Wednesday, November 4th 2009

7:42 AM

Reflections on a Rotten Apple

(too funny, thanks to Distributist Review for bringing this to light)

G.K. Speaks - Reflections on a Rotten Apple

by G.K. Chesterton

Our age is obviously the Nonsense Age; the wiser sort of nonsense being provided for the children and the sillier sort of nonsense for the grown-up people. The eighteenth century has been called the Age of Reason; I suppose there is no doubt that the twentieth century is the Age of Unreason. But even that is an understatement. The Age of Reason was nicknamed from a famous rationalist book. [Thomas Paine's 1794- 95.] But the rationalist was not really so much concerned to urge the rational against the irrational; but rather specially to urge the natural against the supernatural. But there is a degree of the unreasonable that would go even beyond the unnatural. It is not merely an incredible tale, but an inconsistent idea. As I pointed out to somebody long ago, it is one thing to believe that a beanstalk scaled the sky, and quite another to believe that fifty-seven beans make five.

For instance, a man may disbelieve in miracles; normally on some principle of determinist thought; in some cases even on examination of the evidence. But on being told of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, he is told something that is logical if it is not natural. He is not told that there were fewer fishes because the fishes had been multiplied. Multiplication is still a mathematical term; and a mob all feeding on miraculous fishes is a less mysterious or monstrous sight than a man saying that multiplication is the same as subtraction. Such a story, for such a sceptic, does not carry conviction; but it does make sense. He can recognise the logical consequence, if he cannot understand the logical cause. But no pope or priest ever asked him to believe that thousands died of starvation in the desert because they were loaded with loaves and fishes. No creed or dogma ever declared that there was too little food because there was too much fish. But that is the precise, practical and prosaic definition of the present situation in the modern science of economics. And the man of the Nonsense Age must bow his head and repeat his , the motto of his time, . ["I believe because it is impossible."]

Or again, the term unreason is sometimes used rather more reasonably; for a sort of loose or elliptical statement, which is at least illogical in form. The most popular case is what was called the Irish Bull; often suspected of resembling the Papal Bull, in being a supernatural monster bred of credulity and superstition. But even this old sort of confusion stopped short of the new sort of contradiction. If any Irishman really does say, "We are not birds, to be in two places at once," at least we know what he means, even if it is not what he says. But suppose he says that one bird has been miraculously multiplied into a million birds, and that in consequence there are fewer birds in the world than there were before. We should then be dealing, not merely with an Irish Bull but with a Mad Bull, and concerned not with the incredible but with the incomprehensible. Or, to apply the parable, the Irish have sometimes been accused of unbalanced emotion or morbid sentiment. But nobody says that they merely imagined the Great Famine, in which multitudes starved because the potatoes were few and small. Only suppose an Irishman had said that they starved because the potatoes were gigantic and innumerable. I think we should not yet have heard the last of the wrong-headed absurdity of that Irishman. Yet that is an exact description of the economic condition to-day as it affects the Englishman. And, to a great extent, the American. We learn that there is a famine because there is not a scarcity; and there is such a good potato-crop that there are no potatoes. The Irishman, with his bull or his bird, is quite a hard-headed realist and rationalist compared to that. Thus, the old examples of the fantastic fell far short of the modern fact; whether they were mysteries supposed to be above reason or merely muddles supposed to be below it. Their miracles were more normal than our scientific averages; and the Irish blunder was less illogical than the actual logic of events.

For it seems that we live to-day in a world of witchcraft, in which the orchards wither because they prosper, and the multitude of apples on the apple-tree of itself turns them into forbidden fruit, and makes the effort to consume them in every sense fruitless. This is the modern economic paradox, which is called Over-Production, or a glut in the market, and though at first sight it sounds like the wildest fantasy, it is well to realise in what sense it is the most solid of facts. Let it be clearly understood, therefore, that as a description of the objective social situation at this instant in this industrial society, the paradox is perfectly true. But it is not really true that the contradiction in terms is true. If we take it, not as a description but as a definition, if we take it as a matter of abstract argument, then certainly the contradiction is untrue, as every contradiction is untrue.

The truth is that a third element has entered into the matter, which is not mentioned in this abstract statement of it. That element might be stated in many ways; perhaps the shortest statement of it is in the fable of the man who sold razors, and afterwards explained to an indignant customer, with simple dignity, that he had never said the razors would shave. When asked if razors were not made to shave, he replied that they were made to sell. That is A Short History of Trade and Industry During the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.

God made a world of reason as sure as God made little apples (as the beautiful proverb goes); and God did not make little apples larger than large apples. It is not true that a man whose apple-tree is loaded with apples will suffer from a want of apples; though he may indulge in a waste of apples. But if he never looks upon apples as things to eat, but always looks on them as things to sell, he will really get into another sort of complication; which may end in a sort of contradiction. If, instead of producing as many apples as he wants, he produces as many apples as he imagines the whole world wants, with the hope of capturing the trade of the whole world - then he will be either successful or unsuccessful in competing with the man next door who also wants the whole world's trade to himself. Between them, they will produce so many apples that apples in the market will be about as valuable as pebbles on the beach. Thus each of them willfind he has very little money in his pocket, with which to go and buy fresh pears at the fruiterer's shop. If he had never expected to get fruit at the fruiterer's shop, but had put up his hand and pulled them off his own tree, his difficulty would never have arisen. It seems simple; but at the root of all apple-trees and apple-growing, it is really as simple as that.

Of course I do not mean that the practice is at present simple; for no practical problem is simple, least of all at the present time, when everything is confused by the corrupt and evasive muddlers who are called practical politicians. But the principle is simple; and the only way to proceed through a complex situation is to start with the right first principle. How far we can do without, or control, or merely modify the disadvantages of buying and selling is quite another matter. But the disadvantages do arise from buying and selling, and not from producing: not even from over-producing. And it is some satisfaction to realise that we are not living in a nightmare in which No is the same as Yes; that even the modern world has not actually gone mad, with all its ingenious attempts to do so; that two and two do in fact make four; and that the man who has four apples really has more than the man who has three. For some modern metaphysicians and moral philosophers seem disposed to leave us in doubt on these points. It is not the fundamental reason in things that is at fault; it is a particular hitch or falsification, arising from a very recent trick of regarding everything only in relation to trade. Trade is all very well in its way, but Trade has been put in the place of Truth. Trade, which is in its nature a secondary or dependent thing, has been treated as a primary and independent thing; as an absolute. The moderns, mad upon mere multiplication, have even made a plural out of what is eternally singular, in the sense of single. They have taken what all ancient philosophers called the Good, and translated it as the Goods.

I believe that certain mystics, in the American business world, protested against the slump by pinning labels to their coats inscribed, Trade Is Good," along with other similar proclamations, such as, "Capone Is Dead," or "Cancer Is Pleasant," or "Death Is Abolished," or any other hard realistic truths for which they might find space upon their persons. But what interests me about these magicians is that, having decided to call up ideal conditions by means of spells and incantations to control the elements, they did not (so to speak) understand the elements of the elements. They did not go to the root of the matter, and imagine that their troubles had really come to an end. Rather they worshipped the means instead of the end. While they were about it, they ought to have said, not "Trade Is Good," but "Living Is Good," or "Life Is Good." I suppose it would be too much to expect such thoroughly respectable people to say, "God Is Good"; but it is really true that their conception of what is good lacks the philosophical finality that belonged to the goodness of God. When God looked on created things and saw that they were good, it meant that they were good in themselves and as they stood; but by the modern mercantile idea, God would only have looked at them and seen that they were The Goods. In other words, there would be a label tied to the tree or the hill, as to the hat of the Mad Hatter, with "This Style, 10/6." All the flowers and birds would be ticketed with their reduced prices; all the creation would be for sale or all the creatures seeking employment; with all the morning stars making sky-signs together and all the Sons of God shouting for jobs. In other words, these people are incapable of imagining any good except that which comes from bartering something for something else. The idea of a man enjoying a thing in itself, for himself, is inconceivable to them. The notion of a man eating his own apples off his own apple-tree seems like a fairy-tale. Yet the fall from that first creation that was called good has very largely come from the restless impotence for valuing things in themselves; the madness of the trader who cannot see any good in a good, except as something to get rid of. It was once admitted that with sin and death there entered the world something that we call change. It is none the less true and tragic, because what we called change, we called afterwards exchange. Anyhow, the result of that extravagance of exchange has been that when there are too many apples there are too few apple-eaters. I do not insist on the symbol of Eden, or the parable of the apple-tree, but it is odd to notice that even that accidental image pursues us at every stage of this strange story. The last result of treating a tree as a shop or a store instead of as a store-room, the last effect of treating apples as goods rather than as good, has been in a desperate drive of public charity and in poor men selling apples in the street.

