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martes, 28 de marzo de 2017

Hamlet: “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”


Thoughts on Suicide



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Hamlet. O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter. O God, God,
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Hamlet, Act I, Scene II


In his groundbreaking study of suicide written in 1897, Emile Durkheim, the French philosopher who is credited as one of the principal founders of sociology, identified anomie as the condition of those who, finding themselves untethered from any relationship with others, become the most likely candidates for self-slaughter. Thus he found fewer suicides among Catholics, owing to their cohesiveness, than among Protestants, who tend to stand in nakedness before God. In addition, of course, there will generally be fewer couples committing suicide than among the unattached singles for whom the temptation to solipsism tends to be greater.

Had Durkheim only been around forty years later when the Golden Gate Bridge opened, he’d no doubt have been able to document his discoveries by observing the first of the more than sixteen hundred people leaping to their deaths hundreds of feet below.

It takes only four seconds to reach the water, the experts tell us, hitting it at a speed of about 75 mph. Death is usually instantaneous, although a few have survived the trauma, some of them even returning to get it right the second time. And while the death toll is impressive, what really catches the eye is the fact that, almost without exception, they are all pointing West, hurling themselves into the black expanse of the night. Which is not at all surprising, assuming Durkheim has got it right, since the whole point about anomie is that there is no point, no norm or standard to which the self-tormenting self will turn. Uprooted from every real or recognizable connection, whether family or friends—or God—why wouldn’t they fling themselves out into the emptiness?

“On Margate Sands,” where he had gone to recover his nerves following a breakdown, T.S. Eliot reflects: “I can connect / Nothing with nothing.” It is the perfect description of the deracinated soul, unable to escape the pain of remaining rootless in a world where to be necessarily means to be in relation. After all, if it is not well for God to be alone, as Chesterton famously tells us, why on earth would creatures made in his image and likeness wish to do so? Even figures of purest fiction like Robinson Crusoe, who becomes a castaway on an imaginary island in the sea, even he could not cope in the absence of his friend Friday, whose arrival helps to ensure his own happiness. “It thus becomes clear,” writes Joseph Ratzinger, “that man is a being that can only ‘be’ by virtue of others. Or to put it in the words of the great Tubingen theologian, Mohler: ‘Man, as a being set entirely in a context of relationship, cannot come to himself through himself, although he cannot do it without himself either.’”

So what happens when that spool of thread finally unwinds, leaving the soul bereft at the last? One doesn’t need a degree from Harvard to predict the outcome of that particular scenario. When the self having lost all sense of an identity anchored to any other self, when all the connections come crashing through the ceiling, suicide then becomes an option for which the anomic self can see no alternative. If there’s no meaning to my misery, why not end it?

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem,” writes Albert Camus, “and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” Of life, too, never mind the musings of philosophers. And citing the stern advice of Nietzsche, who insists that to earn the respect of their readers the philosopher is obliged to preach by example, Camus adds that we “appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act.”

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Books: Shakespeare's Personalities


Falstaff: Give Me Life

by Harold Bloom





From Harold Bloom, one of the greatest Shakespeare scholars of our time as well as a beloved professor who has taught the Bard for over half a century, an intimate, wise, deeply compelling portrait of Falstaff—Shakespeare’s greatest enduring and complex comedic character.

Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare’s three Henry plays: Henry IV, Parts One and Two, and Henry V. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V), who loves him, goads, him, teases him, indulges his vast appetites, and commits all sorts of mischief with him—some innocent, some cruel. Falstaff can be lewd, funny, careless of others, a bad creditor, an unreliable friend, and in the end, devastatingly reckless in his presumption of loyalty from the new King.

Award-winning author and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Falstaff with the deepest compassion and sympathy and also with unerring wisdom. He uses the relationship between Falstaff and Hal to explore the devastation of severed bonds and the heartbreak of betrayal. Just as we encounter one type of Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are young adults and another when we are middle-aged, Bloom writes about his own shifting understanding of Falstaff over the course of his lifetime. Ultimately we come away with a deeper appreciation of this profoundly complex character, and the book as a whole becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.

Bloom is mesmerizing in the classroom, wrestling with the often tragic choices Shakespeare’s characters make. He delivers that kind of exhilarating intimacy and clarity in Falstaff, inviting us to look at a character as a flawed human who might live in our world. The result is deeply intimate and utterly compelling.


Dostoevsky’s complex novels are animated by his conviction that there is a monologue beyond the dialogue


THE MONOLOGUE BEYOND THE DIALOGUE


by Peter J. Leithart


Why are Dostoevsky’s novels so compulsively readable? What makes his characters seem so alive?

No one has grasped the magic of Dostoevsky’s novels better than the Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin. Most novels, Bakhtin argued, are “monologic,” unified by a cunning plot or the perspective of the narrator or author. Monologic authors allow characters to speak, but ultimately use characters as mouthpieces to amplify their own voice.

Dostoevsky invented a new “polyphonic” poetics that operated by a new set of principles. Because he didn’t work by the old monologic rules, his novels seem formless, chaotic. They are unified, but not in the usual ways—not by plot, nor by the consciousness of a narrator, nor by style, nor by the consciousness of the author that incorporates the consciousnesses of the characters. The polyphonic novel is unified by the carnivalesque play of multiple voices.

That’s why Dostoevsky’s characters are so real. Dostoevsky’s polyphonic world is full of free subjects, not objects. We don’t know what they might say or do next, and we suspect that the author doesn’t know either. They speak in their own voices, and Dostoevsky doesn’t drown them out. His voice is only one among many. Vladimir Nabokov got it right when he said that Dostoevsky had a playwright’s sensibilities, though Nabokov meant it as a criticism.

Still, the variety can be exaggerated. Polyphonic as they are, Dostoevsky’s novels concentrate obsessively on a handful of themes—freedom, beauty, and the Christ who is the standard and guarantor of both.

Dostoevsky came to understand freedom while serving a sentence in a Siberian prison: “Freedom is the mainspring of human action. I have been watching carefully all this time, watching men who have little freedom, men who have been imprisoned because of terrible crimes. But even here, I see that everything is about freedom.”

Why do prisoners spend the little money they make so wastefully? Because money affords a rare opportunity for free choice. Money is “coined liberty”; using it freely is more human than using it wisely. Crime itself is an expression of a desire for freedom: “Think of a fire heating water to steam. The water gets hotter and hotter, and the steam more and more angry. If the steam doesn’t have anywhere to go, the whole thing will explode. That is crime.”

Dostoevsky saw this process going on everywhere. Russian radicals grew increasingly violent because their desire for freedom was frustrated. The czar could ease the tension by relaxing censorship laws to allow young radicals to let off some steam. By denying freedom, scientific determinism was a theoretical pressure cooker that produced disabled souls like the Underground Man. Dostoevsky’s novels teem with thwarted characters on the verge of exploding—Raskolnikov, Ivan Karamazov, the radicals of The Possessed.

Christ is the guarantor of true freedom; if he does not exist, neither does freedom. That was the thrust of Dostoevsky’s argument for immortality that he penned shortly after the death of his first wife, Marya. True freedom is love, the capacity to sacrifice one’s Ego for the good of others. No one can love freely until he escapes the tyranny of Ego, but in this life Ego always gets in the way. Freedom is nullified by our selfish desire for our own way.

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Read more: www.firstthings.com


miércoles, 22 de marzo de 2017

Así se inoculó durante años en los hogares la ideología de género: lo que ahora son leyes e imposiciones antes fueron contenidos televisivos





Series, presentadores, realities: así se inoculó durante años en los hogares la ideología de género


El lobby LGTB lleva años trabajando en el mundo del entretenimiento y los medios. 
En España todas las cadenas sucumben al lobby LGTB



ReL

Para entender la situación actual en la que la ideología de género campa a sus anchas en España hay que remontarse años atrás. Lo que ahora son leyes e imposiciones antes fueron contenidos televisivos. Desde hace más de quince años, el lobby LGTB ha ido copando los contenidos televisivos y ahora casi lo dominan todo logrando así normalizar y preparar el camino a esta ideología.

Series, películas, realities shows, presentadores...Su presencia ha sido abrumadora estos años, lo que ha ido anestesiando a la sociedad española, que ya ve familiar todo lo relacionado con el LGTB. Sonia Robledo ha analizado en Actuall todo este proceso hasta llegar a lo que vive España hoy:

Todo empezó en 2003, con “Aquí no hay quien viva” (Antena 3), serie pionera en introducir personajes LGTBI en la pequeña pantalla. Y ha llegado hasta “First Dates” (Mediaset)… de momento.

El productor de “Aquí no hay quien viva”, José Luis Moreno, introduce con las manos abiertas a Mauri, un vecino gay del edificio del de tres plantas, una portería antigua y un local donde se desarrolla la serie. A día de hoy, su predecesora, “La que se avecina”, ha heredado la representación LGTBI en esta comunidad de vecinos.

Ya teníamos el universo LGTB en una escalera, como la de Buero Vallejo. Nada más cotidiano, cercano al espectador y hasta entrañable. Ponga un gay en su casa, aunque sea, de momento la comunidad de vecinos.

Los personajes LGTB lo han copado casi todo
Después los personajes o contenidos LGTB lo han copado casi todo: series, realities, sit-com, tertulias y por supuesto la publicidad. La pequeña pantalla ha hecho que estén en todas partes, adquiriendo así un estatus de visibilidad incontestable. Y por lo tanto de normalidad.

¿Es casual que “Aquí no hay quien viva” se inicie sólo un año antes de que el PSOE de Zapatero incluya en su programa electoral el matrimonio homosexual?

¿Es casual que la serie se inicie en 2003, sólo un año antes de que el PSOE de Zapatero incluya en su programa electoral el matrimonio homosexual? Y en cuanto llegó al poder, una de las primeras medidas de su Gobierno fue aprobarlo (2005).


Once Venice's government was comprised of people who knew how to make money and create jobs, there was a dramatic increase in financial and legal innovation.


The Medieval Geniuses Who Invented Carried Interest and the Modern Barbarians Who Want to Tax It



by Drew Armstrong


IIt’s no secret that both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton fail to understand that taxation is theft. Neither was even willing to retain the few laudable provisions that exist in the tax code. Instead, they used class warfare to condemn what is commonly referred to as “carried interest.”

Carried interest allows the investment manager of a fund or partnership to be compensated with the profits of the funds. The proceeds are taxed as capital gains rather than income.

Despite the heated rhetoric, the provision of law is based on a historical parallel that dates back to the Middle Ages. A look back into history shows how carried interest was created and why it is a vital component of a thriving society.

Merchants Fuel Long-Distance Trade

Think back to Venice, Italy in the year 1036. Due to the geographic location and numerous beneficial alliances, Venice began to grow wealthy as an international center of trade. Up to that point, the Venetian head of state, or Doge, had absolute power and was always selected from one of the three wealthiest families. But as the wealthy merchant class grew, so did their power, and by 1036 the first merchant was elected as Doge.

As the wealthy merchant class gained power, Venice’s trade greatly expanded, creating enormous opportunity for its citizens. 


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Read more: fee.org



Another collective apology is being demanded of us. This time for making India poor.


Is the Empire really to blame for impoverishing India?


By Tim Worstall



  • There are things we should apologise for, but making India poorer isn't one of them
  • The Licence Raj was an attempt to grow the Indian economy using Fabian Socialist tactics
  • India's economy tripled during the Raj - but so too did its population

Another collective apology is being demanded of us. This time for making India poor. That’s the message from Shashi Tharoor, whose new book, Inglorious Empire, is calling for reparations. He claims we invaded, added the sub-Continent to the Empire, impoverished the place and the people.

There is only one slight problem with this analysis – which is that the Indian economy tripled in size between Clive slashing his way through the Maharajahs and Partition. You can call me a detail-obsessed fuddy duddy if you like but that’s not leaving a place poorer.

While there are most certainly things we should and could apologise for – Matt Ridley details some of the horrors in The Times as does David Olusoga over in The Guardian – making India poorer isn’t one of them.

We can point to unfair trade terms for cotton or locomotives, we can even point out that the average living standard of an inhabitant didn’t increase very much over those centuries. But the place didn’t become poorer.

The standard measurements of historical living standards come from Angus Maddison. If you’ve haven’t done so, it’s most informative to download that spreadsheet and have a look. While these numbers aren’t accurate to the last cent, it’s generally accepted that they’re a pretty good guide. The measurement is in US$ of 1992 vintage, adjusted for price differences across time and geography in order for us to be able to compare living standards not cash income before inflation or anything

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Read more: capx.co

In its ancient and scholastic form, indeed, the subject of Logic stands almost exclusively associated with the great name of Aristotle


How Aristotle Created the Computer


by Chris Dixon

The philosophers he influenced set the stage for the technological revolution that remade our world.

The history of computers is often told as a history of objects, from the abacus to the Babbage engine up through the code-breaking machines of World War II. In fact, it is better understood as a history of ideas, mainly ideas that emerged from mathematical logic, an obscure and cult-like discipline that first developed in the 19th century. Mathematical logic was pioneered by philosopher-mathematicians, most notably George Boole and Gottlob Frege, who were themselves inspired by Leibniz’s dream of a universal “concept language,” and the ancient logical system of Aristotle.

Mathematical logic was initially considered a hopelessly abstract subject with no conceivable applications. As one computer scientist commented: “If, in 1901, a talented and sympathetic outsider had been called upon to survey the sciences and name the branch which would be least fruitful in [the] century ahead, his choice might well have settled upon mathematical logic.” And yet, it would provide the foundation for a field that would have more impact on the modern world than any other.


