Newsletter

Was Peter the First Pope?

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Recently, I’ve been engaged in a number of interesting discussions with Protestants who deny that the papacy was established by Christ in the person of St. Peter. And as I’ve been engaged in these discussions for several days, I’ve been just jotting some thoughts down and organizing my own thoughts on the topic, studying the scriptures, trying as hard as I can to gain a full picture of what the scriptures have to say, especially as others present their interpretation and ideas on the topic, and I started to collect a bunch of different points and notes that I wanted … Continue

Holy Ordinariness

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The Hidden Life of Our Lady When we think about greatness, we often think about visible achievement. But the holiest woman who ever lived spent most of her life unseen. The Gospel tells us very little about the years in Nazareth. After the finding of Jesus in the Temple, St. Luke simply says that Our Lord “went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them” (Luke 2:51). Then we hear that Mary “kept all these things in her heart.” That’s it. We don’t hear descriptions of accomplishments, public recognition or applause. And yet, in that small … Continue

Homeschool Advice for Catholic Parents

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I’d like to take some time today to talk about a plan for homeschooling that I would recommend for homeschooling parents who have no idea what they’re doing. When I say homeschooling parents who have no idea what they’re doing, I’m not being negative or critical. I’m being honest. I’m talking to Christian parents who desire to give their children a Christian education, who are concerned about the quality of modern schools, who love their children very much, who fear God and desire to honor Him as parents. But when it comes to education, when it comes to homeschooling, when … Continue

Modern Sciences in Classical Catholic Education

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This talk is intended for parents and students of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy who are trying to understand how Catholic students should think about the study of the natural sciences, with a Catholic mindset, with a coherent system of Catholic thought. Many think that there’s a choice to be made between Classical Studies and Modern studies. But as I’d like to explain in this talk, that’s not the case. In fact, I would argue that in order to be true scientists, to be good scientists, we actually need to understand scholastic philosophy first and then study science within the … Continue

Logical Fallacies

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Aristotle’s final work in the Organon, called “Sophistical Elenchi,” is one of the most practical books ever written. It’s not about how to construct clever arguments or win debates through trickery. It’s about something far more important: how to recognize when reasoning fails, and more crucially, how to avoid failing in your own thinking. Let me tell you why this matters. Reasoning is supposed to correspond to reality. When we argue, we’re trying to say something true about the world. We’re trying to move from what we know to what we don’t know. We’re trying to arrive at knowledge. But fallacies … Continue

The Seven Liberal Arts

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The seven liberal arts are the traditional disciplines by which the human intellect is formed in the knowledge of truth. They are called liberal because they are proper to a free man—that is, one who lives according to reason and seeks understanding for its own sake, rather than for utility or gain. These arts are not modern academic subjects, nor are they collections of skills or methods. Each is a defined intellectual discipline, distinguished by its proper object and method, and each holds a necessary place within an ordered whole. Their division is not arbitrary, but follows the order of … Continue