Book Review: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization

Book Review
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization
By Anthony Esolen
Regnery Publishing, Inc. 2008. 310 pp.
Reviewed by Robert Hurley, M.D.

[editor’s note: Anthony Esolen will be Credo’s St. Joseph Dinner speaker in St. Louis on Sunday, April 14^th, 2013 with a talk titled Fatherhood and Freedom]

If you’ve ever wondered how Western civilization arrived at the present predicament in which it finds itself, morally, fiscally and relationally, and how it might extricate itself, and if you aren’t in a position to spend a lifetime finding answers to those important questions, this book is for you. Read more “Book Review: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization” →

Reviewed: Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your…

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child
By Anthony Esolen
ISI Books 2010. Xiii + 237 pp.
Reviewed by Robert E Hurley, M.D.

Editor’s Note: Anthony Esolen will be Credo’s St. Joseph Dinner speaker in St. Louis 14-April-2013 with a talk titled Fatherhood and Freedom. For a preview of his wit, watch this interview on Fox & Friends where he pranks the anchors. Listen to Esolen but watch the male anchor.

“Don’t buy this book – unless you like non-stop wit, energetic writing, fresh insight, and abundant wisdom about how to shape a good life for your children, and maybe even yourself.” — Robert Royal, President, Faith and Reason Institute Read more “Reviewed: Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child by Anthony Esolen” →

Saint Thomas More a Model for Our Time

It strikes me that we have in Saint Thomas More a model for our time. The question we face is similar: shall religion be supreme or shall temporal opinion? What is the extent of the accommodation that may be reached? Has truth itself a claim on our very lives? And have we the courage of Saint Thomas More to act entirely without support? Read this talk given by Hilaire Belloc in July of 1929, before Thomas More was raised to the altars, at the More Memorial Exhibition, and then let us in these days invoke the patronage of Saint Thomas More, earning it, so to speak, by our own actions, and lending him a support in posterity he has not found in England, France, or elsewhere in the ruin of Christendom.

This was delivered as a speech and has the quality of spoken word. Further, it had sentence structures more complex than we are used to and was given by an Englishman, not an American. My advice to you is to read it aloud in full voice so you will slow down and pay attention to how it sounds. At the very least, imagine you are reading aloud, moving your lips. I found it in a book compiled by Patrick Cahill titled Hilaire Belloc One Thing and Another A Miscellany from His Uncollected Essays, Hollis & Carter, 1955. In turn Cahill found it in The Fame of Blessed Thomas More, Sheed & Ward, 1929.

The Witness to Abstract Truth

by Hilaire Belloc

I come to speak to you to-day upon the Blessed Thomas More, and I come to speak of him under one aspect alone; for what one man can say in the few brief moments of a public address should not, upon such a subject, touch more than one aspect, lest his audience be confused. But that aspect is surely the chief one in connection with such a name. Read more “Saint Thomas More a Model for Our Time” →

Federico Barocci Renaissance Master

The St. Louis Art Museum has an exhibit up Federico Barocci: Renaissance Master through this coming Sunday, January 20th, that is well-worth seeing. This particular preview image here is better than many you will find online — the colors and tone-scale are pretty true, but nothing compared to seeing the real thing in person. The idea that “religious art” is dark and somber is wrong, wrong, wrong. These paintings are stunning and huge — most of them are of architectural scale, not paintings for a suburban living room.

Barocci had a truly Catholic eye — he could capture a supernatural vision within mundane (even funny) ordinary life. An example is here in the painting called La Madonna del Gatto, or roughly Our Lady of the Cat. She is holding St. John and our Lord in a domestic setting where the last prophet of the Old Testament is playing with (teasing?) a cat. The message here is that Salvation History isn’t a mere abstraction — it happened and looked at least at the time pretty ordinary (and conventionally nuts). This is what  “incarnation” means and Barocci got it on canvas. Read more “Federico Barocci Renaissance Master” →

Robert George: The Time of the Comfortable Catholic is…

With this statement, Professor Robert George of Princeton University began his outlook on American life in the near future. Addressing more than 160 audience members at the November Credo Forum, he reminisced briefly about the Catholic Church’s influence during the “golden years” of the 40’s and 50’s, years when government intrusion in our institutions was minimal, and the ten commandments formed the basis of our national moral code.

