Posted on 12/12/2004 8:54:32 AM PST by Land of the Irish
Cardinal Ratzinger
Discovers America
John Rao, Ph.D.
REMNANT COLUMNIST, New York
Cardinal Ratzinger has discovered America. Troubled by the total secularization of European life—reflected, most recently, in the battles over European unification and the continental chorus of criticism accompanying Professor Rocco Buttiglione’s reiteration of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality—the cardinal now suggests that the United States may perhaps offer the better model of Church-State relations for a desacralized world. According to a November 25, 2004, report on Zenit.com, the Cardinal, responding to the secularization of Europe, made the following comments on Vatican Radio:
I think that from many points of view the American model is the better one. Europe has remained bogged down. People who did not want to belong to a state church, went to the United States and intentionally constituted a state that does not impose a church and which simply is not perceived as religiously neutral, but as a space within which religions can move and also enjoy organizational freedom without being simply relegated to the private sphere… One can undoubtedly learn from the United States [and this] process by which the state makes room for religion, which is not imposed, but which, thanks to the state, lives, exists and has a public creative force. It certainly is a positive way.
This, of course, was the position of the Americanists of the 1890’s, who argued that things spiritual thrived in the United States to a degree that Europeans, passive and obedient to their manipulative governments, could never match. Cardinal Ratzinger has apparently arrived at a similar judgment in typical contemporary Catholic fashion: much later than everybody else, and naively uncritical.
It seems to be the fate of the post-conciliar Church to take up the banner of erroneous causes just as their poisons are beginning to become somewhat clearer to the rest of the outside world. I hope that His Eminence has been misquoted. If not, I pray that a deeper study of the system in the United States will reveal to him just how much the so-called religious character of America is, at best, heretical, and, at worst, a “spiritualized” secularism emerging from errors inherent in Protestant thought.
One still hears the argument that the threat of Americanism was exaggerated at the time of Leo XIII’s encyclicals against it, and that, in any case, it disappeared shortly thereafter. Certainly many people in Rome as well as the United States wanted to make believe this was the case, using the Modernist crisis, and undoubted American loyalty to the Papacy throughout it, as proof positive of the country’s orthodoxy. But the crises warned against by St. Pius X’s pontificate precisely involve the sort of philosophical, theological, and exegetical issues that Americanism sweeps aside as a horrendous waste of time and energy. Modernism’s intellectual character stood in the way of the Yankee pragmatism that simply wanted “to get the job done” without worrying about anything as fruitlessly divisive as unpaid thought. It was part and parcel of all that pretentious European cultural hoo-ha responsible for the Old World’s ideologies, revolutions, wars, and bad plumbing. Americans could recite the Creed and memorize catechisms better and in larger numbers than anywhere else. Confident in their orthodoxy and the Catholic-friendly character of their political and social system, they could “move on” to devote themselves to the practical realities of daily life. Criticisms of what the “practical life” might actually mean in the long run could be disregarded as unpatriotic, communist, and useless for short or long-term fund raising.
America, with Catholic Americans in lock-step, thus marched forward to nurture what St. Cyril of Alexandria called “dypsychia”: a two-spirited existence. On the one hand, it loudly proclaimed outward commitment to many traditional doctrines and “moral values” making it look spiritually healthy. On the other, it allowed “the practical life”, to which it was really devoted, to be defined by whatever the strongest and most successful men considered to be most important, silencing discussion of the gross contradiction by laughing such fruitless intellectual quibbles out of the parlors of a polite, common-sense guided society. It marched this approach into Europe in 1945, ironically linking up with one strain of Modernism that itself encouraged Catholic abandonment to the direction of anti-intellectual “vital energies” and “mystique”. Vitalism and Americanism in tandem then gave us Vatican II which, concerned only with “getting the practical pastoral job done”, has destroyed Catholic doctrine infinitely more effectively than any mere straightforward heretic like Arius could have done. Under the less parochial sounding name of Pluralism, it is the very force which Cardinal Ratzinger is criticizing inside the European Union, and which is now spreading high-minded “moral values”, “freedom”, and “democracy” around the globe through the work of well-paid mercenaries and five hundred pound bombs.
