G.K. Chesterton and the Meaning of Progress by Joseph Pearce. “Progress is a useless word; for progress takes for granted an already defined direction: and it is exactly about the direction that we disagree.” G.K. Chesterton c. 1920 (photo: Public Domain).National Catholic Registerwith permission of author. The great British writer G.K. Chesterton insisted that progress… Read More What Good is ‘Progress’ in the Wrong Direction?
Updated Jim Caviezel Sound of Freedom. The true story of a former government agent turned vigilante who embarks on a dangerous mission to rescue hundreds of children from sex traffickers. Opens July 4 “The movie tells the story of Tim Ballard, portrayed by actor Jim Caviezel, best known for his role in “The Passion of the Christ.”… Read More July 4. Sound of Freedom.
Everything is changing. The Medium Is so ubiquitous we often become unaware of it. Which is no small part of the problem. We dwell totally within technological media today and observe it less and less. But (practicing Catholic) Marshall McLuhan saw it clearly and tried to warn us of what was coming — and how… Read More Marshall McLuhan, Prophetic Witness, 1966-7.
To be a Roman Catholic one must believe in miracles. This in itself has been a stumbling block to many. And yet the believer knows that one need only find the earth beneath one’s feet and all other genuine miracles become mere footnotes. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, originally a student of the intractable rationalist, Bertrand… Read More Wittgenstein and Existence
Existentialist philosophy and analysis, to the extent that it measures “the predicament of man and his world in the state of estrangement” (Paul Tillich) corroborates what Christian theology has always referred to as Original Sin. As a school of philosophy it seems pretty well dead now, but important insights of the original existentialists remain valid… Read More Existence and the Word
Updated. Nancy Pelosi vowed to reverse the end of Roe v. Wade ‘one way or another’ By Anders Hagstrom | Fox News Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., urged her fellow Democrats to put the abortion issue front and center in their 2024 campaigns, arguing Republicans will lose big on the issue across the country. Pelosi appeared… Read More Pelosi says abortion is Democrats’ ticket to victory in 2024, accuses Republicans of ‘disrespect for women’
Are we supposed to believe Elon can’t “imagine” who might take over over his global, technological infrastructure, all of his labs and his brain-chips, after he’s gone? And that he can’t imagine such forces being malignant? Elon Musk claims AI will overtake humans ‘in less than five years’. Existential threat posed by artificial intelligence is much closer… Read More Elon’s Future
“The complete title of Darwin’s most famous work, often abbreviated to The Origin of Species, was The Origin. of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. As Koster notes about Darwin’s view on race, ‘[he]never considered “the less civilized races” to be authentically human. For… Read More Darwin’s Vicious Racism
“If You wish me to be in darkness, I shall bless You. And if You wish me to be in light, again I shall bless You. If You stoop down to comfort me, I shall bless You, and if You wish me to be afflicted, I shall bless You forever.” — Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ,… Read More In Darkness, A Light Too Bright for Our Eyes
From the autobiographical novel of the same name by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. “The story is set in a Soviet labor camp in the early 1950s and describes a single day in the life of ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov”. Pope Pius Xl: “No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true… Read More Film: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. 1970.
by Gregory Caridi.A Journal of the McGrath Institute for Church Life.June 03, 2021. “… The issue of improper correction of prelates has existed since the Church’s inception, and it is not likely to be resolved any time soon, particularly in a world that has become especially protective of the right to public speech, public criticism,… Read More How to Correct Bishops Correctly
Bends over backwards to save ubiquitous travesties. “A few months ago, I visited Lourdes for the first time, and when I saw the mosaics, I groaned out loud. Father Rupnik’s style is immediately recognizable, and my first thought was that the art would forever be tainted… Three years ago, he was even briefly excommunicated …… Read More America Magazine Compares Rupnik Cartoons to Caravaggio.
