"We are spoiled children, we who can allow ourselves to play with the idea of truth because we are not forced to lie."

      Rémi Brague, Moderately modern, trans. Paul Seaton (South Bend, IN:  St. Augustine's Press, 2019), 149.  And yet we are, in subtler ways (150):  "What Solzhenitsyn suffered and witnessed to in its particularly virulent form, but also its obvious and so to speak frank form, and thus easier to discern, is still present under softer forms, but also more subtle and thus more difficult to confront.  To be sure, the means of diffusion of 'official doctrines' are less concentrated in our European societies than they were with the Soviet News Agency, TASS.  And the techniques of coercion here are very far from those of the KGB or the Red Army.  Nonetheless, today we still have authorized opinion, obligatory opinions, and other interdictions."

"When one does not know the truth of a thing, it is good that there be a common error that fixes the mind of men"

"Lorsqu’on ne sait pas la vérité d’une chose, il est bon qu’il y ait une erreur commune qui fixe l’esprit des hommes. . . ."

Trans. W. F. Trotter (GBWW):  "When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is of advantage that there should exist a common error which determines the mind of man. . . ."

     Blaise Pascal (Salomon de Tultie), Pensées, Brunschvicg 18 recto (Faugère I, 252, XXI / Havet VII.17 et 17 bis / Tourneur p. 116-1 / Le Guern 628 / Lafuma 744 et 745 (série XXVI) / Sellier 618).  For the reference to Salomon de Tultie (Pascal), see the verso of this same fragment (Br 18).  "Salomon de Tultie is [an] anagram of Louis de Montalte, [the] pseudonyme assumed by [the] author of the Provinciales.  It is therefore thought that this is how [Pascal] planned to sign his Apologie.  In 1658, he published [some] scientific opuscules under the name of Amos Dettonville, another anagram of Louis de Montalte."  But it could be complicated.  For not only is Salomon de Tultie a pseudonym for Pascal himself (who, on the verson of Br 18, quotes himself); according to some, "This pensée no. 18 must not [(ne doit pas)] be from Pascal; it is a gloss of [his niece] Mme [Marguerite] Périer on the preceding pensée", i.e. Br 17:  "Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us wither we desire to go" (trans. Trotter) (Garnier edition of 1951, edited, with an introduction and notes, by Ch.-M. des Granges, 331n30).  Whether or not that is still (or ever was) the consensus, I have no idea (and, indeed, rather doubt it).  Apparently, though, it arose from the fact that we have these two fragments from the hand of copiest Gilbert Périer, and from the (false) impression that they are unrelated.  My preference would be to assume that "bon" is simply ironical here.

So that the lowliness of the flock may arrive at that to which the grandeur/courage of the Shepherd has gone before

Anton Mauve (1838-1888)

"Almighty ever-living God, lead us to a share in the joys of heaven, so that the humble flock may reach where the brave Shepherd has gone before.  Through".

"Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, deduc nos ad societatem caelestium gaudiorum, ut eo perveniat humilitas gregis, quo processit fortitudo pastoris.  Per".

     Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, current Missale Romanum.  Source:  Corpus orationum no. 3828, which is present at various points in four of the great 8th-century sacramentaries (Gelas. Vet., Gellon., Rhen., Sangall-A), and often later, from the 9th-century on:

"Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, deduc nos ad societatem caelestium gaudiorum, ut, spiritu sancto renatos, regnum tuum facias introire atque eo perveniat humilitas gregis, quo praecessit celsitudo pastoris.  Per".

Almighty, ever-living God, conduct us to the fellowship in celestial joys, so that, [we] having been born again in the Holy Spirit, you might cause [us] to enter into your kingdom, and [so that] the lowliness of the flock might come through to that to which the grandeur/exalted rank of the Shepherd came before.

renat* (< renasci, not reno) occurs in Jn 3:3 and 5, and in 1 Pet 1:23.  The substitution of fortitudo for celsitudo seems to me to destroy the natural contrast with humilitas present in the 8th-century (or earlier) original.

