Fr. Rutler’s Weekly ColumnOctober 6, 2019

At the start of October, life in Manhattan recovers from those late September weeks when the opening of the United Nations General Assembly ties up traffic, even blocking many streets, and takes over many hotels and clubs for expensive receptions—some of the costliest, it seems, being those of some of the poorest countries. With so many heads of state in town, battalions of Secret Service agents and bodyguards eye everyone with suspicion.   This year there was one bright spot, although largely ignored by much of the media. Representing the United States, our President gave what was perhaps the most forceful address that any of our Chief Executives have spoken there. Denouncing the United Nations’ scheme to promote abortion, first drafted in 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, the President said that “Americans will also never tire of defending innocent life. We are aware that many United Nations projects have attempted to assert a global right to taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, right up until the moment of delivery. Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life.”    Such boldness must have shocked many diplomats present, like those in the 1942 film “I Married an Angel” who were aghast when Jeanette MacDonald, as a blessed angel, tells them the truth, upsetting their cocktail party. Our nation has never had an angel for president, and its Constitution in fact prevents that. But Abraham Lincoln invoked “the better angels of our nature” and confounded those who had dismissed him as an untutored vulgarian with ambiguous views on abolition. The first Christians in Jerusalem were suspicious of Paul’s conversion, and theologians like Tertullian and Justin, some years before Constantine, thought it impossible that any emperor would ever defend Christianity.   Ironically, there are highly placed prelates who have shied away from mentioning these matters in secular forums, hoping that subtlety might be more persuasive. Such naiveté, as in the instance of the Holy See’s diplomats cajoling Communist China by compromise, accomplishes little. In his United Nations speech, the President said: “The world fully expects that the Chinese government will honor its binding treaty, made with the British and registered with the United Nations, in which China commits to protect Hong Kong’s freedom, legal system, and democratic ways of life.” The Holy See has not commented on the popular demonstrations in Hong Kong, which may explain why the youths there struggling for freedom, and inspired by the heroic Cardinal Zen, are waving the Stars and Stripes and not the Vatican flag.     “For he that shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation: the Son of man also will be ashamed of him, when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26).

Supreme Court To Hear First Abortion Case Since Gaining Conservative Majority

Doug Mills / Pool / Getty ImagesSupreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, left, and Brett Kavanaugh — both appointed by President Donald Trump — attend the State of the Union address at the Capitol on Feb. 5, 2019. (Doug Mills / Pool / Getty Images)

By Cade Almond
Published October 5, 2019 at 12:20am

The U.S. Supreme Court just took what could be the first step to reconsidering the infamous Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

ABC News reported that the court on Friday decided to hear an abortion case, June Medical Services v. Gee, in the next term. It revolves around a challenge to a Louisiana state law passed in 2014.

This will be the first abortion case to be heard since Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh were appointed by President Donald Trump, creating a perceived conservative majority on the court.

While any cases involving abortion are typically high-profile developments, this case is unique as it comes amid a slew of state laws passed restricting abortion.

Alabama banned the practice in nearly all cases, while Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Ohio followed suit by banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected.

Bound by current Supreme Court precedent, federal judges have blocked many of these laws, opening the door for direct challenges to Roe v. Wade in the court’s near future.

The Louisiana law in question is not an outright ban on abortion but a law that requires any doctor who performs abortions to have admitting privileges in a nearby hospital.

Specifically, the law states that every physician who performs or induces an abortion “shall have active admitting privileges at a hospital that is located not further than thirty miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced.”Admitting privileges allow doctors to perform medicine at a particular hospital. Critics of the law claim that the necessary applications can be costly and burdensome, driving abortion providers out of business.

Louisiana currently has three licensed abortion clinics.

Supporters of abortion believe the law to be identical to a Texas statute that was struck down in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (2016) in a 5-3 decision. Opponents, however, note that the addition of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh could swing the majority 5-4 in the opposite direction.

Currently, the Louisiana law stands, as the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals believed it to be substantively different from the Texas law.

Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the court’s liberal wing in a 5-4 decision to hear the case, signifying that he might be the upcoming swing vote. Roberts voted to uphold the Texas law in 2016.

University of Notre Dame Law School professor O. Carter Snead described to ABC News how “momentous” the court’s decision to hear the case was.

“The court could have summarily reversed the Louisiana law as violating [Hellerstedt] but it did not do so, despite the striking similarities in the laws,” he said.

“This may indicate a willingness of the newly composed Supreme court to revisit the 2016 Hellerstedt case (decided 5-3), and Justice Breyer’s novel rule that it is the role of the Supreme court to weigh the benefits and burdens of every abortion restriction aimed at promoting and protecting women’s health.

Snead isn’t the only one who noticed the novelty of selecting a case so similar to one decided a mere three years ago.

Supporters of abortion believe that the new-look Supreme Court might be willing to curb Roe v. Wade with this case even if the 1973 decision isn’t up for discussion itself.

“It’s extremely unlikely that any of the [new state abortion] bans will make it to SCOTUS this year,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jennifer Dalven told ABC News. “But they don’t need to take up a ban case to place limits on Roe.”

Oral arguments for the case will likely be scheduled for early 2020.

BLESSED (SOON TO BE SAINT) JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN IS A GUIDE THROUGH THE CHAOS THAT THE CHURCH IS ABOUT TO GO THROUGH

In reply to:If Francis the Merciful is not the real pope, will the canonization of John Newman be a true one?

MARY,
FOR CENTURIES BEFORE THE CANONICAL PROCESS OF THE CONGREGATION FOR SAINTS WAS DEVELOPED, COUNTLESS SAINTS OF THE CHURCH WERE INSERTED IN THE LITURGY BY THE CHURCH BASED SOLELY ON THE PUBLIC ACCLAMATION OF THE PEOPLE OF ROME OF THE SANCTITY OF A MAN OR WOMAN WHOSE REPUTATION FOR HOLINESS WAS RECOGNIZED BY THE FAITHFUL. IMHO THE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF THE FAITHFUL PRESENT IN THE PIAZZA OF SAINT PETER’S BASILICA WILL BY THEIR ACCLAMATION OF THE PRONOUNCEMENT OF FRANCIS THE MERCIFUL THAT JOHN CARDINAL NEWMAN IS A SAINT VALIDATE (ECCLESIA SUPLET) THAT John Newman IS INDEED A SAINT.

+RENE HENRY GRACIDA 

October 5, 2019

Written by a 26 year old college student by the name of Alyssa Ahlgren, who’s in grad school for her MBA.

AOC AND THE BLIND GENERATION

My Generation Is Blind to the Prosperity Around Us!

I’m sitting in a small coffee shop near Nokomis (Florida) trying to think of what to write about. I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of presidential candidates calling for policies to “fix” the so-called injustices of capitalism. I put my phone down and continue to look around.

I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook’s, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it.

Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose.These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don’t give them a second thought.

We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty One Times!!!

Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful. ??

Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow. 

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said to Newsweek talking about the millennial generation, “An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity.”

“NEVER SAW AMERICAN PROSPERITY!” Let that sink in!

When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I’ve ever heard in my 26 years on this earth. Many young people agree with her, which is entirely misguided.

My generation is being indoctrinated by a mainstream narrative to actually believe we have never seen prosperity. I know this first hand, I went to college, let’s just say I didn’t have the popular opinion, but I digress.

Why then, with all of the overwhelming evidence around us, evidence that I can even see sitting at a coffee shop, do we not view this as prosperity? We have people who are dying to get into our country.

People around the world are destitute and truly impoverished. 

Yet, we have a young generation convinced they’ve never seen prosperity, and as a result, we elect some politicians who are dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism.

Why? The answer is this…My generation has ONLY seen prosperity. WE HAVE NO CONTRAST! 

We didn’t live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, the Korean War, The Vietnam War Nor did WE see the rise and fall of socialism and communism.

