A Rare American Prophet

We are rather too neglectful of the American Presidency in this little corner of the web. We must confess this is at least partially due to our intense dislike for the last several occupants of the Oval Office, right on up to our current tyrant. Regardless of that trivia, previous Commanders-in-Chief were often also quite splendid orators who said what they meant and said it in style, as opposed to the current politically-correct espousal of topseyturveydom that belches forth from Washington. We are so accustomed to this deluge of nonsense that we regard it as normal and sometimes pay it lip-service praise. I even heard someone say that Obama's most recent State of the Union was great oratory! Yes, and Call Me Maybe is a great musical achievement.

I digress. In any event, I ask you, kind reader, to imagine any current American politician having the gall to speak the words below, spoken by Calvin Coolidge in Philadelphia on the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence:

"The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped."

Wait, it's not all about money?! We're NOT to become pagan materialists?! Cultivate reverence... for HOLY things!? Spiritual and moral leadership? Our leaders can't be moral and spiritual leaders, there's a separation between church and state, remember?

To those who still claim that our society is on some constant noble march of blissful progress, I rest my case.

Mother Teresa and the March for Life

March for Life 2009, the last time I was able to attend

In the great Catholic moral tradition, taking of any innocent human life is an intrinsic evil. Each human is endowed with an immortal soul and is created in the image and likeness of God. This is the basis of our dignity as human persons. Whenever the source of that dignity is clouded or denied, humanity suffers. This is why I will be in Washington, DC this weekend, taking part in the March for Life. I will be there, alongside a crowd of 300,000 others, firmly witnessing by my presence that all life is sacred - from conception until natural death. We have a responsibility to show love and charity to all of our fellow men - especially the most innocent and helpless among us; the poor, the lonely, the elderly, the unborn. Consider these quotes from Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta on the matter:

‎"Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign."

"America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters."

"What is taking place in America is a war against the child. And if we accept that the mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another."

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

Please keep me in your prayers, and say a little prayer for all of our brothers and sisters in Christ - even those yet unborn.

Pope Leo XIII and the Dictatorship of Relativism

I'm not sure what possessed me to do this, but, over the past few days, I've been reading (and annotating, and highlighting, and digesting) Leo XIII's encyclical Libertas which concerns itself with the notion of true, Christian liberty. It is fascinating, nay - astounding, how prophetic Leo's words are (this letter being written in 1888). Often, our current pope discourses and laments on what he terms the 'dictatorship of relativism' - the current vogue intellectual notion that claims that absolute truth is unknowable and each person is free to decide what truths work for them personally. In its extreme, such a philosophy could result in murder being acceptable to one person, but not for another, based on their disagreeing definitions of moral truths. Leo anticipated this radical departure from both faith and reason in Libertas. Have a read for yourself. The excerpt is a bit lengthy, I admit, but intriguing in its foresight nonetheless. Emphases mine.

"The fundamental doctrine of rationalism is the supremacy of human reason, which, refusing due submission to the divine and eternal reason, proclaims its own independence, and constitutes itself the supreme principle and source and judge of truth. Hence, these followers of liberalism deny the existence of any divine authority to which obedience is due, and proclaim that every man is the law to himself; from which arises that ethical system which they style independent morality, and which, under the guise of liberty, exonerates man from any obedience to the commands of God, and substitutes a boundless license. The end of all this it is not difficult to foresee, especially when society is in question. For, when once man is firmly persuaded that he is subject to no one, it follows that the efficient cause of the unity of civil society is not to be sought in any principle external to man, or superior to him, but simply in the free will of individuals; that the authority in the State comes from the people only; and that, just as every man's reason is his only rule of life, so the collective reason of the community should be the supreme guide in the management of all public affairs. Hence the doctrine of the supremacy of the greater number, and that all right and duty reside in the majority. But, from what has been said, it is clear that all this is in contradiction to reason. To refuse any bond of union between man and civil society, on the one hand, and God the Creator and consequently the supreme Law-giver, on the other, is plainly repugnant to the nature, not only of man, but of all created things; for, of necessity, all effects must in some proper way be connected with their cause; and it belongs to the perfection of every nature to contain itself within that sphere and grade which the order of nature has assigned to it, namely, that the lower should be subject and obedient to the higher.

"Moreover, besides this, a doctrine of such character is most hurtful to individuals and to the State. For, once ascribe to human reason the only authority to decide what is true and what is good, and the real distinction between good and evil is destroyed; honor and dishonor differ not in their nature, but in the opinion and judgement of each one; pleasure is the measure of what is lawful; and, given a code of morality which can have little or no power to restrain or quiet the unruly propensities of man, a way is opened to universal corruption. With reference also to public affairs: authority is severed from the true and natural principle whence it derives all its efficacy for the common good; and the law determining what is right to do and avoid doing is at the mercy of the majority. Now, this is simply a road leading straight to tyranny. The empire of God over man and civil society, once repudiated, it follows that religion, as a public institution, can have no claim to exist, and that everything that belongs to religion will be treated with complete indifference."

Many goings-on in our current societal state were predicted in these two paragraphs alone. The supposed power of the majority to overturn natural law (as in the case of redefining marriage). The pursuit of pleasure being made the basis of law. The dictum that all people have a radical right to complete emancipation from participation in the demands of civil society. The animosity toward the Church, which nowadays has to defend its reason as well as its faith, since society has clearly done away with reason.

I encourage all of my readers to read this document in its entirety. It is not that long (as far as Papal encyclicals go), and the dialect is not a huge obstacle. In my ideal world, this would be read in every civics classroom across the land. The full text can be found here.