For all its levity, there is gravitas enough in "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." Its all-too-evident lesson is that those who succumb to the madness of erotic love, spurning chastity, will find themselves “enamored of an ass.” Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. So says G. K. Chesterton. On the other hand, as Chesterton [...]
The Jesuit poet and martyr Saint Robert Southwell was executed in London on February 20, 1595, shortly before Shakespeare is thought to have written Romeo and Juliet. Since there is abundant evidence to suggest that Shakespeare knew Southwell and that he admired Southwell’s poetry, it is worth examining the evidence for Southwell’s influence on Shakespeare’s [...]
For most people, the name of Sir Alec Guinness is associated with his playing of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy. Such an association is understandable enough but it does scant justice to Sir Alec’s true legacy as one of the greatest actors of the twentieth century. He was a fine Shakespearean actor, [...]
Quite simply, William Baer's "Advocatus Diaboli" is contemporary Christian fiction at its finest. It is much more than a mere murder mystery. It is a voyage of discovery, a spiritual adventure, which takes us deeper into the mysteries of faith. Recreational reading is one of the joys of life. It’s such a pleasure, at the [...]
What I experienced at a recent postmodern production in the park was Shakespeare in the dark, devoid of the living presence of goodness, truth, and beauty that flows from The Bard’s Muse. No matter. Shakespeare still lives in the timeless truth and beauty of his works, and he laughs at the folly of those modern [...]
Tall tales are still being told. The light still shines. The torch is still being handed from generation to generation. Thanks be to God, the giver of the light, and thanks be to Chesterton, Tolkien, Lewis, and all other legend-makers and torchbearers of tradition. Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme of things not found [...]
I urge good men everywhere to read "The Woman Who was Poor" by Léon Bloy, a master of the art of darkness, which shows the ugliness of sin and illustrates its destructive consequences. His novel is indeed a masterpiece of the genre. It is said that all is necessary for the triumph of evil is [...]
Alexander Salter’s "The Political Economy of Distributism" is a much-needed scholarly work on the ideas of distributism, as presented in the writings of Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton. Written in such a way that it will pass muster in the ivory towers of academe, it is also accessible for any reader interested in politics and [...]
In a recent essay, Veronique de Rugy focuses her ire on Alexander Salter, author of a forthcoming book entitled "The Political Economy of Distributism." She apparently seeks to discredit the book by discrediting its author as an admirer of the "antisemitic" Hilaire Belloc. This is really all too silly to be taken seriously. We live [...]
Perhaps it could be argued that the English monarch is nothing but an effectively powerless figurehead and that, therefore, his or her words are of little consequence. The real power resides with Parliament, not with the Monarch. Not so, I would reply. Or at least not necessarily so. I honestly cannot remember the last time [...]
The story of Riccardo Bacchelli’s classic novel "The Gaze of Jesus" is seen through the eyes of one man who had suffered the gaze of Jesus and had suffered its consequences. The man in question is Ithamar, who is better known to readers of Scripture as the Gerasene demoniac, from whom Christ had exorcized the [...]
I discovered an old letter last week, hidden between the pages of an old book, the content of which has been haunting me ever since. It was addressed to me at an old address in Florida and I seem to have tucked it away for safekeeping. What I read astounded me as it contains revelations [...]
The sobering reality remains that this glorious world of life-after-death is not ours for the taking but only ours for the asking. If we will not ask to be admitted, we cannot enter. It is not ours by right but is offered as a gift. If we won’t accept the gift, we won’t be forced [...]
In a world where love is replaced with lust, the number of damsels in distress will increase. In such a world, we need to rescue our maidens from the dragons of the culture of death. In The Hobbit, Thorin Oakenshield gives Bilbo Baggins a beginner’s lesson on the nature of dragons, a sort of dragons for [...]