But since the 60’s, government intrusions have increased until today they make the faithful Catholic exceedingly uncomfortable. Today we look ahead to a massive federal health system that confronts both Catholic institutions and individuals with absolute moral choices that cannot be ignored. And the secular culture has become both morally adrift and powerful, so powerful that immorality is enshrined in our nation’s laws. As Catholics in such a culture we need to be always militant, keeping our minds centered on truth and subjecting to rigorous scrutiny whatever is presented to us by the media. Today the culture we live in directly opposes Christianity, so if we are true Christians we shall be very uncomfortable in the future.

Read more “Robert George: The Time of the Comfortable Catholic is Over” →

Marriage Equality and Love That Only a Mother Can…

“His little face was lit up with joy, and he was cheering as his moms hugged him with the love that only a mother can provide.” So, there is a love that ONLY a mother can provide? So says Governor O’Malley, the most prominent proponent of “marriage equality” in the state of Maryland.

One of the main claims on behalf of “marriage equality” is that sex does not matter at all with respect to child rearing. The proponents of gay “marriage” must assert this, of course, lest they cede any ground at all to those vile, bigoted, racists-by-analogy (albeit a demonstrably poor analogy), Biblethumping, Trajectory-of-History-denying heterosexists. For if sex matters in parenting, then the female contributes something that the male cannot and vice versa, and that alone suffices for heteronormative supremacy. Thus, “SSM” advocates must assert that parenthood is at its essential core androgynous.  Evidently Little Will was not the only who may not have understood the debates in Maryland’s House.

But I suspect that the Governor knows that he would lose votes if he denied the uniqueness of a mother’s love or said something like, “His little face was lit up with joy, and he was cheering as his moms hugged him with the love that can be provided by any of the five sexes.” Nevertheless, what he said betrayed a heteronormativity that simply cannot be reconciled with the arguments for “marriage equality”. My question then is this: what does it say about Maryland’s vote for gay “marriage” that the man who is the most powerful supporter of “SSM” has clearly used heteronormative rhetoric to advance a cause which is just as clearly antithetical to the very notion of heteronormativity? Does the governor misunderstand the arguments for the issue he has chosen to trumpet ever so loudly? Well, then, how many other citizens of Maryland misunderstood these arguments when they voted yes on Question 6? Or does he know very well the necessary androgynous implications of “marriage equality” and has chosen to hide them because he thinks his constituency is all for equality but not quite ready yet for legally enforced androgyny? Hmm?

Bishop Thomas John Paprocki Defends Paul Ryan Against Heresy…

In an address given at the Red Mass in Green Bay, Wisconsin on September 20^th, Credo’s 2011 Christ the King Forum Speaker, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, defended Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan against heresy charges coming from various quarters in the Catholic press and academy. Instead of reading what other say about what his Excellency said, you can read the words themselves by clicking right here.

Thanks to Credo member Don Holdener for the contribution.

Selection of Paul Ryan Excites Catholics, Pro-Lifers

When Mitt Romney announced on August 11^th his selection of Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to be his vice-presidential running mate, excitement bubbled up all over the country among Catholics, pro-life activists, and citizens who like well-read and intellectual political leaders.  Not since 1964, when Barry Goldwater chose Rep. William Miller of New York, has a Catholic appeared on the G.O.P. ticket.  Probably not since 1956, when the Democrats re-nominated Adlai Stevenson, or 1932, when Herbert Hoover lost his re-election bid, has a candidate of such acknowledged intellectual weight appeared on a national ticket.
Read more “Selection of Paul Ryan Excites Catholics, Pro-Lifers” →