OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
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User ID: 359
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
Church-of-the-elect is precisely what is meant by invisible church, though.
I'm not married to that term. I need a word that signifies what the Church means by Catholic Church, and there isn't a good word to use. The Body of Christ. Can I use that phrase?
I think the conflict here is that there is a Visible Church, which sinners and people who will ultimately go to Hell belong to. People can participate in this Visible Church without knowing it, by Baptism or by other means. People who are participating in this Visible Church are possibly going to Heaven but it is not guaranteed, whether they are in the group that knows they are participating in the Visible Church or in the group that does not know they are participating in the Visible Church.
If that holds to your understanding, then great. I think the concern with "Invisible Churches" is that it makes it sound like people who end up in Hell were never part of the Church at all.
The Fourth Lateran Council is more expansive than that and is clearly not talking about emergencies. It is talking about Baptisms being administered by ministers not subject to the Roman Pontiff. It goes further in Cannon 4:
After the Church of the Greeks with some of her accomplices and supporters had severed herself from the obedience of the Apostolic See, to such an extent did the Greeks begin hating the Latins that among other things which they impiously committed derogatory to the Latins was this, that when Latin priests had celebrated upon their altars, they would not offer the sacrifice upon those altars till the altars had first been washed, as if by this they had been defiled.”
This one is saying in the same breath that the schismatic Greek priests were still able to "offer the sacrifice" i.e. perform a valid Mass and turn bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. While the council certainly doesn't like schism, it doesn't seem to be preaching that renouncing papal authority removes someone from the "Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation."
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
That was an embarrassing error on my part! Thank you for not making a "Catholic's can't read the Bible" joke (even though we're discussing the very document most often used to make such a claim.
Though that I made that mistake is demonstrative of something. They are such anodyne statements to me I didn't second guess when I thought you said they were direct Bible quotes.
So let's look at 74: The Church or the whole Christ has the Incarnate Word as head but all the saints as members.
Does it imply exclusivity? Is it saying that non-Saints cannot be members of the Church? Catholics would believe that sinners here on Earth are also a part of the Church. (And all sinners here on Earth are at risk of being damned, even if they are part of the Church.) Even if that's not what Quesnel meant to imply, maybe it was being read that way.
Part of the problem with going back to these blanket condemnations is that we don't have the same vibe they did at the time. These statements aren't all being condemned as incorrect, they are being condemned as stirring up offense, scandal, and controversy. Consider a Scissor Statement, or the phrase "One man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens." Something might be truly stated, and even used in other teachings as infallible, but still cause controversy based on how different groups read it.
75 also seems to have that ambiguity that might indicate only the Saints are members of the Church.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
But I think it's still useful to try to figure out, at least, why they are wrong (or scandalous, etc.). How would you characterize the problems with 74 and 75?
I think I already explained, I don't think 74 or 75 is wrong. Instead, it was scandalous for someone to use scripture to justify their schism from the Church.
I also explained that this wasn't a teaching document, so the writers didn't feel any need to explain exactly what they didn't like about each statement. There is at least one heretical proposition in the entire document. Heaven knows what it is. (Actually, it's clearly 10-16. Those are Jansenist heresies.)
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
This part of my reply was lost and I will try to type it up to it's former beauty:
Going back to the Council of Florence, it is interesting that you present a Time-Gated explanation. That is not my explanation, but if it is the implicit assumption you read into the Council Statement then why not make further implicit assumptions? What I mean is, if the statement can be naturally read to signify after the time of Jesus, why couldn't it be implicitly more limited in space-time? Isn't a similarly natural read that the statement is limited to just Christendom at the time of the Council?
That's not my read though. I still stick with the well-attested Church-of-the-elect. This is not the same thing as a belief in an Invisible Church. One way of thinking about it is:
These individuals are invisibly connected to the visibile Church. A way of understanding this is to think of an American living in Paris. America is a visible place, with actual defined borders: she’s not just an invisible ideal of freedom, although her visible reality exists to support invisible notions (American values) as well as visible people (citizens, primarily). These individuals are living outside of the visible borders of America, yet are every bit as American as those of us living within her borders, and they might even be more patriotic.
Another way of thinking about it is how St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12:15-16, said:
If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.
