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
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” Christians and non-Christians alike. “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”— 1 Jn.1:10 All we, like sheep, have gone astray,each of us has turned to our own way; — Isaiah 53:6 “For… Read More Truth and “Catholic Guilt”
Note: Mary Daly died in January 2010. It is good to be tolerant, even of incoherent things, we are told today. The devil himself ought to be given a seat at the table. So the courts have ruled. But that can’t stop us from noticing that Mary Daly represents the meltdown of the dissident transgressive… Read More Mary Daly: The Witch of Boston College
What Fulton J. Sheen saw so clearly that others seek to forget: We are only sojourners here in a strange and foreign land. “Our whole life ought to be one continued penance“. — Frs. Francis Spirago, Richard F. Clarke on Penance. Joel 2:12-13 “Yet even now,” says the Lord, “return to me with all of your heart,with… Read More Repentance and / or the American Dialectic
“Our peace in this life is found in humbly enduring suffering rather than in being free from it. He who knows best how to suffer will enjoy the greater peace, because he is the conqueror of himself, the master of the world, a friend of Christ, and an heir of heaven.”— Thomas a Kempis, Imitation… Read More The Cross of Jesus Christ and Suffering Love.
“The television screen [or, similarly, Internet / Netflix ‘entertainment’] has become the retina of the mind’s eye…the battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the video arena, the Videodrome. “Whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore television is reality and reality is… Read More Perception, Reality and the Videodrome
The value of sufferings in Christ By Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D. O Jesus Crucified, teach me the science of the Cross. 1. The Passion of Jesus teaches us in a concrete way that in the Christian life we must be able to accept suffering for the love of God. This is a… Read More Personal knowledge of the Cross
Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 men between the late ‘70s and early ‘90s, killing them in the most horrendous ways. His killing spree involved rape, dismemberment, necrophilia, and cannibalism. Few crimes in modern history are seen as disgusting and evil as Dahmers’. Police discovered mutilated bodies, refrigerated skulls, a shrine and a barrel with headless torsos,… Read More Jeffrey Dahmer’s Confession
St. Bernard declared forcefully, “[You may say] I have committed a great sin. My conscience will be troubled but I will not despair because I remember the wounds of my Lord. For indeed, He was wounded for our iniquities. What sin is there so deadly that it cannot be remitted through the death of Christ?… Read More Never to despair
“We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord, and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against you.” Jeremiah 14: Though our iniquities testify against us, act, O Lord, for your name’s sake;for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against you.8 O you hope of Israel, its savior in time of trouble,why should you be like a stranger in the land, like a traveler… Read More “Our backslidings are many; we have sinned against you”
“Each According to Its Kind”.by Dr. Werner Gitt. From the creation account, it is clear that all living beings were created in clearly separate groups—each according to its kind. For biologists, kinds of organisms are the fundamental building blocks, just as the chemical elements are for a study of chemistry. Rolf Siewing defines “kind” according… Read More “Each According to Its Kind’
This is no ordinary talk / book (perfectly narrated here). It is extraordinary even by Fulton J. Sheen’s standard. Lay persons and clergy both need to hear its message in our troublesome time. A time which assaults our very souls: “Day after day, Christians struggle to do good, to avoid evil, and to take up… Read More Spiritual Warfare: Victory Over Vice by Archbishop Fulton J Sheen
Jonathan Van Maren writes, “Tate is the personification of various internet subcultures, combining the critiques of the anti-feminist “manosphere” and the alt-right with the posture of a pickup artist. A self-described pimp who has stated he believes sexual fidelity is only for women, he made his millions running porn sites. He now uses social media… Read More Masculinity Without Virtue
A most beautiful and critically important rosary (below). For our own sins and for the sins of the whole world. What sins are not covered in this particular formulation of the blessed timeless prayer? “Acknowledge that you have sinned. Everyone does this every day. We sin in ways we are aware of, but also in… Read More Repentance Rosary
Adam and Christ Romans 5: 12 Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned— 13 sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to… Read More One Race, One Blood
Apostolic Exhortation onReconciliation and PenanceDec. 2, 1984 Over the course of generations, the Christian mind has gained from the Gospel as it is read in the ecclesial community a fine sensitivity and an acute perception of the seeds of death contained in sin, as well as a sensitivity and an acuteness of perception for identifying… Read More John Paul II on The Loss of the Sense of Sin
“We are surprised at falling: an evident mark that we scarcely know ourselves. We ought, on the contrary, to be surprised at not falling more frequently, and into more grievous faults, and to return thanks to God for the dangers from which He preserves us. We are troubled every time that we are beguiled into… Read More St. Francis de Sales on Spiritual Self-knowledge
Paul Kingsnorth (born 1972 in Worcester) is an English writer who lives in the west of Ireland. He is a former deputy-editor of The Ecologist and a co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project. He wrote about his spiritual journey and conversion to Christianity in a June 2021 essay in First Things. [wikipedia]. [His] debut novel, The Wake, won the… Read More Paul Kingsnorth on the Theological Roots of Transhumanist Projections
If there has been a better talk on Confession in recent years, I haven’t heard it.
Quoting St. Thomas Aquinas, John Paul wrote: “When through sin, the soul commits a disorder that reaches the point of turning away from its ultimate end God to which it is bound by charity, then the sin is mortal; on the other hand, whenever the disorder does not reach the point of a turning away… Read More Pope St. John Paul II on Mortal and Venial Sin
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
Matt Taibbi writes at his TK News site, “News2Share and Ford Fischer recap the history of “Progressive Anti Abortion Uprising,” or “PAUU,” a group mentioned in this space during anti-abortion demonstrations last December. The group’s director of activism, Lauren Handy, was arrested along with eight other group members in connection with an incident in 2020 when they allegedly blocked access… Read More Progressivist Prolifers on Trial
“Straights and Anguish of Dying Christians Who Have Been Negligent During Life About the Duties of Religion“. The “narrow gate”. 2 Cor. 7:10: “For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance, steadfast unto salvation; but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” By Saint Alphonsus Liguori,Doctor of the Church. “Render, therefore, to Cæsar the… Read More St. Alphonsus Liguori on Presumption in the Face of Death
National Review. An ancient evil abolished. “No topic in American history is more enduringly controversial than slavery. It sits at the heart of every indictment of America and our founding principles. It is central to battles over critical race theory, the removal of monuments, and the renaming of places and institutions. It is invoked in… Read More American Slavery in the Global Context
Catholic Critique 