Why did the introduction of the new liturgy not bring about the long-anticipated renewal for which we were all longing? Without the deep personal relationship with Christ that develops and grows in personal prayer, the liturgy can soon become ineffective, not in itself, but in those who are not prepared to receive it. Many of [...]
Great literature does not pass away, nor does it lose its relevance, because, like the wise virgins of Scripture, it remains loyal to the Bridegroom and the unchanging truth that He teaches and the unchanging truth that He is. Like the saints, the Great Books are alive. Gertrud von le Fort's "The Wedding of Magdeburg" [...]
We are so accustomed to regarding the fine arts as simply a means to pursue or attain the beautiful in the abstract, that we forget that for long centuries there was a close connection between the arts and some public purpose. Outside of academia, discussions about theories of art or the relations of art and [...]
Booker T. Washington did not call for a revolution. Instead, he called for the simplest of building blocks in American society: helping your neighbor. I reread an undergraduate paper comparing the educational methods of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois and realized the comparison was horribly incomplete. I cited only Of the Training of Black [...]
Once Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth in 1570, there was a target on all Catholics, especially priests. The Catholic gentry of England put everything on the line to give shelter to the priests, particularly by the construction of hiding places in their large country houses. Here is the story of my trip to some [...]
Quietism in all its different manifestations seemed to encourage the reformer’s belief that our own efforts are useless and even blasphemous. Its adherents were not only encouraged to do absolutely nothing in prayer, but to do nothing about temptations either, that could only be overcome with God’s grace. Miguel de Molinos Molinos, the [...]
Better than any historian, storyteller Gertrud von le Fort brings her unique genius for laying bare the human heart in making sense of and finding redemption amid the horror of human suffering. Is there a Catholic home in America that does not display an Infant of Prague watching over the family from the top of [...]
The conventional narrative of “The Schism of 1054” may attract us by its simplicity and apparent explanatory power. But besides serving as a dubious justification for an ongoing situation, this narrative fails to capture the variety, obscurity, and complexity of human nature inspired by religious conviction that comes into view through the study of history [...]
Roman death masks—called “imagines”—were actually wax models impressed directly on the face during life, and they bore a remarkable likeness to the person. Displayed during the funerals of the elite, they served as a link between the present and the past and were meant to inspire attendees to patriotic virtue. The recent defacement of statues [...]
The political circus that rode into Dayton, Tennessee in the summer of 1925 must have been something, even though its conclusion was anti-climactic. Still, the case lives on, as it has for a century now. Did life come from nothing or something: or from Someone? The summer of 2025 should not come to an end [...]
Do you believe in a higher power, something that transcends the “human organism”? If this question is trivialized or ignored, we enter the very sound and soul of despair. Anthropology is the scientific study of human beings. Philosophy, literally translated, is the love of wisdom. Philosophical anthropology, then, is the scientific study of humans for [...]
Consumption of content is increasingly through audiobooks, podcasts, or YouTube videos—in other words, through oral tradition. We may thus be witnessing a technological revolution that not only takes us forward into a brave new world of communication, but also backward to the time of the Old Testament patriarchs. A few years ago I was able [...]
The necessity of personal morality in a thriving community is denied by the enemies of the permanent things, who do not believe that there are permanent standards of behavior or indeed an unchanging human nature, and who seek to create political systems that will make everyone happy without much effort. Enemies of the Permanent Things: [...]
Decadence ultimately entails the process of falling away from the vision that orders man's relation to the divine, to the community, to the self, to nature. In the Western context, it signifies a lessening of the hold on the imagination of all that inspires human beings to be devout. Through the ages the death of [...]