Les barbares poursuivent leur route ... L'empire Romain est incapable de réagir.

Le 31 décembre 406 : invasions barbares.

Des bandes de Vandales, d'Alains et de Suèves franchissent le Rhin gelé près de Mayence. Les barbares poursuivent leur route vers le Sud-ouest et ravagent la Gaule sans rencontrer de résistance notable. L'empire Romain est incapable de réagir. Bientôt ils occupent l'Espagne et le nord de l'Afrique. Dans leurs sillages d'autres groupes de Barbares envahissent l'Europe occidentale: les Alamans, les Burgondes, les Suèves et les Francs.



Les Vandales pillant Rome, par Heinrich Leutemann (1824-1904)
Ils pillent successivement la Gaule, la Galice et la Bétique (en Espagne), l'Afrique du nord et les îles de la Méditerranée occidentale durant tout le Ve siècle de l'ère chrétienne. Ils fondent également un éphémère «royaume vandale d'Afrique», ou «royaume de Carthage»



La période des grandes invasions a bouleversé les bases du monde antique sédentaire et y met un point final : c'est la fin de l'Antiquité qui se joue entre 400 et 600.

Source: lesalonbeige.blogs.com






31 décembre 406 - Les Barbares en armes franchissent le Rhin


Le 31 décembre 406, de nombreuses bandes de barbares franchissent le Rhin. Ils profitent de ce que le fleuve, cet hiver-là, est gelé pour le traverser à pied. C'est la plus importante vague d'immigration qu'ait connue l'empire romain depuis ses origines.

Tandis que les historiens français qualifient de Grandes Invasions l'entrée en masse des Germains dans l'empire romain, via le Danube ou le Rhin, leurs homologues allemands préfèrent parler de Völkerwanderung ou « migration des peuples ».

Jean-François Zilbermann



Une intégration difficile

Les premières alertes sérieuses ont débuté au milieu du IIIe siècle, avec la mort de Dèce en 251 en Pannonie, face aux Goths. C'est le premier empereur romain mort au combat en affrontant des Barbares. En 260, l'empereur Valérien est capturé par les Perses sur la frontière orientale. Dans le même temps, la Gaule, délaissée par l'administration romaine et victime d'incursions armées, se donne un empereur dissident en la personne du général Postumus... L'Empire est enfin restauré dans sa plénitude par les empereurs illyriens, à commencer par Aurélien, en 274.

Sur ordre de celui-ci, les Romains évacuent en 275 les champs Décumates, la région d'entre le Rhin et le Danube, pour raccourcir leurs lignes de défense. La Dacie (la Roumanie actuelle) est abandonnée aux Goths.

L'empire retrouve un semblant de santé. Dans le siècle qui suit, la pénétration des barbares dans le vieil empire romain se fait de façon surtout pacifique, des immigrants se faisant embaucher comme légionnaires ou comme travailleurs agricoles pour combler les vides causés par la diminution des naissances.

La montée des périls

En 376, la situation s'aggrave brutalement...

Les Wisigoths, poussés par les Huns qui arrivent des steppes de l'Asie, franchissent le Danube et demandent à l'empereur d'Orient Valens le droit de s'installer dans l'empire comme « fédérés » (en quelque sorte des alliés ou des supplétifs). L'empereur ne peut faire autrement que d'accepter. Il leur concède le droit d'asile, leur offre la Mésie (la Bulgarie actuelle) et, lui-même étant arien, les encourage à se convertir à cette forme de christianisme. Mauvaise idée : cela va rendre plus difficile le ralliement des Barbares à l'empire, majoritairement catholique.

En attendant, les Barbares ne tardent pas à se soulever pour protester contre les exactions des fonctionnaires romains. Valens est tué en les affrontant sous les murs d'Andrinople le 9 août 378. Son successeur Théodose 1er concède aux Wisigoths la Mésie à titre définitif et à leurs alliés Ostrogoths la Pannonie (la Hongrie actuelle) avec le droit de conserver leurs lois et leurs armes.

Une invasion en masse

Les Germains en profitent pour franchir le Rhin et pénètrer en armes dans l'empire romain. Ils ne rencontrent plus guère de résistance.

L'empire a été divisé dix ans plus tôt entre les deux fils de Théodose 1er. Sur l'Occident (capitale : Ravenne) règne Honorius et sur l'Orient (capitale : Constantinople) Arcadius. Avant de mourir, Théodose a confié la tutelle des jeunes empereurs au général Stilicon, fils d'un officier vandale rallié à Rome ! Celui-ci maintient tant bien que mal l'ordre dans l'empire mais il sera assassiné sur ordre d'Honorius le 23 août 408...

Dès lors, les provinces, au nombre d'une centaine, échappent peu ou prou à l'autorité centrale. Le pouvoir est partagé au niveau local entre les généraux (chefs militaires), les vicaires (représentants de l'empereur) et les évêques (chefs religieux).

Les nouveaux-venus s'installent là où ils peuvent et font souche. On évalue leur nombre à 400.000 environ, dont 100.000 guerriers. Parmi eux un quart de Francs Ripuaires, presque autant de Vandales et de Burgondes, des Alains etc.

L'empire romain d'Occident dans lequel ils pénètrent compte pas moins de 25 millions d'âmes mais il n'est défendu que par une poignée de soldats professionnels guère motivés : 136.000 limitanei ou soldats des frontières, en grande majorité des Germains mal dégrossis, et 113.000 comitatenses ou soldats de l'intérieur, encore moins combatifs que les précédents.

Malgré la disproportion des effectifs, les envahisseurs n'ont donc pas de peine à s'enfoncer jusqu'aux extrémités de l'empire et à s'y établir des principautés. De la Gaule, une partie d'entre eux, les Vandales, passent en Espagne et atteignent même le territoire de l'actuelle Tunisie.
Les invasions barbares au Ve siècle

Cliquez pour agrandir

Dès le IIIe siècle, les Romains se montrent impuissants à contenir l'invasion des Germains. Ces derniers sont eux-mêmes poussés en avant par les Huns.

Mais ces derniers ne font qu'une apparition dans l'empire romain à l'agonie, tandis que s'y installent définitivement les envahisseurs germains, donnant souvent le nom de leur tribu à un pays ou une province : Alamans (Allemagne),Burgondes (Bourgogne), Francs (France), Lombards (Lombardie), Vandales(Andalousie)...

Source: www.herodote.net

Une donnée constante de l'histoire russe: sa volonté de répondre au défi de la zone Atlantique.

La Russie vue par les Occidentaux du "Cavalier de Bronze" au Mausolée de Lénine

Par Martin Malia

Ce ne sont pas les historiens qui peuvent décider si la Russie appartient ou non à l'Europe (ils en disputent depuis trois siècles.) C'est finalement la Russie. Son histoire nous apprend qu'il ne faut pas la croire sur parole, mais sur ses actes.

L'Occident et l'énigme russe : du cavalier de bronze au mausolée de Lénine, Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2003 - Martin Edward Malia, né à Springfield le 14 mars 1924 et mort àOakland le 19 novembre 2004, est un historien américain, spécialiste de l'URSS.

