Issue: March 2022
Letter from the Publisher
It is sadly ironic that this issue of The Angelus is dedicated to the theme of the World Between the Wars when, at the time I write this letter, Ukraine and Russia are in the midst of one...
Hope in the Incarnate Word: The Unexpected Theme of T.S. Eliot’s Poetry
If those twenty years were “largely wasted,” it is not because of what Eliot left behind, but because we receive his poetry in much the same way many readers of Christ’s time, especially the Pharisees who never read beyond the literal, received the culminating object and resolution of His work: “the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (Jn. 1:5)...
An Inverted Pose: Culture amid the Wars
The present discussion will consider musical development during this time of supreme disillusionment and will focus on two points as motivating factors: the lingering societal shock and exhaustion that followed WWI, and the emergence and coalescence of American popular forms that would come to dominate global musical culture by the outbreak of WWII...
The Nouvelle Théologie versus Neo-Scholasticism
The teaching and conduct of the current pontiff has shaken many Catholics to their core. The papacy of Pope Francis seems to be characterized by one shameful scandal after another. How could a pope be willing to sacrifice one dogmatic and moral teaching after another on the altar of globalism?
The Distributism of Belloc and Chesterton
It takes a brave man to carry a gun into battle, of course. But the generals knew full well that it wasn’t the caliber of men that won wars: it was the size of the guns. So came the automated slaughter, the mustard gas, the napalm, the atom bomb.
The World of Integral Humanism
When the nucleus of an atom is broken up, great energy is released, for good or ill. This is not a bad analogy for Europe after the Great War. Until August 1914, a social and political order prevailed, which for all its grave spiritual defects gave to the old continent a certain stability. What St. Pius X called “the suicide of Europe” broke up this order of things; and after the armistice of 1918, the revolutionary energy that had been released was free to do its work...
The Art of War
Who does a better job as a war artist: John Singer Sargent, or Picasso?
Chesterton’s “Ordered Chaos”: Knowledge of Ignorance in The Everlasting Man
I have long read Chesterton’s apologetic works with a sort of agitated veneration...
A House Divided Against Itself: Catholic Action and the Interwar Era
Perhaps no word characterizes the interwar era better than “intensity.” This intensity was enormously encouraged by the sense in the minds of many contemporaries that the First World War and its revolutionary aftermath had somehow offered an unparalleled opportunity for a general “purification” of Western Civilization, interpreted by social and political activists in a kaleidoscope of ways...
“In the meantime, in between time”: Films portraying the interwar era
Between World War I and World War II there was discouragement, and there was hope. Five films portray this time well...
A Knight’s Spiritual Guide
Like all those who encountered Our Lord and from whom He asked a personal commitment of their faith, the Knight has also encountered Our Lord, most notably in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist...
Innovation with Integrity: Pope St. Pius X Confronts the Modern World
A liminal figure, and the first canonized pope after a nearly 350-year hiatus, Pius X clung tenaciously to sacred traditions while stretching forth to grapple with daunting modern problems...
Karl Rahner: The Greatest Modernist of All Time
The figure of Karl Rahner, highly praised by some, and surrounded by secrecy and religious mystique by others, has marked the 20th century. In Germany, he was given the title novus praeceptor Germaniae and Cardinal Frings of Cologne hailed him the greatest theologian of the century. In his wake, every theologian of the Rhineland, whether mitred or not, echoed the Jesuit’s chorus of praise...
Meditations on St. John’s Gospel: Chapter Twelve
We now come to the last week of Our Lord’s life before His death and resurrection...
Questions and Answers
The spiritual authors encourage us to acts of devotion, but what is "devotion" exactly? What is the "spirit of penance" that we must practice during Lent and, in fact, throughout our whole life?
The Last Word
In 2015, the veteran broadcaster Gay Byrne, now retired from his many years of corrupting Irish life via The Late Late Show, recorded an episode of his new programme, The Meaning of Life...
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