Category: History

Brother Francis has a tremendous appreciation for the history of the Church. He likes to call Church history “the laboratory of wisdom.” Why? Because the history of the Church is the history of human salvation, and choosing the best means to save one’s soul is the highest prudence. And prudence, says St. Thomas Aquinas, is wisdom in action.

History is the laboratory of wisdom, but the application today of the lessons learned from history is prudence.

How, for example, are we to understand what St. Pius X meant when he said that “modernism is the synthesis of all heresies,” if we are ignorant of the history of the Church’s battles against heresy? How are we to evaluate the causes of what Pope Benedict referred to a “crisis of Faith,” if we unfamiliar with any of the twenty ecumenical councils that preceded Vatican II?

There are twenty-two books of the Bible that are history books: the first nineteen of the Old Testament, the two books of Machabees, which end the Old Testament, and the Acts of the Apostles in the New.

A knowledge of Church History is a knowledge of the life of the Body of Christ extended in time throughout the past twenty centuries. It is a glorious history, with its martyrs, confessors, saints of the desert, great doctors and popes, apostles of nations, proliferation of contemplative orders, active orders, teaching orders, advances in science, medicine, the arts, missionary life, and victories over the enemies of true religion, who engaged her by pen and sword.

Without a knowledge of history, of its facts, dates, and events, a Catholic is ill-prepared to defend the Church against those who would gainsay her by misrepresentation, misinformation, or deliberate disinformation. Nor can we forget that we all have an obligation to instruct the ignorant who have been misled by error and who, in their hearts, nurture an affinity for the truth.

A Tale of Three Revolutions

Last night I attended a meeting of the Alhambra Historical Society, at which Joyce Amaro, president of the Alhambra Preservation Group, gave a presentation on the formerly Episcopalian chapel of Ss. Simon and Jude and her organisation’s thus far successful … Continue reading

Irish in S Carolina Before 1492?

Or, try this. Celtic presence in America before Leif Erickson, before Brendan the Navigator, even before the Incarnation? This article here by Michael McCormack on the First Christmas Card is quite convincing. Father Longenecker: Something inside me thrills when the received … Continue reading

9/11: The Heroes of Flight 93

The American Catholic, Donald R. McClarey: Passenger Thomas Burnett, Jr. called his wife and she told him about the other planes that had hit the Twin Towers.  He called her back after their first conversation and told her:  “We’re going to … Continue reading

Battle of the Statues

As everyone save the most hermit-like will know, these United States are extremely divided just at the moment. At the conclusion of an administration whose most iconic moment was — for this writer, anyway — an executive order penalising public … Continue reading