Anarchism and Catholicism: An Introduction

Last updated on: August 17, 2022 at 6:55 pm By Chase Padusniak

“Anarchy,” a scary word to many, doesn’t get much used in Catholic circles. It seems downright frightening, either theologically or personally—it seems to threaten longstanding traditions of justice, not to mention the personal comfort and status of the West’s largely comfortable and assimilated Catholic population. Witness, for example, the Catholic Encyclopedia: The theory of anarchy is against all reason. Apart from the fact that it runs counter to some of the most cherished instincts of humanity, as, for instance, family... Read more

Be as Job

Last updated on: June 26, 2017 at 12:43 am By Chase Padusniak

Job confounds. A book in which God allows “the satan” to overwhelm a righteous man, purely to prove that Job’s righteousness and fear of God come not from God’s blessings, but instead are rooted in a respect for the creator. The premise thus seems simple enough: love God at all times; let not material and spiritual health and prosperity dictate whether or not you worship the Lord your god. After his servants are murdered, his livestock stolen, that is, his... Read more

Don’t Let Mike Pence Speak at Notre Dame

Last updated on: May 18, 2017 at 4:58 pm By Chase Padusniak

As a man who has quite literally left the Catholic Church, it’s hard to imagine showcasing a worse example for the faithful. Read more

Ecclesiastes Is All We Need

Last updated on: May 17, 2017 at 1:18 am By Chase Padusniak

Everything, absolutely everything, you consider important, all the goods to which you lay claim—it’s all vanity. Read more

How to Avoid Cafeteria Catholicism and Champagne Socialism

Last updated on: September 11, 2019 at 10:36 am By Chase Padusniak

In my own conversion, Catholicism was attractive precisely because it provided guidance; it made sense out of how to live. Read more

The Thing about First Things

Last updated on: May 9, 2017 at 8:19 pm By Chase Padusniak

During my senior year of college, I took over our campus’s right-leaning paper, The Fenwick Review. Notorious for its polemics, its deft ability to put the student body at odds, my tenure as co-editor marked something of a shift. We made the thing glossy in contrast to its previous news-ink soaked state. We brought on student artists to design the cover and punctuate the articles with wannabe medieval grotesques. Poetry, short stories, and cartoons began to appear. Why? I felt... Read more

Pope Francis Revisited

Last updated on: May 11, 2017 at 12:24 pm By Chase Padusniak

Will we read him with suspicion, or shall we honor him in love? Read more

Responsio ad Herr Journalist Polemikerque Rod Dreher Louisianae

Last updated on: April 4, 2017 at 9:07 pm By Chase Padusniak

“Hail Muse! et cetera.” – George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS “Yeah them my dogs, them my boys.” – Jeffrey Lamar Williams, Not FRS It is I, Herr Doktorand Chase William Jarid Michael Padusniak, son of Frank and Robyn, likewise grandson of Frances and Chester, Frank and Stephanie, etc. And I was once a reader of Rod Dreher. More recently, I haven’t visited his page much, but today I returned to find a scathing review of a charitable review... Read more

Ideas Don’t Have Consequences

Last updated on: September 11, 2017 at 6:05 pm By Chase Padusniak

The title is patently false; let’s get that out of the way. I’ve used it in order to riff on Richard Weaver’s famous Ideas Have Consequences, a book I read back in my days with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. It’s not a text I think about very often, but it’s one that—if Sam Rocha’s review of Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option is to be believed—has become highly influential at the popular level. And I’ve seen this elsewhere. We find a... Read more

The Devil and the Details

Last updated on: March 31, 2017 at 7:37 pm By Chase Padusniak

When you tell a lie, you keep it as simple as possible (not, of course, that I’d ever lie). The reason is simple: the more you say, the more you could be challenged on; small inconsistencies begin to develop, and, before you know it, what had once seemed a cohesive story has fallen to pieces. This is not unlike how we traffic in online arguments. Person One presents his or her position only to have Person Two add details that... Read more