Blogposts – Page 6

September 14, 2018September 14, 2018

Lay Clericalism and Clerical Laicism

by Alan Fimister

There has been much confusion and some argument (at least implied) during the present crisis as to whether clericalism or homosexuality lies behind the grotesque abuses and crimes that have come to light. It is apparently assumed that ‘clericalism’ is the ‘liberal’ answer and ‘homosexuality’ the ‘conservative’ one. I cannot speak for conservatives as I am an orthodox Catholic and not a conservative. Orthodox Catholics have no stake in defending clericalism, although conservatives might. ‘Conservatives’ in modern parlance are merely right-wing liberals, and clericalism is most comfortable with liberalism. For why should I care what a liberal priest has to say? If he does not represent two thousand years of unbroken apostolic tradition then he is just a perjured middle-aged man in whose opinions I have no interest. For the opinions of a liberal cleric to be of any significance, the clergy must be infused with an idolatrous authority as oracles of the ever changing pantheos. Liberalism within the Church needs clericalism to survive. It is the air it breathes. Continue reading “Lay Clericalism and Clerical Laicism”

August 21, 2018August 21, 2018

The Apostolate of Politics

(Reblogged from Rafael de Arízaga)

The excellent journal American Affairs, which from its very first issue has consistently delivered content of the highest quality to its readers, now publishes an essay on The Eclipse of Catholic Fusionism, by Kevin Gallagher. It is an account of the rise and fall of «fusionism», the alliance of convenience between the disciples of right-wing liberalism and those who sought to defend the moral law of the Church. This settlement, through which Catholics sought to make their mark on politics, reached its highest degree of influence in the Bush II era and into the early years of Obama’s first term. Needless to say, it was a complete political failure. Continue reading “The Apostolate of Politics”

August 16, 2018August 16, 2018

The Josias Podcast, Episode X: Liturgy and the Common Good

Honking geese, Byzantine chariot racing, and a rousing discussion of the deep and essential connection between the liturgy and the common good—in this episode, your hosts are joined by Jonathan Culbreath and Doctor Peter Kwasniewski. Along the way, they discuss the liturgy as focal point for the common good in the church and in secular society, public versus private devotion, and compare Charles de Koninck’s defense of the common good against personalists and totalitarians with Erik Peterson and Romano Guardini’s defense of the liturgy against certain members of the liturgical reform movement. In the end the inevitable technical difficulties serendipitously keep the discussion on time. All this and much, much more!

Music for this episode is the “Sanctus” from the Missa Honorificentia Populi Nostri, by Peter Kwasniewski. The header image shows church bells in Nowa Huta, Poland.

Bibliography

Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., “Politics and the Liturgical Movement,” Sancrucensis (blog), Feb. 8, 2014;
Peter Kwasniewski, “A Defense of Liturgy as ‘Carolingian Court Ritual’,” New Liturgical Movement, Jan. 30, 2017;
Jonathan Culbreath, “Her Sacred Enterprise: Liturgy and the Common Good,” Peregrine Magazine, April 11, 2018;
Adrian Vermeule, “Liturgy of Liberalism” review of Lyszard Legutko , The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies, First Things, Jan. 2017;
Dom Karl Wallner, O. Cist., “The Profanation of the Sacred and the Sacralisation of the Profane,” Aug. 31, 2016;
Erik Peterson, “The Book of the Angels,” in Theological Tractates;
Romano Guardini, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 1918;
Charles De Koninck, On the Primacy of the Common Good: Against the Personalists.

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors(at)thejosias.com. We’d love the feedback.

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P.S. Podcast production is not free—if you would like to help us out or show your support for The Josias, we now have a Patreon page where you can set up a one-time or recurring donation in any amount. Even $1 a month would be awesome. Click here for more.

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June 13, 2018July 20, 2018

The Josias Podcast, Episode IX: Before Church and State

How ought we to think of our common life as human beings created in the image of God? Do our modern habits of thought prevent us from understanding what was going on in the Middle Ages? And more importantly: can the Middle Ages help us to escape the errors embedded in our common life today and thus open a path towards unfeigned peace? What is sovereignty? Is it necessary for peace? How do nature and grace relate, and what follows from that for the relation of temporal and spiritual power? Pater Edmund is joined by Alan Fimister and Andrew Willard Jones to discuss the later’s book Before Church and State.

