Anyone who works in publishing for any length of time necessarily becomes well-acquainted with the concept of intellectual property. If you come up with a new idea that solves a problem in a unique way, you own that idea. Fair use allows wiggle room for third parties to make transformative use of the idea for education, criticism, and the like, but they can’t claim it as their own. If they try to steal your IP, you can take steps to make them stop.
A similar rationale informs the canonical penalty of excommunication in the moral sphere. It’s aroused controversy in an an age when personal preference is seen as absolute, but every religious tradition–every organization, for that matter–has rules for determining who is a member in good standing and ways to expel troublemakers. The Woke Cultists who whine about “weaponizing the Eucharist” if a bishop considers applying canon law to heretic pols delight in banishing those who transgress their Byzantine code.
The Church needs to take a lesson from its own heretical offshoot. Let obvious rivals coopt your morality with impunity, and you’ll eventually lose control of it. The penalties found in IP law were written to address the same kind of public confusion in the business world.
Mock icons of government functionaries who promote human sacrifice have become popular with death cultists. By the Church’s morality, these profane images are sacrilegious. A healthy society informed by Christian morals would not allow them to exist. The hierarchy’s silence on the matter sows confusion as to where moral authority lies. That’s the original definition of scandal.
Just as companies can issue C&D orders when their IPs are infringed, canon law gives the bishops a mechanism for dealing with people who counterfeit Christian morality. The penalty for obstinately persisting in grave, public sin is simple excommunication, i.e. getting barred from Holy Communion. Then penalty is powerfully symbolic as well as medicinal. Admission to the Eucharistic banquet is a visible sign that the recipient is in full communion with the Church. Being denied the Eucharist is an unmistakable signal that the offender is not a Catholic in good standing and lacks moral authority.
What everybody misses is that excommunication isn’t just for the offender’s sake. It prevents public scandal by removing any ambiguity about what Christian morality is and who its rightful stewards are. It’s moral IP protection. Thankfully, some prelates are starting to get it.
Countless social ills would be mitigated if our shepherds went back to exposing wolves in sheep’s clothing. The Death Cult seized control of Western society by falsely claiming the moral high ground on every issue. Maybe if their morality were at all coherent, we wouldn’t be in such deep trouble. But each day brings further proof that the Cult’s knock-off moral code is degenerating into clown-nosed insanity.
It’s worth remembering that Dillahunty was once hailed by Reddit atheists as a champion of reason. Now the former arch-skeptic fanatically declares that some women have penises. His glib denial of transubstantiation doctrine provides the key to his madness. The ancient understanding that every substance has an intrinsic essence, which changes to its superficial qualities cannot alter, explodes the delusion that wearing a dress turns a man into a woman. It turns out that the West cannot discard Jesus and hold on to reason after all.
Death Cultists aren’t the only ones who’ve been driven moon-barking mad after cutting themselves off from the font of reason. Internet hucksters repackaging 19th century fads have found ready marks among oak tree LARPers and fedora-tippers who dislike black people. Never mind that St. Paul was a Benjaminite, and that Baur identified Paul as championing gentile Christianity against Petrine Judaizing. Baur–and Hegel, for that matter–provide additional testimony for keep a tight leash on one’s ideas.
“Once you start you’ll finish!”
When I read the article “Did St. Paul Invent Christianity” I wasn’t sure at first which theory of Paul inventing Christianity would be addressed, since I’ve seen two completely opposing theories (both popular with fedora tippers):
1.) That Jesus was really a humble teacher who never claimed to be God and wasn’t really that interested in religion generally, but Paul distorted His words to make Him a deity with a new covenant. In this theory Paul’s epistles are gross distortions of the “real” Jesus of the Gospels.
2.) That Jesus never really existed and as such Paul did not distort the teachings of Jesus, since they wouldn’t have existed, but instead invented them wholesale. The “distorters” in this theory would be the Gospel writers, with the “real” Jesus being a philosophical allegory of Paul.
Of course both theories rely on the idea that the Gospels and Epistles are at odds with each other. The supporters of the first theory will say that it is difficult to imagine the Jesus depicted in the Gospels as being so concerned with Paul’s ideas of salvation, while the supporters of the second theory will say that it is obvious in Paul’s writings that he doesn’t think that it matters if Christ really existed. Now anyone who has actually read the New Testament knows that both viewpoints are absurd (though I realize “having read the New Testament” is a qualification that excludes many “Biblical scholars.”)
If supporters of the theories respond at all to the fact that they are completely mischaracterizing the New Testament, it is usually in one of two ways: the first is to mock the critic for not being refined enough to read the Bible “properly,” the second is to claim that any evidence from the Bible in contradiction to the theory was a later addition or alteration from the “true” Bible.
Is that why the Talmud describes Jesus as a wicked magician—because He was only a humble teacher who never claimed to be God?
Neither. The paranoid delusion gaining traction in certain dissident quarters is
3) Paul and an inner circle of accomplices mythologized the execution of Yeshua ben Yousef, a minor revolutionary, in order to found a new religion with the express motive of destabilizing the Roman Empire. Because Jews.
