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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Mar 1, 2013 14:40:58 GMT
Anyone hear the verse, used to describe the Calvinist doctrine of predestination:
We are the sweet selected few The rest of you are damned; There's room enough in hell for you We can't have heaven crammed.
Many trads seem to believe this.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 2, 2013 20:44:52 GMT
The Calvinist doctrine of predestination is actually a recurring temptation (and I might add that Calvinism is probably the most intellectually rigorous form of Protestantism; it has been noted that US evangelicals who develop some sort of theological acumen and are hostile to Rome, Moscow and liberalism tend to go Calvinist). This sort of elitism is also an understandable response to being despised and rejected, which makes it even more dangerous.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 2, 2013 21:05:08 GMT
BTW could this thread be widened to include some reminders of what attracts us to traditionalism in the first place? Here are a few suggestions: (1) Reverence for the Church's development over time, reinforced for many of us by the memories of older friends and relatives who were there and don't succumb to the Black Legend. The sort of mindset which defines itself primarily in terms of hostility to the post-Trent church, as if the mere fact of a practice existing in 1958 proves the need to reject it utterly and suppress it when practiced by anyone else, is absolutely fatal to faith. (Of course, so is the view that legitimate church history stopped in 1958 and anything new thereafter is self-condemned.) The hermeneutic of continuity and the communion of saints go together. I remember once sitting through an academic paper comparing two authors who are both preoccupied with the theme of marks made on stone by those who are long-dead, and suddenly being struck with the realisation that the two are not comparable at all; because for one the whole point is that the dead are utterly annihilated so that the marks are all that remains of them, and for the other the point is that while the marks make us aware of them, they live eternally whether we are aware of them or not. (2) Return to the sources. The Church's history is rich enough that a great deal can be discovered by looking at things that are currently neglected (subject of course to due discernment about why they are neglected, given that some have been neglected for good reason). If something found in a neglected corner fills a few gaps in understanding, it's a good idea to try to understand why and see how far it will take you (subject to due caution). (3) Colour and light as an antidote to minimalist puritanism (even if, like myself, you are a natural minimalist). (4) A certain healthy respect for intellectual rigour, though again this should not be taken too far at the expense of love. (Part of Benedict XVI's project as a theologian, I understand, was to supplement thomist intellectualism with the Franciscan St Bonaventure's emphasis on love. I wish I comprehended this better). If Chesterton's weakness is whimsy, his great advantage is in conveying that ideas are important and beautiful. I owe a lot to old-style apologetics which I read when I was a teenager, and though I see quite a few shortcomings in some respects I can never not take it seriously. ADDENDUM - BTW another reason that I am curious about St Edith Stein is that she recalls that when she was young she saw the pursuit of truth as all that mattered and didn't realise why so many of her friends and family saw her as an irritating know-it-all, and that her great later project was the realisation of empathy as necessary to understanding - of the relationship of love and truth. And now I see that this point is highly relevant to the references to Calvinism in the last two posts, and of the rigorist danger to which trads often succumb. Any additional suggestions?
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Mar 5, 2013 12:18:44 GMT
I think it is good to analyse what brought people to traditionalism first, but then to see that one is not locked in reaction against everything or everybody else. The Bonaventuran project to integrate love with truth is probably good - the extreme traditionalist Catholic is depressingly like a caricature of a Calvinist.
And unfortunately, St Thomas Aquinas is often used to make the traditionalist point. I wonder did it occur of many trads that the bulk of the Dominican Order are steeped in Thomism, but would not touch the trad movement with a bargepole?
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 6, 2013 22:08:04 GMT
Dominican attitudes towards trads vary - they're not a monolith. Not all of them are Thomists either, these days.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 7, 2013 10:35:50 GMT
The Dominican Order is never monolithic on anything. Fr Brian McKevitt is an example of someone very good on a great many things, but not enthusiastic about trads or traddyism at all.
