Anthony Esolen

Dr. Anthony Esolen is the author of 28 books on literature, culture, and the Christian life, whose most recent work is In the Beginning Was the Word: An Annotated Reading of the Prologue of John. He and his wife Debra also produce a new web magazine, Word and Song, devoted to reintroducing people to the good, the true, and the beautiful. He is a Distinguished Professor at Thales College

Books by esolen

recent articles

Our Unhappy Youth

Many young people appear to have fallen into the most antihuman way of life that any civilization has ever settled into.

Empathy for the Devil?

Having consigned reason to that impoverished realm of human experience that can be subjected to controlled experiments and the quantification of their results, we are left with no basis upon which to make moral judgments except for feelings.

It Is Not Good for Some Couples to Be Alone

The upshot is that two boys or two girls should not be a couple at all because that exclusivity is not what friendship is for; it is, in fact, an obstacle to the full flourishing of friendship.

The Pink Synod

Certain seminaries became pink palaces, where seminarians and priests commonly shrugged away their vows of chastity, treating such sins with a thoroughly modern wink and a nudge.

Male and Female He Made Them

It is no surprise that the call to ordain (or to pretend to ordain) women as priests comes mainly from people who wish to marry (or to pretend to marry) a man with a man or a woman with a woman.

The Papacy, Doctrine, and Development

The pope is not a free agent. His authority, humanly considered, flows from his submission to and dependence upon Peter, that fisherman, that first pilot of the bark of the Church.

Progress!

In this land we live in now, people are so dis-integrated that they have often no love for the bodies God gave them but, instead, must have them mutilated, just as their families so often have been.

Soccer Over Dogma?

In spite of the pope’s seeming preference for soccer over dogma, proclaiming the truths of the Catholic Faith—i.e., being “dogmatic”—leads to more joy and happiness, not less.

The Bad Samaritan

Our church leaders are ignoring the wounded man lying in the ditch to “minister” to the thief who attacked him.

Avoiding the Hard Work Needed

While the world was being overwhelmed by the Sexual Revolution, too many Church leaders decided to ignore the hard work of opposing it while appearing busy by meddling in affairs which needed no fixing.

Overschooled and Undereducated

The purpose of schooling—which is not the same as education—is to encourage people to express confident platitudes, which they are pleased to call their opinions, about things they know nothing of.

The Terror of Tenderness

Kindness, American style, detached from the Man upon the cross, has turned sour and sickly. It can justify anything.

When Love Isn’t Love

We sometimes do not love those people or those things we think we love. We may also love and not be aware of it. But the human heart, without grace, hardly beats at all. It is a tangle of vipers, and when it beats, it squeezes out its poison.

The Loss of the Heart of a Human Community

Every closing of a church is a knife to the heart of a real human community. In Canada the people feel it more keenly perhaps than in America. You did more than meet your neighbors at Mass; you met fellow travelers on the way to the four last things.

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