Contributors
The Catholic Restorationists are a confederation of bloggers, thinkers and friends who span a diverse set of backgrounds, professions and perspectives. The majority are Roman Catholics and believe that the return of the Traditional Latin Mass to the heart of the Church is an essential first step toward the restoration of Catholic faith and culture. All members are united in the purpose of contributing toward the general restoration of authentic, classical Catholicism through their prayers, works, writings and example. They are not too proud to implore in turn the prayers of any who will offer them for this endeavor.
Steve Skojec; Uncovering Orthodoxy
Steve Skojec is a traditional Catholic husband and father of three. He lives with his beautiful wife and unspeakably adorable children in the Northern Virginia suburban sprawl surrounding Washington D.C., and works in the communications industry. He is an aspiring agrarianist, quasi-distributist, armchair theologian and the founder and animating principal behind the Catholic Restorationists.
James Sullivan; The Rule
James is a Catholic husband, father, and IT professional. A choleric temperament with delusions of megalomania. Greatly devoted to St. Benedict and his Order, including the Monastic Breviary and the restoration of Gregorian Chant. Seeks the restoration of the Family as the primary building block of society and culture. Irish. Guinness.
Chris Gillibrand; Catholic Church Conservation
Christopher Gillibrand is married and lives with his Austrian wife in the centre of Brussels. He enjoys his library of over 4000 books.
Peter & Sarah Park; Recapturing Our Catholic Patrimony
Two Steubenville grads come to Tradition! That’s their story, and they don’t mind telling you about it. Peter and Sarah Park are a husband and wife team promoting Catholic restoration through a weekly Traditional apostolate in their home. Peter is an old-fashioned, pertinacious polymath; a “life coach” by day and an amateur theologian by night, he focuses his other efforts on the elusive goal of being the perfect husband and father. Sarah is a stay-at-home mom who’s adamant about writing, living and advancing Catholic family life and culture in each ordinary moment. The Parks have three children under the age of four and reside in Houston, TX.
Jeff Culbreath; Stony Creek Digest
Jeff Culbreath is a business broker and part-time farmer residing in rural northern California. Forty years old and married for sixteen years, he is a thoroughly spoiled husband and the happy father of five children (one still in the oven). Jeff and his wife were received into the Catholic Church on May 13, 2000, by way of the traditional Latin Mass which they have grown to love and revere. The Culbreaths homeschool their children and are making a humble start at agrarian living. Projects on the Culbreath homestead include a flock of laying hens, a backyard goat dairy, a fruit orchard, a seasonal garden, and a small herd of Dexter cattle for beef.
G. Thomas Fitzpatrick; Recta Ratio
Tom Fitzpatrick has the unfortunately not unique distinction of having spent 19 years in Catholic schools, from Grade 1 through the third year of law school, without having learned anything about the Faith, other than that Jesus was nice, and that we ought to be like Jesus and be nice (and maybe draw a picture of him healing somebody). With God’s grace, deep Catholic roots proved stronger than the “butterfly curriculum” of Catholic schools in the 1970s and 1980s. He found himself in not-so-easy stages pushed towards Catholic Tradition, discovering the Traditional Mass only in late 2003.
He maintains the blog Recta Ratio, and its attendant Yahoo Groups (currently 6) as a celebration of Catholic Tradition.
Dale Price; Dyspeptic Mutterings
A Catholic husband and father of five youngins (one due 12/07, and another entrusted to the mercy of God), Dale lives in a cozy trench in the no-man’s land between traditional and conservative Catholics. When he’s not suing people, he’s spending time with his lovely wife, teaching religion and geography to his home-schooled daughter, playing with the yet-to-be homeschooled children, reading or buying books, writing, contemplating the pratfalls of Michigan sports teams, and/or plotting his escape to the peninsular northlands.
Mary Alexander; Against All Heresies
Mary, Mary Quite Contrary is a mother and housewife and therefore a cultural provocateur. She lives in New England and spends her days watching her 8 children and garden grow. She enjoys reading, writing, gardening and drinking tea. Learning about the lost treasures of the Faith and bringing them to life through her blog are her online aspirations.
