James Matthew Wilson

Telling the Truth about Immigration

images April 26, 2013

Berwyn, PA.…  Nobody wants to.  Most politicians would rather appeal to platitudes about America as a “nation of immigrants” than confront their responsibility to attend to the common good of their own people.  And, depending on the poll you

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The Pythagorean Temptation

2013-Candlemas-DT-Cover April 19, 2013

Berwyn, PA.…  In his Degrees of Knowledge, Jacques Maritain argues that one central fault of the modern mind has been its propensity to think of mathematics rather than metaphysics as first philosophy.  If we take number for the foundation of

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From the Trinity Capital

Trinity Capital April 12, 2013

Beyond the purple velvet drapes, the skeins of billowed gossamer, my hotel window looks down on the back gates of Trinity College. Up three floors and pierced by a late October sun, the room has been done up like a swinger’s pad, with leopard print and leather, with mirrors and conic shaded lights in orbit about the dark mass of the pillowed bed.

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Our Slippery Slope into the Age of “Big Love”

Santorum April 5, 2013

Berwyn, PA.…  Many of us will recall the criticism Rick Santorum endured regarding this passage from a 2003 interview:
And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [homosexual] sex within your home, then you

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Mark Mitchell at Villanova

Layout 1 March 12, 2013

Berwyn, PA.…  Mark Mitchell, FPR‘s founding father and Editor-in-Chief, will deliver a lecture at Villanova University next week.  The event is open to the public, and any FPR readers in attendance will be made especially welcome.  See the details

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Abstraction Rightly Understood

descartes optics January 16, 2013

Part III in an ongoing series, Localism and the Universal Church.  Read Part I, and Part II.
Berwyn, PA.  …In the last installment of this series, I contended that an abstract conception of human nature has helped lead modern

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Fleeing the Fearful Loneliness of Thought: Our Post-rational Age

December 3, 2012

Berwyn, PA.…  In the first weeks of FPR, when we authors dared commit to writing one essay a week, as if we could all be either as drunk or logorheic as Jason Peters, I published a short piece called

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Republicans and the Language of Citizenship

November 12, 2012

Berwyn, PA.…  I add my voice to the FPR symposium on the presidential election in this morning’s edition of Crisis Magazine, where I assess the way in which President Obama capitalized on an attractive but empty vision of citizenship

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True Politics in the Wake of Obama

November 7, 2012

Berwyn, PA.…  I woke this morning, prepared to write a point-by-point assessment of yesterday’s election, though I was not looking forward to the job, since one must say this morning the same things that were said here at FPR more

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The Wrong Side of History

October 24, 2012

Berwyn, PA.…  Cardinal George offers us the strong words — not of oracular prophecy, but of historical wisdom.  A few passages:
Communism imposed a total way of life based upon the belief that God does not exist. Secularism is communism’s

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Against Rationalism, Idealism, and Abstraction

Enlightenment Garden August 31, 2012

Part II in an ongoing series, Localism and the Universal Church….  Read Part I here.
Where the traditionalist position I have sketched appears weakest is precisely where it speaks most explicitly in response to the cavaliers of unattached gallivanting. 

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The Problem of Place

Joseph de Maistre August 27, 2012

Part I in an ongoing series, Localism and the Universal Church.
Devon, PA.…  Several times during the last couple years, the FPR comment boxes have received protests against the supposed “placelessness” of the Catholic Church and the suggestion that more

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A View from the Studebaker Servants’ Quarters

Mello Place August 2, 2012

I’ve breathed its dust in, taken careful note how plastic urns break in the snow; how I can merely mock at stone’s sad history; pronounce its fate, perhaps, but just in quotes.

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Timothy Steele: A Critical Introduction — An Update

June 15, 2012

Devon, PA.…  I was delighted to announce, this last week, the publication of my second book, Timothy Steele: A Critical Introduction.  A few copies of the book remain available for purchase along with my first book of poems, Four

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Buffy Slays the Academy

June 13, 2012

Devon, PA.  …Insiderhighered.com reports:

 Slate published an analysis of the relative popularity (as topics to academics) of various pop culture topics. Judging popularity by the total papers, books and essays produced by academics, the most popular topic (by far) is

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My Second Book, Published Already

Timothy Steele Cover June 9, 2012

Last night, at the West Chester University Poetry Conference, my second book, Timothy Steele: A Critical Introduction, was released.  As its title indicates, it is a monograph on the great contemporary poet and scholar, Timothy Steele, who first came to…

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