Blogworthies III

Because The Blog from the Core simply can't cover everything.

Noteworthy entries @ Catholic and Enjoying It! Dust in the Light, Catholic Analysis, Veritas, Dyspeptic Mutterings, Sed Contra, Lex Communis, Tim Blair, Catholic Analysis (again), The Curt Jester, One Hand Clapping, and Dust in the Light (again).

Dreher vs. Shea! Get ready to Rummmmmmmmbllllllllle!!!! @ Catholic and Enjoying It!

Because Rod's response below is so massive, I am only snipping out select remarks and replying to them. I urge you to go to the comments where Rod responds to me to get the whole context of what he has to say.

Rod writes after quoting Ut Unum Sint:

It is clear that the Pope is saying that he has a responsibility to be a watchdog over various areas of Christian life, including Church doctrine and discipline. When someone ignores Church doctrine or discipline in "pursuit of personal interests," the Pope has the duty to "admonish," among other things.

Which the Pope has done with the American bishops.

Now, "Ut Unum Sint" was released five months later. It is hard to believe that Rome would have moved in this way against Bp. Gaillot with the Holy Father putting finishing touches on an encylical that — if Mark's view is correct — would have effectively declared that the pontiff has no right to remove bishops.

That's not Mark's view. I don't believe the pontiff has no right to remove bishops. But what is more important (and really must be kept in view or you won't understand what I'm saying) I also don't believe *the Pope believes* he has no right to remove bishops. Remember: I don't write what I write because I agree with the Pope's prudential judgments here. I write what I write because it seems to me that most people are making the mistake of assuming the Pope thinks like they do. I don't think the Pope thinks like us. So the first task of prudence is to see things as they are, not as we wish them to be. The first task, therefore, in analyzing the Pope's behavior is to understand what he thinks he's doing, not what we would do if we were in his shoes. We can go on disagreeing with him if we like. But if we can't be bothered to try to understand him, then we cannot intelligently comment on things like his culpability or lack thereof in addressing the Situation....

A Piling of Argument @ Dust in the Light:

Links to worthwhile pieces about gay marriage have begun to clog my bookmarks file, so I thought I'd put them all together in one post. They're all related, inherently, anyway.

Let me start with an anecdote. My wife teaches third grade, and the mother of one of the girls in her class mentioned that the gay marriage debate has found its way into her daughter's head. The girl saw something about it on the news and turned around to declare, "I don't see what the problem is. They're just people; let them marry." I haven't fully explored the implications, myself, but my initial reactions are to be bemused that many adults aren't managing deeper thought than that little girl and to recoil some from the reality that, to address the girl's question, one would have to skirt such topics as are known to sap innocence....

Social Capital and Moral Capital @ Catholic Analysis:

While our society is in constant social transition, we can sometimes witness the coexistence of vanishing forms of social activity with newer forms. You can still find fraternal organizations like the Elks or the local Moose lodge. You will still find the traditional social network of Catholic parish life surviving — many times due to the deeply loyal participation of aging parishioners. Social association in clubs and fraternal organizations points to what the sociologists define as "social capital." Harvard professor Robert Putnam became famous in the nineties for his book Bowling Alone in which he pointed out the decline in Americans engaging in civic or social activities in the age of television. In one article, Putnam defined "social capital" as follows:

— "social capital" refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.

Putnam article, available at this link.

In typical academic fashion, Putnam gives us the sort of highly abstract definition that is the hallmark of the social science fraternity. In more concrete language, social capital is social cooperation: putting on the parish fair, the local Knights of Columbus raising funds at a spaghetti dinner or on the street, working on a political campaign, collecting signatures to ban partial-birth abortion. We have older forms of social cooperation that are in decline such as membership in PTA's, unions, or fraternal organizations. But we also have increasing participation in the Right to Life movement in churches, both Catholic and evangelical. Because of this variety, academics debate if social capital is really declining or if social capital is just being "redistributed" in new forms and guises....

The Humanity of the Human Embryo @ Veritas:

Is the human embryo a human being, with all the rights and duties attendant to such beings? Any reader who even occasionally reads this blog knows that my answer is an affirmative one, and that I believe so based not on religious dogma but scientific fact.

The position I hold is articulated by a number of scholars. My friend and philosophy prof Patrick Lee, for instance, has a terrific book called Abortion and Unborn Human Life which uses embryology and other biological sciences to document this position; he also addresses the various philosophical arguments in favor of abortion.

