Hillsdale College grads should reflect on who they want to be and the life they want to be, a famous Catholic bishop said during the recent graduate ceremony. Bishop Robert Barron, who runs a Catholic media company called Word on Fire, addressed the graduates of Hillsdale, a historically Baptist college.
“What kind of soul will you have? What kind of person will you be,” Bishop Barron asked, after quoting from Socrates. “Everything else in your life will flow from how you answer that question,” the bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester said.
He praised the college for its commitment to the “Greco-Roman” classics but also the Bible. The Catholic prelate went on to say that the world is divided between those who worship the true God and those who practice idolatry.
He said:
“Even in our supposedly secular society we can appreciate the appropriateness of the biblical terminology, for everyone, even the most secular, the most unchurched, operates under the aegis of something he or she considers supreme, some summum bonum, some highest good.
“No one would in fact get out of bed in the morning unless he believed in some value that’s ultimately motivating his actions and decisions. Now this might be bodily pleasure or fame or material goods or one’s country or one’s family, but if it’s functioning as the prime mover of a person’s activity, it’s playing the role of God and is being effectively worshiped.”
“So the biblical form of the question that we’ve been considering is: ‘whom or what do you worship? what’s the highest value for you?’ again graduates everything else in your life will flow from how you answer that question,” Barron said.
He concluded by sharing his “confident hope” that Hillsdale prepared the graduates to “become the kinds of person” who would make moral and good choices.
“And if you become the persons God intends you to be, you will succeed in lighting a fire upon the earth.”
From the College Fix
Hillsdale College, established in 1844 by Freewill Baptists, was non-denominational in its inception. It was the first college in the Nation to prohibit, in its charter, any discrimination based on race, religion, or sex, and became an early force for the abolition of slavery. It was the second college in the Nation, to grant four-year liberal arts degrees, to women. Hillsdale also had a role in establishing the new Republican Party, founded in 1854. Hillsdale belongs to a new group of 34 four-year colleges, that are charter nembers of a new association of conservative Christian colleges. Hillsdale does not accept any government funds, nor accept government student loans. That is all replaced by private donations. This way, they can run their college the way they see fit, without any unwanted liberal-leftist or “woke” government interference. Hillsdale accepts students of all faiths, but over 40% now, are Catholics, with many students converting to the Catholic Faith each year. I love their free, online courses! These courses include civics, history, Constitution 101, basics of the Bible, Ancient Christianity, Plato and Aristotle (Introduction to Western Philosophy), the Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic, etc.etc. I would highly recommend these courses to everyone! Especially, it is recommended that all Americans, today, take their excellent course in Constitution 10! Fabulous! Millions have completed these wonderful courses! They also offer these wonderful courses.on CDs and DVDs, that you can buy and keep. The college’s President, Dr. Larry Arnn, and faculty members, teach these excellent courses. Hillsdale also has an outstanding lecture series, and a monthly free mailing, also available online, with the texts of these excellent lectures, called “Imprimis.”
Are you that commenter who we keep saying that your comments are not Catholic?
This explains a lot.
Why do you waste your time, trolling? Get a good education!
Yep, it’s you.
There is an error in my comnent of May 25th, at 6:55pm. The famous, free online Hillsdale course, Constitution 101 (not “Constitution 10”) is well worth taking! Fabulous!
Topics covered in this course include: the natural rights theory of the Founding, the meaning of the Declaration and the Constitution, the crisis of the Civil War, the Progressive rejection of the Founding, and the nature and form of modern liberalism.
Sounds like indoctrination to me.
No, it is not “indoctrination.”
How ignorant! In all their courses, the Hillsdale College President, Dr. Larry Arnn, and the professors, all present the Truth.
Please, tell us 5-10 Truths that you learned in the course
Stop wasting your time trolling and get a good education.
Read any of Mark Levin’s books, and you’ll get pretty much the same education about America’s founding, government, and politics.
No, Mark Levin has nothing to do with Hillsdale College. Hillsdale offers a good classical education.
I think Mark Levin advertises for Hillsdale College, or they have ads on his show. There’s a connection.
You betcha! Can’t talk about natural law or the Constitution. Too dangerous. Call the feds if they do. Certainly, that’s indoctrination. Reading dead old white guys like Plato, Augustine, Mark Twain, Dante, and the Founders is just too dangers. I’m the only dead white guy safe to read, since I’m for workers and the poor and was until I died in the working class town of Carmel, California.
