The City of God, 2023
by Pat Hickey
April 6, 2023
I am a very profane man. Always have been. From my earliest audio apprehensions and infantile utterances this sinful mortal delighted the curses, maledictions and scatological outpourings from elders and betters, more than cooing and verbal pettings of their betters: e.g., Grandpa Hickey 1958 “Get this shower of bastards out and away from sight!” as opposed to Granny Hickey 1958, “Give us a kiss, sweet lad and here is a shilling for shoveling my porch,”
The rod had more laughs.
My profane nature has done dubious battle with my attraction to the sacred in all things.
I remain conflicted. Knowing that the path to heaven’s gate requires much, much more than good intentions, this hide-bound sinner does battle with limited armor. The result has been a Gethsemane with occasional rest and recuperation at the odd marriage feast of Canaan.
This human dichotomy is the way of all flesh going back to Father Adam’s spinelessness. Mother Eve merely proffered the forbidden fruit. I mean she didn’t break the guy’s arm.
We all bear the sin of Adam and the mark of Cain. Hell, that is what DNA is all about. We pay someone researcher oodles of gelt to find out who we are. We are all conflicted waifs.
This conflicted waif became a pretty good high school English teacher. In one of my Honors offerings at a Catholic school in Kankakee, Illinois, was the text of City of God, by St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo.
The course was called Three Thinkers of the Church: Augustine, Aquinas and Teilhard De Chardin. The students read The Confessions, The City of God, by St. Augustine, The Summa Theologica, by St. Thomas Aquinas and The Divine Milieu, by Pierre Teilhard De Chardin.
I cannot begin to imagine attempting to present these works to the honors students of 2023. The works are difficult, but the students of forty or fifty years ago were better armed with context and experience with challenging texts. That said, the students really worked at understanding two of the great doctors of the Christian faith and the now obscure French genius and paleontologist.
Of the three, my students enjoyed the challenge of St. Augustine’s The City of God. This is a work of 22 Books, or chapters, that present the world as it remains today. The work was a response to charges by Roman philosophers that the sack of Rome by the Visigoths under Alaric in 410 A.D. was proof by the old gods that Christians were impious. The Church was as divided in Augustine’s time as it is today. Augustine himself had once devoted himself to the Manichean religion which held that Jesus had three natures, the Luminous, Jesus the Messiah and the Suffering Jesus.
St. Ambrose of Milan and Augustine’s mother, Monica are credited with Augustine’s conversion to orthodox Christianity which hold Three Persons in One God.
As Bishop of Hippo in Roman North Africa, Augustine maintained this orthodoxy while under siege by the Germanic Vandals. Instead of repudiating his faith in the face of conquest, Augustine doubled down in writing De Civitate contra Paganos (City of God).
Like all great sacred literature from the Ten Commandments to Paul’s Epistles and John’s Revelations, City of God breaks down the numbers for us. Like the Ten Commandments given to Moses ( the first four Commandments deal directly with God; the last six deal directly with Man), City of God’s first ten books refute the claims that Christians were responsible for the collapse of the Roman Empire and the last twelve books make clear the distinction between the City of God and the secular City of Man.
The population of the former, it seems to me, is much smaller than the later.
In 2023, the pews of the City of God are lightly used. Thousands pack the Superbowl, one of our secular moveable feasts, or watch the Oscars, while few hear a sermon about the Samaritan woman giving a thirsty Jesus something to drink, or nod with Simon Peter’s attempt to set up three tents for Jesus, Elijah and Moses. There are all manner and types of explanation for the state of our condition as a society. Let it be that within this society are clear camps…The City of Man and The City of God.
The City of Man is all over the information highway. The City of God is much more reclusive, much less expressive.
Like 5th Century Hippo, my American Midwest is under siege from both coasts. Males, Patriarchs, Rigor, Piety, Caucasians, Patriots, Taxpayers, Business owners, Veterans, Scholars, and Citizens are deplorable, toxic, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, judgmental, sexist and heartless according to compelling narrative du jour.
The WOKE Vandals and Visigoths have sacked the halls of learning, the near empty churches and public forum. If one defends the child in womb, Jane Fonda, The View and The Squad want that one dead. In fact, kill the entire GOP and never get called to task, Barbarism is carte blanch of the Citizens of Man.
My son told a cousin of mine, a contemporary who was woke before it was WOKE, that I am writing for John Kass News. His response was “@#$% John Kass!” as he walked away. By extension, it was “@#$% your Dad!”
