Yesterday in the Commons, the former Conservative Chancellor, Ken Clarke gave a classic speech on representative democracy, echoing what the Master, Edmund Burke said about their opinions to the electors of Bristol back in 1774:
Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgement, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
That is right. The Member of Parliament is not a delegate, bound to deliver what a majority of his electors want on any given issue. In the normal course of events that is clear enough, as General Elections are seldom, if ever, decided on a single issue. That, in an advisory referendum, a small majority of those who voted voted to leave the EU is an interesting development. It ought to have given the Government pause for thought, but whence the Gaderene rush to edge of the cliff? Cameron showed both a want of judgement and of character when he committed the Government to deliver ‘Brexit’ and then shoved off into well-paid retirement. A man of character would have acknowledged that the people had spoken, but would also have acknowledged the difficulties of acting on what has, after all, been a black and white question; at the very least a commitment to consult the electorate on the final terms of Brexit should have been granted. Those who wanted it should have had nothing to fear, and those who did not could have found some better arguments second time around. It is, in any case, absurd to decide such an issue on the basis of a referendum. But at least it was only an ‘advisory’ referendum; so why, then the rush to the exit?
The answer lies in the battle for the Tory leadership. No candidate who opposed Brexit could have won against ‘Boris’ or, once he was gone, Leadsome. So the dye was cast. Parliament had the chance to do what Burke said was its duty, but again, MPs with long-sttled views chnaged their vote because of ‘the people’. Now, if they really had changed their vote, all well and good, but if they simply trimmed their sails to the prevailing wind, then shame on them. Their job was to offer the country their best judgement, and if they thought staying in the EU was the right thing to do, they should have had the guts to have voted in that direction. When MPs decide to suspend their better judgement, it is time to worry.
All Along the Watchtower 
It is, or at least it should be, a difficult balance for a representative of the people in government. Burke is basically right, but it remains a knife edge. The other master, John Locke argued in the “Second Treatise on Government” that
“states that if the legislative should attempt to take away property of its people or try to put them to slavery, the legislative forfeits its power to the people. If the legislative does not forfeit its power, Locke not only encourages rebellion and revolution, but also views it as societies obligation. One might think that if all society needs to do when they are not satisfied with their government is to rebel, that there would be frequent rebellion and unrest in the society.”
http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/6/john-locke-and-the-second-treatise-on-government
That’s why the referendum was right, although Cameron’s conduct then and subsequently was deplorable (not in the good way) 🙂
“The end of government is the good of mankind; and which is best for mankind, that the people should always be exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes liable to be opposed when they grow exorbitant in the use of their power, and employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation, of the properties of their people?” John Locke
Thus the dichotomy we saw with Brexit, where so many who supported leave, saw Parliament as selling out British sovereignty. I know C. disparages this argument, and I understand why, but many British conservatives do hold to it. Which is why the day of the referendum has fairly often been referred to as British Independence Day. I personally find it hard to not equate the Parliament as it currently is to an absolute monarch, which has often acted against the interests of the British citizen, a view I’ve held since 8th-grade civics, by the way. In no case has that been so evident as in it’s attempt to transfer sovereignty to the European Union.
In many ways, this is where American and British conservatism schisms. Americans tend toward the absolutes stated by Locke, while the British often follow Burke’s more pragmatic approach. Who is right, or wrong? Who knows.
It’s a tough time to be an MP, duty pulls in many directions. Can’t say I envy them at all.
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Indeed, if lawful proposals are being made by our leaders we elected them for their judgement and their counsel and it is up to them to exercise these talents on our behalf or on their moral character.
We have no provision in the US for a federal referendum as you had in the UK. We can only do this locally and less commonly at the state level.
It seems to me, though I do not have my thumb on the pulse of the British people, that in a case where the traditional soveignty of the nation is at stake and the safety and continuance of the traditional culture is being overturned that it is as much the business of the individual countrymen as it is of the ‘experts’ and their individual ‘judgements’ on such matters.