In all normal civilisations the trader existed and must exist. But in all normal civilisations the trader was the exception; certainly he was never the rule; and most certainly he was never the ruler. The predominance which he has gained in the modern world is the cause of all the disasters of the modern world. The universal habit of humanity has been to produce and consume as part of the same process; largely conducted by the same people in the same place. Sometimes goods were produced and consumed on the same great feudal manor; sometimes even on the same small peasant farm. Sometimes there was a tribute from serfs as yet hardly distinguishable from slaves; sometimes there was a co-operation between free-men which the superficial can hardly distinguish from communism. But none of these many historical methods, whatever their vices or limitations, was strangled in the particular tangle of our own time; because most of the people, for most of the time, were thinking about growing food and then eating it; not entirely about growing food and selling it at the stiffest price to somebody who had nothing to eat. And I for one do not believe that there is any way out of the modern tangle, except to increase the proportion of the people who are living according to the ancient simplicity. Nobody in his five wits proposes that there should be no trade and no traders. Nevertheless, it is important to remember, as a matter of mere logic, that there might conceivably be great wealth, even if there were no trade and no traders. It is important for the sort of man whose only hope is that Trade Is Good or whose only secret terror is that Trade Is Bad. In principle, prosperity might be very great, even if trade were very bad. If a village were so fortunately situated that, for some reason, it was easy for every family to keep its own chickens, to grow its own vegetables, to milk its own cow and (I will add) to brew its own beer, the standard of life and property might be very high indeed, even though the long memory of the Oldest Inhabitant only recorded two or three pure transactions of trade; if he could only recall the one far-off event of his neighbour buying a new hat from a gipsy's barrow; or the singular incident of Farmer Billings purchasing an umbrella.

As I have said, I do not imagine, or desire, that things would ever be quite so simple as that. But we must understand things in their simplicity before we can explain or correct their complexity. The complexity of commercial society has become intolerable, because that society is commercial and nothing else. The whole mind of the community is occupied, not with the idea of possessing things, but with the idea of passing them on. When the simple enthusiasts already mentioned say that Trade is Good, they mean that all the people who possess goods are perpetually parting with them. These Optimists presumably invoke the poet, with some slight emendation of the poet's meaning, when he cries aloud, 'Our souls are love and a perpetual farewell.' In that sense, our individualistic and commercial modern society is actually the very reverse of a society founded on Private Property. I mean that the actual direct and isolated enjoyment of private property, as distinct from the excitement of exchanging it or getting a profit on it, is rather rarer than in many simple communities that seem almost communal in their simplicity. In the case of this sort of private consumption, which is also private production, it is very unlikely that it will run continually into overproduction. There is a limit to the number of apples a man can eat, and there will probably be a limit, drawn by his rich and healthy hatred of work, to the number of apples which he will produce but cannot eat. But there is no limit to the number of apples he may possibly sell; and he soon becomes a pushing, dexterous and successful Salesman and turns the whole world upside-down. For it is he who produces this huge pantomimic paradox with which this rambling reflection began. It is he who makes a wilder revolution than the apple of Adam which was the loosening of death, or the apple of Newton which was the apocalypse of gravitation, by proclaiming the supreme blasphemy and heresy, that the apple was made for the market and not for the mouth. It was he, by starting the wild race of pouring endless apples into a bottomless market, who opened the abyss of irony and contradiction into which we are staring to-day. That trick of treating the trade as the test, and the only test, has left us face to face with a piece of stark staring nonsense written in gigantic letters across the world; more gigantic than all its own absurd advertisements and announcements; the statement that the more we produce the less we possess.

Oscar Wilde would probably have fainted with equal promptitude, if told he was being used in an argument about American salesmanship, or in defence of a thrifty and respectable family life on the farm. But it does so happen that one true epigram, among many of his false epigrams, sums up correctly and compactly a certain truth, not (I am happy to say) about Art, but about all that he desired to separate from Art; ethics and even economics. He said in one of his plays: "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." [The quotation is from (1892).] It is extraordinarily true; and the answer to most other things that he said. But it is yet more extraordinary that the modern men who make that mistake most obviously are not the cynics. On the contrary, they are those who call themselves the Optimists; perhaps even those who would call themselves the Idealists; certainly those who regard themselves as the Regular Guys and the Sons of Service and Uplift. It is too often those very people who have spoilt all their good effect, and weakened their considerable good example in work and social contact, by that very error: that things are to be judged by the price and not by the value. And since Price is a crazy and incalculable thing, while Value is an intrinsic and indestructible thing, they have swept us into a society which is no longer solid but fluid, as unfathomable as a sea and as treacherous as a quicksand.

Whether anything more solid can be built again upon a social philosophy of values, there is now no space to discuss at length here; but I am certain that nothing solid can be built on any other philosophy; certainly not upon the utterly unphilosophical philosophy of blind buying and selling; of bullying people into purchasing what they do not want; of making it badly so that they may break it and imagine they want it again; of keeping rubbish in rapid circulation like a dust-storm in a desert; and pretending that you are teaching men to hope, because you do not leave them one intelligent instant in which to despair.

Taken from The American Chesterton Society

Source:

http://distributist.blogspot.com/2007/03/gk-speaks-reflections-on-rotten-apple.html

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Monday, November 2nd 2009

6:26 PM

Eaten Alive-what I saw and learned in Minnesota-Part 2

In my first segment: http://distributistparty.bravejournal.com/archive/09/25/2009

I talked about my first day in Minnesota..Saturday, got up and got on my new suit and was rather hot.

It was unseasonal and in the 80’s. I drove my compact rental to the college I had staked out and surveyed the night prior. I saw a few fellows standing to the left of what I perceived was the great hall (would find out shortly it was the new Church, the old with its lovely wood work and windows is no the Great Hall).

I got talking to them and found out that the science building was the meeting place. We got talking and I felt immediately at home talking to people that felt the way I did! Distributists.

Shortly, I heard a rather familiar voice, one that I had heard on youtube broadcasts on Chesterton…yes, it was Dale Ahlquist himself.I introduced myself to him and tried to make my self useful with displays and any help..But as I was starting to meet and greet, another voice was recognizeable, British-Joseph Pearce!. Very soon, other heroes would filter in-including John Medialle, author and contributor to the The Distributist Review

I would invite you to watch the videos I recorded from that day for the speeches:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=EATEN+ALIVE+CONFERENCE&search_type=&aq=f

But will continue with my experiences, I quickly set up my video camera and sat in the back. Intermittently Dale and others speakers would perch near me. It was a long day, but I barely noticed the time as great speaker after great speaker took the podium each followed by some Q&A. We then had lunch and settled in for more talks.

I wound up talking to 3 fellows on my way to the lunch hall and only when we were getting in line I noticed that one was Michael Matt of the Remnant. One of his companions noted he had attended the college and was our tour guide after lunch, touring the beautiful campus.

Each was featuring different parts of Catholic Social Teaching. Each one had a wealth of experience and insights into CST. We then ajounred for dinner. Walking by the new Church, its brooding and dark, it reminded me of the large, bland buildings of Hitler’s Reich.

The reception, on the other hand, was held in the middle of the old church.Still in place were the beautiful wood floors and walls, artwork and stain glass windows.

(see http://distributistparty.viviti.com/#image;collection_23836,/files/resized/15946/700;500;c9ce4f9547f4052d755b72598dcd42a143ed52fc.jpg)

As it would turn out, on our way to the dining hall, roughly were the old sacristy was, I got talking to Robert Hanten and wound up sitting next to him and at the main table.I aksed Dale if he minded and he said no.I settled into to wonderful dinner buffet and a speech by Dale. He is working right now on getting a mster database of Chesterton's writings and search engine.Also, he recently wentto the Library of Congress and found several lost Chesterton writings that he will in the future reveal. He read a few select pieces that were excellant and sadly, I did not get most of it on video.

After a tiring and hot day, I was exhausted.I was able to get in a picture with Joseph Pearce and speak a few minutes more with an equally tired John Medialle and then back to my hotel room.

I did take a detour to the hotel lobby to try to get my airline information in order, but after a few failed attempts, I was exhausted.It did not take me long to go to bed, once I packed everything back up and got my plans in order to attend Mass downtown St.Cloud on my way out of town and to the airport.

(last installation coming soon, as is my pictures-some glitches still)

Chris Campbell

Director, Distributist Party

Creative Commons License

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Monday, November 2nd 2009

8:12 AM

Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/technology/07blog.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5089&en=ae7585386bf280b9&ex=1299387600&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss

Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign

Published: March 7, 2006

Brian Pickrell, a blogger, recently posted a note on his Web site attacking state legislation that would force Wal-Mart Stores to spend more on employee health insurance. "All across the country, newspaper editorial boards — no great friends of business — are ripping the bills," he wrote.

It was the kind of pro-Wal-Mart comment the giant retailer might write itself. And, in fact, it did.

Several sentences in Mr. Pickrell's Jan. 20 posting — and others from different days — are identical to those written by an employee at one of Wal-Mart's public relations firms and distributed by e-mail to bloggers.

Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters.

But the strategy raises questions about what bloggers, who pride themselves on independence, should disclose to readers. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, has been forthright with bloggers about the origins of its communications, and the company and its public relations firm, Edelman, say they do not compensate the bloggers.

But some bloggers have posted information from Wal-Mart, at times word for word, without revealing where it came from.

Glenn Reynolds, the founder of Instapundit.com, one of the oldest blogs on the Web, said that even in the blogosphere, which is renowned for its lack of rules, a basic tenet applies: "If I reprint something, I say where it came from. A blog is about your voice, it seems to me, not somebody else's."

Companies of all stripes are using blogs to help shape public opinion.

Before General Electric announced a major investment in energy-efficient technology last year, company executives first met with major environmental bloggers to build support. Others have reached out to bloggers to promote a product or service, as Microsoft did with its Xbox game system and Cingular Wireless has done in the introduction of a new phone.

What is different about Wal-Mart's approach to blogging is that rather than promoting a product — something it does quite well, given its $300 billion in annual sales — it is trying to improve its battered image.

Wal-Mart, long criticized for low wages and its health benefits, began working with bloggers in late 2005 "as part of our overall effort to tell our story," said Mona Williams, a company spokeswoman.

