To carry out a revolution, the left once resorted to the “masses.” That option is no longer available. The giddy times of worker mobs are long gone. The left is now gentrified. It roosts in corporate offices and gated communities. However, one powerful weapon in the leftist arsenal is still the dictionary. … Read more
A Pastoral Revolution: Six Talismanic Words in the Ecclesial Debate on the Family, Guido Vignelli Language changes over time, so the linguists say. Many changes creep in as people use and reuse a word over centuries. Sometimes, though, a change in meaning is quite deliberate. That is the topic of … Read more
In the 2016 presidential election cycle, no single group, not even President Obama, has been the object of more contempt than “the establishment.” Nearly every candidate of both parties has attacked his or her rivals for supposedly belonging to the “establishment” while vehemently denying ever having belonged to it themselves. Large numbers … Read more
Listening to the rhetoric in the present political cycle, there seems to be a missing word. It is not “angst” or “frustration,” neither “equality” nor “jobs” or even the latest buzzword, “establishment.” All these words are thrown around in the present debate. Being true politicians, candidates pepper their speeches with them, while … Read more
Symbolic acts and gestures often have a greater persuasive power than words and reasoning, though one completes the other. This is why the Divine Savior constantly used both symbolic gestures and employed metaphors and parables. This is also why the Church has always surrounded herself with symbols to make visible the beauty … Read more
Entering the new year, something tragic happened in the world of grammar and language usage. Over 200 linguists of the American Dialect Society met in Washington, D.C. to choose their “Word of the Year.” They overwhelmingly chose the singular use of the pronoun “they.” Singular they, as it is called, is not … Read more
Nearly 70,000 More Ask Pope to Reaffirm Church Doctrine and End Synod Impasse Rome, October 22, 2015 — After delivering 790,150 signatures to the Vatican Secretariat of State on September 29, the Filial Appeal Association has just handed in an additional 68,052 signatures requesting Pope Francis for a “clarifying word” as the … Read more
The Nuclear Deal with Iran, Hitler, and the Ayatollahs The July 14, 2015 Vienna accord over Iran’s development and use of nuclear energy and the lifting of sanctions inevitably brings to mind the “Munich Agreement” made by the governments of Britain and France with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler on September 30, 1938. … Read more
True joy is the light of the soul; and the true light is the one that comes from the splendor of truth. Truth is the Wisdom of God, the Word that “came down from heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit, was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man” (Nicene … Read more
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Thus does Saint John’s Gospel (1:14) announce the ineffably grand moment when the Son of God ‘dwelt among us” in … Read more