As far as I understand, Dorthy Sayers was not an Inkling.  She never attended a meeting, nor was invited.

“Christianity was the matrix of ...universal human rights.”

Perhaps one could say Christianity is a necessary condition, which, if true, is unfortunate; but one certainly cannot say Christianity is a sufficient condition, as these “rights” would have existed prior to the Enlightenment.

Thanks, though, for the link.  I will probably subscribe.

@John Zmirak:
Carol Zaleski is certainly correct, as far as she goes. But surely we need to understand that the history of Christian Europe means understanding that it was Christianizing the culture and society and polity that made such a major difference in the case of the conversions of so many. Beginning with the Emperor Constantine (and moving forward), it was the fact that princes declared themselves Catholic/Christian and declared their states to be so, that assisted mightily in creating environments where the act of conversion became easier and, on a very practical level, attractive.  Of course, that may sound a bit callous to say, but Our Lord works in mysterious ways...and a society with a Christian prince at its head makes the practical considerations of Christianization, at least theoretically, easier. Obviously, the act of conversion itself involves Divine Grace. And, it goes without saying that the so-called “Dark Ages” and Medieval Period also boasted of great Christian saints and political, artistic and cultural leaders.

I believe such potential leaders exist today, but our social and political situations are quite different than those of the early Middle Ages or of the Counter Reformation. Rather than the frenzied embrace
of post-Conciliar “aggiornamento” and egalitarianism in our paganized world, we should be about a crusade
to re-christianize the world, with the full and traditional and triumphal teachings of Our Lord and His Church in our arsenal. Christians ARE different, and ARE a ‘sign of contradiction’ to this world. “Dialogue” with error, minimizing differences or pretending they don’t exist, acceptance of ancient heresies because the “world” seems to like them...all these are non-starters and lead to disaster.

The Renaissance and the Enlightenment were products of the rediscovery of Western Civilization’s roots: Greco-Roman culture. Ideas about progressive government including democracy, the sciences, philosophy, art and architecture all sprang from renewed appreciation of and contemporary research into those giants. Christianity, as practiced for its first 1,100 years in Europe, had been a burden as much as a boon.  For every inquiring Jesuit there was a provincial fanatic assailing heretics. Our lot is more that faith and spiritual rumination; sometimes we have to dig out provable, reproducible facts. The world transforms from one of demons and darkness to explainable cause and effect.

San Francisco Curt:

The search for causes predates the Renaissance and the Enlightenement--if anything it is because of various thinkers in the late medieval and modern period that the search for causes was truncated and limited to two out of the four causes enumerated by Aristotle.

If Christianity brought us Kant, a Jacobin theory of human rights, and ‘the first genuine democracies,’ then what exactly did Satan bring us?  Hegelianism alert!  This article cannot possibly be in an orthodox Catholic journal.

Although, in its defense, that is a truly brilliant quote by the Holy Father; just amazing.

If Christianity brought us Kant, a Jacobin theory of human rights, and ‘the first genuine democracies,’ then what exactly did Satan bring us?

Papal encyclicals and statements within the last 40 years have attempted to harmonize rights language with Catholic teaching, and it has been said that JP2 made much use of Kantian language in order to evangelize moderns. So it is not surprising that other Catholics would try to appropriate Kant in some way.

“If Christianity brought us Kant, a Jacobin theory of human rights, and
‘the first genuine democracies,’”, Yeah, what gives here. I thought this was supposed to be an upbeat Easter offering. Stratford Caldecott never struck me as a “Whig Thomist”. May have to subscribe just to find out.

John,
I ordered, but let folks know to use the coupon code; blog50 for the discount.
Thanks for the offer.

Note to All:: Most of Modern, Christian, “Western” Philosophy came from the Aristotelian obsessed minds of two Muslim gentlemen, named Averroes & Avicenna. Both of whom were dramatically & distinctly rejected by their Muslim world; but fully embraced by all your ‘’42 Yankees. The dear man from Regensberg is every bit the accomplished agent “saboteur"… as our dearly departed pal Billy.

Visible or Risible?.... and other cathartic simplicities...The antechambers of truth. The abscence of nonsense does not make something true(real)

Most of Modern, Christian, “Western” Philosophy came from the Aristotelian obsessed minds of two Muslim gentlemen, named Averroes & Avicenna.

What exactly do you mean by “Modern”?

If you are talking about the medievals, yes they had access to Aristotle through the commentaries by Maimonides and the Muslims, but so what? They didn’t accept Averroes and Avicenna interpretation wholesale, and that is true of their appropriation of Aristotle as well. If you speak of modern philosophy as that which came after the medieval period, then the above statement is false.

