Here is my effort to construct a solid program of reading for a classical high school curriculum. Last month I wrote an essay for The Imaginative Conservative on “Classical Education and American Literature” in which I explained the rationale for the selection of titles by American authors for a high school literature curriculum. One of [...]
Few popes have lived in more perilous times than Pius XI and fewer still have shown as much courage in the midst of peril. There have been many bad popes throughout the history of the Church. Indeed, there have been so many that it is a miracle that the Church has survived them. On the other [...]
Perhaps, when we survey the splendour of the literary legacy of the British Isles, we should remind ourselves that the one golden rule is that there was not one golden age. Instead, and glory of glories, from the time of the Anglo-Saxons until the most recent of times, one golden age has simply made way [...]
By the time of his death, Fr. Allan MacDonald was lauded throughout Scotland for his pioneering scholarship in the field of Celtic studies, for his tireless political campaigning to alleviate the plight of the poor, and for his poetry and translations. Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing, Onward! the sailors cry; Carry [...]
I have always been a keen walker, or “hiker” in the American idiom. I have ambled, rambled, scrambled or otherwise perambulated across large swathes of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland; I have roamed around Europe; and I have even ventured, since my arrival on this side of the Pond fourteen years ago, to traipse through [...]
In our quest for the truly unsung heroes of Scotland, we must look beyond those flowers which are in full, admirable bloom to those fading flowers which have been neglected. O flower of Scotland When will we see Your like again That fought and died for Your wee bit hill and glen…. The patriotic song “Flower [...]
Nations as well as people, can be unsung heroes. They can suffer and be heroic in their suffering. Poland is such a nation. Hemmed in by neighbors that have all too often been enemies—and, as often as not, conquering enemies—Poland’s whole history has been shaped by suffering. It has been besieged and attacked by the [...]
Paul T. Mascia's novella, "Nazar’s Journey," is full of hope, and yet it is set in the midst of one of the grimmest and deadliest episodes in recent history, in which it would have been very easy for people to lose all hope. Nazar's Journey, by Paul T. Mascia (Austin Macauley Publishers, 2024, 141 pages) [...]
The 18th century was a low point for the Church, particularly in France. But François-René de Chateaubriand would sow the seeds of the Catholic revival in France. It is hard to say which have been the lowest points in the history of the Church. The fourteenth century was pretty wretched. The papacy, exiled from Rome to [...]
Richard Wagner’s legacy has been overshadowed, and some would say permanently marred, by the manner in which he became the poster child of Hitler’s grotesque Third Reich. Yet should we condemn his music for this reason? Nice to see your music selections. But Wagner, your favorite composer! Say it ain’t so, Joe! The above-quoted words [...]
Real Faith, for a scientist, as for anyone else, is often a matter of bitter struggle. The victory must be won—or the gift must be discovered—by each one in his own soul. Georges Lemaître One of the most famous scientists of the twentieth century is Edwin Hubble, after whom the famous Hubble Space Telescope [...]
Lately, I have found myself increasingly involved in the pioneering adventure of helping to start new schools and colleges in the classical liberal arts tradition. I am on the boards of both Rosary College and another college, the name of which I am not yet at liberty to disclose. The former is a two-year undergraduate [...]
Little has changed in the years since Hilaire Belloc departed bodily from King’s Land. The ghost of his powerful absence still dwells in his stead, and the mill that he restored stands tall and erect, and in full working order. The great hills of the South Country They stand along the sea; And it’s there [...]
The Catholic Church has produced some of the greatest scientists who have ever lived. These scientists might not be known to Catholics, or else, if they are known as scientists, they might not be known as Catholic scientists. This being so, let’s look at a dynamic duo of great scientists who should be known—and whose Catholicism [...]