The Narthex
Captive Nations Week
Freedom still needs to come to places like China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba
By John M. Grondelski | July 26th 2024 11:53 AMJuly 21-27 is Captive Nations Week. Congress designated in 1959 the third week of July as Captive Nations Week and asked the President to proclaim it annually. (Congress initially designated Captive Nations Week by itself in 1953). Joe Biden issued an executive proclamation on July 19. Captive Nations Week commemorates…
READ FULL BLOG POSTJust War Is Still Vital
The Church fails in its teaching duty if its advice is 'hoping & praying' that war goes away
By John M. Grondelski | July 25th 2024 12:22 PMJust war theory remains vital because -- naïve thinking aside -- war is not going away as long as men are sinners. As long as men are sinners, some will try to do injustice to others by force. As long as some are victims of injustice, they have a right…
READ FULL BLOG POSTInterreligious Suffering
Jews and Christians were united as victims of godless atheists
By John M. Grondelski | July 24th 2024 11:37 AMJuly 22 used to be a state holiday in Communist Poland marking the day that the traitors imported by the Soviet Army installed themselves in Lublin in 1944 as the “Provisional Government of National Unity” and would proceed, for the next 45 years, to torture Poland with their pretensions to…
READ FULL BLOG POSTTen Forbidden Words
Why shouldn't Louisiana be free to speak the words of the Ten Commandments?
By John M. Grondelski | July 11th 2024 11:54 AMMost Supreme Court cases go by their official names. Some get nicknames. The nickname for Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation is the “Seven Dirty Words Case.” It upheld the right of the FCC to regulate indecent language on the public airwaves. (Yes, in theory the FCC can turn off…
READ FULL BLOG POSTOur Marie Antoinette Elites
Labor must have priority over capital; both the Left and the Right get this wrong
By John M. Grondelski | July 8th 2024 2:00 PMRare is the New York Times op-ed to which I refer readers and encourage them to read it. But I do so wholeheartedly as regards “This Is What Elite Failure Looks Like” by Oren Cass (July 6; linked below). Cass pulls no punches. Eighty-three thousand Americans died of opioid overdoses…
READ FULL BLOG POSTSleek Barbarians
Behind the West's civilizational crisis is a bait and switch cultural appropriation -- and we fall for it
By John M. Grondelski | June 19th 2024 9:12 PM“Sleek barbarians” is a term and concept articulated by contemporary Polish philosopher Zbigniew Stawrowski which I have tried to popularize and disseminate in the English-speaking world. I do so because the concept seems to have even broader application here than in Poland (though Poland does not lack for its own…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Faithful Dog
If only human fidelity were imbued with the same constancy as the dog's
By John M. Grondelski | June 3rd 2024 11:32 AMRumer Godden is perhaps best known for her 1969 bestseller In This House of Brede, the story of a woman who enters an English Benedictine convent. It was published a year after Godden converted to Catholicism. Religion, however, permeated Godden’s books from very early on, like Black Narcissus, her 1939…
READ FULL BLOG POSTβρέφος
Luke uses the same word for the newborn Jesus and the unborn John
By John M. Grondelski | May 31st 2024 3:10 PMToday is the Solemnity of the Visitation, commemorating when Mary -- in her first trimester -- made a 90-mile trip from Nazareth in Galilee to Ein Karem in Judea to tend to her “kinswoman” Elizabeth, in her third trimester. We will celebrate the birth of John the Baptist next month,…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Difference between Moral Obligation & Self-Will
The 'right to define meaning & the universe' only works if you make yourself author & lord of that universe
By John M. Grondelski | April 30th 2024 12:06 PMOver 65 years ago Karol Wojtyła wrote on “The Significance of Obligation.” In that text, Wojtyła probed the universal human experience of obligation -- “I ought to do X” -- asking what it tells us about itself. That experience teaches us three things: about obligation itself, about responsibility, and about…
READ FULL BLOG POSTOn Non-Compete Clauses
Should contracts that limit post-employment in the same general field be banned?
By John M. Grondelski | April 23rd 2024 11:49 AMThe Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is expected Tuesday to vote on a regulation banning “non-compete” clauses in employment contracts. Non-compete clauses are provisions in employment contracts that prohibit employees from working in that profession for a certain period of time or within a certain radius of the former employer. They…
READ FULL BLOG POSTA 'Come to Jesus' Message
Christian 'welcome' goes through sin, repentance, and conversion
By John M. Grondelski | April 15th 2024 11:48 AMThe past few years have seen a preoccupation in various ecclesiastical quarters about the Church’s “welcome.” It’s a strange preoccupation for an institution that has been around roughly two millennia and hitherto seemed to lack neither clarity about its welcome message nor success in its promotion. This year’s readings for…
READ FULL BLOG POSTPeople of the Plant
The story of a life-giving custom
By James Thunder | April 1st 2024 8:04 PMSome time ago, my wife and I were visiting my elderly, widowed father in his home in suburban Chicago. We remarked to him that, in his 25 years in this home, his gardening had achieved outstanding results, due not only to his efforts but to superbly fecund loam. Since all…
READ FULL BLOG POSTDo We Like Light?
Modernity's claim of 'privacy' serves the same cloaking function as antiquity's 'darkness'
By John M. Grondelski | March 12th 2024 11:57 AMIt is serendipitous coincidence that the Gospel of Our Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus, “the man who came to Jesus at night” (John 3:2), occurred this year on the same Sunday that Daylight Savings Time began -- and within ten days of the beginning of spring. (Spring this year begins the…
READ FULL BLOG POSTRatzinger as Godfather of 'Fiducia Supplicans'
Is Fiducia's seed to be found in a CDF document from 24 years ago?
By John M. Grondelski | February 28th 2024 3:43 PM“The lady doth protest too much, methinks” is a Shakespeare line about a Hamlet character whose overacting makes one believe she is hellbent on concealing the truth of things. That line comes to mind on reading a featured editorial at Vatican News (Feb. 27): “Fiducia supplicans: Non-Liturgical blessings and Pope…
READ FULL BLOG POSTDivorce, from the Eyes of Children
On a film in which the children do not 'accompany' their wayward parents
By John M. Grondelski | February 23rd 2024 1:06 PMEx ore infantium comes from Psalm 8:3, “from the mouths of babes and infants.” I was reminded of that phrase recently while watching a perhaps unfairly neglected movie from 1965, “The Battle of the Villa Fiorita.” The film, starring Maureen O’Hara and Rossano Brazzi, is based on a book by…
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