City of Man demands silence from all opposing views. The City of Man insists upon universal abortion, the murder of child, at any stage of development. The City of Man is not happy with the United States Supreme Court. In Illinois there is legislation afoot that will punish Women’s Health Centers that do not encourage abortions. The City of Man pays its citizens handsomely. Only last week, my former Illinois State Representative, Fran Hurley, resigned in order to accept an appointment to the Illinois Labor Relations Board. Fran Hurley takes PAC money from Illinois Personal PAC which advocates for the culture of death. The 35th District of Illinois is packed with organized labor leaders and Fran will work for them as hard as she has for the abortion industry in Illinois. Governor J.B. Pritzker calls that “advocating for her community.”
My community takes no coin for abortions. The City of God is populated by people like the late Mother Theresa and Cardinal Francis George. I know one bishop who lives in the City of God and that is Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois. Recently, Bishop Paprocki penned a powerful piece in First Things that out-ed Cardinals who soft-pedal abortion and gay lifestyles as heretics, Heretics they be, The Cardinal of Chicago suppresses the Latin Mass. He is no citizen of the City of God it seems to me.
The City of God is populated by saints who speak truth to power and suffer the consequences. I am a citizen of the State of Indiana and City of Michigan City. I am a profane man who remembers dirty jokes during Father Walter’s homilies at St. Stanislaus Kostka Church. But I am not going agree that abortion is health care and will not scratch the horns of Mammon to get me handsome pension.
Hell, I would much rather write a piece for John Kass News,
If you have the time, read St. Augustine’s The City of God. The barbarians are over the walls.
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Born November 8, 1952 in Englewood Hospital, Chicago Illinois, Pat Hickey attended Chicago Catholic grammar and high schools, received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Loyola University in 1974, began teaching English and coaching sports at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, IL in 1975, married Mary Cleary in 1983, received a Master of Arts in English Literature from Loyola in 1987, taught at La Lumiere School in Indiana from 1988-1994, took a position as Director of Development with Bishop Noll Institute in Hammond, IN and then Leo High School in Chicago in 1996. His wife Mary died in 1998 and Hickey returned with his three children to Chicago’s south side. From 1998 until 2019, it became obvious that Illinois and Chicago turned like Stilton cheese on a humid countertop. In that time, he wrote a couple of books and many columns for Irish American News. When the kids became independent and vital adults, he moved to Michigan City, Indiana, where he job coaches Downs Syndrome and Autistic teens in LaPorte County. He walks to the Michigan City Lighthouse every chance he gets.
Comments 44
Pat, indeed the barbarians are over the walls and now on the fifth floor of City Hall. Best for all of us to turn to the City of God because the City That Works is now no more.
It’s sad to say, but thanks to the teacher’s union, I’m not sure that today’s students can read and understand Al Capp, much less about St.Augustine.
Yes, recent world education ratings show US falling below #25 in the fundamentals of reading, math, science, history,… But our kids will be well versed in LGBTQ+ lifestyles. Every parent should be auditing their kids’ classes and checking the books in the school libraries. School vouchers should be available to all American families. Metro areas that prevent that basic form of school accountability will fail. Like the “Idiocracy” movie.
At 27%, the U.S. leads the world in children brought up in single-parent families. A single parent trying to actually support their children has little time to review their child’s curriculum or help them with their homework. Even if they were capable of doing so, and many aren’t. Then there are a great many dual-parent families who are simply not so inclined.
And yet a new mayor was just elected who did his best to “help” said students with this achievement. Pathetic.
True. That was finally decided on April 4th.
Great column Mike, thanks for clarity amidst the chaos.
Sir:
I don’t have much to say but I appreciate your writing and your reading suggestions. I am glad you are here.
Thank you,
Thank you’ for the article. We need more ‘speaking truth to power’ from elected official officials as well as others, damn the political fall out.
We need more of your thoughts put to pen. Please write more often, we need your insights during these times!
Tom Rudd, MS, MD
Pat,
Thanks very much for this piece. I half expected to see something from Kass, but I’m sure he is in mourning, wearing sackcloth and ashes. Perhaps a little self flagellation. God, I hope not! Not with all he’s been through as of late.
Editors note: Cana, not Canaan. The former, not the latter.
I can’t help myself. Must be the Irish in me.