On l'avait beaucoup attendu, ce grand ouvrage, au point presque qu'on n'y croyait plus. Martin Malia en a eu l'intuition en 1962 et en a écrit une première version. Les idées y étaient déjà. Voilà vingt-six ans que les éditeurs disent aux futurs recenseurs : " Préparez-vous le livre sort " et ils trempaient leurs plumes dans l'encrier.Rien ne venait. Avec quelques happy few, j'ai suivi les cours qu'il donnait dans les années soixante-dix au Collège de France et à l'Ecole des Hautes études. Il arrivait avec une carte de visite et parlait deux heures sans une hésitation. C'était un beau spectacle intellectuel. Quand on expose devant vous un raisonnement historique, la réaction normale est de chercher le fait déviant qui n'est pas compris dans la théorie et qui la fait tomber. Avec Malia, c'était difficile, car le raisonnement était si bien fait, la théorie si mûre et si solide, que le fait devient allégué y trouvait sa place et contribuait à sa solidité. Pourquoi a-t-il tant tarder à publier? Parce qu'il est perfectionniste et que comme nous tous,il doit lutter contre diverses inhibitions qui ne l'empêchent pas de penser ni d'enseigner, mais le gênent pour écrire et plus encore pour publier. C'est un peu dommage, parce que ce qu'il avait découvert de si bonne heure et dans une foudroyante intuition de jeunesse, est passé petit à petit dans le savoir courant, grâce en grande partie à son enseignement. Mais c'est tant mieux,parce qu'il a eu tout le temps d'éprouver ses thèses avec ses étudiants et de les parfaire avec ses collègues. Il nous procure ainsi la distillation dernière de toute une vie d'historien. Tant mieux surtout, parce qu'il a eu la chance de connaître la fin de l'histoire, le terme normal du récit : la fin du communisme. C'est-à-dire la rentrée de la Russie dans le champ de l'histoire commune de l'humanité.

Qu'on me permette ici une digression. Il y a eu des gens pour se vanter d'avoir "prédit la chute du communisme". Il y avait un excellent homme, colonel de son état, qui la prédisait régulièrement pour la fin de l'année, vingt ans durant. Il a fini par avoir raison certes, mais à ma connaissance, aucun historien sérieux ne l'a imité, surtout pas Martin Malia, et voici pourquoi : ce n'est pas certaines choses ne devraient pas exister qu'elles ne s'incrustent pas dans l'existence pour une durée parfaitement imprévisible. Le régime communiste est une utopie qui s'est arrangée pour tirer de son utopisme même une recette indéfinie. La réalité a du mal à vaincre l'irréalité, la raison a du mal à mordre à l'absurde.

Ceux qui suivaient l'évolution de l'URSS voyaient bien que tout pourrissait, mais il n'y avait ni délai ni de limite fixes au pourrissement. Tout pouvait pourrir encore plus, encore plus longtemps. Il en va ainsi pour le dernier régime communiste pur, celui de la Corée du Nord. Je suis tout prêt à affirmer : il tombera. Je me refuse à dire quand, parce que les circonstances qui le maintiennent en survie peuvent durer et que nul historien sérieux ne peut déterminer lesquelles disparaîtront et quand. Le régime communiste aurait pu, aurait dû disparaître après la mort de Lénine, sous les coups de Hitler, après la mort de Staline, il aurait pu durer encore bien des années, avec la bénédiction occidentale après celle de Brejnev. Cela n'eut pas lieu, et les historiens peuvent dire pourquoi, mais après coup seulement ou bien ils ne sont pas des historiens. Les circonstances ont fait que Martin Malia a pu conduire son récit jusqu'à la date la plus significative pour la Russie et pour le monde, 1991. Il a pu donner à son récit la forme classique : decline and fall. Cela est une bonne fortune, car la logique auto destructive du système, qui existe de toute façon, est confirmée par l'événement.

Mais l'épisode communiste n'est pas central dans le projet de ce livre. Au contraire il est défini comme un accident explicable, mais accidentel tout de même dans l'histoire séculaire de la Russie. Le fil principal de l'ouvrage est de passer critiquement en revue les différentes conceptions aperceptions projections que l'Occident européen a nourries sur le pays qui entre dans son histoire au XVIIIe siècle. Le fait historique russe est donc pris de l'extérieur. Mais comme ces différentes conceptions sont liées à l'histoire de cet Occident à mesure qu'il les engendre, c'est finalement toute l'histoire du monde occidental en plus de l'histoire de la Russie en plus de l'histoire de la Russie qui est touchée et analysée critiquement. La visée du livre grossit comme un fleuve qui reçoit beaucoup d'affluents. Il commence modestement et se développe finalement en médiation sur l'histoire universelle moderne. En quoi il reproduit la propre carrière intellectuelle de son auteur. Un historien commence sa carrière en spécialiste, mais s'il n'est pas qu'un professeur c'est toute l'histoire qu'il finit par embrasser. Martin Malia a osé faire ce parcours et il nous livre un des livres les plus ambitieux qui soit. Son modèle, il l'avoue presque c'est Tocqueville. Il en a retrouvé le ton calme, le style pur et simple, l'extrême clarté de l'argumentation. Il a retrouvé cette densité qui fait que chaque page exige d'être lue lentement, parce qu'elle provoque l'esprit et impose la réflexion.

La thèse fondamentale est celle-ci. Il n'existe rien qui serait l'essence de la Russie ou encore comme on dit :, "La Russie éternelle", ou un couple ontologique et définitif Russie/Occident ou encore Russie/Europe. La Russie s'est présentée depuis trois siècles sous de multiples visages. Elle en a changé plusieurs fois. Il n'existe pas non plus d'entité stable qui serait l'Europe ou l'Occident. L'Occident est multiple. Il est plus souvent divisé à propos de la Russie. Le même pays au même moment fait réagir différemment l'Angleterre, l'Allemagne ou la Pologne. A l'arrière plan de cette thèse, se trouve une appréciation globale de l'épisode communiste. Est-il interprétable comme un avatar de la réussite invariable, ou est-il, comme le pense Malia, un accident qui a fait sortir la Russie d'elle-même et l'a, au sens étymologique, dévergondée? Malia vise évidemment un vieil adversaire intellectuel, remarquable historien de la Russie lui aussi, mais qui sous-estime à ses yeux l'importance disruptrice de l'idéologie communiste au profit des continuités historiques nationales : Richard Pipes.

La question doit être traitée historiquement et donc chronologiquement. Le découpage est facile. Quatre grandes périodes de Pierre le Grand aux traités de Vienne : de 1815 aux grandes réformes d'Alexandre II ; de 1856 au putsch d'Octobre; de 1917 à la chute du communisme en 1991. Chaque foi la Russie a pris aux yeux des Europes un visage différent.


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Lire la suite: feodorof.blog4ever.net

L'Occident et l'Enigme russe. Du Cavalier de bronze au mausolée de Lénine

Martin Malia

Après avoir magistralement rendu compte de La Tragédie soviétique (Seuil, 1995), Martin Malia entreprend ici d'élucider en profondeur une donnée constante de l'histoire russe: sa confrontation avec l'Ouest, sa volonté de répondre au défi de la zone Atlantique. Une réponse à retardement et souvent inappropriée. Ainsi, la Russie, après deux siècles de construction puis de libéralisation douloureuse de son ancien régime, tente en 1917 de passer d'un bond à un "socialisme" qui se veut plus avancé et démocratique que le "capitalisme" européen. Caricature tragique de la civilisation européenne qui a fasciné et mobilisé l'Occident pendant la majeure partie du XXe siècle.

