from the Archives: The Trinity - Part 7

Poet and sculptor, do the work,
Nor let the modish painter shirk
What his great forefathers did,
Bring the soul of man to God

Under Ben Bulben - W. B. Yeats

Religion of Tolerance Alert

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi police raided a secret Catholic mass in Riyadh last week and arrested a dozen Filipinos and a Catholic priest, charging them with prosyletising, a local daily reported on Wednesday.

The raid took place as some 150 Filipinos were attending the mass in a Riyadh rest house on Friday, the second day of the weekend in Saudi Arabia, Arab News said. ...

Saudi Arabia bans the practice of any religion aside from Islam. However, small, low-key prayer services inside expatriate compounds and in Filipino gatherings are tolerated by officials.

There's more here.

Pre-disposed Obedience

Writing to fellow English poet Richard Watson Dixon, the Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, penned this:

When a man has given himself to God’s service, when he has denied himself and followed Christ, he has fitted himself to receive and does receive from God a special guidance, a more particular providence. This guidance is conveyed partly by the action of other men, as his appointed superiors, and partly by direct lights and inspiration. If I wait for such guidance, through whatever channel conveyed, about anything, about my poetry for instance, I do more wisely in every way than if I try to serve my own seeming interests in the matter. … And if [he Lord] chooses to avail himself of what I leave at his disposal he can do so with a felicity and with a success which I could never command. And if he does not, then two things follow; one that the reward I shall nevertheless receive from him will be all the greater; the other that then I shall know how much a thing contrary to his will and even to my own interests I should have done if I had taken things into my own hands ...

Adding:

This is my principle and this in the main has been my practice: leading the sort of life I do here it seems easy, but when one mixes with the world and meets on every side its secret solicitations, to live by faith is harder, is very hard; nevertheless by God’s help I shall always do so.

Good advice.

from the Archives: The Trinity - Part 6

Patriphobic fatherlessness

If patriarchal cultural arrangements prove themselves to be convenient host environments for the old sacred system, fatherlessness and the patriphobia of radical feminists and rock music nihilists function just as readily as self legitimizing, politically correct costumes for causing another generation to prostrate themselves before the ruler of this world, the father of lies.

from the Archives: The Trinity - Part 5

Patriarchal Structures of Oppression: The Father

John W. Dixon: “Christians stubbornly clung to their language even when it could be said they didn't really understand it.”

Now when we are about to acquire the intellectual means for understanding the terminology, a failure of nerve has set in and we are abandoning the terminology. (e.g. Hell, judgment, the Trinity, the Father...)

from the Archives: The Trinity - Part 4

Separating the wheat from the chaff....

from the Archives: The Trinity - Part 3

Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master,
But for these instances:
The specialty of rule hath been neglected;
And look how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain...[
] O, when degree is shak'd,
Which is the ladder of all high designs,
The enterprise is sick! How could communities.[
] But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows! Each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe;
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead;
Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then everything includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.
And this neglection of degree it is
That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd
By him one step below, he by the next,
That next by him beneath; so ever step,
Exampl'd by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation.
And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.

Troilus and Cressida Act 1 Scene 3

Mark Steyn is back . . .

Writing from the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars conference in Baltimore, which is a wonderful gathering. I caught a glimpse of Mark Steyn this a.m. Here's what he had to say:

Take this no-name pastor from an obscure church who was threatening to burn the Koran. He didn’t burn any buildings or women and children. He didn’t even burn a book. He hadn’t actually laid a finger on a Koran, and yet the mere suggestion that he might do so prompted the President of the United States to denounce him, and the Secretary of State, and the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, various G7 leaders, and golly, even Angelina Jolie. President Obama has never said a word about honor killings of Muslim women. Secretary Clinton has never said a word about female genital mutilation. General Petraeus has never said a word about the rampant buggery of pre-pubescent boys by Pushtun men in Kandahar. But let an obscure man in Florida so much as raise the possibility that he might disrespect a book – an inanimate object – and the most powerful figures in the western world feel they have to weigh in. . . .

When someone destroys a bible, US government officials don’t line up to attack him. President Obama bowed lower than a fawning maitre d’ before the King of Saudi Arabia, a man whose regime destroys bibles as a matter of state policy, and a man whose depraved religious police forces schoolgirls fleeing from a burning building back into the flames to die because they’d committed the sin of trying to escape without wearing their head scarves. If you show a representation of Mohammed, European commissioners and foreign ministers line up to denounce you. If you show a representation of Jesus Christ immersed in your own urine, you get a government grant for producing a widely admired work of art. Likewise, if you write a play about Jesus having gay sex with Judas Iscariot.