We don’t know what it’s like to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don’t have a lack of prosperity problem; WE HAVE AN ENTITLEMENT PROBLEM, an UNGRATEFULNESS problem, and it’s spreading like a plague.”

Friday, October 04, 2019

http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2019/10/skojecs-attack-on-bp-gracida-shows-he.html

http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2019/10/skojecs-attack-on-bp-gracida-shows-he.html

Skojec’s attack on Bp. Gracida shows he has become Mark Shea

Today, I couldn’t stop laughing when I read One Peter Five publisher Steve Skojec’s Twitter attack on Bishop Rene Gracida claiming he had “lost the plot” which means he stopped acting rationally.

I texted the Tweet to my niece saying “I got a good laugh from this.”

She texted back:

Haha I can see why… Like the Democrats accuse others of what they are guilty of.”

I have had email exchanges with both Bishop Gracida and Skojec:

The Bishop is a humble highly intelligent gentleman while Skojec in the last few years acts like a deranged mindless leftist Democrat who has “lost his plot” that is he apparently has lost the ability to think rationally. Here are some examples:

I made a long carefully reasoned post hoping to engage Skojec in reasonable agruement and all I got in return were attacks on caricatures of my agruements, shrill mocking and the claim it was too long.

So, I put together five fairly short clear questions in dubia fashion for him to respond to reasonably and I got no response from him until today in his laughably ridiculous Twitter attack on Bishop Gracida and me saying:

“Gracida has clearly lost the plot. His constant republishing of the increasingly rambling Fred Martinez makes clear his ability to act prudently is impaired.”

In simple words, sadly Skojec has become deranged and “his ability to act prudently is impaired.”

Or, in other words, like in some weird science fiction movie it appears that Skojec has become transformed into Mark Shea.

Philosopher Edward Feser’s description of Mark Shea is strangely almost unbelievably a perfect characterization of Skojec:

“‘Deranged’ might seem an unkind description of Shea and his comments. Sadly, it’s also a perfectly accurate description…”

“… Shea has, in several follow-ups now, given no response whatsoever to these points or others made in my earlier posts. He simply ignores the arguments and instead reiterates, with greater shrillness the same false and already refuted claims he made in his initial attack on Joe and me”

“… In blog post after blog post he tosses out strings of ungrounded assertions, attacks caricatures, hurls insults and abuse, seems content with the ‘high fives’ his rabid fans give back in response to critics who try to engage him substantively.”
(Edwardfeser.blogspot, “A low down dirty Shea,” March 24, 2017)

The only difference between Shea and Skojec is that he does most of his “insults and attacks” on Twitter. But, other than that, Skojec has weirdly been transformed into Mark Shea.

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church.

Posted by Fred Martinez at 9:46 PM Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

Newman and Ratzinger

David G Bonagura, Jr.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/FMfcgxwDrbvswmtsQzqPcqkkTGNSfsvX

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2019

Note: This is the sixth column in our series about Cardinal Newman, who will be canonized on October 13. The previous columns on this subject may be read by clicking here, here, here, here,here, and here.  – Robert Royal

Before beatifying John Henry Newman in 2010, Benedict XVI declared to the expectant crowd that “Newman has long been an important influence in my own life and thought.” Two decades earlier, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had described “my own way to Newman” in commemorating the centenary of the English cardinal’s death. As a seminarian, Ratzinger was introduced to Newman’s theology of conscience and his development of doctrine, the two areas where the saint had made “his decisive contribution to the renewal of theology.”

In particular, Ratzinger continued, Newman “had placed the key in our hand to build historical thought in theology, or much more, he taught us to think historically in theology and so to recognize the identity of faith in all developments.” Ratzinger has spent nearly seven decades as a theologian thinking historically in theology, that is, considering the wondrous interplay between the infinite God and the finite world. His Jesus of Nazareth trilogy is an outstanding example of this, where he examines the impact of the Incarnation on history, and how history has tried to come to grips with the Incarnation.

