Anti-Modern Architecture – “What Alexander was striving for was that architects should love their buildings like parents love their children. Every detail of the building—every windowsill, the door handles—there should be that much attention to detail and care all over the different items of a building.” How to Build Beautiful Places (Current Affairs)
The Splendor of Truth – “Man can know the truth. Truth makes man what he is. We are called to know truth; it is truth that sets us free.” ‘Veritatis Splendor’ at 30: Four essential truths taught by St. John Paul II (Catholic Review)
Avoiding Bias Against Bias – “…our ideas about bias are more complicated than we may initially think. To help us navigate the philosophical puzzles that often arise in serious discussions of bias, Princeton philosopher Thomas Kelly has written a new book, Bias: A Philosophical Study.” Is Bias Actually Bad? (Public Discourse)
Papal Takeover? – “… last week, a rumor, an appointment, and a data point, showed how Pope Francis is directing a definitive change of pace, once again centralizing control on himself.” Pope Francis, the restructuring of culture that begins with his family (Monday Vatican)
Barrett’s Unknown Record – “When Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were added to the Supreme Court shortlist, their judicial records were on full display. Justice Barrett was just the opposite.” Conservatives Should Not Be Surprised By Justice Barrett’s Cautious Approach (The Volokh Conspiracy)
Difficult Truths Told by a Great Man – “József Cardinal Mindszenty’s memoir is an epic of the great suffering of the Hungarian nation and of this man’s participation in it, out of his love for his people, his Church, and his God.” Antidote to the American Dream: Cardinal Mindszenty’s “Memoirs” (The Imaginative Conservative)
The Press and WYD – “This summer has been a very busy one for Pope Francis and the church. Adding to all this news was World Youth Day held in Lisbon, Portugal.” Elite press skips doctrine at World Youth Day in favor of (#surprise) scandal and politics (GetReligion)
The Wall of Doctrine – “What is currently being pursued in particular churches and in the universal Church under the name of “synodality” represents the continuation of the Tridentine understanding of the Church by other means. ” The Fatal Message of Synodal Activism (First Things)
Destroying American Civilization – “At this point, the American empire is collapsing, and its cities are leading the way.” Collapse of American Cities (LewRockwell.com)
Violence and Vandalism – “Nelson Smith cares for his church and its people as much as he cares for his own home and family, he said. So when he got the call last August that it was vandalized for the second time in two months, he drove there straightaway.” Why are North Texas churches being targeted by violence? Experts weigh in (The Dallas Morning News)
Protestant Apologetics – “One of the first people who helped me convert from deism (belief in a generic creator God) to Christianity was not a Catholic. It was the Protestant philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig.” The Three Stages of William Lane Craig (Catholic Answers)
A priest of the Archdiocese of New York: R.I.P. – “Father Thomas Shelley’s avuncular presence, his inquiring mind, and his priestly solicitude for me and for so many around me was a potent witness of the goodness of old Catholic New York.” A New York Priest & a Front Porch Historian: Thomas J. Shelley, In Memoriam (The Imaginative Conservative)
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
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@ Papal Takeover?
Monday Vatican’s concerned take of papal appointments, “So that they support the educational and management changes that will prove necessary”. So what’s new? Except that the article offers a thorough account of Pope Francis’ continued, wide spectrum of absolute authority. Why the putsch?
Agenda enforcement seems the answer to the initially democratic, listening pontiff, who radically changes into the authoritarian who promotes his vision for the Church. As the years of tenure pass agenda implementation increases in urgency. Hierarchy heads roll, others dramatically elevated. We’ve become inured to it all like silent sheep being herded to the shearing sheds.
@ Barrett’s Unknown Record
Justice Barrett’s cautionary approach to justice issues exhibits a justice rather than sentiment based juridical approach. Avoidance of contact with the Federalist indicates that. Author Blackman’s favorable opinion is correct.
Justice demands strict adherence to what is right, not to sentiment or personal preference. As in scripture the rich and the poor are to be judged equally.
@ Anti-Modern Architecture
Yours truly discovered Alexander’s “The Timeless Way of Building” (1979) over a decade too late after graduating from a five-year architecture program (1967)…
My program was a collage of rich architecture history, plus engineering, modern-architecture stuff, and the teamwork critical-path-method atop remnants of the more individual Beaux-Arts Tradition—and, so, not really knowing how what to make of it all. Yes, to Louis Sullivan’s “form follows function”, and there was even an effort by local architect/instructors to respect the mentioned genius loci with a Pacific Northwest adaptation of the Le Corbusier et al otherwise sterile and anomic International Style—instead, openness to forested vistas, and exposed wood beams! (In my cubicle was posted my Orwellian commandment: “wood is good”!)
About Alexander’s refreshing “attention to details” (the article), my very first design was a courtyard…I was marked down for doing something whimsical/romantic with a handheld detail—a handrail. My unconventional mentor apologized to me, but this was a shared battle against modernism! And, done “with the freedom of a first love letter” as we were encouraged. But where was the later Alexander, and his fleshed-out timeless way of building, when I needed him?
@Destroying American Civilization
My career path took me out of architecture and into urban and regional planning. Here the authors paint a dark picture—too dark we hope (the office vacancies in the cited Manhattan are the extreme example)—about the hollowing out of American cities for all kinds of reasons. Now including the discovery of remote work stations in place of office tower investments. So, if not yet the destruction of civilization, still a tectonic shift—with PCs and electronics replacing freeway commuting, and with the crime/graffiti sub-culture challenging anything Alexander might still inspire. In many locations, even the eco-sensitive, clustered and communitarian, and mixed-use “New Urbanism” seems cosmetic and at risk.
@ The Wall of Doctrine
Martin Grichting favors the potential role of the laity in the Church – as the Church. It reflects Peter’s royal priesthood shared by the baptized, indicated in Baptism when anointed with chrism as priest, prophet, and king. Grichting perceives a tethering of the laity to the hierarchy as a remnant of the institutional Church, a carryover from the Council of Trent that even progressives misunderstand.
The kind of independence from ‘The Wall of Doctrine’ that he assumes Vat II encouraged carries with it the assumption of a spiritually gifted, knowledgeable laity. Which is not the case. I would ask Grichting, why then did Christ institute a hierarchy? A hierarchal chain of command? The Apostle followed suit in forming the churches. He certainly encouraged lay ministry, though always in unison with deacon, presbyter, bishop. It seems that Grichting is responsible for well intended California dreaming.
Church fathers, the Apostle Paul, Ignatius of Antioch, and Augustine were keenly aware of, and strongly participant in exercising hierarchal Church authority. Augustine, more the philosopher of the three, would be apt to question personal freedom and its tension with coercion. A number of studies have been made on Augustine that cover this issue.
“This is a first study of the extent to which St. Augustine understood lay Christians to share the power to bind and loose sinners. They bind them through fraternal correction and loose them through their prayers. Fr. Carola elaborates thoroughly Augustine’s theological and pastoral vision of lay participation in ecclesial reconciliation” (Fr Joseph Carola Augustine Of Hippo: The Role of the Laity in Ecclesial Reconciliation Analecta Gregoriana 2005).
“Augustine’s ecclesiology is the body of Christ and the embodiment of fraternal love, it turns out to be problematic when it is transferred to secular rulers [Augustine rarely does this, but cf. Letter 138.14–15]. And as even the Church in this world is a mixed body of sinners and saints [see 8. History and Political Philosophy], it may be asked how individual bishops can be sure of their good intentions when they use religious force [Rist 1994: 242–245]. Augustine does not address this problem, presumably because most of his relevant texts are propagandistic defenses of coercion against the Donatists” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
St Augustine bishop and philosopher apparently realized the tension between freedom and coercion, although he realized the value of hierarchal coercion when confronted with heretics within the Church laity. That would be the same issue that Grichting would have to address [although today it includes bishops who rank as promoting heresy] should laity be given free reign.