So just to clarify the ground rules, if you insult Christ, the media report the issue as freedom of expression: A healthy society has to have bold, brave, transgressive artists willing to question and challenge our assumptions, etc. But, if it’s Mohammed, the issue is no longer freedom of expression but the need for "respect" and "sensitivity" toward Islam, and all those bold brave transgressive artists don’t have a thing to say about it.

Steyn's anti-sentimentalizing is at its best here, not all as quotable in public as the above.

from the Audio Archives: The Trinity - Part 2

In the 1985 movie "Back to the Future" the character George McFly introduces himself to his future wife, Elaine, by saying, "I am your density..."

In the excerpt below Gil Bailie, in his approach to a discussion of the Trinity, explores 'ontological density' and its fracturing in the modern world in the midst of what Rene Girard calls a crisis of distinctions.

Audio Archive: The Trinity - part 1

Today I am posting an excerpt from the beginning of a series of recordings Gil Bailie made in 1994 entitled, The Trinity. In a couple of quotes from theologians Gil offers a preamble to this discussion:

The more one reflects on the mystery of the trinity the farther one seems to move from any final understanding of it. What was closed opens up, what was once understood becomes unclear. Again and again one must begin anew. Consequently, the doctrine of the trinity remains unfinished. For those confronted by it, it is an unending process of learning and suffering. By the same token however, one cannot give it up, one is never free from it. For the theologian, an understanding of the trinity is the highest and certainly the most humbling task he faces. - Jurgen Multmann

Only with the doctrine of the trinity is the historical truth of the cross given theological illumination. - Norbert Hoffman

Gil notes that the reverse of Hoffman's thought is also true; with the help of Girard's anthropological prespective, the historical truth of Christ's crucifixion on the cross allows us to see the practical implications of the doctrine of the Trinity in a new and profound way.

Remembering September 11, 2001

In one of my first posts on Gil's blog some months ago I posted an audio recording from 2o02 of Gil Bailie introducing Rene Girard with a story from G. K. Chesterton about a 'white haired, absent minded old professor who is dragged from his laboratory to analyze an airplane with a serious indispostion'. This recording was made only a few days after the 1st anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. So, when Gil mentions "airplanes crashing not from mechanical causes but from human calculation" the resonance was deep and clear.

On this 9th anniversary of the attacks I thought it would be profitable to hear this again and think of all the analysis that has been brought to bear on these events from every academic discipline and ideological perspective over the past years. Perhaps we need to hear again Prof. Girard's appeal to the truth of human relations based as he sees it on mimetic phenomena.

Note: Prof. Girard in his comments makes reference to an earlier metaphor used by Gil about a painting depicting Galileo inviting Catholic bishops to look through his telescope.

The Scriptorium Project

The Cornerstone Forum is introducing a new phase in our mission of bringing a wholehearted faith to a half-hearted world. The Scriptorium. We encourage you to look at the short 8 minute video below and even more to read or listen to Gil's in depth overview of this new project by visiting our NEW SITE. (You will need to log in to our new 'Friends of the Cornerstone Forum' site - please enter USERNAME: cf_friend PASSWORD: cf

From the Archives: Famished Craving pt 8

With this post our audio player is now able to be accessed on Apple iPhones, iPods, and iPads.
If anyone has difficulty playing these please let us know by leaving a comment. Thank you.

Eva Marie's Dad

Here's my son-in-law, Mike, on his way home from the hospital.

Happy to be a new Dad

From the Archives: Famished Craving pt 7

just as the death of the sacred king, or the repetition of a sacred ritual was often accompanied by crisis so in the modern world the waning of the power of the sacred has precipitated a crisis

My New Granddaughter

... and her happy parents, Aña and Mike Orsi.

A couple of thoughts . . .

Sin is the seductive power that endows acts of lovelessness with moral respectability. It is evil on training wheels.

Evil is sin, no longer in need of such moral evasions, standing akimbo, reveling in the candor of its shamelessness.

From the Archives: Famished Craving pt 6

(Aug 29th 11am PDT) Note: I apologize for the techincal glitch that made this audio player "unavailable" at its original posting. This is now fixed. Thank you for your patience.

For St. Augustine - All in a day's work...

For the feast day of St. Augustine I offer the following quote from Sermon 340:

The turbulent have to be corrected,
the faint-hearted cheered up,
the weak supported;
the Gospel's opponents need to be refuted,
its insidious enemies guarded against;
the unlearned need to be taught,
the indolent stirred up,
the argumentative checked;
the proud must be put in their place,
the desparate set on their feet,
those engaged in quarrels reconciled;
the needy have to be helped,
the oppressed to be liberated,
the good to be encouraged,
the bad to be tolerated;
all must be loved.