Bibliography

Andrew Willard Jones, Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX (Steubenville: Emmaus Academic, 2017).
Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
R. W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages, vol. 2 of The Penguin History of the Church (London: Penguin, 1970).
Adrian Vermeule, “Some Questions about Sovereignty for Andrew Willard Jones,” Mirror of Justice (blog), June 10, 2018.
Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist, “An Integralist Manifesto,” review of Andrew Willard Jones, Before Church and State (q.v.), First Things (October 2017).

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors(at)thejosias.com. We’d love the feedback.

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May 18, 2018May 19, 2018

The Josias Podcast, Episode VIII: Basic Concepts – Virtue

A freewheeling discussion in which our editors have a very TAC moment discussing the connection of the music of the spheres and the virtues, and then set out to discuss Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics, but somehow talk more about Plato. Important topics are covered such as, how much virtue does it take to refrain from throwing a baby from an upper-story window? Is there any sense in which Bertrand Russell has virtue? All this, and so much more!

The editors had so much fun that the time slipped by without even getting to the supernatural virtues or the post-enlightenment revolt against virtue.

Bibliography

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics.
Plato,
- Phaedrus.
- The Republic.
- Meno.
St. Thomas Aquinas,
- Summa Theologiae, Ia-IIæ, Q 49-89 (“Treatise on Habits”).
- Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIæ, Q 47-122 (“Treatise on Prudence and Justice”).
- Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIæ, Q 123-170 (“Treatise on Fortitude and Temperance”).
Duane Berquist, Lectures on Ethics.
Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., The Good, The Highest Good, and the Common Good, The Josias (2015).

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors(at)thejosias.com. We’d love the feedback.

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May 9, 2018February 28, 2020

Liberalism’s Fear

By Adrian Vermeule

In honor of Prof. Ryszard Legutko and his book, The Demon in Democracy, the Consul-General of Poland, Maciej Golubiewski, convened an event on May 9, 2018, to address the following topic: “Democratic Reformers or Illiberal Backsliders? Poland and the challenges of sovereign politics in the West.” Professor Vermeule has kindly agreed to allow us to publish the illuminating remarks that he delivered at this event. One need not think democracy is the best form of government to realize that it is not, in and of itself, liberal. Liberalism, however, needs democracy, or more precisely it needs the “periodic ceremony” of democracy.
–The Editors

I want to thank the Consul-General for arranging this event. It’s always a pleasure to have a chance to honor Prof. Legutko, whose book helped to awaken so many of us from our modernist slumbers, into the light of a new dogmatism.

The title of the panel is “Democratic Reformers or Illiberal Backsliders?” And my answer is “Both.” Let me start with a puzzle. I know, or know of, a number of U.S. and U.K. academics, journalists, and other intelligentsia who spend their careers in a state that can only be described as professional hysteria, particularly directed at Poland, Hungary, and Brexit. In this state of hysteria, the meanings of words are redefined. The Polish election, although free and fair, represents a threat to “democracy”; the passage of legislation according to constitutional procedures, such as the Polish parliamentary law on the judiciary, becomes a threat to the “rule of law”; and so forth. What is the root cause of this extraordinary reaction?

Continue reading “Liberalism’s Fear”

March 28, 2018March 31, 2018

The Josias Podcast, Episode VII: Atonement and Salvation

That Christ died for our sins is at the heart of of the Christian faith: “For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received: how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3). But what does it mean that He died for our sins? How did Christ’s death save and redeem us? Prof. Michael Waldstein and Professor Timothy Kelly join the editors to contemplate the mysteries of salvation.

The theme of today’s episode is closely linked to our project at The Josias, as we write in our About page, “A truly Catholic account of politics cannot be understood except with reference to the whole perennial wisdom of practical and speculative philosophy, and to the integral tradition of Sacred Theology.” Today we contemplate the “vertiginous heights” of Sacred Theology.

Bibliography

St. Anselm of Cantebury, Cur Deus Homo.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa Q 48.
Norbert Hoffmann, “Atonement and the Ontological Coherence Between the Cross and the Trinity,” in: Toward a Civilization of Love, trans. Erasmo Leivo (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985) 213-66.
Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., Desire, Deicide, and Atonement: René Girard and St. Thomas Aquinas, Sancrucensis (2016).
Michael Maria Waldstein, Harmony and the Scriptures: Lenten Reflections on Harnoncourt and Bach, First Things (Web Exclusive, 2017).

