Belloc on the Mass

In the first village I came to I found that Mass was over, and this justly annoyed me; for what is a pilgrimage in which a man cannot hear Mass every morning? Of all the things I have read about St. Louis which make me wish I had known him to speak to, nothing seems to me more delightful than his habit of getting Mass daily whenever he marched down south, but why this should be so delightful I cannot tell. Of course, there is a grace and influence belonging to such a custom, but it is not of that I am speaking but of the pleasing sensation of order and accomplishment which attaches to a day one has opened by Mass...

This comfort I ascribe to four causes (just above you will find it written that I could nto tell why this should be so, but what of that?), and these causes are:

1. That for half-an-hour just at the opening of the day you are silent and recollected, and have to put off cares, interests and passions in the repetition of a familiar action. This must certainly be a great benefit to the body and give it tone. 

2. That the Mass is a careful and rapid ritual. Now it is the function of all ritual (as we see in games, social arrangements and so forth) to relieve the mind by so much of responsibility and initiative and to catch you up (as it were) into itself, leading your life for you during the time it lasts. In this way you experience a singular repose, after which fallowness I am sure one is fitter for action and judgment. 

3. That the surroundings incline you to good and reasonable thoughts, and for the moment deaden the rasp and jar of that busy wickedness which both working in one's self and received from others is the true source of all human miseries. Thus the time spent at Mass is like a short repose in a deep and well built library, into which no sounds come and where you feel yourself secure against the outer world. 

4. And the most important cause of this feeling of satisfaction is that you are doing what the human race had done for thousands upon thousands of years. This is a matter of such moment that I am astonished people hear of it so little. Whatever is buried right into our blood from immemorial habit that we must be certain to do if we are to be fairly happy (of course no grown man or woman can really be very happy for long- but I mean reasonably happy), and, what is more important, decent and secure of our souls. Thus one should from time to time hunt animals, or at the very least shoot at a mark; one should always drink some kind of fermented liquor with one's food- and especially deeply upon great feast days; one should go on the water from time to time; and one should dance on occasions; and one should sing in chorus. For all these things man has done since God put him into a garden and his eyes first became troubled with a soul. Similarly some teacher or ranter or other, whose name I forget, said lately one very wise thing at least, which was that every man should do a little work with his hands...

Now in the morning Mass you do all that the race needs to do and has done for all these ages where religion was concerned: there you have the sacred and separate Enclosure, the Altar, the Priest in his Vestments, the set ritual, the ancient and hierarchic tongue, and all that your nature cries out for in the matter of worship. 

-Path to Rome, pg. 47-49

Bishop Athanasius Schneider criticizes Communion in the hand

Wow. This is why I tell people not to lose the virtue of hope. That a Bishop could say this on EWTN of all places shows how we are moving in the right direction. 

Forgetting ICEL: the Kyrie

The Kyrie Eleison offers an interesting distinction between old Mass and New, but its history also provides an interesting challenge to contemporary myths about liturgical development. 

It is often supposed today that the Kyrie is a remnant of a time when the Mass was said in Greek, and thus a sign for us that just as the Mass was changed from Greek to Latin, it should be changed to the vernacular of the people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Kyrie Eleison was not introduced into the Roman liturgy until after it had been celebrated in Latin for many years. It appears nowhere in the account of St. Justin Martyr, and it is not present in the North African liturgy which followed the Roman rite very closely. None of the old Latin writers such as Tertullian nor St. Cyprian mention it, neither does a later writer St. Augustine. Where did it come from then? It was a saying of St. John Chrysostom which he introduced into the liturgy of Constantinople (if it was not already in use), and from there it was popularized and introduced into other liturgies. Because it was Greek, rather than translate it into the Latin it was imported directly as it was received. It appears first in the Gallican liturgies, which were an Eastern liturgy brought to the west by the patriarchs of Milan, and appears in the Roman liturgy first in the 6th century. In the Greek rites it was apart of a litany, whereas in the West the manner of its introduction was alternating with the invocation "Christe eleison", something not seen in the Greek liturgy, or any other Western liturgy save the Mozarabic. 

The myth that it is left over from a time when the Roman liturgy was said in Greek liturgy nothing more than an instance of bad scholarship and false assumptions made by those eager to push a vernacular liturgy on the Church at the expense of her tradition, and should be dispensed with because it is nonsense. It was an influence from a foreign Greek liturgy once the Roman Liturgy had already acquired its Latin form. 

Secondly, the Kyrie in the Novus Ordo represents a retrograde development, not to the early Church as is also supposed (born of a mythical concept that the Novus Ordo is the restoration of primitive Christianity), but rather ironically, as we shall see in a moment to the high Middle Ages. The traditional Latin Mass revised by St. Pius V removed all sorts of local creations with respect to the Kyrie, and restored the ancient usage in the Roman Rite of 3 Kyrie Eleisons to God the Father, 3 Christe Eleisons to God the Son, and 3 Kyrie Eleisons for God the Holy Ghost, no invocations, no farcing, no additions to the prayer to fill in the chant. This is fitting also for the Trinitarian aspect of the prayers. Now the medieval custom which the reform of Pius V put to rest was a musical device called "farcing". Farcing a text means that where the notes are long, the text will be filled in with other words or invocations. 

This was not limited to the Kyrie but also found realization in the Gloria, Agnus Dei, and many of the Church's antiphons and sequences (which themselves were an innovation although useful at their inception). The style would go something like this: Kyrie eleison, redemptor mundi et rex creationis, Christe eleison filius David, etc. Or it would work the other way Princeps pacis qui salvare nos venire, Kyire eleison, Redemptor mundi Kyrie eleison, or again Precamur te Domine, Christe eleison, etc. It is possible that this grew out of the litany tradition of the Gallican rite which continued uninterrupted in some places in spite of Charlemagne.  Although it ought to be noted that the names for certain Kyries, such as Orbis factor come from the first farcing of the Kyrie chants of the middle ages. An example can be heard in the following video.

In the event one is curious about the Byzantine sounding nature of the chant, that is generally because all northern European chant was founded on the Eastern rite tradition imparted to the west in the Gallican rite, which is an eastern liturgy, probably from Antioch according to most sources, and later melds with the Roman tradition spread by Charlemagne. Nevertheless, by the high and late middle ages the practice of farcing was getting out of control, the number and enormity of the texts were ridiculous and even some heresies were beginning to be introduced. Since the character of the Roman Rite is noble simplicity, St. Pius V's reform eliminated from the use of the Church the farcing of texts. In might justly be said the reform imposed the Roman usage (which never made use of it) to the whole Church.

Now forgetting ICEL, or the manifold abuses existing with respect to the Kyrie, we will go straight to the Latin of the Novus Ordo. There are several options for it. The first:

Kyrie eleison twice, Christe eleison twice, Kyrie Eleison twice. 

Why only twice? If we are going to speak of time, how much time does it really save to take away one extra invocation each to the Holy Trinity? Not only is one reducing the honor paid to the Holy Trinity, he is also reducing the beautiful symbolism for the faithful. Moreover there is simply no good reason for this change. 

Second, let us look at the options for the Kyrie in the Novus Ordo:

Postea sacerdos, vel diaconus vel alius minister, sequentes, vel alias, invocationes cum Kyrie, eléison profert:

Qui missus es sanáre contrítos corde: Kyrie, eléison. Populus respondet: Kyrie, eléison. Sacerdos: Qui peccatóres vocáre venísti: Christe, eléison. Populus: Christe, eléison. Sacerdos: Qui ad déxteram Patris sedes, ad interpellándum pro nobis: Kyrie, eléison. Populus: Kyrie, eléison.

Thus what the Novus Ordo has done is to re-introduce a foreign element to the Roman Rite, namely textual farcing, which was expunged during the middle ages, something that the apologists for the right claim it is supposed to be doing! Where it was something added to the rite in the medieval period, it has become apart of the official text of the new roman rite today, a clear novelty in the tradition. 

In either case, if a priest was to choose the more traditional option, he is not able to say it the way it has nearly always been done in the Roman Rite, three each, or even to have it chanted three each, which is even the case in the medieval farced Kyries. 

Women, know your limits!

The most amusing part of this is I agree with the woman!

Who's being negative?

One ofter hears the criticism that Traditionalists frequently come off as arrogant or cranky. The accusation is that Trads, while sometimes pointing out real problems in the Church, seem to take a perverse pleasure in focusing on the negative in a spirit of antagonism and spite. I admit that this can be true at times - I have had my own experiences with cranky, mean-spirited Traditionalists, and at times I have been one myself. I don't think this has much import on whether or not Traditionalist positions are valid, but it does make it that much more difficult to convince skeptics if we look like we are in a constant state of antagonistic pessimism. It is an easy attitude to fall into (for everyone, not just Trads) and I have tried to make certain that I keep the virtue of hope alive in my heart and remember Whose Church this is that we all belong to and love.

But of course, if (as can happen) I or other Traditionalists falter in our duty to be charitable, or perhaps if we improperly single out a specific individual for ridicule, the immediate hue and cry is raised by opponents of Traditionalism that Trads are mean-spirited, arrogant, and that we lack the "authority" to make any sweeping condemnations of persons, especially persons within the established Church who have long credentials and lots of letters after their names. Dave Armstrong has said in his critiques of Traditionalism that one of the great "errors" of our position is to found in the attitude or spirit with which we approach things. I don't see how an attitude or a "spirit" can be an error, but I understand what he is getting at. Unfortunately, this stigma of the cranky, mean-spirited Traditionalist seems to have stuck to a degree. While the label is sometimes deserved, I also think it is too quickly applied, so that any time a Traditionalist takes issue with anything or questions or critiques anybody, it is taken as further evidence of Traditionalist arrogance and antagonism.

It is my contention that, while the stereotype of the accusatory trad is sometimes true, that there is nevertheless a double-standard at work here. Consider the cover of First Things for the January 2010 issue. Take a look (sorry I couldn't find a bigger pic):

Pete Seeger is a communist? Mitch Albom is an idiot? These are the headline articles on the cover of First Things? I can understand that the editors of First Things might disagree with some aspects of Mitch Albom's work, but to just say "Mitch Albom is an idiot" on the cover? What would happen if I or Athanasius or any Trad published an article in a print journal about someone we disagreed with with a title like "John Doe is a Heretic" or "Fr. Bob Johnson is an Ignoramus" (made-up names so as to not offend anybody)? Can you imagine how we would be decried as mean-spirited and overly confrontational?

I believe that sometimes we need to simply say, "So-and-so is an idiot." There is a great story that I recall from the life of St. John Vianney - one time a young theologian came from the big city to speak with St. John; as the two strolled through the lanes of Ars, the theologian told St. John about all the newfangled theories of a then nascent modernism that he was picking up and tried to explain to St. John how his traditional faith was too simplistic for modern man. Vianney listened and nodded until the young man was finished, at which point he smiled, put his hand on the theologian's shoulder and said, "My friend, you are an idiot" (This story is in Fr. Rutler's biography of St. John, though I quote it only from memory here).

