Scott,
Thanks for an informative intro to this new encyclical
and for correcting the media’s depressingly simplistic meme; B16 is stooping to debate Hitchens, Dawkins et al.

John Allen calls it a Greatest Hits Collection here;
http://ncrcafe.org/node/1474

Kevin, I actually hadn’t bothered to look at media reports on the encyclical.  That’s a very strange take--they’re clearly not even bothering to skim it if that’s their interpretation.

Benedict isn’t concerned in Spe salvi about atheist materialism; instead, he’s concerned that Christians have bought into the modern gospel of progress, with the result of making their faith into a purely private matter.

Man took of the tree of knowledge before he knew of the tree of wisdom.

I can anticipate that Peter Ramus will say that the bishops are not spreading the word of the Pope in the U.S. congregations and I am in full agreement.  When the Pope dispenses wisdom as Scott has shown here it should go directly to the Sunday Masses.  It’s not like Catholics can simply turn on the television or pick up a paper and read the words of the Pope.  At the same time the priests and bishops are dropping the ball when it comes to encouraging Catholics to follow their faith by understanding the stance of the church on the crucial social issues.

“At the same time the priests and bishops are dropping the ball when it comes to encouraging Catholics to follow their faith by understanding the stance of the church on the crucial social issues.”

Amen.  There are, of course, many good priests who will actually read the encyclical and preach on it, but it would be refreshing if a bishop would order the text printed up and distributed in each parish of his diocese, and have all pastors preach on it.

Scott,
Here’s the AP Headline;"Pope Criticizes Atheism in
Encyclical”

Hope I’m wrong, but this may be an attempt to intentionally
bury the contents by dismissing it as just another
projectile in a messy food fight. “Nothing here folks, jsut keep shopping.”

Having Benedict XVI follow JPII is an unbelievable blessing and cause for hope.

@Kevin:

Incredible.  Benedict uses the word “atheism” three times, in two consecutive paragraphs, out of a 50-paragraph document, and that’s what they focus on.  Wow.

I don’t think it’s inappropriate to interpret the encyclical - especially section 10 (Eternal Life - What is it?) - as a kind of response to atheism. Benedict has constantly gone out of his way to remind us of the way in which Christians can “appear” today, especially to unbelievers.

In an October weekly audience he talked of living out the faith without “playing a role” like a clown, an image he used before in the very beginning of his “Introduction to Christianity.” In that book he also went even further:

“If he who seeks to preach the faith is sufficiently self-critical, he will soon notice that it is not only a question of form, of the kind of dress in which theology enters upon the scene. In the strangeness of theology’s aims to the men of our time, he who takes his calling seriously will clearly recognize not only the difficulty of the task of interpretation but also the insecurity of his own faith, the oppressive power of unbelief in the midst of his own will to believe” (41).

I wonder why that theme doesn’t really rate on John Allen’s list, which places - in my opinion - way too much emphasis on politics. But he does mention it further down: “Ratzinger has long pressed the need to re-present basic concepts of the faith to a modern world he regards as jaded by a sort of weary familiarity with Christianity.” That, along with the emphasis on “learned ignorance” is “vintage Ratzinger” for a reason.

Clearly the letter is explicitly about, as Scott says, the way Christians have “bought into the gospel of progress,” but that also can (and obviously will in the media) function as a critique of contemporary atheism. Section 10 could be read as a direct response to some of Hitchens’ more polemical arguments about eternity. It’s a fruitful coincidence.

John Lukacs has been talking about the need to re-think the meaning of “progress” for some time.  Lukacs says that traditional conservatives have considered stability more important than progress.  This issue however has become more complicated by the fact that a certain kind of traditionalist, maybe especially a Catholic kind, views the path of “progress” we are on as one that will take us “back to the future.” As Lukacs knows all too well, continuing on the current path of progress is taking us further away from the Modern Age, which was not a Catholic age but a Protestant one.  The nation-state, the middle class and upper middle class, the
bourgeoisie, the increase in privacy and the inner life are all passing from the scene in an accelerated fashion by the force of “progress.”

In this case, Lukacs views this current form of “progress” as retrogression, into a new barbaric age.  But many don’t view it that way, and wish to do away with the virtues of the Modern Age in order to purge us of its vices as well.  However, the mass of the lower middle classes and the middle middle class don’t appear to look forward to the post-modern age with such joy. 

The rise of a hyper individualism is really just a temporary station on the way to a new barbaric age.  This “individualism” is really just a symptom of the break down of the nation-state and the local communities on which it was based.  Robert Nisbest likened the social chaos underway to the scientific phenomenon known as a “Brownian movement” wherein molecules move about randomly.  This again has been made worse by mass immigration as well as mass internal migration and economic dislocation, directed for the most part from the top downward. 

