The Catholic Thing

Fellow TCT contributor Francis Maier warmed my heart last September with a favorable mention of Alasdair MacIntyre's Dependent Rational Animals. This work is one of our most important recent philosophers' most important contributions to moral philosophy. I've taught it several times in a course on human nature.

As with all great books, it reveals more truth with each new reading. This semester, I finally realized that the work as a whole is a brilliant example of the use of philosophy as human reason to understand a truth given in revelation and faith.

MacIntyre, who died earlier this year, began his career as a Marxist before "seeing the light" of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. He eventually entered the Church. He understood well the complementarity of faith and reason that Aquinas infuses throughout his work. But MacIntyre relied on human reason, rather than revelation, as the ground of his work, knowing the truth to which that reason should lead.

MacIntyre begins the book by claiming that humans are animals, and that the differences between humans and non-human animals are narrower than many philosophers have claimed. He surveys scientific studies that have investigated the behavior of higher non-human animals, especially dolphins.

Such animals, MacIntyre judges, have something like reasons for acting that many philosophers have attributed only to humans. They exhibit a pre-linguistic kind of reason.

This reminds us that we are always animals with bodies, into which the human soul is placed and to which it is joined. We never escape our animal nature no matter how intellectual or spiritual we become. We all must control our bodies and choose our reactions to fear and desire, pain and pleasure. That's what the habits of the moral or natural virtues permit.

Great contemplatives are able, through prayer and reasoned discipline, to subdue the body's proclivities and demands to a degree that opens them to non-physical realities and God Himself. But their animal bodies will still die, as Christ in His human nature suffered bodily on the Cross.

Aristotle observed, and Aquinas developed, the notion that some non-human animals seem to exhibit a kind of practical wisdom or prudence in making choices. Our specific human rationality lies in our capacity to reflect upon and revise our reasons for acting in ways that non-human animals cannot, and thereby to consider alternative futures and different courses of action. That exercise requires the full language capacity that pre-linguistic animals lack.

We ourselves are born pre-linguistic, and the moral concerns that occupy us stem in many ways from our pre-linguistic concerns.

MacIntyre argues that at various times of our lives - pre-linguistic infancy for all, and for many, periods of illness or injury, or old age - we are all dependent on others for life itself. During those times, we incur a debt to others that, because it stems from receiving life, is beyond all measure.

We repay that debt as we become "independent moral reasoners," capable of evaluating our own reasons for acting independently of those who, in family and community, aided us in achieving that fully human condition of excellence or virtue. We gain that through the activities that we undertake with others, such as family life, practices such as playing chess or a sport, or working with others for a common good. Those practices have their "internal goods," which we learn to seek with others.

To discharge the debt that we take on during times of dependence, we as independent moral reasoners need others who depend on us. We can't be fully human without depending on others and having others depend on us.

This leads MacIntyre into an extension of the work of Aristotle and Aquinas. He explains that we need virtues of "acknowledged dependence," according to which we accept our own dependence on others and their dependence on us. These are virtues of giving and receiving, and they should orient the family and political o...

By Stephen P. White.

One of the wonders of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy is its ability to completely engross the reader. The world Tolkien conjured up, though obviously fictional and fancifully so, is also unmistakably our world. And this was intentional. Tolkien hoped to create a mythology for his own England. His stories form a kind of literary protoevangelium, a mythical anticipation of the Christian world, that is to say, the real world.

And so Tolkien invented a mythical world, with its own languages, legends, peoples, and histories. Yet in the most fundamental sense, Tolkien did not create Middle-earth so much as he built it on real foundations. The moral stakes are the same as in our world. Virtues and vices are the same. Nobility and grace are the same. Goodness, both in the moral and metaphysical sense, is measured on a deeply human, and indeed Christian, scale. And so for all the hobbits and goblins and elves, his world retains a thoroughgoing realism.

This is why Tolkien could rightly describe his trilogy as a "fundamentally religious and Catholic work," even though the stories themselves contain almost no direct references to religion of any sort.