No doubt this theologian was an idiot and St. John thought he deserved to be told so. Perhaps the editors of First Things believe Mitch Albom to be an idiot and feel he needs to be told. I concede that sometimes such statements may be necessary - and that theoretically I suppose it is possible to call somebody and "idiot" in a spirit of charity. But my quandry is this - I believe that the readers of First Things, and the orthodox Catholic community at large, will probably give First Things a pass on this cover. They will probably smile and think to themselves, "Ooh... I wonder what First Things has to say about Albom or Seeger?" and eagerly delve into the magazine in curiosity. I don't think they will question whether or not such titles are appropriate or charitable. Some might even make the argument that Albom is indeed an idiot and needs to be called so; perhaps, but one thing is for sure, if some Traditionalist were to take up a similar tone in an article, there would be sound condemnation from mainstream Catholics, who would probably accuse the said Trad of being mean-spirited. This is what I am getting at when I mention a double-standard when it comes to the issue of calling people arrogant or mean-spirited.

"But Boniface," some may say, "that's different. Mitch Albom is a secular Jewish radio host, not a Catholic, nor is Pete Seeger a Catholic. Trads, however, routinely focus their criticism on other Catholics and members of the hierarchy."

Look, as I said, I do think Trads need to be careful about being overly critical and hypersensitive. Point taken. But to the objection that Album and Seeger are not Catholics, are we then saying that it is okay to call non-Catholics idiots in print but that somehow it is wrong if the object of the criticism is Catholic? If this were so, this would mean that moral badness of insulting someone would reside not in what was said but in whether the person the insult was made against was Catholic or not, as if only Catholics and persons in the Catholic hierarchy have a right to a good name and non-Catholics don't. That would be preposterous.

"Okay Boniface, I agree that First Things shouldn't have just put those claims on the title. But perhaps they are substantiated by the article. What evidence do the authors bring forth to prove Mitch Albom's idiocy or Pete Seeger's communism?"

Even if the articles do support these claims, does that really justify calling someone an idiot on the front of your magazine? Even if we did have good evidence to support the conclusion that Napoleon made some serious tactical blunders at Waterloo, would any self-respecting historian entitle his article "Napoleon was a Moron"? Nobody who wanted to be taken seriously would speak in such a way. Incidentally, the Mitch Albom article is just a book review of Albom's new book, which the reviewer takes an obvious dislike to. The Seeger article is about the left-leaning sympathies of most folk musicians of the 1960's. But I think it is inconsequential whether or not the articles justify the claims - the point is that such a blanket statement - on the cover of your magazine - is uncharitable, and if I were to write such headlines as a Trad, I would be roundly condemned and it would be taken as further evidence of the "mean spiritedness" of Traditionalism.

What do I take away from this? The reality that (in my opinion) if you are a mainstream Catholic commentator with some letters after your name and some good connections, you can get away with calling people idiots on the front of your magazine. But when Traditionalists do things like questioning whether or not John Paul II should be canonized, suggesting that there may be ambiguity in Vatican II documents or criticizing certain modern theologians for novel ideas, we are mean spirited, quasi-schismatic Church-bashers who lack the authority to make these judgments. Maybe there is a factor I am missing - perhaps I am drawing parallels where none exist; if you think so, please let me know. But I am just calling it like I see it.

The Church and Science: Smashing the Roman illusion

As I noted previously (in what was supposed to be an immediate installment but got delayed), one of the biggest myths underpinning the alleged hostility of the Church to science is this myth that between the Roman Empire and the Renaissance (or the scientific revolution depending on who you're reading) everyone was ignorant and stupid and hopelessly backwards, yet somehow got out of the trap with Descartes' cogito.

In reality of course, on some things we find that it was the Romans who were hopelessly backwards and opposed to progress. There are three main achievements of the Roman epic which made their empire great and solidified their place in history: a) Their military versatility b) Their architectural achievements such as the Pantheon or the Circus Maximus and c) Their utility achievements such as aqueducts and roads. What is not treated is how these things were created by forced military service for free men, an army of slaves, or that most of these achievements served the egos of megalomaniac politicians and emperors. The latter had themselves worshiped as gods, Romans of the imperial period did not think military service was for them and contracted military service out to Germans (Foederati).

Moreover, the life of Roman cities was made possible not merely by legions of soldiers on the frontier but by legions of slaves at home making their lavish lifestyle possible. Just one bath house required thousands of slaves to constantly keep the fires going and filter out the bad water. Due to abortion, contraception and infanticide birth rates were low in the Roman Empire. Like much of the world at that time, the first several daughters would be buried alive or left out in the wilderness to die or even strangled in some instances, because sons were more desirable. So while Greek and Roman philosophers could speak of natural virtues, they saw no problem with slaves living in a virtual hell of darkness lit by the fires made for the enjoyment of their betters above ground in the bath houses, or with leaving infants to die so they could have sons. They saw no problem with slaves under the whip on giant estates in Carthage, Egypt or France producing the food to feed decadent cities like Rome. Even Aristotle thought that foreigners ought to be enslaved so that Greeks could do philosophy and politics. Many of the staunchest proponents of abortion today would have difficulty leaving an infant to die in the wilderness.

It was Christianity that changed all that. So while its true that heated baths were not to be seen again until the 12th century, and not on the Roman scale until the 19th their maintenance would not have been possible anyway because the Church outlawed slavery, and the technology didn't exist to establish continually warm baths without slaves. Yet post Roman Europe made many technological and scientific advances, almost right away.

The myth that a dark age set in after the fall of Rome has finally began to crumble. Thus we take this in steps: What was the Fall of Rome? Did Christianity cause the fall of Rome? Did the fall of the Western Roman Empire cause the end of learning until the renaissance? Did the rediscovery of ancient texts really resurrect learning in the West?

The first issue to explore is exactly what was the fall of Rome, and what were the Middle Ages?
Chiefly due to historical ignorance by the majority of people, it is fashionable to say the Roman Empire "fell". Yet, it was only the Western Empire that fell, the Eastern Roman Empire continued until 1453. Moreover, our modern historical nomenclature reinforces this fallacy. We call the Eastern Empire "Byzantine" after the ancient name for Constantinople, yet the Byzantines called themselves ρωμαιόι (Rhomaioi-Romans), continued Roman law and institutions. The culture changed but that is natural, just look at the imperial period versus the early Republican period. Soldiers in the early and late empire look nothing like the legions of Augustus, which are created by Hollywood fallacy. So in that sense the Roman Empire as a whole did not fall.

Yet we should consider the Western Empire, whose last emperor abdicated in 476AD. Did this constitute the fall and the begin of the so-called "middle ages" or alleged "dark ages"? Again no. This is because although Germanic tribes from the steps had overrun the Roman political institutions, the cultural life of the Western Empire changed very little. The Germans themselves took over Roman institutions and ceremony, the Roman army, though no longer paid by the state, continued to serve as a Roman army, settling and creating towns, and even countries such as what is now Switzerland. So a relative date of 500AD is agreed upon by most historians as the date of the beginning of the Middle Ages. But can we speak of a fall of the Roman Empire? I would argue no, rather that there was a transformation of the Roman Empire into medieval Christendom. It would be more correct to say that Roman government fell, Roman culture gave birth to a new civilization.

Then there is the question of when the Middle Ages ended. At one time 1453, the fall of Constantinople was once the date taken for this event, however historians have rejected this since nothing changed anywhere else in Europe except for Hungary, which reaped the benefits of failing to help the ailing Constantinople, the Turks at their back door. Historians now routinely assign 1500 as the date the middle ages ended. I would however reject that also since it is too arbitrary. The date I would choose would be 1531, because that is the beginning of the end of the political and religious unity that characterized Christendom.

Now with that in mind, that the middle ages is a date approximately 500-1531, or just over a thousand years, we need to see two things in order to understand the Roman Empire correctly, and appreciate that it is the Catholic Church, and no other institution, which created science. Firstly we need to see that the Roman Empire was not an empire which believed in progress per se, and moreover it was Christianity which breathed new life into it, transformed it, and established an idea of true progress. Secondly we need to see that the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire is moral and economic.

It is often alleged that Rome only fell because of Christianity and that had the Empire remained pagan it would have survived for many years. This is however silly and doesn't take into account the wealth of historical evidence that the Empire was crumbling a hundred years before Constantine even came on the scene. The thesis is pedaled by many 19th century historians, including Sir Edward Gibbon, whose work on the decline of the Empire is now included in Classics programs (even at certain Catholic universities) even though its information is little better than mythological. He ascribes to Christianity weakness which caused the Empire to crumble inwardly and militarily. This however contradicted by several things: Many of the martyrs of the 2nd century were Christians serving in the Roman Legions. This is because they saw Christianity as a strong virtuous religion, and it strengthened their skills as soldiers. St. Theodore of Amaseia prior to being martyred, was asked to change his mind because he was described as a model soldier. So too were St. Maurice and his Christian legions, as was St. Sebastian and the legionaries who were forced to built the baths of Diocletian. The moral weakness of pagan civilization was demonstrated by the late 3rd century, while Christianity was still illegal, and while the emperors were putting to death some of their much needed soldiers for being Christian. Even in the "golden era" shortly after Augustus, the reign of Nero is described in the most disgusting and culturally vapid terms by contemporaries such as Patronius and Martial.

Diocletian instituted some reforms which staved off the Empire's death for a little longer by reorganizing the Imperial administration, but, the difficulty was in the economy. There was no more local production, all the grain was coming from Carthage and Egypt, and there was not enough production to sustain the economy. The currency began disappearing, so the emperors began a policy of diluting the purity of gold in the money which caused a massive inflation in currency values, and ultimately its disappearance. They also increased taxes, which caused money to go out of circulation. Life became difficult, and the low birth rates of Romans forced them to bring in foreign fighters to patrol their frontiers (Foederati). One could almost say, they wanted Germans to do jobs that Romans would not do.

After Constantine Rome had to deal with barbarian invasions every generation, as well as internal economic decay due to corruption, and a hyper-dependence on slaves which inhibited the potential of civilization to grow. These conditions pre-dated Christianity's rise as the state religion, and persisted after it. In the end, the Roman Empire was moribund anyhow. The world changed, and both Rome and Constantinople were unable to keep up because of their frankly backwards outlook. Great empires often fall into this, looking back to a period of glory without respect to the world political and cultural conditions which allowed that golden age.

