Word: rerum
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...left on economic and foreign policy matters. Thirty years ago my stance would not have seemed paradoxical. Catholics were historically one of the most liberal groups in the country and a quick glance at papal encyclicals laying out Church teachings on war (Pacem in Terris) and labor and economics (Rerum Novarum), one might begin to wonder if Marx didn’t write off his biggest potential ally. Then along came Ronald Reagan’s PR machine, turning the abortion issue into the electoral juggernaut that it is, and swung the Catholic vote like Nixon swung...
Stallings, who studied classics at the University of Georgia and at Oxford, is currently at work on a verse translation of the Roman philosopher-poet Lucretius’ epic De Rerum Natura. Thus, Stallings’ preoccupation with classical themes is not particularly surprising. What is especially interesting about Stallings’ work is that in spite of her devotion to the Classics, she does not shy away from exploring themes that are uniquely modern—even futuristic...
...devils snipe. The giants brawl; they trample the flowers. They break things. Sunt lacrimae rerum--the world's sad mortality. But collateral damage is a wily concept, and you have to make distinctions. There are varieties. Sometimes, as at My Lai, it occurs as atrocious revenge. (One detail made My Lai indelible in my mind: the murderers took a lunch break.) Sometimes, as at Kent State, or Amritsar in 1919, the damage may be the consequence of bad crowd control. Stupidity and atrocity are closely related...
...then a touch of the bodice-ripper; or when flying high, of Evelyn Waugh--a soigne escapism that is a parody of sophistication, so bad that it is great fun. All that literary ingenuity gone to sell clothes in the mail...and to end up bankrupt, besides. Sunt lacrimae rerum, as an unforgettable 'Cliffie whispered to me that night in the Club Mt. Auburn, just before Joanie Baez came...
...then in 1991 Centesimus annus came in, a 25,000-word encyclical on the 100th anniversary of Leo XIII's Rerum novarum, the momentous condemnation of liberalism and materialism. Materialism meant then what it means today. By liberalism, Pope Leo had in mind contemporary movements that sought, in the name of "modernism," to free human beings from traditional attachments to church and family. In the centennial encyclical, Pope John Paul reiterated his frequent admonitions. The worker or manager who reports to duty at the shop every morning inflamed by the desire to make a better widget and sell more...