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Read more: www.theatlantic.com

Paris, 10e Pèlerinage du Monde des Médias, le 22 avril



Capture d’écran 2017-03-18 à 17.49.48

domingo, 19 de marzo de 2017

What does natural law say about the power of judges in constitutional systems of government?







Neil Gorsuch, Natural Law, and the Limits of Judicial Power

by Samuel Gregg

When President Donald Trump announced his first nominee to the Supreme Court, many observers quickly noted that Neil Gorsuch wrote his doctoral thesis under the supervision of the Oxford legal philosopher John Finnis. Some immediately asked whether Gorsuch’s approach to constitutional interpretation might be shaped by the “New Natural Law Theory” (NNLT) pioneered by Finnis and others.

The columnist George Will, for instance, expressed the hope that Gorsuch might “effect a philosophic correction” to what Will regards as a lacuna in Justice Antonin Scalia’s theory of originalism. In his 1997 book A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law, Scalia wrote, “there is no such philosophizing in our Constitution, which, unlike the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, is a practical and pragmatic charter of government.”

Will takes a different view. Natural rights, he claimed, may be “independent of the Constitution” insofar as they “are grounded in [human] nature.” But natural rights are also, Will stated, what the Constitution exists to protect. Will concluded by suggesting that the fact the Gorsuch studied under the author ofNatural Law and Natural Rights (1980)—the book which some believe single-handedly revitalized natural law theory in jurisprudence and philosophy more generally—might foreshadow more attention to natural rights in Supreme Court deliberations.

No one can predict with certainty Gorsuch’s take on any question on which he might be called to deliberate if he receives Senate confirmation. But before too much ink is spilled speculating on whether natural law in general or NNLT in particular will influence Gorsuch’s thought, it is worth reflecting on two important prior questions. How does natural law theory view constitutionalism? And what does this mean for the exercise of judicial power?
Power Maps or Normative Ends?

Answering such questions requires clarification of the purpose of constitutions. Constitutions are usually regarded as
 
(1) the written documents that outline the powers of different political institutions as well as 

(2) the legal rules, customs, and conventions that define the system and workings of government.

But in his 1998 book An Introduction to Constitutional Law (published in the same series as Natural Law and Natural Rights), Eric Barendt notes that constitutions are more than a type of power map. For if this were the sole purpose of constitutions, it would be possible for a tyrannical regime to comply formally with constitutional law while carrying out fundamentally unjust policies.

In other words, constitutions have purposes that go beyond saying who may do what. In the American Constitution’s case, one such goal is to limit the exercise of political authority. At the time of its drafting, a major focus was on limiting the powers of the states. But the Constitution also seeks to establish barriers to despotism through dividing power, establishing checks and balances, and specifying protections for particular liberties, especially through the Bill of Rights.

At no point, however, does the Constitution guarantee the realization of happiness by any Americans. Instead it helps to promote what NNLT describes as an instrumental common good rather than a common good that is an all-encompassing end in itself. This instrumental common good concerns particular conditions that must prevail in a community if people are to flourish. When the rule of law, for example, is absent from a community, it becomes much more difficult for all individuals and associations in that community to pursue their legitimate ends.

The Political Common Good and Limited Government

How then does NNLT view the relationship between this instrumental common good and the state? In a succinct introduction to NNLT, Christopher Tollefsenexplains that the three primary NNLT thinkers—Finnis, Germain Grisez, and the late Joseph Boyle—“converged on an account of political authority and the common good” over time.

In the first place they rejected, as Finnis writes, the view that “government should command whatever leads people towards their ultimate (heavenly) end, forbid whatever deflects them from it, and coercively deter people from evil-doing and induce them to morally decent conduct.” Rather, NNLT holds that government serves “the political common good.”

This political common good, Finnis explains, consists of “the whole ensemble of material and other conditions, including forms of collaboration, that tend to favor, facilitate, and foster the realization by each individual [in that community] of his or her personal development.” Here “personal development” is shorthand for integral human flourishing: the free choice of, and coherent participation in, basic goods like truth, work, and beauty, which are self-evidently good for all humans.

The conditions that might facilitate everyone’s ability to make free choices for such goods are extensive. They range from protecting the community from external aggression to deterring and punishing community members who act in what Tollefsen calls a predatory manner.

But NNLT also specifies that the carrying out of these responsibilities should never involve government taking over the proper responsibilities of natural societies (such as families or religious associations) and only exceptionally calls for the state taking over the responsibilities of instrumental associations (such as businesses). Assisting individuals and associations in a given political community means precisely that: helping. The state does not assist people by usurping or annulling their ability to make the free choices that actualize human flourishing.

More could be said about NNLT’s view of how the state seeks to realize the political common good. The most recent iteration may be found in Finnis’s response to Leslie Green’s critique of his conception of limited government in the same collection of essays in which Judge Gorsuch published a paper entitled “Intention and the Allocation of Risk.” For our purposes, however, what matters is that NNLT’s understanding of the political common good underscores the necessity of limited and therefore constitutional government.

Designing Constitutions and Configuring Judicial Power

This leaves unanswered the question of what natural law theory says abouthow we limit the state’s powers. As Robert P. George writes, natural law theory holds that positive law, including constitutional law, is always derived in some way from the natural law. Sometimes this is relatively direct: the wrongness of murder, for instance, translates quickly into the laws that prohibit and punish murder.

But to an extent perhaps greater than other natural law theories, NNLT has stressed Thomas Aquinas’s point that the derivation is not always so direct. We cannot, for instance, determine the one unique constitutional arrangement that 

(1) successfully restricts the scope of government action by dividing executive, judicial, and legislative powers and 

(2) gives effect to those fundamental protections we call rights.

Instead, constitutional design occurs by way of what Aquinas called in hisSumma Theologiae “determination [determinatio] of certain generalities.” The constitutions of the United States, France, and Australia all involve, for instance, the separation of powers. But they do not realize this goal in exactly the same way. Each, however, is a reasonable way of realizing the same end.
A similar point can be made about the scope of judicial review accorded by a constitution to judges. Take the case of a constitution being developed in a community in which natural law and natural rights are self-evident to those drafting and ratifying the constitution. Let’s also assume that the drafters expect the community’s political life to continue to reflect a commitment to natural rights and natural law.

Yet even when devising constitutional arrangements in such a context, the drafters cannot directly decide on the basis of the natural law itself the extent to which, for example, judges may review legislation from the standpoint of natural rights. This is very much a question of determinatio.

The constitution’s designers may determine that the legislature rather than the judiciary should have the primary responsibility for assuring that laws do not violate the logic and morality of natural law or the freedoms embodied in natural rights. This would mean that judges who presumed to take such a primary role upon themselves, rather than confining themselves to acting according to the constitution’s intent and text, would be acting in a lawless manner.