Ancient Technology

Here we come to one of the key points of the Roman delusion. It is often alleged in textbooks (though completely disproved by creditable historians, even those hostile to the Church and the middle ages as we'll see next time) that medieval life was completely backward, with no advancement, a thousand years of darkness, until the Renaissance when people began looking back at ancient art and technology and rediscovering the pagan genius. Another popular myth which finally disappeared in the middle of the 20th century, was that when Constantinople fell all the refugee Greeks came to the west with all of the knowledge and learning that was kept in Constantinople, and the West finally got a breath of ancient air.

As to the latter, we know that Greek manuscripts and learning returned to the West as early as the 10th century, and by Arab agency, not Byzantine. Moreover the Renaissance was a continuation of what had already been occurring for hundreds of years, and was occurring elsewhere. (The renaissance will be addressed in part 4) What was unique to Italy was humanism, which will be taken up in a different installment.

Our task at hand is to look at ancient technology and see if it was in fact the brilliance the Enlightenment claims for it. Of course, we can't (and should have no desire to) detract from the true achievements of ancient civilization, as there are many magnificent testimonies to ancient brilliance on many fronts. The goal is to show that Medievals had their own creative genius which propelled themselves forward, with and without ancient technology.

First off, economics is not a bad field to begin in. The Roman Empire, like the Greek city states and Empire as well as virtually all ancient races, subsisted on a slave economy. Slavery was the lifeblood of the wealthy and the government, for they allowed them to undertake massive projects that would have been too expensive otherwise. This is why in the middle ages there were fewer public works projects, men had to be paid (a novel concept to be sure). In the end as we will see, slave economies prevented the Romans and Greeks from developing new technologies, since they provide no impetus to create machines to make simpler what someone else is already doing at little cost to you. Furthermore, the command economy of the Roman Empire masked its material poverty, a poverty almost unknown by the 12th century. If one was not a slave being whipped on a massive estate (Latifundia) you were an impoverished freeman who lived little better than a slave.

The greatest testament to Greco-Roman civilization is water technology. Not water power, that is rather a testimony to Medieval genius, but in conducting water from one place to another, Greeks and Romans made use of a phenomenal mathematical precision. Roman Aqueducts even discovered how to push water uphill by means of a pressurized pipe, and were built with a slight gradient stretching downwards by inches for miles to keep the flow of water moving into cities. A Greek architect working for the Romans in the 2nd century A.D. built the Pantheon, the largest unsupported dome in Europe until the building of Brunelleschi's Cathedral in Florence 1200 years later. The Greek Architect Archimedes stated the principle of buoyancy and postulated the concept of a lever and fulcrum. The Greeks after Alexander also created Astrology and Alchemy, the two false sciences which ultimately led in the Middle Ages to true sciences: Astronomy and Chemistry respectively.

For these and numerous other technologies which we will discuss there were certain problems with the ancient outlook which led to failures in ancient technology.

For one most ancients (particularly the Greeks) did not do "science" as a discipline, they engaged in speculative or theoretical science. Practical science only came into play when governments spent big money to embark on solutions to problems, or one innovative mind approached a problem and threw several thousand slaves at it. This is illustrated perfectly by Aristotle, who taught that if you drop a larger rock and then a smaller one, the larger one will hit the ground first. All he had to do was go up to the Parthenon and try it out to see this was not the case. The Romans however commit the opposite mistake, they preferred doing to knowing and as a result, where they were not wholly ignorant of the Greek tradition in scientific thought, they did not translate any of it into Latin which is the principle reason the Greek classics were lost to the West: Roman shortsightedness.

The Romans, for all of their technological achievements, did not make iron nearly as well as the German barbarians to the north. They did not use soap like the Celts in Gaul. Even if it were true that medievals only bathed once a year they did use soap! Often Romans completely overlooked the technological abilities of barbarians, much as the Greeks, in spite of having developed their system of warfare from the Celts in the Early Republican period. This is because empires become regressive, they look back to better days and not to legitimate progress that might be made. Seneca remarked on this, and other matters when he said:

"The day will come when posterity will be amazed that we remained ignorant of things that will to them seem so plain." (On Mercy, VII, 25, 2-4)

There are two inventions which medievals took for granted but the Romans either completely overlooked or never bothered to develop. The first water power. The Romans knew of the device but harnessing it both redundant given the slave economy, and a threat to it. A technology that could have revolutionized Roman society and freed countless men from an existence turning a mill physically, (among other things) was neglected until the Middle Ages.

Secondly, and more importantly, the harnessing of horses. For some reason, what was plain to medieval man was totally missed by the Romans. The horse has an enormous potential with respect to how much he can pull, but the Greeks and Romans placed on the poor beasts a collar which choked them and forced them to move in a position where they pulled less than oxen.

Lastly, there is one more illusion to smash, that of the Roman Roads and commerce. It is alleged by those such as Gibbon and others that the medievals neglected the Roman roads, and that commerce broke down.

This particular objection is rooted in complete ignorance of facts. Roman trade was rarely carried out on land, because travel was extremely arduous. Not only could the Romans not harness horses correctly, they did not know how to design carts to handle the stress of long term travel, or to make the turns necessary on the roads. The only wagon trade carried out was in Italy, anything else was too cost prohibitive. Almost all designs for Roman wagons are done by classicists and reflect no ancient blueprints. Images from antiquity show a basic wagon with four wheels, in a period when technological art was normally pretty detailed, revealing that wagons were not built to withstand the stress of roads. Rather, Roman trade was carried out by sea.

Moreover, the preference for straight over level in roads reflects that they were for military use. If they were primarily meant for commerce and travel, they would have been level, but instead they have many steep gradients and go in straight directions. Men would need to march on them, and the directions they go in indicate that. The military needed to be able to use them to move quickly to halt uprisings or exact tribute. The medievals neglected the roads because the roads no longer went where men wanted to go. They had to make their own roads, and often did.

In conclusion, due to the bias of the classical tradition, as well as the anti-western hatred of modern intellectuals, the Greco-Roman era is portrayed as good times, while the onset of the middle ages the beginning of darkness. The reality is rather different. The plight of man in the ancient world was good if you were rich, bad if you were not. This need not cause us to take away from the legitimate and marvelous achievements of classical civilization, not just of the Romans and Greeks, but also of the Carthaginians, the Persians, or the Egyptians, however none of these was the paragon of all that is good in contradistinction to the centuries between 500-1531. In fact the average man in all these epics was apt to have a miserable life, be considered property, grossly ignorant, illiterate, poorly treated and a tool to the megalomania of some Pharaoh or some Caesar. The Church took the slave of the latifundia and made him a serf which rights and property he could will to his heirs, then a free peasant with rights equal to the elite classes of citizens in the Greek city states, and instilled everywhere a spirit of freedom unknown in antiquity. In part 2 we will look at the various transformations of the middle ages in technology, economics, and civil life.

Click here for Boniface's post on the myth of "Roman roads" and the spread of Christianity

Epiphany

Feast of the Holy Name

One of the most visible evils in our culture, is the constant profanation of God's name in movies, television and daily life. This becomes problematic in that there are great movies, Master and Commander comes to mind, which as a Catholic I cannot watch because of the number of offenses against God's name in that movie. Morally it constitutes a sin of simulation, and every time we play the movie we become responsible for the offense against the name of God. 

Movies and tv ultimately reflect the mind of the culture that makes it, watches it and demands more, and in public discourse the number of people who publicly violate the 2nd commandment are increased beyond a ridiculous level. There are two things one can do about it.

One is of course to keep a clean mouth yourself. I have noticed this in the past, that when people see someone who doesn't curse and does not take the name of God in vain they have a heightened awareness of it, particularly if its a man who does not. People will start apologizing, and our first inclination is to think well its a free country (for moment, if it is at all, but anyway) that's okay. What I tend to do is ask people not to take the name of God in vain. 

Another thing, something more useful than getting into debates about our obligations with respect to the 2nd commandment with people who probably don't seriously care, is to say the Divine Praises corresponding to the offense. So if someone says the name of God in general, one can say the first verse of the Divine praises. If against our Lord, any and all of the Divine Praises with respect to Him. 

Acts such as these are small but worthwhile in offering up to Jesus reparation for the abuse and opprobrium laid upon His most Holy Name. 

Feast of the Circumcision

If one goes to the Traditional Mass or to any Eastern Rite Church on the first of January, it is the feast of the Circumcision of our Blessed Lord. However if one goes to the Novus Ordo, he finds a feast that by itself can not be found in any other tradition, which is that of the Mother of God, commemorating the declaration of the Council of Ephesus against the heretic Nestorius.

Now this is a novelty, but it is not something out of thin air like most other things Novus Ordo. The Eastern calendar celebrates the feast of Our Lady the day following Christmas with the feast of the "Synaxis of the Mother of God".
According to Dom Gueranger, the Church in ancient times celebrated two Masses on January 1, and later united them into one intention. (Liturgical Year, Christmas Book I). Since at least the 6th century, the Church has referred to this feast as that of the Circumcision.

However in the 1970 Missal this was changed, after probably more than 1400 years of Tradition to be named solely "Mary the Mother of God." I can't think of anyone who would be opposed to the Marian elements of the feast. Dom Gueranger devotes 2/3rds of his commentary on he Circumcision to the Blessed Virgin. The problem with the Novus Ordo feast is not the inclusion of Mary but the exclusion of the Circumcision of the child Jesus.

Secondly the explanation for the change in the feast is largely erroneous. It is said by defenders of the Novus Ordo that Paul VI was merely trying to restore an ancient feast to the calendar that had been excluded over time. In reality, the feast was never dropped, except in the official name given in the Missal. The Tridentine propers honor Mary as well as the Circumcision, and the station Church was St. Mary Major's, not the Lateran or other Basilicas in Rome dedicated to our Lord. The collect reads:

Deus qui salutis aeternae, beatae Mariae Virginitate foecunda, humano generi premia prestitisti: tribue quaesumus ut ipsam pro nobis intercedere sentiamus, per quam meruimus autorem vitae sucipere Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, filium tuum. Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritu Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum.

O God, who has granted the rewards of eternal salvation to the human race by the fruitful virginity of the Virgin Mary; give we beseech thee, that we may perceive her to intercede for us who has made us worthy to accept the author of life, our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God throughout the age of ages. Amen.

That hardly excludes the Virgin Mary from the Mass of the Circumcision. The Post Communion again makes reference to Marian intercession, rather than the Circumcision. The truth is if the authors of the New Mass wanted to express Traditional Marian piety, they already had the texts of the Mass to utilize. In fact, if they wanted they could have used beautiful prayers in older sacramentaries to be commemorated, but they did away with commemorations (another novelty in the Missal inspired by Bugnini, who expunged most of them from the 62). Another option would have been to have two Masses, one for the Circumcision and another for the Mother of God, perhaps at Midnight, just as there are 3 Masses at Christmas. This would have been possible as well, and have kept the feast of the Circumcision in place. That couldn't be done either. A decision appears to have been made in order to eliminate the Circumcision all together, which is a travesty, but not something unheard of in the Novus Ordo, especially when it is disguised as devotion to Mary.

