July 19, 2009AD
THE PATH TO THE PATH TO 911: When the gritty ABC movie, THE PATH TO 911 was broadcast many years ago, I predicted that it would never be released on video. A few minutes ago I checked Amazon to see if there was a listing. There was. Dated 2006, it solicted First to Know emails. Along with the listing were 59 comments. Mostly positive and anticipatory. Yet, three years later -- no video. Quel suprise as Senator John Kerry might say...not that he would have to.
FR. NEUHAUS STILL MATTERS: The late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus died in January of this year. He is not around to comment on Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical CARITAS IN VERITATE (CHARITY IN TRUTH or LOVE IN TRUTH, there seems some dispute and my Latin is old, very old). Yet his name has cropped up on Catholic radio this week. The always troubling "great man but..." phrase was used on a Catholic talk show. His close associate, George Weigel has also been attacked for his National Review Online criticisms and questions. Described as "spitting" by one commentator. Spitting is not something I would associate with Mr. Weigel, whose thoughtful books, along with FIRST THINGS and the late Fr. Neuhaus himself were critical to my adult confirmation this past Easter Vigil. What Mr. Weigel was doing was placing the new encyclical in its institutional context. That is, some of the folks at the Vatican who still think it's the Summer of Love. Here's where I know I must be disciplined as a new Catholic. There are always conflicts and tensions -- I'm in illustrious if undeserved company with the Blessed John Cardinal Newman and the late Cardinal Avery Dulles. I haven't heard the Continental term "anglo-saxon capitalism" used, but it swims just below the surface of critiicism of those who have questions about the encyclical. Anglo Saxons (one branch of my family) being notoriously suspicious of periodic government's plans to replace Christian Charity with Bureaucratic Love and Mercy.
Related: I talked with someone two weeks ago who was buying a book by Sr. Joan Chitterton. I mentioned that some years ago I had seen her on a Sunday morning pubic affairs show with Fr. Neuhaus. This person believe she had had the best of him. (Not my memory.) I replied that Father had a dry wit (translation: he spoke thoughtfully and unemotionally). "Well," said this person, "he's dry now." Someone I know at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy described this as "classless." At the very least. Why am I always taken off guard by this sort of high church leftism and its sharp elbows? Years ago I worked at Image Books and was exposed to the ugliness of post-Vatican II conflicts within the Church. It certainly figured in my long gestation toward becoming a Catholic.
PEGGY NOONAN... Amateur Conservative: What the hell does this former speechwriter for President Reagan actually believe in? You almost never read about principles, ideas, or political and philsophical conflicts in her columns. What you do get, whether she's writing about Gov. Palin or or Sen. McCain or Sen. Clinton (in this week's column she sounds like she actually voted for the former First Lady) is obsession with Language, Attitudes, Personality, Emotions, Deportment, Style. The late President had all these things, but in the service of Limited Government, National Security, Personal Liberty, and Liberty in Law (to quote from American the Beautiful). I wasn't surprised at all when an old friend said after the election it was her columns that persuaded him to vote for our current President. (Not that I wasn't exhausted after seven years of war like everyone else -- not that I have its mud and dust on my boots.) In the eighties he had been voting consistently for Ronald Reagan while I voted with the liberal herd in Prospect Park, Brooklyn for some of the most mediocre candidates in American History. I even swallowed in '92 (but not '96) President Clinton's "safe but rare" gambit on abortion. (Ever Green, the new President has recycled it.. fool me once...)
On talk shows Ms. Noonan softly coos and gently cajoles -- the physical expressions of her admittedly impressive talents as a writer. It's even a little sexy. But, as I learned in publishing, writers too often will write almost anything for anyone for a wilting Yankee Dollar. Just more evidence that Art and Music and Writing, like Science and Law, are not inherently moral.
I blame Bush. Because I'm tired. And why should I think or look at the facts any harder than the professionals?
But isn't the former President looking just a little bit better these days?
Thanks Peggy...
Sam Macomb
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