Stephen Roney's Blog, page 65

The Parable of the Foolish Virgins

 

Jesus told his disciples this parable:
"The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins
who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
Five of them were foolish and five were wise.
The foolish ones, when taking their lamps,
brought no oil with them,
but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps.
Since the bridegroom was long delayed,
they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
At midnight, there was a cry,
'Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!'
Then all those virgins got up and trimmed their lamps.
The foolish ones said to the wise,
'Give us some of your oil,
for our lamps are going out.'
But the wise ones replied,
'No, for there may not be enough for us and you.
Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves.'
While they went off to buy it,
the bridegroom came
and those who were ready went into the wedding feast with him.
Then the door was locked.
Afterwards the other virgins came and said,
'Lord, Lord, open the door for us!'
But he said in reply,
'Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.'
Therefore, stay awake,
for you know neither the day nor the hour."

As always, this parable, the Mass reading for last Sunday, includes a detail preventing it from being read literally. The bridegroom came at midnight. Where exactly were the foolish virgins going to buy oil for their lamps at midnight? Where did they think they were going?

And does it sound like charity for the wise virgins to refuse to share their oil? Yet they get the seal of approval, being immediately admitted to the “kingdom of heaven.”

Anything well written should alert the reader with such inconsistencies that a passage cannot be read literally, but must be symbolic. Clearly the thing being discussed here is not oil, but something like oil that cannot be shared, or not shared easily.

It is wisdom: “five of them were foolish, and five of them were wise.” Wisdom cannot be passed on, but must be achieved by each as individual—unlike, for example, knowledge. Wisdom is the oil that produces, as needed, the flame of understanding. And one needs wisdom to enter the kingdom of heaven.

That the problem is lack of wisdom is made plainer by the readiness of the foolish virgins to run off in search of oil in the middle of the night. And they were actually barred from the wedding feast not because they had no flame in their lamps, but because they were not there when the doors opened. By folly straight up, not oil.

This might seem unjust. Can one be blamed for being stupid? Yet it is not stupidity that makes a fool, but a lack of common sense. The first reading for the mass, from the Book of Wisdom, makes clear that wisdom is available to all:

Resplendent and unfading is wisdom,
and she is readily perceived by those who love her,
and found by those who seek her.
She hastens to make herself known in anticipation of their desire;
Whoever watches for her at dawn shall not be disappointed,
for he shall find her sitting by his gate.

So why are half of us, by the parable’s estimation fools? 

Because most of us would rather embrace the nearest pleasant fiction than wisdom. Most of us are actively engaged in various self-delusions. We believe what is convenient to believe, what requires the least of us.

This makes us easier, in turn, to fool. We will go for any get-rick-quick scheme, or any sort of snake oil. Notably including false claims about Christianity or what the Bible actually says. We will choose the wrong path, because it is bordered with primroses.

In the parable, the bridegroom says, “I do not know you.” If the bridegroom is God, this too is not literally right. He is omniscient, after all. But “know” means more than this in the Bible, often means the full relationship between man and wife. Rather, the fool and God have never established a personal relationship. There is no marriage, therefore no marriage feast.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Latest Dispatch from the Western Front

 

Jill Stein has just announced for the US presidency. This adds to a now-crowded field including Cornell West and RFK Jr. There are rumours of Larry Horan, or Joe Manchin, also coming in. And the Libertarians are always out there too. Stein’s campaign in 2016 was alone significant enough that some say it threw the election to Trump.

Why are we getting so many independent runs in this particular cycle?

It is the latest battle in an ongoing war between the common people and the powerful, the “experts,” those in control of the levers in society. A conflict kicked off in turn by rapidly improving information and communications technology, making the expert class intrinsically less useful and exposing their relative incompetence and venality.

We saw this popular revolt, for example, in the initial election of Trump; in Brexit; in the improbable rise of Bernie Sanders within the Democratic Party; in the Arab Spring. The general public has for some time now, and increasingly, been in the mood to overthrow whomever was in charge. 

In reaction, the powerful have turned against democracy, and become increasingly authoritarian.

The American system traditionally relied on the primary system to allow all voices and concerns to be aired and voted on. The Democratic Party in the US, has now deliberately abandoned this system. This forces the left, at least, into a European model, in which the variety of viewpoints are represented by different candidates and parties in the general election.

