Enthusiasm, X: Where It Began

Yesterday, we looked at how efforts to avoid the consequences of assuming that the only source of financing for new capital formation is past savings, combined with the lack of understanding of the act of social justice, virtually ensured that the “orthodox,” reason-based, Aristotelian-Thomist concept of the natural law would — temporarily, we believe — go down before the forces of irrational faith, personal opinion, and the triumph of the will.  This is an example of Msgr. Ronald Knox called “enthusiasm” or “ultrasupernaturalism.”

Enthusiasm, IX: Social Teaching and the Slavery of Savings

In the previous posting in this series, we noted that Fabian socialism — a combination of an expanded georgist agrarian socialism and the tenets of Madame Blavatsky’s theosophy — received a fresh impetus in mid-twentieth century.  This came from the ease with which modernist elements were able to seize control of the situation following the Second Vatican Council and expand their previous hijacking of Catholic social teaching to all teachings of the Church.  To a lesser degree this was also the case with Marxist communism and certain aspects of “Liberation Theology.”

Justice-Based Management, I: Is There a Role for the Corporation?

It’s common today among many individuals and groups to disparage “the corporation” (meaning business corporations) as inherently evil.  Corporations consistently make the “Top Ten List’ of the things people love to hate.  Other things on the list, of course, are “the rich” (considered non-persons and thus things without rights), “the government” (a social tool, and therefore a thing), “the banks” (including central banks, especially the Federal Reserve), anybody who ticks you off or disagrees with you (and who therefore loses all rights, becoming a thing), and so on.

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 47

Most immediate (but far from the most important — for that you’ll have to go to the actual news items, below), is that we want everyone to know if you’re doing any shopping on Amazon at this or any other time of the year, you can put a little money in CESJ’s pocket without taking any (more) out of your own.  CESJ participates in the “Amazon Smile” program, so 0.5% (that’s one-half of one percent) of your net purchase goes to CESJ without increasing the cost to you.  We have the link and instructions for you, below.

Enthusiasm, VIII: The Age of Aquarius

In the previous posting in this series we noted that books like E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful and Guide for the Perplexed appeared to be in conformity with the “new” openness in the Catholic Church, especially anything labeled a “social concern” or that promoters believed had the potential to bring the Church up to date.

Enthusiasm, VII: What Happened After Vatican II?

Back in 1982, Dr. James Hitchcock of St. Louis University published The New Enthusiasts and What They Are Doing to the Catholic Church.  Intended as an updating of Msgr. Ronald Knox’s Enthusiasm from 1950, it has two serious flaws from our point of view, neither of which diminish its value.

Enthusiasm, VI: From Aquinas, to Scotus, to Occam

In the previous posting in this series we asked how, in the Catholic Church, an institution that declares its claims are based on both faith and reason, and that it has never changed a single fundamental teaching, the rejection of reason and change for the sake of change apparently became the first principle of faith for so many people?

Do We Need the Rich?

Last Monday we posted a (much edited) response of ours to a student asking for help on an economics question.  That is, we posted our response to the student’s first question.  There was another, which we will proceed to post (and answer) today:

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 46

Has anyone noticed that every time the Federal Reserve says it might consider considering raising interest rates, the stock market goes down?  And then goes up whenever the Federal Reserve retracts its statement . . . causing Fed officials to make another announcement about the possibility of raising rates, resulting in another downturn . . . .

Enthusiasm, V: The Spirit of Vatican II

As we’ve seen in this series, one of the most striking characteristics of the shift in the basis of the natural law from the Intellect to the Will is the necessity of rejecting reason itself — even among individuals and groups who claim to base their respective positions on reason and common sense.  The “inner light” Chesterton disparaged is their only guide and lamp unto their feet.  As Knox explained,

Enthusiasm, IV: Pesch’s Paradox

In 1998 the late Dr. Ralph McInerny of the University of Notre Dame published What Went Wrong With Vatican II: The Catholic Crisis Explained.  This was an analysis of what, in his opinion, caused theologians and others to misinterpret and misapply the Council so egregiously: dissension over the encyclical Humanae Vitae.

Enthusiasm, III: Demonizing the Angelic Doctor

One of the things that Pope Leo XIII stressed from the beginning of his pontificate was the importance of understanding Catholic teaching — all Catholic teaching — in light of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, “the Angelic Doctor.”  One of Leo’s earliest encyclicals, in fact, was Æterni Patris, “On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy” (1879) — which might as easily have been titled, “On Saint Thomas Aquinas.”

