“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. It is also important to stress that the Church does not pass a scientific judgment on capitalism…the Church passes an ethical judgment. It says:… Read More Capitalism is the 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 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
“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 last point. They also understood that an economic elite… Read More What Marxism Got Right
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. For example, Farming has always meant hard work, and those who farm today, even in America, often work… Read More Those Awful Middle Ages
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.
I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve heard or read of people blaming their personal troubles, failures or psychological stresses on “Catholic guilt” in the last 40+ years. It is as though the Church is the great rain cloud ever shadowing the grand Mardi Gras that so many expect life to be. All that… Read More Truth and “Catholic Guilt”
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 An Economics of Justice and Charity
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.
No Socialism Here. Only Simple Justice. 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
“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
“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
Good Fences, Shared Bounty Can it ever be wise to separate compassion, reasonable limits and common sense? If you have seen the movie Syriana you will have gotten a glimpse of the fears, greed and fanaticism which, often enough, make many peoples both in the West and the Middle East more than a little uneasy of… Read More Immigration, Birds of a Feather and Trojan Horses
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
—And Stephen Kotkin on Solzhenitsyn’s enormous impact (2019)
Henry I’s date of birth is generally accepted as 1068 AD. The location of his birth is most likely Selby, located in Yorkshire. — Ancient Origins History. According to English historian David Starkey, Henry I (1065-1135) upon finally becoming king of England promptly investigated complaints of “galloping inflation,” since the entire prosperity and stability of the… Read More ‘Twas Thought A Fair Price to Pay for Galloping Inflation
Catholic Critique 