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Catholics and the Administered Society

(Photo: us.fotolia.com | sibgat)

Catholics and the Administered Society | James Kalb | CWR

In order to maximize control, the social justice/social services state must minimize man. What can be done?

Should Catholics today work, as a matter of conscience, toward ever broader bureaucratic responsibility for human well-being in general?

That result seems to follow from current ways of thinking. “Love thy neighbor” implies an ethic of mutual assistance. The democratic view that we act through government, together with the industrial approach to getting things done reliably, which is now thought simply rational, seem to imply the social services state as a necessary consequence.

The point is confirmed by the language of rights that the Church has now adopted: everyone has a right to food, shelter, medical care, employment, and many other things. “Rights” normally mean enforceable individual entitlements. If other institutions don’t deliver, government should step in and make sure what’s needed gets done; otherwise, it’ll be denying basic human rights. So welfare rights recognized by the Church seem to obligate government to guarantee everyone a materially decent standard of living regardless of circumstances.

And then there is the notion of solidarity, which makes everyone our neighbor, and seems to call for an arrangement through which each looks after all. It is also confirmed by considerations of justice and mercy. Some people have practical problems, with no one to help them, through no fault of their own. Others are at fault, but the consequences seem disproportionate, especially when compared with other people who do worse without similar problems. And even when the faults seem great, who knows what really happened or what we would have done in their place?

Above all, Christ emphasized forgiveness and mercy, and tells us not to judge. So it seems the social order should be set up to minimize the results of bad luck and even bad conduct in all cases. Given current ways of thinking and doing things, that means that an ever more comprehensive and global welfare state is part of any minimally adequate response to human misfortune and failure.

Nor should Christians be content with the minimum. Love and mercy know no limits. So in the name of ever greater solidarity, it seems that government should work to overcome every human distinction people may feel as a disadvantage. To avoid invidious distinctions between welfare dependency and self-support, for example, it seems that government should, as a matter of equal citizenship, provide as many basic goods and services as possible gratis to all.

On such a view the Christian social ideal turns out to be a sort of politically correct egalitarian collectivism, a society in which everyone equally supports everyone and no invidious distinctions are permissible or even possible.

Nonetheless, such a result radically opposes the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity. As the Catechism says:

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Watch: Ignatius Press editorial staff members discuss “Laudato Si”

Ignatius Press president Mark Brumley is joined by Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., founder of Ignatius Press, editor Vivian Dudro, and John Herreid for a discussion of the new encyclical Laudato Si'. Watch the video below. 

UPDATE: You can also listen to and/or download [right click] the audio of the discussion.

"Laudato Si'" focuses on the heart of man and the disorders of our age

Pope Francis waves as he arrives to lead his general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican June 17. (CNS photo/Max Rossi, Reuters); right: The cover of "Laudato Si", to be published by Ignatius Press (www.ignatius.com).

"Laudato Si'" focuses on the heart of man and the disorders of our age | William L. Patenaude | CWR

The central thesis is that the fallen nature of the human heart and the resulting brokenness of human relations is the cause of the crises in our lives, families, nations, and now the life-sustaining ecosystems that form our common home

With the long wait over, the release of Laudato Si' will shift conversations from what Pope Francis might say in his encyclical on the environment to more important ones of what he has said. It is likely that many in Rome hope that now that the document has been released, its words will ease much of the anxiety that has saturated these past months.

That said, there are statements in the encyclical that will successively upset, delight, and challenge most everyone, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Gospel and the Church’s social teachings do similarly and have always done so. But because so much of the pre-release commentary of Laudato Si'attempted to spin the narrative along predictable ideological lines—referring to it (positively or negatively) as a “climate change encyclical” or expressing worries that the Holy Father would place a papal seal of approval on specific political or economic ideologies—it will take some time before the Holy Father’s words can be processed, discussed, and appreciated.

What’s in it

Laudato Si' is translated “Praise be to you.” The title comes from St. Francis’s Canticle of the Creatures, which addresses Christ in gratitude for the goodness of nature. The encyclical is divided into a prologue and six chapters. The first chapter examines the problems of our age—environmental, yes, but also the breakdown of social relations. As did Saint John Paul II, with his concept of “human ecology,” and Benedict XVI, most especially Caritas in Veritate, Pope Francis stresses the link between human and environmental crises, which he says “are ultimately due to the same evil: the notion that there are no indisputable truths to guide our lives, and hence human freedom is limitless.” (6).

The remaining five chapters plot a course through and beyond the symptoms and causes of these problems. “The Gospel of Creation,” offers a brief catechesis on the environment as seen from the “very good” creation accounts of Genesis and then through the incarnational proclamation of the Gospels—which highlights the relationship in Jesus Christ between God and creation.

In the third chapter, “The Human Roots of the Ecological Crisis,” Pope Francis examines the role of sin in the modern age. A Catholic response to all this follows in the concluding three chapters on “Integral Ecology, “Lines of Approach and Action,” and “Ecological Education and Spirituality.” This final chapter concludes with a rich array of Catholic theology and spiritually to conclude a tale that, for Christians, should sound familiar.

In other words, Laudato Si' follows the arc of salvation history to understand and offer a way out of the personal, communal, and planetary disorders of our age.

Climate as a common good

It is in the opening chapter that the Holy Father discusses climate change, a topic he pairs with the general issues of pollution, waste, and a “throwaway culture.”

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

"Labor Day" in Italy and The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker

Left: The secular "holiday"; right: "Joseph the Carpenter" by Georges de La Tour (c. 1645).

"Labor Day" in Italy and The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker | Michael Severance | CWR blog

When divorced from God’s plan, work is merely labor—a rudderless everyday job

Today May 1 is Labor Day in Italy and in virtually all of Europe. Alas, it is hardly festive. There is not much to celebrate here in terms of job growth and wealth creation. Economic figures across this Old and Aging Continent are like proverbial diamonds in the rough: there is much potential for glory, but with a lot of precision cutting and polishing still to do.

Simply read the latest statistical lampoon on European GDP in The Economist on April 14: "Taking Europe’s Pulse". With a walking-dead growth of 0.3% in the first quarter of 2015, nation after European nation is stifled by union strongholds on hiring and firing practices, crony capitalist deals born in Brussels' backrooms, governments’ insatiable appetite for taxation to prop up bankrupt social welfare programs, and many other politico-economic and cultural tentacles holding back a not-so-free European Union.

