Have had a bit of time to catch up a bit on the Wisconsin business...

And so found this post at Vox Nova interesting; the brethren will now, I suppose, be arguing that the details of union contracts are as substantially important as securing the right to life. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.... To the specific question raised in comments on the Minion's post as to whether or not the popes or bishops have directly addressed what are the special conditions (if any) of sovereigns in their relations with public employees, I don't have an answer and am not going to spend the afternoon reading ecclesiastical nonsense; I suspect that the magisterial intuition would be to embolden the sentences of existing texts which refer to the common good and add a couple of footnotes recalling the attention of the faithful to the fact that no private rights are absolute.

"Daily in our cities and our countries"...

The Roman Pontiff's address to the people before this morning's recitation of the Angelus, reflecting on the lessons at Holy Mass, including the following lamentation over our mutual inaction in the face of the suffering of our brothers and sisters:

... The newness, the novelty, the 'newsrworthiness' of Jesus is essentially in the fact that He 'fills up' the commandments with the love of God, with the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in Him. And we, drawn up in and through faith in Christ, we open ourselves, by the action of the Holy Spirit, which makes us capable of living the divine love. Therefore, every precept of the law  comes to be experienced as true, as necessities of love, and all are rearticulated in a single commandment: love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. "The fulllness of the law is love," writes St. Paul (Rom 13:10). In the face of this exigency, the pitiful case, for example, of the four Roma children who died last week on the outskirts of this city, burned in their little shack, requires asking whether a more fraternal society, united in solidarity, more agreeable to the demands of love, that is, more Christian, could not have avoided such tragedy. And this question applies to many other sorrowful events, more or less well known, that occur daily in our cities and our countries....

I don't have the courage to search for the news of the tragedy his Holiness alluded to; it is a beautiful day, I'm warm and secure in my little room, enjoy what commonly passes for 'good health', and face the prospect of many more days of the same conditions.

Politicians in DC have no excuse to fail at enacting laws to limit the number of abortions...

Mons Ángel Rodríguez Luño, professor of moral theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross and currently dean of the Faculty of Theology, wrote (in 2002) an essay examining the various legitimate and illegitimate responses to legislative initiatives about the issue of abortion, particularly in view of Evangelium Vitae (§73).

... The moral object of the lawmaker's act is the elimination of all the unjust aspects of the prior law which here and now he is able to eliminate, without thereby becoming the cause of the retention of the other unjust elements, which he neither wants nor accepts, but which he is unable to eliminate....

In other words, a law significantly reducing the number of abortions would merit the support of Catholic and other legislators even though it does not outlaw the practice absolutely. The paragraph of Evangelium Vitae in question follows. Father Frank Pavone g a.

73. Abortus ergo et euthanasia crimina sunt quae nulla humana lex potest rata facere. Huiusmodi leges non modo conscientiam non devinciunt, verum graviter nominatimque compellunt ut iisdem per conscientiae repugnantiam officiatur. Ipsa ex Ecclesiae origine, apostolica praedicatio praecepit ut publicis magistratibus legitime constitutis parerent christiani (Cfr. Rom. 13, 1-7; 1 Petr. 2, 13-14), eodem tamen tempore hoc firmiter monuit: “Oboedire oportet Deo magis quam hominibus” (Act. 5, 29). In Vetere iam Foedere, quoad minas adversus vitam, insigne invenitur exemplum quo auctoritati officitur iniuriose imperanti. Pharaoni, qui cunctos modo natos necari iusserat, Hebraeorum obstetrices sunt refragatae. Eae “non fecerunt iuxta praeceptum regis Aegypti, sed conservabant mares” (Ex. 1, 17). At sapiens huius mentis ratio est respicienda: “Timuerunt autem obstetrices Deum” (Ibid.). Ex ipsa Deo obtemperatione – cui tribuendus est uni ille timor qui secum fert eiusdem absoluti dominatus agnitionem – vis animusque oriuntur iniquis hominum legibus reluctandi. Vis quidem et animus sunt illius qui promptus est in vincula conici vel gladio necari, pro certo illud habens: “Hic est patientia et fides sanctorum” (Apoc. 13, 10).

