J.P. Barnas

July 3, 2023June 30, 2023

The Josias Podcast Episode XXXVI: Eduard Habsburg on Bl. Karl of Austria

Archduke Eduard of Austria, of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, Hungarian Ambassador to the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta, joins Urban Hannon for a conversation on Bl. Karl of Austria, his family, and his most recent book: The Habsburg Way.

Eduard Habsburg’s book, The Habsburg Way: 7 Rules for Turbulent Times, is available for purchase here.

Bibliography

Charles A. Coulombe, Blessed Charles of Austria: A Holy Emperor and His Legacy.
Death of an Emperor
Click here to listen to a video interview with Empress Zita.
Talk by Eduard Habsburg, “When Blessed Karl returned to Hungary.“

Header Image: Karl and Zita’s wedding, 21 October 1911.

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June 26, 2023June 28, 2023

Machiavelli’s Secularization of Glory

Ubi est mors victoria tua?
ubi est mors stimulus tuus?
(1 Cor. 15:55)

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori—“It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s fatherland,” proclaimed the Roman poet Horace.^[1] Such was the sentiment shared by Niccolò Machiavelli in his exaltation of the fatherland (patria), expounded especially strongly in his critique of Christian religion, culminating in Discourses on Livy II.2. Machiavelli perceived a corrupted attitude among the citizenry toward their patria and laid blame at the foot of the altar: “For, had they borne in mind that religion permits us to exalt and defend the fatherland, they would have seen that it also wishes us to love and honour it, and to train ourselves to be such that we may defend it.”^[2] While castigating the religion of his day as the source of weak and “effeminate”^[3] attitudes toward the patria, he also claimed the mantle of Christian morality to argue that it was permissible and, indeed, laudable to defend and fight for the fatherland.^[4] On this latter point, Machiavelli could have located vigorous support in the writings of many great minds throughout the history of Christendom. Yet, at the same time, he deliberately avoided doing so, and especially avoided the fact that a robust conception of the sacrifice and the virtue of dying for one’s patria had developed and reentered the social imagination over the course of the Middle Ages. This is likely no accident, as this conception was anything but Machiavelli’s own. To suffer death for one’s patria presupposed fighting for and defending it. Death inherently occupies a space between the temporal and the eternal; it is inescapably eschatological, inextricably bound up with questions of salvation, sacrifice, and martyrdom in Christian theology and imagination. For both Machiavelli and the medieval mind, sacrifice for the fatherland was a means of attaining glory—albeit in radically different ways.

June 5, 2023June 5, 2023

The Josias Podcast Episode XXXV: Thomistic Mystagogy

Thomistic theology is rarely associated with liturgical prayer. So, in this episode, Urban Hannon turns the conversation toward St Thomas Aquinas’ mystagogy of the Mass—that is, his theological teaching on the meaning and purpose of its various rites.

The handout mentioned in the episode may be found here.

Bibliography

St Thomas Aquinas, In IV Sent., d. 8, ex.
In IV Sent., d. 12, ex.
ST IIIa, Q. 83, a. 4.
ST IIIa, Q. 83, a. 5.

Header Image: Detail from ‘Mass of the 5 wounds of Our Lord,’ in the Da Costa Hours, Morgan Library MS M.399 (fol. 36v), c. 1515. Image courtesy of Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz/Austria.

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May 1, 2023May 1, 2023

The Josias Podcast, Episode XXXIV: De Koninck on Nietzsche

Urban Hannon is joined by Ed and Pat Smith for a conversation about Charles De Koninck’s unpublished course notes on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Bibliography

Charles De Koninck’s Course Notes on Nietzsche, which we have made available here.

Header Image: Frans Francken the Younger, Mankind’s Eternal Dilemma – The Choice Between Virtue and Vice (1633).

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April 3, 2023April 3, 2023

The Josias Podcast, Episode XXXIII: Ego Sapientia

Urban Hannon is joined by Fr. Hugh Barbour, O.Praem., of St. Michael’s Abbey, and Fr. Jon Tveit for a conversation on Charles De Koninck’s work, Ego Sapientia: The Wisdom That Is Mary.

Bibliography

Charles De Koninck, “Ego Sapientia: The Wisdom That Is Mary” in The Writings of Charles De Koninck: Volume 2, pg. 1-62. Translated by Ralph McInerny.
For those without access to the McInerny volume, a publicly available translation by Ronald McArthur, a former graduate student of De Koninck’s, may be accessed here.

Header Image: Nicholas of Verdun, The Annunciation panel, Klosterneuburg (Verduner) Altar (1181), Stift Klosterneuburg.

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March 6, 2023March 6, 2023

The Josias Podcast, Episode XXXII: Jesus Christ

In his inaugural episode as Editor, Urban Hannon is joined by Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. and Pater Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist. for a conversation about our Blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Bibliography