The Catholic Thing

Faith & Reason Institute
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The Catholic Thing is a daily column rooted in the richest cultural tradition in the world, i.e., the concrete historical reality of Catholicism.

  1. 10h ago

    Gambling with Gambling

    By Daniel B. Gallagher But first a note from Robert Royal: I generally don't ask our authors to write on a specific topic because, like you, I'm interested in seeing how the Spirit is moving out there, not just in my own head. But I'm always interested when the Spirit speaks of Dante, whom I discovered all on my own as an undergraduate, and has been with me in ways beyond reckoning ever since. TCT brings all of us, even staff, great, unlooked for surprises, even within the steadiness of the great tradition. Since you're a reader, I know you value that too. So let's make sure this Thing continues for the rest of 2026 and well beyond, in ways that continually surprise and inspire. Now for today's column... Ever since I started teaching the Divine Comedy years ago, I've been on the lookout for lacunae. Just when I think I've found one, it turns out Dante has covered it with incomparable sagesse. Take gamblers. Why don't we find them in Hell? Well, it depends on where we look. There's no specific infernal circle set aside for gamblers. That's because they're scattered throughout. And that, in turn, is because their true sin doesn't lie in the wager, but in what prompts it, what feeds it, and what stems from it. Descending into the fourth circle, Dante and Virgil catch sight of the greedy and the prodigal pushing huge boulders in opposite directions around a circle of icy sleet. Each time they run into each other, the greedy shout to the prodigal, "Perché tieni? (Why do you hoard?)," and the prodigal to the greedy, Perché burli? ("Why do you squander?)" (Canto 7) Gamblers are found in both groups, for they can't imagine anyone not betting big when there's so much in the jackpot, just as they can't imagine anyone placing money anywhere but on the table. They hoard money from their families and squander it on slot machines. More importantly, gamblers inhabit the various bolge ("folds") of the eighth circle reserved for fraudulence. Of particular interest is the fourth bolgia containing sorcerers, diviners, and anyone who attempted to predict the future. With an ingenious use of the contrapasso (the "counter-step"), the Florentine poet depicts the soothsayers with their heads twisted 180 degrees and walking backwards perché 'l veder dinanzi era lor tolto ("because seeing ahead was taken from them"). (Canto 20) The scene is so pitiful that Dante the poet pauses to address the reader directly, saying, "May God so let you, reader, gather fruit (prender frutto) from what you read." (Canto 20) The abundant fruit to be plucked from Dante's lines has never been more valuable, in every sense of the word. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has been busy lately, making it easier for gamblers to bet on everything under the sun, such as which party will take control of Congress next year and who will win the war in Ukraine. The dollar figures across prediction market platforms are bound to exceed more than $240 billion this year, a staggering increase from $64 billion last year. At that pace, the industry could easily reach one trillion by the end of the decade. Like Dante and Virgil, until recently I have been happy to pass the soothsayers by in silence until I understood why Dante the poet interrupts his narrative to remind us how egregious the sins of the fourth bolgia are. He knows that no sphere of human activity is immune from soothsaying madness when so much money is involved, including my 9-year-old's travel-ball team. Apparently, even Little League Baseball is fair game for big bets. All of this made me revisit the official Catholic position that gambling, in itself, is not "contrary to justice." (CCC 2413) Upon reflection, such teaching makes perfect sense insofar as it highlights the gravity of other things that cause, accompany, and result from it. The Catechism emphasizes that games of chance become sinful "when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others," or when one becom...

