Here’s a brief commencement speech that has became famous recently, by way of scandal. Lots of public recrimination occurred online, from aspiring celebrities & elite institutions—starting at the top, that would be the NFL. All because this young man who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs, not yet thirty, told his college student audience that the best plan for the young women among them is to get married & have kids, like his wife did in marrying him. Nature demands it, God sanctifies it.
He’s right, & young women in the elite class know it. The unspoken reality is that America’s elite colleges are still the privileged place for selecting mates. Why is this now a secret? Because in 21st c. America most of the young are unmarried & unmarriageable. As with most things that become media scandals, a member of the elite simply told America how the elite live. Since elites take it for granted that most Americans are doomed & deserve it, this is frowned upon, since it could arouse desires or envy our institutions cannot & will not deal with, never mind how reasonable or duty-bound.
Now, possibly a million Americans have heard of Benedictine College. I hope the college makes the most of the press it’s getting, I hear it’s well deserved. Speaking of rumors, I heard of the college only a couple of years back, talking to a charming lady, Catholic, seemed healthy, happy, busy, & confident she had the good opinion of all her neighbors. The lady has lots of kids, some of them were attending, & the place seemed impressive for its counter-cultural stance (hence, it’s the kind of place that would invite an outspoken young man to talk about the emasculation of the American society), so I remembered the name of the institution. Before this video became a national sensation, I bet most people heard of Benedictine College from happy parents, just like I did.
Now, the school is courting controversy, picking a fight in order to make its friends confident & their corruptors diffident; this marks a new stage in its activity, spreading its influence in America, & that includes appealing to all conservatives & all Americans who like outspoken, handsome, successful young men, not just Catholics. This is an attempt to achieve popularity & it is noteworthy because it’s on the basis of defiant orthodoxy. The young man speaks up for the Traditional Latin Mass, to say nothing else. He gives advice to pious Catholics to strengthen themselves by living in their most serious communities rather than simply getting jobs or having fun—of course, those who take his advice would in turn strengthen those communities. If pious Catholics have kids, communities, colleges, their way of life will thrive. That is the reasonable basis for a new popularity: Benedictine College can now do the job Harvard is supposed to do better than Harvard, if only for Catholics. That’s an impressive ambition. I wish them the best.
3:00-ish: the "Church of Nice."
Nice!