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Entry: The Ron Paul Revolution Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_ron_paul_revolution#8727 Post contents: Nice thing about being Anglo-Catholic is that it can tend to inoculate one against extremes of hostility to Protestants or Catholics. (Something I tried to demonstrate in my recent friendly Donnybrook with my friend Zmirak, which reminded me of the proverbial Irishman who said, "Is this a private fight, or can anyone join in?" :-) So now contra Ramus (to Zmirak): "you belong to a globalist pressure group that peddles universal human rights, mass immigration and western suicide." Um, no. The Catholic Church is universal and transnational - as all Christianity ought to be - but the only "universal human right" it peddles is the right to life, which is fundamental to all real Christianity. (Isn't it, Peter?) Neither the Vatican nor the hierarchy, nor any but a handful of Priests and laymen, peddle "mass immigration"; sympathy for the plight of immigrants is not the same thing; and the practicing Catholics of France and Italy and Belgium aren't inviting masses of Muslims to invade their countries, rather their secular enemies are. As for "Western suicide", nothing would bring on Western suicide faster than the diminution of the Catholic Church's influence over the minds and morals and civilisation of the Catholics of Europe. Or even worse, the end of the Papacy - which I don't see coming anytime soon (thank God) - and there again I have a subtle, English Christian attitude to the Papacy: I think it's a great institution (who am I to wish for the end of the Bishopric of Rome?), I just think the Papacy ought to have no ultimate control over the internal politics of any nation, such as England, which refuses to accept it (not to mention refusing to accept the Papal Bull which authorised King Philip of Spain to invade and conquer England - to Hell with that!) And I won't accept the Pope's ultimate authority over my conscience, but that's another story. But the Catholic Church and the Bishop of Rome are indispensable to our civilisation. And Ramus called the RC the "Mother Socialist Church." Good God, man, whatever YOU're smoking, no I DON'T want any, because a mind is a terrible thing to waste on hard-core hallucinogens. SOCIALIST? The Church whose leader, Pope John Paul, did more than any other person in history to destroy Russian and European Communism? When Pope John Paul visited Poland and said, "Be not afraid", he restored and reaffirmed the credibility of the Roman Catholic Church (at least as an authentically Christian Church and force for good in the world) in the eyes of many Protestants, of whom you, Peter, evidently are not a traditional one - because traditional Protestants don't necessarily object to the existence of the Roman Church or the Papacy, but just want it to keep its political power in its place, in Rome. But as an old Philadelphian I've known quite a few Quakers and Anglicans who were very sympathetic to Marxist-style socialism during the Cold War. On the other hand I love William Penn and a certain KIND of Quaker, the kind who made my city the most religiously tolerant one in all the 13 colonies - a legacy which I would like to think I personify. Personal gloss: My mother and hers and hers etc for several generations, were all baptised in William Penn's baptismal font (imported from London) at Old Christ Church in Philadelphia, where several signers of the Declaration of Independence are buried. I say that proudly, and am equally proud of old St Mary's Catholic Church just a few blocks away (near 4th and South), where a Catholic mass was said in celebration of the American victory at Yorktown. AND Philadelphia has the oldest Jewish cemetery in America, begun in 1742, where several Jewish heroes of the American Revolution are buried, and so is Rebecca Gratz who was the model for the virtuous Jewess in Scott's "Ivanhoe". Mr Ramus, I share your grievances over the assaults upon America's English and Protestant roots made by so many American Catholics of non-British descent. But as an old Philadelphian I believe in William Penn's kind of ecumenicalism and tolerance, which, in my view, was and is an example of the greatest gifts the Reformation has given to the world. Sent at: 2008 09 06