This would still be the case if the cause—such as protecting innocent life—were good. George reminds us that all public officials in a reasonably just regime have “a duty in justice to respect the constitutional limits of their own authority,” not least because respect for the rule of law (which includes respecting a community’s just determinatio of constitutional order) is itself a requirement of natural law.

What might all this mean for a Justice Neil Gorsuch? If NNLT has exercised some influence over his thought, those who desire greater attention being given to natural rights in Supreme Court deliberations shouldn’t assume that Gorsuch believes a robust concern for natural law permits him to go beyond what the Constitution’s intent and text allow Supreme Court justices to do.

On the contrary, it points to a justice who would operate strictly within the boundaries of that great determinatio adopted by the Founders in 1787, ratified by the states in 1788, and modified by subsequent amendments. Certainly, that still leaves scope for a justice who wants to protect those natural rights that he believes are to be found in the Constitution. But it would occur in a way consistent with the Constitution’s commitment to limiting state power—including that of the judiciary—and a natural law understanding of constitutional design.

Samuel Gregg is Research Director at the Acton Institute.


Read more: www.thepublicdiscourse.com






Canadian Catholics are mourning the loss of one of the local Church’s most ardent defenders of life


Msgr. Vincent Foy: the 101-year-old priest who refused to be silent about betrayals in the Church


by Lianne Laurence



TORONTO, March 14, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Canadian Catholics are mourning the loss of one of the local Church’s most ardent defenders of life. Monsignor Vincent Foy, who died March 13 from natural causes at age 101, is remembered especially for his decades-long battle to promote the Church’s authentic teaching on procreation.

A canon lawyer and priest of the Archdiocese of Toronto for 78 years, Msgr. Foy was “an inveterate defender of the sacredness of all human life, especially that of unborn babies,” said Basilian Father Alphonse de Valk, former editor of The Interim and founding editor of Catholic Insight Magazine.

“His greatest and most courageous contribution to Canada’s pro-life cause came when he decided that he could no longer be silent about the betrayal by a large majority of Canada’s bishops” of the Church’s teaching on contraception, Fr. de Valk told LifeSiteNews.

That betrayal came in the form of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 1968 Winnipeg Statement, released two months after Pope Paul VI publishedHumanae Vitae in July 1968, which reaffirmed Catholic teaching that contraception is intrinsically evil.

In the Winnipeg Statement, the bishops “contradicted and opposed” Humanae Vitae, “virtually nullifying the encyclical in large part in North America and elsewhere,” said Fr. de Valk.

The “bishops fell into the trap of moral relativism,” Msgr. Foy wrote in Tragedy at Winnipeg, his major critique of the document first published in Challenge Magazine in 1988.

It gives a play-by-play account of the lead-up to and fall out from the Statement’s publication on September 27, 1968, which Foy described as “the saddest day in the history of the Catholic Church in Canada.”

The Statement’s Paragraph 26 tells Catholics if they sincerely try but cannot follow Church teaching in this matter, “whoever chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience.”

Msgr. Foy was unflagging in his opposition to the Winnipeg Statement, even though “he often seemed like a lone voice” speaking out against it, “with many Canadian Catholics welcoming the document,” noted a 2014 LifeSiteNews article.

“Despite advice that he was wasting his time, reprint after reprint appeared, article after article continued to savage contraception,” de Valk told LifeSiteNews.

‘A hero in every sense of the word’

“Monsignor Foy was a hero in every sense of the word,” noted John-Henry Westen, co-founder and editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.

“He battled on the most difficult field, against his own confreres in the hierarchy who refused to remain true to the teaching of the Church on the intrinsic evil of contraception.”

“Through his writings and clarity he likely saved countless souls,” added Westen.

“Not only of those Catholics who would otherwise have been led astray into a false vision of their warped consciences as supreme arbiter, but also the souls of clergy who would otherwise have misled many of the faithful resulting in their own damnation.”

“He was solid as a rock,” echoed Jim Hughes, president of Campaign Life Coalition, who knew Msgr. Foy for 50 years.

We are living through a dangerous moment in our national life, of an intensity and potential for destruction unseen since 1968.


Persuasive disciples, not anarchic disrupters



In a volatile situation like this, the task of religious leaders is not to imitate Saul Alinsky or to mimic Lenin’s strategy of heightening the contradictions.


We are living through a dangerous moment in our national life, of an intensity and potential for destruction unseen since 1968. Then, a teenager, I watched U.S. Army tanks patrol the streets of Baltimore around the African-American parish where I worked. Now, a Medicare card carrier, I’m just as concerned about the fragility of the Republic and the rule of law.

A uniquely vile presidential campaign has been followed by a post-election rejectionism that conjures up images of 1860. Electoral refuseniks who cannot abide the verdict rendered on November 8 put on a vile display in Washington the day after the inauguration – and this despite President Obama’s plea for civility and a dignified transfer of power. The new administration has not helped matters with its own tendency toward raw-meat rhetoric, seemingly aimed at keeping its electoral base in a state of permanent outrage.

In today’s deeply divided America, the public debate is too often being framed by those who substitute invective for argument while demonstrating a visceral contempt for normal democratic political and legal process. Unless reason reasserts itself over passion, the potential for short term chaos is great and the risk of long-term damage even greater: an ongoing cycle of resentment, bitterness, and revenge that will lead to more of the gratuitous violence that was seen on the streets of Washington this past January 21.

Americans once knew a different way. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the civil rights movement promoted, not rage and disruption, but nonviolent civil disobedience, accepting the penalties imposed under what protesters deemed unjust laws in order to awaken consciences to the injustice of those laws. The canonical text here is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s brilliant Letter from Birmingham Jail. In it, King married a Gandhian theory of nonviolent direct action to Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the relationship of moral law to civil law, calmly but forcefully explaining his cause and his actions to skeptical fellow-clergymen who were critical of his methods. The Letter is thoughtful, measured, and well worth re-reading – not least because some religious leaders today are taking an opposite tack. These leaders may imagine that their calls for “disruption,” of the sort Saul Alinsky described in Rules for Radicals, stand in continuity with King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. They do not. They appeal to outrage, not to the people’s instinct for justice.

They risk little or nothing, whereas King risked everything. Their program, such as it is, calls for resistance and defiance rather than correction and civic renewal. There is little in their message about “dialogue,” a key theme of Pope Francis; but there is a lot of hot rhetoric about impeding the enforcement of the laws, in terms weirdly reminiscent of the states-rights or “nullification” theory of John C. Calhoun, recently disowned by Yale University for his defense of slavery.

I do not raise these concerns as an apologist for the present administration. I publicly opposed the nomination of Mr. Trump and did not vote for him (or his opponent) last November. A clever e-mail correspondent spoke for me and perhaps many others when he asked, on November 9, “Do the Germans have a word for ‘euphoric dread’?” (They don’t, alas.) The administration has made decisions and appointments I applaud, and decisions and appointments I deplore. I often find the rhetoric from the White House a degradation of what we used to call “the public discourse.” But that fevered talk has been quite matched by the administration’s opponents in a public scream-in.