Ce travail audacieux et brillant éclaire une réalité qui a longtemps tourmenté - en lui échappant - le regard occidental, et propose une perspective originale sur l'histoire de l'Europe dans son ensemble.

www.seuil.com/

Martin Edward Malia

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Malia

“God’s Servant First: The Life and Legacy of Thomas More,” Washington, D.C.

GOD’S SERVANT FIRST


A unique exhibit, “God’s Servant First: The Life and Legacy of Thomas More,” opened Friday, Sept. 16, at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C. It is the only location where the exhibit will appear in the United States.

The exhibit will be open daily from Sept. 16, 2016 until March 31, 2017. Additional information is available at:www.jp2shrine.org/jp/en/news/thomas-more-exhibit.html

The exhibit includes artifacts never before displayed in the United States as well as relics of St. Thomas More. More was lord high chancellor of England under King Henry VIII from 1529 to 1532. He sacrificed prestige, influence, and ultimately his life because he refused to betray his religious convictions.

Declaring Thomas More the patron saint of statesmen and politicians in 2000, St. John Paul II said More’s life and martyrdom offer a testimony that “spans the centuries” and “speaks to people everywhere of the inalienable dignity of the human conscience.” The title of the Washington exhibit is inspired by the words believed to be More’s last: “I die the King’s good servant, and God’s first.”

Organized and sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst, England, the exhibit features over 60 artifacts, most of which are from the Stonyhurst College Collections.

Right Honorable Lord Alton of Liverpool , chairman of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst, said, “The exhibition highlights the contemporary relevance of St. Thomas More, particularly in relation to the widespread religious persecution that continues daily in the Middle East, Pakistan, North Korea and many other places across the globe.”

Patrick Kelly, executive director of the shrine, said, “Even 500 years after his death, Thomas More's example remains thoroughly modern. He is an eloquent example of courageous Christian discipleship, and it is our hope that this exhibit will inspire others to imitate his virtues and his extraordinary fidelity to God and to a well-formed conscience.”

The objects on display include a first folio by William Shakespeare; a hat owned by More; a religious garment embroidered by Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of King Henry VIII; and relics of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher.

The exhibit also includes the pectoral cross and saddle chalice of John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the United States, who was deeply influenced by More’s example in his own work to protect the rights of American Catholics in an era of hostility.

More was executed in 1535 for refusing to recognize Henry VIII as the head of the Church in England. More and Henry had been friends and even worked together on a treatise in defense of the Catholic faith. As a popular and respected statesman, More’s refusal was perceived as an implicit challenge to the legitimacy of the monarch’s claims. Bishop John Fisher was executed within a month of More, on the same charge of treason.

The 20th-century English writer G. K. Chesterton said More “may come to be counted the greatest Englishman, or at least the greatest historical character in English history. For he was above all things historic. … If there had not happened to be that particular man at that particular moment, the whole of history would have been different.”


Read more: www.kofc.org

The vibrancy of Catholic life in England before Henry VIII

The saint with Aristotle on his finger

by Fr Raymond de Souza

The next time someone claims that the 16th-century English Church was backward and superstitious, tell them about this ring


Martin Scorsese’s newly released film about Jesuit missionaries in Japan, Silence, joins other films on the courageous Jesuit missions: Black Robe, about New France, and perhaps the greatest priest film of all time, The Mission, about the Jesuits in South America. The latter was released 30 years ago, and the masterful screenplay was written by Robert Bolt, who 20 years earlier adapted his own stage play for the film A Man for All Seasons.

Thirty years after The Mission and 50 years after A Man for All Seasons, the genius of Robert Bolt – who also wrote the screenplays for Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago – is clearly enduring. The Bolt religious films would make good viewing over the Christmas holidays.

Bolt’s play and film were much on my mind upon visiting the St John Paul II National Shrine here in Washington, which is hosting until next March a special exhibition entitled God’s Servant First: The Life and Legacy of St Thomas More. The exhibition is an Anglo-American collaboration, jointly sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst.

The exhibition makes available for the first time in America part of the magnificent collection at Stonyhurst, which shows the vibrancy of Catholic life in England before Henry VIII. That Charles Carroll (the only Catholic signatory of the Declaration of Independence) and John Carroll (first Catholic bishop in the United States) both studied at Stonyhurst makes this collaboration all the more suitable.

The collection is not limited to items from the life of Thomas More, though there are plenty of those, including a rather richly embroidered sleeping cap – an indication of his wealth – and relics of his hair shirt, proving that a love for comfort did not drive him.

Most impressive are the richly appointed vestments, books of hours and vessels, all of which are not only objects of piety but impressive works of art. Several are shown defaced and disfigured after Henry’s break with Rome, revealing not just a violent ecclesial rupture, but also cultural barbarism of a severe sort. Henry ordered that the name of St Thomas Becket be scratched out of every book in his realm, even those privately held.

My favourite item in the exhibition is an extraordinary ring that belonged to St John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester and court bishop who alone in the episcopate refused to bend to Henry. He was imprisoned in the Tower with Thomas More, and executed on June 22, 1535; Thomas More would follow on July 6.

Fisher’s ring is a cameo of Aristotle in a gold setting. Yes, Aristotle. I did a double take. It didn’t strike me as impious, but somewhat profane at first glance. Fisher, though – a great man of learning and chancellor at Cambridge – fully saw the heritage of Greek philosophy, mediated through Augustine and Aquinas, as belonging to an authentic Christian humanism. Next time someone accuses the English Church of the early 16th century of being backward and superstitious, awaiting enlightenment under Henry, remind him that the greatest bishop of the time wore Aristotle around his finger.

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Read more: www.catholicherald.co.uk

The Netherlands unevenly applies a law forbidding provocation.

Incitement to Hypocrisy

by Theodore Dalrymple

The Bourbons, said Talleyrand, learned nothing and forgot nothing. Sometimes it seems as if our modern liberals are just like the Bourbons. Here, for example, is a headline from the U.K.’s hard-line liberal newspaper, the Guardian: FAR-RIGHT PARTY STILL LEADING IN DUTCH POLLS, DESPITE LEADER’S CRIMINAL GUILT.

What was the crime of which the far-right leader—Geert Wilders—was guilty? It was incitement to discrimination; in other words, not even discrimination itself. He had discriminated against no one, but made a speech in which he called for “fewer Moroccans.” Significantly, the Guardian gave no further details of what Wilders meant by this—whether, for example, he proposed that fewer Moroccan immigrants should be allowed into the Netherlands, that the illegal Moroccan immigrants should be deported, or that Dutch citizens of Moroccan descent should be deprived of their citizenship and forcibly repatriated. For the Guardian, it hardly seemed to matter.

More significant still was the Guardian’s inability, even after the victory of Donald Trump in the United States—which must, in part, have been attributable to a revolt against political correctness—to see that the conviction of Wilders on a charge so patently designed to silence the fears of a considerable part of the population couldn’t possibly reduce his popularity. By illustrating the moral arrogance of the political class against which Wilders’s movement is a reaction, the charge might actually make him more popular.

