The Catholic Land Movement Papers

Here is a collection of essays by leaders of the Catholic Land Movement. Spearheaded by men such as Fr. Vincent McNabb, the movement was a practical embodiment of the salutary truth that economic life must be rooted in property ownership and agriculture. This book expresses that vision through the words of some of England’s wisest social commentators. If you’re not able to “flee to the fields,” someday your children may want to.

G. K. Chesterton - PB 160 pages - $15.95
The great founder of English and American political journalism is here described and lauded by the great Chesterton, and for us, one of the great English heroes of the 19th century is brought to life for our admiration and instruction in the 21st century.

A Comparison of the Traditional  and Novus Ordo Rites of the Seven Sacraments

Daniel Graham - PB - 230 pages

Much has been said lately about the poor catechesis of young Catholics over the past fifty years. One of the most important tools that the Church uses to teach is the words and actions used during the administration of the sacraments. Many Catholics tend to think of the seven sacraments only as channels of grace for living the supernatural life in Christ, but they are also critically important for teaching purposes, since they express the will of God and the doctrines of the Faith in a very concrete fashion. Sacramental moments are the most important in every Catholic life, and every detail of their administration and reception should be as solemn and as perfect as possible.
That they have not been so, and in fact cannot be to the younger generations growing up since Vatican II, is because the new rites do not express the Catholic Faith without ambiguity and confusion. The results are clear to see in the catastrophic decline in practically every statistical and spiritual indicator for the last fifty years. The lack of clarity, erroneous doctrines, protestantized phraseology, and modernist lingo that characterize the new rites makes it fairly certain that a decline of faith and morality will follow inevitably from the reception of the sacraments in the new rites. In fact, we no longer have to predict that result. The history of the last fifty years proves it to be true.
Lex Orandi is a clear and succinct analysis of the differences between the Catholic rites of all seven sacraments as administered from time immemorial and the new rites brutally forced upon the Faithful in the wake of the Council. It is also a call to the Faithful to reject reception of the sacraments in the new rites and demand that their pastors administer the ancient rites as they have always been administered. Church law, and the primary Canonical imperative of lex suprema est salus animarum should compel the Faithful to demand their rights, so that God is honored and souls are saved.

Fr. Denis Fahey C.S.Sp. - PB 212 pages

“I repeatedly promised Saint Peter that if I ever got the chance, I would teach the truth about his Master in the way he and his successors, the Roman Pontiffs, wanted it done. That is what I have striven to do and am doing.”    
—Rev. Denis Fahey

No man is wise who does not think correctly about the Jews. On this subject it is very easy to be wrong, and there are many different varieties of errors into which to fall.  They are a unique type of collectivity—a matter for history, not for sociology.
Their election in the Old Testament, which we must accept on faith, is at least as mysterious as their rejection in the New Testament. The Jews are willing to take the first part of the bargain, which they did not deserve, but not the second, which they did. Ever since the moment of the Crucifixion, the Jews are engaged in a mystical war against the Church, but they are only effective when the Faith is weak.
A true, firm, and unsentimental understanding of the Jewish problem is absolutely necessary for one who must protect the Faith and the faithful. The higher the responsibility, the greater the necessity.
Fr. Fahey begs us to pray for the Conversion of the Jewish nation, but he teaches us to prudently study and to wisely understand reality in their regard.

Fr. Denis Fahey C.S.Sp. - PB 226 pages

“I repeatedly promised Saint Peter that if I ever got the chance, I would teach the truth about his Master in the way he and his successors, the Roman Pontiffs, wanted it done. That is what I have striven to do and am doing.”    
—Rev. Denis Fahey

This is the last book published before Fr. Fahey’s death. It is an enduring testament to his love of the land and his firm belief that the best setting for most Catholic living is the family farm or small business, similar to the life lived by the Holy Family of Nazareth.
The Church is greatly interested in farming because it is the most fundamental of all human occupations. Those who work the land are deeply immersed in, and must work in harmony with, the natural rhythms and processes of God’s creative handiwork. The harmony and balance of rural life are profoundly upset by industrialized living, both on and off the land. Father delves into many spiritual, chemical, technical, and scientific questions pertaining to the future of farming and the life of the Church and all human society, which depends completely on the land for its existence and prosperity.