In a volatile situation like this, the task of religious leaders is not to imitate Saul Alinsky or to mimic Lenin’s strategy of heightening the contradictions. The task of religious leaders is to call their people to live citizenship as discipleship, which in this instance means using the arts of persuasion rather than the anarchic tactics of disruption to do the work of justice. Discipleship will always involve speaking truth to power. But Christian discipleship is a matter of speaking that truth and attempting to persuade others of it, not barking epithets.

Order is fragile. Order is gravely threatened by incivility, from any source. Whatever their politics – left, right, alt-left or alt-right – those contributing to that incivility and that assault on order are playing with fire, which means they’re behaving irresponsibly. Their counsel should be ignored.


Ernest Hemingway: So why does this story matter? Does it offer any insights that may be useful today?


How Russia Recruited Ernest Hemingway



BY NICHOLAS REYNOLDS

Resultado de imagen para ernest hemingway nkvd
The Russians have been working among us in Washington and New York for a long time, and Papa Hemingway was just one of their more high profile collaborators.

One day in New York, in the winter of 1940-1941, a Soviet spy named Jacob Golos recruited Ernest Hemingway “for our work.” Golos was a colorful old Bolshevik, a lifelong revolutionary who had escaped from czarist banishment by walking from Siberia to China. Golos eventually settled on the lower east side of Manhattan, where he became one of the founders of the Communist Party of the USA and a linchpin for Soviet espionage on the east coast. On the day that he pitched Hemingway, he was acting on behalf of the NKVD, the predecessor of the KGB during the Cold War and of the SVR today. After the meeting, Golos reported to Moscow that he was “sure that he [Hemingway] will cooperate with us and … do everything he can” to help the NKVD.

.................


So why does this story matter? Does it offer any insights that may be useful today?


First, it points up the continuities in Russian history. 

No matter whether it is called NKVD, KGB, or SVR, the Russian secret service has since 1934 worked hard to gather information on and exert influence in the United States. Russian officials have never forgotten that it is in their interest to understand and manipulate the great power across the ocean, something that they have been most comfortable doing behind the scenes.

Second, the Hemingway case reminds us to look closely at cases that are not as clear cut as outright spying or influence peddling. 

The fallout from such cases can also undermine American institutions, only in more subtle ways. American interests and those of other countries occasionally overlap, but they are seldom identical. In matters of national security, it is well-nigh impossible to serve two masters, and even the appearance of conflict of interest can be corrosive, as the young Trump administration is discovering.

Third, some 70 years later, Hemingway's forays into foreign policy still resonate, but not in a reassuring way. 

Most of us who read and love his work do so because his writing—honest, direct, independent— evokes so many American values. Few of us want to learn that our literary icon was in a secret relationship with a foreign power, especially one whose values have always been so different from ours. Also troubling is the equivalency between America and Russia that he proposed in 1948, an idea that President Trump recently seemed to echo. I am old-fashioned enough to think that America is not just another great power but a unique experiment in self-government and democracy, a republic unlike any Russian government, Soviet or post-Soviet. This sadly is something that one of our greatest writers never fully grasped.


Nicholas Reynolds is the author of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy, The Secret Adventures of Ernest Hemingway 1935-1961, published this month by William Morrow.


Read more: www.thedailybeast.com

Conférence-débat le lundi 27 mars à Versailles par Laurent Dandrieu et François Billot de Lochner


Deux défis majeurs pour la France par Laurent Dandrieu et François Billot de Lochner

Lundi 27 mars à 20 h 30
Théâtre Montansier
13 rue des réservoirs 
78000 Versailles
2

Meet an Extraordinary Archbishop this Week in Washington D.C.





March 19, 2017, Sunday -- Meet an Extraordinary Man This Week in Washington D.C.

Meet an Extraordinary Archbishop this Week in Washington D.C.



"His name is Thaddeus"

An extraordinary archbishop got on an airplane today in the the former East bloc to fly to Washington D.C. He will land in D.C. tonight.

His name is Thaddeus Kondrusiewicz (spelled Tadeusz in his native Belarussian), and he is a Roman Catholic archbishop who has served, metaphorically speaking, "in the shadow of the Kremlin" for more than 25 years to preach the Christian faith.

He will be in Washington and New York City this week, and will give a free lecture, open to the public, on Wednesday, March 22 at 5:00 to 7:30 p.m.at The Catholic University of America, just next to the National Shrine of the Basilica of our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.

The lecture title will be "Christian Traditions in Belarus and the Proposal to Create a Catholic University in Minsk."






The lecture subtitle is: "Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz has played a leading role in ministering to the Roman Catholic faithful in countries that were formerly part of the USSR. For 16 years he served as the Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Moscow (1991-2007). For the last 10 years he has been the Archbishop of Minsk in Belarus. In his talk, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz will speak about Christian traditions in the culture and history of Belarus and about modern business education in postindustrial society in the context of a proposal to create a Catholic university in Minsk."

The lecture will be held in the Pryzbyla Great Room B in the Pryzbyla Center at Catholic University. For more details contact:

Center for Cultural Engagement
207 Pryzbyla University Center
Catholic University of America
Washington, DC

Phone: 202-319-5637

Email: CulturalEngagement@cua.edu

Here is a link to a page with an announcement of the lecture: (link).

Memories of Kondrusiewicz




Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, 71 grew up in the Soviet Union. He was born in 1946 in Grodno, Belarus.



He studied mechanical engineering in the Polytechnic Institute in Leningrad during the "Soviet time" (he invented high-speed grinding equipment used in the vast Volga automobile factory, link), then, upon returning home and learning that his mother had been praying that he might become a priest, he had a change of heart and entered the seminary in Kaunas, Lithuania, to study for the priesthood.

He was ordained on May 31, 1981, at the age of 35.

He became a close and trusted friend of Pope St. John Paul II, who chose Kondrusiewicz personally to be his "man in Moscow" following the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

During the central 16 years of his life, from age 45 to 61 (1991 to 2007), at first alone in a small Moscow apartment, with no Curia or staff, Kondrusiewicz was the Archbishop of the Diocese of Mary, Mother of God in Moscow.

With extraordinary patience and strength of will, together with Bishop Joseph Werth in Novosibirsk (Siberia), and then two other bishops as well (there are four Catholic bishops in Russia, where Catholics number an estimate 500,000, while the Russian Orthodox are the vast majority of Christian believers), Kondrusiewicz rebuilt the structures of the Catholic Church in Russia.

Since 2007, for the past 10 years, he has been the archbishop of Minsk, in the nation of Belarus, which is tucked in between Poland and Russia ("bela" means "white" in Russian, so the name of the country means "White Russia").

