Rap Keynes y Hayek

Explicación económica rápida en un rap...

Comment on Hans Kung's letter

(Sorry por el idioma. Es un comentario que traté de subir a un diario digital extranjero, pero pude hacerlo porque estaba cerrado el plazo para hacer comentarios... por eso lo publico acá, por si alguien quiere leerlo ;-) )

Probably Mr. Kung had good intentions when he wrote his public letter. However, it’s a pity that he uses this moment of enormous grief for us all, to instruct us in his personal views of the “church” (he spells it with a lowercase C, maybe believing that the Church is a human institution, and not the Body of Christ, as Saint Paul and the constant magisterium teaches us). Since I am not a theologian, I have some questions for Mr. Kung:

-What is his problem with Pope Pius XII, doesn’t he know that after the war the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and Golda Meir, among others, thanked him for helping the Jews during the Nazi times?

-Doesn’t he distinguish the atrocities committed against the indigenous people of America by the conquistadors, from the good done to them by teaching them the true faith? (me being a South American, I am very grateful with the evangelization)

-Regarding stem cells studies, doesn’t he know that many times the experiments are done using embryos? Doesn’t he believe that life begins with conception?

-When he speaks about the Second Vatican Council (VCII), why does he forget many statements of it, like the one which says that Latin is the official language of the Church, or that the organ is its official musical instrument?

-Why doesn’t he take the same open and charitable stance that he takes with our brothers the Protestants with the Fraternity of St. Pious X?

-When he speaks about the lack of vocations, doesn’t he know that this problem started with the misinterpretations of the Second Vatican Council? (in case he doesn’t know: Apparently Maynooth’s Seminary has currently the largest number of vocations since ten years ago)

-When he attributes the resignation of thousands of priests’ since the VCII to the Council’s confirmation of the priestly celibacy, doesn’t he recon that this requirement existed way before it? Wouldn’t it be more logical to assume that they were due to the disorders that some interpretations of CVII brought to life?

-Regarding the alleged relation between abuses and celibacy, isn’t he aware that most of the abuse cases come from the fathers of children or their mothers partners (who happen to be sexually active)?

-Mr. Kung acknowledges in his letter that he has sketched new programs of Church reform both before and after the VCII. Is he using the current state of affairs to advance his own programs?

-When he refers to the loss of credibility of the Church, is he basing this assertion in some serious survey or in the sayings of Richard Dawkins and Sinead O’Connor?

For those interested, the following site might help them to face this bad times: http://www.mercatornet.com/justb16

Despite the answers to these questions, I pray to God that I may respond faithfully to the demands of my Christian vocation, especially to console Him in this moment, in which He is in pain because of both the atrocious sins committed by the ones He had chosen and the unmerciful attacks that He is suffering in his body: The Holy Catholic Church.

Fixing history by law

Hello Yishai,

The other day at the green tie dinner we could not discuss about the theme of CHR, which I think is quite interesting (before we spoke in the dinner I had in mind asking you whether you had a favourable opinion regarding to these kind of laws).

I presume that it is not necessary to tell you that I am totally against all kinds of arbitrary discrimination based in race or religion, and much more when it consists in barbaric acts like the ones of genocide against the Jews. Nonetheless, that is something totally different than to think that it is good to have a law that criminalizes expressions regarding the existence or not of that disgraceful historical fact.

We shall agree that what is banned is not a hate speech, but only an interpretation of the history. If the speech is a hate speech it is understandable to ban it.
As I said in class, I think that it is madness to affirm that the Holocaust did not exist. Nevertheless, fixing history or science by law is something that repulses me, because official stories (whether true or not), can set a grave over research. Perhaps in this case the history that is being fixed is very clear, but it could be the first step in fixing more historic facts.

Another problem is that it can give rise to huge arbitrariness, specially in this globalized world, like what happened to an Australian that made denial expressions in the internet, and was arrested in England after a German warrant, as I read yesterday in the Times (I don't think he never expected that, and that goes against the "nulla poena sine lege...").

Another huge problem is that these criminal laws are set only by majorities in congress, what it is not difficult to find. This would be very complicated, especially in populist governments that want to interpret history in their own way.

I have said too much, so I'd rather ask you some questions:
-What is the guarantee of freedom of expression for, if it is not for protecting persons that want to say something different than what is normally accepted?
-Would it be correct to prohibit the complete denial of the Holocaust or also the accepted figures or some other important fact?
-Shouldn't criminal laws be the "ultima ratio"?
-Wouldn't it perhaps have the contrary effect someday (a lot or people that without these laws would consider historians like Irwing just mad people, now pity them)?
-Wouldn't it be similar to ban expressions in favor of communist parties... and with much more reason the communist party itself?

I like these discussions by mail, because for me it is more difficult to be articulate in spoken English.

See you on Saturday.
Shalom,
Álvaro

¿Y para qué es el matrimonio?

Interesante este video que encontré en Vivachile.org.