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THE FINAL BATTLE:  FAITH, REASON & MILITANCY. 

10 YEARS OF POPE FRANCIS, THE VERDICT?

3/17/2023

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George Weigel writes in his syndicated column about the somber mood in the Vatican on the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis' election.
Madison’s “Extended Republic” and the Culture Wars
The Victorian Jacobites
And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln & the American Struggle
With employment demands, assessment requirements, and skill training gone taken over by AI, what will be left for the university to do?
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Israel tends to make American headlines only for violence and geopolitics. But there's much more to the Jewish nation.
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A German Reflection on the American Revolution
Educating the Moral Imagination: The Truth of Beauty
Breaking the Spell of Marxism
Beware Health Totalitarianism
Medical students, like all humans, are meaning-seeking creatures. But you wouldn't know that from medical education.
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History & the New Humanism
A Theology of Gift: The Divine Benefactor & Universal Kinship By Stratford Caldecott
The Revolution Is Upon Us - Crisis Magazine
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THE END OF MODERNITY; MEDICINE & IDEOLOGY; WHEN RATZINGER AND HAYEK MET

3/3/2023

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The End of Modernity
Diagnosing Ideological Medicine
The ideological naïveté that we sometimes see in medicine is a symptom of a deeper problem with how we educate medical students.
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Zealous ideologues can be dangerous in many ways, but they are specially unsuited to practice medicine.
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When Ratzinger and Hayek Met
The two great minds once conversed on the role of public intellectuals in democratic societies.
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Realism on China
Unless government is properly constrained, secularism can morph into its own kind of twisted religion.
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Understanding the narratives of political economy can improve communication, and help us to appreciate subtle truths about our political moment.
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Political philosopher David Walsh highlights the givenness of the person in our hypercritical age.
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Catholic priests are being imprisoned and exiled for refusing to be silent about the abuses of the Ortega regime.
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TOCQUEVILLE'S MAN IN RUSSIA

2/22/2023

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Astolphe de Custine undertook a Tocquevillian tour of Russia. But he was repelled by its regime.
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John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer capture the intellectual undercurrent of the Revolution.
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The End of Modernity
By Thaddeus Kozinski on Feb 23, 2023 03:00 pm
Modernity, by God’s grace, may be the site of a new synthesis, the transcending of stale categories of thought and practice, in which a new Christendom can emerge, one in which the reign of God in His glory and love emerges side-by-side with the full dignity and flourishing of man. The Immanent Frame and Great ...
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A professional education requires an understanding of the human condition that only humane study can provide.
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An ancient inscription gives us a peek into the rise and reign of a Bronze Age king, and a sense of the thin line between order and chaos.
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Turkey: Islamist Sex with Children Is Fine; Condemning It Is an Offense  by Burak Bekdil  • 
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Earthquake Unveils Turkey's Many Ugly Faces by Burak Bekdil 
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PAUL JOHNSON, A CRITICAL CATHOLIC

2/15/2023

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THE TROUBLES
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Paul Johnson's turn to history from journalism ought to earn him a lasting place in our memory as a great defender of ordered liberty.
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CITY JOURNAL OBITUARY
THE NEW CRITERION, REVIEW OF WORK
UK GUARDIAN
PROFILE, UK GUARDIAN
UK THE SPECTATOR
PAUL JOHNSON ARCHIVES.ORG
Roger Scruton and Pierre Manent represent a humane conservatism that demonstrates to us the importance of Western civilization.
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If we Americans can claim to possess a tragic consciousness, it owes more to Shakespeare than to Aristotle.
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The Price of Freedom
Kori Schake | Engelsberg Ideas
The international order that the US and its allies constructed from the ashes of World War II is under strain. The two main challenges to the order are America’s continued ability to uphold it and China’s rise. However, the order is much more durable than the frenzy of concern suggests.
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Who Put the West in Western Civilization?
Did Fulton Sheen Prophesy About These Times?
Perhaps no novel explores the personhood of woman better than Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.
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Marco Magnani paints a future of exciting possibilities and daunting challenges.
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Joseph Butler & the Unity of Faith and Nature
The Sacramental Nature of Authority and the Limits of Synodality
A Cardinal Misunderstanding of the Hierarchy of Truths
Benedict XVI describes ‘Protestantization’ of the Eucharist in posthumous publication
Dogfight Football: Germany and the Art of Strategy
The American founders learned from Montesquieu to eschew universalist ideology but defend freedom in their particular time and place.
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Christianity's dualistic claim is uniquely suited to provide the limits sought by liberalism and constitutionalism.
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Contrary to the belief they were deists and atheists, most of the American Founders believed in God’s providence and the natural law tradition.
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For Better Defense Spending, Split the Pentagon’s Budget in Two
Mackenzie Eaglen | Hill
Eight Thoughts on Israel’s Political Crisis
The rise of Middle Eastern culture in Israel is to be celebrated. The rise of Middle Eastern politics will make our fate identical to that of our neighbors
Profound and Pious
Decoding what made Abraham Joshua Heschel such a complicated and unique man—in the Jewish world, American culture, and our family—50 years after his death
From the AEI Archive: Historian Paul Johnson at AEI
Karlyn Bowman and Joseph Kosten | AEIdeas
Visitors to our country are often better able to understand our society than we are: Think of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Paul Johnson, the great British historian who died last week, did just that in his A History of the American People (Harper Perennial, 1997). 
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christian humanism & a.i.

