A recent survey commissioned by EWTN News shed light on political fragmentation among American Catholics. Reading through the poll prompts the question of whether a unified Catholic politics is possible. Declan Leary recently lamented in these pages that American Catholics apparently “have no interest strong enough to transcend party bonds and operate politically as Catholics,” and … Read more
After winning the most the votes in the first three Democratic primaries, Senator Bernie Sanders will more than likely become the party’s next presidential nominee. Unlike the other candidates, Mr. Sanders has never revised his worldview, and this has helped his appeal. He was, and remains, an unapologetic (if “democratic”) socialist. As this reality is … Read more
Andrew Yang is a man ahead of his time. Mark my words: within our lifetime, his ominous-sounding “Freedom Dividend—basically a universal basic income, or UBI—will become a plank of at least one of our two major political parties. And how could it be otherwise? Mr. Yang argues (correctly) that the developed world is going through … Read more
The Holy Father has spilled a great deal of ink impressing upon the First World its duty to welcome economic migrants. Now he’s turned to spilling bronze. The Vatican has become the new home of a lumpy brown mass depicting a crowd of emaciated figures evidently waiting for their chance at a better life. Many … Read more
My readership and the traditionalists in my parish exploded at the recent Catholic Herald article, titled “The Catholic turn to socialism is something to celebrate.” I am surrounded by socialists at work and have a lot of time for those with their hearts in the right place, especially regarding social justice. That said, I thought … Read more
“I am an historian, not a prophet.” ∼ John Lukacs Clamat enim quodammodo omnis historia, Deum esse (“In a way all history cries aloud that God is”). ∼ Pope Leo XIII For more than 60 years, from the mid-1950s on, John Lukacs wrote and spoke on the passing of the modern age. With his death … Read more
My grandfather’s nickname was David Lloyd George because he looked and spoke rather like the man. I was three days old when the former prime minister died, on the day that would have been my late grandfather’s birthday. After the Versailles Conference, where he had sat between Woodrow Wilson and Georges Clemenceau, Lloyd George commented … Read more
I do my best to avoid The New York Times. Truly, I try not to read it. Doing so invariably ruins my day and wastes my time. It not only frustrates me but pains me. On countless thousands of occasions I’ve found myself reading a Times piece that leaves me barking at the page about … Read more
Americans are a generous people ready to lend a hand to those in need. When God blesses us with prosperity, we naturally want to practice acts of charity to help the less fortunate. However, this charitable spirit is now threatened. There are those who hate this charity and desire to destroy the structures from which … Read more
Today, socialism and Christianity are considered antagonistic movements. Most socialists aren’t Christian and most Christians aren’t socialist. Yet analysis reveals a striking congruence. And the similarities between Christianity and socialism are not coincidences. They are influences. Christianity, after all, is the most powerful intellectual movement the Western world has seen. It furnished the Western mind … Read more
One of the positive aspects of a particular political party holding power for several years or even decades in a particular city, state, or country is that you can see if their policies really work or not. They don’t have an opposing party to limit their influence so there are no excuses, such as, “Things … Read more
Socialism never goes away. A quarter century after its collapse in Eastern Europe and Russia, and the success of market-oriented reforms elsewhere, many people once again see it as the ideal. This is true even in the Church. Not so very long ago Saint John XXIII reaffirmed the teaching of Pope Pius XI that “no Catholic … Read more
Much has been written in recent decades, and with good reason, about the institutions that shape culture (academia, the mainstream media, the entertainment industry), their liberal bias, and how they can be effective evangelists for the Left. However, this essay will explore forces within the human person—formidable but not irresistible—that go back to the Garden … Read more
The past 100 years from 1917 to 2017 have been an encapsulation of the protoevangelium, when God told the serpent “I will put enmity between you and the woman.” This 100-years-war has signified a most pronounced phase in the enmity. It began in 1917 with both (what are the odds?) the revelation of Our Lady … Read more
When business is based on selfishness everybody is busy becoming more selfish. ~ Peter Maurin You gotta’ love socialists. At least I do. I love their passionate idealism, their desire for economic parity, their disdain for rapacious laissez-faire capitalism—and their mod outfits. Thanks to Bernie Sanders and his quixotic campaign for the presidency, there’s plenty of … Read more
The home of Fatima is about to tailspin into a Socialist-led revolution, ushering in an age of moral relativism. The last time Portugal saw a Communist revolution, Ronald Reagan was still governor of California. Fast forward some four decades and Portugal is facing a momentous challenge from the political left. Inside the nation’s 230-seat parliament, … Read more
That a French socialist economist is trashing the American economy for fomenting inequality should hardly be news. But Thomas Piketty is enjoying some moments in the popular press, before returning to the usual comfortable sinecure for the left—academia. Why? Well, we are told, economic inequality is on the march again, and must be stopped. Stopped … Read more
It is generally held that Catholic Social Teaching begins with Pope Leo XIII’s masterly encyclical, Rerum Novarum (1891). That, as I’ve tried to show, is a dreadful mistake. Pope Leo considered it his duty to apply to current concerns the constant teaching of the Church and of the word of God. Like Thomas Aquinas, the … Read more
In Quod Apostolici Muneris (1878), Pope Leo XIII deplores those who “under the motley and all but barbarous terms and titles of Socialists, Communists, and Nihilists, are spread abroad throughout the world,” striving in alliance for “the purpose long resolved upon, of uprooting the foundations of civil society at large.” It may sound odd to … Read more
There is one group that is not protected from hate-speech: the rich. For the rich it is permissible, and in some circles de rigueur, to speak disparagingly or hatefully. This, I imagine, is because it is widely supposed that if you hate the rich you must love the poor, and love of the poor, at … Read more