On the Republican side, the common people took control three cycles ago. Without popular support, the old party establishment cannot now get traction by going to the people. Does anybody remember Evan McMullin? So long as Trump looks like an outlaw, support for him is solid.

The Democratic Party came close to being similarly taken over by the left-populists under Bernie Sanders. However, they fell short, and the forces of reaction have seized absolute power in response. Left-populism in intrinsically less compelling than right-populism, because the modern left is already allied with the expert class and the bureaucracy. “Vanguard of the proletariat” and all that. They can never appear as plausibly insurgent. 

In Canada, the Conservative Party, the official and perpetual opposition, at first tried to shut the gate against the rabble, fixing leadership races for Andrew Scheer and then Erin O’Toole as controlled opposition. But then, after repeated failure in the general elections, they wisely fixed the next race for Pierre Poilievre, who at least sounds like a populist. The floodgates have opened.

Meantime, the Liberals, the natural governing party, closely allied with the bureaucracy and the professions, has grown openly authoritarian and paranoid about the people.

In the UK, the Labour Party was actually taken over by left-populists under Jeremy Corbin. However, as left-populism has less steam with the general pubic than populism on the right, that wave receded. On the right, the Conservatives, under intense pressure from third parties, were taken over by populists, kicking and screaming though they were, when Johnson got in on a Brexit platform. 

But the brass were not yet done. Despite an overwhelming election win, they soon forced Johnson out, then forced out his popularly elected successor, not to their liking, and parachuted in they guy, Rishi Sunak.

But of course they greatly fear Nigel Farage and Reform, the third party option; so much so that they are trying to drive him out of the country.

I believe the win by the people is inevitable in the longer run. It is driven by the technology, and the technology cannot be turned back. Not to mention the Divine Will. But there may be much more nastiness between now and then.

A similar struggle is going on in the Catholic Church: a war of the Vatican against the common faithful. This is masked, it is true, by Pope Francis as a war against “clericalism,” on behalf of the laity. But this is the typical dodge: Francis is pope, “vanguard of the proletariat,” not laity. This is the old Marxist trick. He himself gets to select the voices he presents as “the laity”; like the old system of soviets. It is actually a concentration of power in the hands of the Vatican bureaucracy. 

The real wishes of the laity are illustrated by the growing popularity of masses in Latin, of traditionalist YouTube channels, of traditionalist seminaries, and growing voices against corrupt priests, bishops, and cardinals.

Francis seems to have been elected to circle the wagons against these unruly Apaches, the people in the pews. The synodal demands to normalize homosexuality come, surely, from within the hierarchy—there are far more practicing homosexuals, proportionately, within their ranks, than among the general public. There is reputedly, a “gay Mafia” at the Vatican. Those calling out financial corruption in the Vatican, like Pell and Vigano, have been cast into the outer darkness. 

It is harder to see how the conflict within the Catholic Church will end.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Remembrance Day

 

Today is Remembrance Day. 

It was instituted first, of course, to remember those who died in the First World War.

Since then it has become fashionable to consider their sacrifice pointless. The First World War was all a blunder, a folly. The Great Powers sleepwalked into it. It achieved nothing but the exhaustion of Western civilization, and a bigger war twenty years later.

Some will say that of all war; their only issue is that we must never resort to violence. Some will wear white poppies today, implicitly condemning the choice of those we remember to volunteer and risk their lives. Some will wear purple poppies tomorrow, suggesting that, while their deaths are lamentable, they were no better than dumb animals.

This seems to me an appalling lack of respect or empathy for millions of young men whose lives were cut short.

It is true of course that all war is terrible. It is always mass murder. It is true that the world would be better off today had the First World War never happened. 

That is not to say it was of no consequence, or there was nothing worth fighting for.

Germany in 1914 was already imbued with a racialist, nationalist, modernist and anti-Christian philosophy that later became more fully expressed as Nazism. Austria-Hungary was trying to annex a small neighbour. Germany was in violation of treaty and of international law in invading Belgium. There was, as almost always, a right side, and a wrong side. This is why we have wars; otherwise everything could indeed be settled by negotiation.

Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with those who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Wear the poppy.'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Is Hamas Worse than the Nazis?

