Thinking like a Catholic

Seeking Clarity in the Current Confusion

by Jeffrey A. Mirus

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Book Description

Whether writing about the nature of human knowledge or the absurdity of gender ideology, Jeff Mirus makes a point of not just reaching sound conclusions but also demonstrating the key principles which must be deployed to think clearly about the issues which so confuse modern culture. Other topics include relativism, evangelization, mercy, and what it takes to develop a truly vibrant Catholicism. Dr. Mirus shows how Catholics can address these problems, dispelling the intellectual confusion and moral chaos which affects even so many within the Church. This collection of 47 essays, written between 2014 and 2017, does more than showcase the arguments we so obviously need. Taken as a whole, it becomes a superb tutorial in Thinking like a Catholic.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: An effort to summarize how people think today
• Human Knowledge
• Our mental prison: The myth of “objective” knowledge
• Through a glass darkly: When science becomes a mirror
• Modern “objective” knowledge is a circular system: Why?
• Darkness: The practical result of our contemporary mythology
• Relativism
• Contrary to popular belief: Relativism cannot enlighten; it can only darken the mind.
• To what is relativism relative? On the inescapable tyranny of desire
• Don’t discount meaning. It leads to happiness.
• Living under the dictatorship of relativism: The cornerstone of politics is virtue
• Successful societies are (always) rooted in the family
• Religious freedom, meaningless without truth
• Gender Ideology
• Gender ideology and our fatal empire of desire
• Gender Ideology 2: Personal disorder and personal sin
• Gender Ideology 3: The value of personal relationships
• Gender Ideology 4: The scourge of our inner life
• Gender Ideology 5: Subversion of the social order
• Gender Ideology 6: The common denominator of chastity
• Chastity and the natural thirst for happiness: A follow-up
• Evangelization and Meaning
• Evangelization and the Gift of Meaning
• Opening Ourselves to Meaning and Purpose
• What is ‘meaning’ and where does it come from?
• Our Failure to Penetrate Reality: The Role of the Examined Life
• Christianity, Poster Child for the Examined Life?
• Christian Meaning and Divine Providence
• Evangelization Itself
• Evangelization and Religious Unity
• Evangelization deformed or delayed: A danger of the quest for religious unity
• The quest for religious unity: The natural must not eclipse the supernatural.
• Religious unity, evangelization and the salvation crisis
• The essential posture of evangelization: We are all adopted.
• Effective evangelization: Initiation into the Church
• Deal breakers in the quest for religious unity and evangelization
• Mercy
• Light of the World: Morality vital, but mercy first
• It is a failure of mercy to deny sin
• Public perception demands a way of mercy
• The gift of orthodoxy: A mercy and a challenge to mercy
• The mystery of conversion, always deeply rooted in Divine mercy
• Even mercy can be built on sand. Here’s how to tell.
• Can we accommodate a refusal? The limits of mercy
• How is this possible? Mercy and Justice are the same in God.
• Vibrant Catholicism
• Preoccupation with salvation inhibits love
• Living the Faith prescriptively
• Christ freed us from our sins! But this is not enough. Really.
• Is Catholicism Biblical? That question is backwards!
• Vibrant Catholicism, 1: Lamenting the entire 20th century
• Vibrant Catholicism, 2: A life of constant prayer
• Vibrant Catholicism, 3: Unity
• Conclusion: The scandalous concreteness of the Gospel