Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  In the US., the media works around the clock to “justify” covert and overt wars for economic and geo-strategic advantage—from threatening “regime change” through fomenting and arming reaction and counter-revolution, lynching leaders of other countries, psychological operations, overwhelming military force, troop occupations, formations of mercenary armies, and emboldening fascist forces. LESSONS OF THE PINK TRIANGLE As a white, working-class, Jewish, transgender lesbian revolutionary, I too have studied the historical lessons of the rise of fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain— attempts to save capitalism for the 1%. These lessons inform my life’s direct action. ... I see that the Kolektiv Queer Beograd, the Belgrade Pride organizers, and “Antifa in Action” are 345 Stone Butch Blues showing great bravery and steadfastness in the face of attacks and threats from fascist forces, with reported state and police collusion. FIGHTING RACISM, FASCISM & WAR FROM INSIDE THE USS. Domestically in the U.S.—during this period of capitalist economic crisis—apartheid passbook laws are being written into law; undocumented workers are being rounded up, detained and face mass deportations; Muslims are targets of this state “war of terror’; and white supremacist, fascist shock troops are receiving arms and funding. Racist, fascist massacres targeted Black people in Tulsa, Oklahama—the second anti-Black massacre in the city’s history—and took the lives of Sikhs at a temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Police gun down people of color with virtual legal impunity. Youth of color in the U.S. are facing no jobs, no recreation centers, no education or massive student debt, police “stop and frisk” actions, racist passbook laws, the school-to-prison pipeline, homelessness, lack of health care, no place to gather, and curtailed freedom of travel due to curfews—official and unofficial. 346 = Leslie Feinberg The rise of fascist bullying has led many opptessed youths to end their own lives. Others are organizing, and winning activist support from all generations, to fight back! ‘FREE CECE NOW? A war against transwomen—particularly women of color—is claiming lives from Oakland, California; to Chicago, Illinois; to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But CeCe McDonald survived! CeCe McDonald, a young Black (trans)woman, and her friends were violently attacked by a group of whites who identified themselves as fascist by their actions, slurs, and swastika tattoo. CeCe was badly cut at the onset of the attack, in which one fascist died. Today, CeCe is in prison, and her friends have reported ongoing racist, fascist harassment. CeCe McDonald’s courage and tenacity has inspired liberationist currents in the U.S. political struggle, and in countries around the world. I took direct action on June 4, 2012—on the one-year anniversary of the attack, and the day CeCe McDonald was sentenced to prison. I wrote the peoples’ verdict on the jailhouse wall: “FREE CECE NOW!” As a journalist, author and proud member of the National Writers Union/UAW Local 1981—I’m most proud of writing those three words.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  267Lecture 27—Rebellion and Reform in Latin America õAfter the Mexican Revolution—essentially, a civil war between 1910 and 1920—the liberals emerged victorious and revised the constitution to impose more rules on the Catholic Church. The new constitution banned religious schools to make all education secular. õPublic religious celebrations could only happen under close government supervision, and any religious school or newly built church became government property. Churches couldn’t run public charities, and clergy couldn’t run for public office. The government set a quota on how many clergy could serve any region of the country, so every priest had to register with the state. THE CRISTERO REBELLION õIn 1926, tension between the church and the liberal regime came to a head. The Archbishop of Mexico, José Mora y del Río, announced that all good Catholics ought to reject the Constitution. The liberal president, General Plutarco Elías Calles, retaliated by closing religious houses and schools, banning public religious celebrations, and booting any foreign priests out of the country. õThe archbishop told the priests of Mexico City to go on strike—no public masses, marriages, or baptisms. This strike lasted for three years. Some priests called for laypeople to rise up in violent rebellion. õRebels answered this call and became known as Cristeros. Soon, there were tens of thousands of them, including at least 25,000 women. They operated through guerrilla warfare and terrorism: blowing up trains, murdering teachers at government schools, and setting fire to government buildings. President Calles told his supporters to murder a priest in revenge for every state employee killed. õThe violence went on until 1929. More than 30,000 rebels and about 57,000 federal soldiers died in the fighting. Finally, the two sides arrived at a compromise that restored some rights to the church. 268The History of Christianity II They were allowed to resume teaching religious ideas, although not in schools. Confiscated property stayed in government hands. The bishops decided to accept this and call off the strike, but some of the restrictions on religious freedom persisted into the 1990s. THE ARGENTINIAN CHURCH õThis violent tangle between the Catholic Church and the state was not unique to Mexico. An example is how the 20 th century played out in Argentina. The story of the Argentinian priest Jorge Bergoglio, who eventually became Pope Francis, illustrates this.