The Guardian article, oddly enough, was accompanied by a photograph of some Muslim protesters in Amsterdam holding up banners in favor of sharia law. There weren’t many such protesters, it’s true, but they appeared to be doing Wilders’s work for him. “Sharia for the Netherlands,” said one banner. “Islam will dominate the world, freedom can go to hell,” said another.

Anyone who advocates sharia can plausibly be said to incite discrimination. Not even those who claim that the Islamic law was often superior in the past to available alternatives—for example, that Christian peasants in the Middle East preferred the jizya tax on dhimmis under Muslim rule to the exactions of the Byzantine Greeks—could maintain that equality under the law was one of sharia’s tenets. He who supports sharia supports legal discrimination on grounds that we have now come to regard as illegitimate.

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Read more: www.city-journal.org

As long as we live this side of eternity, utopian overreach, will be with us always.

The Perils of Utopian Overreach

by Jonathan B. Coe

With his usual erudition, C.S. Lewis sums up an important aspect of the human condition:

The Christian says, “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

We cannot adequately understand the world within us and without us without consulting a biblical anthropology. We were created in Eden; we were created forheaven (Phil. 3:20); the Preacher (Qoheleth) in Ecclesiastes says that God has “set eternity in their hearts” (emphasis mine; Eccles. 3:11b). Our deepest yearnings draw us heavenward.

But now we live east of Eden in a fallen world, and, in our quiet, honest moments, we have a “something’s missing” feeling and a longing for heaven or something like the perfection of Eden. Life can feel like living in a motel room, and, despite the cable TV, free Continental breakfast, and comfortable queen-sized bed, it’s not home. How we respond to this yearning will greatly influence not only the health of our relationships but also the vitality of our society.

Interpersonal Overreach and Utopian Overreach
In a recent essay, I opined that we often try to arrange our lives in an effort to make the “something’s missing” feeling go away. We think that with the right career, marriage, sex life, kids, friends, local church, financial security, hobbies, etc., we can circumvent the cherubim and the sword of justice and re-enter Eden.

The pursuit of these things can result in a demanding spirit and interpersonal overreach. This manifests itself in different ways. It may be a wife who demands that her husband be able to read her mind in buying her the perfect gift for her birthday. She won’t even drop subtle hints for him, because, if he really loved her and was sensitive to her needs, he wouldn’t need them.

It could be a husband who demands that his wife have a similar sexual nature to his own despite the fact that the area of the hypothalamus in the human brain related to sexual pursuit is 2.5 times bigger in men than women. Also, the fuel that runs sexual desire is testosterone and men, in general, have ten times more of this than women.

In both examples a demanding spirit devours the spirit of self-sacrifice. It tries to sneak by the cherubim and the sword of justice and re-enter the original Garden. Deleterious consequences ensue because there is an unbridgeable gulf between the two worlds. We turn people into gods and people make lousy gods.

Just as there is interpersonal overreach in the domain of human relationships (The Micro), there is also utopian overreach in the political, economic, and social spheres of life (The Macro). A misguided longing for heaven or Eden enters the public square with harmful outcomes: the unintended consequences that are often rooted in good intentions.

There is no more dramatic example than the legacy of atheistic Communism in the last century. In the vision of a worker’s paradise, the property of the bourgeoisie is collectivized and distributed equally for the benefit of everyone: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

However, the Dream became the Nightmare with 100 million people being killed through starvation and in the gulags and killing fields. North Korea and Cuba (see also China, Vietnam, and Laos) still foolishly dance around this Golden Calf. The former is one large concentration camp; the latter is an island prison just 90 miles from our shores where human rights go to die.

Whereas a demanding spirit must arise in interpersonal relationships to try to re-enter Eden in the Micro, a totalitarian spirit must prevail to usher it in in the Macro. The greater the utopian overreach, the more totalitarian the government and the bloodier the revolution required to accomplish its agenda.

Less egregious examples exist closer to home, but, like atheistic Communism, demonstrate unrealistic objectives in pursuing not only equal opportunity for American citizens but also equal outcomes. The practitioners of this overreach are usually well-meaning people on the political Left who often interpret different outcomes among groups as inequities (inequalities=inequities) and seek to use the power of government to usher in a social justice that has the fragrance of Eden.

Utopian Overreach in Policies for Black America and Beyond

Black Americans have often been the recipients of such “compassion” resulting in a myriad of negative unintended consequences. In his commencement address in 1965,Lyndon Johnson stated that the true measure of success on the civil rights revolution was not only establishing an equality of opportunity for all peoples but also an equality of result.

The War on Poverty was supposed to pursue this lofty goal between black and white but actually significantly slowed the process of a declining poverty rate in the black community. Jeffery Reynolds writes:

The poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent in 1960, during an era of virtually no major civil rights legislation or anti-poverty programs. It dropped another 17 percentage points during the decade of the 1960s and one percentage point during the 1970s, but this continuation of the previous trend was neither unprecedented nor something to be arbitrarily attributed to the programs like the War on Poverty.

Every major political leader on the Right in America, no matter how rock-ribbed, believes in a safety net—a safety net, not a hammock—but the American taxpayer hasn’t really gotten the bang for their buck in seeing their money diminish poverty. In 1967, shortly after the programs took effect, the poverty rate was around 27 percent. In 2012 it was approximately 29 percent after an expenditure of 21.5 trillion dollars.

The futility of this transfer of wealth is highlighted when we consider that, according toWilliam Galston, a domestic policy adviser in the Clinton administration, only 8 percent of the people who (1) earn a high school diploma, (2) wait until age 20 to get married, and, (3) wait until they are married to have children, live in poverty. Taking money from Taxpayer A and giving it to Citizen B through the agency of government was conspicuously missing from this list of poverty deterrents.

The social pathologies that emerged in the black community as a result of all this liberal compassion led journalist Jason Riley, who grew up in inner city Buffalo, New York, to write a book titled Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder For Blacks To Succeed.

Exhibit A: In the War on Poverty, as single women received more government largesse as a result of illegitimate children, the government became these women’s “husband,” resulting in more catastrophic outcomes for children growing up in fatherless homes: higher rates of poverty, crime, drug and alcohol abuse, lower educational achievement, poorer physical and emotional health, earlier pre-marital sexual activity and alarming rates of illegitimacy.

Utopian overreach and the legacy of negative, unintended consequences continues among American blacks through the policy of Affirmative Action. Riley believes that, because of racial preferences, many blacks were accepted into elite institutions for which they were not academically prepared. He points out that, in the University of California system, when a ban was imposed on racial preferences in 1996, black graduation rates rose by more than 50 percent, illustrating how affirmative action policies were limiting black students’ success.

High tax rates often exemplify utopian overreach and have results that are just the opposite of what proponents of “soak the rich” policies want. If a tax rate is too low (e.g., 3 percent) for people with higher incomes, there won’t be enough revenue to fund necessary government services. If it’s too high, the well-off will use smart accountants to hide their money just as the wealthy did with tax-exempt securities during the Woodrow Wilson administration.

Less taxable income is reported and revenues from taxes go down. The safety net that many people pursuing social justice want to fortify becomes less secure. It’s interesting to note that when high tax rates were lowered during the Wilson, Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush 43 administrations, revenue for Uncle Sam went up.