"How do you have the strength do continue this work, in such freezing temperatures?" I asked Kondrusiewicz once, when I visited him in Moscow one February and the temperature was well below zero every day (I wore two ski parkas, one under the other, to try to stay warm).

"I am a soldier," Kondrusiewicz replied, in his low, Russian-accented voice, with a little chuckle.



When I shook his hand, he looked directly into my eyes and said, "You are an American -- a great country. Let's see how strong your handshake is..."

And he began to squeeze my hand, staring into my eyes, until my knuckles came together and began to sting. I have never shaken hands with any bishop with as strong a grip, and among Churchmen I have met, only Monsignor Aldo Tolotto, an Italian priest who was a missionary for 40 years to the Bedouins of Arabia before serving for a decade as the director of the Domus Santa Marta (where Pope Francis now lives) has a similarly strong handshake.

Kondrusiewicz' name, Thaddeus, is from the Greek Θαδδαῖος, Thaddaios, and from the Aramaic תדי, Taddai / Aday). It is a male name meaning "a heart" or "courageous heart."

So, in a very real sense, in Thaddeus Kondrusiewicz, we have a true "Archbishop Braveheart" -- a courageous warrior of the faith chosen by John Paul II to bear witness to Christ in a country where atheism had been official state policy for 70 years.

And Tadeusz carried out his task, in the most trying of circumstances, in frigid weather, with inadequate resources, never once complaining, like a soldier to whom a great mission has been committed.

And this, in this 100th year since the apparitions of Our Lady in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, brings to mind the message of Fatima: that, in the end, Russia would "be converted," and that, through such a conversion, a "period of peace" would be granted to our world.

In a time when Russia is in the news every day, when we have difficulty knowing what news is "fake" and what is true, few figures, perhaps, could be of more interest to Catholics in helping us to understand the context of our present cultural and religious situation vis a vis the former Soviet space than Archbishop Kondrusiewicz.

If there is anyone who incarnates the mystery of the message of Fatima, that the faith would be suppressed in Russia, and would then return in that great country, it is arguably Kondrusiewicz.

One day in Rome, more than 15 years ago now, on a May evening, I went out for a stroll on via della Conciliazione, the large street that leads right up to St. Peter's Square. On this beautiful evening, I saw a figure walking towards me, his head slightly bent as if in thought or prayer. I hardly wanted to disturb him. But then I recognized him. I saw it was Tadeusz, also out strolling on this Roman night. He was visiting the Eternal City to consult with John Paul.

"Eccellenza!" I said, trying to draw his attention with a little wave of my hand.

Kondrusiewicz looked up and into my eyes, and said, smiling wryly, as if he were reporting a fact that would be self-explanatory, only two words: "Sto pregando."

"I am praying."

Meaning he could not stop to speak with me.

And then he looked down towards his strong, gnarled, powerful hands. My eyes followed his look, and I saw his rosary beads...

He was praying his rosary.

I nodded, understanding that he could not stop and talk, and he walked on, intent as always on the task before him...


===================



If you cannot attend the event on Wednesday, but would like to support the work of Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, please email me.

This event is being sponsored in part by the Urbi et Orbi Foundation, a project of the non-profit publisher of Inside the Vatican magazine aimed at helping to "build bridges" between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.



Fallido lanzamiento de "El señor de la Corte. La Historia de Ricardo Lorenzetti"


Natalia Aguiar: "Cuando Carrió apunta contra Lorenzetti actúa sola, no habla por Macri"


por DÉBORAH DE URIETA

La periodista acaba de publicar un polémico libro que aborda la vida del titular de la Corte, desde su infancia en Rafaela hasta su rol clave al frente del Máximo Tribunal de la Nación. En un mano a mano con 3Días, cuenta sobre su tensa relación con el Gobierno, por qué la líder de la CC lo combate y cuáles son sus supuestas ambiciones políticas.


Al día siguiente del lanzamiento de El señor de la Corte. La Historia de Ricardo Lorenzetti, su autora, Natalia Aguiar, recibió un e-mail de la editorial Ediciones B en el que le avisaban que, por "problemas de impresión", habían retirado los ejemplares de las librerías. A este hecho se le sumó que, "por error", la edición impresa había salido a la calle sin el prólogo que había escrito la periodista española Carmen De Carlos. La autora desconfió de la versión y automáticamente habló de censura. A esto se le suma que, durante el proceso de escritura, ella, su familia y amigos recibieron amenazas, según afirma la autora. Las amenazas que denuncia, Aguiar las atribuye al libro en el que aborda desde la infancia de Lorenzetti en Rafaela, hasta su militancia en la Juventud Peronista, así como también sus inicios como abogado y su capacidad para construir poder y hacer buenos negocios (que incluirían, según la autora, empresas a nombre de testaferros) y hasta supuestas irregularidades en los fondos del Poder Judicial.

En un mano a mano con 3Días, Aguiar habla sobre su libro, la tensa relación que existe entre "el hombre más poderoso del país", como lo define a Lorenzetti, y el Gobierno nacional. También, hace alusión a las sospechas que hay en torno a la renuncia del fallecido Carlos Fayt, ex miembro de la Corte Suprema.

¿Qué te atrajo de Lorenzetti como para hacer un libro sobre él?

-Apasionante. Porque es una persona muy poderosa, que genera mucho poder y el poder es atractivo. Y él es una persona atractiva en el sentido de que es muy inteligente, está por encima de la media, es un lector incansable. Entonces, no es estar hablando con uno más. Es un placer hablar con él y es un placer enfrentarlo, en el sentido de develar esa faceta oscura que tiene.

.............


Leer más aquí: www.cronista.com



Mélenchon porte un programme chaviste voire tout bonnement soviétique.


Mélenchon, dernier vestige d’Octobre Rouge


Resultado de imagen para melenchon sovietique


Par Eric Verhaeghe.

Bien loin de la tradition révolutionnaire française, Mélenchon porte un programme chaviste voire tout bonnement soviétique.
Certains peuvent se laisser abuser par le projet en apparence simplement révolutionnaire deJean-Luc Mélenchon. Mais le bonhomme dissimule, sous son mauvais caractère et sa verve mordante, un projet d’une ambition soviétique qui n’a rien à envier à celui de Lutte Ouvrière. Il en assure la promotion politique en le rattachant à la tradition révolutionnaire française. Mais c’est une vision beaucoup plus « orientale » qui le porte.

...................

Lire lasuite: www.contrepoints.org



Quelle est l'histoire personnelle de Steve Bannon ? Quels enseignements en a-t-il tiré sur sa vision du monde ?


Ce que l'aveu de l'éminence grise de Donald Trump sur ce qui l'a poussé à embrasser le populisme nous révèle de la nature politique profonde du mouvement qui déstabilise les démocraties occidentales



par Jean-Eric Branaa - 
Edouard Husson 

Pour de nombreux journaux comme le "Wall Street Journal" ou "Vanity Fair", cela ne fait aucun doute : c'est l'histoire familiale de Steve Bannon, haut conseiller stratégique de Donald Trump, qui l'a amené à adopter les thèses populistes et prôner un retour au protectionnisme.