"As more and more Americans go to the Internet to get information from varied, credible, trusted sources, Wal-Mart is committed to participating in that online conversation," she said.

Copies of e-mail messages that a Wal-Mart representative sent to bloggers were made available to The New York Times by Bob Beller, who runs a blog called Crazy Politico's Rantings. Mr. Beller, a regular Wal-Mart shopper who frequently defends the retailer on his blog, said the company never asked that the messages be kept private.

In the messages, Wal-Mart promotes positive news about itself, like the high number of job applications it received at a new store in Illinois, and criticizes opponents, noting for example that a rival, Target, raised "zero" money for the Salvation Army in 2005, because it banned red-kettle collectors from stores.

The author of the e-mail messages is a blogger named Marshall Manson, a senior account supervisor at Edelman who writes for conservative Web sites like Human Events Online, which advocates limited government, and Confirm Them, which has pushed for the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees.[Text: A PDF copy of an e-mail exchange between Mr. Manson and Rob Port, of Sayanythingblog.com.]

In interviews, bloggers said Mr. Manson contacted them after they wrote postings that either endorsed the retailer or challenged its critics.

Mr. Beller, who runs Crazy Politico's Rantings, for example, said he received an e-mail message from Mr. Manson soon after criticizing the passage of a law in Maryland that requires Wal-Mart to spend 8 percent of its payroll on health care.

Mr. Manson, identifying himself as a "blogger myself" who does "online public affairs for Wal-Mart," began with a bit of flattery: "Just wanted you to know that your post criticizing Maryland's Wal-Mart health care bill was noticed here and at the corporate headquarters in Bentonville," he wrote, referring to the city in Arkansas.

"If you're interested," he continued, "I'd like to drop you the occasional update with some newsworthy info about the company and an occasional nugget that you won't hear about in the M.S.M." — or mainstream media.

Bloggers who agreed to receive the e-mail messages said they were eager to hear Wal-Mart's side of the story, which they said they felt had been drowned out by critics, and were tantalized by the promise of exclusive news that might attract more visitors to their Web sites.

"I am always interested in tips to stories," said one recipient of Mr. Manson's e-mail messages, Bill Nienhuis, who operates a Web site called PunditGuy.com.

But some bloggers are also defensive about their contacts with Wal-Mart. When they learned that The New York Times was looking at how they were using information from the retailer, several bloggers posted items challenging The Times's article before it had appeared. One blog, Iowa Voice, run by Mr. Pickrell, pleads for advertisers to buy space on the blog in anticipation of more traffic because of the article.

The e-mail messages Mr. Manson has sent to bloggers are structured like typical blog postings, with a pungent sentence or two introducing a link to a news article or release.

John McAdams, a political science professor at Marquette University who runs the Marquette Warrior blog, recently posted three links about union activity in the same order as he received them from Mr. Manson. Mr. McAdams acknowledged that he worked from Wal-Mart's links and that he did not disclose his contact with Mr. Manson.

The e-mail exchanges between Marshall Manson, who handles online public affairs for Wal-Mart, and Rob Port, of Sayanythingblog.com

"I usually do not reveal where I get a tip or a lead on a story," he said, adding that journalists often do not disclose where they get ideas for stories either.

Wal-Mart has warned bloggers against lifting text from the e-mail it sends them. After apparently noticing the practice, Mr. Manson asked them to "resist the urge," because "I'd be sick if someone ripped you because they noticed a couple of bloggers with nearly identical posts."

But Mr. Manson has not encouraged bloggers to reveal that they communicate with Wal-Mart or to attribute information to either the retailer or Edelman, Ms. Williams of Wal-Mart said.

To be sure, some bloggers who post material from Mr. Manson's e-mail do disclose its origins, mentioning Mr. Manson and Wal-Mart by name. But others refer to Mr. Manson as "one reader," say they received a "heads up" about news from Wal-Mart or disclose nothing at all.

Mr. Pickrell, the 37-year-old who runs the Iowa Voice blog, said he began receiving updates from Wal-Mart in January. Like Mr. Beller, of Crazy Politico, Mr. Pickrell had criticized the Maryland legislature over its health care law before Wal-Mart contacted him.

Since then, he has written at least three postings that contain language identical to sentences in e-mail from Mr. Manson. In one, which Mr. Pickrell attributed to a "reader," he reported that Wal-Mart was about to announce that a store in Illinois received 25,000 applications for 325 jobs. "That's a 1.3 percent acceptance rate," the message read. "Consider this: Harvard University (undergraduate) accepts 11 percent of applicants. The Navy Seals accept 5 percent of applicants."

Asked in a telephone interview about the resemblance of his postings to Mr. Manson's, Mr. Pickrell said: "I probably cut and paste a little bit and I should not have," adding that "I try to write my posting in my own words."

In an e-mail message sent after the interview, Mr. Pickrell said he received e-mail from many groups, including those opposed to Wal-Mart, which he uses as a starting point to "do my own research on a topic."

"I draw my own conclusions when I form my opinions," he said.

Mr. Pickrell, explaining his support for Wal-Mart, said he shops there regularly and is impressed with how his mother-in-law, a Wal-Mart employee, is treated. "They go real out of their way for their people," he said.

Wal-Mart's blogging initiative is part of a ballooning public relations campaign developed in consultation with Edelman to help Wal-Mart as two groups, Wal-Mart Watch and Wake Up Wal-Mart, aggressively prod it to change. The groups operate blogs that receive posts from current and former Wal-Mart employees, elected leaders and consumers.

Edelman also helped Wal-Mart develop a political-style war room, staffed by former political operatives, which monitors and responds to the retailer's critics, and helped create Working Families for Wal-Mart, a new group that is trying to build support for the company in cities across the country.

At Edelman, Mr. Manson, who sends many of the e-mail messages to bloggers, works closely on the Wal-Mart account with Mike Krempasky, a co-founder of RedState.org, a conservative blog. Both are regular bloggers, which in Mr. Manson's case means he has written critically of individuals and groups Wal-Mart may eventually call on for support.

Before he was hired by Edelman in November, Mr. Manson wrote on the Human Events Online blog that members of the San Francisco city council were "dolts" and "twits" for rejecting a proposed World War II memorial and that every day "the United Nations slides further and further into irrelevance." After he was hired, Mr. Manson wrote that the career of Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island was marked by "pointless indecision."

Wal-Mart declined to make Mr. Manson available for comment. Ms. Williams said, "It is not Wal-Mart's role to monitor the opinions of our consultants or how they express them on their own time."

In a sign of how eager Wal-Mart is to develop ties to bloggers, the company has invited them to a media conference to be held at its headquarters in April. In e-mail messages, Wal-Mart has polled several bloggers about whether they would make the trip, which the bloggers would have to pay for themselves.

Mr. Reynolds of Instapundit.com said he recently was invited to Wal-Mart's offices but declined. "Bentonville, Arkansas," he said, "is not my idea of a fun destination."

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Monday, November 2nd 2009

7:17 AM

Scots Keeping Home Crafts and Heritage alive.

Weavers won’t let tartan heritage be kilt off

(Go to site for video)

08 October 2009, 17:12

Step into the Weaver’s Cottage in Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire and you will be transported back centuries to experience the life of a Weaver.

Built in 1723, this idyllic cottage houses the last piece of history within a town that was once teeming with weavers and their families.

“The cottage itself was built in 1723,” The National Trust of Scotland weaver Christine, one of few allowed to use the 200-year-old hand loom, explains.

Weavers won’t let tartan heritage be kilt off

“What would happen is that the living accommodation was upstairs and the work was downstairs. At that period of time, weavers were masters of their own destiny – they could control the hours they worked.”

Agnes Christie donated the house to The National Trust of Scotland in 1949 and since that time, the cottage has continued to produce unique brands of tartan using the last remaining hand loom and obtaining natural dye from plants and herbs in the cottage garden.

“We like to think that we give people a real flavour of what it was like to live and work here,” Christine said. “It is not just about the weaving, it is about the whole way of life of the weavers of the past.”

The life of a weaver was not an easy task with one simple miscalculation ruining the look of the intricate tartan design so widely admired around the world.

“It requires a great deal in terms of math,” Christine said. “If you haven’t got your calculations right, then the whole piece is wrong.”

The hand loom is currently being used to create a new blanket for the bed of Robert Burns at the Burns Cottage in Ayrshire and the trust is hopeful that this unique window into history will continue to remind future generations of the life and work of a Scottish weaver.

Last updated: 08 October 2009, 18:29

http://programmes.stv.tv/the-hour/news-gossip/128963-weavers-wont-let-tartan-heritage-be-kilt-off/

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Wednesday, October 28th 2009

7:15 AM

Fr.John Ryan's Distributive Justice: The Right and Wrong of Our Present Distribution of Wealth

http://www.questia.com/library/book/distributive-justice-the-right-and-wrong-of-our-present-distribution-of-wealth-by-john-a-ryan.jsp

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Monday, October 26th 2009

6:34 PM

Update

BACK FROM MY VACATION TO ST. THOMAS-WILL GET AN ARTICLE ON IT SOON, ALSO STILL OWE YOU ALL PARTS 2 AND 3 OF MY TRIPE TO MINNESOTA. PLEASE LOOK INTO THIS GROUP, WILL BE VOLUNTEERING TO GLEAN, BUT NOT RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES:

ENDHUNGAR.ORG (SOCIETY OF ST.ANDREW)

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Thursday, October 15th 2009

7:53 AM

A gleaning we go....

My friend Charles has a phenomenol and uncanny ability to find wild berries,seasonings, vegetables,etc.Turn him loose for a few hours in the woods, he will ahve you enough to make a great meal for free. This last Sunday, after having a cookout and good organic foods, he, my wife and I went out to a field he has been telling me about for sometime to glean(1) some sweet potatoes.Both on the surface and by digging in the furrows, we cam across some variable sized potatoes tha filled several boxes and bags.These aere the leftovers of modern farming...the tractors,etc leave a lot behind that would normally rot in the ground or be plowed under, but can feed a small army.Great for us, but a really shame in a world starving, that so much is left behind by "progressive" farming techniques and technology...Charles is in background, I behind the camera...

""produce as much as you can, consume as little as you need." Fr. Vincent McNabb

(1. )http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glean

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Thursday, October 15th 2009

7:36 AM

Catholic Action - An Alternate View

by John Sharpe

http://distributist.blogspot.com/2007/01/catholic-action.html

In a recent article featured in The Remnant, Mr. Anger and a colleague have maintained that there is, circulating within some traditional Catholic circles, a false conception of Catholic Action. Insofar as part of Mr. Anger's thesis is substantiated by a hidden criticism of my organization, the Legion of St. Louis, I feel compelled to respond.

Mr. Anger covers a lot of ground in his article, but there are some common themes which we can identify in his critique. I wish to look in detail at three themes which are central to Mr. Anger's position.

Criticism 1: Catholics who like to speak of "action" and are energetic in proposing that Catholics focus on the Social Doctrine of the Church suffer from one or all of the following: the lack of a spiritual foundation for their activities, an insufficient emphasis on the supernatural, a failure to recognize that charity is the root of action, etc.

Insofar as any Catholic lacks charity, or lacks concern for his spiritual life, or tends to have confidence in his own merits and abilities without recognizing that those come solely from God, he is to be criticized. But the essence of Mr. Anger's thesis, generally, seems to be that Catholics who talk routinely about Social Action are obviously guilty of — or unintentionally suffer from — those defects. I submit to the reader that to assume so is flawed and inappropriate for a Catholic. This for several reasons:

(1) Judge not lest ye be judged. Mr. Anger's assumption is fundamentally judgmental: it passes judgment on the intentions of fellow Catholics, implying a judgment on the intentions of those who prefer to discuss action and are interested in finding an answer to the question, "What is to be done?" Mr. Anger's critique does not proceed according to this logic: "Mr. Jones never says his Rosary, he lets his children watch rated-R movies, he ignores the lives of the Saints, and constantly discusses armed insurrection." I would concede that such a hypothetical gentleman should be blamed; I wouldn't however concede that it should be the routine business of Catholics to seek out opportunities to pass judgments on our fellow Catholics' spiritual and personal lives. Rather Mr. Anger's line of argument seems to be that because some Catholics think that the problem — how can committed, convinced, sincere traditional Catholics affect their society and their temporal surroundings — is deserving of consideration, and because those Catholics are fond of pointing out how hard it is to save one's soul in a wholly anti-Catholic environment, they are by necessity lacking a Catholic conscience, and do not themselves possess a robust spiritual life. To so assume is unfair, unwarranted, and illogical.

The result of Mr. Anger's position would be to put all active-minded Catholic laymen in the position of having to broadcast, at every turn, how holy they are, how they remember that no action can succeed without a solid spiritual life, etc., etc. Such a mindset, applied to every other walk of life, would lead to absurdity. Can I go to work every day, in order to feed my family, without being accused of "activism" because I don't leave my families empty stomachs solely in God's hands? In order to avoid the accusation of "naturalism" or an ignorance of the supernatural, do I have to announce, on my way into my office or workshop, that "I FULLY RECOGNIZE THAT MY WORKS AND ABILITIES ARE COMPLETELY GIFTS OF GOD, AND THAT I WOULD ACHIEVE NOTHING WERE I NOT FILLED WITH CHARITY!" Such a notion is ridiculous, and it is also ridiculous to accuse those who prefer to take some action to stem the tide of our eroding civilization, of being essentially opposed to the working of God's supernatural Grace and Providence, simply because the action they propose is, in fact, active!

Jean Ousset points out, in a passage (which does not lend itself to criticism of these fabled "activists," and is therefore rarely cited) of his book Action, that God respects the causality of the world, and that He normally works not miracles but rather allows events to unfold according to the processes of history and time and human relations which He has established — a notion that demands that if we want results, after we have said our prayers, we must act.

Things have indeed gone so far that if the Revolution were to triumph tomorrow, its triumph would be merited. For two hundred and fifty years (reckoned from the foundation of Freemasonry in 1717) the Revolution's waves of assaults have followed one after another, tirelessly renewed, ever more ingenious, shrewd and efficacious. It can therefore be truly said that the Revolution has merited its conquest of the world. Its cadres have known how to fight and how to persist; how to expend their efforts obstinately — and also how to open their purses when necessary...

Far from manifesting a lack of divine justice, the constant progress of Subversion shows how God respects the causality of the world He has made, by not denying the normal fruit of their labours even to the impious. For if it is true, as Psalm III declares, that "the desire of sinners shall perish," it does not follow that their inescapable divine chastisement should be to the advantage of that army which has not fought, of those "Sons of Light" who have not shone, of the "good people" (as they think themselves) about whom Pius X has not hesitated to say that through their idleness and cowardice they are, more than all others, the sinews of Satan's reign.

While Mr. Anger accuses the Catholic "activists" of forgetting supernatural charity, of turning Catholic Action into an "alternative radicalism" which operates solely on the natural and political planes, I would point out to him that a completely different interpretation of the same facts is possible, and more rational. In his magnum opus, Fr. Denis Fahey quotes a famous passage from Cardinal Journet; this passage explains both the beginning and the end of the motivation behind our discussion of action for the restoration of Christendom:

When the organization of the world is out of harmony with the supernatural end of man, scarcely anybody except the saints and martyrs can avoid mortal sin and abide in charity. But when the organization of the world is adjusted to the demands of the Divine Life of souls, then thousands of Christians can live and die in the love of God. They are strong enough to accomplish their duty in the company of others and to perform acts of heroic virtue at certain exceptional moments, but they would have been too weak to breast the frightful anti-supernatural current of a perverted naturalistic world. Charity, then, urges us to strive for the restoration of a Christian temporal order (emphasis mine).

(2) Action vs. prayer. Mr. Anger's position seems to be based upon a presumed dichotomy between action and contemplation. The assumption seems to be that to discuss action is to devalue prayer. That to suggest action is to discourage prayer. That to emphasize the need for action is to implicitly de-emphasize the need for prayer. Such an implication is also illogical, unfair, and unprovable.

Many of my friends and colleagues, who are fond of discussing a Catholic's role in the social order, routinely refer to the fact that a life of grace and spirituality should flower into action, that contemplation should lead to a practical application of the truth that one possesses. My position, and the position of those who I know who advocate Catholic Action, is the following: to suggest otherwise — to maintain that discussions of action are inherently anti-spiritual, and to conceive of a robust and healthy Faith which is not displayed and incarnated in action in the physical, temporal, socio-political world of daily life — is to condemn Catholics to a religious schizophrenia: it is to demand that Catholics make a special effort to avoid discussions of applying their Faith to the temporal order. Such an implication is, obviously, unhistorical and contrary to the teaching of the Church and the constant practice of Her faithful.1

(3) The operation of charity. Mr. Anger's position is perhaps a root of his misuse of the little word "by." He says, in the first paragraph of his article, that works of Catholic Action in the temporal order are accomplished by supernatural charity. The Thomistic position, the common-sense position, is, of course, that all actions properly performed by a Catholic are motivated and informed by charity, insofar as all actions are supposed to conduce ultimately to man's achievement of his last end, which is the Vision of God (Summa Theologica, II, ii, Q 23, Art. 7). So any time I perform any action which is moral, the action approaches perfection insofar as it is a means to my ultimate end, which is the attainment of Heaven. Thus my actions are inspired by, or motivated by, or, as St. Thomas puts it (II, ii, Q. 23, Art.

informed by charity; for this reason does he call charity the form of the virtues. But by suggesting that the works of Catholic Action are accomplished by supernatural charity, implying almost that charity itself is an action, Mr. Anger seems to suggest that works which are directly supernatural or have a strictly supernatural aim (such as prayer, fasting, sacrifice, etc., which have as their direct aim the sanctification of souls, rather than temporal activity which pursues man's last end indirectly) are the real or essential works of Catholic Action. Thus those who emphasize that Catholic Action is composed, principally, of social or temporal activities are somehow wrong and guilty of putting the cart before the horse.

This error is a significant one. Not only does it provide the basis for his implication that those who talk of action are anti-spiritual and misconstrue Catholic Action, but it seems to miss the entire point of the Church's Social doctrine, which we will review in brief.

Catholics like myself who are concerned with what Catholic laymen can do to salvage and restore the temporal order are motivated by a desire to help the temporal order serve the purpose for which it was ordained. Few of us are called to the cloistered religious life; most of us work out our salvation in the world, and our chances of attaining Heaven are affected greatly by what kind of world it is. This is Cardinal Journet's point. It is also Pius XI's point when he says that "...it is not rash by any means to say that the whole scheme of social and economic life is now such as to put in the way of vast numbers of mankind most serious obstacles which prevent them from caring for the one thing necessary; namely, their eternal salvation" (Quadragesimo Anno, 130). This follows from the fact that the temporal order was ordained by God as the milieu, ambience, or forum in which the majority of men are to work out their salvation. The Social Reign of Christ and the indirect authority of the Church over temporal affairs are based wholly upon this idea. St. Thomas lays out the fundamentals as follows:

Since the beatitude of heaven is the end of that virtuous life which we live at present, it pertains to the king's office to promote the good life of the multitude in such a way as to make it suitable for the attainment of heavenly happiness, that is to say he should command those things which lead to the happiness of Heaven and, as far as possible, forbid the contrary (On Kingship, 115).

