New theory: anyone who gets heavily into

New theory: anyone who gets heavily into running is either on the cusp of, or just emerging from, a severe existential crisis. #ForrestGump

If you push someone out the window to his death…

Cover via Amazon

…is the law of gravity an accomplice?

Recently I caused a small dust-up at my Facebook page by citing (approvingly) Pope Francis in this recent Business Insider story, ”Not paying fairly … [and] only looking at how to make a profit … goes against God!” and then adding, “I do wonder what, technically and practically, he means by ‘not paying fairly’. What wage would he set up in Bangladesh, exactly? My question is of the ‘Yes, and then…?’ kind. Remove all those low-paying jobs in the name of dignity! Yes! And then replace them with what? And by whom?”

Here are some of the responses I got:

A: $50 a month is not a fair wage in any country. … The bottom line, especially among so-called Christian companies should not be profit, but what is right and just before God.

B: A living one…

C: No easy answers. Everyone should be worthy of work that gives them a sense of dignity and purpose.

D: If a business cannot afford to pay its bread and butter employees a fair wage, it does not have a solvent business model.

This led me to ruminate a few days later:

There’s a twofold reason economics is called the dismal science: either because its best conclusions are sentimentally unappealing, or because its more aesthetically appealing claims are also its most vague and impractical. I sometimes joke with students who ask me, “What’s the answer to X?” by saying, “The correct answer.” Unfortunately, when I ask what the “moral” or “religious” solution to labor injustice is, I hear that it’s a living wage, a matter of equity/dignity, complex but obviously not Y, etc. That kind of reply, however, is a case of the second mode of how economics is dismal: it’s sentimentally attractive precisely because it’s so vague and protean. It allows one to say the right things without providing any clear, real-world measures for actually solving the problem. Blame the bankers! Blame the businessmen! Blame The Man! (Err, did someone say “Blame The Jew!”?) Yawn. So I find my choices as a socially minded Catholic, frankly, extremely gloomy. I can reject capitalist reasoning on theological and moral grounds, but be rationally unconvinced of the economic coherence of “moral” economics, or reject ephemeral rhetoric about “social justice”, but be labeled a Heartless White Male Oppressor™. Hrmph. Now I’ll get back to reconciling myself to the economic equivalent of Young Earth Creationism.

I don’t care how old it is…

It still sucks.

108-year-old vacuum cleaner rescued from the scrap heap and it STILL WORKS

dailymail.uk.co – Suzannah Hills
UPDATED: 04:37 EST, 2 March 2012

Why no pro-choice person can accuse Gosnell…

In the Womb (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From Mirror of Justice:

Had [Gosnell] killed the babies while they were still in their mothers’ bodies … that would not have been a crime. He merely would have been assisting his patients in exercising what the Supreme Court deems a constitutional right. So why, he would like to know, is he being prosecuted for killing the same babies moments later after they precipitated? … How can it be that killing a baby inside the womb is perfectly acceptable while killing the very same baby (or even a baby that is a few days or even weeks younger) outside the womb is first degree murder? … A baby’s status as a precious member of the human family, possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity, does not depend on something as morally arbitrary as his or her location. But if we permit the Gosnells of the world to kill babies inside the womb, it seems odd to charge them with murder for killing them outside the womb.

The irony is that a common argument against defenders of marriage and sexual morality, is that such defenders are secretly just basing their position on an “ick” factor, on a personal distaste for such practices. Yet here we have pro-choice people with nothing but an “ick” factor as their basis for convicting Gosnell of true malfeasance.

Related articles

• Why Kermit Gosnell should be acquitted (liveactionnews.org)
• Even abortion industry insiders ‘freaked out’ by Gosnell (wnd.com)
• Gosnell: The New Dred Scott Case? (americanthinker.com)

Links and resources to read or discuss later-soon…

So, you might think I’ma jackasass for presenting a post like this: unhyperlinked URLs to things I haven’t even read yet! But in fact, I’m partially keeping records for myself and partially inviting you to read them before, or, even better, without my reactions.

