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Pope Francis on June 1, 2015 and the Failure of the Cross (with Bonus)
When you read the Pope’s comments about the “failure of the cross” in light of this homily from earlier this year, I think it sheds some light on the subject. Just as Scripture interprets Scripture, so also Francis interprets Francis: Reflecting on the Gospel reading of the day during morning Mass at the Casa Santa…
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More Thorough Exegesis of Francis' "Failure of the Cross" Phrase
In response to Pastor Hall quadrupling down on his misinterpretation of Francis’ words, let me explain how I know (with certainty) that Pope Francis was contrasting the divine perspective with the human perspective, when he said: The cross shows us a different way of measuring success. Ours is to plant the seeds. God sees to…
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More Thorough Exegesis of Francis’ "Failure of the Cross" Phrase
In response to Pastor Hall quadrupling down on his misinterpretation of Francis’ words, let me explain how I know (with certainty) that Pope Francis was contrasting the divine perspective with the human perspective, when he said: The cross shows us a different way of measuring success. Ours is to plant the seeds. God sees to…
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On Founders and Fathers
People like me appeal to the Founders of the American republic as authorities on what the Constitution meant when it was written. We do that because we believe in a grammatical-historical method of interpretation of any written document. In a similar way, many people like to appeal to the Church Fathers to understand the Scriptures.…
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Humanly Speaking the Cross was a Failure
The pope wasn’t saying that Christ’s death was a failure. He was saying the same thing that both Roman Catholics and Protestants affirm, namely that the disciples were expecting a Messiah that would give military victory over the Romans. Instead, the Romans killed him. He looked like a failure to those who had only a…
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Judicial Precedent as Law – Summary
In America, judicial precedent is law. This is true even if it is true that:a) Some of that law is bad law;b) Some of that law is unconstitutional law;c) Some of that law would be “honored in the breach”;d) Some of that law outrages us;e) Some of that law could be overturned tomorrow;f) Some of…
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Taking an Un-American Stance
In English the word law includes both statutes and judicial precedent. “The judgment of a competent, court, until reversed or otherwise superseded, is law, as much as any statute.” (Black’s Law Dictionary, 1910) American Heritage Dictionary 4.a. A statute, ordinance, or other rule enacted by a legislature.b. A judicially established legal requirement; a precedent. Webster’s…
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Distinguishing Reality from Fantasy
No matter how good of an argument for Departmentalism my exceedingly brilliant friend and brother, Steve Hays offers (here, for example), Departmentalism is a pipe dream. It’s not the way America actually works. In practice, in America, the Supreme Court has a final say. Knowledgeable advocates of the position Steve Hays mentions continually rue this.…
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Judicial Supremacy
In a number of great posts at Triablogue, Steve Hays has raised the question of the legitimacy of what he terms Judicial Supremacy. His question is not totally illegitimate, even though it in no way rebuts (in fact, it presupposes) my argument that Obergefell is law. So, let’s briefly consider the question of so-called Judicial…
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Bad Law is Still Law
Steve Hays has a thought-provoking post (link) sparked by my own previous post (link). Since his post doesn’t seem to directly dispute the central thesis of my own post, namely that Obergefell is law, no rebuttal is needed. In fact, I find a lot of points in Steve’s post with which I agree – or…