I have added a section on Ronald Knox’s life, from son of evangelical bishop to leading Catholic apologist and public intellectual, to my essay on Knox (click below) in my website dpcrook.wordpress.com.

Knox

Knox

Ronald Knox (1888-1957) was well known as a public intellectual of his time, a prolific writer, speaker and outspoken critic of the growing secularisation of the western world. Son of the evangelical Bishop of Manchester, Ronald was a brilliant classical scholar at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. Sadly, he lost most of his close friends in the Great War of 1914-18. An Anglican priest, he converted to Catholicism in 1917, and despite finding the English Catholic world unfamiliar and challenging, he made his way up the hierarchy, translating the New Testament and becoming a monsignor.

In this essay I look at two of his books: Caliban in Grub Street (1930) and Enthusiasm (1950), the last being his “Big Book”, a lifelong study of Christian heresies. Click on Knox above.

Knox  – click here

In his book with the above title (1930) the Catholic theologian and popular writer Ronald Knox makes a scathingly satirical and clinically logical dissection of the misconceptions and errors of a number of literary figures and intellectuals of the 1920s. They had been contributing to a series of “symposia” on religion that appeared in the popular press of the time (Grub Street as it was nicknamed).

For Paul’s latest essay on Aldous Huxley see his website dpcrook.wordpress. com.   Click on  Aldous Huxley.

Aldous was an eminent novelist and commentator writing in the 1920s to 1960s on science, evolution, religion, art, literature, mysticism and the human condition generally. Much of what he wrote is relevant today. One question he asked was what do we put in the place of religion in a secular world? Are we facing a dangerous loss of ethical values in a world governed by technology, hedonism and self- centredness?

Christopher Dawson

For Paul’s essay on this distinguished historian’s take on the history of western civilisation and what it means for us today click on the above link (Paul’s website dpcrook.wordpress.com.)

We look at his views on the decline of faith, the evils of industrialisation and ruthless competition, war and peace and totalitarianism. Something for everybody!

Maude Petre and George Tyrrell had one of the great love affairs of the time, even though it was non-sexual. He was a dissident Jesuit and she was high up in a Catholic order. For the story of their love see my essay on Maude, A Modernist Martyr (from p.8) in my website dpcrook.wordpress.com. Click maude-petre Maude Petre