Here in Rome, few are celebrating in an anemic peninsula with 12.70% unemployment and virtually no growth in the last 20-plus years. Absolutely no fist pumps are raised on this day in traditionally leftist Spain (23.78 %), nor in the communist party-run Greece (25.70%), and by no means in the rebuilding nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (43.78%).

Nonetheless today, for good measure, is a public ‘holiday’, whether the economic mood is truly merry or not. At least it is a day to put workers’ worries aside. It is a day to forget about the sorry state of many economies on this extended weekend when Europeans head to the mountains, sea and its many cities of art.

May 1 is also a ‘holy day’, the Catholic Feast of St. Joseph the Worker instituted by Pius XII in 1955 in response to the May Day communist celebrations installed across Europe. Therefore, it is no small coincidence of calendar or etymology.

According to the American Catholic web site, Pius XII’s intention was, in effect, to give deeper meaning to a public holiday de-christened merely as ‘Labor’ Day in a hyper-secularized and socialist Europe. It was a day, though mixed with revelry and parades, that had become, spiritually speaking, a hum-drum day off from routine of production lines and cubicles:

In a constantly necessary effort to keep Jesus from being removed from ordinary human life, the Church has from the beginning proudly emphasized that Jesus was a carpenter, obviously trained by Joseph in both the satisfactions and the drudgery of that vocation. Humanity is like God not only in thinking and loving, but also in creating. Whether we make a table or a cathedral, we are called to bear fruit with our hands and mind, ultimately for the building up of the Body of Christ.

When divorced from God’s plan, work is merely labor, a rudderless everyday job. It even can turn us into hunchbacks, as if debilitated and humiliated by meaningless, repetitive, backbreaking activity.

This is exactly what I find lamentable about today.

Continue reading on the CWR blog.

Two Approaches To Culture: Evangelistic & Diagnostic

Fr. Robert Barron, author of "Seeds of the Word" (www.WordonFire.org) and Dr. James
A. Patrick, author of "Essays on Modernity and the Permanent Things" (www.TowerPressBooks.com)

Two Approaches To Culture: Evangelistic & Diagnostic | Carl E. Olson | CWR Editorial

New books by Fr. Robert Barron and Dr. James A. Patrick are exceptional guides to the confused and confounding dominant culture

“The best is the betting of one's very life on behalf of Christ, the good, the self-denying and the dangerous.” — Dr. James A. Patrick

"The authentically Christian spiritual itinerary never ends with something as bland as 'self-discovery.' Rather, it ends with the splendid privilege of participating in God's own work in bringing grace into the world." — Fr. Robert Barron

[Robert] Graves really is writing about our own age, not of some remote future: of life in today's United States .... He is saying that culture arises from the cult; and that when belief in the cult has been wretchedly enfeebled, the culture will decay swiftly. The material order rests upon the spiritual order.” — Russell Kirk, “Civilization Without Religion?” 

A friend, having recently read Fr. Robert Barron's review of Kenneth Branagh's movie, “Cinderella”, sent me this quote from Cardinal John Henry Newman:

“With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty. We are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a divine meaning in every event.”

 It's an apt description of a Christian cultural critic, and Fr. Barron is an especially fine commentator on culture, whether it be “high”, “low”, or “pop” culture. His new book Seeds of the Word: Finding God in the Culture (Word on Fire, 2015) is a collection of over 80 of his essays about movies (“Imago Dei: God in Film”), literature (“Take and Read: God in Books”), politics (“City On a Hill”), and culture at large (“Rays of Truth”). It is an exceptional example of an accomplished academic—Fr. Barron is a skilled theologian and the Rector/President of Mundelein Seminary in Chicago—engaging with the good, bad, beautiful, and ugly found throughout American culture.  

It's important to point out that Fr. Barron, who I've had the pleasure of working for on two catechetical series (“Catholicism” and “Priest Prophet King”), is fundamentally motivated by a love for God, truth, and souls. In an homage written a week ago for the late Cardinal Francis George, Fr. Barron highlights the missionary vision and heart of the late Archbishop of Chicago. He notes that Cardinal George was not satisfied with Catholics taking a “counter-cultural” stance only, as “this can suggest a simple animosity, whereas the successful evangelist must love the culture he is endeavoring to address":

But he saw a deeper problem as well, namely, that, strictly speaking, it is impossible to be thoroughly counter-cultural, since such an attitude would set one, finally, against oneself. It would be a bit like a fish adamantly insisting that he swims athwart the ocean. Therefore, the one who would proclaim the Gospel in the contemporary American setting must appreciate that the American culture is sown liberally with semina verbi (seeds of the Word).

This approach, as he explains in his book, is an adaptation of the patristic method of seeking out “seeds of the Word”—“hints and echoes of the Gospel that can be found, often in distorted form, in the high and low contemporary culture.” 

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Reality Matters

(Photo: us.fotolia.com | © Marek)

Reality Matters | James Kalb | CWR

The law that the Church becomes weak by pursuing worldly influence and strong by giving herself to truth offers hope for the future

Basic issues have basic importance. Does God exist? If He does, what is He like? If He doesn’t, can an objective moral order survive His absence? It seems obvious that such questions are crucial to all aspects of life, including our life together in society.

That conclusion has inconvenient implications. Christian societies, Muslim societies, and secularist societies are all different from each other. One excludes another, so we can’t favor them equally. It seems then that we must choose one over the others, or else live with a compromise that is likely to prove awkward and shifting—a situation, of course, that is often very difficult to improve upon.

That view of the matter makes people today uncomfortable. They would like to agree with the political philosopher John Rawls, who wanted basic questions put aside in public life as divisive, and claimed that could be done in a principled way to the satisfaction of all reasonable citizens whatever their outlook. Rawls devoted a great deal of effort to working out those views, and they have become extremely influential.

Catholics had already accepted much of the argument. After the Second World War thinkers such as John Courtney Murray and Jacques Maritain attempted to define ways in which the Church could give full support to a public order that leaves basic questions unresolved and relies instead on “articles of peace” or a “democratic charter” that people with different fundamental commitments could agree on. Such views made enormous progress in the 60s and later as the Church attempted to rethink her approach to the modern world.

Rethinking seemed necessary. A liberal form of modernity had triumphed that appeared hard to reject completely because it seemed likely to dominate the social world into the indefinite future. Parallel to that triumph there arose a tendency in the Church to put less emphasis on the reality of God, since reality is essentially a public matter, and more on the subjective side of the Faith. Theologians began to speak of God as Mystery rather than Being, catechists and moralists turned away from doctrine toward experience and human relations, and celebrations of the Mass began to emphasize community and the response of the faithful at the expense of transcendence. What had seemed firm began to seem negotiable.

