By Thomas Merton. ONE of the most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane. I do not doubt it at all, and that is precisely why I find it disturbing. If all the Nazis had been psychotics, as some of their leaders… Read More A Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichmann
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
Note: To be sure, we are called to be the most earnest peacemakers and never to stop working hard towards peace. Yet, alas, in our own time, World War II showed again why it is not wrong to thrust out violent invaders when earnest efforts towards peace have failed. However we are taught that we… Read More St. Joan Confronts Utopia
Cynical news media daily turn many a local story, especially calamities, into national or international stories for political and financial purposes. The media bosses reap all the profit by spreading fear and shattering nerves. Motives are often far from noble despite all the self-righteous pretense. Henry David Thoreau anticipated this and there is lesson in… Read More Thoreau on “News” Media As the “Ruling Powers”
“A major area of distress for [Dorothy Day] in the 1970’s was what seemed to her the erosion occurring in the spiritual life of her fellow Catholics, including those in the Catholic Worker movement. More than ever Catholics seemed attentive to social issues she had been raising for forty years, but they were increasingly neglectful… Read More The Real Dorothy Day
Bad and evil ideas have been far more virulent in history than silver, gold, or geopolitical schemes. Our modern errors arose out of the weeds of bad Christian soil, fueled by concupiscence and backed by diverse and mighty powers. King Henry VIII’s ecclesial revolution in England, born in lust and ending in the vast dissolution of the… Read More Philosophers of the New Light
Quintero noted that ’51 priests have been exiled without trial, violating their rights to residency and freedom of movement.’ National Catholic Register. Two new reports are out detailing human rights violations in Nicaragua, one focusing on religious freedom and the other citing 870 attacks specifically targeting the Catholic Church. On Aug. 13, the human rights… Read More 870 Attacks Against the Catholic Church Reported in Nicaragua Since 2018
The Battle for Britain and Beyond Jacob Rees-Mogg hosts John Anderson in his home for this Conversation. They discuss the roots and future of conservatism, British politics and economics, the role of the West in global affairs such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Chinese Communist Party, as well as diving into what motivates Jacob… Read More More Rees-Mogg. “The Family Precedes The State”.
… and Our time. Mark Groubert. “Whittaker Chambers is best known today as the veteran Soviet spy who became, in William F. Buckley Jr.’s words, “the most important American defector from Communism” when he testified against members of his underground Communist cell in the 1930s. Yet Chambers did more than reject Communism: He revealed a key… Read More The Whittaker Chamber – Alger Hiss Case
Ibram Kendi, walking contradiction, stumbles. ByJeremiah Poff.June 6, 2024 8:28 am.Washington Examiner. Perhaps the most foundational rule of logic is the law of noncontradiction. It is a fairly simple concept most famously articulated by Socrates and says that something cannot be both itself and its opposite at the same time. For example, someone cannot be both hungry… Read More The Crumbling of Ibram Kendi
“For the average person, all problems date to World War II; for the more informed, to World War I; for the genuine historian, to the French Revolution.” —Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn “Our Lord never intended that any other blood than His own should be shed in expiation for sins. Because men have not invoked the blood… Read More The French Revolution and the Fall of Robespierre
Woke White Historians Need Not Apply. Forced to taste their own medicine. “David Austin Walsh is a historian who would like to be a professor. He is one of those historians who would literally cover himself in ashes and wear sackcloth to apologize for his sin of being white. It’s hard to look at. Anyway,… Read More When the Revolution Eats Its Own
‘The West believes man’s destiny is prosperity and an abundance of goods. So does the Politburo.” –Whittaker Chambers “A communist spy himself, Chambers had a Christian conversion and declared that in 1937, he began “like Lazarus, the impossible return.” His return to the principles of freedom made him one of the most forceful anti-communists of… Read More Why Whittaker Chambers Matters
“Whittaker Chambers is best known today as the veteran Soviet spy who became, in William F. Buckley Jr.’s words, “the most important American defector from Communism” when he testified against members of his underground Communist cell in the 1930s. Yet Chambers did more than reject Communism: He revealed a key problem with modern liberalism. In… Read More Mark Groubert On the Whittaker Chamber – Alger Hiss Case
Updated 2x. While on the one hand the so-called Social Justice movements of the 1960’s often devolved into a jumble of contradictory directions, some of them noble and some of them not, Dr. Martin Luther King denied the canard about being some kind of “Communist” (see YouTube) some of his friends and supporters may have… Read More Trying to Make Sense of Dr. Martin Luther King
“Intersectionality is a Woke standard, but what is it? Where does it come from? The history of the concept isn’t that hard to trace, and where it leads us is back to some of the worst regimes in history. Kim Crenshaw tends to be credited with Intersectionality, but she got it from the radicals in… Read More Maoism With American Characteristics
At the dawn of the 20th century Pope Pius X warned against the teachings of the theological Modernists who were already infiltrating the Church: “… in their books you find some things which might well be expressed by a Catholic, but on the next page you find other things which might have been dictated by… Read More On the Doctrine of the Neo-Modernists
And the Whittaker Chambers masterpiece, Witness. Excerpt from an Amazon review of Witness by T. Graczewski. “Witness” makes the Red Scare of the early 1950s much more palpable and understandable for twenty-first century American readers. The conspiracy that Chambers details in “Witness” is stunning in its scope and audacious in its aims. Today, McCarthyism and… Read More Are We Reliving a New Phase of the Hiss – Chambers Drama In Our Time?
