Malcolm Muggeridge. “The coming of Jesus into the world is the most stupendous event in human history. . . . As it is, belonging to a civilization which began with the birth of Jesus some two thousand years ago, and reaching the conclusion—to me inescapable—that whatever is truly admirable in the achievements of the succeeding… Read More Fiat Lux. Into History Comes the Light
In light of our personal failings, some of us may not be sure if we have earnestly “worked out our salvation with fear and trembling,” or whether we are more worthy of spiritual chastisements. But we can know whose side we are on vis a vis the arrogant values of this world, and “lift up lift… Read More He Dared to Combine Hope and Misery
And a response. It Ain’t Broke, But Let’s Fix It Anyhow June 2004 We picked up a Catholic magazine, and on the cover was one big headline, and it was a striking one: “Was Vatican II a Mistake?” In the background to the headline were a litany of post-Vatican II disasters: “practicing homosexuals in the… Read More The New Oxford Review Debate on Whether Vatican II Was Necessary
The events of 1968 had a strong bearing on his shift to a more conservative outlook. Excerpted from “POPE BENEDICT XVI: A Biography of Joseph Ratzinger.” (c) 2000 by John L. Allen, Jr.The Continuum. Joseph Ratzinger arrived at Tübingen [University] in 1966, still enthusiastic about the promise of Vatican II and ready to take his… Read More How the ’60s Changed Ratzinger
By Mark Brumley, Catholic World Report. June 2020 Recently, the Second Vatican Council’s legitimacy and value have again been challenged [again]. Some observers behave as if Benedict XVI saw Vatican II as a problem and proposed a “hermeneutic of continuity” to overcome the problem. Some people who act this way think Benedict XVI’s approach has… Read More Benedict XVI, VII, and the “hermeneutic of reform”
“God is Dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we – we still have to vanquish his shadow, too. — Frederich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 109. The Forerunners: 2015: For the Neo-modernist or Progressivist Catholic today, the traditional understanding… Read More Progressivist Theology. What it is.
~~ What’s next for Venezuela and Iran? Venezuela and Iran have developed a strong relationship, particularly in areas like oil production and military cooperation, often positioning themselves as allies against U.S. influence. This partnership has intensified under leaders like Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, with both countries facing significant Western sanctions. Wikipedia, geopoliticalmonitor.com. “Thus far,… Read More Mearsheimer on Trump’s “Light Touch.” Venezuela and Iran. Opinion.
The common Christian belief is that Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, came to Ephesus with St. John after the Crucifixion of Christ and the two lived the rest of their lives near the city. Explore “the mysteries, legends, and historical clues about the final moments of Jesus’s mother. Tour sacred sites, discover archaeological finds, and explore centuries-old… Read More Inside Mary’s House in Ephesus
Samuel T. Francis+ wrote, “… [M]odernism denies or ignores God and concentrates on secular knowledge and action. Human knowledge then can be only empirical; moral statements can be only relative or factual, there being a dichotomy between fact and value; and human action cannot be modeled on transcendent or spiritual gods that either do not… Read More Modernism & ‘Science’s’ One-way Street.
First, the Problem. The famous Thomist philosopher Etienne Gilson writes, surely accurately, in his Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, “… at the very place where the Summa of Alexander and the Commentary of St. Bonaventure undertake to show that the existence of God is evident, St. Thomas devotes an article to proving that it… Read More Gilson, Saint Thomas and The Self-Attesting God
“Modernism and its Enemies” by Hilton Kramer discusses the ongoing debate surrounding modernism in the arts, highlighting the criticisms it faces from various cultural and political perspectives. Kramer argues that modernism is under attack from those who believe that the concept of individualism and personal identity, central to modernist art, is no longer relevant in… Read More Modernism and its enemies. The New Criterion, 1986.
“The diary of a 16-year-old Epstein files victim with autism has been revealed the latest release of the Epstein files. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks. Do you agree with TYT’s take? Tell us what you think in the YTs comments. — The Alastair Campbell association?
