Hardcover - 8.5" x 11" 680 pages

Loreto Publications is pleased to present almost 100 essays from one of the most fascinating Catholic American essayists of our post Vatican era. Robert Hickson's broad experience and deep personal knowledge of politics, military affairs, literature, and religion in late 20th century America give him a unique perspective and judgement that is thoroughly Catholic and poingnantly expressive. His curriculuum vitae is impressive and his experience as a soldier, college professor, public speaker, husband, father, and traditional Catholic warror are evident in these profound and penetrating writings.

FOREWORD

It is part of the vocation of a small Catholic publisher like Loreto Publications to give voice not only to the accumulated wisdom of past ages, but also to make known the effects of grace in the souls of the men and women whose lives run concurrent with our own, when those effects are worth noting and preserving for future generations. If the effects of supernatural grace manifest themselves in the remarkable written expression of a Catholic warrior, it can be a great benefit for others to read and contemplate the procession of thought produced by
those effects in a man of substantial educational attainments and wide experience. This is why we have chosen to make available this selection of almost 100 essays by our good friend Dr. Robert Hickson.
One of the requirements for the acquisition and growth of virtue that nature and grace impose upon a man is that he make a serious attempt to impose order in this world of disorder. First he must order his own thoughts and passions, and then he may seek to promote order in his own sphere of influence in the world. This is the work of a Christian educator. The artfully composed and clearly enunciated order of Dr. Hickson’s thinking is strikingly evident in the writings of his mature years as presented in these two volumes. Not only does he beautifully expound upon a topic, but he gently coaxes the reader to make further considerations of his own on the topic presented. In other words, he stimulates the thinking process in his audience and he arouses the desire of the intellect for deeper and more fruitful contemplation. Surely, the achievement of that objective is one of the many goals of sound education.
These essays are not the work of a superficial man. They are challenging, and were meant to be so. In his essay “The Contribution of Catholic Letters to the Conversion of Our Country” you will find the following paragraph:
G. K. Chesterton, who was himself a Catholic Man of Letters, memorably said, moreover, that “the test of all happiness is gratitude” and “your world would be a lot larger, if you were smaller in it.” And, with the help of such Catholic Letters and Literature, we may also help to
make that world larger for others, unto their more abundant life, both here and in Beatitude.
That paragraph could easily serve as the Introit to all of Dr. Hickson’s literary efforts. And so it is with a constantly enlarging sense of gratitude that we offer to our loyal followers these two volumes in hope that you too will appreciate this twentieth century Catholic American soldier’s literary legacy.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS - VOL. 2

