Today, the degree of popular ignorance of World War II is astounding. Military buffs apart, younger Americans know nothing about the Battle of the Bulge, which claimed nineteen thousand American lives. World War II was our “Aeneid,” an epic struggle against authentic evil, which at once created the nation and framed its destiny. The World [...]
Tools are a significant part of the permanent things, but they are also relative to time, place, and function. That is, we are tool-using animals. Or to put it another way, we are an ingenious species, capable of creating hammers of nuanced proportions, and using them to build dwelling places and to kill other members [...]
In his courage and perseverance throughout the Revolution, George Washington revealed his reliance on patience—and feelingly used the word when referring to his men at Valley Forge. In contemporary American society, the relationship between patience and power is often wary and distant: If people have power, then they won’t have to wait. Recently, however, these two [...]
Whatever his failings as an imaginative thinker, President James Monroe’s own convictions were rooted deeply in the spirit and the letter of the U.S. Constitution. As he entered the White House in March 1817, he had little (well, less) use for James Madison’s newfound love of nationalism. While he entered the presidency too late to [...]
As a theory of history, progressivism always believes in conflict and violence and antagonism. Progressivism, then, not surprisingly, is wrapped up in bigotry, racism, and violence. “Progress! Did you ever reflect that that word is almost a new one?” asked an enraptured Woodrow Wilson in 1913. “No words come more often or more naturally to [...]
If a democracy drifts into unlimited notions of freedom, the best course of action is not to strip citizens of freedom, but rather to educate them, so that they can correct any constitutional abuses that contributed or led the way to the abyss of nihilism. Introduction This essay will revisit the age-old concern with the [...]
For Christopher Dawson, there was the inflection point, the point of intersection where the enfleshment of God took place to fire the historical imagination. There could be no other event, no possible happening in the great sea of history to compare with the coming of God among us, pitching His tent in the midst of our [...]
Please never forget, we Catholics have a great legacy. We’ve been promoting liberal education since the days of St. Paul. Some of our greatest saints were liberally educated, and promoting all that is good and true and beautiful has been one of our greatest causes. The author recently delivered the address below to the Roman [...]
Paul Kingsnorth believes that the Machine Age has replaced the four P's of traditional culture (the past, the people, place, and prayer) with four S's: science, self, sex, and the screen. Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity, by Paul Kingsnorth. (348 pages, Random House, 2025) Paul Kingsnorth is right about much, and he [...]
The Letter of Clement provides our first glimpse of the Gospel fused with 'Romanitas'—a vision of Rome not so much as a symbol of strength and power as of unity and peace. Whereas the old 'Pax Romana' was achieved through conquest and force, the new order would be built on the love of Jesus. The [...]
At Easter in the year 432, in the village of Slane, Ireland, Saint Patrick declared: “There is no better day for my task. I will announce my mission by lighting the Paschal Fire at this place on Easter Eve!” One day in Lent, a boat sailed up the winding reaches of the Boyne, past the [...]
Neither the past nor the present can be reduced to a simple morality play with unambiguous heroes and villains. This false and superficial understanding of human nature and the human condition has convinced many that American power and decency are, or ought to be, unassailable, and that the continued application of technology will forever sustain [...]
In “Big Wonderful Thing: A Texas History,” Stephen Harrigan explores the “poignantly unguarded self-love” and the “fierce national personality” that oozes from Texans. He is unapologetic in his praise for and fascination with the state. “Big Wonderful Thing,” however, is not a tribute piece; instead, Mr. Harrigan’s history carefully holds in tension the grandeur and [...]
It is not only the beginning and the end of our history that consist in actions on a cosmic scale. The central point is also a creative act, the resurrection of Christ, himself the Word of God, by whom all things were made, who is to come in the fullness of time to make all [...]