“The Russian intelligentsia produced a faith based upon a strange syllogism: ‘Man is descended from the apes, therefore we must love one another.’” — Vladimir Solovyev. On Lenin’s desk in the Kremlin there stood, for most of the years he worked there, a strange bronze statue of an ape gazing with an expression of profound… Read More Lenin, the Ape and the Skull
Dr. Larry Chapp and Dr. David Deane “Everyone knows there is a “crisis” in the Catholic Church and in the world around us. Some say it is capitalism gone wild. Others say it is the decay of tradition, family, and objective truth. Still others say it is the rise of radical, reactionary conservatism. Though all… Read More Nietzsche and the Crisis in the Church and World
2 Corinthians 11:3 “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if some one comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received,… Read More Judas, The Third Temptation, and the Social Gospel — Fulton J. Sheen
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
Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation. The phenomenon of Allen Ginsberg by Bruce Bawer, The New Criterion On Allen Ginsberg’s poetry, 1985. I’m so lucky to be nutty.—Allen Ginsberg, “Bop Lyrics” (1949) The very first poem in Allen Ginsberg’s Collected Poems 1947-1980 [1] seems, in a way, to prophesy Ginsberg’s entire career. It is titled “In Society,” and it dates… Read More “You can see God by sniffing the gas in a cotton.” — Allen Ginsberg
When a friend called me this morning with the news that Susan Sontag had died at the age 71, just about the first thing I thought was, “well, we’ll have a huge, hagiographical, front-page obituary tomorrow in The New York Times.” Check to see if I am correct. In the meantime, as you prepare yourself… Read More Susan Sontag: a Prediction by Roger Kimball. 2004
A Strategic Blunder disguised as strength “… North Korea, the only nation conducting actual nuclear tests in recent years, is hardly the standard by which America should calibrate its strategic posture. What Trump has done, whether intentionally or not, is hand a propaganda victory to Beijing and Moscow while potentially accelerating the very nuclear competition… Read More Trump’s Nuclear Testing Blunder
The events of 1968 had a strong bearing on his shift to a more conservative outlook. Excerpted from “POPE BENEDICT XVI: A Biography of Joseph Ratzinger.” (c) 2000 by John L. Allen, Jr.The Continuum. Joseph Ratzinger arrived at Tübingen [University] in 1966, still enthusiastic about the promise of Vatican II and ready to take his… Read More How the ’60s Changed Ratzinger
“In different places over the years I have had to prove that socialism, which to many western thinkers is a sort of kingdom of justice, was in fact full of coercion, of bureaucratic greed and corruption and avarice, and consistent within itself that socialism cannot be implemented without the aid of coercion. Communist propaganda would sometimes include statements such as ‘we include… Read More Socialism in Dreams.
“God is dead but given the way of men there may be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we will have to vanquish his shadow, too.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, # 109 At the very dawn of the 20th century, on 25 August in the year… Read More “Straying, as through infinite nothingness”: The Collapse of Nietzsche
Philosopher Nikolai Onufriyevich Lossky (1870-1965): analysis of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s complex views on socialism. While Dostoevsky supported just economic arrangements for workers and the peasantry, he also vehemently rejected the atheism and materialism that underpinned so many socialist ideals. Russia’s great writer was a prophet, right down to foreseeing famine, cannibalism and the deaths of 100 million people that would characterize twentieth-century… Read More Dostoevsky on Socialism
Understanding the Epistemological Foundations of Scientific Totalitarianism. by Phillip D. Collins. Scientific totalitarianism is certainly not a new topic in the halls of political science and history. Given its bloody legacy of democide (i.e., state-sanctioned genocide, mass murder, and politicide) and its prolific spread throughout the world, scientific totalitarianism remains a preoccupying sociopolitical phenomenon of… Read More The Faustian Face of Modern Science
Update: July 2025. Did Pope Francis Mislead the Church Regarding Traditional Latin Mass Survey? Traditionis Custodes: Taking a Bulldozer to an Anthill. Traditionalists and Pope Francis by Pieter Vree, editor |New Oxford Review, October 2021. “Nobody comes out clean…” In January 1985 President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, signed the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits federally… Read More Traditionis Custodes. New Oxford Review.
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
David Starkey tracks the history and influence of the Dada movement of art and its influence in modern culture and life through his experiences with the Royal Academy. BBC: December 3, 2004. An autographed gentleman’s urinal has been named the most influential modern art work of all time. “Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, which shocked the… Read More April is the cruellest month
From the December 2024 New Oxford Review symposium Catholics and Political Life. 1. It is hard for me to understand how a nation can be an experiment. Such a notion presupposes that the United States is not actually a nation but an idea, something that underlies our many attempts, from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush,… Read More Thomas Storck on the American Experiment
See also The Drama of Atheist Humanism Ignatius Press Fulton J. Sheen: “The Roots of Democracy and Peace. The word “crisis” in Greek means judgment. A crisis in history is therefore a “verdict of history” upon the way any given civilization has lived and thought, married and unmarried, bought and sold, prayed and cursed. That… Read More Democracy. Philosophies At War. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.
by Peter Hitchens. Has the mass murder of Europe’s Jews eclipsed the other significant horrors of Hitler’s Germany? Does it matter? And is it possible to address this without being accused by the thought police of belittling the Holocaust? Let me try. These questions are raised in the greatest film released in the past year, Never… Read More Hitler the Progressive
Before there was Gloria Steinem or Michel Foucault, there was Dada. And it was deadly serious. Kickoff, Demolition time. “Dada thrives on contradictions. It is creative and destructive. Dada denounces the world and wishes to save it.” So says one narrator of journalist-filmmaker Mick Gold’s Europe After the Rain, a 1978 Arts Council of Great Britain documentary… Read More 1914. Europe After the Rain.