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The following are (some of) James Chastek’s reflections on the Five Ways and the Fourth Way. I dug them up after my own latest grappling with the Quarta Via a few weeks ago. In chronological order:

http://thomism.wordpress.com/2007/02/11/the-five-ways-in-general/

http://thomism.wordpress.com/2007/04/27/the-order-of-the-five-ways/

http://thomism.wordpress.com/2007/09/13/the-order-of-the-five-ways-2/

http://thomism.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/the-spirituality-of-the-five-ways/

http://thomism.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/the-fourth-way-part-i/

http://thomism.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/the-five-ways-and-contingency-as-being-after/

http://thomism.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/the-fourth-way-interpreted-through-logic/

http://thomism.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/the-thomism-of-richard-dawkins/

http://thomism.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/disputed-question-on-the-key-premise-in-the-fourth-way/

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The Folly of Scientism by Austin L. Hughes – http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism

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Perhaps it was left over suffering from Lent, but a week or two ago I had a blog combox interaction about apophatic theology, which, while I believe it’s good and valid, is usually also a major headache to talk about. Or, as one of my friends puts it, “The first rule of apophatic theology is… well… you know.” So here’s an article I want to dig into a bit when I get the chance. - http://www.arsdisputandi.org/index.html?http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000165/index.html

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Lonergan on St. Thomas’ Theory of Operation – http://www.ts.mu.edu/readers/content/pdf/3/3.3/3.3.3.pdf

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A. N. Williams‘s The Ground of Union available in full, apparently, at scribd DOT com – http://zh.scribd.com/doc/72619413/The-Ground-of-Union-Deification-in-Aquinas-and-Palamas

Similarly, the first 10% or so of Duncan Reid’s Energies of the Spirit is available via Google Books – http://books.google.com/books?id=z-wo7-bQg4oC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Eastern Papal Florilegium

Emblem of the Papacy: Triple tiara and keys. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

[I originally posted this florilegium in June, 2007, at my former veniaminov.blogspot.com blog, updated and polished it about two years later, and now decided to re-post it here at WordPress. You can peruse addenda to this post here.]

Once upon a time, the Pontificator pointed out how, despite Pope St. Gregory’s clear insistence on the universal supremacy of Rome, he is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. [NOTE: The archives for the Pontificator's original Pontifications blog were almost all lost––or maybe not!––when he set up a new Pontifications blog, and on top of that, he recently gave up blogging altogether. Thank God he's too busy being a Roman Catholic priest! –– EBB 27 Jun 07 {Alas, Fr. Kimel eventually broke communion with the Catholic Church and is, last I heard, a priest in a ROCOR parish. His latest blog is Eclectic Orthodoxy. He's been through quite a lot. –– EBB 14 Apr 2013}] The declarations of papal supremacy by Gregory the Great, as well his predecessor, Pope St. Leo the Great (also a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church) are perhaps sufficient in themselves to demonstrate the explicit ancient basis for papal supremacy in the Tradition, East and West.

To quote Pope Leo the Great at his most papal:

The Lord . . . wanted His gifts to flow into the entire body from Peter himself, as if from the head, in such a way that anyone who had dared to separate himself from the solidarity of Peter would realize that he was himself no longer a sharer in the divine mystery . . . The Apostolic See . . . has on countless occasions been reported to in consultation by bishops . . . And through the appeal of various cases to this see, decisions already made have been either revoked or confirmed, as dictated by longstanding custom.
(Letter to the Bishops of Vienne, July, 445 A.D., 10:1-2; in Jurgens, William A., ed. and tr., The Faith of the Early Fathers [FEF], 3 volumes, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1970, vol. 3, p. 269)

Although bishops have a common dignity, they are not all of the same rank. Even among the most blessed Apostles, though they were alike in honor, there was a certain distinction of power. All were equal in being chosen, but it was given to one to be preeminent over the others . . . the care of the universal Church would converge in the one See of Peter, and nothing should ever be at odds with this head.
(Letter to Bishop Anastasius of Thessalonica, c.446 A.D., 14:11; in Jurgens, FEF, vol. 3, p. 270)