From the Archives: Famished Craving pt 5

Famished Craving: the attention of others, the fascination of the famous, and the need for faith

the origins of sacred kingship...

Tolerance Police

Thanks to Patrick Madrid

From the Archives: Famished Craving pt 4

Not Guilt but Nonentity

From my friend Giuseppe Fornari:

... the major concern of totalitarian regimes in our time has been to seek out "nonpersons" to kill with impunity; they are so much the more "nonpersons" because they are perfectly innocent, given that a capacity for moral or legal attribution is always proof of existence.

Think: Innocent Victims of Indiscriminate Terrorism ... Nonentities in the glazed eyes of the Jihadists

Think: A million unborn innocent babies a year ... Nonentities in the glazed eyes of the champions of "choice."

Please be patient

Until we are able to fix it, the avalanche of stealth posts with Amazon links will continue to appear on this blog. Ignore them all. We are trying to find a way to stop them.

Thanks, Gil

From the Archives: Famished Craving Pt 3

Famished Craving

the attention of others,

the fascination of the famous,

and the need for faith

Think now

History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors

And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,

Guides us by vanities. Think now

She gives when our attention is distracted

And what she gives, gives

with such supple confusions

That the giving famishes the craving

T.S. Eliot, Gerontion

From the Archives: Famished Craving pt 2

From the Archives: Famished Craving Pt 1

Gil utilized a number of stories written by Flannery O'Connor in the late 1980's including 'Revelation', 'Parker's Back' and 'The Displaced Person'. I hope to return to those at some point but for now a change of pace...

With the end of the 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' series our next selection comes from 1995 and is entitled:

Famished Craving

the attention of others,

the fascination of the famous

and the need for faith

The title comes from the T.S. Eliot poem Gerontion

Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives
with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving

Here is what Gil wrote introducing this series:

It has been said that a “celebrity is someone who is famous for being well known”. It is a definition that underscores one of the most curious aspects of contemporary life. As uniquely modern as it is however, fascination for those whose chief distinction is that large numbers of people are fascinated by them goes all the way back to the dawn of human culture.

With each passing day, however, it is becoming clearer that the evermore vertiginous 'fame, fad, fanfare' phenomenon that has come to dominate popular culture is a symptom of a deepening spiritual, social and psychological crisis. In order to understand this crisis and to appreciate how uniquely Christian spirituality and Christian discipleship address its underlying malaise we will undertake an historical survey of the anthropological and psychological role that fame has played in human affairs.

Using this survey as a backdrop we will rethink today's social and psychological presuppositions and ponder anew the anthropological and psychological implications of Christian conversion.

From the Audio Archives: A Good Man is Hard to Find Pt 8 - the final chaper

This is the final chapter of Gil's 1989 reflections on the Flannery O'Connor story, A Good Man is Hard to Find.

Anyone who would like to purchase a copy of this entire presentation in either CD or MP3 format may do so on our website. As a reminder to those who have found our work of value but who do not yet contribute to the support of our efforts, we make available on a monthly basis complimentary copies of Gil Bailie's presentations to anyone who contributes at the $25/mo or $300/yr sustaining donor level. For more information about this please visit our website HERE.

From the Audio Archives: A Good Man is Hard to Find Pt 7

Continuing with 8 part series of Gil Bailie's 1989 reflections on Flannery O'Connor's story, A Good Man is Hard to Find.

From the Audio Archives: A Good Man is Hard to Find Pt 6

Continuing with the 8 part series of Gil Bailie's 1989 reflections on Flannery O'Connor's story, A Good Man is Hard to Find.

Jean Daniélou, SJ

… there are certain identifiable human values, not peculiarly Christian, which nevertheless flourish only in a Christian setting, and tend to wither away when Christian influences are withdrawn. With the removal of Christianity, men lose their religion, but also in a measure their humanity. We should be the last to exaggerate the value and importance of the civilizing aspects of Christianity, especially in comparison with its essential other-worldly significance. And we are satisfied that non-Christian civilizations have their own values, which are not to be depreciated. But when we consider the universal constant work of civilization, which is the defense of mankind against necessity, or fate, we remain convinced that civilization’s most reliable ally is Christianity, though the essentail purpose of Christianity is something entirely different.

You can't be too careful . . .

 . . . with the truth. It has a subtle way of intruding.



Thanks to Creative Minority Report.

