Archbishop Chaput: : The Catholic Role in America after Virtue

posted October 7, 2010
by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.

Archbishop Chaput delivered the following remarks to the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars on Sunday, Sept. 26.

Excerpt:
Augustine believed that political action and public service could be worthy Christian paths, so long as they’re guided by the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity, and a humble awareness of human limits. So it would be bracing to imagine his thoughts about America in 2010 – a nation where politics often seems dominated by market research, judicial activism, the ascendency of positive law, lobbying, the vast expense of campaigning, simplified messaging, the complexity of government structures, party tribalism, and a dumbing down of the electorate.

American democracy needs an intelligent, reasoning citizenry; persons with free will and the maturity to use it. Yet American students now often fail to compete in global comparisons because of failures in public education. As Daniel Boorstin warned almost 50 years ago, technological changes in our mass media – in the ways we deliver information – have had other, unintended consequences. Technology has modified the tools and the “language” of our public discourse, and therefore the way Americans think, feel and act. To put it another way, America was created and sustained by a print culture. It’s really not clear how well its institutions and traditions can survive in an electronic, image-oriented technologically transformed world. the rest

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