Continuing with the theme of yesterday’s post, “Some Options,” let me reiterate that I do not begrudge a single soul for trying, with the best resources they have available, to produce a response to the present state of affairs in order to ensure both the survival and transmission of what I will broadly call the Christian inheritance while also remaining cognizant of the Great Commission: “Go forth and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
There has been a lot of talk about “Options” around the Christian water cooler as of late. In an earlier post, “Projects, Seeing, and Options,” I offered some remarks on Orthodox journalist Rod Dreher’s “Benedict Option” which, as I understand it, calls for a retreat from the world in order to preserve what is left of Christian—and by extension classical—civilization. C.C. Pecknold, a professor of theology at Catholic University of America, has written over at First Things about what he calls the “Dominican Option.” Unlike Dreher’s proposal, Pecknold’s eschews retreatism in favor of engagement built on two pillars: “the right pattern of formation and evangelistic witness.” Which will win out? Or will both amount to little more than vacuous sloganeering?
After several months of building a base floor of contributors, The Josias is now moving full steam ahead with articles, remarks, dubium, and new translations of formerly unavailable texts. (More information on The Josias is available here.) In the past day, two new pieces of interest have gone up.
The first, generously supplied by permission of the Aquinas Institute for the Sacred Doctrine, is taken from St. Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. In it, the Angelic Doctor asks whether heretics should be tolerated.
The second, penned by yours truly, responds to the query, “Is integralism essentially bound up with racism, nationalism, and totalitarianism?” I hope I am not spoiling the surprise when I tell you the answer is, “Negative.” The explanation is laid out in the rest of the piece.
If you have not done so already, make an effort to visit the site and peruse the many excellent resources which are already available. If you have the talent and inclination to contribute, then please do so. And, finally, if you appreciate the contents of The Josias and its mission, do what you can to spread the word. We have no advertising budget; we are disinclined from “branding” ourselves on social media; and above all we hope and pray that if our project is pleasing to God, it will continue to bear good fruit.
Austin Ruse likes to antagonize his co-religionists, or so I surmised from his various entanglements with the so-called “New Homophiles.” While I am not unsympathetic to some of Ruse’s concerns, the unduly harsh manner in which he engages fellow Catholics, coupled with his myopic view of Church teaching and theology on a number of issues, renders me unable to fully endorse his writings. That reservation is now stronger than ever in light of his most recent Crisis piece, “Abortion, Torture, and Juice-Box Theologians.” In it, Ruse attacks not only Left-leaning Catholics who, for various reasons which are perhaps inadequate, reject the mainline Republican Party, but also more conservative/orthodox Catholics. According to Ruse, these “thunder-bolt tossing uber-Catholics,” some of whom are associated with the website Vox Nova, have expanded the list of political “non-negotiables” to absurd lengths, placing issues like gun control, climate change, and the federal minimum wage on the same level as abortion and same-sex marriage.
The Josias has posted a translation of, and brief commentary on, Pope Pius VI’s speech, Qaure Lacrymae, which was delivered in response to the regicide of King Louis XVI of France. From the introductory note by Pater Edmund Waldstein:
Quare Lacrymae is mainly concerned with showing that King Louis XVI’s death was a martyrdom. Pius VI can appeal to Louis XVI’s moving last will and testament, but in order to prove the point he has to show that the cause of his death was odium fidei. In order to prove this, Pope Pius argues that the main thrust of the revolution was against the Catholic religion. In the course of his argument he makes a bold claim about the connection between Calvinism and Enlightenment philosophy—anticipating in certain respects recent arguments by the likes of Brad Gregory.
It’s not my intent to provide running commentary on Ethika Politika’s content; it just seems to be working out that way (see here and here). Hunter Sharpless’s latest, “New Seeds of Revolution,” prioritizes an internal, spiritual revolution before an external one since, according to Sharpless, “the injustice of the world finds its birth in the individual human heart[,] . . . not in systems and powers external to [him]” or, for that matter, all of us. While there is a loud ring of truth in that statement, it’s not the whole truth, or at least not one which captures that systems and powers external to all of us shape our lives in profound, and sometimes disturbing, ways.