1/26/2023

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What Humanity Adds
The adjustments that AI will demand of our professional and educational institutions first require reflection on what it means to be human.
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We must approach the Constitution in the spirit that inheres in the document itself.
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Moral & Political Foundations of the American Founding
Catholic social teaching in a time of dissolution
Vincent Phillip Muñoz discusses the natural rights foundations of religious freedom.
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The Purpose of Mathematics in a Classical Education
The Limits of Liberty
Hamlet in the Metaxy
The Tragic South
Conservative legal minds rank the worst twenty Supreme Court decisions of all time.
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Turkey's Elections Are Not Just Turkey's
'The Shame of Pakistan': Blasphemy Accusers
Courageous Christian Woman Stands Up to Them by Nasir Saeed 
The Necessary Island
The Great Jewish-American Entanglement​
An interlocked mix of faith, politics, and identity lies at the root of America’s unique bond with the Jewish people, argues Walter Russell Mead.
Defeating Drones:
The Most Promising Weapons Are All Non-Kinetic.
By Loren Thompson, Forbes: "The current pattern of conflict in Ukraine suggests that the age of drone warfare has arrived."
Riedl, aside six other experts, discusses policies the Biden administration and Congress could implement to address inflation moving forward. ​
 Mark P. Mills explores the potential outcomes of energy policies that would unlock hydrocarbon production without subsidy. Shifting expectations in the oil market, according to Mills, would reset expectations in the broader energy landscape.
The Job Market and Inflation
Allison Schrager, E21
Prices: Why Do They Matter?
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Escaping the Cave of Liberalism
By William P. Bednarz on Feb 05, 2023 02:11 pm
D.C. Schindler's "The Politics of the Real" is a brilliant addition to the postliberal movement. By understanding liberalism as a distortion of the Christian order, we can recognize it as a sustained war upon reality. And we can understand a true postliberalism as nothing more or less than the New Evangelization, the effort of converting entire ...
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John Marshall: A Primer
Joseph Butler & the Unity of Faith and Nature
The institutional development, planning, and professional ethos behind naval operations provide the context that made famous victories possible.
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The historical-practice standard established by last year's landmark gun-rights case is proving to be manipulable in the lower courts.
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Grover Cleveland: A Man of Iron
A Backwards Civilization: Unthinking Leaders, Frenzied Citizens
Conservatism Stands for the Common Person
Thomas More: Virtuous Statesman
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ROOTS OF MODERNITY IN PERVERSIONS OF CATHOLICISM

1/17/2023

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A Historian Of The Future: Five More Questions For Stephen Kotkin
interview with Stephen Kotkin via Uncommon KnowledgeHistorian Stephen Kotkin became the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution in 2022. He taught at Princeton for more than 30 years, and is the author of nine works of history, including the first two volumes of his biography of Joseph Stalin, Paradoxes of Power, 1878 to 1928 and Waiting for Hitler, 1929 to 1941. He is now completing the third and final volume. 
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The Roots of Modernity in Perversions of Christianity
How to Appreciate Twentieth-Century Music
Reason, Faith, & the Struggle for Western Civilization
French political thinkers have long been fascinated by the English constitutional tradition, but they may not always have learned the right lessons.
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Samuel Adams had personal experience of the need for self-government and a great resentment of the distant manipulation of colonial affairs.
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Immerse Yourself
As modernism marks the centenary of its annus mirabilis, its great works of literature reveal the demands and rewards of reading.
THE NEW CRITERION, MYTHS OF THE 50'S
THE NEW CRITERION, HANS MOMMSEN ON THE THIRD REICH
C.S. Lewis’ “Old Western Men”
Creation, Incarnation, and Imagination
“Harrison Bergeron” and the New Middle
Thought Into Action
The Long Shadow of Pius XI, One Hundred Years Later
Profound and Pious
Decoding what made Abraham Joshua Heschel such a complicated and unique man—in the Jewish world, American culture, and our family—50 years after his death
BY ALTER YISRAEL SHIMON FEUERMAN
Conservative Humanism & the Challenge of the Post-Humanist Age
Southern Life, Agrarian Vision: The Apprenticeship of Andrew Lytle
America: Devolution, Revolution, or Renewal?
Integralism and the Common Good
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THE RAGE OF ELIE WIESEL & TURKEY'S GENOCIDE OF CHRISTIANS CONTINUES

1/11/2023

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Jews of Rage
The anger that fills the Yiddish original manuscript of Elie Wiesel’s ‘Night’ is muted in the book that became the classic account of the Holocaust for gentiles
BY NAOMI SEIDMAN
The Insufficiency of Jordan Peterson
What Exactly Is Conservatism: Russell Kirk Edition
Turkey's Latest Genocidal Campaign: 2,500 Attacks on Christians, Kurds & Yazidis
by Raymond Ibrahim
The Stream
December 29, 2022
https://www.meforum.org/63993/turkey-latest-genocidal-campaign-2500-attacks-on
Is There Unity Between Religion and Philosophy?
Consumer Materialism and Christian Hope
The Waste Land Remains Contemporary
A dazzling new critical biography of T.S. Eliot’s modernist epic
Quality Over Quantity
We should be more concerned with the nature of the risks we take—and the effects they have on us, and society—than with their merely empirical details.
Knowledge and Verve
Remembering Paul Johnson
Edmund Burke and the Dignity of the Human Person
Nayeli Riano offers a fresh, Christian, and humanist perspective on art, literature, and culture.
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Ten theologians describe their paths to the Catholic Church
Grass and Ratzinger: Two former POWs with contrasting beliefs and postwar trajectories
Cardinal George Pell’s final years in Rome
Making a new start: Cardinal Sarah on the spiritual life
How to Appreciate Twentieth-Century Music
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CARDINAL RATZINGER GONE

1/8/2023

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FIRST THINGS
Pope Benedict XVI was a dominant force in the intellectual debate over the problems of progressive liberalism and our need for tradition.
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Benedict XVI’s political thought emanates from the same truth as his theological thought: that God is Logos.
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The Political Philosophy of Joseph Ratzinger
by Fr. James V. Schall  
Joseph Ratzinger was aware of the central event of modernity, namely the transferal of basic Christian categories from the transcendent order to the political order of this world.
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Theologian of the Heart: Benedict XVI
Joseph Ratzinger: A Man Sent From God
Benedict XVI on Science, Philosophy, & Faith
T.S. Eliot as Conservative Mentor
Benedict XVI, “Communio,” & the Communion of Saints
Tolkien on Magic, Machines, & Mordor
Joseph Ratzinger: A Man Sent From God
Theologian of the Heart: Benedict XVI
Is There Unity Between Religion and Philosophy?
The Peacemaker explores how Reagan used negotiation and pressure to win the Cold War.
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Benedict always spoke of a “reason illumined by faith,” a dialogue that he believed characterized Europe at its best.
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Why Is Blinken Hiding Report on Global Terrorist Threats  ?by A.J. Caschetta
National Review
January 3, 2023
https://www.meforum.org/63956/why-is-blinken-hiding-report-on-global-terrorist
Marriage: Why Bother?
A Principle of Reciprocity
Pope Benedict XVI’s contribution to Catholic social doctrine regarding markets and political systems can be seen in his 2009 encyclical, Caritas in Veritate.
Consumer Materialism and Christian Hope
​​Snowbound
Is There Unity Between Religion and Philosophy?
Belonging Nowhere
Author Jean Rhys felt like a ghost in her own life, but her posthumous renown shows no sign of fading.
Album / British Library / Alamy Stock Photo
  
CHRIS POPE
Systems Within a System
Health care in the United States is not one thing: it is five different things.
US Health Policy and Market Reforms: An Introduction
James C. Capretta | AEI Press
Restoring American Capitalism
A new book argues that the modern American economy has strayed far from its entrepreneurial roots.
The editors of Law & Liberty highlight some of the top pieces of the year.
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The National Survey of Priests suggests a deep crisis in Catholic theology
New study of Dawson explores how religion is “the key of history”
Turkish 'Progress': Six-Year-Old Girl Married by Her Sheik Father
The esteemed economist's Great Transformation doesn't speak to the present moment in the way anti-liberals would have us believe.
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The liberal arts produce true freedom of thought, facilitate genuine multiculturalism, and establish the necessary conditions for democracy.
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WAR, STATECRAFT & PEACE

12/8/2022

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Marriage & Manliness in Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”
American Foreign Policy Through the Ages
Mandelbaum offers readers an engaging book of measured appraisals, devoid of revisionism and partisan leanings.
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Putting Tocqueville’s Remedies into Practice
A new book explores a Tocquevillian response to popular sovereignty, nationalism, and globalization.
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Creation, Incarnation, and Imagination
By Michael De Sapio on Dec 17, 2022 04:00 pm
The ideas of Creation (God making all things through an act of his will) and Incarnation (God being present to his creation) are the reason for the West’s creativity in the arts and sciences, a creativity instigated by Christian minds building upon the classical past. If you happen to read any part of Daniel J. ...
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The Inklings and the Outbreak of World War II
Is Specialization Killing Culture?
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HOW ROBESPIERRE LIVES TODAY

