The Eclipse Is Racist Because It Fails To Affect Enough Black People, The Atlantic Suggests
The Atlantic, a once-great magazine, has determined that the total eclipse of the sun due to occur on Monday will fail to affect enough black people.
The Atlantic’s very lengthy essay on the failure of the eclipse to occur where a sufficient number of black people reside is entitled “American Blackout.” It clocks in at a remarkable 4,544 words and does not appear to be satire.
Concerning “the Great American Eclipse,” Brooklyn Law School professor Alice Ristroph writes in the rapidly deteriorating magazine, “there live almost no black people” “along most of its path.”
The Atlantic’s longwinded law professor assures readers that “implicit bias of the solar system” is “presumably” not the cause of eclipse’s failure to affect enough black people.
[…]
After an extensive discourse criticizing the U.S. Census, The Atlantic tells readers that the eclipse will travel through Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri. In this section of its essay, The Atlantic manages to drop the names of Bruce Springsteen, Jesse James, Eminem, Chelsea Manning, Michael Brown and Howard Zinn (a shallow socialist writer panned even by most serious socialists).
“There are too many damn facts,” The Atlantic also complains.
[…]
In its final paragraph, The Atlantic concludes that the United States is “still segregated” and has “debts that no honest man can pay.” Cryptically, the magazine suggests, “the strange path of the eclipse suggests a need for reorganization” of the entire American political system.
The Atlantic classifies its article about the path of the eclipse in the category of “science” even though nothing remotely approaching science appears in any of the 4,544 words.
This morning I had Holy Mass at St. Philippine Duschesne which is run by the FSSP. I thought it was to be a Sung Mass, but it turned out to be Solemn, which was a treat. Here are a few snaps from someone.
The church is lovely. They obvious have put their hearts into building a beautiful church and doing good things there. And it was really full for Mass.
What people didn’t know is that a friend of mine brought some special gear for the Mass. On the altar we had great relics. There was a large piece of bone of St. Bernard, a 1st class of St. John Vianney, an arrangement of great Jesuit… yes, Jesuit saints, and – special – some hair of St Maximilian Kolbe.
Some images…
Some of them. Great names…
Ignatius Loyola
Francis Xavier
Aloysius Gonzaga
Francis Borgia
Paul Miki
Peter Claver
John Berchmans
Peter Canisius
Stanislas Kostka
Alphonus Rodriguez
Lst but not least, at about 11 o’clock… AND BOB!
A few of them I couldn’t immediately discern. I do like going around clockwise to find AND BOB!
Also, for the Mass itself, I wore an amice of St. John Vianney and used one of his ciboria to distirubute Holy Communion.
On a more mundane level, we went to Independence to see a priest friend who is redoing his church and who has a new community of women religious whom he’s helping. Then we visited the Pres. Harry S. Truman Library.
This is also Mormon Ground Zero. They – in they’re various splinter groups, think that this is where (their) Jesus is to return… Independence, MO, folks. Here’s what they built in the place where they believe it’ll happen.
Weird.
Meanwhile, in KC, there are protests because of Civil War monuments. This one was boxed up and prepared for removal even before the protest against it. Today there are marches downtown.
Last night we opened up a bottle of 1991 Brunello. I had saved a bottle from the year of my ordination to enjoy for my 25th anniversary. When I left the Sabine Farm for Madison, I entrusted a few bottles of wine to my friend here in KC. This is my 26th year, but… hey!
Tonight, my last ’82 Bordeaux. It has been open for hours. It should be great.
The distinguished theologian Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP, recently gave a talk to a group of Anglican and Orthodox (both of whom are not yet in union with the Pope of Rome) about what might be done in view of the crisis aroused in the Church because of the objectively ambiguous elements of Pope Francis’ Amoris laetitia. I posted about the talk with comments HERE.
Nichols’ talk was important. He has opened up, respectfully, another “path” as it were in the matter of the Five Dubia of the Four Cardinals.
Inter alia, Nichols suggests that the Church’s law might be changed to allow for a procedure to correct a Pope who might stray towards teaching something sub-optimal.