From the whole world only one, Peter, is chosen to preside over the calling of all nations, and over all the other Apostles, and over the Fathers of the Church . . . Peter . . . rules them all, of whom, too, it is Christ who is their chief ruler. Divine condescension, dearly beloved, has granted to this man in a wonderful and marvelous manner the aggregate of its power; and if there was something that it wanted to be his in common with other leaders, it never gave whatever it did not deny to others except through him.
(Sermons, 4:2; in Jurgens, FEF, vol. 3, p. 275)

[Cf. also Vladimir Soloviev, The Russian Church and the Papacy {El Cajon, CA: Catholic Answers, Inc., 2001}, pp. 163ff., for additional striking quotations by Pope Leo IV explicating and asserting his papal sovereignty, insofar as "Peter does not cease to preside in his See and his consortium with the Eternal Pontiff never fails" Works, ed. Migne, 1846, etc., I:155-56}.]

In similar fashion, as Gregory the Great said,

To all who know the Gospel it is clear that by the words of our Lord the care of the whole Church was committed to Blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles . . . Behold, he received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the power to bind and loose was given to him, and the care and principality of the entire church was committed to him . . . Yet he was not the universal Apostle. But . . . John would be called universal Bishop . . . [Popes had never assumed this title, though it had been given them], lest all the Bishops be deprived of their due meed of honor whilst some special honor be conceded to one.
(Epistles, 5, 37; to Emperor Maurice)

In canonizing and venerating these two popes (not to mention the many other popes it has canonized), the Eastern Orthodox Church has enshrined two of the most ardent and lucid defenders of papal supremacy, and eo ipso entrenched papal supremacy, in its own pre-schism Tradition. As the Pontificator says,

What does one do with this development? Should St Gregory have his sainthood taken away from him? It’s clear that papal primacy was not a medieval corruption. It has its roots in the Patristic period (and of course Catholics would say that it has its roots in Scripture).

A reader (Mr. Jones again) objected that “more is required to establish Papal supremacy than a ‘Because I say so’ coming from a Pope.” This is a valid point, as far as it goes. Why trust a pope about the pope? For that matter, why trust Western theology, the rootbed of the papacy, in this debate? What we need is the pure and unpapalized lumen orientalum. So, I decided to compile this long list of (primarily Eastern) patristic and canonical quotations about the Petrine credentials of the Roman See.

[NOTE: I'm happy to report that, since I first posted this florilegium, I heeded the counsel of these Fathers and became a Catholic (on 27 March 2005) in communion with the bishop of Rome.]

If there’s one thing I can’t stand…

Cover of The Teachings of the Church Fathers

…it’s a bad book review.

And this is a lousy book review.

Of John Willis’s The Teachings of the Church Fathers.

Or more precisely, of the 2002 Ignatius Press edition of Fr. Willis’s 1966 book of the same title, a chronological detail which is of some importance as far as the lousy review of it goes, as we’ll see shortly.

The one thing I can say for C. J. Petersson’s lousy review is that it’s short. (I would also like to say it’s honest, but, as my response will argue, it’s not even that). In his own words:

If you’re looking for a book on the Church Fathers, this one is probably NOT what you’re looking for.

The aim of this book is to present church doctrine. It contains 250 headings that are chosen in accordance with the Cathechism [sic] of the Roman Catholic Church. Each one describes a point of dogma according to the Church’s official teaching and offers some quotes from the ante-Nicene Fathers to support it. The point the writer is trying to make is that the teaching of today’s Catholic Church doesn’t differ from what the Fathers taught. If that is what you’re interested in, then this book might be something for you.

For me, however, it was a disappointment. Willis doesn’t let the Fathers speak for themselves, and the book doesn’t really give an impression of what the theology of the Fathers is all about. Willis is trying to impose a medieval or post-medieval way of presenting the Christian faith on the patristic era.

Sigh. At least I can find some solace in the fact that only 40% of readers find his (?) review helpful.

This is the reply I left under Petersson’s review….