There are plenty of good reasons to abandon the teachings of Karl Marx. by Jarrett Stepman.The Daily Signal | July 13, 2020. Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German philosopher, economist, and sociologist whose writings formed the basis of modern communism. Here’s What You Need to Remember: By the standards of modern “anti-racist” ideologies, Marx, Engels, and the whole… Read More Karl Marx’s Racism
The New Criterion.June 2024. Later in this issue, Gary Saul Morson writes about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s masterwork The Gulag Archipelago. Much of that book is devoted to the details of the dehumanizing brutality of the Stalinist regime: its terrifying sadism and staggering assault on basic human dignity. The Stalinist horror show, in which terror was perfected in… Read More Lenin everlasting. On the totalitarian’s continued relevance.
Right-Wing Extremism, Gov’t Report Warns… Feb. 2023. Author Douglas Murray published a scathing review of the British government’s counter-terrorism Prevent program, which has apparently reported that authors like George Orwell, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis can radicalize readers. In his column, Murray described how Britain’s Prevent program was founded to support counter-terrorism efforts, but has gradually… Read More Reading ‘Lord Of The Rings’ And ‘1984’ Could Lead To…
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
Du Bois: “Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature. He was simple, calm and courageous. He seldom lost his poise; pondered his problems slowly, made his decisions clearly and firmly; never yielded to ostentation nor coyly refrained from holding his rightful place with dignity. He was… Read More W.E.B. Du Bois and Khrushchev on Stalin
The Real Mao and China. Steven W. Mosher knows Maoism well. “As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin, and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions.” This is certainly true of the leaders of… Read More An Interview on Mao’s Evil. Steven W. Mosher.
There is scarcely a Catholic philospher (of the Left especially) who does not consider the Catholic apostate Martin Heidegger a brilliant philospher whose teachings in no small way show us the way out of the restraints of biblical literalism and philosophical realism (in other words, the Christian revelation of God in Christ Jesus, the Incarnation),… Read More Heidegger in Ruins
…the words of Benedict XVI in 2015, two years after his decision to resign due to failing health and insomnia. “As one sees the power of Antichrist spreading, one can only pray that the Lord will give us mighty shepherds to defend His Church against the power of evil in this hour of need.” It… Read More Rod Dreher on Benedict XVI and the Power of Antichrist
Jason Whitlock. Jason Lee Whitlock (born April 27, 1967) is an American sports columnist, podcaster, and former football player. He hosts a program for the conservative media company Blaze Media titled Fearless with Jason Whitlock. Whitlock is a former columnist at The Kansas City Star, AOL Sports, Foxsports.com, and ESPN. He was a radio personality for WHB and KCSP sports stations in the Kansas City area. Whitlock played Division… Read More Evangelical Sports Columnist and Activist Call Out “Catholic” President
The Compassionate Paradise of Antichrist. Jesus said, “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” — Mt. 24:12 Dark, ghoulish films, television, news and “entertainment” with heavy does of sexual content accent increasing loneliness. —First, Ross Douthat. What Euthanasia Has Done to Canada. And Elsewhere: State suicide for depressed now normal… Apr.… Read More Why is Canada euthanising the poor?
Only Christians know what this “rabbit hole” really is, and how deep it goes. The biblical view of history alone (which the writers of The Matrix could only incompletely sense in some aspects), tells what is happening in its revelations about both good and evil —and where history is headed. WSJ: “The 1999 sci-fi classic… Read More WSJ: “25 Years Later, We’re All Trapped in ‘The Matrix’”
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?
BNN: “The 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) is set to commence on January 15, 2024, in Davos, Switzerland, under the banner of ‘Rebuilding Trust’. This pivotal event aims to delve deep into the potential of burgeoning technologies, their influence on global decision-making, and the forging of worldwide partnerships. The Forum’s Participants and Agenda… Read More Rising: “WEF Promises ‘New Order,'” Restricting Speech.
“The order marked for destruction can be summed up in one word: Europe—the intellectual and spiritual synthesis of Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem. The new totalitarianism proceeds by negating every form of transcendence, especially the religious truth and universal reason which Del Noce calls “Platonism.” It reconceives reality as “a system of forces, not of values.” Being… Read More Del Noce on Liberalism & the Scientism of Marx
Brother Gabriel of St Mary Magalene, 1953, writes, “There are many who desire to make progress in the spiritual way and constantly entreat God to draw them and let them advance to this state of perfection [the state of union], but when it pleases God to begin to bring them through the first trials and… Read More The Temptation to Escape The Cross
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
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
As a Christian I’ll eagerly go as far “Left” as seeking to meet the needs of a person’s physical hunger, injury or homelessness; but never so far “Left” as approving absolute “equality” (so-called “equity” today!) in wages; or approving promiscuous immigration, or the supposedly “equitable” availability of abortion, automobiles, personal video games, pornography, sex changes,… Read More Going Left
“… In March of this year, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, signed a $389-million supplemental budget bill that included a $1-million “public awareness campaign focused on the dangers of crisis-pregnancy centers and pregnancy resource centers.” It’s unclear how the state is planning to use the funds, as CNA inquired with the governor’s office but… Read More Massachusetts Pregnancy Centers Form Alliance in Face of Campaign Against Them
“The visionary chemist Sidney Gottlieb was the CIA’s master magician and gentlehearted torturer – the agency’s “poisoner in chief.” As head of the MK-ULTRA mind control project, he directed brutal experiments at secret prisons on three continents. He made pills, powders, and potions that could kill or maim without a trace – including some intended… Read More How Evil Thee, Sidney? How Evil We?
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