This book investigates one of the most successful liturgical reforms in Catholic history. Only a century ago, faithful, practicing Catholics received Holy Communion only once a year; now, among American English-speaking Catholics, Holy Communion is a routine, weekly devotional practice. This book explains how and why this ritual sea-change happened.

From one of the leading historians of Christianity comes this sweeping reassessment of religious freedom, from the church fathers to John Locke In the ancient world Christian apologists wrote in defense of their right to practice their faith in the cities of the Roman Empire. They argued that religious faith is an inward disposition of the mind and heart and cannot be coerced by external force, laying a foundation on which later generations would build. Chronicling the history of the struggle for religious freedom from the early Christian movement through the seventeenth century, Robert Louis Wilken shows that the origins of religious freedom and liberty of conscience are religious, not political, in origin. They took form before the Enlightenment through the labors of men and women of faith who believed there could be no justice in society without liberty in the things of God. This provocative book, drawing on writings from the early Church as well as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, reminds us of how "the meditations of the past were fitted to affairs of a later day."

Throne and Altar is a blog, part of the Orthosphere, defending the legitimate authority of God, tradition, fathers, and kings against the diabolical partisans of freedom and equality. Its author, Bonald, is an actual Catholic monarchist who: reviews books on the topics of history, political philosophy, religion, and society laments current events on the 'Rants' section (not included in this volume) explains and defends the main positions of European counter-revolutionary political philosophy This first edition of Throne and Altar: The Reviews and Essays contains the categorized book reviews and essays, as well as longer-form pieces on Evolution and Aristotle as well as Bonald's In Defense Of... series.