[4] The Charlemagne Institute describes itself as "leading a cultural movement to defend and advance Western Civilization, the foundation of our American republic.
[12] In 1988 the institute and Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran pastor, invited Cardinal Ratzinger to give a lecture in New York in January.
[13] On 5 May 1989 Neuhaus and his Religion and Society Center were evicted from the institute's New York office after he complained about what he said were "the racist and anti-Semitic tones" of Chronicles.
[19] It was named for John Randolph (described by the historian Quinn Slobodian as "a slaveholder whose catchphrase was 'I love liberty, I hate equality'").
[25][better source needed] As of 2021[update], its website names Paul Gottfried as its Interim Editor-in-Chief and Edmund Welsch as Executive Editor, and was hosted by (and listed as a programme of) the Charlemagne Institute.
He described a Chronicles article criticizing the finances of Donald Trump, who was then considering a Reform Party presidential campaign.
[27] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described Chronicles in 2017 as "a publication with strong neo-Confederate ties that caters to the more intellectual wing of the white nationalist movement",[28] and in another article said it was "controversial even among conservatives for its racism and anti-Semitism".