Here is distinguished canonist Ed Peters observations on Nichols’ proposal for canon law. Let’s have a look. Be sure to visit, often, Peters’ wonderful site, In The Light Of The Law.
On Fr. Nichols’ recent remarks
Dominican theologian Fr. Aidan Nichols needs no introduction to readers of this blog and it suffices to say that, when a priest of Nichols’ credentials urges development of a canonical procedure to correct popes who—how exactly to put this?—leave confusion in their wake, people are going to take notice. I have seen only news reports of Nichols’ address (not the speech itself), [me too] but a few comments occur to me that won’t come as a surprise to Nichols but that might help inform others’ reactions to them. [I haven’t yet seen any lib reaction to Nichols’ offering. Over at the National Sodomitic Reporter, for example, they are still pushing for a change to the Church’s teachings about sexuality under the guise of a request for “dialogue”.]
First, while most provisions in the Code of Canon Law are of human (albeit, ecclesiastical, usually pontifical) origin, implying the possibility of changes in them in accord with circumstances, some canons rest on divine law foundations and are not, therefore, so easily amended—however appealing such changes might seem to be. Such is the case, I suggest, with Canon 331 on the full and supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff and Canon 1404 on the immunity of the Holy See from judgment (canonical or civil). These canons (and others besides, say, Canon 1372) serve the decision of Our Lord to leave Peter and his successors basically free to act as they see fit in guiding the Church, meaning that such canons, operating in support of a divinely-sanctioned freedom, are not liable to repeal if popes misuse that freedom. All of this Nichols takes for granted, of course.
Nichols also knows, however, that Petrine freedom has limits, that it is not something bestowed in order to make possible, say, papal plundering of Church property or dalliances with dangerous theological theories (both of which have happened in the past), [indeed] but rather, it serves the Church’s need for, and the faithful’s right to, certainty and continuity in Catholicism’s witness to the teachings of Jesus. [Enter close allies of the Holy Father, Card. Kasper – who thinks that Sacred Scripture can mean different things in different periods – and the SG of the Jesuits – who thinks we can’t know what the Lord said.] Canon law read as a whole (and not cherry-picked to get the results one hopes for) operates in service to allof doctrine (and not just the parts that sound convenient to this generation or that).
Canonical evidence of one such limitation on papal power is found in, for example,Canon 336 which recognizes the college of bishops (properly understood) as also a subject of full and supreme power in the Church—a mystery, to be sure, how one Church can have two subjects of full and supreme power, but nevertheless an ecclesiological given to be reckoned with, not ignored. Nichols might, for all I know, have referenced Canon 336 in his original speech; if he did not, he certainly could have done so. [I think we should try to get Fr Nichols’ text. Indeed, I suspect that he will be back with this same topic in the not too distant future.]
But another check against this papal freedom turning into license, albeit a check harder to pin down than are neatly drafted canons, is “Tradition”.
Tradition, not canon law, holds the Church to accept a host of truths, for example, that Jesus rose from the dead, that canonized saints are in heaven, and that contraception between married couples is objectively gravely wrong, such that [for those of you in Columbia Heights, “in such a way that”] a pope who suddenly challenged the reality of the Resurrection, the status of one duly canonized, or the gravity of conjugal contraception—or who winked at others doing such things—would stand in urgent need of prayers and would be a proper object for some kind of correction, perhaps such correction as is apparently envisioned by Cdl. Burke and others. [Which would be a real act of charity, and one with far ranging implications.]
But beyond even this—and moving back to what Nichols’ point seemed to be—Tradition has some even more startling things to say about popes who might fall into heresy. To summarize a long story already shortened here, the Church is not defenseless against heresy from popes. Under certain rare circumstances, one is talking, according to several weighty authors, about the loss of pontifical office itself. [In a nutshell, some authors think that were a Successor of Peter to depart from Peter’s teaching, then we would in effect have departed from Peter’s chair… his “See”. Not all agree. Moreover, it is an unlikely scenario, given the work of the Holy Spirit, who intervenes to avoid disaster. That said, let us not fall into gnostic papalotry.]