For instance, if the founding documents were on a ballot to be scrapped and replaced with something very different by putting us under the purview of the UN for instance, then it is not up to our elected officials to do that . . . after all they were required to take an oath of office that would render them unfit for office if they broke their vow to uphold and preserve these documents. The same is true of the Catholic Church. It is our collective concern and if such a crisis arises then we must, as a matter of individual conscience, fight for what is fundamental to who we are as a people. We not only have a right to continuity of countries, cultures and rights given us by God but also a responsibility to fight even to the death against threats to our nation both foreign and domestic.
So I suppose that it is on how one views the EU. Did it preserve the individual nature of the member states or did it slowly beat them into some amalgous thing where the wills of these member states was no longer of any consequence? I don’t live there so I don’t know. I only know that I would have never agreed to the red herring of economic bread and circuses which led to the desire for disparate populations to form an alliance that would purportedly put a few quid in their pockets.
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“We have no provision in the US for a federal referendum as you had in the UK. We can only do this locally and less commonly at the state level.”
Actually, we do, in Article V of the Constitution. But it is so very drastic that we have never done so. I think that is a good thing, but like the 2d Amendment, it is always there to safeguard our freedoms.
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I am not speaking of the Constitutional right for an Ammendment to the Constitution but a popular vote or referendum by the people to create law. Continual dissent from such law, such as prohibition seemed to be, weighed heavily on the lawmakers until it was forced, in a practical sense, to rescind this measure. And yes, Article V is meant to safeguard our freedoms though the people are human and not robots as prohibition proved. People rarely go silently into the night.
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It amount to much the same thing, since the states can call it irrespective of the federal government. I’m not sure British law really had any provision for a national referendum, either, at least that could be construed as binding. Just another case, where Madison, made sure there was a method, short of war, to fix things.
Prohibition, now there was a real case of the Feds overreahing themselves. 🙂
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Indeed they did and they reaped the whirlwind that followed which only shows that not all individual ‘judgments’ honestly made by our elected leaders are equal. Sometimes, even men of character make drastic mistakes that must be corrected in time. 🙂
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True enough! 🙂
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And remember, in an Article V convention, it’s all on the table, just like what happened in Philadelphia, under the Articles.
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Yes, and if they put us under the UN or some other form of ‘law’ there will be hell to pay. It is why a North American EU solution is very unlikely. We just wouldn’t stand for it; unless I read my fellow Americans wrong. That is not to say that the progressives are not garnering strength for such globalizing moves but I think in the end they will fail or face civil war once again.
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Yep, even TTP and NAFTA were a hill to far for most of us. I’m pretty much a free trader, but I think bilateral deals are the way to make that happen.
If there’s a civil war 2.0 coming (and I don’t completely discount it) it will be started by the same people that started the first one – the Democratic Party.
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The Democratic Party hasn’t existed in a legitimate sense for some time. It was hijacked by radicals long ago and they have infiltrated a good part of the former Republican Party as well. I hope that this is a wakeup call for both parties or they are leading us into a conflict that is not going to be good for either one.
Indeed, these trade deals are smoke and mirrors for foreign aid gifts that they can’t get passed in Congress. So unless we sell these deals as a benefit for everyone then they go nowhere. We have seen the consequences of these bilateral deals and the losers are us. I am a proponent that every company, industry and country has a duty to protect themselves by constructing beneficial trade deals with individual customers . . . following all applicable laws of each partner of course. But to simply redistribute wealth and transfer jobs from country to country is not a benefit even if the cost of goods is lowered for the consumer. Of what use is lower prices if nobody is working or if our currency no longer has any buying power?
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There is truth in that, but there is also truth in the fact that tariffs hurt the poor much more than they do even the middle class. The answer is a balance, that doesn’t overly hurt our producers while not overly burdening anyone. Hard to get right, of course.