Atlantico : Quelle est l'histoire personnelle de Steve Bannon ? Quels enseignements en a-t-il tiré sur sa vision du monde ?

Jean-Eric Branaa : L’histoire professionnelle de Steve Bannon est plutôt atypique pour un diplômé de Harvard (il y a obtenu son MBA avec mention en 1983) : s’il a intégré Goldman Sachs, il a d’abord brièvement servi dans la marine et, plus tard, a fondé une entreprise de conseil en fusions-acquisitions spécialisée dans les médias, a été producteur à Hollywood, avant de diriger un magazine en ligne, Breitbart, connu pour diffuser la propagande d’extrême droite.

Pour sa part, il se définit comme étant de centre-droit, populiste, conservateur et anti-establishment, comme il l’a confié dans une interview à Bloomberg.

C’est peut-être alors dans son histoire plus intime que l’on peut trouver des éléments plus probants qui permettent de comprendre davantage cet homme : son père, Marty Bannon, a travaillé dur et a économisé le moindre sou durant toute sa vie afin de préparer ses vieux jours, investissant ses économies dans des actions d’AT&T, la compagnie de téléphone pour laquelle il travaillait. Mais, comme beaucoup, il a été rattrapé par la crise financière de 2007, dont il a été une des victimes. Face au crash boursier il a paniqué, vendu ses actions et y a laissé pratiquement toutes ses économies, perdant plus de 100 000 dollars.

Le Wall Street Journal a rapporté cette anecdote en insistant sur l’importance qu’elle avait eu pour son fils Steve, qui est alors entré en guerre contre les élites et leur petit monde, qu’il a taxé de "socialisme des riches", parce qu’elle s’auto-distribue les bénéfices quand il y en a, en ne laissant aux masses que les restes, sous la forme des inconvénients et des effets négatifs, voire destructeurs, de la crise. La vision du monde de Steve Bannon aurait alors été dominée par l’idée qu’il y a une élite intouchable, qui profite de la mondialisation pour s’enrichir et préserver ses privilèges mais délaisse jusqu’à l’intérêt du pays et de ses habitants. Bannon a ainsi théorisé l’idée du "nationalisme économique", mais a aussi trouvé des victimes expiatoires, embrassant des thèses racistes et antisémites, comme le rapporte au Daily Wire Ben Shapiro, ancien éditorialiste de Breitbart. Bannon s’est alors rapproché d’hommes très radicaux, tels que Stephen Miller, que l’on retrouve également dans l’entourage immédiat de Donald Trump aujourd’hui, à la Maison-Blanche : Miller est l’homme qui a écrit la plupart des discours du candidat durant la campagne. Ce sont eux deux qui auraient écrit le premier décret migratoire si controversé, sans consulter qui que ce soit d’autre. Pour Bannon, le nationalisme économique est la seule façon de rendre au peuple les dividendes auquel il a droit et de mettre fin à un cynisme international qui ne profite qu’à un tout petit nombre. Il vise là, en particulier les politiciens qui ne devraient pas pouvoir exercer au sommet du pouvoir pendant toute leur vie, selon le conseiller politique de Trump.

Edouard Husson : Je ne me prononcerai pas sur le détail de sa biographie officielle, qui est presque trop adaptée au rêve américain pour ne pas avoir été un peu stylisée. Une famille en ascension sociale de la classe ouvrière à la classe moyenne. Un parcours personnel qui passe par les forces armées, la finance, Hollywood, les médias pour finir comme l'un des hommes-clé de la Maison Blanche. La force de l'histoire que raconte Bannon, c'est qu'elle trouve un écho chez beaucoup d'Américains convaincus que le "rêve américain" est bloqué, que l'ascension vers la réussite professionnelle et le mérite est arrêtée par une stratification au sommet. Bannon a fréquenté la haute finance puisqu'il a travaillé chez Goldman Sachs. Mais, nous dit sa biographie officielle, l'histoire de son père, dont les achats d'action n'ont pas été récompensés, au contraire, du fait "des manipulations de Wall Street" l'a conduit à sortir de ce système pour faire levier, à partir des médias, et contribuer à réenclencher le rêve américain. J'attire votre attention sur la répétition de l'histoire: à la fin du XIXè siècle américain, le populisme avait connu une première poussée. Mais à l'époque, il n'avait pas trouvé de champion pour imposer ses idées à la Maison Blanche. Je soulignerai aussi la dimension d'utopie que charrie le discours de Bannon. Nous le prenons pour un réactionnaire. Lui explique que les réactionnaires sont les oligarques libéraux et néocons. Ce qu'il veut voir réaliser à Donald Trump, c'est la relance de l'ascenseur social américain. Bannon lui-même, en s'appuyant sur les analyse de Howe (The Fourth Turning) croit à l'avènement prochain d'un nouveau "printemps américain".

.....

Lire la suite: www.atlantico.fr/


sábado, 18 de marzo de 2017

Wykład Kiessling pod ochroną policji


Wiadomości z Krakowa

Rebecca Kiessling w Krakowie: Kobiety po aborcji częściej są ofiarą przestępstw i żyją krócej
Łukasz Grzesiczak


56- Powinnam podziękować wszystkim protestującym i wysłać im kwiaty lub kosz owoców. Dzięki nim moja misja w obronie życia mogła dotrzeć do większej liczby osób - mówiła amerykańska działaczka antyaborcyjna Rebecca Kiessling podczas spotkania na Uniwersytecie Papieskim Jana Pawła II w Krakowie. A ks. prof. Dariusz Oko skonstatował: - Bojówki marksistowskie, które protestowały przeciw temu spotkaniu na UJ, to ludzie zdolni do przestępstwa
Artykuł otwarty w ramach bezpłatnego limitu prenumeraty cyfrowej

– To zaszczyt, że możemy gościć wielką osobowość. To bohater naszych czasów, daje odważne świadectwo życia – witał ją ks. prof. Jarosław Jagiełło, dziekan Wydziału Filozoficznego Uniwersytetu Papieskiego Jana Pawła II.
– Dziękuję za ciepłe powitanie w Polsce, choć nie wszyscy mi takie zgotowali – odpowiedziała Kiessling, która na UPJPII wygłosiła wykład. – Jedna osoba na Facebooku zaproponowała mi połamanie moich nóg – żaliła się.
Przeniesiony wykład Kiessling

Spotkanie miało pierwotnie odbyć się na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim, ale przeciwko wykładowi Kiessling na tej uczelni zaprotestowali studenci. W internecie zbierano podpisy przeciwko zaproszeniu jej do Collegium Novum UJ – inicjatorzy akcji podkreślali, że Amerykanka nie jest naukowcem, lecz antyaborcyjną agitatorką.