Christopher Hasson; Domine Non Sum Dignus
Chris is a Catholic father to five homeschooled children, husband to is beautiful midwestern bride, and a biologist by trade. Fond of Wodehouse and Chesterton, aussie rules football, and a pint with some good conversation. Boardwalk fries aren’t bad either. Other interests are medieval history, and the restoration of the family and the liturgy. Not to mention the various adventures involved in raising a charming little girl and a bunch of boys, whether it’s a tea party or searching for the giant squid.
Mark Scott Abeln; The Rome of the West
Born to a loving family in 1962, Mark experienced the tumultuous changes in society in the post-Vatican II era, and did not like them in the least. While having a Protestant upbringing, he nevertheless developed a strong respect for the quickly-disappearing Catholicism of tradition. Seeds of his future faith were planted while he was studying physics at Caltech: discovering Aquinas, the early Church writings, and the Rule of Saint Benedict. After living a worldly, successful, and ultimately dissolute life, and after perhaps ten years of discernment, and despite the severe problems in the Church, Mark finally received the Sacrament of Confirmation in 2003. Mark is single, lives in Saint Louis, Missouri, USA, and has been blogging since 2004.
Lorraine; Ha Jolly Ha
A young lady who desires to grow in charity and wisdom, through the fullness of truth found in the Roman Catholic Church, Her teachings and saints and traditions. Special interests include agrarianism, fairy tales, chess, folk music, the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, traditional crafts and the general restoration of Christian art.
Dan Baker; Refuge for Catholics
Dan Baker and his wife Susan have been homeschooling their 11 children since 1985. They fled to the fields of Southwest Washington State almost 20 years ago. Dan upholds the forgotten virtue of intolerance as vital to building an authentic Catholic community. He works as a computer systems administrator in the telecommunications industry, and pretends to farm.
John Carriere; J.D. Carriere
John is an unremarkable chap. We’d like for him to say more, but he won’t remark.
Drew Campbell; Running River Latin School
Drew Campbell is an Eastern Catholic homeschooling father. He blogs at Running River Latin School about family life and classical education. He is the author of The Latin-Centered Curriculum, a guide to traditional classical education at home.
Julian O’Dea; The Julian Calendar
Julian lives in Australia. He is another biologist. A Catholic who mostly attends the Latin Mass, he is married with three children, two daughters and a son. He would only join the agrarian movement if he could drive a huge air-conditioned, satellite-navigated tractor.
Dr. Brian Kopp; Pennsyltucky Trad Catholic
Brian Kopp is a small-town trad Catholic - a husband, homeschooling dad, podiatrist, occasional writer, and amateur tinkerer.
In an earlier time, he probably would have been the town blacksmith and shoemaker, if not the town doctor/bloodletter.
Hilary White; Lifesite News, The Devout Life
Having failed to figure out What God Wants of her in life, Hilary has decided to just muddle along without a Vocation doing whatever seems like the right thing. She has worked as Research Director for a national pro-life lobby, a job which required advanced degrees in law, biology and ethics, none of which she holds. She is a graphomaniac who aspires one day to become a writer, who thinks the world can be saved by the reintroduction of classical grammar education (which isn’t what it sounds like.) She hopes one day to live in England in a small town between Oxford and London and own a corgi.
Christopher Blunt, PhD; The Yeoman Farmer
Chris is a Seattle native and graduate of Bishop Blanchet High School. He is the founder of Overbrook Research, a public opinion research firm. He earned Bachelors and Masters of Arts degrees in political science from Northwestern University, and later went back to complete a doctorate at UCLA. He and his wife are Catholic homeschooling parents of three children. They currently live in rural downstate Illinois, approximately 90 minutes from Chicago and 30 minutes from Champaign-Urbana. Together, they own and operate Rolling Goose Farm, a five-acre sustainable agriculture operation. They raise pastured poultry, dairy goats, purebred Icelandic sheep, heritage turkeys, geese, ducks, and free range laying hens.