Never more timely. Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979). A formidable scholar, prolific author, and Catholic University professor for 23 years, Archbishop Sheen was also a pioneer of the new evangelization. A charismatic radio and television personality and a zealous preacher of the Gospel, his whole-hearted embrace of modern means of communication gave him access… Read More Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on False Compassion
Jordan Peterson and Magette Wade discuss Common Law and free markets Magette Wade is the founder and CEO of SkinIsSkin.com, dedicated to reducing racial discrimination while creating jobs and prosperity in her home country of Senegal. Throughout her career, she has created successful high-end retail brands inspired by diverse African traditions. She is a Forbes “20… Read More Africa Is Not Poor Because of Colonialism.
“In addition to reducing the number of days between requests for assisted suicide, California’s new law also added new requirements for medical professionals. While the law says that no one is “required to participate” in the suicide “for reasons of conscience, morality, or ethics,” Theriot and Cochrane say that is not exactly true. They argue… Read More Doctors Fight Laws That Would Force Them to Help Kill Their Patients
“A new generation of communities are integrating hospitality and solidarity with the poor through prayer and Church fidelity, consistent with the vision of the movement’s founders. Emily Lehman, January 10, 2023. National Catholic Register The Catholic Worker movement — with members scattered throughout the U.S. and around the world — provides a compelling encounter with… Read More Putting ‘Catholic’ in the Catholic Worker
In 2008 Nikolas Kozloff wrote in the New York Times, “During the 1980s and 1990s Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, acted as John Paul II’s doctrinal czar. At the time, John Paul was in the midst of a fierce battle to silence prominent Church liberals. “This conception of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary,… Read More Catholic Social Teaching and Liberation Theology
…and what can be done. “In this wide-ranging conversation, Glenn Loury, Ian Rowe, and Robert Woodson debunk The 1619 Project. “If there were a Mount Rushmore of American Black intellectuals, the three guests on this show would certainly be on it: Glenn Loury is a professor of the social sciences in the Department of economics at… Read More Myths About the Black Experience in America
Note: Most of us understand I think that it is important to distinguish homosexual persons (persons with homosexual tendencies) from the elite ideological movements which, flouting the objective Natural Law, serve as the vehicle for totalitarian transformation: …of morals, language, law, history, culture, institutions and nations in the West. — SH Cultural Marxism See AOC enjoying the Queens Drag Show… Read More The Battering Ram
“Social Justice: you keep on using that term. It does not mean what you think it means.” In 2021, Baucham published his new book, ‘Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe.’ He spoke out against the social justice movement and Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the book. CRT is an academic concept,… Read More Other Voices. Voddie Bauckham on “Social Justice.”
Marxism and CRT are no answer to racism. Marxism and CRT only exploit it for Marxist ends and so cynically disregard the great progress we had all made —until 2020. — Thomas Di’Lorenzo on Abraham Lincoln (C-Span) … More: Lincoln scholar H. Jaffa… — The Popes and Slavery: Setting the record straight — National Review:… Read More C-Span. The Dark Side of Abraham Lincoln
Neither Socialism nor Laissez Faire Capitalism Pope Pius XI in 1931 warned of International Finance, the grave dangers of ‘economic domination’ accumulated in the hands of the few He warned in Quadragesimo Anno of the dangers of international finance controlling credit, crushing competition and families. And this message flows directly and seamlessly from the teachings of Christ… Read More Despotic Economic Dictatorship — Pope Pius XI
Quod Apostolici Muneris.On Socialism. Pope Leo XIII – 1878. To the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops of the Catholic World in Grace and Communion with the Apostolic See. At the very beginning of Our pontificate, as the nature of Our apostolic office demanded, we hastened to point out in an encyclical letter addressed to you,… Read More Encyclical on Socialism. Pope Leo XIII.
Must it really be viewed as the thin end of the wedge,”Progressivist,” a diminution of our Pro-life convictions? And what of political Parties, Civil Rights and the greater Common Good? The following discussion shows the current state of the issues involved and is posted for educational purposes. Opinion Social Justice, War, and Housing: How many… Read More Can A Traditional Catholic Adopt a ‘Consistent Ethic of Life?’
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
Lee Edwards is a leading historian of American conservatism and the author or editor of 25 books. American Spectator Excerpt: “According to a YouGov survey, one-third of all Americans would prefer to live under socialism rather than capitalism. Why? Is it idealism — the desire for a classless society in which everyone is equal and… Read More What Americans Must Know About Socialism
Catholic Critique 