The Refugee Crisis, Costs and Benefits of a Solution

Recently a student in a local Catholic school asked us for help on a question in economics class: “Present three (3) economic costs and three (3) economic benefits that would be associated with the short-medium term solution to the crisis of people fleeing violence and poverty from countries in Africa and Asia.”  From the Just Third Way perspective, this appeared pretty straightforward.

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 45

We had a telephone conversation earlier today with Father Edward Krause, C.S.C., Ph.D., a member of CESJ’s Board of Counselors in residence at the University of Notre Dame in northern Indiana.  Despite being isolated in the wilds of academia, he has been able to insert ideas of the Just Third Way into some discussions.

Enthusiasm, II: A “Closed Chapter”?

In Enthusiasm, as we saw in the previous posting in this series, Ronald Knox claimed that the enthusiastic, anti-intellectual phase of the history of religion appeared to be a “closed chapter.”  There was still a need for constant vigilance, of course.  There were also the usual American aberrations on which to keep an eye.  All things considered, though, a certain calm optimism appeared to be in order.

Enthusiasm, I: "These Torrents Which Threaten"

We come now to the second book in our series on common sense: Monsignor Ronald Knox’s Enthusiasm (1950).  Chronologically, of course, Enthusiasm was the third one written; Fulton Sheen’s God and Intelligence was published in 1925, and G.K. Chesterton’s St. Thomas Aquinas: The “Dumb Ox” was published in 1933.  Our goal being getting people to understand the point, however, we think that Enthusiasm should come second instead of third.

Three Key Books on Common Sense, XIV: “Since the Modern World Began”

One thing became evident when researching what we might call the Decline and Fall of Common Sense in the modern world.  That is, at some point a shift occurred not only in what people think, but in how or even if they think.  As we noted in the first posting in this series, this was a change from a reason-based worldview, to what Richard Feynman called “Cargo Cult Science,” i.e., faith-based, meaning one’s own opinion about what one wants to believe projected on to the world.

Three Key Books on Common Sense, XIII: “The Worst Treachery”

G.K. Chesterton may one day be recognized as possibly the most genial man of the twentieth century.  While he hinted on occasion that this might be due to indolence or similar flaws, it could probably better be attributed to an inherent good nature that, while something for which all human beings have an inborn capacity, some manage to develop to a higher degree of completion.

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 44

A number of events have happened this week that both highlight the need for something like “Justice University” and — at the same time — make it more likely that the idea can be brought to fruition.  As you will see, this is mostly due to the positive reaction we’ve received from interacting with the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship program:

Three Key Books on Common Sense, XII: The Medieval Modernist

One of the things that strikes readers of Saint Thomas Aquinas: The “Dumb Ox” is Chesterton’s mildness toward, even respect for, those whom he regarded as Traditionalists and social conservatives.  Chesterton himself had a great respect for both human tradition and Sacred Tradition.  He couldn’t be too hard on reactionaries who exaggerated things and confused the two.

Three Key Books on Common Sense, XI: “The Awful Apparition of Aristotle”

One of the things that strikes the reader of what is perhaps G.K. Chesterton’s greatest book, Saint Thomas Aquinas: The “Dumb Ox”, is the fact that so little of it is actually about Aquinas.  A rough estimate reveals that barely a quarter of the text deals with Aquinas himself — and even that seems to focus more on other people in Aquinas’s life or who are important for understanding the contemporary situation.  Practically none of it deals with theology.

Three Key Books on Common Sense, X: In Defense of Common Sense

In St. Thomas Aquinas: The “Dumb Ox”, G.K. Chesterton made a point of calling himself stupid — a fool or a moron, in fact.  If it were anyone other than Chesterton, a reader might tend to think Chesterton was trying to get people to contradict him and say, no, how intelligent he really is, he’s just being modest, etc., etc.

Halloween Horror Five-Year Anniversary Special

Five years ago today we ran one of our most popular blog postings ever: “Halloween Horror Special XIII: Mean Green Mother from Outer Space.”  Possibly because of its resemblance to a tabloid newspaper feature article (even though every word is absolutely true), the posting has consistently ranked in the top five for half a decade, one of the “Top Five for Five,” so to speak.  That being the case, we decided to rerun it today, with a few corrections, and adding a few illustrations, and removing the links that no longer lead anywhere.