Jonathan Cahn in his book The Gods Have Returned claims that the turn away from Jesus Christ has allowed the old pagan gods, which never really left us to manifest themselves once again. He concentrates on older gods of the Mesopotamian religions, but I think it’s the Greek gods, which encapsulate human psychology and human failings that were always with us and suppressed by Christianity. At least until now.
Jonathan Cahn’s book are incredibly powerful and truth revealing. I would encourage everyone to read Harbinger 1, Harbinger 2, and Return of the Gods.
Great column, great presentation of the truth about today’s culture and society.
Funny thing Pay, I too was born at Englewood Hospital in 1947. The south side was a great place to live and grow up in. But not now. It’s become a war zone, like many other once great neighborhoods. I must admit, I’ve just had a major crisis of faith after the mayoral election. I just can’t wrap my head around why this city, having ousted a leftist mayor, just elected a socialist who makes Lori look like a boy scout! Who’s fooling who? This guy is going to preside over the death throes of the city, as crime skyrockets with innocents being murdered, as the criminals roam free thanks to our Soros appointed States Attorney Foxx. Of course I could be wrong, but judging by what’s happened in other leftist run cities like SanFran, LA, New York, Seattle, Portland, I don’t think I am. I guess Chicagoans will get the government they deserve….
Sorry, I meant Pat, not Pay!
Well said, and with all, I agree.
Very thoughtful and provocative column. Back in my last year of high school I had the opportunity to also read and try to understand City of God in what was then a very unique class of European History. It was taught by a former seminarian from Loyola. I had no idea of it’s lasting impact on me as I struggled through the dense readings and lively discussions.
Rarely do I agree with so much! 1) You’re spot on about the education received in the ’50s and ’60s which I think was the equivalent of 2 yrs. of college…no coddling, no helicopter parents, no fancy phones that had all the answers. Just sit in your room or at the kitchen table and get it done. Master memorization skills! Do research at a library. 2) Our Church, as well as others, are under attack because of the power and influence they still have, though lessened by scandal that the Left loves to parade in the media. They want total dependence on almighty government, the banishment of individuality and lockstep with group think and want nothing in return except total obedience and retention of power. 3) Society has forgotten the command of giving to Caesar his due while giving to God what is rightly His…FIRST AND FOREMOST. Ancient authors like the 3 you mentioned are not taught any more even though their complicated treatises have much more to offer for those seeking a life worth living. Today it’s all about materialism, being part of a group that affords one the chance to wear today’s sack cloth and ashes of marginalization and victimhood to atone for the sins you listed of racism, etc. 4) The pendulum has swung too far left and somehow has to be brought back to center. It gives me hope to read the words of those like you and John Kass who still have their feet firmly planted and their faith still in tact!
Great read Pat,
One must remember 1 Corinthians 1:26-27:
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
Also, don’t forget Jesus’ warning in Matthew 7:13-14:
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Both passages give me some solace but yet sadness as churches empty with each passing year. They were both brought back to my attention two weeks ago in the Bible Study Fellowship curriculum.
Remember Paul hardly mentions the government of Rome, yet, they practiced crude forms of abortion and brutality on their conquests. Yet, Paul continues to bring the message of salvation and our need for a savior. Keep bringing the love of Jesus to those around you, and simly go and make disciples of all nations, no matter what the particular politics or what form of government surrounds you.
Rarely do I agree with so much! 1) You’re spot on about the education received in the ’50s and ’60s which I think was the equivalent of 2 yrs. of college…no coddling, no helicopter parents, no fancy phones that had all the answers. Just sit in your room or at the kitchen table and get it done. Master memorization skills! Do research at a library. 2) Our Church, as well as others, are under attack because of the power and influence they still have, though lessened by scandal that the Left loves to parade in the media. They want total dependence on almighty government, the banishment of individuality and lockstep with group think and want nothing in return except total obedience and retention of power. 3) Society has forgotten the command of giving to Caesar his due while giving to God what is rightly His…FIRST AND FOREMOST. Ancient authors like the 3 you mentioned are not taught any more even though their complicated treatises have much more to offer for those seeking a life worth living. Today it’s all about materialism, being part of a group that affords one the chance to wear today’s sack cloth and ashes of marginalization and victimhood to atone for the sins you listed of racism, etc. 4) The pendulum has swung too far left and somehow has to be brought back to center. It gives me hope to read the words of those like you and John Kass who still have their faith still in tact!
