Forgotten Lore: Triumph

Awhile ago while I was hunting around the Web for something, I came across some information about Brent Bozell, Jr. and his magazine named Triumph, published from 1966 and 1976.  Since then, I've acquired Bozell's collection of essays, Mustard Seeds: A Conservative Becomes a Catholic, and a compilation of essays and editorials from the magazine known as The Best of Triumph, both currently published under the imprint of Christendom College, itself founded by a contributor to the magazine.

While hunting around the Web for more information, I came across the dissertation of Mark D. Popowski about the magazine.  I later found out that he had written a book on the same subject, published in 2011, which I obtained through interlibrary loan from Marquette University.

The following is a comment I posted today at Rorate Caeli:

Yesterday I finished reading The Rise and Fall of Triumph: The History of a Radical Roman Catholic Magazine, 1966-1976 by Mark D. Popowski.  In his book, Popowski does an excellent job of summing up the philosophical writings of Catholics Brent Bozell (not the currently living neocon son), Frederick Wilhelmsen of the University of Dallas, and many others as published in the magazine Triumph from 1966 to 1976.

Their efforts were directed towards showing that The American Experiment(tm) is fundamentally flawed (both the conservative and liberal views of it) and at war with natural law and Christianity.  Popowski writes, "The editors sought to lead an exodus of American Catholics from the American state and society and to establish a Catholic tribe—not for isolation but for confrontation—in order to fortify and order their ranks from which they could lead sallies into American society to convert it to the Roman Catholic faith."

This review looks at Popowski's book and describes well the thoughts and motives of Triumph and its parent organzation, the Society for a Christian Commonwealth.

One of the comments to that review alludes to an historical detail about which I would love to learn more.  The woman who posted the comment said that she had been in contact with one of the contributors of the magazine who had back in the day done research that including a "surprising link with Freemasons in the Irish American Church hierarchy."