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Entry: The Neocons and Charles Maurras Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/leo_strauss_the_neocons_and_charles_maurras#6559 Post contents: "Strauss’s channeling of religious energies for Jewish national ends does not mean from a Jewish perspective what it did for Pius X when he responded to French nationalist Catholics." Hate to be a pedant, but I'm not sure if I'm missing something. Shouldn't that be Pius XI? A few points, which I raise with some uncertainty as it has been some time since I have read about these things. So I am open to correction. As I remember, the condemnation was written under St.Pius X, but he explicitly refused to sign it because, although he obviously saw problems with Action Française, he was more sympathetic to its good points and thought that a condemnation would not be good for the Church in France. Pius XI however was much more sympathetic to Democratic ideas and for this reason was glad to sign it. Pius XII, who was Secretary of State under Pius XI and with whom he often disagreed, lifted the condemnation very soon after he was elected. The great Jesuit theologian Cardinal Louis Billot turned in his red hat in protest to the condemnation, and Bernanos (Diary of a Country Priest) went without the sacraments during the whole time of the condemnation until it was lifted. The point of all this is that there was more to the condemnation then worry over the faith of French Catholics. It involved a larger battle of ideas within the Church as to how She should respond to the Democratic ideals of modernity. Regarding Our Lady and her Magnificat, as I remember what Maurras specifically reacted to was what he perceived as a subversive reversal of natural authority as expressed in the line, "He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree." It cannot be denied that he was reacting to the crux of the Christian Thing and that many before and after him, esp. on the Right, have stumbled on the same hard saying. Yet in the end he was great or rather small enough and was given the grace to hear these hard words and convert. Sent at: 2008 05 16