More symptoms of insanity on the American right

[fpb]

In yesterday's American Thinker, a man with the Italian name of Bonelli wrote the following, extremely offensive statement:

The United States is different from most other countries in many ways. One unique aspect of our country is that our elected officials, officers of the court, and the military, all pledge their allegiance to the Constitution and not to an office, individual or party. This assures continuity of the ideals set forth by the founders.

As an Italian citizen, I have personally sworn to defend the Constitution of my country when I served in the Italian army. The presumption involved in this ignorant display of insular arrogance is an insult to every constitutional government in the world.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

We are enthusiastic learners. Abortion, divorce, euthanasia - all of them came to Europe from North America. In the Nuremberg trials, the Nazi Home Secretary Frick pointed out that Nazi eugenistic politics followed American precendent, and even embarrased one of the American prosecutors, Robert Kempen, a German refugee, by revealing that he, Frick, had written to him, Kempen, giving an account of those policies, when Kempen was already in the American government's employ. And if Italy's low birth rates correspond with a powerful and unbreakable Catholic presence, then I suggest to you that "losing our faith" has little to do with it. Your birth rates are at any rate boosted by first-generation immigrants; if those were counted out, you would barely come out ahead.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

How many of your powerful and unbreakable Catholics in Italy are actually practicing their faith? It sounds just like a cultural label rather than a description of living. The bishops and the Pope have come out again and again talking about the lack of faith in Europe see "If Europe Hates Itself" by Joseph Ratzinger (America as well is on this path). We in America are by no means a Catholic nation but a protestant one.

Are the birth rates of Europe not boosted more by first and second generation Muslim immigrants?

As for the first few sentences of your post, I must say I have nothing to say. We were the first to start euthanasia? We were the first to legalize abortion?

White fertility in red states
http://us.geocities.com/sailerfraud/statistics.html


http://www.comunioneliberazione.org/articoli/eng/RatzAvv140504.htm

http://darwincatholic.blogspot.com/2005/08/making-babies-for-france.html

http://darwincatholic.blogspot.com/2005/08/catholic-population-trends.html

http://darwincatholic.blogspot.com/2005/09/marriage-demographics-fertility.html

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You insist that if a Catholic practiced his or her faith, s/he would have ten children. I suggest that this is a fairly feeble argument. And how much do you know about Italian politics, to ridicule my account of the things that take place in the country where I was born and of the arguments I read in the language I know from birth? I am old enough to remember when these "progressive" things were brought in, under a kind of shiny light of newness; the main argument for them - beginning with divorce - being that "advanced countries" (meaning guess who?) had it. You are coming dangerously close to suggesting that I misunderstand or misrepresent my own experience.

It is true that Germany, alone in Europe, raced the USA down this crazy slope. The Germans and the Americans theorized free love when citizens of other European countries would not even mention it by name, theorized and applied eugenics, legalized divorce and remarriage. The Pope is German; he has seen the consequences of national apostasy all his life, and of course it colours his view of European civilization.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

Sir, I hope you know I have a great deal of respect for you, and that is the truth. My knowledge of Italian poltics is nil, apart from what you have written. I am not in the least bit arguing that I know anything of them, and I have read your posts on Italian politics with the utmost interest and trust. What I am trying to argue is that what you are saying of American politics is not hitting the target according to mine own experience in daily life in the conservative south.

I do not insist that if a Catholic practiced his faith he would have ten children. Please give me more credit than that. I am one and have only two children. I know, accept and try to live with the utmost of my being the teachings of the Church. I am discerning whether or not to become an NFP teacher and counselor. However what I am trying to argue is that faithful Catholics are bound to reject artificial birth control and are to be open to life, within their responsible means. Does a 1.3 birth rate reflect this if the majority of the country is Catholic?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It does if the majority of the persons of child-bearing age do not feel able to marry and get a home. Successive economic crises, rigid career structures, and a slow labour market (in spite of everything that our Constitution can say about right to work) mean that three generations of young Italians have adopted a very defensive attitude. In this kind of situation, a strong family structure actually works against birth: young people who rely on the support of their families will not get married or pregnant against their will. Conversely, Britain, with the feeblest family structure in Europe, has the highest birth rate AND the highest abortion rate, including the highest teen pregnancy and teen abortion rates. British kids do not feel obliged to follow their elders' views; in fact, I know of families when they are more or less kicked out at sixteen.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

