It is above all Saint Bernard, particularly through his innovative mystical theology, who shaped the theology of the later Middle Ages and also of modern times. The history of Christian spirituality is rather like a roller coaster with continual ups and downs, as renewal is followed by decline as the human spirit inevitably falters and [...]
The culture of death that the government of the UK has unleashed on its own people is all so diabolically ugly that it has something of the character of the caricature. It has the grimness of the grimace of a grotesque gargoyle. There was something darkly comical about the recent revelation that the grandfather of [...]
The West, through tradition, had mostly accepted the New Testament—as it is now—by the end of the third century and clearly accepted it by the end of the fourth century. The East did not accept a New Testament canon until the end of the seventh century. Canonicity of the New Testament: The English word “Gospel” [...]
The modern, brutalist church architects were really driven not by a desire for authenticity, but by a modernist, iconoclastic ideology. The old world with its fancy churches, lacy vestments, precious art, and Mozartian masses was out. This was a modern world of factories, public housing—a world of steel and concrete, concrete and steel. Notre-Dame [...]
The life of Venerable Dom Prosper Guéranger, a Benedictine monk, is truly one of rebuilding the Church from the ruins of the French Revolution and the lingering corruption of the Gallicanism which preceded it. In an age of great disintegration, Guéranger can be a model of rebuilding for all of the faithful. July 11 is [...]
***** Please join us by making your donation today in celebration of our 15th anniversary. Every contribution—whether $1500, $150, or $15—joins with our labor and prayer to restore the best of Christendom. —W. Winston Elliott, Publisher ***** An Electronic Inklings by Bradley Birzer I remember it well. Fifteen years ago, on a hot, humid summer afternoon [...]
This city, this Promised Land, this Banquet, is what all those who love God long for, and in order to see it, we must always be ready, like the virgins with the lamps, for God to break in and re-adjust our imaginative visions, our unexamined assumptions, our paradigms, to align with who He is, the [...]
Dear Friend of The Imaginative Conservative: "At the end of Paradise," writes Senior Contributor Michael De Sapio, "Dante the pilgrim is enthralled by his ever-deeper penetration into the mystery of God. I think that is an excellent image of our search for truth in this earthly life: ours is not a march to the grave, but a journey [...]
Inspired by a true story, Andy Fowler's "The Condemned" tells the tale of an American priest in a small, northern Mexican town beset by cartel violence. But running throughout all of it is the peace of God that may seem hidden and passes understanding, saving those who dare to turn away from the dark to [...]
While slouching may not be sinful, it can create an atmosphere of disregard, carelessness, and sloth. It favors bad habits that may facilitate vice. Hence, people can combat these horrible consequences by living up to standards of propriety that favor effort and consideration in a well-ordered society. One great tragedy of radical individualism was the [...]
Current anti-sex-discrimination law is ultimately sexually homogenizing. For if we can disable the male biology of the “female” swimmer so that “she” can swim more slowly—like a girl—why not “cure” the biological “disability” of the female employee, so that she can be more able to work, like men, by outsourcing pregnancy itself... or just eliminating [...]
It was claimed that the past would cease to matter amid the restless rush of progress. This has not happened. Instead, the wonders of technology and research have made the past more prominent than ever before. In light of all this, I want to ask a simple question: Is this recapitulation, this summing up of [...]
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, [...]
The God-given spirituality of love that was the mainspring of early Christianity was still enshrined in the monastic life after Constantine became emperor and Christianity was proclaimed the official religion of the Roman Empire by Theodosius the Great in AD 381. It was this consecrated form of life that was now used to renew the [...]