Pillar

The Human Person

The first pillar of a decent society is respect for the human person, which recognizes that all individual human beings have dignity simply because of the kind of being they are: animals whose rational faculties allow them to know, love, reason, and communicate. It also recognizes that human beings are persons, members of the human family who flourish in a community that respects their fundamental rights and who long to discover transcendent truths about the nature of reality.

Learn more about the Human Person: get your free eBook today!

My generation needs help discerning what the good life truly is.
I wish my elders knew that, in the face of what seems to be an increasingly frightening technocratic reality, we want to live free from deceit and as true humans. 
If stillborn children could inspire one of the most-loved children’s books in the twentieth century, then maybe a grandpa with dementia will inspire one of the best stories in the twenty-first. 
As parents, may we each choose what is real, no matter the cost, that we may come to know real love and pour it out for our children.
Christians need to realize that there is no scapegoat on this earth that can be sacrificed to bring us a peaceful end to the evils we encounter.
America has long led the world in economic success, entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation. We can and we should lead in human flourishing. To do so, we must invest in the fundamental ingredients of flourishing: marriage and children.
If my younger self had understood even this much—that discernment begins with recognizing one’s gifts and offering them, detached from any personal agenda, for God’s purposes—I might have spent a little less time anxiously waiting for the clouds to part. I might have spent more time offering the little I had, trusting that God could use it for his purposes.
Individuals who want to marry must choose from options that lack the spontaneity and spark many hope for: singles groups, dating apps, speed dating. One is left wondering whether a bad script is preferable to no script at all. And well-intentioned people—mostly married—offer all kinds of conflicting advice about how to date to find a spouse. I aim to tackle these seeming contradictions in order to show how each can be true and helpful for the Tough Mudder that is twenty-first-century dating.
We make friends with particular people in particular circumstances, and for this reason we should not allow ourselves to be distracted by what is remote and abstract. We should delight in and give thanks for those we can know, love, and enjoy in reality. 
Justice Sotomayor’s analysis depends on many assumptions that she does not articulate or defend. This lack of clarity leads to unnecessary confusion and inconsistency. In more ways than one, Justice Sotomayor is changing the subject.  
Over the past few decades, we have seen incredible progress in the fight against HIV, hunger, and other infectious diseases. We could choose to either accelerate that progress and demonstrate American greatness, or to shrink back from the moral responsibilities that love places on us. 
The English have lost their ancient grit, and with it, their decency. 
Much ink has been spilled on charting the roots and causes of hate and its diverse manifestations. Yet in all these intellectual analyses and sociological investigations, one cause has largely escaped notice: the simple pleasure of hate.  
What is settled is that the Jewish people are beloved by God, that Catholics are spiritual Semites as they are grafted into Israel for their very existence, and that Catholics are committed to listening and learning from the Jewish people as they enjoy God’s covenantal fidelity and love. 
Catholic men are called to follow the Lord Jesus, to live not lives of domination that demand submission from others but lives where their strength and talent are offered in self-sacrifice for those God has given them to serve. The virtuous mean between those extremes is the Way of the Cross, the path by which you find your life in losing it, the way by which you enter into joys you didn’t know existed on the far side of burdens you didn’t know you could bear.
For believers eager to have a voice in a secular liberal society or simply to find peace and a home in such a society, and thus to avoid dispiriting “polarization,” Rauch’s appeal appears to resonate with a surprising power. 
How might our society change if we understood parenting as a skilled occupation?
To be sure, there remain some true-believing via media Protestants who are morally and theologically conservative and continue to attempt to strike the balance between high and low. But whatever their future, they will not be resuming their place at the commanding heights of the culture.
The Christian community is emboldened to press forward with confidence in discerning what is true and good, through the guidance of the Spirit.
If the DEI label is losing traction and institutions are substantively evolving, what, if anything, will replace DEI?
Sound religion overcomes and cures pain and suffering when it can justly be solved, but sound religion notes the inevitability of suffering, the moral inadmissibility of some “solutions,” and does not think pain renders a good life impossible. Suffering can be redeemed and caught up into a pattern of goodness, beauty, and purpose; even into a flourishing life.
Bishop Barron's participation in the White House Commission is not in service of a legislative agenda, but of a deeper witness: that religious liberty is not the product of political will, but the recognition of an antecedent truth about the human person. For this he is uniquely well-suited.
Happiness is not an achievement; it’s a gift. Children are a blessing. Forget your smartphones, ambitions, and quibbles with your neighbors. Take the risk, open your heart, and the boundless love of a child will move you to tears.  
As a mother, I am coming to understand more concretely—and thus more deeply—what self-emptying love must look like, and thus I am coming to appreciate Christ's coming more deeply.

Get your free eBook for The Human Person

"*" indicates required fields

Get your free eBook for Sexuality & Family

Get your free eBook for Politics & Law

Get your free eBook for Education & Culture

Get your free eBook for Business & Economics