mediamissionaries

NOVEMBER 25, 2019 Christ in the Waste Land CHILTON WILLIAMSON, JR. Thirty-six years ago a small slim book crossed my desk  at the offices of  National Review  in Manhattan. Its title was  The Restitution of Man: C.S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism ; its author, Michael D. Aeschliman. I slipped it into my briefcase and began reading it over a martini on the flight back to Wyoming. At home, I finished the book and wrote an enthusiastic review for the magazine. Now it is back in print in a third edition, this time from Discovery Institute Press in Seattle, with a new foreword by James Le Fanu, the British medical doctor and a columnist for the  Daily Telegraph , and other new material. It is good to make its acquaintance again. Aeschliman describes his aim as being “to recover, refurbish, and defend… [the concept of] the irreducible sacredness and ultimate value of the human person: person, not just thing; subject, not just object; end,...

NOVEMBER 25, 2019 Christ in the Waste Land CHILTON WILLIAMSON, JR. Thirty-six years ago a small slim book crossed my desk  at the offices of  National Review  in Manhattan. Its title was  The Restitution of Man: C.S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism ; its author, Michael D. Aeschliman. I slipped it into my briefcase and began reading it over a martini on the flight back to Wyoming. At home, I finished the book and wrote an enthusiastic review for the magazine. Now it is back in print in a third edition, this time from Discovery Institute Press in Seattle, with a new foreword by James Le Fanu, the British medical doctor and a columnist for the  Daily Telegraph , and other new material. It is good to make its acquaintance again. Aeschliman d escribes his aim as being “to recover, refurbish, and defend… [the concept of] the irreducible sacredness and ultimate value of the human person: person, not just thing; subject, not just object; end...

https://www.crisismagazine.com/2019/doublethinking-1984-after-70-years

https://soundcloud.com/edchoice/cool-schools-regina-caeli-academy-brings-a-university-model-to-homeschooling Kari Beckman

Abuse of Language Leads to the Abuse of Power JOHN PAUL MEENAN The great Thomist Josef Pieper  penned a short book in the late seventies on how totalitarian regimes use words to gain control over the masses:  Abuse of Language  – Abuse of Power . Pieper’s treatise came to mind as I read that the Canadian government is no longer going to refer to ISIS as ISIS (that is, the ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or sometimes just the “Islamic State”). Rather, they will use the more neutral term “Daesh,” so as to avoid, they say, painting all of Islam with the bloodstained brush of terrorism. Ironically, not only does this name (which is in fact an Arabic acronym) mean more or less the same thing as ISIS, but the terrorists of ISIS  have threatened to cut the tongue out of anyone using it . Of course, this opens up many questions, not least the relation between Islam and terrorism. Taken to its logical conclusion, this change in nomenclature would mean that no terro...

MAY 28, 2019 A Remedy for the Abuse of Language EDVARD LORKOVIC The line between medicine and poison  is a fine one. The same drug can cure when administered by an expert and harm, if not kill, when misapplied. Some drugs always cause harm, but are consumed for some apparent benefit; they, too, are pseudo-medicinal. This is true for souls as much as it is for bodies. Plato understood this.  Logos  (word, reason) is curative when used rightly, when administered by someone who knows how to speak and reason well—for Plato this was a genuine philosopher, while Christians will correctly add that above all it is he who is  Logos  itself. By contrast,  logos  is poisonous when misused, and this by anyone careless in thought and speech, but most egregiously by the sophists, those ancient Greek charlatans who deliberately played with words to persuade crowds that down is up, ugly is beautiful, and evil is good. Even worse than misusing ...

Benedict: “From Where Does Evil Come?” REV. JAMES V. SCHALL, S.J. The former students of Pope Benedict  have an annual seminar ( Ratzinger Schülerkreis ) to think about his vast and profound intellectual accomplishments. This year’s meeting was held Castel Gandolfo. On August 30, in the Church of the Teutonic Cemetery in the Vatican, Pope Benedict gave a brief, penetrating homily in German to the group. The general subject of discussion was “How do we speak of God today?” ( L’Osservatore Romano , September 4, 2015). The Gospel reading in the Pope’s Mass was from Mark 7. This passage concerned the Scribes and Pharisees questioning Christ and the disciples about washing hands and utensils in dining. Christ was annoyed with these gentlemen for concerning themselves with external cleanliness when inside they were avaricious and vain. Christ concluded with the famous passage: “Nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him impure; that which comes out from him, and onl...