A prayer frequently offered during worship: “May our country’s leaders end their bickering and work to solve the country’s problems.”
No doubt this petition is innocently intended. However, its premises seem to be as follows.
1. Politicians quarrel not because they have fundamentally opposed views of what their job is and how to do it, but because they don’t want to do their job.
Monday – student letter day!
Question:
This question is from a doctoral candidate at the University of Maastricht, Netherlands.
Mondays are reserved for letters, and yes, these are both real letters. I received them some years ago when I was writing an online column just for college students.
I think it is time to stop cowering. Why was it so easy for barbarians to storm the gates of marriage? In great part because the institution’s so-called defenders were paralyzed by fear of being on the “wrong side of history.”
Objection 5. Even if we do all know the general moral principles, the only reason we all know them is that we are all taught them. If you could find someone who had not been taught them, you would find that he didn’t know them either.
A young priest I know gave a strongly worded homily about the sin of voting for politicians who push abortion and the destruction of the institution of marriage. He named names. Most members of the congregation were supportive, but some walked out or complained to the bishop.