Si ergo de lege agitur suapte natura iniqua, ut est quae abortum permittit et euthanasiam, numquam licet eidem se accommodare, nec quisquam “potest esse particeps alicuius motus publicae opinionis qui eiusmodi legi faveat, neque potest latis suffragiis sustinere” (Cong. pro Doctrina Fidei, Declaratio de abortu procurato, 22, die 18 nov. 1974: AAS 66 (1974) 744). 

De conscientia nominatim agitari potest quibusdam forte evenientibus casibus, cum legatorum suffragia necessaria sunt ut strictiori legi faveatur, quae scilicet circumscribat abortuum lege admissorum numerum pro laxiore lege quae iam viget vel suffragiis probanda. Huiusmodi eventus non sunt rari. Illud enim contingit, dum orbis terrarum quibusdam in partibus leges subinde pro abortu inducuntur, suadentibus haud raro valentibus internationalibus institutis, aliis tamen in Nationibus – in illis potissimum quae iam infeliciter id genus leges sunt expertae – signa quaedam exsistunt mutatarum sententiarum. Superiore in casu, quoties vitari antiquarive non potest abortus lex, liquet legatum, qui palam alioquin vulgoque abortui adversetur, suffragari licite posse illis consiliis quae eiusmodi legis damna minuere velint et perniciosum effectum extenuare qui sive culturam sive moralitatem publicam respicit. Hac enim agendi ratione officium suum non praestat illicitae vel iniustae legi; potius vero aequus opportunusque inducitur conatus ut eius iniquae cohibeantur species.

Mr Hedegaard must be a fascist...

Of some variety since he is in the Danish law courts being prosecuted for insulting Islam.

My counsel has instructed me that in cases brought under Article 266b, the only thing that determines whether one is convicted or not is a matter of the perceived insult whereas one is barred from proving the truth of the statement....

I think things are not quite so bad in this country. Not quite, not yet.

"Without truth, politics is the cult of demons"...

There is a notice in today's l'Osservatore Romano of a reissued text based on a conference given by Joseph Ratzinger in 1962, investigating the different but complementary ways that the Fathers, chief among them Origen and Augustine, looked at what we call 'the state'; the book, now reissued, is called L'unità della nazioni. I copied the text but my poor head and eyes are done for the time being.  

This Witherspoon Institute initiative looks to be a great tool...

In the never-ending conflict between those of us who recognise the place of the natural law at the foundation of civil society and those who don't (and who are, often, dire enemies of the Household of Faith). The Public Discourse post announcing the resource is here; the site for the Natural Law, Natural Rights and American Constitutionalism project itself is here.

Read Professor Anderson on Simon Jenkins's article in the Guardian...

The knight going on about the horrors of American partisan excess, Tucson and how the US requires new laws! to quell the monstrous outbreaks of violence, more or less-- the Anderson post is here-- and thought, 'silly Brit' before going on my way; I read Professor Anderson (whose insight into problems of international law, the ius ad bellum, ius in bello and so forth is welcome, and he has an openness to the Church that most of the writers at Volokh Conspiracy don't share) with appreciation but don't spend much time in comments threads.  Then Alex Massie's criticism of the Jenkins essay appeared at the Spectator and reminded me of the business. "It's not entirely clear what Jenkins is trying to say...." 

Dr Peters is doubtless making a great number of clerics very uncomfortable...

As his argument that married permanent deacons are (and have always been meant to be) obliged to continence within their marriages makes its way through the ecclesiastical ether.  Father John Boyle, too, has commented on the questions involved. The Cochini book, by the way, is a wonderful example of theological investigation.

Update on Sunday, January 16, 2011 at 22:47 by Marc

Noticed this exchange between the Reverend Mr Kandra (that's the style I've used and I'm sticking to it), who is a non-transitional deacon and a well-known public Catholic, and Dr Peters.

