Under what conditions is an aggressive war justified as punishment for a violation of the international order or as a redress for an injury suffered? Defensive war offers fewer problems. We have already pointed out that the justice of the cause of war must be certain for the public authority. Hence, the other party, in the dispute is [...]
Do you wish to understand the birth of right and left? Examine the debate between Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine occasioned by the French Revolution. The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left by Yuval Levin, (304 pages, Basic Books, 2014) Those seeking a deeper understanding of the roots of contemporary [...]
God’s love is deepest in us, as the very ground of our being. It is here in our deepest self that our desire to love and be loved that will only ultimately be satisfied in God, rises to enter into him. Inspired by and supported with as much of God’s love that our weakness can [...]
The Church is like an old schoolmaster, the schoolmaster of the centuries, and as such it has seen so many students pass before it, cultivate the same poses and fall into the same errors, that it merely smiles at those who believe that they have discovered a new truth. One of the catchwords which keeps [...]
We live in a world that desperately needs Thomas More’s wisdom. We need his understanding of God, his understanding of virtue, and his understanding of the complexities of the human person. The Essential Works of Thomas More, edited by Gerard B. Wegemer and Stephen W. Smith (1520 pages, Yale University Press, 2020) Though he’s only [...]
Ronald Reagan’s version of conservatism was far more pro-government than was Barry Goldwater’s. Compassion, not liberty, was Reagan’s guide. This raises the question: To what extent is the success of modern political conservatism dependent upon the conservation of liberal, even progressive, reforms? The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue Collar Conservatism [...]
The 1928 Book of Common Prayer is an important cultural artifact, whose influence on English language and literature rivals that of the Authorized Version of the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. You will recall Parson Thwackum in Henry Fielding’s classic novel History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749). Mr. (never, in proper ecclesiastical usage, Reverend) Thwackum [...]
The first and most fundamental principle, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property. The main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected. The fact that God has given the earth for the use and enjoyment of the whole human race can [...]
All must go through purification to attain union with God. In this life it is called the Dark Night of the Soul; in the next life, it is called Purgatory. No one can avoid it. Mystical theology teaches how this purification is brought about in this life. When studying Philosophy, I had a brief flirtation [...]
American culture is surely decadent. Its decay is palpable to any sensitive observer who reads the feuilleton section of the local newspaper or attends a university. But is our decadence terminal? Is our civilization on a collision course with extinction? The Culture We Deserve by Jacques Barzun (200 pages, Wesleyan University Press, 1989) Politically America [...]
Chris Gibson's "The Spirit of Philadelphia" helps us to rethink the role of Common Sense Realism as a unifying principle of American life. But that idea rests on a greater idea. The spirit of Philadelphia has no sustaining power to preserve order in soul or republic unless wedded to the genius of Christianity. The Spirit [...]
In his lectures about three musical geniuses—Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert—Dietrich von Hildebrand shows how the integration of music with spiritual and philosophic insight can enrich our musical understanding. Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, by Dietrich von Hildebrand, trans. John Henry Crosby (109 pages, Hildebrand Project, 2025) When a distinguished Catholic philosopher discourses on three distinguished composers of [...]
Father Nussbaum was under no illusion. Like all great missionaries he was thinking of martyrdom. He accepted it in advance, and even, deep in his great Christian heart, he hoped for it. He remembered all those who before him had wet this hostile soil with their blood. He thought of Father Mussot who, on April [...]
As one of the greatest bridges from the ancient world to the medieval, St. Augustine of Hippo’s "Confessions" illuminates the path forward through the gloom of the modern world. And C.C. Pecknold's new book, "Fire on the Altar" is a wonderful guide to this masterpiece. Fire on the Altar: Setting Our Souls Ablaze through St. [...]