TCA Podcast, – “Conversations with Consequences,” Episode 238 – Anthony Esolen Talks Dante And Word And Song! World-renowned author, speaker, and professor, Anthony Esolen joins Dr. Grazie Christie wading into Dante’s Divine Comedy and delving into his newest venture Word and Song, a project that he and he wife are immersed in with the high hopes of ‘reclaiming the realm of the imagination for the good, the true and the beautiful.’ Father Roger Landry also offers an inspiring homily to prepare us for this Sunday’s Gospel. Catch the show every Saturday at 7amET/5pmET on EWTN radio! https://thecatholicassociation.org/podcast/ep-238-anthony-esolen-talks-dante-and-word-and-song/__________________________________________________________ 1. Tuberville’s One-Man Stand Strains Senate Patience, Alabamian says blocking Pentagon nominees in protest of abortion policy is just; foes say he’s ‘100% wrong’, By Molly Ball, The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2023, 5:00 AM If anyone in Washington expects Sen. Tommy Tuberville to back down, he is here to dispel that idea.  “I hate to hold people hostage like this,” the Alabama Republican says, sitting in a barren anteroom of his Capitol Hill office suite. “They have nothing to do with this. But what do you do? Do you fight for the Constitution?”  For nearly nine months now, Tuberville, a freshman senator and former football coach, has been single-handedly blocking Senate consideration of military promotions in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy, a crusade that has earned him the enmity of many of his colleagues and left him increasingly isolated. The blockade has ballooned to include 452 officers, the department said last week—more than half of the total number of generals and admirals in the Defense Department. The Army, Navy and Marines were for a time all without a confirmed top officer for the first time in history, even as the U.S. is supporting allies in two wars abroad. … To hear Tuberville tell it, he didn’t start this fight. Federal law has long prohibited military hospitals and health insurance from providing or covering abortions except in cases of rape, incest or the mother’s life being at risk, meaning service members and their families must pay out of pocket and are subject to local laws for abortions that don’t meet these criteria. (Then-Sen. Joe Biden voted for the 1984 codification of that restriction; before changing his position during his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden also supported the Hyde Amendment, which has prohibited the use of federal funds for abortion since 1976.)  … The administration’s refusal to come to the table, Tuberville argues, undercuts its claim that the holds have devastated the military. “This thing should have been done after a month, maybe even less than that,” he said. … Tuberville has said there are compromises that would satisfy him, such as the creation of a private fund for abortion travel. He plans to try to change the policy in the defense-funding bill that he will play a role in negotiating beginning this week. (The House’s top Democratic negotiator, Rep. Adam Smith, responded to that possibility by saying, “No, screw him.”) But all of the solutions Tuberville finds acceptable would require others to bend, not a concession on his part. Any compromise will only be on his terms.  “You can’t change people’s mind. There’s no reason to try to do that,” Tuberville said. “You’ve just got to take it.” https://www.wsj.com/politics/tubervilles-one-man-stand-strains-senate-patience-5613afaf__________________________________________________________ 2. Vatican monastery that served as Pope Benedict XVI’s retirement home gets new tenants, By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, November 13, 2023, 7:31 AM The converted monastery in the Vatican gardens that served as Pope Benedict XVI’s retirement home will once again house a small community of nuns. Pope Francis signed a note Oct. 1 ordering the Mater Ecclesiae monastery to resume its original purpose as a home within the Vatican walls for communities of contemplative nuns, the Vatican said Monday. St. John Paul II had created the monastery for that purpose in 1994. Francis invited a community of Benedictine nuns from his native Buenos Aires to take up residence starting in January, the Vatican said in a statement. The aim is for the six sisters of the Benedictine Order of the Abbey of St. Scholastica of Victoria to support the pope’s ministry through their prayers, “thus being a prayerful presence in silence and solitude,” it said. … https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/13/vatican-monastery/55ff6ae4-8220-11ee-924c-6e6807155e36_story.html__________________________________________________________ 3. Bishop Strickland Saga: Ousted Bishop Speculates on the Reasons the Vatican Removed Him, The 30-minute media appearance did not answer several key unknowns in the saga, such as what the Vatican’s stated reasons — if any were given — for his removal., By Jonathan Liedl, Catholic News Agency, November 12, 2023 Just hours after Pope Francis removed Bishop Joseph Strickland as the head of the Diocese of Tyler, the Texas prelate went public to share his side of the story — filling in some blanks in the gripping saga that has put the now-former ordinary of the small northeastern Texas diocese into the global spotlight, but also leaving other critical questions unanswered.  Bishop Strickland revealed, in an exclusive Nov. 11 interview with LifeSiteNews, conducted shortly after the Vatican announced Pope Francis had relieved him from the “pastoral governance” of Tyler, why he thinks he was removed from office.  “I really can‘t look to any reason except I’ve threatened some of the powers that be with the truth of the Gospel,” said Bishop Strickland, a controversial prelate who regularly speaks out against what he sees as attacks on the teachings of the Catholic Church to his sizable social media following.  During the interview, Bishop Strickland also underscored that Pope Francis has the authority to remove him from diocesan governance, and frequently encouraged those upset or confused by the development to pray for the Pope and not to leave the Church.   But the 30-minute media appearance did not answer several key unknowns in the Bishop Strickland saga, such as what the Vatican’s stated reasons — if any were given — were for the dramatic step, and also, concretely, what comes next for the now diocese-less bishop. Here’s what Bishop Strickland had to say, and what remains unanswered. … https://www.ncregister.com/cna/bishop-strickland-saga-ousted-bishop-speculates-on-the-reasons-the-vatican-removed-him__________________________________________________________ 4. Pope Francis removes a leading US conservative critic as bishop of Tyler, Texas, By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, November 11, 2023, 4:38 PM Pope Francis on Saturday ordered the removal of the bishop of Tyler, Texas, a conservative prelate active on social media who has been a fierce critic of the pontiff and has come to symbolize the polarization within the U.S. Catholic hierarchy. A one-line statement from the Vatican said Francis had “relieved” Bishop Joseph Strickland of the pastoral governance of Tyler and appointed the bishop of Austin as the temporary administrator. Strickland, 65, has emerged as a leading critic of Francis, accusing him in a tweet earlier this year of “undermining the deposit of faith.” He has been particularly critical of Francis’ recent meeting on the future of the Catholic Church during which hot-button issues were discussed, including ways to better welcome LGBTQ+ Catholics. … https://apnews.com/article/pope-tyler-bishop-strickland-removed-0f9f0be7d5938b36d6e7ead8c33e5150__________________________________________________________ 5. Things to know about efforts to block people from crossing state lines for abortion, By Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press, November 10, 2023, 4:50 PM A federal judge and the U.S. Department of Justice this week said that states are going too far by trying to block people from helping others cross state lines for abortion. A ruling in Idaho and the federal government taking sides in an Alabama lawsuit are far from the final word, but they could offer clues on whether an emerging area of abortion regulation may eventfully hold up in court. … Earlier this year, Idaho became the first state to adopt an “abortion trafficking” ban, a provision being encouraged by the National Right to Life Committee. … On Thursday, a federal judge put enforcement of the trafficking law on hold while courts consider a final decision on whether it’s constitutional. … Abortion rights advocates in Alabama sued state Attorney General Steve Marshall in July, asking a court to find it unlawful for him to use anti-conspiracy laws to prosecute those who help others obtain an abortion out of state. There have not been charges like that, but the advocates say Marshall threatened on a radio show to “look at” organizations that help Alabama women obtain abortions in states where they are legal. … On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice told the courts its position: The state cannot block people for traveling for legal abortion and also cannot “seek to achieve the same result by threatening to prosecute anyone who assists that individual in their travel.” A judge has not ruled on the issue there. … https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2023/11/10/abortion-texas-idaho-alabama-state-lines-trafficking/03968666-7feb-11ee-b5cc-66c30a3bbb91_story.html__________________________________________________________ 6. For universities, the less said about controversial issues, the better, By The Washington Post, November 10, 2023, 10:13 AM, Editorial As arenas of study, debate and protest, U.S. college campuses were inevitably going to get caught up in arguments over the Israel-Gaza war. Equally foreseeable: free-speech controversies over slogans, demonstrations and displays taking one side or the other. In one way, though, the controversies are novel — and partly the universities’ own fault. By repeatedly speaking out — as institutions — on other issues, schools created an expectation that they would take an institutional stand on the war that began with Hamas’s bloody Oct. 7 acts of terrorism against Israel. This led to protests, including donor boycotts at several Ivy League institutions, over what critics considered the schools’ insufficient condemnations of Hamas, some of which caused the schools to revise what they said. This can turn into an endless cycle unless colleges and universities decide to end it now. Higher education needs to find its way back to a place where institutions do not weigh in, as institutions, on the controversies of the day. Silence is not necessarily complicity. Rather, it is a sound practice consistent with academia’s role in society, which is to foster open inquiry. A study in 2021 by the professional association for student affairs administrators found that 230 of 300 institutions of higher education surveyed issued statements in the two weeks after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. More than half addressed broader debates around institutional and structural racism. Harvard University not only issued such a statement but also flew the Ukrainian flag over Harvard Yard after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Then-President Lawrence S. Bacow declared, “Harvard University stands with the people of Ukraine.” The University of California system’s president called the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade “antithetical to the University of California’s mission and values.” … The role of colleges and universities is not to tell students what to think, much less what the administration thinks. It is to teach students how to think. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/10/campus-israel-gaza-free-speech/__________________________________________________________ 7. J.D. Vance on Abortion, ‘I want to save as many babies as possible. This is not about moral legitimacy but political reality.’, By J.D. Vance, The Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2023, 5:30 PM, Notable & Quotable From a Nov. 8 tweet by Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio) on the ballot initiative establishing a constitutional right to abortion: For pro lifers, last night was a gut punch. No sugar coating it. . . . I was very involved in the “no” campaign for issue 1, so let me share a few insights. First, we got creamed among voters who disliked both Issue 1 and also Ohio’s current law (heartbeat bill). We saw this consistently in polling and in conversations. “I don’t like Issue 1, but I’d rather have that extreme than the other extreme.” This is a political fact, not my opinion. Second, we have to recognize how much voters mistrust us (meaning elected Republicans) on this issue. Having an unplanned pregnancy is scary. Best case, you’re looking at social scorn and thousands of dollars of unexpected medical bills. We need people to see us as the pro-life party, not just the anti-abortion party. Third, as Donald Trump has said, “you’ve got to have the exceptions.” … https://www.wsj.com/articles/notable-quotable-j-d-vance-on-abortion-ohio-ballot-measure-698df8f1__________________________________________________________ 8. Federal funding bill on hold after GOP conflict on D.C. abortion rider, By Meagan Flynn and Marianna Sotomayor, The Washington Post, November 9, 2023, 2:46 PM House GOP leadership postponed a vote on a major federal appropriations bill Thursday after a group of moderate Republicans objected to a D.C. abortion-related restriction contained in the hulking package. Eight Republicans raised concerns with a provision that would have blocked D.C. from enforcing a 2014 law prohibiting discrimination based on reproductive health choices — a large enough bloc to make a difference due to Republicans’ slim margin, especially given some absences. Their pushback surprised D.C. officials, who are not used to seeing Republicans defend the deep-blue city, and it was enough to threaten the entire financial services appropriations bill, which included about a dozen other policy restrictions on the District. City officials were bracing for a whole barrage of budget riders to sail through on Thursday, including allowing people with out-of-state weapons permits to carry guns in D.C. and banning the city from using automated traffic cameras, a measure that could deal a serious blow to D.C.’s finances. Yet some moderates drew the line on the attempt to block the city’s Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act, especially as abortion has made the GOP increasingly vulnerable in critical swing districts and states, with Tuesday’s elections offering more evidence. … https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/11/09/congress-republican-moderates-dc-abortion-rider/__________________________________________________________ 9. Maine court hears arguments on removing time limits on child sex abuse lawsuits, By David Sharp, Associated Press, November 9, 2023, 5:24 PM A lawyer for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland told supreme court justices Thursday that Maine’s elimination of time limits on child sex abuse lawsuits is unconstitutional and imposes new liabilities, a reference to costly lawsuits that have driven some dioceses into bankruptcy. … Roman Catholic dioceses in Baltimore; Buffalo, New York; and elsewhere have filed for bankruptcy under the weight of lawsuits and settlements stemming from the clergy abuse scandal. In Maine, dozens of new lawsuits have been filed since the state lifted the statute of limitations but those lawsuits are on hold pending the legal challenge of the law’s constitutionality. Maine removed its time limits in 2000 to sue over childhood sexual abuse, but not retroactively, leaving survivors without recourse for older cases dating back decades. Changes in 2021 allowed previously expired civil claims, opening the door to dozens of abuse survivors to come forward to sue. Bigos’ law firm, Berman & Simmons, represents about 100 survivors, many of whom already sued. Of those, 75 of the cases involve Roman Catholic entities, he said. … https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2023/11/09/maine-church-abuse-lawsuits-supreme-court/188efa08-7f32-11ee-b5cc-66c30a3bbb91_story.html__________________________________________________________ 10. Hamas Supporters Probably Aren’t Fit to Practice Law, Don’t denounce student radicals’ ‘values.’ See if there’s any substance behind their positions., By Hadley Arkes, The Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2023, 5:58 PM, Opinion Dozens of law firms have signed an open letter to law-school deans warning that “anti-Semitic activities would not be tolerated at any of our firms.” … The letter calls on the schools to affirm “the values we all hold dear” and reject “unreservedly that which is antithetical to those values.” It asserts that “there is no room for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism or any other form of violence, hatred or bigotry on your campuses, in our workplaces or our communities.” … But are the “values” of Sullivan & Cromwell the same as the “values” of Kirkland & Ellis, or of the University of Pennsylvania? Is there nothing in the distinct character of these institutions that can produce a moral response with edge and substance? The term “value judgment” came to us through Nietzsche and Max Weber, when people lost their confidence in speaking of moral truths and began to speak rather of the things they happened to “value,” which may not be what others “value.” … For their own part, the students would assert that there is nothing anti-Semitic in their critique. What they are condemning, they say, is the “suffocating occupation of the Palestinian people.” At that point the law firms would have to step away from the woolly affirmation of “values” to challenge the demonstrators on the substance of their claims. They would have to ask questions like these: If Hamas is engaged in “resistance,” what is the wrong that the students think finds an apt and proportionate response in the kidnapping of grandmothers and the beheading of children? The protesters inveigh against an Israeli “occupation” and the imposition of colonial “imperialism.” That has the moral resonance of charging that people are being ruled without their consent, without free elections. But Palestinians are governed by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority without free elections. Why aren’t they seeking to overthrow those regimes? What do the protesters mean by “occupation”? … Is there a legal dispute over who has a right to govern this territory?  … But that isn’t the point being made in a brutal armed assault. An assault brings no “brief” or argument; it carries its own meaning as an appeal to brute force. If that sets the terms of the engagement, the matter has been placed beyond moral reasoning altogether; it is marked by the principle that might makes right. … However the argument is played out, these are the lines on which it is most likely to run in any serious challenge. That it isn’t taking place now in the most prestigious colleges reflects what has changed so markedly in colleges that used to take themselves seriously. But one would think that these reasoned challenges would spring forth from people who have made their vocation in law. A graduate of a law school who hasn’t thought along these lines in explaining his judgments—or a student who begins by not respecting the difference between innocence and guilt—has evidently wandered into the wrong profession. It isn’t that he is unsuited to work at Kirkland & Ellis, but that he is unfit to practice law. Mr. Arkes is director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding and author of “Mere Natural Law.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/hamas-supporters-probably-arent-fit-to-practice-law-1b42128d__________________________________________________________ 11. Abortion could be the ‘preeminent’ debate in Baltimore, again. Here’s why, By JD Flynn, The Pillar, November 9, 2023, 1:56 PM, Opinion After abortion took center stage in elections Tuesday, with Ohio voters passing a constitutional amendment protecting abortion access, U.S. bishops could again find themselves debating next week just how much attention to give abortion in their own teaching documents on Catholics in political life. The bishops will vote next week at the U.S. bishops’ conference fall plenary meeting on whether to approve a new “note” on political life, along with a slew of bulletin inserts and a video script — all meant to make accessible to Catholics the USCCB’s lengthy guidance on making decisions about voting and civic participation. Amid their discussion, the bishops could take up a debate they’ve had before — on whether to call abortion a “preeminent” political priority for Catholics. … https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/abortion-could-be-the-preeminent__________________________________________________________ 12. China’s new ‘Patriotic Education Law’ places further limits on religious instruction, By Matthew Santucci, Catholic News Agency, November 9, 2023, 4:12 PM China passed a “Patriotic Education Law,” further consolidating the Chinese Communist Party’s control over education, including religious education, state-controlled media outlet Xinhua announced last month. The new law, which was passed during a session of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, would require churches and religious groups to adapt their educational activities to promote the party’s official ideology. “The state is to guide and support religious groups, religious institutes, and religious activity sites in carrying out patriotic education activities, enhancing religious professionals’ and believers’ identification with the great motherland, the Chinese people, Chinese culture, the Chinese Communist Party, and socialism with Chinese characteristics,” the new law reads. The law goes on to say that “all levels and types of school shall have patriotic education permeate the entire course of school education” and that even “the parents or other guardians of minors shall include love of the motherland in family education.” … https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255964/china-s-new-patriotic-education-law-places-further-limits-on-religious-instruction__________________________________________________________ 13. Sisters of Life win exemption from NY probe of pro-life pregnancy centers, By John