Dante’s three-part epic poem the Divine Comedy, or Commedia, is one of the most influential and dense works of poetic literature in the Western tradition. Building off Homer and Virgil, and influencing the likes of Chaucer, Milton, Blake, and Tennyson, as well as bringing to popular consciousness and form the modern Italian language, Dante’s epic delves into … Continue reading Dante’s Inferno: Understanding Hell
Catholicism
Augustine and the Politics of Love
Augustine’s recognition of the lust to dominate and how it veils itself in concepts like “glory,” “honor,” and “nobility” are as relevant today as in his own time. Augustine’s deconstruction of Romanitas was done to offer all the people of Rome a greater project in its place. How often do we hear, like the Roman … Continue reading Augustine and the Politics of Love
Catholic Cosmological Theology: The Sacraments
All confessional forms of Christianity affirm at least two sacraments: Baptism and Eucharist. While degraded forms of Protestantism may no longer even affirm these any longer, all forms of confessional Protestantism (i.e. Confessional Reformed, Confessional Lutheran, Confessional Baptist, and Confessional Anglicans) do. Catholicism and Orthodoxy affirm seven sacraments: Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Reconciliation, Anointing of the … Continue reading Catholic Cosmological Theology: The Sacraments
Catholic Cosmological Theology: Sacramentals
Sacramentals are the second aspect of Catholic cosmological theology. Where sacramentality is universal and abstracted, sacramentals are more personal and specific. Sacramentality is meant for man in the universal sense. Sacramentals are meant for persons in the specific sense. Sacramentals, then, is the realization of sacramentality for individuals. Like sacramentality there is also a very … Continue reading Catholic Cosmological Theology: Sacramentals
Catholic Cosmological Theology: Sacramentality
Catholic cosmological theology was once a central cornerstone of Catholic identity and consciousness—now largely lost to the world and to most Catholics. Protestants have always looked suspiciously at Catholic sacramental theology and cosmology for being too close to paganism; but Catholic theology holds the opposite view—it is paganism that is close to original truth of … Continue reading Catholic Cosmological Theology: Sacramentality
Aquinas on Free Will, Sin, and Ethics
Does freedom entail responsibility, punishment, and reward? What is the role of compulsion, will, and choice in human action? St. Thomas Aquinas vigorously defended the reality of free will, not simply because he felt that it was divinely revealed—“He himself made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his counsel” (Sirach … Continue reading Aquinas on Free Will, Sin, and Ethics
Catholicism and the Gothic Psyche, (3/3): The Aesthetics of Horror and the Splendor of God
In this final exposition of Catholicism and the Gothic, we shall turn to the obvious in Gothic aesthetics and the quintessential characteristic of the traditional post-Carolingian aesthetic of Catholicism: The aesthetic of horror. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom is an integral aspect … Continue reading Catholicism and the Gothic Psyche, (3/3): The Aesthetics of Horror and the Splendor of God
Catholicism and the Gothic Psyche, (2/3): Sex, Violence, and the Origins of the Sacred
Gothic horror often deals with sexuality, sexual torment, and graphic violence. One of the common polemical retorts against Catholicism is that it is obsessed with sexuality, sexual violence, and blood imagery. But how did Catholicism arrive at this nexus of the intersectionality of sex, violence, and the sacred? The Biblical account is unclear whether Adam … Continue reading Catholicism and the Gothic Psyche, (2/3): Sex, Violence, and the Origins of the Sacred
Catholicism and the Gothic Psyche (1/3): Depth, Depravity, and the Restlessness of Man
The image of the Gothic is something usually depicted as something dark, depressing, and horrifying. The Gothic was, for a time, nearly synonymous with Catholicism, especially in the Protestant world where Gothic was associated with darkness and superstition like Catholicism was depicted as being—and this was reinforced and propagated by British Gothic horror often being … Continue reading Catholicism and the Gothic Psyche (1/3): Depth, Depravity, and the Restlessness of Man
Terror, the Sublime, and Catholicism
“Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime, that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind … Continue reading Terror, the Sublime, and Catholicism
