Useful idiots

"the overthrow by means of revolutionary violence of structures which generate violence is not ipso facto the beginning of a just regime. A major fact of our time ought to evoke the reflection of all those who would sincerely work for the true liberation of their brothers: millions of our own contemporaries legitimately yearn to recover those basic freedoms of which they were deprived by totalitarian and atheistic regimes which came to power by violent and revolutionary means, precisely in the name of the liberation of the people. This shame of our time cannot be ignored: while claiming to bring them freedom, these regimes keep whole nations in conditions of servitude which are unworthy of mankind. Those who, perhaps inadvertently, make themselves accomplices of similar enslavements betray the very poor they mean to help [(Ii qui, fortasse inscii, consortes se reddunt eiusmodi subiugationum, pauperes decipiunt quibus inservire volunt)]."

     Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect, and Alberto Bovone, Secretary, for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Libertatis nuntius, or Instructio de quibusdam rationibus «Theologiae Liberationis» (Instruction on certain aspects of the "theology of liberation") XI.10, 6 August 1984 (AAS 76 (1984):  876-909), italics mine.  I was put onto this by Edward Feser, All one in Christ:  a Catholic critique of racism and Critical Race Theory (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press, 2022), 141.

Creation does not wait with eager longing for the extinction of man

"the hope of creation does not extend, for example, to the capacity of shaking off the human yoke one day.  It waits for man transfigured, man who has become the child of God.  This man gives back to creation its freedom, its dignity, its beauty.  Through him creation itself becomes divine. . . .  every creature is oriented toward the expectation of this event.  It is an infinite responsibility that is thus entrusted to humans—to be the accomplishment of every aspiration of earth and heaven."

     Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "On hope," trans. Esther Tillman, Communio:  international Catholic review 12, no. 1 (Summer 1985) =35, no. 2 (Summer 2008):  313 (301-315), citing H. Schlier.  According to Schlier/Ratzinger, "the one who subjected [creation] to [vanity] (Rom 8:20). . . . is Adam."  But if was the sin of Adam that thus subjected it, then how, precisely, was this done "in hope"?  For "the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope".  (On the other hand, can God be said to "hope"?)

"whoever does not give God, gives too little"

"Whoever does not give God gives too little [(chi non dà Dio, dà troppo poco)]; and whoever does not give God, whoever does not enable people to see God in the face of Christ, does not build anything up but rather, wastes human activity in false, ideological dogmatism, and so ultimately only destroys.
     "Don Giussani preserved the centrality of Christ and it was exactly in this way that he that he was able, by means of social works and needed services, to help mankind in this difficult world, where Christians bear an enormous and urgent responsibility for the poor."

     Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Funeral homily for Msgr. Luigi Giussani, Milan Cathedral, 24 February 2005, as translated by Communion and Liberation for Communio:  international Catholic review 31, no. 4 (Winter 2004):  685-687.  The Italian in which the homily was delivered is here.  The context:  "the temptation [in the face of the 'extreme poverty and misery' of Brazil] . . . to say, 'Just for the moment we will have to set Christ aside, set God aside, because there are more pressing needs.  First we have to change structures, fix the external things; first we must improve the earth, and after that we will be able to find heaven again.'"

From an idealism of essence to an idealism of existence

It is possible to "pass from an idealism of essence, opposing the soul to the body, to an idealism of existence, opposing freedom [(la liberte)] to nature, but it is always [still] a question of an idealism of a dualizing tendency.  [Formerly] one opposed the body to the soul, as the inessential to the essential.  From [Sartre and de Beauvoir] on it is nature that one opposes to freedom.  What is refused is still the natural, the most elementary of givens, the corporeal."

     François de Muizon, Homme et femme:  l’altérité fondatrice (Paris:  Éditions du Cerf, 2008), 45, as quoted by Agnès Villié, "La gender theory ou la négation de la différence sexuelle," Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 110, no. 1 (Jan-Mar 2009):  67 (55-80), translation mine.
     But is it also indisputable that "indifference to the man-woman difference is . . . intrinsically tied to indifference to the man-God difference"? (198, from 72)

"one participates in humanity only by being a man or a woman"

"the human being in itself, unsexed [(en soi, asexué)], does not exist, because one participates in humanity only by being [a] man or [a] woman.  Sexual determination is therefore neither accidental nor secondary, but constitutive of every [(toute)] human person.  It is therefore decisive for the comprehension of its nature and of the fact that it was created in the image and likeness of God. . . ."

     Agnès Villié, "La gender theory ou la négation de la différence sexuelle," Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 110, no. 1 (Jan-Mar 2009):  70 (55-80), translation mine.  This may be my only chance to note that it was sloppy of Villié to quote Heidegger as having claimed that "sexual difference is [the one thing to be thought through] in our time" (55), citing Irigaray.  No, that was Irigaray herself. 

The abscissa and the ordinate

"The difference of the sexes and the difference of the generations constitute the abscissa and the ordinate of every human being, the two fundamental givens which cannot be muddled up without there following from this a profound [(tout entier)] disintegration [(désorganisation)] of the human being. . . . .  [I]f such behaviors are not, as some are claiming explicitly, deviations, but variations, . . . then the very boundary between nature and culture must be re-defined."