Why it Matters

The importance of the feast of the Circumcision lies in numerous doctrinal and theological considerations. First of all, as Pope Leo the Great points out in his sermon for Matins, Christ was truly man as he is truly God.

The Person of the Son of God therefore remains unchanged and one, though he has two natures, keeping his own, and taking ours. He comes on earth as man to be the restorer of man, but abides all the while in his unchangeable Godhead. That Godhead which he shares with the Father was not an ounce less almighty, nor did the form of a servant touch the form of God to do violence to it. (2nd Nocturn for the feast of the Circumcision)

That Christ is Circumcised is important for proving his human nature. He himself receives circumcision, not a ghost, not an assumed body, but the very person of the Son of God. The blood that flows is His real blood, substance which he took from the Virgin Mary. Second, it is important that he is circumcised, because that act is the union between old and new covenants, between the old and new sacrifice of unleavened bread and the Eucharist, of the paschal lamb and the lamb of God. It is the the moment where the child of Isaiah VII:14 is born into the covenant to fulfill it. Jesus does not come from outside to attack Jews or condemn their teaching, he is not a gentile founding a religion of gentiles, he is a Jew, and once he has entered into the covenant he can begin the work of its fulfillment. The law demanded a child be Circumcised 8 days after birth, and the Church commemorates Christ's Circumcision 8 days after his birth on the 25th of December. By keeping this symbolism the Church is still pointing to Christ as Jew, so that he can fulfill the covenant of that people. This is unwelcome news however to those who want to continue insisting in a heretical manner that the Jews have their own covenant that is still in force at this time.

Most importantly however, the circumcision of the Child Jesus is the bridge between the sign of the old covenant, and the sign of the new, Baptism. St. Ambrose teaches that:

You will see that as all the ceremonies of the Old Law were types of realities in the New Law, so the circumcision of the body signified the cleansing of the heart from the guilt of sin. Yet since the body and mind of man remain yet fragile by an inextricable proneness to sin, the circumcision of the eighth day is meant to put us in mind of that complete cleansing from sin which we shall have at the resurrection. This is doubtless to be inferred from the words : Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy unto the Lord. That is, these words are literally true only of the delivery of the Blessed Virgin. (3rd Nocturn, Matins of the Circumcision)

Thus we arrive at the unity between the two feasts which the Church brings to us. Mary, who is co-redemptrix, cooperating in the work of redemption, by agreeing to become Mother of God, and by being present at the essential mysteries of our salvation: The Birth, the Circumcision and the Tomb. Circumcision, which our Blessed Lord undergoes gives way to the sacrament that commemorates all of the above, Baptism. In Baptism we are put to death in Christ, and rise again in his image. All original and actual sin is forgiven at that point. The Sabbath day (Saturday for the Jews) was the 7th day, thus the Fathers of the Church sometimes use the image of Christ rising on the 8th day, which fulfilled the biblical type of Circumcision, the sign of salvation in the sign of the resurrection, again Baptism.  The concept of the eight day was so strong that the Baptistery from the early Church until after Vatican II was designed in an octagon.  

Thus the Church commemorates and renews the ancient law that infants should be circumcised 8 days after their birth. On a practical level, we should note that the infants don't get to wait until they are older and get a choice. Because the ancient Israelites and their descendants the Jews (who were the only ones left after the other 11 tribes were destroyed) actually cared enough about their faith to initiate and raise their children in that religion, rather than letting their children be raised in the world and brought in later. Once upon a time Catholics did the exact same thing. Babies were baptized as soon as possible when they were born. Now however, interestingly enough, when the commemoration of the Circumcision is removed, what evil doctrine has appeared and is in practice in many "Catholic" Churches today? Well for one the remission of sin, and entering the covenant of salvation is generally excluded, for the sake of language like "entering the faith community". Entering a community isn't heretical per se when put in the proper context. The Holy Catholic Church is a community, which we are brought into through baptism. However, taken by itself without the notion of remission of sins both original and actual it is certainly heretical, and not the baptism preached by Christ and the Apostles. Furthermore, once this heretical understanding is in place, there is another doctrine which appears, namely that the child should choose, preferably when he/she is older. Why? Well if baptism is just initiation into a community (hence why modern pastors often forbid private baptisms and only allow public baptisms, i.e. in the middle of Mass) then there is no urgency in baptizing. All the better to have the parents take classes and give us money. Need not worry about original sin, and how do they come to such a dreadful denial? It appears that it is most convenient to believe that there is no sin and everyone gets to go to Heaven. Ever been to a Novus Ordo funeral service? White vestments, canonization homilies, because there is no sin. In the Church's traditional practice white was only worn with respect requiems for the funerals of children, because one could have certain hope that having been baptized and been below the age of reason they could not be culpable for a mortal sin and therefore should have gone straight to heaven. What is the effect when donned for an adult funeral? It doesn't matter that x was a drug addict, a drunk, or that he spent his time in brothels because by golly he is in heaven because God is merciful.

Obviously this did not happen because of the removal of this feast from the Calendar, that kind of causality would be too overreaching and too broad, but it is part of the many causes afflicting Catholic life now. Naturally this is still in the Bible and readable, that is not the issue (especially given that neither NO or Traditional Catholics spend much time reading the Bible), rather the removal of it from the calendar removes it from the attention of most Catholics as well as the occasion to preach on the subject. However, the feast is not ecumenical enough, attention on our Lord's life as a Jew fulfilling the covenant and bringing a new one is not a popular theme, which is why Bugnini planned to kill it even before the council, and succeeded in having the title removed from the feast in the 1962 Missal. (More reason why we should be moving to previous missals, at least prior to 55).  

The Goodness of Tobacco

As the recent post by Boniface on the smoking ban in Michigan has evinced, there are a lot of people who simply do not understand smoking, nor virtue, nor a basic fact of the theology of creation. 

In the first place, there are those who believe smoking is evil. This is actually a heresy. No created thing is intrinsically evil. Thus tobacco is not evil. Secondly we must consider the use of the thing. Is the use of the thing evil? This is something which must be considered with the means of the act, and its end. Is there anything in smoking that is inherently sinful? Does it cause you the loss of reason? No. Does it dim your senses? No. Does tobacco cause psychotic effects? No. You know there is a problem with the culture when they advocate smoking marijuana which does all of that yet think smoking tobacco is a mortal sin. Nevertheless, if a thing is judged by its effects, and whether it can be used moderately. The same goes for alcohol. Does alcohol cause the loss of reason? Not by its mere use, but by its over use. 

The next thing that must be considered is these particular points with respect to other things we make use of. Tea for example when used moderately can be good for us, but when too much tea is drank, specifically with black tea, tannic acid becomes a poison in our system. Too much grape juice causes bowel problems, too much vitamin c can cause ulcers. There are prescription drugs handed out like candy from physicians which are far more dangerous even than a cigarette, and common household chemicals such as bleach are so dangerous they are regulated by the EPA and can not be disposed of even in a store by dumping them down the drain, yet we are around it all the time. (Some people are, my house is chemical free with respect to commercial cleaners). 

The human body is a complex thing, and the various chemicals, metals, minerals, acids, hormones and enzymes which make it up, enter it, leave it, corrupt it, heal it, improve it and kill it are numerous and many unstudied. To say as a matter of fact that one substance ought to be outlawed because it causes some bad effects in some people, or because it can be abused is sheer lunacy. 

I should also return to the first point for but a moment. Nothing is intrinsically evil. Everything on the earth has a proper use. As a proof that nothing is intrinsically evil, in the Philippines international aid groups have sent millions of condoms, thinking this will somehow improve the life of the people there. Because the Muslim and Catholic populations do not use them, they have little else to do with them but make them into balloons at parties. It is not the thing itself which is evil, but the improper use of it which becomes evil.

Thus when is tobacco used improperly? Like with alcohol, or with various foods mentioned (and the many more not mentioned) too much of the thing can be detrimental to one's health. Yet, as with alcohol, there is no standard by which we can measure and say no one should drink more than this, because what is a virtuous use of the thing is the mean between excess and defect, and that is unique to the individual. George Burns smoked 14 cigars a day and died at 105 years old. Some people can not smoke at all, some people don't like it in any form. All fine and good.  One doesn't have to smoke, and we'll be sure not to smoke in your house.

On the contrary, to declare that because I don't like it, no one should use it, such as we see with King James I of England who despised tobacco and attempted to outlaw it several times, is the same operating principle as modernism and liberalism, which fixes truth in the individual, and believes laws should be reflected to enforce what people feel. 

What is also important to understand is that to not smoke is not a virtue. There is no virtue gained in perpetual abstinence from something you don't want to partake in, it is neutral. There are those who account themselves virtuous because they do not smoke. It is simply not the case. When one smokes just enough, he develops the virtue of temperance with respect to the use of a good thing.  When he overuses it, he develops the vice of gluttony. As vices not only lead to corruption of the soul but also of the body, it should be little surprise that those who overuse tobacco, or develop addictions to smoking often receive bodily ills which accompany it. 

It is the same with alcohol. If one abstains from alcohol because he doesn't like it, or thinks it is superior not to drink, he does not gain a virtue. (that is qualified so as to discount alcoholics who must acquire a good amount of virtue to overcome their addictions and may need to be perpetually abstinent from it because they can't handle it). If one drinks and then refuses to drink to excess, that builds the virtue of sobriety, which is a sub-virtue of temperance. Those who do not smoke out of pride, who consider the use of a good thing evil actually sin, since even neutral acts such as abstinence can be made evil if motives or vices which are evil are at the source. 

Tobacco is something which is good both in itself and in its proper use. Now where a lot of the problems come in are with chemicals, and with addictions related to the artificial chemicals employed, primarily in cigarettes. I always say, I'm against big tobacco, but I support small tobacco. Cigar companies are often family owned, or small entities, much like pipe companies and those who produce pipe tobacco. Cigar and pipe shops are small businesses which are family owned and operated. Big tobacco offers a bad product, stale tobacco which sits in a warehouse for years, and in order to keep people smoking it they add chemicals into it which, it would appear have harmful effects. However even at that, less than 1/3rd of all those who smoke die from it. Nevertheless, one can buck big tobacco by supporting small tobacco, with the moderate use of pipes and cigars. Cigarette addictions are a vice, and one that has to be overcome if one is going to attain virtue. Moreover cigarette addictions can lead to bad consequences, both at work in terms of productivity (he always has to go on a smoking break, etc.), or even health wise. 

