By IHE Graduate Fellow Father Gilbrian Stoy, C.S.C. In contemporary moral debates, personal experience has risen to be a supreme source for moral discernment. In order for a doctrinal teaching, interpretation of scripture, or logical conclusion to be valid, it must ultimately ring true to a person’s lived experience. Christians shouldn’t be too alarmed by […]
By Lucia A. Silecchia Three more years. As we celebrate Independence Day this year, I can’t help thinking that we are now in the three-year run-up to our nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026. In some ways, three years seems like a long time away. Yet, if advancing years have taught me anything, it is that time passes […]
By IHE Graduate Fellow Meghan Duke In his question on prayer in the Summa Theologiae,[1] Saint Thomas says that the first thing that is necessary for prayer is that we approach God and that the second is that we make a petition. We can do this, he says, in three ways: First, through an act […]
By Lucia A. Silecchia If it is graduation season, then it is graduation speech season, too. High schools, colleges, and even elementary schools seek out high profile speakers to impart their wisdom to graduates – or, at least, they aim to. I am a bit dubious about what a pampered celebrity or popular sports figure could […]
As both a mother and an academic, the month of May bears a special significance to my vocation. It is, of course, the month in which we celebrate Mother’s Day, but it is also a month devoted to Mary, the Mother of God. Mary was not only a good mother: she can also rightly be […]
By IHE Fellow Lucia A. Silecchia I saw them in the department store — a mother and a little girl about five years old. The child, in her restlessness, sought to wander away during what must have struck her as a very dull way to spend time. Sifting through a clearance rack is not the excitement […]
By IHE Graduate Fellow Ian Tuttle “Winter kept us warm,” wrote T.S. Eliot, “covering / Earth with forgetful snow.” Spring, then, is a time for relearning the world. Was there ever a better student than John Clare? Born in tiny Helpston, Northamptonshire, England, in 1793 to illiterate parents; barely schooled; farm laborer by the age […]
By Lucia A. Silecchia With the arrival of Easter, one of the greatest joys in the lives of parishes around the world is the opportunity to welcome new sisters and brothers in Christ through the sacred celebrations at the great Easter Vigil. To all who celebrate this profound moment this year, welcome! May the graces […]
By IHE Scholar Lucia A. Silecchia Every year, when I flip my calendar to December, thoughts of Christmas overwhelm me with anticipation of the joys to come and the great gift of Christ’s Nativity. Yet, when I open that same calendar to the month of March, my initial thought has never been, “The Solemnity of […]
By IHE Graduate Fellow Thomas Holman These days we are exposed to a lot of cross-cutting accusations of irrationality. A near-ubiquitous trope in contemporary political discussion is that those with whom we disagree are stupid or need to be reeducated. The people on the other side of the argument are just not being reasonable. But […]
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