Wednesday, February 27, 2008

William F Buckley has Died

Wow what an Unxpected shock. Truly a week coming up to ponder on his legacy. In that spirit I shall take a break from attacking The Corner blog in which I have found myself in disagreement on some issues the past couple of years

They have a bunch of posts there already and will be the place to go for News and links. They have several up now.

The NYT has a good article already up William F. Buckley Jr. Is Dead at 82 .

Updated- I might try to monitor his life from the Catholic standpoint. He was a very mixed bag. As most people are. He was not someone that one could put in a box. He was a devout Catholic and his faith played a role in his life no doubt. However to say the least some things he said were with some controversy. We are seeing this sort of already be examined in the Comment section at Vox Nova at this entry May he Rest In Peace. Of interest is this comment made by Archbishop Chaput( that I think many Orthodox and conservative Catholics like) that is referenced there. He said:

Very often we treat the Church the same way we treat our flesh and blood mothers. We want the mommy part, but we don’t want the teacher part. We want her around to feed us, encourage us and comfort us when things are going badly. But we don’t want her advice, especially when it interferes with our plans. When Pope John XXIII’s encyclical first came out, the conservative author William Buckley, who didn’t like the Pope’s economics, wrote a famous column called, “Mater si, Magistra no!” – mother yes, teacher no. That led Louise and Mark Zwick to characterize him in the Houston Catholic Worker as “the inventor of cafeteria Catholicism and the pro-choice stance (at least in economics), who accepted encyclicals he agreed with and rejected others.” I think they’re right.

So I will follow that with great interest.

Update II- It appears there is more to the story above than I knew. Hopefully discussion like this will continue in the Catholic blogpshere. I am sure Mr Buckley is approving

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is truly a sad day. Mr. Buckley was a great Conservative in many ways.

OHIO JOE

James H said...

I agree. He truly was a conservtive intellitucal voice that mnade one think. He also was often one that wanted to engage the other sides in constructive debate.

I read somewhere that his dinner parties were always something to attend. He would always invite some prominent Liberal over so they all could engage in discussion together.

Sadly his wit and intelligence has not often been seen since in conservative circles.