Justice University

       Everybody likes DIY (“Do It Yourself”) videos, right?   Well, not everybody can whip out a mission-style house with all the furniture (unless your name happens to be Norm Abram, that is, and you have every power tool known to man or woman), but you can join in the feeding frenzy when it comes to undermining the fundamental principles of natural law and common sense:

       How did “the new things” of socialism, modernism, and esotericism (“New Age”) manage to become part and parcel of the political and economic thought of so many people?   After all, as we define it (abolition of private property in capital), socialism is not particularly social, modernism (not modernity, but a philosophical/theological shift from the human person to the abstraction of humanity) is not really all that modern, and esotericism or the New Age is not all that new.

  Ninety years ago, the noted English writer G.K. Chesterton gave his opinion of socialism and modernism.   As he said, “ anything can be called Socialism , . . . it seems to mean Modernism ; in the sociological as distinct from the theological sense. In both senses, it is generally a euphemism for muddle-headedness .” ( “There Was a Socialist,” G.K.’s Weekly , May 10, 1930. )

  This week we have another video from the “Sensus Fidelium” YouTube channel.   Yes (as we’ve said before), it’s a “Catholic channel,” and if you search through the thousands of hours of programming on the channel, you will find a great deal of material oriented to Catholics.   There’s a bit of that in these videos, too (of course), but the primary emphasis is on the “natural law” aspect of Catholic social teaching, so you can mentally filter out the explicitly Catholic material if you’ve a mind to, and you won’t miss anything.

  This week we have another video blog from "Sensus Fidelium," hosted by Steve Cunningham.  Again, we issue the caveat that this is a "Catholic" show, but the subject (the origin of the encyclical Rerum Novarum ) has a direct bearing on the Just Third Way of economic personalism.  As you listen, you will start to realize just how the antics of politicians and economic conditions affect general understanding of such inalienable natural rights of life, liberty, and private property: