Robert Louis Wilken

The Christian West and Its Singers: The First Thousand Years By Christopher Page Yale, 692 Pages, $45 The pipe organ receives the highest praise in John Dryden’s poem “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”: What human voice can reach / The sacred organ’s praise? / Notes inspiring . . . . Continue Reading »

Hugh of St. Victor BY PAUL ROREM OXFORD, 256 PAGES, $27.95 In the Paradiso Dante locates Hugh of St. Victor (d.1142) in the second circle of Christian teachers circling the sun, among whom he first mentions St. Bonaventure who introduces Hugh and asso-ciates him with two early Franciscan brothers . . . . Continue Reading »

Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity By Luke Timothy Johnson Yale, 461 pages, $32.50 It is generally recognized that early Christian thinkers drew on the philosophical traditions of the world in which they lived. A good example is the appropriation of the cardinal virtues: . . . . Continue Reading »

Within a few paragraphs the perspicacious reader of this “new” history of early Christianity will sense that here is another recycling of old and tired clichés that are predictable in popular histories of Christianity. The tip offs are the buzzword diversity and the villain, the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Forge of Christendom: The End of Days and the Epic Rise of the Westby Tom HollandDoubleday, 476 pages, $30 In 1872, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck stood before the German Reichstag and declared, “We shall not go to Canossa.” By calling up the image of the German king Henry IV standing . . . . Continue Reading »

In 1961, Richard John Neuhaus was installed as pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Brooklyn. Several days later he wrote me. “Installed Misericordias Domini”much pomp, ceremony, and incense.” It was the last word I heard from him for almost six months. It was as though he had been swallowed up by the city and his new congregation. For Fr. Richard as well as for the people of St. John’s the day of installation was a glorious occasion… . Continue Reading »

Two stories were front-page news last week, the President’s speech on Afghanistan and the spectacle of Tiger Woods smashing his Cadillac Escalade into his neighbor’s tree at 2:30 a.m. But two other items caught my attention, the one from Italy and the other from Switzerland… . Continue Reading »

Douthat Flirting With Dhimmitude?
12.07.2009
David P. Goldman

Sad that the dumbest thing I’ve read in the New York Times for years came from the blog of Ross Douthat, the Catholic conservative voice at the Gray Lady… . Continue Reading »

The Richard I knew and loved was a man of prayer and of liturgy. He knew that the greatest gift we could offer to God was not our words, not our ideas, not our projects, but a heart ablaze with the fire of love. “Honor and glory belong to God alone,” said St. Bernard, “but God will receive . . . . Continue Reading »

Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism by Paula Fredriksen Doubleday, 512 pages, $35 At the time of the Second Crusade, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: “It is good to go against the Ishmaelites [Muslims]. But whoever touches a Jew to take his life is like one who harms . . . . Continue Reading »

No event during the first millennium was more unexpected, more calamitous, and more consequential for Christianity than the rise of . . . . Continue Reading »