The Light of Faith – “The rich quality of Lumen Fidei stands in unhappy contrast to every other document of the Francis tenure. It’s a painful judgment, but true. And on that point, justice requires some context.” Cardinal Fernandez Misleads (First Things)
Demos II – “The rhetorical strategy of the defenders of this papacy is the same no matter from where the criticisms of this pope arise. In their eyes, to criticize Pope Francis is an act of disobedience … ” The Church after Francis: A Cardinal Speaks (What We Need Now – Substack)
Questions of Human Nature – “Thinking about the family—and especially about children—we soon find ourselves tripping over the question of what a family is, what its normative patterns are, and why.” Normophobia (First Things)
Bible Museum Closure – “The Bible museum on Independence Mall in Philadelphia was open less than three years and had attracted fewer visitors than projected.” American Bible Society Will Close Its $60 Million Museum (Christianity Today)
Natural Law – “Aquinas knew that government is the negation of liberty. We in the 21st century realize that we have a government that is utterly indifferent to our rights.” My Dinner With Controversial Pope Was Surreal (NewsMax)
King Charles’ Ecological Vision – “At the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos in 2020, King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, launched the Sustainable Markets Initiative, aiming to promote sustainability within the private sector.” World Economic Forum’s CEO says Pope and King Charles share same ecological vision (The Catholic Network)
Increase in Abortions in 2023? – “The new figures show that 1,026,690 abortions were performed in 2023, an increase of 10 percent since the year 2020. This is consistent with a trend in increasing abortion rates that started around 2017.” New Guttmacher Data Purportedly Show Increasing Abortion Rates in 2023 (National Review)
Moneyed Aristocracy – “Progressive tropes about the ‘bigoted’ and ‘undemocratic’ countryside undermine Joe Biden’s efforts to win over rural America.” Demonising rural voters invites defeat for the Democrats (The New Statesman)
People on the Margins – “A Miami parish will host the world premiere of a new sacred choral composition, Frank La Rocca’s “Requiem for the Forgotten,” during a Mass in memory of those who have died without a proper funeral.” Historic ‘Requiem for the Forgotten’ Mass to premiere in Miami (Catholic News Agency)
The Chosen & Angel Studios – “Dallas Jenkins, director-writer-creator of The Chosen, announced Sunday by way of a YouTube video that the free streaming of the fourth season of the show will be delayed due to “legal matters.” Fans eager to see the new season can still pay to see it in a theater.” An Epic Feud Between Two Giants in Christian Entertainment Comes to a Head (Newsweek)
Justifying Gender Transition – “Declaring war against reality might just be crazy enough to work.” Trans Ideologues Would Rather Revolt Against Reality Than Admit They Were Wrong (The Federalist)
Officially Banning Puberty Blockers – “’Puberty blockers … are not available to children and young people for gender incongruence or gender dysphoria because there is not enough evidence of safety and clinical effectiveness.’” England Bans Puberty Blockers for Minors (Washington Stand)
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
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#11 Justifying Gender Transition
Hats off to Nathaniel Blake for having the patience to analyze this lunacy.
Re: The Light of Faith: Cardinal Fernández Misleads, by Charles J. Chaput
* * *
I have admired Archbishop Chaput for several decades. So it surprises me to be here posting a quibble concerning his otherwise very insightful critique of the key Vatican figure, Víctor Manuel Cardinal Fernández.
Allow me to quote the passage that I am taking issue with:
‘Very few Americans live in the poverty that is common in other parts of the world. Thus, it’s difficult for us to grasp the suffering involved in lives of constant uncertainty. It’s easy—too easy—to dismiss Pope Francis’s hostility to modern capitalism, and the materialist indulgence it breeds, as a form of soft-Marxist ignorance. But his compassion for the poor, his focus on the forgotten people of the world’s peripheries, and his stress on the priority of mercy are not just thoroughly Catholic. They’re also a needed admonition and catechesis for those of us in the self-satisfied “developed” nations.’
Actually, I do find it exceedingly easy to dismiss Bergoglio’s hostility to modern capitalism as soft-Marxist ignorance, and as many additional kinds of ignorances as well. For Bergoglio to be so colossally ignorant on this — and so many other important matters — is a colossal misfortune for humanity. Because the fact is, if he were a better, smarter, less judgmental, more virtuous man — a Christian, you might say — he could do a lot of good in this world.
And I would urge Bergoglio — and Archbishop Chaput, for that matter — to ask himself why the first sentence of the article quoted above is true — and has been true for quite a long while.
To help them figure it out, I include below the text of a comment I made many months ago on this website. I feel it bears repeating here:
* * *
Leftists have never understood the genius of capitalism.
They view work in a capitalistic system as nothing more than a burden, an occasion for the exploitation and predation of workers.
It somehow escapes them that the reason the standard of living goes up in a country is that workers are producing products and services — the good things that make people’s lives better and make societies thrive.
The fact is, leftists always focus on money. But, quite obviously, money produces nothing. It’s people spending their days working their jobs who bring the good life.
At its core, leftism is unfair. In a system of distributive justice, everyone receives “the resources they need” — which always sounds wonderful. After all, who wants to see people in poverty?
But when everyone receives “enough,” it means that the lazy, unproductive, unreliable workers get the same pay as the dedicated, diligent, hard-working workers.
And psychologists will tell you that in a system that does not recognize and reward outstanding performance, the best participants come to understand that their extra efforts are wasted. And they will inevitably begin reverting to the mean — lackadaisical, subpar performance.
Which is why socialist countries always end up as varying degrees of gray, depressing and impoverished.
It’s inevitable.
Think about it. In Venezuela, all the workers — and the layabouts, for that matter — have “enough” money for “the resources they need.”
Just one problem. There aren’t enough of those “resources.”
The fact that everyone gets “enough” money, whether they work or not, ensures that many don’t work. And so there are severe shortages of products — including food — throughout the country.
And so what is your money worth when there’s nothing to buy, Mr. Leftist?
Leftists have no concept that capitalism’s genius is to align the interests of the individual with the interests of society.
People are rewarded for their hard work and productivity. And society benefits accordingly.
And people are also rewarded for their good ideas for new products or services — personal computers, online shopping, iPhones, whatever — according to the value that others place on them.
Finally, while leftists are obsessed with money, they have no idea of what money really is.
Money is a societally recognized abstraction for value produced. When a worker completes a job, he has delivered something that is of value to someone. That value created is reflected in the pay he receives.
When many workers create much value — producing food, fixing cars, replacing roofs, whatever — wealth is created. There’s lots of money to spread around, leading to more economic growth and cultivating a robust and prosperous economy.
When you hold a $100 bill in your hand, you’re in a very real sense touching the time and imagination and lives of countless individuals who contributed to all of the value which that bill has delivered since it was first created.
Leftists understand none of this.
Which is why socialist societies always, always, *always* end up oppressing their citizens.
For socialism to succeed, people must be forced to act in ways that are against their best interests. Whereas, under capitalism, people are free to pursue their best interests, wherever they perceive those interests leading them.
So what about the unfortunate individuals who for whatever reason are left behind in poverty within capitalist economies?
That’s where charity comes in. Virtue. Compassion.
Or, if you prefer, Christianity.
It’s worth noting that charity is also ennobling to those on both ends of the transaction, both the giver and the receiver. The giver feels good about helping someone, and the receiver feels worthwhile because he’s being blessed by a personal gesture of fellowship by another.
Charity is a virtue and is, therefore, of God.
Whereas government entitlements tend to rob an individual of his sense of accomplishment, of self-respect, of satisfaction. In fact, government handouts can prompt people to feel like victims and sullenly resent those who have more. In this way, they’re able to justify to themselves their dependency.
The sad fact is, distributive justice’s real effect is to make sure that everyone has “enough” of the scarcity, the poverty, and the starvation it inevitably produces.
Remember that Jesus never compelled anyone to act virtuously. He respected the dignity of each individual, realizing that coercion is the absolute end of virtue.
Perhaps it’s time to expect governments, which are definitively *not* divine, to act with at least the same level of restraint shown by the Savior of the universe.
Very good summary of the moral content and reality within the everyday work experience. It is hard to understand how religious men so easily forget that there is nothing in life without moral content. The only rational point Catholic progressives have ever made about anything, which ultimately falls short, does point out that a celibate priesthood isolates them from everyday realities of moral temptations and possible sins in managing the responsibilities of meeting the needs of a family, cheating a bit here and there on bills, slothfulness, etc. Nonetheless, it should not be difficult for consecrated men to conceive that even the marginalized need to be rescued from their sins and not blame everything on “structures”.
