Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Bride of Christ or femme fatale?

steve hays
May 24th, 2010 | 12:17 pm | #8
Dale Coulter

“I like David Mill’s ‘Anatomy of a Conversion’ article in the New Oxford Review that he blogged about over on First Thoughts. Ultimately, conversion is about falling in love.”

Of course, men have also been known to fall in love with a femme fatale (as well as women falling for the masculine equivalent). Is the church of Rome the Bride of Christ or a femme fatale?


steve hays
May 24th, 2010 | 3:40 pm | #15
Orthodoxdj

“Is it really either/or?”

I see. So, according to Orthodoxdj, I should have said the church of Rome is both the Bride of Christ and a femme fatale. Thanks for the logic lesson.


steve hays
May 24th, 2010 | 3:54 pm | #17
Francis Beckwith

“It is for an anti-Catholic bigot.”

Notice that Beckwith is resorting to the same tactics as liberal smear-merchants. If you oppose homosexual marriage, that makes you “homophobic.” If you oppose amnesty for illegal aliens, that makes you “racist.” If you oppose abortion “rights, that makes you “sexist.”

“Imagine if he had said this, ‘Are Jews partakers of the Old Covenant or Christ killers?’ Yep, that’s anti-Semitism. We all recognize it, immediately.”

For a philosophy prof., Beckwith isn’t very logical. All he’s given us is an argument from analogy minus the analogy.

He takes for granted a case of anti-Semiticism. He than compares that to “anti-Catholic bigotry” under the assumption that both two cases are comparable. All he’s done is to take a case where something is admittedly wrong (anti-Semitism), then posit a parallel with another case which he deems to be wrong. But he hasn’t begun to show that what I said about Catholicism is wrong. Therefore, he’s not comparing two wrongs. He is merely asserting two wrongs. Very tendentious and very fallacious.

“Yep, that’s anti-Semitism. We all recognize it, immediately. The fact that Steve thinks nothing of saying something similar about Catholics (we are the 'Church,' after all) shows how deeply the bigotry remains culturally acceptable in some fundamentalist enclaves in the U.S.”

While we’re on the subject of “bigotry,” let’s take a case of anti-Protestant bigotry:

“Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith… It is forbidden to any man to change this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition or, by rash attempt, to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.”

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus_en.html

steve hays
May 24th, 2010 | 3:57 pm | #18
Since Beckwith raises the issue of anti-Semitism, here’s a choice example of how a church council deemed to be ecumenical by Beckwith’s own denomination viewed the Jews:

CANON 67

Summary. Jews should be compelled to make satisfaction for the tithes and offerings e churches, which the Christians supplied before their properties fell into of the Jews.

Text. The more the Christians are restrained from the practice of usury, the more are they oppressed in this matter by the treachery of the Jews, so that in a short time they exhaust the resources of the Christians. Wishing, therefore, in this matter to protect the Christians against cruel oppression by the Jews, we ordain in this decree that if in the future under any pretext Jews extort from Christians oppressive and immoderate interest, the partnership of the Christians shall be denied them till they have made suitable satisfaction for their excesses. The Christians also, every appeal being set aside, shall, if necessary, be compelled by ecclesiastical censure to abstain from all commercial intercourse with them. We command the princes not to be hostile to the Christians on this account, but rather to strive to hinder the Jews from practicing such excesses. Lastly, we decree that the Jews be compelled by the same punishment (avoidance of commercial intercourse) to make satisfaction for the tithes and offerings due to the churches, which the Christians were accustomed to supply from their houses and other possessions before these properties, under whatever title, fell into the hands of the Jews, that thus the churches may be safeguarded against loss.

CANON 68

Summary. Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province must be distinguished from the Christian by a difference of dress. On Passion Sunday and the last three days of Holy Week they may not appear in public.

Text: In some provinces a difference in dress distinguishes the Jews or Saracens from the Christians, but in certain others such a confusion has grown up that they cannot be distinguished by any difference. Thus it happens at times that through error Christians have relations with the women of Jews or Saracens, and Jews and Saracens with Christian women. Therefore, that they may not, under pretext of error of this sort, excuse themselves in the future for the excesses of such prohibited intercourse, we decree that such Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times shall be marked off in the eyes of the public from other peoples through the character of their dress. Particularly, since it may be read in the writings of Moses [Numbers 15:37-41], that this very law has been enjoined upon them.

Moreover, during the last three days before Easter and especially on Good Friday, they shall not go forth in public at all, for the reason that some of them on these very days, as we hear, do not blush to go forth better dressed and are not afraid to mock the Christians who maintain the memory of the most holy Passion by wearing signs of mourning.

This, however, we forbid most severely, that any one should presume at all to break forth in insult to the Redeemer. And since we ought not to ignore any insult to Him who blotted out our disgraceful deeds, we command that such impudent fellows be checked by the secular princes by imposing them proper punishment so that they shall not at all presume to blaspheme Him who was crucified for us.

[Note by Schroeder: In 581 the Synod of Macon enacted in canon 14 that from Thursday in Holy Week until Easter Sunday, .Jews may not in accordance with a decision of King Childebert appear in the streets and in public places. Mansi, IX, 934; Hefele-Leclercq, 111, 204. In 1227 the Synod of Narbonne in canon 3 ruled: "That Jews may be distinguished from others, we decree and emphatically command that in the center of the breast (of their garments) they shall wear an oval badge, the measure of one finger in width and one half a palm in height. We forbid them moreover, to work publicly on Sundays and on festivals. And lest they scandalize Christians or be scandalized by Christians, we wish and ordain that during Holy Week they shall not leave their houses at all except in case of urgent necessity, and the prelates shall during that week especially have them guarded from vexation by the Christians." Mansi, XXIII, 22; Hefele-Leclercq V 1453. Many decrees similar to these in content were issued by synods before and after this Lateran Council. Hefele-Leclercq, V and VI; Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIlIth Century, Philadelphia, 1933.]

CANON 69

Summary. Jews are not to be given public offices. Anyone instrumental in doing this is to be punished. A Jewish official is to be denied all intercourse with Christians.

Text. Since it is absurd that a blasphemer of Christ exercise authority over Christians, we on account of the boldness of transgressors renew in this general council what the Synod of Toledo (589) wisely enacted in this matter, prohibiting Jews from being given preference in the matter of public offices, since in such capacity they are most troublesome to the Christians. But if anyone should commit such an office to them, let him, after previous warning, be restrained by such punishment as seems proper by the provincial synod which we command to be celebrated every year. The official, however, shall be denied the commercial and other intercourse of the Christians, till in the judgment of the bishop all that he acquired from the Christians from the time he assumed office be restored for the needs of the Christian poor, and the office that he irreverently assumed let him lose with shame. The same we extend also to pagans. [Mansi, IX, 995; Hefele-Leclercq, III, 7.27. This canon 14 of Toledo was frequently renewed.]

CANON 70

Summary. Jews who have received baptism are to be restrained by the prelates from returning to their former rite.

Text. Some (Jews), we understand, who voluntarily approached the waters of holy baptism, do not entirely cast off the old man that they may more perfectly put on the new one, because, retaining remnants of the former rite, they obscure by such a mixture the beauty of the Christian religion. But since it is written: “Accursed is the man that goeth on the two ways” (Ecclus. 2:14), and “a garment that is woven together of woolen and linen” (Deut. 22: ii) ought not to be put on, we decree that such persons be in every way restrained b the prelates from the observance of the former rite, that, having given themselves of their own free will to the Christian religion, salutary coercive action may preserve them in its observance, since not to know the way of the Lord is a lesser evil than to retrace one’s steps after it is known.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran4.html

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