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To make myself clear I am not in favor of tariffs unless the country you are making trade deals with are manipulating their currency to give themselves unfair advantage. In such a case you have three option; don’t trade with them, force them to regularize their currency, or place a tariff on their products. Outside of that limited use of tariffs there is no practical upside to trade wars. That said, in instances where the playing field is being skewed from the start, any trade deal you make is going to decrease the middle class and increase the impoverished class which, as you stated, will be affected the most. So keeping the middle class or working class as the largest constituency helps the poor immensely. Lets face it: as far as helping the lower classes, they get more help from the middle class than they do from the upper class, the political wonks or the global elites. Diminish the middle class and the poor will suffer far more than poverty . . . most likely, starvation or imprisonment.
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Well said.
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To reopen yesterday’s conversation let me add this to what we have already said.
Ass to the legality of actions that Trump is taking regarding refugees and immigrants some scrutiny ought to be examined before we go willy nilly into Constitutional rights regarding countries of origin or religious beliefs. What is not being said is that there is a reasonable expectation that these wannabe Americans hold fast to beliefs (whether culturally from country of origin or if it arises from a particular religious belief) which threatens the security of our people or our nation then we have every right to ban them from entry. I don’t care if they want to believe in a sun god or what have you. What I do care about is if they hold to religious or ideological precepts that render Amercan law secondary. Sharia law is a problem for the West and most Muslims believe in it. Just as I will oppose issuing citizenship to a religion that believes in cannibalism, human sacrifice or forced conversions, I find that it is our right and responsibility to preserve and protect the people of the United States. Given that they are gaining ascendency due to immigration and long-term ascendancy due to increased birth rates we become nothing more than an annex of the Middle East . . . with a trajectory toward full blown Middle Eastern values.
Now this world would have been a very different place had the Moors not been driven from Gaul or if we had lost the Battle of Lepanto. We have been here before . . . the only difference is that we united in our fight against this threat to our ideas of justice; of right and wrong. We are plying law against law to show our ‘tolerance’ at the expense of our common sense and safety.
The conversation is not specific enough in my view. It is always about the peripheries of the law. I see no reason to oppose this in order that we ‘appear’ welcoming though we invite wolves to live among sheep. I don’t think anyone wants to kill the wolves but getting them to lie down with sheep is impossible. Only God will accomplish that. In the meanwhile it is up to us to be practical and do the best we can.
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Yes, well said. I would only add that I have little problem with killing wolves, once they have been shown to be hostile. That’s the purpose of sheepdogs, of course.
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Yes it is and we would be better served by sheep dogs than the hireling shepherds we have seen as late.
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Concur. But that’s the leadership, not the sheepdogs, per se.
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No, but today they are shooting the sheepdogs rather than the wolves.
Another thing that I would forward to both C and to Malcolm.
It seems to me that there is a complete disconnect between the embrace of the globalist EU ideal and the embrace of Muslims and their culture.
Does anyone think that these two things are compatible? Muslims will never embrace globalist ideals unless they are in charge and sharia is the law of the world; and even then they have factions that hate one another. Seems incompatible and an impossible path . . . to integrate Muslims into a globalist world is about as likely as mixing oil and water and thinking that they are somehow reconcilable.
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I’ve said that myself, many times. Strikes me as cognitive dissonance, either that or willful blindness.
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Perhaps both my friend. We are not asking the right questions or making the right arguments in my mind. Everybody seems to find comfort in their particular foxhole. But they won’t be when they are overun by the enemy.
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True enough. Maybe we’re not, or maybe they know something we have no clue about. I simply don’t know, it seems very obvious to me.
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Agreed. A bit more transparency without the PC filter would be welcome but I’m not going to hold my breath.
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No, I won’t either, I’m pretty ugly with a blue face. 😉
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And imminent death by suffocation is not particularly helpful either. 🙂
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🙂
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I am concerned by the question of whether our MPs are really qualified to do the jobs for which they are elected. At least our mandarinate – though unelected – goes through training and needs to pass basic entry requirements (save perhaps in the case of positive discrimination). As far as I am concerned, a degree in PPE is no qualification to serve in the government or sit in the commons. Neither is a degree in Law. Law we may argue is a necessary preparation, but hardly a sufficient one. We will not advance until we reform the very Commons.
