On the Square Today

Elizabeth Scalia on how the sons of Caesar are still pulling Peter down :

The sons of Caesar appear today in the op-ed pages of leading newspapers, where the better classes of people—the self-proclaimed smarties who amuse themselves and their circles by calling themselves “collapsed” Catholics—are urging other smart Catholics to help “collapse” that which they believe to be teetering, to come away from stubborn, stupid old Peter, the thick-head who seems to have taken Jesus literally when he spoke of being a “sign of contradiction.”

Also today, Sebastian White, O.P., on the theology of the soda ban :

People often talk about Catholic guilt, but I’d say gym guilt is at least as prevalent. I meet people all the time who feel like a moral failure if they miss a workout or, in a moment of weakness, cave in and eat carbs after 7:00 p.m. And in almost comical parody of religious devotion, the health god beckons its shamefaced disciples to run back to the gym and confess to the trainer: “That’ll be ten push-ups and ten sit-ups; now make a good act of contrition.”