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors(at)thejosias.com. We’d love the feedback.

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March 23, 2018March 24, 2018

The Josias Podcast, Episode VI: Ralliement

Historian and theologian Alan Fimister joins the editors to discuss whether Pope Leo XIII was right to ask French Catholics to recognize the Third Republic. And more generally: does political engagement in modern parliamentary politics engender liberalism in Catholics? What form of government is best anyway? Alan defends the Lancastrian theory of the English Constitution as a mixed-form republic as the best.

Bibliography

Alan Fimister, Robert Schuman: Neo-Scholastic Humanism and the Reunification of Europe (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2008).
Alan Fimister, Interview: Catholic Origins of the European Union Zenit (2008).
Petrus Hispanus, The Primary Political Question: A Response to Milco on Liberalism, The Josias (2016).
Pope Leo XIII, Au milieu des sollicitudes (1892).
Roberto de Mattei, The Ralliement of Leo XIII: A Pastoral Experience That Moved Away from Doctrine, Rorate Cæli (2015).
Pius VI, Quare lacrymae (1793).
Adrian Vermeule, Ralliement: Two Distinctions, The Josias (2018).
Felix de St. Vincent, Four Catholic Political Postures: Lessons from Leo XIII and Ralliement, The Josias (2017).
Edmund Waldstein, Ralliement! Ralliement! Ralliement!, Sancrucensis (2017)
Edmund Waldstein, Catholic Action and Ralliement, The Josias (2016).
Edmund Waldstein, The Politics of Nostalgia, Sancrucensis (2014).

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors@thejosias.com. We’d love the feedback.

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February 13, 2018February 13, 2018

The Josias Podcast, Episode V: Liberalism (Part 2)

Restlessly seek power after power ceasing only in death, or just try to be a little crueler every day? Wherein the gang flows along the surface of life’s path as they please; unleash Newman’s critique of political liberalism; ponder what it means for liberal education that Basil and Julian were fellow-students at the schools of Athens; decry the shortcomings and superficialities of great books educations; and ask whether Christians can be gentlemen in the end.

All this and much more!

Bibliography for pts 1 & 2:

Susannah Black, “On Presley Progressivism“
Patrick Deneen, “A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching,” The American Conservative (2014)
Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (Yale, 2016)
Ryszard Legutko, The Demon in Democracy (Encounter, 2016)
Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan [1651], (Hackett, 1994)
The Complete Essays of Montaigne, ed. Donald Frame (Stanford, 1958)
John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University [1852], ed. Martin Svaglic (Notre Dame, 1984)
John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua [1864], ed. Ian Ker (Penguin, 1994)
John Henry Newman, “Biglietto Speech” (1879)
John Rawls, Political Liberalism [1993], (Columbia, 2005)
Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge, 1989)
Gabriel Sanchez, “Illiberal Catholicism One Year On,” Front Porch Republic (2015)
Judith Shklar, Ordinary Vices (Harvard, 1984)
Felix de St. Vincent, “Four Catholic Political Postures,” The Josias (2017)
Edmund Waldstein, “Contrasting Concepts of Freedom,” The Josias (2016)

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors@thejosias.com. We’d love the feedback.

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February 2, 2018April 12, 2018

The Josias Podcast, Episode V: Liberalism (Part 1)

The philosophers have only interpreted liberals in various ways. The point, however, is to own them.

Wherein liberalism is said in many ways, and revealed in Strauss’s war on the Redemptorists, and whether or not the Abbot of Heiligenkreuz should have the power of life or death over local peasants. The hosts are joined by Felix de St Vincent, for a rousing discussion over what liberalism is, when it began, and whether it is necessary to be “cruel to be kind, in the right measure.”

Stay tuned for part 2 where we determine whether opposing liberalism means embracing cruelty, discuss Cardinal Newman’s definition of a gentleman, and much more.

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors@thejosias.com. We’d love the feedback.

P.S. Podcast production is not free—if you would like to help us out or show your support for The Josias, we now have a Patreon page where you can set up a one-time or recurring donation in any amount. Even $1 a month would be awesome. Click here for more.

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