America as God’s Kingdom on Earth

Further to my previous forum topic on this (back in the old forum, here), where I mentioned the increasing incidences of neoconservatives regarding Bush or America itself as the Messiah (such as in this image or the image described here), now some neo-cons have taken Johnny Cash’s song about the Second Coming of … More ...

Catholicism and social justice in America

Here’s some background on how the American Catholic bishops came to sound collectively like standard-issue leftists, except on the issue of abortion: Social Teachings at Risk in the American Catholic Church. The piece is a collection of notes and snippets from a book by Michael Warner, Changing Witness, Catholic Bishops and Public Policy, 1917-1994More ...

Political modernity and Vatican policy

Here’s an interesting analysis of the outlook behind recent Vatican policies regarding Church, state, democracy, human rights and whatnot: What Kind of Caesar?. According to the author, Russell Hittinger, traditional Catholic teaching assumed that the state has a necessary sacral dimension—all authority, after all, is from God—and naturally wanted that dimension to be Catholic. … More ...

An interesting analysis by Mark Richardson and, if I may, a digression of my own

Mark Richardson, in [url=http://www.ozconservative.com/arewomenbetter.html]commentary[/url] on a Vatican position paper dealing with central issues of women’s lib, expresses appreciation (which is persuasive and gratifying to read) and also undertakes highly intelligent critique.

Mr. Richardson’s essay analysing this Catholic document serves, for me, not only its stated purpose but an additional very different purpose. To me, it … More ...

British Navy permits devil worship

(Linked at RelCath: this story.)

So this is what pluralism has brought us to; where we can’t find anyone in authority with the cojones to just flat-out say certain beliefs are wrong, period – you’d think they’d be able to justify it on the basis that Satanists are too individualistic, and focused on self-gratification, … More ...

Some excellent recent comments touching on the idea of the nation-state

(I feel the legitimation of the tribe and the nation-state are among the central ideas of tradconservatism. One reason these ideas aren’t “racist,” of course, is they apply to all tribes and nation-states.)
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[url=http://www.ozconservative.com/changingnations.html]Here’s[/url] Mark Richardson:

[i]”What forms the basis of a national identity? Conservatives would answer that ethnicity does. Real historical ties of … More ...

Was Karl Rove behind this?

On the whole, I find the Guardian a summation of the worst features of the intellectual Left gone mainstream and become dominant: smug, ignorant, narrow, self-centered, unimaginative, intolerant, and sometimes—whether it’s a cause or effect I don’t know—downright evil. In personal dealings with people who meet that description (mostly not leftists) I’ve noticed that the … More ...