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  As a factory-worker’s daughter, I did not know that the wealthy rulers of my country were enraged by the loss of China as—from their point of view—a colonial treasure to exploit mercilessly. But I felt the impact in my own life of the domestic reactionary political crusade that this ruling class embarked on within the United States as a result of their rage about the Chinese Revolution. Progressive people feared losing their jobs and being driven out of their towns. In those early years of my childhood, anti-Asian racism—especially against Japanese, Chinese and Korean people—was rampant. And anti-Semitism dangerously deepened. When I was a child, the post-WWII job categories for women wete restricted to “homemaker” and Stone Butch Blues 339 “mother.” This period of extreme sexual reaction had a tremendous impact on my growing up as a masculine girl child. But one of the prominent features of this domestic witch-hunt was the hounding of lesbian and gay people. Extortion of people accused of being gay—whether or not they were—was commonplace, as I am painfully aware happens today in Tatwan. It was because of the exacerbation of repression during the 1950s that mass social movements arose to challenge the worst features of oppression in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Movements for Civil Rights, the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords Party, the American Indian Movement and the movements for women’s and gay liberation arose as a response to iton-fisted reaction. I came of age and consciousness during these movements that were fighting for profound social change. They shaped me. As a result, I have devoted my life, together with my fellow travelers, in trying to weed out every seedpod of bigotry and discrimination that is rooted in the very unjust and unequal social and economic system in which we live in the US. I am also fully aware that those who rule from the citadel of wealth and power in my country—like those in the palaces and mansions in Britatn—have 340 Leslie Feinberg carried out terrible crimes against the peoples of Asia in order to squeeze out every drop of profit. So I take seriously my own responsibility to you to conduct the battle here, in the belly of the US. beast, to defend the right of self-determination and sovereignty of all the peoples of Asia. Revolutionaries—like revolutions—seek to unweave all the threads of prejudice from the tapestry of their thought. That is not an easy task to accomplish given the crushing weight of media and education that reinforce the messages of the dominant elite, on top of repression. Of course if education were all that was required, we could write many books and repair and uplift human thinking. But trying to combat the governing ideas of the master class with education alone is like trying to put out a forest fire with teacups of water!

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Ive written the following regarding author’s rights and requests, in as clear a way as I can, to answer the questions I am asked most frequently in individual inquiries. I give this novel back to the workers and oppressed of the world. The revolutionary and anti-capitalist movements for social and economic justice have given me so much in life. I give this novel back, as a tiny hand- made gift, flaws and all, to the workers and oppressed of the world. I have retained full Author Copyright to Szone Butch Blues, rather than license this 20th Anniversary Edition through Creative Commons. The reason is not out of a fetish for ownership of property but rather to protect my work from being exploited commercially by corporations. Marxism has never been opposed to private ownership of personal property or products of one’s own labor—and, in fact, holds that everyone should be able to have these things. Instead, Marxists say that the 1% banks and corporations have seized the giant worker-built apparatus of production and the distribution of production as their own—they claim they own it all. As a communist, I am for abolishing ownership by the 1% of the socially-built apparatus of production. Workers and oppressed people—already doing the work of the world every day—can run that productive apparatus to make historically overdue reparations and to meet the needs and wants of the 99%. While Stone Butch Blues is fiction, it speaks truth. But the capitalist deeds of ownership that say the 1% owns everything that has been produced by collective labor, both enslaved and waged—those deeds are fiction and should be torn up. And on the day those paper deeds of ownership are torn up, it won’t matter about protecting Szone Butch Blues anymore from commercial exploitation. Hurry that day! The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose off the common But leaves the greater villain loose Who steals the common from the goose. The law demands that we atone When we take things we do not own But leaves the lords and ladies fine Who take things that are yours and mine. The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common And geese will still a common lack Till they go and steal it back. Stone Butch Blues 353 From the 1600s through the early 1700s, this was a popular protest rhyme against English capitalist-class foreclosure of commontly-held land. AUTHOR RIGHTS In the meantime, here I assert my author rights to Stone Butch Blues in this 20th Anniversary Edition: No permissions, no contracts, no commercial use, no derivative use, no digital rights. No derivative uses No adaptations: Don’t tell me you’re honoring me by saying you can tell this story better than I did. No movie version:

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  She sang a song in a voice so satiny smooth that I trusted the sound and followed it right into sleep. Edwin brought over my blue suit coat. She found the matching trousers in a pile by my bathroom door and took them both to the dry cleaners for me. When I didn’t show up at the Malibou the next Friday, Ed and Georgetta and Peaches came by and picked me up. Cookie threw me a towel when I arrived and told me to start waiting on tables. I moved in numbness for several weeks, unable to feel the sensation of temperature, hot or cold. The world seemed distant. One night at work a guy beckoned me over to his table and told me to take the french fries back to the kitchen. He said they were cold. I took them to Cookie, but she said she was too busy. I brought the french fries back to the guy and apologized. He picked up a class of water and poured its contents all over the french fries. ““They’re cold,” he said. He opened a traveling case, pulled out a huge snake, and coiled it around his neck. And then he bit off a chunk of the water glass and chewed it. “The french fries are cold,” he repeated. “Cookie,” I yelled as I skidded into the kitchen. “Give me some hot french fries, and I mean now!” She started to protest. “Now, goddamn it. I want them now!” The guy left me a great tip. “You didn’t know who that guy was?” Booker doubled over laughing, Everyone chuckled. “That was Razor Man. He performs at a club near here.” I threw down my towel. “This job is fucked up,” I protested, but even I started to smile. “What’s so funny?” Toni said behind me. I turned