     Marie Balmary, Le sacrifice interdit:  Freud et la Bible (Paris:  Grasset, 1985), 35, 559-582 [!], as quoted in  Agnès Villié, "La gender theory ou la négation de la différence sexuelle," Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 110, no. 1 (Jan-Mar 2009):  69 (55-80), translation mine.  See also Villié, 75-76, 79 ("A society that loses a sense for the reality of the difference of the sexes and of the bond between the generations, from which [loss] it does not seem possible to be delivered without grave damage to humanity, tends to lose also freedom of thought").

Demon trum

"it should be made lawful for any magistrate to commit a confirmed and notorious trombone-player to the lunatic asylum, and to appoint a Receiver and Administrator of his property.  Books, tracts, and lectures on the evils of brass instruments should be employed to develop a healthy public sentiment, and the young should be induced to join societies pledged to total abstinence from brass in every form.  But there must be no delay.  The evil must be met by legal methods now. . . ."

     "The brass instrument habit," The New York times, 28 July 1880, p. 4.  I have also a complete scan of the original on file, but you can see a transcription of the whole at Musicology for Everyone.

"Stephen is not . . . to be supposed to have loved his enemies when he prayed for them, yet not to have loved them when he reproved them"

"Stephen is not . . . to be supposed to have loved [his] enemies when he prayed for them, yet not to have loved [them] when he reproved [them] by censuring their unbelief [(Neque . . . existimandus est Stephanus tunc inimicos dilexisse cum pro eis oraret, et non dilexisse cum eorum incredulitatem arguendo corriperet)]. Such a thing [(hoc)] would be unworthy of [(absit ab)] the soul of a martyr hastening to the palace of heaven.  For that holy charity kept to [(servavit)] a firm patience in prayer which held fast to [(tenuit)] a rigid censure in reproof. And lenity merited to be heard in prayer because [(ideo . . . quia)] without charity there was no severity-in-reproof.  And so [(ac per hoc)], whether by praying or by reproving, Blessed Stephen stocked up on [(reservavit)] charity, because he aimed via both methods [(utrobique)] at [(cogitavit)] the salvation of the errant, and the presence [(indicio)] of holy prayer was proof [(ostendit)] that th[e] rebuke [derived] not from animosity, but from love [(amoris)]."

     St. Fulgentius of Ruspe (462/468-527/533), Sermon 3.3 on St. Stephen the Protomartyr and the Conversion of St. Paul, translation, italics, and underscoring mine.  Latin from PL 65, col. 731A, not yet CCSL 91A (1968), ed. Fraipont, 905-909.

"This, surely, is the true life, my brothers!"

     "[3.] And so the love that brought Christ from heaven to earth raised Stephen from earth to heaven; shown first in the king [(Rege)], it later shone forth in his soldier [(milite)]. . . . Love was Stephen’s weapon [(armis)] by which he gained every battle, and so won the crown [(coronam)] signified by his name. His love of God kept him from yielding to the ferocious mob; his love for his neighbour made him pray for those who were stoning him. Love inspired him to reprove those who erred, to make them amend [(Per caritatem arguebat, ut corrigerentur)]; love led him to pray for those who stoned him, to save them from punishment. Strengthened by the power of his love, he overcame the raging cruelty of Saul and won his persecutor on earth as his companion in heaven [(et quem habuit in terra persecutorem, in coelo meruit habere consortem)]. In his holy and tireless love he longed to gain by prayer those whom he could not convert by admonition. . . .
     "[5.] . . . Now at last, Paul rejoices with Stephen, with Stephen he delights in the glory of Christ, with Stephen he exults, with Stephen he reigns [(Et ecce nunc Paulus cum Stephano laetatur, cum Stephano Christi claritate perfruitur, cum Stephano exsultat, cum Stephano regnat)]. Stephen went first, slain by the stones thrown by Paul [(trucidatus lapidibus Pauli)], but Paul followed after, helped by the prayer[s] of Stephen. [6.] This, surely, is the true life, my brothers, a life in which Paul feels no shame [(non confunditur)] because of Stephen’s death [(occisione)], and Stephen delights [(gratulatur)] in Paul’s companionship [(consortio)], for love fills them both with joy. It was Stephen’s love that prevailed over the cruelty of the mob, and it was Paul’s love that covered the multitude of his sins; it was love that won for both of them the kingdom of heaven.
     "Love, indeed, is the source of all good things; it is an impregnable defence, and the way that leads to heaven. He who walks in love can neither go astray nor be afraid: love guides him, protects him, and brings him to his journey’s end [(perducit)].
     "My brothers, Christ made love the stairway [(scalam)] that would enable all Christians to climb to heaven. Hold fast to it, therefore, in all sincerity, give one another practical proof of it, and by your progress in it, make your ascent together. . . ."

     St. Fulgentius of Ruspe (462/468-527/533), Sermon no. 3, secs. 3 and 5-6 on St. Stephen the Protomartyr and the Conversion of St. Paul, as translated for the Liturgy of the hours, but with ellipses re-inserted by me.  Latin from PL 65, cols. 729-732, not yet CCSL 91A (1968), ed. Fraipont, 905-909.  At some point I'm going to have to translate the whole thing.