Remembering Benedict XVI: A champion of tradition and orthodoxy | Albert Bikaj
“He is one of the authentic theologians dignified to be called defensor fidei, a title and quality which he showed during his years as the head of the Congregation for Doctrine and Faith, and consequently as the Pope – introducing reform of the reform by restoring the liturgical peace.”
Reflections on the crisis of progressivism | Albert Bikaj
The consequences of this radical change have begun to show its fruits. Today it has different names, labels and definitions, namely such as ‘Wokeness’ and ‘Cancel Culture’, but one of the most interesting definitions was coined by Pope Emeritus himself. He categorised it as ‘dictatorship of relativism’ — a tyrannical and anti-intellectual ideology which according to him ‘does not recognise anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires’. This is what we would call half-truths or what we often hear as ‘my-truth’ and ‘your truth’.
Marriage is supposed to be a heroic challenge not a ticket to eternal happiness | Thomas Blunt
After all, marriage is supposed to be difficult. The modern-day ideal of marriage is, rather tragically, the opposite. We moderns have come to expect that marriage is the pill that will bring us everlasting fairy-tale happiness; women will ride off into the sunset with their prince charming and live happily ever after. If this doesn’t turn out to be the case, which it never will because it’s an unrealistic expectation, we have decided that our ‘happiness’ as individuals is what is paramount and we should be able to renounce our wedding vows almost as quickly as we made them.
Can atheist metaphysics justify a secular society? | Oliver Victorio
Another self-refuting implication of atheism is materialism. The crux of the problem with materialism is that it implies determinism, and determinism is self-refuting. A view is self-refuting when it is included in its field of reference and fails to satisfy its own criteria of acceptability. For instance, the statement “there are no truths” must include itself as not being true, and hence is self-refuting and necessarily false. In the case of materialism, it operates on the presumption that everything is derived from matter, which behaves deterministically.
France’s epidemic of church attacks | Tom Colsy
Only a week before the iconic staple building of the Île de la Cité in Paris was engulfed in flames in April 2019- with its fate uncertain for the duration of the blaze as fears of a total structural collapse were held- an article in the Times was published documenting the growing prevalence in spates of unprovoked desecration, vandalism and violence at France’s Catholic holy places.
Christendom has only itself as an ally in a world of woke | Sam Hall
To attack Christians in this country is very anti-establishment and very woke. Telling some Hindu Nationalists in a former British colony that they are bigoted, ignorant thugs for attacking someone on the grounds of religious belief? Not so much. Ironically no-one in the woke brigade wants to be accused of being a colonial sympathising racist bigot in the process, do they? That kind of anti-Christian bigotry is far easier to get away with as a result.
Christian virtue in Britain: how does this inform our culture and attitudes? | Sam George
What I am alluding to is the fact that those countries with shared religious or cultural core values (and in some instances, both, but this needn’t be the case always) tend to exhibit the best responses to acclimatisation. At the same time, there are some extenuating outliers; for instance, Sikhs are a minority religion which have been extended legal privileges, but have had such on the understanding that they have demonstrated an exemplary attitude to the core values of Britain and her way of life.
St. Augustine’s journey to Easter | Chad C. Pecknold
Augustine tells us that he found something in this retreat. He writes that he made a sacrifice of tears in the “inner chamber” of his heart—and that upon this inner altar, he found “joy in my heart.” The reality of Easter was dawning. As for many Catholics right now, the Eucharist wasn’t yet accessible to him, yet he nevertheless says that he tasted upon this inner altar of the heart “a different wheat and wine and oil”.
China: time to start asking questions - religious persecution | Nathaniel Hayward
Despite this obvious slide into autocratic despotism and the evidence of simultaneous widespread repression within mainland China, the vast majority of the Western media and especially the Western political establishment appears to turn a blind eye. Indeed, many western journalists seem content to take Chinese narratives at face-value. And in the USA they spend a disproportionate amount of time attacking Donald Trump as the dictator he isn’t, rather than attacking Xi Jinping as the dictator he so very obviously is.