Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts

Saturday, July 15, 2023

Notes: Wednesday, October 5, 2022-Saturday, July 15, 2023 (part 1 of 2)

1: "That the principles of America opened the Bastile is not to be doubted"

That quotation comes from the digitised letter "To George Washington from Thomas Paine, 1 May 1790" at the U.S. National Archives Founders Online website:


(It came to my attention via the article "Strict rules on gifts date back to the birth of US" by Troy Lennon on p. 80 of the Sydney Daily Telegraph, June 13, 2014, available through the N.S.W. State Library eresources Gale OneFile: News (itself available in Gale Research Complete), ProQuest Central, and NewsBank.) Paine seems to have sent that letter to Washington with a key—supposedly the main key to the Bastille—which he had received from Lafayette; see footnote 18 of chapter VIII ("The French Revolution in America") of The Age of Federalism, by Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, published by Oxford University Press, March 2, 1995:


See also, at the George Washington's Mount Vernon website, the pages "Bastille Key" (in The Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington) and "Key to the Bastille":



Labels: Americanism, Democratism, France, liberalism, U.S.A.

2: According to The Pope, the death penalty "is always inadmissible since it attacks the inviolability and the dignity of the person", and it "cannot be employed for a purported State justice, since it does not constitute a deterrent nor render justice to victims, but only fuels the thirst for vengeance"

Those quotations come from The Holy See Press Office's bulletin item "Udienza al Corpo Diplomatico accreditato presso la Santa Sede per la presentazione degli auguri per il nuovo anno, 09.01.2023"; they translate parts of this paragraph in the original Italian of the Address in question:
Il diritto alla vita è minacciato anche laddove si continua a praticare la pena di morte, come sta accadendo in questi giorni in Iran, in seguito alle recenti manifestazioni, che chiedono maggiore rispetto per la dignità delle donne. La pena di morte non può essere utilizzata per una presunta giustizia di Stato, poiché essa non costituisce un deterrente, né offre giustizia alle vittime, ma alimenta solamente la sete di vendetta. Faccio, perciò, appello perché la pena di morte, che è sempre inammissibile poiché attenta all’inviolabilità e alla dignità della persona, sia abolita nelle legislazioni di tutti i Paesi del mondo. Non possiamo dimenticare che fino all’ultimo momento, una persona può convertirsi e può cambiare.
[https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2023/01/09/0020/00038.html]
A stand-alone English translation of that bulletin item is also available, titled "Audience with the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See for the presentation of wishes for the New Year, 09.01.2023", and so are the English translation and original Italian of that Address:




Labels: death penalty, Francis Bergoglio, morals

3: The Pope on the difference between cause and condition in the formation of a society: "“What God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mt 19:6). “God himself is the author of matrimony”, as Vatican Council II affirms (cf. Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, 48), and this can be understood as referring to every single conjugal union. Indeed, spouses give life to their union, with free consent, but only the Holy Spirit has the power to make a man and woman a sole existence."

That quotation comes from the Papal "Audience with the Tribunal of the Roman Rota on the occasion of the Inauguration of the Judicial Year, 27.01.2023", which is a translation of the original Italian given in The Holy See Press Office's bulletin item "Udienza al Tribunale della Rota Romana in occasione dell’inaugurazione dell’Anno Giudiziario, 27.01.2023" (also available in the Vatican's "Speeches 2023 January"/"Discorsi 2023 Gennaio" webpages):





Labels: marriage, morals, politics, society

4: "the only two special religious instruction providers still operating in [Victorian ]state schools say there are now about 750 students" enrolled (actively?) with those providers; that is down from "nearly 93,000 Victorian students" enrolled with those or other providers in 2013

Those two quotations, excluding my square-bracketed interpolation, come from the news report "Religion class enrolments slump in state schools in decade since program changes", by Madeleine Heffernan, dateline: "February 26, 2023 — 3.47pm", downloaded from The Age's website:


(It was also interesting to read, in the final paragraph, that Special Religious Instruction "program materials" "must comply with minimum standards regarding human rights and anti-discrimination laws." For more on those standards, click the "Policy" tab on the "School operations": "Special Religious Instruction" page in the schools "Policy and Advisory Library" at Victoria's Department of Education and Training beta website:


Above all, s.v. "Program and materials", "Freedom of religion", and "General religious education".) For background to that article, see item 3.1 of the Tuesday, August 11-Tuesday, September 29, 2015 issue of my "Notes":


Labels: education, Victoria

5: Mr. Wesselinoff on the demography of (at least) nominally Catholic Australians in 2021

See the news report "New stats show Catholics have smaller families, more education, are older and more diverse", by Adam Wesselinoff, April 20, 2023, at the Sydney Catholic Weekly's website:


Mr. Wesselinoff based his report on the 2021 "Social Profile of the Catholic Community in Australia", from the National Centre for Pastoral Research:



Labels: demography

6: "Just 11 minutes [after David Ben-Gurion supposedly asserted Israeli independence], President Truman announced that the United States would be the first nation to recognize the government of Israel."

