Our Review, as its name points out, is to be Catholic and American. Its aim, therefore, will be to explain and defend the Catholic theory of revealed Truth, moral and dogmatic, as it really is, as it has been left us by the Apostles and defined by the Church; and to let men see how different is the base counterfeit of the same, wickedly forged to our discredit by some, and received in good faith as our doctrine by many others outside of our communion. It shall be our endeavor also to show the practical development and working of Catholic principle in the history of the world, in the lives of great and good men, and in the destinies of nations.
So begins the Salutatory in the first issue of The American Catholic Quarterly Review (ACQR), published January 1876, auspiciously, in the centenary year of the nation’s founding.
At its founding, the ACQR was, and understood itself to be, the successor to Orestes Brownson’s Quarterly Review, which for three decades prior had been the premier national journal of opinion for Catholics. Brownson from failing health had to give up publishing his review in October 1875. He was able to write a last essay before he passed away in April 1876, which was published as “The Philosophy of the Supernatural” in the ACQR’s inaugural issue. (We will reprint that essay here, with commentary, next week.)
The ACQR went on to publish 48 full volumes. It ceased publication after its first, January issue in 1924. (I do not know the reason why it suspended publication. One can see, from the many pages of advertisements in its issues from the 1920s, that it enjoyed widespread and substantial support among prosperous Catholics.)
Our goal here is to revive the ACQR. We shall do so with the means we have currently available and in the manner which is most appropriate for publication in our day. Quarterly reviews are no longer a standard, while Substack is appropriate for a start-up, which is also an upstart. We will keep it as an open question whether we move towards a print publication and whether subscribers may receive if they wish a collection of our best work on a quarterly basis.
If you are a Catholic, perhaps you have a sense that there was once a serious and broad community of educated Catholics who engaged together in reflection at a high level, much to the benefit of the country. This community produced for instance the astounding Catholic Encyclopedia, published 1907-1914. You probably go to that Encyclopedia frequently and reflect that, now more than a hundred years later, it has not been superseded. Would a similar project today even be possible? (A new Catholic encyclopedia was attempted in the ‘60s, with many supplementary volumes to follow, but who consults it?)
If you were to dip into the pages of the ACQR, you would find your sense amply confirmed. You might even tear your garments. You would certainly attain the conviction, “They were builders then. We seem to be in ruins. How can we begin to rebuild?” One rebuilds with whatever tools are to hand. But one must have the intention to rebuild.
So, we wish to work towards the rebuilding of such a community, and, if it seems sensible, towards the full revival of the ACQR. For now, we call our endeavor the American Catholic Quarterly Review (which legal counsel says we may do) to signal that we wish to stand on the shoulders of those giants, and that our spirit is analogous. We are American, Catholic, and a review. Quarterly periodicity is incidental and may follow later.
Throughout this week, we will post the full content of that Salutatory I mentioned, with some light commentary. Often our posts will be to reprint and comment upon articles from the ACQR or Brownson.
That Salutatory ends as follows:
We are not without misgivings, either as to the arduous nature, or the probable success of our undertaking. We wish that some consciousness of power might enable us to say with the Roman Orator, “neque illud ipsum, quod est optimum, desperandum est ; et in praestantibus rebus magna sunt ea, quae sunt optimis proxima.” But at least we may say with the Umbrian poet: “In magnis et voluisse sat est.”
As if already to prove how disadvantaged we are—they left the Latin untranslated. It was assumed apparently that anyone interested in the Review would be able to construe it. But do not worry: we plan to translate all sentences not in English!
In the first, Cicero reassures aspiring orators that even if Roman orators cannot equal Demosthenes, they can approach him, just as some contemporaries of Demosthenes did: “We ought not to give up because the very best thing is unattainable: even to come close to the best thing is great, in any matter of surpassing excellence.”
The second is from Propertius (Elegiae 2.10.6) and means "In great undertakings even to have willed them is enough.”
These sayings easily represent the intentions of our project as well.
—
Yes, we certainly will reprint the essay in volume 1 of the ACQR, “The Classical Education of the Day.” And here’s a tease:
—
Your most obedient humble servant,
Michael Pakaluk
Editor-in-Chief
I am pleased to announce also that I will be assisted by several learned Associate Editors, who are Fellows at the Gibbons Institute and faculty at The Catholic University of America:
Joshua C. Benson, Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology
Jonathan Buttaci, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Thomas Clemmons, Associate Professor of Church History
David Elliot, Associate Professor of Moral Theology/Ethics and The Grace P. Hobelman Chair in Catholic Moral Theology
Best wishes and prayers for your endeavor!
I love this, my subscription to First Things was already canceled and running to its expiry, so I have $$ to pledge. I love the history aspect of this. I seem to be devouring history books lately.