    7 min

  2. 1d ago

    A Still Higher Magnificence

    By Robert Royal But first a note from Brad Miner: Dear Friends, Dr. Royal has asked me to write to you about why giving to The Catholic Thing is so important. This site, which we know you admire, has been up and running since 2008. Indeed, Tuesday marked our 18th anniversary. Our growth has been steady and remarkable: from scores of daily visits to the site in year one to many thousands today. Last year, our "pageviews" exceeded 6,000,000. And, under Bob Royal's leadership and the art and clarity of our contributors, the influence of The Catholic Thing has also grown. Through it all, it has been possible only because of the generosity of our readers. We neither manufacture nor sell anything, which means we depend upon the generosity of readers like you. So, help us keep our beloved Thing going. Donate now! Now for today's column... It's been a week since the publication of Magnifica humanitas, and I've been re-reading certain sections, trying to probe into it more deeply (after my own quick reactions on a recent Prayerful Posse, the very day Pope Leo's first encyclical appeared). Serious questions about the text remain, to be sure: the functional pacifism and an over-optimistic belief in multilateral statism and "dialogue" as the go-to mechanism to rein in not only the AI juggernaut, but virtually all human conflict. (Odd stances for an Augustinian). But I confess that my initial suspicions may have been exacerbated by the many ways that, for over a dozen years, Pope Francis repeatedly left many of us on a hair-trigger because of heterodox notions smuggled into papal documents. Leo's effort to defend what's human is carefully positioned within the Church's modern social teaching, sincere, open, and – from its first words – focused on Christ. So I'd like to acknowledge a culpa – mea, but not maxima. Because we still need something much stronger and quite different to meet the challenges of our "new era." The pope speaks often about "disarming" language and AI, when what we also, desperately, need is a call to arms – of a different kind, to defend the faith and human civilization. If you think about it, we've already had plenty of warnings, in many quarters, about the potential threats from AI – from job losses to environmental threats to rogue military uses – even from Silicon Valley itself. And the disastrous narrowness of the "technocratic paradigm," the slow slide into believing that the machines we create will provide all the truth and everything else we need, has been on our cultural radar for at least a century. The real defense of humanity must begin with humanity defending itself from itself. Which at times calls for physical means, but always means patrolling the cultural peripheries, not just to "accompany" but – can one use a Christian term here? – to convert. That's precisely the Christian challenge, which needs a more explicitly Christian solution: A more robust confrontation with what Christianity sees as the real situation of the creature made in the image and likeness, now in a fallen state, marked by sin and death, and in our time in particular often closed off to the saving message of the Gospel. Leo himself acknowledged that a few days ago in an address to evangelists gathered in Rome: The prevailing cultural climate in media-saturated and consumerist societies diminishes the capacity to learn with patience and to undertake, with effort, a personal quest for truth, with perseverance and a critical sense. Every message risks being perceived as just one opinion among many. That's a just description of the times. And he put his finger on the crucial point: "It is certainly not by watering down the content or softening the demands that Christianity can be made attractive, but by bearing witness with humility and courage to 'the way, the truth and the life' that has converted and sanctified so many people." (Emphasis added.) I've been saying for years that it would be not only inspiring, but taking the true me...

    7 min

  3. 2d ago

    Books in Stone

    By Michael Pakaluk Catholics who sometimes worry that the Church is no longer sufficiently bold in its preaching of the Gospel might at least derive some comfort from its buildings. Sacred buildings stand a long time and carry on the convictions of those bolder folks who came before us – unless they are burned down or, in an interesting case, blocked. Two examples come to mind. The first is St. Paul's Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which the parish's website, in its history of itself, describes as deliberately placed in an "aggressive setting beside an expanding secular university." The booklet about the construction and design of the church, "St. Paul Church, Cambridge, Mass. – Description, Exterior and Interior," written by its first pastor, Fr. John J. Ryan, begins with a remark by the then-Cardinal of Boston, William Henry O'Connell: "The edifice you describe, Father Ryan, is a book in stone, and must be put into print." The cornerstone of this exquisitely beautiful church, designed by Edward T.P. Graham, a Harvard graduate and parishioner, was laid in 1916. Its construction, slowed by the Great War, was completed in 1923. Fr. Ryan's booklet describes the Church as placed "at the head of the 'Gold Coast,' a term given to the street on which front the splendid dormitories of the reputed wealthy students of Harvard." He means Wigglesworth Hall on Massachusetts Avenue. As for this "book in stone," he comments: St. Paul's Church is the formal expression of an unqualified belief in revealed religion and the Divinity of Christ. Looking at the frieze, this faith is disclosed by the Angel of Revelation supporting a cross; towards the cross are ancients looking for the salvation that shall be the gift of the cross; and, counterbalancing, are to be seen the Christians who also regard the cross as the source of salvation and every spiritual good. The tympanum exhibits a beautiful bas-relief bust of St. Paul, the interpreter of the old law and the new law, his finger on the text and the page held open by the sword grasped in his left hand. The text is engraven on the rim of the tympanum and reads; "The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth." (1. Timothy. Chapter III.) The quotation from St. Paul, the Patron of the church, is the key to the complete understanding of everything within and without this temple of God. The verse about truth directly confronts Harvard University with its then-new motto of Veritas. I say "new" because apparently soon after Harvard's founding until around 1880, its motto was understood to be a religious expression: either In Christi Gloriam ("for the glory of Christ") or Christo et Ecclesiae ("for Christ and his Church"). But in the 19th century, "Veritas" was discovered in some old records and came to supplant the older formulations (although combined forms were used also). When Fr. Ryan placed "the pillar and ground of truth" over St. Paul's door, Harvard had been proclaiming "truth" without Christ and without the Church for a generation. The inscription answers: truth needs a pillar, even for a university. Readers who have visited St. Paul's may be surprised to learn that, when the church was planned, it was understood to be directly facing the university and testifying to Catholic truth rather boldly. Isn't the building, rather, tucked away behind a tall apartment building (Longfellow Court)? Actually, that building went up soon after construction of the church started and was completed in 1930. I have heard old-timer locals refer to the apartments as "spite block." If spite was an intent, the architecture itself is like a medieval siege and counter-siege. A slab was imposed to cover up that "book in stone." The other great example is the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, built at roughly the same time as St. Paul's (1900-1909) and dedicated by James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore. It stands on a hill along South Temple, half a mile from the Mormon Temple Square. On ...

