Trump v Hillary

One assumes of course that Hilary will win, but then it seemed inconceivable that Trump would ever win the Republican nomination, so who knows? Hilary is a corrupt, incompetent feminazi. Trump is a grotesque pathological narcissist.  How can any one morally vote for either of them? Of course, the authority of rulers is derived from God not from the governed or the voters (whatever the American Declaration of Independence may claim) so one is not responsible for the actions of the people one voted for unless one voted for them for that reason. One’s obligation is to obtain the election of the best possible candidate. The victorious candidate is responsible to God for what he then does with that power. This is not to say it might not be the best thing to write in a candidate or spoil one’s ballot if the alternatives are so bad that there seems to be no other option. Such an action can at least signal to would-be candidates that there is a sizable constituency that is untapped by the present constellation of forces and so possibly improve the range of options next time. Yet, in normal circumstances, however bad the range of options, there will be a discernible gradation of turpitude. In the US nowadays this usually requires that one vote for the Republican candidate (however awful) because the Democratic candidate has gone to some pains to be worse. This is obviously a highly undesirable situation. The Republicans can take the votes of believing Christians for granted and the Democrats can write them off. However, it would seem that all is not lost because of the US primary system which allows ordinary registered Republicans to determine the candidate over the heads of the establishment (limited by the vast resources necessary to mount a campaign). And yet, this very system has now delivered Trump. De Tocqueville famously observed in reflecting upon the USA “our posterity will tend more and more to a division into only two parts, some relinquishing Christianity entirely and others returning to the Church of Rome.” That process was working well in the USA up until the act of ecclesiastical harakiri known as the Second Vatican Council. Protestantism is a parasite, it lives off the Catholic Church. When the Church wavers, Protestantism, after the enjoyment of a brief stimulus, begins to retreat and decompose. What will become of ‘conservatism’ when religion has passed away? One has only to look at inter-war Europe to see: militaristic protectionist populism. The leaders of such movements are invariably, as with Trump, mentally unstable. This is what produces the peculiar dilemma of the present US presidential race. On the one hand we have an evil woman determined to employ the resources of the world’s hegemonic power to further the culture of death and accomplish the final ruin of western civilisation. On the other hand one has not a lesser version of the same evil (as in previous elections) but a madman who cannot responsibly be placed in charge of a nuclear arsenal. Democracy (i.e. isonomia) broke down in Europe between the wars because the socio-political arithmetic deteriorated to the point where only the Fascists or the Communists could win. The ballot box ceased to be a solution. The recreation of those conditions is dangerously close.

 

The Year of Latae Sententiae Excommunications?

You couldn’t make it up. Unfortunately you don’t need to. Archbishop Fisichella, introducing the Year of Mercy, has suggested that people who criticise the pope may bring upon themselves the automatic excommunication of canon 1370:1.This problem is “widespread”, he says. Fortunately Edward Peters can tell us what the canon really means.

 

It is neither a music style nor a soft drink

Our loyal reader Magdalena has pointed me toward a topic about which she herself would be much more qualified to write. As she did, however, so far decline the honour of a guest post at this illustrous blog, only comparatively ignorant me is left to bring to your attention the Ecopop initiative to be voted upon in Switzerland on 30 November 2014.

Those of our readers in command of German can verify for themselves that this is not a hoax. I myself had to do that, actually. This initiative (initiated, to  my immense frustration, by bourgois, left-wing ecologists) demands that:

– immigration to Switzerland do not exceed  0.2 % of Swiss permanent inhabitants each year, and

– that 10% of Swiss federal developmental aid be devoted to voluntary family planning in developmental countries (including a constitutional prohibit of developmental aid given if they go against the aim of helping family planning)

Let me rephrase: We have to make those Africans have less children so they do not swamp our country.

This is probably the most blatant manifestation of the connection between xenophoby and left-wing support for family planning I have yet met.

 

St. Andrews University to Honour Hilary Clinton for “Speaking Out for the Voiceless”

John Smeaton reports that St. Andrews University is planning to follow in the footsteps of Planned Parenthood by honouring Hilary Clinton this September.

St Andrews Principal and Vice-Chancellor Professor Louise Richardson said:

“As one of the most influential women in the world, Hillary Clinton, as stateswoman, senator, and policymaker never shied away from tackling difficult questions, working to make the world a better place, inspiring others, speaking out for the voiceless (!) and striving ever to excel. We are honoured that she will participate in our celebrations.”

