A genuine nationalist cannot be an imperialist. In this sense, the so-called nationalism of the nineteenth century was nothing of the sort… Mark Malvasi’s recent essay on the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century was a cogent and thought-provoking appraisal of the dangers of politically orchestrated mob-patriotism. It was not, however, an essay that [...]
I looked up from my writing, And gave a start to see, As if rapt in my inditing, The moon’s full gaze on me. […]
Hope permeates God’s creation, our natural world and the world of nature, as concrete images and as an enduring cycle, a complete and unrelenting season in itself… Hope is not a finite thing as Emily Dickinson well knew. A thing of feathers it is, and few definitions could do it justice. Yet we can catch [...]
Genuine education is rooted in the kind of timeless perspective which modern society arrogantly abjures. Such education provides depth and breadth… We are born and live in a certain location and in a certain time. By what appears to be the caprice of geography and chronology, we are thus, in a sense, “locked into” a particular [...]
Edmund Burke’s principle of order is an anticipatory refutation of utilitarianism, positivism, and pragmatism, an affirmation of that reverential view of society which may be traced through Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, the Roman jurisconsults, the Schoolmen, Richard Hooker, and lesser thinkers. It is this; but it is more. What Matthew Arnold called “an epoch of concentration” [...]
In a distorted world, the Christian poet is ultimately like the blind man whose vision Christ restored to see truth through grace, and those who read the poet’s words will find their vision restored as well. Editor’s Note: This essay was originally given as a part of a lecture series for the Cambridge School of [...]
“You cannot assume your personal opinions are the truth. This is why we study history: to use the slashing blade of reason like a machete to hack through the dark jungle of false opinion until we see the light of truth”… When Professor Stephen Tonsor had finished his prepared remarks on Christopher Dawson, arguably the [...]
There is a way out of postmodernism: courage. You do not reason yourself out of the postmodern, you fight your way out. You realize that logic can only take you so far. Then you have a decision to make. And you make it. Western civilization is founded on this one faith, this one great volitional [...]
Our experience escaping the hurricane taught me that as God's children, all men are truly brothers. I saw the face of Jesus many times in the faces of our rescuers: people of widely differing life experiences, and of various colors and faiths. You millions, I embrace you. This kiss is for all the world! Brothers, [...]
While the West has made more than its share of mistakes, it has also done some things better than any other civilization, or, at the very least, introduced things to the world that the world then claimed for all of humanity. For those of us who still love Western civilization and consider ourselves loyal patriots [...]
In their political offensive against socialism and democracy, many European statesmen of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries found in nationalism a convenient doctrine to electrify and exploit the masses… Karl Marx famously began The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by observing that Hegel “remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world [...]
What made James Madison unique among his generation and has subsequently made his legacy invaluable was his commitment to the “sacred fire of liberty” and his steadfast refusal to abandon either his republican commitment to popular participation or his liberal commitments to justice and the protection of individual rights. Scholarship on the political thought and [...]
The great, unequal conflict past, The Briton banish’d from our shore, Peace, heav’n-descended, comes at last, And hostile nations rage no more; From fields of death the weary swain Returning, seeks his native plain. […]
Mass is not supposed to make me comfortable—it’s supposed to make me more holy… After thirty-five years as a liturgical musician, it’s amazing how little I really know about the liturgical music of the Roman Rite. Then again, what should I expect when my earliest memories of music at Mass tend to involve now-forgotten attempts to make [...]