"unquestionable, and not to be suspected by Catholics"

"as regards mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, and similar subjects, one man will not, on the score of his religion, treat of them better than another . . . the works of even an unbeliever or idolator, while he kept within the strict range of such studies, might be safely admitted into Catholic lecture-rooms, and put without scruple into the hands of Catholic youths. . . .  so long as it is man who is the geometrician, or natural philosopher, or mechanic, or critic, no matter what man he be, Hindoo, Mahometan, or infidel, his conclusions within his own science, according to the laws of that science, are unquestionable, and not to be suspected by Catholics, unless Catholics may legitimately be jealous of fact and truth, of divine principles and divine creations."

     John Henry Newman, The idea of a university II.3 ("English Catholic literature").2.1; The idea of a university, ed. Frank M. Turner (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 1996), 180-181.

I have been speaking of the scientific treatises or investigations of those who are not Catholics, . . . but I might even go on to speak of them in their persons as well as in their books.  Were it not for the scandal which they would create; were it not for the example they would set; were it not for the certain tendency of the human mind involuntarily to outleap the strict boundaries of an abstract science, and to teach it upon extraneous principles, to embody it in concrete examples, and to carry it on to practical conclusions; above all, were it not for the indirect influence, and living energetic presence, and collateral duties, which accompany a Professor in a great school of learning, I do not see (abstracting from him, I repeat, in hypothesis, what never could possibly be abstracted from him in fact) why the chair of Astronomy in a Catholic University should not be filled by a La Place, or that of Physics by a Humboldt.  Whatever they might wish to say, still, while they kept to their own science, they would be unable, like the heathen Prophet in Scripture, to 'go beyond the word of the Lord, to utter any thing of their own head'" (181, italics mine).

Give the poor the benefit of the doubt, but love the truth above all

Historic Seals, The Weber Collection

"If a poor man has a quarrel with a rich man, support the poor rather than the rich—at least until the truth can be ascertained."

     Louis IX to the Dauphin, Enseignements 16 (8 in an older enumeration); Mark Helprin, Digital barbarism:  a writer's manifesto (New York:  Harper, 2009), 179, italics removed.

Se il avient que il ait aucune querelle d'aucun povre contre aucun riche, soustien plus le povre que le riche, jusques a tant que tu en saches la verité, et, quant tu entendras la verité, fai le droit.

     David O'Connell, The teachings of Saint Louis:  a critical text, University of North Carolina studies in the Romance languages and literatures 116 (Chapel Hill, NC:  The University of North Carolina Press, 1972), 57.  "P omits jusques. . . verité; D quousque scias veritatem."

Texte du confesseur de Marguerite:

Se il avient que aucune queréle, qui soit meue entre riche et poure, viègne devant toy, soustien plus le poure que le riche; et quant tu entendras la vérité, si leur fai droit.

Texte de Geoffroi:

et semper plus te teneas ex parte causæ pauperis quam divitis, donec sis certus de veritate.

     Les vrais enseignements du roi saint-Louis a son fils, ed. Léonard Joseph Marie Cros (Toulouse & Paris, 1874), 200, 80 (where there is a translation into modern French).

"In the celebration of the sacraments it is thus the whole assembly that is leitourgos, each according to its function, but in the 'unity of the Spirit' who acts in all."

"Sic, in celebratione sacramentorum, tota congregatio « liturgus » est, unusquisque secundum munus suum, sed « in unitate Spiritus » qui in omnibus agit."

     CCC 1144.

Victimhood as a form of scapegoating

Kirby Center
Hillsdale College

"in a society that retains its Judeo-Christian moral reflexes but has abandoned the corresponding metaphysics, . . . claiming victim status is the sole sure means left of absolving oneself and securing one's sense of fundamental moral innocence. . . .
". . . When one is a certifiable victim, one is released from moral responsibility, since a victim is someone who is, by definition, not responsible for his condition, but can point to another who is responsible.
     "But victimhood at its most potent promises not only release from responsibility, but an ability to displace that responsibility onto others.  As a victim, one can project onto another person, the victimizer or oppressor, any feelings of guilt he might harbor, and in projecting that guilt lift it from his own shoulders.  The result is an astonishing reversal, in which the designated victimizer plays the role of the scapegoat, upon whose head the sin comes to rest, and who pays the price for it.  By contrast, in appropriating the status of victim, or identifying oneself with victims, the victimized can experience a profound sense of moral release, of recovered innocence.  It is no wonder that this has become so common a gambit in our time, so effectively does it deal with the problem of guilt—at least individually, and in the short run, though at the price of social pathologies in the larger society that will likely prove unsustainable."

