It was Aldous Huxley who, very early, saw sexual decadence combining commercial interests with political manipulation in the emerging media. And he knew what that would mean for a culture. “Aldous Huxley in his 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World depicts a culture in which pleasure is compulsory and engineered to eliminate intellectual challenge and to… Read More Aldous Huxley, Sex, and Corporate Psychological Manipulation
The Gospel according to St John, read by Sir David Suchet. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God; 3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. 4 In him was life,[a]… Read More Beginning Again. In the beginning.
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
A fireworks of metaphors employed in quest to assess its place in Catholic history. Then there is Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne who (Oct. 8) thinks “The assembly that Pope Francis opened in Rome last week is radical, though not in the sense that his right-wing critics have in mind. Its purpose is downright… Read More Theologians See Trainwreck in Synod of Pope Francis.
… or of Scientistic Transhumanism? Eva Vlaardingerbroek and millions of young people around the world are waking up to the threats of scientism, what Vlaardingerbroek rightly calls the “poisoned chalice of history”. Note: Living in New Time. Christians believe history is going somewhere. If man (m/w) is not allowed to flourish as the Image of… Read More Man as Image of God?
Sunday Times Bestseller by Nigel Biggar. A new assessment of the West’s colonial record. “In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1989, many believed that we had arrived at the ‘End of History’ – that the global dominance of liberal democracy had been secured forever. Now however, with Russia rattling its… Read More Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning
“For the first time in over fifty years, a Catholic bishop has published his own comprehensive presentation of the Faith–what to believe, how to live, and how to pray as Christ taught. Sure to be a classic for generations to come, Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith offers a clear and readable summary of Catholicism… Read More Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith. Athanasius Schneider.
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
USA Today: “If you care about democracy, or about abortion rights or about the lives, freedoms and well-being of LGBTQ+ friends and loved ones, this past week was important… If you see former president and current criminal defendant Donald Trump and his MAGA movement as a dishonest, disingenuous threat to America, if you believe religion… Read More How the Left Defines “Democracy” in One Paragraph
Vatican synod ends without clear stances on women deacons, LGBT. AMERICA MAGAZINE : Gerard O’Connell “… There was a section on truth and love where the document talks about controversial issues and how to address them. In that section, the term L.G.B.T. doesn’t specifically appear. What do you see [that] is addressing that issue? Because… Read More Progressives Scramble to Explain Absence of LGBT in Final Synod Document
And he gave as good as he got 🪓 It is bizarre to hear how little the otherwise impressive English historian Tracy Borman seems to know about the Catholic theology of Indulgences, medieval and otherwise. It would have been better to consult the turn of the century Catholic Encyclopedia online or the Catho!ic Answers website… Read More An Axe to Grind. Cromwell’s Cynical Propaganda.
“… will face a canonical process over allegations of sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse against women religious, the Vatican announced Friday, in an apparent about-face. The Vatican has not formally specified the charges Rupnik will face, and the Vatican’s press office has declined questions on its statement. null The Holy See press office said Oct. 27… Read More Pope Francis waives statute of limitations in cartoonist Rupnik case
“Remember all those ingrained habits, cherished ideas, beloved objects, and stubborn preferences from the pre-Internet age? They’re gone. To some of those things we can say good riddance. But many we miss terribly. Whatever our emotional response to this departed realm, we are faced with the fact that nearly every aspect of modern life now… Read More 100 Things We’ve Lost to the Internet
Update: Without prejudice to the objectionable personal belief system of Jeffrey Sachs, noted below, there appear to have been developments in the political significance of Sachs: + Insider turned political heretic, Jeffrey Sachs, in discussion with Tucker Carlson (August 2024) ~~~ Pope Francis names Jeffrey Sachs to Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences —May 2023: Sachs on… Read More Jeffrey Sachs. Who he is ideologically and Why It Matters
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.
“Pat Robinson has written in a book a few years ago that we should have a world government but only when the Messiah arrives. He wrote that that literally any attempt to receive world order before that time must be the work of the devil. Well, join me I am glad to sit here at… Read More Walter Cronkite, World Government and Satan
Ron Paul. “On the eve of what was to be a highly-scripted visit by President Biden to Israel and Jordan, an apparent bombing of a hospital in Gaza tore the plan to shreds as anger at Israel and the US exploded in the region. The Arab leaders he was scheduled to meet in Jordan all… Read More Biden’s Highly Scripted & Disastrous Middle East Trip.
Solène Tadié Vatican October 17, 2023 NCRegister. “Eight years after a footnote in one of Pope Francis’ signature documents appeared to open the door for divorced-and-remarried Catholics to receive Communion while remaining sexually active, a new round of public conflicts over its doctrinal legitimacy has exposed just how unsettled the issue remains at the highest levels… Read More Cardinal Müller: Latest Vatican Guidance on Divorce-Remarried Communion Represents a ‘Rupture’ With Church Teaching
‘In him we live and move and have our being’…‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ — Acts 17:28. A Breviary of Philosophy from the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas by Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper. The Creature is vanity in so far as it comes from nothingness, but not in so far as it is an… Read More St. Thomas On Being and Nothingness.
