I’ve always loved Camus. But his shadow side must be faced. In his novella, The Fall, the Algerian-French philosopher and novelist Albert Camus stops lamenting social injustice for a moment as well as the “meaninglessness” and “absurdity” of an empty Nietzschean universe in general, and turns instead to biography, specifically to his own cruelty. Camus was a… Read More The Falls of Albert Camus
“Today we are being tested” — Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Please Note: Archbishop Sheen had a great love for Pope Paul VI. Other traditional Catholics, who also love bishop Sheen, are more critical … But those of us who love the traditional Faith cannot forget that it was Paul who gave us Humanae Vitae and… Read More Archbishop Sheen on Those Thinking of Leaving the Church
It was a dream. Needless to say, it was not a vision. If I ever had a vision I would likely run for the psychiatric couch, not to a pope. I cannot remember whether it was a day or a night dream. The city hung heavy over us all. I was lifting a lantern before… Read More The City and the Cross
…and Epistemology. [P]hilosophy and religion deal with the same basic questions. Christians, and especially evangelical Christians, have tended to forget this. Philosophy and religion do not deal with different questions, though they give different answers and in different terms. The basic questions of both philosophy and religion (and I mean religion here in the wide… Read More Francis Schaeffer on the Philosophy of being
“… I discovered a strange coincidence. Among those who survived the carnage of the Great War, two of the 20th century’s greatest religious thinkers had faced one another across exactly the same stretch of the Front on the devastated hillsides to the west of Verdun in June 1916. Both went on to describe their war… Read More Existential Anxiety
“The word “God” exists. Thus we return to the beginning, to the simple fact that in the universe of words with which we build our world and without which even the so-called facts do not exist for us, the word “God”, too, occurs. Even for the atheists, even for those who say: God is dead,… Read More Karl Rahner* on the Word “God”
On February 26, 1950, a couple of years before I was born, Leonard Bernstein premiered his second symphony, The Age of Anxiety, in New York City. It was based on W. H. Auden’s 1948 Pulitzer Prize winning poem which had used the metaphor to describe the spiritual, psychological, and political milieu after World War II.… Read More The Age of Anxiety
Trump joins other world leaders at “reopening” of Notre Dame Cathedral. What burned in that fire and what is possibly being reborn? Antichristic Uncertainties. 12/7/24 + March 2025. Christians reportedly suffering increasing persecution in Syria + UN ignores Persecution of Christians + “…more than two Christian monuments are targeted EVERY day in France” + At… Read More Antichristic Uncertainties
The lights must never go out, The music must always play, Lest we should see where we are— Lost in a haunted wood; Children afraid of the dark Who have never been happy or good. — George Orwell
Before there was Gloria Steinem or Michel Foucault, there was Dada. And it was deadly serious. Kickoff, Demolition time. “Dada thrives on contradictions. It is creative and destructive. Dada denounces the world and wishes to save it.” So says one narrator of journalist-filmmaker Mick Gold’s Europe After the Rain, a 1978 Arts Council of Great Britain documentary… Read More 1914. Europe After the Rain.
We are living in eschatological times. Let those who wish to laugh do so. But is it not a Sign of the Times, as in the days of Noah, when the forces of Hell are unleashed so totally on the Christian Faith, particularly endless abortion, telling our children with [Biden] government approbation that there are… Read More A New World Order
Thinking of Fleeing to the Country to Beat the Crises of the Times? It would be wise to listen to Ross Douthat’s experiences first! Lyme Disease. (With Rod Dreher and Kale Zelden.) One must be prepared. And educated in country living. “In this vulnerable, insightful memoir, the [Catholic] New York Times columnist tells the story of his… Read More Ross Douthat’s Horrific Account of Illness
Ralph C. Martin is a professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary and was involved in the early Catholic charismatic renewal as founder of the Word of God (community) and cofounder of the Sword of the Spirit association of covenant communities. In this talk Ralph Martin shows how Progressives suppress many parts of Scripture in the attempt to fashion a new Gospel and a new… Read More Dr. Ralph Martin on the Urgent Relevance of Gospel Teaching Today
Solange Strong Hertz. Quis ut Deus? Who is like God? The very name of St. Michael, Commander-in-Chief of the Church Militant, is a question. So capital a query immediately suggests another which must have preceded it: Who thinks he can be like God? Answers to both are given in Scripture, for God would not have… Read More The Primacy of Lucifer
This war is not like any other war. A revolution … involve[s] ideologies, dogmas and creeds. 1914 The so-called “Age of Reason” was really an Age of Unbelief for its strongest protagonists were corrosive men like Hume, Kant, Voltaire, who measured the growth of reason by its alienation from God Who Alone could guarantee its… Read More Fulton J. Sheen, 1943. War Against Christians and Jews.
