America, Daniel Mahoney writes, “remains a largely if only partially free country, though markedly less so than even in the recent past.” The danger we face is a declining understanding and assumption of the classical, biblical, and Christian categories of reality that ward off the insanity of an anti-human “Second Reality." The Persistence of the [...]
Socialism always and everywhere decays into outright abuse of the human person. Has there ever been a socialism that didn’t result in the establishment of a gulag, a holocaust camp, or a killing field? At age 58, I can state with utter earnestness that one of the most devastating things of our present age is [...]
On March 8, 1983, Ronald Reagan delivered a speech that shocked many, amused some, and inspired more. Attending the annual meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, Reagan decided to address the topic of sin and evil in the modern world. Drawing significantly upon C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, Reagan offered a [...]
Rarely has one speech created a whole new political condition. While Winston Churchill did not create the Cold War, he gave the amorphous condition plaguing relations between the free and Communist worlds a new dramatic image in his phrase about an Iron Curtain descending upon Europe. “We looked for peace, and there is no good; [...]
After the triumph of Marxist Communism in 1917, the style of the persecution of Catholicism in Mexico gradually altered as the country's rulers adopted the methods employed by Moscow. On the other side of the world, in Mexico, the Church suffered an ordeal similar to that of Christianity in Russia. The Land of the Plumed [...]
A martyr of Communist Russia, Mother Catherine of Siena, founded a convent of Third Order Dominicans before being sentenced to more than a decade of solitary confinement. It has been said, purportedly by G.K. Chesterton, that when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing but in anything. Even worse is that the [...]
It might be tempting to characterize Pope John Paul II as the political foe who vanquished communism. But that would be untrue. His position challenged communism in the metaphysical realm, not in the political arena. He understood that the error of communism lay in its fundamental understanding of man, who is not merely a unit [...]
If suffering seems to mock at life, death’s mockery of life is more blatant still. It is very curious that any man constructing either a way of life for himself or a larger system of life for society should ignore death altogether. Death, after all, is a fact. It was not invented by the Catholic [...]
Jimmy Carter was a nice, good man who epitomized American Christianity’s reduction to Moralistic, Therapeutic Deism. As such, the singing of John Lennon's atheistic "Imagine"—Carter's favorite song—at the former president's funeral was entirely appropriate. Last week at former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral, country singers Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood sang ex-Beatle John Lennon’s song Imagine, [...]
The symbol of Christianity is the Cross, and the Cross lies over the world and marks human history. The rejection by man of God makes a cleavage between the natural and the supernatural, the secular state and the Church. Communism and Christianity, by Martin Cyril D’Arcy (Cluny Media, 216 pages) The felt and reasoned distinction [...]
Unlike reality—which is infinitely and ultimately unknowable—Marxism as ideology pretends to understand the world, but, in reality, it offers only the merest shadow of true complexities. Though responsible—directly and indirectly—for the murder of nearly 150 million innocent children, women, and men in the previous century, Marxism is making a comeback in Western civilization. Not only [...]
The HBO series “Chernobyl” serves to warn us about the danger of persistent lies in a society that refuses to acknowledge truth. It would be a grave error not to take stock of our own tendencies toward deceit, as if our lies are radically different from those that underpinned the Soviet Union. Over several long [...]
In a time of social and political radicalization, Eric Hoffer remained a free and independent thinker and identified the threat that Marxism posed for citizens. He reflects on human nature, individuality, and the responsibility and duty of thoughtful and informed citizens to upkeep open, democratic societies. Eric Hoffer The American philosopher, Eric Hoffer [...]
In very different historical circumstances, two strong-willed, athletic men with intelligence and leadership ability survived multiple dangers, but neither attributed his survival to his abilities or to sheer willpower. Instead, both men consistently and publicly credited Divine Providence. Their stories are well-known, but worth reviewing, since they serve as witnesses to us in our own [...]