What is going on with this “Founding” and “Founders” stuff? They use it in their promo, you used it, Dan uses it below. Why are you all using that word?
“Why are you all using that word?” Because it is appropriate to do so. These men are easily identified and their writings, esp. the Dec. of Indep and Constitution, easily accessible. To help me, please give reasons for objecting to these words, and thanks in advance for any new and thoughtful insight you might add to the discussion.
Because our nation was founded and has founders.
Where did you go to school? Were you never taught that?
They were not called founders. Maybe founding fathers. Too many snickers about illegitimate kids? Or too binary?
Those who wrote the constitution were called framers of the Constitution.
I hope this does not hurt your feelings, Mr. Alinsky, but i did not your book.
i did not like your book.
No problem. It’s required reading on many college campuses and Hillary Clinton wrote her thesis on it. You freedom-loving, capitalist pigs wouldn’t understand. Remember Rule 13 of Rules for Radicals: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Pick the target, scare the employees, blame Matt Walsh (who gloats and says its true), and then have bomb threats scare the employees.
Saul Alinsky would never stoop to that level.
Plus Target never even carried the merchandize that the online people said they did. It was lies and misinformation-again.
I think Matt Walsh is on shaky ground here- a number of “secondary boycotts,” or boycotts against third parties in the hope of convincing them to stop doing business with the primary target of the boycott, have been ruled outside the protection of the First Amendment and properly prohibited by labor union laws.
“Sounds like indoctrination to me.” ??!!?? Is there a distinct philosophy undergirding the Dec. of Ind. and the Constitution? If so should it not be known and studied? Would this study be considered by you as indoctrination? And if there are modern day challenges to this philosophy which might alter the course the founders conceived for this nation, should not this be studied as well? Would you call this indoctrination? Perhaps you could help me understand your post if you would define what you mean by “indoctrination.”
Constitution 101 is a 15-unit asynchronous, semester-long curriculum that provides students with a basic understanding of the Constitution’s text, history, structure, and caselaw. Drawing on primary source documents from our new, curated online Founders’ Library—containing over 170 historical texts and over 70 landmark Supreme Court cases selected by leading experts of different perspectives—students will study the historical and philosophical foundations of America’s founding principles from a range of diverse voices. The curriculum guides students to think like constitutional lawyers—cultivating the skills necessary to analyze all sides of constitutional questions.
This is a Constitution 101 from the Constitution Center. This sounds more academic.
It is funny that a Catholic should have to ask what indoctrination means.
In indoctrination you are ‘educated” so as to come out believing what someone wants you to believe. Criticism and questioning is usually not tolerated.
You never took this course. So you have no understanding of it. Liberal-leftist fools are not educators. They try to force their untruthful propaganda on others, and refuse to accept any questioning of their fraudulent material. Mature educators, such as at Hillsdale, always present the material truthfully, and invite students to question, discuss and explore the subject, on a mature academic basis. Dr. Larry Arnn, the college President, is outstanding! I took this course with him. I would highly recommend that you and everyone sign up for his course! It is also free. Dr. Arnn also leads students on international trips, and semesters abroad, to deepen their understanding of a subject. Hillsdale College is outstanding, and prepares future leaders.
It is very interesting how people responded to the word indoctrination.
No. It is certainly not “interesting.”
The advertisement for that course just came onto my youtube. It is not just teaching the Constitution. It is not Catholic teaching (and you would not expect it to be.) If you have a good grounding in the Constitution and government and in the Catholic teaching on government, you could probably take this course and you would notice things that were different and things that were similar.
If you have exposed yourself to this material without knowing the Church’s teaching on government and the basics of the Constitution and early American history, you should learn those.
The ad starts with “We have moved so far from the Constitution that, in many ways, we do not even recognize it.”
Huh?
That is an utterly ridiculous statement.
The Constitution establishes the government of the United States: The Three Branches, the qualifications for being President, Senator, Representative, Supreme Court Justice, it puts limits on the states, it tells what powers the branches have.
Leaving out the Amendments (which is where the fights usually start), it is 7 articles long. With a preamble and a conclusion.
Read it. Just read. It does not take long.