around to explain but her face was all twisted up in anger. “I said, what’s so goddamn funny?” she demanded. One of the butches tried to pull her back, “Come on, Toni, blow it off.” She yanked free and staggered toward me. “You think you’re funny?” “What the hell, Toni,” I said, flustered. A group of pros came in the door and I started to walk over to say hello, but Toni spun me around. “You think I don’t know what’s going on with you and my femme?” Everyone sucked in their breath. I felt stunned. “Toni, what the hell are you talking about?” “You think I don’t know, don’t your” Betty started toward Toni, but Angie, one of the pros who had just walked in, held her back. “Step outside, you chickenshit bastard.” Toni spat on the floor. I sure as hell didn’t want to fight Toni, so I went Stone Butch Blues 69 outside to talk to her. Everyone followed me out to listen. “Toni,” I appealed to het. “Shut up and fight, you fuckin’ bastard. Come on, you chickenshit son-of-a-bitch.”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Accordingly in the first way, anger is not a general passion but is condivided with the other passions, as stated above ([1415]Q[23], A[4]). In like manner, neither is it in the second way: since it is not a cause of the other passions. But in this way, love may be called a general passion, as Augustine declares (De Civ. Dei xiv, 7,9), because love is the primary root of all the other passions, as stated above ([1416]Q[27], A[4] ). But, in a third way, anger may be called a general passion, inasmuch as it is caused by a concurrence of several passions. Because the movement of anger does not arise save on account of some pain inflicted, and unless there be desire and hope of revenge: for, as the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 2), “the angry man hopes to punish; since he craves for revenge as being possible.” Consequently if the person, who inflicted the injury, excel very much, anger does not ensue, but only sorrow, as Avicenna states (De Anima iv, 6). Reply to Objection 1: The irascible power takes its name from “ira” [anger], not because every movement of that power is one of anger; but because all its movements terminate in anger; and because, of all these movements, anger is the most patent. Reply to Objection 2: From the very fact that anger is caused by contrary passions, i.e. by hope, which is of good, and by sorrow, which is of evil, it includes in itself contrariety: and consequently it has no contrary outside itself. Thus also in mixed colors there is no contrariety, except that of the simple colors from which they are made. Reply to Objection 3: Anger includes several passions, not indeed as a genus includes several species; but rather according to the inclusion of cause and effect. Whether the object of anger is good or evil?Objection 1: It would seem that the object of anger is evil. For Gregory of Nyssa says [*Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. xxi.] that anger is “the sword-bearer of desire,” inasmuch, to wit, as it assails whatever obstacle stands in the way of desire. But an obstacle has the character of evil. Therefore anger regards evil as its object. Objection 2: Further, anger and hatred agree in their effect, since each seeks to inflict harm on another. But hatred regards evil as its object, as stated above ([1417]Q[29], A[1]). Therefore anger does also. Objection 3: Further, anger arises from sorrow; wherefore the Philosopher says (Ethic. viii, 6) that “anger acts with sorrow.” But evil is the object of sorrow. Therefore it is also the object of anger. On the contrary, Augustine says (Confess. ii, 6) that “anger craves for revenge.” But the desire for revenge is a desire for something good: since revenge belongs to justice. Therefore the object of anger is good.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  “So you’re going to have this child with this man? You’re going to stay with this man another eighteen years? Are you crazy?” “God spoke to me, Trevor. He told me, ‘Patricia, I don’t do anything by mistake. There is nothing I give you that you cannot handle.’ I’m pregnant for a reason. I know what kind of kids I can make. I know what kind of sons I can raise. I can raise this child. I will raise this child.” Nine months later Isaac was born. She called him Isaac because in the Bible Sarah gets pregnant when she’s like a hundred years old and she’s not supposed to be having children and that’s what she names her son. Isaac’s birth pushed me even further away. I visited less and less. Then I popped by one afternoon and the house was in chaos, police cars out front, the aftermath of another fight. He’d hit her with a bicycle. Abel had been berating one of his workers in the yard, and my mom had tried to get between them. Abel was furious that she’d contradicted him in front of an employee, so he picked up Andrew’s bike and he beat her with it. Again she called the police, and the cops who showed up this time actually knew Abel. He’d fixed their cars. They were pals. No charges were filed. Nothing happened. That time I confronted him. I was big enough now. “You can’t keep doing this,” I said. “This is not right.” He was apologetic. He always was. He didn’t puff out his chest and get defensive or anything like that. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I don’t like doing these things, but you know how your mom is. She can talk a lot and she doesn’t listen. I feel like your mom doesn’t respect me sometimes. She came and disrespected me in front of my workers. I can’t have these other men looking at me like I don’t know how to control my wife.” After the bicycle, my mom hired contractors she knew through the real-estate business to build her a separate house in the backyard, like a little servants’ quarters, and she moved in there with Isaac. “This is the most insane thing I’ve ever seen,” I told her.