As we come to the end of this series, there is time for one final song for the unsung, a sort of swan song, a final elegy and eulogy for those unknown heroes and heroines whose passing from this life went unheeded and unheralded but who have been sung to their rest by ministering angels. Whereas [...]
In the deadliest century of human history, these women heroically stood for life. Of all the many dark centuries in the history of Christendom, there is no denying that the 20th century was one of the darkest. It was also the deadliest. In terms of the sheer body count, the last century, with its wars of [...]
A martyr of Communist Russia, Mother Catherine of Siena, founded a convent of Third Order Dominicans before being sentenced to more than a decade of solitary confinement. It has been said, purportedly by G.K. Chesterton, that when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing but in anything. Even worse is that the [...]
What do we know of Catherine of Aragon, the first to suffer the pains of the so-called Reformation? All Catholics know the Salve Regina, the “Hail, Holy Queen,” the Marian antiphon sung in praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Queen of Heaven, who is without doubt and without question the most sung of all the [...]
Starting just 30 years after the Crucifixion, Catholic England produced remarkable figures, including lesser-known luminaries like Bishop Robert Grosseteste, who pioneered the scientific method. In my book Faith of Our Fathers: A History of True England, I sought to present a panoramic overview of two thousand years of English history, from the first century to the [...]
Poetry, often called the thinking man's meme, has faded from popular culture. Still, Catholics could greatly benefit from exploring the works of poets who lived heroic, faith-filled lives. Were one to conduct a survey of modern-day Americans, taken at random, it is likely that not one in a hundred would have heard of the poet Richard [...]
There is little doubt that Dvořák’s "New World Symphony" will be performed across the United States as part of next year’s celebrations to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps we might hope and pray that the "Te Deum" that he composed to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the [...]
Uruguay’s secular culture shuns Catholicism, yet heroes like Saint Anna Maria Rubatto and convert Alberto Methol Ferré defy the “libertine atheist” tide. A survey of the presence of the Catholic Church in South America will invariably focus on the largest nations, Brazil and Argentina, with reference also to countries such as Peru, Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, and [...]
A look at four more unsung heroes from the Australian continent, including the great Frank Sheed! In the previous essay in this series, we focused on two heroic Australian Catholics who witnessed to the Faith in their defense of the dignity of the human person. In this chapter, we will celebrate four other Australians whose heroism [...]
John Plunkett defended the dignity of the natives of Australia; Caroline Chisholm defended the dignity of vulnerable immigrants to Australia. In doing so, they offer a living witness to the Lord’s commandment that we love our neighbors. Long after European adventurers had first sailed into the mystic West to discover the New World of the Americas, [...]
Amidst the battered "Veritas" of Harvard, there are a few still heroically walking in the footsteps of their Catholic predecessors. It is ironic and risible in the extreme that the motto of Harvard University is “Veritas” because that once-illustrious institution has long since abandoned any belief in objective verity. It has ceased to seek answers [...]
"Into the tempests of the nineteenth century, Juan Donoso Cortes rode as knight-errant, prophet, and Man of the West.” Such is the picture that historian Christopher Olaf Blum paints of one of the most important thinkers of the past two hundred years. Yet the romantic image of Donoso Cortes as a latter-day Don Quixote will [...]
The 20th Century is marked by the loss of voices cut short in mid-song by war. There have been so many dark centuries in the history of Christendom that one hesitates to call any particular century the darkest of all. Some have been as dark as the 20th century, but none have been as deadly. [...]
Franz Jägerstätter and Fr. Gabriel Gay are two lesser-known victims of the Nazis. May their prayers deliver Europe from the wolves of secularism and restore the European nations to the Faith which forged them. Franz Jägerstätter In the previous essay in this series, we honored Blessed Otto Neururer, the first priest to be executed [...]