The Flavor of God: On Cooking and Christian Materialism

“Our Lord moves amidst the pots and pans,” St. Teresa of Avila once said, and indeed, I often find God in a busy kitchen. I love cooking, once described to me as the art of redistributing water, which is simply a very clever way of saying th … [Read more...]

Why Is the Gate So Narrow?

We know through the eyes of faith that God is to be seen through created things. We are called to see the innate dignity and uniqueness of each human person we meet, and the beauty of a landscape that points to the creative and wondrous … [Read more...]

Can There Be a Catholic History?

Some years ago, in a conversation with a non-Catholic woman of my acquaintance, I mentioned how I made my living. “I write Catholic history texts,” I told her. With head cocked and a challenge in her eyes, she asked, “Catholic history? What … [Read more...]

Human Life and the Divine Life

Introduction The article presented here was originally written by the Dominican priest Fr. Ambroise Gardeil, O.P. (1859-1931). Fr. Gardeil was a professor at the house of formation for the French Dominican Province at the turn of the … [Read more...]

Materialism’s Unnoticed Achilles’ Heel

While major arguments take place between classical theists and metaphysical materialists over central claims about whether the God exists or whether man has a spiritual and immortal soul, the most important claim of materialism, namely, … [Read more...]

Observations on “Ex Corde Ecclesiae” and Its Fitful Implementation

Ex Corde was promulgated in 1990, and its purpose was to lay out the general place and function of Catholic universities in the modern Church ... {providing}  a useful starting point for dialogues on Catholic identity. I suppose the … [Read more...]

Looking Back at “Humani Generis”

The 1950 encyclical Humani Generis, “Concerning Some False Opinions Threatening to Undermine the Foundations of Catholic Doctrine,” should be understood in the context of the pontifical effort to reform Catholic intellectual life. Pope Pi … [Read more...]