On the Square Today

Patrick J. Deneen on the Progressive commitment to a sterile future :

How does the unquestioned Progressive commitment to human mastery over sex and reproduction fit with Progressive criticism of technological control of the natural world? The very same environmentalist commitments that lead to criticisms of techno-optimism in its application to nature do not appear to extend to human nature, including human reproduction. This juxtaposition is at least puzzling, if not outright contradictory

Also today, George Weigel on U.S. Catholics and the origins of religious liberty :

Several months ago, I came across a two-volume history of the Church in the United States I’d never read before: Theodore Maynard’s The Story of American Catholicism , first published in 1941. Maynard was not a professional historian and his telling of the American Catholic story has a bit more of the apologetic edginess of early-20th century Catholicism than a 21st-century audience might find congenial.