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  So ready to do things for you—almost like a faithful dog. And then cunning enough, once he had gained your favor, to make you humor his little whims. Withal extremely intelligent. The sly intelligence of a fox and—the utter heartlessness of a jackal. It wasn’t at all surprising to me, consequently, to learn that afternoon that he had been tinkering with Valeska. After Valeska he tackled the cousin who had already been deflowered and who was in need of some male whom she could rely upon. And from her finally to the midget who had made herself a pretty little nest at Valeska’s. The midget interested him because she had a perfectly normal cunt. He hadn’t intended to do anything with her because, as he said, she was a repulsive little Lesbian, but one day he happened to walk in on her as she was taking a bath, and that started things off. It was getting to be too much for him, he confessed, because the three of them were hot on his trail. He liked the cousin best because she had some dough and she wasn’t reluctant to part with it. Valeska was too cagey, and besides she smelled a little too strong. In fact, he was getting sick of women. He said it was his Aunt Sophie’s fault. She gave him a bad start. While relating this he busies himself going through the bureau drawers. The father is a mean son of a bitch who ought to be hanged, he says, not finding anything immediately. He shows me a revolver with a pearl handle . . . what would it fetch? A gun was too good to use on the old man . . . he’d like to dynamite him. Trying to find out why he hated the old man so, it developed that the kid was really stuck on his mother. He couldn’t bear the thought of the old man going to bed with her. You don’t mean to say that you’re jealous of your old man, I ask. Yes, he’s jealous. If I wanted to know the truth it’s that he wouldn’t mind sleeping with his mother. Why not? That’s why he had permitted his Aunt Sophie to seduce him . . . he was thinking of his mother all the time. But don’t you feel bad when you go through her pocketbook, I asked. He laughed. It’s not her money, he said, it’s his. And what have they done for me? They were always farming me out. The first thing they taught me was how to cheat people.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  He could call the police. They rarely showed up in this neck of the woods and would hardly bother for a minor neighborly row, not unless there were firearms involved—and John didn’t have any on hand. Probably a good thing, overall. Downstairs, the music paused. John took a deep breath. Silence crept into his ears like an old friend. And then it was the Moaning Young Men, as John referred to them in his head. The song was called “Last Night Love.” Or if you looked at it another way, the very last fucking straw, and the thing that was enough to make a usually calm and placid man roll out of bed and land on the floor with a resounding thud that would have alarmed an average human being but made no difference whatsoever to the noise freak below him. Insouciant, juvenile guitar riffs accompanied John as he pulled up his loose-fit pajama bottoms and made for the door. Outside, the sound echoed tinnily in the stairwell, and John, shrinking under the fluorescent tube lights, cursed the fact he’d so far failed to make it out of the ghetto and anywhere near the hillside monastic retreat wreathed in majestic clouds that he so often dreamed of. Or the suburbs, even. The concrete steps were cold underfoot, but he hardly noticed. He was trying not to listen to the voice in his head that had started its familiar old chant—the litany of injustices and everyday atrocities that had appalled him from his earliest awareness, through an offhand adolescence and his silent, thoroughly desperate early adulthood. The music grew in volume as John’s ego raved and ranted, taunting him with visions of the sleep-deprived misery he’d have to face the next day, so that by the time he arrived at the downstairs flat’s door, he was ready to curl up his fist and pummel his future into submission. What would he do? Could he overcome his habitual kindness and tendency to gracious politesse and make some pithy, outraged statement? He might swear at her. Yes, he might. John knocked, hard. Four minutes later, he knocked again. After a quarter of an hour freezing his feet outside a blank, unresponsive door, John climbed the stairs with the Moaning Young Men chasing after, mocking his hunched back. There were dark stars in his eyes now, the marks of growing rage of a man who, since he’d left the womb, had spent his life trying to recreate that sense of perfect, balanced stasis. Back in his flat, he wanted to tear the place apart. But he lacked furniture to deconstruct. He looked at the window and thought about smashing it. Throwing the unwatched TV through it and watching it shatter over the rusting old fire escape. A thought appeared in his mind, simple and frighteningly tempting.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  She said she’d confronted him about it, and he’d gone off on some nonsense about the world needing to learn to respect him. “He thinks he’s the policeman of the world,” she said. “And that’s the problem with the world. We have people who cannot police themselves, so they want to police everyone else around them.” Not long after that, I moved out. The atmosphere had become toxic for me. I’d reached the point where I was as big as Abel. Big enough to punch back. A father does not fear retribution from his son, but I was not his son. He knew that. The analogy my mom used was that there were now two male lions in the house. “Every time he looks at you he sees your father,” she’d say. “You’re a constant reminder of another man. He hates you, and you need to leave. You need to leave before you become like him.” It was also just time for me to go. Regardless of Abel, our plan had always been for me to move out after school. My mother never wanted me to be like my uncle, one of those men, unemployed and still living at home with his mother. She helped me get my flat, and I moved out. The flat was only ten minutes away from the house, so I was always around to drop in to help with errands or have dinner once in a while. But, most important, whatever was going on with Abel, I didn’t have to be involved. At some point my mom moved to a separate bedroom in the house, and from then on they were married in name only, not even cohabitating but coexisting. That state of affairs lasted a year, maybe two. Andrew had turned nine, and in my world I was counting down until he turned eighteen, thinking that would finally free my mom from this abusive man. Then one afternoon my mom called and asked me to come by the house. A few hours later, I popped by. “Trevor,” she said. “I’m pregnant.” “Sorry, what?” “I’m pregnant.” “What?!” Good Lord, I was furious. I was so angry. She herself seemed resolute, as determined as ever, but with an undertone of sadness I had never seen before, like the news had devastated her at first but she’d since reconciled herself to the reality of it. “How could you let this happen?” “Abel and I, we made up. I moved back into the bedroom. It was just one night, and then…I became pregnant. I don’t know how.” She didn’t know. She was forty-four years old. She’d had her tubes tied after Andrew. Even her doctor had said, “This shouldn’t be possible. We don’t know how this happened.” I was boiling with rage. All we had to do was wait for Andrew to grow up, and it was going to be over, and now it was like she’d re-upped on the contract.