April 3, 2020

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey

NEW ESSAY at Abbeville Institute: Never Trumpers Like Joe Biden and Hate the South

Friends,

I pass on to you my latest published essay at The Abbeville Institute. Small parts of this essay appeared on MY CORNER back on March 21, but most of it is new material.

Never Trumpers Like Joe Biden and Hate the South

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/never-trumpers-like-joe-biden-and-hate-the-south/

By Boyd Cathey on Apr 2, 2020

Thoughtful Southerners of a conservative and traditional bent have known since the 1980s that the old Conservative Movement which began back in the 1950s with the publication of Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind, and then with the inauguration of William F. Buckley’s National Review, has no room for them, no room for their writers (unless those authors pass a rigorous test as to their opposition to “racism” and “sexism”).

At one time significant Southern eminences like Mel Bradford, Andrew Lytle, and others were welcomed to the pages of NR, to Kirk’s Modern Age and to other conservative journals, but those venues saw their doors close to Southern traditionalists in the later 1980s and early 1990s. Indeed, that process had begun years before with the migration of various non-Communist Leftists and Trotskyites into the Movement, with those interlopers—the Neoconservatives—assuming authoritative power in the establishment Conservative Movement. At first welcomed, the newcomers soon gained near complete control…of magazines, foundations, think tanks, and more. [There are two excellent articles in the February 2020 issue of Chronicles magazine, by Scott Trask and Paul Gottfried, exploring the disgraceful treatment of Bradford by the Neoconservatives.]

While Kirk praised the constitutional philosophy Calhoun and explosive brilliance of John Randolph of Roanoke (he had done his MA degree at Duke on Randolph), and early Buckley featured sympathetic essays about the South during the turbulent civil rights years, that is no longer permissible in the ranks of the Movement. Malefactors are expelled, labeled as “racists,” and forbidden a national platform.

In contrast to an older conservative sensibility, the zealous globalism of the Neoconservatives, in some ways a carry-over from their Marxist internationalist days, now largely infects conservatism. Kirk’s praise of Robert Taft and Patrick Buchanan (he chaired Buchanan’s 1992 presidential run in Michigan), and his endorsement of an “America First” foreign policy are now considered en dehors de debat. Such “small America” views are now seen by Conservatism Inc. as suspiciously nativist and unacceptably populist.

Of course, any defense of Confederacy and its symbols is seen by the anti-Southern Neocons as suspect. For the Neocons defending Confederate monuments is an unforgivable sin, probably “racist.”  From Victor Hanson Davis to NR editor Rich Lowry (“Mothball the Confederate Monuments,” National Review, August 15, 2017), the verdict is the same:  “[Lee] betrayed the U.S. government and fought on the side devoted to preserving chattel slavery.”

In 2016 many traditional Southerners, long situated in “the back of the bus,” gave their support to Donald Trump, for “the Donald” represented a chance, albeit a slim one, to begin the overthrow of the dominance and stranglehold of the powerful Neocons and gain once again a tenuous seat at the table. Many of those hopes, once so high, have been dashed, have not materialized. Indeed, the president, despite generally admirable instincts, has not been a “second Grover Cleveland”—a kind of respite from post-War Between the States Republican policies that Southerners welcomed in in 1885.

Yet even the small steps toward a renewed “no-longer-silent majority” of traditionalist Southerners and populist Midwesterners have been met with furious opposition from the elite Conservative gate keepers.

Various “big name” establishment “conservative” leaders have never reconciled themselves to the election of Donald Trump, nor to the anti-Deep State symbolism that he represents (even if not justified by the president’s actions). For these folks, mainly clustered “inside-the-DC-Beltway” or closeted off behind walled estates in northern Virginia or in posh apartments in New York’s upper east side, the Southern and conservative base out in what the late leftist novelist Phillip Roth called “fly-over country” are “deplorables,” just as Hillary Clinton despectively described them. In fact a few weeks ago former John McCain Republican consultant Rick Wilson yucked it up on CNN with his extreme Left buddies in tones of dripping condescension—and scarcely concealed hate—about those mostly “rural boobs.”

Good for a disdainful laugh.

Lest you thought that 2016 signaled the decline of these Republican ersatz-conservative plutocrats, think again. Yes, it is true that their most important journalistic mouthpiece, The Weekly Standard, went under in a richly deserved death. But the Standard’s most prominent scribblers did not go away. Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg almost immediately founded an online journal of “conservatism,” The Dispatch, where they could continue to spew forth their continued disdain for Trump and, even more, for the hoi polloi, we poor unfortunate rubes who have been misled by the “racism” and hatred engendered, let loose, and normalized by the present administration.

And former Standard editor, Bill Kristol—the son of the Neoconservative journalist Irving Kristol—has his own online mouthpiece, The Bulwark, where he continues to spout an unrestrained message of irreconcilable Never Trumpism.

Since 2016 some of the zealous anti-Trumpers have attempted to glom onto Trumpism and, as Neoconservatives have done in the past, turn it and shape it in their own direction—a continued globalism internationally and a continued retreat into moral degeneracy domestically. Thus the praxis of such Fox luminaries Goldberg, Hayes, along with Ben Shapiro, Guy Benson, and that “big boy” wannabe, Charlie Kirk—yes, the self-same, transvestite-hugging Turning Point USA honcho who shows up increasingly on Fox News as a pundit. (Charlie comes across as someone desperate for attention and anxious for fame; he preaches to collegians when he can, but loves to party up-tight with transgenders and others who make a total mockery of traditional moral beliefs: this tragically is what has become of much of the “conservative youth movement.”)

