Thomas and Mencius on "Unintended Consequences"

The ethical problem posed by the spur and the fat man.

Thomas Aquinas and Mencius on unintended consequences and "collateral damage."


Read the whole article here

Hat tip: The Western Confucian

The Legacy of Joseph Sobran, Heir to Russell Kirk

New blog: The Rambling Medievalist

I have created a new blog, where many of my thoughts on medieval studies will be presented in rough form and will be developed for publication. My first post is from an abstract of my dissertation.

Here is the link: gregoriusmagnus.blogspot.com.

The text as performance

From Arturo Vasquez's blog:

Jorge Luis Borges, in his short essay, El culto del libro , writes that a watershed moment in the history of human thought is when St. Augustine found that St. Ambrose could read a text without moving his lips or reading aloud. Being a man of the world, one could only assume that St. Augustine found this to be an unusual skill. But to be mentioned in St. Augustine’s Confessions, it has to be more significant than just a cheap parlor trick. Borges explains:

Aquel hombre pasaba directamente del signo de escritura a la intuición, omitiendo el signo sonoro; el extraño arte que iniciaba, el arte de leer en voz baja, conduciría a consecuencias maravillosas. Conduciría, cumplidos muchos años, al concepto del libro como fin, no como instrumento de un fin.

(That man passed directly from the written sign to the intuition, omitting the audible sign; the strange art that it initiated, the art of reading to oneself, would lead to marvelous consequences. It would lead, after many years, to the concept of the book as an end, and not a means to an end.)

Read the rest here.

Vincent Price on Racial and Religious Prejudice

Not PC, just good common sense and decency from an American actor who was a class act.

Hat tip: John Beeler

Per Signum Crucis

Per signum crucis de inimicis nostris libera nos, Domine!

We praise the, O Lord, and we bless thee, for by thy Holy Cross thou hast redeemed the world!

Mark Shea: "The Economy is so bad that..."

From Mark Shea's blog

The economy is really bad!

How bad is it, Lou?

It's so bad that....

I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

I ordered a burger at McDonald's, and the kid behind the counter asked, "Can you afford fries with that?"

CEO's are now playing miniature golf.

If the bank returns your check marked "Insufficient Funds," you have to call them and ask if they mean you or them .

Hot Wheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.

McDonald's is selling the 1/4 'ouncer'.

For more gems, read here.

Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, Hitler's Would-Be Assasin. RIP.

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Sixty-three years ago yesterday, this man, along with two other German army officers, Henning von Treskow and Hans Oster, attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler and the High Command of the Wehrmacht and remove the Nazis from power. He and his cohorts, Catholic aristocrats and lovers of their land, desired to save Germany from the devastating war Hitler had doomed the nation into, and saw it as their duty to bring this murderous regime to an end. They almost succeeded.

The plan was to have Colonel von Stauffenberg, chief of the army reserve, to plant a suitcase with a bomb inside at Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair), five miles east of the East Prussian town Rastenberg (now Kertzyn, Poland), one of Hitler's many command posts. Once the bomb would have done its work in desposing of Hitler, Operation Valkyrie would be put into action: overthrow the central government in Berlin, and make peace with the Allies. The conspirators had an inside man in Berlin-General Olbricht-who would coordinate the operations in the top command.

All went awry, when the suitcase was removed several feet away from Hitler. It went off, but Hitler suffered minor injuries. In the meantime, von Stauffenberg was on his way to Berlin to carry out Operation Valkyrie, and he and General Olbricht arrested some top officials, inlcuding General Fromm, commander of the reserves, until word came back to them that Hitler was alive. Fromm was released, with the understanding he would support the conspiracy, but in the end, he turned on them. Staufenberg and Olbricht were shot the next day, Oster and Treskow were arrested and executed the following week, along with seven-thousand Germans suspected of conspiracy to assassinate Hitler (including German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel).

The plot failed, but the name of Claus von Stauffenberg is perhaps the most beloved and revered name in Germany, giving proof to many Germans that even in that darkest hour of their history, chivalry, honor and goodness were not lacking.

May Claus von Stauffenberg's memory be eternal! May God grant him rest eternal.

And may He also grant rest to his co-conspirators, Hening von Treskow and Hans Oster, as well as to Pastor Bonhoeffer and Field Marshal Rommel, and to all Germans of good will who died wanting to save their nation from a fiendish and monstrous regime.

