Did Dale Ahlquist coin a phrase?

In a great article titled Another Sin We Don't Want to Hear About, Dale Ahlquist laid down what I think is a very quoteable quote. Dale is one of my heros. I actually have been watching his Sunday night show on EWTN for years before even considering Catholicism an option. Chesterton makes so much sense, I was just drawn to Dale's weekly dose of him in a moth-to-flame sort of way. Although my wife will tell you that when the show was over, I would quickly turn the channel so as not to see the nuns praying the rosary. Scandalous! Ah, silly old me.

In true Chestertonian fashion, he has a one liner in here that made me: pause, chuckle, re-read, think, grin.
I actually googled the phrase and came up empty. Is it possible Dale coined it? Seems strange that he could be the first to coin it, because it is quite a simple statement, but perhaps. Anyhoo, i'll let you read the entire passage and see if you can pick it out for yourself.

I love what he has to say here. So what I though was a really good one liner was "It is hypocritical to criticize hypocrites". Perhaps Chesterton said it and Dale is repeating it here? Or is it not as profound as I think it is?

The Catholic Church is always condemned for condemning sins. Since we are all sinners, sin is the last thing we want to hear about. But of course, if we don’t confess our sins and flee from our sins, sin is the last thing we will hear about. That’s why the Church has a certain obligation to keep bringing these things up.



The Church has to do the hard and thankless work of condemning sins. There are few folks—well, more than a few—who do not consider the Church a trustworthy authority on the subject of sin. They are quick to point out that priests and bishops and even popes have turned out to be guilty of the same sins they have condemned. But this excuse for questioning the authority of the Church doesn’t wear well. It is hypocritical to criticize hypocrites. The more interesting challenge is this: do sins change? Or rather, does the Catholic Church condemn something as being a sin in one age, but excuse it as not being a sin in another age? This is an argument that is often used against the Church’s moral teaching.


In the 1960s many people in the Catholic Church were anticipating that Pope Paul VI would issue an encyclical that would permit contraception. Some argued that there was precedent for such a change in the Church’s teaching. After all, the Church once condemned usury as a sin, but no longer did.


But the encyclical Humane Vitae surprised and infuriated a lot of people: the Pope upheld the Church’s teachings instead of altering them. He also warned about what would happen if the world embraced a contraceptive mentality: it would lead to abortion, divorce, and sexual perversion. Turned out he was right.

Keep up the Chestertonizing Dale.

Oscar Wilde quote

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.


Oscar Wilde

Reminds me of the "cowboy caviar" I saw in the grocery yesterday. As a typical American, I was strangely intrigued by the barbaric decadence of it. I bet it's yummy.

The Very Cheery Bertrand Russell

"That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built." Bertrand Russell From “A Free Man’s Worship” 1902 Does he realize that with his every word he contradicts the very words he speaks? If "unyielding despair" is the only safe resort, why try to convince anyone about it? Every moment of his life in which he believed this "truth" as he calls it but also was not trying to commit suicide, was a moment in which he showed himself to not believe a word his mouth was saying. Also it is ironic that he speaks of "no philosophy which rejects them (despair) can hope to stand." Two points on this Bernie. 1. Christianity is a philosophy based on great hope. Enough hope and joy that saints throughout its 2000 year history have gladly spilled their blood for that hope with joyful, happy smiles on their face! Christianity is 1/3 of the earth population and growing Bernard, and we have had plenty of time for our planet to think about your philosophy of despair. We reject it. Right now only 3% of the earth is atheist. 2. The history of mankind is the history of religion. There is no reason to believe this will ever change. Human beings desire God. Sad, tired, old philosophies of men like Russell are the chaff that is blown away in the wind of the Spirit which draws men to the cross.