In a recent post, English priest-blogger Fr. Ed Tomlinson likened the threat of secular modernism in the church to Tolkien’s Balrog. You may remember the great demon pursues the members of the Fellowship as they are fleeing the mines of Moria. The final confrontation is at the Bridge of Khazad-dum. Gandalf defies the Balrog crying, [...]
If a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, a great prophet is not without honor save in the whole world. Pope Benedict XVI bent under that mantle in 2006 when he spoke in Regensburg. His only miscalculation was to assume that civilization might still be civil enough to respect reason. There [...]
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI almost a year after the June 2004 death of Ronald Reagan. I don’t know if Ratzinger and Reagan ever met, though there’s a chance they did during one of Reagan’s visits to the Vatican to meet with Pope John Paul II, especially his first and most prominent visit, [...]
It takes courage to speak out against the threatening presence of Islam in today’s world. And it takes courage to defend those who have the courage to speak out. Eight years ago, after Benedict XVI gave his controversial Regensburg address, most European commentators were shamefully timid in their response. Most refused to raise their heads [...]
The Radiance of Being: Dimensions of Cosmic Christianity (Angelico Press, 2013) Probably the majority in the environmental movement do not see the relevance of mysticism, or personal virtue and morality, to the great issues of our day. To them it is merely a technological or political challenge. They will try to get their hands on the [...]
Garry Wills has continued to serve as the “go-to” guy for secular media types who need some spleen to pour on the Catholic Church. This past week, he admitted to NY Times readers that he finally had given up hope that the pope would stop being Catholic. (One wonders if he’s still trying to talk [...]
My six gift ideas are all recently published books, if only because I will always take books under the Christmas tree over socks, ties, and video games, no matter how trendy the latter might be. The Complete Thinker: The Marvelous Mind of G. K. Chesterton (Ignatius Press, 2012) by Dale Ahlquist. If there is a better [...]
What is man? What a simple question. Yet, no fully satisfactory answer has ever definitively been reached. At least by man. Over my previous three posts at The Imaginative Conservative, I have tried (whether successfully or not, is a different question) to take the idea of “conservative” back to its most fundamental principles: essentially looking at [...]
When the Obama Administration began its Kulturkampf against American Catholics my husband suggested to me that if the Church is forced to pay for its employees’ contraceptives then there should be an option clause for practicing Catholics. An equivalent amount of the Church’s money spent on other people’s recreational sex should be given to faithful [...]
In the mid-twentieth century, English historian Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) was widely considered to be one of the finest Catholic scholars in the English-speaking world. Today his name and work is largely unknown, even among Catholics. But that is beginning to change as Dawson is being discovered and recovered by a number of writers and historians. One [...]
Upon the prompting of Stephen Masty, I’d like to explore “what still really exists in America that is worth conserving and what may be, quite frankly, lost to all but memory.” Reid Buckley has declared that he cannot love our country because we are vile. Morally corrupt and bankrupt, we’ve even given Pat Buchanan license to doubt. [...]
Pope John Paul II When Brad Birzer asked me to write about the ten books that most heavily shaped my understanding of the human person, I retorted that he might as well ask me which of my children I love best. I agonized over the list interminably and tried not to cheat too [...]
The second volume of Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth covers the events in the life of Jesus from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem to his even more triumphal resurrection. One emphasis which flows through the chapters like a watermark is the pivotal position of Christ bridging the Old and Testaments, bringing one to fulfilment and inaugurating the [...]
This Sunday marks the fourth week of Advent; in a week, it will be the feast of the birth of our Lord. My mother has been blasting Christmas music. In between choir boys singing “Silent Night” and Bing Crosby, the radio DJ told his audience that the number one performer of 2010 is Lady Gaga. [...]