15 January 2018

Wisdom From Chevalier Charles Coulombe

 Since I share most of the beliefs the Chevalier lists in this post, I thought I'd share it.
I have had a few notes from people wondering how I could possibly be sympathetic to both the Lost Cause of the Confederacy and the tortured history of the Black Community. The easy answer is - in precisely the same way as were Generals Beauregard and Forrest, at some loss to themselves on both counts. But you might ask as well how I can love both the South, the Hudson Valley, and New England - or even more worrisome, both French and Anglo-Canada, Ireland, Scotland and England,and so on. The answer is two-fold: historical and religious. Historical, because I know that what we French-Canadians consider valourous feats of arms by our forebears, the Anglos in both countries consider atrocities - and most assuredly vice versa. "One man's hero..." and all that.The civilised man allows others to venerate their dead, even if they were opposed to his own. The second is Religious, because Our Lord teaches that that I may not ask for forgiveness if I refuse to grant it, and that hatred of the other because he is other will surely take to Hell. Look to all that is good and noble, and fine and true in any people or region, and ignore that which is not - even as you might hope they would do for yours: believe me - if you are human, your tribe did some REALLY despicable things.
And, a comment made on the post with which I totally agree. This is why I call myself neither liberal nor conservative.
The answer is simply to view all things through a Catholic lens, not a Liberal or Conservative lens. The great tragedy of our "Facebook" society is that people easily, voluntarily, allow themselves to be typecast as one thing or another, and that immediately implies that one must then subscribe to every last ideology of the people in that same camp.

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