Jeanie Hannaman

By Clifford Angell Bates, Jr., Chronicles - The mechanisms are consistent across these contexts: moral absolutism, cognitive rigidity, and the desire for control. Good intentions, when detached from prudence and responsibility, create tyranny. This is why both large-scale utopian projects and small-scale moral policing are forces of social destruction rather than renewal... The alternative is not to abandon morality but to temper it with humility, realism, and an ethic of responsibility. Healthy political and social communities are built not by imposing utopias but by nurturing voluntary associations, pluralism, and incremental reform.

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture - There are, to be sure, passages in the document that will grate on the raw sensibilities of faithful Catholics who have felt the lash of Vatican rhetoric over the course of the past decade. Particularly on the issue of immigration—which American secular reporters quickly chose for their headline stories, Dilexi Te misses some crucial distinctions... Yes, both the Old Testament and the New warn believers that they, and the societies in which they live, will be judged on their treatment of strangers in need. But this apostolic exhortation, like so many recent Vatican pronouncements, makes short shrift of a society’s legitimate right to protect its own culture and enforce its own laws.