The apparent hope behind such tendencies was that lessened emphasis on transcendent absolutes would make the Faith more accessible to modern man, and enable the Church to cooperate in the construction of a peaceful and tolerant world in which Catholics could maintain personal and religious integrity as citizens of a free and open society. They would serve God by serving man, acting as a leaven and transforming hearts and minds.

The hope hasn’t panned out, and the transformation has gone the other way.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The Holy See Commemorated a Trio of Anniversaries in 2014

Left: Pope Paul VI addresses the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York Oct. 4, 1965. (CNS file photo); right: William A. Wilson, the first U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, is greeted by Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in this 1985 file photo.(CNS photo) (Dec. 7, 2009)

The Holy See Commemorated a Trio of Anniversaries in 2014 | Vincenzina Santoro | CWR

This past year witnessed the 85th anniversary of the Lateran Pacts, the 50th anniversary of the Holy See presence at the UN, and the 30th anniversary of the restoration of full diplomatic recognition by the US

In 2014, the Holy See observed three major historical milestones, all of which were virtually ignored in the global press. This past year marked the 85^th anniversary of the Lateran Pacts establishing sovereignty for Vatican City State, the 50^th anniversary of the Holy See presence as Permanent Observer at the United Nations and the 30^th anniversary of the restoration of full diplomatic recognition by the United States.

These key historical events are very important in the life of the Catholic Church as they helped to spread the influence of the Vatican as a force for morality and reason while maintaining neutrality in political affairs. The three milestones have helped provide the Church with complete and universally recognized sovereignty, to accompany her unique blend of temporal and spiritual power.

The historical setting

On February 11, 1929, Vatican City State became a full sovereign state under Pope Pius XI as his Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, and Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, signed the Lateran Pacts. It put an end to the “Roman Question” that arose with the annexation of the Papal States in 1861 at the time of Italian unification and the subsequent fall of Rome in 1870.

The three Pacts took their name from the Lateran Palace where they were signed. They included a political treaty with Italy recognizing the sovereignty of the Vatican, a Concordat to regulate religion and the Church in Italy, and a financial convention to settle financial claims stemming from the loss of temporal power in 1870.

Previously, relations between the Church and Italy were covered by the “Law of Guarantees” approved by the Italian Parliament on May 13, 1871, but not recognized by any of the Popes. Under the new treaties, the Vatican was recognized as an independent territory, taking its place in the global roster of nations. Thus the Vatican gained sovereignty over a territory of 109 acres (44 hectares).

The Pope acquired complete jurisdiction over St. Peter’s Basilica and Square, the Vatican Gardens, the palace at Castel Gandolfo and assorted properties scattered about Rome that were given “extraterritoriality” status. Vatican City State is governed as though it were a monarchy with the Pope as Head of State. The pontiff holds executive, legislative and judicial powers.

Vatican City has its own flag, issues its own euro coins and stamps (both prized by collectors), owns radio and TV stations, and participates in various international organizations such as the Universal Postal Union (UPO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Vatican City State is the independent, territorial base for the Holy See. An important distinction is in order:

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The “Rhetoric” of Relativism

The “Rhetoric” of Relativism | Jayson M. Brunelle, MEd, CAGS | Homiletic & Pastoral Review

Relativism: (1) the wholesale philosophical rejection of the existence of any objective, absolute, or universal truths whatsoever (specifically referred to as cognitive/epistemological relativism or radical skepticism); or (2) the philosophical rejection of the existence of any objective, absolute, or universal truths which are distinctly ethical or moral in nature, thereby relegating all ethical and moral statements, propositions, and assertions to the purely subjective realm of mere opinion and personal preference, and, consequently, nullifying or rendering obsolete any basis for “justice” within society.

Said societies usually devolve into the most primitive of all social states, as the most fundamental human rights of the citizens who comprise the body politic are trampled upon by those powerful factions who, succumbing to a Luciferian blood lust for an ever greater power over their fellow man, become anxious to seize upon each new opportunity to exploit the vulnerabilities of the masses who are their socioeconomic inferiors. Thus, moral relativism, ironically, turns out to be the precursor and forerunner of dictatorships and communist-like police states. For, in such situations, as has been articulated by the great atheistic philosopher, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, “might is right.” Such has historically been the case, particularly as we look back on the rise of the communist, socialist, and fascist regimes that implemented the grisly pogroms of eugenic extermination of human persons, based upon an anthropologically materialistic, existentially nihilistic, anti-religious, morally relativistic, and ethnically narcissistic philosophy of life

These two philosophical extremes—Cognitive Relativism/Radical Skepticism and Moral/Ethical Relativism—have both been around since the time of the ancient Greeks and have, in recent decades, been promulgated by many in academia. This persistent effort to relegate objective, absolute, and universal truth and morality to the purely subjective and particularized realms of mere opinion and personal/cultural preference has trickled down into mainstream culture with devastating consequences. Having been adopted and promulgated by a significant number of leftist politicians, these “elected,” instead of relying on the sound, right reasoning of natural law ethics coupled with divinely revealed, Judeo-Christian codes of morality (i.e., the Ten Commandments)—for centuries, the moral and ethical foundation of Western Civilization—have taken it upon themselves to replace with the utterly erroneous, logically inconsistent philosophies of both epistemological and moral relativism.

The result of this “dictatorship of relativism” within our culture has had devastating effects on such fundamental issues as (1) the sanctity of innocent human life; (2) the sanctity of marriage between a man and a women; and (3) our God-given and constitutionally protected religious liberty to adhere to the dictates of our conscience and practice the tenets of our faith in the public square without fear of government censorship or persecution.

Never before, in the history of this once great nation, have such fundamental moral and ethical issues been so threatened.

Continue reading at www.HPRweb.com.

Catholicism and Environmentalism

Solar panels are seen on the roof of the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican in this December 2010 photo. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Catholicism and Environmentalism | Thomas M. Doran | CWR

Catholics with an interest in the environment should attempt to separate legitimate science from ideological noise and organizational self-interest

What are Catholics to make of the big environmental questions: climate change, deforestation and habitat loss, water quality and water shortages, the extinction of species, fossil fuels? How compatible is environmental activism with Catholicism? What does it mean to be responsible stewards of creation? These are important questions, made even more timely in anticipation of Pope Francis releasing an encyclical in 2015 on environmental and ecological issues.

