Free Republic

The Divinization of Democracy and the Question of Human Rights Any serious discussion of democracy in the West in modern times is an extremely difficult matter, one to be approached in fear and trembling, because it involves treatment of a subject which has taken on a distinctly religious character. The very word “democracy” has become a sacred word in our civilization, the thinker or politician who uses it often demonstrating by his whole demeanor that he believes himself to be elevated by this use into the realm of things divine. Indeed, for many people, democracy and divinity seem to have...

Why Catholics Cannot Defend Themselves (The Religious and Cultural Suicide of a Conquered People) By Dr. John C. Rao Comments?: editor@DioceseReport.com Conquered peoples frequently adopt their conquerors' language, customs, heroes and religions as their own. Indeed, they often reach the point of recoiling in horror at the mere mention of their earlier beliefs and past champions, or forgetting them entirely and denying that they even existed. This can have certain positive effects when the victor is something or someone better than the vanquished. We are rightly edified, as was St. Ambrose, at the contemplation of ancient Rome, humble enough to...

Each time someone sings to me of the glories of the Founding Fathers—namely, every single day of the year-- I think of the Luca Signorelli cycle of paintings of the Antichrist in the cathedral of Orvieto. There, in Umbria, he is: posing as the Savior in front of a crowd of duped believers while his minions massacre the rest of the faithful in the background. Here, in the United States, for the punishment of our sins, they are: protestants, philosophes, a few befuddled or Enlightenment-drugged papists, and many anxious plantation owners and proto-capitalists--all idolized as architects of the "last, best...

Monarchy: Friend of Liberty Leland B. Yeager A LIBERTARIAN CASE FOR MONARCHY Democracy and Other Good Things Clear thought and discussion suffer when all sorts of good things, like liberty, equality, fraternity, rights, majority rule, and general welfare–some in tension with others–are marketed together under the portmanteau label “democracy”. Democracy’s core meaning is a particular method of choosing, replacing, and influencing government officials (Schumpeter 1950/1962). It is not a doctrine of what government should and should not do. Nor is it the same thing as personal freedom or a free society or an egalitarian social ethos. True enough, some classical...

The best outline for demonstrating this thesis is provided by the words of my previous sentence themselves: “Protestantism”, “seed”, and “barren harvest”. An examination of each of these in turn will reveal the true horror of last year’s ecumenical agape. Hopefully, this article will be helpful in teaching Catholics that truly progressive men interested in the real benefit of mankind must forever band together to reject Protestantism and the barren seed that it sows. It is essential to begin by insisting that I am not anathematizing Protestants as individuals. Men are always difficult quantities with whom to deal. Even Luther,...