Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Catholic Corner

  • Dianne Feinstein and the Anti-Catholic Bigots

    George Neumayr: It came out, thanks to the WikiLeaks disclosures during the 2016 campaign, that Hillary Clinton’s aides were trading nasty notes about Catholics, calling them “severely backwards.” The Dems had long been the party of anti-Catholic bigotry and the exposed emails only confirmed that reputation. American bishops appointed by Pope Francis didn’t make a…

  • Santa Monica and St. Monica

    The California city is named after the Catholic saint, the mother of St. Augustine. Her feast day is today, 27 August.  Now bring before your mind all of the wonderful place-names of Christian provenience. Do we have a plan to stop the barbarians when they, as they inevitably will, begin defacing, destroying, and re-naming?

  • Iconoclasm: Another Similarity Between Muslims and Leftists

    Muslims are well-known for their iconoclasm, hostility to the arts, and destruction of cultural artifacts. Leftists are like unto Muslims in this regard too. There is also the iconoclasm of the Left. For now, a couple of links to introduce the topic. Leftist Iconoclasm Must Stop Stomping on Jesus: The Iconoclasm of the Left The…

  • Has Bergoglio Heard of the Four Last Things?

    One wonders.

  • Continence

    The Catholic Church is in sad shape. Have you heard a good sermon lately? I could do better off the top of my head, and I am a very poor public speaker. Here are some notes for a sermon I will never give, unless this weblog is my pulpit. Remind people of the importance of…

  • Stupid Catholics with a Death Wish

    Yet another example: The Diocese of Orlando recently reprimanded a sixth grade teacher at a Catholic school for an “unfortunate exhibit of disrespect.” What did he do? He provided printouts to students of St. John Bosco’s negative assessment of Islam. St. John Bosco called Islam a “monstrous mixture of Judaism, Paganism, and Christianity,” and explained…

  • The Collapse of the Catholic Universities

    Yet another example, one so egregious that I pinch myself to see if I am awake: Stéphane Mercier, a lecturer in philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven (UCL) in Belgium initially was suspended from teaching, pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings, because there was opposition in a class from a feminist group to his philosophical argument to the…

  • A Catholic Populism?

    Worth reading. By James Kalb.

  • Know-Nothing Catholics on Muslim Immigration

    William Kilpatrick: It can be expected that Catholic bishops will respond with dismay to President Trump’s order banning immigration from seven Muslim nations. When Trump first proposed banning Muslims from entering the U.S., Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, the president of the USCCB issued a statement repudiating “the hatred and suspicion that leads to policies of discrimination.”…

  • The Willful Stupidity of Catholic Bishops

    What explains it? It's enough to make a man swim the Tiber in reverse. Once more: Islam is not a religion of peace! Related articles Is He Your Prophet? Civil Courage What ISIS Really Wants After bunfight over opening of fast food outlet near the Vatican, McDonald's to dole out cheeseburgers to homeless people

  • The Trials and Tribulations of Anthony Esolen

    "Because of recent events at the school where I teach, Providence College, I have come to see that the winning side of the so-called culture wars has no interest in rational or equable conversation about the neuralgic issues of our time." Here. Defund the bastards, I say.  It does no good to speak truth to…

  • Edith Stein on Cognitio Fidei: Is Faith a Kind of Knowledge?

    One finds the phrase cognitio fidei in Thomas Aquinas and in such Thomist writers as Josef Pieper. It translates as 'knowledge of faith.' The genitive is to be interpreted subjectively, not objectively: faith is not the object of knowledge; faith is a form or type of knowledge. But how can faith be a type of knowledge? One…

  • War, Torture, and the Aporetics of Moral Rigorism

    That the deliberate targeting of noncombatants is intrinsically evil and cannot be justified under any circumstances is one of the entailments of Catholic just war doctrine.  I am sensitive to its moral force. I am strongly inclined to say that certain actions are intrinsically wrong, wrong by their very nature as the types of actions…

  • Is the Pope Catholic?

    That depends. You could be asking whether the man who happens to be the current pope, Francis, is Catholic.  You would then be asking about the occupant of an office at the apex of the Catholic organizational hierarchy.  Or you could be asking about the office itself: Is the office of the papacy occupiable only…

  • Catholicism as True Enough

    Catholicism is true enough to provide moral guidance and spiritual sustenance for many, many people.  So if you are a lapsed Catholic, you could do far worse than to return to the arms of Holy Mother the Church. And this despite the deep post-Vatican II corruption. Better such a reversion than to persist in one's worldly…