Christians believe it is necessary and good to show "respect for the integrity of creation" (CCC, 2415) and to use the Earth’s natural resources prudently, but these beliefs don’t tell us whether specific environmental initiatives are morally compelling.

Environmental activism is often a matter of science and ideology. Not infrequently, when someone disagrees with a tenet fervently held by environmental activists, they are labeled “science deniers”. Ironically, many of those who blithely label opponents “science deniers” do not themselves understand the underlying science.

As an engineer/scientist who has worked in the trenches for over 30 years, taught environmental engineering subjects, and loves to explore history, I have seen my share of bad science and bad data (sadly, guilty myself on occasion). I’ve learned that while we need to rely on data, an honest skepticism of data is an important aspect of the scientific method. On many occasions, scientists—experts—have reached a consensus on something that was subsequently proven to be false. As Matt Ridley wrote in a 2013 Wall Street Journal article, “Science is about evidence, not consensus.” I’m with Mr. Ridley. I don’t care about consensus, no matter how passionate or morally indignant. I want to see the data and the evidence.

Objective criteria, clean data

Here’s an example.

Continue reading on the Catholic World Report site.

On Violence

Vehicles at a car dealership are set afire in Ferguson, Mo., early in the morning Nov. 25, the morning after a grand jury returned no indictment in the Aug. 9 shooting death of Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb. (CNS photo/Adrees Latif, Reuters)

On Violence | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | CWR

To talk of “violence” as if it is always and necessarily bad or irrational is itself irresponsible

Everyone is familiar with the principle, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” It is in fact a “principle”. As such, it is not a bad one. It was an effort to establish justice in a world where no effective legal system existed. The remedy for a crime depended on the relatives and friends of the victim. The retaliation was to be carried out according to proportion—an eye for an eye, no more, no less. It was in the name of deterrence and of restoring a just balance. The one who committed a crime should suffer the same penalty to himself that he meted out to another.

Generally speaking, the point of the “feud”, or the eye-for-an-eye principle, was subsumed into a legal order of a city or polity. This sub-sumption did not mean that the issue of just judgment, deterrence, and retaliation did not still exist. It just meant that the responsibility to define and repair the damage was placed not in the hands of the sufferer of violence but in those of the legal, judicial, and law-enforcement order. This aura of legality was, in turn, designed to eliminate, as much as possible, passion and prejudice from any unjust aggression. It could then be judged as objectively as possible. The norm of reason as defined by law and the judgment of peers was the rule. Both the victim and the attacker were required to follow this standard, however much either disagreed with the decision. This system was a key element of civil peace and of civilization itself.

The word “violence” is often used loosely. Such usage, without any distinction, causes enormous confusion and damage to everyone. Indeed, its loose employment often increases injustice by confusing what is legitimate and what is not. As such, “violence” means the use or threatened use of physical force against some other person. By analogy, we talk of “violent” storms or tigers. The “violence” of a truly “mad” man, one with no possibility of rational control, is not “voluntary”. It is closer to the storm or tiger in its moral status. Such a man was described in the Gospel of Mark (5:3). He was running about the tombs and could not easily be subdued even by strong man. “Violence” is properly addressed as if it were voluntary. The degree of voluntariness or intent indicates the heinousness of the crime.

Thus, we distinguish between manslaughter, first, and second degree murder on the basis of voluntary intent. It makes no sense to implore someone not to be “violent” if he has no desire or will not to be violent.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Pope Francis the Economist

Pope Francis is greeted by 13 new ambassadors to the Holy See as they present their letters of credential at the Vatican Dec. 18. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters)

Pope Francis the Economist | Michael Severance | Catholic World Report

The Pope is not interested in validating the right or left on any specific policy, but rather reminding us of more transcendent principles.

Where, exactly, does Pope Francis stand on economic matters? While the Pontiff’s pronouncements are abundant, they are far less systematic and scholarly than they are pastoral in nature. Thus, we are frequently left wondering what economic science, if any, underpins his pastoral teaching on issues such as wealth disparities, development, job creation, and increased solidarity with the poor.  

Is Francis a socialist? Does he trust the free market and its invisible hand to bring about economic flourishing? Neither, really. From a secular standpoint, he actually seems to advocate a little of both. Francis acknowledges the legitimacy of business and entrepreneurship on one hand, but frequently seems to call for more government economic action on the other.

Indeed, sometimes Francis appears to be market-friendly, yet in the same speech or document he follows with a “but” or “so long as.” At other times he can sound like a proponent of government welfare and regulation, while also mentioning the good that private business does in job creation and the role it has in mitigating a culture of dependency. Putting labels aside, Francis is nonetheless quick to talk and write about the economy, especially when it involves human suffering and sin.    

Neither party boss nor CEO

Seem confused? You are not alone.

Whatever his economic leanings are, it would be unwise to “spin” the Bishop of Rome’s economically-related pronouncements to satisfy one’s own worldview. 

Francis, as the supreme pastoral leader of the world’s largest Christian population, is much more interested, like his predecessors, in getting the anthropology and the moral-theological foundation right, rather than presenting any specific policy prescription or political-economic platform.

He is the pope, after all—not a political party boss or the economically enlightened CEO of Roman Catholicism Incorporated. 

As the Holy Father intends not to focus his pastoral attention on any political-economic categories of “left” and “right,” “liberal” and “conservative,” his objective as a spiritual and pastoral leader is to inspire a need for personal conversion and holiness. He is also well aware that public policy prescriptions aiming at the common good of human society will be errant if built on a false anthropology of man and a flawed moral-theological framework.

Contradictory statements on economic matters

A snapshot of Francis’ commentary, including some of very recent date, illustrates just how difficult it is to “frame” him economically.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Immaculate Mary, Matchless in Grace

 

Immaculate Mary, Matchless in Grace | John Saward | Two excerpts fromCradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the Christmas Mystery 

First excerpt, from the Introduction: 

Glorious above all the other Christmas companions of Christ is the Blessed Maiden who gave Him human birth. At the Matins of Christmas Day, the Church cries out: 'Blessed Mary, the Mother of God, whose womb abideth intact, hath this day given birth to the Saviour of the world." [38]

Each day of the octave, in the Canon of the Mass, the Latin Church venerates the 'inviolate virginity' that 'brought the Saviour into this world' and dedicates the whole of the eighth day to the divine motherhood--in the old rite in the content of the prayers and in the new rite in name as well as content. [39] Our Lady's conceiving and carrying of God the Son in her virginal womb are remembered throughout Advent, especially during the week of the O antiphons and, in the novus ordo Missae, on the fourth Sunday. 

