Catholicae Testudines

Remember when I was blathering about sports team names?

The evidence would seem to indicate that I am not the one out of touch with reality. Mark C. N. Sullivan's Irish Elk blog alerted me to this.

Gee, just when my blood pressure was getting nice and low, too

I happened across this article, which is written by someone, who, judging from this article, could be a Catholic theological Modernist (which, btw, is arguably a species of atheism), or at least someone taught by one.

Be honest. You know the election isn't about "the issues." When has it been? It's not really even about the war. It's about the morals, philosophy, and religion of the future leader of the free world. Who will win: the moral positivists and others of a fundamentally secular worldview, or the religious people, including Catholics, evangelical protestants, and other believers in natural law?

More on abortion

Expect to hear more about abortion, as its prevalence is one of the most pressing moral issue of our times. The USCCB on its impact on the political scene. I think G.K. Chesterton predicted this, but at the time most people, even most Catholics, failed to realize how prescient he was.

Just think

If this page was indexed by Google, we could become the number one result for "objectively disordered pizza."

Epic simile time

I think politics is like ordering a big pizza that everyone has to eat some of. Before you order it, you have to agree on toppings, and the thing about it is that people will never agree because a lot of the time there're arguments that don't have just one clearly superior solution. Tell me, which is better on a pizza, pepperoni or ham? Mushrooms or green peppers? Thick crust or thin? Some people just like cheese, but everyone who likes toppings will disagree with them. You can argue all you like, it's just your personal preference at this point. All of these things are good, objectively speaking, provided that the ingredients are of good quality.

But suppose one faction in the pizza debate wanted lots of toppings that you wanted, like sausage and onions and tomatoes, and no anchovies (which you are strongly opposed to), but they also want to top the pizza with broken glass, or sand, or thumbtacks, or something that's objectively not a good topping, because it's not something that any person should be eating, ever. You don't like it, they say? Fine, you can pick those off your piece. No, you reply, because it'll hurt them too, even if they want it, and it'll affect you indirectly (maybe there's little pieces baked into the cheese that you can't see to avoid). But they won't budge.

As long as that faction is small, it doesn't matter, because more sensible heads will prevail. But suppose they had taken over leadership of the traditionally onion and tomato-favoring people, who comprised about half of the group. At this point, the Hawaiian pizza with anchovies advocated by the other faction is looking pretty good. Maybe it wouldn't be your first choice, but it has the advantage of not being an objectively disordered pizza. Eventually you learn to like the taste of ham and pineapple together, and you can tolerate anchovies in moderation, although you'll try to get rid of them when the opportunity presents itself. Sausage and tomatoes and so forth? Eh, you have to pick your battles; there was a more pressing problem at hand.

See how that works?

It's the abortions, stupid

Democrats! Stop whining that religious people are "partisan" and start cauterizing the hemorrhage from your party if you want your party to be significant in the future! Sure, you'll lose the support of many you've convinced over the past few decades that abortion is an important "right," but you'll save your party in the long term. Abortion is killing your party twice. Once, because of 60+ million Catholics who are gradually abandoning you AND the scores of millions more of average joe protestants who are horrified by it AND the irreligious people who are repelled by it (like my former roommates, who couldn't see the difference logically that the newspapers see between an abortion and throwing a newborn in a dumpster). By way of anecdote, I know so many people who have learned to like or at least learned to stomach Republican positions on other issues just because they want a party with better morals than the ancient Carthaginians. Twice because you are contracepting against and aborting your children, the people most likely to inherit your political prejudices.

Not that I care all that much about the continuing existence of the Party, but perhaps that is an incentive to some people who do care. What I really want is two parties, both of which have platforms at least not gravely contrary to natural moral law.

Saints

Remember the post the other day with the excessively long Belloc quote? The one about the "Christians" whose idea of Christianity is something along the lines of the sentiment "For my part, I have come to make it a sort of rule to act as this Man Christ would have had me act. He seems to me to have led the most perfect life I have ever read of, and the practical maxims which are attached to His Name seem to me a sufficient guide to life"?

It occurred to me today that this is only a slight exaggeration of and in the same genus as attitude we have towards the saints, especially for those of us who join a religious order founded by a saint. No wonder there are Protestants walking around thinking that Catholics pay divine honors to saints when this sort of emulation is the highest sort of worship they can conceive of! How they must be missing out by paying only human honors to God and not knowing how to adore Him as He deserves!

"Terp" is not a Latin word,

But it is a Greek word, or at least a root of a noun, adjective, and verb. It means delightful, glad, or pleasing (think of Terpsichore or Euterpe). How felicitous.