In many ways, Tolkien's triumph is singular. Yet it shares with all great literature an ability to convey profound truths. Great fiction always does this. Indeed, fiction often does this more effectively than non-fiction, which in its earnest endeavor to adhere to established, verifiable facts or its tendency to overestimate the reliability of human reason, can easily present a view of reality so narrow and partial that it obscures or distorts our grasp of the whole.

Surely this is one reason Christ spoke so often in stories and parables. He wrote no essays or treatises.

And of course, the enduring appeal of Tolkien's stories is mostly due to their being compelling and interesting stories rather than the theory of myth which shaped their writing. (Though the latter may be a prerequisite to the former.) The epic scale of The Lord of the Rings - it is a very long story - allows a reader the time to become thoroughly engrossed.

Alas, all good stories must end (a fact which certain film studios seem loath to acknowledge). In recent years, the Tolkien estate has put out a slew of new additions to the Tolkien legendarium - previously unpublished bits of stories and partial histories. But The Lord of the Rings exists in the past perfect tense: a discrete, finite, and accomplished thing.

The English novelist Patrick O'Brian was no J.R.R. Tolkien. But in O'Brian's series of historical novels - 20 in all, plus one unfinished - I have found, if not a rival to Tolkien's beloved masterpiece, then at least a compliment. O'Brian portrays the careers of Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his friend Stephen Maturin, a physician, naturalist, and intelligence agent, through the Napoleonic Wars.

O'Brian invented no languages or mythologies. His novels are set amongst historical events, sometimes described with slavish accuracy. But in his characters -particularly Aubrey and Maturin - one discovers an astonishing breadth and depth of reflection on human nature.

I've been re-reading the novels in recent months, having aged a bit since I last read them. On this second reading, I'm much more attuned to a similar thing happening to Aubrey and Maturin.

The first novel opens with the protagonists as young men, Aubrey a newly promoted "Master and Commander," and Maturin an impoverished, disaffected would-be revolutionary. Neither is married; both are at the beginnings of their careers (though with very different prospects before them.)

The friendship of Jack and Stephen - an unlikely pair, contrasting in physical appearance, temperament, religion (Stephen is a Catholic), and all interests save a love of music - allows for a fascinating study of human character, but perhaps more so, a study of the effects of time and fortune.

As their friendship deepens, each friend has time ...

By David G. Bonagura, Jr

I was recently asked, again: "Why is the Catholic Church so focused on abortion?" At least this time, it was asked out of curiosity rather than with anger. I can't imagine how such questioners perceive the Church. Do they think she is the institutional form of the Saturday Night Live Church Lady character? Or do they, perhaps, conjure up a Puritan bounty-hunter, keeping an intimacy log?

Whatever it is, they could not be more wrong. In fact, this time it struck me: the Church's approach to abortion shows her greatness and shows her, outside of celebrating the sacraments, at her best.

The Church, as the Body of Christ, touches men and women with the Son's saving love. Sometimes the greatness of the Church can be obscured by the sins of her members. But when handling abortion, with a few sad exceptions, the Church has nobly reflected the Father's justice and mercy, gifts that she exists to extend to all nations.

Abortion is not a modern invention; it's a sin as old as mankind. From her earliest days, the Church has prohibited abortion following the Fifth Commandment. "You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child," we read in the first century Didache. For the modern world obsessed with abortion as the failsafe of sexual libertinism, Pope St. John Paul II echoed this perennial teaching: abortion "always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being." (Evangelium Vitae 62)

But why the prohibition? It reflects a deeper truth: Human beings are the crown of God's Creation. Made in His image and likeness, human beings not only possess an inherent dignity; we are made to live with God forever. And He loves us so much that He has invited us to participate in His eternal plan through marriage and procreation. Human love reflects His divine love; generating new human life maximizes God's love. What God has created no man shall destroy.