Yet, if there is a large problem of addiction to a thing, that does not mean the solution is to wipe out all manifestations of it. Why? Because legitimate smoking tends toward the virtue of eutrapalia (right recreation). Something which can be a source of grace should never be extinguished on a whim of this or that lobbying group. Furthermore, one can tell that with respect to tobacco the government has absolutely no interest in the common good. They see only a cash cow they can milk for all its worth. Why? If smoking were as bad as what is claimed, the government would have to make it illegal. Yet, it does not, it taxes it to get as much as it can from it. 

We need to avoid the neo-Manicheanism of those who claim that smoking is in itself evil, let we fall into further errors about the nature of the world, human nature, and the attainment of virtue. 

Merry Christmas!

Pray for the Pope! Do we need any more reason to bring back the Sedia Gestatoria?

Christmas Eve

Working in the retail industry for my primary source of income, I am able to see some of the worst that humanity has to offer, as well as some of the best. This year there were no stampedes, as practices were altered, changed and stretched to prevent unruly behavior, or at least some of it. Yet a time to celebrate the coming of our Saviour is now a time to celebrate ourselves, as the same mentality that causes human beings to trample a man to death for deals and sales is still at work here. The rude come and flood the toy department, pushing, ebbing, shouting and pouting all the way to the cash register. Other places people are taking out extra mortgages to give their kids Christmas. 

What in the world is going on? It is simple, all the "Keep Christ in Christmas" messages, the "reason for the season" signs and bumper stickers are but a rear guard action fighting for their place in the secular banker's marketplace. This is a battle I believe we have already lost in this country. 

To most Americans, indeed many American Christians, Christmas is about sitting around a tree and opening presents with their children, family, etc. It is about making deals and returning the gifts for better deals. I've got to stop there to rant, who in the world ever heard of a mass returning of gifts that someone gave you? I'm not talking about the sweater was too small so it was exchanged, I'm talking about the mass custom in this country of taking a gift and returning it for something else. It says two things, on the one a lack of appetite to receive on the part of many, and two, it shows that the givers know little about who they are giving too, because we're all disconnected by walls, tvs, computers and i-pods even within the same house. 

Now many people who fit into these categories have been to Mass the night before, or their protestant services (unless they are of that class of evangelicals that hold their noses and put their fingers in their ears ever December 25th because Christmas is not in the bible), so we must ask who do they serve? That is complicated too, because many of these people will feel as though they have in fact fulfilled their obligations with respect to God. First anyone who feels that way at any time needs a reality check. Secondly, are we even aware of what those are? 

You have the 10 commandments of course, which serve as a basis of all moral theology and catechism in the Catholic moral tradition. In themselves they are insufficient to encompass the whole law but must be explained, even as the ancient rabis endeavored to do. We have to ask what does the 1st commandment mean? Is it just a prohibition on idolatry? It is also a positive command to worship God. "I am the Lord thy God." This is more than just don't worship those egyptian gods, something scarcely problematic for us today. It is rather a notice, "I am not a god like unto these, that men create or that demons create, I created you". That God creates us means that He owns us, not that he is merely there. This is why when people ask "isn't God just happy that I'm there?" I always reply "No. He wants you to be perfect." (Matt. V:48) There is no way out of that, that we fundamentally owe God true worship. He is entitled to it as our creator. Most people however never appropriate that distinction from merely knowing that God exists, which is not even the same as belief. 

Sadly, that is where we are not just with the culture, but with many Christians in this country. It is partly because of materialism, but it is a step further than that. It is because the default position of our culture is modernism, that everything is about me, and that is projected onto everything else, creating the dictatorship of relativism that our Holy Father has condemned in our society. In such a framework, materialism becomes the glove which fits the modernist world view perfectly, since it is ready to provide all and every comfort. 

In the first place it doesn't have to be this way. In ancient times, though this feast was kept before Constantine (as it is sometimes alleged that the Church wanted to cater to the pagans and so created this feast) it merely celebrated our Lord's birth. Over time the custom of gift giving developed in connected with St. Nicholas Day in Europe, and melded with the feast of our Saviour's birth on account of the wise men bringing Him gifts. All fine and good. Yet this was done in a balanced cultural framework that gave a gift or two, for the honor of the Christ child. German culture still maintains this as the parents open the window, close the door and the children return to see what the "Krist kind" has brought. Yet even for many of them it is hollow and empty, as it is for us when we go to Mass and fix to the apparent "real" business of the day, making Christmas ostensibly the greatest feast of the year, when in reality Easter is the greatest feast of the year. It is to the point where the secular culture uses Christmas as an economic indicator to see how well the debt cycle is balancing. 

If one is going however to recover Christmas, it should be done by prayer and fasting. One through select days of Advent in general (at least to start), but also on Christmas Eve. On some traditional calendars it is the feast of Adam and Eve, as it is part of the pious tradition that they were sanctified and saved by our Lord. It is also a vigil, which in the Traditional Rite is accompanied by fasting to bring sufficient preparation to the feast. This is something important that the Novus Ordo has completely dropped, as its fasting laws are insufficient to fulfill the dictates of the natural law. Chesterton famously quipped "If you cannot fast you cannot feast, if you cannot feast you cannot fast." There is a connection between the two concepts. If you don't fast then you cannot properly appreciate the meal since you don't know what it is to go without. If you don't feast you cannot fast (with respect to virtue) because you cannot conceive of what you are moving towards with fasting. The Church's liturgical color for the vigil of the Nativity (Christmas Eve) is purple, as is the advent color, but all vigils once had purple vestments, signifying penance. Thus following the Church's tradition, we would do well to make today a fasting day, one of sacrifice and penance. Moreover the early and medieval Church looked upon this day as connected with the end times, which is why the readings of the 24th Sunday of Pentecost and the 1st Sunday of Advent strike the same cord, the coming of the Messiah was the end of the Old Testament world, His 2nd coming is the end of the New Testament world. 

Then with fasting, penance and hopefully an increase in grace, we will find Jesus not merely in the manger, but in ourselves. It is insufficient to keep Christ in Christmas, we must keep him within ourselves if we are to have any meaningful recovery of our holiday from international atheist banking and their materialistic driven economic indicator on the winter solstice. 

Smoking Ban Passes

Just want to warn you that I am about to rant.

Today Governor Jennifer Granholm of my great state of Michigan will sign into a law a workplace smoking ban. Henceforth it will be against the law to smoke in any restaurant, bar, or place of business, even in duly designated break rooms. The only exemptions to the law are casinos, cigar-cigarette stores, home offices and company cars.

The bill passed the State House and Senate with unanimous support from Republicans and Democrats and will take effect in May, 2010.

I'm flabbergasted by this idiocy on the part of my state. Michigan has the highest unemployment rates and one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. Why are my elected officials wasting their time passing smoking bans? Doesn't our 18% unemployment merit more attention? I called and emailed the Governor's office, which was of course to no avail. Michigan just stinks so bad. The only thing we have going for us right now is our natural beauty and our lax homeschool regulations, which are in fact some of the loosest in the nation.

But lest you wonder why I am complaining about something that probably has nothing to do with you, I would argue that these sort of measures will gain ground in the future and be adopted in more states. About a third of the states already have some kind of smoking ban, some even stricter than Michigan's (in California I am told that smoking in a car in the presence of a minor is a misdemeanor). Even in states that already have bans, I believe these anti-smoking laws will keep proliferating and intensifying until cigarettes and tobacco are viewed in the same light as marijuana is today. I do think some day they will be illegal and classified as a drug. There will be crimes for possessing cigarettes or trafficking and selling them just as there is for marijuana. What we are witnessing now is a very broad campaign to reeducate Americans into viewing snoking as a positive evil and mentally prepare them for its eventual banning.

This ban is just one element of the broader environmental pseudo-religion that is sweeping the globe and whose end is the total restriction of human freedom, culminating in a massive population reduction. Already at the Copenhagen farce there has been many speeches on how carbon reduction has to be linked to population reduction, since human beings are the ultimate cause for carbon emissions. Some (like this idiot) are calling for a global one-child policy based on that of China; this is put forward as the most viable solution to the phantom of "global warming." These carbon laws that are going to be coming onto the books in the next few years will be aimed at regulating industrial emissions at first, but over time they will be extended to regulate individual human activity. Anything that is perceived as unhealthy or destructive to the environment in the least way will be banned.

The smoking ban is just part of this ideology; the crazy thing is that it is not even about health. If they really cared about people's health, they wouldn't give exemptions to casinos. Right now the casinos are the only thing keeping the economy of Detroit from tanking completely and contribute a hefty amount of tax dollars to Michigan's bankrupt public school system. So the state government does not want to ruin a massive source of revenue and therefore exempts them (nice state to live in where your big source of revenue is casino gambling). If they really gave a damn about people's health, I don't think they'd be making any exemptions. This is all about appearing "green" to try and position Michigan as the budding center of a new "green" jobs market. By showing how progressive we are, our Governor is hoping to attract more green technologies to the disaster-area that is our state.

By the way, to all Republicans out there, it appears that your party is just as in to restricting liberty as the Democrats. This bill was supported almost unanimously by both parties. Republicans will not save anybody - whether we have been governed by Republicans or Democrats, Scylla or Charybdis, we have endured a steady erosion of personal rights and a creeping imposition of the Police State for the past several decades. The only difference is Republicans steal your liberties from the right while getting you to look to the left, and Dems do the same but from the other side. Both take away freedom.

Well, I'm sorry for this incoherent rant - I'm just so upset. And I'm not even a smoker!! In fact, my dad has emphysema from smoking. But I seem to hold the appartently outdated notion that people have real freedoms and responsibilities to make their own decisions and live with the consequences. I don't smoke, but I am livid that the government thinks it is their job to regulate it.

Thanks alot, Governor Granholm.

See also: Athanasius' post on the Nazi anti-smoking movement

The Immaculate Conception part II

Historical unfolding of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception

There is a lot of confusion amongst Catholics about the historical unfolding of this doctrine. Some people think Bl. Pius IX came out with it out of the blue, as if it had never been taught before. Some act as though it was denied by the Church and that she later changed her mind, and some act as though St. Thomas explicitly denied it, both those who understand it was not formally defined and those who do not and think he fell into heresy, while other suggest he affirmed it, and some think that everyone opposed it until Bl. Duns Scotus changed their minds.

There are however two periods of this doctrine's development, one is for the whole Church until the High Middle Ages, roughly nine hundred years when it was believed, and the second from that period until Bl. Pius IX's 1854 solemn declaration which could be described as a period of clarification.

Firstly there is the testimony of the tradition. From roughly 150-1100 the Eastern Church universally confessed this dogma, while in the west it is not attested to as much, but also not denied.

The teaching is found in the traditional dichotomy the fathers set up between Mary and Eve, through Eve sin entered the world, through Mary, life. If Mary were not parallel with Eve, this could scarcely occur.

