St. Maximos' Hut

This is probably out of my league to really understand, but it sounds interesting enough to make some effort to grasp:

Subsidiarity, Federalism and the Best Constitution: Thomas Aquinas on City, Province and Empire

by NICHOLAS ARONEY

Abstract:

This article closely examines the way in which Thomas Aquinas understood the relationship between the various forms of human community. The article focuses on Aquinas's theory of law and politics and, in particular, on his use of "political" categories, such as city, province and empire, together with the associated concepts of kingdom and nation, as well as various "social" groupings, such as household, clan and village, alongside of the distinctly "ecclesiastical" categories of parish, diocese and universal church.

The analysis of these categories is used in the article to help explain Aquinas's role in the development of theories about subsidiarity, federalism and mixed constitutionalism. In the first place, it is argued that a close inquiry into Aquinas's discussion of the many and various forms of human community sheds light on the origins and development of the idea of subsidiarity within Catholic social teaching. Second, while Aquinas certainly did not advance a theory of federalism as that idea is presently understood, it is argued that recovering what Aquinas had to say about the categories of human community helps us to understand the origin and later development of federal ideas. Finally, it is argued that far from endorsing a system of absolute monarchy as is sometimes alleged, when understood in this way, Aquinas supported a particular kind of mixed constitution in which monarchy is "tempered" by a variety of constitutional constraints founded upon a conception of the body politic as itself constructed out of a plurality of smaller, intermediate corporations and communities of a political, ecclesiastical and social character.

Paper here.

Mark Steyn has a great column on climate change that includes the following:

Environmentalism doesn't need the support of the church, it's a church in itself -- and furthermore, one explicitly at odds with Christianity: God sent His son to Earth as a man, not as a three-toed tree sloth or an Antarctic krill. An environmentalist can believe man is no more than a co-equal planet dweller with millions of other species, and that he's taking up more than his fair share and needs to reduce both his profile and his numbers. But that's profoundly hostile to Christianity.

I went "tomb hopping" with Fr. Michael, his kids, and a bunch of other folks from St. Innocent on Friday night - we visited six other Orthodox churches in the Cleveland area, got short tours by Fr. M, hung out with Fr. Stephen and his youth group at St. George Antiochian, saw St. Theodosius (featured in The Deer Hunter) in the dim light of candles and with clouds of incense, some amazing icons at St. Vladimir's, and generally had a great time. Along the way, we discussed a feature of church history I know little about, the "Eastern Rite" Catholic churches. There's an interesting discussion of these churches here.

Anyone interested in seeing Orthodox churches ought to consider a Friday night visit on Holy Friday.

In the growing economics of religion literature, I haven't seen anyone take up this particular topic - it seems like one that is made for an economic analysis and, to the extent there are records of individual churches or bishops 'switching sides' between Orthodox and Catholic allegiances in various areas of Eastern Europe over time, might even be susceptible to some econometrics. Could be a good seminar paper for some grad student.