God, Family, Nation

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-19T11:01:00.000-05:00

Yes I know, I'm a few days early. However, as any reader of this blog knows, lately I've been extremely busy with other affairs. I'll admit this year in general has not been a pleasant one for me. But enough about that.

Yes indeed, it's Christmas time again, and who isn't busy this time of year? Seriously, instead of the Twelve Days of Christmas, we now have the Twelve Pains of Christmas.

Then there's the annual War on Christmas. Thanks to political Correctness, we Christians have to celebrates every other holiday except ours. I particularly like Russ Wills' take on all this, especially: "I’m a Christian. I celebrate Christmas. So have a happy Hanukkah. Have a wonderful Kwanzaa. If you’re an atheist, have a good day. I’m a Christian – will someone please wish me a merry Christmas, dammit?!"

Then there's always Mr. Garrison's particular manner of wishing a Merry Christmas to non-Christians. ROTFL!

Fr. Greeley “patronizes” Third World, oh no!

2006-12-19T10:29:00.000-05:00

This is would almost be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic. Apparently Naomi Schaefer Riley of the Wall Street Journal is extremely upset over some remarks Fr. Andrew Greeley recently made during the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion. Apparently a woman asked Greeley the now all too common question concerning the growing numbers of Christians in the Third World and how this might effect the future nature of the faith. Greeley’s response was, "We will depend on them for vitality…But they will continue to depend on us for the ideas."

Riley and others are appalled at such a remark, claiming that it’s "patronizing" towards Third World Christians (what a surprise they didn’t use the old "racist" charge).

Although how exactly these remarks were "patronizing" is not clearly explained, especially since Riley makes describes how Greeley had plenty of praise for many aspects of Christianity from this part of the world, even admitting that “[w]e have much to learn from them."

The simple truth is that Greeley admitted a basic fact that often gets ignored in most sensationalist talk about the future of Christianity; that even though much of current growth is taking place within the Third World, Europe and North America still remain the major intellectual centers of the faith, and will probably remain so well into the future.

Of course, to openly admit this simple fact goes against the current media fad that seeks to over glamorize the growth of the faith within this part of the world. All of a sudden, according to some, the Third World is the only place in the world where Christianity is really being practiced. Only they can save Christendom. Forget Europe and North America, they're a lost cause. In fact the only way these regions can be reconverted is through the massive importation of immigrants from the Third World (one especially hears this in regards to Hispanic immigration into the US). Or as Philip Jenkins remarked, soon the term "white Christian" will become nothing more than a "curious oxymoron" ("A New Christendom").

It seems that's what really made Riley and others so upset over those remarks, the fact that Fr. Greeley had to courage to challenge this all too common media cliché. Even more asinine is when one of Greeley’s critics, Timothy Shah, admits that "much of the wealth and many of the educational institutions within the major churches are located in Europe and North America."

Which only serves to beg the question, what exactly is the problem here? Did it ever occur to these people that maybe Europe and North America might still continue to play important roles within the universal Christendom? Apparently not!

Riley continues on with her charade right to the end, charging that Greeley is not being true to himself:

"Father Greeley isn't exactly known as a defender of orthodoxy, of course. But he is ostensibly a believer in the multiculturalist ethic -- hearing "people the church doesn't want to hear." Well, up to a point."

That’s complete utter nonsense. If anything, Greeley did exactly as he set out to do.

As noted above, the media has an almost excessive obsession with reporting the rise of Christianity within the Third World, and at the same proclaiming the death of the faith within Europe and North America.

Many of these sentiments were openly expressed in the aftermath of the death of John Paul II. Commentators across the spectrum were shouting about how the next pope would (or rather should) be from the Third World. The very idea of another European pope (with the partial exception of an Italian) was never heard. Perhaps it should be mentioned that Fr. Greeley was himself in favor of the election of a pope from this area of the world.

Whatever relations there’ll be between the Third World and us will be one-sided; i.e. the Third World will be the ones doing all the teaching (after all, they’re the only true Christians left in the world), and we should just do our best and obey their every command. Talk about patronizing!

Yet any kind of criticism to any aspect of this perspective is practically unheard of within many of the commentaries on this issue. So yes, Greeley did indeed give a voice to those within the Christian community who too often go unnoticed.

Despite Riley’s attempts at painting Greeley as a patronizing racist (she doesn’t call him that, but it most certainly is implied), the fact remains that the man is a staunch defender and advocate of Third World Christianity. However, unlike most other advocates, like Philip Jenkins (the most famous example), Greeley clearly has more honesty in refusing to dismiss European-based Christendom as completely irrelevant. We have much to learn from them, but at the same time they have much to learn from us.

Perhaps there is hope that Greeley’s remarks are a sign signifying a major backlash against the constant claim that Europe and the Western world in general have no real place in the future of the Christian faith. Pope Benedict XVI himself challenged this notion, during his August interview with German reporters, explaining:

"We still need Europe, even if Europe is only a part of a greater whole…So it's important that today we don't give up, feeling sorry for ourselves and saying: "Look at us, we are just a minority; let's at least try and preserve our small number!" We have to keep our dynamism alive, open relationships of exchange, so that new strength for us comes from there."

In other words, we white European Christians are neither irrelevant nor a "curious oxymoron"; we still have much to give to the world. So the likes of Jenkins, Shah, Riley and others can go shove it!

I'm still alive!

2006-11-19T14:25:00.000-05:00

I know I know, I've been posting here rather erratically lately. What can I say, real life is constantly distracting me from blogging. I wish I could blog on a more consistent basis, but for the foreseeable future that may not be possible. And what a shame, there's so much I wish to comment on.

The fraud that are modern universities!

2006-09-01T11:09:00.000-05:00

Another sarcastic but insightful rant by Fred Reed on why universities should be abolished!

Now why should they be abolished? For one thing, to attend one is absurdly expensive and places you and your family in debt for decades to come (possibly for the rest of your life). This alone makes them an incredible scam!

Also you don't really get that much of an education anyways; you're better off just going to the local library and reading up on various topics for yourself. Interesting Fred makes mention of Mark Twain, who himself once stated "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." That pretty much is the philosophy I've followed in the several years of enduring school.

Don't even get me started about all the political correctness and cultural Marxism that prevails on most campuses these days.

Plus, you're constantly surrounded by spoiled brats who basically just want to base their life around getting drunk and having sex. Yes, there's a time and place for those things, but surely there's more to life than that. Not to mention the irresponsible manner in which university students often "party" gives off the impression that they're nothing more than overgrown kindergartners (which is in fact exactly what they are).

So yes, there are plenty of reasons why universities are complete frauds and need to be abolished. Or at the very least one should avoid attending one.

If you really wish to attend college, try going to a community college, since there are several advantages to doing so.

If you must attend a major university, then try hooking up with TFP's Student Action, which is dedicated to bringing together Traditionalist-minded students together for a common cause.

Benedict XVI on Europe's role in the future of Christianity

2006-08-30T13:25:00.000-05:00

These are some inspiring exceprts from a two-part interview the Pope did with various TV channels. You can read part one along with part two of the interview at Zenit.org.

Within the course of the interview, Pope Benedict made clear his thoughts about the important role Europe will continue to have within the mission of the universal church:

Q: Holy Father, Christianity has spread around the world starting from Europe. Now many people think that the future of the Church is to be found in other continents. Is that true? Or, in other words, what is the future of Christianity in Europe, where it looks like it's being reduced to the private affair of a minority?

Benedict XVI: I'd like to introduce a few subtleties. It's true, as we know, that Christianity began in the Near East. And for a long time, its main development continued there. Then it spread in Asia, much more than what we think today after the changes brought about by Islam. Precisely for this reason its axis moved noticeably toward the West and Europe. Europe -- we're proud and pleased to say so -- further developed Christianity in its broader intellectual and cultural dimensions.

...Europe definitely became the center of Christianity and its missionary movement. Today, other continents and other cultures play with equal importance in the concert of world history. In this way the number of voices in the Church grows, and this is a good thing.

It's good that different temperaments can express themselves -- the special gifts of Africa, Asia and America, Latin America in particular. Of course, they are all touched not only by the word of Christianity, but by the secular message of this world that carries to other continents the disruptive forces we have already experienced.

All the bishops from different parts of the world say: We still need Europe, even if Europe is only a part of a greater whole. We still carry the responsibility that comes from our experiences, from the science and technology that was developed here, from our liturgical experience, to our traditions, the ecumenical experiences we have accumulated: All this is very important for the other continents too.

So it's important that today we don't give up, feeling sorry for ourselves and saying: "Look at us, we are just a minority; let's at least try and preserve our small number!" We have to keep our dynamism alive, open relationships of exchange, so that new strength for us comes from there.

So yes, even with the growth of the faith in the Third World and elsewhere, Europe will still maintain an important place within the universal church. Even today Europe is still recognized as the intellectual leader of the Christian world.

Must a blow to those circles that insist that all our attention should be focused on the Third World, even at the expense of losing Europe.

And it seems that the man who started this whole charade, Philip Jenkins, is up to his old tricks with his newly released book The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South. According to the link, Jenkin's book about "Europe's coming religious struggle is scheduled for late 2007". Gee, I can hardly wait!

What Katrina really exposed

2006-08-29T12:43:00.000-05:00

Well it's the one year anniversary of the Katrina disaster, and it's all over the media. Great, as if all the attention given towards the annual anniversary of September 11th wasn't enough. Not that we shouldn't remember such events, far from it, but the manner in which people nowadays try to honour such events gets tedious and asinine at times. For one thing, did September 11th really need to become a holiday (Patriot Day of all possible names)? I don't recall December 7th being a holiday, even though that's the day when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Will Bush push forward a proposal to make today "National Disaster Rememberance Day" or something along those lines? I certainly hope not, but I guess anything is possible.

Of course Liberals will probably try to use this anniversary as another excuse to bash down on Bush and show how his incompetence help brought about this disaster. While there is some truth to that, it must be remembered that fault for the Katrina disaster goes well beyond Bush - it extends to whole segments of federal, state, and local authorities as well.

That was the argument put forth by Kara Hopkins' article "Fire and Rain", written in the October 10, 2005 issue of The American Conservative. Basically the whole welfare state system that had governed in Louisana and New Orleans not only proved to be too incompetent to organize an effective evacacuation of the city.; but for generations promoted social values that would've made such an evacuation possible to begin with. And course that's not just all, but more on that later.

Yet Hopkins also addresses one issue that was most certainly overlooked by the mainstream media and still is - the issue of race. Let's face the facts, the vast majority of looters in New Orleans were Black. Of course many will try to excuse that by claiming that Blacks have been victims of racism and poverty. Hopkins of course dismisses this as nonsense, stating:

"Lawlessness didn’t rule because the looters had spent lifetimes deprived of DVD players. They were out to get something for nothing—an ethic bred by years of guilty generosity prefaced on the assumption that the standard rules of social advancement don’t venture into the ghetto."

Not only DVDs, but also Heineken beer as well.

Nevetheless, it cannot be denied that issues of race came to the forefront in the aftermath of the Katrina disaster - if only because Blacks themselves chose to make it an issue. Many of sought to blame racism for the slow response to the disaster. As New Orleans evacuee Patricia Thompson stated: "No one is going to tell me it wasn’t a race issue...Yes, it was an issue of race. Because of one thing: when the city had pretty much been evacuated, the people that were left there mostly was black."

Not only that, a certain rap music video seeks to prove that George Bush Don't Like Black People. Then who could forget Louis Farrakhan's remarks about how Bush blew up the levies to deliberately drown the Black residents of New Orleans. Oh yeah and to top it all off, Mayor Ray Nagin's remarks about New Orleans being a "Chocolate City".

Of course some might want to dismiss these incidents as merely the extreme rantings of a random few. While these remarks might have been the extreme, they did expose the seemingly deep-seated sense of anti-white bigotry that appears to prevail within significant portions of the black community.

Michelle Malkin, for one thing, even exposed the open support Farrakhan enjoys among many prominent black celebrities and leaders, as was demonstrated by their widespread turnout to the Millions More gathering last October. And the names she lists are quoted directly from the official website for the gathering. Amazing!

Yet it takes little imagination to wonder what would happen if any prominent white leader or celebrity decided to openly endorse such overt racist bigotry. So clearly a double-standard is in place here, in more ways than one.

For one thing, it's perfectly alright for blacks and other minorities to embrace and openly proclaim their heritage. Yet for whites to do the same is denounced as racism and a bigotry. This is the common logic being promoted into maintstream society by multiculturalism.

After all, so multiculturalists will say, white European and European-descented peoples have contributed nothing of real lasting value to the world; only wars, slavery, and imperialism. Oh yeah and let's not forget that white Europeans imposed that intolerant faith of Christianity on the world along with it. Peoples of European-descent have nothing to be proud of, in fact they should be ashamed of themselves. There is only one proper response to such allegations - HUMBUG!

Well at least that's the most proper non-vulgar response to such allegations.

The truth of the matter is that white European descented peoples should not have to be ashamed of who they are. Yes, our ancestors committed some cruel and unfair things, but in fairness all cultures have engaged in such actions, so why single out Europeans?

Perhaps it should be noted that white Europeans weren't the only ones involved in the slave trade. In fact the African nation of Benin even admitted its key role in the slave trade and sought forgiveness for its actions. A. Peter Bailey of Vital Issues: A Journal of African American Speeche even had this to say: "There has been a tendency to blur over the pivotal role that some African chiefs played in the enslavement of African people." So there's plenty of blame to go around, but that's not even the point here.

To reduce the rich European derived heritage - from its origins in Greece and Rome, to the Medieval period, the Renaisance, and yes even the Enlightenment to some extent - to just slavery and imperialism is in the end nothing more than an atrocious act of bigotry in its truest form.

So yes, in the end Hurricane Katrine did indeed expose many things, and not just the incompetence of Bush and FEMA. It certainly did expose the deep seated racial bigotry that exists within certain segments of American society, although not exactly in the manner many would want us to think. In a terrible irony, the very people who claimed to have been the victims of such bigotry in the end were the ones who openly engaged in it. And worse off, this bigotry was only one piece in a larger puzzle.

Pope Benedict on St. Bernard of Clairvaux

2006-08-21T12:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the feast day of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who was one of the most influential spiritual teachers of the Medieval period. He remains one of my personal favorite saints and his writings have had a profound influence on my spiritual growth.

On the occasion of his feast day, Pope Benedict XVI gave his own thoughts on the importance of St. Bernard to Catholic spirituality in the modern age. Here are some excerpts:

"Among the saints of the day, the calendar mentions today St. Bernard of Clairvaux, great doctor of the Church, who lived between the 11th and 12th centuries (1091-1153). His example and teachings appear particularly useful also in our time.
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The wealth and value of his theology are not owed only to his opening new avenues, but rather on his having succeeded in proposing the truths of faith with a clear and incisive style, able to fascinate those who hear him and to dispose the spirit to recollection and prayer.

In each of his writings the echo is perceived of a rich interior experience, which he succeeded in communicating to others with an amazing capacity of persuasion.

For him, love is the greatest force of the spiritual life. God, who is love, creates man out of love and out of love rescues him. The salvation of all human beings, mortally wounded by original sin and burdened with personal sins, consists in adhering firmly to divine charity, which was fully revealed to us in Christ crucified and risen.

In his love, God heals our will and sick intelligence, raising them to the highest level of union with him, namely, to holiness and mystical union.

St. Bernard speaks of this among other things in his brief but consistent "Liber de diligendo Deo" (Book on the Love of God). He has another writing that I would like to point out, the "De Consideratione," a brief document addressed to Pope Eugene III. The dominant theme of this book, extremely personal, is the importance of interior recollection -- and he said this to a Pope -- an essential element of piety.

It is necessary to pay attention to the dangers of excessive activity, regardless of one's condition and occupation, observes the saint, because -- as he said to the Pope of that time, and to all Popes and to all of us -- numerous occupations often lead to "hardness of heart," "they are no more than suffering for the spirit, loss of intelligence and dispersion of grace" (II, 3).

This admonition is valid for all kinds of occupations, including those inherent to the governance of the Church. The message that, in this connection, Bernard addresses to the Pontiff, who had been his disciple at Clairvaux, is provocative: "See where these accursed occupations can lead you, if you continue to lose yourself in them -- without leaving anything of yourself for yourself" (ibid).

How useful for us also is this call to the primacy of prayer! May St. Bernard, who was able to harmonize the monk's aspiration for solitude and the tranquility of the cloister with the urgency of important and complex missions in the service of the Church, help us to concretize it in our lives, in our circumstances and possibilities."

You can read St. Bernard's famous treatise On Loving God online at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

Today's Catholic Cultural Heritage Image

2006-08-21T11:45:00.000-05:00

Well actually yesterday's but oh well, it's never too late to appreciate the aesthetic traditions of European Christendom!

Thank you Recta Ratio for such a beautiful picture of our Lady.

The freedoms we enjoyed back in 1253

2006-08-21T11:07:00.000-05:00

An excellent post from Traditio in Radice explaining much of the freedoms people enjoyed during the Medieval period as opposed to what we in the modern era have to face. Here's a small list of some the freedoms we would've enjoyed:

There were no written medical, financial or family records for the government or anyone else to snoop into.

Security would be a matter of closing your door.

Every major feast day on the Church calendar would be a day of prayer, celebration, and abstention/exemption from servile labour.

Most goods purchased would have been made locally by one of your neighbours or a craftsman from the nearest city.

Government welfare would not exist; begging for alms or relying on the charity of the Church would be a humbling experience, not a government entitlement.

Neighbors would not be encouraged by the government to snitch on one another.

Neighbours would actually know each other and attend Mass together.

Personal responsibility, cause and effect, and consequences of bad decisions would not be replaced by terms such as genetic defects or the results of a dysfunctional family.

The borders would be there for a reason other than to make lines on maps.

Citizens would have the right (duty) to protect their lives, families and property without fear of being prosecuted for doing so.

Most people would have their own plot of land and could not be forced off of it.

No one would pay income or property tax. Farmers would work their lord's land one or two days a week. They would have to pay tolls on major roads, but these would be travelled but rarely.

The media would consist of travelling pilgrims, peddlars, and troubadours.

Well thank God we no longer live in "the Dark Ages" anymore.

BTW, I addressed some of these issues in my post "the Myth of Medieval Totalitarianism".

The enemy within British society

2006-08-21T10:38:00.000-05:00

As you may know from watching the news lately, British authorities were able to successfully prevent what might have been the most devastating terrorist attack since 9/11. Yet the recent arrests have also exposed what a major issue that for the most part British leaders and the mainstream media deny even exists, the fact that Britain(or even Europe in general) has what Srdja Trifkovic correctly terms a "Jihadist Fifth Column" within its midsts.

Of course, Blair and the media would insist, is simply the work of a small fanatical minority. Maybe so, but there are some significant pieces to the puzzle. The fact that many of the suspects arrested not just in this case, but those also involved in the bombing of London last year, were British-born Muslims(maybe second- or even third-generation) certainly hoists severe doubts about the possibility of assimilating these people to European society.

As I stated in relation to Blair's weak response to the London bombings: "You cannot possibly expect European Christians and Arab Muslims to coexist in the same society, considering that the two faiths and cultures have been at each other's throats for so many centuries. One has to be incredibly naive to believe that they can coexist without any significant conflict."

And I'm not the first person to raise such concerns. The British writer Roger Scruton raised these exact same concerns in his book The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat. In contrasting European and Islamic values Scruton notes: "The West has consisted of territorial nations, each defined by language and a legal system. Islam, however, is universal (hence, "the rest"--and more), bound together by the Arabic of the Koran and Islamic law. The West's religion, Christianity, discriminates sacred and secular realms of authority; Islam doesn't, regarding secular arrangements as conveniences, at best, and ultimately accepting no territorial state. Westerners' loyalties historically have been national-territorial; Muslim loyalty is nonterritorial--to Islam."

The late Adrian Hastings also contrasted Christian and Islamic attitudes towards nationhood in his treatise The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism, noting that while Christianity is largely supportive of national aspirations, Islam is not.

Let's pray that now Europe's leaders will finally get the message!

Look out I'm back!

2006-08-21T10:36:00.000-05:00

Yes it's been a while since I've been blogging here for some time. I apologize to the readers of this blog for my long absence, however I'm sure you understand that as of lately many issues have come up to distract me from updating this blog.

Let's stay out of Israel's war!

2006-07-24T12:33:00.000-05:00

Concerning the recent violent clashes between the state of Israel and the Hezbollah militia stationed in Lebanon, what role(if any) should the United States play within the current conflict? My opinion is the same as Pat Buchanan's in flat out stating that "No, this is not 'our war'". It's Israel's war plain and simple. Hezbollah has attacked Israel, not America. America has absolutely no vital interests at stake within the region (unless you consider cheap oil a vital interest), so we should stay out. We already have problems in concern to Iraq, we don't need any more. Quite frankly, I feel America should not get involved in the Middle East period! It's caused us far too many unnecessary geo-political headaches.

One thing I find particularly ironic is how just a year ago, George W. Bush was praising Lebanon as a true beacon for democracy in the Middle East.

Switzerland - A Folkish model state

2006-07-12T16:51:00.000-05:00

As a Christian who believes in original sin and the fallen nature of man, I cannot believe in any form of utopia (at least one created by man himself). However, if one country in the world today represents my own socio-political idyll, that country would have to be Switzerland. Why is this so? Several reasons really...

The Swiss model of government for one thing is based upon decentralized control (in full compliance with the principle of subsidiarity outlined in Catholic Social Doctrine); which of course means that much of the power is concentrated at the local level, which helps limit the potential of the abuse of such powers. So the Swiss certainly do not have to deal with the nonsense of 'big government' that other Western democracies have to.

Also unlike other Western societies, the Swiss system of democracy works because it is built upon organic communities which are of course small and local-based. This only helps to promote a genuine sense of patriotism among the Swiss people; a sense of patriotism that is quite different from the fraud of statist nationalism, which has plagued the world for too long.

This is quite the contrast with other Western societies (especially American society), which have basically destroyed any and all organic communities on the local level through several social programs, such as suburbanization. The destruction of these natural communities has only served to further any sense of genuine patriotism and national pride within Western societies; which has opened the door to the crisis of mass-immigration and multiculturalism that plague us today.

Not only that, the Swiss military, which is based upon an armed citizenry, avoids the two statist extremes of having a professional military or conscription. Not to mention, the Swiss army altogether kicks butt!

John Zmirak, whose website I just recent added to my links, wrote an astonishing article which provides us with a very good picture of how the Swiss system operates and what lessons we Traditionalists and other folkish-minded people can learn from its example. Zmirak also makes mention of how the social and economic philosopher Wilhelm Ropke(whose ideas I've only recently became interested in) upheld Switzerland as a model of how any true free society should organize andconducty itself.

My only problem with Zmirak's article is his constant praise for "middle-class" capitalism, but I'll have to articulate that in another post.

Pope prefers Medieval music for mass

2006-07-06T18:47:00.000-05:00

[I can't say how much this makes me smile! This has to be one of the best things Pope Benedict has done for the Church so far in his pontificate. Maybe now we shall see a return to Catholicism in its true form.]

Silence modern music in church, says Pope
By Malcolm Moore in Rome
(Filed: 27/06/2006)

The Pope has demanded an end to electric guitars and modern music in church and a return to traditional choirs.

The Catholic Church has been experimenting with new ways of holding Mass to try to attract more people. The recital of Mass set to guitars has grown in popularity in Italy; in Spain it has been set to flamenco music; and in the United States the Electric Prunes produced a "psychedelic" album called Mass in F Minor.

However, the use of guitars and tambourines has irritated the Pope, who loves classical music. "It is possible to modernise holy music," the Pope said, at a concert conducted by Domenico Bartolucci the director of music at the Sistine Chapel. "But it should not happen outside the traditional path of Gregorian chants or sacred polyphonic choral music."

Read more here: Telegraph News

Many young students are choosing to stay virgins

2006-07-06T18:37:00.000-05:00

[This is certainly good news to read, apparently there's a strong minority of Christian students who are choosing to follow the path of sexual purity over against the laxed morals of today's society. Certainly they are following Pope Benedict's calls for Christians to be the 'creative minority' to help revive society as a whole.]

Students make case for virginity
A confident minority choose chastity, going against the grain of popular culture.

By Mary Beth McCauley | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

You won't find Cristina Barba's shorts advertising "JUICY" across the backside. Nor will her necklines plunge or her belly button make an appearance. And when she dates, the 22-year-old Penn State grad may part with a simple kiss. But that's it. She's saving herself for marriage and doing whatever it takes to hold true to her intentions.

Ms. Barba is an alien, it seems, in a culture draped in ever more aggressive layers of sexuality. By many accounts, the random hookup has become this generation's peck on the cheek.

According to Nichole Murray-Swank, an assistant professor at Loyola College in Maryland, general surveys as well as her own research indicate that 70 percent of 19-year-olds have had sexual intercourse. Just last month, a study in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) even called into question an earlier statistical link between virginity pledges, first popularized by Christian groups, and a delay in teen sex.

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Virgins seem to have gotten lost in the numbers. But a confident minority do still choose virginity, their decisionmaking seemingly impervious to statistical expectations or the imprimatur of popular culture.

Many of them are motivated by religious beliefs. Ms. Murray-Swank, who tracks spirituality, religion, and sexuality in adolescents and adults, has found that those who regularly worship, pray, and consider themselves religious see sexuality as part of a broad faith journey. Their views are often shaped since childhood by church and home. "Most major world religions do tend to encourage abstinence," Ms. Murray-Swank says, and the more religiously conservative the believer, the less the likelihood of sex before marriage. The correlation between abstinence and strong religious belief is "robust, persistent, and consistent over time," she says.

Paul Wiegner, like many young people, seeks to live a service-oriented life, an outlook that influences his personal relationships and his sexual activity. A student at Eastern University, a Christian liberal arts school in suburban Philadelphia, Mr. Wiegner was raised by missionary parents in Bolivia and Costa Rica, and belongs to both Baptist and Mennonite congregations. Wiegner says his pacifist, Mennonite side frames his moral decisionmaking. When asked by an 11th-grade Spanish teacher to write a personal statement, he recalls, he included the intention to save sex for marriage. "When I'm in a relationship, it's always in the back of my mind," he says.

The call to chastity is an offshoot of his attempt to model his life on Jesus, adds Wiegner, who aims to work in mediation or conflict resolution. "I've tried to center my life around serving others and serving God, and being a virgin fits into that," he says. "I don't see it as a bunch of rules to follow, but a lifestyle to lead."

Read more here: Christian Science Monitor

This blog is back!

2006-07-06T18:25:00.000-05:00

Hey, after my long absence I have returned to blogging. I must say these past few weeks have been very trying. Basically I've been going through a long bout of mental burnout. Among the most tragic events to happen recently was the sudden death of a friend I knew in childhood.

So yes, I have returned.

Catholic influence remains strong in Poland

2006-06-13T13:14:00.000-05:00

[It's very nice to see that the Polish nation refuses to forget its own rich heritage, which is strongly linked to the Catholic faith. May they be an inspiration for the rest of the European continent!]

Poland's leaders lean to the right
Catholic influence large, in contrast to rest of Europe
BY TOM HUNDLEY
CHICAGO TRIBUNE

June 11, 2006

WARSAW, Poland -- Poland could be Europe's first red state.

The 25 members of the European Union do not think of themselves in terms of blue states and red states, at least not yet. If they did, the map of Europe would have a decidedly blue hue. Even countries with conservative governments, such as France and Germany, are blue when it comes to the values debate.

But Poland cuts against the grain. Lech Kaczynski, winner of last October's presidential election, opposes abortion and gay marriage. He has told his education chief to come up with guidelines for the "proper upbringing of children." And lately, he has been spending a lot of time cozying up to conservative Christian groups.

While Christianity appears to be in a steep decline across most of Europe, in Poland the faith still burns brightly. The question is whether Poland is a quirky throwback to another era, or whether it is a harbinger of Europe's coming culture war.

Catholic values

Poland's churches are packed. Its seminaries still are churning out healthy numbers of priests. According to census data, 96% of the population identify themselves as Catholic; 57% say they attend mass every Sunday. There now seem to be as many statues of Pope John Paul II as there once were of V.I. Lenin.

Two week ago, Pope Benedict XVI paid homage to his predecessor with a visit to Poland, and Poles responded by modestly covering up some of the racier lingerie ads along the processional route. The pope's stops included Warsaw, the Auschwitz death camp and Wadowice, John Paul's hometown.

It was the late pope's fervent hope that the intense spirituality of his native Poland would spark a "new evangelization" of Western Europe. During most of his papacy, there was scant sign of that happening. But more recently Poland has emerged at the fore of a fledgling movement to restore Christian values to Europe.

"What's new in Poland is that political parties want to express their Catholicism," said Pawel Spiewak, a Polish sociologist and expert on right-wing politics.

"A few years ago, a typical Pole was Catholic in his private life. Now he's expressing it openly and wants to express it as public policy. It's atypical for Europe."

Beginning in 2003, the Polish government led the push -- ultimately unsuccessful -- to include some reference to Christianity in the new EU constitution.

Aleksander Kwasniewski, the reformed communist who was Poland's president at the time, told a British newspaper that "there is no excuse for making references to ancient Greece and Rome, and to the Enlightenment, without making reference to the Christian values which are so important to the development of Europe."

An unusual argument coming from a self-professed atheist, but Kwasniewski always has grasped the importance of religion in Polish political life.

Last year, the Polish delegation to the European Parliament made waves by setting up a display against abortion in the corridors of the parliament's headquarters in Strasbourg, France. A scuffle ensued when guards attempted to remove it.

"We follow the teachings of the church and the advice of the bishops," said Piotr Slusarczyk, a spokesman for the League of Polish Families, a conservative Catholic party that was behind the display.

Slusarczyk said the league opposes gay rights and euthanasia. It also favors large families and takes a dim view of the EU in general.

"Our goal is to defend Catholic values and to defend Poland against Western tendencies that are being promoted by a vocal EU lobby," he said.

Read more here: Detroit Free Press

A related article: "The New Europes" by Richard John Neuhaus, First Things Magazine

Why Children need to be taught manners!

2006-06-13T12:53:00.000-05:00

[Excellent article from Tradition, Family, and Property concerning the great importance of teaching children proper manners. Of course this goes against modern-day "wisdom", which teaches that manners are just a mere personal preference. Thank god my parents had the common sense to teach me manners and how to act like a gentleman.]

The Educational Importance of Manners
By John Horvat II

At first glance it might seem rather forced to make a connection between education and manners. In our secular society, manners like morals seem to be optional in the formation of youth.

It is something relegated to parents to teach children at the dinner table if and when they eat together. Manners are a feel good thing, a way to be nice to people, or maybe even a “social lubricant” that helps one get ahead but hardly an essential part of education.

If we accept the premise that education is the mere imparting of knowledge to children, then manners are indeed superfluous and really serve no purpose

However, if we believe that education involves the formation of the whole character in addition to imparting knowledge, then we must enthusiastically endorse manners as something that has an enormous educational importance.

Indeed, when we say in Spanish that a person is “educado,” or literally “educated,” it is not to say he is a Ph. D. candidate. Rather it means he is well mannered. Similar distinctions were made in the Portuguese and Italian languages which show how these traditional societies definitely made the connection. The teaching of manners was a very important part of the whole education of a child.

And so manners and education definitely do mix.

However, it would be quite premature to recommend a mandated Manners 101 course in public schools or turn an edition of Manners for Dummies into a standard textbook.

This is because manners cannot be seen as a kind of a feel-good set of rules for being nice-to-everyone or a politically correct framework for tolerating just about anything. There are those who are all too ready to spin manners into, for example, “evolution's solution to easing the stresses of communal living.”

If manners are to be taught, it must be within their proper framework. We must go beyond the rules of etiquette and into the very nature of manners themselves.

Read the rest of the article at Tradition, Family, and Property

Learning a Second Language

2006-06-12T11:05:00.000-05:00

Sorry for my relative lack of posting here, despite my promise to do so once June came around. However, have no fear, I have not given up on this blog and will continue to post more commentaries here.

For one thing, I've just recently decided to once again pick up on my personal studies of a second language. I have always been interested in learning another language, in particular Slavic languages along with possibly French. However, as an American, there are several difficulties.

Within American society there are very little opportunities to practice whatever language it is you're studying. Unless of course you're studying Spanish, in that case you have little to fear with all the Hispanic immigrants in this country. Sad but true.

Not only that, the manner in which most foreign languages are taught within American schools are not helpful for the most part. They largely focus on memorizing long lists of vocabulary and rules of grammar. It gives the appearance that learning a language is nothing but boring and methodical work.

Also, let's not forget that English is the international language of communication nowadays, which operates twofold in hindering the abilities of native English speakers in learning another language. For one, it makes it seem that learning another language is largely pointless from the English-speaking perspective. Yet on the other hand, it also means that non-native speakers are also far more determined to practice their English rather than help others learn their language. I've certainly have noticed this myself during my travels abroad or talking to people from abroad.

So yes, the odds are certainly stacked against any American trying to study a foreign language. Yet, ironically, many of these disadvantages can be helpful. Since Americans often have such difficulties in studying other languages, programs designed specifically for teaching Americans are among the best in the world!

I have heard quite a lot of praise for the Pimsleur language program. I myself have not tried it yet(too expensive at the moment) but this is what I have heard.

One website I particularly find useful is How-to-learn-any-language.com, which offers practical advice and great insights into learning several languages. I particularly found interesting(both as somebody trying to learning another language and as a Catholic) the biography of Cardinal Joseph Caspar Mezzofanti, who managed to become fluent in 38 languages without ever leaving his native land of Italy!

The Death of Statist Nationalism

2006-06-05T11:04:00.000-05:00

"The nation-state is dying. Men have begun to transfer their allegiance, loyalty and love from the older nations both upward to the new transnational regimes that are arising and downward to the sub-nations whence they came, the true nations, united by blood and soil, language, literature, history, faith, tradition and memory."

These are the words Pat Buchanan wrote in one of his most recent articles titled "The death of the nation-state". Despite some problems with the semantics Buchanan uses("older nations" vs. "true nations"), he is for the most part correct. However, does this necessarily mean the end of nations as a whole or even the concept of a nationally-based state? No, rather it means the demise of the one form of such that has long dominated the conscience of modern political thinking.

Nations, ethnicities, tribes and other communities based upon kinship have existed since the beginning of time. There is nothing incredibly modern about such forms of social organization. Almost any sincere sociologist and/or anthropologist would concur.

Although Modernist-inclined scholars(who believe nations and nationalism are constructs of the modern age) will staunchly deny this, neither is the concept of a ethnically-based state. For example, Steven Grosby has argued that the basic notion of an ethnic-based state could be found throughout the Ancient Near East in places like Egypt, Babylon, and especially Biblical Israel(which later became the major model for European concepts of nationhood).

Even during the Medieval period similar concepts forged the basis for political organization. According to Medieval scholar Susan Reynolds the basic concept behind the kingdom of the time was that it "comprised and corresponded to a 'people'(gens, natio, populus), which was assumed to be a natural, inherited community of tradition, custom, law, and descent."( Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900-1300, page 250). The late Adrian Hastings also argued that the roots of modern nationhood originated during the Medieval period.

So clearly the notion of a state being organized around an ethnic community is not new. However, all the scholars above will admit that the ancient or Medieval concept of such is remarkably different from the nation-state that we see in the modern era. So how are they different? The differences depend upon distinct theories of how governments should rule and interact with society at large.

Few people today would deny the fact that Medieval governments operated on a different basis than a modern state would. Most people imagine that Medieval governments operated on the basis of all power being centralized into the hands of the monarch, whereas the modern state operates on the principle of a division of powers between central and local authorities.

John P. McCarthy has written much on how this viewpoint is quite contrary to the historical reality. Medieval governments actually operated on a basis of decentralization, whereas modern governments operates on the basis of centralizing power as much as possible.

Now what does that have to do with nations? Well, under the Medieval system of decentralization, each subdivision of the nation(regions, tribes, etc.) was given a relative amount of political self-rule; which also implied a certain amount of cultural self-expression as well. So while there was a strong sense of national unity, it did not necessarily mean a strong sense of national uniformity. This also applied to any national or ethnic minorities that resided within the borders of a particular kingdom. So while the Medieval kingdom did correspond to a particular ethnic/national community; it was not based on the notion of complete ethnic homogeneity within its borders.

By, contrast the modern state has sought to do the opposite. By centralizing authority (in the interests of making the government more "efficient"), the autonomy and self-rule that many regions/tribes/localities enjoyed were brutally suppressed. By extension, the unique customs of such communities were also brutally suppressed; to be replaced by a more uniform sense of national identity that derived from the state rather than the natural communities that made up the national/ethnic community. National uniformity also implied the notion of national homogeneity; the results of which are all too well known.

It was this latter philosophy that governed the formation and implementation of the modern nation-state. Yet now, after so many generations of living under such a system, many communities are striking back. Communities who once had their cultures and self-rule suppressed are now demanding what is rightfully theirs. Hopefully what we are now seeing before our eyes is a return to a system more aligned with the Medieval way of governing; where each local community(ethnic, regional, tribal, etc.) is given a certain amount of political self-rule and cultural self-expression.

The nation-state is indeed dying. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Legacy of the Knight-Monks

2006-06-04T12:43:00.000-05:00

As we continue our struggle for the soul of society in what is commonly called "the culture war", it is very refreshing to note that John Hellman may have in fact provided us traditionalists with an inspiring historical model to follow in his book The Knight-Monks of Vichy France: Uriage, 1940-1945. Within its pages, Hellman takes us into the Ecole Nationale des Cadre, an elite academy set up following the French defeat of 1940 by the Vichy Regime. It's intent was to train a new generation of Frenchmen to be "the linchpin of a spiritual revolution that would restore the Catholic Church's prestige, neutralize the poison of permissive liberalism and usher in a "new Middle Ages," a communitarian, hierarchical France."

