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description=Musings on theology, philosophy and current events from Christopher Blosser.;

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fecundity operates on the world stage god forbid that our future rests in soulless technocracy and bloodless best practices we need leaders who love others rather than manipulating or managing them including those in far flung lands this love must be encouraged trained and deepened which happens when we live in accord with a warm and unapologetic ordo amoris ordo amoris is not the point by brendan hodge darwincatholic 02 01 25 a response to vice president j d vance s use of ordo amoris as an apologetic for trump s administration policies one thing vance has become very adept at is turning a policy question into what sounds like a moral balance of absolutely he famously said as a senator that he didn t care about ukrainians and when asked why said it was because his duty was to the people of ohio but of course it s not a question whether we should care about ukraine or the people of our home state one can easily care to some extent about both and even if one cares more about local needs than international needs that doesn t mean that one cannot do anything to help those abroad following that example total us aid to ukraine over the three years of war has been 113 billion that s a lot until you consider the us government spends 6 8 trillion annually ukraine aid has constituted roughly 0 5 of federal spending over the last three years maybe there should be no ukraine aid at all maybe it s not a good cause or one the us should be involved in but if so that needs to be discussed on its own terms it s not sufficient to say local concerns are higher priority therefore we can t spend a cent on this particular non local thing likewise with any number of other issues pointing out that we re called by jesus to love everyone does not end arguments about enacting some particular policy and neither does pointing out that we have the greatest duty to those nearest to us and thus most dependent on our personal help those are both important principals to recall when making any decisions about policy but the policies have to be evaluated and chosen based upon themselves and the necessary trade offs which implementing them would require a catholic defense of enforcing immigration laws by edward feser public discourse while progressive catholics conclude that vice president vance and other catholic defenders of administration policy are flatly at odds with church teaching on immigration i will argue that that is not the case indeed it is clear that vance is not only well within those boundaries but is in fact on much stronger ground than those who advocate a virtually open borders position in the name of catholicism posted by christopher blosser at 9 22 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest tuesday december 24 2024 if man excludes himself from the temporal eternal tension he will be strangled by the senselessness that permeates everything and that forces itself upon him as the result of his life then he will fall into the confusion of an unenlightened existence into whose twilight no illuminating sun can break through to him he will find himself distracted by the multiplicity and the opposition of the various values to one another if no divine order prioritizes his tastes works and affections in the end he will succumb to the barbarism of the most popular values and the most trivial material goods of the time he will be possessed and hunted and driven no longer a free man and no longer master through all of this he is not merely offered certain basic experiences of existence that everyone must pass through but is instead delivered over to them he has fallen into the experience of limitation he experiences himself and the world and all things as limitations even though the colorful wings of his mind of his yearnings press beyond all limits left to his own devices he cannot rise above these limitations he falls prey to the impression that the world is futile and what is worse that human life is futile at this point he is in danger of remaining stuck in that experience of melancholy into which fate sends him again and again because he no longer hears the intrinsic message of circumstances and the intrinsic song of events the world readily becomes a place without comfort to which it is hardly worthwhile to become accustomed although he does not know any way out alternatively all these experiences which repeatedly offer opportunities for a view of the whole can be rashly passed over and a cheap carpe diem seize the day raised as a colorful banner the great deception begins the time of noise and crowds organized feeding frenzies and massive festivities until suddenly the earth quakes and the subterranean thunder which one wanted to drown out with screaming because one failed to understand it breaks forth fully and mightily and fills the day with its call to judgment that is the path of a people of a generation of an individual into the wasteland and void of a life without joy moreover if people and things are permitted to remain in this condition it will only get worse an aversion to one another has seized hold of creation the harmonic song of the spheres dissipates in an orgy of gore and of willful annihilation that creatures are beginning to perpetrate against all creation only one thing will help and that is to hear the call of john the baptist alfred delp priest and martyr 1907 1945 posted by christopher blosser at 1 33 am 1 comment email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday december 19 2024 goodreads year in books 9 501 pages 28 books finished with many still partially read not one audible book as to my 280 reading challenge score i admit to copying my friend jeff miller s practice of setting the bar low 10 books thereby ensuring a consistent record of success and personal gratification i probably would have read more but 2024 was likewise a record year for creativity with the most art i ve ever drawn planned reading for 2025 lord willing definitely more herbert mccabe dominican priest philosopher who i happily discovered this year and revisiting jacques maritain short stories by leon bloy a canticle for leibowitz my reading of which is long overdue and frank herbert s dune messiah hopefully in time for the release of the film arthur c clarke rendezvous with rama also with film in development by denis villeneuve ian mcdonald chaga a novel by annie proulx barkskins finishing pekka hämäläinen s north american history indigenous continent putting a hopeful dent into more history by jacques barzun and paul johnson and recently picked up walter isaacson s biography of albert einstein so that s on my to do list for next year if anything i m ambitious posted by christopher blosser at 3 45 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels books reading reading notes friday november 8 2024 fr richard j neuhaus on undocumented immigrants but of course there are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country not long ago i was speaking at a convention in the southwest the person sitting next to me at dinner was trying to persuade me that we should send them back i asked him to look around the ballroom where about a thousand people were being served by hundreds of waiters and busboys all of them so far as i could see latino and probably a large percentage of them here