WHILE the feelings of the non-rational and numinous
constitute a vital factor in every form religion may take,
they are pre-eminently in evidence in Semitic religion and
most of all in the religion of the Bible. Here Mystery lives
and moves in all its potency.
Which I submit captures a part of the essence of the matter. And does much to explain the enduring appeal of the Latin Mass. “Mystery . . . in all its potency,” yes. It’s deep.
Saint or no saint, get your enforcement of marriage arguments out of your institute. I’m in charge now. (Overheard from important bishop muttering on his way to the office.)
Fr. Martin should be invited back, for a debate with the alleged bullies.
Open discussion, folks. It’s what a university is for.
Above all, not having a lightning rod like him alone, as if his was not a highly debatable proposition.
But higher-learning institutions in general are not big on debates of this sort.
Hoo-boy. Out with the old, in with the new.
“Perhaps,” he said, “the old practice of moving people” from one place to another and not fully facing the problem “lulled consciences to sleep.”
Why “perhaps”?
To which I should add “guilty about things I can do nothing about!”
Quite an important nub here, as beautifully explained by Hayek in Road to Serfdom, which I recommend to people feeling guilty about things they can do nothing about.
An excess of empathy, as the man wrote a book about, published a month or so ago, Against Empathy; The Case for Rational Compassion, is what I speak of.
I am also reminded of a movie scene many decades ago, a black-and-whiter in the ’40s, in which a lone protester standing outside the state prison where an execution is scheduled is asked if he thought his protest would change anything.
The man thought not but said he was there not to change the law but to protect himself from being changed.
Or as the Soc. of Pius X preacher said in Oak Park, also some decades back, when touched by a panhandler we give money out of charity not to change the panhandler but not to be changed: Do it seeing Christ in the beggar and you gain, whether he does or not.
At North Side Prep on Kedzie last week (Thursday 9/7), governor-candidate J.B. Pritzker let an interesting cat out of the bag, his plan to circumvent the state’s constitutional ban on graduated/progressive income taxation.
He would not try to change the constitution at all, but would raise the presumably flat tax, then give “personal exemptions” to as many as it takes to do graduated/progressive taxation without calling it that.
“I’m running on this,” he said, apparently announcing a platform plank. He would do it without resorting to a constitutional convention, where “too many bad things can happen,” he told an audience of 40 or so citizens in a meeting hosted by 40th Ward Alderman Patrick O’Connor.
O’Connor had done the same for candidate Chris Kennedy some weeks earlier (7/7), endorsing neither, he said on both occasions.
Pritzker also said:
* He’s opposed to taxing stock buying and selling, a “La Salle Street tax,” because there’s no longer a pit where signals are given but electronic buying and selling, and it’s “easy” for them to move out of state.
He wants to keep traders here, because of lost “opportunities to tax their incomes.”
* He favors “a public option . . . single-payer” system ” for health care. “We can do it,” he said. “Allow people to buy into a state health plan. It would not cost the state.”
More later on candidate Pritzker in the 40th Ward . . .
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Later explanation/clarification from Pritzker campaign: Candidate mentioned and characterized a constitutional convention (wholesale redoing of constitution) in response to a questioner who had raised that issue.
What’s at issue is a constitutional amendment (changing one element), which Pritzker favors but which takes a long time. The flat tax increase-with-“personal [tax] exemptions” — to be legislated so as to achieve the goal of graduated rates — was proposed by Sen. Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) three and a half years ago.
So it’s his idea, as Pritzker noted at the September 7 meeting — properly a “meet and greet,” as his spokesperson called it in her helpful explanation/clarification. Asked what these exemptions might entail, the spokesperson recommended asking Harmon.
“Gonna need a scorecard pretty soon with all these tax proposals,” said a commenter on the Capitol Fax site at the time Harmon announced his plan. Does get complicated.
Here’s an articulate, well-written, often condescending, hard-nosed description of papal and Vatican politics by a true-blue liberal writing regularly for National Catholic Reporter.
I have no trouble believing (for the most part) this account of mutual counter-purpose in which Francis and Sarah are now positioned.
It’s good stuff, if without regard for the needless character of the conflict. My problem is with the conflict as needless. What does Francis have to lose by allowing Latin mass, ad orientem, communion on the tongue and all that?
Unless the novus ordo would be undermined and with it the social justice agenda. Or unless Francis just doesn’t like it; makes his skin crawl — a distinct possibility but something he could offer up in his Morning Offering — and become a better man for it.
Oh, another thing. Is the writer sure about his assessment of traditionalists’ numbers and overall strength? Seems sure of himself, but it’s a big claim. More later (I swear) of this fellow’s columns from Rome.
Oh. Robert Mickens is his name. Has impressive c.v., in addition to his very good writing.
Could be a deal here. Trump rethinks DACA on right-to-life grounds, Francis rethinks his free-maket hostility on right-to-prosperity grounds. Or maybe his suspicions of Latin mass and priest facing the people on freedom-of-worship grounds.
Just trying to be helpful.
NatCath Register has story: Pope Hopes Trump Will Rethink DACA Decision on Pro-Life Grounds | ncregister.com
Blithe Spirit 