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Whether anger is only towards those to whom one has an obligation of justice?Objection 1: It would seem that anger is not only towards those to whom one has an obligation of justice. For there is no justice between man and irrational beings. And yet sometimes one is angry with irrational beings; thus, out of anger, a writer throws away his pen, or a rider strikes his horse. Therefore anger is not only towards those to whom one has an obligation of justice. Objection 2: Further, “there is no justice towards oneself . . . nor is there justice towards one’s own” (Ethic. v, 6). But sometimes a man is angry with himself; for instance, a penitent, on account of his sin; hence it is written (Ps. 4:5): “Be ye angry and sin not.” Therefore anger is not only towards those with whom one has a relation of justice. Objection 3: Further, justice and injustice can be of one man towards an entire class, or a whole community: for instance, when the state injures an individual. But anger is not towards a class but only towards an individual, as the Philosopher states (Rhet. ii, 4). Therefore properly speaking, anger is not towards those with whom one is in relation of justice or injustice. The contrary, however, may be gathered from the Philosopher (Rhet. ii, 2,3). I answer that, As stated above [1425](A[6]), anger desires evil as being a means of just vengeance. Consequently, anger is towards those to whom we are just or unjust: since vengeance is an act of justice, and wrong-doing is an act of injustice. Therefore both on the part of the cause, viz. the harm done by another, and on the part of the vengeance sought by the angry man, it is evident that anger concerns those to whom one is just or unjust. Reply to Objection 1: As stated above (A[4], ad 2), anger, though it follows an act of reason, can nevertheless be in dumb animals that are devoid of reason, in so far as through their natural instinct they are moved by their imagination to something like rational action. Since then in man there is both reason and imagination, the movement of anger can be aroused in man in two ways. First, when only his imagination denounces the injury: and, in this way, man is aroused to a movement of anger even against irrational and inanimate beings, which movement is like that which occurs in animals against anything that injures them. Secondly, by the reason denouncing the injury: and thus, according to the Philosopher (Rhet. ii, 3), “it is impossible to be angry with insensible things, or with the dead”: both because they feel no pain, which is, above all, what the angry man seeks in those with whom he is angry: and because there is no question of vengeance on them, since they can do us no harm.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  ALCUIN. They wished him to give glory to God, by calling Christ a sinner, as they did: We know that this man is a sinner. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lviii. 2) Why then did ye not convict Him, when He said above, Which of you convinceth Me of sin? (c. 8:46) ALCUIN. The man, that he might neither expose himself to calumny, nor at the same time conceal the truth, answers not that he knew Him to be righteous, but, Whether He be a sinner or no, I know not. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lviii. 2) But how comes this, whether He be a sinner, I know not, from one who had said, He is a Prophet? did the blind fear? far from it: he only thought that our Lord’s defence lay in the witness of the fact, more than in another’s pleading. And he gives weight to his reply by the mention of the benefit he had received: One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see: as if to say, I say nothing as to whether He is a sinner; but only repeat what I know for certain. So being unable to overturn the fact itself of the miracle, they fall back upon former arguments, and enquire the manner of the cure: just as dogs in hunting pursue wherever the scent takes them: Then said they to him again, What did He do to thee? How opened He thine eyes? i. e. was it by any charm? For they do not say, How didst thou see? but, How opened He thine eyes? to give the man an opportunity of detracting from the operation. So long now as the matter wanted examining, the blind man answers gently and quietly; but, the victory being gained, he grows bolder: He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? i. e. Ye do not attend to what is said, and therefore I will no longer answer you vain questions, put for the sake of cavil, not to gain knowledge: Will ye also be His disciples? AUGUSTINE. (Tr. xliv. s. 11) Will ye also? i. e. I am already, do ye wish to be? I see now, but do not envy (video, non invideo). He says this in indignation at the obstinacy of the Jews; not tolerating blindness, now that he is no longer blind himself. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lviii. 2) As then truth is strength, so falsehood is weakness: truth elevates and ennobles whomever it takes up, however mean before: falsehood brings even the strong to weakness and contempt. Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art His disciple.