We continue what be began in our last number, a three-part study of spiritual childhood by Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877-1964).
St. Teresa of the Child Jesus reminds us that the principal virtues of the child of God are those in which are reproduced in an eminent degree the innate qualities of the child, minus his defects. Consequently the way of spiritual childhood will teach us to be supernaturally ourselves minus our defects.
(This is dedicated to Heidi Beirich, director of “research” at the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose intelligent, nuanced writing style I attempt to imitate.)
The radical mercenary leftist fundraisers at the Southern Poverty Law Center are busily spewing out their trademark caterwauling again. Yes, the enemies of free speech and Christian social order are howling about the frenzied maniacs ready to escort Adolf Hitler himself down Main Street, U.S.A.
MERRIMACK, N.H. (TMC Press Release) – The Virginia-based Young America’s Foundation recently recommended the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts as one of the nation’s top conservative colleges in its sixth annual “Top Conservative Colleges” list.
Commenting on the list, Young America’s Foundation President Ron Robinson explained, “Given the liberal bias in higher education today, it is critical that we make these recommendations.
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day
I just read on the New Advent website the Catholic Encyclopedia’s excellent account of the life of Erin’s great apostle. I would highly recommend it if you can spare fifteen minutes today. I can’t think of anything I’ve read elsewhere over the years about the saint that …
That’s the motion that was debated last week in London, at an event hosted by the Spectator and held at the Royal Geographical Society. And guess what — “the 700-strong sell-out audience voted overwhelmingly in favour of the motion”!
Excerpt from The Catholic Herald:
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, author Piers Paul Read and Dom Anthony Sutch, former headmaster of Downside, spoke for the motion.
Anime cartoons and their characters are a huge cultic phenomenon, the most popular of all escapist media venues. It is very addictive and very dangerous, to the soul and the mind. I don’t post weird stories, but this blog by Zoe Romanowski from Inside Catholic, along with another, even …
One of the commentators on the relevant CWN article expressed it well: “It’s past time someone said this. Too often ecumenism is taken to mean the weakening of the teachings of the Church and the addition of non-Catholic ritual and beliefs.” A-m-e-n-!
Past time is better than no time — or, “better late than never.” All the scandal that has transpired, and is ongoing, in the name of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue should cease at these words of Cardinal Levada defining its purpose (or “final cause” to you Aristotelians out there): “Union with the Catholic Church is the goal of ecumenism.”
Our 2010 conference will be held on October 8 and 9 at Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire.
The information currently available is as follows:
Theme: “The Romance of Wisdom”
Cost: $100 for both days (Friday and Saturday). This includes meals. Single days without meals: $40.
Note: This year, Friday and Saturday will both be full days. There will be eight speakers giving presentations in addition to the master of ceremonies, our Prior, Brother Andre Marie.
Archbishop Alberto Bottari de Castello, apostolic nuncio to Japan, has a very perceptive insight into the subversive effects Buddhist doctrine has on the soul of a suffering devotee confronting hopelessness. From Sandro Magister’s latest column: “Why Life is Worth So Little in Prosperous Japan.”
“The Japanese do not have a personal …
[March 5, 2010 - Rome Reports (with hat tip to Rorate Caeli)]
Benedict XVI has formed a commission to investigate if Our Lady truly appeared in Medjugorje, a small town in Bosnia.
The commission is part of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Cardinal Camillo Ruini will preside over the commission. Ruini is the pope’s former vicar of Rome’s diocese. Ruini goal will be to explain to the pope what’s happening at the sanctuary which has become the third most visited in Europe.
Allegedly, at least 6 people have witnessed the Virgins apparitions there since 1981.
When the enemies of the Church, the enemies of Christianity in general, and those who want to “hold” the Catholic hierarchy’s “feet to the fire” constantly jabber about Pius XII’s supposed complicity in the Nazi murder of Jews, it becomes necessary to defend the truth as well as the honor of the Holy Father. He was, after all, not only innocent of the crime of which he stands accused by an angry mob, but was also proactive in the protection of innocent Jews. That’s history. Catholics have a particular duty to defend the Church’s honor, but even secular historians of the era ought to vindicate Pius XII, if only to protect the integrity of their science.
