Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, Thomistic theologian, liturgical scholar, and choral composer, is a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College and The Catholic University of America. He has taught at the International Theological Institute in Austria, the Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Austria Program, and Wyoming Catholic College, which he helped establish in 2006. He writes regularly for Catholic blogs and has published seven books, the most recent being Tradition and Sanity (Angelico, 2018). For more information, visit www.peterkwasniewski.com.
Author: pkwasniewski
Thomas Aquinas and the Healing Grace of Study
March 7 is the dies natalis, the heavenly birthday — and therefore the traditional liturgical commemoration — of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, a Dominican friar who combined childlike innocence, guileless humility, and fervent prayer with one of the …
Why I Threw Away My Rock and Rap Cassettes in High School
In my high school days, I used to listen to a wide range of rock music — bands like The Beatles, The Police, The Doors, U2, Rush, Van Halen, Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, ELP, Steely Dan — and …
Blaise Pascal: The Grandeur and Misery of Man
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), in addition to being among the widely acknowledged geniuses of the human race, was one of the most eminent modern apologists for the Christian faith. In an era such as ours that denigrates both rationality, man’s distinctive …
Happy Catholics Don’t Make the Pope More than He Is
A one-year-old blog known as “Where Peter Is” — a sort of inverse image of OnePeterFive — features writing from ardent defenders of Pope Francis. Recognizing that Catholicism is inherently a religion of Tradition, the blog avoids the awkwardness of …
What Bugnini Was Thinking When He Destroyed the Catholic Mass
In G.K. Chesterton’s story “The Queer Feet,” Father Brown says: A crime is like any other work of art. Don’t look surprised; crimes are by no means the only works of art that come from an infernal workshop. But every …
On Discerning Vocations: How to Think about “States of Life”
A university student once sent to me the following heartfelt letter. He expresses well the thoughts and feelings of many young Catholic men and women his age, who are open to a vocation from the Lord, but struggle with how …
Teilhard de Chardin: Model of Ambiguity for a Future Pope
To a degree not yet as widely recognized as it should be, Pope Francis – Jorge Bergoglio, S.J. – is showing himself to be an admirable disciple of his Jesuit forerunner Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (1881-1955), the Piltdown paleontologist …
How the Best Attacks against the Traditional Latin Mass Fail
My article “Twelve Reasons Not to Prefer the Novus Ordo” was greeted with a barrage of snide remarks, flustered dismissals, relativistic claims about “tastes,” and soberly framed objections. As a philosopher and theologian, I care little for empty rhetoric, but …
Twelve Reasons Not to Prefer the Novus Ordo: A Reply to Fr. Longenecker
Fr. Longenecker has written some fine books and articles. Years ago, I enjoyed and benefited from his book on St. Benedict and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and his recent book on the historical veracity of the Magi is interesting. It …
The Pope Forces the Question: What Good Is the New Catechism?
Part of the problem with Pope Francis’s change to the Catechism on the legitimacy of the death penalty – a decision on which he is doubling down in the face of worldwide opposition from theologically literate Catholics – is that it …