The Immaculate Conception is celebrated on the eighth of December as the first, preredemptive flowering of the grace for whose restoration Christ was born and crucified in the flesh. In the liturgical books of the Greek Church, the Mother of God is seemingly omnipresent on every day of the liturgical year, [40] but during the twelve days of Christmas, she receives special honours in canticles of outstanding praise, and on the second day she has a feast all of her own, the Synaxis of the Most Holy Theotokos, instituted after the Council of Ephesus in 431. On this second day of the Byzantine Christmas, the Mother of God appears before the Church as the Mystical Vine carrying in the branches of her arms 'the bunch of grapes that was never husbanded'. In the ecstasy of love she sings to her Child, 'Thou art my fruit, thou art my life; from thee have I learned that I remain what I was. Thou art my God: for seeing the seal of my virginity unbroken, I proclaim thee to be the unchangeable Word, now made incarnate.' [41] 

Footnotes: 

[38] Fifth responsory.
[39] In the novus ordo of the West, the first of January is called the 'Solemnity of Mary; the Mother of God'. In the Missal of 1962 it is called, as it had been for many centuries, the 'Circumcision of Our Lord' because of the passage read as the Gospel. However, both the Collect and the Postcommunion place most emphasis on the divine motherhood of our Lady.
[40] See S. Eustratiadès, Theotokarion (Chennevières-sur-Marne, 1931), and J. Ledit, Marie dans la liturgie de Byzance (Paris, 1976). 
[41] Menaion, p. 292. 


    
    


 

Second excerpt, from Chapter 3, "Mother and Maiden": 

As Mother of God, our Lady is without equal, surpassing by far all other created persons, whether angels or men. [37] After the human nature of the Son, no created entity is closer to the Trinity. According to St Thomas, Gabriel's words at the Annunciation, 'The Lord is with thee', express his recognition that the Jewish maiden is closer than he or any other angel is to the Three-Personed God:

She surpasses the angels in her familiarity with God. The angel indicated this when he said, 'The Lord is with thee', as if to say, 'I therefore show thee reverence, because thou art more familiar with God than I am, for the Lord is with thee. The Lord, the Father, is with thee, because thou and He have the same Son, something no angel or any other creature has. "And therefore the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Lk 1: 35). The Lord, the Son, is with thee, in thy womb. "Rejoice and praise 0 thou habitation of Zion, for great is He that is in the midst of thee, the Holy One of Israel" (Is 12:6).' The Lord is therefore with the Blessed Virgin in a different way than He is with the angel, for He is with her as Son, but with the angel as Lord. 'The Lord, the Holy Spirit, is with thee, as in a temple.' Hence she is called 'the temple of the Lord', 'the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit', because she conceived by the Holy Spirit. 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee' (Lk 1:35). In this way, therefore. the Blessed Virgin is more familiar with God than the angel is, for the Lord Father, the Lord Son, the Lord Holy Spirit are with her, in other words, the whole Trinity. That is why we sing of her: 'Noble resting-place of the whole Trinity'. [38]

Our Lady is without compare in her objective dignity, and so it is fitting that she should be unrivalled in her subjective sanctity. To prepare her for the task of being Mother to the Son, both physically and spiritually, God the Father bestows upon her an incomparable plenitude of sanctifying grace, the, infused virtues and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. 

Normality Is Not Hatred

People wave banners as they demonstrate against France's planned legalization of same-sex marriage in Paris in April 17, 2013. (CNS photo/Benoit Tessier, Reuters)

Normality Is Not Hatred | James Kalb | CWR

Today’s politics has no place for legitimate authority based on higher standards, so power must base itself on Choice, otherwise known as the Triumph of the Will

Very recently the view that homosexuality is entirely normal has become not only widespread but compulsory in secular public discussion.

Leaders of thought tell us the change has been part of a general deepening of moral insight and improvement in the art of living. The older outlook oppressed millions out of fear, bigotry, and ignorance. We have learned better now, except for a few haters and dimbulbs who need to be re-educated or else shamed and shut up until death frees the world from their presence.

Many Catholic clergy, theologians, and ordinary believers more or less agree. We have been wrong, and if we don’t get with the program and accept the world’s guidance we’ll become irrelevant and vanish except for a few weirdoes no one sensible would want to associate with.

Such or allied views have led to very high level suggestions that the Church “accept and value” the homosexual orientation and ramp up opposition to “unjust discrimination,” which now seems to include suggestions that there is something wrong with homosexuality. So any statement of the general objection to the orientation, that it is objectively disordered, is now to be out of bounds. Inconsistent doctrine is to be treated as a hangover from the past to be dealt with in such a way as to neutralize it and effectively make it disappear.

To exacerbate the problem, most of those attached to the traditional view have difficulty arguing for it effectively. It seems plainly right to them, but why it is right cannot be stated in the terms on which public discussion is now carried on, which treat equal preference satisfaction as the highest good. The traditional view therefore comes to seem an irrational prejudice.

Still, the issue doesn’t go away. The older view continues to have distinguished proponents, and the vehement reactions to doubters suggests that supporters of the new view are conscious of a certain weakness in their position. Is something being overlooked? Can a sudden and total change of longstanding deeply-rooted understandings be trusted?

The change looks very much like an attempt to invert reality, an effort that once started becomes all-consuming and requires an ever more comprehensive system of lying to maintain. And the demands of correct thought are indeed becoming ever more far-reaching. Insistence that a relationship between two men is a marriage if they say the necessary vows has been followed by insistence that the men immediately become women if they announce they have. And that demand has been accompanied by attempts in the schools and elsewhere to get rid of indications of grammatical gender and other inflammatory expressions when dealing with children.

These supposed advances have been led not by saints and sages but by ideological activists, media propagandists, and other dubious characters. Supporters claim to speak for the “marginalized,” but are preferentially found among the rich, powerful, and well-placed, who evidently speak for themselves and those to whom they feel an affinity.

In that respect the movement is typical of modern politics, which promises liberation but delivers new forms of domination. The problem is basic.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Catholic Rural Life

(© TTstudio/fotolia.com)

Catholic Rural Life | William L. Patenaude | CWR

“A large and busy family unified by working together on a family farm," says Bishop Paul D. Etienne of Cheyenne, Wyoming, "is a good worth promoting and protecting."