From the Audio Archives: A Good Man is Hard to Find Pt 5

Continuing with the 8 part series of Gil Bailie's 1989 reflections on Flannery O'Connor's story, A Good Man is Hard to Find.

Time Magazine Obituary for Multiculturalism

from the Audio Archives - A Good Man is Hard to Find Pt 4

Continuing with Gil Bailie's 1989 reflections on Flannery O'Connor's story, A Good Man is Hard to Find.

From the Audio Archives - A Good Man is Hard to Find Pt 3

Continuing Gil Bailie's 1989 reflections on Flannery O'Connor's story, A Good Man is Hard to Find.

This is also how it happens.

Freedoms essential to our human dignity and a healthy democracy are being curtailed, not only in Europe by the force of Islamic intimidation, but here in this country as well by sundry partisans of the sexual revolutionaries.

Here's another eye-opener from my friend Bill Saunders, entitled:

What Happened to the First Amendment?

In case you missed it, the Supreme Court turned the old adage, “Save the best for last,” on its head when, on the last day of its term, it announced a decision that is surely one of its worst ever, and one that could prove deadly for religious freedom on campuses.

In the case of Christian Legal Society v Hastings, the Court decided that the Hastings College of Law could deny registration to a student group as a CLS chapter because it required morally upright behavior of its members and adherence to its statement of faith. Pause and consider that. “Conservative” evangelical students – unlike over sixty other associations of students – may not be recognized as an official student group because CLS wants its members to agree with the theory and practice – the raison d’etre – of the group, that is, to be good and proper evangelical Christians.

Can one imagine requiring the “animal rights” group to admit unrepentant, proselytizing fox hunters? While the majority opinion claims one can not only imagine it but that Hastings’ policy actually requires it (under an “accept all comers” policy), the dissent makes short work of that claim. This is not the place to rehearse the whole lay of the land, but suffice to note that no other group has ever been similarly treated by Hastings and that Hastings only announced the existence of this “policy” when it filed its legal brief in the case. Do you smell something fishy? Well, so does the dissent. (“Only religious groups were required to admit students who did not share their views. An environmentalist group was not required to admit students who rejected global warming.”)

The votes in the case were divided along now-familiar lines between four “liberals” (the majority in this particular case) and four “conservatives” (the dissent), with Justice Anthony Kennedy the key swing vote between the two (more or less solid) blocs. And this time he swung with the liberals (as he often does in “social issue” cases). The dissent was composed of Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito, with Alito writing the dissenting opinion.

The dissent demonstrates that the majority upholds a policy by Hastings that really never existed, but was invented to provide a post hoc justification for the discrimination against CLS that had already taken place. This is clearly shown, for instance, by the fact that the dean with whom the students met, following an initial rejection by the same dean of their application to register, told them nothing about an “all-comers” requirement, but instead objected because their statement of faith was not compliant with Hastings non-discrimination policy that includes, most importantly, sexual orientation.

It’s clear what is going on. The conservative evangelical students were disfavored by Hastings because they disapprove of non-marital sexual activity, including homosexual acts. After all, what could be more offensive in the modern culture, based as it is upon the god of sexual freedom, than such a viewpoint? What could be more “offensive” to the majority of students at a liberal law school (or to the tenured faculty and administration) than those who do not equate any other sexual behavior with that between one man and one woman within the bond of matrimony?

While the majority protested (too much) that this was a “neutral” policy by Hastings, the dissent saw more clearly: “Today’s decision rests on. . .the wrong-headed] principle…[that there is] no freedom of expression [that must be respected if it]…offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country’s institutions of higher learning.”      

Didn’t we have contentious debates about “free speech” on campus during the 1960s and 1970s? Indeed we did, and there is a case from that era that is right on point, Healy v James. That case involved a highly disfavored group, Students for a Democratic Society. When a proposed student chapter refused to disavow violence (as the national SDS refused to do), they were denied registration by a college. In deciding Healy, the Court held this was an impermissible infringement on “association rights” protected by the First Amendment.

What did the majority make of this inconvenient precedent on association rights? As the dissent notes, it ruled, in essence, that “the effects of this discrimination [which are the same in this case as they were in Healy,] were really not so bad. . . .that a little viewpoint discrimination is acceptable…” In layman’s terms, they held the constitutional infringement was not too bad.

This is rather ridiculous on its face. However, it isn’t funny because it shows what entrenched elites, both in colleges and on courts, are up to. They are determined to vanquish their most hated foe, those who adhere to traditional religious points of view, and they will bend, perhaps break, the Constitution to do so. Which is another reason, by the way, to be careful about whom we confirm for the Supreme Court.