For decades, the Catholic Church has proclaimed this Gospel of Life proudly and loudly to a world that has selected death as its culture. Other Christian groups have waffled. A few religions and groups have defended life, but not with the visibility that the Church has. She has not just taught from documents and pulpits. She has taken the Gospel of Life to the streets as the leading presence at the March for Life and at so many other public witnesses and protests. At all of these events, one thing is constant: Catholics praying the Rosary for strength and consolation.

The teaching Church is simultaneously a caring mother extending her embrace to her children. Shining her light into the darkest corners of the world, she has found countless women in hiding. They weep over their lost children and silently berate themselves for their sin. To these anguished women the Church reaches out with the tender compassion of Christ: "Peace be with you. Come and accept the Lord's mercy. He shed His blood for you. He forgives you. Come and return to the kingdom He has created you for."

In Christ, justice and mercy are not opposites. They fuel one another. Because mercy, in going beyond the limits of justice, restores what has fallen to the state of justice. Following her Master, the Church unites the two by restoring broken mothers to the community where they join their fellow Catholics in lifting up the lost innocents to God in prayer.

St. John Paul's Evangelium Vitae and the post-abortion healing ministry called Project Rachel stand today as the highest expressions of the Church's justice and mercy offered in the fight against abortion, the deadliest scourge of the 20th and 21st centuries.

In addition to defending the sanctity of life, the Church has reached out with an additional teaching effort. Women have been the Evil One's chief target as he advances his culture of death. He has fooled many of them into believing that their worth resides in acting contrary to their nature, and that their children in their wombs are no...

By Randall Smith

Debates about the "Catholic character" of the institution often stir up strong passions and debates at Catholic colleges and universities. Other "Catholic" organizations likely should be having these discussions, too. Indeed, when Catholic institutions stop having these discussions, it's usually a bad sign.

Some people think that a "Catholic" university should be just like any other university except with a Catholic chapel somewhere on campus.

A second group believes that a "Catholic" school should probably also teach "ethics" of some sort. Just make sure they understand not to cheat in business, lie on tax forms, or break promises. And be sure they're not racist. Whichever "ethics" tells them not to do that, teach that one.

Members of a third, somewhat smaller group have a sneaking suspicion, which they're usually not comfortable admitting out loud, that it would be good if the students were taught some "Catholic" values. What sort of "Catholic" values? For some, those would also be things like don't cheat in business, lie on tax forms, or break promises. Others might add things like "care for the poor" and be sure not to be racist.

A very small group thinks that the "Catholic" character of the university should permeate the entire education of its students. Students needn't be Catholic to be taught that Catholics hold a certain view of the nature and dignity of the human person; that Catholics believe the universe is the free act by one God who created the universe as an embodiment of His justice and love, and that we in our own way are meant to be instruments of that justice and love, aided by God's grace.

Whether non-Catholics and non-Christians accept these ideas for themselves is up to them, but it doesn't seem like an offense against their freedom to tell them that this is what Catholics believe. They might even find it somewhat compelling. Many have.

So, too, it seems reasonable enough to point out that Catholics believe the truths of reason and the truths of revelation will never contradict one another because both have the one God who is their Author. On this view, the scientist who gets to the truth of the created realm is "reading the Book of Nature" written by the hand of God Himself. And the literature professor who opens up the students' minds and imaginations is also providing something essential to a "Catholic" education. As John Henry Newman, our most recent Doctor of the Church, understood, both are crucial aspects of a "Catholic" education.

And yet, this business of "Catholic character" is often a hard sell, as hard as "selling" the persistent value of a liberal arts education. The battle for both often goes hand-in-hand. Lose the one, and you'll soon lose the other. The university, an institution dedicated to the wisdom attained by gaining a unified vision of all the arts and sciences - "a school of knowledge of every kind," as Newman described it - is, after all, a Catholic invention. Catholics should preserve it.

Some faculty resist talk of "Catholic" character because they think they will be forced to teach Catholic doctrine. But on the view I've proposed, if faculty teach the truth that is appropriate to their discipline with excellence, they already are, whether they know it or not, providing a "Catholic" education.

