Two Paintings, Two Mentalities, Two Doctrines

Written by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

The Virgin and Child by the Maitre de Moulins The Virgin and Child by Rouault Indulge in an exercise of fantasy, and suppose that by rewinding the thread of bygone centuries it has become possible for you to return to the time of Christ and walk into a room of the Holy Family's humble dwelling in Nazereth. Imagine that you find the Virgin playing with the Child, and that both were just as Rouault depicted them in the painting on the upper right. Would such a sight fulfill your expectations? Would it correspond to what you might have hoped from the Mother of God and the Word Incarnate Himself? Would you find in those images the authentic expression of the Christian spirit and the ineffable virtues of Jesus and Mary? Obviously not. Therefore, whoever earnestly wants that Christian art worthily and duly reflect the spirit of the Gospel cannot be indifferent to paintings of this nature becoming widespread among the faithful. What kind of impression would people have of the Holy Family if nothing else were shown to them but paintings of this ilk? As far as it is able, Christian art has the role of an accessory to the spreading of sound doctrine. The spirit of this painting cannot be deemed proper for that end. In order to illustrate these affirmations better, look at the painting by the Maitre de Moulins (fifteenth century), which also portrays the Virgin and Child, and consider how efficacious it is in helping us understand, through the senses, what the Church teaches about Jesus and Mary.

Written In Stone: Date of TFP National Conference

It's official. The date for our 2009 TFP National Conference for TFP Supporters in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania has been set. Please mark your calendars!

The date will be on the weekend of October 24-25. Our special guest will be Duke Paul of Oldenberg who will speak about devotion to Our Lady according to the method of Saint Louis de Montfort. Duke Paul is a member of the German TFP and the first male Catholic in his family since Luther's time. Don't miss this opportunity.

The theme of this year's conference is: Human Solutions Have Failed: The Fatima Moment is Here!

Is the Media Blind to Huge Traditional Marriage Rallies?

Is the Media Blind to Huge Traditional Marriage Rallies?

Written by TFP Student Action

Friday, June 12 2009

Traditional marriage supporters gather in Albany New York to protest same-sex "marriage." Thousands gathered on the east steps of the New York State Capitol building in Albany on Tuesday morning to defend the traditional marriage and oppose measures seeking to legalize same-sex “marriage” in the Empire State. The “Stand for Marriage” rally, organized by New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, attracted throngs of New Yorkers who, instead of remaining silent, are determined and committed more than ever to uphold God’s marriage. A similar rally held last month in Midtown, Manhattan, drew an estimated 20,000 people. However, despite the large turnout at both traditional marriage rallies, they did not receive much media coverage. Is the liberal media blind to huge demonstrations that promote moral values? Is the media blackout intended to give people the false impression that pro-traditional marriage advocates are a shrinking minority? It seems so. New Yorkers for Traditional Marriage! But the large turnout at these rallies indicates that there is a strong and vocal reaction opposing the destruction of marriage in New York. Featured speakers at the June 9 rally included New York State Senators Marty Golden, James Seward, and Ruben Diaz, as well as Rev. Duane Motley of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, Mr. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Mrs. Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage, among others. Members of the American TFP attended the rally with a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Fatima, carried by two volunteers wearing the ceremonial habit of the organization. They also displayed a large banner, reading: “God’s marriage = 1 man + 1 woman” and a poster: “Catholics reject same-sex ‘marriage.’” Before entering the State Capitol building to distribute traditional marriage fliers, TFP members prayed a public Rosary, asking the Blessed Mother to intercede for us before the throne of God and preserve America from the sins of abortion and homosexuality. TFP members Cesar Franco and Alvaro Zapata escort Our Lady in the TFP's ceremonial habit.

1,049 Reasons to Oppose Same-Sex “Marriage"

In the continuing debate on same-sex “marriage,” proponents commonly highlight the 1,049 benefits extended by the federal government to couples united in marriage. They claim that such benefits and those of the states should also be extended to homosexual couples.

Indeed, this was the reasoning of so many judges who ruled that the State must extend State benefits to same-sex couples by the mere fact that they are analogous couples. In the name of a supposed equality of relationship, they mandated same-sex “marriage” or its exact equivalent.

In face of such ruling, some fundamental questions need to be asked: why does the government bestow so many rights upon two individuals in the first place? What possible vested interest does the state have in promoting marriage? How does it serve the common good?

If such rights are extended simply to facilitate the mutual affection between two individuals, there is no real benefit to society in such an arrangement. The state is not in the business of making people feel good or subsidizing personal happiness. If that were the case, then any group of people or even business partnerships could claim benefits.

It is exactly because traditional marriage goes far beyond the mutual affection of the two parties that makes it an irreplaceable social good and necessitates the conferring of those 1,049 benefits.

Families not Individuals
Marriage is not about individuals but families. It is an institution that predates the State whereby a man and a woman mutually agree to give themselves to each other until death principally for the sake of the interest of the children born to them.

