The Return of History and the Revenge of Nature and Culture

“Starting with the words ‘I am free’ and their new-found spirit of independence, men began to believe in the infallibility of seemed natural to them, and then to call “nature” everything that is sickness and weakness; to want sickness and weakness to be encouraged instead of healed; to suppose that encouraging weakness makes men healthier and happy; to conclude, finally, that human nature {conceived of as sickness and weakness} possesses the means to render man and society blissful on earth, and this without faith, grace, authority, or supernatural community… since ‘nature’ gives us the feeling that it must be so.” (La Civiltà Cattolica, I, 6, 1851, 497-498)

“The truth is that the universe is the work of an infinite wisdom of which no man can change the nature, although he may be free to deny it. The nature that is denied by man through thought and doctrine is then denied by him also in practice. A man’s struggling with nature is an insane war against God, wherein the mortal cannot hope to triumph, but, rather, is certain to be defeated. To concede, therefore, to all men the freedom to wage this war, to blindfold their eyes so that they may not see their sores, their defeats; to concede the freedom of error to oppress the truth, may well be the momentary delirium of blinded intellects and the suicide of frenetic societies; but it can never be the durable basis of civilization, never the hoped-for foundation of a new society.” (La Civiltà Cattolica, III, 5, 1857, p. 17))

Tentative Faculty (More Names to Come)

Jonathan Arrington (Professor for the Discalced Hermits of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel)
Dr. Miguel Ayuso Torres (Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid)
James Bogle, Esq., TD MA Dip Law (Barrister and author of A Heart for Europe)
Dr. Clemens Cavallin (Religious Studies, Sweden)
Dr. Danilo Castellano (University of Udine, Emeritus)
Dr. Rudi di Marco (Jurisprudence, University of Udine)
Bernard Dumont (Editor, Catholica, France)
Christopher A. Ferrara, J.D. (President, ACLA; Thomas More Society)
Dr. Rudolf Hilfer (University of Stuttgart)
David J. Hughes (Director of Musical Program)
James Kalb, Esq. (Author of The Tyranny of Liberalism)
Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (Independent writer; Renowned liturgical scholar)
Michael J. Matt (Editor, The Remnant)
Dr. Sebastian Morello (Essays Editor & Columnist, The European Conservative)
Rev. Dr. Richard Munkelt (Chaplain of the Roman Forum)
Dr. Thomas Pink (King’s College, London)
Dr. John C. Rao (Chairman, The Roman Forum)
Mr. Nicholas Rao (St. Louis University)
Dr. Joseph Shaw (Chairman, Latin Mass Society of England & Wales)
Dr. Thomas Stark (Philosophical Studies, Germany)
James Vogel (Editor, The Angelus Magazine)

Introduction

The two above citations from a nineteenth century La Civiltà Cattolica that brilliantly represented the exact opposite of what this Roman Jesuit journal does today – namely, a militant orthodox Catholicism – captures the whole thrust of the Thirty-Second Annual Summer Symposium’s work. Gardone, 2025 will seek to identify the full horror of the sickly “nihilistic unreality” of the criminally ugly world in which we now live, and then to demonstrate that this must soon end in one of two ways: either the reassertion of the lessons coming from the full historical reality regarding God and nature or the end of mankind.

Looking at the first insightful passage from the older, substantive version of a now dreadful journal, we see here the accurate assertion that it is the error of atomistic freedom that is responsible for bringing on this winter of our civilization. For naturalist modernity – through its most effective Anglo-American, liberal-pluralist manifestation–-has swept away all the dogmatic, sacramental, rational, authoritative, and cultural aids, social and individual, that enabled supernatural wisdom to combine with, correct, and transform the natural ancient Greek and Roman tools for securing the common good. These once worked together to begin building an international “Catholic City” – Christendom – under the Kingship of Christ. That glorious aesthetic project, originally Hellenist, but perfected through the teaching and grace of the Incarnation, was aimed at gaining possession of “the beautiful”. It progressed by making individual men – with the necessary support of a myriad of different social authorities and all of the “good and perfect gifts” to be found in God’s Creation, “coming from above, the Father of Lights” – into “doers of great deeds and thinkers of great thoughts”.

Historic Christendom’s supernatural and natural tools worked to make of our life in this valley of tears a stairway to heaven, through opening man’s eyes and ears to the “music of the spheres”. It gave him the means to overcome sin, and thereby hope to gain eternal possession of the beautiful through participation in Christ and the Beatific Vision. In taking these tools away from man and handing him over to its obvious logic, naturalist, atomistic “freedom” has now reached the point of convincing society that each individual can create his own personal reality and bring it into being by means of an essentially magic-driven technological manipulation of the universe.

