“What makes for kitsch is not the attempt to compete with the photograph [as Greenberg believed was true of representational art] but the attempt to have your emotions on the cheap—the attempt to appear sublime without the effort of being so. And this cut-price version of the sublime artistic gesture is there for all to see… Read More Spiritual Beauty in Art: Never Cheap, Never Kitsch, Never Rupnik
“The Democratic Party is now the party of the rich. Eight of America’s ten most affluent counties voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, in most cases by a large margin. In Fairfield County, Connecticut, the hedge fund capital of the world, Hillary won by nearly 20 points. In Nantucket, she won by more than 30… Read More The Democratic Party is now the party of the rich — at the top.
“Hold fast to your faith in the Church, she is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. We can never relinquish her holiness to the evils of this world even if they invade her very depths. Remember that when we are faithful to Jesus He is our power & strength. He is Light of the World.” —… Read More “Even if they invade her very depths”
Damian Thompson and Luke Coppen of The Pillar In the ancient Syro-Malabar Church of south India, clergy who try to change the liturgy do so at their peril. At St Mary’s Cathedral Basilica in Ernakulam last December, a long-standing dispute over whether the priest should face the people led to scenes in which protestors attacked… Read More “Inside the world’s most vicious liturgy wars.” Or… Monkeying Around With Ancient Liturgy.
“… a documentary made by some friends of ours with which I find the deepest empathy, and which summons up possibly better than anything we have yet encountered the secret spirit that enables us to survive the tyrannies of our times. In November 2021, in the very depths of the darkness that had enveloped Ireland and… Read More Ireland’s John Waters introduces 32 Counties
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.
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’
“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
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
“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
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
Scripture prophesies the coming one day of a great deception heralding the imminent arrival of “the Lawless One” (2 Thess 2) just prior to Parousia(1). Prof. Daniel O’Connor writes, “As modern man turns away from his own Christian patrimony, the myths he turns toward are no longer found within the pages of Hesiod. They are,… Read More Signs and Lying Wonders. Only Man Bears His Image.
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
“While the Sacraments of Confession (also called Reconciliation or Penance) and Baptism are distinct, they share some profound similarities because both are sacraments of forgiveness and restoration. Similarities: 1. Both Forgive Sins: – Baptism forgives all sins—both original sin, which we inherit from Adam and Eve (cf. Romans 5:12), and any personal sins committed… Read More Confession is Like “A Second Baptism”
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.
“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
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
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
In Proclamation, Word, Deed … against all infiltrations, apostasy and persecutions. 2 Cor 4:5-7 – 5 “For we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord; and ourselves your servants through Jesus. 6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of… Read More As Francis Decreases We Pray Jesus Christ Increases
Vaclav Havel waves to crowds in Prague, shortly before becoming Czech president in December 1989. Kamila Valenta writes in America, “I was 17 years old when I heard the Lord’s Prayer spoken in public for the first time. It was in November 1989 during the Velvet Revolution, which brought freedom to Communist Czechoslovakia. The crowd… Read More The Lord’s Prayer, Freedom, and the Spiritual Vaclav Havel
FBI whistleblowers say pro-life groups, Catholics and others were ‘target of the government‘ “The FBI targeted pro-life groups, Catholics, and parents attending school board meetings with investigations in an effort to “inflate” the sense that they were a domestic terrorism threat, according to new whistleblower reports. “House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, detailed the reports in a… Read More News Conference on FBI Malfeasance. FBI Whistlerblowers Come Forward
I “asked” Bing AI about those who see the traditional family as “a social structure of oppression” and who suggest that the dissolution of the traditional family might or would be a good thing for the world. I asked about those who say boys and girls, men and women, are becoming obsolete categories making room… Read More Catholic “Chat” with Bing AI About the Future, Family and Gender
Aldous Huxley stated plainly, “I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption [SH: note that desire preceded investigation]. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with… Read More Huxley’s Faith and Confession
Why Catholic Critique? To confess the Faith to any who wish to hear or see. “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9)…” “If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples…” (Jn. 8:31) This website is a small,… Read More Catholic Critique
