The Dispatch
The Catholic Origins of Thanksgiving
Myths about the pilgrims and religious freedom have obscured some surprising truths about this great American holiday. […]
Articles by Dale Ahlquist
Essay
The Harrowing of Hell in the light of Easter
We are still in the Easter Octave so it’s not too late to talk about something we often forgot to think about during the Triduum: The Harrowing of Hell. But, before we talk about the […]
The Dispatch
G.K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens, and the Joy of Christmas
Why a radio broadcast from Christmas Day in 1931 still rings with the wonder of “this season of enjoyment.” […]
The Dispatch
Suffering Advent
The secular world calls it the Holiday Season. The Catholic Church calls it Advent. The two are starkly different, but the one thing they have […]
Essay
The 100th anniversary of Chesterton’s conversion—and its ripple effect
When G.K. Chesterton was received into the Catholic Church one hundred years ago, on Sunday, July 30, 1922, it was big news. Except it wasn’t. It didn’t quite qualify as “news” because nobody knew about […]
The Dispatch
The Incarnation and the Resurrection
In his incomparable book on St. Thomas Aquinas, G.K. Chesterton shows that the Angelic Doctor not only argued for the reality of the Incarnation, but also wanted to show the implications of the Incarnation. The […]
Books
How Saints Die is edifying and challenging Lenten reading
I know you are looking for good Lenten reading. I’ve got a great recommendation. How Saints Die: 100 Stories of Hope by Fr. Antonio Maria Sicari (Ignatius, 2021). Okay, I had the same reaction you […]
Essay
On The Winter Feast
Have you ever heard the smug criticism that Christmas is really a Pagan festival? While it is usually uttered with the air of being a devastating dismissal of Christianity, I’m not sure what actual point […]
The Dispatch
Globalism and Catholic Education
There are 62 million students in Catholic elementary and secondary schools in the world today. That might be an impressive number, but it means that at least 225 million Catholic students are not attending Catholic […]
The Dispatch
“I don’t know and I don’t care”: On the devotion of the Nones
Karl Marx said famously that religion is the opium of the people, thereby inserting a fatal flaw into his own theory of dialectical materialism. If the march of history toward a communist society is inevitable, […]