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May-June issue: Saints Alive! Celebrating the Church Triumphant

May-June issue: Saints Alive! Celebrating the Church Triumphant

Sample Content from Our Latest Issue Table of Contents Sample Article "To the Heart of Ecstatic Surrender": Mysticism in St....
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March-April issue: Faith and Philosophy

March-April issue: Faith and Philosophy

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November-December issue: Europe and the Culture of Christendom

November-December issue: Europe and the Culture of Christendom

Sample Content from Our Latest Issue Table of Contents Sample Article The Desert’s Ancient Peace: Christendom from Homer to Eliot...
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September-October issue: Feminine Faith and Fortitude

September-October issue: Feminine Faith and Fortitude

Sample Content from Our Latest Issue Table of Contents Sample Article St. Teresa of Avila’s autobiography, The Life of Teresa...
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Being a Father and Becoming a Saint

Fatherhood as a path to heaven... Being a Father and Becoming a Saint - Joseph Pearce
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Evolving Man or Everlasting Man?

What is humanity's destiny? Evolving Man or Everlasting Man? - Joseph Pearce
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Can We Improve God’s Creation?

Is it blasphemous to suggest that mere mortals can make God's work better? Can We Improve on God's Creation? -...
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The St. Austin Review

The St. Austin Review (StAR) is an international journal of Catholic culture, literature, and ideas. In its pages, printed every two months, some of the brightest and most vigorous minds around meet to explore the people, ideas, movements, and events that shape and misshape our world.

Shakespeare: Not of an Age, But for All Time

Sample Article Villiany, Taught and Executed: Jesuit Philosopher and a Jesuit Poet: A Thomistic Reading of Hopkins’ “As Kingfishers Catch Fire”

It would be a mistake to think that literature exists only to give us simple morality lessons. It instead exists to display human experience. It manifests before us some human beings in human circumstances, faced with human dilemmas and choices, acting for human reasons, and enduring the human consequences. It does not direct our moral considerations; it merely informs them. But oh, what information is supplied! Treat a man like a beast, and he will grow brutal. Give that brutal man an opportunity to slay his tormentor, he will leap at it. Realize such revenge, and destruction will be consummated. Let mercy present itself as an option against a deadly earnest, and some may nobly seize upon it. We can then assign moral praise or blame according to our own lights, but through literature we must first get our facts straight.

The Merchant of Venice portrays the power and claim of mercy in our affairs, but first shows forth that no one seeks revenge out of thin air; there is always a reason, otherwise it would not be revenge. Except for the restraint of proportion, there is little to no natural check against it as such boiling spite is emulsified with some sense of justice. Resolute and narrow in its vision, it is frequently impervious to reason, even to the caution of the unforeseen ruin that so often attends such pursuits. Unflinching, it can usually yield to nothing other than grace; that is, the whole paradigm shift that grace can effect on the vengeful mind, radically altering the perspective to consider mercy, if the will is not walled up in stubbornness.

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2006, 2025

An Online Class on Romeo and Juliet

June 20th, 2025|0 Comments

Calling all middle school and high school students! Join Joseph Pearce for an online course in July on Shakespeare's cautionary tale for reckless lovers... An Online Course on Romeo and Juliet - Joseph Pearce

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To be truly effective, we need the help from clergy and laity everywhere. Help us help the next generation of Catholics to grow up educated in Catholic truth, beauty, and goodness. Please consider a one-time or continuing, tax-deductible gift to StAR!
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