Tsar Nicholas II

July 17, 1918. 92 years ago, a horrific crime was committed in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg, in a house called the Ipatiev House. A man was brutally shot along with his whole family- wife, four daughters, and a son-shot dead by men who were self-styled "lovers of humanity". With Tsar Nicholas II, the rule of the Romanovs came to a violent and brutal end.

His abdication a year prior was greeted with joy by liberals and socialists in France, Britain and the United States. President Wilson felt that with the removal of the Tsar, the world was that much closer to being made "safe for democracy." What resulted? 70 years of the most brutal tyranny the world had ever witnessed. In Central Europe, the eradication of the Habsburg and Hohenzollern monarchies resulted in the rise of National Socialism. So much for making the world "safe for democracy."

No, he was not a perfect ruler. He had some black marls against him in terms of his political career, to be sure, but one thing is very certain: he loved his people, and his abdication showed how far he was willing to go to make sure his people didn't suffer from the ravages of civil war.

May their prayers in heaven, and those of all the New Martyrs of Russia, win for the Russian people peace, prosperity, and most importantly, a new zeal for the faith of their ancestors!

Bastile Day is Bunk

Read Article here

From TakiMag.com


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It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like the morning star full of life and splendor and joy. 0h, what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom! The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.”-Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

The Aunt from Chicago

Greek comedy, ca. 1957, about a middle-aged man with four daughters, whose conservative life is disrupted by his sister, who visits from Chicago, and has some zany ideas about how to get her nieces married. Clue: clay jars. In Greek with no subtitles, but I think you'll get the gist of what's going on.

St. John the Baptist: Last of the Old Testament Prophets

A Sermon by St. Augustine of Hippo:

The Church observes the birth of John as in some way sacred; and you will not find any other of the great men of old whose birth we celebrate officially. We celebrate John’s, as we celebrate Christ’s. This point cannot be passed over in silence, and if I may not perhaps be able to explain it in the way that such an important matter deserves, it is still worth thinking about it a little more deeply and fruitfully than usual.

John is born of an old woman who is barren; Christ is born of a young woman who is a virgin. That John will be born is not believed, and his father is struck dumb; that Christ will be born is believed, and he is conceived by faith.

I have proposed some matters for inquiry, and listed in advance some things that need to be discussed. I have introduced these points even if we are not up to examining all the twists and turns of such a great mystery, either for lack of capacity or for lack of time. You will be taught much better by the one who speaks in you even when I am not here; the one about whom you think loving thoughts, the one whom you have taken into your hearts and whose temple you have become.

John, it seems, has been inserted as a kind of boundary between the two Testaments, the Old and the New. That he is somehow or other a boundary is something that the Lord himself indicates when he says, The Law and the prophets were until John. So he represents the old and heralds the new. Because he represents the old, he is born of an elderly couple; because he represents the new, he is revealed as a prophet in his mother’s womb. You will remember that, before he was born, at Mary’s arrival he leapt in his mother’s womb. Already he had been marked out there, designated before he was born; it was already shown whose forerunner he would be, even before he saw him. These are divine matters, and exceed the measure of human frailty. Finally, he is born, he receives a name, and his father’s tongue is loosed.

Zachary is struck dumb and loses his voice, until John, the Lord’s forerunner, is born and releases his voice for him. What does Zachary’s silence mean, but that prophecy was obscure and, before the proclamation of Christ, somehow concealed and shut up? It is released and opened up by his arrival, it becomes clear when the one who was being prophesied is about to come. The releasing of Zachary’s voice at the birth of John has the same significance as the tearing of the veil of the Temple at the crucifixion of Christ. If John were meant to proclaim himself, he would not be opening Zachary’s mouth. The tongue is released because a voice is being born – for when John was already heralding the Lord, he was asked, Who are you and he replied I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

John is the voice, but the Lord in the beginning was the Word. John is a voice for a time, but Christ is the eternal Word from the beginning.

Oldest Images of Christ's Apostles Found in Rome

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Art restorers in Italy have discovered what are believed to be the oldest paintings of some of Jesus Christ's apostles.

Read it here

Archbishop Chrysostomos of Cyprus' Address to Pope Benedict XVI

“It Is Here … That the Christian Roots of Europe Took Seed”

PAPHOS, Cyprus, JUNE 4, 2010 (Zenit.org) – Here is the address delivered today by the Cypriot Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostomos II during an ecumenical celebration at the archeological area of the Church of Agia Kiriaki Chrysopolitiss. [emphasis added]

* * *

Your Holiness, Pope Benedict of old Rome, welcome to the Island of Saints and Martyrs!

