The fundamental problem with how Vatican II is viewed on both the far left and the far right is that the documents are often viewed as though they propose doctrine in the same way that Nicaea or other Ecumenical Councils...

Like many figures in history, there is much discussion about the “historical Ephrem.” One trend in contemporary scholarship is to investigate the tradition of works attributed to or written about significant figures according to modern methods developed recently, relatively speaking....

One of the great partial truths of Buddhism is that the self, as experienced, is unstable. When a man begins to observe himself closely, not merely as a thinker of concepts, but as one who watches the movements of consciousness,...

The saints and the great artists see before they can fully explain. The thing appears first not as a finished concept, nor as a chain of logical deductions, but as a kind of living intuition. There is a form that...

The modern political divide is not merely a disagreement over policies. It is, at a deeper level, a clash of rhetorical archetypes. The Democrat and the Republican, considered as archetypes, do not simply represent two parties; they embody two recurring...

We live in an age that reveals its soul through its icons. The men and women who seize the modern imagination are not random. They become luminous because they touch something buried deep in the human heart. They are not...

Here is a thought. On the fringes of human experience, what resembles those things better: Dali or Caravaggio? I think, at least at first glance, the answer is Dali. A video on deep-sea creatures I watched makes the point vividly....

There is a form of knowledge proper to reason, and there is a form of knowledge proper to contemplation. Reason proceeds by steps. It compares, distinguishes, judges, and concludes. It moves from premise to premise, from part to part, from...

A recurring tension in Catholic thought may be described as a binary between doctrine and experience. This must be stated carefully. It is not a contradiction, as though truth and lived reality were rivals. Rather, it is a distinction between...