And, of course, just as with the fanatical Left, these elitist conservatives are quick to condemn and excommunicate anyone who in any way transgresses their shared, constantly advancing benchmarks for deciding just who has now become a “racist.” Thus, once welcomed conservative columnist and lecturer Michelle Malkin has become, in this new dispensation, “persona non grata.” Malkin has attacked what she calls “Conservatism Inc.”—conservative establishmentarians who, according to Amanda Carpenter on Kristol’s Web site, “are insufficiently observant of ‘traditional values.’ One of those values is severely restrictionist immigration policy, which at some point, began to tickle Malkin’s ears. So, too, has she adopted the anti-‘Conservative Inc.’ language, even though her entire career had been—if we are being honest—a product of the actual Conservative Inc. Which is to say, CPAC, Regnery, YAF, Fox, and all the rest.”

Now the Never Trump Republicans have something called “The Lincoln Project,” with a goal of defeating the president at the next election, and nothing is exempt as a weapon in that campaign. Most recently they have bitterly attacked Donald Trump over his handling of the COVID-19 epidemic—if it will bring down the hated “man with the golden hair,” it’s just fine as a tactic. The headline on a Huffington Post (!) article March 21 reads: “GOP group uses Donald Trump’s coronavirus lies against him in new attack ad,” and the list of organizers reads like a list of John McCain and George Bush policy advisors and political consultants: Rick Wilson (again!), Steve Schmidt, John Weaver, Jennifer Horn, et al. The New York Times—never missing a beat to attack the despicable Donald—featured their joint opinion piece, “We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated,” prominently in its December 17, 2019, issue. Bill Kristol states it even more clearly: “if you’re inclined toward American constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and a free economic order–as well as a liberal [Italics mine] world order anchored by the United States–it’s Joe Biden.”  You see, Biden is the “moderate candidate.”  He’s who Kristol calls “The Simple Answer.”

Can you believe this? Biden is the man, the brain-dead candidate who has adopted almost all of Bernie Sanders’ socialist positions. And yet Kristol and company push him as THEIR candidate. Tells you something, does it not, about THESE so-called “conservatives.” And it should impel us to go back and re-examine the history of how these vaunted Neoconservatives—the Irving Kristols, Norman Podhoretzes, and their offspring—infiltrated and seized control of the old conservative movement, denatured it almost beyond recognition, and exiled prominent Southern personalities back in the 1970s and 1980s.

About Boyd Cathey

Boyd D. Cathey holds a doctorate in European history from the Catholic University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, where he was a Richard Weaver Fellow, and an MA in intellectual history from the University of Virginia (as a Jefferson Fellow). He was assistant to conservative author and philosopher the late Russell Kirk. In more recent years he served as State Registrar of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History. He has published in French, Spanish, and English, on historical subjects as well as classical music and opera. He is active in the Sons of Confederate Veterans and various historical, archival, and genealogical organizations. His book, The Land We Love: The South and Its Heritage (Scuppernong Press) was published in November 2018.

April 1, 2020

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey

SOMETHING SPECIAL During Difficult Times: “Do Dogs Go to Heaven?”

Friends,

Readers of these occasional essays know that mostly I write about current issues, about the South and its heritage, and about the foibles of our modern consumerist society. But every once and while I offer something a little different which I hope will interest readers just as much.

Today I do that again, and in the midst of the anxiety and panic over the COVID-19 virus I share with you a discussion between four individuals about a subject that perhaps will intrigue you and just may get your mind off the present situation.

Over the past year and half I have authored six items for The New English Review; none of them has been, strictly speaking, of a political nature. Two have dealt with the cultural importance of classical music composers (Max Bruch and Richard Strauss), one has been a whimsical short story (“Gertrude Goes to Church”), then there was a short poem, “The Illusion of Love,” and finally my penultimate contribution, “Facing the Egalitarian Heresy of the 21^st Century” in the March 2020 issue deals with the issue of “equality,” a question that literally inundates and almost demonically possesses our society.

The sixth contribution, just published, addresses with—I hope—some seriousness a question that perhaps most of us have entertained, fleetingly, at one time or another: what happens to our pets when they die? And although the answer may well seem simple enough, the following detailed discussion involving Dr. Paul Gottfried, Dr. Timothy Stanley, Dr. Daniel Joyce, and myself asks some deeper and more fundamental questions, firmly rooted in the traditions of Christian theology and doctrine.

Please take a look…and maybe give this some thought.

Comments may be made at the New English Review Web site and on the MY CORNER site.

 Do Dogs Go to Heaven?

https://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=190026&sec_id=190026

by Boyd Cathey (April 2020)


Woman with Dog, Pierre Bonnard, 1891

 Several years ago four writers, two from the United States and two from Great Britain, engaged in a conversation from a Christian perspective on the general topic of what happens to “the souls of animals” after death. The traditional Christian faith holds that after physical death, those humans who die in God’s grace will experience “beatific vision,” that is, they will behold and be united with their Creator in Heaven. Leaving aside questions that often divide individual faith communions, these scholars speculated if there were room for the concept that animals, too, might experience some form of afterlife.

The conversation that follows includes an initial presentation by Boyd D. Cathey (D.Phil., in History and Philosophy, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain), with comments by Timothy Stanley (D.Phil., in History, Cambridge University), Daniel Joyce (D.Phil., in Theology, Cambridge University), and Paul Gottfried, Raffensperger Professor of Humanities (emeritus), Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (Ph.D. in Political Philosophy, Yale University). 

