History of Christian Thoughts Archives - Page 5 of 67

August 15, 2023

Though it was only in 1950 that the Feast of the Assumption was defined by Pope Pius XII, Catholics have believed that “having completed the course of her earthly life, the Blessed Virgin Mary was taken body and soul to heaven,” going back to Patristic

The Truth is Still Splendid: Pope St. John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor at 30

August 12, 2023

Outside the Catholic world, the issuing of papal encyclicals rarely garners much attention. That, however, wasn’t the case when, 30 years ago, John Paul II promulgated his long pontificate’s most controversial encyclical on August 6, 1993. Its very title, Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth), threw down

Archbishop Chaput: The Splendor of Truth Today

August 12, 2023

Editor's Note: Archbishop Chaput originally published this essay in 2017. We are sharing it this week to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Veritatis Splendor. There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend

Sheen and Hiroshima

August 9, 2023

These days there is no shortage of doomsayers. Many across the political and religious spectrum feel a profound sense of disease and uncertainty, even fear, about the present state of world affairs. Despite a shared sense of crisis, there is very little agreement on the

What Is Catholic Just War Doctrine and How Does It Apply Today?

August 2, 2023

Q. Last summer we remembered the 75th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. I’ve heard some Catholic say the bombings were justified because they saved American lives. Can you explain just war thinking and how it applies to these bombings? —Robert

On Eucharistic Adoration: Against Its Detractors

July 27, 2023

I take it as a privilege to be a forty-one-year-old Catholic theologian in the year 2023. Born in 1982, only twelve years after the promulgation of the reformed rites of the Second Vatican Council, I am in the main sympathetic to those who are often called

Humanae Vitae continues to challenge us to love, trust, and sacrifice

July 25, 2023

The encyclical, Humanae Vitae, was promulgated 55 years ago, on July 25, 1968. The word often used to describe Pope Paul VI’s encyclical is “prophetic”. It is one of those rather rare cases in which such a daunting, loaded, and strong adjective is exactly on the mark. Being

What Lessons Do Thomas Aquinas’s Sermons Hold For Modern Preachers?

July 18, 2023

It is strange to think that Thomas Aquinas’s sermons have garnered so little attention over the years, given that he was a prominent member of the Order of Preachers, a group that identified itself precisely by its members’ aptitude for preaching, and that as a Master

The recovery of a lost classic

July 15, 2023

Those familiar with the French counter-revolution will recognize the Angelico Press republication of The Genius of Christianity: The Spirit and Beauty of the Christian Religion for precisely what it is: The recovery of a lost classic. Along with Joseph de Maistre’s Considerations on France and Louis de Bonald’s On Divorce,

Lift Up Your Hearts! Faith Has a Future

July 12, 2023

‘Think you, when the Son of Man comes, he will find faith upon the earth?’ (Luke 18:8) If the Lord were to come again — say, in the next half-hour — what would the Church look like to him? Would it resemble the one he