MD Litonjua

Mount St. Joseph University, Behavioral Sciences, Emeritus

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Loyola Marymount University

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Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

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Universidad Nacional Autonoma De Honduras

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Nueva Vizcaya State University

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UNL - New University of Lisbon

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Papers by MD Litonjua

Of Nuclear Bombs and Nuclear Deterrence

July 16, 1945, was the date when the first atomic bomb was detonated. July 16, 2025, the date I a... more

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American Liberal Democracy in Danger

Across the globe, liberal democracy is failing. We now have illiberal democracies, verging on aut... more Across the globe, liberal democracy is failing. We now have illiberal democracies, verging on autocracies. We have outright authoritarianisms, using force to impose their will on citizens. We see the erosion of democratic rule, in that people are clamoring for a strong leader to solve problems. The glaring example is that of the United States, once the shining city upon a hill, a beacon of democracy, freedom, and human rights to the world, once the place of aspirations to live, work, and prosper. The U. S. is now a bully upon a hill, doing lasting damage to its institutions, to its alliances, to its moral standing in the world. Its leader creates chaos for the sake of chaos that render its citizens anxious, fearful, and powerless, as it enacts revenge and retaliation on his perceived enemies-and pursues avarice for his family.

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Four Narratives of Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism, the ideology of an unfettered market, has ruled the United States and most of the ... more Neoliberalism, the ideology of an unfettered market, has ruled the United States and most of the world for about fifty years now, ever since Ronald Reagan of the United States and Margaret Thatcher of Britain embraced Milton Friedman's ideas in the 1980s. In the aftermath of the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Bill Clinton took up the baton to spread the Washinton consensus of liberalization, deregulation, and privatization across the globe. With the Great Recession in 2008 and its devastation of economies and lives, caused by neoliberal newfangled financial instruments, Gary Gerstle (2022; also Anlauf and Schmalz 2025)), professor of history and director of research at the University of Cambridge, announced the fall of the neoliberal order. But nothing has emerged to take its place. Neoliberal ethos and ethics continue to wield influence.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Rise and Fall of Asia

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International Free Trade, the WTO, and the Third World/global South

The Journal of Third World Studies, 2010

INTRODUCTION International flee trade is the bedrock foundation of the neoliberal globalization p... more INTRODUCTION International flee trade is the bedrock foundation of the neoliberal globalization project. The World Trade Organization (WTO), established in 1995 to promote and manage international free trade, together with the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have come to be the global enforcers of neoliberal economic policies. The agreement establishing the WTO (1995) listed the following objectives the organization serves: raising standards of living, ensuring full employment and a large and steadily growing volume of real income and effective demand, and expanding the production of and trade in goods and services, while allowing for the optimal use of the world's resources in accordance with the objective of sustainable development, seeking both to protect and preserve the environment and to enhance the means for doing so in a manner consistent with their respective needs and concerns at different levels of economic development. (1) Dani Rodrik point...

Moltmann on the Risen Christ and the Crucified God

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Ressentiment in the City upon a Hill

America is a city upon a hill, warned John Winthrop, as he and his fellow Puritans set to sail fo... more America is a city upon a hill, warned John Winthrop, as he and his fellow Puritans set to sail for America, open for all to see, to witness its future accomplishments as well as its future transgressions. America is a "shining" city upon a hill, raptured Ronald Reagan, a beacon of freedom and democracy to the world, though he concealed the fact that it was built on the genocide of one race and the enslavement if another. America is a bully upon a bill, is what it has become under Donald Trump, as he pursues revenge and retribution on his perceived enemies, wrecks long-established institutions for whatever or no reason, imposes restraints and sanctions on allies of long-standing. But more than anything else, he is bent on destroying America which for long has been the aspiration and inspiration for a better life, for democratic governance, for respect for human rights, for greater freedom. He is dissolving America's "soft power," which for the political scientist Joseph Nye, was America's more powerful global influence than its military power. Joseph Nye and "Soft Power" Joseph S. Nye Jr. was considered the dean of American political science, an influential figure in shaping American national security policy. He led the John F. Kennedy School of Government and held senior jobs in the Carter and Clinton administrations. He died May 6, 2025, at the age of 88 in Cambridge, MA. As Trip Gabriel (2015) eulogized, "his thinking radiated far outside the Ivory Tower: He influenced diplomats and national security officials, and, as a soft-spoken, fatherly figure, he was a mentor to many who made careers in government."

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Gustavo Gutierrez: Liberation and Salvation

Orbis Books came out with a third edition on its 50 th anniversary in 2023 with a long and helpfu... more Orbis Books came out with a third edition on its 50 th anniversary in 2023 with a long and helpful historical introduction by Michael E. Lee (2023), professor of theology at Fordham University where he also has affiliation with its Latin American Institute. Travis Knoll (2023), who received his Ph.D. from Duke and teaches history at Wingate University, also published an article on the book's anniversary in Boston Review, concentrating on how "religion met Marxism in the liberation theology movement; its message still serves."

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The Historical Jesus and the Christ of Faith

First, a note, in sociology we distinguish between marginal and marginalized. Marginal refers to ... more First, a note, in sociology we distinguish between marginal and marginalized. Marginal refers to a person who straddles two cultures, his own and one he has assimilated into. I am a Filipino by birth, but I am also a naturalized American. I have assimilated myself into American culture, living as I do more than half of my life in the United States, getting a Ph. D. at Brown University and teaching at Mount St. Joseph University, but I still hold on in many ways to my Filipino culture, including its language and food. Marginalized refers to a person who is thrown into the margins of society, poor, oppressed, perhaps discriminated against, without much recognition from mainstream society. John Dominic Crossan recognized the distinction and commented that "marginalized," applied to Jesus more than "marginal." But the dictionary meaning of marginal as insignificant, as negligible, of little interest, of concern only to a few, applies also to Jesus during his lifetime in Galilee. Except in the Gospels, there is nary a mention of Jesus in historical documents, except for a passing mention in Josephus.