Given these glowing comments about Newman and their overlapping theological perspectives, we would expect to find direct engagement with and copious citations of Newman’s work within Ratzinger’s vast corpus. But such references are few and far between. In fact, the two focused on different branches of theology. Newman worked on the Church Fathers, the development of Christian doctrine, education, and conscience; while Ratzinger devoted himself first to fundamental theology, revelation, ecclesiology, and then to liturgy and Christology.

Of all these subfields, the development of doctrine and revelation share some ground. Yet in his memoirs, Ratzinger attributed his understanding on revelation not to Newman, but to St. Bonaventure. Ratzinger cursorily mentions Newman’s name once in his 1968 commentary on Vatican II’s Dei Verbum, and it is a curious reference: he attributes Newman’s theory of development to the influence of the Gregorian University in Rome, but Newman wrote his book on the topic before setting foot in Rome.

Given the lack of direct engagement with Newman, it is fair to ask: How exactly did Newman influence Ratzinger? Can we say that because of Newman’s thoughts on a given topic, say, the development of doctrine, Ratzinger thought similarly, and then advanced Newman’s ideas in his own way?

We can find insight into these questions in Ratzinger’s slim volume On Conscience, which consists of two brief conference papers presented in the United States seven years apart. The first essay, “Conscience and Truth,” is divided into three sections, with the second devoted to Newman.

Here Ratzinger proposes Newman, “whose life and work could be designated a single great commentary on the question of conscience,” and his theory of conscience to “sharpen our view of present problems and establish the link to history.” He then uses Newman’s life to answer those who wish to morph conscience into a kind of subjectivism. For his final conclusions on the particulars of conscience, Ratzinger turns to St. Paul and St. Thomas Aquinas, not Newman.

We see from this brief essay that Ratzinger certainly knows the core of Newman as a thinker, and, more importantly, as a man. He writes, “I do not hesitate to say that truth is the central thought of Newman’s intellectual grappling. Conscience is central for him because truth stands in the middle. To put it differently, the centrality of the concept conscience for Newman is linked to the prior centrality of the concept truth.”

Truth is at the core of Ratzinger’s theological and pastoral work – his chosen episcopal motto, an expression of the latter, is Cooperatores veritatis, “Co-workers of the truth.” Ratzinger noted to Peter Seewald that early in his career he “excluded the question of truth, because it seemed to be too great.” But later, “in these years of struggle, the 1970s, it became clear to me: if we omit the truth, what do we do anything for?” Even though pursuing the truth carries with it “menaces and perils,” Ratzinger came to see that “relinquishing truth doesn’t solve anything, but, on the contrary, leads to the tyranny of caprice.”

Then, with his characteristic humility, he adds a thought central to his own theological project: “One can work with the truth, because the truth is a person.”

Newman gave his life to opposing liberalism in religion. Ratzinger gave his to prevent the eclipse of religion by relativism, liberalism’s insidious offspring. Despite the different illnesses of their respective ages, these two theologians offered the same medicine: the truth manifested in the Incarnation of the Son of God.

Ratzinger certainly read Newman, and read about Newman. The specifics of Ratzinger’s theology, however, came from other sources: St. Bonaventure, St. Augustine, and the Tübingen School’s J.G. Geiselmann, among others. Newman’s influence on Ratzinger would come not by way of specific theological axioms, therefore, but by who he was and the theological approach he embodied. This is all the more fitting, since Ratzinger the theologian – and pope – likewise has influenced two generations of Catholics not just by the specific ideas in his books, but by who he is: a humble servant in the Lord’s vineyard who uses the best of the past to enliven Catholicism in the present. In these and several other respects, then, Ratzinger is as much an heir to Newman’s theological project as the direct disciple of Newman’s thinking.

