Regular Contributions
Cincinnati’s Curious Masonic Church
Cincinnati has long appeared to have a revolving door between the Masonic lodges and the Catholic Church. Having grown up there, I can recall discussions of various people who were both in Knights of Columbus and Masons, and rumors of parishes that were pagan experiments. People talk, and that sort of talk happened way before blogging. In…
“Bolshevizing” the Church: Your Catholic Campaign for Human Development Dollars at work
Educator Paulo Freire – who was deeply influenced by the socialist Antonio Gramsci(1) – came to the United States in the late 1960s after he was exiled from Brazil for “bolshevizing the country.” (2) In the U.S., he spread his educational theories to many of the era’s foremost progressive activists, among them Saul Alinsky, and…
The Last Day of 2013–Te Deum Laudamus
Well, dear friends, it is the last day of the calendar year and we are still within the Octave of Christmas which means that we should still be celebrating as if it were Christmas Day! To that end, we wish to make you, our readers, aware of one of the great traditions of the Church and…
Who is this Savior Born of Mary?
Christmas is wrought with contradictions and hope. I love it. I always have to wonder just Who people think Jesus is and what His Incarnation means for us today, though. Besought with an authoritarian government, the encroachment of Marxist demoralization, and myriads of distractions foisted on us by the mass media, it is difficult sometimes…
Prayers Requested for Frank Morriss
Our dear friend and Board Member Frank Morriss was hospitalized last week and is in the ICU. Frank, a WWII vet who will be 90 in March, wrote for years for The Wanderer, was a founding editor of Twin Circle and the Catholic Register in Denver. He co-edited our Forum Focus since 1985. Most recently he contributed…
Merry Christmas!
Venite adoremus! Merry Christmas from the Bellarmine Forum! ———– The Christmas Mass at Dawn, December 25, 2013, will be offered for all of our supporters, benefactors, and friends at the altar over the corpus of St. Robert Bellarmine at the Chiesa San Ignazio in Rome. Mass will be celebrated by our dear friend Father Kevin…
“Can’t We Just Take the Money and Do Our Own Thing?” Why you can’t out-fox Common Core
“Look,” the bright, young superintendent of schools insists, “I understand that are all sorts of horror stories floating around out there about terrible Common Core curriculum but that isn’t the curriculum we’re going to use.” She began her job this past August and has enormous enthusiasm for what can be done to improve the academic…
Getting Testy about Testing
You know, it wasn’t that long ago that Johnny – and Juan – could read. They could recite the multiplication table, too, and could quickly make change, tally a ledger, and calculate simple percentages. Their teachers didn’t teach to a test; they taught basic, academic content. Johnny’s score on standardized tests – and Juan’s –measured…
She Who Directs Our Gaze to the Heavens
In one of his last works, the baroque painter Pietro Bianichi (1694-1740) executed an image of Our Blessed Lady’s Immaculate Conception. The painting sits in the Roman basilica of Santa Maria deli Angeli, a church renowned for its famous meridian line (constructed at the behest of Pope Clement XI by Francesco Bianchini)–a feat of scientific excellence. Within a decade of its…
The Rise of the Machines (and the Fall of Man)
A little over sixty years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien defined what he meant by a machine: By the [ word “machine”] I intend all use of external plans or devices (apparatus) instead of development of the inherent inner powers or talents — or even the use of these talents with the corrupted motive of dominating: bulldozing the real world,…