The man who headed this elite institution was a man by the name of Pierre Dunoyer de Segonzac, who was a dashing young cavalry officer. Since he came from a traditional Catholic upbringing, de Segonzac was also a man deeply interested in restoring the spiritual and cultural vitality of French society from its current decadence. In response to such a challenge, he developed the ideal of the "Knight-Monk". As the label suggests, the ideal of the "Knight-Monk" was to combine the devout piety of the monk with the chivalry and heroism of the knight; and would go out into the lions' den and convert the secularist modern world head on.

Yet de Segonzac's ideas were hardly created out of thin air. They originated with the Catholic intellectual renaissance of the early twentieth century, represented by writers like Charles Peguy, Georges Bernanos, Leon Bloy, and Emmanuel Mounier. The ideals of these men were a great influence on the community at Uriage (especially Mounier, who himself was an instructor at the academy).

The ideals promoted by the Uriage community were also based on the example of the many Catholic social and political movements that emerged throughout France and many parts of Europe during the first half of the 20th century. From labour unions to scouting movements to lay ecclesial organizations; they all sought to create newer, purer, and more heroic communities that were not spoiled by the immorality of the day.

These movements also sought to restore a more authentic way of life: with great emphasis placed on tradition, the primacy of spirituality, organic/folkish communities, and Christian heroism. Hellman goes into more details about these other movements in his book The Communitarian Third Way, which is a wonderful source on 20th century Catholic philosophy along with the political and social movements motivated by such.

Eventually in 1943, the Uriage academy was closed down by the Vichy government, and its members eventually joined the resistance. Despite its short life, however, its ideals are far from dead. With the continual degradation of our culture, the decline in moral standards, and the erosion of traditional communities and cultures through globalization; it can be argued that the ideals of the Knight-Monks are more relevant today than ever before.

Interesting enough, they still are with us in a way and continue to influence the wider Catholic community. Hellman doesn't mention this, but the ideals promoted by Opus Dei correspond very closely to those of the "Knight-Monks" of Uriage. In fact St. Josemaria Escriva founded Opus Dei around the same time that many of the Catholic social movements mentioned above were in their heyday. So the spirit of the Knight-Monks is still with us, and hopefully it will continue to grow.

So brave Catholics of the world, stand up and proudly become a Knight-Monk today!

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as models for the modern "family"

2006-05-31T19:00:00.000-05:00

[Personally I've never cared much to follow all the gossip and tabloid stories concerning famous celebrities. I for one don't even consider Angelina Jolie even that attractive, so I fail to understand all the hype that's been built around her. However, this is an interesting rant about how the current relationship between the two celebrities represent the degenerate state of the family in modern society.]

Barforama

The unwed union of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt has now become a perfect microcosm of the New World Order. They had previously adopted—adoption now being routinely allowed for unmarried couples and single persons—a boy from Cambodia and a girl from Ethiopia, and now Jolie has given birth to a child she conceived with Pitt in their unceasingly publicized and celebrated affair, which destroyed Pitt’s marriage with Jennifer Aniston. So this unmarried couple now have a “family” consisting of three totally unrelated children representing each of the major races of mankind: an African black child (though actually Ethiopians are of a distinct race from the main Negro race), a Southeast Asian child, and a white child. We thus have the self-indulgent and socially approved destruction of marriage, and of the normal human kinship ties and normal societies that organically proceed from marriage, combined with the artificial construction of a new society consisting of the color-coordinated diversity of the whole human race. To top it off, the baby was born in Namibia, Africa, where Jolie is serving as good will ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 28, 2006 02:57 PM
Source: View From The Right

Christians shaped European history

2006-05-31T18:59:00.000-05:00

"So far as Europe is concerned, [Christians] did more to shape its history than anyother single identifiable group of men and women. To find something which has an impact comparable to that of Christianity we have to look not to single events but to big processes like industrialization, or the great forces of prehistoric times like climate which set the stage for history."
-- J.M. Roberts, The Penguin History of Europe, pg. 61

Hey Democrats, how about thinking about the white working class for once?

2006-05-23T10:49:00.000-05:00

That's what Ruy Teixeira is arguing. In fact, for a long time he's been arguing this. The fact the Democrats keep ignoring what he correctly terms "the forgotten majority", the Democrats are losing their traditional support base and thus why they've been doing so poorly in recent elections. Will the Democratic leadership listen? Probably not.

As we all know, the Democratic Party still remains entrenched with its obsession with minorities and other fringe elements. They most certainly are "the coalition of the whining" as Stephen Colbert once hilariously described them during the '04 election.

Probably one of the most disgraceful incidents exposing this trend is when Howard Dean denounced the Republicans as nothing more than a "white Christian party".

I'll be the first to admit that the Republicans are hardly any better. They screw over the American people as much as the Democrats. However, they at least have the common sense to appear supportive of the needs and concerns of the "forgotten majority". Although even the Republicans in recent years have been going through their own obsession with minority voters, especially Hispanics (nevermind they still overwhelmingly vote for the Democrats). So yes, in the end, the "forgotten majority" is definately being screwed over by both major parties.

Perhaps if the Democrats wish to defeat the Republicans in the elections this year, they might wish to change all this. But we might as well spit into the wind.

Immigration is not social justice

2006-05-23T09:57:00.000-05:00

Immigration is not social justice, no matter what Cardinal Mahony says

I have been stewing about the Church's response to the sham immigration "reform" bills percolating in the Senate. This response has been led by Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles, who has never been noted for any political activism that didn't involve running interference for liberal Democrats.

The cardinal's position boils to this: the United States should abandon its southern border and let everyone in. In Mexico alone, according to a recent survey, something like a quarter of the population would move to the U.S. if given the chance. That means about 28 million people, in addition to the 11 million illegals already here.

This is not a teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. It has little to do with the Gospel. It is the cardinal's personal opinion. Let's go to the Catechism:

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.

How can immigration possibly be a "natural right" in the same sense as the right to life, if it is subject to "various juridical conditions" -- and thus can be denied if the civil authority sees fit? The answer must be that it is a conditional right, based on dire circumstance. Like the classic hypothetical situation where a man takes bread from a store to feed his family, the Catechism presumably means that a person has the right to leave his homeland if the alternative is death (which is the literal reading of "livelihood.")

Mexico is a Third World country, but they are well-off by Third World standards. They have a trillion-dollar economy, which works out to over $10,000 per capita. Compared to regional neighbors Guatemala ($5,200), El Salvador ($5,100), Honduras ($2,800), and Nicaragua ($2,400), Mexico is quite wealthy. Its citizens aren't fleeing north because they are starving, they are trying to improve their economic prospects. Big difference.

The Mexican government wants to keep exporting its poor, mainly so it won't have to undertake necessary social and economic reforms to solve its internal problems. I cannot recall the good cardinal, or any other prelate, calling on Mexico to institute "social justice" measures -- for instance, to insist on honest judges or property rights for all classes, which would help their economy immeasurably.

What about the effect on black people? They are Americans who helped build this country, contributed sons to fight and die in its wars, and have contributed heavily to the cultural life of the nation. Two-thirds of blacks are middle class or richer, but one-third aren't. They deserve prior consideration in any social decision regarding mass low-skill immigration, and their interests should be protected. Same thing with poor whites, or poor Hispanics, or any other poor person.

No matter how rich or powerful it is, the United States is a country like any other, and it has the right to require documentation of immigrants, to refuse entry to criminals, and protect its poorest and most vulnerable citizens against economic calamity. Aiding and abetting a corrupt and dysfunctional government, impoverishing the poor, imperiling our common culture -- how exactly does mass immigration further social justice?

Posted by Eric Johnson at May 16, 2006 08:44 PM
Source: Catholic Light

Taking a break from blogging

2006-05-21T13:22:00.000-05:00

Many fans of this blog may have noticed that I haven't been posting here much lately. Well there's a reason for that, I'm taking a short vacation away from blogging. It's largely due to personal reasons. Don't know when exactly I'll be back, but it should be sometime in June.

I know...I know...and there's so much that I even want to comment about!

Belgian Churches being used as Mosques

2006-05-13T09:51:00.000-05:00

Read about the story here. Sorry, I don't have much time at the moment to give a full commentary. This just goes to show how far off the wall the clergy have gone with their obsessive fetish for foreign immigrants.

Nevermind that Charles Martel, Jan III Sobieski and countless others fought hard to keep Christian Europe out of the hands of the Islamic hordes. Speaking of which, one can read my post "Charles Martel...Where are thou?", in which I deal with the issue of how thankful Europe should be that these men did indeed stop the Islamic invasion. And now these supposed "Catholic" priests betray the legacy of these heroic men! It just makes ones blood boil!

Along with the fact that last October, Muslim immigrants went on a rampage of destruction in nearby France further shows the irresponsibility of these priests. How on earth is it justified to protect people who have complete utter contempt for European culture and its spiritual foundation of Christianity, not to mention strong violent tendencies? Oh yeah, and let's not forget they're in Belgium ILLEGALLY!

Seriously, you wonder what is going through the minds of these priests!

Shelby Steele on White Guilt

2006-05-03T14:25:00.000-05:00

Despite the fact that Shelby Steele's article "White Guilt and the Western Past" is largely intended to advocate a more belligerent course of action towards the Islamic world, nevertheless he does hit on some very important points about what's wrong with Western society today; namely the fact that it refuses to acknowledge its own rich heritage and given its internal enemies the moral highground.

And he pulls no punches when exposing the cause of this self-hatred:

"After World War II, revolutions across the globe, from India to Algeria and from Indonesia to the American civil rights revolution, defeated the authority inherent in white supremacy, if not the idea itself. And this defeat exacted a price: the West was left stigmatized by its sins. Today, the white West–like Germany after the Nazi defeat–lives in a kind of secular penitence in which the slightest echo of past sins brings down withering condemnation. There is now a cloud over white skin where there once was unquestioned authority."

James Bowman's Sense of Honor

2006-05-02T12:11:00.000-05:00

The concept of honor has been at the basis of any true civilization throughout history. Over several centuries this concept governed matters of moral and social responsibilities. Yet over the past century or so, Western society has been rejecting this very concept, with the decline of cultural vitality and strength as the major result. This decline has only left the West vulnerable to attacks from Islamic fanatics (who still adhere to a primitive form of honor). If the West wishes to survive these attacks and eventually defeat its enemies, the West will have to rediscover its forgotten ideals of honor and valor. That’s the basic argument made by James Bowman in his new book Honor: A History. Within its pages, Bowman seeks to give an authoritative account of the development of Western concepts of honor and valor done through the ages: from its origins in the Greco-Roman world, to the Medieval concept of chivalry, to the Victorian gentleman, to its eventual decline during World War I to the rise of the “post-honor society” in wake of the Vietnam War and the cultural revolution of the 1960’s. Bowman then goes on to show how honor still has a place within the modern world, and it’d wise for Western society to recover at least some form of it.

Although Bowman certainly deserves credit for attempting to bring light on a matter like this to the public eye, and to especially critique modern decadence with a call for a return to forgotten principles; yet as far as this work being an actual history of the development of Western concepts of honor, it’s not too impressive.

For example, only a few pages are actually devoted to describing the concept of honor during the Middle Ages, which is perhaps the historical epoch Westerners most associate with honor. Exactly how on earth is that possible? We’re talking about the Age of Chivalry, and only five or so pages are dedicated to it!

In fact when concerning the whole history of honor prior to the 20th century, one gets the impression that Bowman only glances over it very briefly; almost as if he wants to get to the modern era as quickly as possible. Only when Bowman starts getting more and more into the 20th century and describing the eventual decline of honor and the rise of the “post-honor society” does he seem to devote any kind of real attention to the matter. Why is this? Probably due to two important factors the author mentions within the pages of his book.

Well within the introduction to the book, Bowman recalls his youthful days as an anti-war activist during the Vietnam era, lamenting the fact that he never served in the military. Furthermore, he laments the rampant decadence that was become all to prevalent within modern society and America’s supposed “weak” response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th (more on this later). So Bowman makes it clear that this book is largely intended to be a commentary on modern society rather than a full historical account of the concept of honor.

This is further proved by the fact that Bowman admits to largely disregarding most scholarship on the matter, claiming that it is too full of liberal bias. Although I would certainly agree with Bowman’s basic assessment, however I think he simply uses this as an excuse in not having to do a more thorough scholarly work and to attack those who disagree with his positions. This is particularly true when Bowman pretty much knee-jerks Leo Braudy’s From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity, for supposedly arguing that chivalry and terrorism are basically the same thing.

Yet when it comes to providing an actual detailed historical account of Western notions of heroic masculinity and its development, Braudy’s book far outclasses Bowman’s work. Yet when it comes to describing the continual relevance of such notions in current society and into the future, Bowman shows more promise. Braudy is of the common opinion that modern society has basically outgrown any real need for a heroic sense of masculinity based on honor and such. Masculinity altogether needs to be redefined. Bowman argues the opposite, claiming that such ideals still have great relevance, but yes may need to be modified a bit in order to pertain to current concerns and needs. So in a sense, both works complement each other.

Yet failing to give to a general historical account of Western concepts of honor is not the only flaw of Bowman’s book. His description of the relationship between the concept of honor and the Christian faith deserves a proper answer. Bowman at first praises Christianity for its immeasurable role in the development of Western culture. He even notes that Christianity was an important factor in making Western notions of honor far more unique from that found in other cultures. For example, the elevated status that women enjoy within Western honor is not found in other cultures, particularly the Islamic world.

Yet despite all this praise, Bowman insists that at the heart of Christianity is a bias against the concept of honor. Christian teachings go fully against everything that honor stands for; and that the advent of chivalry and eventually the Victorian concept of the Christian gentlemen were nothing than an uneasy compromise between the two ideals that was doomed to eventual failure (in World War I).

I can only say that Bowman doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The basis of the concept of honor is largely an adherence to high principles and maintaining the good will of ones peers. There’s nothing un-Christian about that. However, many times honor can too easily degrade into egotism and protecting ones pride and vanity. This certainly has happened many times throughout history, and was a major element to the pagan sense of honor. The Christian sense of honor goes on the other hand condemns this, calling for a self-sacrificial adherence to ones principles. If one must endure severe insults to ones reputation in the name of a greater cause, then so be it. The Catholic Encyclopedia goes into more details about the significant differences between the Christian and the pagan concepts of honor.

Yet it is the Christian sense of honor that Bowman seems to reject. Bowman declares that a man of honor must answer any challenge made to him, while Christian demands that a man turn the other cheek. Bowman wrongly claims that this means Christianity is pacifist in nature, it does not. CS Lewis gave wonderful insight into the question:

"Does anyone suppose that Our Lord's hearers understood Him to mean that if a homicidal maniac, attempting to murder a third party, tried to knock me out of the way, I must stand aside and let him get his victim?"

Christ’s command to ‘turn the other cheek’ does not mean that the legitimate use of violence for purposes of self-defense is not acceptable. Rather Christ is telling his followers not to take the law into their own hands. Yet according to Bowman, a man of honor is supposed to take the law into his own hands, in the practice of the duel.

There certainly is no doubt that the relationship between Christian teachings and the ideals of honor was complex, however Bowman fails to provide a proper account of it. A far better account of such is provided by Allen J. Frantzen’s Bloody Good: Chivalry, Sacrifice, and the Great War. Unlike Bowman, Frantzen actually gives accounts about how Christianity since its beginnings had a deep admiration for martial valor; which is clearly seen in Ephesians 6:10-18, where St. Paul calls on Christians to put on “the armor of God”, “the helmet of salvation”, and wield “the sword of the spirit”. Frantzen also explains in great detail the important role that Christ’s passion and death had on the development of chivalry. Frantzen also gives more detailed accounts about the Medieval development of chivalry and its 19th century revival.

As mentioned before, the main value of Bowman’s work is largely detailing the decline of honor in modern society, and how a revival of such ideals can help drag us out of our rampant social decadence. Yet even here Bowman’s analysis is highly flawed, especially when dealing with the role of honor in America’s foreign policy. Long story short, Bowman advocates a Neo-Con policy of complete aggression towards the Islamic world, and that anybody who doesn’t agree with that is basically a liberal sissy who wishes to give in to terrorists. In other words, it’s a dressed up version of the famous "Dicks vs. Assholes vs. Pussies" rant made by the character Gary Johnson in the movie “Team America: World Police”. I’m sure Bowman could’ve done much better than that.

Sadly this also destroys the potential value this book may have had. Bowman’s call for the revival of honor in the end is reduced as just another way of knocking off the liberal Democrats and an excuse for waging wars of aggression against the Islamic world. If this is what Bowman considers honor to be largely about, then count me out!

That is not to say Bowman’s book is utterly worthless, it most certainly is not. However, one has to selectively absorb what Bowman is saying in order to get a true picture of the story.

Also in fairness, at his website Bowman provides a collection of several articles and essays he’s written on the matter. In my opinion, these are of far better quality than many of the statements he makes in his book.

So in a final and ironic twist, Bowman is correct in stating the West is need of reviving its now forgotten notions of honor and valor in order to maintain any kind of strength and cultural vitality. Yet the exact form of honor that Bowman advocates to fulfill that mission may not actually be what the West truly needs right now.

An Answer to Fidei Defensor

2006-04-26T13:28:00.000-05:00

Fidei Defensor of the blog College Catholic(which is listed in my links) recently made a post countering the issue of Catholicism and immigration. Fidei Defensor was countering certain remarks made by MSNBC commentator Tucker Carlson on the issue. You can read the link to see Fidei Defensor's full post, but I wish to answer him on a few things. Don't get me wrong, I like him and enjoy reading his posts; but I respectfully disargee with his approach to this issue.

When countering Carlon's argument that most American Catholics actually oppose illegal immigration, Fidei Defensor answered:

"I am sick of pundits using polls of "American Catholics" to prove something. Not just on this issue but any, the media will say 'oh but 70% of Catholics support contraception, why can't the church be a democracy and go with that?' Then they will say that 'the Pope is stuck in the past and that the end of the Catholic Church is imminent.' Ironic considering the Church is the oldest instituion on earth and has basicaly outlasted every challange."

That's an interesting argument but ultimately it's a non sequitur. The Church's opposition to contraception is based on basic Catholic doctrine. The same cannot be said for issues like illegal immigration. Although many people like Cardinal Mahony try to twist around Catholic teachings to claim that supporting illegal immigrants is somehow the moral thing to do.

In fact this is exactly what the Archdiocese of Santa Fe had to say on this issue:

"Church teaching supports the rights of sovereign nations to protect their borders...We do not support or encourage illegal immigration because it is contrary to federal law and because those living outside the legal structures are open to abuse, exploitation, and death in the desert...The U. S. Catholic Conference of Bishops supports the Senate Bill, under the name "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act" (S.1033)."

I pointed out similar views in a previous post. So this notion that Catholics are obligated to support illegal immigration is simply not true. As Richard Neuhaus commented in the February of 2001 issue of First Things Magazine: "Can moral arguments backed by Catholic social doctrine be mustered in support of limiting or even cutting back on immigration? Certainly." However, Neuhaus then goes on to lament that making such arguments is "like spitting in the wind."

Moving on. Fidei Defensor went on to say this:

"By the way Tucker, illegal immigrants are American Catholics, if such a distinction can even be made, the Church doesn't divide itself by nationality, like the Swedish Lutheran Church, the Church of England, the Russian Orthodox Church, or the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America."

