Presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Civil Rights, Great Society, and Vietnam War
Civil Rights

Presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Civil Rights, Great Society, and Vietnam War

Addressing Congress, LBJ proclaimed: “No memorial or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory more that the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.” “We have talked about civil rights for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter and write it in the books of law.”
LBJ continued, “Let us put an end to the teaching and the preaching of hate and evil and violence. Let us turn away from the fanatics of the far left and the far right, from the apostles of bitterness and bigotry, from those defiant of law and those who pour venom into our nation’s bloodstream.” […]

Double Agent Garbo: The Ordinary Person Who Played a Major Role in Defeating Nazi
History

Double Agent Garbo: The Ordinary Person Who Played a Major Role in Defeating Nazi Germany

After Nazi Germany invaded Poland, then France, Pujol decided the best way he could contribute was to serve as a spy against Nazi Germany. He visited the British embassy in Madrid three times in early 1941 offering his services. He was rebuffed out of hand.
How could our Spanish friend burnish his spy resume? By volunteering at the German embassy, playing the role of a fanatic Spanish fascist who could travel to London on official business! The Germans gave him a crash course in espionage, secret writing with invisible ink, a codebook, cash for expenses, giving him the codename ALARIC. His instructions were to move to England and recruit a network of British agents. […]

Q & A on Topic: Why Did You Leave Your Religion?
Biblical Interpretation

Q & A on Topic: Why Did You Leave Your Religion?

To the ancients who lived in a warrior culture, Stoic philosophy is very appealing. The Stoics don’t ask the question: Why do bad things happen to good people? Instead, they admit that good and bad things happen to everyone, that the rain falls on both the bad and the good. Bad things happen to good people, that is part of life. The real question is: How can God help us endure and prevail over our suffering? […]

St Neilos the Ascetic, Philokalia
Morality

St Neilos on Ascetic Discourses in the Philokalia

St Neilos contrasts the holy men “who live for the soul alone, turning away from the body and its wants,” the holy men who have no need to flatter the wealthy because they live simply, to those of us who, “instead of courageously struggling against our difficulties, come fawning to the wealthy, like puppies wagging their tails in the hope of being tossed a bare bone or some crumbs. To get what we want, we can them benefactors and protectors of Christians, attributing every virtue to them, even though they may be utterly wicked.” […]

Decalogue: Do Not Slander, Catholic Catechism 2465-2503, and St Thomas Aquinas
Command 8 Do Not Bear False Witness

Decalogue: Do Not Slander, Catholic Catechism and St Thomas Aquinas CCC 2465-2503

The Eight Commandment in the Catholic Catechism exhorts, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Many people shorten this commandment to, You shall not lie, and although lying is usually sinful, this is a shallow understanding of this commandment. The positive form of the commandment is we should guard the reputation of our neighbor, it is possible to slander someone while speaking the truth about them. Gossip can be harmful whether it is truthful or not. […]

History

Ratzinger Report, by Future Pope Benedict XVI, Preparing for Catholic Catechism

Cardinal Ratzinger teaches us: “Every council that bears fruit must be followed by a wave of holiness. Thus it was after Trent, and it achieved its aim of real reform for this reason. Salvation for the Church comes from within her,” not solely “from the decrees of the hierarchy. Whether Vatican II and its results will be considered as a luminous period of Church history will depend upon all the Catholics who are called to give it life. As Pope John Paul II said in his commemoration of Charles Borromeo in Milan, ‘the Church of today does not need any new reformers, the Church needs new saints.’” […]

History

Was Pope Benedict XVI proactive in the pedophile priest sex scandal?

Penance is what Christians do; Christians repent. Unfortunately, many secular media interpreted these gestures by Pope Benedict as an admission of personal guilt.
During this time Cardinal Ratzinger confessed, “The greatest persecution of the Church comes not from her enemies without but arises from sin within the Church.” “The Church has a deep need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn forgiveness on the one hand, but also the need for justice.”
The media can be unfair at times. Pope Benedict XVI said that “we must be grateful for every disclosure. The truth, combined with love rightly understood, is primary. The media could not have reported these incidents had there not been evil in the Church herself.” […]

History

Milestones: Memoirs of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Future Pope Benedict XVI

Archbishop Ratzinger teaches us that “this psalm from the wisdom tradition shows the straits of faith that comes from the absence of earthly success. When you stand on the side of God, you do not necessarily stand on the side of success.” “When the psalmist stands in before God, in the presence of God, he grasps the ultimate insignificance of material wealth and success and recognizes what is truly necessary and what brings salvation.” […]

Current Events and History

Ukrainian President Zelensky Speaks to Joint Session of Congress, Reflections on David Frum Editorial in Atlantic Magazine

David Frum writes, “Zelensky came to Washington to speak for his nation. He came to Washington to ask for assistance. But above all, he came to Washington to recall Americans to themselves. He came to say, My embattled people believe in you. Embedded in his words of trust was a challenge: If we believe in you, perhaps you can again believe in yourselves?” […]

Civil Rights

History of History of WEB Dubois’ Black Reconstruction, Challenging Lost Cause Myth and Dunning School

The established dogma was that the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War was a dark period in American history, where black rule bred corruption and unwanted federal interference in the governments of the Deep South. WEB Du Bois counters by claiming that the Jim Crow Redemptionist Era following Reconstruction was the dark era when blacks lost the right to vote and any semblance of due process and fair play, that many blacks were, in effect, re-enslaved in a more brutal segregationist society, and that the Reconstruction was a time of greater democracy where the civil rights and liberties of all races and classes were respected. […]