As we ourselves gratefully remember Hilaire Belloc this year, especially on the 60th Anniversary of his death, let us first consider “Courtesy,” his brief and evocatively allusive poem of seven short, rhymed stanzas (six four-line ones, and a final three-line … Continue reading
Army? Why, one may ask, do we use military terms for anything associated with our gentle Queen, like army and legion? Military terms are not new in the Church. Indeed, as children in Catholic school, did we not learn to … Continue reading
Over the last fifty years, the Catholic faithful have become increasingly more presumptuous, believing that if one is judged to be a “good person” by his fellow human beings, his soul would immediately go to heaven. The notion that he … Continue reading
In teaching the history of the Church, Brother Francis had a simple system. Along with the many historical books from well-known Catholic authors that he required his students to read, he provided an expanding list of memory items that began … Continue reading
In 1927—some twenty-three years after the Menshevik Revolution and a decade after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia—Maurice Baring published an anthology of his earlier writings, entitled What I Saw in Russia. Lenin had died in 1924, and Stalin was on … Continue reading
The July/August 2013 Mancipia is now posted (scroll down for PDF). Back issues of this newsletter are linked from our downloads page. If you would like to receive our bi-monthly newsletter via U.S. mail, please sign up to get it regularly. … Continue reading
It was on April 1, 2013 (April Fool’s Day) that the following headline appeared on MSN News: Lego scraps Star Wars toy Jabba after ‘anti-Muslim’ complaints. A group called the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria complained that Jabba, a Star … Continue reading
This brief essay proposes to consider how two eloquent Catholic authors, Hilaire Belloc and Evelyn Waugh, describe and deal with the phenomenon of noise, an unmistakable mark of the intrusive modern world even in times of putative peace. The first … Continue reading
(NOTE: At a public dinner in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1816, Stephen Decatur, naval hero of the War of 1812, famously declared: “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be right; but our country right or wrong.” … Continue reading
Thirty-two States currently support the death penalty as a punishment for heinous crimes. Although this is cited as a deterrent to such behavior, even the threat of death would not prevent many morally corrupted sociopaths from engaging in criminal activity. … Continue reading
After considering several varied, but representative, insights from Maurice Baring’s 1905 book, With the Russians in Manchuria, we shall be even more grateful to reflect upon the admonitory conclusions he draws from his trenchant depiction of modern war, which he … Continue reading
Veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has gotten a bum rap. For many people, Catholics and otherwise, the seemingly effeminate images of Our Lord pointing to His — literally — bleeding heart were dismissed as purely private devotional images … Continue reading
The importance of telling the truth and the consequences for failing to do so seemed much clearer and forthright in the past than they are today. Maybe this seemed so because the use of psychology to “excuse” sinful behavior was … Continue reading
Review of 1917: Red Banners, White Mantle by Warren H. Carroll (1981) Christendom Press. Every once in awhile a book will come into one’s hands that is impossible to put down, ends too soon, and begs to be read again … Continue reading
On this manifold Sacred Feast Day, we propose to offer a perhaps unexpected, but quite illuminating contrast with the honored historical figure of Saint Joan of Arc, Virgin—who was killed by the English at nineteen years of age in 1431. … Continue reading
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