Now consider the Fourth Council of Lateran:
There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transsubstantiatio) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors. But the sacrament of baptism, which by the invocation of each Person of the Trinity, namely of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is effected in water, duly conferred on children and adults in the form prescribed by the Church by anyone whatsoever, leads to salvation.
This one is harder to ignore that tension, because in the very same paragraph the authors state two seemingly conflicting things. How is it that there is absolutely no salvation outside the Church, but absolutely anyone can Baptize and this will lead to salvation? I think this demonstrates that the Church isn't overlooking this, it recognizes even back in 1215 before the Council of Florence that there is some sense in which people participate in the Catholic Church without being visible members.
Regarding the "unity of the ecclesiastical body," there is also the line from Unam Santum which is even stronger/more specific:
“Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.
How does this tie into the "invisibly connected to the visible Church" hypothesis?
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Everyone who is saved, is saved through Christ and His Church, whether they know it or not.
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Everyone who is saved is saved during this lifetime – there are no second-chances in the afterlife.
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The head of the Church on Earth is the Roman Pontiff.
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Therefore, everyone saved is saved by spiritual membership in the Church Militant, in which they are subject to the Pope.
This might sound like a less natural reading of the various texts to you, but it is the most natural reading to me given the way that the Church understood and defined herself. The definition of "Church" is very significant to the text of all these passages and I think it just means something different from what you think.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
I'm glad you recognized there was something a little weird about the Papal Bull Unigenitus. It is really weird to say that Christ is not the Head of the Church! But that's not what it says. (This is going to apply to the Condemnation of John Hus as well.)
In this Genre of Papal Condemnation, you will see a statement that declares multiple levels of condemnation. Some of these levels implies falsehood (false,...,and finally heretical, clearly renewing many heresies respectively and most especially those which are contained in the infamous propositions of Jansen.) Some of these levels does not imply falsehood at all, but merely causes offense/scandal (captious, evil-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash,...insulting not only to the Church but also the secular powers.) No statement has every condemnation leveled against it. You can tell this because the condemnation at the bottom of Unigenitus includes "suspected of heresy, and smacking of heresy itself,..., close to heresy, many times condemned, and finally heretical." Every single item cannot be both suspected of heresy, close to heresy, and simultaneously heretical. That would be a contradiction.
The John Hus condemnation similarly has categories for "many things that are scandalous, offensive to the ears of the devout, rash and seditious." This doesn't mean false.
Why not list out exactly what level of condemnation each statement falls into? Because the Pope/Council wasn't going through the effort to define new teaching or to clear up a theological debate. They just wanted to say, "This guy sucks, his writing sucks, and no Catholic should read this garbage."
I think the statements you copied here would qualify under "offensive to pious ears." Why is that? Because they were made in the context of open rebellion against the Catholic Church. Someone who made those statements from the position of submission to the authority of the Church would not be labeled offensive to pious ears.
does Pius IX think there are people not guilty of deliberate sin?
Unfortunately he's not responding to my ouiji board (just kidding!) I think it could be a response to a pure hypothetical. “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”
At the same time, he might have a stricter understanding of deliberate sin than you. A deliberate sin is one that someone fully understands is wrong and does it anyways out of their own free will, no coercion. There may indeed be some people who fall under this category, through the Grace of God, particularly those under the age of 7.
Also, a careful reading of the statement shows that he is positively declaring that this specific category can get to heaven, he's not defining people outside this category as incapable of arriving in Heaven. There may be others who have committed deliberate sins but achieved sufficient contrition to be forgiven those sins, who also go to Heaven. He's just not commenting on that aspect at this time.
Does Vatican II still allow for requiring that?
Yes, it allows that theory, but does not require Aquinas' pious opinion to be held by all. One thing this reminds me of is Sr. Faustina's visions. She wrote, “God’s mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly, it seems as if everything were lost, but it is not so. The soul, illumined by a ray of God’s powerful final grace, turns to God in the last moment with such a power of love that, in an instant, it receives from God absolution of sins and remission of punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things. Oh, how beyond comprehension is God’s mercy! But – horror! – There are also souls who voluntarily and consciously reject and scorn this grace!”
