Contrary to Edward Gibbon who wrote "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", it was not the Catholic Church which caused the demise of the Roman Empire but the Church which was actually the savior of everything that was grand and noble of the Empire.  She took the very strong natural virtue of the Roman people and supernaturalized it.  In the torrent of wave upon wave of barbarian hordes crashing upon the remnants of the Western Roman Empire, she populated these pagan peoples with little islands of the Truth, in the monasteries and convents which dotted the countryside.  These small bands of religious preserved everything useful of civilization within their walls, maintaining it for the future.  They cleared the forests, tilled the soil, and established works of charity in the immediate vicinity of the cloister.  Out of these islands of virtue, spread the Good News to Fallen Man.  They acted as little yeast cultures, if you will, leavening the mass about them.  Eventually, all of Western Europe would be converted to the Faith, giving a unified system of believe, colored with the diversity of the individual tribes and budding nation-states in which Catholic Culture bathed all of Western Europe.

In fact, when one says, "Culture" or "Civilization", one is speaking synonomously with "Catholic".  Since Christ is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" () and He gave the Catholic Church the Holy Ghost "who will teach you all truths" (), than everything that is truth - and that includes beauty, is of necessity "Catholic".  To say "Culture" is to say "Catholic".  Now if we look at the word "culture" we can see other words which describe a "growing" or "nurturing" or a "building" up.  Words such as agriculture and horticulture come to mind.  Therefore, "culture" is something which grows or builds us.  First as individuals and second as a society.

The epitome of this culture was the 13th century.  After this point, the forces of anti-culture starting with the Renaissance's humanism, began a relentless march back into the abyss.  With each succeeding generation of revolutionaries , one more tooth on the wheel of Catholic Civilization was ratcheted down (I have a very informative outline from Bishop Williamson describing this ratcheting down) until we can look about us and see NOTHING of beauty.

The literature is pornographic.  Art is blasphemous.  Architecture is made of man-made materials: steel, concrete, plastic.  Our poetry is the 10-second advertising jingle.  Our families break up at the rate of 50%, our children leave home at 18 to move across the country, we abort 1/3 of our pregnancies, and when we reach 70 our kids put us in a nursing home.  Nothing about our culture lifts our hearts and minds to God.  It is anti-culture.

With all that said, traditional Catholics must take on the role of being the new monasteries.  We must be the islands of virtue amidst the barbarians.  We must clear the forests of our own souls, till the fields of our children's souls, and establish works of charity and beauty about us.  That is one of the goals of the Blessed Margaret Center.  Therefore, within the fullness of time, as God permits, we will establish a gift shop, both on-line and retail, which will cater to all things which are the Catholic Civilization, to things of beauty.  Books of church architecture like Chartres cathedral, paintings by Fra Angelico, literature by Shakespeare and Dante, anything which bespeaks of the beauty of God's creation.  Of things which scream out "CATHOLIC CULTURE".