The Arian Crisis of the 4th Century

The Arian Crisis of the 4th Century

Christianity became a favored religion in the Roman Empire, endowed with great patronage, after Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, thus legalizing Christianity. Constantine came to his decision after receiving a vision in a dream that he would conquer his enemies if he fought them under the sign of the Cross. Acting on that dream led to a decisive victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on October 12, 312.1

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Estote Fortes in Bello: Canon Law in Time of Spiritual And Cultural Warfare

Estote Fortes in Bello: Canon Law in Time of Spiritual And Cultural Warfare

“Be strong in battle,” we are told. But what sort of battles, and what does that strength look like in practice? And what does the canon law of the Catholic Church have to do with it? Does the history of rights and law in the Catholic Church have anything to offer in today’s spiritual and cultural crises? In a word, yes. This ought to give us hope during these tumultuous days, where there is little doubt of “spiritual and cultural warfare.”

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Iconoclasm in St. Louis: How Identity Politics Became Identity Theft

Iconoclasm in St. Louis: How Identity Politics Became Identity Theft

The battle over the statue began as an exercise in identity politics, and before long it degenerated into an example of identity theft. The main protagonist in this story is Umar Lee, who was born Bret Darran Lee in 1974 to a southern Presbyterian family and grew up in Florissant, Missouri just outside St. Louis. Lee may or may not be Black, which is an ideological marker based upon but independent of biological fact, because he claims, according to The Jerusalem Post that he “has two younger siblings who are half African-American.”[1]

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Life and Death Under Lockdown

Life and Death Under Lockdown

This is the first Sunday with no public Masses. The new Archbishop of Southwark, the Right Reverend John Wilson, wrote on Wednesday:

A major change is the cessation of public celebrations of the Mass and the dispensation of the Obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days. We will, however, endeavour to keep our churches open wherever possible so that those who wish can visit to pray before the Blessed Sacrament.[1]

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Are Jews Our Friends?

Are Jews Our Friends?

On February 19, 2020, Bishop Kevin Rhoades wrote a statement for his Fort Wayne-South Bend, IN diocese regarding how Catholics are to relate to Jews. Seeking collaboration in human affairs, however, often spills over into religious issues about which Christians and Jews are naturally at odds. It is a tough road for those who are seeking human friendship to wade through the rough waters inherent in spiritual matters. Over the last 70 years or so, various Catholic and Jews have attempted to forge these deep waters. Unfortunately, they find the pathway strewn with the dead bodies of compromise, contradiction and confusion. As a case in point, let us delve into the bishop’s efforts to give it another try.

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Does the Catholic Church Still Want to Make Converts?

Does the Catholic Church Still Want to Make Converts?

In 2014 the esteemed editor of Culture Wars, Dr. E. Michael Jones, published a book written by me about notable American converts, entitled The Mississippi Flows Into the Tiber. The book was pretty lengthy when compared with the average text these days. It contained a foreword, a preface, the text itself, and even concluded with an afterword. In all this it amounted to 1,040 pages, plus several blank sheets on which the reader was invited to make notes. Yet, of course, as Dr. Jones was not slow to point out to me, my book was, in comparison with most of his own rather like a short story in relation to something like War and Peace. I was not offended. After all, the issue of conversion to the Catholic Faith is something of considerable importance, not that I’m denying the value of Dr. Jones’ immense analysis of the big picture in relation to the modern Kulturkampf and its implications. His is a work well done and the essential point to be made is that in my humble opinion the Jones thesis, if I may refer to it in those terms, sets out that big picture in a more accurate and detailed way than any other yet in print.

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Armageddon in the Auld Sod The Conflict Between Neo-Paganism & Conservative Catholicism in Modern Ireland

Armageddon in the Auld Sod  The Conflict Between Neo-Paganism &  Conservative Catholicism in Modern Ireland

It was once known as the Isle of Saints and scholars, a title it proudly held for 1,500 years. But now Ireland has embraced a different kind of Pride: the rainbow-flag waving, Shout-Your-Abortion kind. And the learned Holy men have been replaced by witches’n’warlocks who would not look out of place in a 1970s Hammer House of Horror movie – though it would be a Hate Crime to say so.

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Dead Letter Office

Dead Letter Office

Your correspondent (Culture Wars, November 2018) is pleased to see letters printed in the magazine from countries outside the USA. Well, perhaps I can assist still further in this endeavor on a subject mentioned frequently in Culture Wars, namely the Jewish question.

There are four supposedly Catholic weekly papers in England. The Universe, and the Catholic Times are pretty anodyne, and the Tablet, although having a fine earlier history, long ago left the integral Catholic fold with much of its contents. This is so much so the case that its dissenting approach in the sixties to the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae led to its becoming known as “The Pill” (a pretty unsubtle pun!).

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Owner of a Lonely Heart

Owner of a Lonely Heart

How far will the homosexual movement go? Gay marriage, gay adoption, Christians forced to provide services for gay weddings, transgender bathrooms, sex-ed for kids, a panoply of gay characters on TV and in movies, perfectly groomed, impeccably dressed, charming, and reciting all the best lines. Why it’s enough to make your kid wish he were gay!

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