Closely following Lee's biological argument is that of Robert George (the two have worked together on this issue). George lays out the position in his personal statement appended to the President's Council on Bioethics' report on cloning. George's statement, which can be found here, is worth quoting: ....

Fathers, Sons and the Faith of Our Fathers. @ Dyspeptic Mutterings:

The event was memorable because it shouldn't be. I was in sixth grade, and was standing outside (under as much shelter as I could find) with my buddy Jeff after school let out. I was not remotely looking forward to walking the five required blocks to get home, and I didn't have a ride. It was a blustery November day, which in Michigan can be borderline lacerating, especially when it rains.

Partway into my "hope the weather changes" routine, Jeff's aunt pulled up — his ride had arrived. Jeff bounded up to the car, and asked his aunt if she could drop me off at home, too. Sure, I was out of the way, but in my small rural hometown, distance is a very relative term — Alma lines up at around three miles wide at its "longest" point — and that estimate may be very generous. In other words, I was not that far out of the way.

Jeff came back, somewhat bemused, and gave a thumbs up. Hallelujah — spared from the elements! I made sure to thank her profusely after she dropped me off.

I really didn't notice it at the time, as I was distracted by my efforts to present a smaller target for the gusts, but Jeff took rather longer to get approval than would normally be the case. Later, he told me why: she'd reacted with some hostility to my name....

Same Sex Marriage Once Again @ Sed Contra:

First of all, sorry to all 11 of my readers about having been away from the weblog. As before, I have no excuse except that the other duties of life off the web have gotten in the way of writing to the web log.

Since the last time I wrote about this, the Massachusetts legislature has failed, so far, to write and pass a constitutional amendment that will define marriage in that state as between one man and woman and the mayor of San Francisco has decided that his city will simply ignore the California law that does the same and has begun issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples.

On a side note, isn't it interesting that Judge Roy Moore could flout the the interpretation of the law from a federal Judge and keep the ten commandments in the Courthouse and the media was filled with commentary about how perniciously he had behaved and yet the mayor of a major U.S. city could decide to do the same with law on the books, not even a judicial opinion, and there is nary a peep of scorn from the Englightened Scribes of the Fourth Estate? The way this story has been covered is perhaps the best instance of media bias that I have seen in years.

For the record I think both are pernicious. We are a nation of laws, not men and women and certainly not personalities. If we don't like a law, we can work to change the law. But if you break a law deliberately you deserve to go to jail, as civil disobedients have chosen to do for years....

Spin. @ Lex Communis (brackets in original):

I'm watching a MSNBC analyst Lawrence O'Donnell castigate Ted Sampley of Vietnam Vets Against John Kerry for lying about whether John Kerry accused his fellow vets of war crimes.

Here's the passage that caught my eye:

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.

It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did, they relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told the stories. At times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

Kerry was explicitly accusing the American military systematically committing atrocities and war crimes as a matter of habit and routine. Kerry was clearly saying that such war crimes as occurred were not an aberration or a departure from the standards of conduct normally followed by American troops in Vietnam. [I know that the attempt has been made to argue that Kerry was simply reporting what he heard other's tell him, but I don't think that is a fair construction of Kerry's role. Kerry took an oath. Kerry testified. Kerry used his position to give these charges credibility. Kerry, in short, vouched for these claims in some role other than that of an advocate. If the Kerry felt that the charges were false, Kerry should have honorably distanced himself from them some time ago.] ....

Anti-Australians Winning @ Tim Blair:

Kerry beat Edwards in Wisconsin, but not by much:

John Kerry squeezed past hard-charging John Edwards on Tuesday to win Wisconsin's primary, gateway to a 10-state, two-man showdown March 2. Howard Dean, his candidacy doomed, considered endorsing one of his rivals.

From an Australian perspective, both leading candidates can go to hell....

The Second Stage of the Sexual Revolution @ Catholic Analysis:

The first stage of the sexual revolution that has engulfed the United States was centered around contraception. The introduction of the birth control pill plus the Supreme Court's 1965 decision in Griswold v. Connecticut which struck down state laws restricting contraceptives removed the fear of pregnancy that kept many middle class young women and their parents cautious in sexual matters. Strangely enough, the Griswold decision focused on married couples obtaining contraceptives (see legal history). But the ultimate effect of the decision was opening the gate for anyone, married or not, to obtain contraceptives. With the increasing secularization of American society, a strong moral foundation for chastity was already missing. Once the fear of pregnancy departed, the deluge of fornication and "shacking up" began which today is conventional, expected, and normalized.