There are, of course, several practical problems with Nichols’ proposal for changes to canon law (some of which problems he noted in the reported version of his remarks) and to which I would add a simple one: popes are the Legislator of canon law, and the chances of any legislator writing a law that could be used against him are slim. [There is that.] But, if the commentators cited in my earlier blog are really saying what they seem to be saying, we might not need new canon laws to deal with the problem.
Tradition might already have a solution.
I wonder what the “Tradition Solution” might look like. I suspect that it would involve important theologians and many bishops walking a tightrope of deep and thorough criticism of some papal position while not avoiding hard conclusions.
It’s the 11th Sunday after Pentecost or else the 20th Ordinary Sunday. Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard during the Holy Mass in fulfillment your of Sunday Obligation? Let us know.
For my part, later this morning, I’ll be singing a Mass at St. Rose Philippine Duschesne Church in Kansas City, KS. I’ll more than likely speak about “speaking rightly”. How many sins could we avoid it we kept our mouths shut?
Oh… dear… I was just reminded that only converts have to keep their mouths shut.
I’m on my way to the path of the much anticipated shadow of your planet’s largest satellite.
There is a lovely sight in the sky this morning directly in the East. The Moon has lots of Earthshine and Venus is positioned just so.
The shot sometime later with my app. You can see the collision course is set.
So now I await the first leg.
This time Delta can’t lose my checked bag: I didn’t check a bag.
UPDATE
Delta oversold the flight. They want 5 people to fly to ATL and get into MCI at midnight.
Ferenghi.
Fog from above during the first leg.
And now…
I wonder who gets to choose the music during the boarding process. This is pretty good acoustic guitar stuff.
UPDATE:
We are stuck on the tarmac because of a possible maintenance issue. My friend in KC thinks i should suggest finding a Jiffy Lube. That’s good enough for me.
Oh! As I wrote that the captain said that they managed to start the engine after all.
Nitwits in California vandalized a statue of Bl. Junipero Serra. HERE
Nitwits in New Orleans vandalized a statue of – get this – St. Joan of Arc! It was spray painted with “Tear it down!” HERE The idiots thought it was a Confederate statue.
The problem.
First, Confederate memorials, next… who knows? Churches and their statues.
Leading theologian: change canon law to correct papal errors
Fr Aidan Nichols, a prolific author who has lectured at Oxford and Cambridge as well as the Angelicum in Rome, said that Pope Francis’s exhortation Amoris Laetitia had led to an “extremely grave” situation.
Fr Nichols proposed that, given the Pope’s statements on issues including marriage and the moral law, the Church may need “a procedure for calling to order a pope who teaches error”.
The Dominican theologian said that this procedure might be less “conflictual” if it took place during a future pontificate, rather as Pope Honorius was only condemned for error after he had ceased to occupy the chair of Peter. [Honoris (+638), desiring to avoid the notion that Christ had two wills in conflict with each other, strayed towards the heresy of Monothelitism, the error that Christ has but one will. Constantinople III condemned him in 680. That said, later it has been concluded that the Pope didn’t formally teach error.]
Fr Nichols was speaking at the annual conference in Cuddesdon of an ecumenical society, the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, to a largely non-Catholic audience. [Oh dear.]
He said the judicial process would “dissuade popes from any tendency to doctrinal waywardness or simple negligence”, and would answer some “ecumenical anxieties” of Anglicans, Orthodox and others who fear that the pope has carte blanche to impose any teaching. “Indeed, it may be that the present crisis of the Roman magisterium is providentially intended to call attention to the limits of primacy in this regard.”
[…]
He has not publicly commented on Amoris Laetitia until now, but was a signatory to a leaked letter from 45 priests and theologians to the College of Cardinals. The letter asked the cardinals to request a clarification from the Pope to rule out heretical and erroneous interpretations of the exhortation.
In his paper Fr Nichols mentioned some of the same concerns as the letter: he noted, for instance, that Amoris Laetitia could seem to imply that the monastic life was not a higher state than marriage – a view condemned as heretical by the Council of Trent.
