“Keep therefore and do the things which the Lord God hath commanded you: you shall not go aside neither to the right hand, nor to the left.” – Deut. 5:32 Assessing Francis’ “Paradigm Shift” Among the more interesting books published in 2018 is the work of Chilean scholar José Antonio … Read more
A review of the book, A Knight’s Own Book on Chivalry by Geoffroi de Charny The noted Catholic thinker, Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira once observed that the decay of the Middle Ages occurred in the fourteenth century with a “transformation in mentality.” He explained that “Chivalry, formerly one of the highest … Read more
When I was much younger, I remember listening to a song from the band REM which begins with the words: The world is collapsing around my ears I turned up the radio but I can’t hear it… Nearly thirty years ago, in the idylls of the fading century, that song was poetry. … Read more
In the summer of 1942, the USS South Dakota set sail to do battle in the Pacific. One of the gunners on board was Calvin Graham. On November 14, the South Dakota encountered eight Japanese destroyers. Graham was manning his gun when shrapnel tore through his jaw and mouth. Another hit knocked … Read more
“Islam is a totalitarian ideology bent on world domination, masquerading as a religion,” writes Admiral James A. Lyons in a forward to the new book, Islam and the Suicide of the West: The Origins, Doctrines, and Goals of Islam. The author, Luiz Sergio Solimeo from the American Society for the Defense of … Read more
Islam and the Suicide of the West: The Origin, Doctrine, and Goals of Islam, Luiz Sérgio Solimeo Every year, the nation remembers the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11. This event is carved deeply into the American psyche. Yet in these commemorations, the media give us terribly … Read more
A Review of the Book Pius IX by Roberto de Mattei (Leominster, England: Gracewing, September 2004) Today’s problems often seem to be the worst ever faced by the human race. Thus, it is easy to be overwhelmed by focusing on the division, apostacy, scandal, and confusion of the current age. One … Read more
A Pastoral Revolution: Six Talismanic Words in the Ecclesial Debate on the Family, Guido Vignelli Language changes over time, so the linguists say. Many changes creep in as people use and reuse a word over centuries. Sometimes, though, a change in meaning is quite deliberate. That is the topic of … Read more
Pope Francis’s “Paradigm Shift”: Continuity or Rupture in the Mission of the Church? An Assessment of His Pontificate’s First Five Years. Pope Francis places Catholics in a dilemma. Many have the very understandable, indeed holy, desire to obey the Successor of Saint Peter. At the same time, Pope Francis seems … Read more
The late-nineteenth-century conversion story, En Route, by J. K. Huysmans is a book that penetrates deeply into the mind of the reader. It is an autobiographical yet fictional account of the return journey to the Church of a famous French art critic and novelist in decadent Paris. The book has weathered well … Read more