First off, illegal immigrants are not Americans. One can say that both legally and culturally speaking. Illegal immigrants are of course not American citizens, so legally speaking they're not Americans. Culturally speaking, they're not Americans either since America has traditionally been an Anglo-Saxon based culture. Of course non-Anglo Saxon cultures have existed here as well, but by and large that element has come to dominate American society. Just like how they're are many non-Slavic cultures that exist within the boundaries of the Russian Federation, but by and large the Slavic element is the dominant culture.

Previously, I even posted Charles De Gaulle's position concerning French nationhood. And as I stated then: "Every nation has had its basic ethnic core, and it is wise for that nation to protect that core. Otherwise that nation will lose its identity and become something entirely different." That doesn't necessarily equate to advocating complete ethnic homogeneity(which in most cases is impossible anyways), but it does mean preserving the basic character of a nation over several generations. K.M Gibson of Facing the Sun even posted this quote from John Jay's Federalist Paper #2 concerning America's destiny as a nation:

"Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people - a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs... This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties."

So clearly this notion of nationhood was not unheard of in American society.

But what about Fidei Defensor's argument that "the Church doesn't divide itself by nationality"? Well yes and no. Theologicallylly speaking, the Church is one and universal. However, it should also be noted that universal does not imply uniform. Quite the contrary. In fact this is what Regino of Prum wrote in his Chronicon around the year 900 A.D.:

"Just as different peoples(diversae nations populorum) differ between themselves in descent, manners, language and laws(genere, moribus, lingua, legibus) so the holy and universal church throughout the world, although joined in the unity of the faith nevertheless varies its ecclesiastical customs among them."

So yes, the Holy Catholic Church is indeed one, but in a pluralistic way. The Catholic Church has always adapted the universal truths of its doctrine to the particular customs of different nations and cultures. I urge Fidei to read my post concerning the issue of ethnic-based churches, in which I go into more details about this.

Well that's basically all I had to say about this. A reminder: although I disagree with Fidei Defensor, this does not to imply he's a bad person. In fact most of the time we're largely in agreement on the issue. Same can be said for Catholicam Speluncam Masculum, even though we had an unnecessarily heated discussion concerning the Marine Corps. I was actually going through a bad bout of depression at the time and wasn't in the best of moods for such a discussion.

Oh well.

Ukrainian nation remembers Chernobyl

2006-04-26T12:49:00.000-05:00

Ukrainians today are marking the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl incident, which amounted to the greatest nuclear disaster in history.

May we never forget this horrible tragedy that had fallen on the Ukrainian nation!

New Blog exposing Neocon Catholics

2006-04-24T21:19:00.000-05:00

Just recently came across this interesting blog that's dedicated to exposing the Neocon frauds that have infiltrated into the Catholic Church. Although I don't agree with everything they say, it's still a valuable source. I've added them to my links.

Hopefully within a week or two things will die down a bit and I'll be able to blog here more often.

Christian revival in Germany as well?

2006-04-19T15:15:00.000-05:00

I just got done posting about the Christian revival going on in France, well it seems that a similar phenomea is taking place in Germany, France's neighbor to the east, according to Hartwig Bouillon.

More on the Christian revival in France!

2006-04-19T14:44:00.000-05:00

Matthew W. Maguire argues that France is in the middle of a strong religious revival in his recent article written for Touchstone Magazine. I especially like how Maquire takes aim at the common misconception that most American Christians have about the state Christianity in Europe. They seem to think that European Christianity has all but died. Not entirely so, and that's exactly what I argued back in my December 13 post concerning the matter. Ironically in that exact same post, I took aim at another Touchstone contributor William Murchinson for his overly pessimistic portrait of European Christianity.

Interesting enough Maguire directly repeats my argument that although everything is not necessarily good when concerning the state of Christianity in Europe, on the other hand all is not lost. European Christianity still has a lot of spirit left in it. And the current Pope's call for Christians to be Europe's "creative minority" is certainly being well heard and is adding to this potentially positive development.

My only contention with this article is what Maguire tries to make of the fact that French Catholics are becoming less likely to vote for Le Pen and support his National Front. The argument is that French Catholics are somehow becoming less nationalistic. This is not the case. Rather French Catholics are now beginning to support men like Philippe de Villiers(who is now suppose to be ahead of Le Pen in the polls). The fact that Le Pen is losing support among many French Catholics maybe a direct result of his attempts to court Muslim voters.

So keep up the good work France!

Other posts where I have dealt with the state of Catholicism in France and Europe in general:

Polls show the Catholic Church is still strong in Europe of April 2

Rifkin's European Dream of May 9, 2005

Europe and the Popes of April 20, 2005 (a real classic!)

Stop trivalizing national identities!

2006-04-19T14:01:00.000-05:00

That's the message K. M. Gibson(who recently posted a comment here) had to say at his blog The Observer.

Rest assured, I've added the blog to my links.

Hilaire Belloc - forefather of the modern blog?

2006-04-18T19:55:00.000-05:00

Verlyn Klinkenborg has made a very interesting argument that Hilaire Belloc was the forefather of the modern blogsphere. With his many theories about "the Free Press" that would in time come to challenge the monopoly of the mainstream media, Belloc foretold the current revolution that is taking place within modern journalism almost a century before it happened.

Just what exactly is this "Free Press" that Belloc described? Oh, you know, nothing more than a "horde of small, highly opinionated, sometimes propagandistic papers" that pop out all sorts of "cranky" but unconventional viewpoints on all sorts of topics. Although imperfect, they certainly play their role in making the truth known to the wider world.

Although Belloc was largely speaking about the printing press, nevertheless his basic arguments can easily be applied to the current blogsphere. As Klinkenborg concludes, Hilaire Belloc was pretty much a "blogger of his own time."

Note:The Project Gutenberg actually hosts Belloc's book The Free Press, for those interested in reading it.

Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac - a true Catholic patriot!

2006-04-18T14:26:00.000-05:00

Josip Stilinovic wrote an excellent article concerning the life of the Croatian Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac titled "A Patriot, Not a Nationalist". Concerning the semantics of the title, L'Ardito Nazionalista dealt brilliantly with the issue of patriotism vs. Nationalism in his introductory post. Long story short, there's no significant difference between the two concepts.

Anyways, the article gives good details about the life and character of Cardinal Stepinac. Two major themes constantly dominated his worldview: an intense devotion to Christ Our Lord and the Catholic Church along with a staunch loyalty to his Croatian ethnic kin. To him, the two were not opposites but were actually inseparable; one could not be a good Christian without also being a good patriot, and vice versa.

This attitude carried the Cardinal through the many struggles he had to face within his lifetime: from dealing with the pro-Nazi Ustashe regime during World War II(and condemning its many violent excesses and racist ideology) to his heroic resistance to the atheistic Communists which eventually cost him his own life. Stepinac was never afraid to speak the truth and condemn any and all forms of injustice.

Stilinovic cites a very insightful quote made by the Cardinal in March 1938 to a group university student. Although spoken within the context of condemning the racist ideologies that were prevailing throughout many parts of Europe at the time, it nevertheless outlines the basic Catholic position towards loyalty to ones ethnicity and nation:

"Modern racism blames the Church for not falling on her knees in front of its idols. But is ethnicity the highest human value? It is not, because it would otherwise have to be able to fulfill all human strivings and to make man blessed on earth. And that cannot happen; that should be obvious. And eventually, at death, all racial differences disappear. Therefore, man will not be justified in God's judgment by belonging to this or that race, but by honest life and good deeds. So if love toward a nation crosses the borders of sound reason, then it is no longer love, but passion, and passion is neither of use, nor lasting. . . . That is why the Church, in the matters of ethnicity, also puts forward this principle: what you do not want to have done to yourself, do not do to others! Love for a man's own nation must not make a man into a wild animal, which tears down and provokes revenge; it must make him more noble, so that he can gain the respect and love of other nations for his nation. Therefore love toward your own nation is not contradictory to love for the whole of mankind; they complement each other. All of the nations are children of God."

One can read more of Stepinac's statements concerning the relationship between Catholicism and nationalism in his monumental "Three Sermons Against Racism". It truly is great reading material!

Cardinal Stepinac is most certainly a model for all Catholics, and specifically to patriotic Catholics everywhere. I certainly hope one day he will be canonized a saint, since he was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1998.

God Bless You Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac!

The Catholic alternative to MTV hedonism for young people today

2006-04-17T18:50:00.000-05:00

"Faithful to the mission she has fulfilled for two millennia, however, the Church still holds out a moral alternative to young people immersed in a culture that relentlessly teaches them to pursue immediate gratification. The Church recalls the great men of Christendom - like Charlamenge, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Francis of Assisi, and Saint Francis Xavier, to name a few - and holds them up as models for how true men live. Its message? Essentially this: you can aspire to be one of these men - a builder of civilization, a great genius, a servant of God and men, or a heroic missionary - or you can be a self-absorbed nobody fixated on gratifying your appetites. Our society does everything in its power to ensure that you wind up on the latter path. Be your own person. Rise above the herd, declare your independence from a culture that thinks so little of you, and proclaim that you intend to live not as a beast but as a man."
-- Thomas E. Woods How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, pg. 214-15

Benedict XVI's manifesto on Europe

2006-04-17T18:20:00.000-05:00

The edition of First Things magazine for last January features Pope Benedict XVI's all inspiring piece "Europe and its Discontents", which as the title suggests puts forth the current Pope's views concerning Europe's identity and its hopeful destiny.

Benedict begins by growing through a basic history of the concept of Europe, from its traditional foundation within Greco-Roman civilization, to the Carolingian Empire of the early Medieval period, to the renaissance, to the age of colonialism, all through to the present day.

When dealing with Europe's current situation, old Benedict is far from impressed and laments the many problems that plague the continent. Although on the surface Europe appears to be at its "finest hour", yet Benedict knows full well that in reality its soul is "hollow". The collapse of Europe's spiritual strength has lead to the possible eventual collapse of its traditional ethnic heritages, upon which European civilization(and even spirituality) was built.

However, Benedict cautions against falling into Spenglerian pessimism which dictates that the final collapse of Europe is inevitable and nothing can be done to save it. In response, Benedict throws his support behind Toynbee's concept that a civilization will only collapse when it stops believing in itself; and what is often needed in such times of crisis are "creative minorities" to help give that civilization a new sense of vitality. Applying Toynbee's concept to his message, Benedict is calling for us Christians to be that "creative minority" to help resurrect Europe from its possible doom.

I have already commented on Benedict XVI's views concerning Europe before on this blog, but I would like to once again bring attention to this aspect of the world-view of our current Holy Father.

As a Christian who is of European descent and proud of my heritage, I just can't help but be amazed at the fact that we have a Pope who shares my grave concerns for the survival of Christendom's heartland. Especially when the European heritage is attacked at an unprecedented rate.

God bless you Benedict XVI!

Discussions about immigration at CCF

2006-04-17T18:14:00.000-05:00

It seems that several heated discussions about illegal immigration have come up over at Catholic Community Forum. If you wish to read them, here are the links:

Taking to the Streets

Why Does Mahony Support illegal immigrants?

An Easter Reminder to Roger, Cardinal Mahony—Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness

It's almost comical some of the arguments I've had to dealt with in these discussions.

Christ is Risen!

2006-04-15T09:35:00.000-05:00

Well not yet exactly. Today is Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday(in which we remember Christ's passion and death on the Cross) and Easter Sunday (which is tomorrow). However, as with many holidays, I'm going to be too busy tomorrow to blog. I'll be attending midnight mass tonight as well.

Easter is the day we Catholics(and even Christians in general) celebrate the day our Lord Jesus Christ conquered death itself and in turn granted for mankind everlasting life!

Why does Mahony support illegal immigrants?

2006-04-11T10:01:00.000-05:00

"So, why does a figure like Cardinal Mahoney support amnesty? Because he’s a powerful man who moves in powerful circles. He can look out across the Los Angeles Basin and pity the poor immigrant, but the bulk of his flock - working class, English-speaking Americans named Smith and Jones - are transparent to him. He has enormous empathy for the Mexican illegal in need of a job, but is completely inattentive to the man whose job is taken by that illegal. It’s the same way with nearly everyone pushing amnesty. If Mexican members of the professional classes were swarming the borders and taking university professorships, legal clients, boardroom promotions and physician referrals away from the well-to-do in this country, the border would snap shut like a crocodile’s jaw at feeding time. But the American professional class isn’t threatened. To many of them, rather, illegal immigration represents an opportunity: cheap labor and even cheaper moral gratification.

The irony for Catholics is that at one time the Church was the backbone of the American working class, and Catholics were the iron core of the labor movement. Now, American Catholic workers not only see their jobs being exported to Mexico, the Phillipines and Korea, but they must suffer the indignity of their own bishops encouraging illegal immigrants to cross the border and take what few jobs still remain. I don’t think the bishops are craven. I just think that their position in this debate is another manifestation of an episcopacy that is detached, worldly, and focused more on the wealthy than on average Americans."
--Mark Gordon, "Illegal Immigration and Class", Suicide of the West blog

Yes, how nice that the Church hierarchy is protraying the needs and concerns of working class Catholics in this country. Jesus would be so proud of them!

ABC sure did massacre the Ten Commandments

2006-04-11T08:54:00.000-05:00

I'll make myself clear, this film was TERRIBLE! The acting was absolutely pathetic! I'm not even wasting my time giving a full review of this film, it was that bad!

I particularly like how David DiCerto tries to put a positive spin on the film claiming that it portrays "a more human, conflicted Moses than Charlton Heston's larger-than-life patriarch". In other words, Moses is a sissy, which is most certainly how he was portrayed.

I don't even know where DiCerto gets his argument that "[i]t's hard to imagine Heston ordering the slaughter of fellow Hebrews (women and children included) -- as recorded in the Book of Exodus -- for breaking the covenant" in contrast to how it's portrayed in this version. HELLO!; Heston's Moses actually throws down the tablets proclaiming in a loud angry voice that those who refuse to obey the Lord shall die! Then soon afterwards we see lighting bolts striking several people.

Then DiCerto goes on to explain that comparisons between this film and the 1956 version are "unfair". Well booohooo, go cry me me a river! This version is terrible and makes a mockery not only of the 1956 version but the Exodus story itself!

I'm not even bothering to watch Part II tonight. Rather, I'll just wait until April 15, when ABC will show the real version of The Ten Commandments.

ABC's remake of 'The Ten Commandments'

2006-04-10T12:38:00.000-05:00

Well tonight, ABC is going to show it's remake of the 1956 classic epic 'The Ten Commandments'. Check out the website for airing times, or check your local listings.

Many readers of this blog maybe interested in my post "Moses the Archetypical Nationalist", which I actually wrote last Easter, which is a commentary on both the original movie and the Exodus story in general. I especially talk about the many nationalist themes that are found within the Biblical accounts, and what influence those themes had on history. Not only that, I explain how these exact themes play themselves out within the movie itself.

Towards the end of my post, I made mention of the fact that a remake of this classic film were in the works. I also voiced my skepticism about the numerous possible ways in which "Hollywood political correctness will ruin not only the legacy of a great movie, but the legacy of a great story from antiquity as well."

I have a bad feeling that I'm not going to proven wrong tonight. However, I will try to watch it, and possibly write a review of the film on this blog. So stay tuned!

EWTN: A Network Gone Wrong

2006-04-05T13:49:00.000-05:00

Here's the website dedicated to Christopher A. Ferrara's new book EWTN: A Network Gone Wrong. The basic argument of this book is that the Catholic-based network that was originally founded by Mother Angelica has over recent times been hijacked by Neo-Catholics(many of whom are ex-Protestants) who have intentionally mixed traditional and orthodox Catholic elements with more modernist and other heretical-based beliefs.

I have not read the book (although I hope to obtain a copy of it), only the excerpts that are available at the website. And I became a viewer of EWTN only a few years after Mother Angelica relinquished control over the network. And I've not watched many of Mother Angelica's old programs. So overall I cannot comment much of how EWTN has degraded over the years or how much of a great figure Mother Angelica was for the network. I also cannot comment much on the theological errors promoted by EWTN either. For that information, you'll have to read the book or at least the excerpts at the website.

Nevertheless, in a general sense, I can comment on the many things that are wrong with EWTN. And like Ferrara, I make these criticism as somebody who is generally a great fan of the network and much of its programming.

I particularly agree with Ferrara's negative take on the show Life on the Rock, which is a youth-based show that features Franciscan monks trying to act "cool", by trying to mix Catholicism with rock music. Ok...that's not Catholicism by a long shot.

I also agree with the argument that ETWN seems to promote an attitude of "quasi-idolatry" towards the Pope(especially Pope John Paul II). You seriously wonder who on earth these people are really worshipping, John Paul II or Jesus Christ?

Also, I get the general impression that the form of Catholicism being promoted by many EWTN commentators is of a rather effeminate quality. Ferrara (at least to my knowledge) does not make this argument, but it's something I along with others have noticed. I see very little of the masculine and heroic sense of Catholicism that for example motivated chivalrous knights to do battle in the Crusades or the Reconquista. Nope, just a touchy-overly sensitive feelings sense of spirituality.

This book certainly has caused some controversy, especially those who are associated with EWTN. For example: Fr. John Trigilio, the co-host of the EWTN show Web of Faith, even gave his own commentary on the book, to which Ferrara gave a response.

Hopefully EWTN will return to the integrity it once had, but only time will tell!

Suburbs = White Ghettos

2006-04-05T12:50:00.000-05:00

Star Parker has a new book out titled White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay which makes the argument about how "[t]he sexual chaos, values disorientation, and social turmoil we see in our inner cities...is just a magnified reflection of the moral collapse happening all over America: in our schools, our churches, our homes."

Many of her conclusions seem to back up much of what I argued about the rampant decadence in suburbia in a previous post here. Just like my arguments about European popes and religious faith in Europe, it appears my arguments have been once again vindicated.

I particularly enjoyed the author's remarks about the degraded nature of pop culture that many suburbanites enjoy. Everything from TV shows like Sex and the City(it wasn't the inner cities that made this show popular) to overly sexualized and vulgar music found on MTV(which suburban teens watch 24/7). And the quality of religious faith found within suburbia is extremely low, basically it's just a religious version of the degraded secularist pop culture.

As I argued both then and now, the notion that suburbia is somehow a haven for virtue is largely a delusion that suburbanites like to constantly promote about themselves. It has little basis in reality and largely rests on nostalgic images of how suburbs were back in the 1950's(or rather how it was portrayed on shows like Leave it to Beaver). Suburbs are indeed nothing more than "white ghettos".

Polls show the Catholic Church is still strong in Europe

2006-04-02T15:32:00.000-05:00

Recent polls seem to show that the Catholic Church is on the rise in France and Germany. And Germany and France are often considered the two most secularist nations in Europe!

Well it appears I've been vindicated in my skepticism towards the supposed decline of the faith in Europe. For those who remember, I wrote an entire post dedicated to debunking the mainstream media's portrayal of the state of religious faith in Europe. I even quoted Richard John Neuhaus, who noted that small but dynamic movements of Christian revival are brewing in these countries.