William Saunders is Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs at Americans United for Life. A graduate of the Harvard Law School, he writes frequently on a wide variety of legal and policy issues.

Bill's article appeared in today's The Catholic Thing.

From the Audio Archives - A Good Man is Hard to Find Pt 2

Continuing Gil Bailie's reflections on the Flannery O'Connor story, A Good Man is Hard to Find.

This is how it happens.

 LEERDAM, The Netherlands - 23/07/10

Three paintings depicting pigs have been pre-emptively removed from a hospital in Leerdam because they might offend Muslims.

One patient, not actually himself a Muslim, made a complaint about the paintings because he wanted to avoid Muslims having confrontations with the pigs. The leadership of the healthcare institution, the Linge Polyclinic, thereupon decided to remove the paintings immediately, Algemeen Dagblad newspaper reports.

The artist, Sylvia Bosch, is astounded. "One week earlier, I had an e-mail from the clinic saying that they were getting nice reactions. After a single complaint, they had to be taken away immediately."

The Linge Polyclinic has stated that the pictures were removed because "all visitors must feel comfortable in the institution".

Thanks to (who else?) Robert Spencer.

From the Archives: A Good Man is Hard to Find - Part 1

Over the next while I will be posting sequential excerpts of Gil Bailie's 1989 reflections on Flannery O'Connor's short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. A few weeks ago I posted the introduction to this in which Gil gave an account of his vocation at that time.

Courting Disaster

From my friend Bill Saunders:

America Needs to Wake-up About Kagan

A successful magic act hinges upon the magician's ability to distract the audience from what is really going on.  And in the current battle for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, Americans—distracted by tragic headlines over the last two months—seem to have turned their eyes from the news that will shape their lives for generations to come. 

Now it is time to pull back the curtain and demand that Elena Kagan receives appropriate scrutiny from our senators, or the trick will be on us.

An episode from Kagan’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings shows us exactly where we need to look.

Engaged analysts already know that Ms. Kagan will be an agenda-driven judge, perhaps the likes of which we've never seen. She has a long record of supporting and admiring agenda-driven judges, people who at times rejected the law to advance their personal views.

But in a Perry Mason moment during her confirmation hearings, Kagan herself tugged at the magician's curtain when answering questions about events surrounding her political work advising President Bill Clinton on partial-birth abortion.

On June 15, Americans United for Life attorneys released a legal memo that discussed Kagan's work on partial-birth abortion. The memo first raised the issue of Kagan's attempt to lobby the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) to change its position statement on partial-birth abortion to reflect her preferred language as debate on the heinous practice heated up on Capitol Hill.  A month later, ACOG's final policy statement contained Kagan's edits.  

And it didn't stop there.

On June 28, AUL attorneys released a second memo examining Kagan's efforts to lobby the American Medical Association (AMA) on the same issue.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) asked Kagan at her confirmation hearing about this chapter in her career as a political operative. In an otherwise sleepy and scripted two days of hearings, it became clear from her tone and evasiveness that Hatch was on to something.

While working in the Clinton White House, Kagan wrote that ACOG's initial statement on partial-birth abortion, which stated that experts "could identify no circumstances under which [the partial-birth] procedure ...would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman," would be a "disaster."  During the hearings, Kagan "clarified" what she meant by calling ACOG's statement a "disaster."

Kagan told Hatch "the statement did not accurately reflect all of what ACOG thought.... That it was both not the only procedure [to save the life or preserve the health of the woman], but also that it was in some circumstances the medically best procedure."

That statement does not pass the straight-face test.

Kagan essentially told senators that she wasn't trying to influence the ACOG language, rather she was working to ensure that ACOG had the opportunity to paint the whole picture. This explanation doesn't square with her 1996 White House memo where it's clear that the "disaster" in question was ACOG's scientifically based view that partial-birth abortion is not medically necessary.

"I'm really stunned by what appears to be a real politicization of science," Sen. Hatch said, responding to her testimony. "The political objective of keeping partial-birth abortion legal appears to have trumped what a medical organization originally wrote and left to its own scientific inquiry they had concluded."

There seems to be a clear difference between what Kagan told the Senate and what may have actually taken place. William Saletan, hardly a conservative-leaning columnist, called Kagan's explanation "bogus" in a July 3 Slate.com piece.

Americans United for Life President and CEO, Dr. Charmaine Yoest, called for a formal investigation into these discrepancies during her Senate testimony. And while the July 4th congressional recess temporarily paused the nomination process, it allows time to reset the proverbial stage.

