Debemus: In Defense of Fr. Cessario, Bl. Pius IX, and the Catholic Faith

by Frater Asinus


J.M.J.

Despite its having taken place in 1858, the so-called “Mortara Affair” has recently caused much debate to erupt in Catholic circles. This recent debate was occasioned by Fr. Romanus Cessario’s book review in First Things, Non Possumus,” which examines a newly released translation of Fr. Edgardo Mortara’s memoirs. Mortara was the child of a Jewish family living in the Papal States in the city of Bologna. As an infant he fell ill, and the doctors were convinced that he was about to die. The Mortara’s maid, Anna “Nina” Morisi, a Catholic woman, baptized Edgardo, without his parents’ knowledge. Some years later, when Edgardo was six years old, officials were made aware of Edgardo’s baptism. Accordingly, they went to the Mortaras to assure that their son Edgardo was educated in accordance with his baptism. The Mortaras refused to allow him to be educated at a local boarding school, so instead, Edgardo was taken and essentially raised under the care of Pius IX himself. In his review, Fr. Cessario defends Pius IX in his handling of the Mortara Affair. Continue reading “Debemus: In Defense of Fr. Cessario, Bl. Pius IX, and the Catholic Faith”

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.

The Philosophy of Art

by Thomas Storck


The word art generally suggests to most people some actual artistic creation, a sculpture or painting or the like. Or it might suggest a technique for making such an object. Either of these could be meant by a phrase such as, He is studying art, meaning either that he is studying works of art, art history, or that he is studying how to create works of art himself. The second of these two senses of art is closer to the classic definition of art as given by Aristotle in his Ethics VI, 4 as “the reasoned state of capacity to make” or “a rational faculty exercised in making something.”[1] This definition was repeated and made his own by St. Thomas Aquinas, who expressed it in Latin by the phrase recta ratio factibilium, the right conception or reason or understanding of a thing that is to be made.[2] The twentieth-century philosopher Jacques Maritain explains this definition in these words: Continue reading “The Philosophy of Art”

The Josias Podcast, Episode IV: Nature, Natural Ends, and the Enlightenment (Part 2)

Building off our previous conversation, this episode (iTunesGoogle Play) takes the question of nature and natural ends more into the modern era. What’s going on with natural order in the work of modern philosophers like Descartes, Hume, and Kant? What should we think about all of this? What does Pope Francis say? We promise it won’t put you to sleep, unless you’re trying to fall asleep.

 

The Josias Podcast, Episode IV: Nature, Natural Ends, and the Enlightenment (Part 1)

Do rocks have purpose? Are they essentially headed somewhere? What about plants? Humans? The stars? In part one of this episode (iTunesGoogle Play) we touch on a bunch of questions related to the idea that the universe is ordered and things have intrinsic ends. The episode kicks off with some awesome music taken from the film Koyaanisqatsi, and continues with a riveting discussion of Aristotle, celestial bodies, and the implications of the idea of intrinsic ends for our worldview at large.

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

 

On the City of God Against the Pagans

by Alan Fimister


The doctrine of the two cities, which finds its greatest expression in the work we are to examine today, is not the construct of some theologian, however great. It is an essential element in God’s revelation to mankind, vital to the correct understanding of the personal and institutional history of each individual and society and of every book of scripture from Genesis to Revelation. The great Pope Leo XIII frequently alluded to this doctrine in his encyclical letters, not least in the thundering opening of Humanum Genus promulgated in 1884.

“The race of man, after its miserable fall from God, the Creator and the Giver of heavenly gifts, ‘through the envy of the devil,’ separated into two diverse and opposite parts, of which the one steadfastly contends for truth and virtue, the other for those things which are contrary to virtue and to truth. The one is the kingdom of God on earth, namely, the true Church of Jesus Christ; and those who desire from their heart to be united with it, so as to gain salvation, must of necessity serve God and His only-begotten Son with their whole mind and with an entire will. The other is the kingdom of Satan, in whose possession and control are all whosoever follow the fatal example of their leader and of our first parents, those who refuse to obey the divine and eternal law, and who have many aims of their own in contempt of God, and many aims also against God. This twofold kingdom St. Augustine keenly discerned and described after the manner of two cities, contrary in their laws because striving for contrary objects; and with a subtle brevity he expressed the efficient cause of each in these words: ‘Two loves formed two cities: the love of self, reaching even to contempt of God, an earthly city; and the love of God, reaching to contempt of self, a heavenly one.’ At every period of time each has been in conflict with the other, with a variety and multiplicity of weapons and of warfare, although not always with equal ardour and assault.”

