Simply Catholic

An interesting article on conservative dissenters from the body of Catholic social teaching.  Excerpts:

...In each case the Church is setting forth Christian morality, in one case concerning sexuality and the family, in the other concerning our life in society, especially with regard to our economic activity. And in each case Christian morality is in conflict with powerful drives stemming from our fallen human nature. While Catholics seeking to be loyal to the Church are rightly aware of the need to subject the sex drive to God’s law, they are usually less aware of the need to subject our desires for money and material goods in the same way. But neither drive can be left to rule itself. Holy Scripture is as full of warnings about the dangers of riches and their pursuit as about the dangers of sexual immorality. If we are to be fully Catholic we must recognize both areas of morality and be obedient to Christ’s law as taught by the Church. Otherwise, whatever strategy we may adopt to justify ourselves, we will in fact be dissenters from Christ’s teaching rather than faithful Catholics...

And when we fall--go to confession.

Be Christ to the World

The challenge of a saint.  Excerpts:

...Peter Maurin matters as a Catholic because he shows us how to be faithful to Christ and to his church. He does so in the personalist terms, taking his own advice to "be what you want the other fellow to be." Without a doubt he advocates that we know our Catholic heritage, that we know the example of the saints and the teachings of the Holy See, that we see the applicability of the Benedictine motto, "Labor and Pray," to our own lives and to our mission in the world. We'd have, then, a primarily spiritual outlook and motivation for all that we do. So, too, if we took to heart the example of St. Francis in practicing poverty.

But a deeper lesson impresses me in the remembrances of Peter Maurin, particularly those offered by Dorothy Day. We see that he insisted that the Works of Mercy, or a philosophy of poverty, a philosophy of work, such as he proposed, are rooted in the "primacy of the spiritual." More significantly, he lived them, "at a personal sacrifice." Dorothy Day reports that he never had a second coat, that he often gave away his bed, he never had his own desk, that he always "ate what was set before him." He's the one who brought every Tom, Dick & Harry in from Union Square or the Bowery and thus prompted the first hospitality.

I'm impressed that this wasn't all done to show up or shame anyone or out of any egotistical posturing, nor to impose some "truth" on others, but out of a simple straightforward fidelity to Christ. As such all these practices were primarily devotional acts, offered to God as found in daily prayer and in his brothers and sisters. And as an offering of gifts, it was all done with complete freedom.

I notice, too, that this is the heart of Peter Maurin's adherence to the Church, these acts of love, a very impressive fidelity that speaks so much truer than the voices in our church that clamor on the one hand for order, orthodoxy and obedience, and on the other equality, democracy and inclusion.

Peter calls us to a deeper understanding and practice of what it means to be Catholic, a practice that responds to the Christ in his most glorious persona. He capsulizes this beautifully in one of his most "religious" Easy Essays, "The Spirit of the Mass, The Spirit for the Masses.

The central act of devotional life
in the Catholic Church
is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
The sacrifice of the Mass
is the unbloody repetition
of the Sacrifice of the Cross.
On the Cross of Calvary
Christ gave His life to redeem the world.
The life of Christ was a life of sacrifice
The life of a Christian must be
a life of sacrifice.
We cannot imitate the sacrifice of Christ
on Calvary
by trying to get all we can.
We can only imitate the sacrifice of Christ
on Calvary
by trying to give all we can...

Maurin's Method

Teaching whoever would listen seemed such a haphazard business that Peter was sometimes asked why he did not have a plan.  "Our Lord had no plan," Dorothy quotes him as saying.  "He did this on the principle that you never knew where you were going to find a disciple and that there was a spark in every man that could be kindled if you could but find the proper word.  Of course you planted the seed and God gave the increase.  Everything depended on God's good pleasure, whether or not he chose to call this one or that.  But he, Peter, would go around planting his ideas hopefully, watering them with his kindness and persistence and faith and hope, and leave it in God's hands as to whether they would grow and bear fruit."--William D. Miller, Dorothy Day: A Biography, pg. 237.

Studies on the Family

For all your family research needs:

Allan C. Carlson is president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society and international secretary of the World Congress of Families. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the National Commission on Children, on which he served until 1993. Over the last ten years he has advised various congressional leaders and presidential candidates on how to craft family-friendly policies and legislation.

ISI Books

•	Introduction to Family and Civilization
•	Author of Third Ways
•	Author of The "American Way"

Online Lectures

•	A Radical Economics?: Capitalism and State in Quest for Community
•	Beyond Capitalism & Socialism: Rebuilding an American Economy Focused on Family and Community
•	Not Safe, Nor Private, Nor Free: Wendell Berry on Sexual Love and Procreation
•	Röpke's Conundrum Over the Natural Family
•	Russell Kirk, Northern Agrarian
•	The Curious Costs of Gender Equality
•	Third Ways: What Bulgarian Greens and Swedish Housewives Can Teach Us About the Financial Crisis

ISI Journals

•	Wilhelm Röpke’s Conundrums over the Natural Family —Spring 2009, IR
•	Agrarianism Reborn: On the Curious Return of the Small Family Farm —Spring 2008, IR
•	The New American Faith Paul Gottfried, After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State —Spring 2000, MA
•	The Problem of Karl Polanyi —Spring 2006, IR
•	Two Becoming One Flesh: Marriage as a Sexual and Economic Union —Fall/Winter 2004, IR
•	Creative Destruction, Family Style —Spring 2002, IR
•	Compassionate Conservatism: Ten Lessons from the New Agrarians —Fall 2000/Spring 2001, IR
•	The Family and Liberal Capitalsim —Summer/Fall 1982, MA

Additional Information

Additional information about Allan Carlson is available through Mars Hill Audio.

Peggy Noonan on Senator Scott Brown

She has an excellent comment here:

Speaking broadly: In the 2006 and 2008 elections, and at some point during the past decade, the ancestral war between Democrats and the Republicans began to take on a new look. If you were a normal human sitting at home having a beer and watching national politics peripherally, as normal people do until they focus on an election, chances are pretty good you came to see the two major parties not as the Dems versus the Reps, or the blue versus the red, but as the Nuts versus the Creeps. The Nuts were for high spending and taxing and the expansion of government no matter what. The Creeps were hypocrites who talked one thing and did another, who went along on the spending spree while lecturing on fiscal solvency.

In 2008, the voters went for Mr. Obama thinking he was not a Nut but a cool and sober moderate of the center-left sort. In 2009 and 2010, they looked at his general governing attitudes as reflected in his preoccupations—health care, cap and trade—and their hidden, potential and obvious costs, and thought, "Uh-oh, he's a Nut!"

Which meant they were left with the Creeps.

But the Republican candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, and now Scott Brown in Massachusetts, did something amazing. They played the part of the Creep very badly! They put themselves forward as serious about spending, as independent, not narrowly partisan. Mr. Brown rarely mentioned he was a Republican, and didn't even mention the party in his victory speech. Importantly, their concerns were on the same page as the voters'. They focused on the relationship between spending and taxing, worried about debt and deficits, were moderate in their approach to social issues. They didn't have wedge issues, they had issues.

The contest between the Nuts and the Creeps may be ending. The Nuts just got handed three big losses, and will have to have a meeting in Washington to discuss whether they've gotten too nutty. But the Creeps have kind of had their meetings—in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts. And what seems to be emerging from that is a new and nonsnarling Republicanism. It may be true—and they will demonstrate in time if it is true—that they have learned from past defeats, absorbed the lessons, reconsidered the meaning of politics. Maybe in time it will be said of this generation of Republicans what André Malraux said to Whittaker Chambers after reading his memoir, "Witness": "You did not come back from hell with empty hands."

A well played analysis, I think. As she acknowledges, speaking very broadly. But still, a good analysis. Both parties are publicly understood to be massively hypocritical. Neither side can be trusted to do what they promise, or even come close to promising what they can or will do. So all that's left for the electorate is to smack the parties around until they start doing what the people want them to do, which is fix the problems facing the country, fight our enemies, bring prosperity, and do it all with the minimal amount of congressional acquisition of wealth. If they can't do that, at least keep the wealth acquisition under the table and accomplish the first few goals. We understand the desire to get wealthy. Just govern well, please.