I have read about how young Italians are foregoing or delaying marriage in order to live with their families. Would they be in abject poverty if they got married? Italy must now be a country full of very frustrated celibates.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

They would be, and yes it is. The problem of poorly employed, part-employed, or unemployed educated youth is a major one in the country - we call it "precarious labour". And if you ever are able to compare the two countries, you will find that Italy, unlike England, is not geared towards having a large population of floating singles. Rent laws, for instance, favour long-term occupancy, whereas in England they favour short-term contracts. There are not enough small flats for singles in Italian cities, and Italy does not have any unemployment benefit. What it does have is a system where people who had had a permanent job but were partially or totally laid off have their earnings integrated by government; a system that favours older workers and the heads of families.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

I also want to ask where I have ridiculed anything that you have said of your own experience. If I have I ask pardon. I consider you my friend, and while I realize that converstaion over the internet is flawed and cannot replace actual physcial verbal communication, things can come across wrong.

The only sources I have used in questioning the faithfulness of the Catholics in Europe is the pope and the writings of the bishops, as well as the testimony of my friends living there as to the abuses to the liturgy they have seen. I do believe that there are faithful Catholics living in Italy and in Europe as well, but fear they are a minority, as they are here in America.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You know, this whole business of abuses of liturgy is something else that I find hard to believe. I know that a number of individual parishes have done absurd things that have ended up on Youtube. I, however, have been a regular communicant at a couple of dozen parishes in Italy and a similar number in Britain, and I never witnessed any of the gross abuses people rant about. I have, however, experienced at least one priest who was so reactionary as to be subversive - and he was American! The only time I ever walked out of a Mass in protest was when he preached an omily against the French Revolution (unleashed, according to him, by secret societies such as the Illuminati) and stating that absolute monarchy was the only political system that pleased God. I have a suspicion that a comparatively limited number of lunatics are being exploited and drummed up by an aggressive minority in order to blacken the whole Novus Ordo - a purpose which is very evident in conservative blogs such as Damian Thompson's. And I can add that when this kind of traditionalist gets his head and rearranges a parish according to his own view of tradition, the results, according to my mother - who is old enough to remember the Latin Mass well, and who is a bit nostalgic for it - are like no Mass she ever saw.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

Well my Protestant friend living in Diest Belgium was turned off by both Catholic parishes in her area when she went to one for a First Communion and they rewrote the Lord's Prayer and during the homily never once mentioned Jesus or the Eucharist, but only caterpillars turning into butterflies. I myself have been very blessed in the priests I have had. However there are still small liturgical abuses in my own parish. Small, but there. I was suprized last week to find a post on the American Papist blog in which he posted a video of a Mass said with the priest's dog taking the Missal out of the church. Then I found out it was in the parish in the neighboring city.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I think it depends a great deal on the region. My experience of the UK was essentially devoid of the sorts of abuses that I have regularly had to tolerate in this part of the US. I do not expect I would be so fortunate in e.g. Austria. Some parts of the US are also generally better or worse.

To give you an idea, I fled the parish where I was confirmed after the pastor started pushing Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven Life" and removed the tabernacle from the sanctuary in order to accommodate a projection screen for PowerPoint and video presentations during mass. Thankfully the neighboring parishes are nowhere near as bad...

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

ugg. We did go to visit a beautiful new parish outside Knoxville last year when we were in for a wedding. I was very excited because the church had been beautifully constructed in a Tuscan style. However, when I entered, the Tabernacle had been relocated to a special chapel that was not even located in the nave of the church, and inside everyone was wearing name tags and talking very loudly like it was a church social. I couldn't even pray before mass started. The altar was nice but there was a huge area right behind it where the tabernacle should have been that was completely barren. No one seemed to have any respect for the Eucharist or the Mass itself. It was like a circus. This was supposed to be a Catholic Mission.