And quite frankly, it would be foolish to ask them to teach things for which they have not been trained. We don't ask theology professors to teach organic chemistry; so we shouldn't ask organic chemistry teachers to teach theology. It shouldn't be too much to ask, however, that theology teachers at Catholic institutions teach Catholic theology. Many don't.

Those who oppose the institution having a "Catholic character" are usually forgetting something - something that those who say they favor the Catholic character of the institution also sometimes forget. The Catholic character of the institution could be ideological, or it could be ethical, depending on how we underst...

By Brad Miner.

Scholars have long known that Elizabethan drama was a collaborative business. Yes, a play by Ben Johnson, Christopher Marlowe, or William Shakespeare rightly belongs to each named author as the principal hand behind it. But there were often other hands involved as well.

A playwright delivered his script to the Lord Chamberlain's Men, say, and the various writers, directors, and actors (some performing all those tasks) would read and comment on the play. They'd debate the work's clarity, power, eloquence, humor, and, as a company, pound out a finished version the audience would see. Sometimes it didn't end there: if a jibe fell flat in a performance, they'd revise it. It happens on Broadway today - during rehearsals and previews.

We know this happened 400 years ago by analyzing original manuscripts that have survived (more or less) intact. Most are handwritten. (The famous First Folio - a printed version of Shakespeare's plays - appeared seven years after the Bard's death.) One such handwritten manuscript is Sir Thomas More (c. 1591-93).

You may not have heard of it. The principal author has long been thought to be Anthony Munday, who likely collaborated with Henry Chettle, and not just Chettle. Thomas Heywood, Thomas Dekker, and William Shakespeare also had a hand in it. Literally.

There is a three-page section of the manuscript, written in cursive by "Hand D," that graphologists recognize as Shakespeare's handwriting. It's a speech given to More himself, in which the martyr-to-be calls for tolerance of foreign immigrants.

Any play about Thomas More was ill-fated less than a half-century after the death of Henry VIII. More had been martyred on Henry's order (July 8, 1535), and Elizabeth I's censors refused to allow a play about More to be performed.

Shakespeare was at the start of his career and some years from the great fame he'd achieve, although he was noticed: the playwright Henry Greene called him "an upstart Crow." Of course, Shakespeare would prove to be rather more than the country bumpkin Greene disdained.

Anthony Munday was several years older than Shakespeare, and there was an odd connection between them. The militant Protestant Munday had gone to Italy in 1578 as a spy to infiltrate Rome's English seminary, and evidence there (the Venerable English College) indicates that Shakespeare also visited a few years later, although not to spy. Munday then was openly anti-Catholic, and Shakespeare was secretly Catholic, so surely, they couldn't possibly work together! Yet they did.

Sir Thomas More tells the story of More's career as a public official. Its central irony is More's dedication to the King - indeed, his assertion of the necessity of obedience to Henry VIII - and the deadly consequence to More when he was unable to obey Henry in the "King's great matter."

The play begins on May 1, 1517, known to history as Evil May Day, when Londoners rose up against immigrants.

A character grouses about the strangers: "Our country is a great eating country; ergo, they eat more in our country than they do in their own." Another joins in: "Trash, trash; they breed sore eyes, and tis enough to infect the city with the palsey."

A riot is brewing until. . .Enter Thomas More, Sheriff of London. "Peace! Peace," the rabble cry. They'll listen to him. In a speech very much like Marc Antony's in Julius Caesar, More warns, woos, and sways them:

Grant them [the immigrants] removed, and grant that this your noise

Hath chid down all the majesty of England;

Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,

Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,

Plodding to th' ports and costs for transportation,

And that you sit as kings in your desires,

Authority quite silent by your brawl,

And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;

What had you got? I'll tell you: you had taught

How insolence and strong hand should prevail,

How order should be quelled; and by this pattern

Not one of you should live an aged man,

For other ruffians, a...