The most important step to take would be to realize that the heritage of the Modern Age, however imperfect, is the most tangible heritage we have.  We must attempt to stop the tide away from that heritage and reverse it were possible while addressing the shortcomings that exist in the outlook of that era.

Tony,
Both Scott and John Allen have done their job in whetting our appetite for more and preempting misinterpretation by the mass media. Hopefully, this encyclical receives the attention it richly deserves. It should be the basis for many a parish reading group.

I like this quote from Allen;
“It is not the law of matter and of evolution that have the final say,” he writes in the new encyclical, “but reason, will, love – a Person … Life is not a simple product of laws and the randomness of matter, but within everything and at the same time above everything, there is a Spirit who in Jesus has revealed himself as Love.”

Just so.

Many thanks, Scott, for bringing us so quickly these excerpts from the teachings of Pope Benedict.

Although I have declared that I will not write any more articles for this site - due to my objection to being published on a site which publishes anything by the neo-eugenicist Jared Taylor (and that is a sacrifice for me, but I must stand by it for the sake of integrity) - I believe I’m still within the bounds of honour to comment occasionally, as when, for instance, I see someone misrepresenting the words and intentions of my friend John Lukacs.

Mr Watson wrote:

“Lukacs says that traditional conservatives have considered stability more important than progress.”

No.  He has never said anything of the kind.  He has often said the contrary, very passionately and in a way which - evidently here, using Mr Watson’s comment as evidence - continues to be either ignored or misunderstood.

John Lukacs (I do not speak for him, but I know him and his ideas quite well and personally) believes that there are almost NO “traditional conservatives” AT ALL in America, LEAST OF ALL those who call themselves men of the so-called “Old Right” (meaning, radical nationalists).

Lukacs has often said (both in print and in person), that most Americans who call themselves “traditional conservatives” are split-minded, because most of them DO believe in “progress”, perhaps especially in material progress as most so-called “libertarians” do.  But leaving the libertarians aside, Lukacs’ MAIN objection to both the neocons AND the paleocons (of America; European rightists are a SOMEWHAT different story), is that for all their prattling about “tradition”, very few of them give a damn about REAL, TRADITIONAL patriotism which is based on love of the LAND!

And, Lukacs often excoriates both the neocons AND the paleocons insofar as their claims to be concerned with “family” and “tradition” (or, God help us, that puerile and insubstantial proposition of RACIAL “kith and kin"), really doesn’t square up with their almost total disregard of the rape of the landscape and the poisoning of the Earth. 

And, personally, one of the main reasons for my disillusionment with this (otherwise very good and valuable) blog, is that I have seen almost NO concern expressed in it for preserving the American (or European, or for that matter, planetary) LANDSCAPE!  How, HOW can anyone pretend to be a “traditional patriot” if his FIRST concern is not to protect and defend the LAND?

All the chatter which we’ve heard/suffered on this blog about “race” and “kith and kin”, rings very hollow in the absence of any expression of love for the land, and a desire to defend the LAND against the depredations of ALL “races”.
The rape of the land - not just in America, but all over our planet now - poses far more danger to ALL civilisation than any “racial” conflicts.

But aside from that, I agree with Mr Watson’s paraphrases of Lukacs.

(Sigh.) Anyway, in sum, John Lukacs does NOT say that “traditional conservatives” are too concered with stability.  His greatest concern, and mine, is that most Americans who call themselves “traditional conservatives”, really don’t give a damn about the FOUNDATION of stability, which is love and defense of the ancient blessing of the LAND! 

Here endeth the lesson.  And I hope my occasional internet friends FJ Sarto and Taki, with whom I am more in accord than not, will regard this comment as a welcome one ;-) :-)

“very few of them give a damn about REAL, TRADITIONAL patriotism which is based on love of the LAND!”

Mr. Ball is one of my favorite contributors to the Top Drawer Blog. His coments are too intelligent to be excluded by the presence of less subtle minds who see almost everthing in terms of black and white. But Tradition includes the household gods and is in fact more related to the permanent or perrenial truths than the single reference to love of ones own land or “country” as was known before the Civil War. The supernatural is present in this mystery and simply because we have lost that aspect of Traditition is no reason to ignore its “real” presence. Wonder brings us closer to the kingdom of heaven than the good earth, although love of one inspires the other. Robert Frost is more of a Lukacs poet, and therefore America’s poet, than Walt Whitman will ever b. One sees the real presence of the supernatural , while the other simply apes God by imagining a paradise (not discovering one)image making a heaven out of hell, and a hell of heaven. Tradition is of the supernatural where not only mercy and justice meet, but also body and spirit --- home and country.