Newman’s theology and personal holiness make him eminently worthy of being named a doctor of the Church, that is, an outstanding teacher who has made a decisive contribution to theology. Though the specifics of his theology diverged from Ratzinger’s, the English saint and the German pope are fellow co-workers in the truth and in sanctity. Perhaps, through Newman’s intercession for his heir, we may see Ratzinger too one day lifted to the same honors.

• About the Author
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David G Bonagura, Jr.

David G. Bonagura Jr. teaches at St. Joseph’s Seminary, New York. He is the author of Steadfast in Faith: Catholicism and the Challenges of Secularism (Cluny Media).

Bergoglio definitively leaves the Catholic Church

Oct5by The Editor

October 5, 2019: Rome, Italy — Jorge Mario Bergoglio invites and participates in a pagan act of worship in the Vatican Gardens. See report here

According to Canon 1364… which reads….

PART II : PENALTIES FOR PARTICULAR OFFENCES

TITLE I: OFFENCES AGAINST RELIGION AND THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH (Cann. 1364 – 1369)

Can. 1364 §1 An apostate from the faith, a heretic or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication, without prejudice to the provision of Can. 194 §1, n. 2; a cleric, moreover, may be punished with the penalties mentioned in Can. 1336 §1, nn. 1, 2 and 3.

“Latae Sententia” Means, “without the necessity of any judicial decree or judgement”. Incurrs, means obtains in the sense of becomes liable to.

Apostasy is defined not only as the renunciation of the faith, by a verbal expression, but also as any act which is essentially and totally contrary to the duty of the Faith. Consent to Pagan worship has always been considered and act of apostasy. Ergo, Bergoglio is now outside the Church.

There is no wiggle room here. There is no possibility for a Catholic to invite, consent, participate or promote pagan worship, by asking someone to come to his house or property and perform such a ceremony and receive an idol or consecrated ring from such a ritual.

Evil Jesuit that he is, he did this wicked thing at the opening of the Synod on the Amazon so that all who continue to call him, “Pope” or hold that this is a Synod of the Catholic Church, or can be held, will be IMPLICATED IN FALSE WORSHIP and share in the mortal sin of idolatry by not acting on the teaching of Pope John Paul II in canon 1364.

This is how he just fooled everyone who said that they won’t start a schism and won’t leave the Church. By this act he has founded a New Church and all who continue to call him Pope have just become its members.

Catholics like myself reject Bergoglio, who was not only never the pope, but was a pertinacious public heretic both in Argentina and in the last 6 years.

Fellow Catholics please wake up and do not follow Cardinals, Bishops, priests, and laymen (especially foolish journalists) into apostasy! Remember your loyalty to Jesus who saved you!

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, POLITICS

A Supreme Court Decision Reflecting the Progressive Dismissal of Liberty

OCTOBER 3, 2019BY TREY DIMSDALE AND PATRICK GARRY

Public Discourse publicdiscourse@winst.org via bounce.s10.mc.pd25.com 

The constitutional framers knew that not everyone would always agree on how other people exercised their fundamental rights, such as property and religious liberty, which was precisely why those rights were enshrined in the Constitution. However, modern progressives have sought to undermine that constitutional consensus.

The Supreme Court issued a number of high-profile decisions last term, some of which involved the census’s question on citizenship, political gerrymandering, and the Bladensburg cross. But one decision the media almost completely ignored was that of Knick v. Township of Scott, a 5-4 opinion that, perhaps more than any other decision last term, illustrates the differences between modern conservatives and liberals on the question of liberty.

The media almost completely ignored Knick v. Townshipof Scott, a 5-4 opinion that, perhaps more than any other decision last term, illustrates the differences between modern conservatives and liberals on the question of liberty.

At first glance, Knick appears to involve dry, procedural matters, of interest only to lawyers and judges. The Court held in Knick that someone with a Fifth Amendment takings claim does not have to go first to state court to vindicate their rights, but can proceed immediately to federal court. On a much deeper level though, the case revealed the differences between the conservative and liberal visions of individual liberty, of its importance in the constitutional scheme, and of the nature of the Constitution.

