Fr. Robert Sirico is fond of referencing the sociologist Robert Nisbet for his distinction between power and authority.  In his book The Soul of Liberty, Fr. Sirico describes Nisbet’s distinction in this way: “[B]oth authority and power are forms of restraint, but…power is an external form and authority is an internal form.  With power, we...

Who am I? This is the persistent question of modern man. Many end up defining themselves by their work. Is this wise? Is this the best approach for Christian men? After many years of languishing on my endless reading list I finally got around to reading Josef Pieper’s modern classic, Leisure: the Basis of Culture. For those not familiar with t...

St. John Cassian is a saint worth knowing.  Of the ilk of the Desert Fighters (usually known as the Desert Fathers), he knows the daily and manly fighting it takes to overcome our enemies, which are not the myriad of challenges all around us now, but the enemies in our disordered passions and false loves.  For such foes we need the paradoxical mi...