A fun day in History of the Papacy. One of the big points I tried to make today is that the rejection of some of the liberal ideals in these encyclicals is not the rejection of an abstraction, but a concrete encounter with violent proponents of those ideals who said their

violence was on account of those ideals. It is silly to imagine that one can lift themselves entirely out of their historical circumstances. As the popes gain some critical distance from the French revolution, the rise of Italian nationalism, etc, they begin to see what can be

affirmed and what must be denied. My hope here is to undermine any desire to do what I call "CTRL + F" theology -- the theological discipline is not simply finding a bunch of phrases that affirm what you want and calling it a day.

“Theocratic fascist” who dissents from what the Catholic Church teaches about the death penalty

just found out one of the Acton Institute guys gave a talk on Lacordaire a few years ago feylibertad.org/christian-and-…

Re: popes and American politics

Are there any good historical equivalents to the “but abortion” whataboutism used whenever the church seems to criticize conservatives?

Today I learned that Domingo de Soto invented gravity

Whenever the “convert=weird freak and cradle=chill and normal” discourse comes up I think about how Epifanio de Moirans would be considered convert-coded and the slavers who tried to get him excommunicated would be considered cradle-coded

Tolkien’s widowed mother defied social convention by converting to Catholicism; her sister who converted with her was forced to abandon her new faith by her husband

The publisher of the new translation of The Camp of the Saints

If you needed evidence that The Camp of the Saints is racist garbage and not “just asking questions about immigration” or whatever

I used to think this was insightful but now think it’s kind of dangerous (Catholicism is associated with Italy, but it’s not merely an Italian religion)