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I don’t necessarily disagree, but what sort of qualification could be devised that would be fair and reasonable? And remember, Lincoln had about 6 months of formal education, Eisenhower a BS degree, most of the others somewhere in that neighborhood. British history says those are somewhat better educated, but not all that much, Churchill being the example. The only one we have for the USG are age and for the President natural born citizen. I don’t see what possible criteria could be used. Maybe you do, if so please carry on.
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“Their job was to offer the country their best judgement, and if they thought staying in the EU was the right thing to do, they should have had the guts to have voted in that direction. When MPs decide to suspend their better judgement, it is time to worry.”
But, during the referendum I’m sure their voice was heard and much money was spent. So, after the people voted, the MPs, IMHO, have no choice but to follow the people. Nationalism could very well set the world on fire, but at least the environmentalist will be happy at the reduction of human beings, who are in their opinion, destroying the earth. 🙂 🙂 For those in Norfolk, that’s humor!
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good news, again IMHO. http://voxday.blogspot.com/2017/02/you-cant-break-brexit.html
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And what of the 48% who voted to remain – and in constituencies like the one I live in at the moment where 80% voted to stay in? Did they lose their right to be represented?
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I understand what you are saying and feeling. But, maybe the mistake was having the referendum in the first place. Cameron expressed his thoughts and risked his political life on the outcome. Bad move. Some in California are starting a move to seceded from the US. Maybe that’s a choice for London, eastern England,… The forgotten people, worldwide, want a voice also.
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Yes, the whole idea of a referendum is, in my view, antithetical to representative democracy. Cameron called it because it got him out of a short-term political hole; we now face a deeper one – still, he’s on the lecture circuit earning mega-bucks, so what does he care?
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It doesn’t matter that Parliament did not explicitly delegate the power to the people in the referendum. Parliament condescended to consult with the people on the question. That is sufficient – that it was deemed the people should be consulted. By taking that step, Parliament morally forewent (is this a word?) the right to make its decision on a ‘representative basis’ (i.e., to defy the will of the majority).
Referenda are abnormal events. But legal niceties cannot triumph over political reality.
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It was ‘advisory’, but our rulers showed their lack of spine by, in many cases, voting for something they think is wrong.
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Voting for a sub-ideal option, as the lesser of two or more evils, can surely be defensible.
Nobody can reasonably argue, or indeed has argued, that Brexit is intrinsically evil.
Given the referendum result, Parliament has acted in the only way it could to 1) preserve its own credibility, 2) avoid protracted bickering, 3) give the Government the firmest possible basis for negotiation.
I believe those who voted for the Bill, despite their prior position to Remain, on grounds of the common good, did more nobly than those who pettishly – and futiley – obstructed the process.
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It seems more complicated to me, though I take your good points. Those MPs whose constituents voted overwhelmingly for Remain’ seem to me under a duty to reflect that.
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But would those constituents also, in the same numbers, have voted to frustrate the outcome?
I doubt it.
That’s the key question.
Certainly some would have. But many would not.
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Though of course, I agree that most Parliamentarians are invertebrates.
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Any way, how are you doing Chalcedon?
You must be glad that Trump has defunded Planned Parenthood.
You know that wouldn’t have happened if anyone else had got into power.
I would glady suffer any amount of boorish oafishness, to save one little baby from the murdering witches.
And that really seems to be what it comes down to. Liberals don’t like the brash, macho-male. I don’t like him either; but I like the alternative a lot less!
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Not too badly – fearfully busy with the new job which requires me to be in London most of the week. Yes, whatever is wrong with Trump, what he doing on abortion is good.