 Boyd D. Cathey: In 1993 theologian Dr. John Warwick Montgomery authored a short essay, “Fido in Heaven?” published in the New Oxford Review. In this short piece, he briefly critiques a slim study by Eugen Drewermann on the subject of the immortality of dogs and animals in general. Drewermann argues that dogs and other animals not only have souls—“animal souls”—but that they are immortal. Drewermann bases his case for animal immortality on pantheistic, evolutionary, and even ancient Egyptian beliefs and reasoning, something that no orthodox Christian could accept.

Montgomery refers to Christians like C. S. Lewis in his commentary. Lewis uses wonderful and inspiring animal imagery in, for instance, his Chronicles of Narnia. And then there is J. R. R. Tolkien, who does the same in The Lord of the Rings. Lewis says, more than once in reference to the animal kingdom, that "no good thing is forever lost." But Lewis was not speaking as a theologian, nor was he basing his opinion on any kind of pantheistic "world spirit," or evolutionary theory, or any such non-traditional ideas. And, to be sure, he was not attempting to formulate doctrine. As Montgomery points out, a standard theological text treating the matter, Florian Dalham’s De ratione recte cogitandi . . . (Venice, 1770, II, 482), simply states: "The condition of the souls of animals after death is unknown.”

Montgomery’s brief piece raises a number of fascinating questions. Most Christian theologians will agree that animals have “souls” of a certain kind, understood as a life-giving essence, personality, mode of existence, that distinguish them. But Holy Scriptures do not enter a definitive verdict one way or the other as to the immortality of these animal souls.

I might summarize the views of those Christians who argue against animal soul immortality this way: souls of animals, not being human and not enjoying the salvific promises of Our Savior, expire when the physical body itself expires. Our Lord came specifically to save human kind who have fallen from Divine favor through the grievous Original Sin of disobedience, that is, Christ died on the Cross only for human beings, to pay the price of Original sin, and to offer sufficient graces for all humans who accept Him and His Church (although not all men accept those graces, which only become efficient and effective when freely accepted). This argument continues: animals have a type of "soul" but it is unlike the human soul that can be and is redeemed by the blood of Our Savior on Calvary. Our Lord has promised the Beatific Vision and Glorification not to animals, but only to redeemed Man. Thus, animals are not included in these promises and cannot, as it were, inherit the promises of Our Lord.

But the arguments in favor are also strong:

First, it is admitted by most who write on the topic that dogs, cats, etc. do have "souls," but not in the same sense or order that human beings have souls.

Second, while human beings "fell" from God's favor grievously through Original Sin, the penalty for which only the ultimate sacrifice of the Second Person of the Godhead could satisfy, lower animals were and are created to act according to their God-given nature.

Third, orthodox Christian teaching is that God created Creation ex nihilo—out of nothing—as "good" (viz., Genesis I: 21-25, “And God made the beasts of the earth . . . and God saw that it was good”), that is, that which functions and operates according to its nature operates as God so intended and must be therefore considered "good.”

Fourth, animals act according to their God-given nature—thus, a dog that mauls and kills a rabbit for food (or even for sport), acts according to its God-given nature. There is no question of "sin" here—the dog is simply doing what God programmed it to do.

Fifth, the wages of spiritual sin for man are spiritual death, that is, a man who rejects God's graces, also rejects the promises of Salvation; but animals are incapable of sin, as opposed to their nature; animals act as God so decreed, imprinted in and on their nature.

Sixth, God, being All-good and All-perfect, does not punish goodness, understood as the proper functioning of things as they were created to be and to act.

Seventh, man is promised the Beatific Vision of Heaven if he accepts God's salvific Graces and His Church, which is the "mystical body of Christ."

Eighth, although no one can state with absolute certainty a description of Heaven (some of the saints of history have given us visionary bits and inklings perhaps), would it not seem fitting that redeemed man, in his glorified state beholding and forever enjoying the divine Presence, would also be surrounded by the glorified spirits (or presences) of those sin-less creatures, created by God, who have followed their God-given natures and served and accompanied (and comforted) man, per God's instructions written upon their souls?

To the response that the Beatific Vision is solely and uniquely sufficient for man in Heaven—Indeed, it certainly is; but that is not my point. Rather, the existence or presence of the spirit of a beloved pet in no way detracts from or adds to the absolute sufficiency of the Beatific Vision for man. Rather, the presence of such glorified creatures could only enhance a universal completeness of adoration, as in the Biblical injunction, "Let all Heaven and earth adore him"—the key words here being "all" and "earth," nothing and no one excepted.

I would add that the orthodox theology of Creation, per se, teaches its natural, essential, and God-created goodness. While animal souls are certainly different from human ones, and while redemption is tendered to man alone, it is, after all, only man who needs saving and redeeming. “Let all Creation adore Him,” and thus, from these arguments I think we could infer that in God's infinite mercy and love for man and His love for His creation, that in a real, if unknown to us, spiritual sense our pets and animals will join us, on a different level, in their own type of Adoration of the Godhead for eternity. This, it seems to me, to be fitting and entirely consistent with traditional teaching and theology, and does not in any way denigrate teaching on the uniqueness of man and the salvific nature of God's sacrifice at Calvary.

Timothy Stanley: I'm mostly convinced. But obviously not convinced in the sense of being empirically certain, but I'm at least happy to know that the idea that there is a place for animals in heaven can be entertained by rational, orthodox Christians. The strength and weakness of the argument is that it rests on what is "not" said rather than what is, i.e., that we might assume animals do not need redemption as they have not sinned. We might assume that they are in a kind of constant "state of grace." They fulfill their God given intentions and thus cannot err in the same way we do.

