The importance of the Council of Trent lies in its being two things at the same time: 1) the heart and soul of the Catholic Reformation (the authentic reform of the Church); and 2) the definitive moment of the Counter … Continue reading
Category: History
The Council of Nicea was Catholic
The headline of this posting may strike readers as comical. It is, of course, a fact.It seems so obvious as to be like asserting that the New England Patriots are a football team. However, there are Protestant polemicists who attempt … Continue reading
The Centenary of Pascendi, the Battle of Vienna
An Important Centenary. This past Saturday marked a very important centenary. On September 8, 1907, the Feast of Our Lady’s Nativity, Pope St. Pius X published his wonderful encyclical condemning Modernism: Pascendi Dominici Gregis. The vigilant pope’s definitive condemnation of … Continue reading
How the Popes and Other Catholic Leaders in the 19th Century Responded to Modernity
The eighteenth-century Enlightenment mounted a severe offensive against the Church, one which combined various malignant cultural and intellectual trends that had gradually come into ascendancy since the Renaissance. “For the most part, the Church did not respond to this attack … Continue reading
The Relationship of Americanism to Modernism
It would be a gross oversimplification to put an equal sign between the words “Americanism” and “Modernism,” as if the former were merely the American embodiment of the latter. However, while we must avoid this facile identification of the two, … Continue reading
What did St. Pius X mean when he called Modernism “the synthesis of all heresies”?
This phrase – “the synthesis of all heresies” – shows up toward the end of the Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, placed in the context of a rhetorical question.[1] After an apology for taking so long to explore the entire scope … Continue reading
How the Renaissance Papacy contributed to the Reformation
The Catholic historian, A. Dufourcq, called the papacy of 1447 to 1527, la papauté princière, “the papacy of princes.”[1] This trenchant appellation conveys Fr. Maurice Sheehan’s meaning when he says “these popes were more men of culture or rulers than … Continue reading
Holy and Roman
Voltaire, whose corrosive wit did so much to dissolve the faith of the pre-revolutionary French aristocracy in their right to rule (not to speak of their adherence to the Faith) once quipped that “the Holy Roman Empire is neither holy … Continue reading
Crushing the Infamous One
The Dialogue of the Carmelites, by Francis Poulenc, is one of the few operas composed in the past half century worth hearing. Poulenc based his 1958 work on a drama of the same title that was written by Georges Bernanos, … Continue reading
In the Company of Ignatius
“Therefore every scribe instructed in the Kingdom of Heaven, is like to a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old. ” (MT 13:52) Throughout the long history of our Catholic religion, … Continue reading
July 20 – 1944
It is a date that means nothing to most Americans, but this July 20 there will be commemorated in Germany, especially by the nation’s remaining Catholics, the sixtieth anniversary of an act that possibly could not have been committed by … Continue reading
Three Valiant Women
“Who shall find a valiant woman? Far and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her.
Blessed Father Basil Moreau: a Man Against His Times
(Note: This article was originally published when its subject was “Venerable Father Basil Moreau,” and was named accordingly. On September 15, 2007, Canon Basil Antoine Marie Moreau was beatified. He is now to be called “Blessed Basil Moreau.” We have … Continue reading
The Age of the Enlightenment is Not Over
“The Enlightenment” is the name by which are known both an intellectual movement and an historical period usually considered as having begun in the 17th century and reaching their height in the 18th. However, insofar as ideas spawned by the … Continue reading
Hosea Ballou – Son of Richmond – Father of Universalism
Editor’s Introduction: The following piece is about a home-town boy of ours, one from Richmond, New Hampshire, where this journal is published. While for us it has “local flavor,” we think it worthy of publishing for two reasons.
