The Most Beautiful Work Of Art

The Luteplayer (det.), Caravaggio, c. 1596

“ The word of faith has need of great inner silence in order to listen and obey a voice which lies beyond the visible and tangible world. This voice speaks through natural phenomena, because it is the power that created and governs the universe. But to recognize it we need a humble and obedient heart, something also taught us by the saint whose feast day falls today: St. Therese of the Child Jesus.

Faith follows this profound voice in places that even art itself cannot reach alone. It follows it along the path of witness, in the giving of self for love, as Cecilia did. Thus the most beautiful work of art, the masterpiece of human beings, is each of their acts of authentic love: from the smallest (in everyday sacrifice) unto the extreme sacrifice. At this point life itself becomes a hymn; an anticipation of the symphony we will sing together in heaven. ”

~ Benedict XVI, speaking at the end of an orchestral and choral concert in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall (Friday, October 1, 2010). Thanks: Luigi Accattoli

What Is Wrong With Italian Politics

“Can you write a little more about what is happening in Italy? I would greatly value your opinion.” It was about a couple of weeks ago when Alex, a British blogger living in Milan, sent me this kind appeal not to overlook Italian politics—actually this is not the first time I get asked why I don’t write more about this subject, and I must admit that there is some fairness to the implicit meaning that I have recently been a little bit reluctant to write about what’s going on in Italian politics …

What can I say for myself? Well, the truth is that I’m pretty much fed up with the state of Italian politics these days, or better still, I am almost as fed up with the “thing-in-itself” as I am with the way the Italian and, consequently, the mainstream international media is portraying it. What I dislike most about current Italian politics is that both the main opposition party and the main government party seem to be allergic to dissent within their own ranks. I mean, I can expect that from the Democratic Party (made up mostly of former Communists), whose totalitarian tendencies are well known and, so to speak, encoded in its DNA, but I cannot accept it when it comes from a party whose name is People of Freedom (PDL). I’m talking about both the way the “Democrats” have treated the founder of the new Democratic Movement, Walter Veltroni, though he is not trying to bring about a split but only to change his party from within, and the ejection of Gianfranco Fini—a former neo-fascist who has moved to the mainstream—from Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party last July. In fact, the Prime minister was furious about Fini’s strong opposition to the PDL’s concessions to the federalist Northern League, and to the government’s attempt to push through the controversial “gag law” restricting police and media use of wiretaps. Hence Fini’s ejection for conspiring to administer a “slow death” to the party. Fini, in turn, accused Berlusconi of promoting self-serving legislation to block corruption charges. And the story is still far from over.

Now, to be clear and straightforward, there are very few doubts about what Fini wants to do: he most likely wants to do exactly what he is accused of doing …, but this cannot, by any means, justify his ejection from the party. Even when there are good reasons to be suspicious, and frankly Fini seems not to be a man above all suspicion in the light of his past political experiences…, if we confuse dissent with disloyalty—but it’s nearly impossible to define where dissent ends and where disloyalty begins—then there is no true freedom. It’s a matter of principle, and Berlusconi should be aware of it. In other words, he made a huge mistake, no matter whether Fini is a “hero” or a “traitor.” After all, has Berlusconi ever heard of the strong rivalry between Jaques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy in France? Both men disliked each other. Chirac, in particular, considered Sarkozy as an opportunist and a traitor (e.g. Sarkozy supported Edouard Balladur, a strong rival of Jacques Chirac, in the presidential election of 1995), and nevertheless they both were active members of the RPR party for decades. (Does this say something to you, Silvio?)

However, to complete the picture, it is also to be said that Fini is indeed an extravagant man: he proclaims to be a man of the Right, but on many issues (immigration, bioethics, justice, etc.) he frequently sides with the Left, and his entourage are big fans of Barack Obama, whom they consider—without ifs and buts—a ray of hope for all humanity, the realization of a dream that comes from far away, etc. And to think that most of them were members of the far-right National Alliance party, the post-fascist heir of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano. Not that I’m saying that Fini and his followers are turncoats, but …

As it was not enough, despite his being a huge moralist, last July it turned out that he, along with another ultra-moralist such as Antonio Di Pietro, the head of the small opposition Italy of Values party (see here), might not be as immaculate as one might expect. Yet, it is not my problem. As you should have already guessed, I have never been tempted to take him seriously (he never worked a day in his life, can you believe it?), unlike the rules of the democratic game, that apply to all players, Berlusconi and Fini included.

