Essays From 2006

1. Hope and Glory: In a world of order toward the good, glory is that toward which we strive and hope keeps it in reach. Glory is the radiance of virtue, of beauty, of goodness, and hence of the One who is perfectly good. Without this proper order, our aims and potentials fall well short of the greatest Good. Read Essay.
2. The President and the Saint, or, What the President Knew: Beneath President Bush’s talk about freedom there is a philosophic presupposition, and it is that there is in human nature an indelible shape that unites all mankind, a shape that may be obscured but not destroyed. He seems to defend the notion of the Natural Law, which is no small thing. Read Essay.
3. The Nobility of Sacred Doctrine: A Reflection on Question One Article One: Not only is theology a science which has principles and a methodology through which we come to knowledge, but it is the highest science, the most certain, since it draws its principles from the revealed word of God. This text is very important for anyone wanting to study theology. Read Essay.
4. Freedom and Truth: True freedom is the freedom to choose the Good whereby we form ourselves by truth through reason. A teacher’s job is to guide pupils freely to the truth without coercion or deception. As students grow in faith and attempt to live the Gospel, they gain freedom, truth, and happiness. Read Essay.
5. Unintelligent Design: Since politics is practical, it is difficult to come to a final solution about anything concerning it. For a conversation to take place, there must be a basic framework that all sides use. If there is not a presumption of good will by both parties, then suppression of or degredation of political discourse can occur. Either one leads to tyranny. Read Essay.
6. Practical Advice About What to Do When the Barbarians Come: When a culture abandons reason and turns instead to the approvation of sensual pleasure and it’s fulfillment at any cost, then that culture has fallen into barbarism, which by nature is a denial of reason in favor of violence. In this essay are listed six things to do to prepare for when barbarism comes. Read Essay.
7. More than Latin: The loss of Latin in the Mass is but a symptom of the general deterioration of Christianity’s location in history. Part of the attack on the Church in the 20th Century was the removal of Latin from curricula. As has been the case throughout her history, a secondary religion within the Church itself works against her mission. Read Essay.

Essays From 2007

1. Love: Changing the World: One contrast between the Old and New Testaments is the presentation in the latter of the virtue of charity. By realizing the real source of love, we can elevate our focus from the temporal world to the eternal one. Charity is the highest of the virtues, and the one by which we reach closest to God. Read Essay.
2. Memory and Hope: On Loving the Living Past: Memory helps us not to forget tradition, indeed truth itself. The unoriginal proposition that newer is better has expanded from the realm of technology into all the disciplines. In turn, this heavy focus on innovation and newness has weakened our culture by the denigration of the tradition of the Church. Read Essay.
3. One Day in the UK: When we see the news in the United Kingdom, we must not treat it as something very far away and foreign since it seems that the United States tends to follow the currents of English culture. The decline of culture in the latter seems a bad omen for the former. Read Essay.
4. The Precincts of Unreason: Just as the beginning of any discussion relies on a common point of agreement, so too does the attempt of two cultures to understand each other. He who wonders why Westerners and Easterners cannot get along fails to understand that trying to find common ground between two cultures which share no common ideas is impossible. Read Essay.
5. Our Changing Earth: The tension between the premises that change is good and change needs to stop is often ignored. The truth of this statement, however, is inconvenient for the left. It seems that change is obvious and unstoppable but at the same time not always for the better. Abstract plans which often have alterior motives should probably not be the last answer. Read Essay.
6. The End of Valor: We have witnessed a cultural shift in the way war and those who fight in wars are perceived. Those with the power to pursuade with words commonly hold the view that apparent evil is just the result of ignorance. They also label those whom we used to consider brave and courageous in the same category, namely, that of the ignorant people. Read Essay.
7. Shakespeare on Love and War: Shakespeare had a very keen theological understanding of war. Justice and charitableness are required for a just war. The propositions that war must remain just and that the leaders are responsible for the souls of their soldiers can be gleaned from one of his famous plays, quoted below. Read Essay.

Essays From 2008

1. Uniting Us, the Dangers: Since politics is practical, it is difficult to come to a final solution about anything concerning it. For a conversation to take place, there must be a basic framework that all sides use. If there is not a presumption of good will by both parties, then suppression of or degredation of political discourse can occur. Either one leads to tyranny. Read Essay.
2. When God Doesn’t Care: Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Once the chain of heirarchy is broken, authority is relegated to the whims of the enforcing body, whether a teacher, policeman, parent or norms of political correctness. We can see then, how the moral life suffers when God is no longer highest in the hierarchy. Read Essay.
3. Christmas in Rome: The way that the city of Rome today celebrates Christmas consists of both public displays of Christianity and an odd mix of modern secular culture. This mix sets Rome apart from both England and the United States, where public displays of Christianity are increasingly unwelcome. Read Essay.

