The Year of St. Joseph in Service of Fake "Servant Leadership"

Joseph may be the most important biblical role model (both good and bad) for twenty-first century Jews and Christians. https://t.co/j2fuM2sMcq pic.twitter.com/oseaigk79F

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) May 26, 2021

Naive Statists, Especially Roman Catholic Ones, Won't Do This

Think for a few minutes, every night before you go to sleep, about how you're going to change your relationship with authority and how to rethink your decent, natural inclination to comply and trust those who wield it -

given the circumstances now at hand.

Just a suggestion.

— Ron Coleman (@RonColeman) December 1, 2020

Freedom of Association

Freedom of association is important, but this essay strikes me as a typical libertarian/liberal exposition of that freedom. We can agree that there is a freedom of association, or a right of association, which cannot be infringed upon by some [higher] political authority.

Public Discourse: Reviving the Freedom of Association by Nathanael Blake

Blake builds upon this book from Kansas University Press: Why Associations Matter: The Case for First Amendment Pluralism by Luke C. Sheahan.

Restoration of Authority?

American Mind: Restore Authority to Education by John Peterson

"To solve the crisis of higher education, we must confront the rot in our primary and secondary schools. To do that, our communities must bring back authority to our schools at a time when that authority has all but disappeared." https://t.co/AUOnISZ0YG

— The American Mind (@theammind) May 19, 2020

To solve the crisis of higher education, we must confront the rot in our primary and secondary schools. To do that, our communities must bring back authority to our schools at a time when that authority has all but disappeared. Where can that authority come from? Only from our fundamental—and natural—laws.

There can be no restoration or proper exercise of authority without trust, and there can be no trust without a real community. Figure out the community problem first.

Romans 8:31

Looks like there is a new round of cracking down on dissenting views on Facebook. While social media may have some usefulness, those social media companies deserve to fade to red.

Fight the good fight.

The Agonist: The Need for Male Leadership and Authority by Christopher DeGroot

See also: Liberated for What? by Jack Trotte

The Psychological Need to Disassociate

from an organization or even a church.

Following up on these posts about the Latin churches:
A Church of "Social Justice" and "Solidarity"
More Disappointing Words from Cardinal Ouellet
How Will SSPX Latin Rad-Trads Deal With This?

What is one to do with a leadership that is out-of-touch, unaccountable, preaching a heterodox alternative to the Gospel, and refusing to observe proper boundaries between men and women?

Catholic leaders to Trump: Coronavirus pandemic not an excuse to crack down on immigration https://t.co/tSYTd7t3oU

— America Magazine (@americamag) April 24, 2020

“It is a policy rooted in the fear of the stranger, the other, the marginalized and the dispossessed,” San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy said.https://t.co/tSYTd7t3oU

— America Magazine (@americamag) April 24, 2020

Women in clericals is about THE most cringe-inducing sight out there! https://t.co/AmQntanReq

— Colleen Eldracher (@ColleenEldrach1) April 24, 2020

Some may be driven for the sake of one's integrity to disassociate from these pastors, because they do not represent Christianity or Christ as he thinks is appropriate. Why be tainted by such an association, or be judged as giving approval to their brand of "Christianity"?

The Repudiation of Hierarchy?

Or subverting it so that it becomes a form of narcissism?

Servant leadership is a term that needs to disappear from the Christian lexicon and from any form of catechesis. The theological objection? Christ came to serve not men, but as the Son who serves the Father.

Authority and leadership should be at the service of love, but they requires different from the obedience that is required of the man who serves another.

Making an Idol out of Sacred Authority?

First Things: Sacral Presidency by Peter J. Leithart

A semi-imperial presidency seems inevitable, though not because of gaps in the Constitution or the vulgar tastes of American voters. Benjamin Franklin may have been closer to the mark when he observed there’s a “natural inclination in mankind toward Kingly Government.” Whether they are monarchs or not, and whatever the constitutional limits placed on them, powerful leaders take on royalish trappings because politics is ineradicably sacral. Since the president is the “one,” he ought to transcend the sturm und drang of swamp politics, standing above sectional interests and faction as one president for one people. 

A solitary executive may lurch in an autocratic direction; l’etat, c’est moi. But in Christian and even post-Christian Europe, monarchs are sacred because they represent a divine authority to which they themselves are accountable. Presidents have served as the unordained priests of American religion. They take their oath of office on the Bible, often with the addition of “so help me God,” and end speeches with “God bless the United States of America.” President George H. W. Bush’s first act as president was to offer prayer. By comparison with the pageantry of Christendom, the sacral aura is dim—no anointing, no crown or cross. But it’s there. And properly so, since, as the solitary symbol of one nation, the president signifies the nation’s under-Godness.