“That is an utterly ridiculous statement.” I don’t think so. Some 20-30 years ago, Richard John Neuhaus wrote of the Naked Public Square and the judicial usurpation of legislature, both of which are perversions of the Constitution. Any talk of the Constitution as a “living document” is code language for ignoring the text.
You might find this interesting.
https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/living-constitution
Judicial usurpation of legislature is part of the job of some courts. I do not see how the Naked Public Square-which I am not familiar with but the internet says is leaving religion out of public discourse-has anything to do with it.
I remember a lot of “legislating from the bench” complaints along the path to the legalization of gay marriage.
But that does not have anything to do with “moved so far from the Constitution that we could even recognize it.” which is again a ridiculous statement.
More on Constitution– Sorry, the American Constitution does not “change and evolve” with the times, to suit the wicked, immoral tastes of the lawless, liberal-leftist anti-Anerican, hippie youth cult. You found a liberal-leftist law school on the Internet. Get a good education!
I must reply to my own post to answer some responses. The judicial usurping of the legislative branch is not the job of any court. It is the job of the legislature to legislate. The Court’s duty is to decide if the legislation is consistent with the Constitution. Roe v. Wade is an example of judicial legislating cloaked in upholding the penumbras in the Constitution, so also it could be argued for also Obergefell v. Hodges, IMHO. I speak not as a con law expert, admittedly. As far as the Naked Public Square, that is a violation of the First Amendment where the separation of church and state, nowhere in the Bill of Rights, came to rule– an example of the Constitution as a “living document”– living through the eyes of secular progressives. The desire of democrats to pack the court so their left-wing policies might be enshrined shows how for them the Court serves a a de facto legislative entity.
I sent it to Dan because I thought Dan could handle it and it pertained to the discussion. I did not endorse it or criticize it. I assumed he could do so.
Does get a good education mean only learn things that you like?
The American Constitution can change when it is amended. That began with 10 amendments called the Bill of Rights, but you know that.
Reply to: everything does not have to be reduced to the dumbest arguments and name-calling.
Excellent posts, Dan! Thanks!
Re: sent to Dan May 29, 2023 at 1:48 am: I must again reply to my own post because I do not know what the antecedent to “it” is in the statement “I sent it to Dan because I thought Dan could handle it .” I do not know what the “it” is, but if I did know I could then be in a position to ascertain if in fact I could handle it. Until then, I must consider that as a retired math instructor at the local community college I may not be able to handle subjects outside mathematics and engineering where I have a modicum of expertise. If the poster is still interested, maybe you could help me, and thanks in advance.
https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/living-constitution
I would highly recommend that you take this course from Dr. Larry Arnn. He will settle all of the points you brought up in your comment. He is absolutely outstanding, you will be dying for more from him. Dr. Arnn is a very well-educated Christian, with a very tremendous understanding, appreciation and support for the Catholic Faith.
I did some youtube of it and it is exactly what I thought it would be.
Catholic Online has a free course on the Constitution. Haven’t tried it.
I know of several young people who became Catholics while studying at Hillsdale. It shouldn’t be a surprise if one is reading the Bible and the classics. The parish there and their Catholic campus ministry have been very supportive. See the link below to see what they’re doing.
https://stanthonyhillsdale.com/grotto/
Here is an outstanding speech delivered by Lila Rose, at Cal State Fullerton, recently. She was presented by Turning Point USA. Lila Rose would make an excellent Commencement speaker!
https://www.youtube.com/live/KVZvs397KKQ?feature=share
Here is her commencement address at Franciscan University earlier this month. It is well done. And, you’re correct, she makes an excellent commencement speaker. Her address is a good example of a Catholic millennial addressing Gen Zers. Check it out. I think you’ll be encouraged and inspired.
I groaned when Lila said that attending Franciscan University at Steubenville was like attending Catholic Disneyland. I turned it off soon after. Lila is not an example of a great orator. She’s about at the level of an above-average high school senior in her prose.
Please stop worshipping Lila Rose. She’s not all that. I’d rather hear Bishop Barron any day.
I agree that line was unfortunate and inaccurate. That said, did you really stop listening shortly after one cringe-worthy line? A critique of her speech would be legitimate. But, one should listen to the speech before critiquing it. No one is claiming she’s a great orator, let alone worshipping here. Honestly, Catholic Disneyland, do you know one person who is? Do you review books without reading them too?
