Note from the Assistant Editor:
Twentieth-century theologian Romano Guardini has influenced our last two popes: he is the third most-cited source in Laudato Si' and was quoted by Benedict XVI in his last papal speech. In "Born in the Spirit," Guardini reflects on the limits of man — that we must always be ourselves, even while we long for complete union with another. The love of Christ breaks that barrier.
Anthony Esolen writes on the last of the Founding Fathers, Charles Carroll, who risked all — "his immense fortune, the largest in America, and his life" — for freedom. In our current political climate, his legacy is even more meaningful. See "How the Church Has Changed the World: Forgotten Father."
What constitutes a moral or immoral film? In "Redeeming Shawshank," Fr. Dwight Longenecker argues that "a film is not immoral simply because it features nudity or violence." Rather, the deciding factor is truth. And when truth "is embedded in the story it goes straight to the heart" — making art "a more powerful tool of evangelization than intellectual treatises which may merely convince the intellect."
The first question I was asked in Western Civilization at Ave Maria University was whether civilizations were products of circumstances or people. In a defence of now-disappearing Western Civ. courses, Rodney Stark argues that modernity would not have developed without the right people. "Explanations should not — cannot — rest primarily on material conditions and forces. It is ideas that matter." See "How the West Won — but 'Western Civ' Lost." - Meaghen Hale |
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"He who prays well, lives well, he who lives well dies well, and he who dies well, all is well." - Saint Augustine
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New Resources
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Born in the Spirit - Romano Guardini - from The Lord
Christ in man draws man into himself.
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Redeeming Shawshank - Father Dwight Longenecker - The Imaginative Conservative
The Shawshank Redemption is an excellent example of how positive themes properly permeate a work of art.
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Ecclesiae Pro Pauperibus - Duncan G. Stroik - Sacred Architecture
We all know that the poor need food and clothing, decent education and good jobs. But what about their spiritual and cultural needs?
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Infallible? Are You Sure? - Graham Osborne - B.C. Catholic
Q: How can the Pope be infallible, as the Catholic Church claims? He is just a man. Wouldn't he have to be God to be truly infallible?
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The Nonessential as Essential - Father George W. Rutler - From the Pastor
In our part of Manhattan there is no summer slowdown, and if there is demographic slack, any void is filled by the large number of tourists.
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Editorials of Interest:
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Editorials of Interest
Charleston and the Confederate Flag: Part One - The American Interest
Nothing is more exceptional about American history than the way that the African American church has helped make us a nation that is better, happier, and more united than we have any right to expect.
The Francis Option - NC Register
St. Benedict preserved the light of Christ by building a shelter for it to grow into a roaring fire and inviting people to gather around its warmth; St. Francis preserved the light by kindling small flames everywhere.
Christianity "Found Difficult and Left Untried" - Catholic Stand
We should recall the humility of the Egyptian monk who, when his fellow monk was expelled from the sanctuary for unchastity, left the church with him, explaining, "I'm a sinner, too."
Acropolis Now - America Magazine
The Greek referendum result, much more decisive that anyone dared to predict, is a dramatic watershed moment in European political history and in the history of the European project.
Burying Christians Under ISIS Guns - The Daily Beast
Many thousands of Christians have fled Iraq, but some are brought back when they die so their community's ties to the place and its history are not lost forever.
The Crisis of Contemporary Sacred Art - Crisis Magazine
The low state of sacred art is due in part to the limited number of sacred commissions, the fees we are willing to pay artists, and our unwillingness to take responsibility for the arts.
Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman and St. Justin Martyr, pray for us |
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