That quotation, excluding my parenthesis replacing the word "later", comes from the April 25, 2023 "Statement from President Joe Biden on the Occasion of Israel’s 75th Independence Day":


Labels: State of Israel, U.S.A.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Henry, Emperor and Confessor, A.D. 2023
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Notes: Wednesday, June 30, 2010

An accurate reflection of present-day Australian views on marriage and family?

Today's Herald's letters page is leading with the reaction to an article (which I seem to have missed) by a well-known relationships counsellor who apparently suggested that living in sin is inferior to being married. Eight letters, to which two sections, and the first two, of the letters page have been devoted, were published on the matter, all of them from women, none of them supporting the counsellor's views, and some of them objecting to them quite vehemently. I wonder whether the coming days will see any supporters of the natural law's commands and prohibitions in domestic matters sending in their letters? Presumably they haven't already, or the Herald would have published them, if only for balance.

"How Far We Have Sunk- a case for censorship as a social good"

Mr. Michael Webb has posted at Cath Pews a link to an interesting Australian Catholic Truth Society pamphlet on censorship. The pamphlet is quite long but might be worth reading if you have the time.

Confirmed: Ms Gillard is an atheist

Until this disclosure The Hon. Julia Gillard M.P. apparently identified as a "non-practising Baptist", but clearly not any more:

Julia Gillard on Jon Faine ABC 774 yesterday:

Faine: Do you believe in God?

Gillard: No, I don't, Jon, I'm not a religious person. I'm of course a great respecter of religious beliefs but they're not my beliefs, Jon.
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/the-prime-minister-was-the-great-pretender/story-e6frg6zo-1225885911523
See also
http://www.smh.com.au/national/pm-nudged-about-wrath-of-god-20100629-zjcw.html?skin=text-only
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/julia-gillard-risks-christian-vote-with-doubts-on-god/story-e6frg6nf-1225885897505
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/julia-gillard-respects-religious-beliefs-but-will-not-pretend-to-have-faith-for-votes/story-e6frgczf-1225885581225]

One wonders whence she thinks the binding force of the laws which she takes part in enacting comes. Or maybe, like any atheist who follows his or her beliefs to their logical conclusions, she does not think that laws impose any true obligation.

Blog comment by me:

At Coo-ees:
Cardinal Pole said...

"And all because "Jesus sat with the sinners and the saints"."

I'm having trouble working out the missing step/s in Ms Keneally's logical sequence:

Jesus sat with sinners and saints.
[Missing step/s]
Therefore we should legislate for adoption by same-sex couples.

"Is this an issue to remind Catholic politicians of the consequences in the life of the church?"

A very good question.

June 30, 2010 3:37 AM
Your comment has been saved and will be visible after blog owner approval.
[http://coo-eesfromthecloister.blogspot.com/2010/06/in-principle-support-for-gay-adoption.html]
Reginaldvs Cantvar
Commemoration of St. Paul, Apostle, A.D. 2010
Posted by at 2 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Mr. Mackay on morality and society

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/we-must-find-ways-to-bring-people-back-together-20090424-ahz5.html?page=-1

I was dismayed, but not surprised, to read this in an opinion piece by Mr. Hugh Mackay in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald:

Perhaps we sense the fondly imagined community is under threat, and the consequences might be serious. The consequences could hardly be more serious: our moral sense is a social sense. Only by learning how to live in a community do we acquire our sense of right and wrong, and more subtle values such as tolerance, compassion and respect for others.
(my emphasis)

Nothing here, sadly, to suggest that the individual’s moral sense is a Divine imprint upon him or her; nothing here to suggest that it is by the individual’s rational examination of the objective natures of things that he or she tells good from evil, right from wrong. It’s a shame that Mr. Mackay embraces what sounds like a recipe for relativism, because he actually makes several good points in the first half of that article, offering observations on the rise of divorce, the rise of single-parent families, the role of children as what he calls a “social lubricant”, the fall in the number of housewives, information technology, population mobility and shrinking households.

