under the patronage of St Joseph and St Dominic

By the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, remembering Zion;
on the poplars that grew there we hung up our harps. . . Ps 136

HUMANAE VITAE FORTY YEARS ON

There is so much the Pope could say over the failure of the world to heed Paul VI's teaching in this cardinal encyclical. more

FURTHER THOUGHTS ON ARISTOTLE'S AETHER

THE PARADOXES OF CHRISTIANITY

This is a lengthy extract from the chapter bearing this title in G K Chesterton’s "Orthodoxy".  The book was published in 1907, but it has much to say to us 100 years on. more

SCIENCE AND ARISTOTLE'S AETHER

In 2004, American philosopher, Christopher A Decaen, published in 'The Thomist' a remarkable paper on Aristotle's aether.  This commentary on what he had to say there is an attempt to develop the consequences of Aristotle's thought - as refined by St Thomas Aquinas - in the light of modern science.  more

WAS LUTHER NOT SUCH A BAD CHAP AFTER ALL?

What sort of a man was the heretic Martin Luther?  Could the Church possibly 'rehabilitate' him?  more

BISHOP ROBINSON'S HERESY

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, former auxiliary bishop of Sydney, has formalised his lapse into heresy in a book, "Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church".  The book is likely to cause the loss of faith of many. The Church's faithful would be well advised not to dismiss it lightly. more

THE SCHISMATIC TENDENCY IN ‘CREATION SCIENCE’

'Creation Science', the naive assertion that the universe was created only 6,000 years ago, is a Protestant thing.  Its adoption by Catholics presents real dangers to their faith. more

FAILURE OF THE EXECUTIVE POWER

It belongs to the father of a household to exercise discipline in his family.  This is true not only of the family, but of the household of the Church.  The Pope and each of the bishops of the Church, indeed, each priest, is a father in charge of a household.  Each has duties to rule and govern his household with authority given him by God.  If he fails in those duties the harm that results is as extensive as is the reach of his authority.  In this paper we argue that the failure of respect for discipline so characteristic of the modern world began in the Catholic Church in 1962 and has continued unabated ever since.  We argue that it is this failure which has permitted the folly of Feminism to flourish in the Church, and in the world. more

THE LOSS OF METAPHYSICS

John of Salisbury, 12th Century philosopher, says in his Metalogicon: 'Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more... because they raise us up...' In the century that followed John of Salisbury, the greatest of the intellectual giants appeared, Thomas Aquinas. His philosophy, Metaphysics, is the only ultimately satisfying explanation of reality, the only philosophy which leads us inevitably to the Author of all reality, Almighty God. Thomas's philosophy was adopted by the Catholic Church as her own to assist in formulating doctrine and in solving the great problems of morals. Yet, in the last 40 years that philosophy has been abandoned and the Church and the world have suffered. If the Church is to return to her rightful position of influence in the world, she must return to St Thomas's metaphysics. more