One has to wonder if perhaps this may prove to be a significant blow of the iceberg Tradition, as it were, against the famously impervious hull of the Titanic of the post-Second Vatican Council 'new church' folks in this country-- those affluent bourgeoises who are happy with their score of ministers of Holy Communion, their insipid rock-folk musicians, their parish bulletin admonitions to 'smile at their neighbors' and 'get to know them' as the pax is exchanged, their chanceries staffed with bureaucrats more interested in pseudo-clerical credentials and privileges than in the service of Holy Mother Church, their newspapers and magazines full of dissent, the worship of Moloch, and the memoirs of self-satisfied relicts of the 1960s.

It occurs to me that the late and most eminent theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote a book called The Christian State of Life which includes a profound discussion of the necessary complements of continence and of celibacy in the life of a believer who chooses the religious or clerical states of life. 

Update on Monday, January 17, 2011 at 13:03 by Marc

I put #deaconscontroversy on Twitter, intending to retweet comments on this business to that hashtag. We shall see; my resolutions anent things etherial are often broken.

Update on Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 9:24 by Marc

The estimable Father Ray Blake has addressed the question of married priests and what continentia entails for them; "married clergy are not expected to forgo the marriage bed", he writes, clearly referring, I think, to priests.  He continues re permanent deacons:

In the West the revival of the permanent Diaconate, for married men, after the Council and the admission of former non-Catholic married clergy to the priesthood, a concession first granted by Pius XII to certain Lutherans, seems to have been done in ignorance of the historic understanding of celibacy. Most of the Patristic studies of celibacy seems to have been done by men like Roman Cholij after these modern introductions, which is perhaps an interesting practical example of the development of doctrine.

We shall see. I suppose that the good pastor doesn't imply that Dr Peters (who is, after all, a recently named consultor to the Sacred Roman Rota) is incapable and plainly silly. 

Am quite done with the mid-terms at this point but...

Will link whatever sufficiently interesting posts I see throughout the next couple of days. Paul Rahe, on Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama and 2012.

Any referenda legalising so-called 'gay marriage' on any ballots...

Anywhere? I don't think so. Wonder why? they fail when they are attempted because when the people are allowed to express their will they repudiate such things and, well, I suppose there may be a constitutional amendment I missed that says they only happen in presidential election years. Professor Zywicki on Iowa's defenestration of three... activist Supreme Court justices at Volokh Conspiracy, here.

The pro-life bloc in the Senate has gained...

Four or five members, according to Steve Ertelt; it is of course chiefly a vague sort of ad hoc coalition that will be prepared to vote against any egregiously pro-abortion bills rather than an organised, coherent one that will act toward any more positive legislation.  Still.  Of course, with the newly elected People's House, there aren't going to be any pro-abortion bills adopted and sent to the States' House, anyway; whether there is much of a chance that the new 'pro-life' majority acts creatively, we shall see.

Have just listened to four NPR stations...

Each of them at different stages of the program day and they all were going on about the role of "money" in the current election campaign: so I guess we know that, if the GOP does as well as some say it might, it has nothing to do with ideas, causes, or candidates but, rather, with 'the vast influx of money' that has happened because of the evil Supreme Court decision Citizens United v Federal Election Commission.

Certain crimes result in the forfeiture of certain civil rights...

And ought to continue so to do; this act of cruel grotesquerie in the UK (apparently, Eurolaw is forcing the British government's hand, which I guess means that our beloved brothers and sisters on the Continent already stand by and let the criminals fling dung in their faces, at least figuratively) is very offensive, really.  There is a campaign underway in this country to restore to convincted felons the right to vote et cetera (the fact is that such things vary from state to state, and in the federal, jurisdiction): except perhaps in California and in the Ann Arbors of the country I doubt that felons are going to be relieved of any significant consequences of their crimes any time soon, thank goodness.

Bedbugs at Turtle Bay...

Are a good thing, if they keep the UN bureaucrats from sleeping well at night.  Hope that the nasty little creatures manage to migrate to Geneva, too, but I suppose that's more than can be expected.

My guess is that this is simply public bureaucrats being idiots...

But we might all want to keep an eye on this Michigan business that Lydia McGrew has posted about; a woman, looking for a Christian housemate, put up a notice on a church bulletin board that prompted an official investigation of her putative violation of putative civil rights.

Update on Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 11:33 by Marc

This incident has been noticed at Religion Clause.