I think, rather, I KNOW, that John Ball doesn’t understand what I am saying.  I didn’t say that traditional conservatives ARE TOO concerned with stability and NOT concerned enough with progress.  Rather, I was attempting to say that according to Lukacs, traditional conservatives SHOULD BE more concerned with stability.  I can assure you that Lukacs has said that. 

Of course, part of that stability should be a protection of both the land and cityscapes.  As Lukacs has noted, the ideology of GROWTH is comparable to one of the most feared biological diseases of the 20th century, namely Cancer.  So “progress” as a form of the Growth ideology is like a cancer, destroying human community and any sense of place and the stability on which those things depend. 

One of the most important policy changes that could be adopted to increase stability and thus protect the land and cityscapes would be to stop mass immigration (and mass internal migrations).  A second step would be to encourage local production and local consumption, in other words, to resist the global so-called “economy.” But neither of these inter-related policies are politically correct and thus aren’t likely to be enacted.

In short, the only way we can protect the Land, is to have a population that is rooted to the Land.  And the only way to have a rooted people is to oppose deracination.  But to do that would entail adopting policies that politically correct types, like John Ball, would never approve of.  It would require, in short, some form of nativism in practice if not in name. 

As to “split-mindedness”, Lukacs has stated that the Greens are also split-minded, favoring unlimited immigration and a radical anti-traditional social life that is contrary to stability and thus would undermine any real attempt they might make to protect the Land. 

If an individual or a group favors “progress” and technology and ignores stability and a protection of the land they are by definition something other than a traditional conservative.  What Lukacs has actually said is that real traditional conservatives including those one might consider “reactionaries” believe that stability is more important than progress.  Lukacs has also noted that we all need to reconsider the meaning of the term “progress.” In this, Lukacs echoes the concern about the concept of progress that Irving Babbitt raised over 100 years ago.  Babbitt noted, citing Emerson’s poem, that the law for man is different than the law for thing, and thus that progress according to the law for material things is a very different matter than progress according to the moral law applicable to humans.  Technological “progress” is providing a small number of humans more and more power over other humans and over the rest of the natural world.  Obviously, to a traditional conservative, this raises the prospect of a “moral hazard”, in that such an amount of power is likely to be abused. 

From this perspective, we are witnessing a race between utilitarian humanitarians (Baconians), empowered by science and progress and sentimental humanitarians, empowered by emotions, to see which group will bring about the new barbarian age first and put its stamp upon it.

A really interesting take from Antonio Socci (reported over at Rorate Coeli) is that “Spe Salvi” is, as Rorate says, the “Anti-Gaudium et spes”, which is of course a play on words, as someone, perhaps Cardinal Suenens, once described “Gaudium et spes” as the anti-Syllabus.

Oops, a Google reveals that it was none other than Joseph Ratzinger himself who called GS an “anti-Syllabus.”

Perhaps this makes things even more interesting.

Woody,
Here is Cardinal Ratzinger on Gaudium et Spes;

“And this is the beauty of the pastoral constitution “Gaudium et Spes,” evident in the very structure of the Council’s text; only when we Christians grasp our vocation, as having been created in the image of God and believing that “the form of this world is passing away ... [and] that God is preparing a new dwelling and a new earth, in which justice dwells” ("Gaudium et Spes,” No. 39), can we address the urgent social problems of our time from a truly Christian perspective.”
http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=2100

While, we should be heartened by the initial traditionalist response to this Encyclical, I fear some have a profound mis-understanding of Gaudiun et Spes to begin with. And, yes I am sympathetic to and have read Tracey Rowland on this issue.

By the way, a brief and random survey of responses is here; http://tcrnews.blogspot.com/

Incredible.  Benedict uses the word “atheism” three times, in two consecutive paragraphs, out of a 50-paragraph document, and that’s what they focus on.  Wow.

I read the Encyclical at the Holy See website and my Pastor included it in his sermon on Sunday.

I should also note our Sweet Jesus on Earth included a negative reference to Spartacus.

Just saying…

If I may interject myself into the interesting discussion between Johns Ball and Watson, the mass immigration, a benefit to those practicing the factory farming of the land, would suggest the Lukacs would be opposed to this correct?  Factory farming destroys both the land and man’s connection to the land and therefore is in opposition to traditional conservatism.

Mr. Jones. I believe Card Ratzinger refered to it as a “counter-syllabus”.

http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/syllabus.html

But, for each soi disant traditionalist who condemned the good Cardinal for his statement, the are 100 traddies whose ideas are also condemned, along with many of them.