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life.” — Prayer at the preparation of the gifts

You gain special insights when the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered in the heartland of America—or any place where farming is the foundation of a culture. For Catholics whose vocation is feeding others, the gifts of bread and wine brought to the altar are not commodities from a religious supply store. They are products of soil and sweat. They exist because of business acumen, tough choices, and unyielding trust in nature, neighbors, family, and God.

The Catholic Church concerns herself with such work. She worries over the health of water and soil, the treatment of animals, the economic and nutritional value of crops, and the fair and efficient distribution of food. Most especially she embraces and supports the families and small towns that feed the world.

Farming as a sacred profession

“A large and busy family unified by working together on a family farm is a good worth promoting and protecting,” said His Excellency, Bishop Paul D. Etienne of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The bishop made these comments earlier this month at a dinner in a St. Paul, Minnesota hotel. He spoke to other clergy as well as religious, theologians, farmers, ranchers, and their supporters.

“Society depends on the country and the farm for the produce that feeds the nation—the world,” he said. “Even more, it needs the wholesome vitality of the families produced by rural living. There is a sacramental nature to living and working in a rural setting. Farming provides a common purpose and a natural setting that helped pull and hold a family together.”

Bishop Etienne is the president of Catholic Rural Life, a small, energetic non-profit working with and for America’s farmers and rural communities. Its mission is “to apply the teachings of Jesus Christ for the social, economic, and spiritual development of rural America with responsibility for the care of God's creation.”

In 1923, Fr. Edwin V. O’Hara founded the organization in St. Louis, Missouri.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldrReport.com.

The Time for Complacent Catholicism is Over

A worshipper holding a rosary and crucifix prays during a July 4, 2014, Mass celebrated at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington on the final day of the U.S. bishops' Fortnight for Freedom campaign. (CNS photo/Bob Roller )

The Time for Complacent Catholicism is Over | Fr. Martin R. Tripole, S.J. | CWR

A reflection on faithful fortitude and a call to Catholic courage

When is the last time you saw someone display courage?

We know it exists among public servants: soldiers, policemen, firefighters. We know it existed among the first responders at 9/11. We find it in people who sacrifice their lives for the well-being of those dearest to them, such as a father who will dive into water to save a drowning son or daughter.

But how about in Catholicism? Does it demand courage to be a Catholic today? For most of our lives, the issue never arose. Traditional Christian values were commonly accepted in America: to put it succinctly, Catholic values and civic values largely coincided. But in recent times, we have come to realize that it doesn’t take courage to be a Catholic, but only a faithful Catholic. For example, it doesn’t take courage today to be a Catholic politician who is pro-choice, but it does to be one who is pro-life.

How ready are we to stand up for traditional Catholic values and beliefs today?

The Vatican has recently stressed the courage that marks men and women of deep commitment to the faith. Pope Francis called Benedict XVI’s decision to step down as Pope on February 28, 2013, an act of “a man of great courage and humility.” At the canonization Mass of John XXIII and John Paul II, Francis referred to the new saints as “two men of courage” who “bore witness before the Church and the world to God’s goodness and mercy.” The Pope fired up 500 youth at the Vatican on August 28, 2013, when he said, “I wanted to tell you this, to tell you: courage, go forward, make noise. . . . Please, go against the current. Be courageous, courageous: go against the current.” At his June 23, 2013, Angelus reflection, Francis urged everyone, especially youth, to “have the courage to go against the tide of current values that do not conform to the path of Jesus.”

But is Francis too quickly presuming that youth today experience a clash between the tide of current values and the path of Jesus?

"The days of comfortable Catholicism are past”

It would come as a bit of a shock, I think, to many Catholics comfortable with current developments in our society, to hear the Pope speak of a clash between current values and Jesus’ teaching. It would come as an even greater shock for them to hear the remarks of Prof. Robert P. George of Princeton University, when he addressed the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC, on May 13, 2014:

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Vision of Just War

 A passage from The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot by Jay Richards and Jonathan Witt is available on the Imaginative Conservative site:

Too many pundits, politicians, and priests nowadays treat war as a relic of a barbaric past. President Obama speaks for many when he denounces ISIS and other terrorist groups by invoking the date on the calendar. Nevertheless, he has found himself re-entering a war in the Middle East that he first opposed and then claimed to have won, appearing more interested in the short-term need to be seen “doing something” than in pursuing and articulating a coherent strategy for victory.

Such ambivalence about war is very much the spirit of the age in the industrialized West. But militants such as ISIS care not a wit what year it is. Now as much as ever we need clear thinking on the nature and proper conduct of war, ideally in an accessible form.

Happily, J.R.R. Tolkien offers a rich and extended meditation on the Just War tradition in his novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, an exploration the Peter Jackson movie adaptations hint at but hardly exhaust.

The Just War tradition has its roots in the great minds of Christendom, from Augustine to Aquinas. Given Tolkien’s background, we should not be surprised to find him in sympathy with it. He was a world-renowned Oxford scholar of medieval languages and literature, an orthodox Catholic, a combat veteran of World War I and a thorough conservative. The Just War tradition was very much his tradition.

Just War reasoning, in a nutshell, is a defense of war as morally right, even imperative, under certain conditions and according to certain rules of engagement. A Just War is one (1) pursued publicly, (2) as a last resort but (3) with a realistic chance for success, (4) by the proper authority (5) for the right reasons (6) for a just cause (7) without using far more force than is needed to win. These principles also provide guidance on how to treat a defeated enemy. Just warriors will not exterminate a hostile military or civilian population, or enslave them after hostilities have ceased.

Tolkien’s Middle-Earth novels exemplify the principles of Just War through the action of his noblest characters. But more than this, they draw readers into a rich exploration of the challenges and temptations commonly faced by those who would be both just and victorious in a time of war.

A War Book

Tolkien insisted that his fantasy novels were not allegorical, but he did allow that they were applicable to events in our world. Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey rightly describes The Lord of the Rings as “a war-book, also a post-war book, framed by and responding to the crisis of Western civilization, 1914–1945 (and beyond).” That makes it especially applicable to questions of war.

In an early review of the novel in the Times Literary Supplement, Alfred Duggan noted this warlike dimension of the novel and complained that the heroes and villains are indistinguishable: Each side simply kills the other.

