World Youth Day, Roman Catholicism’s single largest event in the world, attracted 1.5 million people this year but some have criticised the modernistic aspects of the event and slammed perceived irreverence toward the Holy Eucharist.
Defending tradition in an anti-traditional world such as ours requires both belief and boldness. Tim Stanley manifests both, combining wry humour and a sense of peace with the world unseen in many political polemics.
It is no wonder that the countryside and small towns have always remained a bastion of traditionalism, naturally suspicious of progress and resistant to change.
The green banner of environmentalism rightfully belongs to those who resist the ideology of entropy, the global breakdown of every function and form, from borders to genders.
At least among the young, far more rebellious in today’s climate are those of us who, mixing love of country with an independence of mind, refuse to force everything in our culture through the unforgiving woodchipper of identity politics.
The survival of any traditional institution requires that, during historically critical moments, it remembers its reason for being, renewing its covenant with those it represents. Otherwise, it risks vacuity.
Placing one’s social role ahead of one’s personal preferences is certainly a sacrifice, but the assumption by some that such a sacrifice must make it impossible to live authentically or happily is far from being true.