If, heaven forbid, Cardinal Ratzinger honestly believes that true religion prospers under our system better than under any other, he is urging upon Catholics that spiritual and intellectual euthanasia which Americanism-Vitalism-Pluralism infallibly guarantees. The fate of many conservative Catholic enthusiasts for this false God, in their response to the war in Iraq, should be one among an endless number of warnings to him. No one is more publicly committed to orthodoxy than they are. No one praises the name and authority of the Pope more than they do. And yet never have I heard so many sophistic arguments reducing to total emptiness both profound Catholic teachings regarding the innocence of human life, as well as the value of the intellect in understanding how to apply those teachings to practical circumstances, as I have heard coming from their circles.
May God save His Eminence from adulation of a system that waves the flag of moral righteousness and then tells us that we are simply not permitted to use our faith and reason to recognize a wicked, fraudulent war for the anti-Catholic disaster that it is; an evil that a number of Catholics are some day legitimately going to have to apologize for having helped to justify. May God save His Eminence from a religiosity which will eventually line “fundamentalist” Catholic “terrorists” against the wall along with other “divisive” enemies of the system who cannot live or die under a regime of dypsychia.
That may be, but some of us believe that Catholic monarchy as exemplified by Saints such as Ferdinand III of Spain, Stephen of Hungary, Henry of Germany, Louis IX of France and the recently beatified Karl of Austria-Hungary was a lot closer to the ideal than modern democracy. As long as we're on Earth, why not defend and strive for what we believe is the best possible?
That's right -- it's all America's fault as always. I can see you guys are great readers of Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Moveon.org and all the other professional blame America first, America is the source of all the evil in the world crowd -- you follow exactly the same playbook. Wonderful to have such loyal, patriotic people as yourselves -- loyal neither to Pope nor Country.
Radical egalitarianism has acted to degrade the foundations of society in Europe faster than it has here, but it's coming.
When abortion was legalized in Belgium in 1990, King Baudouin, a devout Catholic, temporarily abdicated rather than sign his name to the law. If he had been an "unconstitutional" monarch with real power, abortion would still be illegal in Belgium.
Mass immigration of Muslims to Europe and the US has been encouraged and consciously engineered to dilute Western Christian civilisation, and to furthen hasten the destruction of what Christian elements still exist in that civilisation.
It seem as if many have forgotten both the lessons of history, and of the reality of Islam itself. Forbidding/restricting Muslim immigration is not an issue of racism. Rather it is one of religious and cultural survival.
Long ago anciemt civilizations leaned the very simple concept that it is foolish to willingly allow a sworn enemy within one's own city gates. How quickly we forget......
Thank you for your comments. It is Catholics like you who make me want to join the Church. (I'm not quite there yet, but the local trads are working on me!)
Democracy has made much of the world better, both in terms of economic freedoms and human rights. Democracy has spread all across Europe. With the tenacity of the US cold warriors, democracy has spread to the former Communist bloc. Democracy is spreading in Africa, South America, East and South Asia. It is precisely those areas of the world where it has not taken root, i.e, the Moslem world and China, that are the most disturbing or potentially disturbing to the peace of the world. And having an authoritarian government is no assurance that evils like abortion or homosexual marriage will not be enacted into law.
My biggest concern for the freedom of the Church are the sorts of restrictions on free speech that are now common in Europe and Canada. Our constitution and constitutional jurisprudence has a very strong tradition supporting freedom of speech, at least until there is a clear and present danger. In this way, I do believe our system is better than the European. If the courts stick to this tradition, then the Church will be protected. If the courts give in to the left wing fad for speech codes and criminalizing un-PC thought crimes, then I see a real time of persecution.
Dear royalcello,
Or Catholic monarchs like Henry VIII (remember that it is as a Catholic that he had a mistress he wished to make his second wife)? Here, we have a Catholic king who led to the heresy, over time, of an entire country.
Or perhaps Edward II? Or Louis XIV?
I'm not a monarchy afficionado as you are. I'm sure that you can name at least three good Catholic monarchs for every bad one I can name. But I'm sure there are at least as many bad as good. Certainly, there are more bad Catholic monarchs then there are canonized ones.
I'm not against monarchy, per se. Nor am I terribly enamored with democracy, or even republicanism.
