Category Articles

Do we need Christendom?

First of all, what is it?

Jesuit Father Robert McTeigue offers two answers, a positive and a negative one. 

Read the essay at The National Catholic Register.

I don’t like where we are headed. We’re running out of goods to reject or destroy. We’re almost at the point of no return.

Read this essay at Crisis Magazine.

Do you remember January 2020? A U.S. airstrike on January 3 killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and others near Baghdad International Airport. Two weeks later, the House impeachment managers read aloud the impeachment articles against then President Trump…

One person who saw this coming was Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J., a philosophy and theology lecturer, host of the radio program The Catholic Current, and author of the new book, Christendom Lost and Found: Meditations for a Post Post-Christian Era.  

Read the essay at Crisis Magazine.

“The king is dead! Long live the king!” These words have been used in both history and literature as a powerful means of reassurance. The populace is reassured that even in the face of crisis represented by the death of a king, there is an orderly transition of power: one king follows another, without interruption. (Whether the populace should find such an announcement reassuring is another question.) In neither history nor literature can I find this declaration: “The empire is dead! Long live the empire!” Why this lack, this lacuna, even though empires rise and fall and are succeeded by other empires in their turn? This question is on my mind as I watch in real time what I believe is the accelerating decline and impending demise of the American empire.

Read this essay at New Oxford Review.

In a very interesting series of “meditations for a post post-Christian era”, Jesuit Fr. Robert McTeigue shares what is essentially a journal of his thoughts during the COVID era of 2020-2021, under the arresting title of Christendom Lost and Found. In his own reflective and anecdotal way, Fr. McTeigue emphasizes the perception that if we are not seeking to shape a society that is Christian in every possible respect, we aren’t really living a fully Christian life.

Read the essay at Catholic Culture.

It was 2020, in the depth of COVID lockdowns, when one priest began writing. The unthinkable was taking place: Easter in the United States would be “canceled”. Churches would be shuttered. It was in this environment that Christendom Lost and Found: Meditations for a Post Post-Christian Era was written — a series of meditations about the state of the Church and Christendom, along with thoughts about where we ought to go from here.

Read the article at the Catholic World Report.

It seems to me that the similarities between August 1914 and August 2022 are all disturbing: venal and clumsy politicians, states clashing as they rise and fall, an overconfidence in human wisdom and an underestimation of human vulnerability.

Read this essay at Crisis Magazine.

Father Robert McTeigue’s philosophical pedagogy is blarney at its purest and best.

One of the healthiest manifestations of a healthy culture is the existence of book clubs. The gathering of kindred spirits, preferably round the hearth or at least in the flesh, to discuss worthy tomes, both old and new, is a sign of a vibrant and intellectually vigorous community. Although, as a resolute and dyed-in-the-wool techno-minimalist, I would always advocate these traditional gatherings over their techno-equivalents, there is a place in our day and age for online events and activities, including online book clubs. It is, therefore, with great pleasure that I have enjoyed getting together every week with Father Joseph Fessio and Vivian Dudro of Ignatius Press to record sessions of the FORMED Book Club. We’ve been doing this for a couple of years now and we’ve discussed many great books. The current title we’re discussing is Real Philosophy for Real People: Tools for Truthful Living by Jesuit Father Robert McTeigue.

Read the essay on the National Catholic Register.

Does it still matter in this third decade of the 21st century whether people speak truthfully and allow truth to shape their lives? Those are pressing questions, according to two new books by Catholic authors.

“Tools for Truthful Living” is the subtitle of Jesuit Father Robert McTeigue’s “Real Philosophy for Real People.” A goal of his book is to provide readers with “at least the minimum” of what they need to know “to be able to think and act humanly well” for themselves and others.

Read the essay on the Catholic News Service.

Our culture lacks anything resembling a consistent intellectual and moral framework.

This problem is one of those tackled by radio host and lecturer Robert McTeigue, S.J. in his book Real Philosophy for Real People: Tools for Truthful Living. He suggests we suffer from two dilemmas. Not only do we find it difficult to talk with our neighbors (who often subscribe to an entirely different conception of truth and the good), but we even find it difficult to articulate our own conception of such things. As philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argues, it is emotivism—not coherent, rational logic—that pervades our social and political institutions, and modernity and postmodernity have, in effect, left us up an epistemological creek without a paddle. This is compounded by the fact that most Americans lack the “time, energy, ability, or inclination” to sort through the many “competing voices, ideologies, or enthusiasms” found in the diversity of our media sources.

Read the essay at The American Conservative.