Popular Articles

“A Letter to Trads from a Byzantine Thomist” (June 6, 2023). Click here for original.

“Journeying Through the Catechism: The Mysteries of Salvation” (May 30, 2023), part of a series for Ascension Press’s Catechism in a Year. Click here for original.

“Catholic Theology Yesterday and Today: A Thomist’s Response to Dr. Larry Chapp” (May 25, 2023). Click here for original.

“Journeying Through the Catechism: The Last Things” (May 23, 2023), part of a series for Ascension Press’s Catechism in a Year. Click here for original.

“Journeying Through the Catechism: The Church” (April 28, 2023), part of a series for Ascension Press’s Catechism in a Year. Click here for original.

“Journeying Through the Catechism: The Holy Spirit” (April 12, 2023), part of a series for Ascension Press’s Catechism in a Year. Click here for original.

“Journeying Through the Catechism: The Son” (March 10, 2023), part of a series for Ascension Press’s Catechism in a Year. Click here for original.

“Jacques Maritain (Five Books for Catholics)” (March 3, 2023). Click here for original.

“Journeying Through the Catechism: Creation and the Fall” (February 27, 2023), part of a series for Ascension Press’s Catechism in a Year. Click here for original.

“Journeying Through the Catechism: A God Who Reveals Himself” (February 13, 2023), part of a series for Ascension Press’s Catechism in a Year. Click here for original.

“Journeying Through the Catechism: Divine Revelation” (January 11, 2023), part of a series for Ascension Press’s Catechism in a Year. Click here for original.

“Journeying Through the Catechism: A Guide for the Christian Life” (Dec. 19, 2022), part of a series for Ascension Press’s Catechism in a Year. Click here for original.

“Human Life and the Divine Life,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review (October, 2020).

This is a translation of Fr. Ambroise Gardeil’s “Vie humaine et vie divine,” published on April 10, 1927 in Revue des Jeunes. I include some introductory notes on Fr. Gardeil’s life and work, also explaining the topic discussed the article itself. It is devoted to the (normally) very technical question of “obediential potency.” However, despite the technicality of the topic, Fr. Gardeil completely avoids the word and all of the scholastic difficulties. With great rhetorical power, he describes the way that human nature is not opposed to the reception of grace. He does this by ascending through the various activities of the human person qua spiritual, showing how the human person’s activity bears witness to our spiritual nature, which in its heights is open, in a stance of pure receptivity, to the gift of supernatural grace. Click here for the original.

 “Death Penalty Teaching: The Faithful Have Questions,” Ascension Press Blog (August 4, 2018). 

This brief article was written after the Catholic Church outlined certain changes to the universal Catechism in relation to the death penalty. Click here for the original.

“On the Lowly, Yet Vital, Importance of Chastity: A Response to His Excellency, Bishop Robert McElroy,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review (November, 2017).

This article was written as a response to certain comments made by the bishop of San Diego regarding the virtue of chastity. It aims to show the at-once subordinate yet utterly essential place of this virtue (and other related ones) in the hierarchy of human virtues. Click here for the original.

“Giving Nature Its Due—Even in Sacramental Matrimony,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review (September, 2017).

This article was written as an articulation of the Catholic teaching regarding the distinction between natural and sacramental marriage, noting the need to distinguish each precisely in order to do justice to each domain of reality. This was written for a mostly-Roman Catholic audience at the time. Click here for the original.

“Leisure: The Basis of Everything?”  Homiletic and Pastoral Review (January, 2017).

This article is a kind of reflection on the metaphysical scope of “leisure,” inspired by the well-known work of Joseph Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Click here for the original.

“Thomistic Reflections on Divine Mercy and Divine Justice.”  Homiletic and Pastoral Review (July, 2016).

This article was written as a reflection on the place of mercy among the divine attributes. If I wrote it today, I likely would have been even clearer on the topic, as I have reflected on it at greater length. Ad extra, that is, in relation to all created beings, mercy is the first of the divine attributes, in light of which the ad extra attributes (justice, providence, etc.) must be understood. (Of course, mercy itself is to be understood in light of all the divine attributes that hold solely ad intra, even abstracting from creation.) Click here for the original.

Popular Book Reviews

Paul Quenon. In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk’s Memoir.  Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2018.  Homiletic & Pastoral Review (Autumn, 2018).

Josef Pieper.  Not Yet the Twilight: An Autobiography, 1945-1964.  South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2017.  Homiletic & Pastoral Review (February, 2018)

Scola, Angelo.  Let’s Not Forget God: Freedom of Faith, Culture, and Politics. Translated by Matthew Sherry.  New York: Image, 2014.  Homiletic & Pastoral Review (October, 2017).

Randall B. Smith.  Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide.  Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2016.  Homiletic & Pastoral Review.  (September, 2017)

Douglas Farrow.  Desiring a Better Country: Forays in Political Theology.  Montreal & Kingston: McGill Queen’s University Press, 2015.  Homiletic & Pastoral Review (June, 2017). 

Peter Kreeft.  I Burned for Your Peace. Augustine’s Confessions Unpacked.  San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2016.  Homiletic & Pastoral Review (June, 2017).

Raïssa Maritain. We Have Been Friends Together & Adventures in Grace: Memoirs.  South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2016.  Homiletic & Pastoral Review (March, 2017).

Matthew Levering.  Proofs of God: Classical Arguments from Tertullian to Barth. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016. Homiletic & Pastoral Review (February, 2017).

John Lawrence Hill.  After the Natural Law: How the Classical Worldview Suports Our Modern Moral and Political Values.  San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2016.  Homiletic & Pastoral Review (January, 2017).

David L. Schindler and Nicholas J. Healy Jr.  Freedom, Truth, and Human Dignity: The Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom.  A New Translation, Redaction History, and Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae.  Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015.  Homiletic & Pastoral Review (June, 2016).

David K. O’Connor, Plato’s Bedroom: Ancient Wisdom and Modern Love (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2015.  Homiletic & Pastoral Review (June, 2016).