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We now have, for the first time in our history, a non-American president. President Obama has stated explicitly that he does not believe that America has a special role in the world. The bedrock premise of his foreign policy is that America’s interactions with the world over the last 100 years have been mostly venal, stupid, and corrupt, and that his task is to repair the damage. His domestic policies assume that, contrary to the explicit proscriptions of the Constitution, the Federal government should make all meaningful decisions in our national life, and that the great flaw in our political history is our collective skepticism toward state power as a means for enacting perfect justice.
Until now, Thomas Jefferson was the closest we have had to a non-American president, with his Francophilia and his deep bows toward the Enlightenment goddesses of Reason and Liberty, he often sounding as if he loved the idea of America more than America herself. But once he was president of the United States, he acted his part vigorously, waging war against the Barbary Pirates, authorizing the Louisiana Purchase, declining to abolish the First Bank of the United States, etc. No one could doubt that by the end of his life he was immensely proud of the nation he helped build.
Patriotic pride was not discernable in the tone or substance of President Obama’s speech to Muslims yesterday in Cairo. Characteristically, any praise for his country was invariably paired with criticism. When he was running for office, he did not always talk this way. Indeed, he professed “a deep and abiding faith in the country that I love”:

As my wife said after watching that commercial, “You’d think he was a conservative.” That material was for the yokels in the swing states, the ones who didn’t like George Bush much, but weren’t too sure about this Barack Obama guy. What was his middle name, again?
Some call President Obama’s perspective “post-American,” but that isn’t quite right. The American project isn’t finished yet, as there are still tens of millions of people — a majority, one hopes — who still believe in its goodness. His speech assumed his favorite persona, that of the calm, reasonable judge sitting far above the squabbling, petty litigants. This is moral equivalence of a very high order, where praise for his country is paired invariably with criticism, and often occurs in the future tense. Its appeal is rooted in our innate desire for transcendance, which is not satisfied by our relentlessly horizontal culture and its human-centered churches.
Obama plays to this need, and it is why people call him a “leader” even though his political program is thoroughly unoriginal (all of his ideas are at least 40 years old), and he has neither fought nor sacrificed for an unpopular cause. He sounds like a leader (though his actual words are apparently cribbed from high-school valedictory speeches), with his forceful emphasis on certain words, followed by the…pause…for dramatic effect. Plus, everything is clear to Mr. Obama, even in the murky Middle East:
…let me speak as clearly and as plainly as I can…
In Ankara, I made clear…
But let us be clear…
I have made it clear to the Iraqi people…
…the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the Road Map are clear…
I’ve made it clear to Iran’s leaders…
But it is clear to all concerned…
So let me be clear…
But this much is clear…
Now let me be clear…
Then there are the admonitions, always delivered in the imperative mood, with 32 “musts” in all, e.g.:
And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end….
…we must say openly to each other…
There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other…
…partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is…
So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership, our progress must be shared. [hat trick!]
We must face these tensions squarely….
…we must never alter or forget our principles…
Palestinians must abandon violence…
The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern…
Hamas must put an end to violence…
…Israelis must acknowledge…
…Israel must also live up to its obligation…
Obama lectures Muslims on how they “must” behave, not just towards non-Muslims, but toward each other as well: “…fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.” As if the two great schools of Muslim thought are founded on bigotry, and not differing views of eschatology, the human person, and the constitution of their holy scriptures. But perhaps the divide between Sunni and Shia is easily bridged, and the Islamic world has living with a tragic misconception for the last 13 centuries. Thus, they should be thankful that Barack Obama has finally shown them the “clear” path that they “must” follow.
It might be easier for Muslims to hear these words, because Mr. Obama went beyond politeness toward Islam and flirted with endorsement. Five times he referred to the “holy Quran,” not just “the Quran.” “…I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed,” he said. Not “originated.” Revealed. As in, from God. He (Obama, not God) related “the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed — peace be upon them — joined in prayer,” using the standard Muslim honorific for Mohammad, just like a pious student in a madrassah. Throughout the entire speech, Mr. Obama spoke as if he was a fellow Muslim, or at least a crypto-Muslim.
Why does he adopt this discursive mode? Is he, as some writers murmur on the Internet, a Muslim in disguise trying to take down Christian America from within? No. He is the apostle from Cosmopolitanistan, a realm that exists in the minds of the international, globalized elite. In Cosmopolitanistan, religions, nations, families, corporations, associations, and every other form of human organization lie prostrate beneath the boots of the technocratic state.
The elites who run Cosmopolitanistan are immune to the temptations that come with wielding great power over other men. To them, all disputes can be resolved through talking, never violence. The citizens’ primary duty is to submit completely to their masters. Anyone who disagree will be treated with contempt and shoved aside. Apostles from Cosmopolitanistan dominate the staffs of international organizations, prestigious universities, and large news organizations, and it is no coincidence that Obama is nearly universally admired in those circles.
Many Americans do not want to live in Cosmopolitanistan, and for that matter, neither do many Muslims. That is why President Obama sounds like an American when addressing Americans, and a Muslim when addressing Muslims. He knows he “must” talk on their level to overcome their intransigence. To Obama, the Americans who wish to guard their personal liberties which originate from God, and the Muslims who desire to conduct themselves rightly before God, are indulging in petty, self-indulgent “distractions,” to use one of his other favorite words. His apostolic mission is to get both groups to abandon their beliefs — or, if that proves difficult, to cease agitating for their beliefs, so Cosmopolitanistan’s construction can speedily proceed.

A couple of my friends were whining on Facebook about the prospects for a government health-care proposal:

…a government health care plan would be nice, but [I’ve] been to the DMV too many times to think it would be good.

don’t you think the gov’t has its tentacles in enough crap? gov’t run healthcare doesn’t work! Look at Canada

Public health. From the same people who brought you public transport, public toilets and public housing.

And I figured: these guys are talking about the issue as if people were still proposing British-style nationalized health care here. This is so out of date; this is so beside the point that they’re not even talking about what is likely to come out of Congress.
So I wrote back: Come on, guys, smarten up.
What we have in Massachusetts is likely to be the model: health care institutions remain in the private sector (they’re heavily regulated already).
Also, health insurance remains in the private sector; individuals are required to buy it; and low-income people get a subsidized plan.
This is about the best approach that is politically possible, given the public demand for universal coverage, and we can thank Romney for it. Even the Heritage Foundation contributed ideas to it. It’s market-based. Instead of subsidizing the providers, it subsidizes people. It’s not monolithic.
Sure, purist libertarians can get their dudgeon up about the mandatory purchase rule, but basically, Catholic social teaching doesn’t give a tinker’s curse about the prissiness of secular libertarian ideology when it comes to health care.
The major moral downside is that a state mandate forces all insurance plans to cover unethical anti-life “procedures” such as abortion. And that is very bad.
But adolescent whining about the Post Office and the DMV (which actually is quite good in this state) is useless: that’s aimed against monopolistic British-type systems that have no support here. Even the liberals don’t believe in them any more.

(photo credit: Washington Post)

Congratulations to the Third Church of Christ (Scientist) in Washington, D.C.
It’s gotta be tough belonging to the Christian Science church; it has very high demands of faith, it’s shrinking numerically (I remember reading that 75% of the members were elderly urban ladies), and it’s got buildings way too big for its present congregations.
For example, this ugly box on 16th Street in D.C. was built in 1971, and when it became too expensive to maintain — the congregation has been running a 20% deficit on its budget for several years — they wanted to tear it down and replace it. All reasonable enough.
But the Third Church actually had to fight the city’s Historic Preservation board and the D.C. Preservation League for eighteen years to get the right to tear it down, ever since the building was a mere 20 years old. The preservationists considered this example of architectural Brutalism — concrete buildings in blunt geometrical forms — of Great Historic Value.
Which makes sense, if you want to preserve a record of 1960s human folly. Just for aesthetic reasons, I’d be happy to buy a raffle ticket to win the right to push the demolition button on it.
The congregation finally won city approval to remove it and start over, so best wishes to them: I’m sure they’ll replace it with something more attractive, which will be good for the neighborhood near the White House.

Is this what you would call the ecclesiastical pile-on?

Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde has become the 46th Catholic bishop in the U.S. to publicly castigate the University of Notre Dame for inviting President Obama to give this year’s commencement speech and grant to him an honorary doctorate.
The invitation, which was announced March 20, has roiled America’s Catholics: apart from the unprecedented episcopal criticism, more than 330,000 people have signed an online petition asking the historic Catholic institution to rescind the invitation that would give a pro-choice president a coveted platform in a Catholic setting.
“If Notre Dame were hosting the president as a participant in a dialogue that included a full presentation of the Church’s position regarding the primacy of life, then the university’s action would be more understandable,” Bishop Loverde said in a statement made public Thursday.
“However, given the unique national prominence of Notre Dame among Catholic universities, the decision by a few administrators to give him a platform and honor on commencement day will be damaging to the Church, to the pro-life cause and, ultimately, to the university itself.” >full article

How’s your German, folks?
Have you seen any of the fuss about Freiburg archbishop Robert Zollitsch, the chairman of the German bishops’ conference? A bunch of trad blogs have been accusing him of heresy since an interview he gave Holy Saturday. They say he denies the atonement, but it’s a bum rap.
First kreuz.net posted the video of his interview.
In his response to the reporter — who had good questions — he was giving more or less the Eastern-church angle on the atonement vs. the Western (Anselmian?) substitutionary view.

[Christ] did not die for the sins of men because God needed a victim, that is, a scapegoat, for sin. He entered into solidarity with us men, with our suffering, even unto the end; and showed that in the suffering of man, every pain and even death is taken up by God and transfigured by God in His Son Jesus Christ.

The bishop’s point was to reject an image of the atonement that portrays God the Father as vengeful while the God the Son is merciful.
But the kreuz.net writer, not knowing much about theology, didn’t recognize what the bishop was getting at, and accused him of denying the atonement altogether.
Then CathCon presented this mistranslation and made his words into a denial:

For the Chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference who has fallen away from the Catholic Faith, the crucifixion of Christ is just a psychological support in suffering. On Holy Saturday, the Archbishop of Freiburg and head of the German Bishops Conference, Msgr. Robert Zollitsch, denied the Expiatory Death of Christ.
Archbishop Zollitsch said this in an interview with Meinhard Schmidt-Degenhard on the program “Horizente” of the German TV station ‘Hessischer Rundfunk’,
Christ was “did not die for the sins of the people as if God had provided a sacrificial offering, like a scapegoat” – said the archbishop.

LifeSite picked it up (shame on them).
Now the hotheads at Rorate Caeli are piling on:
I posted a comment at Rorate, but it may never pass moderation. I’ve posted comments there several times to throw cold water on their outrage-talk, and they never let the correction see the light of day.
I think a bunch of people are, in their ignorance, committing libel.
Remember, folks, do not put too much stock in any translation you read in the press or on the Internet, until you can check the original language yourself.
Update: Credit where it’s due: Rorate accepted my posted comment.
Note: In an earlier version of this post, I blamed the “CathCon” blog for the mistranslation, but I shouldn’t assume whether he made the mistake himself or merely copied the bad translation from another source.