    6 min

  4. 3d ago

    On Recovering the Christian Man

    By Francis X. Maier But first a note from Robert Royal: The editor of The Catholic Thing has many surprises, almost daily. But how about this from today's author: Bob, just in case you'd like to offer those first two grafs in High Elvish (Quenya) for your Middle-earth readers, here you go. No need to thank me: Sín, órelyen loqui neldëa quillië, ar avanyárë enquë-epenquë loilli lúteva vanyë ar handë Amandil nissemen, láman lesta anta titta sanwi lesta vanya "Erunítë veru." Ú-antaleva, haryas mári: yávëa antando; mára atar; alassëa mi yárë lanyar; ar nítë mal tanyë carva mardë andë loilli. Mettë colla ná foina-andavárea. Tana colla mapë ístëa ar netya Erunítë veri andavë tanna andalúmë. I casta ná calina. I ilvanya veru ná illumë titta hampa ollo ilvanyessë — aí quë lastas quallë. I ask you: How can you NOT donate to a publication like this? Now in my late 70s and the veteran of 56 annual performance reviews by a beautiful and highly intelligent Catholic female, I feel licensed to offer a few thoughts on the nature of an acceptably "Christian man," married variety. In no special order, he must be: a fruitful provider; a good dad; fun, within traditional moral parameters; and an endearing but stubbornly long-term construction project. This last trait is deceptively vital. It keeps even the most gifted, crafty, and impatient Christian wife engaged for the duration. The reason why should be obvious. The perfect husband is always just a few (dozen) well-meaning tweaks away from perfection – if he would only listen. So much for humor. In the real world, the Christian man needs, above all, to be faithful: faithful to his wife and children, faithful to his Church, and faithful to Jesus Christ. No exceptions. No excuses. No escape clauses. Fidelity matters. This is the Big One. There's more to becoming a man, of course. Check out the relevant comments here of a great Catholic pastor; Philadelphia's emeritus archbishop, Charles Chaput. Note the 22 rules for a Christian man's conduct that he borrows from Erasmus. Note, too, his reflection on the history and essence of Christian knighthood. His whole talk is worth branding on the masculine heart – but especially its closing thought: "Maleness, brothers, is a matter of biology. It just happens. Manhood must be learned and earned and taught." How does a young man do any of that? Let's start with a few simple facts: Mothers shape the early lives of their sons. Wives anchor their husbands in reality and purpose. But in the end, men are made better men by the example and friendship of other, better men. Over the space of my lifetime, American culture has recognized the dignity of women more fully than ever before and created fresh avenues for their leadership in dramatic new ways. As a man with an extraordinary wife, daughter, and granddaughters, I can welcome that enthusiastically – absent the anarchic sex and homage to unborn child-killing "rights." But in the process, the same culture has too often neglected and even deliberately debased the formation of young men. And that has ugly consequences. "Toxic masculinity" isn't fixed by effeminizing young males. The result of that mistake is a bumper crop of drones, Peter Pans, predators, porn addicts, and Lost Boys; in other words, a shortage of good, unselfish men of virtue, trained to provide and protect. Which is the pressing problem we now face. So how do we deal with it? Exactly 900 years ago, a new religious order of fighting men took root in the Holy Land, the "Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon." They're better known to history as the Knights Templar. The animating core of the Templars, as the archbishop stressed in his remarks above, was a uniquely demanding form of love; one urgently needed by the times: "to build a new order of new Christian men, skilled at arms, living as brothers, committed to prayer, austerity, and chastity, and devoting themselves radically to serving the Church and her people, especial...