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Must dash! Cheerio
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While he was on the campaign trail, Donald Trump was asked an intriguing question by Bob Lonsberry of WHAM 1180 AM, a local radio station in Rochester, New York.
‘Is there a favourite Bible verse or Bible story that has informed your thinking or your character through life, sir?’ Lonsberry said.
Trump’s answer? ‘An eye for an eye.’
If you wanted a quick glimpse inside Trump’s brain, that quote’s as good as any. It captures his narcissism, his thin skin, his exponentially cranked-up aggression.
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. . . and Moses and David were murderers. God can work with broken vessels and does so quite often.
You’re ‘intriguing question’ is a common one used by the ‘pop psychology’ loving left. It is right up there with: “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be”? There are many variations of that theme and there are no good answers for they will find something to criticize you about no matter what pops into your mind. It is the left’s version of the Rorschach test.
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But even so our Lord said we must love our enemies and pray for them. Moses and David may have been murderers, but Jesus has instigated an alternative society.
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“Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.”
He told us to love our neighbors, He didn’t tell us to surrender our people to their will.
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Sounds like you believe that loving our enemies means handing over the reigns to satan. Our storied history from Genesis through today is filled with conflict with evil. Loving one’s enemy in my mind is a desire to take the yoke of evil off the backs of as many people as possible and setting them free; saving souls by teaching the gospel and resisting evil, even by force if necessary; praying for those who oppose Christ but NOT closing our eyes or turning our backs on the victims of the enemy so he can have his way with us. Until the winnowing is finished here on earth we will not have a lasting peace until we are freed from the influence of evil on us; in other words in heaven. A false irenicism which has become quite popular as late, seems to be one of the best lies that satan has manufactured yet; to use the love of Christ to lull Christians into weakening their resistence to his ever-present influence and destructive designs for every human soul. Christ’s alternative society is the spiritual reality within the Church He founded. It is not found in the world.
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Well I don’t think Trump is a very good Christian example.
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He isn’t Malcolm but then he wasn’t running for Pope or leader of the Christian world. But he has done more for Christianity than any president of recent memory already. He is defunding abortion and has placed a pro-life judge who will eventually be placed in SCOTUS. Would anyone else have done that? He is giving precedence for persecuted Christians coming out of Syria and he is only getting started. I’ll take that anyday over a nice Christian who doesn’t want to ruffle any feathers and wants to make everybody happy.
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Scoop, You seemed to be obsessed with Satan.
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I believe satan exists and is seeking the ruin of souls. Don’t you?
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BTW as a pastor have you ever come upon someone you suspected of being possessed or obsessed? I have in my 70 years of life and the most frightening of them were two priests. When Christ says to Peter that satan wants to sift you like wheat He wasn’t just a kiddin’. He desires the souls of the holy more than any other trophies he can gather. Best be alert and conscious that satan is very good deceiver.
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NB: I meant to say “possessed or oppressed” not “obsessed” as that was you word concerning me. Sorry for that typo.
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Yes Satan most assuredly does exist and that he seeks the destructioon of souls. But I also believe that he is a defeated enemy and we must not give him credit for everything with which we disagree. Some of the comments made about President Obama have been uncharitable and downright nasty. .
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He is mortally wounded and like a mortally wounded beast is ferocious. As a spirit-being he far outstrips our intelligence. I give satan credit for nothing . . . I place blame at his doorstep for his thirst for robbing Christ of human souls.
Yes Obama had some criticism, though it pales in light of what has been thrown at Trump. And was Obama a friend to the Christian? Please tell me that the obvious was also obvious to you.
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I don’t think Obama was an enemy to Christians. Many RC’s in your county voted for him.
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I meant COUNTRY
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Most did, in fact. That does not take away the fact that he robbed the Christians of their personal conscience in things that they were morally obliged to reject. He and his administration put forward a movement to regularize sodomy, transgenderism, same sex marriage and a host of other things that books will be written about someday. He used race-baiting and thuggery to oppose anyone who went against him; not simply verbal expressions . . . real beatdowns which the left loves to support and fund. One can say that he never let a good crisis go to waste and he thrived on creating one crisis after another. He prejudged policemen and tried to intimidate the legal system before the facts were even known etc. etc. etc. The list is legion.
