“It is vanity to desire a long life, and to have little care for a good life.” — Thomas a Kempis. Tolkien mourned the decline of the Shire* i.e., …the real shire of his youth which he ever remembered and sought to salvage to the extent that he could. The Shire: the simplicity and beauty… Read More Tolkien’s Battle for the Shire. And for Us All.
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
Good Fences, Shared Bounty. Can it ever be wise to separate compassion, reasonable limits and common sense? If you have followed the immigration debates in the West in recent decades you will have long ago gotten a glimpse of the fears, greed, fanaticism and wars which, often enough, make many peoples in our post 9/11… Read More Immigration, Birds of a Feather and Trojan Horses
By historian William Thomas Walsh “Of the external foes of the Church, Mohammedanism was one of the most dangerous and long enduring. Ideologically it was not external, but one of the great heresies, containing as it did many Christian elements, mingled with some borrowed from Judaism, and much gross and carnal materialism foreign to both;… Read More What the Critics of the Crusades Forget or Ignore
So-called ‘Liberals’ have a philosophical problem in this country and beyond. On the one hand they heartily indulge and enjoy the sexual anarchy granted by the succeeding regimes since the 1950’s and 1960’s; on the other hand they tend to deplore the lawlessness of American foreign policy / imperialism / warmaking. They do not see… Read More When the State is Ultimate
American University Speech, delivered just months before he was gunned down in Dallas, remains more relevant and challenging than ever. Many believe it was this speech which sealed his fate.. “What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons… Read More JFK American University Speech More Relevant Than Ever.
Hillary Clinton’s Classified Documents Were Not Bleached, They Got Hammered. By Caitlin Johnstone. Queen Warmonger Hillary Clinton Complains About “Men Starting Wars”. During her self-titled annual awards ceremony at Georgetown University …, Hillary Clinton said that the biggest obstacle to peace and security around the world is “men starting wars.” During the Q&A segment of the event, Clinton was… Read More Queen Among Warmongers
Victor Gaetan is senior international correspondent for the National Catholic Register 8/21. The closer we look at decisions to deploy a second atomic weapon against Japan on August 9, [1945…] the more morally audacious the tactic appears. Step outside the American explanatory cloud—we bombed military installations to force unconditional imperial surrender—defining public understanding to see:… Read More Nagasaki Was A Strike Against Japan And The Catholic Church
“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
Most truly moral people are shocked at the thought that leaders of a nation could engage in unnecessary wars, kill many hundreds of thousands of people, very likely millions (1) in the process, and still sleep at night and smile on the golf course for the cameras. Leroy Fletcher Prouty (January 24, 1917 – June… Read More Malthusian Wars. Fletcher Prouty.
MIC Fleecing of American taxpayers Matthew Hoh Two press reports stood out to me this morning: the release of the names of two US Navy SEALs who drowned two weeks ago in the Arabian Sea and the Air Force’s production authorization for the B21 Raider bomber. Both stories symbolize an imperial inertia that defines American… Read More Americans Are Paying A Massive Price To Maintain Empire
Foreign Affairs: “…When Americans think of global war, they typically think of World War II—or the part of the war that began with Japan’s strike on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. After that attack, and Adolf Hitler’s subsequent declaration of war against the United States, the conflict was a single, all-encompassing struggle between rival alliances on… Read More How Today’s Regional Conflicts Resemble the Ones That Produced World War II
Be it near or still a ways off, Jesus the Lord said regarding the last times, “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there… Read More Does God send wars as a punishment for sin?
Note: To tell you the truth I don’t think much of the “Catholic Worker Movement” these days. Even Dorothy Day herself was becoming somewhat discouraged by the naivete and moral incoherence of not a few of her admirers near the end of her life. Her own pain and understanding of the Gospel had made her… Read More Dorothy Day and Taxes in a Nuclear Age
Charles Lewis. Review of The Priest Barracks: Dachau 1938-1945 by By Guillaume Zeller. National Catholic Register . Updated. “On July 20, 1933, six months after Hitler rose to power, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, and the German vice chancellor, Franz von Papen, signed a concordat — a sort of peace treaty between the… Read More Enduring Faith Amid Horror: The Priests of Dachau
No food, no water, no electricity, no escape as attacks intensify overnights Pope Francis repeated his call for a ceasefire in Gaza and called on Hamas to release hostages, invoking God, in a series of tweets addressing the conflict on Sunday. “In God’s name, I beg you to stop: cease using weapons,” Francis said. “I hope that avenues will… Read More Pope Francis has called for an immediate halt to the conflict in Gaza
National Review: “Billions of dollars of aid have flown into Gaza while it has been under Hamas’s control, but instead of going to help alleviate the suffering of its people, the money has been diverted by Hamas to fund its terror operations. The group has dug up water pipes to repurpose them as rockets to… Read More Hamas Is to Blame for Gaza’s Problems
If the West has too often acted unjustly throughout the world —and it certainly has— this fact can never make genocidal Hamas right. “Hamas never wanted peace with Israel.” The Christian Post. “It was — and is — the mission of Hamas to obliterate Israel, not make peace with Israel. As noted in an October… Read More Genocidal Hamas
“The left has really let us down.’ Why many American Jews feel abandoned Like many American Jews, Jonah Goldman sides politically with the left, including its push for the rights of Palestinians. During college, he was active in J Street, the liberal Jewish advocacy group that opposes the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and lobbies… Read More ‘The left has really let us down.’ Why many American Jews feel abandoned.
