On Matrimonial Prospects at My Age

JAU, status with meme

Don't regret growing older.

It's a privilege denied to many.

HGL/me

I do not regret growing older, I am just sorry that is still before getting married (to a girl younger than myself, as otherwise she would be close to infertile if not previously having born children).

JAU (himself this time)

half the man's age, plus seven years minimum.

HGL/me

Where do you get that from?

That is NOT in Holy Writ and NOT in Canon Law either.

Jogaila's Russian mother Uliana of Tver urged him to marry Sofia, daughter of Prince Dmitri of Moscow, who required him first to convert to Orthodoxy.[nb 4] That option, however, was unlikely to halt the crusades against Lithuania by the Teutonic Knights, who regarded Orthodox Christians as schismatics and little better than heathens.[2][7] Jogaila chose therefore to accept a Polish proposal to become a Catholic and marry the eleven-year-old Queen Jadwiga of Poland.[nb 5] The nobles of Malopolska made this offer to Jogaila for many reasons. They wanted to neutralize the dangers posed by Lithuania itself and to secure the fertile territories of Galicia–Volhynia.[10] The Polish nobles saw the offer as an opportunity for increasing their privileges[11] and avoiding Austrian influence, brought by Jadwiga's previous fiancé William, Duke of Austria.[12]

On 14 August 1385 in Kreva Castle, Jogaila confirmed his prenuptial promises in the Union of Krewo (Union of Kreva). The promises included the adoption of Christianity, repatriation of lands "stolen" from Poland by its neighbours, and terras suas Lithuaniae et Russiae Coronae Regni Poloniae perpetuo applicare, a clause interpreted by historians to mean anything from a personal union between Lithuania and Poland to a complete incorporation of Lithuania into Poland.[13] The agreement at Kreva has been described both as far-sighted and as a desperate gamble.[nb 6]

Jogaila was duly baptised at the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków on 15 February 1386 and from then on formally used the name Władysław or Latin versions of it.[14][nb 7] The marriage took place three days later, and on 4 March 1386 Jogaila was crowned King Władysław by archbishop Bodzanta. He was also to be legally adopted by Jadwiga's mother, Elizabeth of Bosnia, so retaining the throne in the event of Jadwiga's death.[7] The royal baptism triggered the conversion of most of Jogaila's court and noblemen, as well as mass baptisms in Lithuanian rivers,[15] a beginning of the final Christianization of Lithuania. Though the ethnic Lithuanian nobility were the main converts to Catholicism—both paganism and the Orthodox rite remained strong among the peasants—the king's conversion and its political implications created lasting repercussions for the history of both Lithuania and Poland

1386 - she was twelve. He was 35 if born in 1351 and 24 if born in 1362.

The parents of St Francis of Sales married when she was fourteen and he was, I think, 63.

He was born 1522, she in 1552. They married 1566.

So, sorry, he was 44 while she was 14.

LA MAMAN
DE
SAINT FRANÇOIS DE SALES
par
Monseigneur FrancisTROCHU
[extrait]
http://www.saint-remi.fr/medias/extraits/la_maman_de_saint_francois_de_sales_extrait.pdf

If you had been right, canon law would have forbidden that marriage and it did not. Nor does it now.

And similar things could be said for the Empress Hildegard:

Wikipedia : Hildegard of Vinzgouw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Vinzgouw

At age 13, she marries a man age 29 at least.

JAU

these days, such matches would be called child abuse.

HGL

these days are vile and full of falsehood.

From Catholic Cosmology Group, on Size of Universe

1) New blog on the kid : St Augustine was - Literally - a Young Earth Creationist and Geocentric, and he was Right, 2) HGL's F.B. writings : Diverging slightly from Sungenis, 3) From Catholic Cosmology Group, on Size of Universe, 4) Continued from Previous, Some Debate

Status by NS

Thoughts?

It seems our Sun becomes a lot less significant, as the reality of the Universe is a much broader concept than our own solar system...

Amazing Things in the World
24 mars
Star Size Comparison - Must See!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=668231813230536&set=vb.338077742912613&type=2&theater

AN

My first reaction to this presentation is wonder at the vastness of the universe. But then at the end they make a logical fallacy by equating this with insignificance, and even more illogically, saying this somehow negates geocentrism (since any point can be a centre, no matter the scale of what it is occupying). Also, this only looks in one direction- there is also the micro-universe, which is equally awesome to contemplate. Another thought: I will try to find the original source document, but I read a essay claiming that, in the context of the scale of the universe (both micro and macro), the human being is at the midpoint. So in terms of scale, humans can be seen as the centre as well. Here is an interactive graphic of what I'm talking about:

The Scale of the Universe
[Takes some time to load]
http://htwins.net/scale2/

RL

All that real estate out there and the only signs of intelligence are on the Earth. And as a coincidence, Earth is the only place where God became man. Now, where is the center of the universe?

CS

The futility of my attempts to wrap my head around the vastness of creation only goes to show just how powerful Our Lord truly is -- and this is just that which is material!

The closing statement claims that we are not the center of the universe while only providing an animated representative illustration for the supposed scale of the universe, as though this is somehow definitive evidence to support this claim.

I'm not surprised...

On a side note, I can't wait much longer for The Principle to be released! My bit is just about chomped through in anticipation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Now, the largeness of the Universe is observable in terms of degrees of circles, namely full circle rotated a full circle around it diametre as axis, but not in terms of distance measures EXCEPT insofar as we either have direct such for smaller things (it is larger than earth which can be measured) or indirect such for nearer things (it is larger than the largest distance measured by any kind of trigonometry).

Now, for distance of Moon we can do optical trigonometry from earth, using two observatories at equator, nearest distance going through centre of earth and distances along equator equal either way, and observing moon at same time.

Triangulation to Sun is possible using angle of sunlight at Moon.

And once distance to Sun is known triangulation can be made to close planets. The Universe IS larger than that.

However, trigonometry applied to parallax is a different question ...

deretour : Trigonometry, principles, astronomic applications
http://hglundahlsblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/trigonometry-principles-astronomic.html

BC

The hatred of those who despise and ridicule the idea of a Creator blows my mind (as evidenced by the comments for this picture in the original post by "Amazing Things in the World")...they go on and on about how insignificant we are, but it gives them no humility whatsoever -- they insist everyone who believes in God is a fool, and their great "wisdom" must be accepted by all!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

They have a low opinion of humanity in general, but except their god - their collective self.

Rick DeLano

The Catholic cosmology is a deeply salutary antidote to the present, through-the-looking-glass impotence of the multiverse (a theory which, at one and the same time, represents the end of science, and the perversion of its method in service of an antitheology which is, as Hans-Georg Lundahl has indicated, profoundly antihuman at its root.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I am actually interested in the argument as such.

After what I said about trigonometry, is anyone willing to say the universe is so vast that it circling around us is physically impossible and absurd? Or have I answered the charge just given?

After watching part of the video, one must of course say that Sirius A, Pollux, Aldebaran are allotted their sizes through a calculus taking into account two things:

• a) distance considering they show no parallax in a universe where every star must show parallax (as think Heliocentrics) whether perceptible or not,
  
  
• b) apparent angular size in observations.

I am not arguing with apparent angular size in observations. But if these things are only ten times further off than the sun, or whatever the minimum distance is to be beyond Pluto and Kuiper Belt, then they are obviously NOT bigger than it. It is only by getting the inflated distance measures derived from parallax which is derived from heliocentrism that they "must" be so.

I am thus not sure that VY Canis Majoris is not given a size beyond the actual one of all the universe.

(I haven't checked but, assume that is greater than Kuiper Belt extended in a sphere around the Sun.)

A pretty good confutation of initial Newtonian Polycentric Universe Model was done by Olbers:

Olbers' Paradox - A Level Physics
DrPhysicsA·204 vidéos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQz0VgMNGPQ

I agree with his solution nr 1, and I do not agree with his problem about it.

My little problem is this: some exoplanets HAVE been not concluded but directly sighted.* If they are very near, why do they only reflect light from their star and not from the sun?

Of course, Olbers was working from within the cosmology of Newton-Laplace. And in that one, the Universe has to be both infinite, and equal in density all over and ab aeterno, OR there is a God. For if it is ab aeterno, and finite, it means the stars would already have collided in a big lump due to gravity. Same if some parts of the universe were more dense than others.

13:27 [on video] - Red shift can come from two kinds of Doppler effect, I hear:

• a) light source moving away,
• b) light source moving in a circle observed from Centre.

The latter is compatible with a finite and totally Geocentric Universe.

Quoting CMI:

66. How is red-shift explained?

The red-shift of starlight is a decrease in the energy of the light. This energy decrease results in a lengthening of the wavelength of the light, measured with an instrument called a spectrometer. Red is the rainbow color with the longest wavelength, hence the name "red-shift." Stars do not actually become red in appearance since the wavelength change is usually slight. Almost every star and galaxy is found to be red-shifted. The following list summarizes some of the alternative explanations for the origin of this stellar red-shift.

