Comments on: The Good Pope and the Bad Advisers — A Fable by George Weigel

By: Sam Rocha

Sam Rocha — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:45:44 +0000

http://vox-nova.com/2009/07/13/weigel-is-right/

By: Is Blog Stipes Est In Latin « Around The Sphere

Is Blog Stipes Est In Latin « Around The Sphere — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:52:59 +0000

[...] In furthing discussion of Weigel, he links to Freddy Gray and Vox Nova [...]

By: Kevin J Jones

Kevin J Jones — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:02:51 +0000

I deduce that Weigel’s essay was written by an Australian summer intern with platypuses on the brain.

By: Austin Storm

Austin Storm — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:47:48 +0000

I laughed.

By: X-Cathedra

X-Cathedra — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:03:42 +0000

Wow. This may be a first: a witty and scathing post against a key right-leaning figure that EVERYONE in the comboxes agrees is accurate and just! Congratulations, MM.

That itself may be the greatest testament to just how messed up Weigel’s priorities are!

Pax Christi,

By: Spirit of Vatican II

Spirit of Vatican II — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:25:46 +0000

paring SHD BE pairing

By: Spirit of Vatican II

Spirit of Vatican II — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:24:30 +0000

M J Andrew has a very telling analysis of Weigel. yet I wonder if there is not something in Weigel’s claims. The concrete parts of the Encyclical, about finance, immigration, technology etc. read a bit like Populorum Progression and are in the Justice and Peace style promoted after Vatican II. But the conservative ideological parts are echt Benedict, failing to place the concrete parts in any integrated context. So I think he relied on the J and P commission for those concrete parts while giving free rein to his own vision in the rest. And I do think it likely that the J and P people in the Vatican have long been frustrated with the hijacking of social doctrine by John Paul II (mixing it up with his anti abortion crusade, paring the option for the poor with a pastoral option for youth, and pouncing on perceived leftists such as the Sandinistas, the Jesuits and the liberation theologians is a cruel and blind way).

By: CEK

CEK — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:20:06 +0000

Fantastic article, MM.

I found Weigel’s ‘naive and dumb’ statement to be the highlight of his review: Here is a fellow who, naively and stupidly I guess he himself would say, spent gallons of ink twisting JWT to fit the Bush admin’s foreign policy.

By: M.J. Andrew

M.J. Andrew — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:53:02 +0000

I wrote a response to Weigel's piece here. The implications the piece has for Pope Benedict XVI's character seem to have escaped Weigel.

By: Liam

Liam — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:06:50 +0000

In a discussion forum I have inhabited for many years, before the advent of blogs, someone responded to a discussion of the encyclical in the specific context of the USA as follows:

“It is something that an unborn baby is not legally a person but an amalgamation of capital is.”

The predicate for this is that Americans assume the current treatment and duties of corporations under our legal and social systems’ is coeval with our constitutional framework, whereas in reality it is largely the work of the Gilded Age.

We take things as fixed when they are not. The encyclical is an opportunity to nourish hope (not mere optimism).

By: Mike McG...

Mike McG... — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:03:03 +0000

Quick note to three (small?) VN audiences I inhabit: 1. the time pressed, who scan posts and thus miss the occasional choice nugget; 2. the tone sensitive, who are weary of the usual suspects and their predictable food fights; and 3. those who often find themselves living between the 40 yard lines, who puzzle at the dogmatism, left and right, that blots out all amgiguity and paradox:

Check out jh’s post at 5:08 pm on 7.7.

Yes!

By: Paul Zummo

Paul Zummo — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:43:37 +0000

Weigel deserves every bit of mockery thrown at him for his piece. But still he deserves kudos, because I think for once he’s united all sides of the Catholic spectrum – just not in the way he intended.