About John Horvat

John Horvat II is Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative and a scholar, researcher, educator, international speaker, and author of the book Return to Order, as well as the author of hundreds of published essays. He lives in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, where he is the vice president of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property.

To Stop School Shootings, We Must Reject Three Liberal Premises

By |2025-09-01T16:26:01-05:00September 1st, 2025|Categories: Catholicism, Civil Society, Civilization, Evil, John Horvat, Liberalism, Morality, Senior Contributors|

The Minneapolis killings prove that evil exists and hates good. The act was so heinous that Satan unmasks himself by showing his role in inspiring the shooter's hateful messages against the Catholic Church. Satan is real and working inside the postmodern world despite the liberal premise to the contrary. He showed his fiendish face at [...]

Putting Freedom Above Order

By |2025-08-18T13:56:19-05:00August 18th, 2025|Categories: Christianity, Common Good, Freedom, John Horvat, Liberalism, Senior Contributors, Social Order|

We need a return to Christian order and freedom, with God at its center. Only then will society no longer appear broken, and things will work properly. A general sense that society is broken prevails in America today. Polls show that people are not satisfied with the direction the nation is going. Things and institutions [...]

Sit Up Straight & Take Note: Why Posture Matters

By |2025-07-08T09:36:57-05:00July 7th, 2025|Categories: Civil Society, Civilization, John Horvat, Senior Contributors, Virtue|

While slouching may not be sinful, it can create an atmosphere of disregard, carelessness, and sloth. It favors bad habits that may facilitate vice. Hence, people can combat these horrible consequences by living up to standards of propriety that favor effort and consideration in a well-ordered society. One great tragedy of radical individualism was the [...]

Yes, Gen Z Can Read Books

By |2025-05-24T16:13:43-05:00May 19th, 2025|Categories: Books, John Horvat|

Everyone criticizes Gen Z as a generation that grew up with computer screens and iPhones and is thus unable or at least unwilling to read books. The scenes I have witnessed on streets and in airports seem to confirm this reading-averse characterization. Everywhere you go, Gen Z is online, staring at screens. College professors report [...]

Why Altar Rails Are Returning to Churches

By |2025-05-06T09:52:58-05:00May 5th, 2025|Categories: Architecture, Beauty, Catholicism, Faith, John Horvat, Senior Contributors|

Faith must have its physical and visual expression. The return of the altar rail is a refreshing and sublime response to a distorted vision of the Church. It reintroduces the traditional teachings of the Church with awe and wonder, delighting the worshiper and resurrecting fervor for Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. In churches across [...]

Where Is AI Taking Us?

By |2025-04-11T09:38:00-05:00April 7th, 2025|Categories: Books, John Horvat, Liberalism, Technology|

Yuval Harari, in his latest book, "Nexus," believes that AI endangers the utopian dream of unbridled license that has long been the goal of countless revolutionaries on the left and libertarian anarchists on the right. Modernity is replete with philosophers who interpret reality through prisms. By simplifying their perceptions, such figures seek to change history. [...]

How Gregorian Chant Benefits the Body and Soul

By |2025-02-05T17:30:04-06:00February 5th, 2025|Categories: Catholicism, Faith, Heaven, John Horvat, Music|

One longstanding Church practice oriented to the worship of God has been the chanting of psalms and hymns. From the earliest times, monks engaged in liturgical chanting that complemented their often grueling lives. These monks managed to accommodate hours spent in choir while providing for their material needs. In his French-language book, Pourquoi Mozart, author [...]

Making Sense Out of Our Childless & Childish Age

By |2025-01-29T16:41:56-06:00January 29th, 2025|Categories: Civil Society, Civilization, Faith, Family, John Horvat, Western Civilization|

Suddenly, a demographic winter is upon us. We’ve seen it coming for decades. However, the effects of this population implosion are now starting to be felt. Nation after nation report low birth rates and aging populations. No amount of monetary incentive is enough to change people’s minds—even in more traditional societies. Women and couples seem [...]

Immigration Policy & the Forgotten Right to a Homeland

By |2025-01-15T15:28:54-06:00January 15th, 2025|Categories: American Republic, Immigration, John Horvat, Nationalism, Rule of Law|

There is one aspect of the immigration debate that most liberals do not like to discuss. Recognizing a right for anyone to flee misfortune, liberals invite them to pour over the border, which most do illegally. However, they refuse to look at the reasons behind the growing migrant stream and seek to stop it. Dealing [...]

Abolish the Hereditary Lords in the British Parliament?

By |2025-01-08T19:48:51-06:00January 8th, 2025|Categories: England, Equality, Government, Ideology, John Horvat, Liberalism|

The United Kingdom’s Labour Party government is presenting a bill to abolish the hereditary lords from the upper chamber of Parliament. Hereditary lords are those House of Lords’ members who inherit the right to sit in the upper House based on services rendered to the realm. Many storied families have retained this right for generations. [...]

The Problem Is the Banana on the Wall

By |2024-12-05T11:13:19-06:00December 5th, 2024|Categories: Art, Culture, Culture War, John Horvat, Politics|

Everyone has an explanation for the turn of events in November. It’s the economy, the culture, a failure to connect with working-class Americans. All these are valid reasons. However, I have my own explanation that sheds some light on what has gone wrong in America. It explains something of the craziness of our times. I [...]

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