Continue reading “On the City of God Against the Pagans”

The Josias Podcast, Episode III: Basic Concepts – Right, Rights, and the Law

What does it mean for something to be someone’s “right”? What is “a right”? Turns out “right” and “law” are closer in meaning than you might think. Joined by a guest, in this episode (iTunesGoogle Play) we cover the main points of classical and modern rights theory. Along the way we’ll talk about Spanish painters, Austrian democracy, and what to do when a mob of townspeople destroys your property.

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.

 

Four Basic Political Principles in Christian Philosophy

by Felix de St. Vincent


Christian political philosophy has two masters and four basic principles. Hippo and Aquino claim its two masters: Ss. Augustine and Thomas. They, in turn, can lay claim to teaching four basic Christian principles of politics and political rule:

  • First, politics and political rule is natural and good.
  • Second, sin vitiates our nature and therefore makes politics and political rule difficult.
  • Third, the purpose of politics and political rule is to make human beings better.
  • Fourth, politics and political rule is a limited means.

Five hundred years ago, political thinking began abandoning the Third Principle, viz., that politics is supposed to make human beings better. Modern politics and political philosophers now abandon most, if not all, of these principles. Christians should not. Or if they do, Christians should at least be aware that they are rejecting the wisdom of Augustine and Thomas. Ideally, they would know why they reject the basic principles of Christian political philosophy. But let me simply clarify that these four basic principles are foundational aspects of a coherent, consistent, continuous body of political-philosophical thought.

The aforementioned basic principles are contained primarily in two large texts: Augustine’s City of God and Thomas’s Summa Theologiae—at least its so-called “Treatise on Law,” ST I-II qq. 90-108. Augustine writes primarily for Rome’s public men, Christian and pagan, who are versed in the philosophers of Late Antiquity. Thomas clarifies his teaching.

If Augustine needs clarifying, it is because he paints an unflattering picture of political history. His rhetorical purpose is to show that Christian political wisdom has something new and true to teach the world, and to completely undermine the statesmen, philosophers, and historians who point to a simpler golden age where Roman mores were uncorrupted. Political history is painted with the broad brush of the “City of Man” and the “earthly city.” These names even mis-specify human politics too narrowly: while Adam and Eve are its revolutionary liberators and Cain is its founding father, Satan is its influential political theorist. The ancient empires worship various fallen angels. Rome, consecrated to them by Numa Pompilius, is no exception. Human politics is and always will be a beachhead for the City of Hell, and a communion of sinners that is a dark counterfeit of the communion of saints.

Since he paints the Second Principle, viz., that sin vitiates human nature and makes politics difficult, so vividly, Augustine is often said to reject the First Principle, viz., that politics is natural and good. Three proof-texts often surface to demonstrate that Augustine thinks politics properly speaking—and not just politics ‘as we know it’—is the result of sin and evil. Two are in Book 4: Augustine approves of the pirate who dares to tell Alexander, ‘justice removed, what is a kingdom but a large band of robbers’; and Augustine says if men were peaceful and just, ‘there would be as many kingdoms among nations as houses in a large city.’ The supposed linchpin, often cited, is in Book 19, where God gives Adam dominion only over the lower animals.

The first two proof-texts are easily dealt with. First, by insisting that kingdoms require real justice, Augustine is preparing his critique of Scipio’s definition of the commonwealth in Cicero’s Republic, which requires only an agreement vis-à-vis what is just. Augustine will argue that Christians can pierce the veils of glory and lust for power, see clearly what is truly just, and rule commonwealths where true justice is loved. In ST I-II q. 90, Thomas will later call this, following Aristotle’s direction—but daring to tread where Aristotle does not ultimately go—the ‘common good’ towards which our natural reason can guide the lawmaker. Politics is natural in the sense that the virtues are natural. Second, Augustine does not say that every household would be a kingdom, but that a sinless world would not have great empires but thousands of small kingdoms. This is reaffirmed in On the Free Choice of the Will where Augustine argues that, were all men just and peaceful, they could trust one another to choose their own leaders. Rulers should make human beings better so that they are worthy of democracy, like the Israelites who, as Thomas reminds us in ST I-II q.105, democratically chose the seventy-two elders ‘from among the people’ in the ‘mixed regime’ of Moses.

In ST I-II q. 96, Thomas clarifies that being ‘subject to law,’ can mean being subject to coercion or ruled by a higher law. We might understand the ‘dominion’ Augustine discusses in The City of God, Book 19, in this light. God does not intend anyone to be subject to coercive domination, since he intends everyone to be subject to the higher law. Neither Augustine nor Thomas think that coercive rule in the usual sense of the master-slave relationship is natural, although rational political rule is.