Lavenburg, Crux, November 9, 2023 A Catholic community of religious sisters who operate a crisis pregnancy center in New York City won a lawsuit against the state’s health department on Nov. 8, with the department agreeing not to include the community in a probe of other pro-life pregnancy centers. In September 2022, the Sisters of Life sued then-New York State Department of Health Commissioner Mary Bassett over a New York bill passed that June that created a task force to study and report on the impact of  so-called “limited service pregnancy centers,” which are defined in the bill as organizations that advocate for women to continue their pregnancy. The Sisters of Life fit that bill, as they do not refer women for abortions at their crisis pregnancy center. … Without the lawsuit, the New York bill would’ve allowed government officials access to the religious community’s internal documents and records. They said they’re “grateful” for the Nov. 8 order. … In the order, issued by United States District Judge Jennifer Rearden and agreed to by both parties, the state health department agreed to not take any enforcement action against the Sisters of Life for “nonresponse or noncompliance with any survey, document request, or information request of any kind.” The order will end when the health department publishes the report mandated by the bill. It also states that the order applies to the Sisters of Life and only the Sisters of Life, and does not protect any other organization from participation in the health department report. .. https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2023/11/sisters-of-life-win-exemption-from-ny-probe-of-pro-life-pregnancy-centers__________________________________________________________ 14. Why I am now a Christian, Atheism can’t equip us for civilisational war, By Ayaan Hirsi Ali, UnHerd, November 13, 2023, Opinion In 2002, I discovered a 1927 lecture by Bertrand Russell entitled “Why I am Not a Christian”. It did not cross my mind, as I read it, that one day, nearly a century after he delivered it to the South London branch of the National Secular Society, I would be compelled to write an essay with precisely the opposite title. The year before, I had publicly condemned the terrorist attacks of the 19 men who had hijacked passenger jets and crashed them into the twin towers in New York. They had done it in the name of my religion, Islam. I was a Muslim then, although not a practising one. If I truly condemned their actions, then where did that leave me? The underlying principle that justified the attacks was religious, after all: the idea of Jihad or Holy War against the infidels. Was it possible for me, as for many members of the Muslim community, simply to distance myself from the action and its horrific results? At the time, there were many eminent leaders in the West — politicians, scholars, journalists, and other experts — who insisted that the terrorists were motivated by reasons other than the ones they and their leader Osama Bin Laden had articulated so clearly. So Islam had an alibi. This excuse-making was not only condescending towards Muslims. It also gave many Westerners a chance to retreat into denial. Blaming the errors of US foreign policy was easier than contemplating the possibility that we were confronted with a religious war. We have seen a similar tendency in the past five weeks, as millions of people sympathetic to the plight of Gazans seek to rationalise the October 7 terrorist attacks as a justified response to the policies of the Israeli government. When I read Russell’s lecture, I found my cognitive dissonance easing. It was a relief to adopt an attitude of scepticism towards religious doctrine, discard my faith in God and declare that no such entity existed. Best of all, I could reject the existence of hell and the danger of everlasting punishment. Russell’s assertion that religion is based primarily on fear resonated with me. I had lived for too long in terror of all the gruesome punishments that awaited me. While I had abandoned all the rational reasons for believing in God, that irrational fear of hellfire still lingered. Russell’s conclusion thus came as something of a relief: “When I die, I shall rot.” To understand why I became an atheist 20 years ago, you first need to understand the kind of Muslim I had been. I was a teenager when the Muslim Brotherhood penetrated my community in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1985. I don’t think I had even understood religious practice before the coming of the Brotherhood. I had endured the rituals of ablutions, prayers and fasting as tedious and pointless. The preachers of the Muslim Brotherhood changed this. They articulated a direction: the straight path. A purpose: to work towards admission into Allah’s paradise after death. A method: the Prophet’s instruction manual of do’s and don’ts — the halal and the haram. As a detailed supplement to the Qur’an, the hadeeth spelled out how to put into practice the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, God and the devil. The Brotherhood preachers left nothing to the imagination. They gave us a choice. Strive to live by the Prophet’s manual and reap the glorious rewards in the hereafter. On this earth, meanwhile, the greatest achievement possible was to die as a martyr for the sake of Allah. … During Islamic study sessions, we shared with the preacher in charge of the session our worries. For instance, what should we do about the friends we loved and felt loyal to but who refused to accept our dawa (invitation to the faith)? In response, we were reminded repeatedly about the clarity of the Prophet’s instructions. We were told in no uncertain terms that we could not be loyal to Allah and Muhammad while also maintaining friendships and loyalty towards the unbelievers. If they explicitly rejected our summons to Islam, we were to hate and curse them. Here, a special hatred was reserved for one subset of unbeliever: the Jew. We cursed the Jews multiple times a day and expressed horror, disgust and anger at the litany of offences he had allegedly committed. The Jew had betrayed our Prophet. He had occupied the Holy Mosque in Jerusalem. He continued to spread corruption of the heart, mind and soul. … You can see why, to someone who had been through such a religious schooling, atheism seemed so appealing. Bertrand Russell offered a simple, zero-cost escape from an unbearable life of self-denial and harassment of other people. For him, there was no credible case for the existence of God. Religion, Russell argued, was rooted in fear: “Fear is the basis of the whole thing — fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death.” As an atheist, I thought I would lose that fear. I also found an entirely new circle of friends, as different from the preachers of the Muslim Brotherhood as one could imagine. The more time I spent with them — people such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins — the more confident I felt that I had made the right choice. For the atheists were clever. They were also a great deal of fun. So, what changed? Why do I call myself a Christian now? Part of the answer is global. Western civilisation is under threat from three different but related forces: the resurgence of great-power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia; the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilise a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fibre of the next generation. We endeavour to fend off these threats with modern, secular tools: military, economic, diplomatic and technological efforts to defeat, bribe, persuade, appease or surveil. And yet, with every round of conflict, we find ourselves losing ground. We are either running out of money, with our national debt in the tens of trillions of dollars, or we are losing our lead in the technological race with China. But we can’t fight off these formidable forces unless we can answer the question: what is it that unites us? The response that “God is dead!” seems insufficient. So, too, does the attempt to find solace in “the rules-based liberal international order”. The only credible answer, I believe, lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition. … That legacy consists of an elaborate set of ideas and institutions designed to safeguard human life, freedom and dignity — from the nation state and the rule of law to the institutions of science, health and learning. As Tom Holland has shown in his marvellous book Dominion, all sorts of apparently secular freedoms — of the market, of conscience and of the press — find their roots in Christianity. And so I have come to realise that Russell and my atheist friends failed to see the wood for the trees. The wood is the civilisation built on the Judeo-Christian tradition; it is the story of the West, warts and all. Russell’s critique of those contradictions in Christian doctrine is serious, but it is also too narrow in scope. … Russell and other activist atheists believed that with the rejection of God we would enter an age of reason and intelligent humanism. But the “God hole” — the void left by the retreat of the church — has merely been filled by a jumble of irrational quasi-religious dogma. The result is a world where modern cults prey on the dislocated masses, offering them spurious reasons for being and action — mostly by engaging in virtue-signalling theatre on behalf of a victimised minority or our supposedly doomed planet. The line often attributed to G.K. Chesterton has turned into a prophecy: “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” In this nihilistic vacuum, the challenge before us becomes civilisational. We can’t withstand China, Russia and Iran if we can’t explain to our populations why it matters that we do. We can’t fight woke ideology if we can’t defend the civilisation that it is determined to destroy. And we can’t counter Islamism with purely secular tools. To win the hearts and minds of Muslims here in the West, we have to offer them something more than videos on TikTok. The lesson I learned from my years with the Muslim Brotherhood was the power of a unifying story, embedded in the foundational texts of Islam, to attract, engage and mobilise the Muslim masses. Unless we offer something as meaningful, I fear the erosion of our civilisation will continue. And fortunately, there is no need to look for some new-age concoction of medication and mindfulness. Christianity has it all. That is why I no longer consider myself a Muslim apostate, but a lapsed atheist. Of course, I still have a great deal to learn about Christianity. I discover a little more at church each Sunday. But I have recognised, in my own long journey through a wilderness of fear and self-doubt, that there is a better way to manage the challenges of existence than either Islam or unbelief had to offer. https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/__________________________________________________________

TCA Media Monitoring provides a snapshot from national newspapers and major Catholic press outlets of coverage regarding significant Catholic Church news and current issues with which the Catholic Church is traditionally or prominently engaged. The opinions and views expressed in the articles do not necessarily reflect the views of The Catholic Association.
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