The poet W.H. Auden gave the classic response to Duggan, arguing that the difference between the two sides is central to the plot and to the Fellowship’s strategy. They have come into possession of the “One Ring to rule them all,” forged by the evil Sauron long ago. But rather than using the powerful ring against Sauron, Gandalf urges them to sneak it deep into enemy territory and destroy it in the one fire hot enough to melt it, the volcanic fires of Mount Doom. Sauron is tied to the magical ring. Destroy the ring and you destroy its maker.

It is a desperate gambit, and some urge the Fellowship instead to use the powerful ring to overthrow Sauron in battle. The problem is that the evil ring corrupts anyone who uses it for any length of time. They could not use the ring to overthrow the unjust tyrant without themselves becoming unjust, could not vanquish the enemy without themselves becoming the enemy.

So they follow Gandalf’s advice. Because Sauron can imagine only the desire for brute, top-down domination, he never dreams that anyone among his enemies would choose to destroy the ring rather than seize it and try to set himself up as a tyrant. That blind spot is Sauron’s undoing. While he prepares to meet a powerful foe who will wield the ring in battle, a pair of humble hobbits, Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee, slip through Sauron’s many defenses, the ring is destroyed, and Sauron overthrown.

“Evil,” Auden observed in his 1956 review, “has every advantage but one—it is inferior in imagination. Good can imagine the possibility of becoming evil—hence the refusal of Gandalf and Aragorn to use the Ring—but Evil, defiantly chosen, can no longer imagine anything but itself.”

Duggan missed this fundamental difference between Sauron and the Fellowship. He also missed the obvious: The villains of the novel try to enslave and kill while the heroes try to protect the freedom of free people. And he missed a host of smaller differences in the way the two sides wage war, differences that further elucidate the differences between a just and an unjust war.

Mercy and Empathy

Gollum is a shriveled, formerly hobbit-like creature who possessed the ring for hundreds of years before he lost it and it fell into the keeping of the hobbit Bilbo. Eventually Sauron captures Gollum and tortures him until he reveals the location of the ring.Later Gollum escapes, and at various times Aragorn, Gandalf, the wood elves, and later Sam and Frodo all coerce, interrogate, threaten,and hold Gollum captive; but in all this they treat him with dignity and even kindness. The wood elves so dislike keeping the creature in captivity that they even take him for walks in the forest, thus inadvertently giving him a means of escape.

Continue reading at www.theimaginativeconservative.org.

Also see CWR's recent interview with Jay Richards: "The Political Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien" (Oct 30, 2014).

"In Defense of Sanity... and the Family" | Dale Ahlquist on G.K. Chesterton

Dale Ahlquist, President of the American Chesterton Society, recently sent out this letter:

Dear Chestertonian,

Some time ago, I had the privilege of editing a book called In Defense of Sanity – The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton. Two distinguished English gentlemen, Joseph Pearce and Aidan Mackey, were joined by this undistinguished and troublesome American, in choosing the so-called “best” essays of Chesterton out of the more than 5,000 that he wrote. While we had no trouble defending the essays we included in the collection, we found ourselves unable to defend the essays that we left out! Fortunately, the book is not about the three of us defending our selections, but rather it is about Chesterton’s defense of all the sane and simple things that are under attack today in our insane modern world.
 
One of the primary things that Chesterton defends is. . . one of the primary things: the family. We included Chesterton’s classic essay on the institution of the family from his 1905 book Heretics. This is where Chesterton responds to those who attack the family for being  “uncongenial.” The surprising thing is that Chesterton actually agrees that the family is uncongenial, but that is precisely why it is so important. In a family, we have to get along with a group of people we did not choose to live with, which happens to be same situation in our relationship with the rest of the world: “The men and women who, for good reasons and bad, revolt against the family, are, for good reasons and bad, simply revolting against mankind. Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like mankind. Papa is excitable, like mankind. Our youngest brother is mischievous, like mankind. Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he is old, like the world.”
 
But the revolt against the family has continued for the last one hundred years. Thirty years after Chesterton wrote that essay, he found himself still defending the institution of the family in an essay for the Illustrated London News (an essay that we did not --but could have-- included in the “best” essays collection).
 
He points out that the family is the foundational human institution, more important than the State, more important than the social laws and customs and committees that have developed along with our society. Yet the family is treated with less respect than the any of those other lesser institutions. Even if we occasionally quarrel with the authority or the decisions of those other institutions, we don’t simply dissolve them based on our bad moods. And yet, in spite of the lip service we pay to the ideal of marriage, it seems that whenever a particular marriage hits a rough spot, when one or both spouse loses interest, changes their outlook, loses their desire or finds a different desire, when a marriage descends into pit of despair where husband and wife are uncommunicative, unsupportive, unfaithful, we sigh and say, “Well, it would probably be better if they just split up, so that they can start over.”
 
Chesterton says “Nobody dreams of applying that sort of washy sentiment to any of the other institutions. Nobody says that, so long as the sight of the policeman at the corner of the street still thrills me like the sight of a soldier watching, sword in hand, over the fatherland, so long and no longer I may tolerate the policeman and allow him to regulate the traffic; but if, in some empty and dreary hour, I grow cold towards the policeman, I feel no gush of inspiration at the sight of his boots, I even feel suddenly that I do not like his face - then, all is over between me and the policeman; I no longer recognize his function in the State; I become a philosophic anarchist and he becomes an unintelligible tyrant. Nobody says this; for the obvious reason that Government or the State would never have existed at all, for forty-eight hours, if it was dissolved by any change of emotion or the momentary loss of our purely imaginative appreciation of its value.”
 
Every human institution depends on “some rule of fidelity and continuity, that could be counted on to rise superior to mere moods and emotions.” It applies to the principle of private property as well as public order. If my neighbor loses interest in his garden while I gain interest in it, the garden does not become my possession simply because his admiration for it becomes intermittent while I lie awake thinking about it.
 
And yet, says Chesterton, “The Family is the only institution that is discussed in this senseless sentimental fashion; and, therefore, the Family is the only institution that has very nearly ceased to exist. Those other institutions, those much more official, oppressive, and even tyrannical institutions, do continue to exist. And that is because they have laws and loyalties that are supposed to survive changes of sentiment.”
 
All of Chesterton’s arguments in defense of marriage and the family are as valid and timely as ever. Just as we cannot use sentiment to do away with the institution of marriage with divorce, neither can we use sentiment to alter the institution of marriage by redefining it as a relationship that can exist between members of the same sex. As Chesterton points out, marriage precedes the State; it is a more primary institution than the State and has a more primary authority than the State. In the days ahead we must raise our voices in defense of this primary institution of marriage and prevent that other institution, the State, from collapsing and destroying its own foundations through the triumph of sentiment over reason. 