Can you understand now why I don’t look forward to writing about current Italian politics? As the saying goes, “Enough is enough!” But never mind, I’m not going to change my mind—I’m not going to cross the Rubicon. Seriously, there is no alternative to Berlusconi—may Silvio save us all from Obama’s fans and supporters!

Glenn Beck Revealed

Interesting piece in yesterday’s New York Times, a long profile-interview with American conservative broadcaster and political pundit Glenn Beck. Tom, at Opinion Forum, is definitely right: “Whether you view Beck with respect or disdain, you’ll learn things in the article that will help you understand where he’s coming from and maybe where he’s going.” A good read and well worth your time.

Why Did Islam Become What It Is?

I have always thought that nobody who has an ounce of common sense—not to speak of sensibility and culture—cannot help but respect other people’s religious beliefs, except for those which are manifestly contrary to universal human right principles. Such is, of course, my attitude toward Islam. Hence my deep appreciation for thinkers such as G.K. Chesteron, whose respect for Islam is as strong as his “humanistic” approach to life in general. Which obviously generates some kind of tension between the two needs: respect, but awareness of the most controversial aspects of Islam, with regard to its (much) less humanistic approach…

Here is an example of his, so to speak, “bivalent attitude” toward Islam. There is in Islam “a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace,” he wrote in his 1917 Lord Kitchener...

The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy out of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. It affirms, with no little sublimity, something that is not merely the singleness but rather the solitude of God. There is the same extreme simplification in the solitary figure of the Prophet; and yet this isolation perpetually reacts into its own opposite. A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude of lawless prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets. Of these the mightiest in modern times were the man whose name was Ahmed, and whose more famous title was the Mahdi; and his more ferocious successor Abdullahi, who was generally known as the Khalifa. These great fanatics, or great creators of fanaticism, succeeded in making a militarism almost as famous and formidable as that of the Turkish Empire on whose frontiers it hovered, and in spreading a reign of terror such as can seldom be organised except by civilisation…

Islam as “the great creed born in the desert.” That’s the key argument he makes to explain both what is wrong and what is the sublimity hidden in the heart of the religion of Muhammad. Two faces (what is sublime and what is “a permanent menace”) of the same coin—a Weltanschauung which is son of the desert and which generates both great mystics and huge fanatics and creators of fanaticism.

But it was not until 1919 that Chesterton had the opportunity of making this perfectly clear to himself, when he left his home in Beaconsfield, and traveled backward through time to the place which is sacred to the three “religions of the Book.” And his 1920 The New Jerusalem, is just a philosophical travelogue of his journey across Europe, across the desert, to Palestine.

Chesterton saw Islam as the Way of the Desert. The desert being a place of loss of perspective, and Islam personifying that loss of perspective. When the mind has grown used to the monotony of the desert, he wrote, a curious change takes place:

It may sound strange to say that monotony of its nature becomes novelty. But if any one will try the common experiment of saying some ordinary word such as "moon" or "man" about fifty times, he will find that the expression has become extraordinary by sheer repetition. A man has become a strange animal with a name as queer as that of the gnu; and the moon something monstrous like the moon-calf. Something of this magic of monotony is effected by the monotony of deserts; and the traveller feels as if he had entered into a secret, and was looking at everything from another side. Something of this simplification appears, I think, in the religions of the desert, especially in the religion of Islam. It explains something of the super-human hopes that fill the desert prophets concerning the future; it explains something also about their barbarous indifference to the past.

We think of the desert and its stones as old; but in one sense they are unnaturally new. They are unused, and perhaps unusable. They might be the raw material of a world; only they are so raw as to be rejected. It is not easy to define this quality of something primitive, something not mature enough to be fruitful. Indeed there is a hard simplicity about many Eastern things that is as much crude as archaic. A palm-tree is very like a tree drawn by a child—or by a very futurist artist. Even a pyramid is like a mathematical figure drawn by a schoolmaster teaching children; and its very impressiveness is that of an ultimate Platonic abstraction. There is something curiously simple about the shape in which these colossal crystals of the ancient sands have been cast. It is only when we have felt something of this element, not only of simplicity, but of crudity, and even in a sense of novelty, that we can begin to understand both the immensity and the insufficiency of that power that came out of the desert, the great religion of Mahomet.

And here is a generous eulogy of Islam:

In the red circle of the desert, in the dark and secret place, the prophet discovers the obvious things. I do not say it merely as a sneer, for obvious things are very easily forgotten; and indeed every high civilisation decays by forgetting obvious things.

But a second later he challenges those whom he has just praised:

But it is true that in such a solitude men tend to take very simple ideas as if they were entirely new ideas. There is a love of concentration which comes from the lack of comparison. The lonely man looking at the lonely palm-tree does see the elementary truths about the palm-tree; and the elementary truths are very essential. Thus he does see that though the palm-tree may be a very simple design, it was not he who designed it. It may look like a tree drawn by a child, but he is not the child who could draw it. He has not command of that magic slate on which the pictures can come to life, or of that magic green chalk of which the green lines can grow. He sees at once that a power is at work in whose presence he and the palm-tree are alike little children. In other words, he is intelligent enough to believe in God; and the Moslem, the man of the desert, is intelligent enough to believe in God. But his belief is lacking in that humane complexity that comes from comparison.
[Italics mine]

And a few lines below he says:

[Islam] was content with the idea that it had a great truth; as indeed it had a colossal truth. It was so huge a truth that it was hard to see it was a half-truth.

What does he mean by that? Let’s follow his reasoning:

Islam was a movement; that is why it has ceased to move. For a movement can only be a mood. It may be a very necessary movement arising from a very noble mood, but sooner or later it must find its level in a larger philosophy, and be balanced against other things. Islam was a reaction towards simplicity; it was a violent simplification, which turned out to be an over-simplification. Stevenson has somewhere one of his perfectly picked phrases for an empty-minded man; that he has not one thought to rub against another while he waits for a train. The Moslem had one thought, and that a most vital one; the greatness of God which levels all men. But the Moslem had not one thought to rub against another, because he really had not another. It is the friction of two spiritual things, of tradition and invention, or of substance and symbol, from which the mind takes fire. The creeds condemned as complex have something like the secret of sex; they can breed thoughts.
[…]
The philosophy of the desert can only begin over again. It cannot grow; it cannot have what Protestants call progress and Catholics call development.
[…]
The highest message of Mahomet is a piece of divine tautology. The very cry that God is God is a repetition of words, like the repetitions of wide sands and rolling skies. The very phrase is like an everlasting echo, that can never cease to say the same sacred word; and when I saw afterwards the mightiest and most magnificent of all the mosques of that land, I found that its inscriptions had the same character of a deliberate and defiant sameness.
The ancient Arabic alphabet and script is itself at once so elegant and so exact that it can be used as a fixed ornament, like the egg and dart pattern or the Greek key. It is as if we could make a heraldry of handwriting, or cover a wall-paper with signatures. But the literary style is as recurrent as the decorative style; perhaps that is why it can be used as a decorative style. Phrases are repeated again and again like ornamental stars or flowers. Many modern people, for example, imagine that the Athanasian Creed is full of vain repetitions; but that is because people are too lazy to listen to it, or not lucid enough to understand it. The same terms are used throughout, as they are in a proposition of Euclid. But the steps are all as differentiated and progressive as in a proposition of Euclid. But in the inscriptions of the Mosque whole sentences seem to occur, not like the steps of an argument, but rather like the chorus of a song. This is the impression everywhere produced by this spirit of the sandy wastes; this is the voice of the desert, though the muezzin cries from the high turrets of the city. Indeed one is driven to repeating oneself about the repetition, so overpowering is the impression of the tall horizons of those tremendous plains, brooding upon the soul with all the solemn weight of the self-evident. [Italics mine]

Isn’t that a wonderful explanation of the (abyssal) difference between them and us, whose minds have been nurtured by Greek rationality and Judaic-Christian values? This difference is also why, compared with its millennial rival, Christendom, the world of Islam had become poor, weak, and ignorant. In his What Went Wrong, Bernard Lewis asks, but does not answer, the following questions: “Why did the discoverers of America sail from Spain and not a Muslim Atlantic port, where such voyages were indeed attempted in earlier times? Why did the great scientific breakthrough occur in Europe and not, as one might reasonably have expected, in the richer, more advanced, and in most respects more enlightened realm of Islam?” One might say, “Just read The New Jerusalem to get the right answers to these questions and a few others.”

~ First written for The Metaphysical Peregrine ~

Mount Athos - The Holy Mountain

A World Heritage Site, The Holy Mountain, on the peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, in northern Greece, is a self-governed part of the Greek state, subject to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But first and foremost it is the centre of Eastern Christian Orthodox Monasticism.

Having never been there, I cannot help but dream of the day … How about you? If you feel the same way as me, you might like the video below (thanks: Adolfo Morganti).



Mont Athos - La république des moines (bande annonce VF)
Caricato da NS-Video. - Serie TV classiche e spettacoli televisivi

A Time for Choosing

“ It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, “We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government.”

This idea—that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power—is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream—the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order—or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing. ”

~ Ronald Reagan  



Ronald Reagan delivered this speech in support of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. Besides being one of the best examples of Reagan’s rhetorical powers, and his first major national political address, this speech launched his career as both a politician and a leader of the conservative movement. Almost needless to say, these words are as relevant to the U.S. current situation as they were when he delivered them. To the extent that this speech has become a sort of “Bible” for the Tea party movement, as this new (and excellent) video shows …

The philosophical habit of mind

In his Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk located the importance of John Henry Newman as a great “philosopher of tradition” in his skill in articulating the value of knowledge, the limits of reason and science, the danger of utilitarianism and rationalism, the nature of intellectual virtue, and the necessity of such virtue for the grasp of first principles. But perhaps the fundamental feature of Newman’s defense of tradition is his natural deference to classical Greek philosophy, particularly Aristotle. To be precise, Newman conceives  and defends tradition with a mind formed and disciplined by a study of the Stagirite.

Angelo Bottone’s new book, The Philosophical Habit of Mind. Rhetoric and Person in John Henry Newman’s Dublin Writings—as far as I can tell without having read it yet …—seems to be on the same wavelength as Russell Kirk. “This work,” as the book’s cover says, “offers an original exploration of the influences of philosophers such as Aristotle, Cicero and Locke on Newman’s own thought. Aristotle’s inspiration is presented in a new light and compared with Ciceronian rhetoric and the Utilitarianism of Locke and his followers. Moreover, the intellectual, moral and artistic dimensions of the human person in Newman’s Dublin Writings are discussed, in conjunction with his concepts of the unity of knowledge and of the philosophical habit of mind.”

Angelo, besides being an associate lecturer at the School of Arts of the Dublin Business School, where he teaches Introduction to Philosophy, Critical Thinking, Theories of Knowledge and Philosophy of Science, is a highly appreciated contributor of this blog. That’s also why I wish him all the very best with this new book.

Fall

The leaves are falling, falling as from far,

from wilting in the heavens' farthest gardens:

They're falling to negate the summer's mirth.

And in the nights the heavy Earth

falls into solitude from star to star.

We all are falling. This my hand here bends.

And look at others: Fall's in all their calling.

And yet there's One, who's holding all this falling

forever tender in His upturned hands...

Rainer Maria Rilke

[Translation by Walter A. Aue]

Herbst

Die Blätter fallen, fallen wie von weit, 

als welkten in den Himmeln ferne Gärten; 

sie fallen mit verneinender Gebärde. 

Und in den Nächten fällt die schwere Erde 

aus allen Sternen in die Einsamkeit.

Wir alle fallen. Diese Hand da fällt. 

Und sieh dir andre an: es ist in allen. 

Und doch ist Einer, welcher dieses Fallen 

unendlich sanft in seinen Händen hält.

What the Profumo affair is all about

First off let me start by saying that I am no expert in finance and economics, and that, therefore, I myself am just trying to understand what happened. And this just because of the obvious importance—not only from a financial point of view, but also from a political (and social) one—of what actually happened.

That being said, let’s face it. UniCredit SpA Chief Executive Alessandro Profumo liked to say he wanted to keep his job heading Italy’s biggest bank (or the second biggest after Intesa San Paolo, according to some sources) until he is 60. But his tenure came to an abrupt end some 7 years ahead of that deadline: the 53-year-old architect of UniCredit’s relentless growth from regional Italian bank to a global financial giant resigned on Tuesday at an extraordinary board meeting called by the chairman, Dieter Rampl. Disgruntled shareholders forced Profumo out in a dispute over Libya’s growing influence on the bank and lagging results. The company confirmed the resignation in a statement distributed by the Italian stock exchange. Profumo will be replaced, temporarily, by chairman Dieter Rampl, who is also the former head of Germany’s second-biggest bank HVB, which was acquired by UniCredit in 2005.

It is also to be said that UniCredit was the most exposed Italian bank in the global financial meltdown which began in late 2007, and this just because it had the biggest international profile, including owning the HVB group, which suffered in the subprime loan crisis that sparked the credit crunch.

And here is a good summary of what has recently happened:

UniCredit was recently assigned a banking license by the Central Bank of Libya to operate in that country. Mr. Profumo said this month that Libyan investors chose to “autonomously” build their stakes in UniCredit. But the increase in the Libyan stake infuriated some Italian officials.
The question of Libya’s voting rights — and whether the two Libyan shareholdings should be treated as one entity — is being examined by Italian regulators. UniCredit’s bylaws state that no single shareholder should control more than 5 percent of the votes.
The other main shareholders in UniCredit are Aabar Investments, an Abu Dhabi state entity with 4.9 percent, and the four regional Italian bank foundations — based in Verona, Turin, Bologna and Treviso — which together control about 10 percent. German companies including the insurer Allianz also hold significant minority stakes in UniCredit. The American investment firm BlackRock holds 4 percent.

But, with regard to the four above mentioned regional Italian bank foundations, the 2008-2009 financial crisis ended the flow of dividends

to which UniCredit’s shareholders had been accustomed; and the bank had to make calls for fresh capital, bringing hard times to the philanthropic foundations that had owned the five savings banks and which now own a combined stake of about 12% in UniCredit. As the savings banks themselves had once been, the foundations are political as well as philanthropic, with boards made up of party appointees and local bigwigs. Cuts in dividends from UniCredit have meant less largesse for them to bestow on good works such as repairing church roofs, helping hospitals and funding old people’s homes, and also less influence.
The share-buying in UniCredit by two arms of Muammar Qaddafi’s regime, coming on top of recent stake-building by another Arab government—that of Abu Dhabi—has caused indignation in northern Italy, where the xenophobic Northern League political party is strong.

In fact, Flavio Tosi, a League governor and Verona’s mayor, said Profumo should have stopped the Libyans at 5%. “I’m not a banker,” he said, “but to let in partners like Gaddafi and the Libyans means letting in partners who may not have the [same] interests as Verona and the Veneto.” He also accused the bank of focusing on business abroad at the expense of Italian enterprises, which need help recovering from the world economic crisis.

Yet, now Northern League leader Umberto Bossi is urging foundation shareholders of UniCredit to defend the company against the growing German influence: “I hope the foundations don’t stand there with their hands in the pockets, but that they organize a defence,” he said. Doesn’t it seem a bit contradictory? The most vocal opponents of Profumo—his departure is a significant victory for the foundations, and for the federalist Northern League party—are now worrying about the consequences of their political fight. I just don’t understand.

However, despite the many subtle, and not so subtle, political explanations and interpretations that have been put forward in the last few hours, perhaps Oscar Giannino (in Italian)—one of the most respected economic opinion-makers in Italy, and a columnists for several Italian newspapers—is right: “This is not all about the misery of Italian politics. This is all about the misery of the Italian market.”

Madam President?

It could happen, no doubt. As a matter of fact, speculation that Sarah Palin, former Alaska Governor and Republican candidate for Vice President in 2008, will run for President in 2012 is reaching fever pitch. Yet, they say the ambition doesn’t always sit well with Alaskans, who have a saying: “We don’t care how they do it on the Outside.” At least, until the Outside suddenly lands on their doorstep… Read the story in today’s British newspaper The Independent.

The New York Times: More papist than the Pope?

It might well be the case. Things change, my friends …

All in all, the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Britain over the weekend must have been a disappointment to his legions of detractors. Their bold promises notwithstanding, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens didn’t manage to clap the pope in irons and haul him off to jail. The protests against Benedict’s presence proved a sideshow to the visit, rather than the main event. And the threat (happily empty, it turned out) of an assassination plot provided a reminder of what real religious extremism looks like — as opposed to the gentle scholar, swathed in white, urging secular Britons to look with fresh eyes at their island’s ancient faith.
[…]
And yes, the church’s exclusive theological claims and stringent moral message don’t go over well in a multicultural, sexually liberated society. But the example of Catholicism’s rivals suggests that the church might well be much worse off if it had simply refashioned itself to fit the prevailing values of the age. That’s what the denominations of mainline Protestantism have done, across the last four decades — and instead of gaining members, they’ve dwindled into irrelevance.