Today's second stage of the sexual revolution has also unfolded as rapidly, if not more so, than the first. Again, the beachhead is marriage. In the sixties, the beachhead was contraceptive access for married couples. Today the beachhead is access to marriage by gay couples. The effect of striking down restrictions on contraception led to the fornication culture we have today. I submit that the ultimate effect of the crusade for gay marriage will be an increasingly bisexual culture for the future — however distasteful it is for us to imagine this outcome....

Hands Concerned About Gibson's "Passion of Christ" @ The Curt Jester:

(Roto Reuters) The age old bitter question about who was responsible for killing Christ has raised it's ugly head again with the upcoming Ash Wednesday release of Mel Gibson's the Passion of Christ. Details released about the movie is that in a close up of a Crucifixion scene where a pair a hands are shown nailing Jesus to the cross, are actually those of Mel Gibson's. Some have attributed the symbolism of this is that Mel is saying that he as others are the cause of Christs' death. A new group HAND (Hands Against Nail Defamation) have another take. Their spokeshand had this to sign "This close up is obviously a blatant attempt to blame hands for the death of Christ. That if it wasn't due to the hands capabilities and capable opposable thumb, that the Crucification could never have happened. Mel Gibson did not get permission from other hands before he did this and we think possibly his own hands were forced to act this out under orders from his nervous system." ....

Alice in Wonderland judges @ One Hand Clapping:

Checking judicial overreach — judges rule in a "Wonderland" mode, but remember, Wonderland was a tyranny

I don't know how Massachusetts will finally handle the controversy about homosexual marriage there. The state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled last November — by one vote — that denying homosexual couples the right to marry was contrary to the state's constitution.

The November 18 ruling gave the Legislature six months to rewrite the state law to conform to the ruling.

The state Senate then asked the court whether the commonwealth could satisfy its constitutional concerns by granting civil unions to gays and lesbians, but forbidding them from obtaining civil marriage licenses.

To this, the court said no: marriage is what they said and marriage is what they meant. The court's ruling to permit homosexual marriages will go into effect this May regardless of what the legislature does. Even if the legislature passes today an amendment to the constitution prohibiting homosexual marriage, the earliest the amendment could take effects is late 2006.

In my opinion, this ruling is as clear a case of judicial overreach and activism as can be found. The idea is simply ludicrous that the constitution's framers - or the people of Massachusetts of their day - included homosexual union in their idea of what marriage was.

And the court's justices know this; they just don't care....

The Change We Want to See in the World @ Dust in the Light:

Donald Sensing reminds us that our governmental problem isn't just that the judiciary is grabbing power, but also that legislatures are willingly handing it over:

What's in it for the legislators or Senators? By applying political, rather than jurisprudential litmus tests to appointees, the elected legislators get to pass the buck for the political agendas off to unelected judges, using them as shields to hide behind when facing the voters. Knowing that major elements of such agendas would never pass the people's muster, politicizing the appointment process has enabled the legislatures to legislate through the judiciary rather than enactments.

In so doing, the people are shunted aside. The power to make the most major decisions affecting the order of society are taken from their hands by subterfuge. Increasingly, our votes at the ballot have less and less effect on what happens in government — and thus, what happens to us.

Frankly, I find the outlook bleak. Reclaiming the government is going to require sustained exertion of political will by large numbers of people. And I'm not sanguine about the chances of accomplishing that. The class that is pushing the change knows its game; usurpation is dressed up as new freedom; changes will be gradual, best-face-forward affairs. There probably won't be a notable leap into totalitarianism, as the Left claims to fear so much from the Patriot Act.

More likely, if the trend can't be reversed or diverted, what we'll see is the steady march of emotionally satisfying, but socially destructive, innovations couched in the terms of moral superiority, followed by invasive and ineffective strategies for handling the damage that results. Living in such a way as to feed superficial appetites with wonders of quick gratification will be facilitated, while life in pursuit of deeper satisfaction and larger meaning, with an emphasis on rational thought and mature policy, will be presented with obstacles and disincentives....

P.S. See also Blogworthies II and Blogworthies IV.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 02/21/04 02:33:40 PM
Categorized as Blogworthies.