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Post by Young Ireland on Mar 7, 2013 10:59:08 GMT
I don't think that Fr. McKevitt is completely opposed to traditionalism. If he was, I am sure he would be criticising the TLM in Alive!. TFP advertises regularly there as well (whether or not he realises that it is traditionalist, albeit of an eccentric variety is another matter.)
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Post by hythlodaye on Mar 7, 2013 17:20:47 GMT
I don't know whether Fr McKevitt is actively hostile to the TLM or not these days. More than twenty years or so ago he agreed to write or organise a piece for the Brandsma Review on abortion. When he was reminded of this and asked to get on with it, he said he'd changed his mind because he disapproved of the Brandsma's promotion of the TLM. He thought it was irrelevant, at best. That is hostility, in my book. Post Summorum Pontificum, as a faithful neo-con he couldn't say the TLM is irrelevant, as it was definitively endorsed by Pope Benedict. Fr Brian still produces far and away the best Catholic newspaper in Ireland, although I don't like his hostile and uninformed attitude to Israel. (That wouldn't stop me writing for Alive , if asked.)
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Post by Young Ireland on Mar 7, 2013 18:02:19 GMT
TBH, I think it is a bit unfair to call him a "neo-con", hythlodaye. Fr Brian is very left-wing economically and could hardly be put in the same category as David Quinn (who I think can reasonably be considered neo-conservative). I think his stance towards Israel may very well be influenced by that worldview (the left tend to be sympathetic towards Palestine). I would also consider writing for Alive! if given the opportunity.
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Post by hythlodaye on Mar 7, 2013 21:39:23 GMT
Sorry, I should have made it clear that I wasn't using the term "Neo-Con" in its American political sense. I meant an orthodox, but non-traditional Catholic. Some of them used to be just as hostile towards us as the mods, regarding us as crypto-Pixies, but since SP most of they look upon us with a kindlier eye. They have to, really. They really owe us an apology, but one shouldn't expect it. It would be hard for them to acknowledge we were right all along.
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Post by Young Ireland on Mar 7, 2013 21:43:54 GMT
You're grand
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 8, 2013 9:11:35 GMT
I think one of the problems with the neo-con tag is that is was first circulated by radical traditionalists to criticise people like George Weigel, Michael Novak and the late Father Richard Neuhaus for their support for Republican administrations and particularly their policies in the Middle East re: Israel, Iraq and other areas. The paleo-conservative isolationist position of Pat Buchanan would be more their thing.
I think it was only later that the neo-con came to be used for a Catholic conservative who had no interest in the older liturgy. Because of the political connotations, I wouldn't use it. The Brandsma Review is pro-the old liturgy and has been since inception, but position it has taken on economics and foreign policy issues, or even its support for JP2 and B16, would make it "neo-con" in the eyes a lot of Remnant readers who popularised the term in the first place.
I'm sure everyone has heard the joke "What's the definition of a neo-conservative?" "A liberal who's been mugged."
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 8, 2013 20:14:38 GMT
Some trads use "neo-cath" instead of "neo-con" (THE GREAT FACADE did). The problems with it, besides the issue of confusion (and indeed there is no reason why someone should not be simultaneously a hardshell religious trad and political neocon, just to confuse things a bit more) are (a) It can be used as a substitute for argument and accusation of bad faith (palaeocons and trads who use neocon/neoCath are often insinuating that those they are describing are not real conservatives/Catholics/trads at all but are masquerading for their own purposes) (b) The political use of "neocon" by palaeocons in the US sometimes has anti-semitic undertones; many neocons are Jews and their opponents often suggest that their foreign policy views are not really based on their view of America's best interests but are aimed at helping Israel whatever the cost to America.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Mar 12, 2013 9:30:25 GMT
I wouldn't take anything devised by Chris Ferrara as a model.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 12, 2013 12:38:03 GMT
"Neo-Cath" has another disadvantage; many trads refer to the Neocatechumenate (a new movement within the church widely suspected of crypto-Protestantism) as "neocats", so there is scope for confusion.
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