“As the Rascals always say: ‘If you can’t pass the test, change the test!’ But it’s hard to pass the test when the test itself keeps changing (or evolving!).” (The Famous Words of a Living Virginian) On the Feast of … Continue reading
Category: Articles
Sanctity: Our Counterrevolutionary Grand Strategy
Here is the text of my talk from our recent Saint Benedict Center Conference. I. Introduction My talk today will be a brief elucidation of the following thesis: “The comprehensive and adequate grand strategy for today’s Catholic Counterrevolutionary is the … Continue reading
The Agony of Family Feasts in the Context of Divorce
In the context of the upcoming Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church in October 2014 which will also deal with the topic whether the Church should have a more lenient attitude toward those Catholics who have broken their marriage … Continue reading
Forebodings: Islamic State and Ukraine
In real time these lines are being written in early September. My spirits are usually high this time of year. I suppose my usual feeling is in part an emotional residue left over from school days long ago. September was … Continue reading
Counterrevolution as an Affirmation: Amid the Allure of False Dialectics
In a recent composition on Dostoievsky himself and on his memorable main fictional character from The Idiot, Prince Myshkin—both of whom (Myshkin and Dostoievsky) inimitably saw “the soul of goodness in things evil”—we also considered “a counterrevolution that is also … Continue reading
Let us Remember the Little Ones – Amidst the Devastation of Divorce
In the recent months, Pope Francis has stated repeatedly that one should have more mercy with those Catholics who are divorced and remarried civilly. In the context of the current discussion within the Church about Divorce, and how to deal … Continue reading
Dostoievsky’s Prince Myshkin, “The Idiot”
After reading together with my wife last night our Austrian friend Friedrich Romig’s carefully crafted and profound review of a 2013 book in German by Botho Strauss, we even started to consider, in light of Dostoievsky’s presentation of Prince Myshkin, … Continue reading
Doing God’s Will
In his most important book, Catholicism, Liberalism and Socialism, the great Spanish Catholic diplomat, statesman and political thinker Juan Donoso Cortes (1809-53), often called “the Spanish de Maistre,” wrote: “Governments seem to be endowed with an unerring instinct which teaches … Continue reading
The Seven Churches of the Apocalypse
One dominant feature that is pervasive in holy scripture, testifying to its divine inspiration, is that there is no exaggerating the good nor whitewashing the evil in God’s people. Beginning with Adam and Eve actually trying to hide themselves from … Continue reading
A Tale of Two Toussaints: A Catholic Legacy of Haiti
Haiti. What does the average American know of Haiti? We hear about this fellow Western Hemisphere nation when there is a disaster – a terrible earthquake; a direct hit from a tropical hurricane; the lingering aftermath to her suffering people … Continue reading
From Joie de Vivre to Gaudium de Veritate
After recently reading a good contemporary satire by the ostensible (and irrepressible) “Father René Tiepolino,” entitled “Two Plus Two Makes Three: An After-Mass Debate in a Mixed-Use Sacristy,”1 I immediately thought of Hilaire Belloc’s own 1932 Cautionary Verse, entitled “The … Continue reading
Lessons from the Charterhouse
Due to the kindness of a benefactor, the Brothers recently came into possession of the book, The Prayer of Love and Silence, which Father David Phillipson had recommended from our pulpit some weeks previously. Its author is “A Carthusian,” so … Continue reading
O Happy Fault!
Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, eighty-six years-old, Archbishop of Bologna from 1984 to 2003, has just had published a series of twenty-two meditations that he composed for Lenten exercises in 1989 for Pope John Paul II and members of the Roman Curia. … Continue reading
Suicide
Though it’s a horror from which Catholics may recoil, it is a fact that since 2001, the year our continuing war in Afghanistan was begun, more U.S. military personnel have committed suicide than have been killed in action in that … Continue reading
Reflections On “Slithering Into Undisclosed Locations”
I have always enjoyed reading Sr. Marie Therese’s articles in the “Convent Corner” section of Mancipia. Her writing is concise, clearly presented, and filled with nuggets of wisdom, which are both practical and spiritually insightful. Sister’s most recent article entitled … Continue reading