By Solange Hertz Any citizen doubting that the Old Religion of the alchemists is the state religion of the U.S. need only make a pilgrimage to the nation’s capital, beginning with the Prayer Room established in the Capitol by joint resolution of Congress in 1954. He will find there for his devotion a small central… Read More Our State Religion
Mary gets a fair shakeCustomer Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2010 One approaches a biography of a famous person with prejudices. You already have an opinion. The book may agree with your assessment or refute it and the success of the book and the characterization of the protagonist depend upon which way… Read More The Myth of ‘Bloody Mary’
NCRegister: “When the Vatican recently announced that lay Catholic men and women will participate as voting members in the 16th ordinary general assembly of the Synod of Bishops in Rome Oct. 2-29, the news caused head-scratching among some Catholic experts. “The Synod of Bishops, as understood by the Second Vatican Council, as understood by Pope St. Paul… Read More “Never in the History of the Church”
By Thomas a Kempis(b)1380 – (d)1471 It is good for us to have sometimes troubles and adversities: for they make a man enter into himself, that he may know that he is in a state of banishment, and may not place his hopes in anything of this world. It is good that we sometimes suffer contradictions… Read More The Utility of Adversity
Human Beings have certain rights, moral values, and responsibilities that are inherent in human nature. Natural law teaching is based on the idea that natural laws are universal concepts and are not based on any culture or customs. Still, it is a way society acts naturally and inherently as human beings. “Few ideas have been… Read More The Essential Natural Law. Dr. Samuel Gregg.
The Wisdom and Naivete of Noam Chomsky. Chomsky’s critics… Meanwhile, the Word of God is scorned… 2 Peter 3: “… you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles. 3 First of all you must understand this, that scoffers will come in the last days… Read More Madness and the Inconceivable
Ireland, February 1st, Feast of Saint Brigid, 2021. Catholicarena.com. 21st Century Ireland is desperately grasping for an identity. It sometimes defines itself against British identity, yet it has found itself increasingly becoming a subculture of Britain both financially and culturally. Some often cast it as being distinct from American culture, yet many Irish children are… Read More No, St. Brigid of Kildare Was Not a Pagan Feminist Abortionist
“Never in the History of Our Planet…” “It is fashionable for Catholic liberals to decry the pre-conciliar Church as concerned with little more than personal piety and indifferent to the injustice and suffering in the world. This is a monstrous travesty of the truth as every adult Catholic must surely know. Never in the history… Read More Michael Davies on the Merciful Pre-Conciliar Church
“I wonder how many readers are aware of the full extent of the threat to the faith posed by Modernism, “the synthesis of all heresies,” as St Pius X described it. Modernism is not simply a danger to Catholicism; it undermines the very basis of any form of religion that claims belief in a supernatural… Read More Michael Davies on Modernism
“The issue [of the week] is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.”–Students for a Democratic Society, Marxist SDS. Revolutionary Con Man Saul Alinsky. Inciting “Power Responses”: No boys, no girls, no mothers, no fathers, no religion…“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for‘ (Apropos of the above hymn to Obama, ironically, Black… Read More Always the Revolution
“Separation of church and state? I can think of a couple of other things I’d like to see separated from the state, or connected with the state in only a slender and indirect fashion. One of them is the school. The other is the home… Americans have largely taken for granted a monstrous bit of… Read More Anthony Esolen on Separation of Home and State
“Tribulation worketh patience“—Rom. 5:3 St. Francis de Sales writing of tribulations and patience says that there is always the danger that, “Some word will escape that may sour the heart, and disturb its peace for a considerable time,” But “when nothing is said … the storm subsides, anger and indiscretion are put to flight…” “A… Read More On Patience. By St. Francis de Sales
“May the Passion of our LordJesus Christ, the intercession of theBlessed Virgin Mary and of all the Saints, whatever good you do and whatever evil you endure, be for you a remedy for sin, an increase of grace, and the reward of eternal life. Go in peace”. — Traditional priestly prayer used for penitents in… Read More May the Passion…
Medea Benjamin Russia’s brutal February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has attracted widespread condemnation across the West. Government and media circles present the conflict as a simple dichotomy between an evil empire and an innocent victim. In this concise, accessible and highly informative primer, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies insist the picture is more complicated. Yes,… Read More War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict
Overcoming Dark Emotions. St. Francis de Sales’ wrote, “The persons for whom I write are those only who are determined not to commit any fault deliberately, though many [fall into] them through surprise, inadvertence, and weakness, notwithstanding their resolution. It usually happens that such persons are astonished and troubled at their faults, conceive a false… Read More Discouraged?
When the Secular Saints Go Marx-ing In. “Fox News is not conservative. It is, in fact,much less conservative than Theodor Adorno and Herbert Mar-cuse, leaders of the FrankfurtSchool“. By Jason M. Morgan.The New Oxford Review. Alexander Riley, in a review of Mark Levin’s recent bestseller American Marxism, charges the radio and television star with failing… Read More Fox News? The Frankfurt School Was More Conservative Morally
Catholic Critique 