Via a Google search I found out a bit more about Mr. Mackay’s ethics. Apparently he wrote a book, published in 2004, on the topic, and there is an Anglican review of it here. Mr. Mackay says in his book that

The moral sense is a social sense. Personal relationships are both the wellspring and the lifeblood of morality. Our moral sensitivity is heightened when we feel connected with the communities in which we exist. When communities fragment, shared values are the first casualty ...
The reviewer observes that
Mackay writes that the only purpose for the book is ‘to help you achieve greater clarity in your quest for an understanding of what’s right and wrong for you, in your own particular circumstances’.
For Mackay, ‘right’ equals what is ‘right for you’, and ‘wrong’ equals what is ‘wrong for you’.
And Mr. Mackay appears not to understand that religion comprises faith and morals, not just faith. He says that
… it can be dangerous to confuse religious faith with a moral code, as if you can’t have one without the other. Religion addresses the metaphysical question: ‘Why are we here?’ Morality tackles a more practical question: ‘How should we live together?’
For some people those two questions seem to merge; religious believers often claim that their moral code is directly linked to their religious faith. Yet religion and morality can be treated quite separately: one is about making sense of your very existence; the other is about how to live your life. Religion does its work in the interior, spiritual realm, whereas morality is an exterior, social construct.
Morality a ‘social construct’? It is a pity that Mr. Mackay subscribes to this kind of relativism, because, as in the Herald article, he sometimes has some surprisingly wise thoughts mixed in with the nonsense.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin, A.D. 2009
Posted by at 3 comments:
Labels: , ,

Thursday, December 11, 2008

A comment on the Magisterial status of the condemnations in Quanta Cura

http://cumecclesia.blogspot.com/2008/12/when-even-kings-are-persecuted-by-their.html

Here is a comment that I have posted at Mr. David Schütz’s blog Sentire cum Ecclesia:

***

Mr. Schütz,

Thank you for your response.

You said that you
“do not deny that Quanta Cura was "an Act of the Papal Magisterium" - although I would think "ordinary" rather than "extraodinary".”
Now an Act of the Ordinary Papal Magisterium is something that is pronounced

1) On a matter of faith or morals
2) In the Pope’s capacity as Head of the Church Militant

Acts of the Ordinary Papal Magisterium are infallible when they are universal (i.e. in common with the other Popes). But Acts of the Extraordinary Papal Magisterium (E.P.A.) are infallible in and of themselves, and the criteria for judging whether any given Act belongs to the E.P.A. are that the teaching be pronounced

1) On a matter of faith or morals
2) In the Pope’s capacity as Head of the Church Militant
3) As binding on all the Faithful
4) In a definitive and irrevocable manner

So I suppose I am really asking you to show that one or more of these criteria are not to be found in Quanta Cura. But Section 6. is quite clear:

Amidst, therefore, such great perversity of depraved opinions, we, well remembering our Apostolic Office, and very greatly solicitous for our most holy Religion, for sound doctrine and the salvation of souls which is intrusted to us by God, and (solicitous also) for the welfare of human society itself, have thought it right again to raise up our Apostolic voice. Therefore, by our Apostolic authority[2], we reprobate, proscribe, and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in this letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned[3].
(my emphasis and numbering)
(http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9quanta.htm)
2) and 3) are clearly present in Section 6., and 1) and 4) are clear from the letter of the condemned errors, e.g.

“the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones.”

“that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.”

“liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.”
I would summarise your other objections as follows:

A) The circumstances that elicited the condemnation
B) The circumstances in which the condemnation applies

Now A) is clearly an invalid objection, since the errors are condemned in and of themselves; the circumstances that elicited them and the arguments on which the condemnations are built up do not matter. This is as true for Quanta Cura as it is for Ineffabilis Deus. (Speaking of which, compare the definition in that document to the condemnations in Quanta Cura:

“by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own[2]: "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin[4], is a doctrine revealed by God[1] and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful[3]."”
(my numbering)
(http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9ineff.htm)
All the same criteria are there.) I am aware of His Holiness’s apparent endorsement of some opinions on the supposedly Christian foundations of liberalism (I blogged on this last week), but the origins of European or American liberalism are irrelevant to the question of the infallibility with which the errors were condemned in Quanta Cura.

