Nel Mezzo

BUCHANAN ON KERRY'S TREASONOUS LEGACY

The American Cause: Welcome To The American Cause

NUTRITION AND HYDRATION

NPR leads with a story about how Catholic Hospitals are going to ignore the Holy Father's recent remarks on the inherently obligatory character of Nutrition and Hydration, and includes a disturbing temporization by Richard Doerflinger:

Thursday, April 29, 2004
Pope John Paul II says Catholic hospitals are obligated to provide food and nutrition for patients in persistent vegetative states. The comments, made before a meeting of Catholic medical associations, have drawn controversy. We discuss how an apparent philosophical shift has left the Catholic health care community unsure of how to respond.

NBC TRIES TO SUBORN THE VATICAN

MSNBC - Vatican steps into U.S. political fray.

Apparently NBC has discovered the Political implications of Catholicism, and they don't like them: "Do the bishops really want to unleash a civil war of opinion among their believers, in a country that was built on the freedom to choose its means of worship?

Or will they find it wiser (and safer) to remember that the ultimate judge of moral behavior for Catholics has always been the conscience of the individual."

At least though they manage to figure out that Cdl. Arinze was quite clear on the matter.

LIBERAL INTERVENTIONIST CATHOLICS

Sandro Magister points to the liberal interventionist Catholics (progressivist) as a alien"knowledge class" within Catholicism, grounded in the "spirit of Vatican II."

Yet how is this grouping any different from the Liberal (as in Liberal economics) interventionist (as in Iraq) Catholics (neoconservatives) whose importation of alien "knowledge class" verities (ie Claremont sophistries), who display an equal difficulty with Centissimus Annus?

KAREN HUGHES STATES THE OBVIOUS

Prochoice murderers feign offense.

NEW YORK TIMES KEEPS IT UP

South Park is lauded for endorsing the Official New York Times position: "After the holy war subsides, Stan tells fans of the Gibson movie: "If you want to be Christian, that's cool, but you should follow what Jesus taught instead of how he got killed. Focusing on how he got killed is what people did in the Dark Ages, and it ends up with really bad results."

There are a few iconoclastic episodes of South Park, but this is not one. In fact this is the same mantra that got Catholicism into its current felt ghetto, and pretty much ended mainline protestantism.

NEW YORK TIMES BIAS SHOWN IN CASE OF GIBSON'S PASSION

Yahoo! News - The Times: Mel's cross to bear 04/25/2004: A damning indictment of the NYTimes' campaign against the Passion of the Christ, showing that in fact, it was the times which orchestrated the campaign which made the film "controversial" and brought up the spectre of anti-Semitism.

A REAL AMERICAN HERO!!!

Ex-NFL Player Killed in Afghanistan

Here's a real hero for you. Died defending our country from murderous heathen when he certainly didn't have to. The cause he fought in was an entirely good one, and above all reproach.

KERRY ON ABORTION C. 1972

Kerry told the LOWELL SUN in October, 1972: "I would say also that it's a tragic day in the lives of everybody when abortion is looked on as an alternative to birth control or as an alternative to having a child. I think that's wrong. It should be the very last thing if it has to be anything, and I say that not just because I'm opposed to abortion but because I think that's common sense."

Kerry declared: "I think the question of abortion is one that should be left for the states to decide."

PAUL VI AND CONSTANTINE'S SWORD

As the political season starts in earnest, and in particular the Kerry's of the world attempt to exploit religion by claiming to be things they are not, it is interesting to reflect on the intersection of the nature of Church Authority. Paul VI observed that many who were dissatisfied with the preconciliar Church and Her exercise of authority sought earnestly to divest Her of a power they thought unworthy, and perhaps a usurpation. Paul was firm in his response to this neo-anti-Constantianianism: "But it was above all in the postconciliar period that Paul VI saw the dangers of anti-Constantinian polemics. In a speech on September 24, 1969, he described these dangers as follows:

“It is not rare today to find persons, including good and religious ones, and especially the young, who believe themselves qualified to denounce all of the Church’s past [...] as inauthentic, outdated, and invalid for our time; and thus, using terms that are by now conventional, but extremely superficial and inexact, they announce the end of the Constantinian, preconciliar, juridical, authoritarian period, and the beginning of a free, mature, and prophetic period. [...] In order to be truly faithful to the Church today we must protect ourselves from the dangers, even the temptations, that follow from the proposal to remake the Church with radical intentions and drastic methods that would subvert it.”