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 43

Accurate information about the Just Third Way is beginning to filter past the “gatekeepers” in academia and politics.  It seems that the near-total lack of vision in these quarters has caused a number of people to start thinking outside the box.  The signs that people are starting to wake up to the potential of the Just Third Way are all there:

Three Key Books on Common Sense, IX: The Apostle of Common Sense

Even before he converted to Catholicism in 1922, G.K. Chesterton exhibited great concern for the modern abandonment of reason, and the consequent shift from God to man as the center of things.  This shift is best seen in the aberration called socialism and, to a lesser degree, in the distortion known as capitalism.

Three Key Books on Common Sense, VIII: The Paradox of Il Poverello

To understand what G.K. Chesterton did in 1933, we have to go back a decade to understand what he did in 1923.  That was the year, soon after his conversion to Catholicism, that Chesterton published what many consider one of his four (or five) greatest books: St. Francis of Assisi.  He seems to have felt it was his duty as a Catholic to present St. Francis, one of the most popular saints among non-Catholics, in a proper light, especially in an age that held St. Francis up as an exemplar for all the wrong reasons.

Three Key Books on Common Sense, VII: The American Regression

Yesterday we noted that, under pressure from the presumably unavoidable slavery of past savings, distributism regressed from the ideas of Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, and progressed into a weird combination of georgist socialism and theosophy known as Fabian socialism.

Three Key Books on Common Sense, VI: The English Regression

When is socialism not socialism?  When you have defined it as Something Else? No.  Socialism that is truly socialism remains socialism, regardless what you may call it.

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 42

September 30 is the end of the fiscal year for CESJ, and consequently most of what is happening is routine tasks to comply with various government regulations and the organization’s bylaws.  Still, a few things are happening:

Three Key Books on Common Sense, V: “One Twist to the Mind”

One of the most offensive and anti-human assertions put forward by John Maynard Keynes is the claim that the State has the power to re-edit the dictionary.  At first glance, Keynes’s claim (made in the opening passages of the work he intended as his magnum opus, his two-volume A Treatise on Money) was simply one more contradiction in a body of work filled with contradictions, half-truths, and baseless assertions.

Three Key Books on Common Sense, IV: Chesterton Versus the Slavery of Past Savings

Yesterday we opened with our take on the 1928 debate between G.K. Chesterton and G.B. Shaw on whether there was any fundamental agreement between the two systems each one espoused, distributism and Fabian socialism, respectively.  Despite some snarky yet humorous comments by immoderate moderator Hilaire Belloc on the failure of the disputants to address anything substantive in the discussion, Chesterton and Shaw not only failed to address what Belloc regarded as the real issue — how to save civilization in a manner befitting the demands of human dignity — they couldn’t agree on whether or not they could agree.

Three Key Books on Common Sense, III: The Dangers of Distributism

In 1928, G.K. Chesterton had a debate with his friend, the noted Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw.  Hilaire Belloc, possibly a little out of character, acted as moderator.  From the first (and probably based on prior experience attempting to argue with Fabians such as Arthur Penty), it was evident that Belloc expected nothing would be decided:

Three Key Books on Common Sense, II: The Mystic Paradox of G.K. Chesterton

Perhaps this posting should have been titled “The Tragedy of G.K. Chesterton,” but in our opinion he’d prefer the paradox.  After all, it’s not his tragedy, but that of his latter day followers.  For all their enthusiasm (vide the upcoming postings on Msgr. Ronald Knox), most neo-Chestertonians seem to insist that Chesterton actually stood for many of the things he opposed, e.g., false mysticism, Fabian socialism, theosophy . . . and utter nonsense.

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 41

The events this week have been few but potentially momentous.  It’s always difficult to report on meetings in which important ideas were discussed, but no specific actions taken, so we’ll just get right to the news items in brief:

Three Key Books on Common Sense, I: How to Read a Book

Through the kind offices of Father Edward Krause, C.S.C., Ph.D., we met recently with the Associate Director of the Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame du Lac in Indiana.  Completely by chance, when we were packing and trying to pick out a book to read on the airplane, our eyes fell on a copy of Monsignor Ronald Knox’s Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion (1950), something we had been through before.  We had space in our bag, so we put in Knox’s book as well as the murder mystery we were going to read (not Agatha Christie's Death in the Air. . . .).

The Legacy of Lepanto

For most people interested in history, the Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571, is an interesting footnote.  They’ve seen allusions to it, and may be vaguely aware of the various paintings, musical compositions, and literary works dealing with the battle, but the issues involved and even the people (except for the romantic Don Juan of Austria . . . often confused with the fictional womanizing Tirso de Molina character) don’t really excite or interest them.

The REAL Problem With Socialism, II: The Substance Trick

Yesterday, consistent with our claim that socialism is one thing under many names, we explained how, by constantly changing definitions, socialists change the outward form of socialism, but leave the substance — the abolition of private property — absolutely inviolate.  The problem is that by constantly changing definitions, we have a hard time pinning down the basic theory that makes socialism ultimately an in- or non-human system.

The REAL Problem With Socialism, I: The Form Trick

As we said in last week’s posting on capitalism, where capitalism is many things under one name, socialism is one thing under many names.  Most succinctly put, socialism is best defined by its chief characteristic or tenet: the abolition of private property, or (as Pope Leo XIII put it) “community of property.”  That is, the community, collective, State, or however you want to put it, is the real and ultimate owner of everything and, finally, everybody as well.

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 40

This past week has been a series of new initiatives and follow up on CESJ’s participation in the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia last week.  Despite the despair shown by the usual pundits and media gurus, there is a great deal to hope for, and signs that people in key places are starting to look seriously at the Just Third Way:

What IS Capitalism, Anyway?

For quite some time now we’ve realized that when people use the term “capitalism,” very few of them are defining it in the same way as anyone else.  Obviously, this makes for no little confusion.  Ultimately we figured out that, where socialism is one thing under many names (the abolition of private property), capitalism is many things under one name.

Liberals v. Conservatives v. Pope Francis, II: What He Didn’t Say

It’s hardly news that “conservatives” have a problem with Pope Francis.  As a rule, they tend to think that he has gone “too far.”  It’s also no secret that “liberals” have a problem with Francis.  As a rule, they think he hasn’t gone far enough.  What neither side has considered is the possibility that Francis hasn’t actually gone anywhere at all, at least, not in any substantive way.

Liberals v. Conservatives v. Pope Francis, I: What He Said

Although the Center for Economic and Social Justice is an interfaith organization, and nobody’s income is tied to its existence (it’s all-volunteer), and the Just Third Way is not a faith-based program (although fully consistent with the natural law-basis of the social teachings of the Catholic Church), there is a strong and vested interest in the matters Pope Francis addresses that are not purely religious in nature.

The Power of Calumny

Now that Pope Francis is winging his way back to Rome, and has probably “deplaned” by now, and let us remark that “deplane” is one of the more patently offensive neologisms of the twentieth century; whatever happened to “disembark” . . . “de-ship”? . . . “de-car”? . . . “de-bus”? . . . “de-train”? . . . but we digress . . . anyway, it’s time to take a brief moment and talk about . . . calumny.

News from the Network, Vol. 8, No. 39

The news items for this week are mostly of a report on CESJ’s participation in the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.  The CESJ team, consisting of CESJ president Norman G. Kurland, Marie T. Kurland, and Michael D. Greaney, Director of Research was there from Monday through Thursday.  The team had to miss Friday, September 25, due to a conflict with previously scheduled meetings.

World Meeting of Families, II: Second Day Report

Yesterday was a bit more lively than the first day.  Judging from the various scheduled book signings and interviews at the various exhibitors’ booths, the first day, Tuesday, was more of a get-your-bearings day than anything else.  Yesterday, Wednesday, business picked up quite a bit, even over on the far side where we are.

World Meeting of Families, I: First Day Report

Yesterday was our first day at the World Meeting of Families here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  We had a brief trip up on Monday and set up portions of the combined CESJ/CCC/EEI/CAFFAF booth on Monday afternoon.  We were pleased to see that we are right next to “Priests for Life,” a group with name recognition that we thought might bring a few people over to where we are to see what “Economic Justice for the Family” might be.

Banks and the Stock Market, IX: Bad Credit v. Good Credit

It took us a while, but we’re now coming to the whole point of this series: how misuse of the banking system by both the private sector and the public sector has undermined the basis of a sound market economy and inhibited (in some cases prevented) economic growth.