Notes: Tuesday, February 5-Monday, July 22, 2019 (part 3 of 3)

7. The latest bioethical offences from Australia's political duopoly

7.1 A Labor Federal Government would work to increase access to contraception and abortion, most notably by ensuring that "Commonwealth-State hospital funding agreements will expect that termination services will be provided consistently in public hospitals."

See the Media Release "LABOR’S PLAN TO SUPPORT WOMEN’S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS", Wednesday, March 6, 2019, issued jointly by The Hon. Tanya Plibersek M.P. (at the time, Deputy Leader of H.M.A. Opposition and its Shadow Minister for Education and Training and for Women) and The Hon. Catherine King M.P. (at the time, Federal Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) and available at their respective websites:

http://www.tanyaplibersek.com/media_release_labor_s_plan_to_support_women_s_reproductive_rights_wednesday_6_march_2019

https://www.catherineking.com.au/2019/03/05/labors-plan-to-support-womens-reproductive-rights/

Labels: A.L., abortion, contraception

7.2 "Women will have greater choice around IVF services with the NSW Liberals & Nationals Government providing up to a $500 rebate for pre-IVF fertility testing and greater access to lower cost treatments", whereby "the NSW Government will provide lower cost IVF treatments for around 6000 women through services at Royal Prince Alfred, The Royal Hospital for Women and Westmead hospitals"; and there will be "a partnership with UNSW for the first statewide fertility preservation service for young cancer patients at The Royal Hospital for Women."

Those quotations come from the press release "MAKING IVF MORE ACCESSIBLE FOR WOMEN", Saturday, March 9, 2019, downloaded from the website of The Liberal Party of Australia's New South Wales Division:

https://nsw.liberal.org.au/candidates/gladys-berejiklian/news/articles/MAKING-IVF-MORE-ACCESSIBLE-FOR-WOMEN

Labels: I.V.F., L.P.A., Nationals

8. St. Thomas Aquinas against the doctrines of original liberty and original equality

See note 92 at the end of the article "The Corporate Idea and the Body Politic in the Middle Ages", by Anton-Hermann Chroust, in The Review of Politics, Vol. 9, Issue No. 4, October 1947, pp. 423-452:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-politics/article/corporate-idea-and-the-body-politic-in-the-middle-ages/0B226F3CF3CB5272E74E7655C48EE5D2

This is the relevant section of that note:

Compare St. Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica I, quaest. 96, art. 3 Google Scholar: “We must of necessity admit that in the primitive state there would have been some inequality.…” See ibid, quaest. 96, art. 4: “… a man is the master of a free subject, by directing him either towards his proper welfare, or the common good. Such a type of mastership would have existed in the state of innocence between man and man, for two reasons: first, because man is by nature a social being, and thus in the state of innocence he would have led a social life. Now a social life cannot exist among a number of people unless under the direction of one to look after the common welfare; for many, as such, seek many things, whereas one attends only to one.…” See also Summa contra Ceniiles[ sic] III, 81
[italics, bold type, and hyperlinks in the original, my square-bracketed interpolation]

Labels: Democratism, liberalism, morals, politics, St. Thomas Aquinas

9. Dr. Gosbell on ancient Christian (and pagan) attitudes to abortion and infanticide

See the A.B.C. Religion and Ethics article ""As long as it's healthy": What can we learn from early Christianity's resistance to infanticide and exposure?", by Dr. Louise Gosbell, Wednesday, March 13, 2019:

Warning: That article is headed by a picture which could scandalise some readers:

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/early-christianitys-resistance-to-infanticide-and-exposure/10898016

Labels: abortion, Fathers, infanticide, morals

10. 24% of mothers in couple families in Australia were unwaged in 2016, down from 32% in 1991.

My immediate source for the information in that headline is Figure 2 of the Australian Institute of Family Studies research summary "Fathers and work: A statistical overview", by Dr. Jennifer Baxter, May 2019:

https://aifs.gov.au/aifs-conference/fathers-and-work

(The ultimate source is the Australian Population Census customised reports, 1991–2016, according to Figure 2's caption.)

Labels: demography, family, social trends, work

11. On the morning of the 26. ult., The Duke of Cambridge "officially opened the Albert Kennedy Trust new Services Centre" in London.