I sense there are a couple of counterarguments. I suppose that one might argue that our unique relationship with God and our claim to immortality is based upon: 1) being made in his image, and 2) being given the capacity to choose between good and evil, i.e., sentient, rational beings. Animals are neither, but I don't sense that this rules out immortality. Again, what is not said seems as important as what is.

Boyd Cathey: The most significant objection to my initial argument may be found in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica (I, q. 65, q.75, and q 118). Additionally, in checking some other sources and commentaries—for instance, Msgr. Hallett's Catholic Dictionary, published some seventy years ago, and the 1910-1914 edition of The Catholic Encyclopedia—I find additional material which should be examined. The Church Fathers and St. Thomas, following Aristotle and the ancients, identified three types of souls: vegetative, sensate (or sensitive), and rational (or intellectual). Plants enjoy the first type; all animals enjoy the first two types, and humankind enjoy all three. It is in the latter that an essential difference between lower animals and man—both of the same genus—can be found: men possess rationality, intellect, and have the capacity to choose, to elect, and thus they can elect to choose "evil," while other animals, says St. Thomas, do not possess this capacity (he develops this in Summa Theologica, I, q. 65 and 75). Moreover, the animal "man" was created in "Imago Dei" (Genesis I: 25 et seq.), that is, man enjoys a special dispensation to which other animals are not privy, and he is, accordingly, given domination over all other life here below.

A crucial point that St Thomas develops has to do with the relationship between the soul and the physical corpus with which it is coterminous. For St. Thomas and most of the Scholastics, the intellectual soul, although united with the body, is not dependent upon it and enjoys immortality; whereas, with lower animals, without an intellectual or rational soul capable of meditating on and exercising choice, the sensate or sensible soul would expire with the expiration of the body.

I don't think this point negates what I have suggested: first, while the argument given by St. Thomas appears persuasive, as man, alone, is indeed created in God's image, can rationally choose, and is given dominion over all the earth, that does not automatically imply that other creatures are complete slaves to all human desires and wishes, or that they lack some varying elements of pure intellect imprinted upon their natures. Both scripture and traditional theologians, alike, enjoin the faithful to respect and treat animals well, even if they may be used for burden and for food, and even for research purposes. In a real sense, both the New and Old Testaments accord lower animals a degree of dignity, and the great 18th century Dominican Cardinal Billuart (viz. De Justicia) is precise in analogizing man's fulfillment of his duties to and love for God with concomitant duties to respect and value animals (and thus, God's creation).

Secondly, while I would not dispute St. Thomas in his analyses, just as he posits that souls are created by God independently and then ensouled in creatures directly—as opposed to St. Augustine's view, that souls are generated through the act of procreation itself—God as remote Creator, Aquinas's view is certainly not the last word in the matter. Christian doctrine today teaches that the soul is present from the moment of conception (St. Thomas implies that ensoulment could come slightly later). So, even though the Angelic Doctor should be revered for his formulations of the faith, in every element he is not without fallibility, especially in those areas where the Church has not formally spoken.

Thirdly, I do think that even in the animal genus, that some lower animals (that is, non-human ones) enjoy higher forms of natural intelligence than others. Thus, a Labrador retriever or Border collie or a dolphin possess, I would argue, a broader, a different natural intelligence than, say, an ant or Japanese beetle. Obviously, the beetle and the ant comply with and fulfill their narrower respective natures, and do it superbly. But such natural intelligence is much more developed in the retriever and collie or dolphin. While not the same as in man, such natural intelligence certainly at times approaches a level that can only be said to be magnificent. But, do such animals have the capacity to elect or to choose, that is, can they at all reflect and reason? Certainly not in the sense that St. Thomas discusses. But his standard is a high bar indeed. Is there not a gradation that would permit some rudimentary "reasoning" on the part of animals, consistent with their natures, but still quite unlike the special gift or capacity imprinted upon the intellectual soul of man by God, that distinguishes him from all other animals?

Paul Gottfried: I'm wondering how far the theologian would carry the idea of “fitting” in arguing for the spiritual aspect of animal life. What about mice or cockroaches? Would we have to ascribe to them something like a soul because of their teleological fitness, that is, because they perform a function that conforms to a divine plan for the universe? In the matter of those neo-pagans who believe they can reach across the Christian centuries to reclaim a pagan religious legacy, the entire enterprise seems to have arisen from science fiction. There is no way one can remove a religious consciousness that was formed over the last two thousand years and substitute for it what came before. Even the multicultural totalitarians have not succeeded in getting rid of Christianity entirely. They have simply denatured it, while hiding what they have done.

Boyd Cathey: I mentioned that there could be some qualitative differences between the soul of a Japanese beetle and that of a Labrador Retriever, for instance. It is completely within an Aristotelian and Thomist framework to say that both creatures, as sensate animals, within their particular genus fulfill their inscribed nature, programmed, as it were, by God with a certain degree of specificity and a destiny or object. And thus the levels of intelligence that we observe in canines or porpoises, for instance, would be different than, say, that of the beetle or the cockroach.

I did not say "superior" or "inferior," since each animal operates according to its own proper nature as created by God. As the cockroach complies with that nature it can be said to operate properly and naturally, and its animal "soul" fulfills God's intentions for it.

Nevertheless, as we humans observe animals fulfilling their respective natures, we observe—at least at our most perceptive—that dogs in fulfilling their nature do so in a manner that we find much more intelligent and agreeable according to our human standards, that they seem to possess emotions and form particular attachments, that they exhibit traits of nobility and a kind of rudimentary rationality. And, so, accordingly, we have taken in dogs to our homes and our hearts, and they form an integral, if ancillary, part of human society. They are in their actions and reactions to us fulfilling that nature that God inscribed on their souls, just as the cockroach does, but in a different manner. The difference for us is that the vast majority of humankind don't have cockroaches as loving members of their households, at least, not by choice. As the inscribed nature of canines is so much closer to our own, since they respond to human nature so well, and as they are able to express in some form their love and emotions towards us, we judge them differently and naturally place them on a much higher plane than cockroaches. Yet, the lowly cockroach also fulfills its nature; it's just that the animal soul of the cockroach is programmed to comply with its nature on a different level.