The Palestinian Argument Today. Context, 2004. Dershowitz: The Case for Israel and Palestine. Debate: Norman Finkelstein vs. Alan Dershowitz (2003). Image Source: Politico “The Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair was a public controversy involving academics Alan Dershowitz and Norman Finkelstein and their scholarship on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2005. Shortly after the publication of the book The Case for Israel, by Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, Norman Finkelstein… Read More Israel and Palestine Today. Dershowitz–Finkelstein.
— France24 Report. “Ground incursions expected”. — Israel’s high-tech spies and $1bn Iron Dome defences failed to stop Hamas massacring civilians in ’embarrassing failure’ — 12 Hours Later. Developments. — Some 300 dead and counting — Regional Leaders React. RFJ Jr. Calls for “Sustained Military Campaign” in Response to Unprovoked Hamas Attack on Israel. Kennedy… Read More Massive Intelligence Failure on Israel’s Part
“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
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
The Imaginative Conservative.Victor Orban interview excerpt. “… the Hungarian position was that there was hardly any chance that there could be a winner in this war. It will have losers, but it won’t have winners. “Russia is coming up against a brick wall, and as NATO is supplying Ukraine with weapons and money, it’s simply… Read More The Ukraine War, the Pope, & the West
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?
John Mearsheimer and Carl Bildt. Ukraine, Russia, China and the West. A dangerous time in a dangerous multipolar world. The Holberg Debate is an annual event organised by the Holberg Prize. The debate is inspired by Ludvig Holberg’s Enlightenment ideas and aims to explore pressing issues of our time. The Holberg Debate was organised for… Read More The Holberg Debate on The War in Ukraine
Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy,Jan. 20, 2023. Fr. McCarthy, born October 9, 1940, is a priest of one of the Eastern Catholic Churches, Byzantine- Melkite, in communion with the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. He has been a Catholic priest for forty years, ordained on August 9, 1981, in Damascus, Syria. He received his Bachelor of… Read More Modern Industrial War and Abortion. Updated.
Top European officials are furious with Joe Biden’s administration and now accuse the Americans of making a fortune from the war, while EU countries suffer. “The fact is, if you look at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is the U.S. because they are selling more gas and at higher… Read More Europe accuses US of profiting from war
James 4:2: “you have not, because you ask not.“ The great Doctor of the Church, Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, wrote, “The absolute necessity of prayer is taught throughout the Holy Scriptures, and by all the holy Fathers; while, on the other hand, I see that Christians are very careless in their practice of this great… Read More “Those who pray will be saved, those who do not will be lost”
By Pieter Vree, New Oxford Review “… NATO is a “done deal,” but Ukraine’s membership isn’t. Though the United States is “obliged” to defend NATO states, we are not required to defend non-NATO states such as Ukraine. With all due respect to Joseph Kerwin and A. James McAdams, calling Putin the next Hitler is facile… Read More So Many Hitler’s!
By Christian Oliver For Mail online.13 Dec 2022. The Pope has warned of ‘omens of even greater destruction and desolation’. The pontiff said even more dire times for humanity are set to come in the future. He was speaking at a Mass commem- orating the appearance of Mary in 1531 The Pope has offered a harrowing vision of… Read More Pope warns ‘omens of greater destruction and desolation’ for mankind
The will to power and the privatio boni — St. Augustine “… the worshipers and admirers of these gods delight in imitating their scandalous iniquities, and are nowise concerned that the republic be less depraved and licentious. Only let it remain undefeated, they say, only let it flourish and abound in resources; let it be… Read More Augustine and the Nihil
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
U.S. Policy & “West’s False Narrative” Stoking Tensions with Russia, China”. Biden. Pelosi visit to Taiwan… “…U S. is driving us all to the hegemonic precipice with enthusiasm”. Jeffrey Sachs, whose new article is headlined “The West’s False Narrative About Russia and China.” Sachs says the bipartisan U.S. approach to foreign policy is “unaccountably dangerous… Read More Sachs: U.S. “Driving World to Precipice”
Thomas Reeves, the author of “America’s Bishop,” a biography of Fulton J. Sheen, tells of Sheen’s concerns regarding what he saw as the accelerated secularization occuring during WWII. Reeves mentions in particular the bishop’s 1944 book Seven Pillars of Peace where the subject is treated. This secularization involved the breakdown of the family which Sheen… Read More Bishop Sheen, Rosie the Riveter, and the War’s Greatest Casualty
(CNA) Pope Francis has said that he will not visit Ukraine right now, but he would like to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow if the Russian president is willing. In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, published May 3, the pope said that he asked Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin about 20 days… Read More Pope Francis wants to meet Putin in Moscow. Blames NATO For Starting The War
Statement on the Ukraine conflict – A Call to Peace and End to War. Los Angeles Catholic Worker. “We are anti-war. We believe war is a moral failure stemming from our unwillingness to actively work for peace. From the individual to the collective national level, the prioritizing of shortsighted self-interest has created this crisis. Victims… Read More The Russia – Ukraine Tragedy
Breaking Points: Matt Stoller…. Thank, Joe: — March 8. “CBS, MSNBC Thirst for War With Russia“
“From free speech to “spheres of influence” to our passion for endless war, we’ve become the doublethinkers 1984 predicted…A healthy person should be able to be horrified by what’s happening in Russia and also see a warning about the degradation that ensues from using “pre-emptive” force, or from trying to control discontent by erasing expressions… Read More Orwell Was Right –Matt Taibbi
Msgr. Timothy Verdon, the director of the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, told CNA “The images of suffering that the Pietà always implies I think will deeply touch people. I think that visitors will be moved to see these works,” he said. The image of the Pietà evokes “the personal suffering of mothers who hold their… Read More How Michelangelo’s 3 Pietàs speak to a suffering world
Catholic Critique 