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Occasional notes by the guy who maintains the RatzingerFanClub and the Pope Benedict XVI Fan Club.
"perhaps the most underrated
Contact me at: blostopher "at" gmail.com
Benedict's Address to the American People at the W...
BLOGS I READ
Religiously-Oriented
"Secular"
Periodicals: Religious
Canticle Magazine Secular
The American Conservative
Newspapers - (Daily)
Al-Ahram Newspapers - (Weekly or Monthly)
The Forward Online Commentary News
BBC News For an Occasional Laugh:
This Site Adheres to the Welborn Protocol: All correspondence is blogable unless you specifically request otherwise. DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed on this blog do not necessarily reflect those held by Pope Benedict XVI or other members of the 'Ratzinger Fan Club' website, which serves as host to this online journal. COMMENTS POLICY (inspired by Donald Sensing):
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Nate Wildermuth on Benedict XVI, pacifism and "bending my stiff neck" "Bending my Stiff Neck" - Vox Nova's Nate Wildermuth -- an 'absolute pacifist' (to the point of condemning even justifiable defensive force, and with whom I have had scores of debates) -- wrestles with the words of the Holy Father: Over the past three days, I've had my 1000% daily recommended dose of 'Pope': waving "hi" and "bye" at the National Shrine, attending the mass at Nationals Stadium, reading his flurry of speeches/addresses/homilies over and over again, and most importantly - praying that the Holy Spirit will open my heart to learning from our Church and its leader. But I wasn't quite prepared for the opening salvo of our Holy Spirit, coming in the Pope's words at the White House: Praise to Benedict XVI for teaching by the force of his words and presence what positively reams of blogging and combox debating could not. And to Nate as well for his thoughtful post (and courage in publishing it). I can relate (to some extent), Nate -- my father's side coming from a Mennonite background and being politically-left / pacifist, I had to likewise reconcile long-held assumptions. Just as Catholic tradition makes a distinction between 'killing' and 'homicide', it seems to me that rather than condemning any and all use of armed force as "violence" [= evil], the Catholic tradition rather evaluates the use of force, judging its worth according to moral criteria. The former has often been dubbed the "‘dirty hands' tradition" (whereby to pick up a gun, even defensively, is to unavoidably involve one's self in sin), the latter the "just war tradition" of moral-reasoning and a moral evaluation of armed force. (My father examined this in an essay "War and the Eclipse of Moral Reasoning" back in 2002). None of this discounts the witness of pacifists -- who by their actions and adherence to nonviolence anticipate and manifest in this reality a time where the lion will truly "lay down with the lamb", where all swords will be "beaten into plowshares." Probably no movie illustrates this ongoing debate between the two traditions than one of my favorite movies, Robert Bolt and Roland Joffé’s 1986 film The Mission. Nate Wildermuth blogs at Vox Nova and Catholic Blues. Related Reading
Labels: catholic social teaching, justwar |
Currently Reading
Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded
Jesus of Nazareth
Joseph Ratzinger - Life in the Church and Living Theology
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