• 1.Stellar Motion. If a star moves outward from the earth, its light energy will be reduced and its wavelength stretched or red-shifted. Stars and entire galaxies show varying amounts of red-shift, therefore implying a variety of speeds for these objects. Police actually use this same effect with radar to measure the speed of cars. Stellar motion is often taken as evidence in support of the Big Bang theory. Stars are assumed to be speeding outward as a result of the explosion. This is not the only explanation of red-shift, however.
• 2.Gravitation. As light leaves a star, the star's gravity may slightly lengthen the wavelength of the light. A gravitational red-shift could also result from starlight passing near a massive object in space, such as a galaxy. As the light escapes from a strong gravity field, it loses energy, similar to what happens to a person struggling to the top of a mountain.
• 3.Second-Order Doppler Effect. A light source moving at right angles (tangentially) to an observer will always be red-shifted. This can be observed in the laboratory by using a high-speed turntable. A detector is placed in the center and a gamma radiation source is placed on the outside edge. The gamma energy is seen to decrease, or "red-shift," as the turntable speed increases. This is an intriguing explanation for stellar red-shift. When applied to stars, it implies that the universe may be in circular motion instead of radial expansion.
• 4.Photon Interaction. It is possible that light waves exchange energy during their movement across space and lose some energy in the process. A loss of light energy is equivalent to a "reddening" of its light. A theoretical understanding of this proposed "tired light" process has not yet been developed.

Any of these four explanations, alone or in combination, may be responsible for red-shift. We do not know enough about space to be certain of the source of stellar red-shift.

CMI : Astronomy And The Bible
by Donald B. DeYoung
http://creation.com/astronomy-and-the-bible

Here I was referring to what they call "3.Second-Order Doppler Effect"

I do not in fact know either how Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is detected or how to explain it. But explaining it - supposing it is correctly detected - as a remnant of a very distant time when all the sky was bright is something of an act of faith.

It is an explanation that concurs with the evidence CITED (Robert Sungenis might know of some contradicting evidence, I do not in the writing moment), and also with the now prevailing theory. But it is not obvious how this would be the only possible explanation, i e how this would be proven fact.

Here is a dialogue on that assumption:

Anonymised

If visible light has been red-shifted to microwaves, wouldn't that imply that gamma rays have red shifted to visible light? I guess that all things being equal, there would now be more low frequency waves than high frequency waves as time has passed; but the video seemed to imply that once the visible light red shifted to lower frequencies, there was nothing more to see. Is it just that at the time of the big bang, there was very little gamma radiation (or higher), and a lot of it has since been absorbed?

DrPhysicsA

Yes indeed. The photons which would have been produced as a result of the matter and anti-antimatter annihilating shortly after the big bang would almost certainly have been in the gamma ray region. But over time as the universe has expanded they had stretched such that they are now in the microwave region.

Unnecessary on Geocentric assumptions.

Two more on that video:

• a) CMBR could be caused by movement of stellatum.
• b) Olbers was not counting with interstellar matter deflecting light.

I am not sure if

• i) an infinite though not very dense amount of deflecting matter would have kept the nights as dark as we see them
  or
  
• ij) an infinite amount of deflection would have changed the paths but still given an infinite amount of light from different light sources.

I can however say, even with an Olbers paradox not really disproving infinite universe, it is mathematically absurd, and neither infinite nor expanding universe is required if one accepts Geocentrism worked by a God upholding what He had created.

When?

These posts about size of Universe with relation to Geocentrism are from between March 25 and April 6 of the year of Our Lord 2014./HGL

Added last minute:

But perhaps I have been misunderstanding NS's point all the time? Perhaps you meant we ar so small we cannot be SIGNIFICANT enough to be the centre of the Universe?

Mark Shea wrote something about Puny Human's Vast Universe which contained a few errors answered both by Robert Sungenis and myself. However one passage was/is still so evidently right:

In Scripture, the action takes place on earth, not in the sky, and the main story is of God and his people, culminating in the revelation of Christ. Astronomical events, such as the star of Bethlehem, point to what God is doing in the affairs of men. Like road signs, these phenomena point the pilgrim soul on his way to Christ and are then quickly forgotten.

But in an age that has come to doubt or even forget Christ, pagan ideas—including ideas about the heavens—can reassert themselves. We live in such a time.

It is not unusual to meet people who have a physicalist view of man’s place in the cosmos. One particularly crude argument asserts that the Bible errs by focusing on the earth and not the sky, because, as H. G. Wells said, "Man is utterly insignificant compared to the size of the universe!" They produce numerous illustrations of our smallness for popular science shows. A camera pulls back until the earth shrinks to (in Carl Sagan’s phrase) a "small blue dot," then the solar system becomes a pinpoint that vanishes into an arm of the Milky Way, which itself becomes an indistinct smudge of light disappearing into billions of other galaxies. People set real store by such thinking. But that’s not because they are hard-headed scientists looking at cold facts. It’s because they are poets who think they are philosophers. They can’t refrain from supposing that immense differences in physical size mean something. But as G. K. Chesterton dryly replied to his friend Wells’s contention, "Man is small compared to the nearest tree."

In short, size doesn’t matter. Michael Jordan does not have greater spiritual worth than Michael J. Fox because he’s taller. Because people are the size of ants compared to the Twin Towers does not mean the buildings were more important than the people killed in them. But when size differences become vast, we tend to wax poetic and to forget these obvious facts.

Catholic Answer Magazine : Puny Humans, Vast Universe
Does Christianity Make Sense?
By: Mark P. Shea
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/puny-humans-vast-universe

So evidently right, as I said, that I did not even realise it might need saying in a group like this one./HGL

Footnote:

* 777 concluded or sighted, but maybe 18 really sighted of them.

Diverging slightly from Sungenis

1) New blog on the kid : St Augustine was - Literally - a Young Earth Creationist and Geocentric, and he was Right, 2) HGL's F.B. writings : Diverging slightly from Sungenis, 3) From Catholic Cosmology Group, on Size of Universe, 4) Continued from Previous, Some Debate

Mark Shea and the “Synthesis of All Heresies”
http://galileowaswrong.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Mark_Shea_and_Synthesis_of_All_Heresies.pdf

Note that in the main the summing up of history is pretty correct, both as regards Hegelianism and as regards Patristics and Scholastics. I would like my readers to read the paper first, since I am disagreeing on certain points - including the question how to assess Mark Shea. But Robert Sungenis makes an invaluable scoop about how the text of St Augustine continues after that VERY over used - as the meme in which it is misused, not as the text it is - quote that I think pretty many of you know. As to good use of it, we may get some as soon as scientists start seeing how Heliocentrism and Darwinism break down.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

In essence, Hegel taught that all knowledge is a product of an evolutionary or dialectical process in man’s thinking. There were three phases to man’s thinking:

• 1) Thesis
• 2) Antithesis
• 3) Synthesis

Although theoretically the Hegelian dialectic can be applied to any historical movement ...

My comment

As far as I have understood Hegel applies it to EVERYTHING in the cosmos.

• Being. Non-being. Annihiliation.
• Annihiliation. Coming-Into-Being. Change.
• Change. Non-change. Slowing down.
• Slowing down. Speeding up. Changing speed.
• Changing speed. Constant speed. Stabilisation.

... and so on. And on Hegel's view that is where we come from.

[One can add that on Hegel's view, this Hegelian dielactic in human thought mimics the Hegelian dialectic of being as such, of the Absolute.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Conversely, Catholicism teaches that we can, indeed, know various things for certain since they are presupposed as coming from divine revelation, which always tells the real and unadulterated truth.

My comment

Not JUST from divine revelation. Also even naturally knowable things.

Creation vs. Evolution : Romans 1:20 and Dawkins, Richard
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2014/02/romans-120-and-dawkins-richard.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

On his blog for March 26, 2014, Mr. Shea posted his latest diatribe, “Puny Humans, Vast Universe,” which, in a few words, tries to assume a middle position, or Synthesis, between the new television series, Cosmos, and our movie, The Principle.2 From his caricatures of the two features, it is obvious Mr. Shea believes his position to be the only sane and cogent of the three options.

My comment

He might with somewhat more probability be referring to Chesterton's observation that - I will add: though not reached in fact be Hegelian dialectic - the Catholic position on any question is usually the sane middle between two extremes.

Neither Pelagian nor Calvinist:

Great Bishop of Geneva! : Rejecting Pelagius and Calvin
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2014/03/rejecting-pelagius-and-calvin.html

Neither idolising drunkenness nor teetotalism. Neither Materialist nor Pagan. Neither Polytheist nor Unitarian. And so on.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Cites one post by Mark Shea and my answer with which he agrees, see his paper, and politely adds:] Thank you, Mr. Lundahl.

My comment

You are welcome.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Basically, Catholic liberals and modernists are people who teach that much of Scripture’s testimony on history is false. For example, they believe that various accounts in Old Testament (Adam and Eve, the Flood, ...

My comment

Here is his view:

Catholic and Enjoying It : Tee, as they say, Hee
April 2, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/04/tee-as-they-say-hee-2.html

Here is my answer:

New blog on the kid : T'Ignore or Not Ignore?
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/04/t-ignore-or-not-ignore.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Mark Shea is merely one of the more visible and popular purveyors of this modernist hermeneutic but certainly not the most intellectually gifted or the deepest thinker. As he himself once said on his own masthead: “Where no stupid comment on any topic went left unsaid,” or something to that effect.

My comment

He is admitting he is not knowledgeable enough about history to answer a question like the following:

Catholic and Enjoying It : A reader has a question for somebody knowledgable in history
March 31, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/03/a-reader-has-a-question-for-somebody-knowledgable-in-history.html

I answered:

HGL's F.B. writings : Mark Shea Asking For the Commenter he Blocked
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2014/03/mark-shea-asking-for-commenter-he.html

"once said" ... yes, I still see the cartoon character, but no longer the self depreciating comment that went with it.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Thesis: The Bible claims to provide authentic narratives of historical events.

