Saturday, August 14, 2010

Vortex On "Catholic Politics" - With My "Sed Contra"

As I've said before on a few occasions, it isn't often when I disagree with Michael Voris and Real Catholic TV, but sometimes that happens.  In fact, no two entities will always find themselves in complete agreement.  I debated whether or not to post my disagreement with this Vortex, but because I post so many of them with my concurrence, I was concerned that my silence regarding this one would be interpreted as tacit agreement.  My disagreements in this matter are rather substantial.
 Here is the video in question (click here if you can't see embedded video).



In my humble opinion, this Vortex is rife with problems.  The main message is that "only faithful Catholics should be allowed to vote, as only they would have the requisite intellectual and moral foundation to exercise that right to the betterment of society."  Voris uses the passive voice in "only faithful Catholics should be allowed".  Well, those of us who understand the grammatic structure of the passive-voice sentence know that the subject of the sentence is not mentioned. 

Therefore, we ask the obvious questions.
  1. What individuals or entities would be doing this "allowing and disallowing"?
  2. How would this particular group be formed or chosen?
  3. What criteria would they use?
  4. What "checks and balances" would exist to ensure that these individuals or entities would be free from corrupting influences - including their own fallen human natures?
Did you notice that Voris started by saying that "there's an inherent problem with democracy...everyone gets to vote."  Civics lesson time!  The United States of America never was a pure democracy!  Nope!  We are a Constitutional Republic (think of the Pledge of Allegiance's first line).  That means we elect representatives to vote on laws, but all is limited and guided by the United States Constitution, with its Bill of Rights.  The Founding Fathers were very leery of true democracies, as they realized such were nothing more than formalized mob rule.  Think of it; isn't the Bill of Rights predicated on the realization that the majority can be wrong?  Doesn't that realization hearken to the acknowledgement of a standard of right and wrong independent of the will of the majority?

It is my understanding that the Magisterium has made no statement about the preferability of one form of government over another.  Pius XI made clear that socialism was unacceptable, but that is owing to the inherently atheistic bent of socialism.  Let me quote from the New Advent's online Catholic Encyclopedia article about civil authority: "No one form of government is more sacred and inviolate than another."  I suggest that all read the entire article

I said what I said in the preceding paragraph to make clear that Voris's opinion is precisely that - his opinion only.  Now it's just as valid as is the opinion of any other Catholic who follows Church teaching in his/her life, but it bears no special weight in terms of Church teaching.  I understand and share Voris' concern with progressive and hedonistic people voting, but the solution he proposes is a case of "jumping from the frying pan into the fire".  His "cure" may well be worse than the "disease".

Anyone who has read these posts understand that Catholicism is under attack in today's culture.  We Catholics have not taken these attacks passively - at least, not in recent times.  With the help of the Thomas More Society, the Alliance Defense Fund and others, we have asserted our civil rights so that we in turn can use our places in the public square to bring some order to civil society.  Why, now, does Voris and some others propose that we strive to deny non-Catholics their voting rights?  At best, this sort of talk is patently irresponsible, for such hands to our opponents - on a silver platter - a perfect excuse to renew their attacks upon us.  Last time I checked, the Golden Rule was "do unto others as you would have done unto you", NOT "do unto others before they do unto you.".  Fellow Catholics, this applies to us, too.

I too look forward to establishing the Reign of Christ on earth.  However, I believe that will occur when and only when all people (or at least the great majority of them) have converted to Catholicism and thus will select their governemts accordingly.  It will NOT occur by limiting such selection process to Catholics by governmental fiat.  Else, such attempts will only be doomed to eventual failure.

7 comments:

  1. I agree with you. Michael Voris is way off base here. It just shows how we all need to be accountable and do our homework before we advertise it.
    Thanks for your observations.

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  2. I'm glad that there is at least one thing we can agree upon. After repeated viewings, I'm still having trouble believing the video is not either Swiftian satire or anti-Catholic propaganda, because its premise is so un-American as to be ridiculous. So ridiculous, that I refuse to dignify it by wasting my time dissecting it.
    Mr. Voris has two options if he wants to live under a Catholic benevolent dictator. The first would be to earnestly work to establish a Catholic monarchy in the United States. If he follows this course of action I sincerely hope he keeps his cameras on him, so that I can laugh at his failures against the Constitution. The second is for him to move to Vatican City, where the only elections (correct me if I'm wrong) take place among the College of Cardinals.

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  3. Yikes. What a half-baked episode! Think of the trouble the Knights of Columbus have had in trying to enforce even a minimal standard of Catholicity. How Voris imagines his idea would work is beyond me.

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  4. Thanks for addressing this. The issue crops up in the blogsphere from time to time where writers that the foundational ideas of this country are incompatible with Catholicism.. They use this as an excuse when various legislative remedies that they favor go agains that Constitution.


    Learning

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  5. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

    Quoting the socialist-inspired Pledge of Allegiance is not a convincing argument that we in fact have a Republic. What was left of that after the Civil War, was legally eliminated by the 16th and 17th Amendments, and then finally killed off with the New Deal.

    Wake up to reality. When is the last time that the Supreme Court felt bound to respect the Constitution? Is the Bill of Rights anything more than a dead letter today?

    The only problem with Mr. Voris's piece is that he does not provide any realistic means of achieving a benevolent Catholic Monarchy here in the U.S. But his point is well taken. Democracy is being used to undermine freedom and destroy American society.

    And then there's the babies. All of our efforts at the ballot box and through lawful protest have not stopped the killing - 37 years and counting.

    Think outside the box, people. The United States is dying - and we pro-lifers need start thinking how we can help dispatch it faster, and what form of government we should adopt in its place. At least Mr. Voris has raised the right question.

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  6. To "anonymous" of 8:21 today - you're quite right. The Constitution is today largely disregarded. However, that's not owing to any particular defect of the Constitution. That being said, what would prevent any "monarchal constitution" from being likewise disregarded? As I asked in my post, what would be the "checks and balances" there? What voice would the people have? Who would be competent to decide which folks were "faithful" enough to have a voice?

    There were Catholic monarchies in the past, as Voris mentioned. If they were so inherently wonderful, then they shouldn't have failed. But fail they did, as the monarchs were only human, and there were no real mechanisms to address defects of leadership.

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  7. Regarding his video, just thought "Would Mother Teresa call people parasites?" I don't agree with abusing welfare & I don't think the government should do everything for everyone. But calling people such things isn't compassionate and can be used against us.

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