Something weird is going on with Lila Rose’s worshippers. They post here trying to promote her even when she has nothing to do with the story. It also seems coordinated.
I know of no Lila Rose worshippers. Do you? This story has to do with a commencement speaker at a good college. Lila Rose was a commencement speaker at a good Catholic university. I can assure you, with my posts about her at least, no one is coordinating anything. I’m simply observing, commenting and passing along good stuff. Is there something in her speech linked here with which you disagree?
Deacon Craig, this Catholic website is no doubt losing a lot of sincere, faithful Catholic, thoughtful, intelligent readership and commenters, due to printing so much nonsense of unintelligent, trolling, anti-Catholic, harassing commenters.
Deacon Craig, we have had problems with that in the comments. It’s a person who uses a lot of superlatives for those they like and insults for those they don’t like.
I get a lot of insults.
I’m not going to watch either video because I am done with Lila Rose and Bishop Barron.
Videos no– Every commenter is an adult who writes their comment in their own style of writing. You no doubt have ideas, beliefs and causes, that you are enthusiastic about, and ones that you strongly oppose. A mature adult does not care about the writing styles of others, as long as others have good manners, good morals, common decency, and respect. I have never been interested in Social Media, I think it is a waste of time, and is also harmful, especially to kids. The Surgeon General has also issued a report, on the great harms that Social Media is doing, to children and teenagers. On Social Media, you often see people, all ages, expressing their views in often very highly emotional, extreme ways, and some have no manners at all, use filthy language, and are violent. This is unacceptable! Too many in the younger generations, born in the 1960s and beyond, had no training in English writing skills, good manners, good morals, and respect for God, our country, and our fellowman. Many lack the education, training and interest to understand and support fine Catholics and other Christians involved in Pro Life and Pro Traditional Christian Marriage and Family leadership, seeking to help Christ transform our Satanic Death Culture into His great Culture of Life. This is extremely important!
Oh there you are.
“Oh, there you are.” You know, wherever you go, there you are!
Now, is that intelligent?
No doubt, you are probably gay, and in the gay lifestyle– and hate beautiful, intellectual, articulate, famous, happily married young Christian women.
She is probably OK but I don’t think she is happy. It takes a couple years after a miscarriage.
I agree that she is beautiful.
Lila Rose is a happily marrired Catholic woman, with a wonderful husband and two beautiful sons. And she wants to have more children! She is deeply committed to the Catholic Faith, and to saving the lives of helpless unborn children. She is recognized internationally for her outstanding Pro Life work. She is a truly wonderful Pro Life hero! And what about you?? Why don’t you sign up with another outstanding, award-winning Catholic Pro Life hero, Shawn Carney, Co-Founder and CEO of 40 Days for Life? Go help him in this important work, for Christ!
According to wikipedia she has one son. Who’s correct?
All that is available online is that she has a living son and that she miscarried a son in early 2121.
I do not know her.
Maybe someone who does can fill us in.
Unless Lila Rose would like to keep in private, of course.
Lila Rose had her second baby, a boy, about a year and a half ago. She always keeps Pro Lifers posted on news like that. Here is a link to a beautiful Instagram family photo, at her second baby boy’s baptism. In the photo, her husband is holding their oldest child, also a little boy. She says she wants to have more children! That’s wonderful!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CYZR7kRl69V/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==
Thanks for that cute picture.
There is some very personal info that someone posted on that though.
Social media, blah.
Lila Grace Rose was born on July 27, 1988, in San Jose, CA, the third of eight children, to devout Evangelical Christian parents. She was Homeschooled, and also attended a Christian school on a part-time basis. Her parents gave her a good Classical education, along with books on the Church Fathers, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Mother Teresa, and other fine Catholic saints. She also was taught Latin, which facilitated her studies in religion. She founded LiveAction at the age of 15. Later, while attending UCLA as a History major, she attended Mass at an Opus Dei center, and then became a devout Catholic. Here is an article from the “National Catholic Register” on Lila Rose:
https://www.ncregister.com/news/how-lila-rose-became-pro-life-and-catholic-5pi856vs
Bishop Barron’s address is on YouTube
His address is publicly available on the internet since he’s the bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota.