Katie van Schaijik

Who or what cares?

Feb. 8 at 10:00am

Friend Justine links to this Fox news story about a college in Pennsylvania that has a vending machine where students can purchase "emergency contraception", the so-called Plan B or Morning After pill.

I was especially struck by this defense offered by one senior: "It's a way for students to get the help or care they need".

Help and care from a vending machine?!  

You know what the real "message" of the machine to young women is? No one cares about you and what's happening in your life.  No one wants to deal with any consequences.  You're on your own.

John Crosby

Solidarity

Feb. 8 at 7:00am

Editor’s note: What follows is the last of a 10 part series on the personalist philosophy of Pope John Paul II written some years ago for Lay Witness Magazine. We asked and received permission to re-publish the series here, to give fresh occasion for discussion of timeless truths.

"Solidarity" was not only the name of the famous Polish labor union which, inspired by the person and teaching of Pope John Paul II, precipitated the non-violent collapse of Communism in Poland and throughout Eastern Europe. Solidarity is also a term that expresses one of the great themes of Pope John Paul's Christian personalism.

Let us return to that extreme individualism discussed in a previous column. That …

Katie van Schaijik

Christianity in the news

Feb. 7 at 11:26am

The internet is abuzz with stories of the clash between the Obama Adminstration and the Catholic Church over the new healthcare mandate. And today in the Corner, I find two items drawing attention to other flashpoints in the conflict between Christianity and the Zeitgeist.

A plug for Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Newsweek cover story on Islamic persecution of Christians, in which she condemns the media's "conspiracy of silence."

An account of Eric Metaxes' speech at the National Prayer breakfast and its implicit challenge to President Obama.

And then comes the news that the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has today declared California Proposition 8 limiting marriage to one man and one woman …

Katie van Schaijik

Reflections on silence

Feb. 5 at 1:34pm

Pope Benedict has prepared a beautiful reflection on the importance of silence for the upcoming "World Communications Day."

It is so packed-full of personalist themes that I have to resist the urge to quote the entire thing.  Instead I'll limit myself to this one rich paragraph.

Silence is an integral element of communication; in its absence, words rich in content cannot exist. In silence, we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves; ideas come to birth and acquire depth; we understand with greater clarity what it is we want to say and what we expect from others; and we choose how to express ourselves. By remaining silent we allow the other person to speak, to express him or …

John Crosby

Embodiment and Morality

Feb. 1 at 7:00am

Editor’s note: What follows is the ninth of a 10 part series on the personalist philosophy of Pope John Paul II written some years ago for Lay Witness Magazine. We asked and received permission to re-publish the series here, to give fresh occasion for discussion of timeless truths.

In our last installment we got acquainted with Pope John Paul II's teaching on the embodiment of human persons. We saw how strongly he affirms the destiny of the human body to embody persons, to be personalized by them, and to be drawn up into the lives of persons. He does not speak of the body as something "merely biological," but speaks instead of its capacity to serve as a "sacrament" of the human person. …

Katie van Schaijik

And three for Yuval Levin!

Jan. 30 at 12:30pm

Yuval Levin has an exceptionally informative and thought-provoking item in the Corner today on the Obama Administration's demand that private Catholic Institutions provide coverage for birth control and sterilizations.

Levin shows that the limits of the "conscience clause" and at the same time exposes the real threat this regulation entails: the destruction of institutions that mediate between the individual and the government.

This is a very deep and dangerous abuse of power.  We had better gear up for the fight of our lives.

In this arena, as in a great many others, the administration is clearly determined to see civil society as merely an extension of the state, and to clear out civil …

Katie van Schaijik

Three cheers for Bishop Olmsted!

Jan. 29 at 10:22am

Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix has become the first in the nation to openly defy the Obama Administration's demand that all health insurance plans cover birth control and sterilizations. May he be the first of many. Article here.

