(The following is a robust version of the talk I gave to the American Chesterton Society's "ChesterTEN" conference on Friday, August 6th 2010.) Today we are going to try something a little different. How well it goes down depends on how many cups of coffee you’ve had this morning. My name is Richard Aleman and [...]
What is Distributism? Distributism finds its roots in the social and economic theories articulated in the documents of the Catholic pontiffs, beginning with Pope Leo XIII’s “Rerum Novarum.” These social encyclicals raise imperatives on economic transaction and its relation to labor, solidarity, wages, the wide diffusion of ownership, and the proper limits of technology. Distributism is an [...]
Nota bene: Encyclicals treat specific areas of doctrine and, as Magisterial teachings, they require faithful submission of both intellect and will. According to the First Vatican Council text Dei Fillius, ‘[A]ll those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and which [...]
In 2004, Hollywood moguls slammed The Passion of the Christ for its excessive violence while the industry spent decades cashing-in on blood baths like Halloween, Hellraiser, and the psychopathic-comedy A Nightmare on Elm Street. Hollywood’s denouncement of the film’s graphic content was a sleight of hand to cover up the success of an A-list actor who [...]
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s socio-economic thought is found in his books, “Rebuilding Russia,” “From Under the Rubble,” “Letter to the Soviet Leaders,” and his address to the 1978 Harvard graduating class. As Solzhenitsyn relayed to author Joseph Pearce in his book “Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile,” he arrived at his conclusions unaware of the early Distributist movement [...]
