by: Jonathan Bishop

The article was first reported by The CRUX.

In order to truly understand this election, we have to look backward.

No, not in a reactionary way. Rather, we need to study the past because republics-and human beings-have faced batty, crude, and even alarming periods before. Nothing is new.

So how far should we go? Rome?  Let’s try 19^th-century France and pull a figure from it:  Emmanuel d’Alzon, founder of the Augustinians of the Assumption.

D’Alzon’s time was much like our own. In an 1835 letter to Alphonse de Vigniamont, a friend, d’Alzon discussed the importance of ideas and education in shaping human character, a truth already beginning to fade. His thoughts are worth quoting at length:

“The more I look at the world from this point of view, the more I am disgusted with politics, which I consider to be a dead end. There is no life there, only death convulsions, powerless attempts to organize, vain efforts, unless Catholic thought penetrates it with charity, justice, and the spirit of Christian liberty, which regardless of what they say is completely suffocated in our day. I have made up my mind, and it is confirmed each day as I read the second psalm, which I urge you to meditate.

WORCESTER, MA (November 1, 2016)—University of Notre Dame professor Richard Garnett, J.D., will address the Assumption College community on religious freedom and how, despite growing challenges, respecting and protecting these freedoms is essential for all.  Professor Garnett’s lecture will be held on Monday, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. in the Salon of Assumption’s La Maison building, located at 500 Salisbury Street.

Professor Garnett’s lecture, entitled “The Past, Present and Future of Religious Freedom in America?”, will thoroughly examine the meaning and limits of religious freedom, often called America’s “First Freedom,” and how they are becoming increasingly controversial and unclear. As America’s communities are becoming more diverse and as the sphere of government action and regulation grows, the challenge of respecting and protecting religious freedom for all is becoming more difficult. He will also examine freedoms of speech, association, religion, and constitutional law’s relationship to one another.

The priest’s return to the people of eastern Congo surprised few of his friends. His murder surprised no one.

By Art Jahnke

There was one thing about Father Vincent Machozi that worried his religious superiors in the Brighton, Mass., house of the Augustinians of the Assumption. Machozi, a contemplative priest from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), operated a website, Beni Lubero Online, where he posted grisly iPhone photos of victims of violence in the DRC province of North Kivu, as well as reports that often identified the killers as military or government agents. Machozi (STH’15), who was working toward a PhD at BU’s School of Theology, hoped that the photos of dead and dismembered bodies would galvanize site visitors to help end the violence. His superiors, on the other hand, feared that they would invite the revenge of the warlords and militias who controlled the lawless province, and who could easily direct their retaliation at some of the 150 Assumptionist priests working in schools and orphanages in eastern Congo. They asked that Machozi never link the site in any way to the Assumptionist order.