Catholic Columnist Notices Libertarianism Was The Target Of Pope Francis' Exhortation

Michael Sean Winters, here:

The most interesting criticisms of Pope Francis's apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, have come from libertarians who are closest to the economic views the pope denounced. ... John Carr, who now heads the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University, thinks both parties are now essentially defined by their commitment to economic or lifestyle libertarianism. "These libertarian tendencies are reinforced by large campaign contributors and powerful interest groups on the left and right (e.g., Emily's List and the Koch Brothers, Planned Parenthood and the Club for Growth). Who died and left Arianna Huffington and Grover Norquist in charge? Is there any room left for compassionate conservatives and pro-life Democrats?" The ideological incoherence of both parties, adopting libertarian ideas on some issues and communitarian ideas on other issues, is unstable.

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I don't mind saying I beat him to it, here:

The pope's message, after all is said and done, is really quite simple, as all ideologies are, the difference being that his is a heavenly one, not a terrestrial. He's obviously uncomfortable with American Catholics of the conservative persuasion who have been allying themselves with what is commonly called libertarian ideology, the devotees of which Russell Kirk famously named the "chirping sectarians" of the conservative movement, Rep. Paul Ryan being a prominent contemporary example thereof. For Kirk, it was their ideological habit of mind which marked them out as outsiders of the movement because they could not abide the persistent lack of conformity to principle which is endemic to fallen, human nature in need of salvation, and substituted for it a bastardized, immanentized eschaton of infinite freedom . . ..

"Scripture" Says To Swear By His Name, And Not To Swear At All

"You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve him, and swear by his name."

-- Deuteronomy 6:13

"You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve him and cleave to him, and by his name you shall swear."

-- Deutermonomy 10:20

"Again you have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.' But I say to you, Do not swear at all . . .."

-- Matthew 5:33f.

Sorry Kevin Shrum, But St. Paul, Like Jesus, Demoted Marriage By Exalting The Single State

St. Paul exalted the single state above the married state because he believed, like Jesus and in keeping with Jesus' teaching about marriage (Matthew 19:10ff., Luke 20:34ff.), that the world was coming to a sudden end:

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote. It is well for a man not to touch a woman. ... I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do. ... I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none . . . But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. So that he who marries his betrothed does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better.

-- 1 Corinthians 7, passim

And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.

-- Luke 20:34ff.

Paul would not have agreed in his own time with this from ours, by one Kevin Shrum, here:

'If marriage implodes then so, too, does a civil, productive society. Any culture that demotes, demeans, demoralizes, diminishes, denigrates, or re-defines marriage does so at its own peril. Cultures that eviscerate marriage will survive, but those same cultures will be, as Plato would argue, mere shadows of the "real thing," of the "real idea." How can we help our neighbors see and hear the truth in this matter of marriage?'

The irony of such statements is that despite the radical teachings of Jesus and Paul about marriage, Christianity went on to conquer the West and recreate its culture in its own image . . . and flourish.

The Invincible Ignorance Of The Ideologue

Douglas Wilson here:

"No word from God is at war with any other word from God."

Conservatives Try To Remember The Past, St. Paul Tries To Forget It

"I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead."

-- Philippians 3:13

Many Won't Be Fruitful And Multiply, But There's Only One Group Which Can't

"Do not be deceived."

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

-- Genesis 1:27f.

"Be it then, as Sir Robert says, that anciently it was usual for men to sell and castrate their children, Observations, 155. Let it be, that they exposed them; add to it, if you please, for this is still greater power, that they begat them for their tables, to fat and eat them: if this proves a right to do so, we may, by the same argument, justify adultery, incest and sodomy, for there are examples of these too, both ancient and modern; sins, which I suppose have their principal aggravation from this, that they cross the main intention of nature, which willeth the increase of mankind, and the continuation of the species in the highest perfection, and the distinction of families, with the security of the marriage bed, as necessary thereunto."

-- John Locke, First Treatise of Government