    8 min

  5. 4d ago

    Against 'Minor Attracted Persons'

    By Brad Miner But first a note from Robert Royal: Today Brad Miner puts his finger on a worrisome development in the current carnival of sexuality. "Minor Attracted persons" may be going away as yet another step toward perdition, but only because we, along with many others, have kept the pressure on across a wide spectrum of cultural issues in many places. It's a slow and challenging battle, but if we don't do it and many other things like it, who will? Which is why I am emboldened to ask you again: Time is growing short for our campaign and there's still far to go. I have great confidence in TCT readers. Please show us all, yet again, precisely why we're right to think that way. Support TCT. Bravely, strongly, exuberantly. Now for today's column... If we were to travel to the distant past, say, way back to 1976, I'm pretty sure we'd find nobody advocating for adults having sex with children. Then came the revolution of 1978. What revolution, you ask? I refer to the founding of the homosexual pedophile group, the National Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Adults having sex with children has never had much approbation. Yes, the Greeks and Romans (the ancient ones) tolerated pederasty – in the Greek context, the union of men (erastes) with adolescent boys (eromenos). And there was also male-female pedophilia in the sense that young girls were often taken in marriage, although sexual consummation usually awaited puberty. But if menses came before age 12 . . . All good reasons to praise the Incarnation, Christ's ministry, and the birth of the Church. Still, these things – these sins – have gone on, but without the passive toleration, let alone the approbation of society. This is part of what makes the recent clergy sex-abuse crisis so sickening (and costly), even if the majority of those cases involved hebephilia (boys 11-14), ephebophilia (15-19), and just plain old homosexual liaisons with other adult males. Do we say that this last is as sinful as the others? I don't think that matters, since each is mortally sinful and, therefore, in the absence of repentance, forgiveness, and reform, soul-killing. Lately, we haven't heard much about NAMBLA, and I suspect that's because, sinners though these men remain, they don't entirely lack prudence. But they do lack progress, and so they've decided to slink back into darkness and let other activists in the ongoing transgressive movement rebrand pedophilia. The new term (and it's not all that new) is Minor Attracted Persons or MAP. Brilliant! Desensitize (maybe even anesthetize) people to the horror of pedophilia by wedging MAP into scholarly journals and scientific forums, all designed to do for pederasty what's already been done with homosexuality ("gay" and "lesbian") and the whole LGBTQIA+ panoply. Pedophiles even have their own flag because you can't be "queer" without a flag. Sarcasm aside, the historical and global existence of same-sex attraction, cross-dressing, and other variations from what can only be called the heterosexual norm (which, after all, is based on nature itself, and, therefore, natural law, and, above all, God's law), suggests that tolerance is required of Christians; if not by all, then certainly by compassionate believers. We can live and let live. But the same cannot apply to pedophilia. Pedophilia is child abuse. It is only "consummated" by the criminal manipulation of an innocent child by a corrupt adult. Surely, we agree on that. This is why we have age-of-consent laws. Of course, the range of ages in "consent" laws throughout the U.S. has a baseline of 16 (31 states), which surprises me, because I thought it would be 18, which it is in 11 states, with 8 states opting for age 17. Still, it's a remarkable improvement from 1920 and even 1980 In the Roaring Twenties, the age of consent in the Deep South was criminal. Delaware isn't technically a Southern state, but it had the lowest age of consent at 7. Six states were at 10, and the rest were at other ages...