Such empirical verification should force the person on the Left, who feels compassion for the out-of-work machinist in Sandusky, Ohio, and doesn’t want to see his food stamps cut, to reconsider their tax policy. This seemed to be completely lost on Bernie Sanders and his followers and others (e.g., Pope Francis) who derisively trot out the straw man of “trickle-down” economics.

Utopian Overreach on the Right: Foreign Policy

As someone whose politics are right-of-center, I have to admit that sometimes people on my side of the aisle demonstrate naiveté and consequently get “worked over” by the cherubim and the sword of justice—i.e. real world consequences. Though utopian overreach seems to be more a part of the DNA of the Left than the Right—I have no doubt the etiology of the Left is in Genesis 3—sometimes the Right acts like the Left and internecine conflict is necessary to at least clarify issues.

Libertarians, who are conservative on economic issues, often have an isolationist foreign policy. They don’t seem to realize that when you do nothing abroad in the way of deterrence, a power vacuum is created that often gets filled by the bad guys. Isolationism may work well in Eden but not east of the Garden.

Look at Hitler in the 1930s; look at Aleppo today.

...

Read mnore: www.crisismagazine.com

"Temo más la cobardía dentro de la iglesia que a las presiones externas"

 ¡Gracias, Mons. Juan C. Sanahuja, heraldo fiel del Señor de la Vida!

Mª Virginia

“El hará volver el corazón de los padres hacia sus hijos y el corazón de los hijos hacia sus padres, para que yo no venga a castigar el país con el exterminio total.” (Mal. 3, 24)

No dudamos que el llamado de Dios Padre a celebrar más cerca Suyo la fiesta de la Vida por excelencia que es la Navidad, ha sido el galardón más justo a una vida sacerdotal signada por la defensa de la verdad y de la vida. Así de ejemplar y consoladora para los fieles, ha sido la de Mons. Juan Claudio Sanahuja.

Nada es casual para el cristiano.

Tampoco creemos que sean casuales las lecturas de hoy, referidas a Juan, el Precursor. Porque hoy también Dios nos envía discípulos fieles, enteramente Suyos, para no desviar el rumbo en la tempestad, porque

El Señor es bondadoso y recto:
por eso muestra el camino a los extraviados;él guía a los humildes para que obren rectamente
y enseña su camino a los pobres.El Señor da su amistad a los que lo temen
y les hace conocer su alianza.(Salmo 25, 8-14).

La Iglesia también nos trae en este día la memoria de “otro Juan”,S. Juan de Kety, -siglo XV-, notable académico y celoso presbítero polaco, de quien hallamos palabras muy oportunas que muy bien podría hacer suyas el querido p. Sanahuja: «La tristeza no agrada a Dios. Si algún bien os he hecho en estos años, cantad un himno de alegría».

Muchos, muchos más de los que el padre Juan Claudio se imaginaría, lo echaremos de menos, Dios sabe cuánto, porque su siembra fue cuantiosísima.

Seguramente en los próximos días se multiplicarán losreconocimientos a su obra, que ha abierto los ojos de católicos de varias generaciones acerca de uno de los campos en donde más ferozmente se nos insta a librar el buen combate en nuestros tiempos: la “biopolítica”. Nos atrevemos a afirmar que casi nadie, ni laico ni consagrado, ha hablado con tanta claridad y lucidez como él, sobre estas cuestiones. Hay que admitir que muchos se extrañaban y no daban crédito, hace ya más de quince años, cuando oían al p. Juan Claudio advertir sobre el panorama siniestro que se avecinaba tras las banderas de la ideología de género.

Personalmente, damos profundas gracias a Dios por habernos dado la gracia de conocerlo y de tratarlo, y como justo reconocimiento a su labor, instamos a rogar por su eterno descanso y compartimos la semblanza que nos da su más dilecta discípula y colaboradora, Mónica del Río, en el boletín electrónicoNotivida (Año XVI, Nº 1031, 23 de diciembre de 2016):

¡GRACIAS PADRE JUAN CLAUDIO SANAHUJA!

Misa de exequias: 24 de diciembre, 10 hs, Basílica Ntra. Sra. del Pilar (Junín 1898, Recoleta)

Esta mañana y tras haber anunciado durante décadas el Evangelio de la Vida, entregó su alma a Dios el P. Juan Claudio Sanahuja.

En su trabajo empeñoso abrevaron las más de las iniciativas que se llevan adelante en el país, para la defensa y promoción de la vida humana y la familia.

Fue un luchador de la Fe que nos animó a defenderla con palabras, pero también con hechos y sin dejarnos amedrentar por las consecuencias. “Tal como están las cosas una persona que no tiene siquiera una denuncia ante el INADI debería inspirarnos desconfianza”. “¿Qué es más importante para un colegio católico, ser fiel a su identidad o evitar la demanda del profesor homosexual cesanteado?”.

Destacó reiteradamente que “la reingeniería social antinatural que intentan imponer tiene un único escollo: la religión cristiana” y describió acabadamente las nuevas formas de espiritualidad con que intentan suplantarla. Denunció sin ningún temor a los financistas del Nuevo Orden y a las mesas de consenso que marcan la agenda de la ONU.

Convirtió al boletín electrónico en una herramienta de combate. No redactaba noticias para que la gente sólo estuviera informada, advertía al desprevenido y exhortaba al militante.

Desnudó los intereses espurios de los organismos internacionales. Transmitía con generosidad las conclusiones a las que arribaba su mirada aguda tras analizar, fatigosamente, documentación profusa. Revisaba minuciosamente documentos que seguía desde su aparición como borrador inicial, hasta su publicación oficial. Forjó un estilo de trabajo que se tradujo en información veraz e incuestionable.

No especulaba con intereses mezquinos: “Acabemos con los falsos respetos humanos y llamemos a las cosas por su nombre”.

Tampoco esquivaba sinsabores: “Si es así, así hay que transmitirlo, sin edulcorarlo”.

Movilizó muchas batallas que podía anticipar perdidas, destacando el valor del testimonio. “Lo único que falta es que ellos salgan del closet y nosotros aprovechemos el hueco para meter nuestras convicciones en el ropero”.

Impulsó ruedas de enlace entre las ong provida y convocó muchas veces a manifestarse frente a ámbitos legislativos.

Al estilo de los viejos maestros formaba el “olfato” de los jóvenes: “si escuchan hablar de ecologismo, de ecumenismo, de pacifismo… comiencen a sospechar”. Trataba de abrirles los ojos para que no fueran manipulados y entonces les lanzaba frases cortas y concretas:“Salud reproductiva es aborto”. “Luchar contra la homofobia es hacer apología del homosexualismo”. “No hay manera de conjugar catolicidad con diversidad”.

Cuando le presentaban las dificultades de este tiempo no dejaba de señalar que el martirio es una gracia, pero rápidamente hacía hincapié en el esfuerzo y la entrega cotidiana, como para que nadie pueda huir del compromiso. “Lo primero es rezar y lo segundo es tener una vida coherente con los principios que declamamos”. “Lo único que tenemos que intentar es ser buenos soldados de Cristo y sostener ese intento durante toda la vida”. Junto a su lecho advertimos el intento sostenido, que ya le mereció, seguramente, la recompensa del Cielo.

Nunca puso reparos en nuestra tarea, su confianza fue plena. El mensaje fue claro, lo único vedado es arriar las banderas.

Mónica del Río

——————————–

Para quienes nunca lo han escuchado, valga como “pantallazo” de su prédica, esta conferencia del año 2015




https://youtu.be/bpzNYL-Yr9w






y esta entrevista perfectamente actual, del 2012:

https://youtu.be/1CqVgTc2ZEE






¡Nuevamente gracias por su fidelidad, padre, y hasta el Cielo!!

Fuente: infocatolica.com

Padre Juan Claudio Sanahuja, mañana sábado a las 10 hs Misa en Nuestra Señora del Pilar

Juan Claudio Sanahuja, in memoriam

por Juanjo Romero

Mañana, sábado 24 de diciembre, a las 10, en la parroquia Nuestra Señora de Pilar (Junín 1898, del barrio porteño de la Recoleta) se oficiará la misa de exequias y luego será inhumado en el Cementerio de la Recoleta.

Acaba de fallecer el querido padre Juan Claudio Sanahuja, bloguero y colaborador de InfoCatólica. Como dice el P. Christian, él «que tantó luchó en defensa del niño por nacer, fue llamado a su encuentro con el Señor, cuando el Niño Dios está por nacer»

Licenciado en Ciencias de la Información y Doctor en Teología por la Universidad de Navarra. Ordenado sacerdote en 1972, pertenecía a la Prelatura del Opus Dei.

Conocido y respetado defensor de la vida y la familia, autor de «El Gran Desafío: la Cultura de la Vida contra la Cultura de la Muerte»; «El Desarrollo Sustentable. La nueva ética internacional» y «Poder Global y religión universal» y de otros seis libros en colaboración con otros autores.

Puso sus dones naturales al servicio de la evangelización. Pionero de la publicación en internet funda en 1998 el boletín electrónico «Noticias Globales» del que, en 2001 se desprendió Notivida, boletín dedicado a los mismos temas, enfocado a Argentina, con la estrecha colaboración de Mónica del Río.

Asesor Eclesiástico de la Fundación Nueva Cristiandad y Vice-asesor del Consorcio de Médicos Católicos de Buenos Aires.Miembro correspondiente de la Pontificia Academia Pro-Vita. Colaboró con el Pontificio Consejo para la Familia cuyo presidente, el cardenal Alfonso López Trujillo, lo llamó a participar en 1992 en el Primer Encuentro de los Movimientos Pro-Vida de América, organizado en Monterrey, México.

Allí pasó a integrar el grupo encargado de implantar la agenda pro-vida y pro- familia en América Latina. Desde entonces, su actividad fue muy intensa, siempre en colaboración estrecha con el Consejo Pontificio para la Familia.

En 2011, Su Santidad Benedicto XVI le otorgó el título de Capellán de Su Santidad, incorporándolo de esta manera a la Familia Pontificia “por su dedicación al servicio del Evangelio de la vida”.

Los que tuvimos la suerte de conocerle fuimos testigos de suentrega a las almas y su dolor por la Iglesia, siempre presentados por su inmensa sonrisa. Su labor sacerdotal siempre fue guiada por el deseo de ser «’alter Christus, ipse Christus’, otro Cristo, el mismo Cristo» como tantas veces le oyó decir a San Josemaría. Su amor al Señor era la raíz de todo lo demás, por eso su pasión en la defensa de los más pequeños, de los débiles y de la familia arrastraba a todos.

Fino analista que sazonaba los momentos más dramáticos con toques de humor, incluso sobre él mismo. Pude comprobarlo en estos últimos días, cuando la rápida enfermedad se iba desarrollando. Y cómo ofreció hasta el último momento sus dolores por la Iglesia.

Personalmente fue un apoyo en tiempos de tribulación, con su consejo y su prudente valentía; y me atrevo a decir lo mismo de otros blogueros de InfoCatólica, de muchos sacerdotes en su Argentina y de fieles por todo el mundo.

Os animo a que en las puertas de la Navidad ofrezcamos oraciones por el eterno descanso de su alma, él lo preferiría a cualquier panegírico. Poder presentarse con las «vestiduras blancas» (Ap 3, 5) y las manos llenas.

Don Juan Claudio. DEP y muchas gracias.

Fuente: infocatolica.com

Christianity guided Western civilization for over a millennium

How Progressives Stole Christian History

By David Byrne


The Greeks invented philosophy. They gave us Herodotus, the father of history, too. Their philosophy of history was cyclical, meaning they believed history had highs and lows, but lacked purpose. The Christian intellectual tradition first proposed that history moves in a linear fashion, corresponds with progress, and culminates with a utopian end point. Modern day “progressives” have inherited this Christian philosophy, and merely substituted their values.

It was the great St. Augustine who initially posited a comprehensive teleological (with an end) philosophy of history. Drawing upon Old Testament conceptions of history, Augustine divided the past into epochs, one following the other: Adam to Noah, the time of Abraham, the era of David, the Babylonian Captivity, Jesus and the age of grace, and, finally, the Second Coming, when God’s justice reigns on Earth. “How great shall be that felicity,” Augustine imagines, “which shall be tainted with no evil, which shall lack no good and which shall afford leisure for the praises of God, who shall be all in all!” The final triumph of God is the end of history, the end of all progress. Its advent is inevitable.

Christianity corresponds with Enlightenment because one must know God in order to acquire knowledge, since all things come from God. Augustine declares in Confessions, “Can we say, then, my Lord and my God of truth, that you favor the astronomer? Far from it. Let him know all that can be known of that science, but not know you, and he is lost, while blessed is the man, ignorant of astronomy, who knows you.” The non-believers live in absolute darkness, separate from God and truth. Augustine compares them to those described in 2 Timothy 3:7 who are always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. The enlightened, righteous man knows God and his wisdom.

No thinker in history has been surrounded by so much change as Augustine, because the Roman Empire was crumbling. The Mother of the World, the Eternal City, was sacked three years before Augustine published his City of God, but the barbarian rampage was just a necessary condition for a new age. The fall of Rome meant the world was progressing, in a linear manner, from pagan darkness toward Christian Enlightenment. The Roman world was sin-ridden, its gods were helpless, hence its collapse. A new dawn beckoned.

For roughly a millennium, Augustine’s conceptions of history—as well as Christian views on progress and Enlightenment—dominated Western thought. These concepts were challenged during the Renaissance when humanist critics of scholasticism, favoring Greco-Roman culture and intellectual insights, argued for a cyclical narrative of history, again void of purpose. Unlike Christian humanists, such as Erasmus and his circle, these pagan humanists thought history did not move in a straight line, but was littered with highs and lows. Contra Augustine, the Classical Era became a new high point in history, and the Middle Ages was deemed a “dark age,” characterized by barbarianism and Catholic Church domination. The humanists hoped to restore the best aspects of Western civilization by harkening back to the glory of antiquity. Instead of relying exclusively on Scripture and Thomistic philosophy for wisdom, they encouraged the study of pagan authors like Cicero and Virgil. Man is the measure of all things, they insisted. What Augustine deemed a bygone era, humanists found inspiring. (Yet, we should not miss the irony that both Augustine and Thomas, following their patristic forebears, also mined the insights of pagan authors.)