The Vatican of Benedict and John Paul II, by contrast, has striven to maintain continuity with Christian tradition, even at the risk of seeming reactionary and out of touch. This has cost the church its once-privileged place in the Western establishment, and earned it the scorn of fashionable opinion. But continuity, not swift and perhaps foolhardy adaptation, has always been the papacy’s purpose, and the secret of its lasting strength.
[…]
This, above all, is why the crowds cheered for the pope, in Edinburgh and London and Birmingham — because almost five centuries after the Catholic faith was apparently strangled in Britain, their church is still alive.

P.S.
Anyway, great article and good analysis. Excellent food for thought. Amen.

Benedict XVI's call for religious reciprocity

During his UK visit, Benedict XVI said many things on many topics. Most of these things went unreported or underreported, sometimes with a certain degree of inaccuracy (to say the least), by the mainstream media. One of them is the following statement, made during His Holiness meeting with representatives of Britain’s other major religions, namely Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs (read the full text of the speech here):

The presence of committed believers in various fields of social and economic life speaks eloquently of the fact that the spiritual dimension of our lives is fundamental to our identity as human beings, that man, in other words, does not live by bread alone. As followers of different religious traditions working together for the good of the community at large, we attach great importance to this ‘side by side’ dimension of our cooperation, which complements the ‘face to face’ aspect of our continuing dialogue. […] Ever since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has placed special emphasis on the importance of dialogue and cooperation with the followers of other religions. In order to be fruitful, this requires reciprocity on the part of all partners in dialogue and the followers of other religions. I am thinking in particular of situations in some parts of the world, where cooperation and dialogue between religions calls for mutual respect, the freedom to practice one’s religion and to engage in acts of public worship, and the freedom to follow one’s conscience without suffering ostracism or persecution, even after conversion from one religion to another.

Now, dear readers, which one of the above mentioned religions was the Pope referring to, in your honest opinion? Ok, no rhetorical questions … There is no doubt that His Holiness referred to them. So, the moral of the story is very simple: once again, while the Pope has shown himself to not be afraid to take a clear stand on controversial issues, the mainstream media have shown their ineptitude, i.e. their reluctance to “displease” the Muslim world, even when its behavior is grossly inadequate and inexcusable.

Stopping the Socialist Express

~ “LETTERS FROM AMERICA” - by The Metaphysical Peregrine ~

Americans are practical people. If something doesn’t work, it’s tossed aside. What the Democrats and President Obama are doing to the country doesn’t work. Socialism has a one hundred percent failure rate; it only appears to work if there’s enough money generated from capitalism to support it.

As a result of legislation that can’t be paid for, increasing debt rising into the $trillions, unemployment rate stuck at about 10% (over 30 million people out of work), racial and class divisiveness, and RINO’s (Republican In Name Only) going along with this destructiveness, there’s a grass roots revolt happening.

The TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party Movement started a couple years ago to bring public awareness to the need for limited government and lower taxes. That in turn has put RINO’s in a losing position, and they don’t like it at all. The Statist Democrats can only resort to character assassination, malicious defamation, and negative campaigning. RINO’s recently have been doing the same to Conservatives and the TEA Party movement because their jobs and power are just as threatened. Not only will the Democrats be voted out this coming November, but a lot of RINO’s will be too.

There’s a big kerfuffle going on in the Republican Party, and some talking heads that have been identified as Conservative Republicans, namely Karl Rove (GW Bush’s campaign manager) and Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, have sided with the RINO's. Christine O’Donnell, an inexperienced politician beat out a RINO, Mike Castle, in the Delaware primary this past Tuesday. The expected ad hominem attacks came from the Democrats, but Rove and Krauthammer piled on too, saying she can’t win and the TEA Party movement was basically stupid backing her rather than Castle. They have said the same about Sharron Angle of my state of Nevada, running against Statist Harry Reid. In fact they have said the same of any TEA Party backed candidate. 