Cultural values matter. The Beatles are going through a kind of renaissance today, largely thanks to Peter Jackson, Disney and YouTube. The irony is that some of their music is so exciting and inviting we often forget to listen to the messages in the melodies and ponder the global cultural impact. Who cares?, even many Christians… Read More John Lennon’s Wet Dream
Antitrust Issues Google has faced significant scrutiny for alleged anti-competitive practices. The U.S. Department of Justice claims that Google has “corrupted legitimate competition” in the ad tech industry through unlawful means. This includes manipulating search results to favor its own services over competitors, which has raised concerns about monopolistic behavior. Censorship and Content Control There… Read More Ongoing Allegations of Corruption at Google
“My dear, I should like to stick you full of barbed arrows like a p-p-pin cushion… Where do you lurk? I shall come down your burrow and ch-chivvy you out like an old st-t-toat.” — Anthony Blanche to Charles Ryder, Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, 1945. I have hundreds of books, theology, philosophy and psychology as… Read More Where do you lurk?
The hope behind this website has always been that every article selected, whether positive or relatively negative, would somehow lead to contemplation of the Word made flesh (Jn.1:1-14) and His savings acts for us, and “not for us only but also for the whole world.” (1 Jn 2:2). For “God was in Christ reconciling the world… Read More Catholic Critique
Striving To Get Serious. To clear our vision and souls. “The first purification to be made is from grave sin. The means whereby to make it is the sacrament of penance. Seek the best confessor within your reach, use one of the many little books [if needed] written in order to help the examination of… Read More The First Purification. St. Francis de Sales.
~~ By Peter Kreeft. There is a dimension of truth which most of us have tragically lost and need to recover, a dimension that cannot be put into words and sentences, though words and sentences can be used to suggest it. All premodern societies had this other dimension, even the ones who were very far… Read More Love Sees With New Eyes
“The Saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint is often a martyr; he is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same… Read More Saints of Flesh and Blood
The Beatles were not just another Rock band. They were an Event with lasting cosmic effect across the entire planet, heralds of a new evangelium. Evangelium is a Latin term that translates to “gospel,” meaning “good news.” It is derived from the Ancient Greek word εὐαγγέλιον Here, in exquisite harmonies and creativity, The Beatles gave… Read More The Word
Like children wandering towards a circus, in 2 Thessalonians 2:11, it is stated that God will send a strong delusion so that people may believe what is false, particularly as a consequence for not loving the truth. This delusion serves as a judgment for those who have rejected the truth and embraced unrighteousness. 2 Thess… Read More “Therefore God sends upon them strong delusion”
2024 … the campaigners trying to legalise class-A drugs – a network stretching to the top of the US government….Timothy Leary remembers Aldous Huxley saying, “We must spread the word… The obstacle to this evolution, Timothy, is the Bible.” Many proponents suggest that drugs can help us evolve to a more perfected state – what… Read More Inside the Psychedelic Elite
Inside the Vatican excerpt. By Dr. Ralph Weimann: “Harvesting organs: “Bioethics is in a disastrous situation” “…Due to technological progress, Pope Pius XII († 1958) invited scientists to provide medical criteria defining death, whilst upholding the theological definition of death as separation between body and soul. However, ten years after his death, a revolution occurred when the… Read More Death, Harvesting Organs and a Coherent Concept of Man
CT – “Brittany is deeply interesting: She cares about art, ideas, and people. Yet when we went out socially, most people failed to see her as particularly interesting. Once she left the workforce, in group settings, people tended to ignore her to talk to me about my work and interests. I (apparently!) was the interesting and insightful… Read More Human Worth In the Attention Economy
“Ever wanted to sound unbearably pretentious at dinner parties? Wondered how one French philosopher managed to make an entire career out of writing sentences no human being could understand? Curious why your literature professor keeps muttering about “the death of the author” while staring vacantly into space? Look no further than “Derrida’s Deconstruction: Tearing Texts Apart… Read More Derrida’s Deconstructionism. Cogito Ergo Nope.
Roberto de Mattei. “In the Gospels, Jesus makes use of many metaphors to describe the Church He founded. One of the most fitting is the image of the boat threatened by the tempest (Matt. 8:23–27; Mark 4:35–41; Luke 8:22–25). This image was often used by the Church Fathers and saints, who spoke of the Church… Read More The “true reform” that the Church needed in the 20th century
Introduction to Theology. |By Carl F.H. Henry. SPEAK OF AN INTRODUCTION to God, or to the science of God, and some people are sure to look for the nearest exit. An introduction to sex techniques—now there’s a best seller! Or a manual (not on avoiding the rise and fall of the American empire but) on… Read More Carl F.H. Henry on The Matter of Belief Today
By James J. Thompson Jr. | New Oxford Review. | Does God answer prayer? Christians respond to such a query with a mixture of bewilderment and irritation. Who but unbelievers and those of little faith would even think to pose the question? One need only turn to the Gospel of St. Luke to find Christ’s unequivocal… Read More Jacques Ellul’s ‘Prayer and Modern Man’
Carlo Carretto1910-1988 “How much I must criticize you, my church, and yet how much I love you! You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe more to you than to anyone. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence. You have given me much scandal and… Read More Love Letter to the Church. Carlo Carreto.
