Think you know who this is aimed at? Read carefully, then follow links for more:

It is an ominous sign whenever a political movement dispenses with methods and approaches of gaining knowledge that are anchored to public revelation and, moreover, becomes openly hostile to them. Anti-intellectualism and a corresponding reliance on innate knowledge is one of the hallmarks of a cult or a totalitarian ideology.

(source: Sacred Beliefs)

One of the benefits of adopting a metaphysical realist’s approach to–well, to reality–is the ability to see moments when “reality happens” amid the constant cut-and-thrust of rhetorical and hypothetical claims as just that:  as contact between creatures-as-such and Creation-as-such, that is, as acknowledgement of what they are and the world is prior to their construals (or mine).  We get to stop trying to claim “wins” based on who is able to keep up a consistent defense of a certain claim longest (a worthy exercise, but in isolation productive of a nominalist habit of thought, not a way of living in the real world).  Instead, we can enjoy the moment of shared access to reality, and engage sympathetically with others in the effort to adjust our habits and expectations and commitments to match. Continue reading →

Greg often likes to make excellent points about the way businesses can serve as culture-makers. This example is really, really not the sort I am familiar with and understand very well, but it was surprising and seems noteworthy:

(source: Dolce & Gabbana’s beautiful tribute to mothers at Milan Fashion Week – Telegraph)

All the more remarkable are the remarks that accompanied the show, remarks that have predictably proved an incitement to the torches-and-pitchfork crowd. Continue reading →

We have a tendency to respond to reduction with more reduction. Religious minimalism fits well with our iconoclastic, puritan American heritage. And too often, we approach the New Evangelization from a technocratic perspective. We are in danger of reducing even our evangelical and catechetical efforts to the mere transmission of information, to technical processes honed by data analysis to produce a particular outcome. Forming personal relationships cannot be reduced to metrics and algorithms. Instead, forming personal relationships depends on love. And love begins with an appreciation of the beloved’s beauty. Nine hundred years ago, Richard of St. Victor wrote “ubi amor, ibi oculos”—where there is love, there the eye is also.
[…]
I’d like to suggest three ways in which beauty can bring souls into communion with Jesus Christ. The first is the restoration of the beautiful to the world of art, architecture, and culture. We now suffer from a cult of ugliness and utility. And this is manifestly apparent in much of contemporary architecture. The architectural maxim that “form follows function” is a way of saying that design only exists to facilitate production. Architecture is overwhelmed by technocracy.

(source: Ubi Amor, Ibi Oculus | James D. Conley | First Things)

As the wonderfully witty Tom Wolfe once pointed out, Functionalism in architecture is about anything but function (Flat Roof.  Q.E.D.)–and when we see Functionalism and its multiple layers of reaction applied to ecclesial architecture, some of us begin to wonder about the possibility of consecrating train stations for worship, instead:

Beautiful train stations and ugly churches–it’s not just the thought that counts.

Well, this is unpleasant:

Over the years, Obama administration officials have described Netanyahu to me as recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and “Aspergery.” (These are verbatim descriptions; I keep a running list.)  But I had not previously heard Netanyahu described as a “chickenshit.”

(source: The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations Is Officially Here — The Atlantic, emphasis added)

It’s important to differentiate between just slandering one person, which is bad, and treating whole groups of people as problems that we can use as bywords in slandering other people.

Someone send the witch-hunters a memo about that, please.  And make sure you’re keeping it respectful, yourself, while you’re at it.

(P.S.  You won’t find me quoting Jefferson often, but he did now and then have a way with an apothegm.)

A fumble–nothing more than that, I think, but a definite fumble.  Matthew Hennessey comments:

Now, one might say that the bishop erred by presuming that both Down syndrome and homosexuality are unfortunate burdens that must be struggled with and overcome. Another might say that equating Down syndrome with homosexuality is a mistake because both things are in fact beautiful and completely normal states of being. But each view misses the point. 

We are all born broken — some in body, some in soul. We are all tainted by sin. We are all called to holiness.

What troubles me most about the bishop’s comments is the implication that disability and genetic difference are always a catastrophe for all involved. This tragic view of disability is not one I’m used to hearing from the Church. It’s demoralizing. In fact, for many families, including mine — and, it seems, Archbishop Kurtz’s — a child’s disability has enriched faith, deepened friendships, and cultivated a more joyful view of God’s world.

(source: A Bishop Sows Confusion about the Dignity of Life)

I’m happy to say that we really are usually better than this; we have to be.

Here, try chewing on this.  Enjoy!