9/18/2022

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Genocide in Nigeria: The Biden Administration's Cover-Up  by Raymond Ibrahim 
Advance Made in USA Policy  by Lawrence Kadish
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Robespierre and Us
by daniel j. mahoney
The paradoxes of Robespierre still remain at the heart of a powerful if deformed version of modernity.
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GEORGE WEIGEL, DANIEL KENNELLY
Conciliar Contentions
City Talk
The Philosopher as Essayist
by max skjönsberg
Hume was a quintessential eighteenth-century man of letters, as evidenced by his Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary.
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Old Wisdom for Perilous Times  
Aaron Sachs skillfully weaves the stories of Herman Melville and his biographer, Lewis Mumford, into a poignant lesson about history's uncanny echoes.
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Why Vatican II Was Necessary  By George Weigel on Oct 19, 2022 03:05 am
Writing my new book, To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II (Basic Books), afforded me the welcome opportunity to dig into the Council’s 16 texts and the many fine commentaries on them. [...]
Vatican II: Five views sixty years on  By Larry Chapp on Oct 15, 2022 10:49 pm
Everybody I know seems to be writing something on Vatican II these days and I began feeling a bit left out of the fun. So, I thought I would jump into the mosh pit of [...]
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New study of priesthood should be received as a “wake-up” call  By Peter M.J. Stravinskas on Oct 20, 2022 01:22 pm
The release of The Catholic Project’s study of priests and the data revealed therein should be welcomed by all Catholics. I must say, however, that data did not surprise me in the least – especially [...]
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Whether we study our own times or the human condition more broadly, we quickly discover the need for serious philosophic reflection on human limits.
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Some Thoughts on Moving Beyond "Neoliberal Globalization"
James Pethokoukis | AEIdeas
Rana Foroohar's piece criticizing neoliberal globalization warrants an examination of the benefits of globalization over the years.
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VASECTOMIES RISING, THE POST DOBBS REALITY

8/15/2022

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The Family & the Orchard: The Story of Civilization in the “Odyssey”
y Mitchell Kalpakgian on Sep 13, 2022 02:30 pm
The planting of trees in the orchard—the passing down of tradition, of the moral wisdom of the past, of the torch of life, and of the beauty of life’s simplest but richest and pleasures—produces the great harvest of joy that culminates in the final chapters of the "Odyssey." Editor’s Note: This is the final essay ...
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Kristin Lavransdatter in a Nutshell
The power and profundity of Kristen Lavransdatter has as its source the author’s profound understanding of the meaning of life.
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Post-Dobbs Vasectomies on the Rise
Islam’s Lessons for Liberalism  by jeffrey bristol
The concern for liberty in Islamic political thought is often overlooked.
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the_new_sensibility_by_roger_kimball_published_in_the_new_criterion_february_1998.pdf
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The Causes of the Great Depression
An Eastern Orthodox Perspective on Vatican II (Guest: Fr. Peter Heers)
Augusto Del Noce revealed the horrors of the 20th century's experiments with Marxism.
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Why Should We Study War
Featuring Victor Davis Hanson via PolicyEdThe academic discipline of military history is in decline, but it must be revived to understand how to prevent wars from occurring. Pretending that wars are a relic of the past ignores recent and distant conflicts and makes unrealistic assumptions about human nature. The notion that wars can be prevented by technological advancement, money, education, or good intentions must be abandoned.
Gifts From We Know Not Where
Saint Augustine: Founding Philosopher of History
Why Work Matters
The Dignity of Work
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Phil Gramm and John F. Early offer compelling evidence that Americans near the bottom of the income scale ultimately receive as much, if not more, income as those at the middle. Correcting the Census Bureau's income measure to account for taxes and transfer payments, Gramm and Early find roughly equal incomes among the bottom 60 percent of American households, despite those near the bottom working far less than those at the middle. On September 12, AEI President Robert Doar will join Gramm and Early for a conversation about their upcoming book, The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).
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HOW MUSLIMS CATCH UP WITH THE WEST

7/22/2022

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​How Muslims Can Catch Up  by Daniel Pipes
Washington Times
July 21, 2022
https://www.danielpipes.org/21317/how-muslims-can-catch-up
Another assault on John Paul II
​By George Weigel on Jul 27, 2022 03:05 am
On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II had lunch in the papal apartment with Dr. Jerome Lejeune, the renowned French pediatrician and geneticist who identified the chromosomal abnormality that causes Down Syndrome. Dr. Lejeune [...]
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A Restless Tocqueville
the_real_che_by_anthony_daniels_published_in_the_new_criterion_october_2004.pdf
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Is Amoris Laetitia Orthodox? (Guest: Dr. Eduardo Echeverria)
JPII ON THE SPLENDOR OF TRUTH
Public Pensions’ Lost Decade
The bear market has set government retirement systems back ten years in funding, even as taxpayers ante up ever more to keep them afloat.
HOOVER DIGEST 2022
​What Is Civilization?  By Joseph Pearce on Aug 09, 2022 04:00 pm
Is civilization worth defending? Should we aim to conform to it so that we can be considered civilized? Should we aim to bring our children up according to its norms so that they can also be considered civilized? Should we try to make our country and our world as civilized as possible? The chances are ...
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The Causes of the Great Depression  By Mark Malvasi on Aug 09, 2022 04:14 pm
By the fall of 1932, most Americans had come to perceive the depression differently than they had at its beginning. Growing numbers began to worry that depression, rather than being a temporary and purgative event, marked a permanent condition of material scarcity and economic stagnation. With fears mounting that the economy is about to slip ...
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National Conservatism and the Declaration
'Death to Blasphemers': Islam's Ancient War on Critics of Muhammad  by Raymond Ibrahim
The Stream
August 14, 2022
https://www.meforum.org/63460/death-to-blasphemers-islam-ancient-war-on-critics
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CHRISTIAN AESTHETICS AS LOVE