Apparently this new found strength of the Church within Europe is attributed to the so-called “Benedict XVI effect”. I guess this would also vindicate my argument about the continuousus need for European popes.

One argument that was constantly being repeated in favor of a non-European pope was that the faith was in decline in Europe but growing in the Third World. I refuted that by first voicing skepticism about Europe's religious decline, along with a second look at why Europe's faith appears in decline as opposed to the Third World. Then I argued that if anything, a European pope is needed more than ever to revive the faith in Christendom's traditional heartland.

Not only that, may I ask the simple (but politically incorrect) question, what is so special about the Third World? Seriously, why is so much attention given to this part of the world? Why is it that people are obsessed with this notion that the Third World is going to save the Catholic Church(or Christianity in general), as people like Philip Jenkins insist? Why must we sacrifice Europe(Christendom's traditional heartland) for the sake of the Third World? I'd like to hear some honest answers to these questions.

As I stated last year: "To lose Europe is to loose an important aspect of the Catholic heritage. The conversion of the Third World (however wonderful it maybe) will not replace what is lost!"

Then again, as I even argued then, the people who scream loudest for a Third World pope(or place such a special emphasis on the Third World church) are usually people who don't care one iota for Catholic traditions at all!

Maybe that's probably why Pope Benedict XVI has so much love and concern for the fate of Europe, for the fate of the Catholic Church is closely tied to it. As Hilaire Belloc noted: "Europe will return to the Faith, or she will perish. The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith."

Benedict probably also realizes that a true sense of Catholicism is the only thing that can revive the faith in Europe. I already pointed to the fact that more traditionalist services are generally well attended in Europe, while the watered-down services of more mainstream churches are next to empty. Indeed, how can one possibly be inspired by the nonsense that passes off as Catholicism these days? Europe needs the Catholic faith in its true essence, not some half-ass version of it!

It seems that Robert Spencer was correct when he wrote(upon Benedict's election as Pope): "In choosing Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger to succeed Pope John Paul II as Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church has cast a vote for the survival of Europe and the West."

Remembering John Paul II

2006-04-02T12:14:00.000-05:00

Today is the day the world remembers the death of Pope John Paul II, which occurred one year ago this day.

I myself paid my respects to the late Pontiff on the occasion of his death. I noted that despite my many disagreements with his policies and teachings, nevertheless I had a genuine love and admiration for him as well.

Also being a Slavic Catholic myself, I was proud and pleased to have a member of my race sit on the throne of St. Peter.

And may God continue to guide his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, into the future!

In honour of this occasion(plus personal issues as well), I will not be posting here for some time. So any comments and responses made here I will have to attend to at another time(note: Catholicam Speluncam Masculum).

Thank you.

The simple pleasures of walking

2006-03-29T15:00:00.000-05:00

Sadly, in our modern age of automobiles and other forms of rapid transportation, we've forgotten the more simpler and at times more pleasurable experience of walking. And I'll be the first to admit I'm guilty of this.

Not that I don't walk on a regular basis, I most certainly do. In my line of work, I walk an average of 7 miles(11.265 km) per shift. However, it's been a while since I last enjoyed a walk around the neighborhood just for the joy of it. And what a joy it most certainly is!

One thing I particularly like about walking is that it helps clear my mind and helps it to think more clearly. In fact, many of my most insightful thoughts have come to me while on a walk. Many commentaries that I've written here first started off as random thoughts that came to while walking. The difficult part, however, is trying to remember enough to write down on paper or type out what I thought. Sadly so many potentially good posts have been lost that way. Oh well!

It's an old habit I sincerely miss, and since spring is upon us now I will certainly try to get back into it. And I suggest all readers of this blog to get out (if they can) and take a nice refreshing walk once in a while.

Many studies have the many health benefits of regular walking, even at moderate paces. This alone should encourage people.

So feet, don't fail me now!

De Gaulle on Nationhood

2006-03-29T14:10:00.000-05:00

Thank you Lawrence Auster for providing this wonderful quote from former French leader Charles De Gaulle, which provides great insight into the issue of what constitutes a nation (in particular his nation of France). De Gaulle certainly does not advocate complete ethnic homogeneity for France, and insists that foreign cultures and peoples can indeed live peacefully within French society. However, he takes aim at the multiculturalist worldview by stating that France is primarily an ethnically European nation with European traditions and should remain so!

The logic De Gaulle uses could easily apply to any other European nation or even America (which was founded largely by settlers of European descent). Every nation has had its basic ethnic core, and it is wise for that nation to protect that core. Otherwise that nation will lose its identity and become something entirely different.

"It is very good that there be yellow Frenchmen, black Frenchmen, brown Frenchmen. They prove that France is open to all races and that she has a universal mission. But on the condition that they remain a small minority. Otherwise, France would no longer be France. We are after all primarily a European people of the white race, of Greek and Latin culture, and of the Christian faith. Try to mix oil and vinegar. Shake the bottle. In a moment they will separate again. Arabs are Arabs and French are French. Do you believe that the French nation can absorb ten million Muslims, who perhaps tomorrow will be twenty million and the day after forty million? If we adopt integration, if all the Arabs and Berbers of Algeria were considered as Frenchmen, what would prevent them from coming to settle in mainland France where the standard of living is so much higher? My village would no longer be called Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, but Colombey-les-deux-Mosquées!"

Cardinal Mahony is an embarrassment to the Catholic Church

2006-03-27T19:52:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm sure many readers of this blog already know that Cardinal Mahony is full of you know what. Heck, I just recenty proved fully that he is full of you know what.

Nevertheless, Barbara Simpson gives us more reason to believe why Cardinal Mahony is full of you know what and is nothing less than an embarrassment to the Catholic Church.

Quite frankly, it's because of people like Mahony is why I largely ignore anything said by the clergy nowadays. Seriously, almost anything of worth concerning the Catholic Church and the faith is now largely spoken by laymen. The clergy (with the exceptions of more traditional-minded priests) by and large wishes to live in its own little world that's completely isolated from reality. This is largely because of two reasons: 1) secularism has pretty much restricted the clergy to the margins of social life and 2) because of that the clergy is desperate to appear "relevant" to the modern world.

Yet as Pat Buchanan noted, by making themselves "relevant" they really make themselves "irrelevant".

Are Immigrants really good for the economy?

2006-03-27T19:26:00.000-05:00

Discussions concerning greater restrictions on immigration are heating up on Capitol Hill. I say it's about damn time! Although I'm skeptical that anything really significant will be passed into law, at least the widespread discontent many people feel towards illegal immigrants will be brought out into the open.

In order to try to defend this massive horde of immigration into our nations, supporters commonly insist they are a great benefit to the economy. "They do the jobs we don't want to do" or "We benefit from the skills and education they bring with them", and so on.

Is any of this really true? Not according to Alistair McConnachie, who debunks many of the common myths about economic migration. Although addressing the issue of immigration from a specifically British perspective, nevertheless the arguments easily to America or any other Western nation for that matter.

McConnachie refutes everything: from how we should allow immigrants in for reasons of morality and social justice(which is common for fraudulent religious leaders like Cardinal Mahony) to that if we don't allow immigrants in many companies will go out of business(I love the answer given to this one!).

And what about the popular "Immigrants do the work we won't do", I'll let the man speak for himself:

This is not necessarily true. Are we to believe that without any immigrants we would have no cafes, no waiters, no cleaners. Of course not. The only reason immigrants are doing these jobs is because they don't pay well enough for indigenous people to accept them.

Relying on immigrants to do this work is a form of slavery. Instituting a modern form of slavery is immoral. It is not a sign of a progressive society. It is certainly not something of which we should be proud. Instead, it is morally right to do our own drudgery work.

In fact, McConnachie exposes the hidden racism and immorality that hides behind most arguments made in favor of mass immigration. I've already commented on the strong links between liberalism and racism, and how the only thing that has changed in the last forty years or so is whom that racism is directed towards. Liberals used to degrade Blacks and Asians as uncivilized heathens, but now they direct the same hatred towards Christians of European descent.

So three cheers for Alistair McConnachie, whose website Sovereignty I have in my links!

Hillary Clinton thinks she speaks for our Lord Christ

2006-03-27T14:23:00.000-05:00

At least when it comes to issues like restrictions on immigration. I like how Pete Fisher deals with this obvious absurdity:

Here is a woman, who has spoken to the entire nation about adhering to biblical principles with a history that would shame the devil himself. So I would like to find where Hillary gleaned her knowledge of scripture and question what she has said when what I have read and learned is contrary to her statement.

And question it Pete certainly does. He gives a real basic outline of the many positions Hillary(along with Bill) Clinton have taken in the past that clearly violate Biblical teachings. Particularly the stances they've taken on gay marriage.

And to paraphrase Pete's closing remarks: Mrs. Clinton, please do us all a favor and spare us the bullsh*t! You're not a Christian, and to label you even a heretic would be too kind!

Apparently this new attempt to play spokesperson for Our Lord and Savior comes on top of her recent attempts at playing the big macho chickenhawk(after all, a modern woman needs to sound as tough as any man!).

Yet the sad truth is that many Christians buy into Hillary's arguments that restrictions on immigration is somehow contrary to the teachings of Christ. Pete Fisher does a fairly good job of refuting these sentiments from a basic Christian position. But what about a more specifically Catholic perspective?

Well sadly, the Catholic Church has not been immune from asserting similar positions to that of Mrs. Clinton. A very recent example of such is when Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony told priests to "Defy Immigration Law!". Yet this is only the beginning.

The website The Social Agenda claims to outline the basic positions of Catholic Social Doctrine. In article 10 concerning the International Community, it has a section detailing the issue of immigration. I can't the section entirely, but this sections sums up its position pretty well:

"[T]he Synod Fathers recalled that the Church in America must be a vigilant advocate, defending against any unjust restriction the natural right of individual persons to move freely within their own nation and from one nation to another. Attention must be called to the rights of migrants and their families, and to respect for their human dignity, even in cases of non legal immigration."

I've already commented on the fact that much of what passes off as "Catholic" social doctrine nowadays is nothing more than Liberal garbage. This, along with Mahony's actions, are perfect examples of such.

For those seeking a more Traditional Catholic stance on immigration, one need not look further than the Catholic Encyclopedia. In the entry concerning migrations, and under the subsection dealing its legal control it states(and I highlighted important points):

The legal control of migration began when it ceased to be collective and began to be individual. Laws have been passed preventing people from leaving their native land, and also, by the country of destination, forbidding or regulating entrance thereto. Extensive regulation has been found necessary applying to transportation companies and their agents, the means of transportation, treatment en route and at terminal points. The justification of public interference is to be found in the right of a nation to control the variations of its own population. The highest necessity is that arising from war: on this ground nations almost universally regulate very closely the movements of population, forbidding emigration, that they may not lose their soldiers, and guarding immigration as a military precaution. Restrictive measures are also justified on grounds of health and morals, and on the general ground that a national family has a right to say who shall join it.

Right here we see the Catholic Church defending the right of nations to restrict immigration, even on the grounds that it has the right to decide who shall become a member of its "family". If you read further, it even states that the concept that people have certain "rights" to immigrate is one of "rather recent date".

So the common notion that the Catholic Church's support for immigration is based on theology is groundless. It also shows how much Liberals have completely perverted the Church's teaching even in social affairs.

However, I hope I helped clarify the real Catholic position on this issue. Go forth and spread the truth!

How about a little Subsidiarity?

2006-03-26T19:05:00.000-05:00

That's the argument made by Dr. Jeff Mirus over at Catholic Culture. He contrasts the traditional Catholic social principle of subsidiarity(i.e. the decentralization of political power) with the current trends of just the opposite; the greater centralization of political power. Perfect examples of this trend, according to Mirus, are: the UN, the EU, the World Court, and within an American context the Supreme Court. Each institution seeks to usurp the traditional sovereignty and jurisdiction of more local-based authorities; whether it be nation-states, regions, communities, etc.

In contrast, Mirus argues, subsidiarity is based on the notion that "each task in any commonwealth should be handled at the lowest level possible and that, conversely, there must be a compelling reason to remove authority in any matter from a more local to a less local jurisdiction."

Perhaps it should be noted that this reliance on local authorities was a major feature of the Medieval feudal system, in contrast to popular myth.

So yes, how about a little subsidiarity?

The Easter Bunny offends non-Christians

2006-03-26T18:38:00.000-05:00

At least according to Tyrone Terrill, the human rights director at St. Paul City Hall in Minnesota.

Yes, just look at that furry little bastard; sitting there, with his eggs, just waiting to offend somebody at any moment. You make me so sick!

John Paul the Great - part II

2006-03-26T18:08:00.000-05:00

I'm sure Catholicam Speluncam Masculum will really enjoy this. I posted his skeptical remarks about John Paul "the Great" over at Catholic Community Forum, and it's caused quite a stir between the Traditionalists and the Neo-Catholics there.

Sadly, I haven't had time to more fully engage in the discussion. So enjoy!

Vatican reconsiders the Crusades

2006-03-26T16:08:00.000-05:00

It appears now that the Vatican is willing to take a more positive stance towards the Crusades than in the recent past. This is certainly good news.

One area being contended is the notion that the Crusades were an unprovoked war of Christian aggression against Islam. Not true: Much of the area where the Crusades took place were originally under the rule of the (Christian) Byzantine Empire, until the Islamic armies conquered them in the 7th century A.D.

In fact in recent years, many commonly held myths about the Crusades have been exploded by historians. Rather than being motivated primarily by greed, historians now claim that most Crusaders fought out of a genuine religious zeal. Not only that, but most Crusaders came from more common social backgrounds(tradesmen, peasants, etc.) as opposed to purely coming from the nobility. The line between Richard the Lionheart and Peter the Hermit(who lead "the People's Crusade") was more blurry than originally believed.

Not only that, Jay Williams in his recent book The Way of the Crusades has even given light to major cultural achievements that were made both in Europe and the Islamic world as a result of the Crusades.

So the tide is turning against those who wish to bash the historical practices of our ancestors. Catholics, let us follow the lead of the Vatican in defending and vindicating our faith and heritage!

White racists, go back to Europe!

2006-03-22T15:39:00.000-05:00

So remember people: if you're of European descent, you've been here illegally since 1492!

Hip-hop trends spread to suburban kids

2006-03-22T15:14:00.000-05:00

Simone Sebastian has the story for you.

How nice to know that kids as young as six years old are adopting this immoral subculture that glorifies criminals!

For those who remember, I actually warned about this trend in my post concerning the decadent nature of suburban living, where I explicitly mentioned how much suburban kids "put on the charade of acting like real gangstas from the ghettos" and offered the advice of allowing these kids the chance "to live out their fantasy and see what gangsta life is really about."

Only differences is that I assumed this phenomena was by and large restricted to teenagers, not mentioning anything about pre-adolescent children.

I have very little to say about this, except that this only shows how far our culture has degraded!

There is no such thing as man!

2006-03-19T15:28:00.000-05:00

A classic quote taking aim at the cosmopolitan worldview, spoken by a devout Catholic!

"[T]here is no such thing as man in the world. During my life, I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, and so on; thanks to Montesquieu, I even know that one can be Persian; but I must say, as for man, I have never come across him anywhere; if he exists, he is completely unknown to me."
--Joseph de Maistre Considerations on France

Why Rebellion is pointless!

2006-03-19T14:56:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that much in the world is messed up. It's no secret that many things need to change. That's not the secret. The real secret is what is the most effective way of changing the world and challenging the corruption one finds in society? Sadly, most peoples' perception of challenging corruption in society in the end really doesn't amount to much.

That's the argument put forth by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter in their recent book Nation of Rebels : Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture. In this earth-shaking book, the authors challenge many of the short-comings of many countercultural movements, and how in the long-run they don't achieve anything significant.

Far too often, countercultural movements engage in what is termed social deviance as opposed to genuine social dissent. That means rather than actually challenging the cultural and philosophical basis of the society they oppose, they simply deviate from the norms of that society. This usually involves adopting different forms of dress, speech, or behavior than those accepted by normal society.

Yet people who engage in such activities honestly believe they are challenging the status quo, when in fact they are not. All too often, these "alternative" lifestyles go mainstream and become the latest "coolest" trend or fad. The market seizes the commercial potential of these lifestyles and seeks to cash in. The market knows all too well the potential value of rebellion. Everybody wants to "stick it to the man". Yet in the long-run, it doesn't achieve anything important.

At worse, as the authors argue, it can lead to the glorification of behaviors that are outright anti-social. This is especially true with the Hip-Hop subculture; were gangsters, pimps, whores, and so on are portrayed as figures to be admired. In any sane society, these figures would have been looked down upon and restricted to the margins.

Nevertheless, there are several flaws with the authors arguments. Many of these flaws are addressed in Michael Sandlin's review of the book, although he's speaking from a New Leftist perspective (which is quite clear when you read the piece). However, Sandlin is correct in many points in criticizing the authors, particularly how many of the book's conclusions amount to nothing more than justifications for the corporate status quo. And the fact the author honestly argues that the McDonald's sells fries that are superior to anything found in half the bistros in Paris is also quite absurd. I also take particular issue with the authors' negative review of E.F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful and his theories of appropriate technology.

However despite all this, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter have done a fine job of exposing many of the flaws that are common to countercultural movements. If genuine change is to occur within society, these flaws must be avoided as much as possible.

An Anarchist essay titled "Don't Defy Authority, Reject It!!", also takes aim at the rebellious spirit found within popular culture and how it only reinforces the status quo. As the article states, rebellion means nothing more than "go ahead, bitch all you want; you're effectively powerless in this system. Let off some steam. Defy authority. 'Be young, have fun, drink Pepsi.'"

What is needed is a full rejection of the status quo, since it is "far deeper in scope and breadth. It is not mere rebellion for the sake of style and fashion; rather, it is the refusal to accept oppression, and unwillingness to oppress, yourself."

Possibly one of the few times I find myself in (partial) agreement with Anarchists.

Uncle Sam needs you, but doesn't want you!

2006-03-15T14:49:00.000-05:00

As the number of military casualties in Iraq continue to ever increase, it should probably intrigue most people to know that the U.S. military shuns most people of recruiting age from serving. Anything from having a tattoo to having been prescribed ritalin will get you disqualified from military service.

Why is the military being so picky? David R. Segal explains that "[r]ecruiters are looking for reasons other than themselves...So they blame the pool."

With the number of total recruitments decreasing, how long can the military continue on with its current policies? One high school senior even found out how desperate some recruiters can become. Sooner or later, the military will have to make some dramatic changes.

BTW, I myself was rejected for service due to some health conditions. Oh well!

Let's Have An Army of the People!

2006-03-15T14:37:00.000-05:00

I've already laid out my basic views on national defense in the first post of this new blog. My basic position is to favor a military system similar to Switzerland's, which is based upon an armed citizens' militia.

This has been a topic I've been meaning to address to some length for a long time. I've already commented on many military issues in several other posts on this blog. This article provides good information about how the Swiss military operates. A very good book to read on the history of the Swiss military(especially in the modern era) is Stephen P. Halbrook's Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II.

