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Entry: The Neocons and Charles Maurras Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/leo_strauss_the_neocons_and_charles_maurras#6735 Post contents: Mr. Cundiff, You are guilty of a number of egregious fallacies in your arguments. First, it is definitely NOT semi-Pelagianism for a nation to create the environment where the faith may be fully and publicly expressed and to do so through legislation and publicly-sanctioned observances. This nonsense is very simply a poor red-herring tossed out on your part. The Church has always insisted that NO ONE may be forced to believe the faith; faith is a gift to be freely accepted. But the Church has also ALWAYS taught, and taught in an unbroken tradition, that the State has an obligation to support the conditions where people may believe (of course, of their own free will). Indeed, the state should protect the unborn innocents, protect the young against pornography, interdict vicious attacks on religious piety, defend the institution of matrimony, etc. The position you take, which is very frankly the one of 19th century liberalism, to deny that the State should enact legislation favorable to the teaching by the Church, may I remind you, has been condemned by virtually all the popes since the Reformation. Worse, it implicitly denies that Our Lord is also Lord of civil society and should also rule in society socially in its institutions. The view you apparently espouse and accept is very dangerous to the faith and leads to heresy. I recommend that you read the very illuminating encyclical, Quas primas, by Pius XI, dealing with the "social reign of Christ the King." Your insistence, implicitly, on denying this is very grave indeed. Secondly, the declaration Dignitatis humanae (1965) was a pastoral declaration of the Vatican Council II. In many ways it epitomizes modernism in the contemporary Church. In Section I of that document one reads the following: "[the Council]...leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ." [St. Paul edition, p. 398] Now, later in that same document, in Sections 2 and 6, the declaration says almost the exact opposite, asking that the expression of any and all views, including those that are objectively evil and harmful, be accorded civil rights in society. As Cardinal Yves Congar O.P. (one of the periti at the Council) admitted: "The declaration [in the latter portion] is almost a word-for-word formal contradiction of the previous teaching of the Church." Indeed, in most theological manuals, including most notably that of Choupin (VALEURS) and Fernand Mourret, the Blessed Pius IX's teaching formally condemning this indifferentism and "equality of all religions" and "lay state" (in Quanta cura), is considered infallible--infallible due to the suject matter treated, the fact that the pope was speaking from the Papal Throne, that he referenced unbroken papal teaching on the subject, that he was addressing all mankind, and that he was stating in the most formal of language the intention to bind the faithful in conscience and in action. Thus, to deny it is to deny an infallible doctrine of our faith. The late peritus Victorino Rodriguez O.P. was considered by many to be the leading theological authority on Dignitatis humanae. He left behind a three part, 350 page study on the evolution of the schema, describing the process of amendment (at the Council) and the various compromises that the document experienced before it saw the light of day. Even as he attempts to defend the document, he admits that it contains serious contradictions: in section I it re-affirms the unbroken (and infallible) teaching on the subject; but then asserts the desirability, save for the exigencies of the common good, to establish religious indifferentism as a new norm. Father Rodriquez believes that the "common good" may be invoked as a means to prevent the worst excesses that the document implies...but he leaves it to future popes and theologians to make sorely needed corrections (and hopefully Benedict XVI is now recognizing the problematic nature of the document and the absolutely disastrous results it has aided and abetted, in Europe and elsewhere). The English writer/historian, Michael Davies, has done perhaps the most detailed study of Dignitatis humanae, demonstrating beyond doubt that it is a contradictory document, and one that has had negative consequences for Catholicim around the world. Despite the evil that the implementation of this document has helped unleash on the world, still, one may give thanks that it is, by theological category, a pastoral declaration and that since it exemplifies the modernist approach, it contains BOTH falsehood AND truth. As such, an honest and faithful Catholic must, if confronted by it, make a choice: either he will accept the unbroken teachings of the popes and Church (including in recent times, Gregory XVI, Bl Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XIII)on the necessity that Christ be King both in the hearts and minds of men, but also in the institutions of our societies and that error cannot have, objectively, rights; OR, he may accede to a laic, 19th century liberalism, condemned repeatedly and formally by all of the cited popes, and condemned both implicitly and explicitly by the Fathers of the Church, and by Our Lord Himself. There is no middle course, and the equivocal modernism and contradictory language in Dignitatis humanae will in no way assist you. Lastly, Mr. Cundiff, you continue to label and label and label---anyone on the Traditional Catholic Right who disagrees with you (and against whom your arguments fall flat) "thug" or a "clerical fascist" [very obviously you get all you information from wikipedia, which is no substitute for serious research and thought]. The only thug that is apparent in these discussion is the "intellectual thuggery" that you have foisted upon those dreary eyed readers who have followed this thread thus far....You should be ashamed. Sent at: 2008 05 16