Act Two is set to begin. As the Senate returns for business this week after the recess, the brewing storm over Kagan's partial-birth abortion scandal is certain to intensify. But this storm, some may be surprised to find, will not necessarily be a partisan one.

Kagan's apparent alteration of science raises serious ethical questions for both Republicans and Democrats. With so many outstanding questions about a political activist and advocate poised to sit on the highest court in the land, how could the Senate possibly vote on Kagan's nomination without further inquiry?

A magician's trick cannot withstand close scrutiny, and Americans are beginning to see the real Elena Kagan.

Mr. Saunders serves as Senior Counsel for Americans United for Life. The original article is here.

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Authority and Criminal Power

"Authority is progressively being destroyed by criminal power," wrote Philip Rieff at an earlier and calmer moment in the decomposition of Western civilization. In confirmation thereof, this video, a portion of which was posted earlier.

Happy Fourth of July

America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

From Notre Dame University

 The Colloquium on Violence and Religion
Notre Dame University

If one has to be taken to the woodshed, it's a privilege to be taken there by a giant in his field, which is what happened to me today. My old friend, Fr. David Burrell, who held the Hesburgh Chair of Theology and Philosophy at Notre Dame and who is a man of extraordinary gifts and a lifetime of accomplishments in the fields of philosophy and theology, took the opportunity of our meeting at the COV&R conference to try to convince me that my concerns about radical Islam were overwrought.

I hoped he would succeed, for I would love nothing more than to cease being a source of irritation to my friends who see the world much as David does. We had a most animated conversation and we parted better friends than ever, but -- alas -- he did not succeed. But I have promised David that I will let his words continue to resonate and, Mary-like, bear all these things in my heart. 

Meanwhile, the conference has been a delight, filled with formal and informal opportunities for rich conversation and mutual exploration. Randy was able to attend the conference as well, which gave us a chance to do some Cornerstone Forum planning. The upshot of our conversations is what I hope will be an interesting new addition to what we are doing.

More of that anon.

From the Audio Archives: 2003

Since Gil and I are at the annual COV&R meeting being held this year at the University of Notre Dame I thought it might of interest to read about a response to an earlier conference held some years ago. You will hear a familiar refrain from Gil's work and also hear one of the sources of that refrain in Rene Girard's comments.


An introduction by Gil Bailie, June 22, 2003, Innsbruck, Austria:

I am writing from Innsbruck, Austria where the Colloquium on Violence and Religion has just concluded its 2003 annual conference. The conference was a rich one, with more than 70 papers delivered. The discussions both formal and informal were wonderful. It was only at the very end of the conference that an issue arose that seems to arise everywhere these days where serious attention is paid to the Gospel and its cultural consequences. In so many places today, pluralism is besieged by people who ardently feel they are defending pluralism. In fact, pluralism is being redefined as the value to which all other values must defer. But in the topsy-turvy world of postmodern thinking, it is precisely postmodernity's supreme principle of pluralism which cannot be exported to other cultures without violating the multicultural premises upon which it is currently based.

One needs to be reminded that pluralism is not a "truth," rather it is the social arrangement most suitable to the charitable quest for truth. When and where a doctrinal pluralism censures that quest, it becomes --- like so many other late-modern and post-modern "good intentions" --- a parody of itself. I say this, all too quickly no doubt (I am pressed for time in these last few hours in Austria), in order to introduce a few remarks that René Girard made at a panel discussion at the end of our conference.

One of the panelists expressed discomfort with the distinction Girard has always made between "myth" and "revelation," suggesting that by privileging "truth" Girard and Christians generally set up a conflict with those who might not affirm that truth, thereby contributing to the very violence which they purport to be resisting. René's interlocutor said that "The message of the market has become the market of the messages," implying that the free flow of this information-age exchange would be jeopardized by attempts to privilege any one message the way Christians privilege the Gospel and insist on its universality and uniqueness, and the way Girard privileges the mimetic theory as both the product of the Gospel revelation and, in turn, its best anthropological explicator.

René responded with remarks that lasted slightly over four minutes. The recording I was able to get of his response is not of the very highest quality, but I think you will find its mediocre audio quality a small price to pay for the profound but perfectly simple and obvious truth to which he calls our attention.

Rene Girard:

"You know I find this debate very interesting on a certain level, but unconnected at all with the mimetic theory at other levels To put, in a way, all these messages more or less on the same level without asking the question of truth and falsity is the basis of our entire culture today. So there the mimetic theory is totally misunderstood in the sense that the mimetic theory is entirely about the question of truth or falsity. Therefore it has to disregard, in a certain way, the question of whether it’s going to cause controversy or not. I think one has to take a scapegoat example which would be modern enough to still be meaningful to us in terms of being for or even against injustice, and in those cases I always take the Dreyfus case.