6/28/2022

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Original Unintentions: The Franchise and the Constitution
The Family & the Orchard: The Story of Civilization in the Odyssey
It’s Time for a Greater Reset
Why Democracy Needs Aristocracy
The Issue of Slavery at the Constitutional Convention
Lord of the World in a Nutshell
Taste and See
By John Lee on Jun 25, 2022 04:00 pm
Beauty is not found power, military glory, or victory. As great as these things are, love is a surer guide. Considering this point, we would also do well to contemplate what causes us to love most, love best? When we do, isn’t it the love that someone has for us? 1. Aesthetics Leads Aesthetics before ...
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We Are Your Death": The Persecution of Christians, May 2022
Endgame: Teaching the Way of the Family
Daniel Boorstin Against the Barbarians
St. John Fisher, St. Thomas More, & the Tudor Terror
The English Way
The Abraham Accords and the Changing Shape of the Middle East
Islamic Antisemitism Drives the Arab-Israeli Conflict  by Mark Durie
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2022 (view PDF)
https://www.meforum.org/63274/islamic-antisemitism-drives-the-arab-israeli-conflict
The Genius of Byzantium: Reflections on a Forgotten Empire
Russell Kirk’s “Southern Valor”
Hilaire Belloc and His World
Irving Babbitt: The Man and His Thought
On Teaching, Writing, and Other Discontents
The Attempt to Undermine Humanae Vitae (Guest: Dr. Janet Smith)
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METAPHYSICS & SPIRITUAL REALITY DISCERNED

5/4/2022

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“Endgame”: Teaching the Way of the Family
Daniel Boorstin Against the Barbarians
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Being Alive to Reality
Deepening Prayer and Hearing God’s Voice
The Poverty of Liberal Economics
St. John Fisher, St. Thomas More, & the Tudor Terror
By Joseph Pearce on Jun 21, 2022 05:26 pm
The final word on the legacy of John Fisher and Thomas More, and the final judgment (under God) on why we should see them as heroes, is given by G. K. Chesterton, a man who proves in his very self that the killing of More and Fisher did not kill learning, laughter or holiness: "There ...
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The English Way
By Bradley J. Birzer on Jun 21, 2022 04:57 pm
The Catholic Church canonized Saints Thomas More and John Fisher in 1935, only two years after the appearance of The English Way, a work edited by one of the most important Christian humanists and publishers of the twentieth century, Maisie Ward, and which looks at the lives, ideas, and deaths of the great Roman Catholic ...
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IS ISLAM AN EARLY CHRISTIAN ARAB HERESY?

11/21/2021

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Returning to Joseph Ratzinger’s timeless What It Means to Be a Christian
The German Church and the dissolution of the one-flesh unity
Joseph Ratzinger: A Man Sent From God
Fyodor Dostoevsky's Demons continues to illuminate a path forward amidst our debilitating contemporary crisis.
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Why do Europeans lack the enthusiasm that so many Americans have for Ayn Rand and her ideas?
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2021's Biggest Hits at Daniel Pipes.org by Daniel Pipes
Jan 5, 2022
https://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2022/01/2021-biggest-hits-at-danielpipesorg
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What Is Islam's Relationship to Christianity?
Theological Analysis of the Bible and the Quran  by Mark Durie
Lausanne Global Analysis
November 2021
https://www.meforum.org/62784/what-is-islams-relationship-to-christianity
Irrational Forces: Christopher Dawson on the Modern Age
​Is Western Civilization Dead?
Patiently Rebuilding the West
Two cases confront the Supreme Court this term that could threaten the essential legal underpinnings of the federal administrative state.
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The Brilliant Enigma That Was Willmoore Kendall
by Donald DevineWillmoore Kendall’s works on political science were pathbreaking and survive the test of time. Even today, it is impossible to understand the equal democratic legitimacy of the presidency and Congress without his “Two Majorities,” or the critical role of local-based political parties without his “American Party System,” or how the whole Constitution works to solve democracy’s eternal problem of faction without comprehending his “Intensity”... [MORE]
ADAM KIRSCH
Thomas Mann’s Dilemma
The great novelist’s defense of the nonpolitical continues to resonate.
Andrew Lytle & the Politics of Agrarianism
MIDDLE EAST FORUM:  MOVIE, THE LADY OF HEAVEN
https://islamism.news/2022/06/15/lady-of-heaven-producer-malik-shlibak-discusses-the-ideological-battle-behind-blasphemy-allegations/
'No Shakespeare' without Islam? by A.J. Caschetta
National Review
June 26, 2022
https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/63347/no-shakespeare-without-islam
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WHY SHELBY STEELE MATTERS

11/21/2021

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American Humanist
Featuring Shelby Steele via City Journal
America Needs More Than “Guardrails” with China
By Michael Auslin via Spectator World
Inflation, the Fed and “Zero Dollars”
Featuring Michael J. Boskin and Bill Whalen via Matters of Policy and Politics
Macbeth in a Nutshell
The changing face of social breakdown
What is the primary source of social dysfunction in America today? Responding to an important recent study about family formation, Yuval Levin identifies significant changes in how we should think about social breakdown and obstacles to human flourishing. Levin argues that whereas it was common knowledge that "exorbitant human desires" were responsible for social breakdown, what afflicts us now is "more like an absence of energy and drive leaving people languishing and enervated."
Irving Babbitt and the Crisis of Nationalism, 1915
Jesus Christ as Palestinian Terrorist?  by Raymond Ibrahim
Raymondibrahim.com
The Dying and Rising Art of Motherhood
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WHY MALTHUS STILL MATTERS; POPE BENEDICT'S REPUBLIC OF REASON