By Fr. Thomas Kuffel .

Persuasive and powerful words ignite us. Their commanding rhetoric moves our emotions, giving us energy to follow. As powerful as persuasive speech is, however, a question arises. Is it true? Or are we just listening to eloquent arguments drafted by rhetoricians seeking to persuade us to follow?

Sophistry - the formal term for this - uses superficial and fallacious arguments that deceive a person into buying into the cause or pursuing the change. Worse, such arguments manipulate our rational powers by taking weaker or even fallacious arguments, making them seem stronger, deceiving a person from seeing the whole truth. They redefine terms, hiding behind traditional teaching but giving them a different twist.

Such is sophistry, as Pope Benedict XVI explains:

Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word "love" is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. (Caritas in veritate, 3)

This is true, sadly, not only in secular political circles but in religious ones as well.

Sophistry proceeds by not defining terms or giving a clear expression of what it wants to achieve. It promotes ideals rooted in ideologies that seem attractive, plausible, and even admirable. The words rhyme and the arguments rouse, yet the arguments rely on half-truths, not the fullness of the truth.

Truth, as the Catechism states, "carries with it the joy and splendor of spiritual beauty. Truth is beautiful in itself." (No. 2500) Jesus is beauty because He is Truth incarnate. Believers behold Him through the power of the Holy Spirit so that our "faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." (I Corinthians 2:4)

Jesus comes as Truth. He declares Himself to be the "Way, the Truth, and the Life." His truth penetrates our minds, giving us clarity, revealing the whole truth, not just parts. His truth sets us free. No longer deceived by persuasive arguments and eloquent speech, our minds penetrate to the substance of an argument to see if it is harmonious with Truth.

Made for truth, our minds grasp and then hold on to the truths revealed by Jesus. His truth touches our hearts and, once touched, nothing separates us from the love of the Truth, not even "tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword." (Romans 8:35)

Suffering tests the truth. Believers willingly die for it. The Maccabean martyrs, seven brothers, along with their mother, witnessed to the truth and were horrifically killed. They were "ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers." (Maccabees 7:2) Their bold witness encourages all believers to realize the power of the truth. It sets us free from sophistry so that we live in what is, what's real, rather than lies.

So too Jesus, the King of martyrs, witnessed boldly to the truth. He is God and man. This unexpected truth created controversy during His public ministry and still does today. Our minds balk at the idea that an all-powerful, loving God would become human to lift us from the denial of God as the source and fullness of truth.

Yet that is exactly what He did. "Being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:8) Believers confessing Jesus as the God-man should rather die than commit a single mortal sin. St. John Paul understood this deeply. In his declaration on the "Splendor of Truth," he states.

Martyrdom, accepted as an affirmation of the inviolability of the moral order, bears splendid witness both to the holiness of God's law and to the inviolability of the personal dignity of man, created in God's image and likeness. (91)

Being made in God's image means we are made for truth. Truth sets us free from disorder. God's Truth gives us freedom, and freedom gives us the...

By Daniel Guernsey

As part of the Jubilee celebrations, Pope Leo XIV laid out a vision for Catholic education over the last several days. He also declared St. John Henry Newman the 38th Doctor of the Church and the co-patron (with Thomas Aquinas) of Catholic education. These declarations are of great help at this moment, because Newman's vision of education is thoroughly Catholic, integrated, truth- and Christ-centered, and a sure guide for Catholic educators everywhere.

The pope also addressed Jubilee participants and students, delivered a homily, and published an Apostolic Letter during the education events. He hit several traditional issues in Catholic education, but added themes that are his own and worthy of note, particularly a deep appreciation for St. Augustine.

He first emphasized the importance of an Augustinian "interiority," quoting the saint: "Those whom the Spirit does not teach interiorly depart without having learned anything. . . .Do not look without, return to yourself, for truth dwells within you." Students need to develop an interior life, which is hindered by lives lived on screens or superficially in the world. He tells students: "say in your heart: 'I dream of more, Lord; I long for something greater; inspire me!'" Leo has zeroed in on the need for educators to help modern youth focus, interiorize, and turn quietly to the Holy Spirit in their education.

