In “The Wealth of Nations,” Adam Smith was absolutely right: The widespread division of labor would cause the interior life to die; an unsurprising result, for under capitalism, the human person became a commodity, a resource, a thing used to further profits. My parents, Romanian gypsies, born in a Transylvanian village and raised in thatched-roofed [...]
Although we are halflings, we cannot remain halflings. We must either grow towards the wholeness of holiness or we must shrivel into the wreckage that Pride will make of our lives. Doing nothing is the sin of omission which leads to decay. We can either be Ring-bearers or Ring-wearers. We can either take up our [...]
One of the most pressing tasks for contemporary Christians is the recovery and cultivation of the inextricable link between the Christian faith and the intellectual life. In order to engage in such reflection, we should explore the relationship of Christianity and the liberal arts, and in particular seek to draw from Augustine as we reflect [...]
Nearly seventy years after the publication of Romano Guardini's "The End of the Modern World," the rot has advanced too far to entertain any serious prospect of restoring a Christian social order in which, as Guardini insisted, “faith will maintain itself against animosity and danger” and “man’s obedience to God will assert itself with a [...]
Francis Bacon imagined a glorious future for us once our ancestors made themselves the masters and possessors of Nature; however, the ever-ascending arc of science and technology turned out to be not under human control. Physicists, neuroscientists, and computer and genetic engineers are the new sorcerer’s apprentices, having summoned great forces they can now not [...]
How on earth did we stray so far from the paths of wisdom that we find ourselves in this God-forsaken place that is our modern world? I am fond of telling the story of an American tourist who gets himself hopelessly lost somewhere in the wilds of the west of Ireland. In desperation, he stops [...]
We are lesser people for the disappearance of our architectural heritage. If Edmund Burke was correct that “to make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely,” then historical preservation takes on the same importance as land conservation. Both are inheritances to be held against the bulldozers of economic development. Salem Depot [...]
The self-absorption that is so prominently on display in the present day precludes such transcendence. It involves an inflation of the self that results in the eclipse of all phenomena transcendent to it. The question that materializes in this age is not so much, what do I matter, but what does anything else matter but [...]
Modernity, by God’s grace, may be the site of a new synthesis, the transcending of stale categories of thought and practice, in which a new Christendom can emerge, one in which the reign of God in His glory and love emerges side-by-side with the full dignity and flourishing of man. The Immanent Frame and Great [...]
In America today, we are living in a toxic political climate that is the product of a very dangerous combination: Our rulers lack the learning necessary to ask the kinds of deep and fundamental questions that leaders and lawgivers ought to make a habit of pondering, while our people rebelliously scrutinize all orthodoxies and impose [...]
“Robinson Crusoe” contains profound messages for us today. It is an enactment of the modern, secular individual making his way alone in the world and overcoming challenges through the power of his own unaided reason. At the same time, in pointing to a religious interpretation of existence that is never quite fully experienced, it highlights [...]
All civilizations wither and die. But maybe the inevitable death of civilizations is partly a lesson in the Vanity of Human Wishes and partly God’s jest, rescued from cruelty because He also designed a Heavenly Reward to be seen in the next movie. You will need to wear your Indiana Jones fedora and stick with [...]
There is nothing unique in Prince Harry’s story. The same plot applies to all who have walked down the selfish, disastrous road of postmodernity, where every tradition and social structure must be questioned, and every narrative denied. If there is a figure that is not a role model, it is Prince Harry, son of Charles [...]
Modernity consists of perversions of notions drawn from Christianity; to be a modern means to be deeply enmeshed in them. The part of the title of this talk which I asked to have announced is “The Roots of Modernity.” But there is a second part which I wanted to tell you myself. The full title [...]