Welcome to the first Church of the Nations, founded by the Apostles Barnabas, Paul and Mark!

Welcome to the Church of the Apostles, after the establishment of which the Holy Spirit led the Apostles to separate themselves from their brethren and sent them towards the Nations!

“So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews … they had gone through the island to Paphos” (Acts 13:4-6).

In this very spot, your Holiness, stood the synagogue of the Jews and from this place St Barnabas and St Paul preached the word of God to the Jews.

“But the word of God is not chained” (2 Timothy 2:9). It could not have been possible for the Spirit of Love of the Incarnate, Crucified and Resurrected Lord to remain restricted among the Jews. Jesus Christ came to the world “that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:15).

The commandment of the Holy Ghost was for them to preach to the Nations. Thus, when the Roman deputy, Sergius Paulus, “a prudent man” according to St. Luke, invited the Apostles “to hear the word of God” (Acts 13:7) they gladly went forth to the place where the political administration of the island was based in order to preach the word of the Lord for the first time among the Gentiles also.

At this point, “Barnabas and Paul exchanged their roles. Here was a place not for the Cypriot, but the Roman citizen”.

As of that moment Paul became the leader of the mission. He also changed his name. From this moment on he was no longer called Saul in the New Testament, but Paul!

It was in this town that the first miracle of the Apostles was performed, as recorded in the New Testament. It was here that the first European citizen was baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity. It was here that the first official citadel of idolatry fell and in its place the glory of the Cross was raised in all its splendor, and would gradually spread to cover the whole of Europe and shape its historical future.

It is here, your Holiness, that the Christian roots of Europe took seed and from here its spiritual shoots first burst forth. The foundations of the edifice of Christian civilization in Europe were laid on this very spot where we now stand, deeply moved by the sense of history. It is for this reason that Cyprus is justly called “the Gate of Christianity in Europe”.

Here in Paphos, after the wondrous events that took place, Paul became established as the Apostle to the Nations, and went on to sow the seeds of the bread of life in your own cathedra and throughout the whole of Europe.

Your Holiness,

Since 45 AD when the Apostles first set their foot upon this island until the present day, the Church of Cyprus has had a long and fruitful Christian course. Throughout its long progress it has endured numerous troubles and difficulties, lived through dark nights, experienced many conquests, gone ‘through fire and water’, but guided always by the Holy Spirit, not only did it survive, but it continues to give its Orthodox Christian Testimony, and to fulfill its God-given mission.

But, alas, since 1974, Cyprus and its Church have been experiencing the most difficult times in their history.

Turkey, which attacked us barbarously and, with the power of its arms, occupied 37% of our territory, is proceeding — with the tolerance of the so-called ‘civilized’ world — to implement its unholy plans, first to annex our occupied territories and then the whole of Cyprus.

In the case of our island, as it has done elsewhere, Turkey has implemented a plan of ethnic cleansing. It drove out the Orthodox Christians from their ancestral homes and brought — and continues to bring — hundreds of thousands of settlers from Anatolia, thus altering the demographic character of Cyprus. In addition, it has changed all the historical place names into Turkish ones.

Our cultural heritage has been plundered relentlessly and our Christian monuments are being destroyed or sold on the markets of illicit dealers in antiquities, in an attempt to rid the island of every last trace of all that is Greek or Christian.

We hope that in this terrible ordeal, which has caused so much agony to the Christian congregation of our Church since 1974, the Good and All-Merciful Lord will not turn His face from our suffering people, but will grant us Peace, Freedom, and Justice, thus granting to us the all-fulfilling love given by His presence in our hearts.

In this struggle of ours, Your Holiness, which the Cypriot people are waging with the guidance of their Leaders, we would greatly appreciate your active support. We look forward to your help in order to ensure protection and respect for our sacred monuments and our cultural heritage, in order that the diachronic values of our Christian spirit might prevail. These values are currently being brutally violated by Turkey — a country desirous of joining the European Union.

Your Holiness,

In this joyful moment of your presence among us together with your retinue, we, the President of the Republic, the Government, the Holy Synod, the pious congregation of our Church, and I personally, would like once again to address to you a heartfelt welcome and wish you a pleasant stay.