By William Cobbett - 370 pages PB

William Cobbett stunned the Protestant world of 19th century England with his publication in 1824 of his groundbreaking work The History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland.
Not only was the book deeply researched and footnoted, but it presented a historical picture that was profoundly contrary to the “official history” that had been drummed into the minds of countless Englishmen for three hundred years. In addition, the fact that it was so well written, so sympathetic to the Catholic cause, AND written by a fellow Church of England Protestant made this book an overnight bestseller running into many editions and reprints over the next thirty years.
Theological issues are not treated directly, but the illogic of the Protestant positions is clearly seen in the practical results of the break from Rome. For those who wish an objective history of this critical period of English and American history there is no better book available. The power of Cobbett’s prose and his convincing logic and sardonic wit make for a delightful reading experience as well.

This is one of the best books ever written on the EFFECTS in both the Church and in society of the English Reformation.

Br. Francis Maluf, M.I.C.M.Without sound philosophy to set the limits of scientific inquiry and regulate its modern tendency for cosmological usurpation, science degenerates into scientism. God is the Creator of the universe. All things are ordered to His ends. All matter is at the ultimate service of man’s supernatural vocation. This course was given in the spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas, the “Doctor of Creation.” Nature and the fidelity thereof, matter, space and time, substance and accidents, wisdom and the laws of nature, unicity and the four causes, and finally, the culminating chapter on the final cause, or teleology (purpose) of things, make a captivating study for every man and woman who wishes to be childlike and repose in the contemplative embrace of wonder.

Saint John Eudes - PB - 290 pages

Never, in the history of the Church, had any tribute to Our Lady'’s childhood been composed which so marvelously applies so many texts of holy scripture with sound Catholic doctrine and the wisdom of her confessors until Saint John Eudes composed this book. Where do we begin if we are ever to become like the little children God wishes us to emulate? Why not begin by contemplating the immaculate life of the precious and most humble maiden of Nazareth.

Saint John Eudes wrote these profoundly affective pages not only for the educators of young Christian women in his own time but for all time. What better example for the education of Catholic maidens than the most admirable early life of Mary, the “glory of Israel,” as she advanced in wisdom and grace in the days of her preparation for her divine maternity. Father Eudes wishes the faithful to behold the “New Eve,” conceived of such holy parents, Joachim and Anne, and reflect upon her perfect charity, her manifold virtues and her uninterrupted contemplation from the moment of her Immaculate Conception to her consuming “fiat,” which truly compelled, in a most wonderful way, the Son of God to come and “rest within her tabernacle.” This study of the holy childhood of the Mother of God is exactly what the title says. To be sure, other works, based upon private revelation, treat of the Blessed Virgin’s early years, but there is no book that specifically treats of the holiness itself of the wondrous child, accumulating its mass of material from the inspired revelation of the sacred scriptures, the liturgical use of the same (as applied by the Church to Our Lady’s feastdays) and the common testimony of the our Catholic fathers and doctors.

Saint John Eudes was born at Ri, a country parish near Caen, Normandy, in 1601. Endowed with extraordinary talents and filled with burning zeal for the salvation of souls, he devoted 50 years of life, until his death in 1680, to the preaching of missions and to the organization of ecclesiastical seminaries. He founded the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, generally known as the Eudist Fathers, for missionary and seminary work; the Order of Our Lady of Charity with its two observances of the Refuge and the of the Good Shepherd; the Society of the Most Admirable Heart for lay persons aspiring to perfection in the world; and lastly, Confraternities of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary for the propagation among the faithful of the devotion, of which he was the first apostle. He wrote the first Mass and Office for the special feast in honor of the Sacred Heart and of the Holy Heart of Mary, which he established thirty years before the revelations of Saint Margaret Mary.

PB - 236 pages

The Redemptorist Father Michael Müller had a secret weapon which won him more converts than did his indefatigable preaching and writing: the holy rosary.  This book was written as a thank you to the Mother of God for graces received. Not only does Father Müller explain what the rosary is, but what the rosary should be.  After reading this devoted author, we assure you, you will never again say the rosary mechanically, or wear the scapular apathetically.

