Millennial

03/01/2025

Pope Francis has been our Holy Father for almost a dozen years. How can his priorities of encounter and mercy, respect for the dignity of all people and God’s creation, standing with migrants and poor families, and synodality and the “joy of the Gospel” help Catholics contribute to a “better kind of politics” and “an outward-facing Church that is healthy on the inside”?

via the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life: As an eventful 2024 comes to an end and we approach a new year, a new presidential administration, and a new Congress, how can America…

02/01/2025

“More than anything, liberals need to understand that many Americans—especially those in the working class—feel unheard. Their trust will be won back not through quick fixes, but by treating those without a college education or with more conservative social views as equal participants in our national dialogue.”

Michael Sean Winters writes: Can the Democrats perform a proper autopsy?: We should be suspicious of monocausal explanations for the defeat, but the largest reason seems to be that the Trump campai…

01/01/2025

31/12/2024

“Narcissists are continually looking into the mirror, painting themselves, gazing at themselves, but the best advice in front of a mirror is to laugh at ourselves. It is good for us. It will prove the truth of the proverb that there are only two kinds of perfect people: the dead, and those yet to be born.”

At the NY Times, Pope Francis writes: Narcissists are continually looking into the mirror, painting themselves, gazing at themselves, but the best advice in front of a mirror is to laugh at ourselv…

23/12/2024

“Prof Mazzucato convened a historic dialogue at the Vatican, featuring Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley and Pope Francis, to make the case for a fundamental reimagining of economics to serve the common good.”

via the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose: On November 14th 2024, Prof Mazzucato convened a historic dialogue at the Vatican, featuring Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley and Pope…

19/12/2024

“In 2000, life expectancy ranged from an average of 70.5 years for Americans at the lowest end to 83.1 years for those in the highest group — a difference of 12.6 years. The gap widened to 13.9 years in 2010, jumped to 18.9 years in 2020, and now in the latest data, 20.4 years in 2021.”

Check out these recent articles from around the web: Life expectancy gap in U.S. widens to 20 years due to “truly alarming” health disparities, researchers say healthwatch by Sara Moniu…

18/12/2024

“We need to meet people where they are. We need to talk in ways that connect with them. We should write for audiences beyond our usual reach and paywalls, and go on podcasts and television shows and contend for our ideas alongside people who may detest them. We need to show people that we care about them and their concerns.”

The following remarks were prepared by Chris Crawford for, “2024 Election Postmortem Panel Discussions, hosted by The Center for Philosophy of Religion at The University of Notre Dame, on December …

16/12/2024

“The meritocracy was supposed to sort people by innate ability. But what it really does is sort people according to how rich their parents are.”

David Brooks writes: In trying to construct a society that maximized talent, Conant and his peers were governed by the common assumptions of the era: Intelligence, that highest human trait, can be …

16/12/2024

“As opposition forces entered Damascus, residents were chanting “Freedom.” And that is what the Syrian people deserve. A future where the people are free from the horrors of civil war, free from oppression, and free to choose their leadership.”

Samantha Power, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, writes: The Syrian people have endured 14 years of brutal civil war and 24 years under the dictatorship of B…

15/12/2024

“If you had told me 10 years ago I’d be going to Drum Set Mass—and not just going, but sitting as close to the drums as possible while filled with relief and gratitude—I would not have believed it. But children make you flexible in ways you never would have imagined. Thanks to my children, I can appreciate, and even enjoy, liturgical music in my not-favorite style. I can acknowledge my preferences are just preferences and not universal truths.”

Michael Jordan Laskey writes: My 4-year-old son—rascally, chaotic—is better behaved at church than he is anywhere else…. We have to be sitting as close to the choir as humanly possible. And M…

12/12/2024

“If we want our students to choose love, live joyfully, and create a more just world, it must begin with our own witness, our commitment to living these things, and giving kids a sense of their own immeasurable worth.…

We can and should show them what it looks like to live with authenticity, passion, kindness, and concern for others. And we can make sure they know they are loved. We must.”

The great privilege and responsibility we have as teachers is getting to love our students—to always will the good of our students and to always value them, especially who they are at the core of t…

03/12/2024

via the Berkley Center: October 21-22, 2024 | This conference will commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), with a special focus on the commemo…

25/11/2024

“I’m convinced that our loneliness epidemic is rooted in our shared history,” he says. “We feel lonely because we no longer feel we belong here. We lack a sense of destiny, of individual purpose and collective meaning. We are missing a story, a community, a set of common practices, and a shared understanding of the world in which we can find our own place….”

via Jesuits Magazine: In 2023, and earlier this year, Fr. Patrick “Paddy” Gilger, SJ, presented a lecture on loneliness in two venues—first at St. Paul’s College in Winnipeg, Canada, and then as pa…

25/11/2024

“We need to remember that we are finite creatures whose resources will be depleted by tense and difficult conversations—and to discern where those resources will be best spent. We should consider whether the energy we are exerting trying to persuade strangers on the internet could be conserved for the sake of our physical neighbors.”

Check out these recent articles from around the web: Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Is a National-Security Risk by Tom Nichols: “As a private citizen, she can apologize for Assad and Putin to her heart…

20/11/2024

Pope Francis: “I pose a question that each of us can ask ourselves: Do I deprive myself of something to give to the poor? When I give alms, do I touch the hand of the poor and look them in the eye? Brothers and sisters, let us not forget that the poor cannot wait!”

https://millennialjournal.com/2024/11/20/quote-of-the-day-599/

20/11/2024

“Unlike Biden, Harris avoided any sustained outreach to religious communities, including Catholics, who comprise nearly a quarter of the U.S. electorate. Her campaign did not run targeted ads aimed at Catholic voters, nor did it make a concerted effort to address their concerns on key issues like religious freedom, social justice, or life-affirming policies.”

Christopher Hale writes: Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign displayed a noticeable aversion to engaging with Catholic voters. Unlike Biden, Harris avoided any sustained outreach to religious commun…

19/11/2024

“Fostering a culture of membership is a long-haul project—more like the planting of acorns than the planting of sunflower seeds. It will require a years-long commitment to the fits and starts of civic experimentation. But even a partial transformation to a structure based more in membership would help address many of the party’s challenges.”

Millennial of the Year Pete Davis writes: If I could make everyone at Democratic National Committee headquarters read one book, it would be Theda Skocpol’s Diminished Democracy: From Membership to …