The eminent Ratzinger scholar and theologian of culture Professor Tracey Rowland, in her 2019 book Portraits of Spiritual Nobility: Chivalry, Christendom, and Catholic Culture (Angelico Press, 2019), unfurls in a series of intimate miniatures her memories of and respect for those cultures, movements and people who exemplify…
One of the first fiction books that I read as a child was written in what I thought then was seriously small grown-up fonts. The book was C.S. Lewis’ first in The Chronicles of Narnia series, the classic The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The book, first…
Popes Benedict XVI, Francis and Leo XIV have all played a key role in the elevation of the great English convert Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890): in turn recognising him a beatus in 2010, a saint in 2019 and this month in declaring him a Doctor of…
One of most striking points that Australian author and journalist Greg Sheridan makes in his recent book How Christians Can Succeed Today: Reclaiming the Genius of the Early Church (Allen & Unwin, 2025), which we featured in last week’s newsletter and discussed with him in recent weeks, is…
It has been widely acknowledged across an array of disciplines and political perspectives that a complex web of cracks has been widening across the fabric of what was once understood as Western liberal culture. It now doesn’t take an academic or a media pundit to…
There was a sense of festival and gratitude amongst the tables of over 140 people who came together to honour the “healing” evangelist St Luke on his vigil, and to celebrate the legacy of the revered bioethicist and public philosopher Nicholas Tonti-Filippini (1956-2014). It is impossible to…
It is an eye-opening exercise to compare the overlap of time between the death of our great titular patron, St Thomas More (1478-1535) and the magnificent personality of Santa Madre Teresa or St Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582), who was born Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada,…
It was very refreshing to witness the considerable growth in numbers at the recent classical/liberal schools conference held in Adelaide last week. This was the fourth such conference and with over 90 attendees, it included board members, principals, parents and teachers from these new independent schools.…
This week the Thomas More Centre hosted the Melbourne book launch of Professor Tracey Rowland’s book, Remembering Cardinal George Pell: Recollections of a Great Man of the Church (Ignatius Press, 2025). Professor Rowland is the very distinguished Australian theological/cultural scholar who is renowned and in demand around the…
This week’s Thomas More Centre newsletter resonates with the life and work of the great literary and spiritual figure of the 19th century, Doctor of the Church, cardinal and saint, John Henry Newman (1801-1890). In his Mass for the beatification of the cardinal in 2008, Pope Benedict…