 |  | I'm Worried About the Girls Kerri Christopher
Social media and its pornifying pressures are only one piece of the heartbreaking puzzle this generation of young women faces. An unhealthy therapy culture has arisen and taken over childhood. Young people today are more depressed, more risk-averse, lonelier, and less social than any previous generation on record—and adolescent girls are disproportionately affected, with higher rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm. Journalist Milli Hill has been documenting the expurgation of the word "woman" and related terms in healthcare, maternity services, and even support organizations. It's no wonder girls are doing so poorly; our culture doesn't even want them to exist. Girls deserve more. | | READ ARTICLE | | |  | John Daniel Davidson's Pagan America Delivers on Pessimism Rachel Lu
As a bracing warning against the evils of modernity, Pagan America is fighting for space on an overstuffed shelf. In the insane excesses of woke culture, John Daniel Davidson sees the shadow of paganism rising from its all-too-shallow grave. He urges his Christian readers to brace for "the ruin of our civilization," a dark future of "unremitting cruelty, violence, narcissism, and despair." He argues that as Christianity erodes, liberalism will collapse along with it. The book is dogged by a recurring problem: again and again, a promising-looking enquiry devolves into an empty exercise in therapeutic panic. Instead of marinating in despair, let's keep working to recall our wayward compatriots to their rational, liberal, Christian heritage. | | READ ARTICLE | | |  | AI Art Cannot Be Offered in Love Leah Libresco Sargeant
When the shadowy image on the Shroud of Turin sharpens our hunger to know Christ more intimately, we should seek that consummation in the Eucharist, rather than turning to AI to go beyond what God had given. No matter how pleasing the output looks, AI-generated art cannot be offered in love and is not the fruit of contemplation. I see it as part of my job as a parent to teach my children how to value art and artists. On the back of Word on Fire Votive books for young children are prominent photos of the authors and illustrators. Focusing on the artisan behind the art reminds them that these pictures were made for them. A Christian artist can produce art marked by love when she wills the good of those who will see it. | | READ ARTICLE | | |  | Insight for Evangelists from Avenged Sevenfold Nick Haydon
Avenged Sevenfold has been creating music that blends genres, reaches the pinnacle of commercial success, and toes the "edgy" line so many angsty teenagers long to walk. A consistent theme has permeated their discography: God. When a band has sold more than eight million albums and remained relevant for over two decades while consistently addressing God, we should ask, "Hey, what is going on there?" Unfortunately, in their latest album, instead of turning toward God, the band turns away from everything and falls into a nihilism that is both untrue and unhelpful. Christians have too timidly shared the robust intellectual tradition of our faith that answers the precise questions posed by Avenged Sevenfold. Our faith has the answers, and we should not be afraid to declare them. | | READ ARTICLE | | |  | Tattoos, O'Connor, and a Sacramental Worldview Lauren Meyers
33 percent of Americans have at least one tattoo, 41 percent of people under the age of thirty have been inked, and the industry is projected to grow immensely. However, research shows the rise in tattoo acquisition is not a vain indulgence but a desire to express meaning and purpose. This desire was the subject of Flannery O'Connor's short story "Parker's Back." The characters reveal the insipid fruit of divorcing the physical and the spiritual. Their discontent—which extends to our own lives—is the fruit of sin, Gnosticism, hedonism, iconoclasm, and all manner of forces which drive a wedge between the body and soul. The spike in tattoo acquisition is an attempt for the secular world to recapture its sacramental nature, but it is not sufficient. A sacramental understanding of creation and the body is the remedy to disintegrated humanity. | | READ ARTICLE | | |  | Sorolla's Painting, a Call to Repentance
Alejandro Terán-Somohano
Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida's painting of laboring fishermen of his hometown is much more than a pictorial record of their way of life. It is an indictment of the entire economic system. Spain underwent a series of radical transformations during the nineteenth century. Liberal reforms aiming at modernizing the country's economy resulted in the confiscation of all communal lands, which broke apart the communal character of social life and replaced it with the individualism proper of the Liberal order. With these reforms, the market operates independently from the benevolence (from Latin, "to will the good") of its participants. The market is indifferent to the good, which means it is also, necessarily, indifferent to justice. To correct this, we should have recourse to another son of the Mediterranean: St. Thomas Aquinas. | | READ ARTICLE | | |  | If You Read One Novel This Year, Make It Brideshead Revisited Dr. Christopher Kaczor