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
To be honest, this is not one of my obsessions so my advice will mostly be what I think looks good on Google. I did pull a quote from him in the above comment, partly because of the punch it packs coming from such a "conservative" figure (if that word can be used to describe a pope from over a century ago.)
You can read his own writings at https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-ix/en.html, though you'll probably need the help of Google Translate.
I would trust this book published by Angelus Press to provide a faithful Catholic perspective: https://angeluspress.org/products/pius-ix-the-man-and-the-myth.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
When we get past the "Cathocism for Dummies" levels, it's really hard to find a book that's a one-stop shop. Here are a few topical books that might be interesting:
Mother Angelica : the remarkable story of a nun, her nerve, and a network of miracles - Biography of a nun who made the first Catholic broadcast TV network. It gives an interesting portrayal of the Church in the second half of the 20th century.
True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church - Recent book that came out that interviews dozens of Catholics in the American Church. From the blurb: "True Confessions is unique for its frank and in-depth interviews with 103 bishops, clergy, religious, and lay men and women from various backgrounds over a 17-month period, December 2020 through May 2022."
Fundamentals of catholic dogma - An encyclopedia used in seminaries. While the entries are helpful, the introduction has really helped me understand the different layers to Catholic Teaching and what levels of authority they hold.
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine - Essential to understand how Catholics view the continuity of doctrine, from ancient times to the present day.
The early papacy to the synod of Chalcedon in 451 - This book describes the limits Catholics place on Papal authority.
Hope at least one of these helps, let me know if you want to know more on a different topic.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
This series is a pretty off-beat musing on Power and Tyranny.
They distinguish between two forms of power: Non-Tyrannical power which is rule for the common good, and Tyrannical power, which is rule for private gain. Tyrannical power requires using others for the use of the master's end. Non-Tyrannical power is used for the good of the one on whom it is wielded.
People give up power to masters because when they believe that this giving up of power contributes to their own good. In a non-Tyranny, people cooperate together to do more things than they could have accomplished individually, and this belief is justified. In a Tyranny, often there are true believers who think they are serving the common good, while they are really being exploited. Other times, in a Tyranny people give up power by seeking their own good to protect them from a sense of danger the Tyrant has caused.
One video goes into how Bureaucracy is a requirement for a Tyranny, because it is a means by which a Tyrant is able to enact their will on a wider scale.
The series is done by a couple of Catholics and occasionally they mention Church things, but I think the series is worth listening to even if that is off putting at first.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
Since you invited a debate, here it goes:
There is a distinction in Catholicism between an infallible statement in a fallible church document. What I mean by this is a Council is only speaking infallibly when it states something in a particular formula. Usually it goes like, "We affirm, with our magisterial authority, that all inside the universal Church are bound to X." That kind of statement, and only that statement, is considered infallible. The surrounding logic or justification is not infallible. The entire document is not infallible. Things the author has said about what they meant when they stated it is not infallible. Catholic doctrine is Textualist, not Originalist.
The infallible statement in the Council of Florence is:
It firmly believes. professes and preaches, that none who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can partake of eternal life,but they will go into eternal fire… unless before the end of life they will have been joined to [the Church] and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body has such force that only for those who remain in it are the sacraments of the Church profitable for salvation; and fastings, alms, and other works of piety and exercises of the Christian soldiery bring forth eternal rewards [only] for them. ‘No one, howsoever much almsgiving he has done, even if he sheds his blood for Christ, can be saved, unless he remains in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.’”
Sounds pretty clear-cut? Only card-carrying Catholics in Heaven? Aright, now square this statement with the more ancient belief in the Harrowing of Hell. For this statement to be infallibly professed, it also needs to be in accordance with prior infallible statements that Abraham, Elijah, and others that predated Christ are in Heaven.
Did no one see that contradiction? Actually, there has been a long history of including people inside the Church who would be very surprised to learn they were in the Catholic Church, being saved by participation in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church this whole time!
Second Clement 14:2 (c. 150 AD): “The books of the prophets and the apostles [say] that the Church is not [only] now, but from the beginning. She was spiritual, like also our Jesus. She was manifested in the last days to save us.”