10/5/2021

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Malthus's shadow still looms large, influencing biology, environmentalism, economics, and other disciplines of knowledge today.
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Will Ethiopia’s genocide be worse than Rwanda’s?
Michael Rubin | Washington Examiner
Benedict XVI’s Republic of Reason  
Declining to hide behind sentimental humanitarian bromides, Benedict XVI calls for us to engage modernity fully in faith and reason.
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Liberal Pieties, Illiberal Consequences
We can fight censorious certitude by allowing for moral complexity.
The Tory Interpretation of History
Six German thinkers looked to Cardinal John Henry Newman to defend Christian humanism.
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“Is America in irreversible decline?” Conrad Black delivers the third annual Circle Lecture with an introduction by Roger Kimball.
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WHY WOMEN SPORTS IS DIFFERENT & WHY EDWARD SAID REMAINS AN IDIOT

8/8/2021

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The Faith and Women’s Sports
Anthony Esolen

​A few days ago, as everyone on social media knows, the American gymnast Simone Biles, a truly spectacular athlete, removed herself from her team at the Olympics because she could no longer trust her sense of her body as it must spin and somersault in the air and plunge to the floor. Divers have been […]Read More
The prolific economist explains why he is sanguine about our post-pandemic future.
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2 views on the future of American economic geography
James Pethokoukis | AEIdeas
Reflections on a Patrician Radical
Edward Said projected his self-hatred onto the whole of the west and its history.
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WHAT PROPONENTS OF BODILY AUTONOMY MISS  By EPPC Fellow Noelle Mering
National Review Online

The progressive fear that we might end up legislating morality ignores the reality that we have long been legislating a radical moral framework of autonomy at any cost. We might instead begin with a common principle that the gratification of our desires must end where the commodification of human beings begins.
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ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX  By EPPC Senior Fellow Francis X. Maier
First Things

Today’s sharp decline in sexual activity among the young has everything to do with the isolating cocoon of pornography and the collapse of any higher meaning in sexual relationships. Sex without love—real love, the kind that comes with obligations and unexpected burdens, but also unexpected joys—kills the taste for both. Read More
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SOLZHENITSYN: THINKER, ARTIST, WARRIOR

8/8/2021

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Thinker, Artist, Warrior
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s memoir of his years in exile holds vital lessons for a fractured America.
Meeting Solzhenitsyn: Reflections on Tolkien
Clarity at Last
If we believe, then we believe in the Lord’s permissive will as well as His active: evil is permitted on the grounds that it will give rise to greater good. This belief, though one of the most difficult in all theology, is also a comforting one as we take stock of crises, Traditionis Custodes being […]
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Writing as a Moral Act
By David Hein on Aug 30, 2021 04:00 pm
Success in writing requires the virtue of temperance, self-mastery, which refers to an internal action less dreary and passive than mere abstinence. Temperance means disciplining oneself in order to realize one’s greatest potential. Writing is a moral act, I often tell my undergraduate students. At first, naturally enough, they are puzzled by this claim. Not ...
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A Travel Bag of Memories: Solzhenitsyn and American Culture
by Nayeli RianoSuch are the power and relevance of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s words, that we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we did not engage with his memories in an effort to connect them with our own, transforming them into something new. And, happily, this is what the authors of Solzhenitsyn and American Culture do... [MORE]
Andrew Lytle and the Order of the Family
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LINCOLN'S TUTOR WAS CLAY

7/28/2021

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Lincoln leaned heavily on Clay and the Whigs for his understanding of "liberty for all."
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Sophie Scholl’s execution made her many times a martyr—a martyr of free speech, a martyr of conscience, a martyr of humanism.
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NELSON MANDELA'S LEGACY IN SOUTH AFRICA IS DOOMED
The nation's long-term auguries are not good—but then, they never were.
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Fantasy & the Real World: Tolkien’s Philosophy of Myth
"Their Goal Is Really to Eradicate Christianity": Persecution of Christians, June 2021
by Raymond Ibrahim 

​Lebanon and its Ticking Bombs  by Amir Taheri
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SYNODAL CHURCH WILL BREAK CATHOLIC UNITY

6/14/2021

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CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT
THIRTY YEARS OF POLAND By EPPC Distinguished Senior Fellow George Weigel
Syndicated Column

Poland might yet become a model for twenty-first-century democracy, if it took the social doctrine of its greatest son seriously. Read More
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CHRISTIANS OF THE WORLD ARE ABANDONED:  PERSECUTION CONTINUES & HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

