But as the book shows, there is only one real charge that Hildebrand’s colleagues could raise against her: that she defended the objectivity of truth. And in that effort, she tells us, she always began with the greatest thinkers who did not know Christ: Plato and Aristotle.

This stance nearly cost Hildebrand her job. Repeatedly, the department gave open tenure-track positions to less-qualified applicants who were more sympathetic to the department’s prevailing orthodoxies.

(source: A Lesson for Aspiring Academics: On Alice von Hildebrand’s Happy Failure | Public Discourse)

As to the effectiveness of the language of Church teaching (“the language we speak is not communicating”), some distinctions need to be made. Communication is ineffective when the words are not understood by the listener. Communication is effective when the words are understood, even if the listener rejects the truth of the message. As regards the moral doctrine of the Church, the problem for many today is not unintelligibility, i.e, they cannot figure out what the Church teaches. Rather, that doctrine is understood quite well – and rejected.

That is not a failure to communicate, but rather a successful imparting of unwelcome knowledge. The Church’s mission is to call sinners to repentance, which starts with proclaiming the truths of the Gospel, however contrary they are to the lifestyle choices of those who hear that proclamation. Our absolute certainty in the truth of the Church’s doctrine and our belief in the efficacy of Divine grace teach us that the anger or sadness produced in a person being challenged to live according to God’s plan is salutary – and in many ways necessary.

(source: The Catholic Thing)

TV worth seeing: Blue Bloods, Season 1, Episode 15, “Dedication” is well worth your time. One of the finest depictions I’ve seen of how respecting all bonds is consistent both with fierce protectiveness and tender mercy.

Love and justice are always kissing, folks. Never compromising their characters, sure that they are truly one in the all-good, all-true, all-beautiful Creator and Redeemer.

If you think you one of those gets you a pass on the other, you’re neither loving nor just.

When an entire continent that is—to repeat—healthier, wealthier, and more secure than ever before ceases to produce the human future in the most elemental sense of “human future”—by refusing to have children—something is seriously awry. Something has gone dry in the soul. Whatever the economic , ideological, and cultural pressures involved, a lack of generosity toward the future is manifesting itself in willful barrenness. And that is, in the broad sense of the term “human spirit,” a spiritual problem. Indeed it is a spiritual crisis.

(source: Letter Number Ten | Xavier Rynne II, ed. | First Things)

Among the 40 percent of GOP primary voters who say they are evangelical or born again, Trump only polls 25 percent compared to his 38 percent support among all other GOP primary voters. Even that overstates the amount of Trump support you would find in an evangelical pew on Sunday morning. Of those evangelical GOP primary voters who go to church at least once a month (80 percent of that subgroup), Trump polls just 21 percent. By contrast, among those attending church less frequently, Trump doubles his support.

(source: Evangelicals Don’t Love Trump)

As I’ve already commented on Facebook:

For those of you who have been looking left and right for those elusive hordes of people who support this foul imposture on account of their evangelical fervor–yes, as we’ve been telling you, this is another lie made up by people who make up stuff to deceive you for a living. Are you even surprised?

Is it OK with you to live in a culture like this?
“Oh, advertisements lie? ho hum.”
“Oh, politicians lie? of course they do.”
“Oh, the news lies? sure, but they’re invaluable props to democracy for some reason.”

It should not be. What will you do to make truth triumph in our world?

Hint: it does not start by agitating in favor of imposture and chicanery writ large.

source: Trump-Support-Age.png