Monday, January 22, 2018

This Essay Is Not Entirely About Churchmen

Fr. Rutler is a treasure.  Here he asks 'Where are the churchmen with chests?'--and of course, he means that specifically.  But buried in the middle of the essay is this:

...When Churchill published a biography of his father six years later, Teddy’s assessment written to Senator Henry Cabot lodge, might have been a sketch of himself: “Still, I feel that, while the biographer and his subject possess some real farsightedness … both possess or possessed such levity, lack of sobriety, lack of permanent principle, and an inordinate thirst for that cheap form of admiration which is given to notoriety, as to make them poor public servants.” Similar words are spoken sniffingly today by the media, superior clerics, and preening intellectuals about a president they think is “heinously unsuitable” and a “connoisseur of low culture” and generally not up to snuff....

When one reads Fr. Rutler, one must have very sensitive antennae.  Let those with ears, hear.  In that passage, context matters, therefore, note VERY well that Teddy Roosevelt was disparaging Winston Churchill.

See?

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