AnarchoCatholic: Musings of Ultramontane Liberals

We Must Obey God Rather than Men

As if in the scene from Acts 5:28-39, the Vatican and the Government of Israel have been duking it out over Pope Benedict XVI's comments on recent terror attacks and the 1993 Fundamental Agreement of the two parties to hash out a treaty on Church property and tax status.  The Asia News reported the Israeli government was using their complaint of the Pope's omission, of terror attacks on Israelis, as a "smokescreen" to stall the talks mandated by the Fundamental Agreement.   

In response to the Israeli government, as if from the mouth of St. Peter himself, the Vatican states: "the Holy See cannot take lessons or instructions from any other authority on the tone and content of its statements."

The Myth of Hitler's Pope

Professor Thomas Woods interviews Rabbi David Dalin on his book, The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis. 

"And yet the myth that Pius XII was "Hitler’s pope" persists. It persists despite well-documented historical evidence that Eugenio Pacelli was one of Hitler’s earliest and most consistent critics and that, as both the Vatican Secretary of State and subsequently as pope, was in fact a friend of the Jewish people who was instrumental in rescuing and sheltering a great many Jews from the clutches of the Nazis."  -Rabbi Dalin

An Important Distinction

The charitably Christian notion of recognizing the difference between the sin and the sinner is exactly like distinguishing between a nation's government and its people.

Letter to Conservative on Romney

Ms. Lopez,

First a qualifier, I am no liberal. I voted for George Bush in 2000 and my wife was a delegate for the state of Connecticut during the GOP convention in Philadelphia. Although my wife and I have reconsidered ever voting Republican ever again after 911, we still will never vote for a Democrat. Since 911 we have become more aware of the true Catholic faith and are devoted to Christ's true Church. We currently live in Mesa, Arizona amidst the largest concentration of Latter Days Saints (Mormons) outside of Utah. We have Mormon friends and neighbors and we often have missionaries over to discuss the teachings of their Church. In fact this Thursday night we are expecting two missionaries to continue a discussion of both Mormon and Catholic theology.

Concerning your recent enthusiasm over MA Gov. Mitt Romney, as a fellow Catholic, I think it is necessary to impart some sober observations on Gov. Romney and Mormonism.

First I want to point out that Gov. Romney is necessarily not pro-life, at least not in the Catholic sense of the term. His own words condemn him in the Boston Globe, "

I am prolife. I believe that abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother." This view, while completely consistent with the LDS Handbook of Instruction, is anathema to the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church. Within one paragraph, Gov. Romney represents a classic Mormon paradigm known as double think, the reconciliation of two contradictory precepts as valid (here is an essay on the topic by Catholic Answers). To the Catholic, and to any logical standard, one cannot claim to be pro-life and allow abortion to be the right choice in the instance of incest, rape, or to save the life of a mother. Romney's position is necessarily pro-choice for incest, rape, or life threatening illness. All Christians are called by Christ to lose our lives for the sake of the kingdom of heaven; Gov. Romney believes abortion (murder) is acceptable depending on the scenario. The infallible teaching of the Church is that all abortion (as well as all contraception) is the denial of the Holy Spirit, the Lord the Giver of Life. It is from this view that we as Catholics have legs to stand on in counter-Mormon prostelysation. It is their claim that Joseph Smith restored the magisterial authority lost during an alleged apostasy (meaning the Catholic Church lost all authority). It is the consistent and unerring teaching of the Catholic Church guaranteed by Christ that gives us the upper hand in apologetics, ultimately in their conversion. Especially since the LDS Church is completely inconsistent when it comes to its own teachings, and it completely contradicts the Bible as well as the Book of Mormon.