We recently went to a Novus Ordo in New Orleans at St. Patrick's. It was beautiful. It was done ad orientum, with some prayers in Latin and then Kyrie in Greek. It combined the reverence of the Tridentine with the interaction of the Novus Ordo. The priest also used incense and sung the Eucharistic prayer (in English) and the Gospel. We have a "band " at our parish that act as if they are at a rock performance. The campy music may not be theologically incorrect, but it is spiritually blah. That and we have a flock of Extradordinary Ministers in order to hand out Communion when we have four, and soon to be ten deacons at our parish.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

My own experience includes my knowledge of the politics of my country, in which I was deeply interested before I was 15. I think I am as good a witness as the next guy, and the power of Catholicism in Italian public opinion and politics is something I can vouch for.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

Then, and I am asking this in a completely humble way, how exactly did a goverment get set up that is hostile to marriage and family?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I will write an article on this. It would take much too long to explain in a post. Besides, I think it might interest other people.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

In coming back and reading this post, I can see I may have made the point I was wanting to make, albeit with a sledgehammer. This was not written in a Christian manner and for that I am sorry, it represents my own thoughts poorly and also made you angry.

I do acknowledge that there were folks here in the US that were advocating eucenics and birth control and all that crazy stuff at the same time as/or before Hitler. I am no stranger to Margaret Sanger and her Eugenicist cronies . But things here took longer to be enacted than in Europe. Do you have an idea why that is, being a European yourself? Sanger was thought to be wildly off her rocker at the time and was a far cry from the likes of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Do you not think that Europeans have lost their faith?

I remember you once saying that in some election, your parents had voted against the bishops and for some divorce law. I hope I have not gotten that incorrect. Why do you not think the bishops were successful in influencing the vote if the majority of folks are staunch Catholics? Is there something else at play here? Just honest questions.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I do acknowledge that there were folks here in the US that were advocating eucenics and birth control and all that crazy stuff at the same time as/or before Hitler. I am no stranger to Margaret Sanger and her Eugenicist cronies . But things here took longer to be enacted than in Europe. Do you have an idea why that is, being a European yourself?

fpb will probably give a better and less ignorant answer, but this is a subject which has interested me for a while and I have my own ideas. (I'd invite correction though.) I would say that Europe was left spiritually vulnerable by the wounds of two world wars fought on her own soil. And in the case of Germany in particular, the wound left by the first of these, rather than having any time to heal, was quickly filled by Hitler's personality.

Still, that might not have happened without Hitler's American patron, Henry Ford, who bankrolled Hitler's rise to power and whose literature the Nazis translated into German and distributed. It is possible I am overstating Ford's role; Hitler had many supporters in America and internationally. But it was Ford's portrait, and no other's, which Hitler proudly displayed over his desk, and Ford whom he identified has his patron.

In a way, it was a blessing. All the same trends were in play in the US, and I think we only stepped back from the brink -- for a time -- because Germany (animated by the concentrated mania of a single personality) raced over the edge so far in advance of us. Even Ford repented when he was faced with the realities of the concentration camps.

Unfortunately the reprieve was relatively short-lived. The US has not always been at the very head of the pack with respect to legalizing the insanity, but it has been very close to it (the legalization of abortion in most Western European countries was after Roe versus Wade), and it is from the US that much of the funding for international abortion and euthanasia advocacy comes.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

(I do also realize that I'm not European. ;)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That does it. I will have to write an article - not because you are wrong, but because your portrait needs filling out.

Incidentally, after the war was over, Hitler's Minister for Labour, Dr.Robert Ley, applied to Henry Ford for a post in his organization. (A.& J. Tusa, Nuremberg, page 133)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That was 1973. I would have to write an article about recent Italian history, but you may take it that the two referenda on divorce and abortion were the low point of the Church in Italy, with a large minority of churchgoers rejecting the Bishops' advice in perfectly good conscience (and a good few priests and bishops being nothing like as supportive as they should have been).

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

A large minority were able to win an election?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

A large minority of Catholics plus the totality of secularists.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

Then how many in Italy are self-identified as Catholic? I recently saw an article that said 99%, which I did not believe.