Category: Catholic Corner
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Who’s Hell Bound?
Just over the transom from Derwood: Help me understand something. When Jesus died, the vast percentage of humanity had and would never hear of the Jewish messiah/god. True. And that would seem to include all sorts of righteous Old Testament individuals, including Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Surely, the latter three are not in hell. As…
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Edith Stein: Faith, Reason, and Method
August 9th is the feast day of St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross in the Catholic liturgy. She is better known to philosophers as Edith Stein (1891-1942), brilliant Jewish student of and assistant to Edmund Husserl, philosopher in her own right, Roman Catholic convert, Carmelite nun, victim of the Holocaust at Auschwitz, and saint of…
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Julien Green’s Diary, 1928-1957
It arrived yesterday evening, and I am already 32 pages into it. Why keep a journal? Green gives an answer on page one in the entry from 4 December 1928. He tells of "the incomprehensible desire to bring the past to a standstill that makes one keep a diary." Reading that, I knew I would…
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Are Catholics Christians?
A fellow philosopher writes, While reading Clarence Thomas’s opinion in Ames v. Ohio Dept. of Youth Services (2025), I came across this sentence: “Americans have different views, for example, on whether Catholics are Christians.” I’ve heard it said, before, that Catholics aren’t Christians, but never knew what to make of it. (The same thing is…
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Vito Caiati on Pope Leo XIV: An Initial Assessment
The following just over the transom from Dr. Vito Caiati, posted verbatim with a few minor edits and additions of hyperlinks. Asterisks refer to footnotes. ………………………… Taking a hard look at the composition of the electors, 81 percent of whom were chosen by Bergoglio; the rapid elevation of Prevost by him*; and the gauchiste content…
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Rogues in Bergoglio’s Footsteps
The truth is too magnificent a thing to be the the property of any one religious institution. Too magnificent a thing, and too elusive a thing to be owned or housed or patented or reduced to the formulas of a sect or finitized or fought over. Institutions too often value their own perpetuation over the…
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Such a Wonderful Pope!
Simon Caldwell via Jim Bowman: He [Pope Francis] used his authority to protect sinister friends from justice, such as Father Marko Rupnik, a fellow Jesuit who was accused of the serial rape of more than a dozen nuns, sometimes in quasi-satanic rituals. Rupnik was excommunicated latae sententiae (automatically) after he granted absolution in the confessional to…
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Pope Francis Dead at 88
I have issued some trenchant statements over the years about the late Pope Francis, but for now my watchword is: de mortuis nil nisi bonum. I will only add that in the wee hours of yesterday's vigil, before I became aware of Francis's passing, I was re-reading Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's 1968 Introduction to Christianity in…
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If Someone is Walking is He Necessarily Walking?
This article defends the modal collapse objection to the doctrine of divine simplicity. Brian Bosse asked me about this. Here is my answer. Put on your thinking caps, boys and girls. (Hey Joe, who was it who used to say that back at STS, Sr. Ann Miriam in the first grade?) Substack latest.
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On Swimming the Tiber: Reasons for Leaving Protestantism
I had put the question to Russell B, "What were your reasons for becoming a Protestant in the first place and then leaving Protestantism, apart from acceptance of DDS? [The doctrine of Divine Simplicity?] And what sect did you leave? Here is his response; I have intercalated some comments of my own. 1) The…
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J. D. Vance at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast
The Veep's performance was impressive. The man has excellent public speaking skills, is considerably more articulate than his boss, and displays natural political talent. He will make a fine successor. On the down side, he, unlike Trump, is a professional politician. I don't have to explain what that means. Trump's astonishing effectiveness is in large…
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NGO Pope Commits ‘Ecclesiastical Suicide’
Rod Dreher: Elsewhere in the epistle, Francis implicitly condemns Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, for misunderstanding the Church’s teaching on ordo amoris—the order of love. Vance, a convert who was catechized by two of the most intelligent Dominican priests in America (I introduced him personally to his first teacher), had defended the administration’s tough…
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Last Days, Last Things
What better way to spend one's last days than by deep inquiry into the Last Things? Would that not be a better use of time than gambling and fox hunting, and the other examples of Pascalian divertissement? You will soon be embarking nolens volens for a permanent stay in a foreign destination, departure date unknown.…
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Bergoglio on Borders
What a hypocrite this guy is! You can 'migrate' anywhere, just not into the Vatican. Don't you love that word 'migrate'? Its use manages to elide two important distinctions in one fell swoop: the distinction between legal and illegal immigration, and that between immigration and emigration. A worthy addition to the lexicon of the Left.
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Why Catholics Voted for Trump
A very good First Things article by Mary Eberstadt. I have only one comment. She reports, "The nation’s Catholic voters split 56 to 41 in favor of Donald Trump." 41 % against? Why such a large percentage? Are they 'devout Catholics' in the style of Joe Dementia and Nancy the Shredder? The Democrat Party, besides…