The Victorian Jacobites
And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln & the American Struggle
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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? READ MORE › Israel tends to make American headlines only for violence and geopolitics. But there's much more to the Jewish nation. READ MORE › Medical students, like all humans, are meaning-seeking creatures. But you wouldn't know that from medical education.
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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. READ MORE › Zealous ideologues can be dangerous in many ways, but they are specially unsuited to practice medicine. READ MORE › When Ratzinger and Hayek Met The two great minds once conversed on the role of public intellectuals in democratic societies. READ MORE › Unless government is properly constrained, secularism can morph into its own kind of twisted religion. READ MORE › Understanding the narratives of political economy can improve communication, and help us to appreciate subtle truths about our political moment. READ MORE › Political philosopher David Walsh highlights the givenness of the person in our hypercritical age. READ MORE › Catholic priests are being imprisoned and exiled for refusing to be silent about the abuses of the Ortega regime.
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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 ... Read in browser »
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 •
Earthquake Unveils Turkey's Many Ugly Faces by Burak Bekdil
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. READ MORE › Roger Scruton and Pierre Manent represent a humane conservatism that demonstrates to us the importance of Western civilization. READ MORE › If we Americans can claim to possess a tragic consciousness, it owes more to Shakespeare than to Aristotle. READ MORE › 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. Full Story Perhaps no novel explores the personhood of woman better than Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. READ MORE › The American founders learned from Montesquieu to eschew universalist ideology but defend freedom in their particular time and place. READ MORE › Christianity's dualistic claim is uniquely suited to provide the limits sought by liberalism and constitutionalism. READ MORE › Contrary to the belief they were deists and atheists, most of the American Founders believed in God’s providence and the natural law tradition. READ MORE › 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). 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. READ MORE › 'The Shame of Pakistan': Blasphemy Accusers Courageous Christian Woman Stands Up to Them by Nasir Saeed 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. 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 ... Read in browser » The institutional development, planning, and professional ethos behind naval operations provide the context that made famous victories possible. READ MORE › The historical-practice standard established by last year's landmark gun-rights case is proving to be manipulable in the lower courts.
READ MORE › 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. French political thinkers have long been fascinated by the English constitutional tradition, but they may not always have learned the right lessons. READ MORE › Samuel Adams had personal experience of the need for self-government and a great resentment of the distant manipulation of colonial affairs. READ MORE › Immerse Yourself As modernism marks the centenary of its annus mirabilis, its great works of literature reveal the demands and rewards of reading. 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 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 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 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 Nayeli Riano offers a fresh, Christian, and humanist perspective on art, literature, and culture.
READ MORE › Pope Benedict XVI was a dominant force in the intellectual debate over the problems of progressive liberalism and our need for tradition. READ MORE › Benedict XVI’s political thought emanates from the same truth as his theological thought: that God is Logos. READ MORE › 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. Keep reading » Benedict always spoke of a “reason illumined by faith,” a dialogue that he believed characterized Europe at its best. READ MORE › 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 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. 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. Restoring American Capitalism A new book argues that the modern American economy has strayed far from its entrepreneurial roots. The esteemed economist's Great Transformation doesn't speak to the present moment in the way anti-liberals would have us believe. READ MORE › The liberal arts produce true freedom of thought, facilitate genuine multiculturalism, and establish the necessary conditions for democracy.
READ MORE › American Foreign Policy Through the Ages Mandelbaum offers readers an engaging book of measured appraisals, devoid of revisionism and partisan leanings. READ MORE › Putting Tocqueville’s Remedies into Practice A new book explores a Tocquevillian response to popular sovereignty, nationalism, and globalization. READ MORE › 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. ... Read in browser » Genocide in Nigeria: The Biden Administration's Cover-Up by Raymond Ibrahim Advance Made in USA Policy by Lawrence Kadish Robespierre and Us by daniel j. mahoney The paradoxes of Robespierre still remain at the heart of a powerful if deformed version of modernity. READ MORE › 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. READ MORE › 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. READ MORE › 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 [...] Read in browser » 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 [...] Read in browser » Whether we study our own times or the human condition more broadly, we quickly discover the need for serious philosophic reflection on human limits. READ MORE › 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. Full Story 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 ... Read in browser » 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. Read More Islam’s Lessons for Liberalism by jeffrey bristol The concern for liberty in Islamic political thought is often overlooked. READ MORE › ![]()
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. 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).
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 [...] Read in browser » ![]()
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.
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 ... Read in browser »
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 ... Read in browser »
'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 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 ... Read in browser » 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 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 ... Read in browser » 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 ... Read in browser » Fyodor Dostoevsky's Demons continues to illuminate a path forward amidst our debilitating contemporary crisis. READ MORE › Why do Europeans lack the enthusiasm that so many Americans have for Ayn Rand and her ideas? READ MORE › 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 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. READ MORE › 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. 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 Inflation, the Fed and “Zero Dollars” Featuring Michael J. Boskin and Bill Whalen via Matters of Policy and Politics 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." Malthus's shadow still looms large, influencing biology, environmentalism, economics, and other disciplines of knowledge today. READ MORE › 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. READ MORE › Liberal Pieties, Illiberal Consequences We can fight censorious certitude by allowing for moral complexity. “Is America in irreversible decline?” Conrad Black delivers the third annual Circle Lecture with an introduction by Roger Kimball.
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. READ MORE › Reflections on a Patrician Radical Edward Said projected his self-hatred onto the whole of the west and its history. READ MORE › 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. CONTINUE READING 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 Thinker, Artist, Warrior Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s memoir of his years in exile holds vital lessons for a fractured America. 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 […] Read More 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 ... Read in browser » 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] Sophie Scholl’s execution made her many times a martyr—a martyr of free speech, a martyr of conscience, a martyr of humanism. READ MORE › NELSON MANDELA'S LEGACY IN SOUTH AFRICA IS DOOMED The nation's long-term auguries are not good—but then, they never were. READ MORE › "Their Goal Is Really to Eradicate Christianity": Persecution of Christians, June 2021
by Raymond Ibrahim Lebanon and its Ticking Bombs by Amir Taheri 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 CHRISTIANS OF THE WORLD ARE ABANDONED: PERSECUTION CONTINUES & HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST3/14/2021 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 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. READ MORE › 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." 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:
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. 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. 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 ... Read in browser » 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 [...] Read in browser » JOHN S. ROSENBERG
An Ominous Trend Cancel culture and the ghost of Eugene Debs |
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MISSIONGlobal Strike Media examines the shape and sources the challenge of modernity presents to Islam & Christendom. How their leaders conceived of solutions to socio-political,moral challenges of the 21st century. Archives
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