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  9Lecture 1—Prophets of Reform before Protestantism õ Both men challenged the authority of the pope, and they both believed that with proper guidance, humans didn’t need a king—they could govern themselves. Pico and Savonarola wanted to see the Catholic Church change. Savonarola wrote letters to kings across Europe calling for a council to depose his nemesis, Pope Alexander. He called the pope “an illegal vicar of Christ” who sold church offices and “led an immoral life and was an unbeliever.” õ Pico also called on the pope to reform moral behavior throughout the church, warning against the institution’s corruption. The point here is not that either man wanted to break apart the Catholic Church. But they do show us that powerful criticism of the church predates the Reformation. õ The next 500 years of Christian history showed that the friendship of Pico and Savonarola was not a fluke. It was just one small example of how these paradoxical impulses are woven together: Christians in many times and places have appealed to both reason and divine charisma, and have tried to purify their churches while also drawing on the ideas and cultures they find around them. A BAD ENDING õ The ends of these two friends’ stories are not pretty. Pico fell ill when he was just 31 with a mysterious sickness. When the king of France heard about it, he sent his best doctors to Italy to try to save him, but they arrived too late. Historians now think that he died of arsenic poisoning. A goon of the Medici family probably killed him. The Medici family had started to become tired of Savonarola and were irked at Pico for defending him. 10 The History of Christianity II õ As for Savonarola, in the spring of 1497, Pope Alexander excommunicated him from the Catholic Church for continuing to spread “pernicious dogma.” (Alexander was also angry because Savonarola had refused to steer Florence into joining the pope’s political alliance against France.) õ The pope warned that anyone who had contact with Savonarola would get excommunicated too. He even threatened to place Florence under interdict if they kept supporting their hometown prophet; this would have forbidden celebrating Mass and other sacraments at most churches in the city. The excommunication helped give Savonarola’s enemies the upper hand, and the following spring, a Florentine court found him guilty of heresy, schism, and “preaching innovation.”

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  246 The History of Christianity II õ Yet the tsar and the church hierarchy were not too interested in religious reform or experimentation. For Tsar Nicholas, despite his nod to toleration, religious orthodoxy was inseparable from political loyalty. The Orthodox Church used the tsar’s view of religion to beat down any rival church that got too powerful. õ The Russian Orthodox Church’s relationship with the government meant that when people got fed up with the tsar, they were likely to feel fed up with the church too. The church had a long history of maneuvering for more wealth and political power, which could leave it open to the Marxist argument that religion was just a tool that the ruling class used to exploit average people. That was just what happened. õ In the early years of the 20 th century, a new degree of public anger began to build against Nicholas II and his family. Russia was wracked by financial troubles, growing labor unrest, and the international embarrassment of losing a war against the Japanese in 1905. 247Lecture 25—The Church and the Russian Revolution õ When the tsar decided to bring Russia into World War I—partly in an attempt to win back some military prestige—things did not go as he planned. By 1915, the Russians had lost hundreds of thousands of men; parts of the Russian army were near mutiny. Two years later, when Nicholas asked his troops to step in and quell political protests against his rule, they refused. He was forced to abdicate the throne in March of 1917. THE BOLSHEVIK COUP õ At first, members of the Duma, the Russian parliament, established a provisional government to run the show while they figured out what to do next. But this government was too weak to control the factions vying for power, particularly the Bolsheviks, the most radical of the various left-wing activists who wanted true revolution. õ The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, took power in October. The next summer, Lenin ordered the execution of the royal family, even the children. It took four years of civil war before Lenin and the Bolsheviks managed to destroy their opposition and consolidate power. õ Lenin was a disciple of Marxism, although he put his own twist on Karl Marx’s ideas. Marx was a materialist who dismissed religion as just a fiction used by the powerful to justify their own continuing rule, “an opiate of the people” that makes the miserable lives of the masses easier to bear. But Marx believed in freedom of conscience and didn’t call for forcing religious believers to abandon their faith.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 2: Further, Augustine says in his Rule, that “anger grows into hatred”: and Cicero says (De Quaest. Tusc. iv, 9) that “hatred is inveterate anger.” But hatred, like love, is a concupiscible passion. Therefore anger is in the concupiscible faculty. Objection 3: Further, Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii, 16) and Gregory of Nyssa [*Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. xxi.] say that “anger is made up of sorrow and desire.” Both of these are in the concupiscible faculty. Therefore anger is a concupiscible passion. On the contrary, The concupiscible is distinct from the irascible faculty. If, therefore, anger were in the concupiscible power, the irascible would not take its name from it. I answer that, As stated above (Q[23], A[1]), the passions of the irascible part differ from the passions of the concupiscible faculty, in that the objects of the concupiscible passions are good and evil absolutely considered, whereas the objects of the irascible passions are good and evil in a certain elevation or arduousness. Now it has been stated [1418](A[2]) that anger regards two objects: viz. the vengeance that it seeks; and the person on whom it seeks vengeance; and in respect of both, anger requires a certain arduousness: for the movement of anger does not arise, unless there be some magnitude about both these objects; since “we make no ado about things that are naught or very minute,” as the Philosopher observes (Rhet. ii, 2). It is therefore evident that anger is not in the concupiscible, but in the irascible faculty. Reply to Objection 1: Cicero gives the name of desire to any kind of craving for a future good, without discriminating between that which is arduous and that which is not. Accordingly he reckons anger as a kind of desire, inasmuch as it is a desire of vengeance. In this sense, however, desire is common to the irascible and concupiscible faculties. Reply to Objection 2: Anger is said to grow into hatred, not as though the same passion which at first was anger, afterwards becomes hatred by becoming inveterate; but by a process of causality. For anger when it lasts a long time engenders hatred. Reply to Objection 3: Anger is said to be composed of sorrow and desire, not as though they were its parts, but because they are its causes: and it has been said above ([1419]Q[25], A[2]) that the concupiscible passions are the causes of the irascible passions. Whether anger requires an act of reason?Objection 1: It would seem that anger does not require an act of reason. For, since anger is a passion, it is in the sensitive appetite. But the sensitive appetite follows an apprehension, not of reason, but of the sensitive faculty. Therefore anger does not require an act of reason. Objection 2: Further, dumb animals are devoid of reason: and yet they are seen to be angry. Therefore anger does not require an act of reason.