By Joseph Pearce “…In the world before religion was banished by the new godless creeds of secularism, there were no labor camps, no concentration camps, no gas chambers, no blitzkrieg, no Hiroshimas or Nagasakis. And yet the new atheists, proclaiming the creed of “progress,” have the sheer temerity and audacity to claim that religion and… Read More G.K. Chesterton and the Meaning of Progress
“The world is the theater of God’s glory—says Calvin, following Augustine. Man is the witness of the great acts of God, and “has to express what he has seen.” It is a great conception, but it is inadequate. I like better St. Irenaeus, who brings it even closer: Man himself is the glory of God,… Read More Theater of God’s Glory by Thomas Merton
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.
Or, there are many ways to resent and persecute that which is hated. Originally Titled: Modern Art. The Goldsmith Company Lecture David StarkeyGoldsmith Lecture2017 The Inquiring Mind writes “Starkey is in great form in this lecture where he excoriates conceptual art “For the inaugural Goldsmiths’ Company lecture, Dr. David Starkey spoke on the subject of… Read More How Modern Art Took a Dump on Christian Western Civilization
“THIS IS A question which has, in a sense, a frantically comic side. For the real question is not what are we to make of Christ, but what is He to make of us? The picture of a fly sitting deciding what it is going to make of an elephant has comic elements about it.… Read More What are we to make of Jesus Christ? by C.S. Lewis.
What the bee teaches us about meditating on spiritual things. “Meditations, properly so called, are certain considerations by which we raise the affections to God and heavenly things. Now meditation differs therein from study and ordinary methods of thought which have not the Love of God or growth in holiness for their object, but some… Read More St. Francis de Sales on Meditation
— 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
Calls for “an ecology of the human being”. BBC: “Pope Benedict has called for “an ecology of the human being”. Pope Benedict XVI has suggested that the need to save mankind from a destructive blurring of gender roles is as important as saving the rainforests. He explained that defending God’s creation was not limited to… Read More Pope Benedict XVI Laments Blurring of Genders. 2008.
Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register writes, “Pope Francis appears to open the door to same-sex blessings in his response to dubium no. 2, saying that priests may use their discretion in giving such blessings, so long as they don’t imply a same-sex union is equivalent to a heterosexual marriage: a) The Church has… Read More Francis Appears to Open Another Door
Trent Horn: “A lot of people think St. Francis of Assisi was just a hippie who preached the “serenity prayer” to animals. But did you know St. Francis actually preached on the fires of hell and didn’t say many of the sayings we attribute to him? It’s time to meet “the real St. Francis”! “…What… Read More The Real St. Francis
The Beginning of a Journey.And We Are Not Afraid. Paul Kingsnorth, Nicholas Roerich. I have a hut in the wood, none knows it but my Lord; an ash tree this side, a hazel on the other, a great tree on a mound encloses it … A little hidden lowly hut, which owns the paths that… Read More Lives of the Wild Saints
Edward Pentin.Vatican.October 2, 2023. VATICAN CITY — Five cardinals have sent a set of questions to Pope Francis to express their concerns and seek clarification on points of doctrine and discipline ahead of this week’s opening of the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican. The cardinals said they submitted five questions, called dubia, on Aug.… Read More Cardinals Send ‘Dubia’ to Pope Francis Ahead of Synod on Synodality
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his… Read More If We Say
“… It is not money that takes people away from the Church but classical liberalism, which commodifies everything. Poland is interesting in this regard, as just over half of the Catholic population still attends Mass, and there is a strong rural and traditional element there. It would be interesting to see where Hungary lands in… Read More Wealth, Greed and Hubris
Era of the Traditional Family Over in America Recent Survey Suggests| National Catholic Register “The family used to be the core unit of society. Increasingly, it’s now a lifestyle choice. And troublingly, the Americans who could benefit most from the stability of marriage and family life — working-class individuals and those without a college degree —… Read More Sign of the Times: The Traditional Family.
“For more than 50 years, the vast majority of the world’s most prominent archaeologists and historians have proclaimed that there is no hard evidence to support the Exodus story found in the Bible. In fact, they say that the archaeological record is completely opposed to the Bible’s account. This view of extreme skepticism has spread… Read More The Exodus: Patterns of Evidence
By Laura Loker.The Pillar. America is facing a crisis of loneliness. With nationwide declines in social connectivity, even the U.S. surgeon general is concerned about the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation” facing Americans. And Catholics are not exempt from the crisis. But parishioners at St. Thérèse Little Flower in South Bend, Indiana, might just have… Read More Household’ gatherings offer intentional community at South Bend parish
The final phase of the Synod of Synodality will begin in October. Among the 400 participants (cardinals, bishops, lay people and religious) will be the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller. Interview with Cardinal Müller: Q- This coming October, the final phase of the Synod on Synodality… Read More Cardinal Gerhard Müller: “whenever Popes have felt or behaved like politicians … “
Evangelical Protestant Michael Jones explains here
Christs love and service to all, to native born and to foreigners whom we encounter. The Order of Saint John, more commonly called the Order of Malta, lived by its credo, “Our Lords, the Sick and the Poor.” The members of the Order make a promise upon investiture to serve, to the best of their… Read More “Our lords the sick and the poor.”