Bravo! Wonderful article. Real truly educated, intelligent people are hard to find particularly in the under 50 crowd. That’s in evidence in the results of the Chicago mayoral election. What concerns me is that, right now anyway, the barbarians seem to be winning.
It is difficult to imagine young adults reading Augustine or Aquinas, not after having been raised on a steady diet of Judy Blume or worse.
I love your article.
As a Protestant (Lutheran) I received a good Catholic Education: St. Mary’s (Tokyo) and Dominican School (Taipei). (I was a business kid). It wasn’t though until I went to High School at Morrison Christian Academy (Taichung) that I got the opportunity to read City of God: a protestant missionary school! While I was taking the mandatory bible class and it was the study of Revelations, did I get a copy of the City of God. Intellectual overload BUT the lessons learned are applicable still today.
Thank you for your writing.
In 2023 the state of Florida and ‘concerned parent groups’ would vote ban/burn “The City of God” because some of the latin phrases could contain vulgarity and since no one in the legislature speaks Latin its better to be safe than sorry. A woman’s right to choose (versus having some self righteous old white guy choose for her..) has become the rock the GOP is breaking itself upon, both locally and nationally. When faith, specifically the Christian faith, became a major tenet of Conservative ideology (i.e the dissolution of church and state) millions who recognized the hypocrisy turned away. Hypocrisy? Example? Immediately after his indictment for raw dogging a porn star and paying her off with hush money, our former President joined a ‘prayer group’ of prominent Christian leaders, who prayed for him and called him out as a savior sent here to absorb our sins, what a pile of garbage. Curious Mr Hickey, what ‘council’ would you give a person who was born gay? Repent? Pray harder? You are God’s cursed creation? What ‘council’ would you give a woman who was raped and finds herself pregnant, scared and alone? It would seem the chuarch has more to say about her actions than the actions of her rapist, and THAT is the reason millions have turned away. Christ’s example is one of empathy, charity, love and compassion. I didn’t see any of those principles in your column, just stuffy grievance from an old man against a generation he has never bothered to try and understand.
Good Lord!
Could you be just a little more judgmental?
Take a chill pill, pal. You’ll last longer.
Well said. Thank you.
Just to be clear, my comment: “Well said. Thank you.” was in reply to Riga-Tony’s post.
The central misconception about Christianity on the part of the left is that compassion, empathy, tolerance, etc. requires that a Christian has to deny that someone is a sinner and that their behavior is sinful. This is wrong. Just as Jesus did with the woman condemned for adultery, compassion and empathy for someone awash in sin means to recognize the torment and stress that person is going through and trying to alleviate it while asking them to recognize that they have in fact sinned and need to repent and turn away from their sin. “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” and “Go thou and sin no more” are not separable.
But the left spits on the concept that anything they approve of is sin. To them, tolerance is unacceptable. You cannot simply tolerate a belief or action without approving of it. You *must* accept it or you are not fit to be part of society and can – even should – be condemned, harassed online, doxxed, fired from your job, your speech and works suppressed and you life be made miserable and intolerable.
Wowza! Lots to unfold here.
First, parents should be the first line of defense for their kids’ public schooling. Their property taxes pay for it. It shouldn’t be the majority having to find school options that fit their values; it should be those parents outside the lines of normality who look for alternative schooling. We aren’t talking about race, color, or sex–things one is born with. Gender-bending is far outside the lines of normality for young kids to be instructed in schools. There are far too many public schools going along with transgenderism and pushing for chopping up/drugging kids in the name of DEI.
Regarding rape…Those who have been raped can be counseled as to all choices available. Wasn’t the morning after pill made available? Why would a raped woman wait months before she decides to get an abortion? With all on the table, she may decide that the child she is carrying shouldn’t be held accountable for something unseemly done to her and will choose adoption. (Am I allowed to say that women get pregnant or is that crossing some line for you?)
Additionally, please stop using man’s hypocrisy to slander Christianity. The tenants of a Judeo-Christian beliefs are the foundations of Western civilization. Our laws are based on these same tenets. Plus, your anger toward Pat is not one exemplifying Christ’s “empathy, charity, love, and compassion.”
Next, you are correct that our way of thinking is from an older generation. We didn’t run to our parents to have them fight our battles for us. If we got a “mean” teacher, we dealt with it because elders were respected. If I ever got a note sent home from a teacher, I was asked what I did to deserve it. Never once did my parents go off on a teacher. Also, there were no assemblies to teach us about the hazards of bullying or treating each other with kindness. Why? We learned that at church and from our parents–yes, two. We fought occasional bullies when we needed to.