The Holy Rosary is a gift from the Blessed Virgin Mary, as are her powerful scapulars. This is the theme Father Michael Müller stresses throughout these two hundred and seventy-five pages of grateful acclamation to a devotion upon which the salvation of great multitudes of sinners rests. The heartfelt recitation of the Rosary and meditation on the mysteries thereof is the best “thank you” we can give to Mary for her unfathomable mercies. The scholarly author expounds upon every aspect of this devotion now over eight hundred years old. He relates it wonderfully to the New Testament as well as to the Old. Every single page of this pious work is replete with holy quotations or exciting analogies, inspiring anecdotes or miracles. And, too, there are enough actual accounts of graces spurned, or false, even superstitious devotion, to make us fearful. This is a book that the faithful will love so much that they will feel compelled to share their gift with wayward friends and relatives.

This compilation of important distributist authors delivers valuable insight into the manifest problems of society. Although most of the contributions were written more than 50 years ago, the questions raised by the writers have remained largely unanswered, and essays regarding topics like education, work, and freedom have lost little relevance in the ensuing decades. Featured authors include Eric Gill, Harold J. Massingham, and Dorothy Sayers.

25 Essays Selected by John Edward Dineen - PB 320 pages

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc, 1870-1953, was born in France of a French Catholic Father and an English protestant mother. His mother later converted under the influence of Cardinal Manning, a good friend and mentor of Hilaire. His only sister, Marie (Belloc) Lowndes, was a fairly well-known writer like her brother Hilaire. Belloc’s father died young, leaving his widow in dire financial straits with two young children to support. They moved to England, and they settled in Slindon, West Sussex, where Belloc lived for most of his life.
Belloc was a prolific writer and seldom was employed in any other remunerative endeavor during his life, hence the constancy of his precarious financial condition. However he was rarely, if ever, destitute, since he was one of the most widely read writers of the 20th century in both England and America. On this side of the Atlantic he is best known for his political, economic, and historical works. As an essayist he is less well-known, but some think that it is as a poet and essayist that his name will be longest remembered.
These twenty-five exquisite essays, selected by John Edward Dineen, were first published as a collection in 1936 and are here offered to a new generation of American readers to savor.

Hilaire Belloc - PB 302 Pages

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc, 1870-1953, was born in France of a French Catholic father and an English protestant mother. His mother later converted under the influence of Cardinal Manning, a good friend and mentor of Hilaire.  Belloc is easily one of the most well-known Catholic writers and apologists of the 20th century.
    This book, published in 1923 after Belloc spent some time in the United States (his wife was American), is a bit reminiscent of Alexis deTocqueville’s work Democracy in America, published in 1835 after his own extensive travels in America. What is surprisingly different in their conclusions about the American political spirit is that Belloc saw more of a monarchical principle at work here than deToqueville did.
    The Contrast represents Belloc’s mature considerations of the important and critical contrast between England (and by extension, the rest of Western Europe which Belloc considers to be much closer in spirit and temper to England than to America) and that new, and to him foreign, thing that he encountered in his time here. The different topical areas that he discusses and contrasts are the physical (geographical), social, military, religious, literary, and linguistic. This is a fascinating analysis from the pen of a great Catholic man who was also a deeply provocative political thinker.

Dom Prosper Guéranger Abbot of Solesmes

Translated from the French Third Edition by Michael J. Miller

When nineteenth century Christendom shifted its allegiance from a divine vertical authority to the horizontal revolutionary ideals of egalitarian democracy and false liberty, Dom Guéranger’s erudite polemical masterpiece contributed more than any other contemporary work to uphold the papal monarchy in all of its divinely ordained prerogatives. This labor of the holy abbot helped to restore in Catholic Europe the spiritual sword, as well as the magisterial cathedra, to the Vicar of Christ the King. And he did so, not by any clever manipulative abuse of language, but simply by appealing to the simplicity and clarity of the gospels, universal Christian tradition, and the common consensus fidelis. The brilliant hypothetical scenario, drawn by the author, of a college of a dozen apostles, called by Christ, but without a “Cephas” (a Rock) in Peter and his successors, presents even the infant “collegial” church in such an unenviable plight that one might pity them even more than one might pity the Methodists or Seventh Day Adventists, had any of them been at the marriage feast of Cana.

