St. Austin Review: Reclaiming Culture

Welcome to the Ink Desk

Enjoy the ponderings of the Star's contributors and add your own thoughts. As this section develops, we hope it may become a medium for an exchange of ideas among those who are working towards the cultural revival.

• February 8th, 2011Solzhenitsyn’s Final Judgment on Russiaby Joseph Pearce

  I'm very excited by the prospect of the new, revised and expanded edition of my biography of Solzhenitsyn, which will be published by Ignatius Press this spring. It contains several new chapters covering the great man's life from the time of the publicaiton of the first edition of my biography in 1999 until his death in 2008.

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• February 8th, 2011The Terror of Certaintyby Dena Hunt

  It's interesting how several small events often converge to reveal a larger pattern. A comment on a talk show, a news item, a review of a book, and one or two other items that on their own have no significance but taken together, fit like puzzle pieces to reveal a picture.

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• February 8th, 2011The Only Sign of Lifeby Pavel Chichikov

  I just saw a news item about Joseph Stalin. He’s been dead for almost fifty-eight years, so you might wonder what could be new about him. But there is a departure of sorts in this from RIA-Novosti:

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• February 8th, 2011Industry: A Distributist Solution Part Iby Richard Aleman

  The mention of Distributism often draws skepticism by those who, while valuing its merits, believe Distributism incapable of providing satisfactory answers to our modern needs.

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• February 8th, 2011The Greatness of Dickensby Joseph Pearce

  G. K. Chesterton seems to have considered Charles Dickens the greatest of novelists. What made him so great? Why was he so popular in his own time and why does his work endure? In the latest installment of the audio series on the Ignatius Critical Editions (www.ignatiuscriticaleditions.com), Kris McGregor and I discuss the enduring Christian legacy of this great English author. Here's the link:
  
  http://www.discerninghearts.com/Pearce/Dickens.mp3

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• February 7th, 2011An Agnostic’s Prayerby Kevin O'Brien

  A Christian friend of mine requested that I write a prayer she could pray with her agnostic husband. He is, like almost everyone we meet in the world today, turned off by the self-righteousness of many Christians who see Faith as an elite club they've joined, a club they can use to beat other people over the head with. He is, like almost everyone we meet in the world today, pretty sure that "something's out there" but not sure what that something is or if anyone has figured that something out fully.

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• February 7th, 2011Swift Versus Gulliverby Joseph Pearce

  One of the easiest mistakes to make when reading Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is to assume that Gulliver's views are those of Swift. Nothing could be further from the truth about this classic of English literature.

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• February 6th, 2011Bad Acting and Working Out Our Own Salvationby Kevin O'Brien

  We've been talking much lately about "intentional disciples" and of the need for parishes to foster "true discipleship", to encourage the formation of capital D Disciples and not just neo-pagan lukewarm modernists disguised as Christians.  The problem is Wormwood pulls up a pew and says to us, in his cloying and flattering tone, "According to most pastors, only five percent of all their parishioners are serious about following Christ.  You're one of those.  You're a capital-D Disciple.  You're an intentional Disciple.  You're a true Disciple.

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• February 6th, 2011What’s So Wild About Oscar?by Joseph Pearce

  Further to my post on Friday in which Oscar Wilde's politics, or lack thereof, were discussed, here's the latest in Kris McGregor's interview series with me, this time on "the importance of being Oscar".

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• February 6th, 2011A Failure of Loveby Pavel Chichikov

  I got together yesterday with a small group of old crocks. We’re not formal about the way we describe ourselves. It’s an Opus Dei cooperators’ group. Cooperators aren’t members of the Work, but they do take part in activities, contribute volunteer work and often a bit of money. They don’t have to be Catholic, or even Christian, and the literature says there are even some cooperator atheists, although in my limited circle everyone is a Catholic.