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Scoop, I have to take your word for all of that. Its news to me.
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It is to our shame that Catholics remain in good standing after voting for a man who was unabashedly pro-abortion. But then we have largely been dumbed down to the point these days that does not allow us shame for anything anymore.
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Malcolm, Scoop is exactly on point here, in fact, he may be understating the case. No man is completely evil, but Obama is as bad as any I’ve dealt with.
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Scoop, Re your question regarding possession. Yes as a priest I have encountered two individuals who I considered to be possessed by Satan. With the Bishop’s authority and help I had to perform and exorcism a few years ago.. It was a terrifying experience and affected me for some time subsequently.
I live in Cornwall and here much of the “old religion” still exists. Witchcraft and Satanic circles are still rampant in the extreme South West.
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Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between possession and oppression but I too have seen the beast through those he uses. And once you’ve seen such things you are certain that evil spirits exist and that they can be quite terrifying. I am not obsessed but I am also not unaware or blind to the lies that satan tries to sell as a good. He twists and perverts every truth of Christ and the Church and fools many with his sweet and gentle manner of recruitment. His anger is usually only seen when he knows that he is found out and then the true spirit of the enemy is unleashed.
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Scoop I don’t seriously believe that you are obsessed with Satan, but it was interesting to discover what your reply would be to my comment. I don’t think anyone who is serious about preaching the Gospel can be unaware of the devil’s tactics. To the discerning Christian his trade marks are obvious.
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They are indeed Malcolm and I was one who bought into the biggest lie of satan [that he doesn’t exist] when I was much younger. To me that was like believing in Martians and leprechauns.
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I’ve always accepted the existence of the Devil. Possibly this is due to my cultural background. The English have invaded Cornwall in their droves, but I’m a Celt and the supernatural both good and evil has always been a power to be reckoned with.
I wouldn’t be to dismissive of leprechauns. Have you ever read any books by Father Noel Dermot O’ Donoghue. He was a Carthusian. Two of his books on Celtic Spirituality are marvellous. The Angels Keep Their Ancient Places and The Mountain Behind the Mountain are very fine studies. The Irish, the Welsh, the Scottish and the Cornish share a common heritage.
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With apologies to the Irish for the above statement, I no longer have anything against the belief in leprechauns. 🙂
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. . . that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs. –2 Corinthians 2:11
One of the most sobering facts about life is that all humans have a supernatural enemy whose aim is to use pain and pleasure to make us blind, stupid, and miserable — forever. The Bible calls him “the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world . . . the accuser” (Revelation 12:9–10), “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31), and “the god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
He is our “adversary [who] prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Yet, in the most appalling and unwitting bondage, the whole world willingly “follows the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). At his most successful, his subjects march obliviously to destruction, and take as many with them as they can.
The “good warfare” (1 Timothy 1:18) that I wrote about under the title “Awake and at War” includes the daily resistance of this enemy (1 Peter 5:9; James 4:7), the daily refusal to give him an opportunity (Ephesians 4:27), and the daily stand against his schemes (Ephesians 6:11).
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Well done and I expect nothing less from a pastor. Sadly there is a lack of pastors who are both orthodox and spritually astute enough to lead us through what may be the worst crisis yet to infect the Church. You sound as though you are trying your best to be both Malcolm and I admire that very much. It is difficult for pastors in these times. Sometimes we forget that our pastors are attacked far more than we lay persons and that they have much to endure.
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One lesson I have learned is that Satan often appears in disguise. Hence the name Lucifer. What might appear good in reality turns out to be demonic. Dante’s Divine Comedy is a book to which I often refer. .
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The lives of many saints verify this as well. I remain constantly alert.
Now Malachi Martin is rather controversial and I think much of this is because of the smoke of satan. I am of the opinion that he was a good man. His controversial book, A Windswept House, was both frightening and very sad. It was written as faction and much of the beginning of the story took place in my own diocese of Charleston. As it turn out much of this is true . . . only some of the places and names were changed but for those who knew these persons they were thinly disguised. I had a friend who called Malachi and asked if that part of the story were true and he affirmed that it was. It also matched much of my old mentors in faith had to add along with investigations by Stephen Brady another of years later. It was truly diabolical and sickening. So in plain sight the holy and good was only a posturing of the diabolic at work. Such things are disturbing but we have hope as long as there are still people who fight for the truth and are not taken in by appearances. Such a view has helped me I think though the mentoring of my deceased pastor friends is missed. Seems I am on my own now and I fear I have not the wisdom or insight that they were able to guide me with. But then it seems that we are all suffering from these same confusions. We can only do the best we can and keep looking for another with more wisdom to lead us like a good shepherd.
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Malcolm & Scoop, good discussion.
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Thanks Steve. I’m not too good on politics, but theology is my abiding interest.
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Scoop, I read a book by Malachi Martin ages ago and must confess it was very confusing. It was called Jesus Now. All the way through it made me unhappy and in the end I destroyed it. His version of Jesus wasn’t the one in which I believed and was taught from my youth up..
Although I’m an Anglican, and my Church is in a bit of a muddle I’m a traditional believer. If I was to name a book that has helped me enormously it would be Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity. In fact his papacy will probably be judged by later generations as one of the best Pontiffs.
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Well that was one his eariest books other than the scholarly works he did on the Dead Sea Scrolls. His writings, in my opinion, are best understood by what this man endured in the changing Church and his changing Jesuit Religious Order. His best works in my mind are his novels that he called faction; based on personal knowledge and his vast connections in Rome and among the clergy.
You don’t get chosen to be an exhorcist in the Catholic Church without being considered at the time of the appointment the best of the best in orthodoxy and spiritual strengh. So, did he have a fall as some seem to think or did write what he knew about . . . . airing the truth [and dirty laundry] without specifically naming names. I am sure that behind the scenes he had already attempted to that with his superiors both in the Jesuits and in Rome where he worked. He is a mystery and don’t even suggest that people read his books because they are quite depressing concerning the state of the Church. But if one is firmly planted in the Church and knows much of what is wrong, then he only confirms that which we already suspected and perhaps knew from our narrow perspective: his was much broader.
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Oh and yes Ratzinger is good for the soul. Malachi is not and is not intended to be. He is not a spiritual writer per se but a master at revealing the workings of evil and exposing those workings within the Church itself. People that don’t have the stomach for that should stay clear but he does have his purpose. After all, as an exorcist for many years and hundreds of exorcisms he knew the demonic quite well.
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Chapter 3 in Ratzinger’s book is marvellous. “The God of Faith and the God of Philosophers. Benedict makes the point that the Philosophical God is essentially self centred in contrast to the God of faith is defined by the category of relationship. He is creative fulness encompassing the whole. I recently bought the 2004 edition. It superb and I can recommend it.
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Ratzinger’s body of work will speak for itself. His break with tradition by creating a Pope Emeritus position will, I am afraid, reflect poorly on him and perhaps eclipse that which he should be remembered for. We are in uncharted territory here and it has thrown the Church into pandemonium after the Galen mafia got their man elected and Benedict XVI’s silence is deafening during these difficult and confusing times. I suppose Francis could take the same path and we could elect a third Pope . . . sounds like we are creating Pope’s with term limits. Its hard to accept and hard not to have strong reservations about this situation.
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Believe me dear Scoop, I fully understand your reservations and anxiety about Benedict’s subsequent actions and silence, but I read his book long before the present predicament. I was disappointed myself when he resigned. At the time it was a shock – even to an Anglican like me. However his book remains for me a source of faith and hope. .
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