WWI and the Second Fall of Man

From The Center for Vision & Values, Grove City College

By Paul G. Kengor

On June 28, 1914, a Bosnian-Serb student named Gavrilo Princip killed Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the duchess. It was the shot-heard-round-the-world, unleashing a series of events that by August 1914 embroiled Europe in war. That deadly summer unfolded 100 years ago, and the world truly was never the same.

The Vienna Boys' Choir - "Ave Verum Corpus" - Mozart

Hillsdale College - "Story-Killers: How the Common Core Destroys Minds and Souls"

The Common Core Standards control the testing and curriculum of public schools and a large number of private schools in over forty states in the nation.  Sold to the public as a needed reform, the Common Core nationalizes absurdity, superficiality, and political bias in the American classroom.  As a result, the great stories of a great nation are at risk, along with the minds and souls of our children.

Terrence O. Moore is an assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College.  A former Marine with a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, he served as a founding principal of a top K-12 classical school in Colorado and advises Hillsdale's Charter School Initiative, providing assistance with the formation of classical charter schools across the country.  Dr. Moore is the author of The Perfect Game and The Story Killers: A Common Sense Case Against the Common Core.

Magna Carta is the Birthright of All English-Speakers

By Daniel Hannan

"The ground of my freedom, I build upon the Great Charter of England." John Lilburne

London in August 1647 was a tense and frightened city. The Civil War had exhausted the nation and coarsened its people. Parliament had emerged victorious, but it was becoming clear that the real power in the land was the military force that had defeated Charles I, the New Model Army, whose troopers were advancing on the capital, unpaid and angry.

In a gesture to the soldiers, Parliament appointed their commander, Sir Thomas Fairfax, Constable of the Tower of London. The first act of the Roundhead general on taking up his post was an encouraging one. He called for the greatest treasure in the Tower to be brought before him. Not a crown nor a sceptre, but a desiccated piece of parchment carrying barely legible Latin script.

“This is that which we have fought for,” he breathed reverently, “and by God’s help we must maintain.”

I feel a stab of patriotism whenever I recall that story as, I suspect, do most British people. I say “British” rather than “English”: the civil wars had touched every territory where our language was spoken, including the precarious North American colonies. The principles that had actuated Cromwell's Ironsides in England were closely allied to those that had stirred Scotland's Covenanters and, indeed, New England's Puritans: a majority of Harvard graduates in the 1640s crossed the Atlantic to fight alongside their cousins in the cause of parliamentary supremacy.

Only Boys Aloud - "The Lord's Prayer"

A Populist Path to Power?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”

If Thomas Jefferson’s benign reflection on Shays’ Rebellion, that uprising of farmers in 1786 and 1787, is not the first thought that comes to mind today for his fellow Virginian Eric Cantor, surely it is understandable.

For the rebellious subjects of the 7th Congressional District just voted to end Cantor’s career as House majority leader.

Many lessons are being read into and taken away from Cantor’s defeat. But that election has also revealed a populist path, both to the Republican nomination in 2016 and perhaps to the presidency.

For what were the elements of Randolph-Macon College professor Dave Brat’s victory and of Cantor’s defeat?

Is Spain Regaining Its Faith?

And Why Isn’t Anyone Else?

From First Things

By Filip Mazurczak

Like Quebec, Ireland, or Boston, Spain has epitomized the fading of Catholic faith. In the twentieth century, religious practice in Spain fell sharply, especially as the country transitioned to democracy and resentment of the Church’s support for Franco’s dictatorship surfaced.

Recently, however, the downward trend has stopped and is recovering. According to Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS), the proportion of Spaniards attending Mass has increased from 12.1 to 15 percent between 2011 and 2012. In absolute terms, the number of Spanish Catholics attending Mass weekly grew by an astonishing further 23 percent between 2012 and 2013, according to CIS. Meanwhile, between 2007 and 2013 the number of Spaniards contributing part of their taxes to the Church rose from eight to nine million.

Not only are Spaniards attending Mass more frequently, but also youths are rediscovering the priesthood and religious life. In 2013–2014, the number of Spanish diocesan seminarians increased for a third consecutive year to 1321, a steady growth from 1227 in 2010–2011. Active female religious orders are also vibrant—each year, about 400 Spanish girls become non-cloistered sisters, a slowly increasing number. The number of women at the Poor Clares Convent of the Ascension in Lerma has surged from 28 in 1994 to 134 in 2009. One of the Lerma nuns, Sister Verónica, created her own community, Jesu Communio. The Vatican approved the rapidly growing order, known as the “sisters in jeans” because they wear denim habits, in 2010.

Immigration cannot explain this growth in monastic and priestly vocations. Today, young Spaniards are leaving the country for the more prosperous parts of Latin America (especially Chile) and for Germany and Britain. Considering Spain’s massive youth emigration and the fact that the country has one of Europe’s lowest birth rates, Spain’s youth population is shrinking, so this vocations rebound is more impressive.