Best friends & much more forever 51 years and counting in 2025-26 Kahlil Gibran “You were born [again]] together, and together you shall be forevermore… But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.” ‘For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health… Read More In Sickness and in Health, For Better or for Worse, for Richer or for poorer…till death do we part.
Pianist and conductor Ignat Solzhenitsyn reflects on growing up in exile as the son of Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, moving from Soviet persecution to a quiet childhood in rural Vermont. Ignat recounts how music, faith, and Russian culture sustained his family far from home, how cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich helped set him on a… Read More Ignat Solzhenitsyn in Conversation with Peter Robinson
ACI Prensa. EWTN. Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher spoke at the event “A Common Front for Human Dignity: Preventing the Commodification of Women and Children in Surrogacy.” And 2026: Year of Saint Francis. By Almudena Martínez-Bordiú Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, secretary for relations with states and international organizations of the Holy See, described the practice of… Read More Archbishop Gallagher: Surrogacy is a ‘new form of colonialism’
Steve Turner in his important 2016 book, Beatles ’66: The Revolutionary Year, relates what John Lennon told him regarding his view of Jesus Christ; “Once he left school and music began to take up more of his free time,” Turner says, “John stopped attending church, but wealth, adulation, and his drug experiences made him reconsider… Read More John Lennon and The Gospel “Bullshit”
Not that I can ever fully trust Google or Facebook, but I asked A.I Gemini (Google) for an objective evaluation of CatholicCritique.com. First, in another session elsewhere, Search Assist AI quotes Julian Assange saying of another venue, “Facebook is the “most appalling spying machine” ever invented, suggesting that it allows U.S. intelligence agencies to gather personal… Read More Gemini / Google Evaluation of Catholic Critique
“Classical music has evolved through several distinct historical periods, including the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern eras, each characterized by unique styles and compositional techniques. This evolution reflects changes in cultural contexts, musical tastes, and the development of new instruments and forms over time. Overview of Classical Music Evolution Classical music has evolved… Read More The Evolution of Classical Music
One man wrote …, I wanted to encourage him since I too know the struggles of coming to the piano late in life. I wrote, “Keep going, sir. Look up Phillip Springer (shown here below) still playing at 94, all bent and gnarled. Nothing keeps down the human spirit that wants to soar 🚀 Beethoven,… Read More The Fab Three — and The Student.
Foreword to Dietrich von Hildebrand’s book by Manfred Honeck (and see a conversation with Manfred Honeck on great composers below). He writes, “THIS LITTLE BOOK IS A TREASURE, not only because it discusses three of the greatest composers, but also because the author is willing actually to engage with their music. It does not claim… Read More Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert
Music is universal. When the message is not truly bad it is good enough, and cheers the human heart in recreation. John Paul II reminded us that whatever is truly and universally human participates in the essential goodness of Creation. Only we can wreck that! (Phil. 4:8) If all music had to be overtly religious… Read More Play skilfully
The Pillar wrote earlier this month: “The Holy See is expected to announce in coming weeks a date for the beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the Emmy-winning American prelate known for catechetical television programs in the 1950s and 1960s. Sheen, who came within three weeks of a scheduled beatification in 2019, is expected to be… Read More Fulton Sheen beatification expected to be announced
“First off, I want the US to acquire Greenland — fairly and legally. But this is extortion against America’s allies. It cannot be the case that this or any American president has the power to do this. It’s obscene. He’s not … Caesar!”
Q: Why is there no black note between B and C or between E and F? Well, this is a simple sounding question with a not very simple answer. You’ll need to be sitting up in your seat for this one! Too, from musicstackexchange.com Why do B and C and E and F not have a sharp note between them? Simply because, acoustically speaking, there… Read More Music Theory and The Monks 🎹
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