Puritan’s Empire Charles A. Coulombe Tumblar House 624 pages $35.95 Puritan’s Empire by Charles A. Coulombe is a unique tour de force of American history from a Catholic high traditionalist perspective, spanning the colonial period to the modern day. Although some sections are dry, the colorful and controversial personal analysis undergirding the volume’s rationale will keep the…
Fascism: The Career of a Concept Paul Gottfried Northern Illinois University Press, 2016 207 pages $45.00 A brief anecdote in the author’s introduction makes clear why tradition-conscious Catholics may find interesting this work by Jewish intellectual Paul Gottfried: As a young, impressionable person, I was told by a family friend that an opera singer whose…
Editor’s note: this is part two of a two-part essay. You can see part one here. Introduction After Norcia, my family visited Silverstream Priory in Stamullen, County Meath, Ireland, about a half hour’s drive from Dublin. Dedicated to Our Lady of the Cenacle, this new foundation represents a new haven and point of departure, steeped…
This summer, our little family has been blessed by the generosity of neighbors who also happen to be fellow Catholics. Both of these neighbors – a husband and a wife – are gifted artists. H. Reed Armstrong and Roxolana Armstrong both have an artistic ardor and talent, and each has a reputation of their own…
Editor’s note: we received this photo essay before the devastating earthquakes that have recently afflicted Italy, and have damaged the Basilica of St. Benedict in Norcia. As the monks of Norcia pause to regroup and rebuild, we present this work as a reflection and reminder of the profound beauty and goodness of the traditional Benedictine monastic…
In the 1962 Roman Breviary, there is a recurring theme each night as the day’s office is completed. Asking God’s protection from the enemy, the supplicant calls to mind the words of St. Peter: Brothers: Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour.…
There’s a lightness and clarity that is so charming about the book, The Little Oratory: A Beginner’s Guide to Praying in the Home, by Leila Maria Lawler and David Clayton. I read it all in one night, and I’ll be returning to it soon. The opening line explains this very straight-shooting book’s purpose: “This book is…
In our year-long course on music at Wyoming Catholic College, students read and discuss a chapter from Joseph Ratzinger’s book A New Song for the Lord, “The Image of the World and of Human Beings in the Liturgy and Its Expression in Church Music,”1 In Joseph Ratzinger, A New Song for the Lord, trans. Martha…
Saint John Paul II, in his prescient Letter to Artists, reminded us that “The Church needs art,” and that art needs the Church. While much of the Catholic world has forgotten about this document, it fell like a thunderbolt amongst Christian artists, helping further intensify the growing rebirth of spiritual synergy between art and Mother…
Part I | Part II The fundamental problem with Praise & Worship In the first part of this essay, I offered a critique of the profane stylistic traits of Praise & Worship music, whether “soft” or “hard.”[1] Praise & Worship music is not suitable for liturgical use. Its style reinforces a false conception of the…
Part I | Part II Whenever the popes speak about sacred (i.e., liturgical) music, the very first quality they put forward is holiness or sanctity, which they describe as a certain worthiness of or suitability for the celebration of the sacred mysteries of Christ, and freedom from worldliness or even that which is suggestive of…
