The Beauty of Tradition

I warmly recommend that you savor a smartly written piece by Anthony Esolen at Crisis.   It is a devastating critique of modernity’s moral vagueness.

Some tastes…

[…]

The vagueness is like a noxious spreading mist. When you don’t have a firm grasp on what simply is good and what simply is evil, but resolve them into pleasant or unpleasant attitudes, you won’t be likely to write the greatest novels or direct the greatest films. Sigrid Undset could not be a vague “I’m OK, You’re OK” modern church lady and still write Kristin LavransdatterThe Master of Hestviken, and all the other golden works she has given us.

[…]

Having finally read Kristan, I get that.

[…]

What has most baffled me about the miserable saga of Marko Rupnik is not that such a monster could exist. Monstrous evil is common enough in human history. But the stubborn persistence of awful taste is something else; it is not like hammering someone else’s foot, but like hammering one’s own, deliberately, over and over. Somehow, there were still people in high ecclesiastical places who thought that Rupnik’s soulless pseudo-primitive human figures were capable of moving anybody.

[…]

Did you know that the Vatican is STILL using Rupnik’s trash for their liturgical ceremonies news.  This can’t be an accident.

[…]

When you are not interested in the actual arguments someone makes, because the pursuit of truth at all costs does not excite you, you do not sharpen your mind; and lassitude sets in. So those who love tradition must have all the strong arguments and must attract the most powerful minds, if only because the attitude of those on the other side hamstrings the intellect. If it does not matter whether an argument is coherent but only whether the person making it has the authority to demand that you accept it, then expect the argument to be coherent only occasionally and by happenstance.

[…]

Also, try his book…

No Apologies: Why Civilization Depends on the Strength of Men

US HERE – UK HERE

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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