     Wilfred M. McClay, "The strange persistence of guilt," The hedgehog review:  critical reflections on contemporary culture 19, no. 1 (Spring 2017):  47-48 (40-54).

Bosworth on "the sociopathic collective" of right and left

Department of English,
University of Washington

"Whereas in the seventeenth century the challenge confronting the West was how to both license and tame the new social and intellectual atomism spurred by the printed book, the crisis today is how to express and restrain the messy, multifarious togetherness of the digitally interconnected field. . . .  Today, it is not the rogue individualist who threatens the social order but the sociopathic collective, whether the new gang of cyber-thieves or vandals, the virally vicious digital mob, or, more profoundly given its ever-increasing global power, the post-modern corporation, which has been adopting all the technological tools of togetherness while applying them for purely self-serving ends—which, like the Machiavellian plotter of old, has been usurping the authority of public governance while shirking that authority's traditional responsibilities."

     David Bosworth, "Knowing together:  the emergence of the hive mind," The hedgehog review:  critical reflections on contemporary culture 19, no. 1 (Spring 2017):  30 (18-31).

Pierre Ceresole

"Pray the Eternal to keep your weather-vane in good trim so that it readily responds to the true winds of the spirit and doesn’t get jammed by the rust of tradition in a position unrelated to the truth or to the true currents of the spirit."

     Pierre Ceresole (much less often in the catalogues, Cérésole), For peace and truth:  from the note-books of Pierre Ceresole, ed. and trans. John W. Harvey and Christina Yates  (London:  Bannisdale Press, 1954), 84 (in the section dated 1920-1933; "In 1936 Ceresole formally joined the Society of Friends" (100), though his "pacifist position differed . . . from that of perhaps most members of the Society of Friends in Great Britain" (102)).  Friends journal 2, no. 11 (March 17, 1956):  cover (161):

Pray the Eternal to keep your weathervane in good trim so that it readily responds to the true winds of the spirit, and does not get jammed by the rust of tradition in a position unrelated to the truth or to the true currents of the spirit.

I was introduced to these words by my colleague Carrie Fry.  The original French runs as follows:

"Priez l’Eternel de graisser votre girouette afin qu’elle s’oriente bien au vrai vent de l’Esprit, et ne reste pas calée par la rouille des traditions dans une position sans rapport aucun avec la vérité, ou avec un courant spiritual reel."

     Pierre Ceresole (much less often, though not in this book, Cérésole), Vivre sa vérité:  carnets de route,  Deuxième edition corrigée et augmentée (Neuchatel:  Editions de la Baconnière, 1950), 146-147 (in the section dated 1919-1926).

"what was visible in our Savior has passed over into his sacraments"

"Quod itaque Redemptoris nostri conspicuum fuit, in sacramenta transivit; et ut fides excellentior esset ac firmior, visioni doctrina successit, cujus auctoritatem supernis illuminata radiis credentium corda sequerentur."

     St. Leo the Great, Sermo 74.2 (Sermon no. 2 on the Ascension), as quoted at CCC 1115, but with "sacraments" substituted for "mysteries".  CCSL 138; PL 54, col. 398A.  NPNF, ser. 2, vol. 12, trans. Feltoe:

In order, therefore, dearly-beloved, that we may be capable of this blessedness [promised to those 'who have not seen and yet have believed'], when all things were fulfilled which concerned the Gospel preaching and the mysteries of the New Testament, our Lord Jesus Christ, on the fortieth day after the Resurrection in the presence of the disciples, was raised into heaven, and terminated His presence with us in the body, to abide on the Father’s right hand until the times Divinely fore-ordained for multiplying the sons of the Church are accomplished, and He comes to judge the living and the dead in the same flesh in which He ascended.  And so that which till then was visible of our Redeemer was changed into a sacramental presence, and that faith might be more excellent and stronger, sight gave way to doctrine, the authority of which was to be accepted by believing hearts enlightened with rays from above.