The conventional narrative of “The Schism of 1054” may attract us by its simplicity and apparent explanatory power. But besides serving as a dubious justification for an ongoing situation, this narrative fails to capture the variety, obscurity, and complexity of human nature inspired by religious conviction that comes into view through the study of history [...]
The Church has disavowed her ancient usurpations of the political. It remains for the Catholic to stop imposing these duties on her. Who is to say, once she has been thus unencumbered by the vain expectations of her own children for the war-leadership she should not provide, that she will not once more glow with [...]
What do we make of the four “Almost Sacraments”? Among other things, we might note how they bear upon a common interest that is, sadly, more and more neglected in today’s Church: young men. How many sacraments are there anyway? Seven? Two? Two-and-a-half? If you are Roman Catholic today, your Church has handed down this [...]
Might the “big R” Reformation of the sixteenth century and the “big R” Revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth owe something to the first great revolution that made Old Europe in the first place? It has been noted that historians are creatures professionally invested in change. We should therefore suspect them when they speak of [...]
The admonitions of Byzantine’s unionists resonate well beyond the Fall of Constantinople—if we had but ears to hear them. Indeed, we today, standing amidst the threatened walls of the house of the West that was once known as Christendom must cherish a culture of Christian solidarity, the conviction that the City of God is and [...]