Thomas More on Conscience, Courage, & the Comedy of Politics

By |2024-02-06T18:00:46-06:00February 6th, 2024|Categories: Christendom, Christian Humanism, Civil Society, England, History, Natural Law, Philosophy, Politics, St. Thomas More, Timeless Essays, Wisdom|

As the gulf between classical and postmodern notions of conscience and government grows ever wider and their clashes more explosive, it is high time for the jury to give renewed attention to the nuances of Thomas More’s understanding of the apparently competing, but ultimately harmonious, demands of divine, natural, and human law. In August of [...]

The Left vs. Natural Law

By |2023-05-15T19:12:04-05:00May 15th, 2023|Categories: John Horvat, Liberalism, Natural Law|

Natural law terrifies the left, which assumed it had long ago died. Leftists cannot admit that there might be those who welcome ordered liberty and restraint. They cannot see that nihilism awaits on the other side of a flawed legal positivist system that will lead to every mode of emptiness and despair. The left is [...]

The Star in the Storm

By |2023-05-09T15:08:28-05:00May 9th, 2023|Categories: Christianity, Natural Law|

In these darkest of present moments, the smallest of actions, like telling the truth and living out the natural law—actions that in former ages would be simple common sense—are now sanctified and sanctifying. There are no more Common Men: only the choice between being a shade blown about in the tempest, adding to the darkness, [...]

Martin Luther King & the Rule of Law

By |2023-01-16T09:38:34-06:00January 15th, 2023|Categories: Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Featured, John Creech, Martin Luther King Jr., Natural Law, Rule of Law, Timeless Essays|

In acknowledgement of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I wish to raise the question, based on Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” as to when, if ever, as well as to what extent, it is appropriate to defy the rule of law. On The Imaginative Conservative Winston Elliott raised the question “When is a Change [...]

The Denial of the Natural Order

By |2023-08-21T18:31:28-05:00May 11th, 2022|Categories: Mitchell Kalpakgian, Modernity, Natural Law, Order, William Shakespeare|

Without a natural order on which to build, the religious order has no solid foundation on which to teach charity, enrich culture, or refine civilization. Without the cardinal virtues in place, the theological virtues will not follow. “The fundamental heresy of our day is perhaps the denial of the natural order, of the very foundations [...]

On ‘Originalist’ Judges Who Deny Natural Law

By |2021-11-08T15:33:02-06:00November 8th, 2021|Categories: John Horvat, Natural Law, Supreme Court|

Conservatives are rightly disappointed when judges they appointed betray their principles in favor of a legal model without a moral compass. They cannot understand how they find unknown “rights” and “freedoms” in the name of a misdirected constitutionalism that ignores the firm foundation of fundamental truths based on tradition and morals. Modern law has a [...]

Making America Great Again: Orestes Brownson on National Greatness

By |2020-10-26T16:08:45-05:00October 26th, 2020|Categories: American Republic, Catholicism, Government, Natural Law, Politics, Religion|

It’s time for Orestes Brownson to re-enter our contemporary political discourse, and on the campaign trail to remind us, first, that all just authority is from God, who instituted natural law, and also, that moral authority is not relative. I. The Brownson Revival In 1993 Peter J. Stanlis revisited Orestes Brownson’s political thought by reviewing [...]

From Highest Heaven Handed Down

By |2020-09-28T16:33:34-05:00September 28th, 2020|Categories: Books, Christianity, Natural Law, Philosophy, St. Thomas Aquinas|

Russell Hittinger’s “The First Grace” deals mightily with the crisis of our time—namely, the failure of those who make, enjoy, and judge the constitutionality of laws to appreciate the dire consequences of denying the place of natural-law considerations in the ordering of public life. The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World, [...]

Is Natural Law Sufficient to Defend the Founding?

By |2020-07-26T00:55:31-05:00July 26th, 2020|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Aristotle, Books, Natural Law, Philosophy, Reason|

As Robert R. Reilly explains in “America on Trial,” the United States restored the founding of government based on reason in a Constitution that produced the most successful government experiment in history. If the American Founding was a rational and social success, why has the American experiment now come under modern attack? America on Trial: [...]

On Conversations, Poisonous Mushrooms, & Taking Ourselves too Seriously

By |2020-06-22T16:41:41-05:00June 22nd, 2020|Categories: Intelligence, Modernity, Natural Law, Philosophy, Reason, Truth|

The natural laws that the academics and intellectuals have for centuries been trying to think and feel out of existence, the laws undergirding all of reality, do not kowtow to the thoughts and actions of mere human beings. They continue to inform reality and will overwhelm anyone who does not bow to them, as all [...]

Natural Law and Our Constitutional Crisis

By |2020-02-03T02:39:43-06:00February 2nd, 2020|Categories: Constitution, Natural Law|

In the coming debates over the nation’s future, a return to natural law is the most secure way to fight against the legal chaos that has destroyed the rule of law. We must explore natural law notions of self-defense, private property, and even national sovereignty. This law will direct us to God, who made both [...]

Human Kindness, Rights, and Feelings

By |2023-06-09T22:02:47-05:00November 22nd, 2019|Categories: Conservatism, Joseph Pearce, Liberal, Libertarians, Natural Law, Politics, Rights, Senior Contributors|

It strikes me that all those who talk incessantly of “my rights” are acting pridefully, in the sense that they are making themselves the centre of their own microcosmos at the expense of their neighbours. If we want freedom, however, we must be prepared to pay the price for it. One way of gauging the [...]

John Courtney Murray and the American Civic Psyche

By |2020-07-23T17:20:48-05:00August 31st, 2019|Categories: American Republic, Declaration of Independence, Natural Law|

John Courtney Murray’s “We Hold These Truths” is hardly a tumbleweed of early-twentieth-century Catholic social thought. Though it initially helped to reconcile Catholicism and the religious pluralism that our nation champions, it is also a work that deals deeply with that taboo concept of today: patriotism. Reading John Courtney Murray’s famous work, We Hold These [...]

Burning Bushes, Smoking Mountains, and the Law

By |2019-08-19T22:16:59-05:00August 19th, 2019|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christianity, Civil Society, Education, History, Natural Law, Senior Contributors, Western Odyssey Series|

While much has been made of the “Ten Commandments” in recent history, men for centuries have accepted these commandments as deeply rooted in the order of the universe and of creation—as an overt expression of the Natural Law. They are one of the ways God has continued to maintain His love for His people. With [...]

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