thoughts in and out of season
Someone sent this to me yesterday: The Only Vote Worth Casting in November, a statement by Alasdair MacIntyre on the presidential election. The statement is no longer quite topical, but it’s still worth comment because MacIntyre is a distinguished thinker and his views are in line with those of many Catholics who try to … More ...
At bottom, the “culture war” is a war between subjectivism and realism: does the world we experience get its order and significance from human thoughts, feelings, intentions and actions, so by choosing our thoughts and actions properly we can bring about a new Creation, or is it what it is largely without regard to … More ...
“Faith schools”—those with a definite religious orientation—have been something of an issue in England the past several years. The issue comes out of the secular and multicultural commitments of the British state. The problem is that secular multicultural education is always bad, at least on any large scale, because schools of that kind can’t … More ...
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, 1917-1994… More ...
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 ...
This is an interesting story, given the sensitivity in the American mainstream media to concerns about anti-Semitism in general and to complaints that things are “run by Jews” in particular: Will Oscar Listen? The article, on the Academy Awards, is quite forthright on the point that Hollywood’s “Jewish roots” are the reason The Passion of … More ...
When I was an Episcopalian it seemed to me the name summed up the core belief that held the church together: they believed in bishops. It was pleasant being a bishop, it should be pleasant being a bishop, and if you didn’t go along with that you didn’t belong and you should go someplace else. … More ...
Here’s a useful summary of one basic issue involved in current religious disputes over sex and whatnot: The Ecstatic Heresy. Basically, the question is whether God is personal and can do concrete things, or an indescribable ultimate principle that can’t tell us anything definite. The former view is better for ordinary believers, because it … More ...
Here’s a brief interview with historian Thomas Madden, who makes some obvious points on what the Crusades were really like: Part 1 and Part 2. If a belated counterattack 900 years ago against Islamic military expansion and oppression is on the short list of the sins of Catholic Christendom, then Catholic Christendom looks pretty … More ...
An example of what happens if the struggle against radical Islam is recast as a struggle against “fundamentalism” (that is, against every serious form of religion): French “headscarf” law bans priests from schools. Priests wear Roman collars, after all, and Roman collars are just like headscarves. The problem’s a general one. If you combine … More ...