St. Justin Martyr

"The First-born of the Father before all creatures became a man through the Virgin, that by what way the disobedience arising from the serpent had its beginning, by that way also it might have its undoing. For Eve, being a virgin and undefiled conceiving the word that was from the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death; but the Virgin Mary, taking faith and joy, when the Angel told her the good tidings answered: 'Let it be done unto me according to thy word." (Dialogue with Trypho)

St. Hippolytus

"The ark which was made of indestructible timber, was the Redeemer Himself. The ark symbolized His tent, which was impervious to decay and engendered no sinful corruption. The Lord was sinless, because, according to His humanity, He was fashioned from indestructible wood, out of the Virgin and the Holy Ghost, lined within and without with the purest gold of the Logos." (Migne P. G. X 863)

Dionysius the Great of Alexandria

"Christ did not live in a servile tent, but in His holy ark and He preserved His mother as one who was blessed from head to food, undefiled even as He alone knew the manner of her conception and birth." (Ep. Adv. Paul Samosata)

Tertullian

"For into Eve, as yet a virgin, had crept the word which was the framer of death. Equally into a virgin was to be introduced the Word of God, which was the builder-up of life; that what by that sex had gone into perdition might by the same sex be brought back to salvation. Eve had believed the Serpent, Mary believed Gabriel; what Eve sinned by faith, Mary atoned by faith." (De Carne Christi, 17)

St. Ephrem the Syriac

"Those two innocent, those two simple women, Mary and Eve, had been indeed created quite equal, but afterwards one became the cause of our death, the other of our life." (Opera Omnia Eph Syr, II, 327)

"Thou and Thy mother are the only ones that are perfectly beautiful in every respect; for there is no spot in Thee, O Lord nor any taint in Thy mother." (Ibid)

Theodotus of Ancrya

"Instead of the virgin Eve, who was unto us the instrument of death, God for the purpose of giving life, chose a virgin most pleasing to Himself and full of grace, who included in woman's sex, was free from woman's sin, a virgin innocent, without taint, holy in soul and body, as a lily budding in the midst of thorns, unlearned in the evils of Eve... who was a daughter of Adam, but unlike him." (Hom. in S. Deiparam, VI, n. 11)

St. Augustine:

"Of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for the honor of Christ, when we treat of sin, I do not wish that she should be involved. For we know that a greater grace was accorded her wholly to conquer sin, by the very fact that she merited to conceive and bear Him of whom we certainly know that He had no sin." (Contra Iulian V, 15)

St. John Damasus

Hail thou the only blessed one among women, who has repaired the fall of our first mother Eve... Hail thou who art truly full of grace, because thou art holier than the angels and more excellent than the archangels... Hail thou full of grace because thou art more beautiful than the Cherubium and more exalted than the Seraphim... Hail full of grace, because thou are higher than heaven and purer than the sun which we behold." (Hom. in Annunt. BMV II)

Apart from the ancient witness, the Immaculate Conception is part of the pious tradition in the West, and may have been in the East until the late middle ages.

St. Andrew of Crete, wrote a hymn for use in the liturgy titled "Die nona Decembris Conceptio Sanctae ac Dei Aviae Annae".

In Ireland, the feast of the Immaculate Conception was celebrated as early as the 8th century, and may have been celebrated earlier there. In Naples and Sicily, with large Eastern rite communities (as it was under the Eastern Empire until the Normans) celebrated it in about 840 (Prohle-Preuss, Mariology, pg. 55) It was also celebrated in England for a time.

The controversy erupts first with St. Bernard, who opposed the canons of Lyons celebrating the feast of the Immaculate Conception. He declared:

Sed non valuit ante sancta esse quam esse, siquidem non erat, antequam conciperetur. An forte inter amplexus maritales sanctitatis se ipsi conceptui immiscuit, ut simul et sanctificata fuerit et concepta... Sed id hactenus inauditum." (Ep. ad Canonicos Lugd. Migne P. L. CLXXXII, 333)

However she could not be holy before she existed, for she did not exist before she was conceived. Or did material sanctity perhaps intermix with her conception, in order that she might be sanctified and conceived at one and the same time? But this is something as yet unheard of."

The principle problem is that St. Bernard could not comprehend Mary's being cleansed at the instant of her conception. In ignoring this possibility, he missed the real issue at the heart of the doctrine as did many other medievals following him. The reason is they had not yet worked out how Mary could be redeemed, as all needed a redeemer, yet have been free from the taint of original sin which is what our Redeemer came to cleanse from our souls. Others however, such as Friar Nicholas of St. Alban's protested Bernard's letter, and the Pious tradition was largely unaffected by the controversy, which was restricted to the schools and later the universities. St. Anselm and St. Thomas both however, worked out all the principles later found in Bl. Pius IX's declaration, particularly the distinction between the debitum remotum and the debitum proximum, later to be given those names by Suarez (unless I'm mistaken, but I believe he is the first to characterize the distinction under those terms).

"His (Thomas') great difficulty appears to have arisen on the question how she could have been redeemed if she had not sinned. This difficulty he has raised in not fewer than ten passages of his writings. But whilst St. Thomas thus held back from the essential point of the doctrine, it is most worthy to be remarked that he himsel laid down the principles which after they had been drawn together, and worked out through a longer course of thought, enabled other minds to furnish the true solution of his difficulty from his own premises." (Ullathorne, the Immaculate Conception pg. 137)

St. Thomas wrote:

"But she would not have been worthy to be the Mother of God, if she had ever sinned. First because the honor of the parents reflects on the child, according to Prov. XVII:6 "The glory of children are their fathers": and consequently on the other hand the Mother's shame would have reflected on her Son. Secondly, because of the singular affinity between her and Christ, who took flesh from her: and it is written (II Cor. VI:15) 'What concord hath Christ with Belial?" Thirdly, because of the singular manner in which the Son of God, who is divine Wisdom, dwelt in her, not only in her soul but in her womb. And it is written (Wisd. I:4) 'Wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins."
We must therefore confess simply that the Blessed Virgin committed no actual sin, neither mortal nor venial, so that what is written is fulfilled: Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee." (Cant. IV:7). (Summa Th. secunda secundae, q 81, a 3)

Thus the principles are almost all admitted, but in the end he sided with the opinion of his day.

St. Bonaventure also declared for his opinion against the Immaculate Conception, although he stated clearly the reasons for it, thought it open, and likely set Scotus on the correct path (Alastruey, the Blessed Virgin, pg. 96). He makes the distinction between the ensoulment and the bodily corruption, and also the atemporal power of the Cross which are key in the doctrinal definition.

It was Scotus int he 14th century who put together the Thomistic teachings (in spite of his opposition to the teachings of some later Thomists) and provided the thinking which shaped the debate until the Church taught in favor of the Immaculate conception.

"Perfectissimus mediator habet perfectissimum actum mediandi respectu alicuius personae, pro qua mediat. Sed Christus est perfectissimus mediator, sed respectu nullius personae habuit excellentiorem gradum quam respectu Mariae. Sed hoc non esset nisi meruisset eam praeservari a peccato originali." (Comment. in Quatuor Libros Sententiarum, III dist. 3, qu. 1 n 4)

"The most perfect mediator must have a most perfect act of mediation with respect to some person on whose behalf he mediates. Now Christ is a most perfect mediator, yet in this respect He had no more exalted relation to any person than to Mary. This however could not be, had he not merited for her preservation from original sin."

and again he argues:

Alii post casum erecti sunt, virgo Maria quasi in ipso casu sustenta est, ne rueret sicut exemplum ponitur de duobus cadentibus in luto. (ibid, qu. I, no 15)

"Others, have been raised up for this reason [after they had fallen], but the Virgin Mary was, as it were, sustained in the very act of falling, and prevented from falling, like the two men who were about to tumble into a pit."

This concept is what we call "pre-redemption" (praeredemptio), and it is the theology on which the doctrine is predicated, and I noted in the previous post, that Mary still needed a redeemer. Her redemption, by a singular grace from God, was achieved at the moment of her conception. Yet for Scotus' correct annunciation of the dogma and his putting the question on the map, he erred with respect to whether Mary was free from the debitum remotum, teaching that she was. This would however make the doctrine untenable since there is no sense in which she could be redeemed, since the debitum remotum in a broad sense means simply being a child of Adam.

Scotus invented nothing new, he did not create a doctrine out of nothing. He placed the question within the context of the distinctions around which the doctrine is actually at issue, and put together the thought of the tradition marvelously to harmonize the doctrine.

For the period following Scotus the question continued to be debated in schools. The doctrine finally gained magisterial recognition when Sixtus IV, decreed in 1476 that all who recite the office or hear the Mass of the Immaculate Conception should gain indulgences. St. Pius V made the Immaculate conception a holy day of obligation, and the Council of Trent prior taught it as a doctrine. While some continued to demur (mostly Dominicans holding to St. Thomas), the question was settled finally on two fronts: one by Pope Alexander VII declaring that all those who taught against the Immaculate Conception would be placed on the index (decree Solicitudo 8 December 1661) and lastly by Bl. Pius IX's solemn ex cathedra statement on 8 December 1854.

Thus ends the interesting history on the development of the Church's holy doctrine with respect to our Lady's Immaculate conception. There is much more, and many more names to place, but in the short of things it expresses the problem. It is also important to remember, that while the schools debated the issue vigorously, the feast of the Immaculate Conception spread rapidly to many dioceses, and even to Rome in the 14th century. The pious tradition, coming from the Fathers, held true while the doctrine was being worked out theologically. It was not like today when a priest has some private theory of interpretation with respect to the tradition or theology, and then comes out to confuse his congregation, such as we see with novel theories about Judas' possible redemption (which exorcists who have cast Judas out of possessed individuals could tell you is false), or whether there was really a miracle with respect to loaves and fishes or if our Lord taught everyone to share, both of which are bafoonish.

In the last installment, we will consider what this means effectively of our Lady in terms of her nature, and her virtues.

The Immaculate Conception part I

Today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception, which was elevated by Bl. Pius IX from a doctrine to a dogma of the faith by his ex cathedra statement Ineffabilis Deus. There is however even today, confusion about what this doctrine means and its history. I will attempt a series of posts on this dogma, as my time allows.

In the first place, many non-Catholics and uneducated Catholics when they hear Immaculate Conception think of the conception and birth of our Blessed Saviour, but that doctrine is called the Incarnation. The Immaculate conception refers to Mary, and can be defined as: Mary's passive conception in which she was granted the singular privilege by Almighty God through the merits of Jesus Christ, to be preserved from all stain of original sin.

Often Protestants will say, how is it that the Mary could be free from original sin? Doesn't that mean she will not need a divine redeemer?
The first point is that the redemption won for us by Jesus on the cross is an a-temporal event, the grace flowing from that redemption flows in time to us today, and to the old testament patriarchs before Christ. Because God can apply the merits of the cross at any point in time, it is easily possible for him to apply the merits of Christ's redemption to Mary in her moment of conception. Thus Mary is not released from the need of a Saviour, but that redemption is accomplished for her in a different manner, by a singular grace from God. This is described in technical theology this way, every member of the human race incurs the debitum contrahendi, and there is a twofold debitum to be distinguished in this:

debitum remotum by which signifies simply that one is a member of the human race and

debitum proximum which involves the inclusion in the willful act by which Adam, as the representative of the whole human race, rejected the grace of God and implicated human nature in sin.