To be consistent, I must admit that when the cockroach is snuffed out by a spray of Raid that it indeed ends up in some mysterious way Glorifying the Godhead for all eternity. I'm not as aesthetically convinced of that as I am theologically persuaded.

Certainly, what I have just said suggests that while God inscribes in animals’ unique natures and that all comply with that nature as creatures of the Almighty, He also enables us, through our human faculty of judgment and reason to believe that certain animals are in our estimation "superior" and others "inferior," in regards to how they interact with us and complement our existence here on earth.

It seems to me that the key here, then, is the specific kind of rationality (or lack of) that animals may possess. I said earlier that we might distinguish the soul of a dog or a dolphin from that, say, of a beetle or ant. St. Thomas implies that lower animals (that is, non-human ones) lack reflective rationality, the ability to reason, certainly as humans do (or should do). Even if we accept that division, I would still argue that there is a form of "thinking" and rough-hewn "rationality"—on a different level than that of humans, certainly—among canines and in gradations among other animals. While both the ant and the dog act according to their respective natures, I would suggest that what I might call the "pre-" or "praeter-" rational souls of dogs are of a much higher quality than that of the ant.

They possess emotions, show a form of guilt, show love, sadness, and happiness and loyalty, attempt to communicate in various forms, and so on. [I always give the example of my canine, who, if he makes a mistake on my carpet, goes and hides behind my den futon for a few minutes. He knows instinctively that he’s erred; and he formed this routine before I ever began scolding him.]

Paul Gottfried: The best way to answer the question about the spiritual rankings of different life forms may be, as you suggest, from an Aristotelian teleological perspective, namely to what extent animals serve (huperetountes) and approximate (eikozantes) human beings. Obviously cockroaches are less like us and our divine source than our canine pets, with whom we identify because they are actually our companions, and not simply something that pollutes our kitchens. The ontological hierarchy takes into account qualities other than sensateness, although that may be a starting point for rating life forms as opposed to inanimate objects.

Daniel Joyce: I do not strongly object to the case for the immortality of the lower beasts' souls made by Boyd. Most of the anticipated objections I would make have been answered, but I will raise a question. I fully accept that God created all the animals and made them good, so in that they perfectly fulfill their God-ordained function, they do not merit any punishment, as the termination of their existence may be deemed (death entered the world with sin), nor are they in need of redemption for, as irrational beings, they cannot choose right or wrong. Man chose, Man fell, Man needs redemption (though the effects of the Fall did extend to [not just human-] nature). I also believe, with Cardinal Bourne, that God’s Fatherhood extends to all created things, as Creator, for, after all, "Of Him, all paternity in heaven and earth is named" (Eph. 3:15), and that animals do not exist solely for man's use, but have rights inasmuch as they participate in the rights of the Creator, ratio Creatoris, i.e. man's dominion over them is limited, and mistreatment of them would infringe upon the rights of the Creator and His order in nature, ratione ordinis creatae.

Thus, Man being made in God's image, being endowed with reason, and freely choosing his redemption, does not necessitate the termination of souls not made in His image, upon their natural death, though the association of everlasting life with these principles is undeniable;  but is it necessary? As I said above, I think Boyd has anticipated and addressed the pertinent objections (and I agree with the analysis of St. Thomas Aquinas on ensoulment, by the way), but I wonder, and this is a question, not considered a rebuttal: If it is in the Church's condemnation of Metempsychosis [transmigration of the soul at death] that one may find the evidence one needs to conclude to the contrary of Boyd's thesis, is there anything in the condemnation of the transmigration of souls (from animal to animal, or animal to man) that makes explicit the conclusion that the animal's soul ceases to exist upon its natural death?

I once heard a traditional theologian say something to the effect that a worm is superior to a nuclear power station, because it is animate (i.e. has a soul), if that helps? (Whilst I mention this with a smile, it is not a facetious point, for behind that assertion lies an obvious and clear truth. But could that worm be in Heaven?)

Boyd Cathey: Daniel is quite right about metempsychosis and the Church's rejection of it and any form of reincarnation or transmigration of souls. The decrees of the Council of Vienne (1311-12) which define "the rational or intellectual soul [as] . . . the form of the human body itself," implicitly condemn reincarnation, as do, explicitly, St. Ambrose (Belief in the Resurrection, Pts. 65-66 [A.D. 380]), St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on John 2:3, 6 [A.D. 391]), and St. Basil the Great (The Six Days' Work, 8:2 [A.D.393]), and other orthodox Church Fathers, writers and popes.

Much of the earlier, medieval discussion was in reaction to various strains of Hellenism and Neo-Platonism and later, the Gnostic Cathares. These debates permitted the Church to define more clearly its teachings in the area.

Nevertheless, I can find nothing, no formalized teaching that animal souls would cease to exist after death or that explicitly excludes animals, that is, the sentient souls of animals, from adoring God eternally in some form. Certainly, they would not do so as do the Elect for whom Our Lord came specifically and for whom He died upon the Cross. And, they would not enjoy the special creation with equal rational and reflective powers as humans.

But they do fulfill their God-created natures, are not infected with Original Sin, and thus would not incur the penalty for sin. Certainly Our Lord did not die and rise from the grave for them. But, then, He had no need to.

