We no longer think about issues—be they moral, political, or social—as merely abstract applications of the true and the good. We also approach them by way of an intrinsically emotional response, evoked by a series of visual impressions.

If nothing else, the safe-space advocates have something to teach us with respect to affirming the dignity of the marginalized—precisely the people whom Pope Francis has said over and over again should be our focus in evangelization.

When our experiential existence, our pain, our sorrows, that which wounds us, becomes the object of our godlike gaze, we limn a reality that is utterly internal.

We can’t join our communities tomorrow, we cannot strengthen those deeply human ties tomorrow. We can, and must, root ourselves into the course of human life today.

In response to Joseph Bottum’s latest Commonweal essay, Timothy Kirchoff argues that a closer examination of the arguments of same-sex marriage advocates reveals potentially fertile ground for “re-enchantment.”

The modern idea of the individual in isolation encourages us to reject ties such as family, friendship, and love in favor of autonomy. The painful fact is, though, that man, always or for the most part, was not made to reside alone perpetually.

Solidarity pushed the boundaries of freedom wider to include the fulfillment of one’s own freedom, especially as sharing in the governing of one’s community. Freedom, it proposed, can only be achieved interpersonally or else it is merely solipsistic.

One thing that the Isla Vista shooting, and the round of coverage surrounding it, has demonstrated quite clearly is that morality is more than our materiality, especially where chastity is concerned. For while “man looks on the outward appearance … the LORD sees the heart.”