Fr. Rutler’s Weekly Column September 13, 2020 |
In our city (New York) accustomed to protest demonstrations of all sorts, a recent one was particularly dismaying and even frightening. The anarchistic chants were bad enough, but the frightfulness was in the glazed eyes of the expressionless marchers, like the “pod people” in the 1956 cult film “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Carrying signs supplied for them, they chanted refrains called out by a leader as they moved through one of our pricier neighborhoods. To a boy in 1956 the black-and-white film was scary, though in later years it was amusing to watch again, but now it has taken on an unsettling reality in the living color of live people. Mind control is a signature of corrupt politics, and George Orwell said that “Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” It is easy to appropriate the brains of people who are disturbed or idealistic or both. In the eighteenth century, the physicist and satirist George Lichtenberg volunteered that “The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.” That is the essential psychology of heresies in religion, and it is also true of platforms in politics. In any election season, when information is twisted by “disinformation,” one can learn with profit from the experience of the Church as she confronted distorters of the Gospel. A vital instance is the way Saint Paul detected the errors among the first Greek Christians on the island of Crete. Being a man of erudition, which his true humility allowed him to remark without affectation, Paul quotes a minor poet of about 600 BC, Epimenides: “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” Epimenides is the same sage that Paul cites when he speaks to the philosophers in the Areopagus in Athens. The verse sent to Titus is paraphrased by the Apostle in Acts 17, when he speaks of the One “in whom we live and move and have our being.” A discovery of the full text of Epimenides’s poem “Cretica” in the early 1900’s by the formidable English scholar J. Rendel Harris, makes clear that the lying was a specific lie—namely about a tomb built in contradiction to the supposed immortality of Zeus. This resolves what has been called the “Epimenides Paradox:” If Epimenides said that all Cretans are liars, how can we trust Epimenides who was himself a Cretan? But in fact, the deceitfulness of the Cretans was only about trying to entomb immortality. Saint Paul invoked the gift of “diakrisis,” which is the discernment of truth from falsehood (1 Corinthians 12:10). Never, and especially not in times of political propaganda, should lies intimidate, so long as one has that discerning gift to know the difference between what comes from Christ, the Head of the Church (Colossians 1:18), and the talking heads on television. Faithfully yours in Christ, Father George W. Rutler |
Archives
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
-
Recent Posts
- 0000
- WITH CARDINALS TOBIN AND CUPICH NOW REPRESENTING THE CHURCH IN AMERICA ON THE CONGREGATION FOR BISHOPS THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THE APPOINTMENT OF A CONSERVATIVE ORTHODOX BISHOP TO ANY AMERICAN DIOCESE WHICH WILL BECOME VACANT (OF A BISHOP-ORDINARY) AS LONG AS JORGE BERGOLIO OCCUPIES THE CHAIR OF PETER
- Americans were assured by Trump’s impeachment Senate prosecutors and the media that the January 6 Capitol assault was his fault alone. So Trump was condemned as a veritable murderer, responsible for five deaths at the Capitol. Many of his own advisors and cabinet members loudly resigned in disgust. Yet six weeks later, a Phoenix-like Trump brought a crowd at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference to its feet. His 90-minute blistering broadside against Joe Biden’s radical first 40 days of executive orders and hard-Left appointments enthused thousands. Polls show that while he has lost some support in his party, Trump still wins 75 percent approval in the GOP.
- The leadership Democrats in this country of 2021 are vindictive, nasty, and smart. Actually, do you think they are happy individuals?
- THE ABSURDITY OF “BLACK-HISTORY MONTH” IS DEMONSTRATED BY AMAZON
Top Posts & Pages
- When you read Bishop Barron’s descriptions of traditionalist Catholics, you find the words “extreme,” “radical,” and “angry” peppered throughout. Apparently, in his view traditional Catholics are a fringe movement of socially-inept people who desire to overthrow the Church and install their own 1950’s-style religion in its place. Clearly the good bishop hasn’t kept his finger on the pulse of this movement. Traditionalism is booming (in this country, at least), and it’s a diverse, joyful group of people who want exactly what Barron first promoted: a faith that’s no longer watered-down to conform with the surrounding culture.
- COULD IT BE THAT NURSES AND HOSPITAL STAFF AROUND THE NATION ARE REFUSING TO TAKE THE COVID VACINE BECUASE THEY KNOW IT CAN KILL YOU
- JIM CAVIEZEL'S NEW FILM OPENS TODAY IN MOVIE THEATERS ACROSS THE NATION
- 0000
- MEET John Sullivan, ANTIFA LEADER, WHO STORMED THE U.S. CAPITOL
- WITH CARDINALS TOBIN AND CUPICH NOW REPRESENTING THE CHURCH IN AMERICA ON THE CONGREGATION FOR BISHOPS THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THE APPOINTMENT OF A CONSERVATIVE ORTHODOX BISHOP TO ANY AMERICAN DIOCESE WHICH WILL BECOME VACANT (OF A BISHOP-ORDINARY) AS LONG AS JORGE BERGOLIO OCCUPIES THE CHAIR OF PETER
- THE ABSURDITY OF "BLACK-HISTORY MONTH" IS DEMONSTRATED BY AMAZON
- ANN BARNHARDT TELLS IT LIKE IT IS
- "Marxist atheism demands that the new 'Church' it seeks to fashion fabricate a false god–one that doesn’t insist on the observance of reasonable moral laws that foster human dignity, especially if someone has 'great difficulty' understanding, in 'conscience,' their relevance to his own situation, or if he has 'discerned' that they would not be appropriate to follow at this time. Better yet, this 'god' can ratify in a person’s own conscience his decision to sin gravely, given his personal limitations and concrete circumstances. In the end, moral subjectivism such as this leads to the denial of the existence of any morality at all, and hence to the denial of the existence of its Author."
- The leadership Democrats in this country of 2021 are vindictive, nasty, and smart. Actually, do you think they are happy individuals?
Top Clicks