 

Occultism in the Endnotes…

Alyoshenka (appropriately enough) bought me The Brothers Karamazov a while ago. I am not very good at novels. Napoleon once said novels are for women while history is for men. Usually therefore, I have to find some long journey devoid of internet access and make sure I only have the novel with me and so have to read it. Ideally this then provides me with sufficient momentum to finish the thing when I get back. I was making a transatlantic flight a few weeks ago and I had ordered the most negative revisionist history of the American Revolution I could find to read on the way over. Alas! It did not arrive in time so, as it was at the top of the pile, I took The Brothers Karamazov instead. To be more specific, I took The Karamazov Brothers translated by Ignat Avsey for Oxford World’s Classics. Knowing no Russian I have no idea if this is a good translation, it certainly reads nicely. OUP is usually seen as a rather respectable publisher. I don’t know anything about Mr Avesy but I am pretty sure he is a theosophist. He not only translated the text he also provided the notes. I was already very suspicious when… on page 82 …in the course of an attack on the Church and an encomium of ‘Orthodoxy’ Fr Paisy (a minor character in the novel) remarks “The star will shine forth from the East”. There then follows a lengthy endnote by Mr Avesy. After correctly identifying Fr Paisy’s words as an allusion to Matthew 2:2 Avesy goes on to explain:

“It has been said that the current of culture arises in the East and moves West, eventually dying in the Americas. [fairy nuff] Thus Rudolf Steiner [uh-oh…]  claimed that, on the death of the Atlantean age and civilization [come again?], the Arians, under the leadership of Manu [wow], migrated to India, forming the pre-Vedic Indian culture. When that culture itself became decadent, a new culture was founded in Persia by Zoroaster or Zarathustra (the name means ‘Morning Star’ [how reassuring]). That culture was, in its turn, succeeded by the cultures of the Middle East, particularly those of Egypt and Babylonia. Following the decline of those cultures, the cultures of Greece and then Rome arose. Since the fifteenth century AD the Northern European or Germanic/Anglo-Saxon culture has emerged the culture which is still dominant today [thank you Mr Himmler!].”

Remember this the OUP edition of the greatest Russian novel. This is full-on National Socialist mumbo jumbo delivered as sober fact. Avesy then mentions that some Russians think that when the Californians have finished with Western Civ. it might get round to being their turn before giving us some references:

“See Rudolf Steiner, Occult Science and Lectures upon the Apocalypse; the several works of Valentin Tomberg (privately printed in Riga, 1936-9 repr. by Candeur Manuscripts, Spring Valley, New York, 1977-9); Maria Schindler, Europe a Cosmic Picture (New Knowledge Books, Horsham, Sussex, 1975-6) …”

Rudolf Steiner is, of course, a famous purveyor of mumbo jumbo but Valentin Tomberg has a special interest as the occultist for whose Introduction to the Tarot Hans Urs Von Balthasar wrote his sinister forward. In the light of this connection I would dearly love to know if the Maria Schindler cited here has any connection to the Schindler dynasty of creepy Balthasarians. Given the ease with which Balthasar and his followers have managed to infiltrate allegedly respectable Catholic theological circles I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at a spot of kindred occultism in the endnotes of an Oxford World’s Classics volume.

So! Occultism and Nazism with Balthasarian connections – a long haul flight well spent methinks…

 

Desiderata

Cardinal Levada, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has announced that the CDF will be helping the American Leadership Conference of Women Religious to ‘implement an ecclesiology of communion’.

Certainly sounds like a good thing to have, especially if one is a nun.

 

Polish parliamentary candidate in pay of abortion industry: Wanda Nowicka loses court case

This is particularly interesting in the context of the utterly bizarre frenzy over the Field/Dorries amendment.

A few years ago two women were invited on to a Polish current affairs programme to comment on the introduction of compulsory sex education for schoolchildren. One was Joanna Najfeld, who in the course of the discussion said the following apropos a woman known precisely for her campaigning to bring about more abortions:

“Ms Nowicka’s organisation is part of an international concern, generally one of the largest, of providers of contraception and abortion. Ms Nowicka is on their payroll. “

Nowicka took the young publicist to court for this statement. Today Joanna Najfeld was cleared of defamation. The party bringing the charge has to allow the proceedings to be public – which Nowicka has not done.

The financial aspect is so obviously suspicious in the case of the abortion and contraception business  that it is very odd that the libertarian bloggers who so eagerly sniff out this sort of dodginess in other cases (see fakecharities.org) didn’t worry about it in the case of the Field/Dorries amendment.  Though when one considers people have been programmed to equate prolife=Nazi, it’s probably not that odd.

 

Religious extremism defined

And in regards to people calling you an extremist, I didn’t say that but I expect their definition of extremist would mean someone who put religion before all other things in their life, folllowing it so closely as to affect their personal choices and decisions and restrict their daily life even if it goes against the what is right for the individual or normal and healthy in the society in which they live. It also would probably include preaching about it strongly to people and believing it is the only right way to live.

A Catholic blogger quoting something written to her on a forum of some description.