Cañizares Cardinal Antonio - How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

Praise for

HOW THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILT WESTERN CIVILIZATION

Engaging and engrossing, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization is a mine of information and a stimulus for reflection on the debt we owe to Catholic life and thought.

MICHAEL P. FOLEY, PH.D., associate professor of Patristics, Great Texts Program, Baylor University

Dr. Woodss book is a superb and scholarly refutation of the widespread and deeply rooted prejudice that the supernatural outlook of the Roman Catholic Church disqualifies Her to make any valuable contribution to the progress of humanity. This book is a magnificent illustration of Christs saying: Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice; the rest will be added unto. Whether we turn to science, legal questions, economics, education, scholarship, fine arts, Dr. Woods shows convincingly the fecundity of a supernatural approach to life. This book is highly recommended.

DR. ALICE VON HILDEBRAND, professor emeritus, the City University of New York

Professor Thomas Woods has put the Catholic Church squarely back where it should be: at the center of the development of the values, ideas, science, laws, and institutions which constitute what we call Western civilization. I recommend Professor Woodss book not only to anyone interested in the history of the Catholic Church, but also to any student of the history and development of Western civilization.

DR. PAUL LEGUTKO, Stanford University

This book couldnt have come at a better time for Catholics clinging to their faith against an increasingly hostile and skeptical world. Well argued and well researched.

Dallas Morning News

Exhaustively researched and footnoted, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization is a virtual compendium of recent research and theory on the indispensable role of the Church in European history. This is a book that should be in the home of every Catholic and anyone interested in defending and understanding the undeniably great contributions of Western Christendom and European civilization.

RYAN MCMAKEN, LewRockwell.com

Dr. Woods has provided a great service not only to the Church, but also to students of Western civilization. Woods carefully documents his refutation of the detractors of the Church by providing an extensive bibliography and references for his work. Highly recommended for those studying Western Civilization, for Catholics who want to know more about what the Church has done for civilization, and especially recommended to those who are tired of the Church being denigrated and dismissed as irrelevant. A great pleasure to read!

Catholic Exchange

Woodss book will fascinate, delight and instruct in a manner worthy of the 20th-century historian and polemicist Hilaire Belloc, showing us how to look backwards to transform the future.

REV. FR. C. JOHN MCCLOSKEY III, National Catholic Register

Offers important original research (including unassailable non-Catholic sources) in a concise and intelligent manner. Even the most zealous of the faithful will find much that will inform, challenge and delight.

Homiletic & Pastoral Review

This is a book that all Catholics should read.

Catholic World Report

The world, perhaps more than ever, needs books such as the one Thomas Woods has graciously written.

BRADLEY J. BIRZER, Crisis

Reminds readers of the phenomenal contribution the Church has made to the world in existence today. Offers readers ample reasons to be proud of their Catholic heritage and provides important history in the process.

Our Sunday Visitor

We know that the Church is the ark of our salvation to the next world. Thanks to Thomas Woodss new book, we are now more familiar with the Churchs accomplishments in this world as well.

The Latin Mass

Copyright 2005 by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.

First paperback edition 2012

ISBN 978-1-59698-611-4

The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

Woods, Thomas E.

How the Catholic Church built Western civilization / Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Catholic ChurchInfluence. 2. Civilization, Western. 3. Christianity and culture. 4. Catholic ChurchHistory. I. Title.

BX1795.C85W66 2005

282'.09--dc22

2005007380

Published in the United States by

Regnery Publishing, Inc.

One Massachusetts Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20001

www.Regnery.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Books are available in quantity for promotional or premium use. Write to Director of Special Sales, Regnery Publishing, Inc., One Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20001, for information on discounts and terms or call (202) 216-0600.

Distributed to the trade by

Perseus Distribution

250 West 57th Street

New York, NY 10107

To our daughters, Regina and Vernica

This book is also dedicated to

POPE JOHN PAUL II,

on behalf of his heroic efforts against

the Nazis and communism, as well as

his struggle for peace and the defense of innocent human life.

CONTENTS

I n his biography of St. Thomas Aquinas, G. K. Chesterton points out that no philosophical system since the sixteenth century has been faithful to what ordinary people call common sense. Philosophers such as Hobbes, Kant, Hegel, and company have predicated their particular worldviews on a suspension of belief from our normal experience. With his elegant sense of humor, Chesterton relates that a disciple of Hegel believes that an egg is actually a rooster because it is part of an interminable process of being. For that matter, a pragmatist holds that we might think better of eggs if we forgot that they once were eggs and just remembered them as sandwich. On the other hand, the Thomist believes that the eggs are not roosters, or practical presumptions, or dreams, but real things known by means of our God-given senses.

When I began preparing the foreword to How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., the aforementioned anecdote came to mind. Throughout this excellent work, Professor Woods repeatedly demonstrates the philosophical truth that the Christian faith supports and enlightens reason. Faith does not blind reason. To a certain extent, we may say that Christianity entered human history as the religion of ReasonReason, of course, that infinitely transcends the boundaries of human thought.