While every age is a mixture of blessings and hardships, good ideas or actions and bad, the Middle Ages were once depicted as especially dark. But modern scholarship has long known that is a very superficial judgment. + 25 myths about the Middle Ages You Likely Thought Were True (YouTube) For example, Farming has always… Read More Those Awful Middle Ages
Tech Moguls, Financial Elites and the Danger of Oligarchy. “What Marxism got right is this: Social classes exist; some of the time, they have some common interests that conflict with the interests of other classes; and class inequality can, if allowed to grow too extreme, become a major social problem. Conservatives once widely recognized at least the… Read More What Marxism Got Right
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” Christians and non-Christians alike. “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”— 1 Jn.1:10 All we, like sheep, have gone astray,each of us has turned to our own way; — Isaiah 53:6 “For… Read More Truth and “Catholic Guilt”
“Catholic social doctrine is neither liberal nor conservative.” As Pope John Paul II put it, the Church’s social teaching “belongs to the field. . .of theology and particularly of moral theology”— Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, no. 41. “Most of us are raised and formed in a milieu in which we receive what we call either liberal… Read More Thomas Storck on An Economics of Justice and Charity
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
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett is playing the long game. In this week’s “Interesting Times,” She walks us through the current court’s most controversial rulings, why she believes that her originalist interpretations are resistant to ideological pressures and why she’s not comfortable thinking of herself as a cultural icon. 02:04 – Balancing the personal… Read More Ross Douthat Interview with SCOTUS Justice Amy Coney Barrett
A very fine man and fellow traveler, Vermavkv Hello dear friends, Life has a way of asking us questions in moments we least expect. Recently, I came across a simple yet profound question: “What are you most proud of in your life?” At first, I thought about achievements—degrees earned, career milestones, or public recognition. But… Read More Pride in Life: My Achievements
Neither Socialism nor lassez faire CapitalismOctober 1, 2001 | By Mark and Louise Zwick The following was a talk given at the American Chesterton Society annual conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, in June 2001. Dorothy Day and G. K. Chesterton were contemporaries. Both came into Catholicism in the 1920’s, Chesterton in 1922 at age 48… Read More G.K. Chesterton and Dorothy Day on Economics
Pope Leo XIII Apostolici Muneris, December 28, 1878. As the nature of Our Apostolic office required of Us, We have not omitted, from the very outset of Our Pontificate, addressing you, Venerable Brothers, in Encyclical Letters, in order to advert to the deadly plague which is tainting society to its very core and bringing it… Read More Socialism, Communism, Nihilism: Encyclical Letter. Leo XIII. 1878.
“Since Pope Leo XIII’s landmark encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891, a significant part of Catholic social doctrine has focused on man’s economic life and the challenge of building a well-ordered society rooted in correct first principles and animated by the twin virtues of justice and charity. The Church has boldly engaged the ideologies of the modern age—not… Read More Thomas Storck on Catholic Social Justice
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
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.
NDY Joins in Statement Against Assisted Suicide for Eating Disorders August 1, 2024 The Disability Rights Organization Not Dead Yet in has joined in solidarity with over 100 other organizations and experts to release a joint statement calling on governments to halt the practice of assisted suicide for individuals with eating disorders. This statement is… Read More Disabilities Rights Organizations Fight Assisted Suicide for Eating Disorders
National Catholic Register. With a saintly long-ranging spiritual vision, Ven. Fulton J. Sheen saw the roots of today’s crisis firmly planted and growing in 1974, but he gave us an antidote. Joseph Pronechen July 29, 2018 “First of all, we are at the end of Christendom,” Archbishop Fulton Sheen solemnly said during a television show in… Read More Archbishop Sheen’s Warning of a Crisis in Christendom. 1974.
Updated. “The popular understanding of The Crusades in the West is that they involved barbaric, violent Christians invading the peaceful and enlightened Islamic world. Films like Kingdom of Heaven and Mankind: The Story of Us reinforce this narrative. But the truth is the reality of the Crusades is much, much different. In fact, it’s the… Read More “Why the Crusades Were Awesome, Actually”
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
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
How the Southern Poverty Law Center profits from intolerance. 2000, Harper’s Magazine Foundation. “Ah, tolerance. Who could be against something so virtuous? And who could object to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Montgomery, Alabama-based group that recently sent out this heartwarming yet mildly terrifying appeal to raise money for its “Teaching Tolerance” program, which… Read More The Birth of the Southern Poverty Slander Center (SPLC)
In one of Saint Therese of Lisieux’s favorite books, End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life, the author, Fr. Charles Arminjon (1824-1885) writes among many important things on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. And he draws a most important moral Gospel lesson: “There are circumstances when even… Read More Even the Wicked Are Rewarded In This Life.
“Does it make any sense today to write an encyclical to condemn communism? Or to condemn national socialism? No, they are dead, they are not the problem. Capitalism is the problem.” We must be clear. Catholic social teaching is neither capitalism nor socialism. Rocco “Buttiglione It is also important to stress that the Church does… Read More Capitalism is a Problem
Anti-colonialism was one of the dominant political currents of the 20th century, as dozens of European colonies in Asia and Africa became free. Today we are still living with the aftermath of colonialism. Apologists for terrorism, including Osama Bin Laden, argue that terrorist acts are an understandable attempt on the part of subjugated non-Western peoples… Read More History is Complex. Dinesh D’Souza on The Legacy of Colonialism
The Woke Reductionist trashing of ‘Sound of Freedom‘. “This year’s Angel Studios’ Sound of Freedom is turning heads due to it becoming a surprise Independence Day hit. Over a million tickets have been sold ahead of its July 4 release, raking in more than $10 million in pre-sales, per Deadline. The PG-13 film is based on the true… Read More Just Another ‘White Man Savior’ Film? Jason Whitlock Analyses This Trope.