Which leads me to my next point. In answering "How Mormon are you?" Gov. Romney gives an answer that all Mormons would like to be true but is necessarily false. He says, "...I'm one aspiring to be a good person as defined by the biblical Judeo-Christian standards that our society would recognize." Mormons are not Christians, unless you are willing to accept that Gnostic, Arian, Pelagian, or Pagan heretics as Christians. First they deny the Christian and Biblical concept of the Trinity, believing in multiple distinctions of gods the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. According to revelation by Joseph Smith in the King Follett Discourse, Mormons believe that God the father was once created and that there is a council of gods that rule the universe, a view that is unmistakably polytheist. From this document, Smith teaches the doctrine of eternal progression, where true believing Mormons will eventually become gods themselves (check out the discourse for yourself ). They, like the Pelagian heretics, also deny infallible and Biblical teaching of Original Sin, therefore also deny the Redemptive power of Christ. There are many other examples of their theology that will not mention because they are too offensive. So offensive is their theology that the Vatican has affirmed under then Cardinal Ratzinger that Mormon baptism is completely invalid. It is important to note that the Catholic Church does recognize all valid Baptisms of our separated brethren from Orthodox to Lutheran to Presbyterian and on. From these examples it is quite reasonable to conclude that LDS Mormonism is necessarily not Christian and not recognizable by Biblical Judeo-Christian standards.

Gov. Romney's views both in political and personal life, just like John Kerry are not reconcilable for the Catholic voter. His views persist in manifest grave sin and are anathema to all Catholics. The Church cannot impose Eucharistic sanction but it can condemn the actions, thoughts, and personal views of all. It is my hope that I shed some light on this issue to you another Catholic, who has been charged by Christ through the virtue of your public talent, to defend the axioms of His Church in spite of all politics.

In Corde Matris,

Casey Khan

P.S. I would love to ask Gov. Romney if he would advise St. Gianna to abort her child 2 months in utero because of her bought with cancer. Her response, "If you must choose between me and the baby, no hesitation: choose - and I demand it - the baby, save him!" She died not long after birth.

St. Gianna pray for us!

Catholic Anarchism

Although of the left wing variety, Dorothy Day makes some good points here:

"As to government proceeding from sin, St. Augustine distinguishes between coercive government and directive government. The former he says is the results of sin. The latter is not, as (the human person) is a social being. It could be said that anarchists advocate directive government (mutualaid) but reject coercive government (the State)."

Hat tip to Tom Woods.

Frederic Bastiat

Near the end of his life, the great defender of free trade realized he had a calling greater than the defense of the free economy.  It was a call to defend the Truth of Christ in the political economy.  The Catholic Encyclopedia of New Advent has an interesting entry on Bastiat:

"Bastiat belonged to the Liberal school and enunciated its principles on the following liens: "Let men work, trade, learn, form partnerships, act and react upon one another, since according to the decrees of Providence, naught save order, harmony, and progress can spring from their intelligent spontaneity". (Harmonies, p. 12.) Of a sincere and generous nature he was fitted to understand and defend Catholic truth; but the prejudices in the midst of which he lived kept him aloof from the Faith until the very eve of his death. It was in Rome that his eyes were opened to the light of Catholicism, and Prodhon, his enemy, says that in his last hour Bastiat cried out with Polyeucte: "I see, I know, I believe; I am a Christian". Some time before his death he declared that if God would but grant him a new lease of life he would devote his energy to the development of Christian harmony and political economy, but he did not live to fulfill his vow."

Supremes Sow Moral Anarchy

Although, I don't agree with Judge Bork on many things, I think he's correct in arguing that the Supreme Court is a sower of moral anarchy in the US:

"The court's philosophy reflects, or rather embodies and advances, the liberationist spirit of our times. In moral matters, each man is a separate sovereignty. In its insistence on radical personal autonomy, the court assaults what remains of our stock of common moral beliefs. That is all the more insidious because the public and the media take these spurious constitutional rulings as not merely legal conclusions but moral teachings supposedly incarnate in our most sacred civic document. " 

I think he needs to take the analysis one step further in concluding that the modern secular state as a whole, including the Supreme Court, is the ultimate sower of moral anarchy with its policies of welfare, social security, military adventures, child daycare, medicare, and medicaide.  All these policies combined with the Court's rulings have provided a base for a liberationist or libertine way of American life. 

I must contend with Judge Bork's notion that the Constitution is somehow a sacred civic document.  There is nothing holy about the document, it infact fails to mention God, explicitly the Trinitarian God.  Such an argument might hold weight on the Declaration of Independence, but not the Constitution.