Think of a civilization as a fruit. The interior of the fruit — its meat — consists of the ideas, principles and beliefs professed by the members of a society, and thence of the civilization of which that society is part. Throughout history until modern time, the ideas, principles and beliefs of all civilizations derived from religion. When societies in great parts of the world were Christian, notably in Europe and its overseas outposts, so was the civilization in those places. That is, men in those places lived according to the Christian ideas, principles and beliefs they professed. Read More »
(Note: When Mr. Potter sent me this piece for consideration, he said, “I can think of several reasons why you might decide not to post the piece I am attaching for your consideration. If you so decide, there’ll be no upset feelings at my end.” He’s a magnanimous gentleman, Gary Potter. Although some superficial folk will doubtless object to the remarks that follow as “pro-Obama” (which they are certainly not), I think this risk worth taking. Gary’s remarks are worth considering — which implies they must be read carefully and thought about — especially by those conservatives whose conservativism conserves nothing in particular; nothing, that is, other than victory for Republican candidates and whatever their agenda might be, foreign or domestic, pro-life or not, jingoist or no. As I recently tried to point out, we Catholics are not called to be ideologues, but disciples. And we are certainly not called upon to be party cheerleaders. —Brother André Marie)
There are four things I should like to say in the lines which follow, written in real time somewhat more than a month after President Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame and also following his speech at Cairo University. The first has to do with his Notre Dame appearance. Read More »
On the Sunday after Easter readers of the Washington Post were shocked and saddened by a story on the paper’s front page. It concerned a family who lived in Middletown in the Maryland countryside about 50 miles outside D.C. The 34-year-old father of the family had killed his wife, their three young children and then himself. The bodies had been discovered on Saturday by the wife’s father, who went to the house when repeated phone calls weren’t answered. Read More »
The Church in the United States has always been predominately Irish as an institution. Even today, with Hispanics obviously bound to become the Catholic majority in the near future, she remains essentially Irish-American in character and spirit. Read More »
When Christendom existed the general object of the princes who ruled its lands, guided by the teachings of the Faith and what had worked for their predecessors, was to provide and maintain peace and prosperity for their peoples. The degree to which they achieved that end was the measure of their success as rulers, in their own eyes as well as the world’s. Read More »
In December, 1916, the United States was not yet a belligerent, but World War I had been raging by then for more than two years in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands of combatants and innocent civilians, if not millions, had already been killed or otherwise had died on account of the conflict. Read More »
Most Americans have money much on their minds these days. The nation, it is said, faces the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, if it is not already in its grip. Sometime early in the new Obama Administration we may want to say a thing or two about crises and their usefulness to the modern state — a usefulness great enough that there are always those ready to magnify any that arises or even to contrive it. (That in contrast to times past when rulers were Christian and their success was measured by the extent to which they avoided crises, not by how they “managed” them.) Right now, however, we want to speak to the economic crisis at hand. Read More »
One of the most justly celebrated works of Catholic history written in the last one hundred years was The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries, by James J. Walsh. Figured as the apogee of the Age of Faith, the thirteenth probably has been the greatest of all centuries in Christian history. Read More »
Perhaps the oldest devotion to Our Lady in Europe is the devotion to Our Lady of the Pillar. In Spain, Pilar is a popular girl’s name, as is Mercedes for Our Lady of Mercy. (In fact, General Franco named one of his daughters Pilar, just as one of the Carmelite Martyrs written of in this issue was named Sister Maria del Pilar.) Read More »
When news media late last winter reported that a plaque was to be placed in the New Hampshire capitol building to honor natives of the state who served in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39, it served to illustrate the truth that a decade after the “death” of Communism, the Revolution or, more precisely, the false philosophy at its heart — of which Communism is no more than one expression, albeit the most extreme — is not merely alive. Its sway is nearly universal. Read More »
Support Our Work with a Donation
