Happy New Year's Eve!

As the title of this posting has it, Happy New Year's Eve!  And don't you have something better to do than be reading this?

News from the Network, Vol. 11, No. 52

Here is the second half of our annual news roundup.  The second half (July through December) always ends up being longer than the first half because the evets seem more timely and less outdated than what happened during the first half of the year.  To cut to the chase, however::

Crisis of Confidence

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, with the publication of “Tract 90,” John Henry Newman inadvertently gave leverage to the enemies of the Oxford Movement.  By playing on the fears of “creeping (or galloping) Romanism,” the more liberal (in the bad sense) elements in the Church of England were able to undermine and eventually marginalize almost completely the effort to return to orthodoxy.

When the Chips are Down

Watching “cop shows” on television it is easy to get the impression that a police officer’s work is a constant round of burglaries, bar fights, “domestic incidents,” investigating crooked cops, murders, and (if it’s a comedy) lots of doughnuts.  Television cops (the funny ones, anyway) have a hunger for doughnuts that would shame Homer Simpson.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Just Third Way!  And if you don't have anything else to do, why don't you go back and read some of the postings over the past year in preparation for the next?  Otherwise, have fun!

Happy Christmas Eve!

Yes, since we're taking the day off in everything else (not the night, though), we're also letting the blog slide today and tomorrow.  If you get lonely, of course, listen to some of the musical free samples for Christmas Eve available here.  We recommend "Santa Geh Gesunder Heit."  And a sample is about all you can take.  Otherwise,

News from the Network, Vol. 11, No. 51

This week in addition to some current events (which you will find at the end of this posting), we have the first half of the annual news roundup from the Just Third Way, from January through June.  One of the things we found ironic was our commenting in the first “News from the Network” for 2018 that the newly achieved “25,000 Dow” was making some people nervous.  Given the market shakeup over the past few weeks, that seems to have been warranted.  It does, however, tend to make the Just Third Way more attractive:

“Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles”

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, John Henry Newman’s goal when he published “Tract 90,” otherwise known as “Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles,” was not to try and turn the Church of England into the Catholic Church.  Rather, it was to show the continuity of doctrine in both churches and their fundamental agreement on what makes Christianity specifically Christianity.

Real Bills for Real Wealth

Leo XIII

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, in his landmark social encyclical Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII managed to do two things that took the socialists, modernists, and New Agers off guard.  One, he followed up on the series of social encyclicals that had started with Gregory XVI’s Mirari Vos in 1832 with an unexpected twist.  Instead of simply condemning the “new things” of the modern world, he presented an alternative that could deliver what socialism, modernism, and the New Age only promised, and that without sacrificing one iota of the natural law or Catholic doctrine.

A Suitable Pretext and the Usual Suspects

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, worried that the Church of England might return to orthodoxy and undermine or repudiate all the gains that had been made by “the democratic religion” or New Christianity that was intended to replace traditional political and religious institutions, the “Broad Church” faction comprised of socialists, modernists, unitarians, and even followers of esoteric cults whipped up fear of “Romanism” among the Evangelical faction that adhered to traditional Christian beliefs.

Just Third Way Podcast No. 11 (Rerun)

Today we have a reprise of Podcast Number 11 on What is Money? and Capital Homesteading.  These are questions that are of interest to everyone, so it is useful to rerun one of the podcasts on them every now and then just to keep people up to date:

News from the Network, Vol. 11, No. 50

Although things often slow down as the holidays draw near and the end of the year approaches, people involved in the Just Third Way movement have been seeing a lot of action, so to speak.  A number of projects are coming to fruition, such as the prototype instructional video, some major publications, and a revived newsletter.  We’re also come across some interesting ideas that might be integrated into the Justice University project.  Then there’s the international and national scene:

The Wisdom of Social Justice

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, given ordinary circumstances, moral questions tend to get away from the gray shadings and drift into black and white.  They never really get there, of course, but as a general rule, as Fulton Sheen was fond of saying, “Right is right if nobody does it, wrong is wrong if everybody does it.”

Prelude to Catastrophe

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, the adherents of the “democratic religion” of socialism — which also encompassed what became known as modernism and the New Age — became adamantine opponents of John Henry Newman and the Oxford Movement when it became obvious that the tenets of the New Christianity could in no way be reconciled with orthodox beliefs.  As G.K. Chesterton would note a century or so later, the “Hampden Affair” revealed the profound differences between traditional religion (Orthodoxy, 1908) and the invention of a new religion under the name of Christianity (Saint Francis of Assisi, 1923).

The Wisdom of Fulton Sheen

This past Sunday marked the thirty-ninth anniversary of the death of Archbishop Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979).  Ordinarily we would have posted any reflection on his thought pertaining to the Just Third Way on that day.  We don’t post on Sunday, however, and yesterday was the day reserved for CESJ’s “electronic apostolate” (so to speak), and Sheen would have been the first one to appreciate the fact that “the show must go on.”

CESJ Video Broadcast, Week of December 9-16, 2018

This week’s video broadcast is a show first aired on December 21, 2016, an episode of The Challenge With Russell Williams, featuring Dr. Norman G. Kurland as a guest.  While the show is fairly short at less than half an hour, we’re sure you’ll want to tune in:

News from the Network, Vol. 11, No. 49

While it certainly seems as if good news travels so slowly that it never seems to arrive, a number of projects that have been in the works for years are nearing at least the initial stages of completion or fulfillment.  CESJ still has a need for volunteers to handle the routine organizational administrate tasks as well as take over some key (but understaffed) projects, but every organization and movement can say the same thing.  CESJ’s most critical need at this point is people willing to learn about the Just Third Way and who will take advantage of the vast amount of material available free on the CESJ website, such as the free e-books.  There are, of course, publications for sale, and we encourage you to purchase them, but try the free stuff first . . . don’t cost nothing. . . And in the meantime:

The Slavery of Savings

It is traditional in economics and finance to accept the principle that new capital formation is utterly impossible without saving.  Nobody ever got something for nothing, and nobody ever will.  What about gifts and charity, you ask?  What about them?  If someone gives you a gift or alms, you owe gratitude.  You don’t get something for nothing.

“As Many as Possible of the People”

In the previous posting on this subject we began by complaining about a book without embarrassing the author by giving the title or the name of the author.  The book exists, though, even if it does not appear to have sold very well.

Broad Church Basics

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, John Henry Newman and the others of the Oxford Movement were confronted with something they were ill-prepared to deal with, and up to a point did not even realize what the real problem was.  With the Industrial and French Revolutions a new idea had grown up regarding the real purpose of religion — and it did not have too much to do with God, as Fulton Sheen would point out in the next century.

CESJ Video Broadcast

While the Just Third Way Podcast is on Holiday Hiatus we decided it was the perfect opportunity to run a number of the videos that cover Just Third Way subjects.  This particular one, a Molly Cheshire Show interview featuring Norman Kurland, president of CESJ, is especially interesting: