by Kathryn Jean Lopez
July 17, 2017 4:00 AM
In Orlando, an exhortation to try what has never been tried fully. Ben Sasse preemptively described his book on our adolescent culture as not an old man yelling at the kids on his lawn. And I’m about to do the same about this column. It’s going to sound at first like a conservative complaining about the culture, but it’s actually about hope. But first: Have you noticed that it’s near impossible to go anywhere without noise? I find — in Ubers, in restaurants, wherever there is any kind of wait or chance to think — it tends to be one of three refrains, see if they sound familiar:
I, I love you like a love song, baby. I, I love you like a love song baby. . . . And I keep hitting re-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat . . . only to break into another triplet of I, I love you like a love song baby.
Enough with the re-peat-peat-peat.
Then fast forward to Ed Sheeran’s “love song” of the day; I’m beginning to think there’s never a moment where it’s not playing somewhere:
....
When I moderated a panel on media and culture in Orlando, the star of the show seemed to be a new book by an African cardinal on the vital need for silence. The young people were there for World Youth Day, and most of Tauron Arena was filled with Americans, who were skipping the political conventions to testify to something greater. When I talked to them and some of the adults chaperoning, I didn’t hear the same kind of cynicism and anger and despair we hear about politics then and now. They seemed to know two important things: Politics isn’t everything, and we ought to stop fluctuating between acting as if it is, using it for entertainment; and political indifference, at the other extreme, is not an option either (though the temptation to this second vice has apparently diminished lately, with more people knowing the name of Neil Gorsuch than many is usual for a recently appointed Supreme Court justice).
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Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449542/catholic-leaders-convocation-2017-orlando-christianity-love?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202017-07-17&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives
I'm not Catholic, and don't have any use for the current Pope, but the author makes a couple of good points.