St. Justin Martyr, Apology 1:46 (c. 150 AD): “Christ is the Logos of whom the whole race of men partake. Those who lived according to Logos are Christians, even if they were considered atheists, such as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus.”
St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4:22:2 (c. 140-202 AD): “Christ came not only for those who believed from the time of Tiberius Caesar, nor did the Father provide only for those who are now, but for absolutely all men from the beginning, who, according to their ability, feared and loved God and lived justly… and desired to see Christ and to hear His voice.”
Pope St. Gregory the Great, Homilies on Ezekiel, 2:3 (540-604 AD): “The passion of the Church began already with Abel, and there is one Church of the elect, of those who precede, and of those who follow… They were, then, outside, but yet not divided from the holy Church, because in mind, in work, in preaching, they already held the sacraments of faith, and saw that loftiness of Holy Church.”
When it comes to salvation for people not visibly Catholic, Vatican II didn't say anything unusual or novel. Invincible ignorance has predated Vatican 2 also and was supported by some popes you'd be surprised by. All Vatican 2 did was reaffirm it.
Pope Pius IX wrote in his encyclical Quanto Conficiamur Moeroe, predating Vatican II:
"There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments.
Also well known is the Catholic teaching that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church. Eternal salvation cannot be obtained by those who oppose the authority and statements of the same Church and are stubbornly separated from the unity of the Church and also from the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff..."
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
I don't know if you've heard, but +Vigano (if I still get to use the + for him) has been officially excommunicated and summoned to Rome.
I'm not too sure, I think Catholicism is doing pretty well in the United States and the Church is holding to her teaching.
One chart I saw recently was at here, pulling together data from The Nones have Hit a Ceiling. It looks as though Catholics are either A) getting lots of converts, B) Better able to retain young people than Protestants, or C) Immigration of more young people than old people from Catholic countries. It might very well be C, but I don't think Catholicism is going to disappear from the US anytime soon.
One thing that helps keep Catholicism on the straight and narrow is that the Church's authority derives from its Conservatism. If it actually tried to change teaching, in such a way that it clearly contradicted past dogmatic teachings, it loses its authority instantly. It's whole shtick is that "We have the Truth, the Truth can't change, we have perfect Divine Authority to tell you the Truth and no one else has this Authority."
Now Europe, Europe is going secular fast. US Catholics joke that we will need to evangelize Pagan Europe all over again.
Around six in ten Gen Z adults (62%) oppose allowing a small business to refuse to provide goods or services to LGBTQ people, if doing so goes against their religious beliefs
I would be hard pressed to answer this survey, because I believe that the Masterpiece Cakeshop lawsuits were determined correctly, but also that no business has a right to turn away an LGBT person from receiving the same service as everyone else.
I am pretty anti-LGBT, as that goes today. I don't believe that two members of the same sex can be married in the same sense of the word "marriage" as I use when I say my marriage, my parents', grandparents', or great grandparents' marriage. Homosexual marriage is just talking about a completely different thing that can't even accidentally turn into the referent I mean.
If I was a wedding photographer and someone wanted me to photograph a gay wedding, I would want the right to refuse based on I don't believe the two events are even similar. It would be the equivalent of if I were a professional photographer that specialized in Christian First Communions, Confirmations, and Baptisms, then refused to be hired to photograph a Satanic Mass desecrating those things. "But the government says they are both equivalent religious expressions!" I don't care.
I'm pretty pro-LGBT, as far as that would have gone in the 80s or earlier. People deserve healthcare, non-discrimination in the necessities of daily life, security in their homes and jobs. I believe homosexuality is largely due to forces outside people's control. Having those attractions is not a moral failure. All of these would have been radical a hundred years ago, now they are the bare minimum of decency that only the smallest, most fringe groups would deny. The LGBT movement won there. Can they accept that victory and move on?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
The direct comparison to J6 I can think of is in 2017, when there was a "DisruptJ20" movement, where the stated goal was:
We are planning to shut down the inauguration, that's the short of it ... We're pretty literal about that, we are trying to create citywide paralysis on a level that I don't think has been seen in D.C. before.
And
There has been a lot of talk of peaceful transition of power as being a core element in a democracy and we want to reject that entirely and really undermine the peaceful transition
Undermine the peaceful transition of power? Doesn't that sound like Insurrection? What happened to these hardened insurrectionists?
In late November 2017, six people charged with rioting went on trial. Prosecutors alleged that these six people were taking part in DisruptJ20 protests and vandalism.[37] A jury trial found the six defendants not guilty on all counts in December 2017.[38] On January 18, 2018, the U.S. Justice Department dropped charges against 129 people, leaving 59 defendants to face charges related to the DisruptJ20 protest.[39] By early July 2018, federal prosecutors had dropped all charges against all defendants in the case.[40]
Ah, so nothing serious. But hey, at least they didn't storm the Capitol Building!
In 2020, protestors surrounded the White House and tried to break down the barriers. Trump and his family had to hide in a bunker:
Thousands of protesters demonstrated peacefully near the White House during the day, but by nightfall, with hundreds still in the streets, the scene turned more volatile as crowds surged forward against lines of riot police with plastic shields as the two sides vied for control of Lafayette Square across from the White House. Protesters threw water bottles, set off fireworks and burned a pile of wood and at least one car.
At least they didn't succeed? Is that the metric we're going to use? Because then the J6 protestors should be off the hook, because they ultimately failed to do anything significant. I guess they just had the wrong amount of success, just enough to break down a barricade, not enough to break down America.
And that's leaving out all the other protests that have happened on Capital hill, some violent, some peaceful. Kids crowding congressional offices to protest Climate Change, the Kaunavaugh confirmation protests, etc. And even that is leaving out all the protests inside various state's Capitol Buildings.
Do Democrat leaders support violent action against federal buildings, such as the Oregon courthouse siege? Yes they do! Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was among the rioters laying siege and Nancy Pelosi tweeted in support of the protestors (and against the government officials trying to resist them). If you don't remember much of what happened there, or maybe your news sources weren't reporting on it, Winston Marshall has a good 15 minute video here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jNoxpP5Jhvo
I'm not a fan of what happened on Jan 6th. I posted in the motte that week something to the effect of, "I'm a conservative and I'm glad that Ashley Babbit was killed." But I would place it in the same realm of the riots and protests of the above, not some unique evil that members of the Republican Party have perpetrated.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
I've seen people claiming Biden is old and senile for the last six years, when they weren't claiming he died and was replaced by a surgically altered body double. They have pointed to weird speech gaffes, reading teleprompter cues out loud, and Biden falling off his bike.
I have mostly ignored these examples.
Lately it actually seems like he's as senile as people have been trying to make it seem.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
I've seen this video making rounds as well. The thing with Biden is he seems frozen in a smile, uninvolved with what is happening. He seems tuned out, unaware and unresponsive. I don't necessarily think he should have been dancing around, his hips probably hurt! But his frozen, immobile body and face is unnerving.
I think there has been a very noticeable change in just the last two months. He just looks checked out.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
For example, he said that there is no such thing as a Canadian identity and that he views Canada is the world’s first “postnational state.”
I've been trying to put into words why I'm against open borders and I think this is the piece I needed to understand my inherent distrust. A post-national state does not have a people, it has a territory. Other - real - nations can exploit that territory without regard for the people. The government of a nation is elected by the people to put their common good first.
Trudeau sees himself as some sort of steward of Canada's natural resources and land. His "postnational state" denies the existence of a category called "Canadian people." There is the land of Canada, and the people currently inhabiting it which he has jurisdiction over. But without having a category of Canadian people to even reference, his decisions are not sourced in what is the well-being of the Canadian people and their decedents.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
For the Gone Girl of Vallejo case, I don't think the problem is that the Police Departmnet didn't have the resources to figure out what was going on. The problem is that they went out of their way to be assholes to potential victims. Putting Aaron Quinn's phone on Airplane mode when he was expecting to receive a call from a potential kidnapper was something that doesn't come down to insufficient resources. It was just plain idiocy.
Jimmy Akin did an episode on the case and he also came to the conclusion that the police were especially incompetent in this case.
That said, I agree in principle that the police should only be equipped to handle 95% of the cases in their jurisdiction, and in the 5% that are more complicated there should be some sort of national team that can deploy when needed with all the resources and skills to solve the weird problems.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
https://www.hybridcalisthenics.com/programs for body weight exercises tailored to what your current level is, from "elderly person recovering from a fall and can barely get off the floor" to "one arm pullups and one leg squats."
