Theodoric of Freiburg is a prime example of the realism of medieval thought. He knew that science was neither vain speculation nor a distraction from the preaching vocation, but an exercise of the mind’s innate capacity to discover the truth. What does the rainbow have to do with the Catholic faith? Today, we find out [...]
The saints have served as the heroes in Western culture, and have been the impetus for renewal in the Western Tradition. God has called them, and they, by responding to His call, have become the aristocrats of the soul. Christopher Dawson, the brilliant Anglo-Welsh Roman Catholic historian of the twentieth century, argued that understanding the [...]
And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green: And was the holy Lamb of God, On England’s pleasant pastures seen! And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills? William Blake Not facts first, truth first. G. K. [...]
Christopher Dawson’s work is a kaleidoscopic treatment of a dizzying amount of Western history. Throughout, he looks at everything from the giant, even “theocratic” and “unitary” states such as Charlemagne’s empire, to the smaller “petty states of France and the Low Countries in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.” While he is objective about the goods [...]
Although Hilaire Belloc and J.R.R. Tolkien had much in common, not least of which was their shared and impassioned Catholicism, it is intriguing that they should differ so profoundly on the importance of the Anglo-Saxons. Picture the scene. An expectant audience, which includes the great Catholic writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, awaits the arrival of another great [...]
The once-radical belief that Christopher Columbus was evil has sadly become mainstream. But Columbus was a brave and tenacious explorer—flawed, of course, like every man—who expanded the knowledge of the Old World, changing it and the New World forever. Christopher Columbus changed the world. It’s as simple as this. We might argue that these changes [...]
Christopher Columbus offers us the example of those virtues that the old Romans called fortitude and constancy; and the example of those virtues that the early Christians called faith and hope. Half a millennium ago, a Genoese navigator with three caravels and Spanish crews groped his way among the islands of the Caribbean. Thus commenced [...]
I have to admit that I did not immediately warm to Karen Ullo’s novel. This was due to my own prejudice against both historical fiction and women’s romance. I was mistaken. Ullo won me over, and I came to admire and root for her protagonist, a tough but tender Frenchwoman. In my continued trawl through [...]
My greatest concern as a teacher for more than thirty years was my students’ inability or unwillingness to read. I repeatedly tried, and repeatedly failed, to persuade them that when they read, they were not merely absorbing information, but were also, and more importantly, rehearsing acts of imagination. I. “Bisogna saper leggere,” Jakob Burckhardt told [...]
In the beginning, false rumors about the followers of Jesus Christ served as reasons to try to limit the spread of Christianity. The same is true today: There is an attempt by the enemies of belief to silence religious voices in general and Christian voices in particular. The early enemies of Christianity spread several rumors [...]
While I see radical elements in the American Founding, I mostly see ways in which the Founding was conserving the best of the classical, medieval, and English past. The American Revolution, as such, did not turn the world upside down, but rather turned the world rightside back. This is part two of a series. See [...]
The Dead Sea Scrolls can only be interpreted in the light of faith as an amazing gift from God at a time when faith needed strengthening and a return to its historic roots. Selections from the Dead Sea Scrolls are being exhibited at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., this year. Seeing the [...]
The most important element in European foreign relations throughout the 1920s and during the early 1930s was the desire at all costs to avoid another war. There was among European statesmen a widespread conviction that another war would be infinitely more destructive than the Great War had been, and any alternative seemed preferable. 1. Hitler's [...]
How did our traditional antipathy to third parties start in America, and what role have third parties played in our electoral history? Introduction Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently said that the Democratic party in America “is in a civil war.” The rise of the Democratic Socialist wing of the Democratic party and the [...]