Great books are more than just great teachers, friends, and wrestling partners. They are also great beauties—things to be cherished over the course of our lives like fantastic flowers ever in bloom, or gems resplendent and many-faceted. St. John’s College and the Great Books Program here at Mercer University have much in common. Both programs [...]
American culture has an opportunity now for renewal through its people of faith. We are being called to care for one another with love. We are being called to live out our virtue in service. The American soul has withered, and awaits an infusion of the lifeblood of love. Whether or not we respond may [...]
Edgar Allan Poe approvingly called his time the “epoch of the hoax.” During his lifetime he would attempt a total of six different hoaxes. Even though Poe’s motives may seem odd or obscure, his hoaxes live on as a quirky and fascinating part of literary history. The origins of April Fools’ Day are unclear. Some [...]
Of all the English bishops, only Bishop John Fisher of Rochester publicly opposed Henry VIII's mandatory Oath of Allegiance, which unlawfully declared King Henry the head of the Church of England. The bishop's stand ultimately cost him his life. Saint John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr If more Catholic Bishops were like Fisher more Catholic politicians [...]
The final word on the legacy of John Fisher and Thomas More, and the final judgment (under God) on why we should see them as heroes, is given by G. K. Chesterton, a man who proves in his very self that the killing of More and Fisher did not kill learning, laughter or holiness: "There [...]
Several centuries before Edmund Burke, Thomas More warned against theorizing about the perfect society and advised statesmen to do their best with the form of government their people have passed on to them. Though he himself favored one form of government over another, he admitted that we rarely have the power to create the government [...]
Ever since I began priestly formation, the month of November has carried with it a certain solemnity and gravity. In this way, I have found the month to be both celebratory and weighty in nature. Celebratory because I am keenly reminded of life’s goal—heaven. Yet, weighty because of death’s reality and the shortness of my [...]
All over the country this spring graduating seniors are being told that the future is before them, that they are the future. This is heady but dangerous talk. The future is not a place or a being. You can’t get there from here or be there except through a series of fulfilled nows. This is [...]
We have increasingly placed our faith in the power of government to provide solutions for human misery. What was once a strong level of responsibility and autonomy at the city, county, and state level has shifted toward a massive concentration at the federal level. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in the 1830s, he marveled [...]
Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul. –Plato Music transcends the classroom, the concert stage, and professional recordings. It pervades life. Mankind has long used music in all sorts of ways, to celebrate, to lament, to dance, to pray, to soothe or arouse, to woo, to infuse courage and [...]
The American and French Revolutions provide a contrast between principle and ideology; between prudence and fanaticism; between prescriptive rights and extravagant ambitions; between historical wisdom and utopianism; between free government and democratic despotism. A little book forgotten for a century and a half, Friedrich Gentz’s Origin and Principles of the American Revolution, compared with the Origin and [...]
What do the women and men who occupy the innumerable office buildings on either of the Potomac think about those gun-toting revolutionary gentlemen of the eighteenth century? As I type this, I’m sitting in a restaurant near Gates 10/11 in one of the terminals (not sure which one) of Reagan/Washington airport. The place is packed, [...]
The mysteries of the human heart, and of the soul within you, are every bit as wondrous as the mysteries of the political and the natural worlds. And so you have asked questions of the world, in part because it is your nature to wish to know, in part because you wish to know your [...]
An increasingly heated debate is taking place in America to redefine the role of faith in the public square. Faith has been a part of the American experience since the earliest days of the founding. As the nation now considers the relationship of the sacred and the secular, it may be helpful to reconsider our roots. [...]