Update on Friday, November 5, 2010 at 6:03 by Marc

And, although the Alliance Defense Fund had to threaten suit, HUD has dismissed the prosecution.

The leaked military documentation of actions in the Iraq war...

Will bear much scrutiny and cause much recrimination and anger; perhaps after the initial media mushroom cloud has dissipated some good will happen because of the Wikileaks nonsense.  I have to admit that my own first reaction is that, while one can in principle fight a just war and ought to (and that the US and Allied intervention in Iraq was strategically and politically justified and as legal in terms of international law as such things need to be), there has never been one waged without incidence of the profoundest cruelty and mayhem and the gravest of injustices.  Time and investigation will tell if the war in Iraq was markedly 'worse' than other major conflicts.  But the UN ideologues and bureaucrats can keep their own blood-stained fingers inside their cages at Turtle Bay....

Update on Saturday, October 23, 2010 at 9:54 by Marc

And with a hundred thousand people dead each month in the United States because they've been aborted, the ideologues and bureaucrats at home might keep their selective moral outrage in check, too.

Thoughtful and provoking words at a Princeton University conference...

By Professor John Finnis of Oxford University; also participating were Professors Peter Singer and Margaret Little.  The conclusion of the adapted remarks:

... About the moral status of the phrase “the fetus,” I will just say this. As used in the conference program and website, which are not medical contexts, it is offensive, dehumanizing, prejudicial, manipulative. Used in this context, exclusively and in preference to the alternatives, it is an F-word, to go with the J-word, and other such words we know of, which have or had an acceptable meaning in a proper context but became in wider use the symbol of subjection to the prejudices and preferences of the more powerful. It’s not a fair word, and it does not suggest an open heart. Those of you who have an open mind or a fair heart may wish to listen to every speaker at this conference, and see whether they are willing to speak, at least sometimes, of the unborn child or unborn baby, and to do so without scare quotes or irony.

For about 12 weeks after viability some of these little beings are on the outside being tended by the pediatrician and everyone as babies, and some of them are on the inside still intertwined with their mothers, and being cared for, in some cases, by gynecologists who recognize they have two patients, and in some cases, as the mother decides (in America, or the party official in China) being threatened with destruction by her (or the state’s) abortionist as a mere fetus. However extensive the rights in all fairness of the mother, and they are extensive, they are no basis at all for denying to the child she’s bearing during those twelve weeks its proper human name, her baby or child—what an important article of Margaret Little’s calls at one point “being connected to the child in one’s belly.” So, I suggest, listen; this is a litmus test, in words, of this conference’s motto.

Update on Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 17:44 by Marc

Terrence McKeegan at C-FAM has reported on the Princeton conference; it seems to have given that odious Frances Kissling a forum for her hateful nonsense, tsk.

Magisterium vs "shadow magisterium"...

Which is of course an irenic way of saying 'magisterium and the party, movement, sect of those who disbelieve the magisterium'; P Robert Araujo SJ responds, at Mirror of Justice, to Professor Stabile's suggestion that Professor Regina Schulte's views on the magisterium (the bishops and the theologians and the people exercise it, according to her, I gather) have merit and so on and so forth. The attentive reader will note that I had the honor of posting the first comment on Professor Stabile's original post--which was in fact, of course, one of the long series of posts in which the innovators and adherents of a mythical Third Vatican Council have attempted to deform the content and practice of the Catholic religion. How does one remain a member of his Britannic Majesty's loyal opposition while refusing assent to his Highness's constitutional prerogatives?

Am only familiar with the Senate and gubernatorial contests in California...

And, frankly, the rest of that mess is not any of my business; but Neil Stevens's comment on Proposition 19 made me laugh aloud.  Proposition 19 will legalise the growing and use of cannabis.

Vae autem illi, per quem veniunt!

Mons Raymond Leo Burke, prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, addressed the World Prayer Congress organised by Human Life International on the 9th, and I've just gotten around to reading the text of his speech; there's a reason he wasn't ever elected to a leadership position in the USCCB, eh. Mr DeFazio, it is Our Lord in St Luke's Gospel speaking to you!