So the big question that people will ask is why an armed citizenry? Well the most important reason for an armed citizenry is that it's a good guarantee of deterring foreign invaders. Who on earth would want to invade a country if they knew they would have to face literally a "nation in arms"? There would be an endless list of difficulties for any such invader facing such a force: mounting casualties(with the possibility of waging a lengthy and costly war of attrition), constant harassment from local bands of riflemen, ambushes, etc.

It would just be one hell of a mess. And it is this very possibility that has deterred many would-be aggressors from invading Switzerland. And the fact that Switzerland has a long history of having one of the finest military forces in the world (think it's just a coincidence that the Popes relied on Swiss guards for protection?) only added to that deterrent.

Not only as a deterrent to potential tyranny coming from abroad, it's often argued that an armed citizenry will also deter potential domestic tyrants. If a government tries to oppress a citizenry that is heavily armed, they run the risk of sparking many potential armed insurrections.

Then there is the also the obvious argument that an armed citizenry could potentially help reduce crime. Pretty hard to commit a crime when you face the great possibility that your victim is heavily armed. This may also explain why Switzerland has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Let's face the facts, most citizens who own firearms are law-abiding. Why punish them as criminals?

Another important aspect of having this form of military is the fostering of a strong sense of civic duty. This was the main reasoning behind Niccolo Machiavelli's advocacy of an armed citizenry in his 1521 treatise the Art of War (not to be confused with Sun Tzu's text).

According to Machiavelli, a citizen willing to give up his most sacred duty to a mercenary (which you could correctly characterise most professional soldiers as) is a also a citizen willing to give up his basic liberties, since he clearly doesn't value them enough to be willing to defend them.

Contrary to popular myth, it's perfectly legitimate for Catholic citizens to bear arms to defend themselves, their families, and/or especially their nation. Armed citizen militias were quite common throughout Medieval Europe. Most famous example of such Medieval militias (at least in the English-speaking world) was the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd. The ideal of the patriotic citizen soldier was also commonplace during the renaissance (most famous proponent of such being Machiavelli). So a clear connection between Catholicism and the idea of citizen soldiers can be made. In fact, Francis X. Maier of Crisis Magazine recently wrote out a Catholic case for conscription.

The moral case for citizen soldiers can be well laid out. The question becomes, how do citizen-soldiers compare to professional soldiers on the battlefield? Many defenders of a professional military insist that citizen-soldiers are just not that of the same quality as professionals.

For example, Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute (cited in Maier's article) contends that "[c]ombat in places like Iraq and Afghanistan is 'real soldiering' that requires well-trained, disciplined, motivated, professional troops."

How on earth professional soldiers are better trained, disciplined, motivated, than conscripts is really in the eye of the beholder. The Swiss and Israeli militaries are considered some of the best quality militaries in the world, and yet they both rely on citizen-soldiers. Some have argued that these are the unique situations because conscription is a matter of "national survival" or "national identity". Nevermind that's the entire point behind any kind of military force.

Some also charge that citizen-soldiers are ill-suited for combat in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course that assumes that the United States should be fighting wars 5,000 miles away against countries that pose little or no threat to us. Yes, professional armies are certainly better at fighting all sorts of little (pointless) wars half-way across the world. The example of the British Empire certainly proves that. However that begs the question of whether or not fighting all sorts of little (pointless) wars half way around the world is really in a nation's interests. In the long run, it has shown it is not really worth it!

Indeed, as Andrew J. Bacevich argues in his recent book The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, a revival of the dormant concept of the citizen soldier would help in curbing America's endless military involvements overseas. The fact that civic duty and military service have become so distant from the everyday lives of average citizens has given politicians free reign to send our fighting boys off to some far distant corner of the globe without fearing much repercussions on the home front. Not to mention many of these politicians and warmongers never even served in the military themselves.

Hopefully I have been able to lay out at least a basic and concise case for an armed citizenry as the basis for a nation's defense. For a more detailed case for a citizens' army, I highly recommend Gary Hart's The Minuteman, Restoring an Army of the People.

An agnostic critique of anti-religious bigotry

2006-03-13T15:11:00.000-05:00

I recently found this interesting column written by Fred Reed, a non-conformist commentator, takes aim at the deeply held hostility towards religious devotion that is found within American society. It's especially entertaining considering the fact that the author is an agnostic of all things!

Fred Reed writes commentaries on all sorts of social and political issues, and generally challenges many of the deeply held beliefs of the status quo. In fact, I've enjoyed many of his commentaries, and I'll add his website to my links.

Men of Europe, prove them wrong!

2006-03-12T17:13:00.000-05:00

"Many say that European Manhood is dead. Men of Europe, prove them wrong.

Many say that European Christianity is dead. Men of Europe, prove them wrong.

Many say that European men stand by and do nothing while their wives and daughters are violated. Men of Europe, prove them wrong.

Many say that European men stand by and do nothing while Holy Mother The Church is desecrated. Men of Europe, prove them wrong.

Do not resort to vigilanteism. A firm backbone and a resolute heart will show the stern stuff you are made of. Bullies and thugs are by nature, cowards. Once the evil-doers see your courage and fortitude, they will slink back to their desert holes. A faint heart and weak will shall only embolden them.

Take up the Sword And Shield of St Michael. Place upon you the Armor of Christ. The Mantle of The Holy Mother will protect you.

My European brothers, the Lion of Satan is threatening once again. Vienna, Tours, Lepanto... Men of Europe have proven their worth in the past. To the Polish sons of King Jan Sobieski, to the Gallic sons of Charles Martel, to the Spanish sons of Don Juan of Austria, arise and defend your wives, children and homes! Above all, defend Holy Mother The Church.

CHRIST DEMANDS IT!"

--Catholicam Speluncam Masculum, "Where Are The Sons Of Charlemagne?", The Lair of the Catholic Cavemen blog

Why Pope John Paul II should not be called "Great"

2006-03-12T16:48:00.000-05:00

I usually don't' agree with the Catholic Cavemen (they come off as too Neo-con for my tastes), nevertheless they make some very interesting arguments against the current fad of referring to the previous Pope as John Paul "the Great". The author claims that only two other popes in history have been given the title of "Great" and John Paul II's achievements don't even match them. I also like how he mentions that not even Pope St. Pius V is not given the title, despite the fact he protected Christendom from both Islam and Protestantism.

Also the argument that the canonization of saints have degraded into nothing more than an "ecclesiastical popularity contest" and how it only serves to cheapen the value of being canonized a saint(and by extension, cheapens the Catholic faith as a whole), hits the nail right on the head.

So thank you for exposing this Neo-Catholic charade!

Milosevic's death and looking back on the assault against a Christian nation

2006-03-12T13:25:00.000-05:00

Well yesterday former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his cell in the Hague. This while he was still on trial for war crimes.

What will his legacy be for Serbia and the Balkans? I really cannot say much on that issue. What I can say is that the United States and NATO were clearly wrong in launching an unprovoked war of aggression against Serbia back in 1999, while the Serbian army was waging a campaign against the terrorist KLA (an evidence shows they may have had ties to Bin Laden).

Vojin Joksimovich has written a wonderful analysis of that whole mess in his article "Kosovo: The West's Gift to Terrorists". He goes to lengths showing how the NATO bombings violated everything from NATO's own charter to even international law. And that Kosovo has not benefited much from NATO's occupation of the region, which has only allowed Albanian cartels to run wild. And Joksimovich is not alone in making these arguments.

In June 2004, Carl Meyer of G2mil gave his commentary on how we bombed the wrong side in that war. In his column dated January 26 of 1999(a few months before the bombings began) titled "Kosovo: Don't Go There", the late David Hackworth flatly stated "Kosovo belongs to Serbia...What right does Clinton have to attack an independent nation -- Serbia -- whose troops and police are fighting insurgents in their own land?"

Good question Mr. Hackworth. And Kosovo most certainly does rightfully belong to Serbia. Joksimovich states that Kosovo is "the cradle of the Serbian civilization and the site of some 1300 Serbian Orthodox religious monuments. It provides identity to the Serbian nation. It is equivalent to what Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria mean to the Jews." Kosovo was the sight of the famous battle that occurred in 1389, in which King Lazar fought against the invading Turks. If there is one historical event that defines the Serbian national identity, this is it.

This only makes it even more appalling what NATO did to Serbia, it was a direct assault on a nation's historical and religious heritage. Bob Djurdjevic described the attacks on Serbia as nothing less than an anti-Christian crusade perpetrated by a secularist globalist elite against a patriotic Christian people.

So while the media will largely try to focus on the supposed crimes conducted under the leadership of Milosevic, let us also take a hard look at the crimes conducted by those people who accuse him of such. They have blood on their hands as well, the blood of innocent people whose only crime was belonging to a Christian nation that believed in protecting its heritage.

Immigration restrictions, not cartoons, are the cause of Islamic rage at Denmark

2006-03-12T13:00:00.000-05:00

That's the story according to Paul Belien's article "Denmark’s Intifada", which he wrote for a recent edition of The American Conservative. As he states towards the beginning of his article:

"Those who believe that the whole issue has to do with 12 cartoons are naïve. Denmark is being punished for its alleged Islamophobia. Its crime is not the publication of 12 drawings in Jyllands-Posten, a paper in the rural province of Jutland. Its crime is the staunch refusal of the Danish Vikings to allow Muslim immigrants to impose their laws upon their host country."

Very interesting indeed. Of course, sadly, you're probably not going to hear this position mentioned in any mainstream media outlet. For that would force the establishment to question many of its deeply held positions concerning immigration and multi-culturalism.

Perhaps Belien is right when he concludes his article stating that perhaps all is not lost for Europe just yet, for Denmark has successfully held its ground against the Muslim world. Several months earlier, France also successfully(though hesitatingly) held its ground against Muslim rioters. Perhaps my hope for the return of Charles Martel has come true at last!

Europe is saying farewell to Multi-culturalism

2006-03-05T12:22:00.000-05:00

MSNBC News has the story for you. I for one say "Good riddance to bad rubbish!"

Ironically, almost exactly one year ago I commented about multi-culturalism's increasing unpopularity in Europe and exposed many of its basic flaws in the logic behind the concept.

As I stated:

Arab culture can only flourish within Arab societies, European culture can only flourish in European societies, etc. This is certainly different from the multi-culturalist paradigm that several cultures can flourish together within the same society. Arab and European culture simply cannot flourish side by side within an European society and vice versa. The two cultures adhere to completely different value systems; and in large because Arab society is based on Islamic teachings while European society has largely been based on Christian teachings. The two cultures are simply not compatible, which is why they have often gone to war with each other (remember something called the Crusades?). A good book that further articulates this is Roger Scruton's The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat.

In contrast to multi-culturalism, I advocated what Alain de Benoist has termed ethno-pluralism, and I explained the difference between the two concepts:

Like multi-culturalism, ethno-pluralism celebrates the full diversity of cultures and ethnicities around the world. But unlike multi-culturalism, ethno-pluralism recognizes that true diversity can only flourish in their appropriate social contexts.

So maybe there if hope for Europe yet!

One year anniversary for my blog!

2006-02-28T14:10:00.000-05:00

Yes, one year this day was when I started posting this blog. If you wish, you can the first post here. Originally it was this blog was titled Third Positionist Review, until recently I changed it to its current name and address.

What a year it has been. I have commented on a wide range of topics, some of which you might not have even expected to find on a Catholic-based blog. The reputation of this blog has spread far and wide within many different circles, which is certainly good.

So what's so great about this blog, and why do so many people read it? Well I let my fans tell us in the comments section, since I hate self-promotion of ones blog.

I will say that one possible reason is the fact that one tends to find well thought out posts on topics that are not often addressed elsewhere. This was especially true with my post Europe and the Popes, in which I countered many arguments over the supposed need for a Third World pope and that future popes can and should be European. Honestly, where else could one find such arguments? Other than an occasional argument for an Italian pope, nowhere that I'm aware.

Also my recent post concerning ethnic-based churches, which is another issue not often addressed within Catholic circles.

Also I often give links to well-thought out commentaries that go against the mainstream of current opinion(which is incredibly shallow). And so on.

As usual, I'm short on words. But if any readers of this blog wish to give their own personal assessment of my job here, feel free to do so.

What Liberals like to call "Tolerance"

2006-02-22T14:04:00.000-05:00

"Contemporary liberalism honors diversity and tolerance above all, but what it calls by those names is different from what has been so called in the past. Its diversity denigrates and excludes ordinary people, and its tolerance requires speech codes, quotas, and compulsory training in correct opinions and attitudes. Nor do current liberal totems and tabus have a clear connection with letting people live as they wish. Prohibitions, both grand and petty, multiply. To outsiders the rules often seem simply arbitrary: prayer is forbidden while instruction in the use of condoms is required; smoking and furs are outrages, abortion and sodomy fundamental rights."
-- Jim Kalb "Liberal Tolerance"

Rosary Crusade to save the soul of Europe!

2006-02-22T13:46:00.000-05:00

Excellent idea from College Catholic. Help save European Christendom!

"The rosary is my weapon." "Our Lady has never refused me a grace through the recitation of the rosary." "Love the Blessed Mother and make her loved. Always recite the rosary."
--St. (Padre) Pio of Pietrelcina

The racism of Liberalism

2006-02-21T17:15:00.000-05:00

Lawrence Auster offers us a really insightful look into the evolution of modern Liberalism and its connection to racism. Of course the real irony is that Liberals are the ones always obsessed with screaming about "racism" all the time. In a previous post I even helped exposed the whole absurdity of many of these accusations.

However the truth remains that it is Liberalism that has always been racist in orientation; it's just a matter of whom they've been racist against. As Auster explains:

While some late 19th and early 20th century leftists saw Third-World peoples and cultures as obstacles to liberal Western progress that had to be eliminated, leftists after 1960 began to see white Western civilization itself as the main obstacle to liberal progress that had to be eliminated.

So all that's really changed in the last forty years or so is the fact that Liberals have turned 180 degrees and uphold racist attitudes against peoples of European descent (aka "white" people).

So yeah, next time you hear a Liberal talk about "racism", you'll know for sure that he is full of it.

Be proud of your heritage and don't let anyone denigrate it. Your heritage is an important part of who you are!

Has Le Pen betrayed France?

2006-02-21T16:34:00.000-05:00

I would certainly hope not, but there have been some discussion about that over at View From The Right. It appears now that Le Pen is trying to placate to France's Muslim population. Considering the recent mess Muslims made throughout France, this makes little if any sense. Not only that, it is a betrayal to France's Catholic heritage and it's status as being " the Eldest Daughter of the Church". On a related note, it is reported that traditionalist Catholics make up 50% of Le Pen's support base, so these recent actions may cause some headaches for him.

I used to admire Le Pen very much, I felt he was a true French patriot. However it seems I'll probably have to place more faith in Philippe de Villiers.

Here are links to the discussions at hand:

Has Le Pen Surrendered To Islamization?

French Nationalists Who Consider Le Pen A Sellout

Is the NSA really watching you?

2006-02-19T17:34:00.000-05:00

There has been much concern over the recent revelations about the Bush administration allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on American citizens. Many people seem to be extremely afraid that the government is listening in on their word. Hopefully this information will help shed some light on this:

"[The NSA] does routinely collect vast amounts of data and that it is capable of targeting an individual telephone line or computer terminal on the other side of the planet. But, Hersh cautioned, 'active and retired NSA officials have repeatedly told me that the agency does not have the software to make sense out of more than a tiny fraction of the huge array random communications that are collected'...James Bamford agreed that speculation about the 'NSA being able to eavesdrop everywhere, anytime, everyone is completely not the case.' He broke down the winnowing process...If a single station gathers one million intercepts every half hour, Bamford said all but '6,500 are filtered out through these electronic filters.' Most of that 6,500 still do not meet what the agencies call 'forwarding criteria', so they will be thrown out too, leaving one thousand. 'Out of a million now you're down to about a thousand messages in this half hour. Those are the ones that actually get looked at a little more closely', Bamford explained. 'Sometimes it's just looking at it very quickly to see if it looks interesting, you know, just quickly going through it. Out of a thousand, they normally would get 10 that they find interesting, and out of that ten, there will usually be only one report that will come out."
-- Patrick Radden Keefe, Chatter : Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping, pp. 113-114, 199-200

In other words, the chances of the NSA even wanting to spy on you are very slim indeed.

This does not mean that I endorse what Bush is doing, far from it. I certainly agree with Paul Craig Roberts when he denounces Bush's "criminal administration", although I feel he goes a little over-board in speculating that Bush has blackmailed the Democrats with information obtained by the NSA, hence why they've been putting up such weak and ineffective resistance to his policies. More likely the case of why the Democrats have put up such weak opposition to Bush is because they're incompetent!

The major point I'm trying to make is don't get overly paranoid. This is especially true in the case of Richard M. Smith, who offers some steps one can do to see whether or not "Big Brother" is really spying on you. Long story short: You set up separate e-mail accounts, one on an American server, the other on a foreign server. Then send an e-mail from one to the other and track the people watching it.

Concerning the e-mails you send between the two servers, I especially like the advice Smith gives us: "Send messages between the two accounts which might be interesting to the NSA." I don't know about you, but this sounds like something one would do if they deliberately wanted to attract the attention of the NSA. Not exactly the best advice.

So anyways, I hope I've helped calm some peoples' fears.

Why American "news" is pathetic!

2006-02-19T17:02:00.000-05:00

"Journalists around the world are being targeted by suicide bombers, threatened with "hate crimes" prosecutions and thrown in jail for defending a free press from crazed Islamists.

You wouldn't know it from the circus-show antics of the American media...Yet, here we are, as embassies blaze and editors cower in fear and radical imams ululate against the West, watching our esteemed media go Looney Tunes over an isolated hunting accident.

Who do you think will have the last laugh?"
-- Michelle Malkin, "American clown journalism 101"

I usually don't care for Michelle Malkin, who in my opinion comes off as your all too typical Neo-Con loud-mouth. Nevertheless, she offers a very insightful commentary on the all too common idiocy of American "news". If Pakistan launched a nuclear attack against India, I'd sincerely doubt we'd hear about it if secret sex tapes involving Laura Bush (God help us if such tapes actually existed) were released to the public at the same time. Yet, as Malkin explains, this occurs in a nation that likes to pride itself on having a free press that gets to the bottom of any story. Well that's certainly true, it's just a matter of whether or not that story really matters!

In fact, I've noticed very little if any mention of the violence occurring around the world as a result of the Danish cartoons in American media outlets. Yet this is not new, it occurs with almost every major event around the world. This was especially true with the inept coverage of the riots in France done by American newspapers. Hence why I personally usually trust foreign media sources, like BBC, for my news.

At least BBC will spend at least a few minutes covering a certain story, as opposed to just 30 seconds or less as in American news. And ironically, I've usually much more insightful coverage and commentary from British news on even events occurring within the United States! This was especially true with Operation Iraqi Freedom and the '04 election.

So all in all, if you truly want to know what's really going on in the world, the last place to turn to for information is American news!

Something is not right in Denmark

2006-02-19T16:52:00.000-05:00

Fidei Defensor offers us a two-part articulated analysis about the events surrounding the Danish cartoons and it relates to the state of Danish culture in general. He particularly concentrates on the relative decline of the state Lutheran Church, and how Catholicism is possibly the only force that can save Denmark from the Islamists.

