Book Reviews – June 2023

As a Priest Thinks, So He Is. Ed. by Beth Rath McGough and Patricia Pintado-Murphy. Reviewed by M. Ross Romero, S.J. (skip to review) Pray, Think, Act: Make Better Decisions with the Desert Fathers. By Augustine J. Wetta, O.S.B. Reviewed … [Read more...]

Book Reviews – May 2023

Joseph Ratzinger and the Healing of the Reformation-Era Divisions. Ed. by Emery De Gaál and Matthew Levering. Reviewed by M. Ciftci. (skip to review) Benedict XVI: Servant of Love. By Bénedicte Delelis. Reviewed by Christopher Siuzdak. (s … [Read more...]

The Benedict Option for a “Monastic” Church

Abstract Rod Dreher proposes what he calls the “Benedict Option,” by which he means a return to a monastic paradigm for Christian life, opting for the City of God in contrast to the City of Man. This world isn’t our home. It’s the desert th … [Read more...]

“Lord, to Whom Shall We Go?”

We are deeply saddened by the news that comes in daily about the sexual abuse involving the hierarchy (cardinals, bishops, and priests) in the Catholic Church. We certainly believe that those found guilty should be punished and live out … [Read more...]

Liturgy as an Act of Leisure

Perspectives from Guardini, Pieper, and Ratzinger

We frequently hear that the liturgy is the “source and summit” of the Christian life, a quote from the Vatican II document, Lumen gentium. We often do not get the whole context for this small part of the quote. In a slightly different tran … [Read more...]

The Metaphysics of Christian Love

Introduction This essay will largely confine itself to the thought of two Christian writers on the nature of love: Josef Pieper and Josef Ratzinger. The latter, being the younger of the two, is immensely indebted to the ideas of the … [Read more...]

Decoding Vatican II’s Marian Paradigm Shift

This Vatican II Mariological paradigmatic shift reverberated into all areas of ecclesial theology and liturgy, through a new hermeneutic or interpretation that went beyond the council’s purview and became what is described as a new ethos, t … [Read more...]

The Understanding of Revelation in “Dei Verbum” and the Response of Faith

While this notion of revelation, understood as the manifestation of ... Christ himself, has been with the Church since the very beginning. There have been many confusions and reductions over time that have altered the very essence of the … [Read more...]

Beauty and Biblical Interpretation: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Response to Modern Biblical Studies

Key to Balthasar’s response to modern biblical studies is his concept of beauty ... Balthasar links beauty to human perception, and the way human beings gain knowledge. Over the past 100 years—amidst the confusion and darkness sur … [Read more...]

Benedict XVI on Freedom in Obedience to the Truth: A Key for the New Evangelization

... the more fundamental task ... is to form human hearts, beginning with those who have already been evangelized and need to be “newly evangelized,” those who know something already, but are not living it; those who are showing up in the pe … [Read more...]

The Role of Doctrine in Inspiring Believers to Moral Greatness

In order to demonstrate this essential coexistence of nature and grace in the life of the Church, and the life of the believer, it must be shown that doctrine is necessary for salvation, not superfluous, but essential to the Church’s m … [Read more...]

Remembering Who We Are: Recovering from Cultural Amnesia.

The western loss of the larger and smaller narratives which depicted the horizons of life, is a loss of memory on a grand scale, a sign of some deep disorder for those who see it. Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus, Western Civilization … [Read more...]