"In the Dreyfus case you can see that the anti-Dreyfus argument which triumphed in France for years supported by the government and so forth was a perfect myth in the sense that there was a victim who everybody thought was guilty and who in reality was innocent. The first people who said that this victim was innocent suffered for it in the same sense we might say that the prophets suffered for the truth, Christ suffered for the truth. In the Dreyfus vision of mythology is the exact counterpart of the anti-Dreyfus…they resemble each other extremely. But there is one little difference the importance of which we don’t see in the case of religion and we see very well in the case of Dreyfus. Was the victim really innocent? Did he deserve to be punished or not? The only question is that. Oedipus is supposed to be guilty ? this is a myth. Judaism and Christianity always call myths lies and they are right! And Judaism and Christianity say that the opposite, the vindication of the victim, is true, period. Nothing else matters. And that’s all. See what I mean? If you get away from that you’re off course. We are all trying to get along on avoiding the question of truth, and in a way it is very understandable and it’s still the philosophical way. We should avoid talking about religious violence; you know-- the Platonic way. We are all for it because our instinct tells us, in a way, it is the only way you can have peace today. But I think at the same time it’s false in the sense that the account of the passion, if you read it, is exactly the truth of these myths which these myths do not give you. I think there is one man who understood this Christological sense, paradoxical, of the Dreyfus case and his name is Charles Peguy and he saw it as a Christological affair, which is very mysterious to a lot of people ? ‘vindication of that Jew’ and so on ‘shouldn't we be anti-Semitic’, ‘we’d be better Christians’ and so forth….no, only the truth counts. This is it.

"Either the mimetic theory has nothing to do with what I have just said, in that case its pure bunk, and has no interest whatever, or it has something to do with it. And of course I think it has a lot to do with it, that it is really the same thing."

Audio Archive - 2002 continued...

Continuing with the post from yesterday, this excerpt picks up where Gil left off, introducing Rene Girard with a story from GK Chesterton....

More from the Archives...

Gil Bailie and I will be away at the Colloquium on Violence and Religion conference at the University of Notre Dame through July 4th. We will attempt to post some items from the conference if time and technological facility allow. But for my part I am posting again with an item from our archives.

The following audio player has Gil Bailie speaking to a group of supporters at Stanford University in 2002. Here as in my previous post, Gil is reflecting on his vocation. This time 13 years later you can hear some of the same themes but I think with more maturity and even greater awareness of his calling. This piece ends at a point where he is going to introduce Rene Girard. My next post will include Professor Girard's comments, also from this Stanford presentation, on Gil Bailie's place as a major exponent of his work.

And thank you to those who have kindly welcomed me to the blog I truly appreciate the thoughts.

The Gathering Storm . . .

Pro-Hamas Rally in Turkey

(Ellerinize Saglik is a common expression of gratitude).

In an earlier posting I quoted from a two-part National Review Online article by David Horowitz and David Laksin: They wrote that the world:

. . . is witnessing a reprise of the 1930s, when the Nazis devised a “final solution” to the “Jewish problem,” and the civilized world did nothing to halt its implementation. This time, the solution is being proposed openly in front of the entire international community, which appears unruffled by the prospect. It has turned its collective back on the Jews, and refuses to recognize the gravity of the threat.

This trend will almost certainly end in a catastrophe.  I urge those who have the patience to read the entire piece. It ends with this lament:

During the year and a half Obama has been in office, he has indeed brought change to America and to the world. He has transformed a nation that had been the world’s bulwark of democracy and freedom into an enabler of the very forces that are intent on destroying them. He has helped to isolate America’s only ally in the Middle East, its sole democracy and most vulnerable people. And he has brought the impending war of annihilation against the “crusaders” and the Jews, which the jihadists have promised, measurably closer to its nightmare fruition.

If that seems an overstatement, I urge my friends to read the entire piece. Part I is here, and Part II here. As I'm sure you will, feel free to respond in this space as you see fit. 

Photo from Religion of Peace.

From the Archives...

My name is Randy Coleman-Riese, but my nom de plume on this blog is Romanus. This is my first post on Gil Bailie’s blog. Gil has invited me to make periodic contributions here during this time of transition, both personally and professionally, as he moves into a new phase of life in southern California and as he begins to turn his attention to fashioning a manuscript out of his work over the past number of years.