23. Roman pontiffs and ecumenical councils have wandered outside the limits of their powers, have usurped the rights of princes, and have even erred in defining matters of faith and morals.—Damnatio “Multiplices inter,” June 10, 1851.

Fr. Fellay and the rest of the Lefevbre cult are among those who believe Vatican Two taught error, for instance.

And, of course, they are also in violation of aspects of Qunata Cura,and many other Magisterial Documents too numerous to cite.

Why can’t traditionalists really act like traditionalists and simply accept what Holy Mother Church teaches rather than subjecting the Church’s
Doctrine/Discipline to its own Inquisitional-ideological presuppositions before deciding the Doctrine/Discipline is acceptable and therefore worthy of their obedience? (Their approach makes THEM the authority, obviously).

So, “traditionalists” initially like the Enyclical. Whoop-de-doo!!

I read it and I already know where their objections will arise. It is only a matter of time before some soi disant traddie declaims it is wrong vis a vis thus and such and the piling-on will begin.

ANY time the living Magisterium issues a Document or takes a decision, that act is heard as a starter’s pistol in the caves of the schismatic orcs and the race is on to see who will be the first to be able to “successfully prove” it is against Tradition.

The Dogmatic Laity. Thery are as insufferable as they are unstinting in their opposition to the Church.

As for Our Sweet Jesus on Earth, he has forgotten more than all of them combined will ever know when it comes to Patristics, Tradition, and Theology.

I should correct my previous post.  Factory farming does not actually destroy the land but more the landscape as larger and more uniform tracts are necessary for efficient exploitation.

@M.Nucci:

Actually, you were right both times.  Factory farming destroys the landscape and contributes to the erosion of topsoil and the destruction of soil fertility.

Astute observation by “Diogenes”;
On a second reading of the Pope’s new encyclical, I thought it was worth noticing this fact about the single quotation from the documents of Vatican II in the course of Spe Salvi:

There isn’t one.”

http://www.cwnews.com/offtherecord/offtherecord.cfm?task=singledisplay&recnum=4518

Spartacus, Pope BXVI doesn’t mention a single Vatican II document in Spe Salvi. What do you think about that? Is BXVI becoming a traddie?

“Christianity did not bring a message of social revolution like that of the ill-fated Spartacus, whose struggle led to so much bloodshed. Jesus was not Spartacus, he was not engaged in a fight for political liberation like Barabbas or Bar- Kochba.”

And yet so much bloodshed witnessed these last 100 years at the hands of the modern democratic experiment started a rebellion against the manifest will of Jesus Christ on June 28th 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand All the world rebelled against the Divinely Ordained Holy Roman Empire with this horrible act. All the world forgetting that the Holy Family were citizens of the Roman Empire. All the world “engaged in a fight for political liberation” from the Holy Roman Empire and as Dante said: “ Wherefore let all who in mad presumption have risen up against this most manifest will of God, now grow pale at the thought of the judgement of the stern Judge, which is nigh at hand, if so be the sword of Him who saith, ‘Vengeance is mine’, be not fallen out of heaven.”
But you, who transgress every law of God and man, and whom the insatiable greed of avarice has urged all too willing into every crime, does the dread of the second death not haunt you, seeing that you first and you alone, shrinking from the yoke of liberty, have murmured against the glory of the Roman Emperor, the king of the earth, and minister of God; and under cover of prescriptive right, refusing the duty of submission due to him, have chosen rather to rise up in the madness of rebellion?”

‘O outcasts of Heaven, race despised,’
comes this insolence you harbor in your souls?
‘Why do you kick against that will
which never can be severed from its purpose,
and has so many times increased your pain?
‘What profits it to fight against the fates?
Remember your own Cerberus still bears
the wounds of that around his chin and neck.’
Inf.  ix

During this season of Advent something to reflect on is the obedience of the Holy Family to the Roman Empire, and our disobedience and rebellion to this same temporal authority. This Roman temporal authority was established by Blessed Trinity so that the whole world could receive the Word made Flesh in a period of peace.

Spartacus, Pope BXVI doesn’t mention a single Vatican II document in Spe Salvi. What do you think about that? Is BXVI becoming a traddie?

++++++++ Begin Quotes +++++++++++=

Apostolic Tradition and ecclesial traditions

83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. The first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition.

Tradition is to be distinguished from the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions, born in the local churches over time. These are the particular forms, adapted to different places and times, in which the great Tradition is expressed. In the light of Tradition, these traditions can be retained, modified or even abandoned under the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium.

