On the Square Today

Elizabeth Scalia on Moses and the Gipper and the End of America :

It’s not coming back because half the country didn’t want it, or didn’t even recognize what it had and therefore won’t miss it, and because for young adults and the generations coming up the backbone of conservative theory—rugged individualism, privacy, minimal government—is a complete non-sequitur; it does not compute. Their parents hovered and arranged play-dates and videotaped their every move; they went through public schools working on group projects rather than writing individual reports; they are less acquainted with an omniscient God than previous generations, and comfortable instead with the omnipresent camera and interfaces—the strange god of All Media, Interactive.

Also today, Philip Bess on why New Urbanism needs Benedictines :

What would bringing Benedictines to Seaside accomplish? The main achievement would be a permanent worshipping community in Seaside, the effect of which would be to animate Seaside’s currently understated acknowledgement of the sacred order within which Seaside exists. This is because the most appropriate human acknowledgement of and response to the sacred is to worship, especially to offer as gifts things in and by which we ask the sacred to be present among us: prayers, song, bread and wine, acts of justice and charity, church buildings, cities—and sometimes, consecrated religious life. But why Benedictines? After all, there are many disciplined worshipping communities besides these Catholic Christian ones, and holy men and women of many historic religious traditions can no doubt be recognized as such.