    8 min

  6. 5d ago

    Markets, Mercy, and True Prudence

    By Alden Abbott But first a note from Robert Royal: So, we're back at our fundraising – and need to be. We're well into the campaign but need to pick up the pace. I know this isn't a great economy at the moment, but we have to ask you to pray and dig deep. It's a good deal. I'm told the reward for generosity will be even greater in Heaven. Now for today's column. Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas thoughtfully speaks to one of the great anxieties of our moment: whether artificial intelligence, data platforms, robotics, and global capital will serve the human person or reduce us to a disposable input. Its concern for workers, the poor, families, and the marginalized is recognizably Catholic. The economy exists for man, not man for the economy. On that much, Catholics should readily agree. But good moral ends do not guarantee sound economic means. The encyclical criticizes market economics for allowing profit, technological efficiency, and concentrated ownership to outrun solidarity. It warns that automation may displace workers, data may become an instrument of control, and the benefits of innovation may be captured by a narrow elite. It therefore calls for stronger public oversight, redistributive taxation, social criteria for innovation, protection of workers, and regulation of AI and data so that economic life becomes more inclusive from the beginning rather than corrected after the fact. The moral worry is serious. Yet the policy instinct is less convincing. Historian Thomas E. Woods, in The Church and the Market, makes a distinction that Catholic social thought badly needs: the Church speaks authoritatively on moral principles, but technical economic analysis is a matter of prudence, evidence, and reason. A pope may rightly condemn indifference to the poor; it does not follow that wage controls, industrial planning, redistributive schemes, or technology regulation will actually help them. Markets are often caricatured as cold machines for rewarding greed. At their best, they are systems of social cooperation. Prices communicate information that no official can fully possess. Profit and loss discipline production by showing whether resources are being used to serve real human wants. Competition limits power more effectively than many regulations, because it gives customers, workers, and entrepreneurs alternatives. When property rights, contracts, sound money, and the rule of law are secure, markets draw dispersed knowledge and talent into productive service. This matters, especially for labor. Wages are not simply the result of employer benevolence or employer oppression. Over time, wages rise when workers become more productive, when capital per worker increases, when firms compete for labor, and when people are free to move, learn, start businesses, and bargain with multiple potential employers. Policies that make hiring more costly or innovation riskier may protect some visible jobs today while preventing the creation of better jobs tomorrow. [caption id="attachment_357703" align="aligncenter" width="614"] Leo XIV signs Magnifica Humanitas [Vatican News via YouTube screenshot][/caption] Automation offers a clear example. A robot or AI system may replace a particular task. That loss is concrete and painful. But productivity gains also reduce prices, improve quality, create new firms, and free labor for uses no planner could have specified in advance. The poor often benefit first from cheaper necessities: food, energy, transport, health tools, education, communication, and financial services. When regulation slows innovation in the name of protecting workers, it may instead preserve stagnation and deny low-income families the gains that innovation makes possible. The same caution applies to AI and data rules. Some law is necessary: fraud, coercion, theft, privacy violations, and genuine abuses should be punished. But heavy, vague, or premature AI regulation may entrench the very corporate power Catholics fea...

    8 min

  7. 6d ago

    A Good Friday Death: Vittorio Messori, RIP

    By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza A Good Friday death – even for a Catholic giant of the last fifty years – meant that less attention was paid than deserved. On the other hand, it was fitting for the author of Patì sotto Ponzio Pilato? – Did He Suffer under Pontius Pilate? Vittorio Messori, a few days shy of his 85th birthday, died on Good Friday evening last month, drawing to a close one of the most important Catholic lives of recent generations, a life that shaped how people think about Christ and about His Vicar on earth. Messori gave definitive shape to how the voices of popes are heard, and thus to the papacy in our time. Catholics know well the impact that the convert-journalist can have, even more than the gifted theologian. English-speakers have G.K. Chesterton and Malcolm Muggeridge and Richard John Neuhaus, and French-speakers Andre Frossard. Messori grew up in a Communist and anti-clerical Italian family, a student of rationalism who professed agnosticism. In 1964, during the summer break from his university studies, he had something of an instantaneous conversion after reading Matthew's Gospel. He applied his rationalism to his newly professed Catholic faith. What could reason tell us about Catholic claims, and their coherence? At a time when apologetics was falling out of fashion, Messori devoted himself, with a journalist's frame of mind and skills, to a project that would consume more than a decade. In 1976 he published Hypotheses about Jesus in Italian, the fruit of his work, appealing to history, reason, data, and experience to make arguments for the faith. It was a sensation, selling more than a million copies in Italy – and translated all over the world. (English here.) It made Messori a major cultural figure – a Catholic journalist, not just a journalist. He became the Church's leading apologist in the 1970s, a lay witness who engaged atheists, materialists, and Communists on the reasonableness of the faith. In 2002, he adopted the same approach to the passion, examining the extra-biblical evidence for the crucifixion and death of Jesus in Did He Suffer under Pontius Pilate? Messori's greatest influence, however, was not made in his own voice, but in two book-length interviews he conducted, The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church (1985) and, with Pope John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (1994). The interview book format, now routine for senior prelates, was a genre that Messori did not invent, but elevated. In 1984, Andre Frossard had published Be Not Afraid (in French), the fruit of lengthy conversations with St. John Paul the Great. The book had little impact. At the same time as Frossard's book was being released, Messori persuaded Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to sit over several days for interviews on the state of the Church, some twenty years after Vatican II. The prefect of doctrine, and most important figure in the Roman Curia, was unsparing in his frank criticisms of a range of lamentable trends, rejecting what he would later call the "hermeneutic of rupture," and even using the combustible word "restoration". John Paul had summoned an "extraordinary synod" for October 1985 to evaluate the lights and shadows of the post-conciliar period. It would give rise to the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church. Messori's interview with Ratzinger set the terms of debate – to the frustrations of those progressives who realized that Ratzinger's book was a turning point. "This is a synod about a council, not a book!" protested Cardinal Godfried Daneels of Belgium. It was, but the book provided the synod's script. Messori proposed an unprecedented television interview with John Paul for the fifteenth anniversary of the pontificate in 1993. The Holy Father agreed but the interview never came off. John Paul kept the questions Messori wanted to ask and gave him written responses to do with as he thought best. Crossing the Threshold of Hope was the result, a publishing phenomenon tha...

