Uk - The deconstruction of marriage continues. It didn’t begin with gays asking for marriage, but with the heterosexual world rejecting marriage itself.

Great Britain and Gay Marriage

Michael Coren

It was only a matter of time, really. Britain, the country of my birth and my home for the first 28 years of my life, has legalized same-sex marriage.

The Conservative government had not in any way campaigned for it during the election, and Prime Minister David Cameron had effectively said he would not pursue it, as had the gay lobby and its political champions. 

The United Kingdom, you see, had introduced civil partnerships for homosexuals in 2004, and one of the reasons the proposal was passed was because its backers gave their word that it was not “a stepping stone but the end of the road.” 

That was always a lie—they knew it was always a lie, and gay marriage was always the intention. 

Just as the same people are lying now when they say that nobody will be punished, prosecuted, or dismissed for opposing the phenomenon or refusing to teach and proclaim it. 

The Guardiannewspaper has already featured an article by a national celebrity—a star on the iconic British soap Coronation Street—calling for churches that refuse to perform same-sex weddings to be penalized and worse. In Britain even the B-list actors are political and write acid editorials!

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Read more: www.catholicworldreport.com

An interview with Dr. Ryan N.S. Topping about his book Rebuilding Catholic Culture

Reading the Catechism, 

Rebuilding Catholic Culture

Carl E. Olson

Dr. Ryan N. S. Topping earned a doctorate in theology at Oxford, is a Fellow at Thomas More College in New Hampshire, and has written two books about St. Augustine. His recently published book, Rebuilding Catholic Culture: How The Catechism Can Shape Our Common Life (Sophia Institute Press, 2012), has been praised by Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP (“This book deserves to 
take its place among the Catholic classics.”), Joseph Pearce (“Ryan Topping wields the Catechism as a weapon of wisdom…”), and Fr. John Saward (“This profound work of scholarship is a delight to read.”), among others.
Dr. Topping corresponded recently with Catholic World Report about his book, and discussed theCatechism of the Catholic Church, resisting the modern and secular “masters”, the challenges posed by modernity, the various assaults on Catholicism and the family, and why Kant rules our days and Nietzsche our night life.

Catholic World Report: It has now been nearly twenty years since the Catechism of the Catholic Church was published in English. How well or how poorly do you think it has been received and used in that time? How do you hope Rebuilding Catholic Culture will inspire a deeper reading and appreciation of the Catechism? 

Dr. Topping: The work of the restoration of culture is the work of saints. How are saints born? They are born through grace, to be sure. But grace is aided by precept and example. The task of reclaiming our culture for the Church is a battle with many fronts. Far more important than good books is the renewal of liturgy within our churches and the restoration of order within our families and schools. Books rarely excite without lively teachers to place them in our hands. 

To explain a doctrine is to teach, but to illustrate how its meaning can transform action is to excite. I tried to keep both of these aims in view while writing. My hope is thatRebuilding Catholic Culture will in some small way strengthen the nerve and excite the imagination of its readers.
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Read more: www.catholicworldreport.com

Livres - "Pulp libéralisme, la tradition libérale pour les débutants " par Daniel Tourre

«Il y a un sérieux renouveau doctrinal 

chez les libéraux» - Daniel Tourre  

Par Eric Martin 

Blogueur libéral connu et reconnu (1), Daniel Tourre est l’auteur de Pulp libéralisme, la tradition libérale pour les débutants (2012). Nouvelles de France a rencontré cet avocat du libéralisme et lui a posé toutes les questions qui fâchent…
Daniel Tourre, comment expliquer le désamour rencontré par le libéralisme de nos jours en France, alors que notre pays a donné de grands penseurs à la pensée libérale (Bastiat, Molinari, Aron, Tocqueville…) ?

C’est en effet paradoxal. La pensée classique française a pris une part considérable dans l’élaboration de la doctrine libérale, une part reconnue en particulier dans le monde anglo-saxon, mais beaucoup de Français semblent considérer le libéralisme comme un produit d’importation.

Les raisons de ce désamour sont complexes, mais la première de ces raisons est l’ignorance. L’Éducation nationale est une machine à diffuser la bonne parole socialiste. Les auteurs majeurs du libéralisme ne sont tout simplement pas cités, étudiés ou compris. Les Français, qui n’entendant parler du libéralisme que par ses pires adversaires, peuvent difficilement ensuite le connaître et donc l’apprécier.

