Through Ben Reinhard’s book, readers can recognize more deeply the beautiful power of Tolkien’s enchantment and come to treasure it even more. The High Hallow: Tolkien’s Liturgical Imagination, by Ben Reinhard (184 pages, Emmaus Road Publishing, 2025) The title of Ben Reinhard’s book might lead one to suppose it is another specialty entry in the [...]
Immediately after Jesus was baptised in the Jordan by St John the Baptist, “The Spirit drove him out into the desert and he remained there for forty days and was tempted by Satan” (Mark 1:13). St Matthew describes these temptations and the other evangelists show how his tussles with the devil continued in one way [...]
Christ is not a part of the Church; rather, the Church might be called a part of Christ, grafted upon Him, living by Him and for Him, suffering with Him in order to rule with Him. To say that the Easter observances are the center of the ecclesiastical year leaves much untold: they are the [...]
What is needed in understanding childhood is a profound reflection on the nature of man, one that begins with the notion that being is a gift, and so one able to interpret the special qualities of the child—wonder, dependence, receptivity, naive assent, and so forth—as genuinely positive, even if they do not come as easily [...]
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 [...]
John Stuart Mill may well serve as an invaluable ally in searching out the roots of our ancient Anglo-American order that guarantee liberty as it coexists with order, neither at the other’s expense. He has a great deal of compassion and insight we could benefit from immensely, and it would be to our own disadvantage [...]
Before the 1960s, mental prayer took place behind the closed doors of a personal prayer life. However, as the charismatic movement began to spread amongst Catholics, communal charismatic style prayer became more and more popular, not least because of unusual phenomena, from speaking in tongues to slaying in the spirit. When criticised as a deviation [...]
Kevin Roberts sees the need for what amounts to a second American revolution—a peaceful one of fundamental change, which he hopes will result in the downfall, if not destruction, of institutions that buttress the corrupt "Uniparty" in Washington. Kevin Roberts. Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America. (285 pages, HarperCollins, 2024. During the [...]
The idea that eternity will be a culture and a civilization, not a disembodied never-never land, is perhaps the most powerful takeaway from Fr. William J. Slattery's "Enchanted by Eternity," and I assume it will be news to many people. It opens up a vast field of wonder and possibility. Enchanted by Eternity: Recapturing the [...]
The classical tradition considered the hands the bodily expression of intelligence, and therefore understood work as a way of knowing the world. A program of education centered on mentorship in forms of human work is indispensable in this regard. Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, by Matthew B. Crawford, (246 pages, [...]
Tomasi di Lampedusa’s “The Leopard” provides invaluable insight into 19th-century Italian history while creating a compelling story, allowing readers to relive an unfamiliar age of revolution and a fading nobility. Time under quarantine has been an excuse to revisit a personal favorite book and to explore its history, controversy, and literary value. I can think [...]
Josef Weiger is called, as are not many, to speak of Mary—to speak of her from the depths of his heart, knowing well her greatness to be unique. He is called to speak of her in that sober recollection of Christian Truth which, as St. Teresa demands, shall picture our Lady’s life only as it [...]
The first Christians were called the “saints” because they tried, and so many of them succeeded, in living saintly lives. That this fact converted a vast numbers of pagans in such a short time is as historically undeniable as it is inexplicable to secular historians. St Paul insists that once we are baptised into Christ, [...]
The affair of Galileo was not played out in the atmosphere of inquisitorial terror that some writers have imagined; one cannot even say that the high ecclesiastical authorities posed systematically as enemies of scientific progress. How did the Church react in face of perils she could not ignore? The secular arm, whose aid she had [...]