Laughter and the Love of Friends

By |2021-06-25T10:28:15-05:00December 26th, 2016|Categories: Christianity, Culture, Featured, G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Joseph Pearce, Love, Senior Contributors, StAR|

Ultimately the reason we should rejoice in the love of laughter as we rejoice in the love of friends is that laughter, like love, is a gift of God. There’s nothing worth the wear of winning Than laughter and the love for friends. These famous lines by Hilaire Belloc are personal favourites of mine but, [...]

C.S. Lewis & Friends

By |2021-03-21T08:18:13-05:00October 25th, 2016|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Friendship, G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joseph Pearce, Literature, StAR|

Friendship, or philia, is one of the “loves” that C.S. Lewis elucidates and celebrates in his book, The Four Loves, the others being familial love (storge), sexual love (eros) and Divine love (caritas or agape). Although not the greatest or highest of the loves, Lewis saw friendship as the noble coming together of those who [...]

Robert Southwell: Poet, Priest, Martyr

By |2019-09-28T09:50:25-05:00September 28th, 2016|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, England, Joseph Pearce, Poetry, Sainthood, StAR|

Modern England is so secular in her orientation and so narcissistic in her hedonism that she treats her own heritage with scornful and supercilious neglect. This was made painfully clear to me this January when I returned to my native land to film a documentary on the great Catholic poet, Francis Thompson. Described by Chesterton [...]

Yes, Let’s Talk about Religion & Politics

By |2019-09-28T09:50:27-05:00July 27th, 2016|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Existence of God, Featured, G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Religion, Senior Contributors, StAR|

It is sometimes said that religion and politics are the two topics that should not be discussed in polite company. The result is that nothing of importance is ever discussed, reducing the conversation of “polite company” to the level of the banal, at best, or to the level of gossip, at worst. And yet the [...]

A Lightning Tour of Poetry & Praise

By |2019-09-28T09:52:04-05:00July 20th, 2016|Categories: Christian Humanism, Joseph Pearce, Poetry, Senior Contributors, StAR|

Throughout history, poetry has been inextricably interwoven with praise. This being so, let’s take a lightning tour of the major poets of civilization. Beginning in the pre-Christian era we see how the poets of Athens and Jerusalem prepared the way for the coming of Christ with their creative gifts. Homer invoked his Muse, the divine [...]

Does the Tudor Terror Live On?

By |2022-06-20T19:59:48-05:00July 6th, 2016|Categories: Catholicism, Culture War, England, Featured, History, Joseph Pearce, Protestant Reformation, Religion, Senior Contributors, StAR|

One of the biggest mistakes that a student of history can make is to confuse the so-called English “Reformation” with its namesake on the continent. Whereas the Protestant Reformation in Europe was animated by the genuine theological differences that separated those who followed Luther or Calvin from those who accepted the apostolic and ecclesial authority [...]

Outside is the Night Infernal

By |2019-09-28T09:50:30-05:00June 1st, 2016|Categories: Catholicism, Heaven, Hilaire Belloc, Joseph Pearce, Religion, StAR|

One thing in this world is different from all other. It has a personality and a force. It is recognised, and (when recognised) most violently loved or hated.  It is the Catholic Church. Within that household the human spirit has roof and hearth. Outside it, is the Night. —Essays of a Catholic by Hilaire Belloc (1931). [...]

Of Gods and Men: The Pagan Path to Christ

By |2019-12-26T11:37:48-06:00April 5th, 2016|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Culture, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joseph Pearce, Religion, StAR|

Considering that the use of words is dangerous and their abuse perilous, it should come as no surprise that “paganism” is a particularly dangerous word. The danger lies in the dangerous lies that arise when the word is employed thoughtlessly. It is, for instance, employed thoughtlessly by Christians when they describe any hedonist or heathen [...]

Tolkien & Anglo-Saxon England: Protectors of Christendom

By |2019-10-23T16:04:22-05:00March 29th, 2016|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christendom, Christian Humanism, England, Essential, History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Myth, StAR|

J.R.R. Tolkien’s love of the Anglo-Saxon language and culture is legendary among both Tolkien scholars and aficionados, as is his hatred of all things French. His biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, wrote that he suffered from “Gallophobia.”[1] His student and friend, George Sayer, commented that when Tolkien stayed with him and his wife, he very politely ate [...]

The Mark of True Greatness: In Memory of Stanley Jaki

By |2019-09-28T09:50:37-05:00February 24th, 2016|Categories: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Christianity, Joseph Pearce, StAR|

I only met the late, great scientist-philosopher Father Jaki once. It was at a Chesterton Conference at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, at which both of us were speaking. I had breakfast with him and recall feeling a little apprehensive. He had a reputation for being somewhat abrasive and for not [...]

Hobbits and Heroines

By |2019-09-28T09:50:40-05:00January 6th, 2016|Categories: Books, Christianity, Featured, Feminism, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joseph Pearce, StAR|

Ever since I arrived at Cambridge as a student in 1964 and encountered a tribe of full-grown women wearing puffed sleeves, clutching teddies, and babbling excitedly about the doings of hobbits, it has been my nightmare that J.R.R. Tolkien would turn out to be the most influential writer of the twentieth century. The bad dream [...]

Richard Crashaw & the Magnificent Seven

By |2019-09-28T09:50:50-05:00December 9th, 2015|Categories: Catholicism, Featured, History, Joseph Pearce, Literature, Poetry, StAR|

Were one to conduct a survey of modern-day Americans, taken at random, it is likely that not one in a hundred would have heard of the poet, Richard Crashaw. Were one to cross the Atlantic and conduct a similar experiment with modern-day Englishmen, it is likely that the result would be the same. This neglect [...]

Go to Top