After years of hearing about it, I finally got around to reading the most famous work of the great British writer Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited. I wish I hadn't waited. The story at root is about love: the love of a mother for an alcoholic son and wayward husband, the love of spouses grown glacial, and the love of eros fraught with difficulties. Unfortunately, falling in love sometimes leads to falling out of love, since both are states of emotion rather than commitments of the will. More than one character is caught with "an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread." These marital and familial conflicts come to a surprising conclusion at the culmination of the novel. Have Kleenex handy. | | READ ARTICLE | | |  | Sacred Art or Synthetic Imitation? The Catholic Challenge to AI-Driven Creations Dr. Steven Umbrello
The application of AI to the creation of sacred art presents significant philosophical, theological, and ethical challenges that warrant careful consideration surrounding the role of human agency in art, the sacramental nature of sacred imagery, and the ethical implications of delegating such a uniquely human endeavor to machines. Sacred art is not merely a visual medium; it is an essential expression of the divine, created through the intentionality, creativity, and spiritual depth of human artists. To entrust this sacred task to algorithms, however skilled, is to risk losing the personal encounter that sacred art invites. The creation of sacred art is an act of worship, where the artist collaborates with divine grace to produce works that serve as conduits of God's presence in the world. | | READ ARTICLE | | |  | Liz Kelly's Mission for Women's Formation Nell O'Leary
"When women come together to seek the face of God together, powerful graces are unleashed. . . . I find we go further together than we do in isolation." Liz Kelly is an internationally-recognized speaker, retreat leader, and the award-winning author or co-author of more than a dozen books. Nell O'Leary joined Liz to uncover all the details about her mission leading the Word on Fire Institute's Women's Formation Community. Liz explains, "There are gifts that women bring to the Church that the world and the Church really need right now. I hope the women who join our community will be strengthened in the knowledge of their gifts and how to offer them to the world around them." | | READ ARTICLE | | |  | Sensus Fidei: What Does It Mean? Dr. Richard DeClue
There are some words and phrases that have a very particular, theological meaning but are widely misapprehended or misused with implicit or explicit connotations contrary to the authentic definition. One phrase that gets thrown around a lot but is liable to misunderstanding is sensus fidei (the sense of the faith). What is important is the centrality of the word faith or faithful in the terms sense of the faith or sense of the faithful. Faith is a supernatural virtue by which we believe that which has been revealed by God because it has been revealed by God. Nothing can be a part of a proper and authentic sensus fidei that is contrary to the deposit of faith. In this age of social media, a proper understanding and discernment of authentic sensus fidei is gravely needed. | | READ ARTICLE | | |  | The Vision of Society as a Trust Dr. Richard Clements
Jean-Jacques Rousseau advocated for the political theory of the social contract, which views society as a contract (either explicit or tacit) between rulers and the ruled. Edmund Burke, the British statesman and political philosopher, admitted that society could indeed be viewed in this way, but he thought rather than a contract, society is better viewed as a trust among the dead, the living, and the unborn members of that society. In this case, the living members of the society are trustees who have an obligation to conserve and enhance the benefits they have inherited from their forebears and also to pass those benefits on to succeeding generations. We're called to do our best to help bring about that "city which is to come" and rebuild our society's connections to those who have gone before us and those who will come after us. | | READ ARTICLE | | |  | Silvina Sironi Shares Her Passion for Art, Education, and Community Nell O'Leary
Born and raised in Argentina, Silvina Sironi has used her love of art to catechize young people for almost ten years. She draws and paints, but her primary medium is carved icons. She says, "Art and the word are a symbolic way to communicate meaning, and they complement each other. That is why both belong to any truly human endeavor, especially evangelization, where we try to proclaim the Good News of a God who is all good, all beautiful, and all true." She discusses her mission and what people can expect as members of her new Art for Evangelists community in the Word on Fire Institute. | | READ ARTICLE | | |
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