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• February 5th, 2011Packrats and Streamlinersby Dena Hunt

  One of the things about being old is that you know which of these you are—packrat or streamliner. Until packrats get old, they’re always making resolutions to change, to stop hoarding stuff, to “simplify”, etc. My friend Bobbie hangs on to everything: clothes (“It will come back in style—everything does”), furniture (“I might need an extra chair”), tools she never used, bits of sandpaper, plugs and wires—she can’t remember what gizmo they came with, but she holds on to them just in case. In case of what?

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• February 4th, 2011When Was Wilde Being Earnest?by Joseph Pearce

  I've just received an e-mail from someone who's studying Oscar Wilde at Clemson University. I found her question interesting so thought I would share it, and my reply, with visitors to this site.

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• February 4th, 2011The Importance of Jane Austenby Joseph Pearce

  Kris McGregor continues to edit the interviews I did with her about the great works of western literature that have been published as Ignatius Critical Editions. In this latest interview, Kris and I discuss the importance of the life and legacy of Jane Austen, including the powerful witness that her novels represent with regard to the truth of Christian realism and the follies of relativism.

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• February 4th, 2011More Anglicans Return to the Faith of Their Fathersby Joseph Pearce

  As we continue to monitor the Holy Father's initiative to make it easier for Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, the latest news that hundreds of Anglicans in the East London and Essex area of England have recently converted is most encouraging. Here's the coverage of the story in England's Daily Telegraph:

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• February 4th, 2011Alcazarby Christian LeBlanc

  While reading accounts of the developing events in Egypt, I notice repeated references to the Qasr Al-Nil Bridge, a popular meeting-place in Cairo. I like the word 'Qasr' because it shows up with the Arabic definite article al in Spanish as Alcazar, meaning castle, fort. Many, if not most words in Spanish starting with al-, such as alcalde (judge) are of Arabic origin, dating back to the Muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula. And likewise many of the al- words in English also come from Arabic: algorithm, almanac, etc.

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• February 3rd, 2011Defending C.S. Lewisby Joseph Pearce

  The irrepressible Louis Markos is responsible for many good things. He is the author of excellent books; he is a regular contributor to the St. Austin Review; and now he has emerged as an indefatigable defender of C.S. Lewis in the wake of the latest efforts by the forces of secularism to co-opt Lewis to the cause of theological and linguistic modernism.

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• February 2nd, 2011“Freud’s Last Session”by Christian LeBlanc

  This recent review of the play Freud's Last Session may be of interest to StAR readers:

  "In Freud's Last Session, Prof. Lewis (Christopher Oden), the bluff Oxford don turned Christian apologist, pays a visit to the office of Dr. Freud . . .

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• February 1st, 2011Secular Fundamentalism In Europeby Joseph Pearce

  My good friend, José Luis Orella, has sent me a report by a Vienna-based group called the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe. This forty-page document serves as a damning indictment of the intolerant nature of secular fundamentalism. Anyone who believes in the preservation and resurrection of Christendom needs to see such a report as a call to action. Here's the report:

  Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe

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• January 29th, 2011Force-Feeding Junk Food - Whether We Like It or Notby Joseph Pearce

  A crucial element of true freedom is the extent to which the small producer and individual consumer have the right of access to the marketplace. If the Giants of industry dictate the marketplace through their control of supply and their manipulation of demand (by dishonest labeling, deceptive advertising, and powerful political lobbying) the small businessman is effectively excluded from the market and the individual consumer is being force fed products that he doesn't really want. This is not freedom, nor is it a free market; it's the enforced subservience of the majority to the powerful dictates of the few.

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• January 27th, 2011The Sham-Christby Kevin O'Brien

  Our friend Stanford Nutting, liberal ex-theologian who Stands-for-Nothing, feels that the heart of the Christian faith can be summed up in the words, “Jesus was nice; you be nice, too.”  He has taught that in RCIA and CCD classes for decades as an ad-hoc DRE at suburban parishes, ever since he dropped out of seminary in the 70s because seminary in the 70s was “too judgmental” for Stanford’s taste.

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