The essential differentiation, I believe, comes in the unique Divine Love of God for man, for men who are chosen to be sons of God, and for whom Our Lord was crucified, thus granting to us special graces to repair our fallen and sinful natures, and the Beatific Vision of Him in Heaven.

While animals do not enjoy these promises, fulfilling their natures they fulfill God's role for them, just as they glorify Him. As such, I think it defensible to maintain that their (sentient and praeter-rational) souls continue to adore and praise their Maker after physical death on a different level than humans. After all, God creates them out of love, for both Man and for His creation.

*****

I thank you all for your contributions to this discussion, which spans thousands of miles and an ocean. Although we may not have settled anything, I do believe this conversation does demonstrate that amongst thoughtful individuals such topics can be discussed respectfully and rationally. Again, I refer to the classic text of Florian Dalham, De rationi recte cogitandi (Venice, 1770), who wrote 250 years ago: "The condition of the souls of animals after death is unknown." In a very real sense, perhaps the answer to our question will only be answered once we, ourselves, face the King of Heaven.

________________________
Boyd D. Cathey was educated at the University of Virginia (MA, Thomas Jefferson Fellow) and the Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain (PhD, Richard M. Weaver Fellow). He is a former assistant to the late author, Dr. Russell Kirk, taught on the college level, and is retired State Registrar of the North Carolina State Archives. He has published widely and in various languages. His book, The Land We Love: The South and Its Heritage (Scuppernong Press) was published in 2018. He resides in North Carolina.

March 26, 2020

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey

Every Southerner Should Get Chronicles Magazine

Friends,

On various occasions I’ve made references to Chronicles Magazine and cited articles printed in it. Remarkably, Chronicles is the only print magazine of stature (it is also online) in America which has represented and aired traditionalist conservative viewpoints, in depth and intelligently, now for forty-four years.

Edited by Dr. Paul Gottfried (Raffensperger Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, Elizabethtown College), the magazine includes some of the finest writers of the Old or Traditionalist conservative persuasion in the Anglosphere. And recently, Chronicles, which has been consistently favorable to the heritage and traditions of the South, has published even more quality essays by and on Southerners. Early this year the magazine inaugurated a series –“Remembering….”—which undertakes to recover the thinking and wisdom of various writers, many of them from the South, who contributed mightily to American history and culture, but who, largely due to the dominance nationally of the anti-Southern Neoconservatives, have been neglected or exiled from the public square.

In the December 2019 issue, for example, Chronicles featured fascinating appreciations of Mel Bradford (by Clyde Wilson), Robert Lewis Dabney (by Zachary Garris), and an introductory essay by Gottfried titled, “Remembering the Right.” Subsequent issues have featured an appreciation of the late historian Eugene Genovese (by Robert Paquette, a Genovese amanuensis, in the January 2020 issue) and Tar Heel writer Richard Weaver (by Jay Langdale, in the February 2020 issue).

Chronicles has never been afraid to address controversial issues from a traditionalist point of view, and thus go against the grain of our consumerist and authoritarian gate keepers who now control the establishment Conservative Movement and who accept far too many precepts and agenda points of the looney Left. An excellent example of this intelligent and thoughtful non-conformity—this “emperor-has-no-clothes” approach to the intellectual bankruptcy of “Conservatism Inc.”—is the February 2020 issue, which not only has the Weaver appreciation but several other significant contributions that every thinking Southerner would do well to search out.

A major contribution is Dr. Brion McClanahan’s superb critique of the latest initiative of the fanatically “woke” Leftwing historical establishment, “The 1619 Project,” which attempts to frame all of American history in the terms of race as the pivotal benchmark in the development of this continent since the first African slave stepped off the boat. McClanahan’s essay is a masterful response that demolishes the very basis of “the project.” Another essay by him in the same issue, “The Reinvention of Reconstruction,” demonstrates how Reconstruction and it policies were renewed as an ideological platform for both historians and politicians in the 1960s, and how this ideology has come to dominate all discussion about the War Between the States, about civil rights (expanding beyond simple laws on accommodation or voting, to such extremes as same sex marriage and a race-consciousness in nearly aspect of American life), and the virtual excommunication of anyone who would question that narrative.

Another fascinating February contribution, “The Great Debate: Lincoln’s Legacy,” by H. A. Scott Trask is a thorough examination of the famous and long-running discussions between Drs. Harry Jaffa and Mel Bradford over the (nefarious) role of Abraham Lincoln, not just during the 1861-1865 War, but even more significantly since then on the decay and destruction of American institutions and the Constitution. Trask goes into some detail regarding the profound and significant debate between Jaffa, who seized upon the Declaration of Independence—in particular, its propagandistic exclamation that “all men are created equal”—to assert that equality was the fundamental basis of the American nation, and Bradford, who firmly rejected that proposition: America was based on communities and families who came to these shores for land and liberty; NOT to establish some egalitarian “world state,” as Jaffa implied (see for example, Bradford's deeply-reasoned, “The Heresy of Equality,” Modern Age, Winter 1976). Editor Gottfried adds additional and critical commentary.

As both Trask and Gottfried show it was Southerner Bradford’s rather complete take-down and devastating assault of the “Lincoln Myth” that got him into serious trouble with the Neoconservatives. Supported in 1981 by Senators Jesse Helms and John East of North Carolina, and Howell Heflin of Alabama, to be President Reagan’s head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bradford was immediately attacked by columnist George Will and other establishment (Neocon) conservatives for his writings on Lincoln and the Confederacy. Such views, once welcomed by the older Conservative movement in the 1950s and 1960s, were now verboten and most likely “racist.” And after a barrage of negative attacks, the appointment went to Democrat, Neocon-favorite William Bennett.