I DECLARE I have the grace I need for today. I am full of power, strength, and determination. Nothing I face will be too much for me. I will overcome every obstacle, outlast every challenge, and come through every difficulty better off than I was before. This is my declaration. — via #women of prayer
“Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy scolded Democrats at a Tuesday hearing, in particular Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, for reportedly threatening Supreme Court Justices in 2022. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Tuesday to examine ethics rules for the Supreme Court after Democrats accused Justice Clarence Thomas of accepting trips from a wealthy friend. Kennedy turned… Read More Schumer Called Out For His Anti-Life, Anti-Constitution Viciousness
September 17, 2014 Gregory DipippoNew Liturgical Movement Sandro Magister has just published on the website of L’Espresso an interesting account of the Mémoirs of Fr Louis Bouyer, the French convert and Oratorian priest who played so prominent a role in the post-Conciliar reforms, not the least because of his personal friendship with Pope Paul VI.… Read More Fr. Louis Bouyer on the Liturgical Reform and Its Architects
Urges Hungary to welcome migrants. America Magazine (CNS): “As expected, in his first speech in Hungary—to government and civic leaders and diplomats serving in Budapest—the pope acknowledged efforts to protect traditional values, but insisted those values include supporting European unity, welcoming migrants and working to end the war in neighboring Ukraine… Mentioning some areas of… Read More Pope Francis Repeats Words on Gender Ideology, Abortion and Migrants
Opinion. Updated. Note: While much that is newsworthy is appreciated, no total agreement with the opinions of Tucker Carlson or Naomi Wolf is implied. DR NAOMI WOLF.APR 28. The whole world is commenting on and speculating about the abrupt departure of former Fox commentator Tucker Carlson from his former network. Addressing the current moment is… Read More The Crime of “Talking to Tucker Carlson”
By Italy specialist Shannon I’ve always been drawn to Italy’s places of worship because of the stories of controversy and intrigue hidden in their elaborate sculptures, paintings and façades. For my Art History degree, I studied in Florence and attended lectures in churches and basilicas throughout Italy. There I learned that when you’re seeing a… Read More Sidewalk Evangelism
Tucker Carlson cancelled by Fox News. Opinion. Updated. NEW YORK (LifeSiteNews) — “Conservative media titan Tucker Carlson and Fox News on Monday “agreed to part ways” effective immediately. Carlson’s last broadcast was April 21, giving the hugely popular host no opportunity to bid farewell to his audience. An announcement from Fox News shared on social media… Read More Are Moral Truths and Free Inquiry Being Outlawed in America Today?
Kills Babies, Injures Women The Supreme Court is allowing continued sales of the dangerous abortion pill that kills babies and has killed and injured women. The vote was 7-2, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissenting. The nation’s highest court ruled [April 21] in an unsigned order that the abortion drug mifepristone can continue… Read More Supreme Court Allows Continued Sales of Abortion Pill
“Do you know that we are tremendously powerful already? … I’ve reckoned them all up: a teacher who laughs with children at their God and at their cradle is on our side. The lawyer who defends an educated murderer because he is more cultured than his victims … is one of us…. The juries who… Read More Dostoevski on the Revolutionaries
“…recent changes to the way everyone gets their news—coupled with the style of news that dominates today—may not be good for mental and even physical health. “The way that news is presented and the way that we access news has changed significantly over the last 15 to 20 years,” says Graham Davey, a professor emeritus… Read More What is Monied “News” Consumption Doing to Us?
“New World Order Without God”… Who needs the old Progressivist desire for a Third Vatican Council to mitigate Church teachings when they can have almost anything they want through an incremental permanent synodal Church? A lot of the infiltrators who maneuvered their way into the highest positions in the Church by pretending to be pious… Read More Cardinal Müller challenges Pope Francis
Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register wrote, “The former cardinal-archbishop of Milan [Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini], a favorite of those pushing for heterodox reforms in the Church, had envisioned a permanent synodal Church in which the idea of collegial governance introduced at the Second Vatican Council could be better realized. The Jesuit biblical… Read More Martini’s Endless Dream
By Father Gabriel of St Mary Magdalene, O.C.D. Even without the presence of other causes, it is possible to pass from a state of sensible spiritual fervor to one of absolute aridity. This happens by the direct work of God which makes it impossible for the soul to pray with the help of the mind… Read More Aridity and Spiritual Progress
