The fact is that “unity” is not always good, and “division” is not always bad. Indeed, some unity is downright diabolical. There is, for instance, nothing more united than a mob. The mob mentality is nothing other and nothing less than toxic unity. When G.K. Chesterton first came to the United States and visited New [...]
The fame of the saints is not only good but should be proclaimed from the hilltops. The fortunes of the rich, if used charitably, are goods that can do a lot of good in alleviating suffering and edifying souls. It is not fame or fortune that is the problem but the prideful pursuit of fame [...]
Many great writers have affirmed Shakespeare’s Catholicism. G.K. Chesterton asserted that “convergent common sense” pointed to the belief that the Bard of Avon was a Catholic and that such common sense was “supported by the few external and political facts we know”. Over a hundred years earlier, the French writer, François René de Chateaubriand, insisted [...]
Let us look at some holy women of the early centuries of the Church who are not well known. Whenever the Roman Canon of the Mass is celebrated, there is also a celebration of the saints, dozens of whom are invoked by the priest at the altar. Among these saints are seven women: Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, [...]
It is a fact of history that the prisoner’s progress and the pilgrim’s progress can be synonymous. We think perhaps of the witness of famous prisoners, such as Boethius or Solzhenitsyn. The former wrote The Consolation of Philosophy while imprisoned and awaiting execution, bequeathing one of the classics of Christendom to future generations. His final [...]
Those who turn the pages of Philip C. Kolin's book of poetry, "Evangeliaries," will be going on a pilgrimage of grace. It is necessary, therefore, to slow down. Poetry, especially poetry this suffused with God’s abundant presence, must not be rushed. It must be savoured in silence. I have recently received a copy of Evangeliaries: Poems [...]
Malachy G. Carroll might have had only one novel in him, and he might have only one novel to his largely unknown name, but it’s a minor classic that every Catholic should read. It's 1952, and John Wayne’s latest film, The Quiet Man, is a huge hit at the box office. It is about a [...]
The positive secular reviews that have come in for my off-Broadway verse drama, "Death Comes for the War Poets," show the power of art to touch hearts even in enemy territory, in the secular art community of New York City, that most “woke” of communities in that most “woke” of cities. This shows the evangelizing [...]
The Church cannot continue to transform and humanize the world if she dispenses with the beauty of the liturgy. If the Church is to continue to transform and humanize the world, how can she dispense with beauty in her liturgies, that beauty which is so closely linked with love and with the radiance of the [...]
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas two of my great loves sent to me a couple of great meditations on the mystery of the Nativity. The first and better-known meditation is by T.S. Eliot, whose “Journey of the Magi” places the poet in the entourage of the Three Wise Men as they journey to Bethlehem. [...]
Michael Kurek's English Symphony is his third symphony and perhaps his best, surpassing even the magic and majesty of his second and, as its name suggests, taking the primary world of England as its creative wellspring. When Britain had an Empire The sun would never set, But the sun set over England And Englishmen forget [...]
Any discussion of Christmas and literature brings to mind instantly the miserly figure of Scrooge and the ghosts in Dickens’ Christmas Carol. It is not likely, however, that such a discussion would bring to mind the medieval classic, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Yet this epic of the Middle Ages, written by an anonymous [...]
As one who has admired Hilaire Belloc for almost half a century, it is gratifying indeed to see such a revival of interest in this great and under-appreciated man of genius. For too long, he has walked in G.K. Chesterton’s shadow. Now, at last, he is emerging in his own right, basking in the light [...]
Dom Prosper Guéranger's tireless promotion of Gregorian chant bore great cultural fruit and helped with the Catholic revival in France. In an earlier essay in this series, we remarked how dispassionate or despondent observers at the beginning of the 19th century might have considered that the Catholic Church was terminally ill and on its deathbed. The [...]