Modern progressives have sought to undermine the constitutional consensus on liberty.

The Question at Hand: The Right of Immediate Federal Appeal

The case arose when Rose Mary Knick brought suit against her township, Scott, Pennsylvania, which in 2012 had passed an ordinance that required any owner of land on which old gravestones might be located to allow the general public to enter the land and visit the grave site. Since Pennsylvania does not forbid burials on private land, small family grave sites, especially colonial-era gravesites, are not uncommon on private property. After the township decided that Knick, a 70-year-old single woman, might have gravestones on her 90-acre farm, it ordered her to let the public access her land to visit the suspected sites and put a public trail on her property.

Because Knick was given no compensation for this regulatory intrusion, she sued under the Fifth Amendment takings clause, which prohibits federal and state governments from taking private property without giving “just compensation” for that taking, which can arise from regulations that unduly burden an owner’s use or enjoyment of the property. But the appeal to the Supreme Court dealt only with the more narrow issue of whether the property owner had first to take her claim to state court before bringing it to federal court.

The Civil Rights Act of 1871 gives every person a right to sue in federal court for a constitutional violation of his or her rights, and the Fifth Amendment obviously creates a constitutional limitation against the government’s taking of private property. Under the Civil Rights Act, anyone with a constitutional claim, be it a First Amendment speech claim or a Fourth Amendment search and seizure claim, can take his or her case directly to a federal court. Due to subsequent Supreme Court decisions, however, the one exception was a claim under the Fifth Amendment takings clause, which could not be brought to federal court until it was fully litigated in state court. Thus, as far as the Supreme Court had been concerned, prior to Knick, property rights occupy a second-class status relative to other individual liberties in the Bill of Rights.

This second-class status resulted from a 1985 decision in Williamson County v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, in which the Court held that an aggrieved property owner cannot bring a takings case to federal court until he or she first exhausts all legal remedies in state court. Then, to make matters worse, twenty years later the Court ruled, in San Remo Hotel v. County of San Francisco, that a person whose takings claim has been rejected by a state court cannot then bring a claim in federal court, because the state court’s decision is final and cannot be litigated again. Consequently, as a result of Williamson County and San Remo Hotel, persons whose property has been taken by the government are denied access to federal courts to seek redress for that constitutional violation if state courts side with the local government. This made property rights the only constitutional right that cannot be vindicated in federal court.

An Opposition to Property Rights, in Disguise

Knick did not attract much media attention, perhaps because the case only seemed to involve a matter of procedure, namely, the choice of jurisdiction for bringing takings claims under the Fifth Amendment. Moreover, the dissenting justices did not present a controversial argument. The four liberal dissenters actually stood behind the conservative position of stare decisis, or respect for precedent.

The dissenters said Williamson County was correctly decided, but that in any event stare decisis should preclude its being overruled. Justice Kagan warned against a rush to overturn precedents, even though the Court’s decision in Citizens United (which decided that the First Amendment protected the right of corporations and unions to spend money on political campaign advertisements) was barely announced when many liberals, including President Obama, demanded that it be overturned. Moreover, progressivism, the philosophy of much contemporary liberalism, has a low regard for tradition and precedent as such.

The dissent’s stare decisis argument in Knick was a smokescreen for a much more fundamental and far-reaching opposition to property rights. Liberal judicial philosophy today harbors a view of liberty that contrasts sharply with that of the Bill of Rights. While the framers gave a high priority to property rights, modern progressives downgrade them to mere interests, usually ones that the government must regulate.

Since the New Deal, progressives have considered property rights to be a tool that the rich use to undermine democracy. Today, however, many leaders of the progressive movement are themselves a wealthy elite. Now they oppose property rights not because they might benefit the rich, but because they are a strong check on government. Progressivism seeks to expand the power and reach of the federal government, and therefore distrusts any rights or liberties for individuals that might obstruct that mission and supports any that will help it. The power of such rights to check government is precisely why the Anti-Federalists of the constitutional period fought so hard for a Bill of Rights.