Antithesis: Modern science has shown these historical events never took place; and that all cultures were prone to create mythical stories to compensate for their ignorance about the universe.

Synthesis: Most of the Bible is made up of myths and only a fraction of it has real truth.

My comment

That is not so much Hegelian dialectics as an ordinary Aristotelian syllogism. With number two as erroneous though backed up by prefix Moden Science has shown. With an erroneous premiss you can get an erroneous conclusion.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

For example, although modern Catholic apologists often attempt to cast Pope Urban VIII’s 1633condemnation of Galileo as if it was prompted by Urban’s pride for believing that Galileo had insulted him in his book, the Dialogo, that accusation is simply not true.

My comment

Pope Urban VIII kept out of the trial himself so as to avoid being a biassed judge.

But over and above the charge being false, it is often spiced with "Galileo brought it on himself for having an attitude problem". Now that has a few implications a bit TOO spicy for me:

1) attitude problems are as serious as doctrinal problems or more so - false. At least for most attitude problems. Hatred of God is indeed more serious than mere heresy or apostasy.

2) the Church has a right to impede printing and shut up in reclusion at home, in a lifelong house arrest, people with attitude problems, even if they are right. False. Assuming Galileo had been right, the Church could at most have had an excuse for believing he was wrong (independently of the attitude problem) and an excuse for believing to be in Her rights in punishing him. But having an excuse for shooting a man on a hunt while believing it is a moose does not amount to a right to shoot men who look for a moment like a moose.

3) this right to deal with people who might be perfectly right but have attitude problems persists to this day. False, since such a right was not in question for the Church even then.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

The real truth is, Pope Urban was beside himself with fear over what Galileo’s doctrine would do to the Church.

My comment

This also looks more like searching excuses than like justifying.

If true, he at least left the judgement to judges with more level reason, but what I have seen from his character otherwise (like portraits and the fact he made a new Church for St Bibiana) suggests to me this is false.

Ouch, there seems to be sth for this way of looking at Pope Urban VIII:

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014, quoting a contemporary of process

Yesterday I did not have the time to report to Your Most Illustrious Lordship what had transpired (in a very emotional atmosphere) between myself and the Pope in regard to Mr. Galilei’s work….I too am beginning to believe…that the sky is about to fall. While we were discussing those delicate subjects of the Holy Office, His Holiness exploded in great anger, and suddenly he told me that even our Galilei had dared enter where he should not have, in the most serious and dangerous subjects which could be stirred up at this time. I replied that Mr. Galilei had not published without the approval of his ministers….He answered, with the same outburst of rage, that he had been deceived by Galileo and Ciampoli…

[(Niccolini to Cioli, 5-IX-1632)

Same letter:]

He said that he had prohibited works which had his pontifical name in front and were dedicated to himself, and that in such matters, involving great harm to religion (indeed the worst ever conceived), His Highness [the Grand Duke] too should contribute to preventing it, being a Christian prince….I retorted that…I did not believe His Holiness would bring about the prohibition of the already approved book without at least hearing Mr. Galilei first. His Holiness answered that this was the least ill which could be done to him and that he should take care not to be summoned by the Holy Office; that he has appointed a Commission of theologians and other persons versed in various sciences, serious and of holy mind, who are weighing every minutia, word for word, since one is dealing with the most perverse subject one could ever come across….Finally, he told me to write to our Most Serene Patron that the doctrine is extremely perverse, that they would review everything with seriousness, and that His Highness should not get involved but should go slow; furthermore, not only did he impose on me the secret about what he had just told me, but he charged me to report that he also was imposing it on His Highness [the Grand Duke].

My comment

As far as temper goes, this reminds me of Moderns. Hope Niccolini was suffering from pseudo-empathy and attributing emotions to Pope Urban VIII which were more violent than the Pope's real ones.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Later:]

He [the pope] retorted that in cases where religion might suffer damage, it was less harmful to overreact occasionally than to be remiss as a result of the reasons I mentioned, and thus to endanger Christianity with some sinister opinion; furthermore, he had been told by His Holiness that, since we are dealing with dangerous dogmas, His Highness [the Grand Duke, Cosimo Medici] should put aside all respect and affection toward his Mathematician and be glad to contribute himself to shielding Catholicism from any danger.

My comment

The ethics of the Inquisition. But in a day when it legally existed.

Now, these days, I think some are using a non-extant Inquisition to silence Geocentrics and Creationists. By setting up amateur Inquisitions.

He added that one is dealing with new doctrines and Holy Scripture, that the best course is to follow the common opinion

Now, that is a criterium, which if not followed up over Centuries Past is likely to be hurtful to Geocentrism.

[To a common man, following it up over the centuries might not be the first reaction. But in Pope Urban's day he was very much in a position to know - if the question had been raised - that he was indeed speaking for the common opinion not just of Catholics (and even Schismatics and Heretics) contemporary to him, but of Centuries Past excepting isolated cases among the Greeks in pre-Christian times. Today, the élite know very well they are not following up "the common opinion" over Centuries Past, even if they fondly imagine to be following the common opinion of Centuries Future (and unknown, even unknown whether they will at all happen), even common men are prone to depreciate "the common opinion" of Centuries Past, knowing they do so, and all know very well how Government Run Acacemic and Scholarly Institutions have contributed to the change. All know the change of opinion was not by millions of adults freely debating the evidence, but millions of children being indoctrinated by a small élitist minority, and parents being shown some evidence to calm their qualms about what was being done to their children.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Dei Verbum:]

the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures.

My comment

The same claim that Trent claimed for the Vulgate. Trent claimed a lot more of inerrancy for the Bible as such or for the first manuscript of each hagiographer.

[Note that if the Vulgate had been perfactly inerrant, we could in all confidence doctrinalise the Time Line of Ussher. However, St Jerome based a similar time line, read in Christmas proclamation, on the LXX. The Universe was 5199 years old when God was born in Bethlehem.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

the Modernists want us to accept that Scripture is only without error when it speaks on salvation, and it is not inerrant, and thus not reliable, when it speaks about anything else, including history and the cosmos. This was a view of Scripture never before taught in the whole history of the Catholic Church.

My comment

Quite true. I have seen a quote attributed to Galileo in which he takes the exact same view. It was new and radical in his time.

Much more so than mere Heliocentrism. Bad as that is, for diverse reasons (just as a revision along the lines of astrology suggesting Jacob and Esau had different horoscopes would also be very bad - though I have heard one astrologer argue Jacob's true horoscope was when his hand came out for a moment).

And if Galileo had been tried and found guilty for that, he would have burned. Unless he had recanted.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

as error-filled and fictional as the testimony of Bill Clinton telling us he “did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”

My comment

His explanation is however very priceless. "That is not sex". Meaning, when we condemn the condom and the pill, we are really condemning non-sex. Same as with gay marriage. Catholicism is not against sex, She [the Church] is against Non-Sex.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

As we have seen, the Bible’s inerrancy was sacrificed primarily in order to make room for Copernicus and Galileo, with Darwin, Freud, Marx and a few other humanistic icons, running a close second.

My comment

All of those were on my no-no list when I still had the MSN Group Antimodernism.

I was never a believer in Sagan, but I liked original Cosmos series.

I agree he is spot on:

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

“But if the Bible is not everywhere literally true, which parts are divinely inspired and which are merely infallible and human? As soon as we admit there are scriptural mistakes (or concessions to the ignorance of the times), then how can the Bible be an inerrant guide to ethics and morals?”

[Ref. to Pale Blue Dot, pp. 40, 42. (Was there a picture on p. 41?)]

I wouldn’t doubt at all that the reason Mark Shea also appears soft on homosexuality (as noted in his defense of his homosexual friend, “Perry,” who lived with another homosexual male before he died last year, yet also claimed to be a practicing and devout Catholic) is that he has imbibed, in part or in whole, this “new way,” this Hegelian dialectic, of viewing Scripture.

My comment

I disagree.

HGL's F.B. writings : Oscar Wilde and Perry Lorenzo
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2012/12/oscar-wilde-and-perry-lorenzo.html

And as for the suggestion Mark Shea is soft on, not homosexuals as people, but homosexuality as a way of life, see this:

Catholic and Enjoying It : There’s a Little Moment in Jurassic Park I Think of
April 4, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/04/theres-a-little-moment-in-jurassic-park-i-think-of.html

Relevant quote:

That’s what I think of as the Gay Legion of Menacing Visigoths for Tolerance continues its ruthless and pitiless extirpation of all who are guilty of Thoughtcrime for failing to hail homosex as the Source and Summit of all that is noble, pure, good, and glorious. Tolerance is not enough. You. MUST. Approve. And God help you if the Thought Police discover anything in your past revealing dissent from the regime. Punishment will be swift and merciless. Because Diversity and Freedom.

As we are there, there are no doubt some Catholic Liberals who still deny miracles. But both Mr. Darwin and Mark Shea have testified to believing miracles do occur. Mr. Darwin believes Joshua's Long Day. Mark Shea believes Multiplication of loaves really happened.

DarwinCatholic : Did Augustine and Aquinas Believe In A Literal Interpretation of Genesis
http://darwincatholic.blogspot.com/2014/02/did-augustine-and-aquinas-believe-in.html

Well, at least he believes the Resurrection:

Indeed, it is the very predictability of physical laws which makes the exceptions to them (miracles, such as the Resurrection) miraculous.