For full disclosure I admit that I have had a few items published by the magazine over the past couple of years, and a review of my book, The Land We Love: The South and Its Heritage (Scuppernong Press, 2018), by Dr. Donald Livingston of The Abbeville Institute, was published in the May 2019 issue. Let me add that I have been a subscriber for nearly thirty of the magazine’s forty -four years, and I look forward to its arrival in my mailbox each month.

The annual subscription price for the print edition is $48.00 a year, twelve monthly issues—well worth the cost (which would be about the same for a husband and wife at middling steak house).

Chronicles subscriptions and a view of some of the recent articles are available at its Web site: https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/. There is also an “800” number for those who prefer the old-fashioned method of using the telephone. And while you are there on the Web site, take a look at the Archive of articles and essays, a veritable cornucopia of excellent traditionalist writing.

Every Southerner who really cares about our heritage and traditions, who is concerned about the present parlous state of the American nation, and who is worried about what kind of country we have become and what we will leave to our children and grandchildren, should receive Chronicles.

In a sense, it is one of the best “weapons,” certainly intellectually and historically, we can have in our meager arsenal. In these dark days, as our monuments come down and, to quote poet William Butler Yeats,    “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity,” Chronicles is a ray of light and a hope for our future.

March 21, 2020

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey

For Never Trump “Conservatives” Joe Biden is the “Simple Answer”

Friends,

As you are aware various “big name” establishment “conservative” leaders have never reconciled themselves to the election of Donald Trump. For these folks, mainly clustered “inside-the-DC-Beltway” or closeted off behind walled estates in northern Virginia or in posh apartments in New York’s upper east side, the rest of the conservative base, out in what the late leftist novelist Phillip Roth called “fly-over country” are “deplorables,” just as Hillary Clinton despectively described them. In fact a week or two ago, former John McCain Republican consultant Rick Wilson yucked it up on CNN with his extreme Left buddies in tones of dripping condescension—and scarcely concealed hate—about those mostly “rural boobs.”

Good for a disdainful laugh.

Lest you thought that 2016 signaled the decline of these Republican ersatz-conservative plutocrats, think again. Yes, it is true that their most important journalistic mouthpiece, The Weekly Standard, went under in a richly deserved death. But the Standard’s most prominent scribblers did not go away. Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg almost immediately founded an online journal of “conservatism,” The Dispatch, where they could continue to spew forth their continued disdain for Trump and the hoi polloi, we poor unfortunate rubes who have been misled by the “racism” and hatred engendered, let loose, and normalized by the present administration.

And former Standard editor, Bill Kristol—the son of the Neoconservative journalist Irving Kristol—has his own online mouthpiece, The Bulwark, where he continues to spout an unrestrained message of irreconcilable Never Trumpism.

Of course, since 2016 some of the zealous anti-Trumpers have attempted to glom onto Trumpism and, as Neoconservatives have done in the past, turn it and shape it in their own direction—a continued globalism internationally and a continued retreat into moral degeneracy domestically. Thus the praxis of such Fox luminaries Goldberg, Hayes, along with Ben Shapiro, Guy Benson, and that “big boy” wannabe, Charlie Kirk—yes, the self-same, transvestite-hugging Turning Point USA honcho who shows up increasingly on Fox News as a pundit. (Charlie comes across as someone desperate for attention and anxious for fame; he preaches to collegians when he can, but loves to party up-tight with transgenders and others who make a total mockery of traditional conservative beliefs: this tragically is what has become of much of the “conservative youth movement.”)

And, of course, just as with the fanatical Left, these elitist conservatives are quick to condemn and excommunicate anyone as “racist” (or “sexist”) who in any way transgresses their shared, constantly advancing benchmarks for deciding just who has now become a “racist.” Thus, once welcomed conservative columnist and lecturer Michelle Malkin has become, in this new dispensation, “persona non grata.” Indeed, Amanda Carpenter on Kristol’s Web site viciously attacked her as “pro-Nazi” and probably a “holocaust denier” (n0 shred of proof adduced, of course): “And she now seems to have turned her back on all of that [establishment conservatism] in order to link arms with the most vocal elements of the white nationalist movement. Oh, I’m sorry. They insist on being called America Firsters. Same difference.”

And everything possible is being done to destroy Malkin’s career and livelihood. Once prominently viewed on Fox, she now is effectively banned from the network because, as Carpenter describes it, she has defended in some ways Nick Fuentes. Who is Fuentes? “Think of him as a younger, Catholic fundamentalist version of Milo Yiannopoulos.”  Fuentes, you see, marched in Charlottesville, and no matter what his beliefs or motivation, that for the race-conscious Neocons is an unforgivable sin.

Even more unforgivable, according to Carpenter: “Fuentes and his followers loathe what they call ‘Conservative Inc.’—a group of ‘fake conservative establishmentarians who are insufficiently observant of ‘traditional values.’ One of those values is severely restrictionist immigration policy, which at some point, began to tickle Malkin’s ears. So, too, has she adopted the anti-‘Conservative Inc.’ language, even though her entire career had been—if we are being honest—a product of the actual Conservative Inc. Which is to say, CPAC, Regnery, YAF, Fox, and all the rest.”