This reasoning also explains progressives’ recent opposition to religious liberty, the first liberty mentioned in the Bill of Rights. They frame their position in terms of equality and anti-discrimination, but in fact they oppose religious freedom because it might protect age-old views on marriage that conflict with progressive social philosophy. More fundamentally, they wish to disarm religion as a potential check on the power of government and on the advancement of secularism within the federal government.

Even progressives’ attitudes on free speech demonstrate their discomfort with individual liberty. They call it unconstitutional to put any restrictions on marketing the most violent of games to children, even though they will concede almost no constitutional protections to protests on public property outside abortion clinics. They defend providing sexually explicit entertainment to children as if it were the pillar of democratic government, even as they curtail and punish—through laws on campaign speech and finance—speech that is unquestionably necessary for political life. It does not seem a stretch to conclude that progressives value free speech not on principle but only if it is useful to them.

Do Rights Exist Prior to Government or Not?

But there is an even more fundamental difference that the Knick decision reveals. The majority in Williamson County, the decision that was overruled in Knick, understood the operation of constitutional guarantees in a dangerous way. The Williamson Court understood the Fifth Amendment to give rise to a right to participate in a procedure—administrative or judicial. The Knick Court, however, recognizes that a government taking gives citizens the right not to appeal to the government, but to be compensated. The difference may be subtle, but Williamson implies that property rights (and possibly any right entertained under the Bill of Rights) are granted by the Constitution. The majority in Knick, however, implies that these rights exist prior to the Bill of Rights. Therefore the Constitution does not grant these rights, but merely protects them.

Some rights—like property rights—are natural rights. These are rights that are independent of any particular legal system or custom and are therefore inalienable. Other rights are legal rights, which are granted by law and can be modified or eliminated by law. No matter the type, all rights create a corresponding duty. So, the (natural) right to one’s property results in an entitlement to the enjoyment of that property on the part of the owner, and also imposes a duty on all others (including the state) to respect that entitlement. The breach of this duty—which could include trespass, vandalism, or even a taking for a public purpose—is definitionally a violation of this (natural) right. Because property rights are natural rights, such a breach does not require a law to define it as harm. The mere breach of the duty gives rise to a corollary right—the right to compensation. The Fifth Amendment, properly construed, understands a taking to be a breach of a duty created by a natural right, which is prior to the Constitution. Such a breach, therefore, gives immediate rise to a right to compensation—no tribunal needs to reach this conclusion. The Knick Court implies this. The Williamson Court, however, did not, and merely granted an aggrieved property owner access (and imperfect access at that) to the courts. The former seems to appreciate the implications of the natural-right character of property rights, while the latter seems to imply that a government tribunal is required for more than just calculating damages.

The Primacy of Individual Rights Should Not Be a Political Issue

The vote in Knick shows us that the Framers’ idea of liberty as a check on government―a notion at the heart of the Bill of Rights and of our constitutional democracy―has become a partisan issue. The right defends it and the left decries it. Progressives view property rights as mere interests that do not have to be treated like other rights laid out in the Constitution. They view religious exercise as even less than a mere interest―as an illegitimate right that undermines the idea of secularist government. They accept the right of free speech only for their reliable cultural allies, like Hollywood; but if speech challenges progressives’ agenda, they call it dangerous and hateful.

But a notion as fundamental as individual liberty should not be so contentious. Indeed, liberty lies at the core of the constitutional order and for nearly two hundred years has been accepted as such. The constitutional framers knew that not everyone would always agree on how other people exercised their fundamental rights, such as property and religious liberty, which was precisely why those rights were enshrined in the Constitution. However, modern progressives have sought to undermine that constitutional consensus on liberty, making various rights—e.g., property and religious liberty—secondary to the progressive agenda of a secularist society commanded by a domineering central government. Fortunately, as Knick reveals, the Supreme Court remains committed to the scheme of liberty set out in the U.S. Constitution.