3/14/2021

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Nonie Darwish on Muslim Converts to Christianity: "I Could Be Killed"  by Marilyn Stern
Middle East Forum Webinar
March 26, 2021
https://www.meforum.org/62164/darwish-on-muslim-converts-to-christianity
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"Nowhere to Turn for Safety": The Persecution of Christians, February 2021
by Raymond Ibrahim 
The Game that Left Iran in Historic Impasse  by Amir Taheri 
President Biden’s Decision Points
​Hosts Tom Joscelyn and Bill Roggio explain why President Biden should be clear-eyed when it comes to making decisions about the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some argue the U.S. should stay in Afghanistan to further the “peace process,” but there is no evidence that such a “process” even exists. Powered by RedCircle […]
Human Rights in the Middle East and American Foreign Policy
Via The Caravan no. 2130This new issue of The Caravan covers how human rights advocacy should factor in US decision making in the Middle East. Charles Hill explores the historical definitions of the term “human rights”; Russell Berman explains the dilemma of applying an advocacy approach to US foreign policy; and other scholars assess how America can embed its values into issues such as the Iran nuclear deal, historical alliances with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and brokering peace between Kurdish factions in Syria.
Deterrence in Foreign Policy: Lessons from World War II
Featuring Victor Davis Hanson via PolicyEdLessons from history have clearly shown what happens when powerful nations do not show their might. During World War II, the Allied nations were far more powerful than the Axis powers, but their hesitancy in joining the war effort resulted in millions of deaths. Deterrence is about not just military might but also a mindset. For it to work, nations must show their capability to exert force and their clear willingness to use it when needed.
Ancient Greece and the Strategic Failure of Modern Humanism
by spencer klavan
Our sense of ourselves as human beings changes. A premise of Strategic Humanism is that since Bacon and Descartes it has changed for the worse.
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Picking a Bone With René Girard
by Dwight LongeneckerRené Girard was a polymath—not only writing on literature, but bringing his theory to bear on anthropology, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and theology. While I greatly admire his work, I would presume to pick a bone with his thought on sacrificial systems in religion... [MORE]
On the Road to Jihad:
The Role of Foreign Fighters in Irregular Warfare
By Andrew Milburn & Abigail Gage, Modern War Institute: "Foreign fighters play an influential role in Islamic extremist groups. They tend to be more violent, more committed, and more resistant to reconciliation than their indigenous counterparts. Perhaps most significantly, they tend to be more peripatetic—acting as vectors of extremism, moving between zones of conflict, and sometimes returning to their countries of origin to instigate acts of terrorism."
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GENE THERAPY & MORAL NORMS

3/7/2021

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Statement from Pro-Life Catholic Scholars on the
Moral Acceptability of Receiving COVID-19 Vaccines

​The past year of suffering under the onslaught of COVID-19 has brought with it numerous ethical questions, and the advent of effective vaccines for COVID is no different. Foremost among the questions for those of us who are committed to defending the intrinsic equal dignity of all human beings from conception to natural death are these: in accepting any of the vaccines on offer, is one in any way endorsing or contributing to the practice of abortion, or is one in any way showing disrespect for the remains of an unborn human being? As to the vaccines currently or soon available in the United States, we agree with Bishop Kevin Rhoades, Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Doctrine, that the answer is no. While there is a technical causal linkage between each of the current vaccines and prior abortions of human persons, we are all agreed, that connection does not mean that vaccine use contributes to the evil of abortion or shows disrespect for the remains of unborn human beings. Accordingly, Catholics, and indeed, all persons of good will who embrace a culture of life for the whole human family, born and unborn, can use these vaccines without fear of moral culpability.
 
Common to the four major vaccines, produced by Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca is some use of “immortalized” human cell lines. Ordinarily, cells taken from a body have a limited life span, undergoing only a fixed number of cell divisions before they arrest and die. For ongoing research, scientists prefer to use a “cell line,” or a population of cells derived from a single source that has been modified (typically by some form of genetic mutation) to divide indefinitely in culture. Such “immortalized” cell lines allow scientists to conduct many experiments on cells that are both genetically identical and routinely available in the laboratory.
 
HEK293 is one such commonly used line.[1] The name “HEK” stands for “human embryonic kidney,” and “293” refers to the 293rd experiment conducted by the scientist who produced the cell line. The embryonic kidney cells were originally obtained from the remains of a deceased unborn child following what appears to be an elective abortion that took place in the Netherlands during the early 1970s. The exact circumstances of the abortion are not known, but the scientists producing the cell line were not directly involved and, crucially, the abortion was not performed for the sake of providing biological materials to researchers.
 
HEK293 cells are particularly susceptible to the introduction of foreign DNA, and they rapidly became a standard scientific workhorse, that is widely used by both basic scientists and by industry. Although there are currently many modified versions of HEK293s that optimize these cells for specific purposes, all of the HEK293 cells available around the world today were derived from the remains of a single unborn child that was aborted a half a century ago. Importantly, there is no ongoing use of aborted tissue to generate HEK293 cells, to modify these cells, or to maintain them in the laboratory. Thus, the use of HEK293 (and similar immortalized lines) does not create future incentives for more abortions.
 
How widely used are HEK293 cells? They are commonly used for testing processed foods produced by companies such as Kraft, Nestlé, Cadbury and others. Indeed, the great majority of processed/packaged food products available for sale in the United States are likely to contain ingredients produced or tested in HEK293 cells.
 