Dale Ahlquist
President
American Chesterton Society

Go here to learn how you can help support the American Chesterton Society.

And here is a full listing of the Table of Contents of In Defense Of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton, edited by Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, and Aidan Mackey.

The Political Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien: CWR Interview with Dr. Jay W. Richards

The Political Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien | CWR Staff | Catholic World Report

The author of The Hobbit, says Dr. Jay W. Richards, "didn’t like concentrated political power, even when it could seem to be justified for noble purposes."

Dr. Jay W. Richards is co-author, with Dr. Jonathan Witt, of the new book, The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot, published recently by Ignatius Press.Richards is Assistant Research Professor in the School of Business and Economics at The Catholic University of America, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, and Executive Editor of The Stream. He is author and co-author of several books, including the New York Times bestsellers Infiltrated and Indivisible, as well as Money, Greed, and God, The Privileged Planet and The Untamed God.

The Hobbit Party is a detailed study of the political principles and philosophy of J.R.R. Tolkien, focusing on how the famed author's beliefs about liberty and limited government shaped his work and grew directly from his theological vision of man and creation. “Richards and Witt have opened up an often ignored aspect of Tolkien's work,” states Dr. Thomas Howard, “namely the sense in which his myth bespeaks a political and economic order that stands in stark, even violent, contrast to the presiding power structures that dominate this unhappy globe. It should be made required reading in all courses in political philosophy.”

Richards recently answered several questions by CWR editor Carl E. Olson about The Hobbit Party, Tolkien, Western civilization, political philosophy, and Catholic social teadching.

CWR: Why have Tolkien's insights into political philosophy and related matters gone mostly unnoticed or ignored?

Richards: I wouldn’t say they’ve been ignored. There have been articles and chapters of books over the years discussing Tolkien’s political views. Unfortunately, he’s sometimes been called into the service of ideas (from environmentalism to Marxism) that he would have abhorred. This is possible because Tolkien is a rich and subtle thinker who can easily be misunderstood. Every interpreter is tempted to remake Tolkien in his or her own image. Our goal in The Hobbit Party is to provide a sustained treatment of Tolkien’s political and economic ideas on their own terms, and to correct some of the false readings of them. Tolkien insisted that his books were not allegorical, but he did allow that they had applicability to such questions.

CWR: There are many readers who refuse to acknowledge or pay attention to Tolkien's Catholic understanding of, well, everything. Why is that? How best to change the minds of such readers?

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

What is Culture War?

Left: Pro-life demonstrators gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington June 26, 2014 (CNS photo/Jim Bourg, Reuters); right: Eastside Catholic High School (Seattle) students display signs during a rally in December 2013. (CNS photo/David Ryder, Reuters)

What is Culture War? | James Kalb | CWR

The need for a sacred focus makes culture war inevitable when there are enough people who disagree strongly on the exact nature of that focus

A culture is a way of living, a system of habit and attitude, an orientation toward life and the world, that is shared and basically taken for granted within a community. It arises naturally when people live together, since we are social beings who need common habits and understandings to live together happily and productively.

That makes the idea of a “culture war” seem rather odd. How can there be a war over what is shared, habitual, taken for granted, and basic to social functioning?

The answer, of course, is that nothing human is automatic. Culture involves difference as well as agreement. Any moderately complex society has regional, class, and occupational variations. It has city people who differ from country people, and often migrants from elsewhere.

Most cultural differences reflect the fact that people live somewhat separately, a situation that reduces practical problems. When they do arise, something usually gets worked out through assimilation, accommodation, and sometimes mutual avoidance. A functional society is in everyone’s interest, so people normally adopt habits and understandings that keep their dealings reasonably amicable. Such things might involve standards like taking responsibility for one’s own, dodges like avoiding “hot button” issues in company, or acceptance that people differ in their virtues and vices, and find somewhat different ways to a good life.

A culture war arises when such habits and understandings break down, so that people constantly offend each other, points of contention cannot be negotiated, the limits of toleration are reached, and the society ends up in what amounts to a low-level civil war. Usually that happens when a new outlook and way of life arrives that’s at odds with the old on basic issues regarding what life is about and how we should live.

Culture pervades every aspect of human life, including our deepest concerns. Every culture has an orientation determined by basic commitments and views on what is most important and therefore sacred. A society needs to hold such things in common if it is to survive and remain functional in times of stress.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

How would Bilbo vote?

Co-authors provide insights into J.R.R. Tolkien’s political views in time for the midterm elections

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 28, 2014 – The midterm elections andthe final installment of The Hobbit film trilogy are just around the corner. It’s past time somebody asked the burning question: How would Bilbo Baggins vote? For the uninitiated, Bilbo is the title character of the J.R.R. Tolkien novel behind the films, and most people’s introduction to The Lord of the Rings, the grand sequel to The Hobbit.

To understand Bilbo, we need look no further than his creator, J.R.R. Tolkien. The clues are not only in Tolkien’s collected letters, but also in the novels themselves.

Bilbo’s nephew, Frodo, is a proponent of nonviolence near the end of The Lord of the Rings. Plus, Tolkien loved trees and detested the ugly side of industrialism. Surely if the Oxford don were alive today, the thinking goes, he would be a Prius-driving, organic smoothie-drinking, COEXIST bumper sticker-sporting liberal. Wouldn’t he?

But wait. What of all the stuff in his work about honor, chivalry, family, battlefield courage and moral absolutes? Focusing on this, some on the left have concluded that, no, Tolkien must have been an old-fashioned dead white male conservative.

Both views can’t be right. Is the truth somewhere in the middle? Was Tolkien a soft-edged moderate? Tolkien was a moderate beer drinker. He was a moderately good rugby player as a boy. But there was nothing moderate about his political views.

In the recently released THE HOBBIT PARTY: The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got, and The West Forgot, coauthors Dr. Jay Richards, a Catholic, and Dr. Jonathan Witt, an Evangelical Christian, show how Tolkien’s Middle-Earth novels championed liberty, trade and limited government, key issues in the upcoming midterm elections. They believe Tolkien’s novels of Middle-Earth draw us a map to freedom and liberty, and that perhaps brushing up on our Tolkien lore can help us prepare for this midterm election vote.

For more information, to request a review copy, or to schedule an interview with Jay Richards and/or Jonathan Witt, please contact Kevin Wandra (404-788-1276 or [email protected]) of Carmel Communications.