An Invitation to The Modern Traveller (1898): Hilaire Belloc’s Satirical and Youthful
Narrative Verse.................................................................................................
Considering Catholic Ecclesiology in Some of its Professed Progressive Forms:
The Place of National Bishops’ Conferences and New Consultative Synods......
G.K. Chesterton’s View of Tolstoy’s Aspiration to Simplicity.................................
Disaster Capitalism...............................................................................................
Allowing Polyandry in China: A Development of Doctrine and of Mercy.............
The Cleansing Pathos of Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One (1948): Glimpses of
Unworthy Life and Unworthy Deaths..............................................................
Saint Helena’s Belated Mission as a Late-Comer to Christ.....................................
The Challenge of Tradition: What Is to Be Preserved and Why..............................
Applying Democratic Centralism to the Catholic Church Currently.....................
The Natural Law and Religious Liberty (Libertas Religiosa): A Test of Proper
Understanding.................................................................................................
Father John A. Hardon’s 1990 Commentaries on the “Revised Draft” of the Catholic
Catechism: On Doctrinal and Moral Disorders Abiding in the Church (Part I)......
Father John A. Hardon’s 1990 Commentaries on the “Revised Draft” of the Catholic
Catechism: On Doctrinal and Moral Disorders Abiding in the Church (Part II).....
Those Questions and Insights That Stun and Teach: The Wisdom of Good Mentors.......
The Catholic Strategic Response to “Undo 1492!”.................................................
The Long-Reflective Memories of a Combatant Marine Officer: South Vietnam
1967-1968 and 1968-1970, the “Lyric Passage” of His Life..............................
How Diplomats Without Honor Make War: The Perfidious Path to the Killing of
President Diem and His Brother......................................................................
Evelyn Waugh’s Perceptive 1959 Journey to East Africa: Tanganyika and Zanzibar
on the Way to “National Independence”..........................................................
The Standard of Conversation and Expectant Silence: Reflections of Albert Jay
Nock and Josef Pieper......................................................................................
Father Malachi Martin’s Visit to the Senate and Our Lady of Fatima.....................
G.K. Chesterton’s Chivalrous Defense of an Elderly Lady and of Her Praiseworthy
and Capacious Pet............................................................................................
Waugh on Kipling and Mexico: March 1964 and Pre-War 1939............................
Facing the Implications of Our Professed Principles..............................................
Cardinal Manning’s 1892 Essay on Honour..........................................................
Cardinal Manning’s Understanding of Courage.....................................................
Grateful Memories of a Slow Learner....................................................................
The Language of Gesture and Its Calling to Life Some Sacred Signs.......................
A Managed Conflict Apparatus and the Legacy of Louis Auguste Blanqui.............
Presumption as a Form of Laxity unto Spiritual Sloth............................................
A Note on the Incarnation and Grace: For the Sake of Fidelity..............................
Humility and Sanity: Glimpses of Chesterton and Waugh.....................................
Remembering John Vennari..................................................................................
Whittaker Chambers and Oedipus at Colonus.......................................................
Maurice Baring, One of God’s Gentlemen, Presents Xantippe...............................
Hilaire Belloc on Walking, Inns, and the Recovery of Europe: 1911-1919.............
Asking Candid Questions About Fundamental Convictions: Josef Pieper’s
Autobiography 1945-1964...............................................................................
Perception, Attentive and Tremendous Trifles........................................................
Evelyn Waugh’s Welcome to Modern Europe Some Seventy Years ago...................
The Recent Biography of Dr. Warren Carroll and the Incarnation of Christian
Chivalry...........................................................................................................
Evelyn Waugh’s Comic Muse in Scoop: A Novel About Journalists and Eccentric
Rural Aristocrats...............................................................................................
Two Valorous Officers and Their Integrity and Eccentric Ways: Evelyn Waugh and
Randolph Churchill.........................................................................................
Maurice Baring’s 1927 Novel on Russia and Wartime Manchuria: Tinker’s Leave.............
Hilaire Belloc’s Memorable 1911 Depiction of a Sussex Squire: Fuller of Brightling.....
Joseph Ratzinger on the Priesthood and on the Resurrection.................................
A Miscalculated Demolition: Evelyn Waugh’s 1942 Wartime Letter to His Wife...
The Daunting Six Days of Winter SEAL Training (1974-1975): The Personal
Report of a Graduate, Dr. Robert Adams.........................................................
Divine Providence and Papal Diplomacy: The Case of Pius XII in World War II...
Overlapping Jurisdictions: The Test Case of Papal Foreign Policy (1870-1922).....

About the Author
Robert Hickson graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, in June 1964, and was assigned to Southeast Asia. After one year, he became a U.S. Army Special Forces Officer and earned his “3-prefix” as a “Green Beret,” after having already completed Parachute School and Ranger School and certain forms of Naval Commando Training. After tours in Viet Nam and elsewhere in Asia, he taught at the J.F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center as the Head of the East Asian Seminar and Instructor in Military History and Irregular Warfare.
He acquired his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Classics (Greco-Roman) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with an emphasis on Ancient Philosophy and Medieval Literature (to include Theological Literature). For seven years, he was Professor and Chairman of the Literature and Latin Department at Christendom College, leaving shortly thereafter to return to Military and Strategic-Cultural Studies.
He was a Professor at the Joint Military Intelligence College (former Defense Intelligence College), a graduate school in the U.S. Intelligence Community at the Defense Intelligence Agency (D.I.A.) in Washington, D.C. Among other things, he taught Foreign Area and National Security Studies, Military History and Strategy, as well as Moral Philosophy. He was then invited to the Air Force Academy for four years as a Professor in the William Simon Chair of Strategy and Culture, teaching in several academic departments.
He concluded his Federal Service as a Professor of Strategic and Cultural Studies, as well as Military History and National Security Studies, at the Joint Special Operations University in Florida, a part of the U.S. Special Operations Command. Comparative cultural and strategic-historical studies constituted a unifying theme in these various forms of teaching over the years.