I live in Russia. Yes, still. And I’m a natural-born American with no Russian heritage. I even have a pretty great life here. But every year in October—or on the first day of September, if I’m being honest—something’s missing. That is the Perfect American Pumpkin. Like Linus anticipating the Great Pumpkin, I sincerely hope for [...]
The young man intended to purchase my death and, presumably and in some manner carry it away so that I never would meet with it. Immortality, wealth, my beloved Jessica all rotated in kaleidoscopic vision before my eyes. Editor’s Note: The following short story was left unpublished at the author’s death. Thomas Masty, the author’s [...]
The “anonymous societies”—the corporations—can never deliver what they promise; they can never bring us limited government, free markets, or private property. But most especially, they cannot overcome the division between capital and labor; that can come only by sharing in ownership, and by identifying property with responsibility. The directors of such [joint stock] companies, however, [...]
In his analysis of alienation in the modern world, Robert Nisbet recognized an important truth about the human person, which makes “The Quest for Community” timely even today: The individual cannot be understood except in relationship to other individuals in time and space. The abstract, autonomous individual does not exist nor can he ever exist. [...]
Could the life of St Galgano be linked to the Arthurian legend of the Sword in the Stone? In an earlier essay for The Imaginative Conservative, I recounted my discovery of the famous “Sword of St Michael” while on a hitch-hiking pilgrimage from England to Jerusalem. For those who are unfamiliar, the Sword of St [...]
Each of us belongs to two States—a terrestrial State whose end is the common temporal good, and the universal State of the Church whose end is eternal life. The Primacy of the Spiritual, by Jacques Maritain (Cluny Media, 254 pages) 1. Nothing is more important for the freedom of souls and the good of mankind [...]
There is too much despair in the world. Yet Christ bids us be of good cheer, for he says that he has “overcome the world.” Because he has won the war, we can be confident in fighting the battle of our lives so that we and those we love can find salvation. This Lenten season [...]
2023 Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage Last year, the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph held the first annual Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage, and I had the great privilege of taking part in the event. One month prior to the Rosary Pilgrimage, I had just arrived at the Dominican House of Studies as a [...]
Who are the "Secret Seven" poets who have been sadly forgotten and unjustly neglected, all but one of whom were converts to Catholicism and all of whom everyone should know? It is not often that the name of Enid Blyton, the bestselling children’s author, is mentioned in the same breath or the same sentence as literary [...]
Harry Jaffa’s constitutional history of America’s late-eighteenth-century is not credible nor, in keeping with many of his own pronouncements, is it conservative. The writing of history, as we have learned from authors as diverse as Thucydides, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Butterfield, Collingwood, and Oakeshott can and has been done in strikingly different ways while serving radically different [...]
It’s not often that one experiences the exhilarating shock and overwhelming satisfaction of discovering a new classic. When one does, it is only right that such satisfaction and exhilaration should be shared with others. It is, therefore, without the least hesitation that I recommend Michael Kent's "The Mass of Brother Michel." The Mass of Brother [...]
Why does the family that prays together, stay together? This weekend, thousands of pilgrims will make their way to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. Whether by plane, train, bus, car, or even on foot, they’ll gather in DC on September 28th for the second annual Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage. Preparations [...]
I don’t know about you, but I wish I had been born with the user manual for the human being or at least received instruction in school about the basic equipment every human being possesses. In my youth, I was incredibly ignorant about my senses, emotions, memory, imagination, intellect, and will. For me, it was [...]
Arguably one of the finest stories in the Western Tradition, “Beowulf” concerns the advent of a hero and his timely end. Throughout, questions of fate, free will, good, and evil predominate. Most prominent, though, are the theological questions of will and grace, one pagan and the other Christian. In 1926, when merely a thirty-four year [...]