Human free will, under naturalist, atomist, liberal pluralist auspices, has done as much damage as it possibly can. A mad passion for destruction of any overriding understanding of the Beautiful – which can only be defined and reached through its unbreakable union with its allies, the True and the Good – has built its New World Order on a thoroughgoing Nihilism. Under the rubric of crafting a brave, new, diverse, promethean humanity, it has, as was inevitable, condemned nature to be twisted by the strongest, most irrational, most arbitrary, and most sickly wills imaginable. It has empowered only “doers of criminally ugly deeds, and thinkers of criminally ugly thoughts”. A criminal oligarchy is now using its advanced but totally amoral and magic-driven technology to sweep God’s Creation completely clean of its proper structure, allowing the new one to become nothing other than what it actually has already become: the playground of demons.

Still, as our second citation notes, this hideous project is impossible, because God and God’s plans for His Creation cannot ultimately be mocked. Reality relentlessly breaks through satanic and human folly. The Kingdom of Criminal Ugliness, along with the power of the demons and their bewitched agents, both responsible for its monstrous regimen, must crumble.

But how will this be achieved? Our Faith obviously points to God’s direct intervention and Christ’s return in “the end times”. Not knowing when these end times are, we can presume that if we have not reached that point yet, His just and good will for mankind’s redemption will somehow be manifested; that the order He created will be strengthened through the painful, punishing, but cleansing “return” to importance of all of the lessons of sacred and secular history. We may justly hope for the “revenge” of all of the reality-steeped lessons that God’s Creation, with the aid of the diverse national cultures once rooted in its natural order, may come back to teach us once again, under more trying circumstances than ever before. Humanly speaking, it is only by heeding these lessons that we can be freed from the demonic plague tormenting the tragic remnants of Christendom and natural civilizations still longing for redemption throughout the entire globe.

Themes

1. The Reassertion of Original Sin, Unredeemed Nature, and the Dominance of Demonic Tyranny and the Libertine, Vulgarized Mob
2. The Return of the Appreciation of the Whole of Catholic Tradition
3. The Return of Historical Studies
4. The Return of the Liberal Arts
5. The Return of the Creative Arts
6. The Return of Natural Sciences
7. The Return of the Medical Arts
8. The Return of a True and Just Economic Order
9. The Return of Diverse National Spirits
10. The Return of the Spirit of a Fraternal International Christendom
11. The Awakening and Strengthening of the Spirit of a Fraternal Catholic Resistance

Liturgy and Music

The Summer Symposium’s music program involves daily mass and vespers. It is important to note that the Roman Forum is just as happy to receive applications from those whose interest is primarily in Church Music as it is from those focused in other areas of Catholic concern. Our music director, Mr. David Hughes, is eager to attract participants with vocal abilities who are willing to commit themselves to daily rehearsals to ensure a better rendition of Gregorian Chant and the polyphonic pieces to be sung.

Accommodation, Setting, and Daily Program

Accommodation and lectures are at the Locanda agli Angeli and the Hotel Villa Sofia in Gardone Sopra, on Lake Garda, in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy. Both hotels, with swimming pools of their own, are only a ten-minute walk from the lakefront, where free, clean beaches with a number of amenities can be found. Meals are taken at the Angeli and at other trattorie several minutes walk away. Holy Mass is in the parish church, also within walking distance. Gardone is within easy traveling distance of the opera season in Verona, Venice, Trent, Brescia, Milan, Ravenna, Pavia, and Padua. The region offers opportunities not only for swimming, but for hiking, biking, boating, and scenic walks as well.

Each day involves two lectures with discussion (morning and pre-dinner), and Sung Mass in the Extraordinary Rite (Tridentine Mass) at noon. Other traditional masses are offered throughout the day. There are no lectures on Sundays. Musical and theatrical entertainments take place in the garden of the Angeli and in the Piazza dei Caduti in the evenings after dinner.

Application, Cost, and Payment

First time applicants only must include name, address, telephone number, Email, date of birth, occupation, academic degrees attained or pending, and the names and phone numbers of two references. Application should be made as soon as possible as there are a limited number of places available.

The political and economic situation are still too volatile to fix a definitive price for next summer. At the moment, the full cost of the Gardone program in a double occupancy room is $3,000 (based on an exchange rate of $1.10 to the Euro and barring a collapse in the dollar-euro exchange). Single rooms are extra ($3,500 in the Hotel Sofia, $3,200 in the Locanda agli Angeli).

This includes tuition, room and board (very ample breakfast and dinner with cocktails, wine, beer, and other beverages at will), transportation to and from Malpensa Airport in Milan on the days of arrival and departure, and a boat excursion on the lake.

A number of full and partial scholarships will hopefully be available. Preference for scholarships will be given to professors, students, clergy, and seminarians. Nevertheless, anyone who genuinely cannot afford the full tuition and believes himself to be a worthy candidate for assistance may apply.

As we have said many times before, our gratitude to all of you who in these difficult times may still be capable of offering us tax-deductible donations – which can be made either through PayPal on our website or by checks made out to the Roman Forum and mailed to the address indicated above – can only be matched by our sense of responsibility to use those funds properly and efficaciously, always for the greater glory of God. All donors are remembered in the monthly Traditional Mass said on their behalf, offered by our chaplain, Rev. Dr. Richard A. Munkelt. And all of you are unfailingly in our daily prayers.

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