Liberal, radical, and integralist Catholics — all three are the subject of my piece over at Front Porch Republic, “Illiberal Catholicism One Year On.” From the article:
Stepping out from the shadows to accompany the radical Catholic critique of liberalism is a refreshed iteration of Catholic integralism (sometimes called “integrist”) which takes its bearings from the classic Thomistic tradition and the Church’s modern social magisterium which first appeared in the anti-French Revolutionary declarations of Pope Pius VI; received forceful reaffirmation in Blessed Pius IX’s Syllabus Errorum; and was deepened through such seminal magisterial pronouncements as Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, St. Pius X’s Notre Charge Apostolique, and Pius XI’s Quas Primas, along with Quadragessimo Anno. This integralism, which is neither romantic nor pessimistic, asks in solidarity with the Thomistic philosopher-theologian Charles De Koninck, “When those in whose charge the common good lies do not order it explicitly to God, is society not corrupted at its very root?”
For more on Catholic integralism, see my latest offering at The Josias: “Catholic Integralism and the Social Kingship of Christ.”
I know very little about Sam Kriss, except that he writes a blog entitled Idiot Joy Showland, publishes in Left-leaning outlets, and penned Pater Edmund Waldstein’s favorite reflection on the Charle Hebdo killings in France. People I am friends with in real life and via social media enjoy Kriss, and many more are enjoying his recent piece on Chris Kyle, the slain Navy SEAL whose life—or a certain framing of his life by director Clint Eastwood in the film American Sniper—is causing a tidal wave of controversy. Some of the controversy is quite silly; a good deal of it is trivial and nitpicky; and then there are the heavy-hitting critiques which purport to expose the flaws in both Kyle’s character and Eastwood’s filmmaking talents. For some, such as Kriss, the two are almost intertwined, though perhaps Eastwood shares a bulk of the blame for crafting a movie which portrays Kyle unrealistically while glorifying the Iraq War (and perhaps war in general). For all of Kyle’s faults, including fabricating several outrageous tales in his ghostwritten autobiography, a desperate desire to hide them wasn’t one of them. As Kriss recounts, Kyle bragged remorselessly about the number of people—military and civilian—he killed during his tours in Iraq and his opinion of the Iraqi population as a whole was less-than-edifying. Moreover, Kyle never questioned the Iraq War nor had any qualms about his mission—a mission he frames as protecting American military lives above all else. That facet of Kyle’s character does make its way into Eastwood’s biopic, and it is the least bothersome part of the film.
Matt Mazewski, in his debut article for Ethika Politika, asks “Would a ‘Catholic Party’ Be Bad For the Church?” In the end Mazewski is skeptical, and rightly so—but only because the vision he operates with is a liberal one. Granted, this is not clear at the article’s outset; scroll down several paragraphs, however, and this is what appears:
From the standpoint of the American [Catholic] hierarchy, the existence of a “Catholic Party” would be bad news for the same reason it would be good news: The bishops would be free to support a single party and its candidates without reservation. For anyone concerned about the politicization of religion, this would be a worrisome state of affairs.
A lot of brainpower is being directed toward making sure that when Catholics hear the expression “Catholic Social Teaching” (CST) they hear “economic liberalism.” Sure, a humane face is put on the project, with calls on the periphery for “ethical entrepreneurship” and a business culture where “the person” is taken into account; but by day’s end the principle that government should stay out of the market is upheld. Gerald J. Russello surveys, and apparently approves of, this re-orientation of CST in his recent Crisis article, “The Latest Debate Over Catholic Social Thought.” And who does Russello hold up as “rich interpreters” of the Catholic social tradition? John Zmirak and Anthony Esolen.
