Yesterday I heard for the first time a catchy song called Chicken Fried, which won a Grammy and sold more than two million copies by asking listeners to . . .
". . . salute the ones who died
so we don't have to sacrifice
all the things we love:
like our chicken fried,
cold beer on a Friday night,
a pair of jeans that fit just right,
and the radio up . . . ."
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Now when my father's generation fought in Vietnam, I'm sure they sometimes wore jeans that fit just right, ate chicken fried, and drank beer while the radio blared.
| But like all good soldiers, they fought for more than beer and blue jeans. |
And without considering it for even a whole day, their enemy, Ho Chi Minh, rejected Lyndon Johnson's offer to invest a billion dollars in North and South Vietnam, to build schools and hospitals there, and even hydroelectric dams, and ship to Vietnam vast amounts of food . . . if only the North would lay down its arms.
| Like our American soldiers, Ho Chi Minh and his people also fought for more than chicken fried and cold beer on a Friday night. |
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That war killed almost 60,000 Americans and more than a million Vietnamese . . . not for love of comfort (which good men renounce when the stakes are high), but for that which drives the greatest conflicts: the ideals of each side.
As World War II thrust Nazism against the West, so Vietnam flung Communism against it. In our day, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and groups driven by kindred ideals assail the West in new and deadly ways.
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Ideals.
Ideas.
For them, men are
willing to die . . . and to kill.
Even to kill millions, as we saw in Stalin's Ukraine, Hitler's Germany, Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia, and so many other killing fields in our sorrowful world.
| Which is why it's critical that men and women come to know — and to act on — the right ideas: Catholic ideas and ideals. |
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For almost 30 years now, we here at Sophia Institute Press have been seeding our world with the right ideas in over 3 million copies of wise works of Catholic philosophy, theology, and spirituality rich with ideals which, if pressed into action,
. . . would end the slaughter of abortion and other evils that, in our day, have taken millions more lives than any war!
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| *You know, over the years for our lifegiving labors, we've received personal thanks from Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger, Mother Teresa, and scores of cardinals, bishops, priests, and sisters. |  |
| And thousands of laymen worldwide have thanked us for freeing them from despair, and for drawing them or their loved ones back to the truth of Christ. |
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Hard times visited us again and again, but the good souls here persevered. Several months ago, we made significant changes to permanently correct our financial troubles so that we can survive long term. Unfortunately, this involved reducing staff and cutting expenses.
Those new austerities have left us funds enough to get back into print books filled with the right ideas — Catholic ideas — written by some of history's greatest Catholic authors, including . . .
• St. Thomas Aquinas
• Bishop Fulton J. Sheen,one of the Church's greatest theologians and philosophers
• Dietrich von Hildebrand,hailed by Pope Pius XII as "the 20th Century Doctor of the Church."
• Henri Daniel-Rops,author of Jesus and His Times
• Fr. Romano Guardini,
the German priest who profoundly influenced
the early formation of Pope Benedict XVI
• And scores of other Catholic thinkers,many of whose works are not available anywhere else!
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Since April,
we've distributed
40,000
more Catholic books!
. . . placing them in the hands of souls desperately searching for Truth, souls who are exploring Catholicism and considering conversion, and souls who want to grow more deeply in their love of Christ and His Church.
One of our titles, Rachel's Contrition, was recently the #1 bestseller in Women's Fiction on Amazon.com, and just last week it was awarded this year's prestigious Catholic Arts and Letters Award of the Catholic Writers Guild — an honor bestowed on just one new Catholic novel each year: the very best that was published.
| *To continue publishing soul-saving Catholic classics and award-winning new Catholic books like Rachel's Contrition, we need your help now! |
These past 30 years, Sophia has accomplished many great things through personal sacrifice. Like American soldiers on battlefields across the world, we're happy to continue to sacrifice ourselves for ideals we know to be true.
Our culture desperately needs to be nourished by the light of Christ — and our easy-to-read but faithful Catholic books serve as a major source of this nourishment.
If Sophia can raise just $25,000 in the coming weeks, we'll quickly be able to bring an additional 20 of our books back into print — and publish four more titles that have never been published.
To win the battle of ideas, we must flood this world with scores of new editions of solid Catholic classics and with new works of Catholic philosophy, theology, apologetics, history, and even Catholic fiction.
But to do this, we need your help. Will you use this PayPal button to contribute $25, $50, or even $100 today so that I can get those twenty books back into print?
With the help you give today,
Sophia will also print and distribute in the next three months alone an additional 40,000 Catholic books,placing them in the hands of souls seeking answers — answers only Christ and His Church can give.
If you and I
don't do this
for the Church,
who will? |
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You know, in Vietnam our soldiers ran the good race and fought the good fight. They accomplished their mission, but Vietnam was lost anyway.
Here at Sophia we've run the good race and fought the good fight,
but we dare not risk losing this spiritual war . . . or all that may be left is chicken fried and cold beer on a Friday night! |
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Oh, in themselves, there's nothing wrong with chicken and beer. But man doesn't live by beer alone (not even good German beer).
That's why, generations ago, God fed the starving Israelites with manna in the desert. At the Last Supper, He fed us again with bread and wine, transformed into His holy Body and Blood.
Today, He yearns to feed us, too . . . with His sweet Truth. Not miraculously, but (as in the Communion line at Church) by means of the hands of our brothers and sisters, your hands and ours.
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Our hands here at Sophia have the skills necessary to produce handsome editions of solid Catholic books. With your financial support, we can use those skills to bring forth for our generation another three million Catholic books.
But we need your help to continue this work. Together, we can flood the world with the right ideals — Catholic ideals.
Please help. And, as always, please pray for me, for Sophia's staff, and for the work we do each day on behalf of Christ and His Church.
Yours in Christ the King,
If you would prefer not to use PayPal, you can add a contributiondirectly to your shopping cart at our on-line store.
Sophia Institute Press is the publishing division of
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