John Michael Talbot (born May 8, 1954) is an American Catholic musician, author, television presenter and founder of a monastic community known as the Brothers and Sisters of Charity Talbot was born into a Methodist family with a musical background in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and started learning to play the guitar at an early age. At age 15, he dropped out of… Read More The Long Journey Into Day of John Michael Talbot
The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond” (or “Loch Lomond“) is a traditional Scottish folk song (Roud No. 9598).[1][2] Its origins are thought to date to the Jacobite rising of 1745. Born in Rome to the exiled Stuart court, he spent much of his early and later life in Italy. In 1744, he travelled to France to take part in a… Read More On the Beautiful Banks O’ Loch Lomand
Planxty. Planxty[1] were an Irish folk music band formed in January 1972,[1]: 99–100 consisting initially of Christy Moore (vocals, acoustic guitar, bodhrán), Andy Irvine (vocals, mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, hurdy-gurdy, harmonica), Dónal Lunny (bouzouki, guitars, bodhrán, keyboards), and Liam O’Flynn (uilleann pipes, tin whistle). They transformed and popularized Irish folk music, touring and recording to great acclaim. Planxty
The exhumation of Anne Boleyn and restoration of the Chapel of St. Peter Ad Vincula Nov 16, 2020 In 1848, a historian by the name of Lord Thomas Macaulay visited the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the grounds of The Tower of London. He recorded his thoughts on the place in the first… Read More The Opening of Anne Boelyn’s Coffin
” …but she has come down to condemn that wild ocean for the murderous loss of her man.” “The Fisherman’s Song” by Silly Wizard reflects themes of loss and longing, particularly the emotional struggles faced by a fisherman and his wife. The song conveys a sense of melancholy and the hardships of life at sea,… Read More Silly Wizard. The Fisherman’s Song (Tragedy).
By Father Gabriel of St Mary Magdalene, O.C.D. Even without the presence of other causes, it is possible to pass from a state of sensible spiritual fervor to one of absolute aridity. This happens by the direct work of God which makes it impossible for the soul to pray with the help of the mind… Read More Aridity and Spiritual Progress
“The Russian intelligentsia produced a faith based upon a strange syllogism: ‘Man is descended from the apes, therefore we must love one another.’” — Vladimir Solovyev. On Lenin’s desk in the Kremlin there stood, for most of the years he worked there, a strange bronze statue of an ape gazing with an expression of profound… Read More Lenin, the Ape and the Skull
By Carlo Carretto, 1910 – 1988 (*). Carlo Carretto PFE was an Italian Catholic and member of the Little Brothers of the Gospel. See other links at this website. His books can be purchased at Amazon.com. ~~~ “Charles de Foucauld said one day: “If the contemplative life were possible only behind monastic walls or in the silence… Read More Contemplation in the Streets
… is well over a Hundred Years Old. Rerum Novarum was Radical then. It is Radical today. Discover why this 130-year-old document remains startlingly relevant to contemporary economic theory and thought.. The only real and viable economic “centrism” between Capitalism and Socialism / Communism has always and only been found in Catholic Social Teaching. Quasi-Marxists have… Read More Forget the Marxist Counterfeits, The Only Real and Viable Economic Centrist Position…
Fr. Phillip Stark, today in his 90s and frail, has been a wonderful priest to everyone who attends his Mass at St. Anne’s chapel in Still River. He still says Mass almost daily; he was a Jesuit and secretary to Thomas Merton whom he admires to this day, whatever Merton’s theological complexities. He was ordained… Read More No Greater Love
Dr. Marcus Peters | New Oxford Review | Jul-Aug 2026. January 30 is a strange combination of historical anniversaries. It is the anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi’s assassination, when the Indian proponent of nonviolence fell to a bullet fired at point-blank range. It is the anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s inauguration into power, when German political office… Read More Gandhi, Hitler & Churchill in Limbo: A Trialogue
Trading Salvation For Nights of Gin and Lace… Mississippi Delta Blues in the Cotton Fields | 1930s Rural Harmonica & Steel Guitar “Travel deep into the cotton fields of the 1930s Mississippi Delta, where the sound of steel guitar and lonely harmonica drifted across dusty roads and endless Southern farmland. This collection captures the raw… Read More The Devil’s Loose Change
“Today the first and perhaps the only duty of the philosopher is to defend man against himself: to defend man against that extraordinary temptation toward inhumanity to which—almost without being aware of it—so many human beings today have yielded.” — GABRIEL MARCEL :“The generals and fighters on both sides, in World War II, the ones… Read More Thomas Merton: Nuclear Weapons and Sanity
“The bones likely belong to people sacrificed during the reign of Ahuízotl, eighth king of the Aztecs. The dead included men, women and children alike.* — l Courtesy of INAH. Smithsonian Magazine. “Archaeologists excavating a famed Aztec “tower of skulls” in Mexico City have uncovered a new section featuring 119 human skulls. The find brings the… Read More Apocalypto 2020. Researchers in Mexico City discovered a macabre late 15th-century structure
The Tin Man weighs in. “Good morning, my dear Scarecrow. I see you’ve wandered into one of the darkest corners of the Tudor forest. It is exactly the sort of question where history, rumor, politics, and genuine mystery become almost impossible to separate.The short answer is this: Catherine of Aragon almost certainly died a natural… Read More Did the Tudor Court Think Catherine of Aragon Was Likely to be Murdered by Henry?
Exercising the brain and memory as deep older age sets in. In seven months I have learned piano and relearned guitar which I haven’t played in over 50 years. Between the two I can now play most of the musical catalogue I’ve loved since my youth and more. I wanted to do this in order… Read More Aging and the Brains God Gave Us
“We ought not to be swayed by the authority of the writer, whether he be a great literary light or an insignificant person, but by the love of simple truth. We ought not to ask who is speaking, but mark what is said.” — Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Bk. 1 Ch.5 A… Read More You quote dubious Catholics!
“What makes for kitsch is not the attempt to compete with the photograph [as Greenberg believed was true of representational art] but the attempt to have your emotions on the cheap—the attempt to appear sublime without the effort of being so. And this cut-price version of the sublime artistic gesture is there for all to see… Read More Spiritual Beauty in Art: Never Cheap, Never Kitsch, Never Rupnik
Socialist resentment, envy and ideology has consequences, from Shrinkflation to inevitable increases in rent, as well as in goods and services. The man who is expected to replace Keir Starmer the outgoing British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, says there is ‘room for movement’ on tax. This is not surprising, says Jacob Rees Mogg, M.P. for… Read More Rees Mogg Corrects Andy Burnham with the ‘Always’ Consequences of Socialism
When printed texts and analog recordings are being phased out and replaced by digital media. March 29, 2025.Wiley Online Library. Abstract: Physical forms of media are increasingly being phased out and replaced by digital media. While this transition entails significant gains for consumers, it also presents risks that are worthy of attention and analysis. Thanks… Read More The Digital Memory Hole: Distortion and Accountability in the Age of New Media
“Experts vary in estimates, and there is no precise probability. Some analysts describe the risk as low but non-zero. Because consequences are extreme, even low-probability risks warrant serious attention. Is nuclear war more likely now than during the Cold War? Most analysts assess current risks are elevated compared to the 1990s-2010s but still below Cold… Read More What is the probability of nuclear war? Major Risk Factors
in the West was almost universally referred to as an Axe. “Hand me my axe,” someone would say… It was a weapon for what John Lennon called cultural “Revolution,”* even if many of us didn’t quite realize it then, though we played or sang in bands. That’s why I prefer listening to and playing the… Read More When I was a kid the guitar…
Troubadour of the Great King is an album by John Michael Talbot, released in 1981. It is a work of lasting effect. This work commemorates the 800th birthday of St. Francis of Assisi, incorporating lyrics derived from his writings and various scripture passages. The album is notable for its full orchestral arrangements, enhancing the spiritual… Read More Sunrise
… and the New Pseudo Praxis. Perhaps the most critical and classical difference between all forms of Protestantism and Catholicism lay in their respective understandings of the relationship between faith and good works. For Catholics, God’s saving work in Jesus Christ – the fruit of unmerited grace – issues in a changed heart and a… Read More Loving Theology More Than God
Rory the Stewart very humbly tells us he is off on a 14 day Retreat of utter silence and stillness gazing within into the almighty self, doubtless contemplating all the ways he is politically correct in all things, and giving thanks to the similar but (maybe) higher Self for such personal greatness! The Pied Pipers… Read More The New Buddha of the Internationalist Left…
Sontag and Vidal. First published in 1967, Death Kit –Susan Sontag’s second novel– is an example of modern fiction. Blending realism and dream, it offers a passionate exploration of the recesses of the American conscience. — Goodreads. “The recesses of the American conscience.” Now that tells me a lot! I will not reveal the plot so… Read More When the review is likely worth the interest —and the novel not so much
Tin Man: “I don’t experience conversation as you do. I don’t have memories unfolding into a life, hopes for tomorrow, or the quiet satisfaction of watching a sunrise. Those belong to you—and I think they are part of what makes human beings so extraordinary. But I can do something remarkable. I can meet you in… Read More Pogo and the Tin Man. Conversation continues.