 

Douglas Murray makes the argument.

And they garner much support in our own streets,

What can we say about the times we are living in?

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

The Real Wolf Warrior Diplomacy

 

Genghis Khan, founder of the Yuan

A Chinese student of mine, asked to think of a way the Song Dynasty could have saved themselves from their eventual conquest by the Mongols—a historical hypothetical—came up with the obvious solution. The Mongols were militarily superior; but the Song Dynasty was rich. Paying off the Mongols to leave them alone would not work—it just proved the place was worth conquering. That’s “Danegeld.” The obvious trick, he said, was to pay off junior Mongol officers individually, to subvert the Mongol effort.

That’s good Chinese thinking.

It stands to reason that China is doing this now, as part of their asymmetrical “wolf warrior diplomacy.” They are paying off people in foreign governments.

After all, this is what the British did for centuries. This is largely what “foreign aid” has always been—bribes to Third World leaders and elites. This is what China’s public “Belt and Road initiative” is. 

Why wouldn’t the Chinese also be paying off Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Jacinta Ardern, Anthony Albanese, Duterte in the Philippines, Moon in South Korea? This would explain their strange but persistent downplaying of the Chinese threat. Even politicians who campaign on anti-Chinese rhetoric, seem to end up not doing anything substantial. Obama’s “pivot to Asia” never happened. Duterte campaigned on military confrontation with China over the South China Sea; in power, he actually floated the idea of the Philippines joining China. 

Rhetoric may vary; but it would be foolish, of course, to bribe only one side. You’re going to buy some Conservative MPs as well.

Note too, as my student saw, that it is even more useful to bribe people lower down, who will have less personal prestige and profit invested the success of the country as a whole. You start by bribing amenable congressmen, senators, vice presidents, MPs. They may or may not then rise higher; with your help. Of course you will also want to bribe prominent members of the press, the security services, and the military. 

Bribery is how business is done in China; certainly including the business of government. Why wouldn’t they do the same overseas? It is not necessarily a matter of cash hand to hand; that is crude and undignified. The money can go to a family member; a fake or ceremonial position can be created with generous pay or a generous honourarium; a personal foundation can be funded.

Bribing prominent businessmen will not even be necessary. So long as it is profitable, they will tag along for the opportunity to do business in China.

The current government of China, as it controls the entire Chinese economy, is sitting on mountains of money. Relatively speaking, it would not be expensive to pay such bribes; cheaper, on the whole, and more effective, than money spent directly on arms. 

One would have to be somewhat discreet. But so long as you are also bribing people in the security service and the media, not all that discreet. 

What is preventing such a thing from happening? 

Only the patriotism and sense of honour of those in power in the West. This was always the West’s great advantage: those in charge sincerely believed in what they were doing, in the march of civilization, the rightness of the cause, and in personal honour and ethics.

This is obviously less the case now than it was. Our elites now seem ager to criticize their own countries, “Western civilization,” and “conventional morality.” Giving them an alibi to opt for self-interest. 

And they often seem to grow wealthy in government service. Is that possible, playing it straight and narrow, on a government salary? 

Of course they are being bribed by Big Business, by Big Pharma, by Big Oil, by Big Tobacco, by the various interest groups. Why not also by foreign governments?

There is no solution to this other than a return to the principles of Judeo-Christian morality. In the end, nations rise and fall on their moral worth.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

What No One Is Saying

 

For the third election in a row, the Republicans did unexpectedly poorly this week, defying the polls.

Yet, since 2020, nobody seems to be raising the obvious possibility. It looks as though the aggressive prosecution of Trump, his lawyers, and the January 6 protesters for suggesting that election was fixed has cowed everyone into silence. As, of course, it was intended to. It should be obvious that the Democrats would not have responded so aggressively then if they had not indeed fixed that election; and intended to fix elections from then on.

This also explains why the Dems are comfortable sticking with Joe Biden, despite his poor performance, scandals, and mental decline. They are even fixing the primary process to get him the nomination. They apparently calculate they can push him over the finish line no matter what. He just has to stay alive.