See the Court Circular of that date. According to akt's "our history" webpage, akt is the "world’s first ever service for homeless LGBT youth":

https://www.akt.org.uk/our-history

and according to its "duke of cambridge visits akt" webpage, that official opening involved "the first visit to a lgbtq+ youth charity by a member of the royal family":

https://www.akt.org.uk/news/duke-of-cambridge-visits-akt

Labels: G.L.B.T., William Cambridge

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Penitent, A.D. 2019

Notes: Tuesday, February 5-Monday, July 22, 2019 (part 2 of 3)

5.2 An interesting survey, found in an unexpected place, of some Papal and Patristic opinions on political theory, including Church-State relations

S.v. "The papal theory", art. "Papal Arbitration", The Catholic Encyclopedia:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11452a.htm

Labels: Church and State, Confessional State, law, morals, politics, Social Reign of Christ

5.3 Dr. Chambers on, among other things, prescription ('thorough settlement') as a title to sovereignty

See the doctoral thesis Conscience and allegiance : an investigation into the controversy over Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy during the Reign of William III and William II, 1689 - 1702, by Dr. Jeffrey Alexander John Chambers, Dublin, Ireland, 2016, available at Trinity College, Dublin's Trinity's Access to Research Archive website:

http://www.tara.tcd.ie/handle/2262/82900

Or go straight hither:

http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/handle/2262/82900/Chambers%2c%20Jeffrey_Phd%20History%20TCD%202016%20Conscience%20%26%20Allegiance.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Labels: morals, politics

5.4 Prof. Burgess on the difference between regalism and absolutism

See the article "The Divine Right of Kings Reconsidered", by Glenn Burgess, in The English Historical Review, Vol. CVII, Issue No. CCCCXXV, October 1992, pp 837–861, available at that journal's website:

https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/CVII/CCCCXXV/837/521648

Or go straight hither:

https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-pdf/CVII/CCCCXXV/837/9783615/837.pdf

Labels: morals, politics, regalism

5.5 "… The politician must be in the midst of his people and collaborate in this way or another to make the sovereign people the protagonist of their history."

The quotation, excluding my ellipsis symbol, in that headline is attributed, after translation, to H.H. The Pope in The Holy See Press Office Bulletin item "Audience with a Group of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, 04.03.2019":

http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2019/03/04/190304e.html

The original Spanish of that quotation ("… El político está en medio de su pueblo y colabora con este medio u otros a que el pueblo que es soberano sea el protagonista de su historia.") is available, with the rest of the Papal address whence its untranslated version was extracted, in the Italian version of that Bulletin item, "Udienza ad un Gruppo della Pontificia Commissione per l’America Latina, 04.03.2019":

http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2019/03/04/0184/00374.html

The original Spanish and translated English texts of the Papal address in question are also available via the following two links, respectively:

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/es/speeches/2019/march/documents/papa-francesco_20190304_pontcommissione-americalatina.html

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2019/march/documents/papa-francesco_20190304_pontcommissione-americalatina.html

Labels: Democratism, Francis Bergoglio, morals, politics

5.6 Dr. Balmez (or Balmes) on the origin of, justification for, and mode of transmission of political authority

See CC. XLIX ("THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY, ACCORDING TO CATHOLIC THEOLOGIANS."), L ("OF DIVINE LAW, ACCORDING TO CATHOLIC DOCTORS."), and LI ("THE TRANSMISSION OF POWER, ACCORDING TO CATHOLIC DOCTORS."), pp. 238-259 (267-88 in the document reader), Protestantism and Catholicity Compared in Their Effects on the Civilisation of Europe., by The Rev. J. (for Jaime) Balmez, translated, from M. Blanche's French translation of the original Spanish, by C. J. Hanford and R. (for Robert) Kershaw, published, or at least printed, by Robson, Levey, and Franklyn, London, 1849, downloaded from Search Oxford Libraries Online:

http://dbooks.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/books/PDFs/590051082.pdf

Also available at Google Books:

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=IEoEAAAAQAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Labels: Democratism, morals, politics, regalism, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Thomas Aquinas

5.7 Mr. Anderson on Filmer's Patriarcha

See the magisterial thesis Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha: Royalist Propaganda, by Kurtis G. (for George) Anderson, available for download from Emory University's Electronic Theses and Dissertations website:

https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/d217qq34d?locale=en

Labels: morals, politics, regalism

6. Fr. Parsons on two opposing concepts of political liberty and on their respective relationships to authority

S.v. "DEMOCRATIC LIBERTY" and "LIBERTY AND AUTHORITY", art. "The Theory and Origins of Democracy", by The Rev. Fr. Wilfrid Parsons S.J. (then-Professor of Political Science at The Catholic University of America), p. 11, The Advocate (Melbourne), Vol. LXXIX, No. 4740, Wednesday, June 5, 1946:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/172227845