The exhortation has also been interpreted as arguing that the divorced and remarried can receive Communion without endeavouring to live “as brother and sister”. This contradicts the perennial teaching of the Church, reaffirmed by Popes St John Paul II and Benedict XVI. [Yes, it does. AL is objectively ambiguous on this point, open to bad interpretation.]
Fr Nichols said that this interpretation, which Pope Francis has reportedly approved, would introduce into the Church “a previously unheard-of state of life. Put bluntly, this state of life is one of tolerated concubinage.” [Did you get that? “TOLERATED CONCUBINAGE”. Card. Kasper referred to “tolerated, but not accepted”.]
But Fr Nichols said the way in which Amoris Laetitia argued for “tolerated concubinage” (without using the phrase) was potentially even more harmful. He quoted the exhortation’s description of a conscience which “recognizes that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the demands of the Gospel” but sees “with a certain moral security…what for now is the most generous response.” Fr Nichols said this seemed to say “that actions condemned by the law of Christ can sometimes be morally right or even, indeed, requested by God.” [Which undermines everything we believe about Christ.]
This would contradict the Church’s teaching that some acts are always morally wrong, Fr Nichols said.
He also drew attention to the statement – presumably referring to attempts to live continently – that someone “may know full well the rule yet…be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin”. Fr Nichols noted that the Council of Trent had solemnly condemned the idea that “the commandments of God are impossible to observe even for a man who is justified and established in grace.” Amoris Laetitia seemed to say that it is not always possible or even advisable to follow the moral law. [AL is open to bad interpretations. And those who wanted their heterodoxy and heteropraxis confirmed have indeed chosen the bad interpretation.]
If such general statements about moral acts were correct, Fr Nichols said, “then no area of Christian morality can remain unscathed.”
He said that it would be preferable to think that the Pope had been merely “negligent” in his language, rather than actively teaching error. But this seemed doubtful, given the reports that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had suggested corrections to Amoris Laetitia, and was ignored. [Nichols seems to have built a case.]
Cardinal Raymond Burke has publicly discussed making a formal correction of the Pope. However, Fr Nichols said that neither the Western nor Eastern Codes of Canon Law contain a procedure “for enquiry into the case of a pope believed to have taught doctrinal error, much less is there provision for a trial.”
Fr Nichols observed that the tradition of canon law is that “the first see is judged by no-one.” But he said that the First Vatican Council had restricted the doctrine of papal infallibility, so that “it is not the position of the Roman Catholic Church that a pope is incapable of leading people astray by false teaching as a public doctor. [Yes, Pope’s can teach error. The Holy Spirit doesn’t guarantee the veracity of everything they teach.]
“He may be the supreme appeal judge of Christendom…but that does not make him immune to perpetrating doctrinal howlers. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly given the piety that has surrounded the figures of the popes since the pontificate of Pius IX, this fact appears to be unknown to many who ought to know better.” [Like certain gnostic papalatrous writers at CRUX, whom I shall not name.] Given the limits on papal infallibility, canon law might be able to accommodate a formal procedure for inquiring into whether a pope had taught error.
Fr Nichols said that bishops’ conferences had been slow to support Pope Francis, probably because they were divided among themselves; but he said that the Pope’s “programme would not have got as far as it has were it not the case that theological liberals, generally of the closet variety, have in the fairly recent past been appointed to high positions both in the world episcopate and in the ranks of the Roman Curia.” [To our horror.]
Fr Nichols said that there was “a danger of possible schism”, but that it was unlikely and not as immediate a danger as “the spread of a moral heresy”. The view which Amoris Laetitia apparently contains would, if it passed without correction, “increasingly be regarded as at the very least an acceptable theological opinion. And that will do more damage than can easily be repaired.”
He concluded that the law of the Church will live on, because of those who “give the law life by faithfulness in love”.
Yes, friends, there is now a danger of the spread of moral heresy. You hear it and read it more and more often now.
We need saints to rise up in our day. We also need lay people, the rank and file, to put their noses collectively into books like the Catechism of the Catholic Churchand get informed.