Katie van Schaijik

Moral confusion run amok

Jan. 27 at 9:16am

It's always jarring to hear moral indignation and moral terminology being deployed in the defense of moral evil. Here is National Organization for Women President, Terry O'Neill, answering a reporter's question about whether the President has a right to dictate that faithful Catholics pay for emplyees' contraception and sterilizations through their health care plans. In fact, she asserts righteously, President Obama has "an obligation" to force them.

One can't listen without feeling,

1) that this is a wretchedly unhappy woman.

2) that she supposes she has just delivered a crushingly dispositive argument instead of a steaming mass of moral confusion.

But, the state of culture and …

John Crosby

Embodiment

Jan. 25 at 7:00am

Editor’s note: What follows is the eighth of a 10 part series on the personalist philosophy of Pope John Paul II written some years ago for Lay Witness Magazine. We asked and received permission to re-publish the series here, to give fresh occasion for discussion of timeless truths.

I began my last installment by saying that personalist philosophy can go astray in different ways, and I proceeded to show how in the contemporary world it commonly goes astray by becoming too individualistic. Now I want to begin the present installment by mentioning a deviant form of personalism that will come as a surprise to most of my readers: Personalism commonly goes astray by becoming too …

Katie van Schaijik

Ronda Chervin’s conversion story

Jan. 24 at 3:52pm

I just received an email from Catholics for Israel with its January line up of articles.  Among them is the amazing and beautiful conversion story of friend and Personalist Project member Ronda Chervin.

I love the incipient personalism of her existential questioning even at a young age.

Junior High School English class. The assignment: write a page about what you want to be when you grow up. It had to be done on the spot. "How can I know what I want to be, if I don't know the meaning of life?" I wrote spontaneously. I don't think I would have remembered this precocious philosophical question, a prophecy of my later choice to become a philosophy professor, had the teacher not graded it A …

Katie van Schaijik

Flight from reality

Jan. 23 at 1:38pm

T.S. Eliot once wrote, "man cannot bear too much reality."

I've been meditating on this a lot in recent years--realizing its truth more and more, and finding it a key to understanding various human situations I come across.  

In his post on forgiveness below, Michael Healy mentions one especially common case of reality avoidance: the dishonesty of the wrong-doer about his responsibility for the wrong.  

A searing article on Roe v. Wade at realclearpolitics.com (hat tip Barbara Nicolosi) today shows that it happens not only on an individual level, but also at the communal level. [My bold]

If human embryonic life is morally worthy of protection, we have permitted sixty million murders under …

Katie van Schaijik

A personalist approach to the Pro-life cause

Jan. 23 at 9:40am

The 39th sorrowful anniversary of Roe vs. Wade is a good occasion for high-lighting an important paper by friend and fellow personalist, Peter J. Colosi.  In it he cautions pro-lifers against a growing trend in the movement, viz. a too exclusive reliance on empirical science to the neglect of deeper, philosophical issues.  He freely grants that scientific developments making it undisputably evident that even the tiniest zygote is a distinct and absolutely unique human being have been a great benefit to our cause.  

Nonetheless, the trend to use the force of that argument as the sole argument is dangerous, for it tends to miss important dimensions of reality related to the meaning of …

Michael Healy

Forgiveness: What Completes It?  What Cripples It?

Jan. 21 at 9:10pm

As the title implies, I want to offer two thoughts on forgiveness.  

First, forgiveness is really not complete until the full trust of the love relationship is reestablished.  Thus there would seem to be two main stages or challenges to the process of forgiveness: 1) achieving (and extending) forgiveness in the first place for a serious wound or offense and then 2) achieving the rebuilding of the full bridge of mutual love and trust.  If you have forgiven a person or persons, but no longer rejoice in their presence the way you once did, no longer have an intimacy and openness with them as you once did,  keep them at arms’ length emotionally, much less if you do not want to even be with …

Michael Healy

What Newman and Aristotle mean by the Lesbian Canon

Jan. 21 at 12:33pm

I appreciate Jules' wonderful quote from Newman (below) on the education of adolescents!  It is of prudential importance for universities and their student life policies, of course, but also for all parents, most of whom have a natural tendency toward overprotectiveness. But it is especially relevant--I would think--for homeschoolers.

