Tag Archive for virtue

Drifting to Distraction

February 1, 2015 Intellectual Formation, Moral Action No comments

Kickoff for Super Bowl XLIX is only 90 minutes away. Our family, like many others, will watch the game. Do we have any dog in this fight? Not so much. It’s worth asking, “Why even watch?” It’s a great question, and personally, I have no good answer beyond “family tradition.”  Every year we sit down together; pick a side to pull for; enjoy glutenous, fatty, sugary foods; drink soda and beer; and laugh — or more often cringe — at the the commercials and half-time show. We just do. Artemus suggested that sport may be our last American idol. He may

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Do No Harm: More Evidence of the Slippery Slope

January 25, 2015 Moral Action 6 comments

In his most recent post, Didymus shared these words from the Old Testament’s Book of Sirach: “The path of sinners is smooth stones that end in the depths of the nether world” (Sir 21:10). Conservatives are often mocked by their opponents for citing the proverbial slippery slope to rationalize not budging on key issues: if any  seemingly little thing changes, the culture will slide into the abyss and civilization as we know it will be in danger. This “sky is falling” characterization is true at times and might be humorous if the abyss were not yawning before us as we scramble for a foothold. Last

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The Dignity of Dust: Humility and the Value of Inequality

January 26, 2014 Featured, Intellectual Formation 2 comments

“I am a deeply superficial person.” – Andy Warhol In an era of Instagram and Twitter, image and sound bites, our society is increasingly obsessed with the superficial. And although the experts will tell you that we are more aware than ever that we are being manipulated, mere awareness is not enough. If we recognize the excrement around us but continue to wallow, we are pigs, not men, and the stench becomes more intimately ours. In fact, not only are we collectively obsessed with the superficial, but we consistently overreact to it in the most absurd and conflicting ways. Consider

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Speechless…..

August 16, 2013 Intellectual Formation, Moral Action 3 comments

I recently had this article pop up on my Kindle USA Today application. Needless to say, I could not believe that 1) a so-called journalist would actually write something so ridiculous; and 2) that a media outlet would publish it. Has our family structure been so decimated that one could seriously promote stuff like this? So I step back and think, the concept of government-sanctioned legal homosexual unions probably started out the same way. Start rolling the ball up the hill, and at some point the ball is at the top and it starts rolling down the other side. Articles like these

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Another Catholic Site; Another Manly Catholic

August 9, 2013 Featured, Intellectual Formation No comments

Now I may sound like a Bible beater yelling up a revival at a river crossing camp meeting, but that don’t change the truth none. There’s right and there’s wrong. You got to do one or the other. You do the one and you’re living. You do the other and you may be walking around, but you’re dead as a beaver hat. – John Wayne as Davy Crockett I discovered The Catholic Gentleman blog via friends’ Facebook posts in the past week or so, and while I haven’t read enough there to endorse it wholeheartedly, I enjoy what I see

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The Dark Knight Redeemed?

August 7, 2013 Featured, Intellectual Formation 3 comments

In case you missed it: author Bradley Birzer reveals his love for Batman on The Imaginative Conservative web site. I don’t know Batman the way he does — but Birzer’s take on Batman, Bruce Wayne, and the Wayne family as embodiments of Christian virtue, natural aristocracy, and Western role models might explain why a guy like me, who didn’t grow up on comics, loves the Dark Knight films. And I hadn’t realized the Wayne family (like the Bond family) was Catholic. Worth a read!

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