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Is the Clerical Sexual Abuse of Minors a Social Sin

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Sacramentality vs. Clericalism

David Tracy (1981: 408), professor of theology at the University of Chicago, called "the analogic... more David Tracy (1981: 408), professor of theology at the University of Chicago, called "the analogical imagination," that looks for similarities in differences, the classic Catholic conceptual approach for the task of theology, a language that is both faithful to the tensive character of the religious language employed for the originating religious event and faithful to the demands of critical reflection, which is a major aspect of theology's task. In fact, Tracy (1981: 412) pointed out that "for Rahner, reality not merely has analogies but is analogy through and through," i.e. all realities are different from each other, but there are similarities between them. For example, Christ is king and Charles is king; they are different kinds of kings, but they share a similarity in that both of them rule. The originating religious event is Jesus Christ, and "the Christian in responding to the event of Jesus Christ senses that the very concreteness of that focus intensifies, clarifies, transforms the experience always-already, not-yet present in all human experience. The principal focus remains on the event and gift of Jesus Christ now renamed grace. Yet the focus of radical grace is itself always focused by and towards the event of Jesus Christ" (Tracy 1981: 424).

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Capitalism and the Challenge of Climate Change

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Francis, Pope of Sacramentality

My appreciation of Pope Francis.

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BOOK: FRANCIS, POPE AND PASTOR

A collection of my articles written about the Franciscan papacy.

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American Democracy: Plutocracy and Plutonomy

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"Slaves of Some Defunct Economist"

John Maynard Keynes famously said that "practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt ... more John Maynard Keynes famously said that "practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually slaves of some defunct economist." I remembered this saying after I had belatedly read Nicholas Wapshott's two outstanding books, Keynes Hayek and Samuelson Friedman, and found myself trying to make sense of Donald Trump's attacks on international free trade, the bedrock foundation of the global economy, with tariffs. In Keynes Hayek, with the subtitle "the clash that defined modern economics," Wapshott (2011), narrates the conflict that lasted decades between two great economists about how the modern economy should be governed. Friedrich von Hayek and John Maynard Keynes "peered at each other across a yawning gap that defined the most potent economic battle of our time:" market or government? For Hayek, tampering with the natural equilibrium of the market would cause rampant inflation and would be The Road to Serfdom. For Keynes, following his The General Theory, government intervention in the economy is necessary to cure mass poverty and unemployment caused by laissez-faire capitalism. The Great Depression became the ultimate test of these two contrasting economic views. Who won? Wapshott (2011: 296) defers to John Kenneth Galbraith's backhanded compliment: Keynes was exceedingly comfortable with the economic system he so brilliantly explored. The broad trust of his efforts, like that of Roosevelt, was conservative. But such conservatism in the English-speaking countries does not appeal to the truly committed conservative.. .. Better to accept unemployment, idled plants, and mass despair of the Great Depression, with all the resulting damage to the reputation of the capitalist system, than to retreat in true principle.. . When capitalism finally succumbs, it will be to the thunderous cheers of those who are celebrating their final victory over people like Keynes. Keynes ideas ruled for some thirty years, led to the recovery from the Great Depression, to victory over Nazism and Fascism during the Second World War, and brought about les trente glorieuses of economic development and stability.

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Tariffs in the Age of Globalized Trade

What is a tariff? It is a duty or tax that a government imposes on the goods it imports from othe... more What is a tariff? It is a duty or tax that a government imposes on the goods it imports from other countries. It makes those imported goods more expensive for the customers of the importing country, therefore, they are expected to buy less of those imported goods. One other hand, tariffs also affect countries who export their goods; their exported goods have become more expensive, so it also expected that they will export less of those goods and receive less income from them. Tariffs have had various purposes, different rationales for imposing them, and therefore a diversity of effects.

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Whatever Happened to Hobbes' Leviathan

British political philosopher, argued that humans should live in peace under an absolute sovereig... more British political philosopher, argued that humans should live in peace under an absolute sovereign so as to avoid conflict within the "state of nature," which he described as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Without a state or a government, individuals will be in constant conflict with each other, leading to chaotic and violent existence, "a war of all against all." He called his book Leviathan, The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, published in 1651, but it is referred to simply as Leviathan, after the creature portrayed in the biblical Book of Job (41) as a powerful sea monster, representing a force of evil and chaos, a creature beyond human control, ultimately symbolizing God's immense power over creation.

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The Rise of the West and the Plight of the Third World

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The Cry of the Earth and the Cry of the Poor

In the face of the existential threat of climate change to humanity, especially the poor, and to ... more In the face of the existential threat of climate change to humanity, especially the poor, and to the earth. Pope Francis wrote in 2015 the most consequential encyclical, Laudato Si', On Care for Our Comon Home, which he followed up in 2023 with Laudate Deum, an apostolic exhortation to all the people of good will on the climate crisis. Pope Francis' plea could well be summed up, echoing Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff, as the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

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Of Nuclear Bombs and Nuclear Deterrence

July 16, 1945, was the date when the first atomic bomb was detonated. July 16, 2025, the date I a... more

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American Liberal Democracy in Danger

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Four Narratives of Neoliberalism

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BOOK REVIEW: The Rise and Fall of Asia

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International Free Trade, the WTO, and the Third World/global South

The Journal of Third World Studies, 2010