I have always found Charles Taylor’s writings to be insightful and stimulating. This was especially true of his Massey lectures The Malaise of Modernity and of the earlier, weightier study on which these were based, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. So it was with eager expectation...
There is no truth in the allegation that I’m against all liberals. I am, for instance, in favour of the liberal arts. Thanks to the other liberals, however, our “systems of education” have collapsed, along with our broken families, to a level where the term must have little meaning. The...
Blessed Anthony Grassi, superior of the Oratory in Fermo for thirty six years, from 1635 until his death in 1671, once said that he did not know how to be severe. He was indeed celebrated for a gentleness that was also potent, we might call it generative: a capacity to...
When in the Gospel our Lord tells us to take the lowest place, we shouldn’t assume that being raised to a higher place will sooner or later follow automatically, as a kind of reward. In the parable, the host may say to us ‘Friend, go up higher’; it does not...
According to the Letter to the Hebrews, Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. In other words, Faith appears to be a contradiction. How can we be assured of what we hope for? Assurance comes from possession, and possessing something means we no...