AnarchoCatholic: Musings of Ultramontane Liberals

Mark of the Beast

To quote my eloquent wife:

"Personalized license plates are like getting to chose the number that is tattooed on your arm before you enter the concentration camp."

Torture

Torture is a horrible sin. It involves sins against the commandments of God the Father and the Son Christ. It is contra-Gospel. Torture is an excellent way to describe the situation of Terri Schiavo and the evil doctors who willingly try to starve her to death (Forget the evil Florida courts, what’s wrong with these doctors?). This is the method that the Nazi’s used to torturously try to kill St. Maximillian Kolbe (May he intercede for us and Terri Schiavo).

Andrew McCarthy in National Review asks an important question about the Terri Schiavo case, "Regardless of what one thinks of the evidence developed and the procedures followed in Florida courts, how is a judge empowered, ever, to order or license torture?" Well that’s an easy one. Just ask the new Attorney General. This former judge argued for the license of torture for the executive, essentially arguing for the use of cruel and unusual punishment (Anyone who argues that torture is neither cruel nor unusual, is on par with Clinton and his definition of "is"). He argues for the judiciary to give license to the executive for such action. An argument that, well, Andrew McCarthy endorses and subsequently answers his own question. On torture, McCarthy admonishes us to "quit wasting our time" and "Get out of the way of serious people like Judge Gonzales." One could naturally ask then shouldn’t we get out of the way of serious people like Florida judges?

Of course, McCarthy represents just what is wrong with the modern American man, who lacks the ability to grasp the universal. Is torture always wrong? To him that would depend. How about abortion? Well that would depend too.  He fails to understand what Christ teaches when he says, "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit" (MAT 7:18).

McCarthy would retort with the question that what if there was the threat of a nuke going off in Manhattan?  Then torture might be justified on someone reasonably (which means without due process) believed to be a terrorist conspirator. To which I retort with Christ’s words, "…whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (MAT 10:38-39). Taking the Heavenly view are we going to stand before Christ the judge and have to answer for being nuked by some insanely evil terrorists or torturing any of His beloved children? Yes there is even hope for insane terrorists. Well how could terrorist end up being any of Christ’s beloved children? Well, don’t forget that we are all universally prodigal sons to the Father.  Let's not forget that even the murderous, torturous persecutor Saul became a Saint named Paul.

So is torture ever a good means? Well I guess we can ask Pilate in his eschatological state. Maybe we can ask Hitler about it, after all he used torture to protect the fatherland from evils of terrorism. Or we can ask St. Maximillian Kolbe, or how about the Queen of Heaven, Mary. 

Mary, Mother of God, Exterminatrix of Heresies, is it a good thing to torture a man for any reason? To beat him? To threaten his life? To sexually molest him? To starve him? To strip him of his dignity?  To do to him what they did to Christ? Ask your Beloved Son on our behalf in order to enlighten us Manichean Americans who fail to distinguish between the light and the dark.

I think we will find the wisdom of her answer to be much more satisfactory than the tortured logic of the likes of the Supreme Court, Congress, National Review, or Andrew McCarthy.

Andrew McCarthy, quit wasting our time with your logic, it’s torturing us.

Mark Shea has a great article on the subject (including Andrew McCarthy) in Crisis.

A Syllabus of Collateral Damage

"Catholicism is open to all things natural, seeks to utilize the goods of the world to the greater glory of God, and gives life to individuals more abundantly than any of the ancients would ever have believed to be possible. American Pluralism offers a living death. It builds a Regime that despises theology, philosophy, history, and the great variety of serious, distinctive cultures that have been built up from a common commitment to the service of God. It sees these as disruptive of the only two "goods" that desicated pluralist culture is permitted to seek: marketing and consumption opportunities. It allows no scope for the development of the human mind and the human spirit beyond their application to a technological achievement used for dulling intellectual and spiritual perception. It breaks down, trivializes, stupefies, psychoanalyses, and, if need be, eliminates entirely anything that yearns for the elevation of the individual and all of nature ad maiorem Dei gloriam, exchanging it for a mess of pottage that it calls a banquet;"

In Defense of Freedom

An exceptional article on freedom and libertarianism (as opposed to libertinism) by Daniel Mc Carthy:

"Social conservatives have long faced an apparent paradox. No matter how Christian the president and members of his party claim to be, no matter how many “solid” conservatives are elected Congress, the fabric of the social order continues to fray. At some point the question must be asked, is this because there still aren’t enough good people in government?—how many would ever be enough? Or is it because the state by nature, far from buttressing the organs of civilization and the way of life dear to conservatives, instead undermines those very things? As Albert Jay Nock once observed, sending in good people to reform the state is like sending in virgins to reform the whorehouse."

Fraudulent "Conservative" Catholics

Here is a great article which exposes the fraudulent Conservative Catholics who are causing grave scandal to the Church.  This group of frauds is far more damaging and deceptive to the Church than the likes of the overtly evil John Kerry.