+Chrysostomos Archbishop of Cyprus

Holy Archbishopric of Cyprus

4 June 2010

Biretta tip: Eirenikon

Ron Paul on "Why Governments Hate Gold"

Dr. Paul on how it is that Greek-style debt explosions spread to other nations, and what is at the root of falling currencies, massive debt and out-of-control inflation: fiat currencies that have no value, but we keep performing the ultimate alchemy: printing more paper money, based on...nothing!

As governments and central banks continue the cycle of spending and inflating, the purchasing power of their currencies is constantly being degraded. These currencies are what the people are working for and saving. This inflation guts the savings and earnings of the people, who have very limited options for protecting themselves against these ravages. One option is to convert their fiat currency into something out of reach of central banks and government spending, such as gold or silver.

Read the whole article here.

St. Conleth Blog

for readers interested in efforts in Ireland to preserve the ancient liturgy, I am happy to offer St. Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association blog. You will find links to articles from the Christus Regnat journal. Definitely worth a visit.

Meltup: the movie

This is not fiction, ladies and gentlemen!



After that, this:



Fasten your seat belts, ladies and gentlemen! After the meltup, it's certainly going to be a bumpy night for the world economy. Fiat money, higher debt to savings ratios, etc., and things will indeed come to this.

Lauda Sion

Sion, lift up thy voice and sing:

Praise thy Savior and thy King,

Praise with hymns thy shepherd true.

All thou canst, do thou endeavour:

Yet thy praise can equal never

Such as merits thy great King.

See today before us laid

The living and life-giving Bread,

Theme for praise and joy profound.

The same which at the sacred board

Was, by our incarnate Lord,

Giv'n to His Apostles round.

Let the praise be loud and high:

Sweet and tranquil be the joy

Felt today in every breast.

On this festival divine

Which records the origin

Of the glorious Eucharist.

On this table of the King,

Our new Paschal offering

Brings to end the olden rite.

Here, for empty shadows fled,

Is reality instead,

Here, instead of darkness, light.

His own act, at supper seated

Christ ordain'd to be repeated

In His memory divine;

Wherefore now, with adoration,

We, the host of our salvation,

Consecrate from bread and wine.

Hear, what holy Church maintaineth,

That the bread its substance changeth

Into Flesh, the wine to Blood.

Doth it pass thy comprehending?

Faith, the law of sight transcending

Leaps to things not understood.

Here beneath these signs are hidden

Priceless things, to sense forbidden,

Signs, not things, are all we see.

Flesh from bread, and Blood from wine,

Yet is Christ in either sign,

All entire, confessed to be.

They, who of Him here partake,

Sever not, nor rend, nor break:

But, entire, their Lord receive.

Whether one or thousands eat:

All receive the self-same meat:

Nor the less for others leave.

Both the wicked and the good

Eat of this celestial Food:

But with ends how opposite!

Here 't is life: and there 't is death:

The same, yet issuing to each

In a difference infinite.

Nor a single doubt retain,

When they break the Host in twain,

But that in each part remains

What was in the whole before.

Since the simple sign alone

Suffers change in state or form:

The signified remaining one

And the same for evermore.

Lo! bread of the Angels broken,

For us pilgrims food, and token

Of the promise by Christ spoken,

Children’s meat, to dogs denied.

Shewn in Isaac's dedication,

In the manna's preparation:

In the Paschal immolation,

In old types pre-signified.

Jesu, shepherd of the sheep:

Thou thy flock in safety keep,

Living bread, thy life supply:

Strengthen us, or else we die,

Fill us with celestial grace.

Thou, who feedest us below:

Source of all we have or know:

Grant that with Thy Saints above,

Sitting at the feast of love,

We may see Thee face to face.

Amen. Alleluia.

O Salutaris Hostia: A Happy Feast of Corpus Christi

To all my fellow Western Orthodox, who celebrate this feast, as well as to all my Roman Catholicand Anglo-Catholic friends: A Happy Feast to all!

O saving Victim, opening wide

The gate of Heaven to us below;

Our foes press hard on every side;

Your aid supply; Your strength bestow.

To your great name be endless praise,

Immortal Godhead, One in Three.

O grant us endless length of days,

In our true native land with thee.

Amen.

Greece Urged to Give Up the Euro

If this happens, Greece would be the first in the many unravelings of the EU. Should Greece return to the Drachma, my only concern is that she do so by pegging its value not against any other paper currency, but against gold or silver.

Read the story here.

Hat tip: The Young Fogey