Tag: Pope St. John Paul II

The Perennial Question: “Who Is Man?”


Modern philosophy flatters itself by claiming it was responsible for the “turn to the subject,” i.e., the human (and, usually, a very subjective understanding of the human).  But focus on the human is hardly a modern discovery.   St. Irenaeus, a…

Ever Ancient, Ever New – The Catholic Thing

St. Augustine famously wrote of having come late to the Beauty that is God: tam antiqua, tam nova (“So ancient, so new”). It’s a brilliant and profound way of expressing the truth that the deepest Good is not in the past or in the future, but by…

If I Were Created a Cardinal

If I were created a Cardinal and dispensed from the canonical requirement to be ordained a deacon or priest – my vocation is as a layperson – this is how I would counsel the Holy Father on the first anniversary of his pontificate. “Holy Father,…

St. Isidore Runs the Numbers

It’s easy to get lost in Biblical numerological speculation, as even a cursory study of the Church Fathers proves. St. Irenaeus attempted to explain the number of the beast from Revelation 13:17–18 by adding the numerical value of the Greek…