Truly worth a read!

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." Parts One and Two

A clash of civilisations leading to a struggle for survival?

2006-02-15T15:27:00.000-05:00

To all our readers, I repropose a letter of mine published today on The Times of Malta on the subject of the Muhammad cartoon controversies.

[Source: TimesofMalta.com]

Cartoons and double standards (1)

Edric Micallef Figallo, Nadur.

In relation to the Muhammad cartoon controversies, which were puerile and unwarranted, although not as much as the deplorable and disproportionate reaction which leaves many expressing doubts as to the actual motives behind it (especially considering the fact that the cartoons were published last October and not recently), I would like to quote Professor Luciano Amaral of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa who exclaimed:

"Christians in the West are forced to put up with incredible insults every day: Christ depicted as a homosexual, Mary as a prostitute, etc. And if they show the slightest indignation, they are subjected to a hailstorm of criticism from those who invoke the sacrosanct principle of free speech...all it takes is for a Danish newspaper to publish a few mediocre cartoons of Muhammad and you have half the intellectuals in the Western world discovering the religious sensitivity of Islam, doing penance, excusing the acts of violence by Muslims and reminding us how important it is to try to understand them, they who are taking a direct hit from the West's arrogance...

"The hatred that certain Western intellectuals harbour towards their own culture is one of the most fascinating phenomena of the contemporary world. If a civilization is no longer even capable of arousing the instincts necessary for its own survival, perhaps it no longer deserves to live."

The above is food for thought.

The Slavic Apostles

2006-02-14T11:40:00.000-05:00

Today is also the feast day for Ss. Cyril and Methodius, also known as "the Apostles to the Slavs". These two saints hold a special significance to Slavic Christians like myself. Not only did they bring the faith of Christ to our ancestors, they also made immeasurable contributions to the development of Slavic culture. This is especially true in the area of literature, where their work of translating the Bible and liturgy into Church Slavonic, along with developing the Cyrillic alphabet, laid the foundation for the great works of Slavic writers like Leo Tolstoy, Fydor Dostoevsky, Taras Shevchenko, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and many more.

It also comes as no surprise that the first organization to advocate the greater between all the Slavic nations was named in honour of these two saints!

Pope John Paul II (the first Slavic pope), has always paid homage to these two saints. This was especially true in his 1985 letter Slavorum Apostoli (The Apostles of the Slavs). Even in his last book, Memory and Identity, the late Pope explains the important impact Ss. Cyril and Methodius had not only on the Slavic peoples, but also on the universal Catholic Church, along with the shaping of European civilization. He explained that it was no accident that these two saints are the patron saints of Europe, along with St. Benedict.

So all Catholics should join their Slavic brethren in honoring these two great missionaries of Christ. After all, you do it anyways with the Irish when concerning St. Patrick!

Happy St. Valentine's Day!

2006-02-14T11:13:00.000-05:00

Well today is the day we honour the life of St. Valentine, whose life teaches us the meaning of true love. Catholic Cavemen give an intereting take on this holiday and how it has been perverted.

The mysterious ways of Muslims!

2006-02-12T17:07:00.000-05:00

"Muslims seem to be outraged that their prophet, a symbol of peace, would be insinuated to be violet at his very core. So help me out on this one... the way to express your anger at such an insinuation and the way to show this to be inaccurate is to what? violently riot, threaten newspapers, government leaders, and civilians across the globe?"
-- Mark Jahnke, The Cruel Irony of Muslim Cartoon-Riots - Democracy of the Dead blog

Give them hell Philippe!

2006-02-12T15:10:00.000-05:00

French politician Philippe de Villiers has recently decried "the progressive Islamisation of French society", and making his bid known for the upcoming presidential race in 2007.

Philippe de Villiers is the leader of the Movement for France (MPF), which believes in building a staunchly patriotic and Catholic France. It's also a movement that calls for strict restrictions on immigration, and is opposed to the E.U.(which is inaccurately described as "anti-European").

Another interesting point made is how de Villiers is apparently now ahead of Jean-Marie Le Pen in opinion polls. I certainly have nothing against Le Pen, but it does seem that de Villiers is more staunchly Catholic in his views.

So give them hell Philippe!

Magazine desecrates Our Lady of Czestochowa!

2006-02-12T14:46:00.000-05:00

This infuriates me to no end! The magazine Machina decides to desecrate the most venerated of Polish icons by printing an image of none other than pop singer Madonna's face imposed over that of our Holy Mother, and the face of one of her children over that of the infant Christ.

Thank god, the Polish people are not taking this lightly. How dare they trash the rich religious and cultural heritage of Poland like that!

The icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa holds a special place in the hearts of all Polish people. Tradition even has it that it was St. Luke the Evangelist who created this wonderful image. Not to mention many miracles have been attributed to it.

I urge all Catholics to stand by their Polish brothers and sisters in protesting this outrageous act. And by protest, of course, I mean in constructive ways; for any potential smart-arses who might accuse me of being a hypocrite with my post "Why can't Muslims take a joke?".

Stuck in the middle with you!

2006-02-11T16:09:00.000-05:00

"As Christians and especially as Catholics, we are caught in between two powerful and destructive forces in the world. On the one hand there is the fanatical and radical Islam that is currently fueling riots throughout the world...On the other hand, we have the corrupt forces of a globalized decadent Western culture of pornography and materialism passing itself off as entertainment and commercial advertising. Between these two destructive forces, the Christian witness stands alone as the sane, viable alternative."
-- Oswald Sobrino, "Caught in Between" - Catholics in the Public Square blog

Globalists to the left of me, Jihadists to the right, here I am, Stuck in the middle with you.

Why Ethnic Churches Are Better

2006-02-10T12:20:00.000-05:00

I must confess my general preference for ethnic-based churches over more cosmopolitan ones. Whenever I wish to attend a religious service, I always try to attend it at an ethnic-based church. Why is that you might ask? Well I have two basic reasons that to go to the heart of my world-view: 1) I am a staunch Catholic who takes my faith seriously and 2) I staunchly believe in the importance of upholding one's heritage. Now how on earth are those two related?

Well long-time readers of this blog may remember my post back in August which explained the relationship between religious devotion and national loyalty. I even typed a follow-up post the next day that further articulated my arguments. For the record I will repost the quote I posted in the follow-up:

"It may be futile and unrealistic to separate religion and ethnic identity. Many individuals behave as if their ethnic affiliation and professed religion are one and the same: to be born Croatian is to be born Catholic...There are few multireligious ethnic groups and their relative scarcity suggests that religion is the root of ethnic differentiations or that religious distinctiveness is a key to ethnic saliency."
-- Cynthia Enloe "Religion and Ethnicity"; Ethnicity edited by John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, pp. 199-200; 201

Well there you are. It's quite clear that many ethnic identities have been forged out of religious devotion as well. However, my previous posts discussing the strong links between ethnicity and religion seem to explain it from the perspective of how religion enriches the ethnic group. This post will seek to explain the same question from the opposite perspective, how the ethnicity enriches the religion.

There is no question that Catholicism is indeed a universal faith, but that does not mean it has to be a uniform faith. This perspective is especially found among us Eastern Catholics, who are well-known for mixing ethnic traditions with universal Catholic doctrine. As this website explains:

All the rites of the Catholic Church also hold the same dogmas; they are unequivocally united in faith and moral teachings, for they are all part of one Holy Mother Church. Yet their policies and practices often differ according to custom. This is a good and healthy thing; it shows that the One Truth of God can be celebrated in many different ways by various cultures.

I couldn't have said better myself. So ethnic traditions help show us Catholic the variety of ways in which we can express our faith. This is certainly a much more authentic form of religious "diversity" or "plurality" than that espoused by multi-culturalists nowadays; since their version usually means degrading age-old customs and traditions (more on that later).

The mixing of a peoples' particular traditions with the universal truths of the Christian faith is as old as the faith itself. Jesus himself identified closely with his own ethnic roots several times in the Gospels, especially in the Gospel of Matthew. When the question of whether or not non-Hebrew converts to the faith should obey Hebrew customs(like circumcision or obeying certain dietary laws), the Apostles determined that no they should not; they should be able to celebrate the faith within their own cultural traditions.

And from that day on, Christianity has spread to the far corners of the world by adapting itself to local customs. As this Orthodox-based article explains:"Roman, Greek, Syriac, Slavic, Indian, and other forms of Christianity came about as a result of a cultural fusion with the message of Jesus Christ." This process of adapting Church doctrines to local customs often goes by the term inculturation.

So how does inculturation help enrich the universal faith? Well, as mentioned above, it helps create a rich and authentic diversity within the universal Church. However, it's not restricted to just that. By merging ethnic and local traditions with the Church, you create a strong bond between man's two most deepest loyalties: loyalty to ones faith and loyalty to ones community. By serving your community you also serve your faith, and vice versa. There are too many examples of what happens when these two loyalties merge; but they all usually share the same characteristic: both loyalties complement and strengthen each other.

Interesting enough this is one reason why Steve Sailer believes the United States is more religious than many European countries, because "church services give Americans a rare opportunity to indulge in ethnic solidarity." Sailer sets this argument up against Fr. Andrew Greeley's argument that the reason is because American churches don't suffer from the same "inefficient and unmotivated government monopoly" as their European counterparts. To be fair, however, Sailer is not completely rejecting Greeley's argument, nor has Greeley completely ignored Sailer's.

In his book The Catholic Imagination, Greeley takes a sociological look at Catholic culture in America. The fourth chapter of the book deals exclusively with the Catholic concept of community. Greeley makes it clear that Catholicism is "a religion of community" and has always strived to be at the heart of community life. In particular, he points out the case of the Irish community in America; and how the Catholic Church played an immeasurable role in fostering their sense of ethnic pride. Yet at the same time, the Irish sense of themselves as an ethnic community also helped foster their devotion to the Church, especially since the Church was the major institution through which they could express their ethnic heritage.

However, since America lacked any official religious institutions, this strong link between religion and ones ethnic identity took on a more spontaneous form than what could often be seen in Europe. In Europe, there was often an official church and belonging to it was a matter of law. Not belonging to the official would've be interpreted as an act of treason. Although the church was often at the heart of a nation's identity, it was so in a more legalistic fashion. This was not the case with ethnic churches in America; one belonged to a church because they genuinely wanted to belong to that church, and not because they were forced to belong.

So it's quite clear that Greeley understands Sailer's argument perfectly well.

It was not only the Irish who intimately linked ethnicity with religious devotion in America. The same could be said of numerous other ethnicities: the Italians, Poles, Ukrainians, Rusyns, and even Orthodox peoples like Russians and Greeks. Of course even this is just a small list!

With the surrounding American culture pressuring these people lose their particular identities and be absorbed into the great "melting pot", these ethnicities often had no other institution to turn to than the Church, which also often the only significant link they had with the old country. So was within these circumstances that the strong link between ethnic identity and religion emerged within the American context.

So in many ways the arguments of Greeley and Sailer are both correct. It also helps explain the closer linkage between religion and ethnic identity found among ethnic diasporas in American then among many people back home in Europe. For example, the notion of a secular Polish identity would unthinkable to many Polish-Americans, yet many people in Poland might find that notion more reasonable. Again, going back to the issue of an official church; in Poland the Catholic Church has a more official position than it does in America. Although, it should be noted that First Things did an article showing the close relationship between the Polish national identity and Catholicism.

So I'm not arguing that a strong linkage between ethnicity and religion is completely lacking in Europe, far from it. Nor am I trying to argue anything about the relationship between church and state in this post. What I am saying is that for the most part, the linkage between ethnic pride and religious devotion has been more spontaneous in America than in Europe due to the lack of official religious institutions. Now when the major religious institutions of Europe started to come under assault from secularist forces, a more spontaneous link between the two forces did indeed emerge. This was especially true for the Catholic Church in France during the Revolution, and also with the churches under Communist rule. So this post is largely advocating the necessity of a strong link between religion and ethnic identity on a spontaneous level.

Anyways, getting back to topic. Since the church was the one major link between a community and its traditions, this also helped forge a general preference for more traditional forms of religious devotion. This remains very much true to this day, and one particular reason why I generally prefer ethnic churches. It also goes to the heart of why many churches have declined in recent generations.

For the most part, ethnic-based churches and communities were quite widespread within American society. If you were of Irish descent, chances are you grew up in an Irish neighborhood and attended services at a church with an distinctly Irish character. Not surprisingly, this was also a high-point for the Church.

It was not until World War II that this began to change. After the war, American society became much more mobile and as a result you would see people from different backgrounds moving into the same area. As a result, American society became much more cosmopolitan in nature; a society without roots. One could argue that it was this severing of peoples roots that made the social turnovers of the 1960's possible. Identifying oneself by your heritage became out of fashion, seen as being held hostage by the past.

Sadly, not only did this effect negatively upon ethnic identities, but also within the churches themselves. Inspired by "the spirit of Vatican II", rejecting age-old traditions within the faith became the order of the day. This was helped by the massive de-ethnization of many American communities, since as mentioned before upholding ethnic traditions was a major reason often for preferring more traditional rituals. In the new cosmopolitan society there was no need to uphold any traditions, ethnic or religious. It's ironic that it was done in the name of Vatican II, since inculturation was a major component of its doctrines.

As mentioned before, to this day, ethnic-based churches often perform more traditional forms of liturgy than in many non-ethnic churches. Although they still perform the Novous Ordo mass of Vatican II, nevertheless the services they do perform at least have some significant reverence towards age-old traditions and practices. On the other hand, many of the most outrageous spectacles passing off as religious services usually occur in parishes and communities that are much more cosmopolitan in nature.

Many Christians like to blame much of the religious decline in the modern era purely on secularism. While that certainly is true, however they seem to forget the other half of the story; the rise of cosmopolitanism within modern society. These two have too often been linked to each other to really overlook this.

The first great moment for secularism was during the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century. The major proponents of the age argued for the rejection of all religious traditions, which held back human knowledge for countless generations (at least in their minds). Well secularism was not the only thing the philosophes (the intellectual leaders of the Enlightenment) advocated. They also advocated, with the exception of Rousseau, a more cosmopolitan outlook on the world. Not only should man reject religious traditions, he should also reject "narrow loyalties"; like those concerning community, ethnicity, nation, etc. Instead man should inspire towards a more universal human consciousness.

Yet this connection between secularism and cosmopolitanism has been seen ever since. The atheist Communists who saw religion as "the opium of the masses" also declared that the "workers have no country"; that ethnic identities hinder the international unity of the proletariat. And of course today the biggest advocates for secularism are also those who push for the elimination of ethnic/national identities through globalization and multi-culturalism. This close connection often goes unrecognized by many Christians, sadly because it's "politically incorrect" to point this obvious truth out. To openly advocate that people should congregate with people of a similar background will often get you slandered as a "racist" or "intolerant". Of course that's non-sense.

An ethnic church is largely one that expresses the Catholic faith through the traditions and culture of that particular ethnicity. That does not mean it's exclusively for that ethnic group. The Catholic Church is still a universal church and Catholics are welcomed in any parish. A non-Irishman can still attend an Irish-based church, but he must respect the fact that it is a church centered in traditions of the Irish people.

Nor does that mean that the traditions of a particular ethnic tradition cannot enrich and be embraced by the whole Catholic community. Getting back to the Irish(since they're the most famous ethno-religious community in America), their traditions have pretty much shaped the character of the Catholic Church in America. Also there's been growing interest in the phenomena of Celtic Christianity.

I have noted in numerous posts on this blog, this notion that Christianity is really just nothing more than a religious form of globalization is so widespread within the churches, despite the fact it goes against traditional church teaching and practice. Yet this is merely a reflection of the cosmopolization/de-ethnization of society as a whole.

Yet, Cynthia Enloe (from whose article I quoted above) notes the very difficulty of trying to replace ethnicity with religion. Many studies have shown that there is a difference of opinion on many issues among American Catholics that correspond to ethnicity. Italian-American Catholics are more willing to support certain positions that Irish-American Catholics very often are completely opposed to. So again, as she noted, it's almost futile to separate ethnicity from religion.

So in conclusion, why are ethnic churches better? Because they usually are more traditional in both teaching and liturgy than their more cosmopolitan counter-parts. This stems from the fact that an ethnic church is seeking to express the faith through the time-honored traditions and culture of a particular people, which adds a strong sense of community within the parish. Not to mention these time-honored ethnic traditions have added a genuine sense of diversity within the universal Catholic church that respects church doctrine rather than disregard it.

So yes, that is why I prefer ethnic churches!

Italian judge throws out absurd Jesus case

2006-02-10T11:49:00.000-05:00

Thank God some sense of sanity reigns in Italy!

Read about the story at BBC News.

Your short guide to debunking the Da Vinci Code

2006-02-09T13:21:00.000-05:00

Massimo Introvigne has provided a very short but effective piece that completely debunks many of the claims made by Dan Brown's novel. So for those of us who are too busy or possibly too lazy to read up on the several books on there that accomplish the same thing (but of course with more articulation), this link is for you.

I like how Introvigne answers this all too often claim:

The Da Vinci Code is just a novel: why criticize it as if it were a history book?

People who ask this question usually have not read the page of The Da Vinci Code titled Fact, where the author, Dan Brown, asserts that «all descriptions of [..]documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate» and are based specifically on the fact that «in 1975 Paris’ Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments, known as Les Dossiers Secrets» which reveal the story of the Priory of Sion.

Of course Introvigne goes further in debunking the nonsense concerning the Priory of Sion and so on. For those who want a more detailed account about the truth behind this "secret organization", you can read Introvinge's " Beyond The Da Vinci Code: History and Myth of the Priory of Sion".

BTW, my personal favorite book that debunks Brown's book is The Da Vinci Hoax by Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel.

10 Myths about Priests and Pedophilia

2006-02-09T13:09:00.000-05:00

Deal Hudson, whose the chief editor of Crisis Magazine, debunks the 10 most common myths about the priest and pedophilia.

I especially like the first myth he debunks:

Myth #1 - Catholic priests are more likely to be pedophiles than other groups of men.

This is just plain false. There's absolutely no evidence that priests are more likely to abuse children than are other groups of men. The use and abuse of children as objects for the sexual gratification of adults is epidemic in all classes, professions, religions, and ethnic communities across the globe, as figures on child pornography, incest, and child prostitution make abundantly clear. Pedophilia (the sexual abuse of a prepubescent child) among priests is extremely rare, affecting only 0.3% of the entire population of clergy. This figure, cited in the book Pedophiles and Priests by non-Catholic scholar, Philip Jenkins, is from the most comprehensive study to date, which found that only one out of 2,252 priests considered over a thirty-year period was afflicted with pedophilia. In the recent Boston scandal, only four of the more than eighty priests labeled by the media as "pedophiles" are actually guilty of molesting young children.

Pedophilia is a particular type of compulsive sexual disorder in which an adult (man or woman) abuses prepubescent children. The vast majority of the clerical sex-abuse scandals now coming to light do not involve pedophilia. Rather, they involve ephebophilia -- homosexual attraction to adolescent boys. While the total number of sexual abusers in the priesthood is much higher than those guilty of pedophilia, it still amounts to less than 2 percent -- comparable to the rate among married men (Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priests).

