Literature is important because it takes us beyond the facts to the truth. It shows us who we are as human beings and as human persons. We could go even further by insisting that literature is not merely important but necessary. Without literature or, more specifically, without the ability to see literarily, we will be [...]
In valor, there is hope—namely, the hope that our virtue may be fully complete. It is as men of valor that we will be all we can be. In valor, there is hope. —Tacitus When it played in the movie theaters, the terrific movie Act of Valor (2012) earned notoriety for two reasons. First [...]
St. Thomas Aquinas has the rare quality of wanting to know all that can be said for the other side. He understands that you can’t find good answers. Before I discovered Shakespeare, the writer I most admired was St. Thomas Aquinas. Dazzling as Shakespeare is, I think I was right the first time. Apples and [...]
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 [...]
As the father guides the son deeper into virtue through the son’s obedience, through his good inclinations, his particular instantiation of the virtues, so the prince serves as a father to the city itself. The collapse of liberal moral and political order has led to a welcome revival in Catholic political thought. This revival, however, [...]
We did not discard most of the image of reality from the Middle Ages. The lovely whole image was smashed like stained glass under the hammer of zealots, but later people recovered fragments and used them to create the world in which we live. C.S. Lewis wrote a book of profound scholarship, The Discarded Image, [...]
Portraying the souls of the faithful and those of the damned, “The Last Judgement” of Michelangelo serves as a powerful reminder of the theology of grace and of the importance of one’s own volition in accepting and actively cooperating with the grace which God so freely gives to men. The Last Judgement When [...]
Contrary to conventional wisdom, this age’s crisis is not one of faith. If anything, there is plenty of faith around, in both good and bad things. What we lack is that which since the Middle Ages has been seen as a complement to faith: reason. Thoughtful Theism: Redeeming Reason in an Irrational Age by Fr. [...]
St. Augustine observed, “To begin with, there never has been, nor, is there today, any absence of hostile foreign powers to provoke war.” Evil men lusting after power—aggressors—are endemic to human history, and noted Augustine, “When they go to war what they want is to make, if they can, their enemies their own, and then [...]
The Very First Thing (S.T. I, q1, a1) The Angelic Doctor began with it. Hundreds followed, yes; but first, this question. For us, though? Now? Oh, it’s not even fit To consider—at best, a digression. He called it philosophical science. His first videtur is our modern creed. We shout it loud in angry defiance: “Of [...]
In “Theology: Mythos or Logos?” John Médaille accuses Thomas Aquinas of posing a quarrel between faith and reason, a separation that has had baleful consequences in Western culture. However, the problem that troubles Mr. Médaille appears not to be a problem if we examine the text of the “Summa” more closely. In a previous essay [...]
If the universe were a swarm, there would be no universe. That swarm, that self-caused changing unit, that Godless movable infinite thing would destroy the necessary condition of its own existence and persistence: the individuals that constitute it. Why, then, does modern man insist on not seeing this? Why does he choose rage over reality? I [...]
Russell Hittinger’s “The First Grace” deals mightily with the crisis of our time—namely, the failure of those who make, enjoy, and judge the constitutionality of laws to appreciate the dire consequences of denying the place of natural-law considerations in the ordering of public life. The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World, [...]
The “Iliad” shows us human nature under extreme duress. Understanding Agamemnon and the consequences of his actions gives us a complex gauge of character. We come to recognize how often in daily life surprises come and how much they reveal that we stand in need of grace. Poor Agamemnon. At the very outset of Western [...]