When, in a moment of absentmindedness, I practice a virtue, my reaction to the fact is not that “I’m being good,” but “Oh, so this is how it is.” Before the moment of virtue — be it patience or prudence — I stumbled blindly without knowing my blindness. In the light of virtue the universe is illuminated and what was obscure makes sense. Virtue reveals the very consistency of existence. The virtues are not additions to life, supplementary goodies we tack onto our... Read more
I don’t think opposition to the pornography industry is a religious issue. Here’s why: 1. Sex Trafficking The word pornography comes from pornos, prostitute, and grapho, to depict or write, meaning “depicting prostitutes.” We seem to be waking up to the possibility that the word’s etymology may very well be a description of reality. Pornography is fundamentally an experience of bought sex. In the purchase of pornography, we pay for sexual arousal. We do not simply pay money for a video... Read more
This is so blisteringly obvious that it’s hardly worth mentioning, but there is a difference between the high-school proms of our grandparents and the proms of current high-school kids. A brief survey of 1950’s-1960’s prom footage shows, somewhat shockingly, that there was dancing. That is, there were dances and people knew them. Men held the hips of women cupping the shoulders of their man, shuffling through sets of understood and pre-ordained movements of the foot and sways of the waist,... Read more
It is a trend for white people fed up with the banality of existence to run to exotic locations and there write best-selling books about finding themselves. And while I admit to a certain romance in spending thousands learning to eat, pray, love, and afterwards become rich selling the simplicity of foreign cultures back to our own, I can’t help but wonder whether the “self” is really “found” in such amazing, caucasian explorations. I wonder — because I’m cynical —... Read more
The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said that “just as important as the truth, and of the two the even more important one, is the mode in which the truth is accepted, and it is of slight help if one gets millions to accept the truth if by the very mode of their acceptance they are transposed into untruth.” God hides himself so we will come to him in the right mode. He is not an object. He is not an... Read more
The New York Times article What Happens to Women Who Are Denied Abortion? is an interesting read. The conclusions drawn from it have been — so far — pretty awful. This is because, by and large, culture-warriors don’t read. We subsume everything into a pre-ordained, pre-packaged worldview, and use even the most incomplete, unhelpful sociological data as a weapon and a trump card. This particular article, judging by its postings on Facebook, went into the “See, abortion is good for women!”... Read more
Hello everyone! I’m writing for the Steubenville conferences. When a man first begins to work out, he usually does so in a burst of enthusiasm. He envisions his ideal weight and future health. He buys new shoes and a barrel of protein-powder with a man who looks like a Transformer grimacing on its label. In short, he gets pumped. But if his enthusiasm isn’t followed by ritual — by a well-kept routine of stretching, running, and lifting — he’ll cease... Read more
An atheist once told me I was only a Christian because I couldn’t conceive of not being a Christian. I answered that I could conceive of not being a Christian, and that most days, in fact, I felt far more the atheist than the believer. The issue, I said, was that each and every one of the Catholic claims struck me as true, and so I believed. He left disappointed, but I imagine if he spoke to me today, he would... Read more
What Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said is true, and damn true: “The Catechism was not written to please you. It will not make life easy for you, because it demands of you a new life.” Its teaching on modesty is so explosive that, would we believe and actualize it, we would convert. But I suspect we prefer monotony to metanoia, commentary to action, and porn to everything else. We’ll enthusiastically “note” the demands of the universal Church as “interesting,” and immediately — go... Read more
You, dear reader, are the only person in existence who knows you are a subject, an I, an unique consciousness, and an individual perspective in the Cosmos. I do not know you are a subject, for to know that would be to experience your subjectivity, that is, to be you. Indeed, forgive me, how rarely I can even muster up the faith necessary to believe you are a subject! When I see you in the crowd, the car, the mall, the hall... Read more
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