The State extends benefits not only to make couples happy but to facilitate the often arduous task of creating a stable, affectionate and moral atmosphere for the upbringing of children – the future of civil society.

Thus, it is the procreation and upbringing of children that makes marriage such a social good. The state accordingly invests in marriage between a man and a woman because it knows that it is the ideal and best possible method of insuring its future through the procreation and education of children.

Comparing the Options
Indeed, traditional marriage is so fecund that those who would frustrate its end must do violence to nature to prevent the birth of children by using contraception. The natural state of marriage is to produce not only children but many children to populate the state.

On the contrary, same-sex unions are so sterile that those who would circumvent nature must employ costly and artificial means or employ surrogates to bring about adoptive children. The natural state of such unions is not to produce any children, much less many children.

Such unions therefore fail to fulfill marriage’s social good since most simply have no interest in either procreating or employing costly artificial substitutes.

Welfare of Children
However, marriage is more than just children. Mere procreation cannot possibly be the only end of marriage for this can be done without the matrimonial bond. Marriage must insure the best possible environment for the growth, development and future of children which in turn increases the spouses’ mutual love.

Again, the state knows that marriage between a man and a woman is the best possible means of insuring this goal which benefits the common good. Historically, the State has invested heavily in insuring this bond.

The reasons are many. First the children of such unions are normally the flesh and blood of both parents who see their offspring as extensions of themselves. Such unions provide a father and a mother, complimentary role models that perform different functions in child development. The children also can have the added intense affection of numerous siblings of those same parents.

The parties of traditional marriage make a life-long commitment to maintain this bond to provide a stable atmosphere for the children to develop. Moreover, they agree to exercise moral restraint and fidelity to their marriage vows to prevent outside elements from interfering in their union and thus disturb the moral well-being of their offspring.

The experience of centuries gives irrefutable testimony as to how these blood relationships inside a stable moral climate naturally lead to affection and the creation of the best possible conditions for the upbringing of children.

Deprived of Models
The same cannot be said for the few homosexual households with children. The conditions that are universally recognized as extremely beneficial to the child in traditional marriage are patently absent in same-sex unions.

When not adopted, the child will necessarily be deprived of either his natural mother or father. He will necessarily be raised by one party who has no blood relationship with him. He will always be deprived of either a mother or a father role model. The number of siblings or half-siblings is necessarily reduced.

Same-sex relationships, which developed from a lack of moral restraint toward social norms and fidelity, cannot guarantee the same moral atmosphere of harmony crucial to the moral development of children.

Moreover, any children inside such unions must adapt to sectors of the populations that suffer from abnormally high levels of health problems, infectious social diseases, mental health problems, alcoholism, drug use, suicide rates, domestic abuse, child abuse and pedophilia. In the absence of long-term studies, no one knows all the effects of such abnormal conditions on the development of the child. In effect, these children are being made the guinea pigs of a cruel social experiment.

Design Cannot be Changed
In short all the indications show that such relationships naturally lead to serious risk in the upbringing of the child.

In short, same-sex unions fulfill none of the requirements that would make them a social good necessitating state benefits.

Advocates will object that traditional marriage has its abuses and exceptional cases. It is true that many abuse the institution by deciding not to procreate or fail to provide a proper atmosphere for the upbringing of children. Sterility exceptions or the marriage of elderly people too old to conceive, on the other hand, are exceptions accidental, not essential to marriage. Neither the sterility nor the abuses by some in marriage change the design of the institution or become the rule.

Duties of the State
The State therefore does well to bestow numerous benefits on an institution that by its very nature and design are proven to provide all the condition for the mutual affection of the spouses and a stable, affectionate and moral atmosphere for the upbringing of children.

However in the case of same-sex unions, the State is not giving its support to the fruit of that union – the children – but to the “love” of two individuals.

The State cannot show support for a union which by design will not perpetuate society. It cannot in justice confer benefits upon those who cannot, by the same nature of their relations, fulfill the function for which the benefit was created. It cannot turn the exception of some kind of surrogate parenthood into part of the general rule.

Moreover, the State cannot actively promote a state of affairs that puts at risk in any way or creates obstacles to the natural development of those few children that are thrust into this anti-natural family model.

By conferring benefits on this flawed design, the State becomes its active promoter and works against the common good.

Indeed, the very 1,049 federal benefits that same sex “marriage” advocates claim as the grounds for a misplaced and misunderstood “equality” become 1,049 reasons for opposing such specious unions.

The Insidious Question

Written by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Somebody asked me if I were a man of the right. Enthusiastically and euphorically I answered, "Yes." On answering, I was already waiting for the concise and venomous little question that would come next: "Of the extreme right, then?" The poor fellow who formulated the question thought he was clever, as if clever and insidious were synonymous. "Read my next article," I retorted. And with this, I was clever and insidious. Clever, because I gained a reader for the monotonous commentary that follows. And insidious, because his curiosity will lead him to read this monotonous tract from beginning to end.