In the wake of the current crisis in the Church, other religious denominations and non-religious institutions have admitted to having similar problems with both pedophilia and ephebophilia among the ranks of their clergy. There's no evidence that Catholic prelates are more likely to be pedophiles than Protestant ministers, Jewish leaders, physicians, or any other institution in which adults are in a position of authority and power over children.

I've always had a love-hate relationship with Crisis Magazine. They often post wonderully insightful articles, and yet at other times I've had to expose their Neo-Con agendas as well.

Oh well!

Links are organized finally!

2006-02-09T13:06:00.000-05:00

You may now notice that I finally have my links nicely organzied into different sub-sections. This has long been overdue!

Debunking future warfare

2006-02-08T14:37:00.000-05:00

Carlton Meyer gives a wonderful critique of the nonsense governing the U.S. military's "Future Combat systems". Namely that the military leadership is wasting billions of dollars on a concept that hasn't been proven to be effective, and that there are much more effective alternatives.

For those who don't know, the Future Combat Systems(FCS), is a project in the works that is designed to "modernize" America's armed forces with the technology it will need to fight wars of the future. The concept lacks any real achievable goals, and simply revolves around developing extremely complex and super-high tech weaponry. Meyer argues against this approach, instead advocating that simple and more low-tech upgrades are more than enough to sustain the military's future capabilities. He explains how such an approach has been successfully adopted by the Swedish military.

I myself have previously commented on the Pentagon's obsession with high technology. However, many defenders of the FCS and other high-tech projects usually try to deflect critics by labeling them of a "Luddite" persuation. Yet this is a strawman.

The argument is not that technology doesn't have a place on the battlefield, but that it must be used within reasonable limits. Not to mention that there's much debate about whether or not the military actually needs all these high-tech gadgets on the battlefield.

Retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, president of the Army War College, probably explained it best in his testimony to the House Armed Services Committee:

Technology is useful...But machines alone will never be decisive. … The tools most useful in this new war are low-tech and manpower-intensive … night raids, ambushes, roving patrols mounted and dismounted, as well as reconstruction, civic action, and medial contact teams. The enemy will be located not by satellites and [drones] but by patient intelligence work, back alley payoffs, collected information from captured documents, and threats of one-way vacations to Cuba. … Buried in an avalanche of information, commanders still confront the problem of trying to understand the enemy's intention and his will to fight.

In other words, wars of the future will still have to follow the same common sense that governed wars of the past. The notion that new technologies are going to make decisive "breakthroughs" in the nature of warfare is nothing but hogwash!

Why can't Muslims take a joke?

2006-02-07T13:23:00.000-05:00

That's the question Spengler(obviously not the famous Oswald Spengler) addresses in his latest piece. Although I disagree with some of his jabs at tradition and religion in general, he makes some interesting points. Namely that Muslims, if they seek to get by in the modern world, need to have to develop a real sense of humour.

For those who are unaware, once again angry Muslims are on the rampage all across the world; looting, rioting, and even vandalizing embassies(like in Beirut and Damascus). And what on earth has so infuriated the Muslim world that would cause them to do all this? Believe it or not, this whole issue centers around cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper. Yes, that's right, newspaper cartoons that apparently mock the Prophet Muhammad.

Hence Spengler's argument that Muslims really do need to learn how to take a joke. Christian traditions have been openly mocked for several generations now in society, yet Christians voice their outrage in more effective ways. If a Danish newspaper printed cartoons mocking Jesus Christ, Christians would more likely do several things; usually organize a boycott of that newspaper and send letters of protest to the editors of that newspaper and if possible to the person who drew those cartoons in the first place. Christians would most certainly not be rioting, looting, or vandalizing Danish embassies. Why? Perhaps because Christians usually aim at being constructive members of society.

It's about time that Muslims realize that they have a serious problem among their religious flock; a strong tendency to think that violent and destructive acts is the major way to solving problems. Since September 11th, there has been much debate how much Islam actually is a religion of peace. James A. Beverley (along with others) have tried to argue that Islam does indeed have a peaceful side, and there is struggle today for the soul of Islam. How much of that is true is up for debate, but quite frankly if this is indeed true then the voices calling for a more peaceful Islam need to wake up and start having their voices heard!

Because clearly these continuous incidents of irresponsible and violent behavior on the part of Muslims around the world is damaging the image of their religion to the rest of the world. This blog already commented about the growing hatred of Islam in Europe and this was almost a year before either this incident or the Paris riots! Now Europe has more reason to despise its Muslim populations.

If Muslims are offended by these cartoons, well fine, that's certainly understandable. But that doesn't give them the right to behave like they are. Rather they should pull themselves together and engage in more constructive forms of protest. If Muslims honestly feel they are unwelcome in Europe and their traditions are being trashed by European society, well why not go back home and live among your own religious kin, which ironically is exactly what one Islamic cleric suggested. Have Muslims honestly taken either one of these suggestions into consideration?

My sincere apologies!

2006-02-07T12:34:00.000-05:00

You may remember my previous post where I laid out my nominations for the Catholic Blog awards. Sadly, right when I was about to enter the nominations at the website, my computer crashed and I was not able to do so. And later on in the week I had little time to do so either because of my work schedule.

So I apologize if I gave anybody false hope. It's the thought that counts! ;)

An apparently excellent book titled: How the Catholic Church built Western Civilization

2006-02-01T20:24:00.000-05:00

Salve,

Stroke of luck, Divine Providence, coincidence, term it what you like but if I was a Roman pagan I would say that the deity Fortuna has smiled towards me. As a Catholic I believe God might have helped me tonight in order to please him, an atheistic rationalist would surmise the question to coincidence. What the cause of my happiness was, I'll leave it to the discretion of the readers.

I'm writing about an apparently excellent book by Thomas E. Woods Jr entitled How the Catholic Church built Western Civilization. It seems to be an excellent and awesome book countering the centuries long enduring battle to demolish the Roman Catholic Church through the denigration of its activities for Western Civilization and secular progress throughout history.

The book is next in line in my book-purchasing list, I can't wait to have it in my hands in order to read it. From the looks of user comments, I suggest it to all Catholics and to history enthusiasts and professional historians alike.

Pro Christus Rex et Sancta Mater Ecclesia,
Pro Traditio, Religio et Patria,
L'Ardito Nazionalista.

P.S. I'm not sure, but I believe Perun had mentioned this book to me before.

My Introduction

2006-02-01T18:56:00.000-05:00

Salve,

With pleasure I hope to be able to post in the blog of my intelligent and truly enlightened friend, the Catholic named like a pagan god ;), Perun.

First of all, introducing myself would only amount to courtesy towards the readers of this excellent blog. I, L'Ardito Nazionalista, am Maltese. For those that do not know it, the Maltese are not a mere breed of dogs, but like the dogs whose name originates from the name of the island back in Ancient Roman times, the Maltese are the people of the Maltese islands.

These islands constitute a small archipelago located around 90 kilometres south of Sicily, right in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

Malta, the main island, was converted to Catholicism/Christianity by Saint Paul the Apostle himself around 60AD on his voyage towards martyrdom in pagan Rome. Malta is in fact mentioned in the Holy Scriptures, in the book of the Acts of the Apostles.

I am 24 years old, and I'm a University student reading Law & Theology at the University of Malta.

Now, concerning my beliefs I can only say that my nome de plume respects my beliefs perfectly. What does L'Ardito Nazionalista mean?

Ardito is an Italian word which basically refers to someone that is intransigent, in the meaning I prescribe to the word. This refers to my spirit yearning to fight, fight for my beliefs, being an active militant in all means possible according to my circumstances. Ardito is also someone controversial, who is not scared to offend and who actually offends. I do offend, in particular on matters of principle where honesty and truth are paramount virtues.

Nazionalista is another Italian word, which obviously means nationalist. However, in what sense am I a Nazionalista? I am such, in the traditionalist sense in relation to the Maltese nationalist tradition.

I'm of the opinion that nationalism is peculiar and particularist to each nation, even though amor patrio is something that is intrinsic to our very own human nature. This has been asserted by the late Pope John Paul II himself in his book Memory & Identity, which deals appropriately with the notion of patria (fatherland) and patriotism.

That being said, the definitions for patriotism and nationalism used by Pope John Paul II, and I notice many other Catholic promotors of patriotism plus apologetical writers in relation to patriotism, do not find my approval. I say so due to the fact that according to Maltese tradition, nationalism is neither militaristic, hateful, isolationist and other negative appellatives that should not be the attributes of any nationalist in the proper sense.

According to Maltese nomenclature in relation to nazzjonaliżmu (nationalism) and patrijottiżmu (patriotism), the former is a political expression of the latter, with the latter being a spirit of love for the patria expressible in practically all aspects of national life. It is AMOR PATRIO.

The latter expression is totally in line with the generic Catholic definition of the term, it is when contrasted with nationalism that a problem, exclusively in linguistic terms, arises. This being said, the Maltese traditionalist notion of nazzjonaliżmu is totally in line with Traditionalist Roman Catholic Social Doctrine on patriotism. This being no surprise since orthodox, or true, Maltese nationalists are in point of fact Roman Catholic.

This ties in with the notion of the Maltese traditionalist nationalist motto, being Religio et Patria.

The Maltese prided themselves in calling our nation Cattolicissima (sort of very very Catholic). Even though I sense great generic apostasy and rising anti-clericalism, secularism, materialism and atheism, the Maltese are relatively more Catholic than the rest of Europe. Pope John Paul II, in his 2001 visit to the islands, exhorted the Maltese to show their Faith to Europe back when Malta was still negotiating European Union accession.

Quite contemporary is the question of selecting a face for the Maltese version of the Euro. Popular consultation has up till now provided the best Number 1 available, the Baptism of Christ statue in St. John's Co-Cathedral in La Valletta, our capital and World Heritage Site as declared by UNESCO. (Click on links to view images)

With pride, joy, happiness and most importantly hope, I will pray for it to be selected, thus pushing the image of Christ our Lord into the European Union through Malta. My views on the European Union will be made manifest in due time.

Of important notice, is that divorce is not sanctioned by Maltese Courts of Law even though divorces recognised by foreign courts are legally recognised in Malta. This is nowadays, even in formerly staunch Catholic countries, a unicum I believe. Abortion is a criminal offence if carried in Maltese territory.

As a traditionalist Maltese nationalist, nationalism/patriotism and Roman Catholicism are not only exclusive to each other but they cannot be separated. The anti-Catholic notion that patriotism is incompatible with Catholicism is blatantly false, and the notion is only passed by liberal and leftist political forces (main promotors of immigrationism) unfortunately aided by liberal-modernist clergy that are wittingly or not causing vast damages to the Church and promoting through their notions and actions widespread apostasy.

Relating to language, and this is a paramount notion in Maltese nationalism, if you search material on Malta and the Maltese, you'll find that the national language of Malta is Maltese, described as a semitic language. Well, I can't help but advice that a bunch of rubbish and half-truths are written on Maltese history and the Maltese nation itself either by ignorant Maltese or by propagators of lies. The Maltese language, does in fact have semitic origins through Arabic, but the vast majority of the Maltese vocabulary is in point of fact derivated from the Sicilian dialect and the Italian language. Pratically all Maltese, in one way or the other will find some Sicilian or Italian blood in their veins and they won't know it without researching their own person and family. As a point of fact I definitely have Sicilian and Ligurian (northern Italian region) blood in my veins, even though I am perfectly Maltese and in my family no one speaks of Siculo-Italian ethnic heritage even though it is there!

You'd ask: But why is that?

The answer is simple, the Maltese have been the victims of vast and profound cultural manipulation at the hands of British Imperialists. Malta was in point of fact a British Colony de facto from around 1800 up to 1964. Needless to say, the Maltese Latin national identity was demolished, the Maltese language had to be totally Arabised to sever linguistic ties with our Siculo-Italian brothers to the north, while the Italian language was denied its official language status dictatorially in 1936 after it was an official administrative and cultural language in Malta even before it gained institutional status on the Italian peninsula itself!

Malta nowadays, is bereft of its proper national identity. As a point of fact, my national languages are Maltese and Italian, although the latter does not receive institutional recognition up till to day since that dreadful year of 1936. As my father would say "peccato" (sin in Italian).

I can write a lot more about my beloved Patria and our valorous Nazionalisti, however I do not think it is appropriate to do so on this blog even though I have still to grasp accordingly what is expected of me here.

I salute you all.

Pro Christus Rex et Sancta Mater Ecclesia,
Pro Traditio, Religio et Patria,
L'Ardito Nazionalista.

2006 Catholic Blog awards

2006-02-01T16:52:00.000-05:00

Via College Catholic, it's come to my attention that the 2006 Catholic Blog Awards and nominations will end by Feburary 3rd.

I'm honoured that Fidei Defensor(who runs College Catholic) was kind enough to nominate this blog for the awards, even though he's confused as to which category to place us in. I have to admit that's my fault, since this blog doesn't really fit the typical patterns of other Catholic blogs.

There are several categories to be nominated in, and here's my list. I can't say I have a nomination for each category, but here goes nothing:

Best blog by a man - College Catholic.

Most insightful blog - Liberty, Order, and Tradition

Most theological blog - la nouvelle théologie

Most intellectual blog - Cahiers Peguy

Best political analysis - without a doubt The New Crusade

And that's really about it that I can say. If I didn't mention your blog, don't despair because my opinion on such issue don't matter anyways. Not only that, there are probably other issues involved as well.

Welcome L'Ardito Nazionalista!

2006-02-01T16:37:00.000-05:00

I've recently just added L'Ardito Nazionalista as a contributor to this blog. We share very similar political and religious beliefs. He's especially well versed in official Catholic teachings on several issues. So he'll be a great addition to this blog.

Long-time readers readers of the blog may well know, I've been trying to find other contributors for this blog for some time now. Not that I hate blogging, but rather to keep things alive here whenever I'm not able to post.

So we await L'Ardito Nazionalista's first post here (and we've discussed what it may possibly be about). So enjoy!

The positive side effects of Abstinence

2006-01-31T13:01:00.000-05:00

Apparently there's an interesting study just out now showing that there are indeed positive side effects of abstaining from sexual intercourse until at least the age of 18. Among these benefits are a reduced risk of divorce, being able to obtain a better education, and earning better income. Thank you antonia for bringing this study to all our attention.

Some bold statements about modern degradation from a Reverend

2006-01-30T15:36:00.000-05:00

Reverend John Papworth gives an outstanding speech concerning the issue of the restoration of community life and the traditional values of Western civilization. It's quite a shame that there aren't more clergymen out there like him, taking strong stands on the corrupt nature of modern society.

It's noted at the end that Rev. John Papworth is the editor of a newspaper titled Fourth World Review, which is described as:

"Totally prejudiced, biased and one-sided in favour of small nations and small, empowered, decision-making communities, as opposed to overcentralised, top heavy, mass political structures and to giant forms of economic collapse. A journal for radical thinkers and for thinking radicals."

That most pretty much sums up the philosophy governing this blog, and if I ever find a homepage to this paper I will most certainly add it to my links.

May God bless your work Rev. John Papworth, perhaps you might consider converting to Catholicism someday! ;)

Uniting the Populists - Left and Right

2006-01-30T15:13:00.000-05:00

I recently came across Daniel Nichols' post "Beyond Political Manicheism: a New Populism?". The basic point he makes is that the established political labels of "Left" and "Right" are basically obsolete and meaningless. When you honestly think about it, it's not difficult to come to this conclusion.

Political discourse nowadays is nothing but a bunch of loud-mouth commentators like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Al Franken, Phil Donahue, etc. basically shouting at each other and calling people names; either on their TV shows, radio programming, websites/blogs, or in newspapers and magazines. Then each side tries to portray their shouting matches as the ultimate battle between the forces of good and evil. Liberals are nothing more than Bin Laden's fifth column in America, and Conservatives are just Bible-thumping redneck hicks from the boonies who want to keep us all in "the Dark Ages"(*Twilight Zone theme playing the background*). And so on. This would all seem very entertaining if it weren't so pathetic, especially when taking into effect this is what counts for "intelligent" discussion on political and social issues.

Yet, thankfully, on both sides of the spectrum there are those who actually stand for deeply held principles. To these people, political discussion is not about obnoxious name-calling. Rather, to them political discussion is about the contest between different visions of the world and determining which vision will best serve the common good of society. In order to intelligently decide which vision is best for society, one has to know what on earth they're actually talking about!

Nichols notes another important similarity between these two (supposedly) different camps, they both operate on a populist agenda. Populists stand in opposition to the established powers and speak out for the needs of the common people, which they (often correctly) perceive are being ignored by the establishment. They call for democracy in its true sense; a government of the people, for the people.

Yet too often democracy (or even government in general) has been corrupted by powerful elites, which manipulate the systems of power to serve their own narrow interests. In his book What's Wrong with the World, G.K. Chesterton best described these menacing elites with the nicknames of Hudge and Gudge. Long story short, Hudge stands for Big Government while Gudge is for Big Business. Although on the surface they may seem to be deadly enemies, yet in reality they're more alike than different. And as Chesterton further explained, they both have a similar goal, to screw with the lives of the common man (nicknamed "Jones").

Chesterton's work, though written back in 1910, very much accurately describes the current situation of modern politics. Simply put, the Democrats are the party of Hudge while the Republicans are the party of Gudge. Politics sure does make a whole lot more sense now doesn't it? So what counts as political discussion to these two factions is pretty much battling over issues that only really concern themselves. Not only that, they both can depend on their own private armies of media agitators to sell their arguments to the general public and make it seem like that these issues actually concern the interests of the common man.

That or when a major issue does come up, the arguments given are extremely shallow or trivial; or even worse blown out of proportion as the only major issue that matters. Perfect examples of such are the issues surrounding abortion and gay marriage. Not that these issues are not important, but let's also remember that the world doesn't revolve around these issues either.

Anyways, back to the original topic here. The people who wish to stand up to the powers of Hudge and Gudge are the populists, who operate on both sides of the political spectrum. Just like their counterparts Hudge and Gudge, populists of both the Left and Right often have more similarities than differences, although come to similar conclusions from different perspectives. So who are the modern opponents of Hudge and Gudge? Nichols names them as none other than Pat Buchanan of the Right, and Ralph Nader of the Left. And rather than simply imitating the charade contest of Hudge vs. Gudge, Nichols (along with others) advocate that these two should unite against what really amounts to their common enemy. That is most certainly an undertaking worth pursuing.

Note: It is interesting how Nichols discusses the estranged relationship between the Left and populism. The Left often just caters to the interests of Berkeley-style elites. Yet this wasn't always so. The Left was actually often associated with populism until being hijacked by the elitist New Left that emerged in the 1960's. Nichols presents George McGovern as the archetype of an old-fashion Leftist populist. Maybe, but perhaps that distinction should go to none other than William Cobbett. Just my opinion.

Catholics and their guns....oh my!

2006-01-29T19:21:00.000-05:00

Fidei Defensor has written an excellent post concerning the Catholic position on gun control and the general ownership of guns by citizens.

I'm currently working on a post that will further outline my views on this issue, in relation to issues of national defense in general.