On the Square Today

William Doino Jr. on imaginary saints :

We tend to love saints—provided they are safely dead.

When they are alive, kicking up a storm, challenging us to live out the Gospel, they act like a thorn in our conscience.

The saints inspire awe. There is nothing more holy—or terrifying—than reading what St. Catherine of Siena wrote about wayward clergy in her searing Dialogue; few sermons in Christendom equal the power of St. Alphonsus Liguori’s on the enticements of the world; and how many of us would have the courage of a St. Charles Borromeo, who, as he implemented the reforms of the Council of Trent, had his life threatened multiple times?

Also today, Matthew Cantirino’s lament for Georgetown University :

There is not much ‘center’ holding at Georgetown; precious little common frame of reference, shared culture and experience, or underlying first principles to which parties can defer debates about ultimate ends. In the absence of that, of course, rush the watery slogans: “dialogue” (nothing is said about with whom, on what terms, or to what goal this ought to be pursued); vague intimations of humanitarianism and globalism; and “pluralism” (a noble word drained of its essential basis in intractable difference).