[gbcdoj]

And I will never forget the "Mater, Si. Magistra, No" abomination.

Surely you aren't attributing "Mater, Si. Magistra, No" to Buckley? Here's what he actually said about the encyclical (he didn't say that):

William F. Buckley, Jr. National Review (26 August 1961) 114. "Actually, National Review has made no substantive criticism of Mater et Magistra. Simplistic interpretations in secular terms are notoriously unwise. It merely pointed out that 'coming at this particular time in history,' parts of it may be considered as trivial."

William F. Buckley, Jr. National Review (23 September 1961) 188. "The editorial in question spoke not one word of criticism of the intrinsic merit of Mater et Magistra. Our disappointment was confined to the matter of emphasis, and timing, and by implication, to the document's exploitability by the enemies of Christendom, a premonition rapidly confirmed by the Encyclical's obscene cooption by such declared enemies of the spiritual order as the New Statesman and the Manchester Guardian, which hailed the conversion of the Pope to Socialism!"

[bornacatholic]

No, brother. Buckley was way off the reservation. His brother, Reid, writing from Spain, took pains to correct Bill in a LONG piece written for The American Spectator.

I will have to go google for the Mater, si, Magister, no nonsense.

[bornacatholic]

Following are further comments by Angelo Matera, author of the post above; The Revealer posts them here in the comments section for readers interested in exploring these questions in more depth.

Just one more illustration if you're interested: Another case in point is when Peggy Noonan, in her WSJ column during the height of the scandals, predicted that JPII would clean house and get rid of all the bishops. Anyone who knew anything about the Church knew that wasn't going to happen. Good people can disagree about the remedy for the scandal, but her comments revealed a libertarian-Conservative, anti-institutional biase. It shows up in the deep, ecclesial differences between Conservatives (Noonan, Dreher, Buckley, Hannity, etc.) and Orthodox Catholics who happen to be conservative (Neuhaus, Weigel, McCloskey). It's not a coincidence that Garry Wills was the one who coined the phrase "Mater, Si, Magister, No, for William Buckley, back when Buckley came out against Pope John XXIII's social justice-oriented encyclical Pacem et Terris. Wills, in his recent book, still talks about this fondly. Liberals like Wills and Andrew Sullivan have more in common with Conservatives such as Dreher and Buckley than with more ecclesial minded orthodox Catholics.

------------ If you're interested, this is part of the battle within the Church over the genuine reading of Vatican II. Even ecclesial-minded Catholics like Neuhaus, Weigel and Novak are criticized from more communitarian Catholics like "Communio" theologian David Schindler, who reflects the sort of theology embodied by Catholic lay movements such as Opus Dei and the Legion of Christ (on the right) and Communion & Liberation, Focolare, St. Egidio, etc (sort of the left). He has laid the Catholic critique of "conservative" individualism out here http://ressourcement.aquaetignis.org/articles/schindler.html ..where he quotes Alisdair McIntyre about how:

"...all debates in America are finally among radical liberals, liberal liberals and conservative liberals. That's how I would sum up. If we don't come to terms with liberalism --

Question: But liberalism in what sense? Quite a few people who would describe themselves as conservative or neoconservative are, in fact, liberal...

Schindler: That's the point: They're the conservative wing of liberalism. And in a sense, they wouldn't even deny that, insofar as their project is to show that a benign reading of American liberal tradition is harmonious with Catholicism. That's what I'm challenging. Their approach doesn't go to the roots of our [cultural and spiritual] problem, as identified in this pontificate and in the work of theologians like De Lubac and Balthasar.

John Allen also laid out this battle in the context of Karl Rahner vs. Hans Urs Van Balthasar here, as part of his own interview with Schindler. http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/word112803.htm

Posted by: Angelo Matera (posted by The Revealer) at 1:49 PM, April 4, 2004

[bornacatholic]

BTW, I was a subscriber and I remember these issues very well. I also remember how Buckley accused Joe Sobran of antisemitism.

Of course, after Sobran published a response that made Buckley appear an idiot, they parted ways.

Mr. Buckley has memory problems.

Uncommented upon by you was the public forum Buckley granted for heresy to be deseminated. Any thoughts on that practice?