Comments for The Shell Game in Modern Culture at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 7 out of 7 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Sat, 25 May 2013 09:49:10 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-shell-game-in-modern-culture.html#comment-10646 Brian, Either the Enlightenment has failed or it has not. That some things have gone right in America has much less to do with the Enlightenment and more to do with the traditional ethics of the Great Western Civilization shouldn’t be too far a stretch. When you mention what you will and will not listen to, it strikes me that perhaps you learned too well from the public schools to “think for yourself.” Telling someone to think for themselves is like telling someone to breath air. My dear mentor told me “don’t teach children to think for themselves, teach them to think correctly!” Good luck Brian. - Achilles Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:52:21 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-shell-game-in-modern-culture.html#comment-10640 Has the Enlightenment experiment failed? I'll listen to level-headed, honest arguments. I won't listen to smears of liberals as demons or as the Enlightenment as pure evil. Look at the Civil Rights movement. Look at the abolition of slavery. Look at the movements to allow women into public life. Look at the movements for health care and decent labor. - Brian A. Cook Thu, 29 Mar 2012 05:42:43 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-shell-game-in-modern-culture.html#comment-10626 Add to the sources of hope: the Dominican order in the US, especially in the eastern province, is strong, and is growing exceptionally strong. I have also been informed that in twenty years we will see a wholly renewed and reinvigorated Society of Jesus. - Tony Esolen Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:21:19 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-shell-game-in-modern-culture.html#comment-10622 Brian A. What odd things you say. We Catholics know that all humans are worth more than the entire physical universe and that the very image of God in which we were created is everyone’s single greatest redeeming quality. However, most things about the “spirit of the age” are anti-Christ, especially the leftist liberal politics. The Enlightenment is worse than pure darkness because it gives those of us with a lesser intellectual capacity the impression that it is in fact light when it is not. The Enlightenment experiment failed and as it erodes the pillars of our society and continues to siphon away all the moral capital amassed by our forefathers, it is only a matter of time before we see our civilization collapse. You have misunderstood what the good Fr. Bramwell is saying, but you are seeing it through very tinted lenses. Good luck to you Brian. - Achilles Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:52:35 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-shell-game-in-modern-culture.html#comment-10590 "...justice, peace, and conservation of creation – words that call for essential moral values of which we are in real need..." Clearly he sees that liberals are human beings who do have redeeming qualities. Clearly he sees that the "spirit of the age" is not "the spirit of the antichrist," that is, completely and totally opposed to Christ. The Enlightenment is not pure darkness. I've been trying to point out that fact on many different Catholic websites. - Brian A. Cook Tue, 27 Mar 2012 06:44:40 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-shell-game-in-modern-culture.html#comment-10550 I wish I could imagine a movement within the Church's intellectual organs to understand the Enlightenment thoroughly, take what is valid from it, and chuck the rest, but I cannot: the Land-o'-Lakes declaration of the late 60s effectively severed the Church's great American colleges and universities from the Magisterium, saying in effect that given a choice between fidelity to the Church or fidelity to a secular mindset inimical to the Church, "respectability" would be chosen ten times out of ten. The good news is that small Catholic colleges that did not acquiesce to this disastrous capitulation are imparting superb educations and graduating students who are deeply informed in and by the Faith and deeply educated, too: Thomas Aquinas, Dallas, Steubenville, Belmont Abbey College, St. Thomas More, Christendom, Wyoming Catholic College all come to mind, and I am sure there are many others. Their students do just fine in the great graduate schools, thank you, and not at the cost of checking their faith at the door. We owe the leaders of these schools an immense debt of gratitude. The major religious orders, too, are in disastrous shape, having made the same capitulation to the spirit of the age, which is, let us be brutally honest, the spirit of antichrist. The Jesuits as such are hardly worth discussing, save for the great ones here and there who live in full fidelity to their founder's charism, such as our own beloved Fr. Schall; the sisters who run the hospitals consider themselves more or less a counter-Magisterium and have no difficult whatsoever publicly contradicting the shepherds of the Church, who take no steps to reel them in. The good news here, however, is those orders struggle to find members -- who wants to live a life of half-measures, especially in the spiritual life? -- while the new orders, fully faithful to the Magisterium and to the ancient canons of religious life, are bursting at the seams. One looks to the Dominican Sisters of Nashville, the contemplative orders of traditional usages -- the Carmelite nuns of New Jersey, the sisters in Michigan, the Carmelite monastery in Wyoming, Christ in the Desert, in New Mexico, Clear Creek Abbey. God is not finished building the Church in America, and His word never goes out in vain: it will always find a home somewhere, and build and grow within that home. So there are grounds for hope. Our Lord Jesus promises the fullness of life to those who seek it fully and without reservation, and his promise holds true for all time. As our Holy Father writes in Jesus of Nazareth, " if you follow the will of God, you know that in spite of the terrible things that will happen to you, you will never lose a final refuge" (p. 38). One has to note the sober realism of that statement -- true discipleship does not exempt one from terrible things happening, and it even can entail them, as the servant is not above the Master. What we don't know is whether the landmark colleges, universities, and religious orders are reformable: they will not turn until the culture itself turns, and that could be a very long time in coming. Or not: they may never turn back to a full and deep embrace of the Magisterium. Or, depending upon the arrival and the effects of the springtime of the New Evangelization, they may indeed turn back and sooner rather than later. We just don't know, and, may I suggest that except for those of their alumni who are faithful to Church and school, it doesn't really matter. What we do know is how to form ourselves in the perennial philosophy and in the Magisterium of the Church. Literature abounds and thanks to the Internet we have daily access to the teachings of our Holy Father and the bishops in communion with him. And we do know there are people who caught in the vicissitudes and uncertainties of life are still looking for an anchor and a rock on which to build or to rest. There should be all kinds of groups springing up to study the faith, right in the domestic churches throughout our lands, and in faithful parishes, too. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overtaken it." Those words are true even if vast portions of the Church have capitulated to the darkness. And so, despite the darkness of the hour, and the growing darkness descending upon us, I choose to embrace hope. - Dave Sun, 25 Mar 2012 03:51:20 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/the-shell-game-in-modern-culture.html#comment-10549 The enlightenment is built on some faulty supports. The cornerstone is probably the idea that if knowledge is detailed enough, we can manage outcomes expertly. It assumes that we can know more than we do (and ignores free will and creativity) and thus that we can know the consequences of our choices and evaluate them correctly. Post-modern thinking (and contemporary physics) has revealed the faults in the premise as has the experience of history. The green movement is a perfect example of unpredicted consequences and contradictory initiatives. Once morality has been politicized, it devolves quickly into legalism and moral patronage. The law becomes technical - all letter and no spirit. It becomes impossibly intricate and requires the equivalent of Pharisees to interpret and apply to the “masses”. Bills in Congress run to thousands of pages. Their yoke is indeed burdensome, and the modern Pharisees exempt themselves from the effort they impose on others. We are living in a time of great biblical resonance. Thank you father Bramwell for the reminder. - Other Joe Sun, 25 Mar 2012 02:38:29 +0100