A related and now recognizable papal theme is a prudent use of technology. Leo encourages students to "humanize the digital, building it as a space of fraternity and creativity - not a cage where you lock yourselves in, not an addiction or an escape. Instead of being tourists on the web, be prophets in the digital world!"

He also advises educators that, "Technologies must serve, not replace, the person; they must enrich the learning process, not impoverish relationships and communities." Artificial Intelligence will have an enormous impact in education and human development. And it will take the deep and humane wisdom of the Church to use it properly.

He further emphasizes the importance of a sound Christian "anthropology" (i.e., understanding of the human person) given the rampant confusions of modernity: "The foundation remains the same. . .the person, image of God ( Gen 1:26), capable of truth and relationship."

Clearly, we must educate the whole person (mind, body, and spirit): "desire and the heart must not be separated from knowledge: it would mean splitting the person." Educators need to keep in mind the primacy of students' spiritual development and the learning of virtues that "cannot be improvised."

Finally, he focuses on unity, referring to his Augustinian papal motto, "In Him who is One (Christ), we are One." This is a wonderfully radical Christology, echoed in St. John Henry Newman's educational vision as well.

One of Newman's critical insights in The Idea of a University is:

all branches of knowledge are connected together, because the subject-matter of knowledge is intimately united in itself, as being the acts and the work of the Creator. Hence it is that the Sciences, into which our knowledge may be said to be cast, have multiplied bearings one on another, and an internal sympathy, and admit, or rather demand, comparison and adjustment."

This should encourage a deep appreciation for liberal arts education. Leo offers his support for such a vision with statements such as "The Catholic school is an environment in which faith, culture and life intertwine. It is not simply an institution, but rather a living environment in which the Christian vision permeates every discipline and every interaction." And " Following in the wake of the thought of Saint John Henry Newman, [Catholic Pedagogy] goes against a strictly mercantilist approach that often forces education today to be measured in terms of functionality and practical utility."

Leo's support for Catholic liberal arts education offers a remedy to those who have been seeking something di...

By Anthony Esolen

I take it as given that God commands only what is good for us and forbids only what is bad, which means sometimes also not permitting others to do what's bad. For we are social beings, and permission slides into participation, and participation slides into approval, and approval eventually demands celebration, and sometimes even compulsion.

Solomon's idolatry thus began when he looked outside of Israel for his wives. By the time Ahab was on the throne of Israel with the malevolent Jezebel, loyalty to God might cost you your life. Obadiah, master of Ahab's house, had to hide in a cave one hundred and fifty prophets of the Lord to keep them safe from Jezebel's murderous hatred.

If that was not bad enough, Ahaz the king of Judah, turning toward the gods of Assyria, "cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and shut up the doors of the house of the Lord, and he built altars in every corner of Jerusalem." (2 Chronicles 28:24) No doubt Ahaz considered himself a religious man.

When things have reached such a pass, in order to return to health, we may have to pull up the old evil by the roots. The saintly king Josiah did not simply encourage the worship of the true God, while permitting the well-established and well-heeled idolatry to go on in his midst. As soon as he was of age to command, "he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images," smashing the altars of Baal, reducing the images to dust, and strewing it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. (2 Chronicles 34:3-4)

Then the real renewal could begin. He repaired the Temple, and Hilkiah the high priest, searching in an old disused place, "found a book of the law of the Lord given by Moses." (34:14) Perhaps the priest knew where it was all along. Josiah then read the book before all the people of Jerusalem, and vowed to keep the commandments of the Lord, and demanded that the people do the same.

Josiah's reform had some staying power, continuing through his reign, and being of some force afterwards, though there was backsliding. Only the destruction of Jerusalem and captivity in Babylon sufficed to turn the hearts of the people back to the Lord.

