Cacciaguida

Defending the 12th century since the 14th; blogging since the 21st.

Catholicism, Conservatism, the Middle Ages, Opera, and Historical and Literary Objets d'Art blogged by a suburban dad who teaches law and writes stuff.


"Very fun." -- J. Bottum, Editor, FIRST THINGS

"Too modest" -- Elinor Dashwood

"Perhaps the wisest man on the Web" -- Henry Dieterich

"Hat tip: me (but really Cacciaguida)" -- Diana Feygin, Editor, THE YALE FREE PRESS

"You are my sire. You give me confidence to speak. You raise my heart so high that I am no more I." -- Dante

"Fabulous!"-- Warlock D.J. Prod of Didsbury

Who was Cacciaguida? See Dante's PARADISO, Cantos XV, XVI, & XVII.


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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
 
Eve writes (inter alia):
You could say that a work of art which requires the viewer to be Catholic already is a smaller work of art than one which commands a more universal audience.
But I wouldn't. I would say that a work of art that shows the viewer that he's already Catholic without knowing it -- because otherwise, he couldn't appreciate the work of art, yet he plainly does -- is plainly great.

Eve writes about a pre-conversion trip to Rome, and finding it very alien. I too visited Rome pre-conversion, and found it to be home. This was the more remarkable, because the same trip took in England, which also (in a very different way) felt very home-y -- only I was expecting it too. Rome's homelikeness took me by surprise.




 
David Cameron vowed today that if he was elected Prime Minister he would bring an end to the era of government secrecy over UFOs and extra-terrestrial activity.

Yes, it's time for the British government to tell all it knows about Bishop Williamson....




Tuesday, January 27, 2009
 
SSPX's Fellay forbids Williamson to speak on historical or political questions, dissociates SSPX from Williamson's views, asks Holy Father to "forgive" Williamson. Those of you who said Williamson would find a way to get himself re-excommunicated -- that may be the solution.




Sunday, January 25, 2009
 
Vatican decree lifts excommunication on SSPX bishops. As far as I can tell, this means no more than the mutual lifting of excommunications that took place between Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in 1965: neither any longer regards the other as personnally excommunicated, but it does not follow that communion has been reestablished between the ecclesial bodies of which they are the heads. The event of 1965 didn't reunify the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches; the lifting of the Lefebvre excommunications doesn't reintegrate the SSPX into the Catholic Church.

Please correct people whom you hear referring to these whingers -- especially the nutter Williamson -- as being "reinstated." They've been bishops ever since they were (illegally) ordained such, in 1988. So there's nothing to "re"-instate them in. But they aren't being given control of any diocese or dicastery, so they aren't being "instated" in anything. So what's being done? They, personally, are not excommunicated any more, neither more nor less. Hoop de doo.

EDITED TO ADD: Bp. Williamson is already exhibiting arrogance and flippancy in response to what is, in my judgment, the Holy Father's excessive generosity. Fr. Zuhlzdorf has the details.




Tuesday, January 20, 2009



Friday, January 16, 2009
 
Is this a great air mishap or what? Land in Hudson, use cushion-seat for flotation, grab cab, see Broadway show, have dinner at Sardi's!




Monday, January 12, 2009
 
It's an ill wind that blows nobody good: Planned Parenthood forced to lay off 20% of staff due to Madoff losses.




Thursday, January 08, 2009
 
Fr. Neuhaus, RIP

From Lutheran civil-rights activist to pro-life Catholic convert and priest -- always seeing each step as a fulfillment of the one before it.

Should a priest have spent so much time in specifically intellectual leadership, as distinct from pastoral, as Father did with the magazine he founded, First Things? Does First Things fulfill a worthwhile role by being broadly "traditional religious" rather than specifically Catholic?

Questions that have been asked. But no one who watched him unload a sharp and profound anti-abortion cannonade on a mostly secular-libertarian audience, as I once did, could doubt that he was an asset in the "culture wars." As for First Things, it is lonely testimony to the proposition that religious conservatives can produce a high-level intellectual review. That alone is a valuable life's work, and Father did more than that.




Monday, January 05, 2009
 
SF church vandalism case -- where the vandals are also "protestors" according to the headline

As news editors say, what's the story? Here, it seems, it's not just that a Catholic church was vandalized by gay activists, but that some sort of mistake was made, as if they just got the wrong address. Third graf:
But, the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church on Diamond Street is gay-friendly. Many parishioners voted against Prop 8 and they are upset their church was targeted.
We've already paid, don't you know! We burned the incense in front of the emperor's statue! We signed the contract! Don't we at least get to play with our souls in peace for a few years...?




Thursday, January 01, 2009
 
“Being that the Marine Corps can be sent anywhere in the world with the snap of his fingers, nobody has confidence in this guy as commander in chief,” said one lance corporal who asked not to be identified.
That's not (necessarily) my Jonathan Lee being quoted, but apparently it reflects the views of a lot of military personnel (a strong working majority, if the "pessimistics" and the "uncertains" were to form a coalition).




 
Happy Feast of the Mother of God, and Merry Chrisbris!