The counter attack against Rove, Krauthammer and the rest of the RINO’s and weak kneed conservatives have backfired with a vengeance. Conservatives don’t want Liberals with an “R” for Republican behind their name that vote with Democrats, and want to get along with the Statists. Castle is a prime example; he mostly votes with the Democrats. Rove, Krauthammer and the rest seem to think that an unreliable Statist is preferable to a Conservative because the Statist is more likely to win in the general election this coming November. Then they’ll mostly vote Statist, with the Democrats, and that’s a good thing?

O’Donnell, within 48 hours after her win, had over $750 million donated to her campaign in small donations from all over the US. Her Democrat opponent is a self named, self indentified Marxist. He has used that word to describe his politics, and the RINO’s don’t think O’Donnell can beat him?

Here’s a little history of what RINO’s have done in Congress. The major ones are Arlen Spector, Olympia Snowe, Jim Jeffords, and Susan Collins. Jim Jeffords cost Republicans the Senate when he accepted bribes from the Democrats and changed his party affiliation to Independent. Obama’s stimulus packages could have been successfully filibustered and stopped in the Senate by Republicans (unsuccessful packages that has run up the national debt by $trillions), but Snowe, Collins and Spector voted with the Democrats. This kind of thing has been going on for years, and Conservatives are fed up with it.

The question becomes why do people that identify themselves as Conservatives think running a liberal Republican against a liberal Democrat is a winner. They will vote with the Statists, so what’s the point? We have reached a crossroads, and I think the general public is beginning to notice that the Conservative message of low taxes and limited government works, that deficit spending, anti-business, high tax, top down government control doesn't. It’s just not practical.

A bit of a side note. Not one Democrat that is up for reelection that voted for the Obama\Democrat health care bill are campaigning mentioning that vote.

There’s a revolution happening in America. The weak kneed conservatives are afraid to stand on principle and win advocating for low taxes and smaller government, so have lost credibility as Conservatives. The RINO’s in office are about to be thrown out with the Democrats. The revolution isn’t just happening nationally, but at the state and local levels too.

Viva la Revolucion! 

Benedict XVI: What is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God

Addressing British politicians, businessmen and cultural leaders a few hours ago in Westminister Hall, where in 1535 the great English scholar and statesman Saint Thomas More was tried for treason and condemned to death, Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute to “the perennial question of the relationship between what is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God,” and defended the legitimate role of religion in the public square. It was a masterful speech and well worth checking out. Here are some excerpts from it (or read the full text here):

[T]he fundamental questions at stake in Thomas More’s trial continue to present themselves in ever-changing terms as new social conditions emerge. Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident - herein lies the real challenge for democracy.

The inadequacy of pragmatic, short-term solutions to complex social and ethical problems has been illustrated all too clearly by the recent global financial crisis. There is widespread agreement that the lack of a solid ethical foundation for economic activity has contributed to the grave difficulties now being experienced by millions of people throughout the world. Just as "every economic decision has a moral consequence" (Caritas in Veritate, 37), so too in the political field, the ethical dimension of policy has far-reaching consequences that no government can afford to ignore.
[…]
The central question at issue, then, is this: where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found? The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles. This "corrective" role of religion vis-à-vis reason is not always welcomed, though, partly because distorted forms of religion, such as sectarianism and fundamentalism, can be seen to create serious social problems themselves.

And in their turn, these distortions of religion arise when insufficient attention is given to the purifying and structuring role of reason within religion. It is a two-way process. Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.

Happy Constitution Day!

The members of the Constitutional Convention signed the United States Constitution on September 17, 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Happy Constitution Day!

The Guardian, the Pope and the “notables”

While crowds were gathering to welcome Benedict XVI to Edinburgh, first stop on the Pope’s UK visit, I must confess that I was still fairly confused about this letter, published by the Guardian and signed by some British notables, against the Pope and his state visit. What on earth? After all Britain is not so much anti-Catholic as quite rude, and unusually secular, and the Guardian, I was repeating to myself over and over again, is an honorable daily newspaper (without ifs and buts, that’s for sure!), why did they do that? …Until I came across this Fr. John Zuhlsdorf ‘s post—kind of an “evangelical synopsis,” if I may say so—thanks to which it all became clear to me: it was a joke, just a damned joke! Or, if you prefer, as a commentator to that very post brilliantly put it, are we sure Charles Dickens didn’t invent some of those notable people who signed the letter?

