Who is My Enemy? by Anthony Esolen

We are trying to live the faith in a bad time. The engines of the mass phenomena are all ranged against us: schools and colleges, television, newspapers, Hollywood, and government. Our leaders bring to mind the state of affairs that Donne describes in his plea to God to take him by storm:

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

We ourselves are tentative, or we flail about. How can we best present the faith to a people glutted with half-truths, falsehoods, bad reasoning, and the fevered emotions of political enmity? In such a time, it’s tempting to let disgruntlement get the better of us and go after the easy target: our fellow faithful Christian, whose way of confronting troubles is not ours.  ….