135 - The Cardinal vs. the Communists - Arpad von Klimo

06/21/22 • 68 min

Historian Árpád von Klimó joins the podcast to give an introduction to József Cardinal Mindszenty (1892-1975), prince primate of Hungary. Mindszenty was not only the face of Hungarian resistance to fascism and communism, but ultimately a symbol Catholic resistance to communism worldwide. From 1948 to 1956 he was in a communist prison, from 1956 to 1971 he was isolated from the world as a refuge in the U.S. Legation in Hungary. He then spent the last 4 years of his life in exile from his country and in increasing tension with the Vatican's more conciliatory approach to diplomacy with Soviet nations.

Links

Victim of History: Cardinal Mindszenty, a Biography https://www.cuapress.org/9780813234991/victim-of-history/

Árpád von Klimó https://history.catholic.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-profiles/von-klimo-arpad/index.html

Links

Victim of History: Cardinal Mindszenty, a Biography https://www.cuapress.org/9780813234991/victim-of-history/

Árpád von Klimó https://history.catholic.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-profiles/von-klimo-arpad/index.html

Previous Episode

134 - The Political Form of Evil - D. C. Schindler

D. C. Schindler's book The Politics of the Real: The Church between Liberalism and Integralism is one of the richest entries in the ongoing Catholic debate over liberalism, political authority, the common good, and the relation between Church and State.

Schindler offers subtle, convincing arguments as to why liberalism is "the political form of evil", specifically consisting of a rejection of the Christian form - specifically, the Jewish-Greek-Roman synthesis embodied in the Catholic Church.

Liberalism creates a situation like that described by comedian Stephen Wright: "Last night somebody broke into my apartment and replaced everything with exact duplicates." It adopts aspects of the Western tradition but only on radically different grounds, with a fragmented vision of reality. Even when liberalism claims to make room for religious tradition, it does so only by reconceiving religion as a mere object of individual choice - that is, precisely as non-traditional.

But Schindler goes beyond criticizing liberalism, offering a profound and beautiful ontology of the social order and a somewhat different model of the relation between Church and State from the one proposed by Catholic integralists.

Schindler joins the podcast to discuss the book, including topics such as:

Why objecting to non-liberal philosophy as "impractical" is a rejection of man as a rational creature
Liberalism's false claim of neutrality (or non-confessionalism)
The "Christian form" and its fragmentation
Why liberalism is “the political form of evil”
The roots of liberalism in medieval nominalism
The anti-Catholic meaning of the Declaration of Independence's “laws of nature and of nature’s God”
How the "neutral public square" subverts every tradition it "makes room for"
The problem with distinguishing "civil society" from the state
Why property is central to understanding the relation between individuals and society

Links

The Politics of the Real https://newpolity.com/new-polity-press-titles/the-politics-of-the-real

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Next Episode

136 - The Novel Against Self-Destruction - Joshua Hren

Joshua Hren returns to discuss his debut novel, Infinite Regress.

"In the years since his graduation from St. Marquis University, Blake Yourrick has fled his family and Milwaukee, rotating from job to dead-end job—working the Bakken oilfields in Dakota and even signing on as the night caretaker of a rural abbey graveyard. Deep in student debt and estranged from his misanthropic, alcoholic father, Blake is haunted by the memory of his mother’s death—and by his relationship with his college mentor, a defrocked priest named Theo Hape, who is known for his adventurous theological ideas as well as for the uncanny, seductive power he wields over his students. When Hape, learning of his former charge’s desperate straits, proposes a perverse exchange of services, Blake finds himself tempted to test the professor’s radical theories in real life. What follows is a metaphysical duel reminiscent of the novels of Dostoevsky and Bernanos, pitting a modern-day anti-Christ against a reckless but resilient young man and his well-meaning, dysfunctional kin." (Publisher's description)

The book is particularly timely in its philosophical themes, as it touches on the subject of metaphysical deconstruction used as cover for sexual grooming in the world of education.

Thomas and Joshua discuss the novel's defrocked Jesuit villain, the protagonists' escape from a philosophy which makes good dependent on evil and so eliminates the boundaries between the two, the book's themes of monetary and metaphysical debt, its comic tone, and Hren's unusual associative prose style.

Links

Joshua Hren, Infinite Regress https://www.angelicopress.org/infinite-regress-joshua-hren

Wiseblood Books https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/

Master in Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of St. Thomas https://www.stthom.edu/Academics/School-of-Arts-and-Sciences/Division-of-Liberal-Studies/Graduate/Master-of-Fine-Arts-in-Creative-Writing/Index.aqf?Aquifer_Source_URL=%2FMFA&PNF_Check=1

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate