Philosophies at War, XI: The Dumb Ox Bellows

Yesterday we quoted G.K. Chesterton on how the Catholic Church was under constant attack by the forces of unreason from both outside and inside the Church — and of the two, the more subtle (and thus more dangerous) was the attack from within.  This makes sense, for it is almost impossible for an enemy to betray you, but friends can do it at any time.

Twenty-First Century Coaching and Team Building

Guest Blogger: William R. Mansfield, Founder, Mansfield Institute for Public Policy and Social Change, Inc.

How will the economic realities of the 21st Century shape the way companies train and develop their workforces?

Philosophies at War, X: The Soul of the Hive

Last Thursday we looked at what led up to Saint Thomas Aquinas: The “Dumb Ox” (1933), G.K. Chesterton’s final word in the literary debate he carried on with R.H. Tawney, the socialist/New Christian author of The Acquisitive Society (1920) and Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926).

News from the Network, Vol. 10, No. 08

As the level of anxiety about the world situation continues to increase, so does the studied avoidance of the Just Third Way, which alone holds any promise of rectifying the situation.  This is made pretty clear from this week’s news items:

Philosophies at War, IX: The Apostle of Common Sense

Soon after publishing Saint Francis of Assisi, G.K. Chesterton wrote an introduction to a rather ponderous doctoral thesis by a student of his friend, Msgr. Ronald A. Knox, an obscure American priest by the name of Fulton J. Sheen.  Sheen’s book, God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy in Light of the Philosophy of Saint Thomas (1925), is, at one and the same time, Sheen’s most substantive work and the most difficult of all his voluminous writings to read.  It has almost none of the fluid ease, even sprightliness, that mark even his second book, Religion Without God (1928) — the “sequel” to God and Intelligence — as well as all his later works.

Discipline: Being Your Own Boss

Guest Blogger: William R. Mansfield, Founder, Mansfield Institute for Public Policy and Social Change, Inc.

Where are the great thinkers, creators, innovators and entrepreneurs?

Everyone must be his or her own boss! Real leaders are their own bosses. It is our responsibility to encourage and teach others to be their own boss. Real leaders develop free-thinking, innovation and value ownership for all. The result is high output, positive productivity and innovation. However the traditional American workplace does not promote ownership. Most bosses, managers and supervisors today would rather control their employees.

Philosophies at War, VIII: The New Christianity Versus Chesterton

One can only imagine the rage that suffused the leaders of the Fabian Society with the publication of G.K. Chesterton’s book on St. Francis of Assisi.  Here was a former member of the Society, one whom they had ridiculed for years and characterized as a buffoon, almost an imbecile, for refusing to admit that they were right and he was wrong.

Philosophies at War, VII: Chesterton Versus the New Christianity

Last Thursday we noted that G.K. Chesterton published his little book on St. Francis of Assisi in the early 1920s to address the problems caused by the “New Christianity” movement of the early nineteenth century.  This had gone off into mysticism, spiritualism, theosophy, and “esoteric philosophy” as well as various creative reinterpretations of Christianity, and which, by the late nineteenth century, had evolved into modernism and New Age thought.

Activism vs. Leadership

Guest Blogger: William R. Mansfield, Founder, Mansfield Institute for Public Policy and Social Change, Inc.

In our postmodern world of rapid change and complexity, there are no final authorities. Given the greater “wisdom of crowds,” no single person can direct a complex business. A lone individual can only prod it to think differently.  The postmodern leader is an activist.

News from the Network, Vol. 10, No. 07

This has been another interesting week, with a number of important meetings and events, to say nothing of advances in basic research on the origins of the Just Third Way and the opposing paradigm.  Interestingly, thanks to having come across the work of Dr. Julian Strube of Heidelberg University (the one in Baden-Württemberg, not Ohio), we now have solid evidence of what we only suspected before: the link between pre- and non-Marxist socialism and “esoteric” philosophy that deviates substantially from (and often contradicts outright) traditional Aristotelian-Thomism that underpins the Just Third Way.

Philosophies at War, VI: Chesterton Throws Down the Gauntlet

Soon after entering the Catholic Church in the early 1920s, G.K. Chesterton published St. Francis of Assisi, a “sketch of St. Francis of Assisi in modern English.”  This he followed up a decade later with a companion volume, Saint Thomas Aquinas: The “Dumb Ox”.

Philosophies at War, V: The New Christianity

As we saw yesterday, both capitalists and socialists confuse justice and charity and (while they think they are polar opposites) end up in substantial agreement.  This is because what neither the capitalists nor the socialists see — or could admit even if they did see — is that the natural virtue of justice, and the supernatural virtue of charity are both as true, and are true in the same way, as the other, or (for that matter) anything else that is true.

Philosophies at War, IV: The Double Mind of Man

To summarize what we’ve discussed so far in this series, the world is in crisis, and it’s worse than anything Fulton Sheen imagined when he wrote Philosophies at War in 1943.  Then, Sheen could look to the Catholic Church to provide an integrated body of social thought to counter the distortions of capitalism and the insidious lunacy of socialism.

Philosophies at War, III: The Principle of Private Property

Last week we decided that the so-called “Reign of Christ the King” could not be fully understood if limited to a strictly religious meaning or interpretation.  Frankly, the term is more than a little misleading once we realize that it refers not to some kind of theocracy or even personal faith in any religion, but to the process of conforming one’s life to the precepts of the natural law — which, after all, applies to everyone, regardless of faith, hope, or charity, or lack thereof.

News from the Network, Vol. 10, No. 06

This has been an interesting week, with things coming to light that tend to underscore the need to adopt the Just Third Way as soon as possible.  No, we’re not talking about the “Two No Trump” movement to get rid of the U.S. president, but of what we think are the causes of such things:

Philosophies at War, II: The “Reign of Christ the King”?

Pius XI, who saw the rise of the dictatorships and the global situation that led up to World War II during which Fulton Sheen wrote Philosophies at War, took as his motto, “the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ.”  Naturally, despite Jesus’s explicit assurance that “[His] kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), and his insisting that “king” isn’t even the right word for what He is (Matt. 27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 22:70, 23:3; John 18:37), many people took it to mean precisely that, for good or for ill.

Philosophies at War, I: The Meaning and Purpose of Life

In 1943 at the height of the Second World War, the late Fulton J. Sheen published a book giving his perspective on what the conflict was really about, Philosophies at War.  A follow-up of sorts to such earlier works as Religion Without God (1928), and Freedom Under God (1940), the book is not very well known, and is very rare.

School Choice and the Just Third Way

In the early 1960s, as a young government attorney fresh out of the University of Chicago Law School, Norman G. Kurland, now president of the interfaith think tank, the Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ) in Arlington, Virginia, was given the assignment to build the case supporting newly elected President John F. Kennedy’s election pledge that there would be no government aid to church schools.

“Ma, Ma, Where’s My Pa?”

Despite the legend that he had made the pejorative comment about “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,” Blaine seemed the ideal Republican candidate.  While he was raised Protestant, his mother was Catholic, and had his siblings brought up in that faith.  Catholics tended to view him with a tolerant eye if only because fanatic nativists questioned his faith.  Blaine even managed to oppose government aid to religious institutions without coming across as anti-Catholic.

News from the Network, Vol. 10, No. 05

This has been a somewhat quiet week for action, but a full week of important meetings.  Admittedly actions are easier to report than meetings, but meetings sometimes have far more reaching resulting in actions.  In any event, here are this week’s news items:

The Growing Romish Menace

By 1880, it was clear even to the most obtuse politicians that “the Catholic vote” was becoming key to a successful national campaign.  This combined with other factors, such as the surprising popularity of Leo XIII among non-Catholics, and the able leadership of the American Church by Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop John Ireland (1838-1918), and Bishop John Joseph Keane (1839-1918), then bishop of Richmond, Virginia, and from 1886 to 1896 first rector of the Catholic University of America.  This brought about a resurgence of nativist hysteria, ironically chronicled in many of the cartoons of foreign-born Thomas Nast (1840-1902).

A Political Hayes

Near the end of his second term, Grant began hinting that he would be open to a third.  An anti-Catholic Methodist bishop, Gilbert Haven (1821-1880), made a speech in Boston in which he declared that Grant, a fellow-Methodist, was “the only man who could conquer their enemies.”[1]  The Boston Herald, evidently more cognizant of the growing power of the Catholic Church, and fully aware that the Catholic vote had handed Grant his second term, cautioned the president against running on an anti-Catholic platform.