I am against getting rid of monarchy where it currently exists, except for the most extreme reasons, and I do think that monarchs ought to be more than figureheads.
But neither do I think the case is well-made that monarchy is substantially preferable to constitutional republicanism, nor do I thing that the case is made at all that countries with long histories of republican government (even bad republican government) can, or should move to monarchy.
sitetest
Europe sucks. End of story...
Not exactly. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, and Charles Coulombe would be more like it.
Please open your eyes and come to terms with the fact that the world of political theory is a lot bigger than the Democratic vs. Republican charade. Any point of view which dissents from American neoconservatism is not necessarily leftist.
Monarchists belong in this country as much as Islamists do. At least the Monarchists don't blow up buildings, yet...
As a theoretical ideal, a confessional state in which the state truly did not interfere with the doctrine of the faith and in which the rights of individuals not to be coerced on matters of conscience would be best. Such a thing is not practical under modern conditions, given the left-wing currents of thought widespread in society, I would not trust any government to leave the Church alone. In modern conditions, I think a regime of true religious freedom is best.
Keep up the good work.
Learn your history. The colonial governments of Spain, Portugal and France actually granted legal rights to those they conquered, encouraged assimilation and had no problem with intermarriage. It was the English (and their descendants) who pushed anti-miscegenation laws in the New World, whether in America, Asia, or Africa.
"Democracy has made much of the world better, both in terms of economic freedoms and human rights."
It is precisely because of the forced imposition of so called "democracy" upon formerly Christian, monarchial Europe that we have had nothing but war and blood bath across the globe over the last century.
In regard to Africa, one would have to be living in an ivory tower to say that the "freed" colonies have ecomomic freedom and human rights. they have not known peace in nearly 50 years, due to so called "democracy"
Or shall we talk about that great bastion of democracy, with all of its blooming flowers of peace, justice, prosperity, and human rights......in South and Central America????????? With great help (overt and covert)their peoples were "freed" from the tyranny of monarchies, and repeatedly, brutally subjected to "democratice" leaders,. imposed by the US......complete with torture chambers for those who dissented from the great freedoms of "democracy".
Or we could speak of Iraq - where we are suprememly determined to impose "democracy" upon the people of that land - if we have to kill half of them to accomplish it!
How dare they have the effrontery to resist? Shame upon them for being so bold as to not accept our US style "democracy"........imposed with all the gentility of strappado!!!!!
The current Belgian king did not follow pious Baudoin's good example in the most recent laws that were controversial as far as Catholic doctrine go, I understand. I think it was about euthanasia (on which Belgium has one of the most extreme positions), or same sex marriage.
To be a true American is to oppose monarchy and tyranny.
Louis XIV, I would say, was mixed rather than thoroughly bad. Certainly he was selfish & conceited and waged unnecessary wars. But he also was a great patron of the arts and did a lot for French culture and prestige. As a musician, this area is important to me. And would France be as popular a tourist destination today without Versailles?
I am against getting rid of monarchy where it currently exists, except for the most extreme reasons, and I do think that monarchs ought to be more than figureheads.
I'm glad to hear it! I will admit that I can come across as a bit zealous and fanatical regarding monarchy since it resonates so deeply with me in ways that are sometimes difficult to explain. But I can also applaud reasoned and sensible sentiments such as yours.
nor do I think...that countries with long histories of republican government...can, or should move to monarchy.
Perhaps surprisingly, I agree! But the only European countries to which this really applies are Switzerland, San Marino, and Iceland. The others, especially those for which there are still legitimate claimants to the thrones, ought to be monarchies.
Add to that list virtually every pope upto Pius XII - Leo XII and Pius X were particularly strong monarchists, St. Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Aristotle, Hilaire Belloc, Christopher Dawson, JRR Tolkien... the list is endless - and all but the early pagan philsophers, devoutly Catholic. I can see you guys are great readers of Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Moveon.org
Leftism is rabidly anti-monarchial, it is the left in every European country, Australia and Canada that is trying to abolish the remaining monarchies. Monarchism is the essence of conservatism - although like Kuehnelt-Leddihn I prefer "man of the right" to conservative. It is only conservatism in America that is fundamentally opposed to monarchy, because it has it roots in Whiggery. Conservatives in nearly every other country in the world are monarchists.
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