This was repeated some 600 years later by Pope Leo XIII:

...civil society, established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the well-being of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good for which all should seek.2

Therefore, the preoccupation that some Catholics have (myself included) regarding the nature and makeup of the social order is wholly rational and defensible. And to propose to remedy the situation by an efficacious application of the Church's Social Doctrine, through the concerted efforts of men correctly formed with the Church's Teaching on politics, economics, and society, seems not anti-supernatural, but rather overwhelmingly supernatural, since it implies a willingness to labor and to sacrifice so that all of us may more securely proceed to our eternal destiny. Such, at any rate, is the teaching of the Church.

(4) The two swords. Lastly, Mr. Anger's suggestion that the "activists" are necessarily anti- (or insufficiently) supernatural or spiritual seems to violate a principle which he expresses elsewhere in his article: the necessity of distinguishing between the spiritual and temporal powers. Those who take it upon themselves to discuss with other laymen the need for study and action in the area of the Social Doctrine are rightly reminded that they should nourish and encourage robust spiritual lives; consciousness of that spiritual duty, however, does not make them retreat-masters. The avoidance of dishing out volumes spiritual advice by those who propose social and cultural action seems to me to be a sign of wisdom: an understanding that there is a whole class of individuals more properly equipped and divinely appointed to do just that: the clerics. Failure to lecture one's fellow laymen on the spiritual life — barring the admitted usefulness of casual and informal discussions, periodic "reminders," and clear statements of understanding that the spiritual life is essential — can hardly be a smoking gun which reveals a hidden desire to spread a heretical activism and encourage ignorance of the spiritual life. It is, rather, a display of a proper respect for the division of the two powers, temporal and spiritual, and a wholly appropriate humility in not nit-picking the details of a fellow layman's personal habits by which he strives to save his soul.

To summarize: it is logical to contemplate the use of temporal means to achieve a temporal end. If we are hungry, we eat, not pray. We pray before we eat, just like we should pray before going into a battle of any kind (intellectual, physical, etc.). But to suggest that going into battle is anti-spiritual or anti-supernatural because it is not only supernatural is as ridiculous as suggesting that eating is anti-supernatural because it is not wholly spiritual. One may be permitted to wonder what degree of spirituality need be on display to satisfy the critics that Catholics interested in action do not therefore despise prayer ("O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men..." St. Luke, xviii:2).

Criticism 2. People who demand that Catholics rouse themselves to action are simply seeking an "alternative radicalism" and an outlet for shady or inappropriate political activities, motivated by an "anti-government" spirit.

Under this criticism come two points which should be tackled separately

1) the "activists" criticize the modern world too much, and dwell to heavily on its evils (which are always present in every era anyway), and thus they (2) tend to develop an anti-government mentality.

(1) The evils of the modern world. It seems rather meaningless to suggest that there is evil in every era of history, due to original sin, and that we therefore shouldn't get excited about it. Firstly, this omits the crucial point, which as we noted above is the essence of the Church's Social Doctrine, that the shape of society has a large bearing on man's ability to concern himself with saving his soul. Insofar as evil has always been in the world, since the Fall, it is not correct (by any means) to say that the social order has always, to more or less the same degree, condoned and permitted this evil. Leo XIII taught quite the contrary:

There was once a time when States were governed by the philosophy of the Gospel. Then it was that the power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had diffused itself throughout the laws, institutions, and morals of the people, permeating all ranks and relations of civil society. Then, too, the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, established firmly in befitting dignity, flourished everywhere, by the favor of princes and the legitimate protection of magistrates; and Church and State were happily united in concord and friendly interchange of good offices. The State, constituted in this wise, bore fruits important beyond all expectation, whose remembrance is still, and always will be, in renown, witnessed to as they are by countless proofs which can never be blotted out or ever obscured by any craft of any enemies.3

Now, we may be able to debate, amicably and constructively, what means are best instituted to restore society to such a condition, but to suggest that the Social Doctrine is not in more vital need of implementation today then in times past is to state an untruth. Yes, Archbishop Levebvre did remind us we can err in the pursuit of virtue; and those errors should be avoided like every other error. But this same Archbishop wrote an entire book lamenting the social and public dethronement of Christ the King, in which he said that "Our Lord wants souls to be saved, doubtless indirectly, but effectively, through a Christian civil society, fully submissive to the Gospel, which lends itself to His redeeming design, which will be the temporal instrument for this." 4 No doubt Cardinal Pie, the 19th-century Bishop of Poitiers and anti-liberal crusader, who called the dethronement of Christ a crime against which "we should never cease to protest," would have objected to the notion that we should tone-down our objection to the modern world's apostasy and its essential incompatibility with the Faith.

I am all in favor of keeping our denunciations rational, balanced, and tactful. But I know of no advocate of an "active" (as opposed to one strictly "spiritual") Catholic Action that would object to those limitations. Perhaps where I differ with Mr. Anger is in my assessment that still today, within the ranks of traditional Catholicism, I am apt to run into any number of people who seem to think that having a Mass to attend, food to eat, and a "9 to 5" job, means that, all in all, things are great. Not that those aren't things to be grateful for. By all means they are. But such a mentality — with which it is certainly possible to use the Faith and the sacraments to struggle towards Heaven — tends to encourage a Catholic schizophrenia which separates the religious and personal life that one can eke out at home, from the public and social life that one is forced to live outside it. We "activists" are accused of wanting to isolate ourselves from society, of wanting to adopt a "survivalist" mentality, and yet I can imagine no mindset which is better calculated to produce disembodied Catholics, which are cut off from the realities of the world, than that which insists on a naïve "focus on the positive" kind of attitude. Because almost every aspect of society with which we come into contact on a day to day basis is radically out of order in light of the Divine Plan, and is almost incomprehensible to a Catholic absent a serious study of both "what's wrong with the world" and what would make it right. I can imagine no better way to fail in preparing our children to eventually face, understand, and react to the realities of a world outside the Catholic home which is anti-Catholic, perverse, and radically incompatible with the Christian notion of society, than to discourage a critical and honest assessment of our modern society.

Too extreme? Leo XIII called the rejection of Christ after having known Him, a crime that was both "foul" and "insane" (Tametsi, 3). The depravity of a world that had as a whole rejected Christ was even in his day well known by Catholics, though he didn't hesitate to say that the fact was "not sufficiently realized or thought about" (3). Nor did he hesitate to paint modern governments as "deceitful imitations" of government when they ignored God while managing affairs of state:

If, then, a political government strives after external advantages only, and the achievement of a cultured and prosperous life; if, in administering public affairs, it is wont to put God aside, and show no solicitude for the upholding of moral law, it deflects woefully from its right course and from the injunctions of nature; nor should it be accounted as a society or a community of men, but only as the deceitful imitation or appearance of a society (Sapientia Christianae (1890), 2).

Within traditional Catholic circles, one can find apologists for Austrian (read liberal) economics, enemies of the widespread distribution of property, apologists for the U.S. government's lawless "war on terror," and a host of others who, no doubt with the best of intentions, defend positions, behaviors, and aspects of the modern world which are indefensible when judged against, to use Ousset's phrase, the natural and Christian law. All of these things are not only contrary to the temporal common good of modern nations, but they also militate against the spirit which should prevail within society — that spirit which, as we have noted, is supposed to be a help toward salvation. Modern capitalism tells the citizen that the purpose of life is profit; it ensures that man remains a perpetual employee, rather than helping him to become an owner, which would allow him to flourish not as a robot but as a laborer imbued with the Catholic spirit of work. The foreign policy of the most powerful government in the world is without scruple in its willingness to kill and maim to maintain that system along with the corresponding liberal ideology. Is it really heretical "naturalism" or "activism" which leads some Catholics to denounce vigorously the social manifestation of intellectual errors which contravene the natural law and oppose the tenets of the Faith — errors which Pius XI referred to as "social and juridical modernism," and which he condemned "no less decidedly" than religious modernism?

The anti-liberal crusaders of the late 19th-century didn't seem to have many scruples about denouncing error in the most vigorous of terms — and it is well-known that many of the chief errors of those days were in fact the same socio-political misconceptions that we moderns suffer from. Here is one representative voice:

There is then no sin against charity in calling evil evil, its authors, abettors and disciples bad; all its acts, words and writings iniquitous, wicked, malicious...

If the propagation of good and the necessity of combating evil require the employment of terms somewhat harsh against error and its supporters, this usage is certainly not against charity. This is a corollary or consequence of the principle we have just demonstrated. We must render evil odious and detestable. We cannot attain this result without pointing out the dangers of evil, without showing how and why it is odious, detestable and contemptible. Christian oratory of all ages has ever employed the most vigorous and emphatic rhetoric in the arsenal of human speech against impiety. In the writings of the great athletes of Christianity the usage of irony, imprecation, execration and of the most crushing epithets is continual. Hence the only law is the opportunity and the truth.

But there is another justification for such an usage. Popular propagation and apologetics cannot preserve elegant and constrained academic forms. In order to convince the people we must speak to their heart and their imagination which can only be touched by ardent, brilliant, and impassioned language. To be impassioned is not to be reprehensible, when our heat is the holy ardor of truth.

...St. John the Baptist calls the Pharisees "race of vipers," Jesus Christ, our Divine Savior, hurls at them the epithets "hypocrites, whitened sepulchers, a perverse and adulterous generation" without thinking for this reason that He sullies the sanctity of His benevolent speech. St. Paul criticizes the schismatic Cretins (110) as "always liars, evil beasts, slothful bellies." The same apostle calls Elymas the magician "seducer, full of guile and deceit, child of the Devil, enemy of all justice."

...What shall we say of St. John Chrysostom? His famous invective against Eutropius is not comparable, in its personal (111) and aggressive character, to the cruel invectives of Cicero against Catiline and against Verres! The gentle St. Bernard did not honey his words when he attacked the enemies of the faith. Addressing Arnold of Brescia, the great Liberal agitator of his times, he calls him in all his letters "seducer, vase of injuries, scorpion, cruel wolf."

The pacific St. Thomas of Aquinas forgets the calm of his cold syllogisms when he hurls his violent apostrophe against William of St. Amour and his disciples: "Enemies of God," he cries out, "ministers of the Devil, members of AntiChrist, ignorami, perverts, reprobates!" Never did the illustrious Louis Veuillot speak so boldly.

Thus speaks the eminent Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany, in Liberalism is a Sin, Chapter 20.

(2) The "anti-government" spirit. From the willingness of certain Catholics to remind their fellows of the evils of modern society, and of how and where that society fails to live up to what the Church demands, supposedly follows a spirit of disobedience and lawlessness toward lawful authority: the dreaded "anti-government" spirit.

Evidence of this spirit is apparently found in the desire of some Catholics to isolate themselves from the mainstream, to more easily preserve their Faith and minimize the influence of anti-Catholic society. Fr. Sarda seems to think that this is not a bad idea: "The first thing to do in an infected country is to isolate oneself, and if this is not possible, take all sanitary precautions against the deadly germ. Spiritual health is always endangered whenever we come into contact with Liberalism, and infection is almost certain if we neglect those precautions which prudence suggests" (Chapter 17, Liberalism is a Sin). In this country of allegedly un-precedented personal freedoms, is it not licit and wholly allowable under positive law to buy a plot of land away from the immorality, the smog, and the cable TV of the modern suburbs? Are we to expect that the Amish will be massacred or rounded up for their refusal to play the "suburban" game? And if they were, would it be their own fault for not capitulating to WalMart and rock music? Such a "Flee to the Fields" may not be an approach that suits everyone, but insofar as everyone from Richard Weaver to Mgr. Williamson to Archbishop Levebvre to Fr. Fahey to Fr. Vincent McNabb and more have praised initiatives, either speculative or practical, to return the modern family to the land, what grounds is there for suspecting of subversion and rebellion the men who contemplate this as a possible course of action? Such a suspicion, I submit, is unfair, unfounded, and untenable.

A final point under this heading would be that the government in this country, as in so many others, falls so short of the ideal on even the natural order, let alone the supernatural, that some degree of "angst," "distrust," "dissatisfaction," and "suspicion" would seem to be wholly justified. It is natural for a man, who is vir — a real man insofar as he is virtuous, to be aroused to anger at the sight of injustice. Such anger in no way implies a refusal to obey legitimate authority, or a lack of prudence in cooperating with that authority even when it is illegitimate. As Cardinal Ottaviani pointed out, the liveliness of Christians is best measured by the intensity of their reaction to injustice:

The frequency and power of crime have blunted Christian sensibility, even alas! among Christians. Not only as men, but as Christians, they do not react, do not leap to their feet. How can they feel themselves to be Christians if they are insensitive to the wounds which are being inflicted on Christianity. Life shows its existence by the sensation of pain, by the vivacity (an expressive word) by which it reacts to a wound, by the promptness and vigor of the reaction. In the midst of rottenness and decomposition there is no reaction (quoted by Ousset in Action).

To demand that Catholics turn off their natural and healthy instincts to oppose and abhor injustice when they see it, their desire to root out corruption and abuse from the civil order, and to replace it — lawfully and legitimately — with justice, mercy, and competence is to once again condemn them to a fantasy land of the utopian Catholic home full of a potential army of recruits for Catholic Action who are potentially doomed to entering the public sphere without a coherent vision both of what they want, and of what they don't want.

Criticism 3: Catholic Action is not political.

The last of Mr. Anger's major objections to an "active" Catholic Action seems to be based on the notion that Catholic Action should not seek to achieve its aims based on temporal, political activity, but on a supernatural or spiritual activity. This criticism is not altogether clear, however, for it is never stated quite as simply as we have summarized it. There are several possible interpretations, all of which warrant responses.

(1) A lack of supernatural perspective? If his complaint is that the active-minded men who are attracted to Catholic Action for its potential to engage and transform the social order tend to see things with a strictly temporal or natural — as opposed to spiritual or supernatural — viewpoint, then the answer is that if this were true, it is a valid point; but I don't think that it is true. All serious Catholics know that life is a mysterious mixture of Divine Providence and free will, and that Divine Providence will not magically drop into our laps what we might have accomplished through His power by using our free wills. Sr. Lucia knew that: "Prayer does not dispense from action." St. Pius X knew it, for he deplored the "cowardice and weakness of good men." 5 Jean Ousset knew it. Serious Catholics know, furthermore, as a matter of Faith, that whenever they do a good work, it is Christ that works through them, and God is responsible for having accomplished it. To accuse a Catholic of not believing that is to accuse him of heresy. That's an accusation which is not to be made lightly, and in this case I think it's an accusation that doesn't stick.

(2) Action in the temporal order. If the complaint is, rather, that some men believe that Catholic Action is essentially concerned with the implementation of the Social Doctrine of the Church in society through action in the temporal order, then I would personally plead guilty — maintaining meanwhile that such a charge is really no charge at all. For while in a general way Catholic Action "does not exclude anything, in any manner, direct or indirect, which pertains to the divine mission of the Church," 6 it is more accurate to define Catholic Action as St. Pius X himself has defined it:

...you clearly see, Venerable Brethren, the services rendered to the Church by those chosen bands of Catholics who aim to unite all their forces in combating anti Christian civilization by every just and lawful means. They use every means in repairing the serious disorders caused by it. They seek to restore Jesus Christ to the family, the school and society by re-establishing the principle that human authority represents the authority of God. They take to heart the interests of the people, especially those of the working and agricultural classes, not only by inculcating in the hearts of everybody a true religious spirit (the only true fount of consolation among the troubles of this life) but also by endeavoring to dry their tears, to alleviate their sufferings, and to improve their economic condition by wise measures. They strive, in a word, to make public laws conformable to justice and amend or suppress those which are not so. Finally, they defend and support in a true Catholic spirit the rights of God in all things and the no less sacred rights of the Church.

All these works, sustained and promoted chiefly by lay Catholics and whose form varies according to the needs of each country, constitute what is generally known by a distinctive and surely a very noble name: "Catholic Action," or the "Action of Catholics." 7

It should be obvious from the above that Catholic Action refers, in its specific sense, to the activities of the laity to shape society according to the dictates of the Faith — to the restoration of "Christian civilization in each and every one of the elements composing it;" 8 to making "public laws conformable to justice and amend[ing] or suppress[ing] those which are not so;" to "combating anti-Christian civilization by every just and lawful means."

A modern, orthodox cleric has defended this interpretation. In a conference on "Supplied Jurisdiction and Traditional Priests," 9 Mgr. Tissier de Mallerais has pointed out that works which are "a participation in the priestly ministry on the part of the laity" do not constitute "a movement of Catholic Action in the strict sense of the word." He goes on to say that "Catholic Action understood as a work of the laity in the temporal order, so as to bring about the reign of Christian social principles in the State...is this which St. Pius X strove especially to promote, and which can be called Catholic Action in the strict sense of the term" (emphasis mine).

Finally, it is worth noting in passing that Ousset's book Action, an authority on the subject of Catholic Action which Mr. Anger evidently recognizes, is essentially and only about action in the temporal order.

(3) The authority of the clergy. Related to Mr. Anger's notion of Catholic Action as an apostolate "fundamentally religious" is his reminder that the authority of the clergy over the action of the laity must not be considered as "insignificant" or "optional." True enough.

Though there can be no doubt that misconceptions of Catholic Action will lead to misconceptions of clerical authority. Those who fail to see Catholic Action the way Mr. Anger does (in the properly "spiritual" light), will no doubt merit the criticism that they do not sufficiently respect clerical authority. That a continuum of action and authority (i.e., spiritual vs. temporal action, corresponding to direct vs. indirect authority) exists is attested to by Mgr. Tissier de Mallerais: the more strictly "spiritual" an activity is, the more directly it falls under the direct supervision and control of the hierarchy; the more "temporal" it is, the more "tenuous" is the link with the clergy.10 But it is worth noting that the definitions above, given by both St. Pius X and the Bishop, clearly indicate that Catholic Action refers to the temporal activity of the laity to implement Christian Social Principles in the State. While the statement of Ousset that Mr. Anger cites is no doubt true — that the Christian layman has "an imperative duty to follow the teaching of the spiritual power of the Church," it is no less true that, again according to Ousset, "the priest's essential task is to teach sound doctrine, not to implement it."

