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2 minutes Summary Our job as parents is to stop pigeonholing genius to classrooms and books, embrace the countless forms of genius, and see the brilliance in our children. Aesop might refer to what follows as “sour grapes,” but I’m willing to run that risk. Here it goes. In America, there is a radical overemphasis on the relationship between academic grades and overall intelligence. Test scores—typically, the largest component of final grades—receive a hyper-focus. In many circles, whether you are deemed “smart” depends on how well you do on tests. Here’s where the part of the sour grape comes in: I never did well on tests in college. In fact, I don’t remember ever receiving an “A” on an exam. Not once. If final grades depended on quizzes and tests alone, I would have failed out of college...

Pope Francis listens as Cardinal Claudio Hummes addresses the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region, Oct. 7, 2019, at the Vatican. (Photo by Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images) In a letter circulated privately to bishops, the Brazilian cardinal advises the document is on schedule to be promulgated later this month or in early February. Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the general relator of the Pan-Amazon Synod last October, has written a letter to bishops saying Pope Francis’ post-synodal apostolic exhortation is expected to be “promulgated by the end of this month or early February.” The letter, which seeks to prepare bishops ahead of the publication of the exhortation, offers them some suggestions in order to “discreetly support you, as Ordinary, in communion ...

Melbourne, Australia, Jan 13, 2020 / 10:30 am (CNA).- Cardinal George Pell has reportedly been transferred out of the Melbourne prison in which he has been incarcerated for more than a year after a drone illegally flew over the prison grounds. According to the Herald Sun newspaper, Pell was moved out of Melbourne Assessment Prison after a drone flew over the prison garden in an apparent attempt to capture footage of him working in the prison garden. A spokesperson for the Australian Justice Department confirmed the drone flight in a statement released to media on Monday. The cardinal has now been transferred to a maximum-security prison southwest of the city. Pell had been in the Melbourne prison, located within the downtown area of the city, since his sentencing in December of 2018 o...

ABOVE: G.K. Chesteron’s home Overroads in Beaconsfield, England (Photo by Ken Sladen). BELOW: G.K. Chesterton sits with an unidentified boy at Overroads (National Portrait Gallery Photo Collection). G.K. Chesterton’s Historic Home in England Faces Demolition Admirers of G.K. Chesterton worldwide have launched a campaign to stop developers from knocking down Overroads and putting up an apartment block. K.V. Turley LONDON — Devotees of G.K. Chesterton are up in arms over plans to demolish the acclaimed Catholic writer and philosopher’s former home, Overroads. Developers want to knock down the house and replace it with an apartment block. Dale Ahlquist, the president of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton and of The Chesterton Schools Network, has described the proposed action a...

[embedded content] During halftime of the Packers vs. Seahawks NFC Divisional Playoff game, legendary former head coach Jimmy Johnson was surprised with news he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Johnson and his former quarterback, Troy Aikman, watching from the announcing booth in Green Bay, both got choked up at the surprise.

One of the great gifts of reading the Liturgy of the Hours (also called the Breviary) faithfully over the years is that the Scriptures become deeply impressed upon the mind, heart, memory, and imagination. This is especially true of the psalms that are repeated every four weeks, all year long, every year. But there are significant omissions in the modern Breviary. This is true not merely because of the loss of the texts themselves, but that of the reflections on them. The verses eliminated are labeled by many as imprecatory because they call for a curse or wish calamity to descend upon others. Here are a couple of examples of these psalms: Pour out O Lord your anger upon them; let your burning fury overtake them. … Charge them with guilt upon guilt; let them have no share in your justice (...

“But I am free.” With those simple but profound words, Franz Jägerstätter resists the temptation to compromise the truth by swearing an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler in order to save his life and to spare his family much suffering. This decisive moment is but one of many examples of the rich biblical themes that pervade Terrence Malick’s latest film, A Hidden Life. The freedom of which Jägerstätter speaks is not, of course, freedom as most modern Americans understand it. He does not mean the freedom to choose indiscriminately between a variety of options, nor even the freedom to roam without restrictions, but rather freedom in the classical and biblical sense. This is a freedom that is based on truth (John 8:32), and, as such, it is a freedom that can withstand suffering, imprisonment, a...

Sir Roger Scruton, the prolific British philosopher and writer, died on January 12, 2020, after a six-month battle with cancer. A renowned intellectual whose interests and commentary covered political philosophy, aesthetics, and religion, Sir Roger was more than just a man who covered many topics with penetrating insight and erudition; he was, to me, a friend and a teacher. I consider myself fortunate having just completed my master’s in philosophy with guidance under Sir Roger in the last year of his teaching. He was, during my tenure as a student at the University of Buckingham—where he ran the graduate program in philosophy—still the man of wit and charm that he had always been, a feature that attracted a diverse group of students of backgrounds and beliefs. His smile, his insight, his ...

Today’s feast of the Baptism of the Lord is a moment to reflect not only on the Lord’s baptism, but also on our own. For in an extended sense, when Christ is baptized, so are we, for we are members of his body. As Christ enters the water, he makes holy the water that will baptize us. He enters the water and we who are members of his Body go with him. And in these waters he acquires gifts to give us, as we shall see below. Let’s examine this text in three stages: 1. The Fraternity of Baptism – The text says Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. John tried to prevent him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?” John is surely puzzled about Jesus requesting baptism. And likely so are we. Why? John’s baptism of repentance presumes th...

Happy Feast of the Baptism!  The celebration of the Lord’s baptism brings to a close the Christmas season.  (In the extraordinary form calendar, the Christmas season continues till Feb. 2, the Feast of the Presentation.  Thus, the custom of some of leaving their Christmas tree up until “Ground Hog Day.”)  We are sad to leave behind the beautiful mysteries surrounding the birth of Our Lord on which we have been meditating for the past several weeks, but the tenderness of the childhood of the Lord must give way to the maturity of his manhood and the beginning of his public ministry.  John the Baptist, that greatest of prophets and remarkable saint, has been accompanying us almost from the start of Advent, and makes a critical appearance once again i...

Pope Francis concluded his pre-Christmas address to the Roman Curia by invoking the memory of Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, SJ, who died in September 2012. The Holy Father recalled that, “in his last interview, a few days before his death, [Cardinal Martini] said something that should make us think: ‘The Church is 200 years behind the times. Why is she not shaken up? Are we afraid? Fear, instead of courage. Yet faith is the Church’s foundation. Faith, confidence, courage … Only love conquers weariness.’” The Martini Curve should indeed make us think. I thought about it at the time and ended up with questions rather than answers. What, precisely, was the Church two hundred years behind? A western culture come unglued from the deep truths of the human condition? A culture that celebrates the...