Friends, get together with your friends and form “Base Communities of Resistance” against the “danger of moral heresy”.
I have posted in the past about wonderful music CDs by the St. Paul’s Boys Choir in Harvard Square. If you don’t have their Christmas disc, you are in for a treat. The choir has a new recording!
Here is a tiny sample, little clips, so you can have an idea.
It is available for PRE-ORDER now and it will be released on 8 September (Nativity of Mary).
The choir was founded by, Theodore Marier, an old friend of my pastor, who was a legendary defender of Church music. It is directed now John Robinson, from the UK, a fine director who really understands boys choirs.
What’s on the disc? Quite a variety.
1. Ave Maria By: Josef Gabriel Rheinberger
2. Virga Jesse floruit By: Anton Bruckner
3. Stabat mater dolorosa By: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
4. Bist du bei mir By: Johann Sebastian Bach
5. Gaude, Virgo mater By: Josquin des Prez
6. Reges Tharsis – Gregorian chant
7. Da nobis pacem By: Felix Mendelssohn
8. Kyrie (from Missa Papae Marcelli) By: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
9. Dignus est Agnus – Gregorian chant
10. Angels Ever Bright and Fair By: George Frideric Handel
11. Tu Trinitatis unitas By: Antonín Dvo?ák
12. Sub tuum praesidium By: Marc-Antoine Charpentier
13. Bogoroditse Dyevo By: Sergei Rachmaninoff
14. O salutaris hostia (from Messe brève) By: Léo Delibes
15. In paradisum By: Gabriel Fauré
16. O mysterium ineffabile By: Jean-François Lalouette
17. Nulla in mundo By: Antonio Vivaldi
18. A Song of Wisdom By: Charles Villiers Stanford
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“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
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“Until the Lord be pleased to settle, through the instrumentality of the princes of the Church and the lawful ministers of His justice, the trouble aroused by the pride of a few and the ignorance of some others, let us with the help of God endeavor with calm and humble patience to render love for hatred, to avoid disputes with the silly, to keep to the truth and not fight with the weapons of falsehood, and to beg of God at all times that in all our thoughts and desires, in all our words and actions, He may hold the first place who calls Himself the origin of all things.”
Everyone, work to get this into your parish bulletins and diocesan papers.
The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds.
St. John Eudes
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“He [Satan] will set up a counter-Church which will be the ape of the Church because, he the devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the anti-Christ that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. In desperate need for God, whom he nevertheless refuses to adore, modern man in his loneliness and frustration will hunger more and more for membership in a community that will give him enlargement of purpose, but at the cost of losing himself in some vague collectivity.”
“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops.”
“The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”
- C.S. Lewis
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As for Latin…
"But if, in any layman who is indeed imbued with literature, ignorance of the Latin language, which we can truly call the 'catholic' language, indicates a certain sluggishness in his love toward the Church, how much more fitting it is that each and every cleric should be adequately practiced and skilled in that language!" - Pius XI
"Let us realize that this remark of Cicero (Brutus 37, 140) can be in a certain way referred to [young lay people]: 'It is not so much a matter of distinction to know Latin as it is disgraceful not to know it.'" - St. John Paul II
Let us pray…
Grant unto thy Church, we beseech Thee, O merciful God, that She, being gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may be in no wise troubled by attack from her foes. O God, who by sin art offended and by penance pacified, mercifully regard the prayers of Thy people making supplication unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of Thine anger which we deserve for our sins. Almighty and Everlasting God, in whose Hand are the power and the government of every realm: look down upon and help the Christian people that the heathen nations who trust in the fierceness of their own might may be crushed by the power of thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.
The Atlantic is pretty much a joke. However, they take themselves seriously. This story seems… seems… not to be an intentional joke.
When Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP, has an opinion, it’s a good idea to pay attention.
emmatag1126 on Thoughts about the collision of the Holy See and the SSPX. Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “Also, the Declaration said that we can be saved only through the Roman Catholic Church, which unfortunately leaves out my…”
