The battle goes on. As I enjoy my free time here in the SGA office, another round of praises and criticisms directed toward myself is circulating in the vicinity. The reason: another no-holds-barred letter to the editor of Le Provocateur [not posted as I write], this time in defense of orthodox Catholicism, as a response to the Matthew Garlin article in the last issue. I cannot find a link to Mr. Garlin's piece, but hopefully Assumption readers are familiar with it. Mr. Garlin and I have been of late rivals of sorts in the Provoc's pages (though luckily we enjoy cordiality in person). Indeed, we are just two of the players cheering on the opposed camps in the present duel for Assumption College's soul (itself just a small skirmish in the greater struggle of Orthodoxy and Modernism).

To our own forces, I remind you that in our conflict, the pen is mightier than the middle finger, and also that we must persistently ask God for wisdom, not only so that we can apologize for our position, but also so that we can appeal to those in the middle in an honest yet effective way- let us not be said to have learned nothing and forgotten nothing as the Bourbons were when they were restored. Emmanuel d'Alzon, no lover of the French Revolution and the subsequent regimes he and the early Assumptionists had to live through, worked toward favorably presenting orthodox Catholicism to the republican French while not compromising the Faith for the sake of democratic values. That may be a difficult line to walk, there being lukewarmness on the one side and irrelevance on the other, but we must try, or accept a future with no place for the Truth in our Republic. To those opposed to our message, I wish the best, and ask for a deeper examination of one's own values and the reason for upholding these values than I have in general seen. The only way to be truly philosophical and intelligent is to detatch oneself from the values of their society and their emotions, and to search for the objective, eternal Truth.

Otherwise, this day's going very well. After crawling out of bed near noon, I was fortunate enough to get a Crush soda (old school glass bottled) in our class's fundraiser, "Send you crush a Crush" for only $1. Genius, many thanks to Carleigh Baldwin, our class prez, et al for putting it on. As one might expect, it was just from one of our kind Assumptionist fathers. As I'm not fit for the religious life, I often pray that God will let me be married, but so far the signs aren't too promising...