A few days ago, Fr. Ripperger's brief lecture on "sophistry" was made available. It's worth a listen, especially if you do not know what "sophistry" is.
We sent the link to a fellow blogger who happens to be pretty damn good with such figures as Plato and Aristotle; he critiqued Fr. Ripperger's lecture and offered various quotes from those two Greeks while doing so.
One of his comments on Aristotle's thought was striking, as it directly condemns Democrat Party campaign rhetoric which they've used since FDR:
...Aristotle does not reject all sorts of emotion, however: he is specific that he is rejecting a set of prejudicial emotions -- he names especially anger, envy, pity. These emotions should never be raised in political rhetoric because they warp the judgment such that it is difficult to measure correctly even if you are devoted to it. This is the point that Fr. Ripperger makes explicitly. ...
We've said it often: envy is a vice and one of the Seven Deadly Sins. So Democrat talking point reliance on "Fair Share" and "Billionaires" in ALL their advertising, plus using pity in their 'please let us kill babies and the elderly' pushes are major-league violations of reasoned political discourse.
That's exactly why they do it, of course.
Here are the pertinent URL's:
Fr Ripperger: https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/fr-ripperger-how-to-identify-sophistry-and-avoid-being-misled/
Grim's (four) discussions, in order:
https://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2026/10/sophistry-ii.html
https://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2026/10/sophistry-iii.html
https://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2026/10/sophistry-iv.html
Have at it!!
11 comments:
Mind food
Yummy
Anger and envy are understandable
But pity?
I wonder why Aristotle excludes pity?
We are asked to pity the pregnant girl, excusing her baby-murdering. We are asked to pity little boys who think they should be girls. We are asked to pity "the poor" to justify robbery-by-taxation.
This letter has to do with Sophistry!
Dear Mr. Piciocchi,
I have read with attention the letter you addressed to Dr. Aldo Maria Valli, which he forwarded to me, concerning my comment on the address of Leo XIV at the Élysée. I know that Aldo Maria has already published an exemplary reply on his blog.[2] For my part, I do not wish to shirk the task of addressing your letter: without indulging the caricature, without allowing ourselves to be dragged onto the emotional terrain of the crowds, and without surrendering principle in exchange for applause at some agreeable phrase.
Your letter opens with a paraphrase: according to the “champions of tradition,” the Pope “ought to have gone and said” in Paris that freedom of conscience does not exist, that the State must not open itself to every form of worship, that the 1948 Declaration is waste paper, that liberty, equality and fraternity are Masonic words and cannot find inspiration in the Gospel. My answer is that no one asked Leo to go to the Élysée to recite the Syllabus [of Errors] aloud in front of Macron. What was asked – and it is a different thing – is that a Roman Pontiff not contradict, in the very capital of the Revolution, the constant teaching of his Predecessors about what that Revolution was and about what that motto signifies. It is not the same act. The former is a piece of theater that you attribute to us in order to make us look ridiculous; the latter is the bare minimum owed by one who sits upon the Chair of Peter.
The formula is simple: we do not demand of the Pope a diplomatically inopportune anathema; we demand that he not ratify and extol what the Popes have called a plague. Once this distinction has been re-established, your letter loses its pivot.
The second argument is that of the crowd: eight hundred thousand people in the Place de la Concorde, eighty thousand young people at Saint-Denis singing the Salve Regina, priests hearing confessions in the street. It is the most effective argument on the emotional and sentimental plane, and the weakest on the plane of the Faith.
No one despises those gestures; on the contrary: they show that Grace is still at work among the people, in spite of the speeches, not thanks to them. A young man who sings the Salve Regina in Latin does not validate the thesis according to which Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité find in the Gospel “an inexhaustible source of inspiration.” To confuse the piety of the faithful with the orthodoxy of an address to the authorities is a sophism. If the number of those present sufficed to judge a pontificate, we should have had to canonize every World Youth Day, even those at which what cannot be passed over in silence was passed over in silence. The streets of Paris were packed thirty years ago for John Paul II as well, yet that did not prevent the eventual approval of abortion as a right, the burning of Notre Dame, the blasphemous opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, and state-sanctioned euthanasia.
