Perhaps it may seem a bit premature, but here goes: Benedict XVI should be declared a doctor of the Church.

There are, if I count correctly, 33 such esteemed doctors, the most recent being St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who died in 1897, and the most recently declared being St. Hildegard of Bingen, who died in 1179 but was declared a doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict in October of 2012. Benedict XVI would be No. 34 (assuming no others are named beforehand).

A doctor of the Church must be holy. Check.

Joseph Ratzinger was, in heart and mind, an academic, a man deeply in love with the truth, a man made to teach. But then he was named an archbishop in 1977 and, in 1981, prefect of the...READ MORE

In these heady days of a new pope, Pope Francis, we must not forget the real gifts that our Pope Emeritus Benedict has given us as his legacy — and the ways that Francis is carrying forth what Benedict left us.

Before Benedict stepped down, he made sure that his flock of a billion-plus understood that the 21st century will be a time of evangelization.

That’s an order, although not a new one, but simply a restatement of Christ’s own missionary command to the disciples, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you” (Matthew 28:19–20).

That’s all...READ MORE

Something quite wonderful happened in the middle of this series on Pope Emeritus Benedict and secularism — Pope Francis.

The really wonderful news is that the pope is not a president. A change in popes does not signal, as it does with political elections, a change in administrations that brings a radical change in fundamental doctrines. A pope is bound by Tradition and Scripture, by the doctrines and decisions of the Church for 2,000 years as rooted in and defined by the Revelation of God. He is about handing on the truth, proclaiming the truth, not reinventing the truth.

As with Benedict, Pope Francis will be proclaiming the truth against ever more aggressive secularism. Like Europe...READ MORE

In the previous blog post, we explored Pope Benedict’s account of the roots of relativism — roots which ultimately blossomed into full-scale secularism in the West. Again, Benedict sees the problem in reason itself, or what has been done to reason.

To review, while secularists claim to champion reason, they actually put forth a constricted form of reason — so constricted that it mutilates both our reason and our humanity. Reason, secularism asserts, must be restricted only to what is material and measurable. The mutilation occurs because secularism then assumes that what is not material and measurable is not real, or at best, merely a subjective fancy.

Secularism thereby embraces...READ MORE

Benedict XVI is a gem of a pope, a diamond who has been treated roughly by the liberal press as if he were a mere growling guard dog of benighted and ossified orthodoxy. But he is a man deeply read in history, philosophy and theology, and the Church has not had nearly enough time, in his short pontificate, to explore the many facets of his profound learning.

In great part, his courageous defense of orthodoxy comes from his profound grasp of the roots of relativism, his defense of the truth from a deep understanding of the worldview that would destroy it (along with our humanity).

In the last blog post, I discussed Pope Benedict’s warning that we are, more and more, the unhappy...READ MORE

In his homily to the 2005 conclave that would soon choose him as the successor of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned those attending, “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.”

This is a warning that Pope Benedict has not tired of repeating during his pontificate.

Relativism is a poison. It attacks our most human capacity, the capacity to seek and know the truth, including the moral truth. A dictatorship of relativism imposes by real cultural force (and even by political force) a no-standard standard, a command that all must imbibe this...READ MORE

This is the first of a seven-part series on the papacy of Benedict XVI. Part 1: Pope Benedict vs. Secularism.

It is certainly sad that Pope Benedict will be leaving us, but we should not forget all that he has left us — a great legacy of the deepest theological and philosophical reflection that can guide and inspire the New Evangelization he’s demanded of us. A little history puts that legacy in its proper context.

The first Benedict, St. Benedict of Nursia (480-547), left us a rule that established monastic order in the West and, in doing so, grounded the evangelization of Europe. Benedictine monasticism was the deepest root of the Church’s infusion of order into a pagan society,...READ MORE

As noted in a previous post, I interviewed Paul Ryan about two years ago. At the time — obviously — neither of us had any inkling he’d be a future vice presidential candidate.

Almost the entire interview was focused on Ryan’s economic thinking — not just his detailed economic plan (A Roadmap for America’s Future), but the philosophy at the bottom of his economic views.

What about his detailed plan? As chairman of the House’s Committee on the Budget, Ryan knows details. He has been dubbed Congress’s budget hawk, a man determined to do whatever it takes to keep the U.S. from experiencing the kind of catastrophic economic collapse now dragging Europe’s nations, one by one, into their...READ MORE