Saturday, February 17, 2018

I guess I'm back...

For the past few years, I was using WordPress . com to blog, but then, between a general collapse in my blogging stamina, and some authentication headaches with Wordpress, I guess I'll be returning to this humble old address to pen my random musings.

You're ecstatic, I'm sure.

Here are two things I've been thinking about lately:

1) I've been reading about the European Renaissance for the past half year or so, and whilst reading about "wit" in Jacob Burkhardt's famous book on the topic, it dawned on me that TV/online journalists might fulfill the same role for our society that courtiers filled for Renaissance society. They are not Socratic gadflies so much as intellectual jesters. (Also, if the past two years have taught us anything, it's that Media Personalities are probably all sociopaths, to varying degrees.)

2) Upon the advice of a chat-friend, I am now aware that Alois Hudal is a rich subject for historical and ideological study. To wit:

"In his own 1937 book, [Die Grundlagen des Nationalsozialismus {$IC!},] Hudal proposed a reconciliation and a pragmatic compromise between Nazism and Christianity, leaving the education of youth to the Churches, while the latter would leave politics entirely to National Socialism. This had been the line followed by German Catholic politician and former Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen.

"In the autumn of 1934, Hudal had personally explained this strategy to Pius XI: the 'good' ought to be separated from the 'bad' in National Socialism. The bad -- Rosenberg, Bergmann, Himmler and others -- according to Hudal represented the 'left wing' [or dare we say the 'alt-right'?] of the Nazi party. The Nazi 'conservatives', headed, he believed, by Hitler, should be directed toward Rome, Christianized and used against the Communists and the Eastern danger. Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, was never put on the Index by Rome, as censors continually postponed and eventually terminated its examination, balking at taking on the chancellor of Germany."


As admirable as Hudal's intellectual contributions may be, I am severely nonplussed by his ongoing efforts until his death to sustain the "ratlines" for escaped Nazi leaders, since, by then, the formal opposition between the Thousand Year Reich and Holy Mother Church had long been established. With all due respect to Herr Hitler, if he had ever truly wanted to reconcile his political aims with the Church's, he could have amended his life to receive Holy Eucharist on the tongue instead of a hot bullet through the hard palate.

---------------

Having said all that, I cannot promise that  I will return to a consistent blogging pattern, though I certainly hope to produce what I can when I can in the next few months.

1 comment:

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Dear Brother. ABS could not, be any happier that you are back in the ring ready to slug it out.

As to our putative journalists, some have rightly observed they are social activists/political partisans with a byline.

ABS can't remember the name of the communications director of the Mahometan POTUS from Kenya, but he noted that most journalists were about 35 yeas old who had worked for political campaigns before being hired for their then current gig and he said they would come to him and ask him what was really going on in (insert name of foreign country) because news bureaus no longer had foreign offices AND the putative journalists were woefully ignorant of history an foreign lands.

So, we got that going for us - which is nice.

O, as per your observations vis a vis the Nazis and Catholics, Pope Pius XII spent uncounted numbers of hours helping the Jews there - and elsewhere- but he would not lift a finger to help Catholics in Commie countries.

He was even approached by members of a Catholic peoples' army which was planning o ]invaded and war against the commies and he refused to bless the effort and he refused to condemn the Commie bastids who were slaughtering Catholics.

ABS wonders if the sustained attack against him by the Messias-Deneirs is in part an effort to so befog that epoch that Joe and Joanne Catholic wil never learn how Pius XII was so biased in favor of the Messias-Deniers.

Is that too churlish?

Anyways, so happy to have you back, brother.

Pax tecum