The point is that if laymen share Mgr. Tissier's conviction that Catholic Action strictly speaking refers to the action of laymen to implement the Church's Social Doctrine in society, they are not to be condemned. Nor should they be condemned for holding a view that logically follows from that definition: that they should be left with a degree of freedom to develop programs for the implementation of that doctrine in the temporal order, subject of course to judgment of its conformity with Christian principles. For, as Bishop Guerry pointed out in his 1961 Social Doctrine of the Church:

Christians must apply themselves, under their own responsibility, to political, economic, and social analyses and draw their conclusions with a view to action. The social teaching of the Church is not a ready-made program which has only to be applied. Christians still have to work out a program of action which, while it refers to this doctrine, will imply ideas and applications which are the complete responsibilities of the laity.11

(4) Politics vs. parties. Mr. Anger correctly states that Catholic Action does not concern itself with party politics, but he seems to downplay the fact that it is concerned with fostering the temporal common good of the State according to Christian principles; to the restoration of "Christian civilization in each and every one of the elements composing it;" to "preparing men to act as good politicians, to work for the common good according to right principles." Accomplishing such a task demands that men become active politically, though such activity does not, obviously, imply that the Church will sanction this or that political party — this is what is meant by the notion "Catholic Action is not political." Pope Pius XI says this exactly in the passage that Mr. Anger also quoted, but including the sections that he left out:

Catholic Action is on a plane above and outside any political party. It does not intend to advance the political ideas of a party nor is it a political party. Catholics have nevertheless understood that this does not mean that they should take no interest in politics, when by politics is meant the common good in opposition to individual and particular goods...Catholic Action, while not engaging in party politics, aims at preparing men to act as good politicians, to work for the common good according to right principles...Thus, consequently, not only does Catholic Action not prevent individual Catholics from engaging in political action in order to promote the common welfare, but it imposes upon them the duty of so doing, for it obliges them to intervene in politics with a more enlightened conscience and a clearer grasp of the issues at stake (emphasis mine).12

Fr. Fahey makes the same point with his usual clarity:

Catholics must endeavor to assimilate and promote the realization of Catholic political and economic doctrine: that is the province of Catholic Action. But in order to bring about the realization of Catholic political teaching, they must nearly always enter into a political party and help to direct and guide it: in that they act on their own responsibility, except, of course, the Church commands Catholics to adopt a certain attitude in a political affair, because of a morally necessary connection with the good of souls.13

***
A personal digression — the Legion of St. Louis. Under the guise of making his point that Catholic Action is not political, Mr. Anger attacks a statement which occurs in the Vision statement of my Legion of St. Louis. I respond publicly to his criticism because he has at no time initiated a private correspondence on this issue which would have given me the opportunity to respond privately.

His issue is with my use, in the Legion's Vision statement, of the phrase "prudent yet real ideological and political war," a phrase which results from allegedly "blurry thinking" and "naïveté."

(1) The Legion does not claim to be an "officially sanctioned" organization of Catholic Action, so whether or not its statement of vision is consistent with the teaching of the Church on Catholic Action in the strict sense has little to do with whether or not Catholic men are permitted to join hands with us to fight the social and intellectual fight for a healthier, more Catholic society. Ousset's observations (in Action) on that point are germane, and are no doubt known to Mr. Anger given his familiarity with that excellent work:

What then is our sphere of action as lay people? What are our rights concerning action in the temporal sphere? Have we a right to engage in it without a "mandate," without being under the direction of the clergy?

The truth is that an ecclesiastical mandate is unnecessary to allow a layman to exercise a right, still less to accomplish an elementary duty of his life as a layman, such as to marry, bring up children, practice a profession, play his part as a citizen or serve his country in a Christian fashion. It would be quite monstrous to suggest that his being a Christian should result in the restriction of a person's freedom to exercise his rights and comply with his most elementary duties as a Christian.

If the Legion is "political" in Mr. Anger's eyes, that may make it "off-limits" for Catholics with his particular vision of Catholic Action; it would remain, however, a licit vehicle through which Catholics can take action in defense of what remains of Christian society.

(2) An examination of the facts reveals, however, that the Legion is very much organized in a way consistent with the teaching of the Church on Catholic Action. As we have noted, Catholic Action strictly speaking refers to the activities of the laity in the temporal order for the implementation of Catholic Social Doctrine. The Legion is political insofar as it works for an objective intimately connected with the temporal common good of the nation: "the permeation of society with the Faith, the molding of the Social Order according to Catholic Truth, and the reestablishment of temporal authority in its proper place in submission to, not triumph over, Our Lord" (from the Vision Statement). This aim is obviously consistent with Mgr. Tissier's notion of Catholic Action as "a work of the laity in the temporal order, so as to bring about the reign of Christian social principles in the State," and it falls under the goal which Fr. Fahey called "the province of Catholic Action": "to assimilate and promote the realization of Catholic political and economic doctrine."

If Mr. Anger took the term "politics" in the statement which he quoted ("prudent yet real ideological and political war") as a reference to partisan or party struggles, he must have missed (unintentionally, no doubt) the footnote which is printed with the Vision Statement, and which references the term "political" as follows: "(1) By 'political' we mean public and social, not participation in our modern two-party farce." So "political" is a simple adjective which indicates that our combat is for the social order, for the public good. Not political insofar as political means partisan or attached to a party. Mr. Anger obviously missed that fact.

(3) Mr. Anger also objects to my use of the term "ideological," as implying anti-Catholic and Revolutionary notions. The context in which such a phrase is used should dispel any doubt, but perhaps even more relevant is the fact that we use the word in the most common way for common Catholics. Webster's says that an "ideology" is "a systematic body of concepts, esp. about human life or culture" and "the integrated assertions, theories, and aims that constitute a socio-political program." It cannot be denied that Catholics have a clear notion of the purpose of life on earth, along with a socio-political program to implement, in order to make society conform to that purpose. Thus it is that we refer to an "ideological" struggle, for our efforts are nothing other than to make the program of the Catholic Church, the complete and integral Divine Plan for Order, as Fr. Fahey called it, better known, more thoroughly understood, and more deeply appreciated by Catholics and men of good will, that it might ultimately rise over its "ideological opponents" and impart its character and tone to the organization of society.

(4) A final point. Insofar as priestly guidance is necessary, at least indirectly, for Catholics in Catholic Action, I merely point out that Mr. Anger has not the slightest idea what kind of clerical oversight the Legion possesses, and is grossly out of line in suggesting that we are "lacking priestly guidance." This is yet another hint of the tendency to be "judgmental" when it is hardly called for.

***
There are literally millions of Catholics who could today bring their Catholicism to bear on public life; that they don't do so is not a new but rather an old problem. It was a problem for the Bishop of Poitiers, who asked rhetorically, "What is the explanation of the fact that so much charity, so much activity, so much self-sacrifice are so ineffectual and produce so little fruit in regard to the amelioration of public affairs?" He answered his own question, lamenting that,

in regard to public affairs and social order, the faithful and, in too many cases, the priests of our generation have thought that even in a Christian country, a sort of neutral attitude towards the Catholic faith could be adopted, as if Our Lord Jesus Christ had never come or had disappeared from the world...

"If we have not succeeded," he continued, "in triumphing over the revolutionary spirit which makes us a spectacle for other peoples, the evil which is sapping our strength and leading us to the tomb is that while we have the faith in private we have accepted our share of national infidelity." 14

The saintly pope who so admired Cardinal Pie himself complained of "the easy-going weakness of Catholics" which was, he said, responsible for "all the vigor of Satan's reign," 15 making it likely that he would not have objected at all to the idea that Catholics "really need to know" the Social Doctrine, in spite of Mr. Anger's assumption to the contrary. At any rate, in 1945 Pius XII said that no one can ignore the Social Teachings without danger to Faith and Morals, and the French Hierarchy declared nine years later that "one of the gravest deficiencies of the present day is the underestimation or ignorance of the social teaching of the Church." 16

We would be hard pressed to say that things have improved since 1954. But things might, if, by God's grace, we not only believe our Faith and practice our Faith, but apply it, whole and entire, to the myriad of problems we see around us. I leave the reader with the entire inspiring passage (of which Mr. Anger gave us merely certain portions) from St. Pius X, in which he details the attributes and the spirit of the true Catholic crusader: a spirit necessary to overcome the numerous difficulties of a life of Catholic Action:

...one must have divine grace, and the apostle receives it only if he is united to Christ. Only when he has formed Jesus Christ in himself shall he more easily be able to restore Him to the family and society. Therefore, all who are called upon to direct or dedicate themselves to the Catholic cause, must be sound Catholics, firm in faith, solidly instructed in religious matters, truly submissive to the Church and especially to this supreme Apostolic See and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. They must be men of real piety, of manly virtue, and of a life so chaste and fearless that they will be a guiding example to all others. If they are not so formed it will be difficult to arouse others to do good and practically impossible to act with a good intention. The strength needed to persevere in continually bearing the weariness of every true apostolate will fail. The calumnies of enemies, the coldness and frightfully little cooperation of even good men, sometimes even the jealousy of friends and fellow workers (excusable, undoubtedly, on account of the weakness of human nature, but also harmful and a cause of discord, offense and quarrels) — all these will weaken the apostle who lacks divine grace. Only virtue, patient and firm and at the same time mild and tender, can remove or diminish these difficulties in such a way that the works undertaken by Catholic forces will not be compromised. The will of God, Saint Peter wrote the early Christians, is that by your good works you silence the foolish. "For such is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men."

