Sunday, November 20, 2016

Father Rutler on the infantilization of modern youth


Courtesy of the always brilliant Fr. George Rutler, this meme was generated from an article he wrote in Crisis Magazine entitled A Populist Election and its Aftermath. Here is the full quote in context:
“The average age of a Continental soldier in the American Revolution was one year less than that of a college freshman today. Alexander Hamilton was a fighting lieutenant-general when 21, not to mention Joan of Arc who led an army into battle and saved France when she was about as old as an American college sophomore. In our Civil War, eight Union generals and seven Confederate generals were under the age of 25. The age of most U.S. and RAF fighter pilots in World War II was about that of those on college junior varsity teams. Catholics who hoped in this election for another Lepanto miracle will remember that back in 1571, Don Juan of Austria saved Western civilization as commanding admiral when he was 24. None of these figures, in the various struggles against the world and the flesh and devil, retreated to safe spaces weeping in the arms of grief therapists. Yet pollsters ritually cite the attitudes of “college educated voters” as though colleges still educate and those who have not spent time in college lack an equivalent or even superior kind of learning shaped by experience.”
We are blessed that in this era there are still a few voices that retain some of the ancient vigor, and sparkle with a dynamism that bespeaks a charism of the Holy Spirit. Fr. Rutler is one of those voices. May Almighty God bless and protect him.

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