Being Catholic in an Anti-Catholic Milieu

Excellent advice for the coming years.

Diagnosis of the Age

This is a fascinating talk by Archbishop Chaput.

Yes, Virginia, Modern People Have Witnessed Miracles

More than once, but really, this may be one of the most public and dramatic of events in the past century.

Forgiveness is not Optional

Rod Dreher notices the symptoms of a society-wide adoption of the pedagogy of the oppressed. Excerpts:

... Honestly, I’ve had it with people. I’ve had it with Trump supporters who think their anger and their outrage gives them the right to punch people in the face. I’ve had it with Black Lives Matter and other Social Justice Warriors who think the so-called righteousness of their cause gives them the right to silence those who disagree with them. I’m sick and tired of people who think everything wrong in their lives is because somebody, somewhere, has wronged them. Guess what? You can’t screw whoever you like, have as many kids as you like, or as many partners as you like, walk away from your marriage (if you ever marry), and expect everything to be okay. You can’t drink, drug, party, “keep it real,” make excuses for your children, make excuses for yourself, allow our degraded popular culture to raise your kids, and expect a good outcomes. You can’t throw money at problems and expect them to go away (e.g., pay to send your kids to a Christian school, and assume that your tuition fee contractually entitles you to opt out of the moral and spiritual formation of your children), or assume that being a Nice Middle-Class Person is sufficient. It’s not. I’m tired of the rich and the middle class who expect everything to be handed to them, and fall to pieces when it isn’t. I’m tired of the working class and the poor who live as if their relative material deprivation gives them a pass from having to live by basic standards of conduct that most everybody understood and affirmed within living memory, but which are all but forgotten today.

Above all, I’m tired of a culture in which so many people have no idea how to tell themselves no, to anything, ever. A culture of entitlement. Believe me, I’m talking to myself as well. This is the beginning of Lent for us Orthodox Christians, and I am taking inventory of my own tendencies to sin, to disorder, and I don’t like what I see. You might try it too. ...

Bill Cosby and Abortion

An interesting point. Excerpt:

... Notre Dame is set to award the Laetare Medal to Vice President Joe Biden, a man whose record on abortion could hardly be worse. He is not slightly in favor it; he has often been one of abortion’s strongest supporters in the Senate. When you award a man with this record your highest honor, what do you say about yourself? At least these three things.

First, you show that don’t really take the evil of abortion all that seriously—certainly not as seriously as other forms of sexual assault against women, which is precisely what abortion is, since you would never consider awarding any honor at this point to Bill Cosby. ... 

Catholics Oppose Trump

Oh, certainly not all Catholics oppose Donald Trump in his presidential election bid. But the voices raised in opposition are significant, and getting louder.

From the earliest, there was Mark Shea, a man whom I've always considered a remarkably accurate barometer of where the Catholic middle really is. He's generally right, even if he sometimes gives into his feelings and is rather more polemical or less than polite in his zeal for truth.

There was CatholicVote, right around the same time that National Review came out with the "Trump Edition," lining up an array of conservative leaders to lay out the case against the Donald (who really seems to be more of a Scrooge McDuck than a Donald, but I digress).

And now, there's George Weigel, Robert George, and many of the mainstays of what could be called the Catholic Right writing in National Review, calling on their fellow Catholics and all people of good will to oppose the Donald.

And, of course, there's Pope Francis, sort of.

I really hope Catholics take note--Trump is a reality TV show star, running for president as though he's just in one more telecast contest. He's a character, and so he plays well on TV, but there's no hint of any political, diplomatic, or governmental expertise in his repertoire. He's not someone who should be president, especially not given the tremendously difficult and dangerous times we live in at present.