Problem: There is a need today for the argument for the immortality of the human soul based on reason alone for both believers and non-believers. The first pages of Scripture allude to the nature of the human soul when the inspired … [Read more...]
Philosophy and the Immortality of the Human Soul: A Tool for the New Evangelization
November 20, 2012 by Book Reviews
The Value of Philosophy
September 7, 2012 by John Young
True philosophy throws light on all other forms of knowledge, revealing their relation to each other...with philosophy underpinning them all. Especially does it help in the study of sacred theology, the supreme science based on God’s s … [Read more...]
The “New Atheists”
Editorial, August 2011
August 1, 2011 by Fr. Kenneth Baker, SJ
Books promoting atheism have been selling very well in recent years. The main proponents, the “New Atheists,” are biologist Richard Dawkins, philosophers Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris, and journalist Christopher Hitchens. A recent clo … [Read more...]
The practice of excellence
Human flourishing means seeing what is and acting accordingly.
June 1, 2011 by Fr. James V. Schall, SJ
“A man properly nurtured in poetry will quickly spot shoddy, poorly made works and ill-grown things, and his joy and aversion will be properly placed; he’ll approve beautiful things, joyfully take them into his soul, and from their nurture g … [Read more...]
Pro-lifers vs. relativism
Editorial, November 2010
November 1, 2010 by Fr. Kenneth Baker, SJ
The struggle between anti-abortion and pro-abortion groups in recent years, highlighted and brought to a peak in the debate over Obama’s healthcare bill, goes way beyond the issue of abortion and the right to life. The struggle is not just b … [Read more...]
St. Thomas and Chesterton on law, human and divine
Both St. Thomas and Chesterton were aware that human laws do not always conform to the natural and eternal laws.
February 1, 2010 by Thomas Storck
It was not Zeus who gave the order, And Justice living with the dead below Has never given men a law like this. Nor did I think that your pronouncements were So powerful that mere man could override The unwritten and unfailing laws of … [Read more...]
Every agent acts for an end
Editorial, June 2009
June 1, 2009 by Fr. Kenneth Baker, SJ
It is a basic principle of reality that every agent acts for an end. Every moving thing is going somewhere—for example, every car on a busy highway is going to some destination. Sunday drivers are on the road to enjoy the s … [Read more...]
European Christophobia
THE CUBE AND THE CATHEDRAL: EUROPE, AMERICA, AND POLITICS WITHOUT GOD. By George Weigel. Basic Books (2005), $23
April 9, 2009 by Book Reviews
In the closing months of his pontificate, John Paul II turned repeatedly to the “Europe question.” He insisted that a failure to mention the common Christian heritage in the drafting of the E.U. constitution would tear apart the very cul … [Read more...]
Catholic Scholars Address Current Problems
VOICES OF THE NEW SPRINGTIME: The Life and Work of the Catholic Church in the 21st Century. Edited by Kenneth D. Whitehead (St. Augustine’s Press, P.O. Box 2285, South Bend, Ind. 46680, 2004), ix + 102 pp. PB $17.00.
April 9, 2009 by Book Reviews
This volume contains the papers of the 25 th Annual Conference of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, held in Philadelphia in 2002. The keynote address was given by Cardinal Avery Dulles, on faith and reason, with a call to Catholics to … [Read more...]
What Civilization Owes to the Church
HOW THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILT WESTERN CIVILIZATION. By Dr. Thomas Woods, Jr. (Regnery Publishing, Inc., One Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001), 256 pp., HB $29.95.
April 9, 2009 by Book Reviews
If modern studies credit the Catholic Church with anything positive, it is usually limited to faint praise in the realm of music and the arts. Dr. Thomas Woods, however, offers an alternative view in his unambiguously titled best-seller, … [Read more...]
Twentieth Century Catholicism
THE CHURCH CONFRONTS MODERNITY. Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era. By Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (Columbia University Press, 61 West 62nd St., New York, N.Y. 10023, 2004), 228 pp. HB $29.50.
April 9, 2009 by Book Reviews
In the first two decades of the 20th century, American intellectuals moved away from a Christian view of the world and opted for a secular philosophy of Pragmatism and empiricism. Two of the main figures of the day were William James and … [Read more...]
The Art of Dying Well
PATIENCE, COMPASSION, HOPE, AND THE CHRISTIAN ART OF DYING WELL. By Christopher P. Vogt (Rowan & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 4501 Forbes Blvd., Suite 200, Lanham, MD 20706), 2004, 176 pp. PB. $19.95.
April 9, 2009 by Book Reviews
In a culture of death that promotes euthanasia as compassion, in a secular world that imagines medical science as the cure-all to all human suffering, and in the modern therapeutic society which rationalizes death and dying, to quote from … [Read more...]
Protection for human reason
ROMAN CATHOLIC POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. By James V. Schall (Lexington Books, 4501 Forbes Blvd., Suite 200, Lanham, Md. 20706, 2004), 209 pp. HB $65.00.
April 9, 2009 by Book Reviews
There is no official Church-sanctioned “Roman Catholic” political philosophy. But, precisely because of this, Roman Catholicism offers a unique protection for the place of human reason in political philosophy’s contemplation of human affai … [Read more...]
Imperial Judges
THE SUPREMACISTS. The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It. By Phyllis Schlafly (Spence Publishing Co., 111 Cole St., Dallas, Texas 75207, 2004), viii + 182 pp. HB $24.95.
April 9, 2009 by Book Reviews
Federal and State judges have become the leading protagonists in the current culture war that is going on in the United States. It seems like almost every month some activist federal judge declares a law passed by Congress or one of the … [Read more...]
A Genuine “Return to Thomas”
BY KNOWLEDGE AND BY LOVE. By Michael S. Sherwin, O.P. (The Catholic University of America Press, P.O. Box 50370, Baltimore, Md. 21211, 2005), xxiii + 270 pp. HB $54.95.
April 9, 2009 by Book Reviews
There are two problems that have beset Thomistic philosophy and theology in the decades following the close of the Second Vatican Council, and it is difficult to decide which is the graver of the two. The first, and more general, is the … [Read more...]
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