„Nie zgadzamy się, by w murach uczelni sankcjonowano szarlatanerię i fundamentalizm, nie zgadzamy się na szarganie idei Uniwersytetu” – napisano w treści protestu.

Dlatego też organizatorzy – Koło Naukowe Prawa Kanonicznego Towarzystwa Biblioteki Słuchaczów Prawa UJ i Ordo Iuris – we wtorek zdecydowali o przeniesieniu wykładu na Uniwersytet Papieski (tutaj gospodarzem była Katedra Bioetyki Wydziału Filozoficznego UPJPII).

Amerykańską aktywistkę, która chce m.in., by kobiety nie miały prawa do usuwania ciąży będącej wynikiem gwałtu, powitało przed wejściem na uczelnię kilkunastu przeciwników aborcji z transparentami „Politycy decydują, aborterzy mordują", „Polskie prawo pozwala na aborcję dzieci poczętych w wyniku gwałtu".


- To była spontaniczna pikieta, która nie została wcześniej zgłoszona. Natychmiast skierowaliśmy w okolicę UPJPII nasz patrol – informuje „Wyborczą” mł. insp. Sebastian Gleń, rzecznik prasowy Komendy Wojewódzkiej Policji wKrakowie.

Na sam wykład przyszło ok. 100 osób, głównie studentów z UJ i UPJPII. Spotkanie poprzedziła modlitwa, którą odmówił ks. Dariusz Oko.
Wicepremier Gowin skrytykował uczelnie

Ks. prof. Jarosław Jagiełło podziękował wicepremierowi Jarosławowi Gowinowi za wsparcie wydarzenia.

Minister nauki i szkolnictwa w środę wydał oświadczenie krytykujące władze uczelni, które odmówiły zgody na spotkanie z amerykańską działaczką antyaborcyjną. Ze spotkań z Kiessling wycofały się m.in. Uniwersytet Warszawski i Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu.

„Misją uniwersytetu jest dążenie do prawdy. Droga zaś do niej to dialog, ścieranie się przeciwstawnych, racjonalnie uzasadnionych stanowisk, szacunek dla wolności myśli i pluralizmu. Z przykrością muszę stwierdzić, że decyzję władz wspomnianych uniwersytetów odbieram jako zaprzeczenie tych wartości. Konstytucyjna zasada autonomii uczelni służy poszerzaniu wolności badań naukowych oraz wolności słowa. Powinna być gwarancją dla szerokich swobód, a nie narzędziem do ich ograniczania” – napisał Jarosław Gowin.

Wicepremier uważa, że z poglądami Kiessling można się zgadzać lub nie, lecz zabranianie ich artykułowania jest niczym innym jak cenzurą.
„Liczę, że środowisko akademickie przyjmie moje słowa jako głos w obronie fundamentalnej dla uniwersytetu zasady wolności myśli i słowa, a także jako wyraz troski, by polskie uczelnie nie zostały poddane ideologicznemu dyktatowi. Jednocześnie dziękuję wszystkim, zwłaszcza organizacjom studenckim, za jasne wyrażenie sprzeciwu wobec praktyki, która niszczy ducha prawdy” – czytamy w oficjalnym oświadczeniu Jarosława Gowina.
Najpopularniejszy tekst w Google'u

– Powinnam podziękować wszystkim protestującym i wysłać im kwiaty lub kosz owoców. Dzięki nim moja misja w obronie życia mogła dotrzeć do większej liczby osób – mówiła do zgromadzonych Rebecca Kiessling. Podkreślała też swoje polskie korzenie. Jak twierdziła, jej dziadkowie pochodzą z południowej Polski.

Kiessling przedstawiła się jako autorka eseju o filozoficznych kontaktach aborcji, który napisała na studiach. Jak twierdziła, przez lata był to najpopularniejszy tekst na ten temat w wyszukiwarce Google.
– Jednak nie ma nic lepszego od dzielenia się własną historią – powiedziała. I podczas 90-minutowego spotkania opowiedziała historię swojego życia.


Antyaborcyjna działaczka mówiła m.in. o tym, jak w wieku 18 lat dowiedziała się, że jest ofiarą gwałtu, który przeżyła jej biologiczna matka. Tuż po urodzeniu została adoptowana i wychowana w rodzinie żydowskiej. – Swoje życie zawdzięczam prawodawcom w stanie Michigan, którzy wprowadzili zakaz aborcji. To prawdziwi bohaterowie – powiedziała.

Kiessling mówiła także o poszukiwaniach swojej biologicznej matki, gwałcie i światopoglądowej dyskryminacji, której doświadczyła na liberalnym amerykańskim uniwersytecie.

Rebecca Kiessling opowiadała też o rodzicach, którzy pokazują dzieciom zdjęcia USG z okresu ciąży. – Nawet małe dzieci wiedzą, że to dziecko. Dlaczego nie potrafią tego zrozumieć zwolennicy aborcji? – pytała. Sama przekonywała, że kobiety dokonujące aborcji żyją krócej, częściej padają ofiarą przestępstw. Kobiety podejmujące decyzję o aborcji porównała do zwierząt, które w obliczu zagrożenia zjadają swoje małe.
Wykład Kiessling pod ochroną policji

Po wykładzie przyszedł czas na pytania z sali, które zadawali m.in. ks. prof. Dariusz Oko i katolicka dziennikarka. – Bojówki marksistowskie, które protestowały przeciw temu spotkaniu na UJ, to ludzie zdolni do przestępstwa. Dlatego to spotkanie musi odbyć się pod ochroną policji. W okresie komunizmu odbywały się na naszej uczelni spotkania organizowane przez Karola Wojtyłę, które nie podobały się komunistom. Dziś są tu spotkania, które nie podobają się neomarksistom. To pokazuje, ze Kościół jest miejscem wolności – powiedział ks. prof. Dariusz Oko.

Sprawdziliśmy, czy – zgodnie z tym, co powiedział ks. Oko – rzeczywiście policja ochraniała wykład. - Spotkanie odbyło się na terenie uniwersytetu, w żaden sposób nie było przez nas specjalnie chronione. Obecność policjantów przed uczelnią była spowodowana jedynie niezgłoszoną wcześniej spontaniczną pikietą – tłumaczy rzecznik policji Sebastian Gleń.

Takich spotkań będzie więcej

Na zakończenie wykładu ks. prof. Tadeusz Biesaga z Katedry Bioetyki Wydziału Filozoficznego UPJPII skrytykowałUniwersytet Jagielloński, który jego zdaniem, odwołując spotkanie z Rebeccą Kiessling, zdezerterował pod naporem postkomunistów. Ks. Biesaga podziękował Ordo Iuris, zachęcił młodych do większej aktywności w walce ze zwolennikami aborcji i zapowiedział kolejne podobne spotkania na Uniwersytecie Papieskim.