[Actually one can very much dispute the definition or characterisation of miracles as "exceptions to physical laws", they are the most obvious since only exceptional results of an Agency above these laws. And above the causes alias agencies they usually deal with.]

Quoting him, in that thread.

Here is Mark Shea being Orthodox on Loaves and Fishes:

New Catholic Register - Blog by Mark Shea - The Miracle of Caring and Sharing
by Mark Shea Wednesday, May 04, 2011 2:00 AM
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/the-miracle-of-caring-and-sharing

Relevant quote:

In the same way, one can play with the (exceedingly lame) “explanation” of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes where everybody was so moved by Jesus’ warm fuzziness that they all shared their lunches. The Church does not forbid this stupid way of reading the text, just as the Church has never issued an infallible decree that 2+2 does not equal five, nor a formal dogma that you should not play in traffic.

Nonetheless, all these things are wrong and stupid, as is the naturalistic reading of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.

Quoting you again:

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Mark Shea seeks to make it appear that geocentrism makes the Catholic Church look like an antiscience, anti-modern, anti-establishment institution that simply refuses to budge even in the face of proof after proof that its traditional views have been discredited. I sometimes wonder that if modern science began to tout that there is “no proof” for a wafer of bread turning into the body and blood of Christ, whether someone like Mark Shea might be tempted to agree with it.

It wouldn’t be the first time. There was a whole movement begun by modernist Catholics coming out of Vatican II, led by Father Eduard Schillebeeckx, who were similarly “embarrassed” by the traditional Catholic doctrine of “transubstantiation.”

My comment

I have seen guys like that. They are more likely to be [cradle] Catholics with qualms about repression of Huguenots or Collaboration with Nazis, [or for that matter over Galileo case] than converts from Evangelical religion, such as Mark Shea.

Indeed, the fact that Mark Shea is a friend of Keating makes the suggestion impossible. Catholic Answers started as a defence of Transubstantiation and Sacrifice of Holy Mass in face of attacks from Protestants in the area.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

In effect, Shea will accept the unproven theories of atheistic scientists and sacrifice the doctrines of traditional Catholicism in order to promote ecumenism.

My comment

No.

He is not that ecumenical. If by traditional Catholicism you do not mean the contemporary defense of it, but rather Catholicism as it traditionally is, Mark Shea is more ignorant of it than opposed to it.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Unfortunately, the cosmos of Genesis has become the biggest stumbling block for modernist Catholics because, quite simply, they just “know” that it can’t be right, thanks to Galileo and Darwin.

My comment

There you are a bit spot on again. Alas.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Here’s challenge number 23 for you.

If you, Mark Shea, can provide just one scientific and indisputable proof that the Earth rotates and revolves around the Sun, I will give you $1,000.00.

If you can’t, then you owe me $1,000.00. Put your money where your mouth is, Mr. Shea, otherwise, shut up.

My comment

Maybe he doesn't have that money, and he is ignoring your challenge (to which you cannot bind him in advance without his consent) because he has some correct suspicions about the issue?

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Quoting Mark Shea]

The answer is twofold. First, converts who were once Fundamentalists and who used to read Scripture literally become Catholic and proceed to read Scripture and Catholic documents literally.

R. Sungenis: Absolutely false. If there were any “Fundamentalists” in the world before the Protestants, their name was “Catholic”!

My comment

Actually even more: if there were Fundies between 1500 and 1900 there were Catholics among them. And Calvinism and Socinianism are the main roots of non-Literal exegesis. (Non-literal as opposed to Literal AND Allegoric, for instance).

Creation vs. Evolution : Why a Literalist should be a Papist and not a Barnesist
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2014/02/why-literalist-should-be-papist-and-not.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

If not, how does Mr. Shea explain that of all the denominations and churches in the world, the Catholics are the only ones that interpret John 6:54 (“Whoever eats my body and drinks myblood has eternal life”) and Matthew 26:26 (“This is my body”) as literally as it can possibly be interpreted?

My comment

Catholics. Eastern Orthodox. Of Monophysites the Copts, previously also Armenians. I presume Nestorians too. Lutherans and some High Church Anglians also believe Real Presence. I think some of the newer denominations sometimes do so too.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Ironically, it’s the Protestant “Fundamentalists” who refuse to interpret this passage literally!

My comment

True enough about Chick Tracts. And Karl Keating and Mark Shea (or Karl Keating at first and later Mark Shea) started out Catholic Answers to answer that.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

How does Mr. Shea explain the fact that the Catholics were the first and one of the only to interpret John 20:23 (“Whosever sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven”) as literally as it can be interpreted?

My comment

Again, and this time Armenians are included as well, this goes for all of the Churches with Apostolic Succession.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

It wasn’t until Darwin came along that a band of modernist and liberal “Catholics” decided that science had disproven a literal reading of Genesis.

My comment

I even think that as C S Lewis remained an Evolutionist at first (at first!) after his Christian conversion, it may have been the strictness of 1909 answers that made him prefer Anglicanism over Catholicism.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Heliocentrism is wrong because the Church said it was wrong; [...] the medievals said it was wrong,

My comment

There is a move in Academia to make out as if Buridan and Nicole d'Oresme (who died as Bishop of Lisieux) were saying it was right, when in fact they were merely saying it was thinkable and physically non-contradictory.

They said it was "possible" about as someone would [now] say it was "possible" to assume everything in the whole universe every day shrank to half the size of 24 h. earlier in every dimension. You cannot experimentally prove that wrong, since the meters and yardsticks would have shrunk too, but it is pointless and counterintuitive.

So is Heliocentrism.

The TOF Spot : What's Wrong With the Cosmos?
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/03/whats-wrong-with-cosmos.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

If I hear this quote from Augustine taken out of context one more time I think I’m going to be sick.

[I guess you all know which one! Sungenis quotes it in his paper if you don't. Read it if you haven't.]

My comment

For my part I got angry and impatient. It is a bit like nagging, isn't it?

New blog on the kid : St Augustine was - Literally - a Young Earth Creationist and Geocentric, and he was Right
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/03/st-augustine-was-literally-young-earth.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Lovely, Sungenis quoting St Augustine a little bit later on in the text of De Genesi ad Literam:]

Taking these theories into account, a certain commentator [Basil] has made a praiseworthy attempt to demonstrate that the waters are above the heavens, so as to support the word of Scripture with the visible and tangible phenomena of nature.... Hence, from the existence of the air between the vapors that form the clouds above and the seas that stretch out below, our commentator proposed to show that there is a heaven between water and water. This painstaking enquiry is, in my opinion, quite praiseworthy.

My comment

If Mark Shea reads this he might go right and say "oh, really, I didn't know" (he very probably doesn't as long as he hasn't read your text). [I did not know previous to reading it either!] Part of the outbursts about trash bin worthy mails might be about your text, I am not sure he is reading it [and see what he is missing!]. But more to the point : how would he be able to know the passage? De Genesi ad Literam is one of the longer works available, and unlike Summa Theologiae and De Civitate Dei it is not on the web in English translation. [Only in books that may be rare.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

But Augustine goes even further in the next analysis, for now he tries to show that there are waters even above the starry heavens.

My comment

I have heard - thanks to youtube - that the two most common molecules in the universe (as in interstellar space) are H₂ and H₂O. In my theory H₂ would also qualify as "water" in Biblical language. H₂ was created when H₂O also give rise to the O₂ in the atmosphere.

And what would you call H₂ in Biblical terminology? Air or water? You cannot use it for breathing. If you mix it with air and add a spark (which can have happened in the Flood on more than one occasion) it will result in water.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Augustine will go on to argue that Saturn, which was then understood as a star, generates heat as it makes its orbit, but that it is cooled by the waters near it, above the heavens

My comment

It was as much "understood as a star" as whales and crayfish were understood as fishes in the Bible.

There are two "kinds of stars", fixed stars which stay in a fixed position in relation to the zodiak and also planets that have an own movement West to East along the zodiak. On top of all of above having a common movement East to West each day and night.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014 quoting St Augustine

It is true, indeed, that by its own motion, moving over a vast space, it takes thirty years to complete its orbit; yet by the motion of the heavens it is rotated rapidly in the opposite direction...and therefore, it ought to generate greater heat by reason of its greater velocity.

My comment

He theorises that the daily motion is generating heat like we speak about heat by friction. If he is wrong, I think some other Church Fathers did not share the Greek Cosmological preseumptions he had. So that the error is NOT common to all the Church Fathers.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014, still quoting St Augustine

With this reasoning some of our scholars attack the position of those who refuse to believe that there are waters above the heavens while maintaining that the star whose path is in the height of the heavens is cold. Thus they would compel the disbeliever to admit that water is there not in a vaporous state but in the form of ice. But whatever the nature of that water and whatever the manner of its being there, we must not doubt that it does exist in that place. The authority of Scripture in this matter is greater than all human ingenuity.

My comment

Five states of water: ice, liquid, vapour, H₂, hydrogen plasma (as in Sun - but note that the Sun also contains a subsidiary process involving Oxygen, Nitrogen and Carbon, where Oxygen is another of the "ingredients" or rather constituents of water) on its way to make Helium (IF the theory is correct). But one of these certainly is there. And modern scientists have detected not just plasma but also H₂ and H₂O.

Kent Hovind had a theory in which waters above the firmament was just a preflood condition. I think some of the passages he used prove there are still waters above the firmament.

He has admitted as much, by the way.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014 (in his own words again)

That is, the Lord did not desire to give us detailed information as to what pushes or pulls the sun and moon around the Earth, or how it is that they keep such precise time year after year.

My comment

Not VERY detailed, but some guidelines, perhaps.

Daniel 3: [57] All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [58] O ye angels of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [59] O ye heavens, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [60] O all ye waters that are above the heavens, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all for ever.

[61] O all ye powers of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [62] O ye sun and moon, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [63] O ye stars of heaven, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [64] O every shower and dew, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [65] O all ye spirits of God, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.

The passage lacks in Jewish and Protestant Bibles!

Baruch 3:[32] But he that knoweth all things, knoweth her, and hath found her out with his understanding: he that prepared the earth for evermore, and filled it with cattle and fourfooted beasts: [33] He that sendeth forth light, and it goeth: and hath called it, and it obeyeth him with trembling. [34] And the stars have given light in their watches, and rejoiced: [35] They were called, and they said: Here we are: and with cheerfulness they have shined forth to him that made them.

Book lacking in Jewish and Protestant Bibles.

Job 38:[7] When the morning stars praised me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody?

THIS verse remains even to them.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Hence, because the Lord taught them in Scripture that the sun and moon move around the Earth, it was for that very reason that St. Augustine and St. Thomas were both geocentrists, in opposition to the Greeks and Indians who were promoting heliocentrism.

My comment

Greeks at the time were not even promoting it. Authority of the senses would be the great reason (even to non-believers, see Romans 1:20) to be Geostatic and once roundness of earth is properly discovered since Vasco da Gama more precisely Geocentric.

Even atheists like Democritus and Lucretius were Geocentric. Indians may have included people thinking it [Heliocentrism] true, but these were marginal even among themselves and so much more to St Augustine and St Thomas.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

All these attempts, of course, are done in the face of the fact that Augustine believed firmly in geocentrism and defended it vigorously.

My comment

Sorry, Sungenis, "defended vigorously" implies someone was attacking it in his time. Who?

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Ignoring these facts, heliocentric advocates will often appeal to Augustine’s general hermeneutical principles concerning the need to be cautions when science and Scripture seem to clash,

My comment

While they suppose this was his main general hermeneutical principle (the quote so over used). Ignoring he stated his real general principles in book I chapter 1. But, as said, the twelve books of that work are not available online.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

This quip came from one liberal cardinal, Baronius, during Galileo’s day, but the Church never adopted it as the truth. How could they, since it was that very Church in Baronius’ day that condemned Galileo?

My comment

Two points:

• 1) I have heard it attributed both to Galileo and to St Robert Bellarmine.
• 2) In the latter's mouth it certainly meant no disparagement of fact THAT the Heavens, rather than earth, are the ones that go.

Taken that way it is Orthodox. Holy Writ makes no very clear decision between flat or global earth, or between Geostasis in Flat Earth, Ptolemaic, or Tychonian Cosmology. But the Heavens do go. And if you think of it, very fast. And their staying together is either a miracle of construction or a miracle of good command over angels or both at the same time.

This is why, when defending Geocentrism, we are defending our eyes and part of the meaning of Romans 1:20.

[And I would not call Baronius a liberal.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

If, in that process, one makes the argument that being in the center couldn’t happen by chance and therefore the universe came into being by the hand of a divine Creator (as opposed to what Krauss and Sagan tout, that is, that the universe created itself), then so be it.

My comment

It is rather stars staying in a periphery rotating so very fast [and staying in stable either positions for fixed stars or orbits for planets] that could not happen by chance. As well as the energy provided each day for the rotation, as per my debate under TOF Spot:

"I suppose I could have said that 'given the conservation of mass-energy in large-scale phenomena, we know that geocentrism is false'."

St Thomas did not subscribe to conservation of mass-energy in marge scale or other phenomena, since he was not identifying the NECESSARY BEING with mass-energy, but with God.

"If you are willing to postulate an influx of energy that keeps the sun circling a stationary earth, such energy having no other detectable effect, of course you can still proclaim geocentrism."

Geocentrism is major proof that God is, as UPHOLDER of the Universe, providing the "influx of energy" that makes not just Sun but indeed All Universe circle around a stationary earth each day.

And the detection of the influx is by the phenomena of day and night.

That is the easiest way of stating Prima Via.

I rest my case.

My additional comment 5-IV-2014

Two retractions, since I was tired yesterday!

1) If Pope Urban was worried about Heliocentrism threatening Christianity, he meant as threatening its doctrine, and he has the history since about his times in favour of his accuracy.

If Moderns are worried about Geocentrism threatening Christianity, they usually mean either socially "embarassing the faith", or if doctrinally they are defending some phoney derivative of "Thomism" which is more Averroist than Thomist, and perhaps even more Deist than Averroist.

2) If Pope Urban was overexcited at a moment, he was later calm. Plus, of course, he left the judgment to many others and was not involved himself once the process started before it was ended.

So, my comparison was lopsided.

Reflections on a stone block and on gruesome factory farming and more

I

Wall of John Médaille

a posting by another guy, named KH

KH's post

Upper piece of picture:

three men in the style of Egyptian Pyramid builders dragging a stone block with a desk and a boss on top of it.

Lower piece of same:

no more boss on top of stone block, but a leader at same time showing the way and adding a fourth piece of muscle strength to the dragging.

HGL

putting it like that verges on idiocy.

KH

I see it as contrasting Pharao's approach with Christ's. (Instead if merely dictating one leads by example.)

HGL

There is a problem here.

Christ indeed set an example, but he is NOT requiring everyone to get onto Calvary with loads of wood on the back and get nailed hands and feet until suffocating slower than a halal slaughtered sheep dies.

That was the theological one. On the Economic level, a heavy stone is a heavy stone, and too gavey for three men to carry with a boss sitting on it, but still too heavy for four men, including the boss acting as leader instead, to carry as well.

On the level of twenty men, it is hardly harder to drag it with one man on top than with a twentyfirst man dragging.

And the distributist thing for the four men would be not to drag the block at all, but to part it in four pieces and start sculpting each in his piece.

And each of the four men would in that Distributist picture have the designation neither of boss nor of leader, but of craftsman.

II

Wall of friend

crying, showing a picture with text: Disgraceful! The egg industry grinds baby male chicks alive because they're "useless." Who agrees that this is terrible?

LKG

It's terrible, but what are they supposed to do with them?

friend

Well, not grind them up alive! That is just barbaric. When there is a very problematic situation, it usually it due to a larger, foundational problem, and one must fix it, and the root of this problem is…factory farming. It is just unnatural. What did they use to do? Well, before factory farming, they would have never had this massive amount of male chicks to dispose of, and I suppose they did used to serve a purpose - as alarm clocks!

WH

Excess roosters were eaten at a young age. These are probably a scrawny breed adapted for the highest egg production, so not so good for eating but could be stewed and provide mineral-rich bone broth if raised on pasture. Most people in the past who were raising chickens for home use chose a multi-purpose breed that was good for eating and egg production.

friend

Yes, there is no answer to this solution, except for getting rid of factory farming.

LKG

That's true, but it's not likely to happen. Factory farming is providing food that is cheaper, and that is what most people will buy, which is why factory farming first began. Think about this for a moment. The chicks used to be thrown alive into garbage bags, where they would most likely suffocate, and the rest would die of starvation. They are so small that I'm sure they die quickly when they are ground up, and the remains are then useful as pet food or fertilizer. We raised chickens when I was growing up. There is no way to tell what gender the chick will be before it hatches, and only some Orientals can tell the gender immediately after hatching. We could tell, in time, and then all but one rooster had to be separated from the hens, or they would kill each other. We butchered all but one of the roosters as soon as they got big enough to eat, and we did eat them, but rooster meat is not as tender or tasty as hen meat, which is why there is no market for the male chicks.

RC

This cannot be true. Except that it can.

HGL

LKG, unfortunately it has happened that ground up chickens have been used to feed chickens.

"Factory farming is providing food that is cheaper, and that is what most people will buy, which is why factory farming first began."

Factory farming is providing food that is cheaper. Nike is providing shoes that are cheaper. Coca and Pepsi are providing drinks that are cheaper. People live in houses of concrete module over concrete module that are cheaper. Everyone is living a cheaper life.

Could it be that the craze for producing cheaper is impoverishing people employed in these cheaper productions, so that more people are nowadays FORCED to buy cheaper? Hmm?

Factory farming makes life less expensive except for farmers. Nike makes life less expensive except for Nike factory employees. Coca and Pepsi make life cheaper except for Coca and Pepsi employees. Hold on, who is NOT loosing at some one end? Perhaps the out-of-work, the unemployed? Well, there are more of those these days!

LKG

Very true, Hans-Georg Lu[n]dahl. So few people see this, which is part of why it is so difficult to reverse it.

HGL

This is part of why I am writing. And also a reason why I offer conditions favourable to small printers.

HGL's F.B. writings : Be my Unwin or Hooper if you like.
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2011/09/be-my-unwin-or-hooper-if-you-like.html

Unfortunately, favourable conditions for printing my essays on small scale locally are not quite enough to keep an organic farm going.

III

Friend quoting a Distributist

"Both socialism and capitalism are products of the European Enlightenment and are thus modernizing and anti-traditional forces. In contrast, distributism seeks to subordinate economic activity to human life as a whole, to our spiritual life, our intellectual life, our family life." – Thomas Storck

HGL

[linking to this adress, while only first one was here.]

