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News Briefs
  • [ December 17, 2025 ] First painting in Rome of Our Lady of Guadalupe preserved in fourth-century church News Briefs
  • [ December 17, 2025 ] Catholic bishops speak out as New York governor pledges to pass assisted suicide bill News Briefs
  • [ December 17, 2025 ] Colombian law recognizes historical importance of church dedicated to Sacred Heart of Jesus News Briefs
  • [ December 17, 2025 ] Catholic leaders back pregnancy centers, doctors in federal suit over abortion referrals News Briefs
  • [ December 17, 2025 ] Bangladesh Catholics face Christmas under military guard after church attacks News Briefs

Articles by Bradley J. Birzer

About Bradley J. Birzer
Bradley J. Birzer is Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and Professor of History, Hillsdale College and author of several books, including noted biographies of J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Christopher Dawson, and Russell Kirk. His latest book is Beyond Tenebrae: Christian Humanism in the Twilight of the West (Angelico Press, 2019).
Essay

10 things you should know about Catholics and the American Founding

July 4, 2025 Bradley J. Birzer 34

In my essay “10 Things You Should Know About the American Founding” I focused on some little-known facts about the American Founding in general. The final three of those “10 things” mentioned Catholics and Catholicism, […]

The Dispatch

Catholicism and the American Founding

July 3, 2023 Bradley J. Birzer 38

Natural Law, common law, Natural Rights, and localism—all so dear to the Founding—existed in 1776, simply put, because of the Catholic Church. […]

Books

New history of Catholics in the United States full of scholarship, insight, humor

November 25, 2020 Bradley J. Birzer 8

Dr. Kevin Starr (1940-2017) was an amazingly prolific, talented, and innovative historian. His books on California, especially the five-volume California Dream series, which he completed while he was California State Historian, remain models of true […]

Essay

Russell Kirk: Conservative, Convert, Catholic

October 19, 2018 Bradley J. Birzer 2

Editor’s note: This essay was originally posted on July 31, 2014, and is re-posted to mark the 100th anniversary of Kirk’s birth. Ordinarily Providence works through men and women—through St. Gregory, through St. Joan. Saints […]

Father Marvin R. O’Connell, requiescat in pace

August 20, 2016 Bradley J. Birzer 1

On August 19, 2016, Father Marvin R. O’Connell passed away in South Bend, Indiana.  Author of a number of critical studies—biographical as well as historical and philosophical—O’Connell taught in the history department of the University […]

Books

The Protestant who wrote the greatest book about American Catholicism

April 2, 2016 Bradley J. Birzer 0

“I am amused that so many of the reviews of this book begin with the statement: ‘This book is hard to classify.’ Then why bother?”—Willa Cather, 1927 Willa Cather’s novel—or “narrative” in the style of […]

Books

The Story of Kullervo and the origins of Tolkien’s legendarium

January 28, 2016 Bradley J. Birzer 0

Looking back on his time in World War I—something he hated to discuss—J.R.R. Tolkien revealed that he had written some of the first parts of his massive legendarium under less-than-ideal circumstances. He had conceived The […]

History

“Order”: The Brief and Extraordinary Life of a Catholic Movement

September 13, 2015 Bradley J. Birzer 0

Almost no one remembers the short-lived journal, Order, as it appeared over eighty years ago and only lasted four issues. But the journal, which appeared the late 1920s, set off a chain of events that […]

History

10 Things You Should Know About the American Founding

July 3, 2015 Bradley J. Birzer 0

In 1776, numerous individuals, families, committees, congregations, localities, and states had already proclaimed their independence, and almost no remaining imperial structure could continue to operate with any legitimacy in what would very soon become 13 […]

History

10 Things You Should Know About the American Founding

July 3, 2014 Bradley J. Birzer 1

In 1776, numerous individuals, families, committees, congregations, localities, and states had already proclaimed their independence, and almost no remaining imperial structure could continue to operate with any legitimacy in what would very soon become 13 […]

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Rowan Williams: “Shakespeare was probably a Catholic”

Catherine Harmon May 31, 2011 0

At the UK’s top festival of the arts, the annual Hay Festival, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said that he believes William Shakespeare was likely a Catholic. Unlike others who have made similar claims, however, […]

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