By way of introduction, I have known Gil for over 20 years as a friend and teacher; and have worked with him both as board member of the Florilegia Institute/Cornerstone Forum and for the past eight years as co-worker at the CF offices under the exalted title of executive director. However, the only staff I direct is me. It is my job to take the day to day responsibilities of the operation of a small non-profit organization from his shoulders while allowing him to give expression to his gifts as a speaker and writer explicating the truth, goodness and beauty of the Catholic Christian tradition - especially by means of the tools made available in the work or René Girard.

The use of the pseudonym is intentional in that I will not be posting ‘in my own name’ but rather will be making available on the blog excerpts from the large library of audio archival material Gil Bailie has accumulated over the past 30 years of work. I may add editor’s notes and comments that I feel will aid the understanding of the material on offer, but that is all.

I thought for this first post it would be interesting for folks to hear about Gil’s understanding of the ‘point of view of his work as an author’ or more precisely, his vocation. It has been a perennial challenge for us here to come up with what is known in the non-profit world as a ‘case statement’ – a concise and pithy paragraph that describes what it is we do and why it is important ( and better yet, why it is important to support this work!). Needless to say we are still working at it…

Below is a link to a streaming audio player of Gil speaking in 1989 about his vocation. This piece from 21 years ago came from an introduction to a talk he gave here in Sonoma entitled “The Sacrificial Cult and The Sacramental Church”.

Arrested for being a Christian

Apropos the prior posting . . .

This from David Horowitz:

The [United Nations] Human Rights Council was created in 2006. In its first year, the council listed only one country in the entire world as violating human rights: Israel. It condemned Israel despite the fact that Israel is the only state in the Middle East that recognizes human rights and protects them. Not one of the world’s other 194 countries was even mentioned, including North Korea, Burma, and Iran — the last of which hangs gays from cranes for transgressing the sexual proscriptions of the Koran. The reason for these oversights is no mystery. The U.N. Human Rights Council has been presided over by representatives of such brutal human-rights violators as Libya, China, Saudi Arabia, and Cuba, and it was such a travesty from its inception that it was boycotted by the United States until Barack Obama decided this year to join its ranks. This decision by the Obama administration, along with its overtures to Syria, Iran, and other noxious regimes, lent a stamp of legitimacy to the hypocrisy of the council and encouraged its malice.

In these sinister developments, the world is witnessing a reprise of the 1930s, when the Nazis devised a “final solution” to the “Jewish problem,” and the civilized world did nothing to halt its implementation. This time, the solution is being proposed openly in front of the entire international community, which appears unruffled by the prospect. It has turned its collective back on the Jews, and refuses to recognize the gravity of the threat. Moreover, by enforcing the fiction that there is a “peace process” that needs to be brokered between the sides, and ignoring the overt preparation for Israel’s destruction by the Palestinian side, the “peacemakers” lend their support to its deadly agenda.

UN Human Rights Double Standard

Hillel Neuer of UN Watch:



Thanks to Robert Spencer.

Welcome to Dearbornistan

For more, go here.

Self Indulgence on Father's Day

This from my daughter Anã. A Father's Day remembrance:
Dad, Hunt, Allyson, Anã
Twenty odd years ago.

This is where it leads . . .

This is what civil war looks like in its larval stage, and responsibility for it lies with those sentimentalists who willfully subordinated anthropological and cultural reality to rhapsodies about multiculturalism and the Western self loathing that sustained it.



The London Daily Mail reported: "Screaming hate and brandishing vile placards, Muslim extremists and far-Right groups clashed yesterday in ugly scenes that marred a parade by soldiers."

Christian Humanism and Its Parody

"The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom. But in the modern philosophy the case is opposite; it is its outer ring that is obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is within." -- G. K. Chesterton

Restoring the Source and Summit

Thanks to my friend Athos.

Relativists in Jackboots

"Authority per se is never in question. ... An established authority is only attacked with troops that are in the service to other authority. And as everyone knows, there is no more severe, ruthless and tyrannical discipline than that of revolutionaries." -- Lucien Laberthonnière

Mirror Neurons

Rene Girard has a slightly more nuanced and anthropologically fascinating explanation of mirror neurons, but one that is in most respects entirely compatible with this interesting -- and extremely succinct -- explanation.



Thanks to my friend Philip Hunt

Epochal Upheaval . . .

"I believe that we are on the eve of a revolution in our culture going beyond all expectation and that the world is headed for a change in comparison to which the Renaissance will dwindle to nothing." -- René Girard

Those who think Girard is being optimistic here are not familiar with his most recent writing.