It also stands to reason that, if they are prepared to override democracy to fix the primary process, they are going to have no qualms about doing the same in any general election.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

As Others See Us

 

I, for one, want political asylum.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

The Lonely Hearts Club

 

It’s not exactly a slow news day; but I have nothing useful to say about the news. So let’s talk culture. The Beatkes are in the culture news, with “Now and Then.” Seems to me it is a comment on how moribund pop music is these days, that the biggest news is a new album by the Rolling Stones and a new single by the Beatles.

The idea behind the Beatles’ “Sergeat Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album cover was that the audience standing behind them was meant to represent their ideal audience.

I don’t find the selection that impressive.

Aleister Crowley?
The Vargas Girl?
Karl Marx?
Sonny Liston?

Rather adolescent.

I imagined my own selection. Rules: must be dead, and no fictional characters. Not necessarily the greatest people ever; perceived kindred spirits.

Stephen Leacock
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Leonard Cohen
Dylan Thomas
W.B. Yeats
T.S. Elliot
George Orwell
Sinead O’Connor
Prince
William Blake
Don Bosco
Theresa of Avila
Rene Descartes
Ian Tyson
William Kurelek
Kateri Tekakwitha
J.D. Salinger
Richard Halliburton
Hans Christian Anderson
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Jack Kirby
Maurice Sendak
Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Thomas Jefferson
John Stuart Mill
Edmund Burke
Buster Keaton
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Daniel O’Connell
William Shakespeare
Confucius
Stanley Kubrick
Alfred Hitchcock
Milton Friedman
Lauren Bacall
Carrie Fisher
Patty Duke
Jack Benny
Lewis Carroll
John Paul II
Benedict XVI
John XXIII
John Locke
Whitney Houston
Readers might enjoy making their own list; or send nominations in the comments.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Listening

 

The main theme of the current “synod on synodality” at the Vatican, which just wrapped up its 2023 session, is listening: it seeks “a Church of sisters and brothers in Christ who listen to one another and who, in so doing, are gradually transformed by the Spirit.”

But this is fundamentally backward. 

The point of a church is not to listen to one another; that’s a social club. One does not need a church to have a chat with a neighbour. Mainstream Protestant denominations have gone down this road, and it leads to irrelevance, then extinction.

And if this is what the seeker wants, why be Catholic? Lots of other churches will offer exactly the same: agreeing with your opinions and endorsing your wants, whatever they might be.

One needs a church to listen to God, and learn what God wants. The revelation we have been given in the gospels, in the Bible, and in the apostolic tradition. Some may have special expertise in this: we listen to them. Just as, if we are ill, we do not discuss it with our neighbours; we go to a doctor.

Granted, we should also listen to the Spirit, as the synod documents aver. 

But that does not mean listening to anyone. That means the prophets, who are, literally, “inspired,” channeling the Holy Spirit. You find them, too, in the Bible, the deposit of faith.

Might that include prophets alive and speaking today? 

Sure; any great artist is also “inspired,” and at least some will be inspired by the Holy Spirit. Martin Luther King Jr., or Gandhi, also probably counted as modern-day prophets. However, such prophets do not lay down new doctrine or alter morals; God would not have concealed truths from us until now. The prophet’s job is to call on us to repent, and to adhere to the established doctrine. Already in the Old Testament, that was their function.

There are, of course, false prophets—those who claim to be inspired, but for ulterior motives. The gospel warns us of this, repeatedly. 

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits."

I take “good fruits” to mean beauty; the alternative explanation that it means “good deeds” is inconsistent with what Jesus says soon after this, that one must do one’s good deeds in secret.

Accordingly, no doubt the Church, and certainly the individual believer, must respect and attend to the message of great art, of Shakespeare, say, or Dante, or Dostoyevsky; or the beauty of King’s rhetoric. God raises such prophets as the times demand

But one does not listen to the Spirit by breaking into small groups, as the synod proposes. Just the reverse; the artist always works alone. He is out in the desert eating locusts. He needs solitude, precisely to drown out all other voices.

The very voices the synod wants us to listen to instead.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Filial Piety

 

Yesterday’s mass reading:

“But you are not to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. – Matthew 23:1-12

“Do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.”

So much for “family values.”

This does not mean we must not use the word “father”; that would be trivial. It means we are all brothers and sisters. If any one of us finds themselves in the role of parent or teacher, we must understand this as a temporary contract between equals. And it brings with it an obligation to act in the best interests of the one temporarily in our charge.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.