thoughts in and out of season
In comments on a recent entry, David Sucher was quite skeptical that either modernist urban design or its contrary has anything to do with religion or general political divides like liberalism and conservatism. He also wanted to know just what I meant by “modernist urban design.” Since the issues are interesting, my views need … More ...
Judging by what people who aren’t Abe Foxman have taken away from Mel Gibson’s new movie, it seems to me it would better serve peace and understanding if Foxman would drop his campaign against The Passion of the Christ. The events surrounding the death of Christ are central to Christianity. To the extent the … More ...
A slice of life from never-never land: Trusting priest was betrayed. A Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Cleveland, “known as a gentle man—a vegan, yogi and massage therapist,” was arrested for growing marijuana in the rectory. His friends blame the misfortune on betrayal by a drifter the priest had taken in and … More ...
Another priority for paleo (or traditionalist) conservatives should be making connection with other tendencies of thought that are based on some of the same concerns and understandings. If trads and paleos are on to something real about modern life, they won’t be the only ones to notice it.
One connectable tendency is the New Urbanism… More ...
To interrupt the doom-and-gloom for a moment, here’s an interview with Catholic Hollywoodist Barbara Nicolosi that’s a good read and actually rather inspirational. It seems she’s managing to close the gap between uncultured Evangelical intensity and accommodationist post-Catholic worldliness among Christians associated with the entertainment biz.
I got the link from Kathy Shaidle’s Relapsed Catholic… More ...
This somewhat rambly first-person account repeats the familiar complaint that the vocational gatekeepers in most American dioceses aren’t looking for priests of integrity and orthodoxy, they’re looking for someone who’ll fit into their feminized and bureaucratic idea of FutureChurch: If You’re Not a ‘Nice Guy’…. In a section on “The Right Kind of Guy” … More ...
From Newman onward, the chief sensation many converts from Anglicanism to Catholicism have had when looking back at their old communion is amazement at its utter nothingness. Converts’ views aren’t always fair, but it does seem that the habitual accusations against a serious enterprise would involve something worse than general dottiness. An recent example: the … More ...
I pointed out a while back that the claim Islam needs a Protestant Reformation is just silly: they’ve already had their Reformation, and it gave the world Wahhabism. A Catholic professor of philosophy has taken a similar idea and developed it in connection with Hayek’s conceptions of tradition and the rule of law: Does Islam … More ...
How the Council seemed to some at the time: Gregorian Chant Strangled in its Own Cradle. To the young monks of a Benedictine monastery in Rome, Vatican II meant that it was a religious duty to toss away everything to which they had been brought up in the Church for the sake of imitating … More ...
A concrete result of the destruction by the Derrida virus and related strains of the ability to think like a normal human being: Hanging Corpse Admired as Sculpture on Campus. It was for this, it appears, that the Hungarians overthrew communism.
I find it extraordinarily illuminating to view modernism and postmodernism as collections of … More ...