You claim Pat has never tried to understand this generation. I taught it. Over a 30 year period (just ending two years ago) I initially saw groups of students who wanted to be challenged gradually change into groups of students who whined about how hard something was or why they needed homework. They were more interested in their traveling baseball or volleyball teams to be interested in education. Their parents expected their kids to work hard for sports scholarships not academic ones. But they still expected to “get” an A.
There are more grievances from a younger generation that can’t wipe their butts without knowing where the toilet paper was made, what kind of trees were used to make it, and whether it is good for the environment than our generation ever made. We didn’t have time to ponder first world issues because we had school, chores, and jobs.
Mainstream media, social media, and lax parenting and schools have created your generation. You needed to be told “no” and never were, which is why you can’t cope in the world without emotional support animals. The best education is failure and your generation has never known that word.
What is there to understand? Do explain.
“Why would a raped woman wait months before she decides to get an abortion?” Spoken like an old white man who never had a uterus, can never be pregnant, has no idea what it would be like to be in that situation but judges anyway. Its a sad day when you arrive at the point in life when you glance backwards with scorn and belittle the generation that’s following, I hope I never get to that place. However I understand that narrative accounts for every Kass column, he knows his audience and likes to play the hits (see that? We can both generalize!) I have 14 direct reports (who all push brooms-right DuRP!?) all under the age of 28. They are the most hard working, ambitious and talented group I’ve ever known, they are experts at multi-tasking and succeed professionally without sacrificing a greater world view centered around empathy and inclusion. They inspire me everyday, sad you’ve never experienced that connection. Regarding Christianity, it’s become nothing more than an intellectual excuse to be a hypocrite, nothing more. More and more, as evidenced in the POV of this column, people are realizing you don’t need the hypocricy of the church to live a life based on Christ’s example, including a woman’s right to choose. The church, and the aging readers here, have strong opinions about a fetus in the womb but could give a damn about that child once it’s born. Again, hypocrisy.
Well since I’ve been a teacher and am volunteering with kids now, I disagree with Christians not caring once a child is born. I agree with you: Why would a raped woman wait instead of taking the morning after pill, which then undermines one of the key reasons abortionists push abortion.
There used to be a time when unexperienced youth would at least shut up and listen to experienced elders out of respect. They do that in the Native American, Hispanic cultures, and Asian cultures. Yet, that has been lost in the general American population because “elders don’t understand your generation.”
I am sorry about your intense anger toward Christianity. I do understand it and wrote about it for my Good Friday piece. But if you want to be taken at your word about hypocrisy, then you need to be more measured in your arguments. For, your attacks on others beliefs shows your hypocrisy in being fair and open. You are showing your scorn for those that came before you and helped create your path.
By the way, I am a woman.
comonfolk365.substack.com
https://open.substack.com/pub/commonfolk365/p/whats-so-good-about-good-friday?r=18wcni&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
To be clear, I have no issues with Christ’s example, the institution of Christianity however is a worthless shell of hypocrisy, a crutch for Nationalism and self righteousness. Whenever you begin a thought with “there used to be a time..” you tip your hand as dated and out of touch. There used to ‘be a time’ when television had 4 channels. it wasn’t better. There used to ‘be a time’ when you could tell a Polish joke in public and expect everyone to laugh, it wasn’t better. There used to ‘be a time’ when you could smoke in restaurants, it wasn’t better. There used to ‘be a time’ when I listened to my older cousin spout (in retrospect) horrible racist tropes and opinions at the holiday dinner table, it wasn’t better. There used to ‘be a time’ when the Catholic Church protected pedophile priests, it wasn’t better. Those that came before me weren’t better simply because they were older, and I don’t pretend to understand the world those younger than me are growing up in because I can’t, I’m not young anymore. That’s vanity.
Wow! I read Augustine’s City of God during a senior seminar taught by a Dutch theologian in in college…and have found its understandings of the value and place of church, family, and, yes, civil government to be a helpful taxonomy for me throughout the succeeding decades of my life. Our current crop of civic leaders seem well versed in ideology and totally unacquainted with theology. The current progressive pathway to salvation has no hope of redemption while recommending an endless moralism.
