- Reihan Salam, “The Burning Woman on the Train — and the Future of My City“:
When I first saw the horrific news pop up on my phone, I was with my small children on the 2 train heading uptown. As the images came through—not long after the flames finally died down—we were on another subway heading to the American Museum of Natural History, one of the most celebrated museums not just in this city, but in any city.
That Sunday spoke to the strange dissonance of living in New York City.
- Jeff Jacoby, “A woman died in agony as onlookers pressed ‘Record‘”:
I can understand how a bystander on that F train platform, confronted with the fearsome sight of a woman burning alive, might hold back from doing something out of fear of catching fire, or from lack of anything with which to smother the flames, or from sheer paralyzing panic. But to let her burn in order to record a video? That isn’t something people do in order to avoid trouble. It is something people do when they have been warped by a voyeuristic culture that turns them into spectators, and their fellow humans into mere spectacles.
- William Galston in the WSJ, “A New Year Isn’t a Blank Slate“:
A familiar maxim cited by Pope John XXIII should guide us: “In essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity.” A well-ordered government can secure unity wherever necessary and liberty whenever possible. But only individuals can provide charity, which requires us to tolerate those whose views differ from ours, and to be slow to attribute malign motives to one another.
Treating others more charitably won’t lead to the perfection of our souls or of our society. But it’s within our power to try, and nothing would do more to bring healing in our troubled times.
- Darren Whitehead, “The Joy of Missing Out: Lessons from a Church-Wide Digital Detox“:
Our initiative was not just about temporary digital abstinence; it was about modeling how the church can lead in a world dominated by screens. I see the local church as more than a place of worship—it’s a counter-cultural community that stands against the tides of digital conformity. As one congregant noted, “Doing this together made all the difference. If I had tried to do this alone, I would have caved in a week. But seeing my small group also struggling and yet choosing to continue—it made me want to keep going.”
The church’s ability to function as a mediating institution—one that bridges individual and societal needs—makes it an ideal setting for counteracting the formative power of digital technology. Shared faith and commitment create a strong sense of identity and belonging that counters the alienation often felt in the digital age.
- Jedd Medefind in Christianity Today, “The Orphan Care Movement Grows Up“:
a remarkable number of advocates are still at it. They bear scars, some deep. But there’s a light in their eyes and a weightiness to their words that wasn’t there before. They’ve walked through fires, and not all of them are yet on the far side. Still, they’ve persevered. They continue to take on new challenges, both in organizations where they serve and at home.
“Some of what we’ve faced are things you’d never choose,” Jill Lehman said. “It’s probably a good thing we didn’t know everything the future would hold. But we have zero regrets. There’s so much we would’ve missed out on if we’d taken a safer route.”
In many of these families, children who struggled deeply as teens have made positive turns as young adults. As one recent study confirmed, while adoptees are more likely to face certain challenges in childhood, they generally do quite well in the long run. Narratives that cast adoption or childhood trauma as destining a person to a miserable life are not only statistically inaccurate but also deeply unfair. David Brodzinsky and Jesús Palacios, two experts in adoption and child welfare, concluded, “Not pathologizing adopted people is as important as not minimizing their problems.”
- Elise Ureneck, “Dear influencers: We are not built for this much intimacy“:
we are not built for this scale of intimacy, and our followers are not capable of providing reciprocal vulnerability. We do not have the capacity — in terms of time, proximity, or personal attention — to develop real relationships with this number of people.
Nor should one build a “brand” on the back of one’s children, who deserve the space to grow up in freedom and privacy. We’d all be wise to remember that the sacrament of marriage is between two people for a reason.
The Church has long protested the commodification of human beings: Slavery, human trafficking, prostitution, certain types of reproductive technologies, the sale of organs are all seen as gravely immoral, because they involve the exchange of money for human flesh. They put a price on the priceless.
Online influencing might not seem as reprehensible as the above, but it does require that we become the thing which we’re selling. We’ve quietly slid into accepting this as normal. But it’s changing us. Life has become performance art, and those in our orbit part of the show.
