The Duff Cooper Prize for Judith Herrin

Super news! https://t.co/I5HjxBF1mq

— Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research (@OxfordByzantine) February 1, 2021

Tom Holland on the Influence of Christianity on Politics

In the new episode of my podcast CULTURE WARS for @spikedonline, I talk to the historian @holland_tom about the enduring influence of Christianity on Western politics.

Available on all major audio streaming services. https://t.co/h8mFq1vZ8S

— Andrew Doyle (@andrewdoyle_com) January 28, 2021

Science in the Medieval West

Science Was Alive and Well in the Dark Ages. Medieval times were not as scientifically stunted as we often think. Historian Seb Falk explains how those myths arose — and what science back then actually looked like. https://t.co/fmwSyHhrt9

— Jennifer Ouellette (@JenLucPiquant) January 29, 2021

"Modern" and "Modernity"

Writing a book on the destructive effects of shoehorning medieval International Relations into the "Great Divide" narrative. I'll be citing this excellent piece! https://t.co/zGPAaGSp6i

— Andrew A Latham (@aalatham) January 27, 2021

History of the West

With fr. John Strickland, author of The Age of Paradise, I discuss Charlemagne, the Renaissance and how our history often ignores the supreme importance of the East in its development. https://t.co/2EgpqF0xO6

— Jonathan Pageau (@PageauJonathan) January 27, 2021

A Forgotten Number System

He had me at "medieval number system." https://t.co/GBZv2wzMEm

— Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, OP (@FrAquinasOP) November 24, 2020

The Lucas Psalter

We have just announced that the @britishlibrary has acquired the Lucas Psalter, a unique 15th century manuscript featuring previously unknown work by the Master of Edward IV https://t.co/WC0UKJK4hp pic.twitter.com/tPHtC2tE8r

— BL Press Office (@BLpressoffice) November 17, 2020

The Foundation of the University

On What Foundation is the University Built? https://t.co/2sP9qnkZs1 via @CatholicThing Nice essay!

— John Cavadini (@JohnCavadini) November 9, 2020

On What Foundation is the University Built? | Randall Smith https://t.co/qXIHPjfkFI pic.twitter.com/Ig7GesEfus

— The Catholic Thing (@catholicthing) November 9, 2020

Early Modern Aristotle

This looks fabulous. @GenofMod https://t.co/zo4Z5Mly82

— John Buchmann (@John_W_Buchmann) October 9, 2020

Penn Press

Voluntarism? Nominalism?

OUP: Political Theology of International Order by William Bain

Defenses and critiques of modern politics will ultimately come back to the choice between a metaphysics of inherent order or divine fiat, so which should we choose? https://t.co/lgv4xL7DN0

— Richard Reinsch (@Reinsch84) August 28, 2020

Theological Roots of the Secular World Order by Nathaniel Peters

Did people with power and influence really believe in legal voluntarism? Or were they just acting in accordance with their appetites? Is this sort of genealogy, putting the blame on late medieval theology/philosophy for "modernity" really still useful, in comparison with a proper study of history?

A Spiritual Transformation of an Empire

Full clip: https://t.co/bfdSWsjF7L

— New Polity (@PostliberalTho1) August 21, 2020

David Bonagura Reviews Pearl of Great Price

"Browne’s book is an innovative telling of a forgotten period of the Catholic Church’s past, and a creative complement to studies on the French Revolution’s enduring impact on Western civilization." - @DavidGBonaguraJ for @ubookman https://t.co/pXl1v8UILO pic.twitter.com/ldMlOzXEcA

— Russell Kirk Center (@KirkCenter) August 13, 2020

Arouca Press

Catholic Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights

Glad to say I've recieved a first print of my new book 'Catholic Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights'. Indebted to @samuelmoyn for his foreword and guidance, & to @hmtennapel & @smullallylaw for their endorsements. Available 5th March. @CUP_Law @IrishCentreHRhttps://t.co/9yor8YOgbn pic.twitter.com/glvjOoA445

— Leonard 'Emperor of Teaching' Taylor (@leonsaviour) February 24, 2020

Cambridge University Press

More from Milbank on Empire

Thanks very much for this. Responses: I think no easy line between supposed organicism of states and artificiality of empire. China is historically an empire and organic. Roman Empire had a shared ‘organic’ culture. In some ways empires more than states put culture first. https://t.co/2iH95pguL0

— john milbank (@johnmilbank3) July 1, 2020

Dr. Alan Fimister on the Crusade Channel

Alan Fimister talking about the two swords. https://t.co/jRWhYbWAvQ

— Fr Thomas Crean OP (@crean_fr) June 4, 2020

Patterson Responds to Pinkoski

Law&Liberty: A Strawman and a Scotsman Walk into the Café de Flore by James M. Patterson

James Patterson @McGillPatterson responds to Pinkoski in the Integralism Debates: Part 2 https://t.co/DBeJeRiMBZ

— Law & Liberty (@LawLiberty) May 11, 2020

Patterson thought it necessary to rebut Pinkoski to show that his brief summary does not implicate him in being historically ignorant of the various movements which he mentioned. Is Patterson accurate in his recounting that part of European history? If he isn't, someone will probably write a response to correct him.

As for the optics of Latin integralists being associated with Franco and thus "fascism," is Patterson really doing integralists (or neo-integralists as he labels them) justice? Or is he just trying to smear them, though not as going as far as a SJW? Did Franco really carry out an integralist program with respect to the promotion of Roman Catholicism in Spain? I am thinking that he didn't go far enough in that respect to satisfy integralists. If there was punishment of apostates and heretics by the Spanish state under Franco, someone please provide a reference.

As to the European anti-Republican tradition, readers of Law & Liberty may need his remediation; unfortunately, I have suffered through the theurgical revenge fantasies of Joseph de Maistre, the dull and repetitious condemnations of Proudhon by Juan Donoso Cortés, the aforementioned bilious and bottomless Jew-hatred of Maurras, and the real genius of Carl Schmitt deranged by his reverence for an anti-Christ. What made these figures anti-republican was their confusion of lack of republican virtue in the nations they studied—France, Spain, and Germany—with the nature of republican government itself. Tocqueville explained this problem in The Ancient Regime, as I mentioned in my original essay.

Should that tradition be styled "anti-Republican" or "anti-liberal" or even "anti-democratic"? If they were anti-Republican, could it be that they didn't think a republican form of government was possible for their countries? Perhaps they approved of republican government in the abstract.


Other than his own personal example of what is parish life, which I have already addressed, if briefly, in my previous post, Patterson relies upon the 20th ce participation of American Catholics in the system (or the state) and in ecclesial and civil organizations as evidence of republican virtue and the training of American Catholics in republican virtue. In that previous essay, he writes:

In the absence of those institutions that had once made America a place of deep faith and committed to liberty, these young men have had recourse to the Internet and attach themselves to the sublime historical experience of sacramental kingship, Iberian Falangism, or straight-up fascism supported by the general ideas purveyed by Vermeule and the like.

If those institutions no longer exist, then how are his opponents to be trained in republican virtue? Parish life isn't enough. And I would argue that the historical institutions which he cites were not sufficient either, as they failed to stop the sort of moral and political decay that the United States has fallen into.Any group or organization that actually inculcated true Republican virtue would be viewed as a threat by the state and stopped, either by the state or its proxies or allies.

Western Culture

CWR Dispatch: Ratzinger’s Western Culture delves deeply into the foundations of European life
This collection offers reflections on many of the fundamental underpinnings of the life of society, applicable to both European and non-European countries.

Ignatius Press

Edit. 5/12
A review: What Will Become of Europe? by Carson Halloway

Eastern Christian Books: Searching for Sacred Images

Eastern Christian Books: Searching for Sacred Images

Gracewing: In Search of the Sacred Image by Aidan Nichols, O.P.

Pinkoski's Response to James Patterson on Latin Integralism

Law and Liberty: How Not to Challenge the Integralists by Nathan Pinkoski

A response to @McGillPatterson on integralism, its origins and ideas. https://t.co/Rcy2Cx6AuR

— Law & Liberty (@LawLiberty) April 30, 2020

And one recommendation for the above by Michael Brendan Dougherty: Is Integralism Just Catholic Fascism?

The swift refutation of James Patterson’s smear tactics is *almost* enough to make me believe in the marketplace of ideas https://t.co/ZhnxS8xsHW

— Adrian Vermeule (@Vermeullarmine) April 30, 2020

The author gives a history of the development of Latin integralist thought, starting with the Roman Catholic anti-liberals (not all of whom were strict monarchists, by the way). 

Although its theological claims go back further, Catholic integralism owes its politics to post-revolutionary Europe. The basic presupposition of integralism is that theology is prior to politics and must order politics. As Émile Perreau-Saussine observed in Catholicism and Democracy, this requires a strong demarcation between the spiritual power of the Church and the temporal power of the state. That demarcation was not visible in the Ancien Régime, as the monarch anointed at Reims mixed temporal and spiritual power. The cruel exposure of that demarcation came as the French Revolution’s newly secular state violently attempted to assert its temporal power over the spiritual power of the Church. Since Catholics could no longer rely on their monarch—a Christian head of a Christian state—to protect the Church’s liberties, early 19th century Catholic political thinkers sought a deeper understanding of the principles of authority. They looked to the Papacy—to spiritual power—as the ultimate guarantor of Catholic liberties. Hence Perreau-Saussine argues that integralism is post-revolutionary. Ultramontanist thinkers, such as Joseph de Maistre, helped develop the demarcation between Church and State. In distinguishing temporal authority from spiritual authority, spurning Bonapartist Concordats to revive the Gallican Church, and granting that the Pope was the ultimate authority, these thinkers sought to free the Church from the grip of the post-Revolutionary secular state and campaigned for regimes that would get the Church-State relationship right.

And Latin bishops today act with this sort of mindset, that they have a "spiritual authority" that enables them to lecture the state, even if the state does not recognize their authority. Integralism is a logical consequence to certain Roman claims concerning the authority of the bishop of Rome, and here is its first major weakness. Latin integralists will call their political theory "Catholic" as Latins are apt to label everything part of their ecclesial tradition, but it is particular to them alone, at least so far. Byzantine theory of symphonia may be reconcilable with some looser form of Latin integralism, but it will differ with Latin integralism in all forms in so far as integralism is tied to ultramontanism or a maximalist conception of the papacy. While symphonia developed within the context of empire, on the face of it I cannot see why a version of it cannot be harmonized with republican forms of government.

The rest of the essay is worth reading as the author discusses the relation of integralism to political movements in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is not a thorough history nor does he mention all of the Latin counter-revolutionary/anti-liberal thinkers, but hopefully Patterson will read it.

Rachel Fulton Brown: The Lives of Charlemagne