Romano Guardini’s Diagnosis of the Modern World

By |2024-02-23T20:52:07-06:00February 20th, 2024|Categories: Christianity, Civil Society, Culture, Featured, Modernity, Romano Guardini|

“To speak precisely, God lost His dwelling place; thereby man lost his proper place in existence.” Man believed he had dominion over nature, and so proceeded to act as a ruler thereof, but it is a poor ruler indeed who destroys that over which he is supposed to govern. “Where is the place of man? [...]

Romano Guardini and the Personality of Man

By |2023-12-10T16:53:26-06:00October 14th, 2023|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Communio, Conservatism, Featured, Romano Guardini|

The profound Germano-Italian philosopher and theologian Romano Guardini (1885-1968) remains one of the most unsung heroes of twentieth-century conservatism. His reputation revived a bit during the all-too brief pontificate of Benedict XVI as so much of Ratzinger’s thought came from Guardini, directly and indirectly. But, he and his work should stand much higher than they [...]

The Mystery of Grace

By |2023-10-14T09:55:00-05:00October 1st, 2023|Categories: Communio, Essential, Featured, Romano Guardini|Tags: |

Through your creation, O Lord, goes a voice that reminds us of something that is above everything created. The things and their ordering, earth, sun and stones, seem to be pure reality, but our heart knows that they proceed from your holy freedom, and are gifts that should always be accepted afresh. And so they [...]

Salvation and Sufficiency: A Lesson from Statistics

By |2023-09-27T17:51:42-05:00September 27th, 2023|Categories: Christianity, Heaven, Religion, Romano Guardini, Science, Theology, Timeless Essays|

In the world of statistics, sufficiency plays an important role in estimation. But what about sufficiency in other aspects of our lives? What about God? What about my eternal destiny? What is sufficient, here and now, to know all that I can know about my purpose in this world and my fate when my time here [...]

“To Sanctify the World”: George Weigel on the Legacy of Vatican II

By |2023-09-03T13:33:04-05:00August 26th, 2023|Categories: Books, Catholicism, Romano Guardini|

George Weigel asks his readers to “reimagine” Vatican II and examines whether it is true that the Council prescribed a fatal concession to the modern world, which according to the disaffected should be “repudiated or quietly buried.” If such is thought about at all, the legacy of Vatican I seems firmly place. Pope Pius IX [...]

Romano Guardini & “The End of the Modern World”

By |2023-08-25T20:55:06-05:00August 25th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Mark Malvasi, Modernity, Romano Guardini, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

Nearly seventy years after the publication of Romano Guardini's "The End of the Modern World," the rot has advanced too far to entertain any serious prospect of restoring a Christian social order in which, as Guardini insisted, “faith will maintain itself against animosity and danger” and “man’s obedience to God will assert itself with a [...]

The End of the Modern World

By |2023-08-19T09:19:53-05:00August 3rd, 2023|Categories: Books, Catholicism, Christianity, Civil Society, Featured, History, Romano Guardini, Timeless Essays|

There is only one standard by which any epoch can be fairly judged: In view of its own peculiar circumstances, to what extent did it allow for the development of human dignity? The medieval achievement was so magnificent that it stands with the loftiest moments of human history. The most complete ordering of medieval life [...]

Ecology in Light of Integral Human Development

By |2023-07-30T21:45:26-05:00July 30th, 2023|Categories: Caritas in Veritate, Catholicism, Communio, Conservation, David L. Schindler, Environmentalism, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, Romano Guardini, St. John Paul II, Timeless Essays|

Every being is good because it is created. To be created is to be loved into existence by God. Every creature is thus good in itself, both because it is loved by God and because, as a participant in this love of God for it, each creature also loves itself. Because all creatures share in [...]

The Things That Are Caesar’s: Romano Guardini

By |2023-07-29T21:36:59-05:00March 8th, 2023|Categories: Books, Christianity, Communio, George A. Panichas, Religion, Romano Guardini, Timeless Essays|Tags: |

Romano Guardini reminds us, above all, to render “to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the things that are God’s.” His writings help us to recognize the spiritual necessity of not being slaves of the things of the world. His testimony thus pleads with us to disentangle ourselves from the enemies of [...]

Intelligent Piety: The Christian Humanism of Flannery O’Connor

By |2022-08-02T12:17:20-05:00February 21st, 2018|Categories: Books, Bradley J. Birzer, Catholicism, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Eric Voegelin, Featured, Flannery O'Connor, Romano Guardini, Russell Kirk|

Not only was Flannery O’Connor one of the most important Christian Humanists of the twentieth century, but she also well understood what made Christian Humanism what it was. While it might very well be conservative, it was always imaginative, allowing one to imagine what must be conserved. The Presence of Grace by Flannery O’Connor (192 pages, [...]

The Conservatism of Robert Nisbet

By |2021-04-27T21:06:48-05:00January 7th, 2018|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christopher Dawson, Conservatism, Culture, Edmund Burke, History, Imagination, Irving Babbitt, Religion, Robert Nisbet, Romano Guardini, Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot, Tradition|

Robert Nisbet, in direct contrast to Russell Kirk, argued that conservatism was purely a modern ideology. For Nisbet, the entire history of conservatism began as a reaction to the French Revolution… When it came to the history of conservatism, the grand sociologist and man of letters, Robert Nisbet, disagreed with the mighty founder of modern [...]

Temperance & Abundance: Romano Guardini’s “Letters from Lake Como”

By |2023-03-07T08:43:58-06:00January 1st, 2018|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christianity, Gospel Reflection, History, Romano Guardini, Virtue|

When we begin to refashion things in our image rather than in God’s, we ourselves become displaced and disjointed. Strangely enough, by asserting only our humanity, we lose what makes us essentially and beautifully human… In truth, nature begins to relate to us only when we begin to indwell it, when culture begins in it. [...]

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