illegally the same immigrant preponderance would likely obtain among the kitchen workers the truck drivers who delivered the food and those who had gathered and prepared it for shipping my tablemate was unmoved here in new york in my daily walk to immaculate conception and to this magazine s office i pass dozens of businesses along with construction sites hospitals and nannies caring for children all reflecting the city s dependence upon hispanic immigration they are here because immigrants are as the president says doing the work that americans don t want to do to which some including much of organized labor say that if so many immigrants weren t here americans would do the same work at higher wages and with benefits i rather doubt it in times of prosperity such as the present unemployment among american citizens is practically non existent the official and very low unemployment figure includes a majority of people who are voluntarily between jobs or simply taking time off from work very few americans are lining up to wash dishes mop floors or deliver pizza the economy and everyday life of new york and other cities would grind to a near halt in the absence of hispanic immigrants not to mention what would happen to the vast agricultural enterprises of california and other states it is hard to argue with andrew ferguson who writes restricting that flow of willing workers would cause an economic calamity that no federal official will seriously contemplate nor would anyone in a position of responsibility pretend it is plausible to round up the 11 million illegal immigrants who are already in the u s ship them back to their homelands and then seal the border against their otherwise inevitable return richard j neuhaus on the other side of the gates first things march 2006 posted by christopher blosser at 4 52 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels immigration richard j neuhaus monday november 4 2024 historical note the catholic neocons of the 1990 s early 2000 s on donald j trump documenting for personal sake fr richard j neuhaus 1936 2009 george weigel michael novak 1933 2017 and william f buckley 1925 2008 of the national review insofar as where they had stood on the topic of donald trump father richard john neuhaus passed on january 8 2009 reflecting on neuhaus death in 2021 fr raymond de souza noted father richard s engagement in political activism never led him to messianic politics he died after barack obama s election but before his inauguration and long before the current president came down the escalator at trump tower he was suspicious of the messianic dimension of obama s candidacy and would have been troubled by those who regarded donald trump as having some kind of messianic anointing father richard would have been dismayed at the apocalyptic tone of politics today the future of the republic does not hang on a presidential election let alone a senate election in georgia elections have consequences sometimes grave consequences but electoral politics does not heal a corrupt culture moral progress is far from being self evident father richard wrote we should at least be open to the possibility that we are today witnessing not moral progress but a dramatic moral regression george weigel in 2016 joined the likes of robert p george robert royal ryan anderson francis beckwith eduardo echeverria gerard bradley john p hittinger in an appeal to our fellow catholics national review asserting that there are candidates for the republican nomination who are far more likely than mr trump to address these concerns and who do not exhibit his vulgarity oafishness shocking ignorance and we do not hesitate to use the word demagoguery mr trump s record and his campaign show us no promise of greatness they promise only the further degradation of our politics and our culture we urge our fellow catholics and all our fellow citizens to reject his candidacy for the republican presidential nomination by supporting a genuinely reformist candidate due credit for taking a stand against the tide weigel would go on to add that trump is an immoral man both in his public life and in his private life and then it is not credible in the management of power as i can not vote for clinton so i will never vote for him michael novak broke with weigel and the authors of an appeal to our fellow catholics expressing his relief after trump s first election that hillary would never be president silver linings for never trumpers first things 11 15 16 for an explication of novak s own perspective i would refer to the excellent survey michael novak s rise of the unmeltable ethnics in the trump era by jesse russel american spectator january 5 2019 michael novak passed in 2017 and even so i wonder whether he would have continued in his guarded support for trump especially on or after trump s refusal to concede the election of 2020 his trafficing in outright falsehoods and conspiracy theories contesting the election his vocal encouragement of those who staged an attempted coup on the nation s capitol on january 6 2021 and his current promise as president elect to pardon those currently convicted for doing so william f buckley a catholic conservative howbeit not of the neocon persuasion made his displeasure known in a sharply critical editorial on trump s narcissism and demagoguery in an article for cigar aficionado so there we have the one problem the encouragement given to demagogues by undiscriminating voters the procedure here is to attract support to finance a campaign but does the term demagogue fit in other circumstances what about the aspirant who has a private vision to offer to the public and has the means personal or contrived to finance a campaign in some cases the vision isn t merely a program to be adopted it is a program that includes the visionary s serving as president look for the narcissist the most obvious target in today s lineup is of course donald trump when he looks at a glass he is mesmerized by its reflection if donald trump were shaped a little differently he would compete for miss america but whatever the depths of self enchantment the demagogue has to say something so what does trump say that he is a successful businessman and that that is what america needs in the oval office there is some plausibility in this though not much the greatest deeds of american presidents midwifing the new republic freeing the slaves harnessing the energies and vision needed to win the cold war had little to do with a bottom line posted by christopher blosser at 6 09 pm 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels catholics in america george weigel michael novak neocons richard j neuhaus william f buckley sunday august 11 2024 the interpretation of world and history is a fundamental process without which human beings cannot grasp reality at all there can be no perception of reality without an interpretive model more than that when people open their mouths and do not just put out animalistic sounds such as groaning and growling but use concepts they are already interpreting their reality every language presumes an overarching interpretation of the world and is itself such an interpretation those who assign interpretation to the realm of the arbitrary call into question every field of scholarship including the natural sciences still more they question the value of every human discourse because whenever we speak and construct sentences we are interpreting the reality that surrounds us the same is true ...