Objection B) is also invalid; you mention that you

“have pointed out that they did not apply at the time to the missions in the highlands of New Guinea.”
But this is irrelevant for two reasons: firstly, it would be like saying that Catholic teaching on the just wage does not apply to the Papuan highlands because there is not yet a market economy there. That might be true, but once a market economy does begin to operate, Catholic economic teaching will certainly begin to apply. And secondly, in any case, the three errors I quoted apply universally to the human race, since they pre-suppose only one key circumstance, namely, man’s social nature.

Then you mention that you

“could also point out that there is no sense in which they could have applied to the United States in 1864.”
But you have asserted this, not demonstrated it; in fact, the American system of government and society was founded largely on those three errors that I have quoted. I would have thought that to be indisputable.

So in fact, the errors condemned in Quanta Cura were condemned with the seal of Papal infallibility; they remain binding on the conscience of every Catholic.

Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:04:00 PM

***

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Damasus I, Pope, Confessor, 2008 A.D.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Mr. Linnell on technology and silence

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24531160-5001031,00.html

There is a good opinion piece by Mr. Garry Linnell in today’s Sydney Daily Telegraph on society’s enslavement to technology and aversion to silence. He writes that

[…] There are billions on this planet right now who would prefer to go home tonight and find [television celebrity chef Mr. Gordon] Ramsay in their kitchen, eyeballs popping, mouth spitting, ready to deliver a tirade about the state of their fridge rather than face a quiet evening alone.

[…] There is no silence and no escaping a world ablaze with white noise and the all-consuming grind of technology.

[…] who could ever have foreseen a future like this: People huddled in McDonald's, bowed before their laptop computers, slaves to technology, and doing anything to escape the one thing that strikes terror into Ramsay's heart.

That sound of silence.
As one observes the iPod zombies, the families switching the T.V. on as soon as they come home and leaving it on non-stop till bed-time, the blind drunk partygoers at the weekend, it is clear that there is an emptiness and insecurity at the core of present-day society that these distractions cannot conceal. Hence the aversion to and contempt for silence, contemplation and introspection.

And I liked this comment left by a reader at the on-line edition:

Most people don't like themselves--which is why being alone is scary----they would rather burden someone else with all their flaws and annoyances
Reginaldvs Cantvar
22.X.2008 A.D.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

How to set your child up for a life of degradation

Step 1: name her after a ‘porn star’:

Confused about what to name her daughter, Lauren McIntyre left the name up to her husband, Jamie, when they had their girl Holly in April. "There was a television show we watched all the time Girls in the Playboy Mansion and he named her after one of them," Mrs McIntyre, of Cowra, said.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24203550-5001021,00.html

Still, the article wasn’t all bad news:

It can now be revealed that the names John and Mary have been the most popular names for newborns in NSW since the first birth more than 230 years ago.
Reginaldvs Canvar
Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , ,

Monday, August 18, 2008

Genuine Freedom

(warning: the following link may not be suitable for tender consciences)
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/tuning-in-to-an-old-beat-renewed/2008/08/15/1218307227894.html

Professor Clive Hamilton offered the following observation in an article on trends in television and society in the Sydney Morning Herod on Saturday:

"But when you walk around and see teenage girls wearing T-shirts that say 'Porn Star' or, even worse, one that says [a slogan too obscene to bear repetition]', then you ask yourself: where else can society go? And you realise the big disappointment of liberalism's failure to deliver genuine freedom."

It is pleasing that Prof. Hamilton, a political and social progressive, recognises a distinction between true freedom and false freedom, or licence. But what does true freedom constitute for this gentleman? He has published a book recently entitled The Freedom Paradox, and at his website it says that

[h]is search takes him to an unexpected conclusion: that we cannot be truly free unless we commit ourselves to a moral life. The implications of this conclusion are profound, and they challenge many deeply held beliefs in modern secular society.

An ‘unexpected conclusion’? For the secular humanist, perhaps. And what is this ‘moral life’ of which he speaks? Is it that of his Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics colleague, Professor Peter Singer, in which it is all about getting oneself onto one’s highest possible indifference curve without putting someone else on a lower one of his own, and with its horrifying scheme of ‘human non-persons’ and ‘non-human persons’? Perhaps I will obtain a copy of this volume and find out.

Catholics know what real freedom is all about, though. For the individual, St. John tells us that it is the truth that makes us free—it is truth and goodness that are the just objects of freedom. And as for society, His late Holiness Leo XIII puts it quite succinctly in Libertas Præstantissimum:

[…] the true liberty of human society does not consist in every man doing what he pleases, for this would simply end in turmoil and confusion, and bring on the overthrow of the State; but rather in this, that through the injunctions of the civil law all may more easily conform to the prescriptions of the eternal law.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)