Une autre raison vient des libéraux français eux-mêmes qui ne se sont peut-être pas assez appuyés sur cette tradition française. En présentant un libéralisme enraciné dans l’histoire intellectuelle de la France, nous aurions sans doute davantage attiré la sympathie de nos compatriotes sur nos idées.

Comment Pulp libéralisme, la tradition libérale pour les débutants compte-t-il changer la donne ? S’adresse-t-il d’abord au grand public, aux curieux bien qu’encore sceptiques, ou aux libéraux confirmés ?

Je suis parti de l’idée que nous avions en France de nombreux auteurs classiques, des essais de bonne qualité ou des livres savants, mais qu’il manquait un chaînon pour permettre à un public plus large de découvrir les idées libérales. Un livre pédagogique qui permette en un seul volume de connaitre les grands principes de cette doctrine en philosophie politique.

Une partie de l’ouvrage est aussi consacrée à des notions de science économique. Tout en restant sérieux sur le fond, le ton du livre est humoristique. Il est illustré à chaque page par des vieilles bandes dessinées des années 1950 dont le contenu des bulles a été réécrit… Il s’agit donc d’un manuel familier que l’on sort sans soupirer pour apprendre quelques nouvelles notions.

Le livre s’adresse avant tout à des personnes curieuses qui souhaitent découvrir le vrai libéralisme mais j’espère aussi qu’il permettra à des libéraux de découvrir ou redécouvrir des auteurs ou des notions.- See more at: http://www.ndf.fr/poing-de-vue/25-02-2013/daniel-tourre-il-y-a-un-serieux-renouveau-doctrinal-chez-les-liberaux#sthash.DohxcdVh.dpuf

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Lire ici: www.ndf.fr

Faith preserves freedom

Faith and Freedom

by Joseph Pearce

Liberty itself must be limited in order to be possessed

.- 

Edmund Burke

Anarchy, Freedom’s own Judas, the vile prodigal License

 who steals the gold of liberty- Oscar Wilde

In an age that seems to believe that Christianity is an obstacle to liberty, it will prove provocative to insist, contrary to such belief, that Christian faith is essential to liberty’s very existence. Yet, as counter-intuitive as it may seem to disciples of the progressivist zeitgeist, it must be insisted that faith enshrines freedom. Without the shrine that faith erects to freedom the liberties that we take for granted will be eroded and ultimately destroyed. Faith preserves freedom. It protects it. It insists upon it. Where there is faith there is freedom. Where faith falters, so does freedom. This truth, so uncomfortably perplexing for so many of our contemporaries, was encapsulated by G. K. Chesterton when he asserted that “the modern world, with its modern movements, is living on its Catholic capital. It is using, and using up, the truths that remain to it out of the old treasury of Christendom.”[1]

One of the truths of Christendom which lays the very foundations of freedom is the Christian insistence on the mystical equality of all people in the eyes of God and the insistence on the dignity of the human person that follows logically, inexorably and inescapably from such an insistence. If everyone is equal in the eyes of God, it doesn’t matter if people are black or white, healthy or sick, able-bodied or handicapped, or whether babies are inside the womb or out of it. It doesn’t matter that people are different, in terms of race, age or innate abilities; they are all equal in the eyes of God and, therefore, of necessity, in the eyes of Man also. This is the priceless inheritance of Christendom with which our freedoms are established and maintained. If everyone is equal in the eyes of God and Man, everyone must also be equal in the eyes of the law.
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Read more: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

Books - The Bankers´ new clothes by Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig

What Do Banks Do?

By Arnold Kling

"For much of the nineteenth century, when banks were partnerships whose owners were fully liable for their debts, it was common for banks to have equity on the order of 40 percent or even 50 percent of their total assets. Around 1900, 20–30 percent equity for banks was common in many countries. These equity levels were not mandated by any regulation. Rather, they emerged naturally in the markets in which the banks' owners and managers, depositors, and other investors interacted. The decline that occurred subsequently in the twentieth century was closely related to governments' needs for finance in World War I and to the development and repeated extensions of the various safety nets by which governments support the banking industry, from explicit guarantees provided by deposit insurance to the bank bailouts and implicit guarantees for too-big-to-fail banks." — 

Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig, The Bankers' New Clothes, p. 178.

We need to reconsider the relationship between banks and government.

Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig raise two important issues in their new book. The first issue is whether banks need to be levered as highly as they are. Modern banks have ratios of debt to equity that often exceed 90 percent. The second issue is the unhealthy codependence of government officials and banks, and what might be done about it.