If Mary were exempt from the debitum contrahendi the Immaculate Conception could not properly be described to be an effect of the atonement, and thus Mary while subject to the debitum remotum, was never at any time subject to the debitum proximum. What this essentially means is that as a member of the human race, Mary is subject in a remote sense to the consequences of original sin, but she is not stained in any manner of her being by original sin, thus the Immaculate Conception is a miracle and a singular gift given to her, not to St. John the Baptist nor to St. Joseph.

Scripture

Another objection to this dogma is that it is not mentioned in scripture. Neither of course is the Trinity, but it is affirmed implicitly by the statements of our Saviour and the baptismal formula He provides. Likewise the Immaculate conception is affirmed implicitly in the New Testament.

Luke I:28 says in the Greek:

Χαίρε κεχαριτωμένη ο Κύριος μετα σου

(I apologize to experienced Hellenists, I do not have a greek font that allows me to accurately accent the text). The Greek here provides us with the obvious effects of the Immaculate Conception, Mary's complete holiness."χαριτόω" in a strict sense means to show favor, or give grace. Thus modern biblical translators falsely take this word in only a strict sense to retract the sense of the angelic salutation to "Highly favored one", which ignores the word μένη which means to abide. The term properly translated means hail [you] perfected in grace, or in whom grace itself is abiding. Thus the Vulgate renders it "Gratia plena", full of grace. What does "full" of grace mean? It would mean there is no room left for more, or else full to capacity with something. Thus the one full of grace possesses the fullness of sanctifying grace possible. This is the doctrine of Mary's plenetudo gratiae, one of her positive prerogatives which is an effect of her Immaculate Conception and a necessary predisposition for her divine motherhood.

Bl. Pius IX cites this as one of the main scriptural texts in declaring this doctrine a solemn dogma of the faith:

When the Fathers and writers of the Church meditated on the fact that the most Blessed Virgin was, in the name and by order of God himself, proclaimed full of grace by the Angel Gabriel when he announced her most sublime dignity of Mother of God, they thought that this singular and solemn salutation, never heard before, showed that the Mother of God is the seat of all divine graces and is adorned with all gifts of the Holy Spirit. To them Mary is an almost infinite treasury, an inexhaustible abyss of these gifts, to such an extent that she was never subject to the curse and was, together with her Son, the only partaker of perpetual benediction. Hence she was worthy to hear Elizabeth, inspired by the Holy Spirit, exclaim: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb." (Ineffabilis Deus)

Mary would have lacked the fullness of grace, if for but one moment she had been tainted by original sin.

Another scriptural argument is from the old testament, namely what the Fathers call the protoevangelium, in Genesis III:14, where God declares: "I shall place enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed, she shall crush your head and you shall lie in wait for her heel."

This brings an interesting interpretation. The Hebrew and the Greek use the masculine "he shall crush your head", while the Vulgate uses the word ipsa, "she" will crush. (NB this is another reason to avoid the abominable new Vulgate put out by JPII, which uses "ipsum", "it" will crush your head, which is grammatically nonsensical) However this does not present any problems for us either way if it is understood correctly. The fathers teach that the "crusher" is certainly Jesus Christ the son of God, but He must come through a woman, and the enmity between the woman and her seed is in contradistinction to satan and his seed (sinners). The enmity will prove fatal to the latter and his seed. If Mary had at any one point been tainted by original sin, she could not stand with her seed triumphantly, because she would rather be part of the serpent's seed. Thus Christ crushing the serpent's head through Mary can be understood correctly as the root of the Vulgate's ipsa.

Next time we will consider the historical unfolding of this dogma, as well as certain other effects.

Social Modernism

I should never be surprised, but often am, when I see people who are supposed to be intelligent saying things completely unintelligible and irrational.

Recently, I viewed a video of George Weigel, biographer of the late Holy Father, speaking on EWTN in tribute to the late Father Neuhaus, someone of like mind. In it, he completely denied a doctrine of the Church, namely that Christ is not merely the king of individuals, but king of all nations.

But such things are par for the course for Weigel, who in spite of his celebrity status amongst neo-conservatives is little more than a liberal hack, who has not recovered since the death of the late Holy Father. Weigel of course was an insider under John Paul II, and was frequently in the Vatican, but since the election of Pope Benedict has been out of favor, which we see in the misrepresentations and falsities he attempts to project on the current ecclesial climate. We'll return to that later, but for now, I should like to take note of Wiegel's social modernism:



Now, watch it again, and compare what Weigel has said to what two Popes have formally defined as Catholic teaching:

Leo XIII:

As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law. For, men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and whose everbounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its teaching and practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion -- it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, would hold in honor the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favor religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety. This is the bounden duty of rulers to the people over whom they rule. For one and all are we destined by our birth and adoption to enjoy, when this frail and fleeting life is ended, a supreme and final good in heaven, and to the attainment of this every endeavor should be directed. Since, then, upon this depends the full and perfect happiness of mankind, the securing of this end should be of all imaginable interests the most urgent. Hence, civil society, established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the wellbeing of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good for which all should seek. (Immortale Dei, no 6)

Pius XI:

Thus the empire of our Redeemer embraces all men. To use the words of Our immortal predecessor, Pope Leo XIII: "His empire includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ." Nor is there any difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In him is the salvation of the individual, in him is the salvation of society. "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved." He is the author of happiness and true prosperity for every man and for every nation. "For a nation is happy when its citizens are happy. What else is a nation but a number of men living in concord?" If, therefore, the rulers of nations wish to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ. What We said at the beginning of Our Pontificate concerning the decline of public authority, and the lack of respect for the same, is equally true at the present day. "With God and Jesus Christ," we said, "excluded from political life, with authority derived not from God but from man, the very basis of that authority has been taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation." (Quas Primas, no 18)

Yet Weigel would have you believe that this teaching is contrary to the Church's teaching, and then quotes Vatican II.

But before dealing with that, Weigel gives a fundamentally dishonest answer, which is fundamentally irrational and at odds with the whole Catholic tradition with respect to the role of government. Joseph Bottum, the other commentator, attempts the foolhardy argument that America is not Catholic, therefore a Catholic doctrine binding the nation would be bad, something that Pius XI explicitly rejected. It comes from a relativist (which is the same as modernist) outlook, that Christ can only be king of Catholic nations. No nation can be healthy, Pius XI teaches, unless it has Jesus Christ as its king. The particular fallacy of the two commentators is the claim that we are not required to work for the kingship of Christ because of the whole movement of the Church "towards" democracy since Leo XIII. Firstly it is fallacious to suggest the Church moved "toward" democracy. Every Traditional Pope has affirmed whatever government the state chooses to use in order to govern is its own business so long as it is just. Traditionally of course, the Church preferred monarchy, as in the old altar and throne arrangement which worked a lot better than modern secularism whatever its failings. Nevertheless, just because a state is run democratically does not mean that it can not acknowledge Christ as its king. It is a complete non-sequitur. But its okay, its not what Richard would have wanted!

Secondly, it is in no ways a contradiction for a constitutional amendment declaring Christ the King to pass and be enacted in a country that tried to get away from kings, because we are not talking about a merely temporal king with human failings. It was the human failings of George III and the British monarchy that caused the American Revolution. At first, Washington et al appealed to medieval traditions going back to Magna Charta to appeal to a limited government. They only broke away when it was clear this could not be obtained. Thus this claim that "America was founded in contradistinction to monarchy" has absolutely nothing to do with proclaiming Christ as its king, since this entails no alteration to America's democratic traditions. But that doesn't matter, its not what Richard would have wanted!

Thirdly however, and this reveals what a complete liberal hack Weigel is, (and when I say liberal, I mean in its classical sense, not in the sense of its current use to refer to neo-fascists) he makes the claim that government is "incompetent to declare what the true religion is."

This argument has already been rejected by magisterium, but moreover, Weigel really shows us that he is either ignorant or else dishonest when he tries to claim that this is what Vatican II taught. In the first place, such a statement is found nowhere in Vatican II or in Dignitatis Humanae, the Vatican II document addressing religious liberty. The argument that the state is incompetent to declare a true religion originates with Fr. John Courtney Murray, but when he presented this argument to the council fathers who were drafting the document, it was rejected. This is something little known and not often talked about, but it is clear in the acta. Liberals and some conservatives like to show that Fr. Murray more or less ran the debate on this document and that everyone was impressed with his arguments and followed his teaching. Nothing could be further from the truth. Though some of his ideas make it into the document, the idea that Vatican II taught that the state can not determine the true religion is completely false, and demonstrates that if nothing else, Weigel is completely ignorant not only of the Council but of Catholic social teaching in general.

Dignitatis Humanae teaches:

Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ. (DH no. 1)

Now this is not to say that I think everything in Dignitatis Humanae is great, I don't, it is a flawed document with respect to the Church's tradition, and it is something the magisterium needs to address. However, it in no ways says that the state cannot confess the true religion, but rather reinforces Pius XI's clear teaching that it must. It clearly distinguishes its aims in addressing this matter, namely that everyone is free from coercion, something taught by the Church from time immemorial. Moreover if a constitutional amendment were brought forth which would declare Christ king of this nation, it would by no means disenfranchise non-Catholics from the life of the state, nor force all to be Catholic, which some maintain and Weigel implies in his response. On the contrary, all it means is that the government of this nation acknowledges Christ as its king and will abide by the public morality of His Church in the public administration of the common good. For when we boil law down, all law means is the right of the one who has proper authority over the common good, to lay down laws for the ends of the common good. Since God is the public authority Who has jurisdiction over all creation, it follows by necessity in that He is the king in a real sense of every nation and people, both in their individuality and in their government, which is nothing more than a society of rulers, elected or no, who administer the common good.
Dignitatis Humanae, for all of its other faults, sees no contradiction in a society where Christ is king and where the state does not engage in coercion, as it clearly states that it upholds the traditional doctrine yet teaches against coercion, also with the tradition. But not with Richard (Father Neuhaus that is).