Essays From 2009

1. A Taste for Tyranny: Abortion as Political Theater: All men are born free. They should not be the property of another. However, abortion attacks this freedom by subsuming the rights of the unborn to the wishes of his parents. In this way, one person owns another. This view tears at the fabric of society by establishing the government as the utmost in the heirarchy of power. Read Essay.
2. Christ and the Animals: In the age to come we are told that all of creation will sing praises to our Creator. The animals were not completely innocent in the Fall. The animals, who fell just as we did, indeed who had a major role to play in our fall, along with the rest of the created order will be redeemed through Christ. Read Essay.
3. Christian Civilization? The Church must be careful not to become comfortable in the surrounding culture. Even still, the reformation of culture is not the direct business of the Christian Church. Instead, the Church sees its success in the reforming not of laws or societies, but of souls. Read Essay.
4. What We Deserve: The message that Christianity propogates is both bad news and good news. The world is fallen, but has been redeemed. Thanks to the likes of modern philosophers, the world decided that we are instead born good, and then it was no longer the fault of its citizens that everything was not perfect. Read Essay.
5. Blessed Charles of Austria and the Kingship of Christ: The major form of rule throughout history until the day before yesterday was kingship. Charles of Austria was the last ruler of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He reigned during the First World War during which time he continually sought peace. After the war he was exiled to the island of Madeira in Portugal. Read Essay.
6. Other Suns, No other Son: The arguments for the possibility of other intelligent beings in the universe rely on the supposition that God’s creative freedom would be restricted if humans were the only possible rational creatures. Some, even in the Vatican, seem to hold this view, but is this view the result of some flawed theology? Read Essay.
7. Walsingham’s New Church: The architecture of a church can have a significant impact on the experience one has during a church service. The axes of classic churches orient the congregation toward the altar and tabernacle. Many modern churches, such as the new one in Walsingham, have a theater-like orientation, which weakens the emphasis on the altar. Read Essay.
8. Piers Plowman and another Fourteenth Century: This poem addresses the practical reality that sometimes the heirarchy becomes too comfortable in wealth or too agreeable to the surrounding culture. It should not be taken, however, as a call to end the heirarchy altogether. Hardship can be healthy for the Church. Read Essay.
9. More than Marxism: The ideas of Karl Marx have stewed in universities and other institutions for more than a century now. They have evolved and grown stronger through a mix with other modern thinkers. We must be wary of the extent to which this system of ideas has penetrated our civilization. Read Essay.
10. Knowledge Is a Kind of Love: Both knowledge and love involve a desire of something outside oneself, something or someone toward which these are aimed. There is a submissiveness and also a receptivity present in these powers. Knowledge and love require humilty on the part of one who wishes to possess them. Read Essay.
11. Benedict XVI: Unwinding the Age of Kennedy: The Age of Kennedy saw many attacks upon the moral teachings of the Church. Against them stands Pope Benedict XVI, who reprimands the modernist notion that the project of religion is to make the world a better place by eliminating poverty and bringing equality. Read Essay.
12. He Is the Song that Makes the Whole World Sing: Against the propositions that human power is the ultimate goal, that this world is the result of a random sequence of events, and that there is no First Cause, there is the message of joy delivered by Him through whom all things were made. Modern scientists, with their emphasis only on the sensible world, give us nothing to sing about. Read Essay.
13. Bearing Witness: The Christian is called to submit to the politcal order. But such submission is founded on an assent to the natural law and the supposition that the political order upholds justice and the other cardinal virtues. He is also not to be completely within the surrounding culture. Read Essay.

Essays From 2010

1. The Politics of Atheism: On the ballet in every election is the choice between whether the government is the highest authority or there is one yet higher. If there is not one of the latter, then the end result must be the control of the government by whoever happens to be in charge. The result, it seems, will be the loss of freedoms that the ruling few deem unnecessary. Read Essay.
2. Saint in a Storm: Thomas More, Henry Tudor, and the Crisis of their Age: Saint Thomas More was very conservative in his actions and words while he dealt with a chaotic and difficult situation. A study of his life will reveal a struggle that seems to repeat itself since his martyerdom. Indeed, the events in his lifetime have had an echo effect through history and his example is well worth following. Read Essay.
3. Wessex, Our Wessex: How Books Made a Kingdom: Literature helps pass on the tradition of the past. At the same time, the strength of the education of a culture helps keep the tradition alive. It is fascinating, then, but should not be so, that in the nineth century, amidst the chaos of invasions, King Alfred reestablished education and brought about a spiritual revival. Read Essay.
4. From Sweet Sorrow to Witness: The Order of Blessedness: In combination with the coming of the Holy Spirit at Penecost, another gift God gave us was the Beatitudes, which act as a guide to help us practice charity and to show us how to attain real happiness. The Beatitudes remind us that pride is not to be championed. Read Essay.
5. Crowned with Broken Glass: The Wall Between Two Worlds: The general culture of the 20th century is one dominated by the need to fulfill sexual desire, and the assertion that the end of eroticism is the gratification of pleasure. After all, most of the possible consequences of such acts can now be headed off. Opposing this, Christians assert that the end of marriage is to beget children. Read Essay.