If you point out that Paul was not a Jew, they will ignore it and accuse you of being a Jew. Checkmate, cucks!
Where did you hear that Paul was not a Jew? I’ve never seen that claimed anywhere and all sources with at least a suck search indicate he was a Jew. Am I missing something?
According to ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, St. Paul was a Greek-speaking Jew from what later became Turkey. The fact that he was a pharisee already gave it away.
Perhaps we should invite Mr. Niemeier for a pig pickin’. Just in case.
From Paul, in Romans 11:1
“I say then, Has God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.”
Are you appealing to a technicality? As in, Paul was a Hebrew/Israelite, but he wasn’t a descendant of Judah?
Yeah, And Benjaminites WERE from Judah and are considered Jews by every reasonable definition of the term. Sorry but if you’re dying on this hill we’ll have to agree to disagree. Paul was a Jew.
Paul explicitly brags about his heritage.
Do you mean a different definition of Jew, as in, not of the tribe of Israel but of Edomite stock masquerading as a Hebrew? Are you playing word games with the term in regards to having become Christian? Or do you say that him being a Roman citizenship takes precedence? I’m having an autistic moment here and can’t parse your meaning.
Are these not the definitions your using?
“1: a person belonging to a continuation through descent or conversion of the ancient Jewish people
2: one whose religion is Judaism
3a: a member of the tribe of Judah
b: ISRAELITE
4: a member of a nation existing in Palestine from the sixth century b.c. to the first century a.d.”
He plainly talks about it in your verse, Philippians 3 and Acts 26.
You’re splitting hairs that needn’t be. Paul twice states that he is a Jew.
Acts 21:39 Paul answered, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city. Please let me speak to the people.”
Soon after, he says,
Acts 22:3 3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.”
The internet really is just a continuation of high school. Too many people still act like that kid with his hand perpetually raised because he just knew he had the right answer.
A point of netiquette I’ve found quite helpful is to always read the first comment in a thread before replying. Knowing the context of a discussion works wonders for the extremely online.
The context in this case is rhetorically answering wignats’ glib, j00-haunted pseudo-dialectic in kind to give them enough rope to hang themselves.
WIGNAT: Paul invented Christianity to undermine Western civilization!
NEUROTYPICAL: Why would he go to all that trouble when he had to know it’d get him killed?
WIGNAT: Because Paul was a j00 and the Tribe is genetically programmed to subvert the goyim!
NEUROTYPICAL: Paul wasn’t genetically Jewish. He was a Benjaminite.
WIGNAT: *sputters* He probably had SOME Jewish DNA!
NEUROTYPICAL: How much Jewish DNA does it take to qualify as Jewish?
WIGNAT: *frothing* It’s enough to have a single drop! To walk past a synagogue! Microchimerism! RAAAARRRGH!!
Compared to the earliest punishments of the Church—like dropping dead at the will of St. Peter—excommunication is a blessing.
The Papal States had an official executioner. His axe and robes are on display in the Vatican Museum.
Straight from the mouth of Christ in Matthew 18. If, say, a bishop is halfheartedly hiding a gay lover in an Appalachian cabin, you confront the person alone. If still unrepentant, you confront again while bringing 2-3 witnesses. If they still persist, bring the matter before the church. After that, treat them like a pagan or a tax collector. Even without the Catholic process of excommunication, such a person shouldn’t be given any duties in the church, clerical or otherwise.
There was a time when the people of a diocese would riot to force the removal of a bad bishop. Consecrating the world to God is the laity’s job. We’ve grown far too complacent.
They will be made to care. The above example is very real. Check out the North Georgia United Methodist diocese. The bishop is currently abusing the congregations that have stood against this abomination in an effort to get them to leave before the schism, because the conditions of the proposed split allow the congregations to take their assets (mainly the land and everything on it) with them if they leave. Until the split, breaking off from the church means the building belongs to the United Methodist Church and the congregation has to buy it if they want to keep using it.
See also “Bishop” Karen Oliveto.
At least she wears the horns publicly. Sue Halpert-Johnson (a hyphenated last name is already a huge red flag) is a bully and a heretic who should be publicly defrocked and excommunicated for the sake of her immortal soul and the souls of everyone she has been given authority over.
You know, looking through my diocese’s website there is a document talking about how no priest should get involved in writing a letter of support for someone requesting a religious exemption to a required COVID vaccination. It’s very carefully worded to avoid explicitly saying that one must be vaccinated to be in line with Catholic teaching, or even that there is no reason in Catholic teaching to reject it. But it is explicit about a worry that if priests sign off on such letters, it may cause “bless” people who have motivations not motivated in Catholic teaching and that this could damage the moral authority of the Church.
So the Church is willing to protect its IP when it comes to vaccines, but not when it comes to abortion.
The only magisterial teaching on vaccine mandates is the CDF’s statement from a year ago reaffirming that vaccination must be voluntary.