About the Author

TREY DIMSDALE

Trey Dimsdale holds degrees in law, theology, and ethics and has worked as an attorney, educator, and non-profit administrator, and pastor. He is author of several articles, essays, and editorials on a wide range of topics and he has spoken around the world on issues as diverse a… READ MORE

PATRICK GARRY

Patrick Garry is the author of Redefining Conservatism: A Creed for the Poor and Disadvantaged (Encounter Books) and The False Promise of Big Government: How Washington Helps the Rich and Hurts the Poor (ISI Books).

Settimo Cielodi Sandro Magister 04 ott 19

From the Amazon To Germany and Its “Anti-Roman Complex.” The Lesson of Cardinal Brandmüller

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It is no mystery that behind and beyond the synod for the Amazon, now at the gates, another “synodal path” is looming that is much more one of rupture, that of Germany.

So greatly of rupture that the archbishop of Cologne, Cardiinal Rainer Maria Woelki, has not ruled it out that it could lead to a “schism” within the Church of Germany itself, with the birth of a “national German Church” with strong autonomy from Rome.

In effect, if one looks at its history, the Church of Germany has often distinguished itself by its “anti-Roman complex.” Which today has regained vigor and which the officials of the German episcopal conference, led by Munich archbishop Cardinal Reinhard Marx, would like to extend to the universal Church.

Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, 90, he too a German, an illustrious Church historian and president of the Pontifical Committee of Historical Sciences from 1998 to 2009, wanted precisely to reconstruct the history of this “national particularism” typical of the German Church, in order to denounce the “self-destructive” danger.

Brandmüller published this scathing lesson of his through the Austrian Catholic agency Kath.Net:

> “Ohne Juda, ohne Rom, bauen wir Germaniens Dom”

And a complete translation of it into English, by Maike Hickson, is on this page of “LifeSite News”:

> “Dubia” Cardinal warns Church in Germany against synodal path that leads to “final decline”

Thursday, October 03, 2019

http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2019/10/might-tnts-fr-nixs-cardinal-been-one-of.html

Might TnT’s Fr. Nix’s Cardinal be one of those who “Whispered” to Voris that Francis may be a Antipope?

Today, Church Militant veteran journalist Michael Voris who is in Rome to cover the Amazon Synod reported there are “whispers and quiet chatter” that Francis may be a antipope:

“[A]ll over Rome just days before the controversial Amazon Synod kicks off [there are “whispers”] that the conclave which elected Pope Francis might have been an invalid conclave… Quiet dinner conversions are punctuated with topics about whether the conclave that elected him [Francis] was valid.”
(Church Militant, “Pre-Synod Report: Invalid Conclave or Heresy?”, October 3 2019)

Veteran reporter Voris apparently is confirming that Bishop Rene Gracida’s call to the cardinals to investigate the the validity of the Francis conclave and the Pope Benedict XVI resignation may be being “whispered… all over Rome” possibly even by cardinals.

Is it possible that Voris has heard cardinals in “whisperings” questioning if Francis is a antipope because of a invalid conclave or for other reasons?

It is known “for a fact” according to frequent guest co-host on the Taylor Marshall TnT YouTube show Fr. David Nix that a cardinal who is known by the co-host is questioning the validity of the Francis papacy:

“Bishop Gracida of Texas is a great hero of mine for publicly questioning the valid resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. I know for fact that at least one other Cardinal in the world is questioning this, too.”
(PadrePeregrino.org, “Courage over Consequentialism in the Hierarchy,” March 3, 2019)

By coincidence, just a few mouths ago, Voris was interviewed by Fr. Nix in a podcast on his Padre Peregrino website
(Padre Peregrino.org, “Glad Trad 6.2: Michael Voris’ 2018 Stories Revisited,” May 19, 2019)

Before or after the interview might Fr. Nix have conveyed who the “Cardinal” is questioning Francis’s validity to the journalist Voris?

Might Fr. Nix’s “Cardinal” be one of those “whispering” to Voris that Francis may be a antipope?

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church.