- Marie Cohen from Lives Cut Short, “How the District of Columbia, Like Many States, Blocks Access to Child Protection Information“:
Some states would be more transparent, but the District of Columbia is not unique in imposing many barriers to the release of information about child maltreatment fatalities and near fatalities, as described in a recent report from Lives Cut Short. While they are justified as needed to protect innocent children and family members, these restrictions on information releases seem to protect state and local officials above all.
Sign up for a conversation I’m having with Naomi Schaefer Riley tomorrow here. (If you are occupied at 3:oo p.m. Eastern, RSVP anyway to get a link to the recording after.)
13. Charlie Camosy interviews Bishop James Conley:
I do sense a new energy in the air, not dissimilar to the radical and heady years of the 1970s, but more focused and purified with the truth, goodness and beauty of grace and justice. I see this particularly in the area of education and health care. Jesus was primarily a teacher and a healer. The Catholic Church has been at the forefront of education and health care since apostolic times. Health and the human flourishing of the body, mind and soul make up the good life — both here on earth and forever in heaven. Last Easter Vigil on college campuses across the United States, there was an unprecedented number of conversions to the Catholic Church. In “old” European countries like France and Belgium, radically secularized in recent decades, there was an unprecedented increase of adult baptisms this past year. I think people are looking around at the secular landscape at what the world is offering for happiness, and asking themselves, there has to be more. With the incarnation and birth of Jesus everything changed. Believers and non-believers alike, all mark their calendars from the birth of this child, truly human and truly divine. This year will mark the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene creed, which settled the question of the true nature of this child. I believe there might be a new awakening to this truth, a deeper understanding of what it means to be human. In the words of St. Irenaeus, “the glory of God is man truly alive.” Yes, I think there is the beginnings of revival in the air.
- Rachel Wolfe in the WSJ, “What Happens When a Whole Generation Never Grows Up?”:
“It feels like the instructions for how to live a good life don’t apply anymore,” says 38-year-old Cody Harding, who is single and lives with three roommates in Brooklyn. “And nobody has updated them.”
Now, as a mix of social and economic factors holds back an entire generation, what researchers once called a lag is starting to look more like a permanent state of arrested development.
“We’re moving from later to never,” says Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men. He notes that the longer people take to launch into a more conventional adulthood, the less likely they are to do it at all.
15. Institute for Family Studies, “When Kids Work the Neighborhood, Everyone Benefits”
- Matthew Mehan at the Heritage Foundation, “The Higher Purpose of Children in American Society“:
Children play a profound and essential role in the promotion of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” not only for their parents, but also for the entire citizenry of the United States of America in ways that go well beyond the economic benefits to the labor force and the replenishment of entitlements.
Fatherhood in all its manifestations—faithful, failing, fruitful, frustrated—has been a constant theme over fourteen years. And that includes spiritual fatherhood too, as priests have been frequent characters, with the archbishop of New York appearing often as one of Frank Reagan’s few true peers.
A show about fathers and sons has been particularly welcome at a time when observers from various perspectives have diagnosed masculinity in crisis. One response has been the assertion of an online “bro” culture, where domination and denigration are offered as shortcuts to (faux) manliness. In today’s media climate, Blue Bloods was like the wisdom of an elderly uncle, telling family tales of sacrifice, service, protection, wisdom, the pain of loss, and taking pride in virtue—a manliness directed toward others, not indulgence of the self. “Think like a father,” is the final advice that Henry gives to his grandson, Danny; a summation of the entire series.
18. Walter Russell Mead, “God’s Dilemma”:
God has a problem. It’s us. We keep messing things up.
- WSJ editorial, “The Secular Education Cops Strike Again”:
New York sues a family that sent an autistic son to a Jewish school.
- Evelyn Underhill, “The Epiphany: What can we learn from the Magi?”:
What a paradox! The apparently rich Magi coming to the apparently poor child. There they laid down their intellectual treasures – all pure gold to them – and, better than that, offered the spirit of adoration, the incense which alone consecrates the intellectual life and quest of truth, and that reverent acceptance of pain, mental suffering and sacrifice, that death to self which, like myrrh, hallows the dedicated life in all its forms.