Marriage is by nature exclusive, just not when it comes to the one thing that most characteristically distinguishes it from all other relationships

"we are being asked by the gay or the women's movement. . . . to do three things, one [(no. 1)] compatible with tradition and two [(nos. 2 and 3)] not:
     "1. We are being asked. . . . [to agree that]
     "3. Life inside marriage is not to be construed as forbidding sexual relations with other persons. . . .
     "I do not call into question the teaching that marriage is a lifetime commitment, that its nature is exclusive, and that it is based upon fidelity.  I wish only to question whether these concepts are rightly understood when they are taken to refer primarily and necessarily to sexual congress.  Is it not instead the case, both in theory and in practice, that the validity of a marriage is judged by the intent and consent of the partners?  What counselor, when hearing a case of adultery, would judge by the act committed rather than by the agent's testimony of love, concern and willingness to preserve the married relation?  In these matters, to be sure, there is an important aspect known as 'injury'; but this is not an absolute standard unless the 'injured party' is of an absolutist persuasion.  Wise counselors learn that the greatest threat to marriage is, in fact, absolutism.
     "Far more important to marriage than adherence to rule is open communication between the partners. . . .
"marriage is made for men and women, not they for marriage.  This is precisely the message of our friends in gay and women's liberation. . . .
     "The rise of homosexuality and bisexuality in society exerts a pressure on marriage that causes us [(i.e. the church)] to re-appropriate its meaning.  If this is done, we are free to recognize that the forms of sexual desire do not matter when compared to the dignity of persons and their capacity for trust.
     "The gay liberation movement. . . . forces us to consider policy.  The movement should have our thanks if it . . . helps us to see that sexual purality is the very scene and stage upon which are played out the dramas of love."

     Thomas F. Driver, "The contemporary and Christian contexts" (1973), in Homosexuality and ethics, ed. Edward Batchelor, Jr. (New York:  The Pilgrim Press, 1980), 19-21, italics mine.  ="Homosexuality:  the contemporary and Christian contexts," Commonweal 98, no. 5 (April 6, 1973):  103-106.

The historical roots of our ecological crisis

"the text of Genesis (1, 26) which seems to legitimate the exploitation of nature was never interpreted in this sense by either Jews or Christians before the advent of the modern project[.] . . . [T]hat project is [therefore] more the cause than the consequence of the meaning erroneously ascribed to the biblical verses."

     Rémi Brague, citing the 1989 Cornell University Press monograph depicted, in Moderately modern, trans. Paul Seaton (South Bend, IN:  St. Augustine's Press, 2019), 123.  "Genesis" is italicized in the original, but not for emphasis.  "Not only would Christianity be responsible for the delay in the development of the sciences and technology, but it also would be responsible for the exact opposite, the excessive developments of the two, by handing the earth over to the disordered appetites of man, whom the Bible would consider as its master. . . .  In this way Christianity performs the feat, here with progress as in other ways, of being false in every respect.  It is guilty of everything, but also its contrary."

The life-giving Word of God

      "When the life-giving [(ζωοποιὸς)] Word of God dwelt in human flesh, he changed [(μετεσκεύασεν)] it into that good thing which is distinctively his, namely, life [(τὸ ἴδιον ἀγαθὸν, τουτέσι τὴν ζωὴν)]; and by being wholly united to the flesh in a way beyond our comprehension, he gave it the life-giving power [(ζωοποιὸν ἀπέδειξε)] which he has by his very nature.  Therefore, the body of Christ gives life [(ζωοποιεῖ)] to those who receive it.  Its presence in mortal men expels death and drives away corruption because it contains within itself in his entirety the Word who totally abolishes corruption."

     St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentarii in Iohannem 4.2 at 354b-c (Jn 6:51), ed. Pusey (1872), vol. 1, p. 520, ll. 3 ff., as translated for the Office of Readings at Saturday, Third Week of Easter.

"the words by which secularization is designated are themselves secularized words."

la-croix.com

"the process of secularization was first of all semantic; the words by which secularization is designated are themselves secularized words."

"les mots par lesquels la sécularisation se désigne sont eux-mêmes des mots sécularisés."

     Rémi Brague, Moderately modern (South Bend, IN:  St. Augustine's Press, 2019), 87.  I have not consulted the original, Modérément moderne (Paris:  Flammarion, 2016).  I back-translated until I turned the quote up on the Web.