all. Nothing else is allowed. Jesus Himself made this so. One cannot be a Catholic and be in favor of abortion, for example. If one claims to be a “Catholic for choice” one is either ignorant or a liar.

The Church cannot change its Dogma concerning Faith or Morals. It does not have the power to do so even if it wanted to. “Catholics” who yammer about contraception and sodomy and divorce and abortion and female priests are demanding things that can never be given. These complainers have really left the church though they pretend they are still in it.

via The Return Of Scipio.

…but I disagree with the conclusions. The only authorities I accept are reasoning upon scripture. You have to show it in the word. The antichrist is defined as (from I John 2, NAB)

I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth. Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist. No one who denies the Son has the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.