@ Questions of Human Nature
Mary Harrington exposes Normofobia, the fear of the normal as even in the meaning of “family.”
If we may, here, a comment about normal reality versus a clericalist “hermeneutics of discontinuity” that now includes false signaling, photo ops, memes, and official paperwork (Fiducia Supplicans) issuing forth from on high….
WHAT IF anti-family and anti-binary–and endorsed–LGBTQ tribalism (sic community) really is rooted in something “scientific and cultural,” but NOT in an “evolutionary” way as Cardinals Hollerich and McElroy would have it?
WHAT IF, instead, the anti-binary phenomenon is not a cause, but a symptom (!)?
WHAT IF, our clericalist and “field hospital” elite actually wanted to stem the hemorrhaging, rather than enabling the affliction to spread completely across the next generation, and more?
WHAT IF, rather than downstream evolution (?), it’s about upstream causes (!):
absentee or abusive fathers, early sexual abuse, an intergenerational “culture” of moral neutrality and worse, premature sexualization of children via explicit curricula in government schools, an accessible porn culture, escapism and then getting locked-in by youthful sexual experimentation, other undiagnosed emotional issues, and
WHAT IF, it’s even about the white-gown illuminati actually ignoring the science (!), such as genome research which finds no homosexual gene (only a few markers insufficient to determine the choice of sexual “partners”), and…
WHAT IF, now, it’s about functionaries in the perennial Catholic Church also just going with the flow, rolling over, again, and probably sometimes yielding to blackmail?
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? Why are we reminded of the movie “Amadeus,” with the uncomprehending composer Solieri (second-string to Mozart), being wheeled down the hallway in the primitive psychiatric ward of yesteryear? And, superficially conferring his disconnected absolution (a “blessing”!) left and right, upon the deeply afflicted “everyone, everyone”!
What’s the real nature and depth of our current Galileo Moment?
@ Questions of Human Nature
Mary Harrington reveals all. Columnist at UnHerd, UnHerdist Mary surely follows her instincts rather than the herd’s. Beginning with Wilhelm Reich’s identification of the family as the epicenter for fascist power and its evolution from the Christian ideal to the woman [of man] of the day who perceive the confines of traditional family as restrictive of a higher lifestyle.
Ms Harrington makes the startling observation that arch conservatives are the true audience of the children’s library drag queen hour. Reason is its destruction of the traditional family, a structure unsuitable to living life as convenient to someone not focused on raising children, at least not compatible with the normophobe.
Normophobia the powerhungry equivalent to homophobia. Homosexuality as shown from Harrington’s perspective is perceived as a positive for the normophobe because it neutralizes the constrictions of family. Her dreadful analysis evokes images of what appears, except for the mystifying dynamic of evil in unexplainable process. Queer apocalypse.
in re “Normophobia”: I’m seeing a collateral term popping up lately–to condemn, of course: “heternormativity.” Thus, in fiction, the Boy shouldn’t end up with the Girl. They should pair off with any being except a human of the opposite sex. Writers of Young Adult fiction in particular are coming under pressure to insert “queer” their stories. This is a one small strategy to influence “gender fluidity” in the young.
Cui Bono, Peter Beaulieu? I’m sure Satan is delighted by such trends.
@ Natural Law
Justice Napolitano got it right, “We are hard-wired by our Creator to discern good from evil”. Reason and the will are inclined by nature toward truth and the good. Although regardless of our innate apprehension of the good, and evil, we have the freedom to deny the former and incline toward the latter [this natural apprehension and the freedom to choose is the undergirding of our formation of conscience and the evidence that we are responsible for our sinful acts]. Why the choice of evil rather than good? We can never answer that, since the answer reveals the mystery that although we’re created in God’s image, we’re not God who alone is good.
Judge [his former profession] Naplolitano obviously expected more from Pope Francis, both in regards to his papacy and in his [non] response to an awed guest at the Casa San Marta. There weren’t any cameras rolling or photographers. Although he has the excuse of old age and weariness, thoughts of his papal legacy, the future encounter we must all behold. My prayers for His Holiness.