The Definitive Guide to Tea
33 minutes ago
How will the Church be healed? Engage w/some of the best Catholic minds in the country including Cardinal DiNardo @USCCB, @bronwenmcshea, Carlos Eire @Yale & @CatholicUniv prof. to discuss historical & theological background of the crisis #HealingtheBreachhttps://t.co/9xwPuU9a2K pic.twitter.com/1BpY6s4VOp
— IHE (@HumanEcologyCUA) January 22, 2019
To The Book Community: An Apology pic.twitter.com/SCdYMOSLOA
— Amélie Wen Zhao (@ameliewenzhao) January 30, 2019
I’ve noticed lately at my local Orthodox parish, we’re starting to see more young adults showing up, especially men. It’s certainly not because Orthodoxy is about machismo. It’s partly because Orthodoxy gives young men something to struggle against, and it doesn’t cater to pop culture fashion. It’s spiritually and morally serious, and gives people something to struggle for. Again: you can’t fight Something with Nothing. So much American Christianity is … nothing.
One immense challenge to Christians is to find a way to fight this scapegoating, and to endure it when it can’t be fought, without returning hatred for hatred. I can imagine that it would be easy for those Covington boys to be tempted by far-right white nationalism, especially given the disgraceful spectacle of some of their own woke Catholic bishops throwing them under the bus. (This is what Girard meant when he talked about churches today being “vulnerable to the ongoing blackmail of contemporary neo-paganism.”) But that would be morally wrong, and even a betrayal of the Gospel. When we lose sight of the fact that we ourselves can be part of the mob, and start to see ourselves as innocent by virtue of our identity (racial, sexual, religious, etc.), then we fall into the same scapegoating mechanism that has captured those who hate us.