Yet I am sure that before then, people had gotten used to the idolatry. Pluralist and tolerant all! What if small babies were sacrificed to Moloch? Babies don't have a real life, not yet.

What if some people enjoyed the ritual prostitution and sodomy in worship of the Baalim? Hiel may have gone a little too far when he rebuilt Jericho during the reign of Ahab, laying its foundation in the body of his firstborn son Abiram, and planting the gates in the body of his youngest son Segub (1 Kings 16:34), but who could be incensed about it, other than somebody like that half-mad ruffian Elijah?

We are now in the midst of a great and widespread sickness. Children are snuffed out in the womb, between 2,500 and 3,000 every day in the United States. Many people who decry those murders are quite all right with something related to abortion, just as ghastly, and with greater power to destroy human civilization: the deliberate manufacture of children, and the freezing of embryos not wanted.

Marriage is in free-fall, and so are birth rates. Many neighborhoods are empty for most or all of the day, which means that they are neighborhoods no more, but only locations.

Pornography is everywhere. Libraries welcome drag queens to read to little children stories that inseminate their minds with perversion. The unnatural is celebrated, and in many a workplace is thrust upon you so constantly that it is hard to get through a day without paying it compliance at least.

Children are mutilated, and people cheer the mutilation, pretending that a boy can become a girl or a girl can become a boy. The confusion is so widespread and infectious that language itself is twisted into pretzels to comply with it. Imagine having to explain to anyone before yesterday...

By Michael Pakaluk

Some parts of the life of Christ cannot easily be imitated, and yet good Christians find a way. We cannot literally die with Christ each day - grandma could not literally be shot once a day - and yet we can "mortify" ourselves, that is, put to death some desire, or even our own will.

Likewise, we cannot be laid in a tomb each day. And yet we must accept the humility of sleep each day. If day is like life and night is like death, then lying in one's bed is like being laid in the tomb. And indeed, it is easy to conceive of a Christian, suffering from insomnia or early morning terrors, remaining in his bed, even though he is not sleeping, consoling himself with the thought that he is doing good nonetheless, because he is imitating Christ in the tomb.

Sometimes we imitate, or show our aspiration to be like someone, by being nearby. Thus, Mary was near her Redeemer Son at the foot of the Cross. Standing beside Him was the closest she could be. And such nearness is transitive: if I place myself beside Mary, I place myself, too, as close as I can be to the Cross. Similarly, if I place myself near to my Christian brothers and sisters in their grave, as close as I can be to their mortal remains, I place myself as close as I can be to my Lord in the tomb.

The Church began in cemeteries, the catacombs. Pilgrims to Rome figure that they must visit the catacombs there. And yet, why? Were there a greater proportion of saints buried there? Walk through any Christian cemetery today, and you are visiting the graves of many saints. Or is it that the catacombs deserve special affection because they are from "the early Church."

But how confident are you that we are not now still in "the early Church"? I am as concerned as anyone about the apparent impending End Times. But Our Lord told us clearly that we do not know the "when." What if in God's providence the Church is to exist for 20,000 more years, and we right now are neglecting to visit the graves of "the early Christians"?

I can imagine few things more salutary for a family than to visit a cemetery. Sunday may be the best day for it, the "day of rest." When others are shopping or watching games on TV, it is as if the father and mother say, "Children, this is where all of us end up. Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return. Give thought to your last end. What we most want for you is that your lives end well. We have fellowship with others in eternity. Make these the audience before whom you live your life, this 'cloud of witnesses.' "

And at the cemetery, it would not be inappropriate to give thanks - thanks that, in these days of cremation and scattering in which we live - someone cared enough to purchase the ground and place a stone and memorialize for centuries an immortal life lived here for only a few decades.

To give thanks, too, that, while many men have perished at sea - from drownings, or their bodies jettisoned into the deep from gang planks - these bodies here could be placed in solid ground and therefore visited. And thanks as well that while millions of men have been vaporized by artillery at war, these bodies, whole and entire - "temples of the Holy Spirit," as we are told and believe - could lovingly be put to rest as if in a bed.