Honoring John Henry Newman

In early life he was a major figure in the Oxford Movement to bring the Church of England back to its Catholic roots. Eventually his studies in history persuaded him to become a Roman Catholic (October 1845). As it was not enough, at the end of the process of canonization, Venerable John Henry Newman—the status of “venerable” is the step before beatification on the road to sainthood in the Catholic church—will be the first Englishman since the 17th century to be recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as a saint. And as everybody knows the Pope will officially beatify him at the end of his visit to England and Scotland from September 16 to 19.

But perhaps first and foremost, as Conrad Black maintains in the National Review Online, Newman must rank among the very greatest Englishmen of any time or faith, and his distinction as a man, intellect, writer, and philosopher would be no less if there were no thought of his possession of saintly and miraculous powers:

For almost an entire century he was the unflagging champion of intellectual and intuitive Christian faith, who revealed the inconsistencies of the Established Church, yet was a force for Christian reconciliation, and always dissented from what was trendy and opportunistic. He was a bridge to the universal and premier church, but always an Englishman. He was as representative of the highest form of the English character as Samuel Johnson or the Duke of Wellington. The same man who opposed the Crimean War, as besmirching British integrity by propping up the Ottomans, who rendered unto the pope what was his, “could not imagine being or wanting to be anything but English.” When he died in his 90th year, the whole Christian world mourned him. There is a Cardinal Newman School in almost every community in the once-Christian world.

Pope Benedict XVI is one of the greatest intellects to hold that office in several centuries, a man of great philosophical scholarship, rigor, and originality, as well as an accomplished writer, linguist, practical administrator, and musician. His visit to Britain this month is to render homage to a man he regards as an intellectual giant, endowed with a character of comparably exceptional quality, which he believes, on the evidence of ecclesiastical scrutiny, has been recognized and amplified by divine blessings. Those who share that faith are uplifted by Newman’s intelligence and character. Those who do not should at least be aware that, in his lifetime and in the 120 years since his death, Newman has carried the British colors in his spheres of endeavor with a brilliance, panache, and durability that has put him in, or close to, the company of history’s most distinguished Englishmen, the exalted realm of Shakespeare and Churchill. John Henry Newman is being elevated for a rare fusion of genius and virtue that does great honor to his country, but transcends nationality, denomination, and religion itself.

Mormonism, stereotypes, and popular culture

I must confess my ignorance on this subject, but thought those interested in Mormonism might find it interesting and/or thought-provoking to read this paper, presented at the CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions) 2010 conference in Turin by prominent Italian sociologist of religion Massimo Introvigne.

“Lead Kindly Light”

This is the choir of Wells Cathedral performing the hymn “Lead Kindly Light,” the lyrics of which were written by John Henry Newman in 1833. “Lead Kindly Light” is usually sung to the tune “Lux Benigna,” composed by John Bacchus Dykes in 1865, but there is an alternative tune: “Sandon,” by Charles Henry Purday, written in 1857. While traveling in Italy as a young priest, the future Cardinal Newman became sick and was unable to travel for almost three weeks. And here is how it all started, in Cardinal Newman’s own words:

Before starting from my inn, I sat down on my bed and began to sob bitterly. My servant, who had acted as my nurse, asked what ailed me. I could only answer, "I have a work to do in England." I was aching to get home, yet for want of a vessel I was kept at Palermo for three weeks. I began to visit the churches, and they calmed my impatience, though I did not attend any services. At last I got off in an orange boat, bound for Marseilles. We were becalmed for whole week in the Straits of Bonifacio, and it was there that I wrote the lines, Lead, Kindly Light, which have since become so well known.

“Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom,
lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
the distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
lead thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
pride ruled my will: remember not past years!

So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still
will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!”

Somewhere in Venice

Somewhere has won the top Golden Lion prize at the Venice film festival (and I think I'll go and see it as soon as I can). Written and directed by Academy Award Winner Sofia Coppola, the daughter of The Godfather (1972) director Francis Ford Coppola, Somewhere tells the story of a movie star, played by Stephen Dorff, who comes to see the emptiness of his existence through the eyes of his 11-year-old daughter, played by Elle Fanning.

“This film enchanted us from its first screening,” said director Quentin Tarantino, who headed the jury which unanimously chose Coppola’s film as the best movie at the 11-day annual festival. Much of the story takes place in hotels, and Coppola, when presenting the film, reminisced that she and her family spent a lot of time growing up in hotels where her director father was out on location while filming. Here is the official trailer for the film: