1. Introduction

Eugene Michael Jones (born May 4, 1948) is an American writer, former professor, media commentator and the current editor of Culture Wars magazine (formerly Fidelity Magazine). Jones is known for his writings from a perspective which defends the Catholic Church in American society and overviews the decline of the Catholic communities which were assimilated into the secular American mainstream after the 1950s.

2. Early Career

He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in a German American family and was raised a Catholic, but lost interest in religion in early adulthood. He became involved in the counterculture of the 1960s. He found little satisfaction after leaving his faith and eventually returned to it after reading The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. Jones then obtained his Ph.D. from Temple University and began to teach at Saint Mary's College, of Notre Dame, Indiana. To his displeasure, he found this college to be what he considered to be (in the words of Michael W. Cuneo, who interviewed him) "the antithesis of what a Catholic college should be", as it was pro-choice, feminist and secular.

He made little effort to conceal his views, which led to conflicts with many faculty, his department chairwoman, and eventually the college's president. Though he was in a tenure track position, the department, which viewed him as a religious absolutist, decided against renewing his contract after his first year.^[1]

3. Writings

Jones's work has primarily been concerned with the relationship between the Catholic Church and secular culture, particularly the effects of the sexual revolution on the Church and the culture. Later work has focused on the historical friction between the Catholic Church and Jews. In 2004, the Catholic League "condemned Jones’s antisemitism and repudiated his efforts to justify it in the name of Catholic theology".^[2]. Thomas Herron, writing for Culture Wars Magazine, rejected The Catholic League's "antisemitism" label, while pointing out that whichever author wrote the piece for The Catholic League attributed quotes to Jones that he never made and took other writings out of context.^[3]

In February 2008, another complaint of antisemitism (from the Southern Poverty Law Center) caused the School of Architecture at The Catholic University of America to cancel a lecture series in which Jones was scheduled to speak. Jones has denied accusations of antisemitism and says that any form of racism is against his Catholic faith.^[4] He has stated publicly that he considers modern Judaism to be a wicked ideology, but he condemns criticism of Jews based upon race.^[5] In an interview with The Washington Times, Jones said that he rejected racism in all of its forms, as is consistent with Catholic teaching,^[4] and responded to the cancellation of the conference at the Catholic University of America in an article in Culture Wars.^[6]

4. Current Work

In recent years, Jones has focused on and has written numerous articles examining usury and wider economic issues. In 2014, Fidelity Press published Jones's approximately 1300 page work Barren Metal: a History of Capitalism as the Conflict between Labor and Usury.

5. Bibliography

• The Angel and the Machine: The Rational Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1991) Open Court Publishing, ISBN:978-0-89385-195-8
• Degenerate Moderns: Modernity as Rationalized Sexual Misbehavior (1993), Ignatius Press, ISBN:0-89870-447-2
• Dionysos Rising: The Birth of Cultural Revolution Out of the Spirit of Music (1994), Ignatius Press, ISBN:0-89870-484-7
• Living Machines: Bauhaus Architecture As Sexual Ideology (1995) Ignatius Press, ISBN:0-89870-464-2
• Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation & Political Control (1999), St. Augustine's Press, ISBN:1-58731-465-7
• Monsters From the Id: The Rise of Horror in Fiction and Film (2000), Spence Publishing ISBN:1-890626-06-6
• The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing (2005), St. Augustine's Press, ISBN:1-58731-775-3
• "Manipulating Catholic Support: The Black Operation Known as 'Conservatism'," in: Neo-Conned! Again: Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape of Iraq. IHS Press, pp. 171–180 ISBN:978-1932528077

Fidelity Press

• Is Notre Dame Still Catholic? (1989), ISBN:0-929891-01-5
• John Cardinal Krol and the Cultural Revolution (1995), ISBN:0-929891-02-3
• The Medjugorje Deception: Queen of Peace, Ethnic Cleansing, Ruined Lives (1998), ISBN:0-929891-05-8
• The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World History (2008), ISBN:0-929891-07-4
• Is Notre Dame Still Catholic? [expanded 2nd edition] (2009), ISBN:978-0-929891-01-9
• Ballet Parking: Performing the Nutcracker as a Counter-Revolutionary Act (2009), ISBN:978-0-929891-08-8
• Barren Metal: A History of Capitalism as the Conflict between Usury and Labor (2014), ISBN:0-929891-14-7