Comments on: Joe Escalante on Restoring Faith

By: Larry Arnhart

Larry Arnhart — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:50:42 +0000

MByrne,

You say that the Legion of Christ issue is not relevant to Poulos’ post.

His post claims that conservative Catholicism should be powerfully attractive to human beings.

But doesn’t the moral crisis of conservative Catholicism under the papacies of John Paul and Benedict–as manifest in the priestly pedophilia and Legion of Christ scandals–create a problem?

Bottum’s article in the latest FIRST THINGS is one good attempt to face up to this problem.

Isn’t this a “relevant” issue for conservative Catholics?

By: MByrne

MByrne — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 02:50:36 +0000

Larry Arnhart:

I’m not going to get into the Legion of Christ issue, because it’s not relevant to James Poulos’ post. I will simply say this: if a writer were require to state his or her agreement or disagreement with every comment on every article to which they linked, no one could use the internet.

By: Thirty Three Things (v. 1) » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog

Thirty Three Things (v. 1) » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 21:21:49 +0000

[...] (Via: Postmodern Conservative) [...]

By: Larry Arnhart

Larry Arnhart — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 01:04:49 +0000

One of the commentators on the Escalente post praises the Legion of Christ.

It would be good if you indicated your agreement with Joseph Bottum’s recent condemnation of Father Marcial Maciel and of Father Richard John Neuhaus’s support for Maciel.

I assume that you will agree that John Paul II’s support of Maciel was a great sin of the Catholic Church.

By: Bob Cheeks

Bob Cheeks — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:01:21 +0000

Isn’t this post an example of “crossing the line” here at First Things?
Whatever it is, it’s outstanding.
I like that radical (or is it reactionary?) fellow, Joe Escalente, and if the Church ever returns to the truth of God, born in the pneumatic, theophanic revelation and experienced in a noetic reality, and if that church ever chooses to re-embrace those visions that constitute history while summoning the courage to teach the truth of God and to stand against the hypostatizing distortions of modernity…I’m back. Given, of course, that the question of co-redemption is open to public discussion.