One might explain civilization by pointing to what is around a village green. The town market, the Church, a school, a civic hall, a bank. But then also: the cemetery.

It becomes a place of accounting: "These are the ones who have lived. They had their day, and they made their mark. What did they do with their portion? Did they make good use of the time allotted to them? Did they discover what is good and pass it on to us? And then what about me? My life is seen. What I have done is definite. What will it look like in the sight of others, when it too is over and taken into account?"

The Church, through its maternal granting of indulgences, teaches us to visit cemeteries. From November 1 through November 8, you and ...

By Francis X. Maier

I've used personal computers for work and play since 1982. My first PC was a Kaypro II. The Kaypro was a high-tech marvel back then, and as a bonus, it was (in theory) "transportable." Sturdy and reliable, it had the user-friendly mobility of a shoulder-fired anti-tank missile. I loved that machine. It was text-based only - ghost-white letters glimmering on a tiny dark screen, with no consoling graphics - but it got the job of word processing, formerly known as writing, done.

Alas, love in the technosphere is fleeting. Along came the GUI, the "graphical user interface," and I switched to Apple and Windows computers. Why, you ask? Isn't it obvious? My Kaypro's gray frumpiness, like a paramour who's suddenly developed warts, couldn't compete with their sexy young operating systems. All those desperate hours of writer's block, staring into an empty black screen without a creative thought in my noggin, could now be filled, in a blaze of rainbow color, with Pac-Man.

In the end though, that romance went south as well. One-way relationships always do. The truth finally dawned on me one day, after another disappointing round of (deadline-evading) Monkey Island. I was paying tech companies hefty fees for the use of software I didn't actually own, couldn't share, and couldn't legally hack. Meanwhile, those same companies were not paying me for the personal data they harvested and then redeployed to sell me more software I wouldn't own, to use on operating systems I didn't understand, which ran on magic boxes whose guts were a mystery.

So I taught myself Linux instead.

Linux is a free operating system with a vast array of free software. And it runs on any computer. Today, Linux comes with optional GUIs that can make it look nearly identical to a Mac or Windows desktop. But the original, and still the most powerful, way of communicating with a computer running Linux or any other operating system is the CLI, or "command line interface."

The CLI is to a GUI as Swahili is to English. They're both a kind of language. And that's where the family resemblance ends. If your mind goes blank at the mention of a routine CLI command like "sudo dnf config-manager -add-repo " you're probably human. But a computer, crunching endless zeroes and ones with mechanical un-humanity, grasps it with unforgiving precision.

Apple and Microsoft disguise the inner beast. Linux programming lets you peek at it under the hood. The workings of a computer aren't magic, but they're also not remotely human. And anyone who imagines that "intelligent machines," should they ever achieve real consciousness, will be human-like and human-friendly, needs his head examined.

So much for the story above. What's the lesson? Simply this: Appearances deceive. And not just with computers. The surface of an advanced, tech-suffused culture may gleam with sunny promise. What goes on under its hood is another matter.

Here's an example. Between half and two-thirds of U.S. adults have gambled, at least occasionally, over the past year. Nearly 8 percent gamble every day. This includes everything from state lotteries and online betting to local casinos. For some, gambling is simple entertainment. For others, it's a serious problem.

Gambling demographics are revealing. Economic class and education matter, but not in a simplistic way. More income often supports more gambling, but lower-income gamblers suffer much higher real-world risks and damage. And they're especially vulnerable to manipulative marketing.

From a Catholic perspective, gambling isn't inherently wrong, so long as it's fair, moderate, and doesn't compromise one's basic needs and responsibilities to others. But in practice, the U.S. gambling industry is organized to produce exactly the opposite results. In 2023, the industry spent more than $730 billion on advertising. In 2025, that figure will exceed $1 trillion. It's impossible to watch televised sports without a hurricane of high-energy, ...