Dominican Idaho: Constitutional aside

Friday, June 13, 2008

Constitutional aside

Hat tip to Southern Appeal

2 comments:

John Keenan, OPLJune 13, 2008 12:25 PM
When principle is made subject to political power, then tyranny results. The infirmity of constitutional government is symptomatic where the will of the people is clearly expressed, yet is made subjected to judicial whim and personal political preferences are the basis of law. Like abortion and the law, the logic of homosexual marriage is no logic at all and leads to strange twists and turns and legal nonsense. Where right order and principle rule, all men are subject; but without it, the only principle is the degree of power men are willing to use, and when the influential comprehend no legal limits, then tyranny and terror are the result.
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John Keenan, OPLJune 22, 2008 12:03 AM
"stare decisis" is a doctrine of precedent, which simply means to stand on the prior position that was taken by a court. In other words, when a modern court believes in the principle of a living and moveable document, they safely use precedent when it fits a prior activist judge, and when it might force a judge to stay with an undesired result, precedent is no barrier. Thank God for judges that stay with the law as written in the constitution.
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The child, who does not think about so serious a thing as health, dreams of meals that are made up of desserts. Men and women, who do not think about so serious a thing as living, dream of a life that consists only of sweetness, soft music and rest to the echo of applause and gently sympathetic understanding. But meals are never like that; neither is life. In the same vein, our modern men and women dream of God as a being of whom no one could ever be afraid, a gentle, stupid god who would allow men and women to ruin themselves and then admire them for the work they had done in destroying his masterpiece. You see they never really think about God, for God is not like that.

Walter Farrell, O.P., A Companion to the Summa, Volume III CHAPTER I -- FREEDOM FOR THE MIND (Q. 1-9)

A Modern Lexicon

Liturgeist - What you get when the poltergeist of Vatican II possesses a "Liturgist"

Regurgical Dancing - A spectacle that makes you want to spew.

NASDI - "New-Age Skank Dance Improv," see Regurgical Dance (better yet, don't)

Orientemophobia - Fear of facing the Lord.

Ad Oscillating - When a Priest in fan-shaped church turns like a lawn sprinkler to make eye contact with everyone.

Stolecism - The practice, always and everwhere to be reprehended, of wearing a stold over a chasuble, instead of the other way around.

Hyperstolecism- The practice of not only wearing the stole over the chasuble, but wearing the wrong-colored stole in an attempt to be cute (e.g., a green stole over a purple chasuble for St. Patrick's Day).

Crusurpation- When a lay extraordinary minister of Holy Communion attempts to bestow a priestly blessing upon a child or a non-Catholic during Communion.

Shambulation- The priestly practice of strutting around the sanctuary during the homily, instead of delivering the homily from the pulpit.

New Cosmetology- Usually abreviated "New Cosmology," an alternate reality where the universe of make-up and hair styling destroys habits and obedience.

Ad-liburgy- The priestly practice of making up rubrics on the fly.

Gagnificent- bad contemporary art used wherever sacred art should be (think of the Los Angeles Cathedral).

This list will grow if you send me your recommendations

Thomas explains

I answer that, Neither living nor lifeless faith remains in a heretic who disbelieves one article of faith.

The reason of this is that the species of every habit depends on the formal aspect of the object, without which the species of the habit cannot remain. Now the formal object of faith is the First Truth, as manifested in Holy Writ and the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth. Consequently whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and Divine rule, to the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth manifested in Holy Writ, has not the habit of faith, but holds that which is of faith otherwise than by faith. Even so, it is evident that a man whose mind holds a conclusion without knowing how it is proved, has not scientific knowledge, but merely an opinion about it. Now it is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will. Hence it is evident that a heretic who obstinately disbelieves one article of faith, is not prepared to follow the teaching of the Church in all things; but if he is not obstinate, he is no longer in heresy but only in error. Therefore it is clear that such a heretic with regard to one article has no faith in the other articles, but only a kind of opinion in accordance with his own will. (Summa, IIa IIae Q5 a3)

Hillaire Belloc in his commentary on Modernism as a heresy states: "[t]here is no such thing as a religion called "Christianity" - there never has been such a religion".

"There is and always has been the Church, and various heresies proceeding from a rejection of some of the Church's doctrines by men who still desire to retain the rest of her teaching and morals. But there never has been and never can be or will be a general Christian religion professed by men who all accept some central important doctrines, while agreeing to differ about others. There has always been from the beginning and will always be the Church, and sundry heresies either doomed to decay, or, like Mohammedanism, to grow into a separate religion. Of a common Christianity there never has been and never can be a definition, for it has never existed."

Belloc goes on to state, "[t]here is no essential doctrine such that if we can agree upon it we can agree to differ about the rest: as for instance to accept immorality but deny the Trinity. A man will call himself a Christian though he denies the unity of the Christian Church; he will call himself a Christian though he denies the presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; he will cheerfully call himself a Christian though he denies the Incarnation."

As Belloc states, the battle to retain our liberty is ultimately a battle which will be won or lost based upon our adherence to the truth which rests in the Church and not in some esoteric version of christianity. "No: the quarrel is between the Church and the anti-Church-the Church of God and the anti-God--the Church of Christ and the anti-Christ" Belloc.

"The truth is becoming every day so much more obvious that within a few years it will be universally admitted. I do not entitle the modern attack "anti-Christ" though in my heart I believe that to be the true term for it: No, I do not give it that name because it would seem for the moment exaggerated. But the name doesn't matter. Whether we call it "The Modern Attack" or "anti-Christ" it is all one; there is a clear issue now joined between the retention of Catholic morals, tradition, and authority on the one side, and the active effort to destroy them on the other. The modern attack will not tolerate us. It will attempt to destroy us. Nor can we tolerate it. We must attempt to destroy it as being the fully equipped and ardent enemy of the Truth by which men live. The duel is to the death."

Idaho: home of the Utah Lottery

For there must be also heresies: that they also,
who are approved may be made manifest among you. [1 Cor 11:19]

"You seek me", St. Augustine comments, "for the flesh, not for the spirit. How many seek Jesus for no other purpose than that He may do them good in this present life! [...] Scarcely ever is Jesus sought for Jesus' sake" ("In Ioann. Evang.", 25, 10).

Man's whole salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of this (divinely revealed) truth. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part I, first question, first answer

This, and nothing else, is the purpose of the Church: the salvation of individual souls Benedict XVI – Sao Paolo, Brazil, May 11, 2007

You really haven't been to church until you've been to Mass

Dominican Idaho

Friday, June 13, 2008

Constitutional aside

2 comments:

Bl. Margaret of Castello, patroness of the unwanted and unborn

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Idaho: home of the Utah Lottery