Is fallen man inclined to making an idol out of political authority, especially since the mistake or distortion is made so easily, attributing to the man who rules god-like status? The farther one is from his fellows in status and power and most importantly, accountability (and mutual respect), the more likely the exaggeration?

One could argue that the authority of the husband over the wife and of the parents over their children is sacred as well, being derived ultimately from God. But we don't think about that much, and with that authority comes duty and accountability to God, as well as the responsibility to make sure one has the appropriate virtues to use that authority properly.

Beth Gibbons / Penderecki / Górecki - Symphony No. 3 Final Movement

Used for the trailer for A Hidden Life; Franz Jägerstätter's beatification by Benedict XVI would seem to confirm that there is a place for passive resistance to tyranny at least -- swearing allegiance or loyalty or a tyrant is not necessarily an absolute obligation. But whether one can do anything beyond this? No beatification yet of anyone committing or attempting tyrannicide.

There is No Right to Rule

As if someone could claim it for one's self, or that he received it from God.

Imaginative Conservative: Who Has the Right to Rule Us? by Alexander Salter

"Verbal" Intelligence

If you can't out-talk a woman out outperform her in the use of rhetoric, what option is left? Compelling them to good sense must be by extrarational, extraverbal means.

Does It Go Far Enough?

The Authority of Women in the Catholic Church by Monica Migliorino Miller - Emmaus Road Publishing - Google

(via Fr. Z)

Only a few pages of the most relevant chapter (6) are available -- and here the author equivocates on the word authority, speaking of the authority a woman has over herself (the right to choose to become a consecrated virgin, for example;she cites St. Augustine and claims that women have authority over their husbands, when her examples do not substantiate this claim. The only show that a woman has a right to speak out about her husband's sins and to protest them. She has no authority to enforce behavior or to claim obedience.

Another well-intentioned book by a conservative Catholic that is more problematic than it should be, as it is dressed up as a theological argument from authority? (Would the author claim to be a Catholic feminist? The book appears to be an elaboration of this essay.)

Wariness of a Strong International Authority

Empire and its Discontents
The push for more comprehensive global governance raises many questions, including "Who will control it and ensure that it deals rationally and effectively with the problems assigned to it?"
By James Kalb

First Things: The Weakness of Laudato Si by R. R. Reno

Leftists Agree with the Pope

Pope Francis, ISIS and the United Nations by LAWRENCE WITTNER
Global Problems Call for Global Solutions

The Replacement of Leadership by Bureaucracy

Post by U.S. Army.

Some reflections on the transformation of authority and leadership by the creation of bureaucracy soon, I hope.

Traditionalist and Catholic Worship of Authority

Old habits die hard? Even now there is resistance to the novel teachings of lawful resistance, regicide and other acts against an illegitimate temporal power. I don't expect the Church to ever denounce the modern nation-state as being illegitimate in itself, much less sanction violent means to secure and protect the common good of a community from usurpers.

Over at the Orthosphere: Democracy, authority, and the moral order.

How does the temporal order enact divine justice? How does God's mercy harmonize with His justice? Over the weekend I glanced briefly at an Orthodox writer's discussion of the two. While justice cannot be sufficient, as there must be charity which motivates and directs, is "human" justice a concession to a fallen world? Or is there something more "postive" to its being necessary?

Related:
Asserting Political Authority in a Sacred Landscape: A Comparison of Umayyad and Israeli Jerusalem

Two Responses to William Cavanaugh on the Modern State

Thomas Storck, William Cavanaugh's "Killing For The Telephone Company," A Critique

A response to both Storck and Cavanaugh: Cavanaugh and the Question of the State by Joshua Bowman

The major problem with Storck's critique is that he ignores the problem of scale - perhaps an assumption about scale is implicit in Cavanaugh's critique of the modern state but he should have made it explicit. Aristotle, as I don't cease to point out, certainly had much to stay about scale and we are reminded of the fundamental importance of scale to the health of a community by 20th century thinkers like Leopold Kohr, E.F. Schumacher, and Kirkpatrick Scale.

The consolidation of power, political and economic - facilitated by improvement in communication and cheap energy. Earlier large political units (I would not call them polities) were forced by the limits of energy and communication to be somewhat decentralized, with some empires more decentralized than others (Roman and Chinese and Persian).

What of the managerial state, with the development of bureaucracy which seeks to legislate every tiny detail? What bigger violation of "subsidiarity" could there be at this point, as the bureaucracy serves those who hold power and implements their will?

Even if they claimed to be sovereign would their claim be just or right?

Clueless Catholic Academics

Tradcon white-knighting: Hook-Up Culture and Catholic Schools

Someone needs to learn about hypergamy and the apex fallacy.

