Theater for the Ages: “Moonshine Abbey”

By |2022-02-10T22:30:15-06:00February 10th, 2022|Categories: David Deavel, Senior Contributors, Theater|

Missed the Boat’s production of “Moonshine Abbey” was a delight because of the slapstick humor and mixture of realistic and insane dialogue in which its priestly writer specializes. It was powerful because it tapped into the hopes and fears of young Catholics who want to believe in the certainty of God but are hampered by [...]

Literature Goes to the Movies

By |2022-02-04T16:07:16-06:00February 4th, 2022|Categories: Film, Joseph Pearce, Literature, Senior Contributors|

When works of literature go to the movies, it’s usually an unpleasant sight. There are noble exceptions, however, which are worthy of praise. The film adaptions of two literary classics come to mind. First is the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, starring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet. [...]

What “Amadeus” Got Right

By |2025-01-27T12:55:47-06:00January 27th, 2022|Categories: Audio/Video, Film, Music, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|

The movie "Amadeus" is a wondrous meditation, through the reminiscences of Antonio Salieri, on the ways of genius, the value of contrition, and the arbitrariness of metaphysical justice. "Amadeus" opened the door to a fantastic world of whose existence I had not been aware. The movie changed my life. "  —Anonymous viewer of the film [...]

What Is Aesthetics?

By |2022-01-11T23:31:22-06:00January 11th, 2022|Categories: Art, Beauty, Michael De Sapio, Philosophy, Senior Contributors|

In a world that tells us that truth is relative and subjective and self-expression is king, aesthetics teaches us to draw meaningful distinctions, to make value judgments, to admire form and reject formlessness. Aesthetics helps us understand what is unique, beautiful, and pleasing in the things that surround us. Aesthetics is generally understood to be [...]

“The Trial at Rouen”: An Opera on St. Joan of Arc

By |2022-01-10T09:12:45-06:00January 8th, 2022|Categories: Audio/Video, Christianity, Culture, Michael De Sapio, Music, Opera, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

The mid-twentieth-century opera, “The Trial at Rouen,” tells the story of the final days of St. Joan of Arc, her imprisonment, and trial for heresy. Composer Norman Dello Joio employs themes of conscience, belief, and spiritual motivation; he makes us think about the consequences of institutional corruption and the power of individuals to rise above [...]

Moral and Public Policy Problems in “Spider-Man: No Way Home”

By |2022-01-07T21:39:57-06:00January 7th, 2022|Categories: David Deavel, Film, Senior Contributors|

"Spider-Man: No Way Home" avoids the most obvious of our contemporary lies about reality, but it too paints a flawed understanding of evil, both in how to prudently fight against it and how it attaches itself to us humans. Don’t set your public policy or moral clock by the newest superhero movie. It’s got some [...]

T.S. Eliot & Christopher Dawson on Religion and Culture

By |2023-10-12T05:23:23-05:00January 6th, 2022|Categories: Benjamin Lockerd, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, Culture, Featured, T.S. Eliot, Timeless Essays|

Eliot scholars have ignored the Dawson connection. The central claim Dawson and Eliot made, based on their wide-ranging knowledge of anthropology and history, was that every culture has a cult, some religious system that serves as an ultimate source of value and meaning. “Eliot’s reputation as a critic of society has been worse than his [...]

Finding Faith in the Manger: Berlioz’s “Infancy of Christ”

By |2022-01-06T12:37:24-06:00December 10th, 2021|Categories: Audio/Video, Catholicism, Christmas, Hector Berlioz, Music, Timeless Essays|

Could anything as tender and touching as "L’Enfance du Christ" have been written by a man who did not believe? One hopes that professed atheist Hector Berlioz was able to find the Christmas that he portrayed so beautifully. The poet Wallace Stevens once wrote that “The major poetic idea in the world is and always [...]

Waking Mozart: The Mystery of the Requiem

By |2021-12-04T17:02:27-06:00December 4th, 2021|Categories: Art, Audio/Video, Music, Stephen M. Klugewicz, Timeless Essays, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|

Who completed Mozart's unfinished Requiem? The masterpiece that we know today was the work of many hands. But who wrote which parts? And how much did Mozart actually write? "The last movement of his lips was an endeavor to indicate where the kettledrums should be used in his Requiem. I think I still hear the [...]

“Dune”: The Power of Attention

By |2021-12-05T21:27:04-06:00December 2nd, 2021|Categories: Film|

Part of the philosophy of "Dune" is that after a long and dark digital age, man must learn again to become self-reliant: to think and act as self-determined and self-reliant individuals; to be active participants in nature, not mere passive receivers of pleasure and pain. For that is the place of beasts, not men. Dune [...]

Franklin Pierce, Political Protest, & the Dilemmas of Democracy

By |2021-11-22T14:23:22-06:00November 22nd, 2021|Categories: American Republic, Christianity, Civil Society, Civilization, Constitution, Democracy, Government, History, Ordered Liberty, Political Philosophy, Religion, Timeless Essays|

Franklin Pierce’s suspicions reflected a tension within the antebellum Democratic Party in relation to slavery—how can we reconcile an advocacy of democratic decision-making with the existence of transcendent moral values, the Constitution with the Bible? On the stump in New Boston, New Hampshire in early January 1852, Franklin Pierce gave a long oration during which [...]

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