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Wednesday, October 14th 2009

9:13 AM

Good article on Just War and unjust Aggressions

Note-still planning to write parts 2 and 3 about my experiences at the Eaten Alive Conference, just have had a lot of work and distractions.Promise, will finish long before the 1 yr anniversary! Out of town for next week and half....

(Battle of Vienna,and King John Sobieski)

Distributists and the Draft

http://distributism.blogspot.com/2009/03/distributists-and-draft.html

Lately Rahm Emmanuel made some waves by repeating the oft-proposed suggestion of reinstating an active draft. I've often thought about this topic, and for a long time I was in favor of the draft. Two to four years of service required of every able-bodied man for the defense of his country. Who could object to such a benign proposal? Who could possibly oppose serving one's country?

You see, as I think I've mentioned before, I come from a long, long line of military folk. Longer than history records, most likely. The earliest military man in my family that I'm familiar with (my grandfather has it back to Hastings) is Edward "Redsleeves" Goodman, who fought with Henry VII at Bosworth Field, and received a beautiful coat of arms for his valor and service. My people have fought in every single declared American war, and few others besides. One of my ancestors was killed at the battle at Hayes Station in our American revolution (after the battle, actually, cruelly and quite illegally executed by a British officer, by the sword). Another fought in the war of 1812; another fought in that cruel war in which Texas was stolen from the Mexicans. My great-great grandfather, Samuel Goodman, served in the Texas cavalry during the American civil war. My great-grandfather, Charles Goodman, served as a medic in World War I, bravely saving many lives, even to the point of swallowing some of the dreaded mustard gas, which caused him health problems for the rest of his days. My father's father served bravely through the Korean and Vietnam conflicts (he did twenty-one years and was in his last year of service in Vietnam; I'm not that young), even being slightly wounded while attempted to assist another wounded soldier. (He did not request a purple heart, as he felt this was not really a battle wound.) My mother's father had a scholarship to go to college in 1940; instead, knowing that war was coming, he joined what was then the U.S. Army Air Corps and flew countless missions over Europe. Three times he was shot down; twice he was shot down over water; one of those times he was the only member of his crew to be pulled from the Channel alive. The third time was over France; he managed to find the French underground, which successfully smuggled him back to England, where he hopped directly back into a plane and started flying missions again. My own brother has served in Iraq with the Marines.

So my people are intimately acquainted with the duties and responsibilities of military service in defense of their country. Few families could be more so. And we know that it is hell.

William Tecumseh Sherman, of course, who has the negative distinction of being one of the more brutal generals of our history, uttered those famous words:

You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.

Coming from a man like Sherman, this means a lot. War is terrible, a horrible curse on a country. War takes the bravest, the youngest, the strongest, and throws them into a literal meat-grinder. It leaves homes empty, fields untended, shops unkept, wives without husbands, and children fatherless. Even those who return are scarred forever. War is the destroyer of worlds.

And here I refer only to a just war, and one in which the laws of civilized warfare are obeyed. Such wars are rarely fought in our sad times. In these enlightened days, wars kill not only brave men, who put their frail bodies between their homes and the war's desolation; it kills our women and children, destroys our fields and our factories, and wreaks havoc on everything throughout the land. Even the just war, about whose permissibility there can be no legitimate question, is a monumental tragedy, a scourge upon any land; the unjust war is unspeakably terrible, a horror which defies mortal description. War is, truly and without ambiguity, the destroyer of worlds.

Mars always rode into battle on a chariot pulled by Timor (Phobos) and Metus (Deimos). Few images could be more terrifying, more suitable for the inhuman bloodbath that is even the most just of wars: terrible, bloody War, riding to the slaughter pulled by Fear and Dread. The people that forgets this, that trivializes the horror that is war, will brutalize their country and ultimately lose their humanity. That's what happened to Europe in the early twentieth century; that's what's happened in America before; God help us, it may yet happen here again.

The draft is a means of keeping a large standing army for purposes of warfare. We've used it many times in America; both North and South had a draft in our civil war, and we had a draft in World War I. Starting in 1940, however, we had the first-ever peacetime draft, which lasted through peace and war until 1975, and then from 1980 to the present day, though no one has actually been forcibly inducted into the military since 1975. Our Supreme Court has declared it constitutional. But is the draft moral, in peace and in war? What is a distributist to think of this idea?

War in general is even more harmful for the distributist society than for a capitalist one. In a distributist society, most citizens are owners of their own productive property, and themselves care for their own property. Fields and shops require constant care and maintenance; leaving them for any extended period is an extremely important decision that will not be made lightly. The farmer will not leave his fields for anything other than the direst causes; the well-being of his property, and thus of his family which depends upon it, is at stake.

For example, among the most distributist societies in modern history, the Vendée in France, began its revolt against the French Revolution precisely because Paris had passed a universal conscription program. The Vendéens couldn't send their young men to the army; they needed their young men at home, in the fields and the shops. Spreading the revolution was not worth leaving their property; but to defend their right to remain at their property until they determined the cause was dire enough, they would (and did) fight to the death.

Universal conscription requires that every young man (and, by most proposals in our degraded times, young women as well) to leave their homes and their property for two to four years to serve in the military. This will probably, given our current quagmires and all the proposed future ones, involve serving in war. The distributist should not support this.

First, as discussed above, war is terrible. Universal conscription serves only one purpose: keeping a large army ready to make it easier to fight wars. The easier it is to fight them, the more often they will be fought. While Switzerland, wealthy and cuddled by the forbidding Alps, has remained peaceful, history shows that nations with universal conscription are nations with frequent and larger wars. Wars in Europe, for example, only became universally destructive after universal conscription made them so. Given how destructive war is by nature, and how even more destructive it is to a civilized society, any policy which makes wars easier to fight ought to be opposed.

Second, the distributist wants families to be economically self-sufficient and spiritually strong; universal conscription makes that impossible. Economic self-sufficiency depends upon the head of the household being available to care for the family's productive property, and often it depends on the assistance of the head of household's older children, particularly his sons. Conscription will take away the head of household when he is young and most needed to establish his property; it will then take his sons when he is older and most needs them to help prepare that property to be passed down to their care. Then again, conscription takes the head of household when he is young, and his wife most needs his support, and his children, if he yet has any, are young and need their father as an example of just and loving rule; it then takes his sons when they are just coming into manhood, just starting families of their own, when they most need to be close to their father, who can show them the way. Universal conscription thus strikes at the very heart of the distributist agenda: it renders the self-sufficient and spiritually strong family exponentially more difficult to achieve. The distributist should not support it for this reason.

Should the distributist oppose all conscription? Certainly not. It is every man's honor and duty to defend his homeland when it is under threat, and conscription is an easy and effective way to ensure that, when needed, citizens can be brought together for that defense. If I believed that America were under an imminent threat, I'd race you to the recruitment office, and I have a wife and children I could easily use as an excuse to stay home if I wanted. Despite all of war's horror, there is honor and good in killing and dying in defense of hearth and home; distributism is most emphatically not pacifism. But it is not every man's duty to abandon his home, his family, and his property when his service is not needed for a just war.

But in today's modern wars, citizens simply aren't prepared to fight without training, and without peacetime conscription how can that training be provided? Imminent threats seldom leave time for extensive military training, after all. There are many ways, however, to prepare citizens for that sad necessity, the most reasonable being the weekend method. From the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, for example, the heyday of the Anglo-Welsh longbow, English law required all able-bodied Englishmen and Welshmen to practice with the longbow for two hours every Sunday after Mass, to ensure a citizenry prepared for war should they be required. Such longbowmen proved to be the most effective military units in Europe.

Longbows are, of course, weapons of the past, but the principle holds true. Young men, upon reaching a certain age, are trained in the weapons and equipment of warfare near their own homes. Such methods provide a citizenry trained in the weapons of war, ready to fight should their fighting be needed, but does not tear young men away from their family and friends during some of their most formative years. It better respects the principle of subsidiarity, providing more localized training for more localized units, familiar with the tactics and weapons which are appropriate for those particular areas. And finally, it trains soldiers to fight knowing that they are fighting only for what is nearest and dearest to them: their homes, their families, and their property. A distributist solution, indeed.

As distributists, I suggest we all oppose efforts at universal conscription, and instead support a "national guard" on this model. Going hand-in-hand with our opposition to all wars which do not unambiguously meet the requirements of Catholic just war theory, distributists can offer something true and practical to our society on this point as on so many others.

Praise be to Christ the King!

Note: This is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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Wednesday, November 4th 2009

7:42 AM

Reflections on a Rotten Apple

G.K. Speaks - Reflections on a Rotten Apple

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Monday, November 2nd 2009

6:26 PM

Eaten Alive-what I saw and learned in Minnesota-Part 2

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Monday, November 2nd 2009

8:12 AM

Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign

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Monday, November 2nd 2009

7:17 AM

Scots Keeping Home Crafts and Heritage alive.

Weavers won’t let tartan heritage be kilt off

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Wednesday, October 28th 2009

7:15 AM

Fr.John Ryan's Distributive Justice: The Right and Wrong of Our Present Distribution of Wealth

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Monday, October 26th 2009

6:34 PM

Update

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Thursday, October 15th 2009

7:53 AM

A gleaning we go....

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Thursday, October 15th 2009

7:36 AM

Catholic Action - An Alternate View

Catholic Action - An Alternate View

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Wednesday, October 14th 2009

9:13 AM

Good article on Just War and unjust Aggressions

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Monday, October 5th 2009

5:42 PM

Videos Complete-here are parts 1 of 3 final talks

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