Now the Never Trump Republicans have something called “The Lincoln Project,” with a goal of defeating the president at the next election, and nothing is exempt as a weapon in that campaign. Most recently they have bitterly attacked Donald Trump over his handling of the COVID-19 epidemic—if it will bring down the hated “man with the golden hair,” it’s just fine as a tactic. The headline on a Huffington Post (!) article March 21 reads: “GOP group uses Donald Trump's coronavirus lies against him in new attack ad,” and the list of organizers reads like a list of John McCain and George Bush policy advisors and political consultants: Rick Wilson (again!), Steve Schmidt, John Weaver, Jennifer Horn, et al. The New York Times—never missing a beat to attack the despicable Donald—featured their joint opinion piece, “We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated,” prominently in its December 17, 2019, issue.

Bill Kristol states it even more clearly: “if you’re inclined toward American constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and a free economic order–as well as a liberal  [Italics mine] world order anchored by the United States–it’s Joe Biden.”

You see, Biden is the “moderate candidate.”  He’s who Kristol calls “The Simple Answer.” Got that?

Can you believe this? This is the man, the brain-dead candidate who has adopted almost all of Bernie Sanders’ socialist positions. And yet Kristol and company push him as THEIR candidate. Tells you something, does it not, about THESE so-called “conservatives.” And it should impel us to go back and re-examine the history of how these vaunted Neoconservatives—the Irving Kristols, Norman Podhoretzes, and their offspring—infiltrated and seized control of the old conservative movement and denatured it almost beyond recognition back in the 1970s and 1980s.

*****

On this subject there is no better, no more acute observer and historian than Dr. Paul Gottfried, and so I pass on his latest essay on the topic today:

Since When Is Joe Biden a 'Moderate'?

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/since_when_is_joe_biden_a_moderate.html

By Paul Gottfried  March 15, 2020

In an exultant commentary on Joe Biden’s victory on Super Tuesday, New York Post-syndicated columnist Salena Zito tells us: “The Dems’ silent majority, which doesn’t tweet, is finally crying out for moderation from the party.” Zito also quotes Dave Saunders, “a legendary Democratic strategist in Virginia,” who “finds it ‘ironic’ that southern voters are often criticized by the national party for being too moderate, but they’re the ones who saved the party from a left-wing candidate like Sanders.” Presumably Biden is the personification of “moderation,” as I’m reminded whenever I hear the Fox News All-stars praise him, while attacking the evil Bernie as a commie-loving radical. It’s been Joe’s accomplishment to rescue his party and nation from the “leftist demagogue” who is running against him. He is helping to return the country to “moderate” government, which presumably is not something that Trump has been doing because of his divisive personality.

Unfortunately, there is no indication that Biden will be practicing any kind of “moderation” if elected. For one thing, depictions of him as a moderate overlook the inconvenient fact that he is running well to the left of former president Obama, who was our most leftist chief executive up until his election in 2008. Candidate Obama publicly opposed gay marriage, favored strict border controls, and would never have announced, in contrast to Biden, that he wished to provide medical assistance and public benefits to those who were here illegally. On just about every social issue, Biden the “moderate” has positioned himself well to the left of Obama. On immigration and advancing the LGBT, feminist, and Black Lives Matter agendas, I don’t find any distance between Joe and Bernie.  Certainly not enough to justify the exaggerated contrasts between the “moderate” Biden and the “radical” Sanders.

Second, in assessing how Biden would govern this country, we should consider his continuing gaffes on the stump. Why are we supposed to think that Biden’s stumbling for words, incoherent outbursts, and inability to recognize what day of the week it is or what state he is in tell us nothing about how he would govern? Biden may well be in mental decline, and if that is the case, there are lots of people out there waiting to take advantage of his presidency. We might start the list with the Secret Service officials who have been in trouble because of their felonious misdeeds and rank partisanship. But perhaps we should look for Biden’s beneficiaries in public administration more generally. Federal employees are overwhelmingly Democrats and would be delighted with a presidency that allowed them to have their way. However ineptly Trump has called out his bureaucratically entrenched enemies, he has correctly observed where they are. Biden is also indebted to the media for methodically covering up his ridiculous statements and his fits of anger when encountering unwanted questions. He also owes the media big time for their steady recent attacks on Sanders, which helped cleared the way for Biden’s nomination. Such unfailing support may come at a high price, if Biden is elected. And let’s not forget those black leaders like Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who have vigorously campaigned for Joe. What exactly will a President Biden owe such leaders for gaining him the overwhelming support of black Democrats? One can only imagine. Of course, Biden’s helpers were right to pick him over the principled socialist Sanders. Joe is not likely to refuse favors and he does have a proven record of corruption, and very corrupt relatives whose corruption he’s facilitated.

There are also neocons and #NeverTrumpers ready to pile on to the gravy train. Bill Kristol has talked up Biden on his website The Bulwark as the candidate for “normal Americans, who don’t care to choose between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders." From Bill’s standpoint, Joe is “the simple answer” for those who wish to avoid extremism.  According to this endorsement: “if you’re inclined toward American constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and a free economic order -- as well as a liberal world order anchored by the United States -- it’s Joe Biden. And if you’re not, then it’s Bernie Sanders.”  Allow me to place the emphasis here exactly where Kristol and his anti-Trump friends would want it to go, namely on “a liberal world order anchored by the United States.” That signifies continuing confrontation with those countries that Bill and his friends don’t like; and this happy dream might become reality under President Biden, who would be aided in his protection of our democracy by neocon advisers.   

We have not yet reached, however, the ultimate beneficiary of a Biden presidency, the person whom he chooses to be his running mate. Since “I’m an old guy,” as Joe recently admitted, he will need a “vice-president capable of being president.” In December he mentioned as possible picks certain left-leaning women, including the “woman who should have been governor of Georgia, Stacey Abrams.” Assuming Joe wins in November but his mental acuity continues to decline, a leftist woman possibly of color may be our next de facto president.