I would add that precisely those young people deserved to hear from the Pope not the blessing of a motto born to dethrone Christ, but the distinction – elementary and paternal – between the liberty of the children of God and revolutionary liberty, between the equality of redeemed souls and collectivist egalitarianism, between fraternity in Christ and a brotherhood without God the Father. To deprive them of that distinction is not “respecting their capacity for understanding”: it is rather taking away from them the key to understanding the times in which they live. Indeed, it is passing off a false reading of events as valid and true.
+++ Read the rest of Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop's letter from 1 October 2026 as it is too long to post here at:
https://www.aldomariavalli.it/2026/10/02/archbishop-vigano-tradition-is-the-integral-transmission-of-the-depositum-fidei-without-cuts-and-without-grafts/amp/
Fr Rippenger suggested we should read Bella Dodd
so a book was purchased School of Darkness.....
you wrote about Bella before... a long time ago.... ( yes your very old)
Bella Dodd — From Communist to Catholic
https://catholicism.org/bella-dodd-%E2%80%94-from-communist-to-catholic.html
Aug 31, 2010
https://catholicism.org/bella-dodd-%E2%80%94-from-communist-to-catholic.html
.....Perhaps most frightening of all was her testimony that during her time in the Party, “more than eleven hundred men had been put into the priesthood to destroy the Church from within,” the idea here being that these men would be ordained to the priesthood and progress to positions of influence and authority as monsignors and even bishops. She stated that “right now they are in the highest places in the Church” where they were working to weaken the Church’s effectiveness against Communism. These changes, she declared, would be so drastic that “you will not recognize the Catholic Church.” A few years later, in a conversation with a new Catholic friend, Alice von Hildebrand, Bella told her that there are four cardinals within the Vatican “who are working for the Communists.” This was twelve years before Vatican II. The reader can draw his own conclusions.........
how sad...
I really like Fr Chad
Golka Silences Fr. Ripperger: Another Year of Synodal Listening, Provided Nobody Speaks
Denver’s new archbishop orders a prominent traditionalist exorcist out of the public spotlight. His reasons remain unexplained, while his own ecclesiastical record raises serious questions.
https://bigmodernism.substack.com/p/golka-silences-fr-ripperger-another?r=5mfttc
Westin recap of Fr Rippenger's cancellation video
https://x.com/FrStephenImb/status/2112498385089347990
Ten Fr Ripperger talks on Traditional Catholic perspective.
+++Talks that probably contributed to his being cancelled by his Leo/Francis, pro synodality, Vatican II Bishop+++
Fr. Ripperger: How to understand merit and increase your reward in heaven
https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/fr-ripperger-how-to-understand-merit-and-increase-your-reward-in-heaven
Fr. Ripperger: Why God allows evil, suffering and chastisements
https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/fr-ripperger-why-god-allows-evil-suffering-and-chastisements
Fr. Ripperger: Proper communication can save marriages, society and the Church
https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/fr-ripperger-proper-communication-can-save-marriages-society-and-the-church
Fr. Ripperger: Fasting like our forefathers is possible
https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/fr-ripperger-fasting-like-our-forefathers-is-possible
Fr. Ripperger: Here’s what you must know about generational wounds
https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/fr-ripperger-heres-what-you-must-know-about-generational-wounds
Fr. Ripperger: We must fix our prayer lives or face the consequences
https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/fr-ripperger-we-must-fix-our-prayer-lives-or-face-the-consequences/
Fr. Ripperger: How to foster a strong work ethic in your family
https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/fr-ripperger-how-to-foster-a-strong-work-ethic-in-your-family
Fr. Ripperger: How to identify sophistry and avoid being misled
https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/fr-ripperger-how-to-identify-sophistry-and-avoid-being-misled
Fr. Ripperger: How to form children, and help the wayward return
https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/fr-ripperger-how-to-form-children-and-help-the-wayward-return
Fr. Ripperger: Meekness helps us conquer unmoderated anger
https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/fr-ripperger-meekness-helps-us-conquer-unmoderated-anger
Mundabor has a different take
R.I.P. Ripperger, Or: Father Ripperger Silenced, Bows To Dalai Leo, Can Finally Practice What He Preaches.
https://mundabor.wordpress.com/2026/10/20/r-i-p-ripperger-or-father-ripperger-silenced-bows-to-dalai-leo-can-finally-practice-what-he-preaches/
Fr Ripperger’s message: Dr. Mazza on the John-Henry Westen Show!
https://www.barnhardt.biz/2026/10/21/dr-mazza-on-the-john-henry-westen-show/
Post a Comment