Within the strange vocabulary that is being forged as part of the political jargon of our days, multiple, confused, and even contradictory meanings are being artificially tacked onto the word "extreme" just like so many others. It is impossible for me to answer this little pseudo-clever question before making clear what these different meanings are.

The bulk of national opinion is comfortably and indolently centrist. It is precisely among the centrists that the word "extreme" appears opalescent, multicolored and changeable.

This whole confusion is the result of a cross-eyed vision of a simple matter. I will present it in a brief outline.

1. The intellectual work of a scientist consists in acquiring and defining for himself basic truths that in the rigor of logic merit all of his assent. Starting off from these truths he goes constructing conclusions always according to the rigor of logic. Every new conclusion is a new victory of science. And the glory of the scientist's labor consists in following the ways of logic right to the ultimate conclusion that is legitimately deducible from the initial truths. In this noble course, the extremes of glory are for those who reach the extremes of the process.

2. This intellectual process comes from the very nature of the human mind, and holds for anything which it ponders. Granted man's fallibility, it is well for him to check the successive stages of his intellectual journey against the data of experience. However, when this is not possible, man should not renounce his search for the ultimate peak of his thought. For if he be eagle-eyed, a man can logically work his way far beyond matters subject to tests by experimentation. If this were not so, what would become of philosophy and theology?

So, the man who reaches the ultimate consequences of the initial truths that he knows in the course of the cadenced and firm march of his logical process, merits at least respect. The march of his spirit is like that of the body. It is healthy, beautiful and noble when it heads directly for its final point. It is sickly, clumsy and unmanly when it hesitates, wavers, and loses itself in the errors and labyrinths of doubt.

While they may admit these principles of common sense as valid for all the dominions of thought, the centralists do make one exception. The more languorous and comfortable these centrists are, the more inclined they are to make an exception when it comes to minds that are given to political or socio-economic reflection. These centrists may marvel at the physicist or mathematician who reaches the ultimate consequences of the initial truths that he knows. However, they consider the same search is not licit for a political thinker. So, if he acts like the scientist and reaches the ultimate consequences of his thought, the centrist immediately labels him an extremist.

There is more. Another contradiction climbs right- on top of this first contradiction of the languorous and comfortable centrist. The political thinker or socio-economic theorist who has thus been branded an extremist is forthwith suspected of aiming at imposing a dictatorship by means of violence. Therefore, he is a criminal, at least potentially.

In this way, according to a certain kind of centrist, consistency may be the path of glory for some but for others, it is the path to crime.

Consequently, I comment for my part, if in any field, one goes from consistency to consistency to reach the apex of truth, then from inconsistency to inconsistency one reaches the depth of absurdity.
There you have it. Here appears an absolutely arbitrary dichotomy for the most comfortable and languorous of the centrists.

These centrists think immediately of violence, concentration camps and genocide when they are in the presence of an entirely consistent rightist. However, when they are in the presence of an entirely consistent leftist, a communist for example, the centrists I am talking about make a distinction. If he is a communist who only dedicates himself to studies and the doctrinal and peaceful dissemination of his convictions, they consider him an irreproachable citizen worthy of respect and, perhaps, even friendship.

When they look at him, no one thinks of the Lubianca prison, or the concentration camps in Siberia, or hospitals of neuro-psychiatric torture, or even of the Iron Curtain. For all practical purposes, such centrists do not feel a peaceful communist to be an extremist. A leftist for them is an extremist only when he assaults, kidnaps, and robs.

In short, it is a double standard. When it heads right, consistency is considered as leading necessarily to crime. When it heads left, it is considered to be perfectly distinguishable from crime, to which it may lead only "per accidens."

Now it falls to me to answer whether I am a man of the right. I am, purely and simply. However, I claim for myself with the greatest force, the force of logic, the right to reach the ultimate and highest doctrinal consequences of the principles that I profess, without anyone branding me as an advocate of violence that I have never justified, never encouraged, and never practiced.

And I say this squarely facing the little man of the insidious question and the comfortable and languid centrists of whom he is a specimen, affirming, furthermore: As a man in full consonance with all divine and human laws and all the requirements of logic, I am indeed one hundred percent a man of the right.

Of the extreme right? This little word "extreme" -that sounds for many almost like a four letter word - I leave disdainfully rolling on the ground.

Asserting my authenticity and my integrity as far as the right is concerned, I question the authenticity and integrity of the little man and his like as far as the center is concerned. If the center is by definition equidistance between the two extremes, what right do they have to call themselves centrists in spite of being so illogically and aggressively contrary to the rightists, and so affably respectful of the non-violent leftists?
It seems to me that in defining myself, I define them. Or rather, facing my definition, they define themselves. Centrists they are not.

What might they be? Let them say it with the same frankness with which I have just said what I am.

For my part, I see them as genuine but bashful and disguised leftists.