Paul D

Thank goodness for capitalism, though. Imagine how hard life would be without it.

HGL

How hard? Oh, without Ford you would not have a car to drive one hour to the job? Just that, under Middle Ages, usually European city dwellers were not taking an hour to get to their job. Usually a master craftsman would wake up and eat his breakfast upstairs and walk to the job and the business downstairs in the same house.

IV

Friend

I used to be "pro privatisation" - back when I followed mainstream "conservative" politics. Since practical solutions are needed to solve modern day problems (i.e. we just can't undo eveything, and go back to the Middle Ages), I think it is better for a government agency to be run by the local government than for it to be privatised. The latter is just as bad as federally-owned, if not worse, and is very capitalistic. Of course, the government should be non-profit.

DC

Practical Distributism : Distributism Basics: The Nature and Roles of Government http://practicaldistributism.blogspot.com/2014/01/distributism-basics-nature-and-roles-of.html

Friend

I am pro-distributism, of course, but could you please tell me your thoughts on this post? I will, of course, open the link, and read its contents.

DC

Well, as I am the author of the post, i think it's great!

I try to make the point that local issues should be handled by local authorities.

Friend

By "this post," I meant "my post."

DC

I agree with the statement. Remote government entities are too far removed from the problem to make them effective at solving local problems. That doesn't mean that they can't assist in some way (as I state in my article), but if the government is involved, it should be the local government which is more directly answerable to the people impacted by their decisions and policies. This means that the people in the community will have the greatest ability of oversee government assistance within their community.

HGL

"Since practical solutions are needed to solve modern day problems (i.e. we just can't undo eveything, and go back to the Middle Ages)"

Going back to the Middle Ages and undoing everything are two different proposals.

Some Government Agencies (I suppose you do not mean Post Offices) are intruding into people's lives.

Paul D

Yet nationalised orgs tend to be heavily unionised, inefficient and/or run for the benefit of the staff. Competition brings efficiency which benefits customers/citizens. Contrast the old east and west Germanys.

HGL

Any organisation is run either for the benefit of the staff or that of shareholders to some degree. Rather staff than shareholders.

Any organisation that needs coordination over the area of a nation state can as well be run by the state as private. There is an intermediate. The before private owner of a Spanish electricity company was made a duke or a count by Franco. So that he was a "private citizen" no more, but his company a feudal holding.

Paul D

A private organisation will only succeed if it pleases customers. State-undertakings (often monopolies) tend to escape market-pressure and consequently serve us badly. One economist has estimated that the state costs twice as much as the private sector to do anything. Worse, the money used to pay for state-services is often obtained with the threat of force and/or by expropriation. Even if the state served us well, the foundation of its finances would be unethical.

HGL

Taxes are not per se unethical. Nor are monopolies to relieve tax pressure.

"A private organisation will only succeed if it pleases customers."

Not even always true, since certain ones enjoy a kind of monopoly or joint such, i e oligopoly due to Capitalism empoverishing general population to needing the Walmart and similar.

What is true is that it will only succeed if customers will buy there. Which due to levels of doles and of wages may involve some kind of force - especially if certain cities like Pensacola go Communist selectively against bums.

"State-undertakings (often monopolies) tend to escape market-pressure and consequently serve us badly."

Capitalist oligopolies tend to override normal market pressures, remodel the market and make market pressures serve nearly everyone badly.

A state can limit its monopolies to things that need nationwide coordination, like post offices.

"Contrast the old east and west Germanys."

Post offices were run by the State both sides of Berlin Wall. East Germany had its worst elements of societal make up totally distinct from the market liberal vs monopolistic question, like school monopoly (which alas West Germany also had, herited from Hitler) and Psychiatry and Social Services having a very large role in too many peoples' lives.

"I think it is better for a government agency to be run by the local government than for it to be privatised."

The only loan agencies allowed to take any interest at all in Lateran V was precisly a local government directed pawn broker, where interest could go to paying the clerks very modestly, or ideally that could be managed by taxes (and monopolies) to half the extent and only other half by interest.

But TV and Radio, I think the sector can be private.

Mark Shea Asking For the Commenter he Blocked

1) HGL's F.B. writings : Mark Shea Asking For the Commenter he Blocked, 2) Correspondence of Hans-Georg Lundahl : I had replied to John Horvath II about The One %, 3) John Ritchie Sent Me Mail

Mark Shea's Request:

Patheos > Catholic Channel > Catholic and Enjoying It!
A reader has a question for somebody knowledgable in history
March 31, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/03/a-reader-has-a-question-for-somebody-knowledgable-in-history.html

Quoting Letter from Reader:

I know “The Mission” isn’t depicting a particular set of priests, but the decision to throw the indigenous peoples under the bus after converting seemed to be a joint decision of the Catholic Hierarchy and corrupt Monarchs- what exactly was the role of Catholic Hierarchy in these Jesuit missions and decisions regarding their fate?

My answer:

If you recall the Marquis of Pombal, he was not the kind of guy to give Catholic Hierarchy much choice.

He and Madame Pompadour were active in forcing Jesuits out of:

• Portugal with Colonies (highly relevant for Reductions run by Jesuits)
• France with Colonies (relevant for Missionaries sent to Iroquois)
• Protection of the Papacy even.

My problem with posting my answer:

We are unable to post your comment because you have been blocked by Catholic and Enjoying It!. Find out more.

Guilds and Distributism, Defined, Defended

1)Explaining Holy Roman Empire in terms of comparing to US. - Pt I, 2 a) Part II, more on Guilds than on Holy Roman Empire, 2 b) Guilds and Distributism, Defined, Defended, 2 c) What Did Social Aid Look like in the Middle Ages? (Link, Quotes and Comment) Or was it sth else?, 3) Holy Roman Empire explained for US, but we are heading back for Rome now, Pt III

Friend, status :

You cannot be pro-capitalism AND be a Christian (a follower of Christ).

JG

Huh??

Friend

To be a capitalist does not mean to be hardworking, but to be clever, selfish, and greedy, and gain wealth from the hard work of others.

I will shortly give you an example of capitalism.

PFH (giving quite another definition of Capitalism, and thus speaking of quite another thing) :

break it down. From what I can tell, capitalism means owning things and exchanging them. I cannot see what part of that is sinful, inherently.

Obviously some exchanges can be bad. I hire a hitman, for instance, but it is not the exchange that made it bad. Murder is a sin regardless of weather or not money changes hands.

JG (agreeing with PFH’s definition)

Capitalism can mean to gain from the work of others, but that is definitely not the only way to define capitalism. I think it would be more correct to say "a Christian cannot be a greedy, selfish capitalist."

PFH

gaining from the work of others just means you do not live in isolation. But for the work of others, we would all be dead.

CM (giving the definition of the thing my friend objected to)

capitalism I think is more tied to the pooling of capital by investors and its relation to labor it is related to many other economic things... but I am not sure it is the same as some of these thigns

PFH

the word was invented by Marx as a slur term. It has no consistent meaning.

CM

that is always a problematic situation

JP

Leo XIII condemned capitalism in his encyclical Rerem Novarum.

Pius XI also wrote against capitalism but I forgot the name of the encyclical.

Paul D (probably equating « Capitalist » with « one owning much capital » ?)

It's quite a judgemental slur to suggest that capitalists are greedy. Many of us are charitable and hard-working.

PFH

JP, that is not actually true if you read the encyclical.

He actually condemned distributism.

No Unity Is Possible unless Heretics Return to the Catholic Church
http://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/n098_Ecumenism-04.htm

[Did he bluff or take the wrong link? Don't know.]

JP

I have read the encyclical and it speaks damnably of capitalism. What is called for is an economic system similar to the medieval guild system, distributism, or fascism.

PFH

the medieval system was capitalism, they were just poorer at the time

JP

Tradition in action are very wrong on economics, they also supported all the wars over the last several years, on some issues they show very bad will.

No the medieval system was not capitalism by any means. A modern day ayan rand capitalist would call them socialist probably. They had wage and price controls, they had government charity and most right wingers hate that.

HGL (=me, just so you know)

1) Rerum Novarum (Rerum, not Rerem, by Leo XIII)
2) Quadragesimo Anno (40 years after RN, by Pius XI)

As to the words "Capitalism" and "Capitalist" they are in fact of more than one meaning. The condemned version would be the kind that tries to amass more and more for a class comprising fewer and fewer and by exploiting the rest harder and harder.

And that was obviously NOT the medieval system, where ownership was accepted but restricted.

PFH, I will look into the claim that any Pope condemned Distributism, but I think not. Pope Leo XIII gave its basis by saying "more people should own property" (meaning thereby productive such). Eamonn DeValera was a very clear Distributist and never condemned by the Church as a Chief of State although he had been excommunicated while fighting for the IRB.

PFH

they did not have wage and price controls, maybe in the east. But not the west.

a guild was basically a franchise. they were not required but survived on reputation.

and please, I do not care about Ayn Rand. She would have heard they were christian and assumed they had socialism.... as would distributists. Regular people, and even pinkos are not that silly.

HGL

Sorry, but the heritage of Late Antiquity, which stayed in the East was Imperial wage and price control. The Guild system was localised wage and price control. It was locally decided whether a certain branch was or was not required to be guild members. The link you gave had nothing to do with Distributism, since Satis Cognitum is about and against Ecumenism. And local elections (including local representation to Parliament) was per guild in towns. Belloc voted in the Brewers Guild of London. This meant that the guilds that existed locally (and which could be compared to franchises exceopt such are usually infeuded to a central company, guilds arranged the rules democratically inside) were also the means of local democracy and as such the guilds were in a position to negotiate about relative price and wage levels.