They are also used as an alternative to animal testing in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry. And their use in biomedical research is ubiquitous and has contributed to an enormous number of new medications and medical procedures developed over the last several decades. It thus seems fair to say that in addition to the use of HEK293 cells by the scientific community, nearly every person in the modern world has consumed food products, taken medications or used cosmetics/personal care products that were developed through the use of HEK293 cells in the food, biomedical and cosmetic industries.
 
The various vaccines have made different uses of the HEK293 cell line, with Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca using them for manufacture, Pfizer and Moderna for testing only. But these differences are irrelevant to the following questions:
​
  • Do any of the vaccines make more use than others of the mortal remains of unborn children from whom the cell lines were derived? The answer is no; as a matter of scientific fact, no fetal “body parts” are present in these immortal cell lines. The immortal cell lines are artifacts—biological products that have been modified and reproduced many times over, and they do not retain the natural function of the tissue from which they were derived. They are not “body parts” in any meaningful or morally relevant sense.
  • Does the production and use of any of the vaccines contribute to, cooperate with, or promote any abortion? Again, the answer is no, for the abortions from which cell lines such as HEK293 were derived happened decades ago, and no further fetal tissue is used or needed for the maintenance of these lines.
 
Common to all pro-life witness is recognition that the apparent elective abortion that led to the derivation of the HEK293 cell line was morally impermissible and involved the unjust taking of a human life. But to repeat, the HEK293 cell line currently used around the globe in scientific research and those like it do not contain the remains of any human being and so its use does not show disrespect for human remains, any more than the contemporary use of products, such as roads or train lines, that were constructed by unjustly enslaved human beings, or use of land unjustly taken, shows disrespect for those victims in the distant past.
 
As a descriptive matter, some pro-life advocates may prefer to use one vaccine rather than another in order to witness against the evil of abortion, or to signal special respect for the unborn babies whose lives were lost. Again, we agree with Bishop Rhoades that such a choice is a matter for their conscience. But we think it a mistake to say both that these vaccines are morally permissible to use and yet that some ought to be preferred to others. There appears to us to be no real distinction between the vaccines in terms of their connection to an abortion many decades ago, and thus the moral starting point is one of equivalence.
 
Moreover, there might be good reasons for some persons to prefer or to promote the vaccines, such as Johnson & Johnson, that use HEK293 (and PER.C6) for manufacture rather than testing, namely, that the J&J vaccine requires only one dose, does not require storage at extremely low temperature, and thus may be more useful in reaching remote or otherwise underserved populations. Those who have special reasons to take the J&J vaccine should not, we believe, be led to think that they are choosing something that in other ways is more morally tainted than the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
 
Persons with access to these vaccines have strong moral reasons to take them: in doing so, they build up the herd immunity that will provide the greatest possible protection for the most vulnerable among us, including the elderly, those with pre-existing conditions, some minority populations, and the many other seemingly random victims of severe COVD-19. To be perfectly clear, we are not saying that people are justified in using and promoting these vaccines because the great goods they provide offset the evil of appropriating a prior wicked action. Rather, we believe that there is no such impermissible cooperation or appropriation here. The attenuated and remote connection to abortions performed decades ago and the absence of any incentive for future abortions offer little if any moral reasons against accepting this welcome advance of science.
 
 
Signed:
 
Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center
 
Father Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P., Ph.D., S.T.D., Professor of Biology and of Theology, Providence College
 
Maureen Condic, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Neurobiology, University of Utah
 
Father Kevin Flannery, S.J., Ph.D, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Pontifical Gregorian University
 
Robert P. George, J.D., D.Phil, D.C.L., D.Litt., McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University
 
O. Carter Snead, J.D., Professor of Law and Director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, University of Notre Dame
 
Christopher Tollefsen, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of South Carolina
 
Father Thomas Joseph White, O.P., D.Phil., Professor of Systematic Theology, Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas - Angelicum
 
Affiliations provided for identification purposes only.

[1] We believe that the same analysis applies to the use of the immortalized cell line “PER.C6”, used in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, derived thirty-one years ago using the remains of an unborn baby following an elective abortion obtained for reasons entirely disconnected to the creation of the line.
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WHY GRAHAM GREENE MATTERS

3/7/2021

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EDWARD SHORT
A Definitive Dig in the Graham Greene Quarry
In brisk, cinematic prose reminiscent of the author’s own, Richard Greene shows his subject both fair criticism and sympathy.
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WHY BERNARD BAILYN MATTERS

2/12/2021

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Bernard Bailyn at Last: Illuminating History
By Jacob Bruggeman on Feb 10, 2021 04:00 pm
Bernard Bailyn challenges card-carrying historians and interested citizens alike to embrace intellectual humility and amiability at a time when public discourse has taken a decisive turn away from such virtues. This challenge is evident in Bailyn’s final work, “Illuminating History.” Bernard Bailyn The American historian Bernard Bailyn, who died of heart failure at ...
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From transgender to transhuman: The expanding culture of death
​By Anne Hendershott on Feb 12, 2021 07:44 pm
Most faithful Catholics have viewed the burgeoning transgender industry as encouraging a misguided belief that individuals—including even pre-school children—can change their God-given identity. However, the truth is that this rejection of human nature and natural [...]
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JOHN S. ROSENBERG
An Ominous Trend
Cancel culture and the ghost of Eugene Debs
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