[Taken randomly from Brother Francis' lectures, with a minor amount of editing.]

Some things have to become part of our knowledge through acquaintance, so to speak. Knowledge becomes impossible if everything needs a definition.

If someone were to ask you a question and say, “What does this mean?” And you say, “It means this or that.” And he asks, “And what does this or that mean?” You can see the possibility of these questions and answers going on forever. Read More »

When you see an article with a title like, Do You Renounce Kennedy and All His Works?, you can have a moral certitude that it was written by John Zmirak, the eccentric, Croatian-Irish, working-class Yalie turned standup apologist. (I was an undergrad at LSU when John was getting his Ph.D. there, and I owe him a lot for exposing me to, among other things, the Traditional Latin Mass.) Worth reading in Dr. Zmirak’s article is the section toward the bottom, on Dr. Hadley Arkes, a convert from Judaism. Read More »

Q: Is it really possible to explain, using reason alone, the immortal nature of the human soul, versus the animal soul? I understand that the ability to reason is particular to humans, but I don’t see how this proves our immortality. I believe it because the Church teaches it, but I can’t get it across to people who reject the Church.

I realize that the proof lies in the fact that there is no organ whose sole function is to reason, although we use the brain when we think, but I don’t see how we can know there is no such organ, with such certainty. If this can be understood using reason alone, it seems to me that there must be some relatively simple way of illustrating it. Read More »

[Christopher A. Ferrara, The Church and the Libertarian (Minnesota: The Remnant Press, 2010), $25, 383 pp., soft cover.]

Since hearing, a few years ago that Chris Ferrara was preparing this book, I have eagerly looked forward to reading it. I have not been disappointed. This is a tremendous and necessary defense against a dangerous ,widespread ideology that is all too often defended by Catholics — who, as Brother Francis (RIP) would say, should know better. That most Catholics now do not may have something to do with why Our Lady of Fatima called our time an era of diabolical disorientation. Read More »

The following excellent explanation of liberalism is taken from: Parente, Pietro; Piolanti, Antonio; and Garofalo, Salvatore, Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology, translated by Emmanuel Doronzo, O.M.I., S.T.D., Ph.D. (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1951) p. 163 and 164. I have provided only the linked references and one small note in brackets.

Liberalism. A doctrinal current, quite complex and changeable, which has had various interpretations and practical applications, not easily definable. The basic concept of liberalism is liberty, taken as emancipation and independence of man, society, and State, from God and His Church. Read More »

For this Ad Rem, I would like to share with our readers a brief gem that we hope to publish soon as part of a larger work. But before doing that, I will recall something more fundamental. And in so doing, I will reveal the “setting” of this gem.

Speaking of the work of Saint Benedict Center and the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Brother Francis often said, “We are three things at once: a crusade, a religious order, and a school of thought.” Usually, he would embellish this utterance with little summaries of each of the three. By crusade, he meant our two-fold apostolate for the conversion of America and the restoration of doctrinal sanity, beginning with that very fundamental dogma, extra ecclesiam nulla salus. Read More »

Reminiscing over the days when I would spend hours at a time leisurely listening to Brother Francis teach and asking him questions, I thought of the countless times we played the numbers game. Brother loved to make all studies as light and enjoyable as possible. Someone would throw out a number and the players would have to give an example of that number’s use; but it had to be something to do with the Faith: i.e., scripture, tradition, or perennial philosophy.  Take the number 153.   Read More »

(This is the paper written in preparation for a talk given at the 2005 St. Benedict Center Conference.)

(Saint Anthony Mary Zaccharia, July 5, 2005)

The Contribution Of Catholic Letters To The Conversion Of Our Country

A deepening, savored knowledge of the nature and scope of Catholic Letters will inspire and fortify those of the Catholic Faith to share its more abundant life and rootedly radiant generosity with their countrymen, and also the growing immigrants, unto their true conversion to the Faith. The long, articulate tradition of this Catholic literature – vivid non-fiction as well as fiction – throughout the several centuries and various cultures of the Faith and the once-existing public order of Christendom, will also, if we form ourselves fully to partake of it, increase our gratitude. Read More »

(28 January 2006, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Peter Nolasco)

Forming a Catholic Resistance and Deeper Culture of the Faith in Times of Permeating Disorder: Evelyn Waugh’s Edmund Campion (1935) and Some Combatant Lessons from the Sixteenth Century

The scope and depth of Evelyn Waugh’s grateful and manly book, Edmund Campion, will, when receptively savored, illuminate and fortify those of the Catholic Faith today amidst their own special composite of challenges. For, as Waugh wrote in 1935: “The Church has vast boundaries to defend, and each generation finds itself called to service upon a different front.”[1] Read More »

If you have survived the magniloquent name of this little piece, you should easily get though the rest, for the grandiose title heads a subject matter well within reach.

It occurred to me while I was deep in thought — philosophers do that, you know — that a firm grasp of the concepts “first” and “second” is highly useful in explaining certain key Catholic truths, such as those pertaining to the Church, the sacraments, the papacy, priesthood, episcopacy, Our Lady, and other points of Catholicity. Read More »