+++++++++ end quotes +++++++++++++

It is the Church which decides what is and isn’t Tradition. So, ALL Christian Catholics, who maintain the Bonds of Unity in Worship, Doctrine, and Authority, are “traddies.”

What is new - and in opposition to Tradition - Pope Benedict XV - and his Encyclical, AD BEATISSIMI APOSTOLORUM:…

24. It is, moreover, Our will that Catholics should abstain from certain appellations which have recently been brought into use to distinguish one group of Catholics from another. They are to be avoided not only as “profane novelties of words,” out of harmony with both truth and justice, but also because they give rise to great trouble and confusion among Catholics. Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected: “This is the Catholic faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly; he cannot be saved” (Athanas. Creed). There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism: it is quite enough for each one to proclaim “Christian is my name and Catholic my surname,” only let him endeavour to be in reality what he calls himself.

is Christian Catholics labeling themselves “traditionalist.”

In the past, such a label was a tautology.

As to Diogenes’ observation, so what?

In his First Encyclical, Pope Benedict DID cite Vatican Two. Moe than Once. More than twice. Did that mean he was a liberal?

That Pope Benedict is a traddie is a tautology.

I think folks forget that when Vatican Two is interpreted in light of Tradition that means Vatican Two is, ah, um, Tradition.

Pope Benedict XV was spot-on in his observations and Doctrine and we are living witnesses to the destructive divisions he warned against.

I am not Spartacus,
Your logic is flawless and applied to reality, should bring silence to the whole issue. It will not, however, and should not, because the Church consists of suffering souls in purgatory, the Church triumphant in heaven, and the Church militant in the world. It is a Church administered in the world by grace working through fallen creatures, certainly not angels or even saints. Sad but true. It has been so from the beginning. Reading St. Alphonsos’ History of Heresy, is a reminder that there is nothing new or old about Tradition and very little new about the current heresies. The best times for the Church were when this is understood and practiced, instead of defended, obeyed or neglected.

“I think folks forget that when Vatican Two is interpreted in light of Tradition that means Vatican Two is, ah, um, Tradition.”

Exactly, a part of Tradition, not a Council that
supercedes all that went before it. I think Benedict
XVI’S failure to quote from it’s documnets is another
signal that he is continuing JPII’S effort to rescue
the Council from the cult that grew up around it, place
it in i’t proper context and to heal the divisions that
grew up around it.

Seems significant to me.

Mr. Reavis. I am not really sure what you are getting at. I do think that the more one reads the history of the Church the more one understands that am original heresy is a difficult thing to achieve :)

Kevin. In his First Encyclical, Pope Benedict did cite Documents from Vatican Two.

I can’t think of a Council that did not trail in its wake all manner of crackpots, knaves, nitwits, schismatics, heretics, fanatics etc etc but they were, and are, well outnumbered by those who accepted the Teachings of the various Councils with docility and gratitude.

Spartacus Not,
I think my point was that revelation ended with the death of the Last Apostle and Traditional is not always a precise condition in the Church. It took the Church 45 years to say that the Ancient rite of Mass was never abrogated outlawed,extinguished etc.. Interea, there might have been saints on both sides who have died and gone to heaven—some thinking yea and some saying nay. Tradition is within the Church and defined by the Church, true enough. But in this world we live in time and not eternity.One could not boast he obeyed the apostle , if he knew damn good and well what Iscariot was up to. cheers

I am not Spartacus,
“I can’t think of a Council that did not trail in its wake all manner of crackpots, knaves, nitwits, schismatics, heretics, fanatics etc etc...”

This time many were in positions of power and saw it as their mission to recreate the Church in their own image.

It will take a long time to recover from the damage, but they say the first 100 years after a Council are always the hardest.

I say that Benedict XVI is the first antidote to John Paul II. Perhaps I am being over-critical of the late Pontiff, but there is much not to be happy about JP II’s Pontificate.

“Perhaps I am being over-critical of the late Pontiff...”

Indeed you are. He inherited a Church in the throes of a deep existential crisis thanks to the manipulations of those who willfully misinterpreted Second Council.
Instead of being consumed and likely defeated by a battle for internal reform, he bucked the establishment and directly evangelized the laity.

The result is in an unprecedented amount of vibrant movements within the Church, which Cardinal Ratzinger called “creative minorities”

It will be a generation or more before we catch up to JPII, but B16’S papacy would not be possible without the foundation laid by his predecessor. Suffice it to say, there is only one institution that offers any meaningful opposition to Western utilitarianism and the jihad arising from the East.

It was JPII, under the protection of our Blessed Mother who placed the Church in this vital position at a time of mass dissolution within our civilization.