JP

The guilds were nothing like franchises, they were like workers unions, a person was required to be a member to operate in any trade. They regulated wages and prices. They would even support the widow of a deceased member.

PFH

so, you honestly think, in England in the 1600s, if I sold you a shoe and I was not in a guild, the crown would behead me or something?

HGL

Like workers unions, not quite. They were Employers' unions. The employers (called masters) agreed on not competing with certain bids when it came to wages, working hours or prices.

That one was required to be part of it was different from town to town for any branch. And different from branch to branch within each town. A town with Jews obviously had one or two branches at least without obligation to Guilds since these were Catholic.

JP

The 1600s was after the English reformation had destroyed the old social order, they were then capitalist.

HGL

In the 1600's Guilds were very much weakened in England by Capitalism. If you were not a member of a guild and in a branch where the town required branch members to be guild members, you changed town, or branch of trade or tried to join the guild. Penalties were against shop, not body.

PFH

so, it was still legal for me, a non-guild member to sell you a shoe?

If so, that capitalism. If not, well, thats obviously terrible.

JP

Smith economics are a modern idea born of protestantism. Market control and social policies have been the tradition of the west all the way back to ancient Greece, just read Plato's Republic. Right wing ideology goes against the teachings of the Gospels.

BR

If you make up definitions on your own, it is hard to have a conversation.

The Lord Himself told the one fellow 'You should have put my money to the usurers'. Hard to say that is un-Christian.

HGL

He said that in one parabole in which "money" stands for the talents given by God and "doing business" stands for getting merits for Heaven. Luther was more horrified than even Leo X at Usury.

PFH, in one town you could sell your shoe without being a guild member, in another you could not. In a town you could not, if the cobblers' guild abused their position the town could decide that a non-guild master cobbler could seel the shoes he made.

BR

The story 'stands for' many things.

It is still a story in its own right.

The 'good guys' traded with their money, and made more.

The lazy guy should have at least put in the bank and drawn interest.

HGL

"interest" as in "within merits for Heaven" - when you apply the story. It is only within the story that it stands for interest as such. He took another parabole from an unjust Steward, does that mean cheating your master to get popular is a good thing to do?

What Our Lord thought of taking interest as such, he told us not even to expect to get the Capital back.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition. : DEUTERONOMY - Chapter 23
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id516.html

Ver. 20. To the stranger. This was a dispensation granted by God to his people, who being the Lord of all things, can give a right and title to one upon the goods of another. Otherwise the Scripture every where condemns usury, as contrary to the law of God, and a crying sin. See Exodus xxii. 25., Leviticus xxv. 36, 37., 2 Esdras v. 7., Psalm xiv. 5., and Ezechiel xviii. 8, 13, &c. (Challoner) --- The stranger means the devoted nations of Chanaan, &c., whom God authorized his people to destroy. "Exact usury of him whom thou mayst kill without a crime," says St. Ambrose., (de Tob. c. 15,) though this principle will not always excuse usury. This practice was always considered as unjustifiable, except when God gave permission to his people to get by this means the possession of the property of the stranger, the right to which he had already given to them; unless we may consider, that he only tolerates this practice towards the stranger, on account of the hard-heartedness of the Jews. Christ has now expressly declared it unlawful for any one. See Exodus xxii. 25. (Calmet)

BR

As in a share of the profits from the sale of the shoes which my money facilitated through the loan that bought the leather to make the shoes.

When I give, I give.

When I invest, I invest.

Don't confuse the two.

HGL

When you give, you give. When you grant a loan, you grant a loan. When you invest, you invest. Don't confuse the three.

If you agree that your repayment follows in value the fortunes of the company you lend to, both up and down, then it is ok.

That means: when the cobbler asks to get a loan of money you must agree if it is a straight loan or an investment. A straight loan means, you lend 100 pounds, you get 100 pounds back, neither more nor less. An investment means you get a specified share of the gains OR LOSSES of who you lend to.

Neither way can you agree on lending 100 and agreeing beforehand to get 106 back after a year. In a loan you get 100 back. In an investent you could get either more or less back.

BR

The loan is a means of investing Hans-Georg.

He has my money to use for a while.

Yes, losses are to be anticipated in investing.

Nothing wrong with 'a percentage of the profits not to exceed 6 percent of my capital investment, the remainder of the profits being retained by the one providing labor'

HGL

No, a loan and an investment are distinct. Confusing the two is the main sin of modern day Capitalism as such. Other sins have followed from it, which are worse, but only because Capitalists have other personal qualities than being that. Like Heresiarchs or Abortionists in some cases especially gruesome.

Nothing wrong with a percentage of either profits or losses not exceeding 6 percent in either direction.

BR

Permanent loan, non-interest bearing loan, interest bearing loan, They're all loans.

The trouble with trying to limit the losses is that it might put you in the position of taking the money needed for food from the one who lost the capital.

HGL

Interest bearing loan is a loan, but a morally illicit one. Unless the interest - according to Pope Leo X - only pays for all or half the expenses of keeping a municipal office of loans to poor independents. Or other poor. He preferred that taxation pay the other half. And the expenses must be modest.

Of course Luther - whom you claim to follow in Theology - did not agree with this exception.

"The trouble with trying to limit the losses is that it might put you in the position of taking the money needed for food from the one who lost the capital."

Having lending as your source of income is not a bright idea anyway. And when someone lost his money capital after a straight loan he was supposed to work until he had paid it off. The lenders having a right to supervise his working.

IN the guild system one so caught and being a guild member could count on helps from other guild members.

BR

An interest bearing loan for necessities is morally inexcusable. One for 'potential increased profits' is an limited return investment (the remainder of the profits being retained by the one providing labor)

I don't follow Luther very well....

HGL

A limited return investment is only such if the limit is not just on the upper end but also on the lower end and if one cannot ask 6 percent of one who has only gained 5. You don't follow Luther? Well, he maybe had some Christian qualities you don't have.

BR

I never suggested lending was a wise way to make a living.

I'd take the loss, and offer to help him get his act together.

No, you're confusing 'limited risk' with 'limited return'.

HGL

I am not. A return can only be proportional to the vicissitude of the one one is lending to and never exceeed it either up or downward. It can be limited so as not to go as far either way as 10 per cent if you agree on 6 per cent as upper and lower limit.

What you seem to be suggesting is someone telling beforehand "I don't know if you get to make five or ten percent out of the loan, I prefer being sure in advance, so we agree on 6 percent whatever your gains or losses" - that is Trinus Contractus basically and condemned by Pope Sixtus V.

The only thing that can stand "whatever your gains or losses" is either, basic idea, as much back as was lent, or, Pope Leo X - giving back so much more that the city can continue lending to the poor without paying all administration from taxes.

BR

The 'nor downward' part is where you're missing it.

Limited return doesn't of necessity mean non exposure to loss.

I'll try again.

I don't know what you'll gain in profits. I do know the work will be yours, and I'm only helping by providing capital, so if you make a profit, I want half of that profit up to 6 percent of my investment. After that, the profits are yours. If you make 5 %, I get 2.5% if you make 50% I get 6%. If you loose it all, well, I knew that was a possibility going in, but money setting in the vault does no one any good.

HGL

And in such a case you should be prepared to take 6% less if I loose 50% and 2.5% less if I am on the loosing side for 5%. As for money sitting in the vault, if it was yours and you are not keeping it for others who must have a right to see it there when getting for it, you had a perfect right to invest it in some other way, including but not limited to buying a guitar, learning to play it, and be a streetsinger from the moment the money you had is no longer available to you since spent.

Now, to return to the other cobbler case, not how he should pay a lender, but how he should have a right to sell his shoes.

Even now, assuming he has shoes marked NIKE and tries to sell them, and NIKE is contacted and he has not bought the NIKE shoes from NIKE, nor from anyone they sold to, they are assumed to be counterfeit.

Selling shoes without being a guild member in the towns that required cobblers to be guild members was dealt with about as one would today deal with such an act of counterfeit.

One might argue that it is good for everyone if shoemaking is rationalised, if fewer men work fewer hours PER BATCH OF SHOES and anyone buying from them or their master who pays their wages can buy the shoes cheaper. Anyone who is sure of his job or business will appreciate the advantage. Cobblers will still be employed as a necessity in mending shoes before poor people buy another pair but also as a luxury by people who think Gucci isn't fine enough. But there will still be fewer cobblers. There are lots of towns with one or two men mending shoes and no one in the town making and selling his shoes; so for cobblers the outcome has been less security of work.

But even cobblers out of work can be thankful if the wheat is cheaper since tractors and petroleum replace farmers and horses. And ... and in the end this logic ends up with everyone looking for a new job.

And some new jobs are distinctly less pleasant and less conducive for an easy way of making one's eternity than cobbling or farming, the sectors, where among so many others, jobs have been lost. While others, with or without working also, are using food stamps or homeless shelters (yes, working people do use them too, it is rare but occasionally possible for homeless to get an employer, one morning in Aix the first one into the shower might be a man arguing "I need to get to work in time and clean").

What if producing shoes like NIKE does had been illegal, or so?

