Aristotelianism in Eucharistic Theology

Father Thomas Reese and Transubstantiation

This article has been reworked from a paper entitled “They Must Fall into Being: The Son’s Power as Quasi-Subject of the Accidents of Bread and Wine in the Sacrament of the Eucharist” which I delivered on Feb. 4, 2023, at The Holiness of God … [Read more...]

Questions Answered – December 2022

The Mass as Sacrifice Question: Why do you call the Mass a sacrifice? Does not Paul say the sacrifice of the Gentiles is a sacrifice to demons? “A broken and contrite heart O Lord thou will not despise,” I read in the psalms. Answer: Sac … [Read more...]

Book Reviews – June 2019

The Catholic Writer Today and Other Essays By Dana Gioia. Reviewed by Ken Colombini. (skip to review) Raymond E. Brown and the Catholic Biblical Renewal By Fr. Donald E. Senior. Reviewed by Rev. John P. Cush, STD. (skip to … [Read more...]

Questions Answered – February 2019

Why Do We Need Grace? Question: St. Thomas believed that man has an inborn understanding and disposition toward doing the good. What, then, is the purpose of the infusion of grace? Answer: I really do not know where you get the idea … [Read more...]

Leisure: The Basis of Everything?

At the start of every semester, I know that I will need to undertake a kind of philosophical apologetics. I need to make my students see that philosophy is important. Indeed, it is really a matter of making them see that it actually exists, … [Read more...]

“The Indelible Mark”

Sacramental Character in Patristic and Scholastic Theology

The history of the development of doctrine is, in many ways, a history of language. It is a story of the perpetual struggle to adequately communicate the divine realities in human words, or at the very least, to attempt to do so without … [Read more...]

Questions Answered

Does the Church state that there is an ideal form of government? What Magisterial status does the teaching of the popes on contraception enjoy?  Can it be changed?  Must we believe it? Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, and A … [Read more...]

Faith Needs Philosophy: A Primer on the Relationship between Reason and Revelation

The great philosophers that preceded the Judeo-Christian Revelation demonstrated many of the truths about God and the faith that are affirmed in Scripture, and are what St. Thomas calls the preambles of faith.   I recently had a brief … [Read more...]

Contemplation, Action, and the Good Life

Everyone is seeking knowledge, but is the knowledge they are seeking really worth the trade-off in terms of the life’s cost?      Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas Everyone familiar with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition will recognize … [Read more...]

Questions Answered

What concerns should a priest have in the weekly homily? “New Evangelization:” What does it mean, and what are its primary focuses?   Question: What concerns should a priest have in the weekly homily? Answer: Priests know that the … [Read more...]

Communion, Community, and Communication

The Gospel summons us to authentic human development in communion, community, and communication under the sovereignty of God’s love. Our Christian conversion is both an event and a lifelong process of ongoing response to the grace and call o … [Read more...]

“It Belongs to the Wise Man to Order”: James Schall on Politics and Revelation

The wise man not only has the right order in his mind, but in his soul as well; he not only knows how he ought to live, but, more importantly, he does, in fact, live this way, in accord with what he is. Fr. Norris Clarke, the renowned … [Read more...]

Questions Answered

Many politicians have claimed that though they are Catholic, they are in favor of a woman’s right to choose whatever is necessary for her reproductive health. Can you comment on this attitude? Some couples have chosen to practice c … [Read more...]

The Dumb Ox on Evolution

Thomism offers a valuable service to mankind by guiding the scientific discussions only in the direction of those theories that have a solid metaphysical foundation. In a 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Pope John … [Read more...]