I recently read about some 17th century Dominican dialogues with Zen Buddhist monks and the many interesting and moving consequences that such cultural openness brought to the men of that age. I am also currently engaged in some research into the work of Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit missionary in China. These men were Christian humanists, engaged [...]
France's children are now going to be treated to the ridiculous spectacle of a batty old right-wing cat, abandoned and trapped in a fairy-tale castle tower, which is all that is left of the old ways. This old pussy-cat, predictably named Agathe (Agatha is a really old-fashioned name in France as in England), is ripe for [...]
That's the question many of my friends have been asking over the course of the last couple of weeks, in the wake of the European Court of Human Rights decree that the Italian law mandating a crucifix in every state school classroom is an infringement of human rights.Italy's response has been to put up new crucifixes [...]
Dear Jennifer,Thanks for the letter and enclosure you sent me a while back. In them you suggested a dialogue about the popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. You also implied that perhaps they were not popes at all.Your main problem was that they emphasised universal salvation and thereby - you thought - effectively denied all [...]
Together with Robert Asch, (fresh back from the USA where he was a Wilbur Research Fellow at the Russel Kirk Center) and our colleague Adrian Moore, History and Spanish Master at Chavagnes, we have put together a Catholic wiki called www.cathwiki.org. There are articles from the old Catholic encyclopedia in need of editing and bringing up to [...]
Russell Kirk (in a Reader of Conservative Thought) spells out six main features observed in reflective conservatism, since Burke wrote his Reflections on the Revolution in France at the end of the eighteenth century. Conservatism is essentially the negation of "isms" so Conservatives are not necessarily able to explain what they think and feel about life [...]
Modern man is thoroughly marooned, and Christ is the only lifeline that can help him find a way back on to the ship. Because man needs roots, many revolutionaries [Voltaire, Hitler, to name two] have attempted to make a short-circuit back to a forgotten pagan age, despising the Christian legacy of which they themselves were a [...]