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
Biden has signed an Executive Order "that will temporarily shut down asylum requests once the average number of daily encounters tops 2,500." Given that the current number of asylum requests far exceeds this figure, the border is effectively shut down now.
On one level, this vindicated conservative commentators and legislators who argued that Congress didn't need to pass any bills to shut down the border. Biden apparently agrees!
On the other level, does this take away some steam from Republicans seeking re-election? That's probably what the Democrats are hoping. "See? We care about border security too! Ignore our behavior for the last 40 months." But is it actually going to be effective? And will they just turn on the spigot once the election is over?
Going back to the bill, was there anything on the bill that would have been allowed Biden to accomplish this executive order better? Does the DHS and Border Patrol need more funds to enact this Executive Order? Or is this something well within their existing abilities?
It also appears that this Executive Order contains some gaping holes. It does not apply to the obvious categories (US Citizens, lawful immigrants who make appointments ahead of time) as well as:
- Unaccompanied children (UCs);
- Noncitizens who are determined to be victims of severe forms of trafficking;
- Noncitizens who a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer permits to enter, based on the totality of the circumstances, including consideration of significant law enforcement, officer and public safety, urgent humanitarian, and public health interests that warrant permitting the noncitizen to enter; and
- Noncitizens who a CBP officer permits to enter due to operational considerations that warrant permitting the noncitizen to enter.
Does this render this toothless and just good PR? Or are Border Patrol Agents likely to be very restrictive in their interpretation of the order?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
Consider a situation where you respond to someone in depth, with some insightful first-hand knowledge and research. You spend an afternoon crafting the perfect response, to explain why the person you are responding to is just simply wrong. After submitting, no one responds to it.
Without upvotes, you don't know if no one read your response. Maybe it was too long. Maybe your writing style needs improvement.
But if you see that this response received unanimous upvotes, then it tells a different story. Maybe your argumentation was so impeccable that everyone who read it had to agree with you.
Upvotes can be the difference between a comment that is extremely well-written or an utter failure.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5mo ago
Insider trading can easily be compared to betting on a fixed match, something George Washington would recognize as wrong.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5mo ago
When your political enemy does it.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5mo ago
Sure, I'm comfortable theorizing Justice William Henry Pauley III didn't like Trump and that was a motive for accepting the plea bargain. He was a Clinton Appointee, which means he probably leans more blue than red, and most of the blue tribe was looking for anything that would open the door on getting Trump out of office.
Another possible motive would be liking Cohen and wanting him to get a slap on the wrist in exchange for immunity to other crimes he was accused of. But that doesn't seem to be the case because he said of Cohen:
Mr. Cohen’s cooperation with prosecutors did not “wipe the slate clean,” and that by breaking campaign finance laws, evading taxes and lying to Congress, he was guilty of a “veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct.” He added, “Each of the crimes involved deception and each appears to have been motivated by personal greed and ambition.”
Those crimes represent “a far more insidious harm to our democratic institutions,” the judge said. “Somewhere along the way Mr. Cohen appears to have lost his moral compass.”
The other motive is just wanting to get Cohen on something and wanting it to be done with the least resources possible. That is the most common reason for a judge going along with a plea deal and what I think is most likely here.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
5mo ago
I think you're arguing that it violates Corpus delicti?
Corpus delicti (Latin for "body of the crime"; plural: corpora delicti), in Western law, is the principle that a crime must be proved to have occurred before a person can be convicted of committing that crime
I'm looking and I can't find anything that demonstrates the federal criminal practice requires corpus delicti for a plea bargain.
If the Judge, the attorney, and Cohen all liked the deal, who would appeal that the facts presented didn't align with a crime?
I don't see where you see that the sacraments are not of salvific effect. The council complains that the Greeks are treating the Latins like they defile altars when they offered the Mass, but there is no similar Latin response that treats the Greek sacraments as not salvific . I"m not sure how a valid sacrifice of the Mass cannot be salvific , if understood the Catholic way.
Also, that reading contradicts Cannon 1:
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