Let me put it this way....Spinoza was Averroes in a Cartesian skirt. And your beloved Acquinas almost got himself barbequed for trying to square the Avicenna circle. The “reformation” & “enlightenment” came not from the overthrow of the “church”...but from the “shit-canning” of Aristotle....and the re-institutionalization of that pathetic, compacting, ignoring, reducing Plato. Exhausted, we left infinite for a long safe ride with the finite. No more purpose, just the facts ma’am. Finally, your precious Augustine & Paul, thought that Christ was Plato...Overall, I’d say someone’s got a lot of explaining to do.

anyone who believes that protestantism is the cause of our maladies and if we just go catholic americas problems will be solved has never been to

a. staten island or
b. the jersey shore. 

all majority catholic and the darkest pits of hell imaginable

To follow up with what I was saying:  I’m always skeptical of someone who says he’s a traditionalist while espousing a universal theory of “human rights,” the latter of which is a product of the liberal Enlightenment.  A great book demonstrating that traditional Christianity is not wed to such a theory of universal rights is Thomas Fleming’s Morality of Everyday Life.

Let me put it this way....Spinoza was Averroes in a Cartesian skirt. And your beloved Acquinas almost got himself barbequed for trying to square the Avicenna circle.

Just one thinker, Spinoza. What about the rest of modern philosophy?

Setting aside the question of what the Paris condemnations actually condemned, Aquinas is not the whole of medieval intellectual thought.

The “reformation” & “enlightenment” came not from the overthrow of the “church”...but from the “shit-canning” of Aristotle....

Actually there was renewed attention paid to Aristotle during the Renaissance and afterwards. As for the modern period, yes many of the big names repudiated Aristotle. So what. It doesn’t mean that Aristotle was 100% wrong.

and the re-institutionalization of that pathetic, compacting, ignoring, reducing Plato.

Sure, there were some universities were the new Platonists gained prominence. But this was not true of all of Europe.

Exhausted, we left infinite for a long safe ride with the finite. No more purpose, just the facts ma’am.

Yes, teleology was gradually abandoned. What’s your point?

</i>Finally, your precious Augustine & Paul, thought that Christ was Plato...</i>

Any citations to back this ridiculous assertion up?

Augustine, “civitas dei”....Paul, the “second coming” any day now( a true Jewish heresy).Plato’s compact truth via the Puppeter...in complete contradiction to the Trinity.

The Nazarene was about FAITH, not theology, not law, not books, not epistemologies, not power...He was not a liberator, nor an emancipator...He was a Redeemer. The Sermon on the Mount was not about stomachs. It was about spirits. “My Kingdom is not of this world”...Magic without tricks. Try Mystery & Majesty as metaphor, if your literal, slutty, canting, chanting, graffiti-riden mind can get its “scope” around that. Taming untameable uncertainties disturbs Platonic gnostics...It deprives them, not only of their mission,but more importantly, their pensions, as well.

Lastly:: Uniformity is not Unity...Organization is not Order...And, most importantly, Health is not Well Being.

Augustine, “civitas dei”....Paul, the “second coming” any day now( a true Jewish heresy).Plato’s compact truth via the Puppeter...in complete contradiction to the Trinity.

These aren’t citations.

Maybe the energy you spend in pushing your brand of Christianity would be better used elsewhere.

PB:: You are NOT a christian. You are NOT a human. You are a MANKINDER. You are a remote-controlled programable function. You are algorithmically SENSITIVE. You are as debased, defiled, dispossesed & dysfunctional as any systematic salvation could provide. PB you are ELSEWHERE.

“Papal encyclicals and statements within the last 40 years have attempted to harmonize rights language with Catholic teaching, and it has been said that JP2 made much use of Kantian language in order to evangelize moderns. So it is not surprising that other Catholics would try to appropriate Kant in some way.”

I am quite aware and quite opposed.

Charles:

Yes, I agree there are some questionable assertions in that excerpt, but I wouldn’t say that the author or the journal is necessarily heterodox. Perhaps a bit naive as to how much of Kant can be reconciled. Many 20th ce Catholic intellectuals thought that there should be a new philosophical synthesis, taking the best from Kant, etc., and would it be too much to say that John Paul II was also of this mindset? In looking at their attempts, one should look past the vocabulary to the definitions.

Kant was sent to destroy intuition, the sense of the infinite....and promote the intellectual overreach of the finite. Experience as finite, under the control of the redeeming intellect. Thus, God became a Platonic idea. Amputated into a Procrustean bed of disciplines(restrictions). The cosmetic & the Platonic rise equally to the surface. Erudition is curiousity & wonder; nothing more. Kant preferred the narrative. Life spins on prediction, not narrative.