Unfortunately, I do not think that Admati and Hellwig have addressed these issues persuasively. They rely too much on what might be termed “verbal leverage,” meaning that I found the ratio of rhetoric to evidence in their book to be too high for my taste.

I will discuss the issue of bank leverage in this essay. In a subsequent essay, I will discuss government-bank codependency.

Why Do Firms Issue Debt? ....

How Banks Transform Debt ....

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Read more: www.american.com

La morte del cardinale belga Julien Ries (1920-2013), un antropologo di fama mondiale e uno dei maggiori e più influenti intellettuali cattolici del nostro tempo

Julien Ries e l’«homo religiosus»

di Massimo Introvigne

Persa tra il Conclave e le elezioni italiane rischia di passare sotto silenzio o quasi la morte, avvenuta sabato scorso, del cardinale belga Julien Ries (1920-2013), un antropologo di fama mondiale e uno dei maggiori e più influenti intellettuali cattolici del nostro tempo.

Ho conosciuto Julien Ries in circostanze molto particolari, in occasione del rapporto sulle «sette» pubblicato dal Parlamento belga nel 1997 e delle relative proposte di legge contro le «sette». Presentate agli ingenui come misure per fermare le attività di Scientology e di altri gruppi controversi – risultato, peraltro, mai conseguito –, queste leggi offrono in realtà a giudici mali intenzionati strumenti per accusare anche istituzioni cattoliche di essere una «setta» e di manipolare i propri membri.

Il rapporto belga del 1997 elencava tra le «sette» la Famiglia spirituale «Das Werk», «L’Opera» – da non confondersi con l’Opus Dei –, una comunità maschile e femminile fondata da Madre Julia Verhaeghe (1910-1997). Di questa comunità Julien Ries era cappellano e portavoce, mentre chi scrive era impegnato a denunciare il carattere raffazzonato e pericoloso per la libertà religiosa in genere del documento prodotto dal Parlamento belga.
Ci trovammo dunque dalla stessa parte della barricata. E scoprimmo che dietro l’attacco dei parlamentari all’Opera c’era un sacerdote ultra-progressista, don Rick Devillé, lo stesso che avrebbe poi guidato la polizia nel 2010 a scoperchiare le tombe di due cardinali sostenendo l’assurda tesi secondo cui lì dentro i vescovi belgi avevano nascosto documenti sui preti pedofili.

La battaglia contro le bufale sull’Opera di don Devillé fu insieme comica, per il carattere palesemente delirante di alcune accuse del sacerdote belga, e tragica, perché un Parlamento lo prendeva sul serio e gli riservava ben dodici pagine di un suo rapporto ufficiale. Ne nacque un rapporto di collaborazione e stima con Julien Ries, che riuscì a mantenere un atteggiamento bonario e pacato, finalmente apprezzato anche da una stampa ostile, su una vicenda che pure lo faceva soffrire, e che trovò una felice conclusione nel 2001 quando, nel quarto anniversario della morte di Madre Verhaeghe, il beato Giovanni Paolo II (1920-2005) approvò l’Opera come congregazione di diritto pontificio.

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www.lanuovabussolaquotidiana.it

Argentina - "Reforma" judicial "¿qué puede pasar cuando se ha dejado trascender que “la reforma judicial no es cuestión de normas, sino de decisión política”?"

Justicia y poder total

por Alfredo M. Olivera

La expresión cristinista acerca de la necesidad de democratizar la Justicia -según se implemente en la práctica- puede servir para una suerte de “depuración” de presuntos o reales bolsones de corrupción estatal, o bien todo lo contrario.

La supuesta aspiración de la titular del Ejecutivo, con arreglo a los dichos de la jefa de los fiscales, Alejandra Gils Carbó, no sería otra que anunciar por estos días el abatimiento de unas presuntas redes de protección corporativa del sector. Para ello, se avanzaría en una suerte de actualización radical de los tribunales, tanto en sus estructuras como en la ratificación o no de sus componentes actuales.

A buena parte de sus miembros de hoy, en Olivos se los identifica, genérica y arbitrariamente, como tributarios de la acordada cortesana pro golpista de 1930 y sus ratificaciones sucesivas. ¿Y si no fuese así?

Empecemos por el principio: nuestro país tiene, como mandato constitucional irrenunciable, la preservación y el desarrollo de un camino democrático respetuoso del principio republicano de división de poderes, adjudicando a cada uno de ellos funciones específicas, pero también límites precisos. En todos los casos, la idea pasa por la finalidad de evitar hegemonismos absolutistas, o parecidos.


Leer aquí: www.laprensa.com.ar