Why “faith and culture”? Do they go together? Can they be separated? Can faith exist without culture? Can culture exist without faith? In the broadest sense of the word, faith and culture are inextricably connected because a culture is always an expression of the faith which informs it. If a culture is animated by a… Read More Faith and Culture by Joseph Pearce
“A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel and destroy vehicles. Other cluster munitions are designed to destroy runways or electric power transmission lines.”— Wikipedia “The use of cluster bombs, banned by 123 countries, has not helped the Russians… Read More Cluster Bomb Orgy of Death
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano. April 3. “My heart hath expected reproach and misery: And I looked for one who would grieve together with me, but there was none:And I searched for one who would comfort me, and I found none:And they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst, they gave me vinegar… Read More Abp. Viganò: Passion of the Church No Less Serious Than Our Lord’s Passion
The Catholic Principle of Subsidiarity is a “principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level that is consistent with their resolution. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as “the principle that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks… Read More As Government Diverts Billions to War Americans Face Trying Times & Hunger
I knew the Internet was talking a lot about ChatGPT. I knew that Buzzfeed was replacing its writers with this AI demon. And I knew it was dangerous. But I wasn’t sure about the specifics. So, I asked ChatGPT to write “600 words about the dangers of chatGPT,” because, you know, I don’t want to do a… Read More The Dangers of ChatGPT? As Explained by ChatGPT
‘Luddite’ Teens Don’t Want Your Likes. Updated. “When I got my flip phone, things instantly changed,” Lola continued. “I started using my brain. It made me observe myself as a person. I’ve been trying to write a book, too. It’s like 12 pages now…You post something on social media, you don’t get enough likes, then… Read More “Social media and phones are not real life”
Thomas Merton on Moral Chaos, and “the worst insanity” (below). Thomas Merton: Nuclear Weapons and Sanity: “The generals and fighters on both sides, in World War II, the ones who carried out the total destruction of entire cities, these were the sane ones. Those who have invented and developed atomic bombs, thermonuclear bombs, missiles; who… Read More Tucker Carlson and Thomas Merton on the Nuclear Option
John Gerassi, author of Jean-Paul Sartre: Hated Conscience of His Century, writes, “Sartre thought that my spontaneity in politics meant that, like a woman, first I reacted, then I acted, and only then did I try to justify. To most readers trained by bourgeois rationalizers to “think before you act,” what I’ve just said will… Read More Sartre: “Throw It In His Face!”
Note: One need not care for Hollywood and its often amoral actors in the slightest to have sympathy for victims of addictions in general. Many of us know or love persons who have suffered—and made others suffer— from addictions. Christians are no more immune to it than their enemies. Some jump into it. Other slide.… Read More Johnny Depp and Substance Abuse. What we can learn.
Paul Kingsnorth. “Do not be conformed to this world“— St. Paul Welcome to the Abbey. ‘Instead of thought there is a vast, inhuman void, full of words, formulas, slogans, declarations, echoes, ideologies … If we do not think, we cannot act freely; we are at the mercy of forces which we never understand, forces that… Read More The Abbey of Misrule
Prayer For Peace by Pope John Paul II. O God, Creator of the universe, who extends your paternal concernover every creature and guides the events of history to the goal of salvation, we acknowledge your fatherly love when you break the resistance of mankind and, in a world torn by strife and discord, you make… Read More Saint John Paul II Prayer for Peace
Cardinal Ottaviani, head of the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII and John XXIII, wrote in 1947: “The extent of the damage done to national assets by aerial warfare, and the dreadful weapons that have been introduced of late, is so great that it leaves both vanquished and victor the poorer for years after. Innocent… Read More “No Conceivable…Justification”. Aerial warfare’s “dreadful weapons”.
“My heart beats too fast. My hands tremble and sweat. I feel like there’s a weight on my chest. My stomach churns. I have terrible headaches. I can’t sleep. Sometimes I can’t even leave my house….” In our particularly anxious time, the extraordinary life of Dr Claire Weekes (Amazon.com) is more relevant than ever. Her… Read More The Woman Who Cracked the Anxiety Code
Catholic Critique 