Then Weigel, not satisfied with his non answers, must defend with yet one more asinine statement, which has its origin in Murray, that the state is not competent to declare the state religion a) because it can't repair a pothole and b) because if it could declare Christ king today, it could declare Muhammad king tomorrow, or Oprah queen.
I perhaps insult those whose positions could be described as asinine by describing Weigel's position as such. But sadly few stronger words exist that I could use. The fact is there was a time when government could fix a pothole, namely when it was not clogged up with useless bureaucracy or beholden to large corporations. It is not inherently true that government can not fix a pothole. This argument from Weigel is an attempt to grasp at something entertaining to obfuscate the stupidity of his argument. The fact that someone could make a wrong choice neither invalidates the right choice, or the use of power to make the choice. The fact that I could commit adultery does not mean I am not competent to marry. The fact that my town council could levy taxes to send its members to the Bahamas scarcely invalidates their authority to raise taxes to fix the roads [sic], the fact that government could enter into an unjust war tomorrow doesn't invalidate their right to enter a just one, etc. Likewise in the first instance, the failings of our particular government scarcely affect their obligations towards the common good to maintain a healthy society (as Pius XI AND Vatican II maintain). You might as well have no government, since under such absurd reasoning, government will always fail because it could fail. Just because the government could grant fictitious rights to a false religion, or to man, does not negate the rights of Jesus Christ over every society, as the divine and public authority. After all, what is government but a collection of individuals? How could a collection of individuals be exempt from the same morals, justice and obligations that they are required to have individually?

But this is par for the course with someone such as Weigel, who not only routinely misreads papal documents, but projects his own particular views onto the public actions of the Church. Take his reaction to Pope Benedict's encyclical Caritas in Veritate, that half of it is the Pope's wisdom (the parts he likes) and half is a draft of the council for Justice and Peace (which he doesn't like). This thesis, when under critical examination, can be seen obviously to be false (see here and here). Thus again, Weigel is shown to be completely ignorant if he is not disingenuous.

There are many other issues to address, particularly Weigel's complete support of Free Market Capitalism, which the Church has condemned since Leo XIII. One could almost put the name of Weigel into the mouth of Pius XI, who condemned people claiming to be faithful to Catholic social teaching, yet deny it with the same breath:

Many believe in or claim that they believe in and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority, the right of owning private property, on the relations between capital and labor, on the rights of the laboring man, on the relations between Church and State, religion and country, on the relations between the different social classes, on international relations, on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many documents of the Holy See, and particularly in those written by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism. (Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, nos 60-61)

Thus Pius XI is placing very clearly those social teachings which involve Catholic morality on the same level as the Church's dogmatic teaching which all Catholics must give assent, and comparing those who reject it to those who reject dogmatic teaching. He calls the social teaching of his predecessors "Solemn pronouncements", part of the Church's Universal Ordinary Magisterium. This is because the philosophical principles are exactly the same. Modernism functions by the principle of Immanence, as Cardinal Billot teaches, evincing the principles from St. Pius X's great encyclical Pascendi. Immanence is the principle that truth begins in the individual, and it inverses the proper order of knowledge. Since truth is determined by the individual, he reinterprets all doctrine according to his belief and opinion. This is why St. Pius X called it the synthesis of all heresies, because that is the effect. Sadly, modernism has so triumphed that it is the default position of our culture, not only American but European as well (in fact it started with them). It is the default position which Catholics, not unlike Weigel, fall into. It is also the position that traditionalists often fall into, believing that the tradition binds the magisterium (which is true) but then thinking it doesn't bind them to fast on ember days or follow the Church's traditional practice.

Nevertheless, Weigel's complete rejection of the core teaching of Pius XI's pontificate and of something long held in the Church's teaching and practice is endemic of the modernism that pervades our culture. Does he think he is faithful to Church teaching? I sure hope so, but the fact evinced from his own words, is that he is not by any stretch, but rather, faithful to an American brand of Catholicism that allows you to sacrifice at two altars rather than one. Our Lord reminds us however, that one can never serve two masters for he must love one and despise the other. Who does Weigel despise?

Returnavi sicut McArthurus

I have returned, but not quite like McArthur.
Nevertheless, after my lowest posting month in history, I plan on getting back to full vigor very soon.

What is amusing is that while the computer was broken down my microwave broke and my car broke down. Probably a demon of destruction. Although with the microwave it did me a favor, I hate them and now it takes away excuses for my wife to forget to take out a roast the night prior. :D As for everything else it looks like things are getting back to normal.

What is Western Civilization?

I still have no idea what the status is with Athanasius' computer - I have seen him lurking around Facebook the past few days so I know he must have some access, but apparently his home computer is still down. Let us pray for his speedy return!

I figured I'd better man up and post something on here to keep the show going, but inasmuch as I didn't really have time I thought it'd be easier to just link to something on my blog.

I noticed recently that traditional Catholics and political conservatives both like to talk about "Western culture" and "Western civilization" as our cultural heritage and, as such, something that ought to be defended and preserved. However, a quick breeze through some conservative publications and books by various authors reveals that they mean something radically different from traditional Catholics when they use this term "Western civilization." Please click here to check out the post I did over on Unam Sanctam about this issue and let me know your thoughts on the matter.

Computer Woes

In case you are wondering why there has not been a post in almost two weeks, I am here to inform you that our beloved Athanasius has been having some serious computer woes - I believe of a viral nature. He should be back soon and I know he has several posts working. Check back every couple of days in the meantime. Blessings.

Stupak Amendment: A $2 Ticket

Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI), author of the amendment to the House health care bill that prohibited funding for policies that cover abortion.

We are only one more step away from Obamacare in this country following Saturday's passage of the House version of the health care bill (by a narrow margin - 220 to 215 - hardly a mandate). Shortly before the passage of the bill, an amendment authored by Michigan pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak was tagged on that prohibits federal funds from paying for any policies that cover abortions. Following the successful passage of this amendment, the bill was voted on and, as we know, passed.

I am not surprised that our House passed this 1,990 page monstrosity. What I am appalled at, however, is the way that many mainstream Catholics have rolled over and lauded this bill as a pro-life "victory" because of the addition of the Stupak Amendment. Two examples: I spoke with a Catholic gentleman the other day who said, "Since abortion isn't an issue anymore I am pretty excited about this bill. A lot of people need coverage and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next." Another Catholic I spoke to, who works in DC, claimed that the passage of the bill with the amendment was a huge pro-life victory, that we should all be proud, and that he "didn't want to associate with any party or organization that couldn't value the obvious pro-life victory." I don't know to what degree these opinions represent the mainstream, but they are very troubling to me personally. I think the best quote on the Stupak Amendment, and the one that most reflects the truth of the situation, came from a friend of mine. When I described how the health care bill had passed, but with this pro-life measure tacked on, he said, "That's kind of like buying a $10 lottery ticket and winning $2." That's exactly what this amendment represents: a meager gain in the face of an overwhelming loss.

Perhaps it was different for other Catholics, but I was never opposed to the health care bill just because of the abortion issue. Of course I am against abortion and of course that factored into my opposition. But that was never the totality of my opposition, nor would I even say it was the locus of my opposition. The tremendous cost, the abuse of power, the rationing of care, the death panels, the philosophical problems with government setting itself up to get into the health care business, health care for illegal aliens, the bureaucratic complexity, the increased taxes, the decreased quality of care...all of these things factor into my opposition to Obamacare. The simple fact that abortion has been knocked out of this list does not make the bill any more palatable to me, and I was quite shocked at the amount of Catholics (and more than just the few I spoke to) are enthused about this bill now that the moral issue of abortion is out of the way.

First point: abortion is not taken care of definitively. The Senate still needs to pass their version, and then it will go to committee. I am positive this Stupak Amendment will get scrubbed from the final version. The director of Planned Parenthood, when told about the anti-abortion amendment, was not at all put out. She simply said, "I'm not worried; I trust Nancy Pelosi." Do you really think a President and a government as liberal and insane as the one we now have will settle for socialized medicine without abortion? Will their liberal base go along with this? You better believe that the final bill will not have these prohibitions. If Obama wants socialized health care to pass, he will have to get rid of this amendment. A group of democrats sent a letter to Pelosi following the vote, in which they stated :

The Stupak-Pitts amendment to H.R. 3962, The Affordable Healthcare for America Act represents an unprecedented and unacceptable restriction on women’s ability to access the full range of reproductive health services to which they are lawfully entitled. We will not vote for a conference report that contains language that restricts women’s right to choose any further than current law (source).

Obama has staked his entire political career on Obamacare- will he see it fall apart over this amendment? It'll be gone in the final version.

Second point: My wife made the observation that this Stupak Amendment was really not a victory at all - it was merely "defending the castle" as she said. We stopped something worse from happening but didn't make any positive gain. I suppose that could be considered some sort of victory in a certain sense, but really we are worse off now: we got the Amendment, but the bill as a whole still passed. We are much closer to nationalized medicine than we were a week ago. Again, the lottery ticket analogy comes to mind. "I lost $8, but at least I won $2!" If this is a victory, it is a Pyrrhic one at best.

Also, what is the strategy here? What is the objective? The objective is to kill nationalized health care. That, in my opinion, is what we should view as the end of all this. The objective was not to make socialized healthcare more palatable by putting pro-life provisions into it. We want (or I least I want) this bill killed dead in its entirety, whole and complete with all its parts. How does it aid the defeat of the socialized health care agenda if we suddenly act like the important work is done now that the Stupak Amendment is tacked on? The one man I mentioned above was positively excited about the prospect of Obamacare now that abortion is taken out of the equation. Since the amendment has been added, it's back to business as usual for the pro-life movement, and back to sleep for many mainstream Catholics who are washing their hands over this monstrous bill now that this pro-life amendment is there to soothe their consciences.

This reflects (in my opinion) a certain narrowness in the pro-life movement's focus. They protest and pray and get active when some life issue is up for grabs, but back off and let us get rolled over if there is not an immediate abortion connection. The pro-life movement, as it now exists, would happily agree to oppressive taxes and even the confiscation of our guns if they could get some minor anti-abortion statute attached to a bill. I know they are an issue-driven movement that could argue that it's not their job to get involved in these other issues; but for heaven's sake, how can they roll over so easily on an issue so critical?

Socialized health care is not a positive good, and we should not see this furthering of this horrid bill as some kind of backhanded pro-life victory. Do you really think that if Obama gets his way there will be less abortions? Think about it. I, for one, will never ever support this bill or anything like it. There are many valid ways to approach health care; this I do not deny. And it is true that we need reform in health care. But I deny that a nightmarish socialist agenda put forward by the most radical President ever to hold the office suddenly becomes not so bad just because abortion is out of the picture. Even if this amendment became a permanent feature of the final bill, do you not think a vast number of immoral actions will still occur? Think about the fate of seniors under Obamacare...

In conclusion, this pro-life "victory" reminds me of this poem "Smart" by Shel Silverstein:

My father gave me one dollar bill
Because I’m his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
Because two is more than one!

And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes -I guess he doesn’t know
That three is more than two!

Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just because he can’t see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!

And I took the nickels to Hiram
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!

And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head-
Too proud of me to speak!

Am I completely off, or does any of what I am saying strike a chord with here?