Hans Urs von Balthasar: A Primer

By |2023-08-12T09:22:23-05:00August 12th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Pope Benedict XVI|

Hans Urs von Balthasar wanted to see the Church as missionary, and to reassert the beauty of the mystery at the heart of the Christian message. He sought to reinvigorate religious life and the role of the laity by reintegrating beauty and mysticism in theology. Born on 12 August 1905 in Lucerne, Switzerland, to an [...]

Ecology in Light of Integral Human Development

By |2023-07-30T21:45:26-05:00July 30th, 2023|Categories: Caritas in Veritate, Catholicism, Communio, Conservation, David L. Schindler, Environmentalism, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, Romano Guardini, St. John Paul II, Timeless Essays|

Every being is good because it is created. To be created is to be loved into existence by God. Every creature is thus good in itself, both because it is loved by God and because, as a participant in this love of God for it, each creature also loves itself. Because all creatures share in [...]

Benedict XVI and the History of Art

By |2023-03-31T16:54:58-05:00March 31st, 2023|Categories: Art, Beauty, Catholicism, History, Pope Benedict XVI|

“No sacred art can come from an isolated subjectivity,” Benedict states. Ultimately the beautiful is inseparable from the good and the true. If we will not have virtue and verity, caritas and claritas, we will not have beauty either. In his masterful book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, Pope Benedict XVI defended the beauty and [...]

The End of Modernity

By |2023-02-23T18:35:31-06:00February 23rd, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Christendom, Culture, History, Hope, Modernity, Pope Benedict XVI, Timeless Essays, Wyoming Catholic College|

Modernity, by God’s grace, may be the site of a new synthesis, the transcending of stale categories of thought and practice, in which a new Christendom can emerge, one in which the reign of God in His glory and love emerges side-by-side with the full dignity and flourishing of man. The Immanent Frame and Great [...]

Reason, Faith, & the Struggle for Western Civilization

By |2023-01-12T17:25:19-06:00January 12th, 2023|Categories: Christianity, Faith, History, Philosophy, Pope Benedict XVI, Reason, Timeless Essays, Western Civilization, Western Tradition|

It is a bright note of hope, set against the present daunting darkness, that shines throughout Samuel Gregg’s “Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization,” both illuminating the past and shedding much-needed light on the present situation. Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization, by Samuel Gregg (256 pages, Gateway Editions, 2019) “The [...]

The Political Philosophy of Joseph Ratzinger

By |2023-01-09T13:13:35-06:00January 9th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Modernity, Philosophy, Politics, Pope Benedict XVI, Theology|

Joseph Ratzinger was aware of the central event of modernity, namely the transferal of basic Christian categories from the transcendent order to the political order of this world. Like many classically trained German scholars, Joseph Ratzinger was learned in many spheres of knowledge. He displayed a considerable familiarity with those areas in which he did [...]

Benedict’s Lesson

By |2023-01-08T20:28:11-06:00January 8th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Pope Benedict XVI, Western Civilization|

Benedict XVI left us with countless theological insights. But he also left us with an important lesson about the very foundations of democratic society and culture that we often take for granted. The recent death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI reminds us of an essential and historic connection between religion and Western civilization. Religious belief and [...]

Consumer Materialism and Christian Hope

By |2023-01-07T15:58:22-06:00January 7th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Civil Society, Civilization, Community, Economics, Pope Benedict XVI|

Man needs ethos in order to be himself. Ethos, however, requires belief in creation and immortality. The impossibility of a human existence cut off from this is indirect proof for the truth of the Christian faith and its hope. Without the glad tidings of faith, mankind cannot endure in the long run. This lecture was [...]

Benedict XVI on Science, Philosophy, & Faith

By |2023-01-02T19:13:58-06:00January 2nd, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, David Deavel, Faith, Philosophy, Pope Benedict XVI, Science, Senior Contributors|

While Benedict XVI may not himself have made great contributions to the natural sciences, he made what is much more important: a contribution to understanding a world in which the truth is one, is God’s, and, from atoms to archangels, is capable of being seen as connected. A great deal has been written about the [...]

Benedict XVI, “Communio,” & the Communion of Saints

By |2023-01-01T10:19:23-06:00January 1st, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Communio, Pope Benedict XVI|

As we recall the legacy of the late Benedict XVI, we would be remiss if we overlooked his theology of the saints as the antidote to the “dictatorship of relativism." One of the central ideas throughout the writings of Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) has been the notion of communio (“communion”), which sees God Himself as [...]

Theologian of the Heart: Benedict XVI

By |2022-12-31T08:33:33-06:00December 31st, 2022|Categories: Books, Communio, Featured, Pope Benedict XVI, Timeless Essays, Tracey Rowland|Tags: , |

The pursuit of the truth as revealed in Jesus Christ, not the building of a philosophical or moral system, has animated the theology of Joseph Ratzinger from the beginning. For this reason, author Tracey Rowland concludes “that even though he is probably one of the most intellectual popes in history, for him Christianity is above [...]

Beauty: A Necessity, Not a Luxury

By |2023-08-04T09:27:45-05:00November 27th, 2022|Categories: Architecture, Art, Beauty, Books, Catholicism, Christianity, Communio, Essential, Featured, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Language, Pope Benedict XVI, St. John Paul II, Timeless Essays|

“Beauty will save the world.” That remains to be seen. But beauty has saved me, and continues to do so. My experience is that I need saving; it is not a luxury. Just when I am about to succumb to the sadness and living death of nihilism, some piercing ray of beauty breaks open my [...]

We Are Not Our Own: Childhood in a Technological Age

By |2023-08-19T08:31:18-05:00November 17th, 2022|Categories: Catholicism, Christian Humanism, Communio, David L. Schindler, Essential, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Humanum, Pope Benedict XVI, St. John Paul II, Timeless Essays|

Jesus makes becoming like children a condition for entrance into heaven and hence for the everlasting participation in divine life to which we are all invited. The human being is not only to begin as a child, as it were, but also to end as one. Liberal culture’s anti-child practices are bound up with a [...]

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