The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 3 of 4)

In truth, I believe, notwithstanding the results on November 8, 1994, the Republicans never did vanquish the old order. In fact, each election after 1994, as noted above, saw an ever greater decrease in the GOP congressional majority. That such decrease did not send the alarm bells ringing after 1996 is testament to the ineffectiveness of the Republican leadership. (I would contend that a few pages' study of The Federalist Papers is worth all the political consultants political contributions can buy.) 

I expect that given the decline of the GOP after 1994, historians may well conclude that arrogant, power-hungry, zealously partisan, demagogic, authoritarian Democrats who have no interest in serving the common good, lost on November 8, 1994 in accordance with the observation all of the people cannot be fooled all of the time. That is to say, in 1994, the Republicans did not win control of Congress; the Democrats lost control for alienating voters who, apart from Republicans, had no viable alternative to express displeasure. (And I recall that such expression incurred the wrath of the media.)

Regard Washington after tomorrow -- the arrogant, power-hungry, zealously partisan, demagogic, authoritarian Democrats, who have no interest in serving the common good are...back.

Americans in the main, I believe, understand that liberals are actually illiberals, who are taking us away from the Founding legacy. They would favorably respond, I believe, to a call for a "Common Good" gathering that drafted a program faithful to our Founding legacy, with the aim of combating the Neo- aristocratism, again quoting from Federalist 57 that seeks the "ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few."  Our Founding legacy is, I suggest, threatened not by socialism but by a resurgence of the aristocratic mentality that the Founding generation rebelled against. 

I  believe that the American people may well have concluded that if  Republicans, faced with the demagoguery and artifice of the Democratic party, won't stand up for themselves, how can they be expected to stand up for the people? I further believe that Americans will rally behind a party committed to vanquishing the old order (not merely changing congressional chairs with Democrats every few years) and restoring the legacy of liberty given us by the Founding Fathers. That is to say, it is my view that Americans still await the party of the people that Republicans were mistaken for by a Tennessean, quoted in The New York Times, fourteen years ago.
-- David R. Zukerman
Lonely Pamphleteer Review

KO'D?
Re: Mike Dooley' letter (under "The Council of TAS") in Reader Mail's By His Bootstraps:

Regarding Mr. Dooley's response to my previous letter, I wish to make a few remarks, and then I think the two of us should take this conversation off line, though it is interesting and would like it to continue.

Taking Mr. Dooley's points in order:

1.  The Roman magisterium has spoken. Curial documents endorsed by the Bishop of Rome have normative teaching value in the Catholic Church. That is why I referred repeatedly to the "Clarification on the Procession of the Holy Spirit" (technically, The Father as the Source of the Whole Trinity: The Procession of the Holy Spirit in the Greek and Latin Traditions), which can be found here, for those interested. It includes the following statement, which is magisterial in its content and intent:

"The Catholic Church acknowledges the conciliar, ecumenical, normative, and irrevocable value, as expression of the one common faith of the Church and of all Christians, of the Symbol professed in Greek at Constantinople in 381 by the Second Ecumenical Council. No profession of faith peculiar to a particular liturgical tradition can contradict this expression of the faith taught by the undivided Church."

As Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have acknowledged this statement and incorporated it into their teaching, it must therefore be considered as "received" within the Latin Church, part of the Depositum fidei.

2.  Mr. Dooley is quite right that there are some things Rome will never say in an explicit manner. As a Byzantine Catholic, I am ideally positioned to comment on both the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox approach in such matters. If the Orthodox Way is "Never explain, never apologize", the Roman Catholic Church lives by the maxim, "We may not always be right, but we are never wrong." That is why, instead of explicit repudiations of previous doctrinal statements, we have "clarifications" that effectively reverse without reversing. Once cannot read the Clarification in conjunction with the Acts of the Councils of Lyons II and Florence-Ferrara without immediately recognizing that the Catholic Church has walked away from its previous position.

3.  A great many old theological disputes are in fact just terminological differences, or worse, polemics used to mask political or cultural disputes. It is this that enables both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches to issue Agreed Theological Statements with the Oriental Orthodox (formerly known as "monophysite") Church and the Assyrian Church of the East (formerly called "nestorian") -- an examination of the substantial beliefs of each Church regarding the relationship of the human and divine in Christ, without regard to specific modes of theological expression, found all sides in essential agreement. Chalk 1500 years of Christian disunity up to the fallen nature of creation. With regard to the Filioque, it is clear from the writings of Maximos the Confessor that in the 7th century, at least, there were Greeks who understood that the Latins meant the same thing as the Greeks when they said the Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, but by the 11th century and later, this was not so clear, and by the 15th century, it is quite clear that the Latins mean something very different. The Clarification moves the Latin Church back to the position it held in the first millennium.

4.  It is true that Rome's ecumenical dialogue extends to the Protestant communities as well as to the Eastern Churches. However, if one was to prioritize, it is clear that Rome places a much higher value on reestablishing unity among the Apostolic Churches first. This is in some regards the easier task, since all of them are in agreement on almost every substantive issue except the nature of Papal Primacy, whereas the differences between the Catholic Church (and all the other Apostolic Churches as well) and the Protestants are far greater in extent and more variable in nature.  Once unity exists among the Apostolic Churches, a common dialogue with the Protestants is more likely to bear fruit.