We may find in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s writings essential guides for the seas we have to navigate in the “post-modern” era. Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Malcolm Guite (Hodder & Stoughton, 2017) The following passage is a brief extract from my book Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This book was written [...]
Liberal humanism has suffered from a twofold crisis. On the one hand, it is at war with the religion that nurtured it, and not only cannot make sense of its own history, but also is befuddled even by the “natural” spirituality of man. On the other hand, it has come to loathe the very kind [...]
While Sheldon Vanauken was indeed a contrarian, the values by which he lived were rooted deep within him: courage, love of freedom, devotion to the faith. He was an absolutely principled man. He was never a man of his age; he was a man for all ages. The Little Lost Marion and Other Mercies, by [...]
Sister Claire’s meditations, chock full of great quotations from great thinkers and pray-ers of the past, as well as liturgical prayers and hymns, combined with her well-organized set of passages taken from the whole of the Bible, make this thin volume extremely useful not only for private study but for preparation for teaching and preaching [...]
Pope Pius, who had done more than anyone to make the Christian victory at Lepanto possible, is said to have burst into tears when news of it reached him. They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy, They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea, And the Pope has [...]
Two books about St. Francis: one by the protean English critic and one by an equally protean Greek. How, though, to treat their differences, especially since the books are unalike in length and fervency? St. Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton and Saint Francis by Nikos Kazantzakis So in this perilous grace of God [...]
S.P. Caldwell's "The Beast of Bethulia Park" offers a dissident perspective to the culture of death. This powerful novel about one particular surreptitious serial killer serves as a metaphor for our world, in which Big Brother has formed an unholy alliance with Dr. Death, putting in place the systemic extermination of the weak and the [...]
A balanced view does not dismiss the reality of the supernatural, nor does it indulge in curiosity and unhealthy fascination with the unseen world. Instead it understands that the invisible realm—like the angels themselves—is everywhere present. I have in my library a book by two heretics. Matthew Fox is an Episcopal priest who was once [...]
Something is stirring in the catacombs. A new cultural revival is thriving and emerging from the shadows. New works of fiction by Catholic writers are being written and published, which are as countercultural and refreshing as Dostoevsky’s "Notes from Underground" had been when it had surfaced in similarly dark days in the mid-nineteenth century. The [...]
Patrick Deneen's book “Regime Change” is curiously post-Christian. Indeed, “regime change” conjures up images of forced virtue, authoritarian actions, and rigid programs to address serious problems. But what is needed today is not a regime change but a spiritual conversion, a reorientation, a new vision of the world. What makes Patrick Deneen’s new book, Regime [...]
The prevalent tendency in our society to overestimate individual freedom is wreaking havoc on personal happiness and threatening to bring down Western culture. This culture is built on a Judeo-Christian foundation and it will not survive the dismantling of that foundation. Fr. Longenecker concludes his interview with author and friend of René Girard with a [...]
The love of beauty as such is one of the things that can attract men to the God who is infinitely beautiful. But is it the case that we ought to pursue beauty only to the extent that it is joined to some function? A previous essay of mine published in this journal made passing reference [...]
How does one account for J.R.R. Tolkien’s seeming ability to live inside of mythology? He read it, he translated it, and he absorbed it. After all these grand things, he rewrote it. Yet, no matter how deeply he delved into the profound and pervasive paganisms of pre-Christian cultures, he never lost his ability to baptize [...]
The ordinary daily life of men in Christian culture, who work not only in the sweat of their brows, but for the love of their families, there is also love of work. When men cut wood or go to war or make love to their wives, and when women spin or wash and reciprocate that [...]