    7 min

  8. May 30

    A Saintly Patriotism: Lessons from St. Joan of Arc

    By Kristen Ziccarelli But first a note from Robert Royal: We've reached the end of another week in our mid-year funding campaign and we're about two-thirds of the way to our goal. We can't slack off now. What we do in these days makes a difference between TCT continuing and – well – let's not think about that. Don't make me beg, please. We need your help, today, to make the coming days all they can be at The Catholic Thing. Now for today's column... On her Feast Day today, May 30, Joan of Arc is remembered as one of the greatest saints of not just her time, but all time. The Maid of Orleans inspires us all with her military victories for France, fearlessness in battle. and extraordinary trial and martyrdom. And yet, the most important thing about Joan was none of those things, but the fact that she was obsessed with the will of God. As Alexandre Havard writes from her perspective in Coached by Joan of Arc: Lessons in Virtuous Leadership, "my love for France was not the fruit of an extreme patriotism. It is true that my father was a patriot. However, what obsessed me was the will of God. My patriotism did not give birth to my visions; my visions gave birth to my patriotism. My voices advised me to do things I could not imagine; they commanded me to do things I found repugnant. I felt sorry for the French because God felt sorry for them. I loved France for God." At her canonization in 1920, Pope Benedict XV's Divina disponente declared that St. Joan of Arc would be added to "the number of Saints, so that, from her example, all Christians may learn that obedience to the will of God is holy and devout, and obtain from her the grace to convert their fellow citizens to obtain heavenly life." At thirteen years old, Joan began receiving visions from God and the saints. France at the time was fractured by the Hundred Years' War. England had claimed much of northern France, including Paris, and the French throne itself stood empty. As the English laid siege to the city of Orléans along the Loire River, the nation appeared close to collapse. Illiterate and barely more than a child, eighteen-year-old Joan sought the help of her uncle to bring her to the Dauphin, the future Charles VII. She told him that she had been sent by God "to raise the siege of Orléans and to aid you in recovering your kingdom. God wills it so." Against every worldly expectation, Joan helped lead French forces to a series of victories against the English and safely escorted Charles to Reims, where he was crowned at the cathedral King of France in 1429. On May 30, 1431, she was put on trial and burned at the stake for "heresy" in Rouen. Both in 1431 and now, nearly 600 years after her trial, the distinction between patriotism and obedience matters enormously. Her response to serve God faithfully in the concrete circumstances He placed her in changed the course of history. Many devoted faithful are often tempted toward one of two extremes. Some withdraw from public life altogether, convinced that retreat is more noble or exhausted from the civic decline they witness around them. Others immerse themselves in political identity so completely that faith becomes secondary to partisan allegiance. Reading her trial documents or the many accounts of her life, it is clear St. Joan of Arc did not possess a partisan soul, nor did she fight for the nation as an end in itself. That is a kind of patriotism that is profoundly Christian, because it does not ignore a nation's failures, nor does it idolize national identity. Instead, it asks what God's will is: discerning our duty toward our own (the ones closest to us in our neighbors, our communities, and our country). Saint Joan of Arc understood that love of country could become a form of Christian service when it was ordered properly by a prior love of God. St. Joan of Arc's life also helps us to recover a richer understanding of the virtue of piety. St. Thomas Aquinas describes piety as the virtue by which we render "duty an...

    7 min
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