The early Middle Ages rightly can be called the Age of the Monks and the title fits in Ireland even more than anywhere else. Ancient Ireland did not have cities and, with its tribal organization, the monastery served as a central place of prayer, learning, and social organization. Over time, Read more…
We began our Beauty of Faith Pilgrimage to Ireland in Dublin, visiting its churches and its saints/saints in the making: St. Valentine-the Roman saint whose relics are at the Whitefriar Street church; St. John Henry Newman’s University Church where he delivered some of the discourses that became An Idea of Read more…
A collection of essays written by my mentor, Dr. Don Briel, was just released by Cluny Media. I was privileged to assemble and edit this collection, unified by the theme of the University and the Church, particularly the needed renewal of the university through the influence of the Catholic tradition. Read more…
The Superior of the Jesuits, Fr. Arturo Sosa, recently denied the personal existence of the devil, calling him a personification of evil rather than an actual being–a symbol, he argued. He was quickly corrected by exorcists, who know the devil’s reality from personal experience. It is true that the Catechism Read more…
I’m joyfully anticipating Bl. John Henry Newman’s canonization on October 13th, a momentous day for the Church and for Catholic education in particular. Newman wrote the most comprehensive and in depth work on the nature of Catholic education in his Idea of a University. The book arose from a series Read more…
Monks created brewing as we know it, with the first large scale breweries in Europe and many advances to brewing techniques and technology. There were thousands of brewing monasteries, but then suddenly they disappeared. The French Revolution and its aftermath, the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire and the Napoleonic Read more…
Catholic art tends to depict Mary Magdalene’s beauty, emphasizing her as the embodiment of a conversion from worldly pleasures and the pomp of life (drawing from her debated attribution as the woman caught in adultery). The Scriptures do testify (regardless of this attribution) that she had a dramatic conversion: “And Read more…
Psalm 55 speaks of crying out to God at morning, noon, and night and Catholics traditionally mark these three key periods of the day by praying the Angelus at six, noon, and six. Sanctifying the key periods of the day began in the early Church by reciting the Our Father Read more…
Without St. Denis, there would be no Notre Dame de Paris as we knew it (and hope to see it again). Though not as well known, the Basilica of St. Denis is one of the most remarkable churches in Christendom. St. Denis, just north of Paris, initiated the Gothic revolution. Read more…
Neil Postman aptly described our society as a Technopoly, or what we could also refer to as technocracy – a society fundamentally shaped and ruled by technology. Technology has played a central role civilization from the beginning, but a shift has occurred as technology has passed beyond normal human proportions. Read more…