Labels: Democratism, liberalism, morals, politics

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Penitent, A.D. 2019

Notes: Tuesday, February 5-Monday, July 22, 2019 (part 1 of 3)

1. The latest changes to this blog's sidebar

Immediately before posting this part of this issue of "Notes", I removed from this blog's sidebar the links to What's Up With Francis-Church? (because it's no longer being updated) and to "Sources for the Syllabus of Errors" and the respective websites of The Archdiocese of Sydney, The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, and The Diocese of Wollongong (because I never or hardly ever use them, nor can see any other good enough reason to keep them), and moved the remaining links to the "Miscellaneous links" section from the "Magisterium" or "Bishops and (Local) Churches of Australia and the world" sections (hence I deleted those sections). I then added links to the revived Bernard Gaynor blog and to The University of Birmingham's The Philological Museum. (When I first saw that Mr. Gaynor had resumed blogging, I think that the most recent post at his blog was "Anzac Day dawn service march too dangerous for female CO" ("Posted By Bernard Gaynor on Friday, April 12, 2019 4:07 pm"); the last post before his blog went into hiatus seemed to have been "Vale Larry Pickering" ("Posted By Bernard Gaynor on Tuesday, November 20, 2018 7:31 pm"), and his first post after that hiatus was apparently "By George, it’s unbelievable" ("Posted By Bernard Gaynor on Tuesday, March 5, 2019 1:12 pm").)

But I don't think that there's any need for me to mention such changes in future. If you want to know how, when, or why I make future alterations to the sidebar, please feel free to ask me.

Labels: blogs

2. Prof. Schofield on two points of Plato's political philosophy:

2.1 Rule of law vs. rule of men:

The companion dialogue Politicus or Statesman addresses more squarely than Republic did the practical as distinct from the theoretical knowledge of the ideal statesman. Its contribution to this topic consists of three major claims. First is the rejection of the sovereignty of law. Plato has nothing against law as a convenient but imprecise rule of thumb in the hands of an expert statesman, provided it does not prevent him using his expertise. Making law sovereign, on the other hand, would be like preferring strict adherence to a handbook of navigation or a medical textbook to the judgment of the expert seafarer or doctor. If you have no such expert available, a constitution based on adherence to law is better than lawlessness, but that is not saying much. What law cannot do that expert rulers can and must is judge the kairos: discern the right and the wrong ’moment’ to undertake a great enterprise of state. …
[hyperlinks and italics in the original, my ellipsis symbol,
§ "16. Later dialogues", art. "Plato (427–347 BC)" (version 1), by Emeritus Prof. Malcolm Schofield, The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online:
https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/plato-427-347-bc/v-1/sections/later-dialogues]

Labels: morals, Plato, politics

2.2 The essential function of authority:

… Statesman makes the statesman a sort of weaver. There are two strands to the analogy. First, like weaving statesmanship calls upon many subordinate skills. Its job is not to be doing things itself, but to control all the subordinate functions of government, and by its concern for the laws and every other aspect of the city weave all together. …
[hyperlink in the original, my ellipsis symbols,
ibid.]

Labels: morals, Plato, politics

3. Lady Mary Peters and Lord Salisbury have joined The Order of the Garter

H.M. The Queen has appointed Lady Mary Peters L.G. C.H. D.B.E. a Lady Companion of The Order of the Garter and The Most Hon. The (7.) Marquess of Salisbury K.G. K.C.V.O. P.C. D.L. a Knight Companion of the same Order, according to the Press Release "New appointments to the Order of the Garter announced", February 27, 2019:

https://www.royal.uk/new-appointments-order-garter-announced

(That date is presumably the effective date for the appointments in question, judging by usual practice and by this Tweet ("3:43 AM - 27 Feb 2019") from the Twitter account "The Royal Family" (@RoyalFamily), which says that "Two new appointments have been made to the Order of the Garter today.", and names the aforementioned appointees:

https://twitter.com/RoyalFamily/status/1100723225527492610

Unusually, that date seems to be both the effective date and the nominal date for those appointments; see Notice No. 3316805, February 27, 2019, Notice Type "State", Sub-Type "Honours and Awards" (Notice Code: 1105), The London Gazette, Issue No. 62703 (printed on July 5, 2019, containing all notices published online the previous day), p. 11956:

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/3316805

(A digital version of the full text of p. 11956 is available here:

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/62703/page/11956

and a digital version of the full text of Issue No. 62703 is available here, with p. 11956 being p. 2 in your document reader:

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/62703)

I say "unusually" because Gazette items promulgating new Garter Knight or Lady appointments which (appointments) are effective from dates other than April 23 usually describe the appointments as 'to be dated' April 23; that happened mostly recently in 2016, ’13, ’11, ’08, and ’05, judging by the results of searching "To be dated" and "Order of the Garter" and "Companion" together at that gazette's website.)