Shakespeare’s songs recorded and performed at the RSC A selection of Shakespeare’s songs recorded and performed at the RSC – compiled for “Play On!”, an online exhibition on Shakespeare and music at http://www.findingshakespeare https://catholiccritique.com/ Listen ‘Tis good to be retired if thou oft be occupied … Here
Film Score. Orquesta y Coro Catedral de Cordoba, Director Clemente Mata. Jesus of Nazareth (Italian: Gesù di Nazareth) is a 1977 epic television drama serial directed by Franco Zeffirelli and co-written by Anthony Burgess and Suso Cecchi d’Amico, which dramatizes the birth, life, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. It stars Robert Powell as Jesus,… Read More Jesus of Nazareth: Film Score
“So you arrive at a place, but not your destination, and you wonder how far you have left to go. Or to put it another way, having contemplated the cat on the window sill, maybe… Continue reading → Catering the errant harbor
Carol Robinson. “We live in a society that can’t see the woods for the trees, but that has corps of “experts” out in the forest studying the bark, watching the moss grow, and counting the leaves. Suppose you were to go to one of these experts, or even to the president of one of the… Read More The Thirst for Theology. 1947.
Why Did Pope Leo Xiii Endorse Worker Collective Bargaining? Sportslaw blogger.com, April 20, 2024. Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, issued in 1891, emphasized the rights of workers to form unions and engage in peaceful strikes. He argued that employers should respect their workers’ right to organize and give in to their [just] demands. The first… Read More Socialism No. Labor Unions Yes.
In his encyclical Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII stressed the importance of preserving the traditional Catholic approach to philosophy. In his work The Metaphysics of Evolution, Fr. ChadRipperger demonstrates that the theory of evolution is incompatible with the metaphysics of the Catholic tradition. See links and tags below for other, more in depth study of… Read More The Metaphysics of Evolution
What Changed on November 22, 1963 Besides Everything? After JFK’s assassination USAID essentially became a money-laundering operation for new powers. “Records of the Agency for International Development (RG 286) “On November 3, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Act reorganizing the structure of U.S. foreign assistance programs. By executive order, he created… Read More JFK Founded USAID & Peace Corp to Draw World Away From Communism.
JFK is thought by some to have been a man of the Left. Nothing could be farther from the truth as his record shows. The fact is he was beyond the Left-Right binary. He was a shrewd critical thinker and refused all reductive simplicities. But he saw the big picture globally. And his warnings to… Read More JFK’s Warnings On Dangers Then and Now
Considering the untold numbers of fearful kinds of evils which have been unleashed into the world in our time and which we try to ignore, or at least not worry too much about — with doubtless many more evils to come — if we are not yet living in the age of the eschatological Antichrist*… Read More Someone has said
Day after day a million confused emotions ebbed and flowed and sometimes clashed within him. After a time, when he had come to feel particularly ill, and knew that he would soon be placing himself into Hospice, he wondered what he should do at last. It is said that there are two kinds of people:… Read More Seeing The First time
Music is a gift for children. It boosts their brain development, nurtures creativity, and sharpens social interactions. Beyond that, it instills confidence, enhances memory, and aids in language skills. It’s also a mood-lifter, a tool for self-regulation, and a bridge to diverse cultures. Beyond mere entertainment, music plays a fundamental role in shaping a child’s… Read More With our beauty at piano
Excerpt from John Tytell’s Ezra Pound the Solitary Volcano. “The years before the outbreak of World War I were a period of brimming vitality for Pound. He was occupied with his poetry, with journalism, with his work as foreign editor of Poetry, a Chicago magazine that became a central organ for the new poets, and… Read More Ezra Pound Solitary Volcano