By Fr. Leo J. Kinsella               PB 168 pages
Happiness does not just happen . . . It must be earned!   Here is a marriage blueprint that every man can follow.
Great marriages do not just happen, they are made. It takes three parties to make a good marriage: the husband, the wife, and the Lord. This book is concerned with helping the man to become ‘the man for her’. Father Kinsella had already published his famous and successful book The Wife Desired, which is also available from Loreto Publications, in 1952. The first book of advice for women was so successful that the demand for a book of marital advice for men forced Father to write this one in addition. He sat for many years on a diocesan separation court and had also successfully counseled many unhappy couples during his years in the priesthood. Both books sold over a quarter of a million copies shortly after their publication and were read by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. They are practical manuals for how to improve your chances for a happy and successful marriage.
When this book was first published in 1957, one in four marriages in the USA ended in divorce. Today, half of all first marriages end in divorce, and a much higher percentage of second and third marriages find the same end. This means that the majority of Americans are unsuccessful at the most important enterprise of their life, and it follows that the resultant destruction of the happiness, mental stability, and moral character of the majority of the people is the greatest problem that we face as a nation.
Of course, the dangers to the salvation and earthly happiness of these people, and to the unfortunate children born of such unions, is where the cold statistical facts become more personal and of immediate concern to each of us. The divorce rates also do not speak to the issue of those many couples who do not divorce, but who nonetheless are not living in what could be termed deeply happy and fruitful marriages. Being a party to an unhappy marriage is one of the most difficult (yet largely avoidable) situations that anyone can endure in life.

G. K. Chesterton - PB 220 Pages

Edited and Published posthumously by Frank Sheed
In 1933 Hitler came into power. In 1936, G. K. Chesterton died. In between, Chesterton kept his eyes steadily on the Nazi movement, seeing and foreseeing everything—even to the agreement of Germany and Russia to divide Poland.

Week after week he came back to one aspect or another of the danger: Prussianism as a spirit poisoning Germany, Hitlerism as Prussianism, the special peril (unique in human history) that lies in racism, the Jewish roots of Hitlerism, the vital function of Poland, and the elements among ourselves that made for the increase of Hitler’s power—especially the pacifism that made war inevitable. It is not too much to say that this inevitablility of war was the dominating theme of the last years of Chesterton’s  life. Certainly it was never far from his pen.

Abbot Dom Columba Marmion - PB– 280 Pages

Abbot Dom Columba Marmion was born in Dublin, in 1858, the year that our Lady appeared at Lourdes, and he died on January 30, 1923. That is the Feastday of Saint Martina, and it was also on January 30th that two other great founders died. It was January 30, 1875 that the Abbot of Solesmes, Dom Prosper Gueranger, passed to his eternal reward, and also, on the same day in 1978, that Father Leonard Feeney, who had a great devotion to both Abbots, departed from this vale of tears.
The substance of this book was gathered together by Dom Raymond Thibaut and originally published in 1941. The material was taken from the three great spiritual classics of Dom Marmion: Christ, the Life of the Soul, Christ in his Mysteries, and Christ, the Ideal of the Monk, all published shortly before his death.
Rarely will one find such great spiritual treasures as are contained herein, except from other masters of the spiritual life, such as St. Francis deSales or Saint John of the Cross.

Edited by Daniel M. Clough, M. A. - PB - 264 pages

This book is compiled according to the magnificent pattern established by Thomas Aquinas in the Caena Aurea. It is a well reasearched and thoughtfully composed listing of the Commentary of the saints and fathers and doctors of the Church who have writen of the first three chapters of Genesis. Unlike aLapide, there is no commentary or analysis of the scripture from the compiler himself but it is a remarkably well done listing of what has been written by the gretest of commentators themselves and although there are some differences of opinion among the saints writings here, yet, the whole of their accumulated commentary presents a remarkably unified picture of the "mind of the church" from the earliest times through the centuries on the first (and arguably most important) three chapters of Gods' Words to men.