This cyclical narrative was short-lived, however, as the linear conception of history returned with a vengeance during the eighteenth century “Enlightenment,” complete with new notions of progress, and new ends of history. Like they did with so many ideas, Enlightenment philosophes adopted Christian concepts, and merely cloaked them with secular details. Like all of us, Enlightenment philosophes could not completely separate themselves from their past. Augustine’s teleological, epochal, and linear conception of history provides a paradigmatic example. The details changed, but the Christian belief that societies progress toward a final utopian end as certain values thrived continued.

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Read more: www.crisismagazine.com

Lighting candles: on the curious habits of the spiritual-but-not-religious

Like a Candle In Berlin

by Theodore Dalrymple


A moment used to be defined as the amount of time between a Mexico City traffic light turning green and the sound of the first car horn, but now it might be defined as the period between a terrorist attack in a Western city and the first public appearance of a candle. Every terrorist attack, including the latest one in Berlin, is immediately followed by the public exhibition of lighted candles. It is almost as if the population keeps a store of them ready to hand for this very purpose.

What do they dignify, these candles? We are all accustomed to the lighting of candles in Catholic churches, but Berlin is not a Catholic city and, like most Western capitals, is not notably observant of any religion. Its Christmas markets belong more to folkloric tradition than to a living faith. It is likely, indeed, that most of the people whose first impulse was to light candles were proud of their lack of religious belief. On the other hand, quite a few of them might say that they were not religious, but spiritual.

The reason (I surmise) that so many people claim to be spiritual rather than religious is that being spiritual imposes no discipline upon them, at least none that they do not choose themselves. Being religious, on the other hand, implies an obligation to observe rules and rituals that may interfere awkwardly with daily life. Being spiritual-but-not-religious gives you that warm, inner feeling, a bit like whiskey on a cold day, and reassures you that there is more to life—or, at least, to your life—than meets the eye, without actually having to interrupt the flux of everyday existence. It is the gratification of religion without the inconvenience of religion. Unfortunately, like many highly diluted solutions, it has no taste.

The candles, then, are a manifestation of modern paganism, a striving for transcendence without any real belief in it. They are also a somewhat self-congratulatory symbol of our own peaceable temperament: the violent are not great candle-lighters. We cannot, for example, imagine Genghis Khan lighting many candles for the souls of the departed (not that we really believe in souls).

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Read more: city-journal.org

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Book reviews – Faking It: The Sentimentalisation of Modern Society


by Robert Sibley
The Next City

Edited by Digby Anderson and Peter Mullen 

YOU MIGHT REMEMBER THE SCENE LAST SEPTEMBER 6TH ON THE STREET outside Westminster Abbey where thousands had gathered for the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. An American television reporter, her voice choking with emotion, repeatedly referred to the “parade” that would soon take Diana’s body into the cathedral.

Eventually, the reporter twigged to her mistake and turned the “parade” into a “procession.” Perhaps, though, her choice of words wasn’t inappropriate. Perhaps she was unconsciously expressing some new zeitgeist. Perhaps in the age of entertainment, funerals have become carnivals.

You might come to such a conclusion after reading Faking It: The Sentimentalization of Modern Society, which skewers many of western liberal civilization’s cherished shibboleths. The editors, Digby Anderson and Peter Mullen of The Social Affairs Unit, a London-based conservative think tank, encapsulate the book’s theme this way: “There is a word for the decadent disposition in our culture which falls for the fake: it is ‘sentimentality.’ The sentimentalist is a person in denial, and what he avoids or denies is reality. He likes to think that good ends can be achieved without unpleasantness. He would rather not be reminded that pain, effort, personal responsibility, self-control and patience are inevitable. He is attracted by schemes which offer good ends without the need for any striving — learning, a just society, community and even pleasure. Most of all the sentimentalist is frightened by the idea that men have a natural capacity for evil. For to admit evil, and the will to evil, is to destroy his world which rests upon the supposition that utopia may be ushered in by the mere adoption of the right plan.”

Building on this foundation, Faking It‘s 12 essays depict a flaccid and phony society in which self-indulgence, fakery, and a “voracious appetite for sentimentality” shape politics, religion, art, and even our eating habits. (Most of the essays focus on British society, but readers will have no difficulty finding Canadian parallels.) One contributor castigates our fondness for therapeutic relief and feel-good counselling as a refusal to grow up; another describes the psychologists who indulge us as “peddlers of utopia.” And yet another portrays alternative medicine as catering to immature people unable to accept medical realities with fortitude. According to these writers, radical environmentalism reflects the false assumption that nature is benign and that the manmade world is alienating. Contemporary literature and music represent, in the main, emotional fakery.

Trendy religious practices come in for a particularly scathing critique. Peter Mullen, an Anglican cleric, writes that our sentimental society is reducing mainstream Christianity to a clap-happy form of wish fulfilment that seeks to evade the realities of life and death. “The new sentimentality in religion glosses over our dark side, and therefore it is not only a doctrinal failure; it is psychologically inaccurate and so finally incoherent.”

Nicholas Capaldi, an American academic, argues that sentimentality has eroded the values and coherence of middle-class virtues, resulting, in less than 20 years, in “a dependent underclass — the drug-addicted, the violent, the unemployed and the promiscuous.” Moreover, as Capaldi writes, “The lifestyle of this underclass is sentimentalised — as poverty once was — as real life. The word disadvantaged is used to identify the underclass with the stultifying badge of dependency. This has now reached the extreme limit in which we even sentimentalise crime and so abolish the moral distinction between right and wrong. No one is to blame for anything, except wicked capitalists and conservatives.”

However, the most devastating essay in the book — and the one that created the most controversy in Britain — is “Diana, Queen of Hearts” by Anthony O’Hear, a professor at Bradford University. The Princess’s funeral, the extreme grief shown at her death, and her subsequent idolization betray a fake society that has shifted away from traditional standards of conduct. “Diana’s personal canonization, for it amounts to no less, was at the same time a canonization of what she stood for. What she stood for was the elevation of feeling, image and spontaneity over reason, reality and restraint. The Britain of our fathers and grandfathers, the Britain of World War II has been replaced by the New Britain in which the mother of the future King publicly weeps at the funeral of a vulgar and self-publicizing Italian dress designer.”

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Read more: urbanrenaissance.probeinternational.org

Catholic Conservative or Liberal Catholic?

Conservative or Liberal?

by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

One of the websites I write for is The Imaginative Conservative, and if I have to take any kind of label, then it would be “conservative”. I’m conservative because, by instinct and upbringing I’d rather put my energies into conserving the best from the past rather than innovating for the future.

Somebody has to do it.

But that’s about as far as I go in claiming the conservative label. Although I write for that website I’m not happy to be “a Conservative”.

If there were a website called The Liberal Conservative I’d happily write for it.

Here’s why:

1. both Conservatives and Liberals speak truth and I’m for truth wherever it appears.
2. both Conservatives and Liberals have blind spots. They don’t know what they don’t know.
3. I abhor labels, pigeonholes, clubs, gangs, parties, sects and holy huddles of all kinds.
4. Belonging to a party, a gang, a club or a holy huddle encourages you to blame “the other side” for your own problems
5. When you join a gang you need an enemy gang. Attacking them becomes your raison d’être. That’s dumb.
6. Attacking the enemy gang re-inforces your prejudices. It doesn’t challenge them.
7. Recognizing the good in Liberals stands conservatism on its head.
8. Recognizing the good in Conservatives stands Liberalism on its head. I’m for Standing on My Head.
9. Avoiding labels keeps people guessing. Guessing is another form of thinking. Thinking requires an open mind. That’s good.
10. I’m Catholic.

