Unsung Heroes of Christendom

Amidst the battered “Veritas” of Harvard, there are a few still heroically walking in the footsteps of their Catholic predecessors.

To the ears of the Western mind saturated with modernism, anything that might seem to oppose the absolute “rights of man” is utterly foreign, even to good Catholics.

The 20th Century is marked by the loss of voices cut short in mid-song by war.

Many Catholics believe, in theory, that sacrificing one’s life for another is a noble and Christian act; yet, when confronted with the reality, we often count the cost.

Blessed Otto Neururer would be the first priest to be martyred by the Nazis but by no means the last.

Few remember Athelstan, Alfred’s grandson, who is neither lionized by the poets nor canonized by the Church. As we shall see, he is a warrior king who is perhaps equal in greatness to Alfred and possibly rivals Edmund and Edward in piety.

There is a little-known English saint who shares March 17 with St. Patrick as her feast day, even though she is never invited to the party. This is St. Withburga.

Hugh Ross Williamson was an indefatigable defender of the Catholic Church against what Belloc had called the “enormous mountain of ignorant wickedness” that constituted “tom-fool Protestant history.”

Malcolm Muggeridge and Marshall McLuhan are two now-mostly-forgotten TV stars who converted to Catholicism.

Let us look at some holy women of the early centuries of the Church who are not well known.

Malachy G. Carroll might have had only one novel in him, and he might have only one novel to his largely unknown name, but it’s a minor classic that every Catholic should read.

Dom Prosper Guéranger’s tireless promotion of Gregorian chant bore great cultural fruit and helped with the Catholic revival in France.

Pioneering priests such as Frs. Jean-Baptiste Lamy and Joseph Projectus Machebeuf are unsung heroes of Christendom, but deserve to be recognized.

There was a time, a far healthier time, when the heroism of those who defended Malta from the Islamic onslaught was lauded by the whole Christian world.

A trio of female English Martyrs deserve a special place among the unsung heroes of Christendom.

When doctors have become dealers in death, we need to sing the praises of those noble physicians who have taken a courageous stand for the culture of life.

Wilhelm Röpke developed what was called “humane economics,” which placed the dignity of the human person at the core of economic thought, theory, and practice.