Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] Bloody Autumn: Crack Down on Old Rite CommunitiesThe late summer is expected to bring “more bad news of impending purges against traditional rite institutes and monasteries” – Specola writes on InfoVaticana.com (August 17).According to Specola, “the real end goal” is their suppression or destruction. This will happen through a more restrictive enforcement document for Traditionis Custodes, signed by the anti-Catholic Congregations for Religious and for the Liturgy.

Two Canons: Scripture & Tradition by Jimmy AkinMany Protestants would say, “Apostolic traditions would be binding on us if we could identify which traditions are apostolic and which are not. Obiously we want to obey and accept anything the apostles commanded and taught in the name of God.”That is good. Protestants who say this recognize the authority of the apostles’ teaching; they simply need to see the mechanism by which we can recognize the apostles’ teachings.1. THE CANON PRINCIPLEHow do we do that? The answer is that we recognize apostolic tradition the same way we recognized apostolic scripture. Today...

Judge George Greer was unelected the first time around... Then he was unopposed until now. It's been twelve long years and it's time for a change in Pinellas-Pasco County, Sixth Circuit Courts. Sometimes the establishment incumbent such as Judge Greer, wears out their welcome.

The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma By Russell KirkThe Heritage FoundationLecture Number Four Hundred and Twenty-Five November 13th, 1992 This year's series of Heritage Lectures is concerned with the somewhat pressing question of whether our American culture will survive the tribulations of our age. In the two previous lectures, I have discussed the ideology called "multiculturalism" as a menace; and whether a civilization that lacks belief in a religion can endure. In my final lecture, in December, I mean to talk about means for combating cultural decay. Today I have chosen for my subject the degradation of the democratic...

Prospects For Conservatives Part II: Cultivating Educational Wastelands By Russell KirkThe Heritage FoundationLecture Number Two Hundred and Eighty-Five June 14th, 1990 With some trepidation I commence my remarks on this large subject, the lot of educational reformers being hard. In 1953, Professor Arthur Bestor published a book entitled Educational Wastelands: The Retreat from Learning in Our Public Schools. There survives a Jewish tradition that all the Prophets were stoned to death or otherwise slain by the People. From 1953 onward, the Educationists belabored Dr. Bestor with epithets, until he departed from this world. And the Educationists' retreat from learning...

The Attack on Leviathan: Donald Davidson and the South's Conservatism By Russell KirkThe Heritage FoundationLecture Number Two Hundred and Six July 11th, 1989 Leviathan is a Hebrew word signifying "that which gathers itself in folds." In the Old Testament, Leviathan is the great sea-beast: "Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?" In the 17th century, Thomas Hobbes-whom T.S. Eliot calls "that presumptuous little upstart"- made Leviathan the symbol of the state, or rather of mass-society, composed of innumerable little atomic individual human beings. Today I am concerned not with Hobbes, but with Donald Davidson and his book The...

The Injustice of Equality By Russell KirkThe Heritage FoundationLecture Number Four Hundred and Seventy-Eight October 15th, 1993 Let me commence with two aphorisms, widely separated in time and substance. The first is the observation of Aristotle that it is unjust to treat unequal things equally. The second is the declaration of Marx that to establish equality, first we must establish inequality. These two assumptions have been at war one with the other during the twentieth century. What did Aristotle mean by writing that to treat unequal things equally is unjust? He meant that not all human beings are worthy...

Prospects for Conservatives Part III The Behemoth State: Centralization By Russell KirkThe Heritage FoundationLecture Number Two Hundred and Ninety-Three September 19, 1990 All present in this room today are aware that the word "federal" does not mean "central." But the Congress of the United States, in recent decades, and frequently the Executive force, too, have been behaving as if unable to discern any distinction between the two terms. That way lies the collapse of the Constitution. A simple instance of this occurred on Capitol Hill only nine days ago. We now have a new statute that prohibits servants of...

The Case For and Against Natural Law By Russell KirkThe Heritage FoundationLecture Number Four Hundred and Sixty-Nine July 15th, 1993 The literature of natural law is complex, copious, and monthly growing vaster. All I aspire to accomplish in this second lecture on "The Future of Justice" is to offer some general introduction to the subject, together with reflections on the protections and dangers of natural-law doctrines, and observations concerning natural law and constitutional government. A great deal of loose talk about natural law has occurred in very recent years. It was objected to Judge Bork' s nomination to the...

Civilization Without Religion? By Russell KirkThe Heritage FoundationLecture Number Four Hundred and Four July 24th, 1992 Sobering voices tell us nowadays that the civilization in which we participate is not long for this world. Many countries have fallen under the domination of squalid oligarchs; other lands are reduced to anarchy. "Cultural revolution," rejecting our patrimony of learning and manners, has done nearly as much mischief in the West as in the East, if less violently. Religious belief is attenuated at best, for many or else converted, after being secularized, into an instrument for social transformation. Books give way to...