The “Graveyard of Empires” seems a fitting name for the nation. Afghanistan does not destroy them; it measures their willingness to fight for their interests and, thus, their vitality. It is the heart of Asia, it is a barren land of blood and dust, the ultimate test of ambition.
The ‘Theology of the Body’ focuses on the conjugal act and marriage and sees them as mutually inextricable. The conjugal act consummates marriage—and sex outside marriage is not conjugal.
Although I myself have not hunted for any game in decades save what can be found in restaurants, I do not approve of these limitations; in fact I cannot really trust any leader who does not hunt. It would be much better if they all did.
In Putin’s words, one can see the fusion, in his mind, of the roles of the Church and the state. I asked a number of Orthodox clergy as well as several Russian journalists what they thought Putin actually believed, and their answers amounted to a collective shrug.
The process of loosening, trivializing, and ultimately abolishing all the cultural institutions, expectations, and shared meanings of Western culture is the great project of Enlightenment liberalism.
October once more brought us that festival called in the United States Columbus Day, in much of Latin America the
Vox is not against Europe but is in favor of truly sovereign states within the framework of Europe. It will stand with others against the intolerant “European Taliban” of the Left: “We will reconstruct what they destroy and rebuild what they demolish.”
The issue here is not Eastern Europe vs. Western Europe, or even traditionalist Europe versus progressive Europe. The issue is preserving real cultural diversity within a European Union.
The conversion of Michael Nazir-Ali, at this point in the life both of the established Church of England, the Catholic Church in England, and the wider Catholic Church, is plausibly the most significant conversion since the now St. John Henry Newman knelt at the feet of Bl. Dominic Barberi in Littlemore, Oxford, in October 1845, and asked for reception into the Catholic Church.
Christians are being driven out of their communities, particularly in Nigeria’s north and middle belt, bit by bit, and many of the villages are being abandoned. This is what has been called a “slow-motion genocide.”
There is a path forward, but it is a narrow and tricky one that winds along the knife-edge between revolution and reaction.