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  267Lecture 27—Rebellion and Reform in Latin America õ After the Mexican Revolution—essentially, a civil war between 1910 and 1920—the liberals emerged victorious and revised the constitution to impose more rules on the Catholic Church. The new constitution banned religious schools to make all education secular. õ Public religious celebrations could only happen under close government supervision, and any religious school or newly built church became government property. Churches couldn’t run public charities, and clergy couldn’t run for public office. The government set a quota on how many clergy could serve any region of the country, so every priest had to register with the state. THE CRISTERO REBELLION õ In 1926, tension between the church and the liberal regime came to a head. The Archbishop of Mexico, José Mora y del Río, announced that all good Catholics ought to reject the Constitution. The liberal president, General Plutarco Elías Calles, retaliated by closing religious houses and schools, banning public religious celebrations, and booting any foreign priests out of the country. õ The archbishop told the priests of Mexico City to go on strike—no public masses, marriages, or baptisms. This strike lasted for three years. Some priests called for laypeople to rise up in violent rebellion. õ Rebels answered this call and became known as Cristeros. Soon, there were tens of thousands of them, including at least 25,000 women. They operated through guerrilla warfare and terrorism: blowing up trains, murdering teachers at government schools, and setting fire to government buildings. President Calles told his supporters to murder a priest in revenge for every state employee killed. õ The violence went on until 1929. More than 30,000 rebels and about 57,000 federal soldiers died in the fighting. Finally, the two sides arrived at a compromise that restored some rights to the church. 268 The History of Christianity II They were allowed to resume teaching religious ideas, although not in schools. Confiscated property stayed in government hands. The bishops decided to accept this and call off the strike, but some of the restrictions on religious freedom persisted into the 1990s. THE ARGENTINIAN CHURCH õ This violent tangle between the Catholic Church and the state was not unique to Mexico. An example is how the 20 th century played out in Argentina. The story of the Argentinian priest Jorge Bergoglio, who eventually became Pope Francis, illustrates this.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  It was also just time for me to go. Regardless of Abel, our plan had always been for me to move out after school. My mother never wanted me to be like my uncle, one of those men, unemployed and still living at home with his mother. She helped me get my flat, and I moved out. The flat was only ten minutes away from the house, so I was always around to drop in to help with errands or have dinner once in a while. But, most important, whatever was going on with Abel, I didn’t have to be involved. At some point my mom moved to a separate bedroom in the house, and from then on they were married in name only, not even cohabitating but coexisting. That state of affairs lasted a year, maybe two. Andrew had turned nine, and in my world I was counting down until he turned eighteen, thinking that would finally free my mom from this abusive man. Then one afternoon my mom called and asked me to come by the house. A few hours later, I popped by. “Trevor,” she said. “I’m pregnant.” “Sorry, what?” “I’m pregnant.” “What?!” Good Lord, I was furious. I was so angry. She herself seemed resolute, as determined as ever, but with an undertone of sadness I had never seen before, like the news had devastated her at first but she’d since reconciled herself to the reality of it. “How could you let this happen?” “Abel and I, we made up. I moved back into the bedroom. It was just one night, and then...I became pregnant. I don’t know how.” She didn’t know. She was forty-four years old. She’d had her tubes tied after Andrew. Even her doctor had said, “This shouldn’t be possible. We don’t know how this happened.” I was boiling with rage. All we had to do was wait for Andrew to grow up, and it was going to be over, and now it was like she’d re- upped on the contract. “So you’re going to have this child with this man? You’re going to stay with this man another eighteen years? Are you crazy?” “God spoke to me, Trevor. He told me, ‘Patricia, I don’t do anything by mistake. There is nothing I give you that you cannot handle.’ I’m pregnant for a reason. I know what kind of kids I can make. I know what kind of sons I can raise. I can raise this child. I will raise this child.” Nine months later Isaac was born. She called him Isaac because in the Bible Sarah gets pregnant when she’s like a hundred years old and she’s not supposed to be having children and that’s what she names her son. Isaac’s birth pushed me even further away.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AMBROSE. Now why does He in this place say that they are not to be hindered, who by the imposition of hands can subdue the unclean spirits, when according to Matthew, He says to these, I never knew you? (Matt. 7:23.) But we ought to perceive that there is no difference of opinion, but that the decision is this, that not only the official works but works of virtue are required in a priest, and that the name of Christ is so great, that even to the unholy it serves to give defence, but not grace. Let no one then claim to himself the grace of cleansing a man, because in him the power of the eternal Name has worked. For not by thy merits, but by his own hatred, the devil is conquered. BEDE. Therefore in heretics and false catholics, it becomes us to abhor, and forbid not the common sacraments in which they are with us, and not against us, but the divisions contrary to peace and truth, wherein they are against us as following not the Lord. 9:51–5651. And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, 52. And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him. 53. And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. 54. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? 55. But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. 56. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. When the time was near at hand in which it behoved our Lord to accomplish His life-giving Passion, and ascend up to heaven, He determines to go up to Jerusalem, as it is said, And it came to pass, &c. TITUS BOSTRENSIS. Because it was necessary that the true Lamb should there be offered, where the typical lamb was sacrificed; but it is said, he stedfastly set his face, that is, He went not here and there traversing the villages and towns, but kept on His way straight towards Jerusalem. BEDE. Let then the Heathen cease to mock the Crucified, as if He were a man, who it is plain, as God, both foresaw the time of His crucifixion, and going voluntarily to be crucified, sought with stedfast face, that is, with resolute and undaunted mind, the spot where He was to be crucified.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (Tr. l. 14) When the news of this great miracle had spread every where, and was supported by such clear evidence, that they could neither suppress or deny the fact, then, The chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus to death. O blind rage! as if the Lord could raise the dead, and not raise the slain. Lo, the Lord hath done both. He raised Lazarus, and He raised Himself. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxvi. 1) No other miracle of Christ excited such rage as this. It was so public, and so wonderful, to see a man walking and talking after he had been dead four days. And the fact was so undeniable. In the case of some other miracles they had charged Him with breaking the sabbath, and so diverted people’s minds: but here there was nothing to find fault with, and therefore they vent their anger upon Lazarus. They would have done the same to the blind man, had they not had the charge to make of breaking the sabbath. Then again the latter was a poor man, and they cast him out of the temple; but Lazarus was a man of rank, as is plain from the number who came to comfort his sisters. It vexed them to see all leaving the feast, which was now coming on, and going to Bethany. ALCUIN. Mystically, that He came to Bethany six days before the passover, means, that He who made all things in six days, who created man on the sixth, in the sixth age of the world, the sixth day, the sixth hour, came to redeem mankind. The Lord’s Supper is the faith of the Church, working by love. Martha serveth, whenever a believing soul devotes itself to the worship of the Lord. Lazarus is one of them that sit at table, when those who have been raised from the death of sin, rejoice together with the righteous, who have been ever such, in the presence of truth, and are fed with the gifts of heavenly grace. The banquet is given in Bethany, which means, house of obedience, i. e. in the Church: for the Church is the house of obedience. AUGUSTINE. (Tr. li. 6) The ointment with which Mary anointed the feet of Jesus was justice. It was therefore a pound. It was ointment of spikenard (pistici) too, very precious. Πίστις is Greek for faith. Dost thou seek to do justice? The just liveth by faith. (Heb. 10:38) Anoint the feet of Jesus by good living, follow the Lord’s footsteps: if thou hast a superfluity, give to the poor, and thou hast wiped the Lord’s feet; for the hair is a superfluous part of the body.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  We talked all day long too. The owners only rented our hands, not our brains. But even talking had to be negotiated when it was on the bosses’ time. If we seemed to be having too much fun, laughing and enjoying ourselves too much, the foreman would come up behind us and hit the solid wooden worktables with a lead pipe while he growled, “Get to work.” Then we'd all look at our hands as we worked and press our lips together in silent anger. I think the foreman sometimes got nervous after he’d done that, sensing the murderous glances he recetved moments after he turned his back. But he was assigned to keep us under control. That required keeping us divided. We came from many different nationalities and backgrounds. About half the women on the line were from the Six Nations. Most were Mohawk or Seneca. What we shared in common was that we worked cooperatively, day in and day out. So we remembered to ask about each other’s back or foot pains, family crises. We shated small bits of our culture, favorite foods, or revealed an embarrassing moment. It was just this potential for solidarity the foreman was always looking to sabotage. It was done in little ways, all the time: a whispered lie, a cruel suggestion, a vulgar joke. But it was hard to split us up. The conveyor belt held us together. Within weeks I was welcomed into the citcle, teased, pelted with questions. My differences were taken into account, my sameness sought out. We worked together, we talked, we listened. And then there were songs. When the whistle first blew in the mornings there was a shared physical letdown among all the women and men who worked between its imperative commands. We lumbered to out feet, stood silently in line to punch in, and took out places on the assembly line—next to each other, Stone Butch Blues $1 facing each other. We worked the first few moments in heavy silence. Then the weight was lifted by the voice of one of the Native women. They were social songs, happy songs that made you feel real good to hear them, even if you had no idea what the words meant. I listened to the songs, trying to hear the boundaries of each word, the patterns and repetitions. Sometimes one of the women would explain to us later what the song meant, or for which occasion or time of year it was sung, There was one song I loved the best. I found myself humming it after I punched out in the afternoons. One day, without thinking, I sang along, The women pretended not to notice, but they smiled at each other with their eyes, and sang a little louder to allow me to raise my own voice a bit. After that I started looking forward to the songs in the morning, Some of the other non-Native women learned songs, too. It felt good to sing together.