Your article reminds me of Solzhenitsyn’s observation in The Gulag Archipelago:
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained”
So, despite you – and my and all of our – profanity, the providential grace of God leads us to know our need for a Savior and, during this Holy Week — or the Holy Week on the doorstep for our Orthodox sisters and brothers like Kass — the provision for our redemption through Jesus Christ, victorious over sin, death, and the devil. Alleluia!
Pat, ala the “balance of nature,” you did well describing the “balance of the soul.” You are not alone on this journey.
I agree with you on a lot of this Pat. Especially the educational part. The rigor is missing, for sure. And there is a definitely a disregard for basic manners, respect for authority, and general comportment. The kids are not at fault though Pat. We don’t hold them to any standards. Many are spoiled and entitled. This is a grave disservice to them as we both know the world can be a cruel place. In order to be successful, resilience is important.
Here’s where I disagree. The “wokeness” is exaggerated as most people do not drink the kool aid that you, Kasso, or conservative media think they do. It is the corporate duopoly which rules this nation that uses wokeness and anti wokeness as a wedge to divide us, keep us fighting, while they steal with impunity.
Look what we’ve devolved to Pat. One side defends a boob, who doesn’t even know what day it is, and the other defends a three time married adulterer who had ao e night stand four months after the birth of his last child, and has declared bankruptcy multiple times.
These clowns are the best we’ve got in our corrupt system. Instead of calling for reforms, we waste time arguing about the red and blue teams, when neither one really has our best interests at heart.
It’s all about distraction, division, infighting and manufacturing constant for the next bailout, war, or big con like Covid.
That’s what you’re missing here. We need to take back the government and elect people who truly want to do the work of representing us, not just the corporations
I agree that neither red nor blue sides have our best interest at heart. It’s getting worse not better. How do we take back our government when there is no one of value running? There are no statesmen anymore. It’s so sad.
Thank you Pat for a wonderful reminder. I read Augustine’s and Aquinas’ works during freshman year philosophy class at Triton College in River Grove, IL. I doubt they teach it there now, with the progressive crowd in charge. Those writings helped change and shape my thinking about the nature of God and human society! Woke Progressivism is actually Regressivism, aimed at the complete abolition of God and independent human thought in our society, the regress of man from the contemplation of his position in the spiritual world, to one focused on the physical only. The only truth in Progressivism is whatever the “Elite” say it is, in order to control their fellow human beings and hold power for themselves. Ah, but one thing they can not overcome, one thing they can not suppress, is the mortality of man, the eventual confrontation with the eternal God. Those in the City of Man die both physically and spiritually. Those who choose the City of God only confront physical death, but live on to partake of spiritual reality in God’s City, the place of faith made possible by God’s love through the gift of His son. In this passover week of the Passion of our Christ, it is good to remind ourselves of the spiritual reality that is so much more real than the air we breathe!
I will also say, the night of April 4, 2023, was the night, as the group Paper Lace sang in the 70’s, that Chicago Died, though in this case it is not fiction, but a stark reminder of the onslaught of violence and death yet to come in the City of Wokeness under the complete control of the CTU.
Well written Pat, very well done.
America, broken on the rocks of Progressive socialism and the religion of environmentalism.
Thank you
What a great well-written piece of journalism. I took a graduate level class back in the 80’s that a modern look at St. Augustin both Confessions and City of God. Your article took me back. Thanks again.
Thank you. My daughter is going to take a Philosophy class next fall on St Augustine. She will be third year in college, and the class is a junior level special topics class. I will share this article with her.
In the process of searching for colleges, I looked far and wide for great books curricula. These types of classes are very hard to find. It is very impressive you read those three great authors in high school.
It is also hard to find these challenging books, even in private Catholic high schools.
“But I am not going agree that abortion is health care ….”
Neither is cutting the testicles and penises off of healthy young men and the breasts off of and uteri and ovaries out of healthy young women. Any doctor who does this should have his or her medical license cancelled and their name placed next to Josef Mengele.
After the election my wife brought up for the very first time the concept of moving out of Illinois. I pointed out our ties to the community and the cultural advantages of living where we do as opposed to the more rural reaches of Wisconsin or Indiana. Or Florida, which is too damn hot for my tastes although their Governor seems to have his head on straight. My guess is that it won’t be the last time she brings this up.
You, like @$&%^ John Kass, never disappoint. This is a terrific take on our City of Man mentality running amok today. All of the “progressive” movements have created more isolation, heartache, and anger. It’s time we remember God in our lives and turn things around–if we still have time.
Thank you Erin Geary! Happy Easter!