The Catholic Principle of Subsidiarity is a “principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level that is consistent with their resolution. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as “the principle that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks… Read More As Government Diverts Billions to War Americans Face Trying Times & Hunger
“The Saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint is often a martyr; he is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same… Read More Saints of Flesh and Blood
From The Imaginative Conservative “Under the Law, says Aquinas, whenever foreigners wished to be admitted into complete fellowship with the Israelites, “a certain order was observed: …”For they were not at once admitted to citizenship: just as it was law with some nations that no one was deemed a citizen except after two or three… Read More Aquinas on Citizenship & Immigration
What, exactly, is a just and moral taxation going to look like? — The Distributism Review See also, What is Distributism? By Thomas Storck Neither Capitalism or Socialism Distributism and TaxationBy Andrew McInnes “To defraud any one of wages that are his due is a great crime which cries to the avenging anger of Heaven.” – Pope… Read More Distributism and Taxation.
Opinion. Is International Law True Law?27th Sept. 2021. Lawteacher.net. Western nations drag other nations before International courts but often refuse to be judged there themselves. Is this just? Just what is International Law? And a discussion of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution . International Law. “Despite the fact that international law is the… Read More Is International Law True Law?
Note: SH. Today it is States alone which consider the punishment of [political and ever-evolving moral] “sins” to be their exclusive prerogative. And these States employ the shocking punishments most liberally day after day. Countless millions have died. But there exists One who is far above and infinitely mightier than creaturely states (Exo. 3:14-17) Who… Read More God is a “Man of War”. The Problem of Violence in Scripture
Genuine Due Process, its principles theoretically still exist. Will they endure to rein in dangerous whim? Reenactment took place at Westminster Hall, Friday July 31, 2015, 6 PM. On the 31st July 2015, Westminster Hall, the Magna Carta Barons were charged with Treason for their involvement in the sealing of Magna Carta in 1215. A… Read More History: The Trial of the Magna Carta Barons.
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
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?’
Note: In The Outline of Sanity, making the case for Distributism, G.K. Chesterton argued, “They say it is Utopian; and they are right. They say it is idealistic; and they are right. They say it is quixotic; and they are right. It deserves every name that will indicate how completely they have driven justice out… Read More What is Distributism? By Thomas Storck
Press freedom groups have warned Assange’s prosecution is a grave threat. The Biden DOJ ignored them, and today won a major victory toward permanently silencing the pioneering transparency activist. In a London courtroom on Friday morning, Julian Assange suffered a devastating blow to his quest for freedom. A two-judge appellate panel of the United Kingdom’s High… Read More Glenn Greenwald: British High Court Accepts U.S. Request to Extradite Assange for Trial
This piece by Whittaker Chambers appeared in the December 28, 1957, issue of National Review. Chambers titled it Big Sister is Watching You. Several years ago, Miss Ayn Rand wrote The Fountainhead. Despite a generally poor press, it is said to have sold some four hundred thousand copies. Thus, it became a wonder of the… Read More Whittaker Chambers and William F. Buckley Jr. on Ayn Rand, 2003
“misguided anthropocentrism” Whose “New World Order”? “In what Romano Guardini calls the technocratic paradigm, Francis offers a unifying account of many kinds of insensibility: financiers ignoring the real human lives that lie at the bottom of complex mortgage refinancing schemes, corporate behemoths trashing forests in poor countries in the quest for profit, shareholders driving down… Read More Austen Ivereigh on Pope Francis and the ‘Technocratic Paradigm’
Cardinal Ottaviani, head of the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII and John XXIII, wrote in 1947: “The extent of the damage done to national assets by aerial warfare, and the dreadful weapons that have been introduced of late, is so great that it leaves both vanquished and victor the poorer for years after. Innocent… Read More “No Conceivable…Justification”. Aerial warfare’s “dreadful weapons”.
“.. why not simply turn things over to the secular court system, as has now been done, and as seems popular with so many, in the spirit of “let the secular courts clean the rot out of the church”? First, because the secular authorities will use that power to strangle the church, as is already… Read More Thomas Beckett Defended This Principle With his Life.
The Gospel of John. Chapter 1. [The divinity and incarnation of Christ. John bears witness of him. He begins to call his disciples.] [1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [2] The same was in the beginning with God. [3] All things were made… Read More The Revolutionary Mosaic Law
By a.d. 1200, Europe was in the process of changing from a medieval agricultural economy to one based upon interregional trade, which contributed to the growth of large urban centers. Many of these cities evolved from successful trade fairs established along busy trade routes. In turn, they engendered a commercial revolution that would eventually change… Read More Medieval Fun and Commerce: Trade Fairs and the Commercial Revolution
There are many people who will cite the West as something which is under threat and something for which we should be prepared to fight to defend. Depending on which defender of the West is pontificating, the threat comes from Russia, or from Islam, or from China, or from some enemy within the West itself.… Read More Is the West worth Defending? by Joseph Pearce
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