That Press Release says that Lady Mary

(born 6 July 1939) served as Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of the County Borough of Belfast between 2009 and 2014. In the 1972 summer Olympics in Munich, Dame Mary won the Gold Medal in the pentathlon. In 1975, she established The Mary Peters Trust to support talented young sportsmen and women across Northern Ireland.

while His Lordship

(born 30 September 1946) is a former Leader of the House of Lords. Lord Salisbury is a Deputy Lieutenant of Hertfordshire, and was Chairman of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Foundation, which organised the Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the River Thames in 2012. Lord Salisbury is also Chancellor of the University of Hertfordshire.

It also mentions that its "announcement brings the number of Companions to twenty-three (out of a maximum of twenty-four)." See item 7.2.1 of part 2 of my previous issue of "Notes" for the names of the other twenty-one Companions in question, as well as those of the current Royal-Family and Stranger ones (minus one from the latter category—see the end of this item), and the accuracy, as of Garter Day this year, of the names in the first two categories can be confirmed by comparing my lists to the lists in the Court Circular for the 17. ult. (The only absentees other than Stranger Knights or Ladies this year were Lords Ashburton and Inge and T.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh and The Duke of Cambridge, but Their Lordships are, judging by Wikipedia, still alive, and so are Their Royal Highnesses, of course.)

According to that issue of the Court Circular, this year's Garter Day activities consisted of

• a Chapter of the Order held by Her Majesty, accompanied by all the Royal-Family Garter Knights and Ladies except T.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh and The Duke of Cambridge and with, among others, H.M. The King of Spain, H.M. The King of The Netherlands, and all the other Garter Knights and Ladies present except Lords Ashburton and Inge and the other Stranger Knights and Ladies, in the Throne Room, Windsor Castle, during which "The Queen welcomed The King of Spain and The King of the Netherlands as Extra Knights Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter" and invested Lady Mary and Lord Salisbury with the Garter Insignia. (Her Majesty had already received Lady Mary and, presumably separately, His Lordship last May 16 and, at their respective receptions, invested them with the same Insignia, according to the Court Circular.)

• a later Luncheon Party given by The Queen for the Garter Knights and Ladies.

• in the afternoon, an Installation Service in St. George's Chapel for the installation of the new Garter Companions.

(See also the article "Garter Day 2019", dated June 14 (sic), 2019:

https://www.royal.uk/garter-day-2019)

You might also have noticed in the Court Circular the reference to Grand Duke John of Luxembourg's State Funeral last May 4. According to the English version of His late Royal Highness's biography at Luxembourg's Royal Family's website, Grand Duke John died on April 23, 2019 (which would, of course, have been St. George's Day had it not fallen during the Octave of Easter):

http://www.monarchie.lu/fr/famille/grand-duc-jean/biogrgdjean-en.pdf

Labels: John of Luxembourg, Mary Peters, Order of the Garter, Philip VI. Borbón, Robert Salisbury, William Alexander of The Netherlands

4. Alberico Gentili (in Latin: Albericus Gentilis) is "regarded as one of the founders of the science of international law and the first person in western Europe to separate secular law from Roman Catholic theology and canon law." (In other words, he is "considered the originator of the secular school of thought in international law".)

The first quotation, including its hyperlinks, in that headline comes from the Encyclopædia Britannica article "Alberico Gentili (Italian jurist)":

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alberico-Gentili

Apparently, the second quotation comes from that encyclopedia's article "International law" (s.v. "Historical development"):

https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-law/Historical-development

(The article is behind a paywall, but the quotation shows up in the related-articles section of "Alberico Gentili (Italian jurist)" and came up in the ninth result when I searched "Gentili" at Britannica's website.)

Labels: law, morals, politics, secularism

5. More items on the grounds of political legitimacy

5.1 "considering the bases of the League doctrines, it is impossible not to accord them the highest importance in the history of political ideas. Power, they said, was derived from God through the people, and they opposed the false, absolutist, and Gallican doctrine of the Divine right and irresponsibility of kings, such as Louis XIV professed and practised"

The quotation, minus hyperlinks, in that headline comes from the article "The League" (s.v. "Political doctrines of the League") in The Catholic Encyclopedia:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09098b.htm

Labels: Democratism, morals, politics, regalism

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Penitent, A.D. 2019