Like Augustine, Thomas is well aware that human beings universally suffer the effects of sin, and are born with concupiscible and irascible aspects. There may be entire societies that are disordered, Thomas concedes in ST I-II q. 94, like the Gauls whom Caesar claimed approved of theft. But this is not what Thomas means by nature, or the natural law that he writes in ST I-II q. 90 that is inextinguishable in us.

Both the First and the Second Principle are now clearer. In a world of perfect, ‘unfallen’ human beings, government would be rationally oriented towards the common good. The sinless would have the natural law in their hearts. Sin is the source of all political problems.

Now let us turn to what Thomas says the purpose of law is in ST I-II q. 92, viz., ‘to make men good.’ This is the promise that Augustine sees in the Christian statesman; Book 11 underlines the difference between the rational values of things and their use-value. The Christian statesman is able to see that the slave has an inestimably higher value in the eyes of God—in the rational order of the cosmos—than a jewel, even if the jewel has a higher price, use-value, and is coveted more than the slave. To become good, for Augustine, is to be converted away from the lust for mastery and the desire for glory—which can only inspire counterfeit virtues—and to see things as they really are. Pride makes us objectify persons and objects according to our own purposes for them; humility allows us to see things as they really are in their nature, according to God’s purpose. Human nature is such that God created the race through a single individual, Augustine argues in Book 12, so it would be obvious that we are made to live in gregarious concord with one another, not as slaves to our lust. To the extent that the City of God is ascendant in human affairs, the cities of the world will be ruled by the one source of lasting peace.

Of course, the wounds of sin cannot be healed completely by politics. We also learn in Book 11 that the two cities will be admixed forever in this present world. Thomas turns to Augustine’s On the Free Choice of the Will to puts a sharper point on the limits of political rule in ST I-II q. 96, where he proposes that human beings can only be led gradually to virtue. The law can lead human beings to every virtue, but cannot ordain all the acts of the virtues. This is not simply for practical reasons, either; one can be a tyrant not only by commanding one’s subjects do to evil, but by overstepping the limits of one’s authority. Human law, Thomas argues in ST I-II q. 98, is ordered towards making human beings better so that there can be temporal peace. To imagine that laws can lead human beings to the end of their eternal happiness is to attempt to do with coercive power what can only be done with grace. As Thomas remarks, importantly, on another occasion:

Man is not ordained to the body politic, according to all that he is and has; and so it does not follow that every action of his acquires merit or demerit in relation to the body politic. But all that man is, and can, and has, must be referred to God: and therefore every action of man, whether good or bad, acquires merit or demerit in the sight of God, as far as the action itself is concerned. (ST I-IIae, q.21 a.3 ad3)

Both the Third and Fourth Principles are now clearer. A politics of the common good consists in making each member of the political community more virtuous. However, both the means by which and the ends for which the political ruler can promote the common good are limited.

Christian political philosophy is more focused on the common good than the kind of regimes that should be devised; thus, Thomas wrote a commentary on the first three books of Aristotle’s Politics but not the last five. Two important exceptions come to mind. First, the theology of human nature and the Fall provide Augustine and Thomas additional arguments against slave-mastery as a legitimate mode of political rule, beyond any of those found in Aristotle. Second, Augustine and Thomas seem to think that the more the common good is achieved, the more fitted citizens will be for ruling and being ruled in turn democratically, in the context of a mixed regime with aristocratic and kingly elements.

How we think about politics today is complicated by the rush to consider the proper spheres of Church and family, as the exigencies of our time require. The four basic principles simplify the Christian political philosophy of the proper sphere of the “state,” or the temporal power, so that we neither exaggerate nor denigrate the sphere in which it ought to operate.

Liberal thought, now in its second ascendancy, is originally premised on a rejection of the Third Principle, viz. that politics ought to make men better. Liberals suspect that this premise leads to irreconcilable conflicts, and makes violence inevitable. Christians traditionally suspect the opposite: if we do not aspire together to our better natures, we allow men to be wolves.

The Josias Podcast, Episode II: Basic Concepts – Integralism

Antiliberalism? Illiberalism? Crypto-neo-facsco-socialist-theocracy? In this episode (iTunesGoogle Play), we discuss a variety of jargon terms used to describe different schools of Catholic political thought. And we talk about Freemasons. And Mozart. And Sicilian uprisings. And many other things. We had so much fun we just kept going for 90 minutes, so pace yourself, dear listener. Lots of goodness ahead.

The Josias Podcast, Episode I: Basic Concepts – The Common Good

“The Common Good” is a bland, empty phrase that gets tossed around a lot. In our inaugural podcast, ( iTunes) the editors of The Josias are here to take back The Common Good and give it some substance. Along the way we’ll encounter some Nazis, do battle with unnamed French Thomists, and record and delete an entire 12 minute segment about Schubert.