The final reason I eschew both the Conservative and Liberal labels is because I’m Catholic. Catholicism transcends political labels. Catholicism seeks truth wherever it is found and claims that truth as its own.

What kind of Catholic am I? I have a reputation as a conservative Catholic. However, I’d prefer the name Faithful Catholic.

In other words, all I aim to do is be faithful to the historic Catholic faith once delivered to the saints and apply it the best I can as a priest here where I am–doing what I can with what I have where I am.

The rest is hogwash.

Down the years on my blog I’ve been proud of one thing: that both the Conservatives and the Liberals have attacked me.

I don’t always get it right. I’m a human being. I have limited sight. I have prejudices and blind spots. I have passions and hates.

But the fact that Conservatives and Liberals have attacked me (often for the same post) makes me hope I’m on the right track.

Source: www.patheos.com

Italia: la fidelidad en el matrimonio “es una visión anticuada de la pareja” y una “cosa del pasado” que se debe eliminar

Italia planea eliminar la obligación de «fidelidad» en el matrimonio, «algo del pasado y anticuado»


J.L. / ReL


Hasta ahora el Código Civil italiano mantiene la "fidelidad" como obligación de los esposos




Tras la aprobación de las uniones civiles homosexuales en Italia, el Partido Democrático que es el que da sustento al gobierno, está preparando otro ataque a directo a la institución familiar.

La senadora Laura Cantini ha presentado un proyecto de ley que ya estudia el Comité de Justicia de la Corte que tiene como único objetivo acabar con el artículo 143 del Código Civil Italiano que establece como condición para el matrimonio la “fidelidad” entre los cónyuges.

Concretamente, el artículo 143 dice lo siguiente:

“Con el matrimonio el marido y la mujer adquieren los mismos derechos y asumen las mismas obligaciones.

»Del matrimonio deriva la obligación recíproca de fidelidad, moral y material, a la cooperación en el interés de la familia y la convivencia Cod. Pen. 570)”.

"Visión anticuada de la pareja"

Para la promotora de este proyecto la fidelidad “es una visión anticuada de la pareja” y una “cosa del pasado” que se debe eliminar.

La senadora del Partido Democrático, Laura Cantini, es la promotora de este proyecto de ley

De este modo, el grupo que pretende cambiar el ordenamiento italiano insiste en que dicho punto muestra “el legado cultural de una visión obsoleta y anticuada del matrimonio y la familia y de los derechos de los cónyuges”.

De hecho, el proyecto de ley tiene un solo punto aunque puede dar un vuelco a la visión del matrimonio que deriva de la normativa italiana.

La senadora Cantini exige que el Código Civil asuma el contenido de la llamada Ley Cirinna que aprobó las uniones civiles homosexuales y en la que tras grandes controversias no aparece la “fidelidad”, concepto que dejaba únicamente para el matrimonio y que ahora también se pretende eliminar.

España aún mantiene este concepto

En España, por ejemplo, el Código Civil sigue estableciendo la “fidelidad” como obligación de los cónyuges. Así, en el artículo 68 se dice que éstos “están obligados a vivir juntos, guardarse fidelidad y socorrerse mutuamente. Deberán, además, compartir las responsabilidades domésticas y el cuidado y atención de ascendientes y descendientes y otras personas dependientes a su cargo”.

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Fuente: www.religionenlibertad.com

Las leyes sobre orientación sexual e identidad de género: una respuesta subversiva a un problema inexistente

Un abogado experto en libertad de conciencia avisa: pactar con la ideología de género es un error

ReL

El heroísmo de las víctimas de las leyes LGTB, acicate para «no negociar la rendición»

James Gottry es abogado y escritor en la Alliance Defending Freedom, un grupo cristiano de abogados y expertos en Derecho fundado en 1994 para preservar y defender la libertad religiosa. Recientemente escribió un artículo en The Public Discourse donde plantea una estrategia radical ante el avance de la ideología de género. "No es el momento", sostiene, "para que los defensores de la libertad religiosa se asocien a los defensores de la legislación de la orientación sexual y la identidad de género con la esperanza de poder recoger las migajas de libertad que quedan sobre la mesa". Por su interés lo traducimos en su integridad:

Las leyes sobre orientación sexual e identidad de género: una respuesta subversiva a un problema inexistente
El "precio de la ciudadanía" en una sociedad libre no puede incluir nunca nuestra libertad de conciencia. Si la sometemos, estaremos sometiendo también a la sociedad libre.

A lo largo de la historia cada persona, bajo cada régimen político, ha tenido -en su significado más elemental- la libertad de formar una serie única de credos y valores. A los ciudadanos de los Estados Unidos se les garantizó hace tiempo, de una manera excepcional, el cumplimiento de esa libertad. Es decir, poseemos la libertad de vivir pacíficamente según nuestras creencias y de seguir los dictados de nuestra conciencia.

Las leyes de Orientación Sexual e Identidad de Género

Esta libertad -codificada en la Primera Enmienda- es un derecho pre-político inherente a nuestra dignidad como seres humanos. Pero el movimiento cultural para la "tolerancia" y la "inclusión" ha reducido la libertad de conciencia a algo inferior al derecho; algo cuya existencia está sometida a las decisiones de los jueces y los legisladores.

En los últimos años han surgido en todo el país leyes que proporcionan privilegios especiales a personas individuales según su autoproclamada identidad de género o preferencias sexuales. Conocidas comúnmente como leyes SOGI [según sus siglas en inglés, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity], estos proyectos legislativos están alimentados habitualmente por grupos activistas y representan una respuesta subversiva a un problema inexistente. Los datos disponibles confirman que no existe un patrón o una práctica social significativa de discriminación injusta hacia estos grupos. Esto es debido no sólo a que la gran mayoría de los americanos se respeta y es justa, sino también al hecho de que cualquiera que esté implicado en una discriminación infundada se enfrenta a unas consecuencias sociales y económicas provocadas por la presión pública y los boicots.

Las leyes SOGI utilizan todo el peso de la ley para castigar a personas que quieren vivir pacíficamente y llevar adelante sus trabajos según les dicta su conciencia. Elaine Huguenin, Barronelle Stutzman, Jack Phillips y Blaine Adamson son sólo algunos de los propietarios de pequeños comercios que prestan sus servicios con alegría a todo tipo de personas, pero que se enfrentan a penas legales por haberse negado a participar en algunos eventos o a poner su arte al servicio de clientes por problemas de conciencia.

En el caso de Elaine, ésta declinó educadamente una petición para usar su habilidad como fotógrafa para narrar la historia de una ceremonia de compromiso de una pareja del mismo sexo. Su intento de permanecer pacíficamente fiel a la enseñanza de su fe sobre el matrimonio la llevó a una batalla legal que ha durado siete años y que ha culminado con el fallo del Tribunal Supremo de Nuevo México contra ella y su marido, Jon.Un juez declaró que el matrimonio Huguenin "está ahora obligado por ley a comprometer la fe religiosa que ha inspirado sus vidas", añadiendo que esta obligación "es el precio de la ciudadanía”.

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