What about the complicity of academics when they knowingly make a living off of the students who are not given any boundaries by the administration (or academic senates), which pushed or supported the change from single-sex to coed? If universities didn't provide housing for students, they could wash their hands of responsibility. But in the push for more students in a co-ed "learning environment" hasn't there been a push for the construction of more dormitories, with general laxity or permissiveness in dorm life?

The Role of Government and the Liturgies of the Nation-State

As Catholics, we should recognize three points in our response:

1. There needs to be a recognition that governments (at whatever level) are in fact authentic agents of common responsibility. Or, in Catholic terms, governments are really and truly agents of solidarity. They are necessary is a number of ways, and potentially helpful in a number of others. Catholic social teaching, both medieval and modern, offers some clear guidance on both categories. The magisterial proof-texts here are well-known and numerous. We can’t be Anabaptists on this, nor can we be libertarians.

Is this an empirical claim or a normative one? If an empirical claim it is rather deluded - governments should be agents of solidarity but there are such thing as deviant constitutions and governments which look out not for the common good, but the private good of a select few.

Secondly, there can be no national solidarity. The scale does not permit it, except in an improper sense of the word.

As for the supposed American exceptionalism that was present from the very beginning -- Misuse of a Metaphor: In Search of the City on a Hill by John Willson. Catholics who have assimilated the post-Yankee mindset should be more critical in their acceptance of their myths.

I tire of the blather of Catholic academics on "contemporary issues." They should experience life beyond the ivory tower first.

Svein Sellanraa on a Different Alt Right

The Rise Of The Orthos

I think the founding idea of the orthosphere can be fairly oversimplified into this sentence: “The problem with the modern world is modernity itself”. For the orthos, the philosophical core of modernity is the rejection of the Aristotelian-Catholic idea that there are objective essences and purposes in the world. Many of the orthos trace this idea back to the nominalism of late-Medieval scholastics like William of Ockham, although they would also argue that it did not culminate until the 18th century and the Enlightenment. In philosophy, this modern nominalism gave rise to the idea that the world consists of nothing but meaningless, purposeless matter, and thence to modern atheism, materialism, relativism, and finally the complete nihilism which today is increasingly engulfing America and Europe. In ethics and politics, it produced a worship of autonomy – the idea that every individual can and should define its own purpose and destiny, unfettered by tradition, authority, or higher truth – which became the founding idea of every modern political ideology, from the classical liberalism of Locke to the redistributive leftism of the modern state.

Does the orthosphere start from a wrong premise, namely that there is such a thing as "modernity"? And that "modernity" is caused by the acceptance of nominalism? (Or voluntarism?) We can accept that liberalism is erroneous, but is it historically the problem that they think it is?

This is a radical idea, and it entails a radical conservatism. The orthos reject the Enlightenment project entirely, and espouse many ideas that are unfashionable even on the Right, including theocracy, censorship, and absolute monarchy. Their ideology centers around the defense of particular loyalties and moral communities, of traditional authority, traditional morality, the monarchy, the patriarchal family, the ethnos, and the Church. Many of them draw inspiration from the throne-and-altar conservatism of counterrevolutionaries like Joseph de Maistre, Louis de Bonald, and Juan Donoso Cortés, and seek to rescue the Middle Ages from the historical scrapheap. Needless to say, orthodox Christianity is central to the their thinking (hence the name) – in fact, I have yet to come across an ortho who is not a traditionalist Catholic or a conservative Protestant.

How much does this sort of traditionalism draws inspiration from throne and altar Europe? A limited version of monarchy is acceptable, like that of the middle ages, but not one based on royal absolutism.  (Absolute monarchy.) Setting aside the question on whether there are limits on the authority of the ruler, how can one separate the rise of the absolute monarch from nationalism and political centralization, both of which contributed to the fragmentation and ultimately, the destruction of Christendom? Then there is also state-church relations of that time, which was arguably detrimental to the freedom of the Church.

Once power has been consolidated, can it ever be given up?

It may be right to respond against the errors of the Enlightenment and liberalism, but one cannot take the arguments of traditionalists like de Bonald and others as the final say; one must return to Catholic political theology (not necessarily the same as Catholic Social Teaching).

How much of Bellarmine's development of Catholic political theology is good? (e.g. the origin of political authority) How different is English republicanism (whether in its original form or as it developed in the 17th century) from "classical" republicanism? (Against Throne and Altar: Machiavelli and Political Theory Under the English Republic [Hardcover] by Paul A. Rahe)

The common good must be a limit on all forms of human authority (not just monarchy), and tied to the common good are the limits to the size of a community. The question of whether there is a limit to authority (Is the ruler was answerable to anyone else? Is he above all human law?) was a crucial question during the history of Christendom.These traditionalists seem to prefer one answer, but I question whether it is the right one.

The group blog, The Orthosphere.

Related:
Something at Counter-Currents on de Bonald.