"One of capitalism's most durable myths is that it has reduced human toil. This myth is typically defended by a comparison of the modern forty-hour week with its seventy- or eighty-hour counterpart in the nineteenth century. The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption is that the eighty-hour standard has prevailed for centuries. The comparison conjures up the dreary life of medieval peasants, toiling steadily from dawn to dusk. We are asked to imagine the journeyman artisan in a cold, damp garret, rising even before the sun, laboring by candlelight late into the night.

These images are backward projections of modern work patterns. And they are false. Before capitalism, most people did not work very long hours at all. The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed. Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure. When capitalism raised their incomes, it also took away their time. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that working hours in the mid-nineteenth century constitute the most prodigious work effort in the entire history of humankind."

Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's
from The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, by Juliet B. Schor
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html

BR

If he losses it, it is gone.

I have the right to lend it as an investment too.

HGL

Yes, I never disputed that.

I was and am only upholding a distinction between lending and investing. I am refusing a certain shilly-shallying between the two concepts, where it is "investing" as long as one gets more back, but "loan" in case one should risk to get less back. If you invest, you share your investment's either profits or losses. That is what investment means. If five percent gained by your investment mean you get five percent more than you lent, then five percent lost by your investment mean you get five percent less. If 5 percent is the limit and 50% gained by your investment mean 5 percent more for you, then 50% lost by your investment mean 5 percent less for you.

If you "lend half, invest half" so that you get half the profit as percentage, then 14% gained by your investment mean you get 7 % more, 14% lost by your investment mean you get 7% less.

Guess in which cases both lender and borrower had a common interest in prolonging loans, sometimes? The one does one payment less when he is otherwise loosing, the other gets another chance of turning losses to gains. But that is what investment means. Risk nothing while someone else is working, gain nothing.

BR

Fourth time Hans-Georg, I'm perfectly at liberty to loan (as investment) with a limited return and with no limit on risk, concurrently. That is one of the nice things about property, one can do with one's own as one pleases.

HGL

As long as the transaction is honest.

Or do you mean that if you have an upper limit on the gains you claim to share, you have no corresponding lower limit on the losses you are prepared to share?

In that case, of course, your contract would be not only honest but even generous to the borrower and is perfectly laudable (very much opposed to taking a fixed interest). I took you as meaning a total annulation of debt in case of insolvency, but no other alleviations of it (if losses occur) corresponding to the gains. In my mind that is not honest investing. It is wanting the gains of an investment without the risk taking of an investment.

If today I buy 100$ worth (present rather than nominal worth) of shares in Coca Cola and sell them in a year, if Coca Cola went up 10% I get 110$ and if it went down 10% I get 90$.

Same with a loan that is no pure loan but an investment.

Except of course, the investment loans include no dividents while not paid back and are redeemed by the borrower rather than by a stockmarket.

"That is one of the nice things about property, one can do with one's own as one pleases."

Holy Writ did not say an Israelite lending to another Israelite could charge the interest he liked, but that the loan was to be a straight loan without interest. Interest taking is either a Pagan or a pre-Pagan but impious (Nodians rather than Noah!) perversion of the sense of just investing. Israelites only were allowed to use it against Pagans, Canaaneans even and not less evil Pagans.

HGL (answering an earlier point)

JP - you said they had government charity in the Middle Ages, yes, but government and Church did not collaborate to make the poor dependent on exactly one system of pauper support, they were rather setting an example so that people who could but were not princes or priests should follow the example and also give to the poor. A very important distinction, I think, and one missed by some Distributists today.

HGL (dito)

PFH - the Medieval punishment for trying to sell shoes without being a guild member in a town requiring guild membership was not beheading but simply getting at best fined and at worst your things confiscated as any fraudulent business man. In the near century from Reformation to Charles I one could perhaps have been beheaded, like for being a Catholic, also for sympathising with the guild system.

PFH

Hans, what is your source? What your saying I have often heard from Randroids and never backed up. They just assume, "they must have had a crumby economy, because they were christian".

You realize to enforce such rubbish laws, you would need a standing army of sorts. Nobody had one pre-revolutionary france.

This business of selfishness.... that should be blamed on original sin more than any economic system.

HGL

In a medieval town a man trying to sell shoes without authorisation (i e where cobblers neededto be guild members and he was not) was fined, not because there was a standing army, but becayse there were twenty men with halberds, and two of them would suffice to deal with the guy.

If you call that a "standing army" there were lots of such previous to Revolutionary France.

My sources are entries in encyclopedias.

A law like that was not crumby. It ensured cobblers already established in the town had work. It was ensured by wine merchants and bartenders who similarily wanted to keep their business. It was ensured by bakers who wanted to keep theirs. It was ensured by tailors who wanted to keep theirs.

"how awful for those who need to buy on walmart!"

Well, those now needing to buy on walmart are people employed in big businesses that have rationalised production of shoes, of bread, of clothing, and of wine sail excepting the bartender part. Back in the days before industrialism, under the guilds, they would instead being employed in cheap production have been employed in somewhat more classy such and have been able to afford more classy consumption.

There is no evidence whatsoever people in towns were generally poorer than people in towns are these days, excepting of course the fact they lacked commodities not needed in smaller and slower towns but needed in modern NY.

Assuming they would have had coffee before the guild system was destroyed. The town hall would have had to decide:

• 1) can coffee be sold at all in town?
• 2) can it be served by the bartenders who are wine merchants?
• 3) can there be a new guild for serving coffee but not wine?

Once that was decided, nobody who wanted to drink coffee at home would have needed a coffee machine, since nobody would have been in such a hurry as these days. So, they would still have had no coffee machines. And obviously neither cars nor trams for getting from one end of the town to the other, when one could easily walk the distance in an hour or less. ONLY in lacks such as coffee machines and cars were they poorer back then.

JB

Hans, I think the distinction you are trying to make is between a productive loan (e.g., investment in a machine shop where if profits are turned the owner might agree to pay back the principle plus 10% of the profit for the year however if he went belly-up the principle would not have to be paid back) and an unproductive loan which a common day laborer might need to put food on the table for the week. It comes down to the purpose of the loan. Clearly anything above the principle for the loan to the day laborer would be usury. The same also goes for car loans, home loans, student loans, and most loans today as most of these loans are not for productive purposes but for things people use to get to work, live in when they are not at work, and educate themselves to hopefully find work. The car, home, or education produces nothing per se therefore asking anything over and above the principle is usury.

Truth be told I am still wrestling with the fact that an investment asking for more than the principle might be a clever way to conceal usury. After all, the person who invests say $100,000 into the machine shop that ends up turning a $1,000,000 profit for the year ends up with $200,000. Essentially his money just doubled itself without him lifting a finger. Now, one might say the owner of the machine shop is still happy with $800,000 profit and that he needed the $100,000 capital to be able to turn that profit however I still can't square it with Justice. It seems to me that the owner should simply pay back the principle. I suppose it might be justified if and only if the proviso was indeed added that if the business goes belly-up even the principle does not need to be paid back though to me it seems preferable to avoid these scenarios and just treat everything as a straight loan therefore the principle is always the only thing that is owed back and if our brother's business goes belly-up we should be willing to forgive the debt in charity. This seems to be in perfect harmony with the command of the God-Man when He said, "lend, hoping for nothing thereby." (Luke 6:35) To the canard which states, "if people were expected to lend hoping for no return on their investment than no one would lend," I would assert the commentary for Luke 6:35 as a reply: "Hoping for nothing, but merely impelled by a desire of doing good. They who only give when sure of having a greater return, do not give, but traffic with their generosity; in which there is no charity." (Rev. Fr. George Leo Haydock)

HGL

JB, your definition of productive loan is from Calvin.

It was not even accepted by the first generation of Calvinists.

As said, the moral of a productive loan with interest and the moral of contractus trinus (one contract for a loan that is an investment as I after St Thomas have defined it, one for a straight loan, one for swapping "10 % probable gain" + "0% whatever the gain" : 2 = "5% whatever the gain" - condemned by Pope Sixtus V).

It is pretty close also to the contract called "de la gruesa ventura" - a percentage of any gains, but losses leave the looser debt free. It was often applied to sailors, was condemned by one Pope and the condemnation led to some precursors of insurance policies. Later on it was however not applied, when that was the contract type famously signed between Isabela la Católica and Cristopher Columbus.

JB

I actually got that definition from Hilaire Belloc. I doubt he knowingly got it from Calvin considering his disdain for all things Protestant, especially the Judaic-Calvinistic notion that wealth is a sign of predestination and poverty a sign of reprobation. I follow you, agree with you, and in fact believe Belloc was simply mistaken on this. I am reading a book on usury right now that you yourself would appreciate and in fact every Catholic needs to read. Fr. O'Callaghan refutes all the arguments of the usury apologists with tact and clarity while citing all the ancient canons, papal decrees, and teachings of the Fathers:

[Not exact same link, but better link to same book:]

O'Callaghan, Jeremiah : Usury, funds, and banks : also forestalling traffick, and monopoly : likewise pew rent, and grave tax ; together with burking, and dissecting; as well as the Gallican liberties, are all repugnant to the divine and ecclesiastical laws, and destructive to civil society ; to which is prefixed a Narrative of the author's controversy with Bishop Coppinger, and of his sufferings for justice sake (1834
https://archive.org/stream/usuryfundsbanksa00ocaluoft#page/n3/mode/1up

HGL

But are you sure Belloc approved of it? As I recall him, he specifically attributes it to Calvin. I take that as he rejected it.

Of course, he made a point that usurers after Calvin did not fully apply the distinction.