Terence Sweeney holds the Barry Fellowship at the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania where he is theologian-in-residence at the Collegium Institute. He holds a PhD in philosophy from Villanova University, where he is also an adjunct professor. He has written for America Magazine, First Things, Plough Magazine, Church Life Journal among other publications.
To assign is to flail and thrash about as we try to exert control over the uncontrollable. But to wait in the ultrasound office or in the delivery room to find out, to then share with others in this first discovery of our child's identity, to delight equally in male and female, is to recover our fundamental vulnerability to the gifts given to us.
Date posted: 2024-03-16
What is useful is inherently teleological: calling something "useful" invokes the question "useful for what?" But modernity resists this question by multiplying means without any clear ends. We live an infinite regress of usefulness with little sense of the point of our labors. In a world that only understands useful things, interest in humanities and religious faith (both of which consider human purpose) will inevitably decline.
Date posted: 2023-08-12
The term "humanist" is disputed because what it means to be a human is itself disputed. But much of the world has forgotten this dispute. It defaults to secular humanism, which doesn't look beyond the self; it is a self-referential philosophy of life. The heart of Catholic humanism, by contrast, is knowing that human beings can only be understood in relation to God.
Date posted: 2022-09-03
If the New Atheists were able to convince people to leave, then we too might be able to convince some to come back. Ideas and writing can change lives. If the New Atheists did it, then we Christian writers can be a saving remnant and help write people back into the faith.
Date posted: 2021-10-24