Perhaps in the modern day, however, it is important to clarify what Newman is talking about when he refers to Aristotle's comments on the "Lesbian Canon" from Nicomachean Ethics, 5, 14.  Thus I append the explanation below with a line from the text and the accompanying footnote by Francis Lieber:

chapter xxix.: advantages of institutional government, …

Jules van Schaijik

John Henry Newman on the education of adolescents

Jan. 21 at 8:27am

A discussion we had in our class on Courtship in the Christian Vision, made me go back to this great quote from Newman, which I found in Fergal McGrath’s Newman’s University: Idea and Reality (pp. 338 – 339). It is far too good an example of Newman’s personalist wisdom not to share it here.

I will not comment on the passage other than by fully agreeing with McGrath, who introduces it by saying that “lengthy as the passage is, it deserves quotation in full, as saying about all that is worth saying of the difficult and ever-recurring problem of combining liberty and discipline in adolescent education.”

It is assuredly a most delicate and difficult matter to manage youths, and those lay …

Katie van Schaijik

Conjugal love is misunderstood if its gift character is overlooked

Jan. 19 at 8:23am

One of my New Year's resolutions was to publish at least three articles beyond the Personalist Project.  One down, two to go.

It's short and incomplete in various ways, but it makes a point that is all too easily overlooked when Christian leaders teach about courtship: viz. that the love between a man and a woman is a gift and a mystery, not a creation of the will.

John Crosby

Self-Donation

Jan. 18 at 7:00am

Editor’s note: What follows is the seventh of a 10 part series on the personalist philosophy of Pope John Paul II written some years ago for Lay Witness Magazine. We asked and received permission to re-publish the series here, to give fresh occasion for discussion of timeless truths.

Personalist philosophy can go astray in different ways; in the contemporary world it commonly goes astray by becoming too individualistic. This happens when I think of persons too much in terms of the rights with which each person is armed, and when I think of others mainly as potential intruders into my sphere of rights, so that I approach them with suspicion and mistrust. As an individualist of this kind, …

Michael Healy

I Actually Remember Rosa Parks

Jan. 16 at 7:07am

One day this past week, after morning Mass, a friend and fellow professor from Franciscan University of Steubenville casually remarked that this year (2012) marked the 50^th anniversary of the opening of Vatican Council II.  I responded, “That’s horrible!  Don’t tell me that!”  He was a bit shocked until I told him it wasn’t Vatican II that was horrible, but the fact that I can remember it—first hand!  I’ll turn 62 later this year.  I didn’t want to be old enough to remember the 50^th anniversary of anything!

I immediately had two other thoughts.  First, in 2 more years we’ll be subjected worldwide to the 50^th anniversary of Beatlemania.  I still recall vividly my sister and me sitting …

Katie van Schaijik

Two new personalist profiles

Jan. 14 at 12:15pm

We've added two more personalist profiles to the collection at the "about" pages: Soren Kierkegaard and Gabriel Marcel.  

John Crosby

On a certain self-love

Jan. 14 at 10:54am

According to the conventional wisdom, it is easy to love oneself and hard to love others, and it is easy to hate others but impossible to hate oneself. But I have in mind a certain self-hatred that afflicts almost everyone, and a certain self-love that is every bit as difficult as the most generous love of others. Pope Benedict was pointing to this natural self-hatred and this difficult self-love when he wrote: “Is it good that I exist? Is it good that anything at all exists? Is the world good? How many persons today would dare to affirm this question from the heart–to believe it is good that they exist? That is the source of the anxiety and despair that incessantly affect …