Features
Canceling Henry VIII
Times change. A century ago, Henry VIII was lionized as an English patriotic icon and as one of the truly great men of history. He was praised for being highly cultured and for his love […]
History
Books
A history of the “true England,” Christ-haunted to its spiritual core
The idyllic scenes from the English countryside have long captured the imagination of many non-Englanders. We picture rolling green hills, stone walls, sheep and cows grazing in mist-covered fields, and a centuries-old church at the […]
Books
Nationalism and populism in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
With the world in turmoil following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is worth noting just how singularly unfitted the current Western elite is for coping with the current disaster in Eastern Europe, precisely because the […]
Essay
“I decided to do something about it”: The legacy of Fr. Claude Heithaus
A few years ago some old memories came back to me unexpectedly. In the first, I am a child, kneeling beside my mother. A priest in fiddleback vestments is saying Mass at a white marble […]
Features
When thriving U.S. publications raged against the Catholic Church
Regardless of its particular goals, every publication ultimately has to give its readers what they want. And about a century ago, the thing many U.S. readers wanted most was anti-Catholic content. In that era, anti-Catholicism […]
Essay
Undercutting Vatican II to defend Vatican II?
Archbishop Arthur Roche, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship, recently sent the world’s bishops instructions regulating local usage of the Traditional Latin Mass. Those instructions were intended to implement Pope Francis’s 2021 motu […]
Features
Martyrs of Communism: Blessed Olympia Bida
How many people have died as a result of Communism? The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation makes the bold statement on the front page of their web site that 100 million human beings have been […]
Essay
Thinking with the early Church Fathers
For Byzantine Christians living in the northern hemisphere, it’s a bit unfortunate that January abounds with absolutely top-tier thinkers, as we can so easily overlook them in the holiday haze. These luminaries deserve more attention. […]
Books
The horrors of Communism and the resilience of faith in Albania
Although all Communist regimes persecuted religion to varying degrees, nowhere did the anti-religious campaign employ such diabolically creative methods of cruelty, and nowhere was it as fatally thorough, as in Albania. Isolated from the rest […]
Essay
In the Night-Nursery with R.W. Southern
I In an essay entitled “The Truth about the Past” (1988), which the mediaevalist R.W. Southern (1912-2000) delivered to the St. John’s College Historical Society, he pointed out that it was not until 1850 that […]