Dear Maggie, My dear temperamental niece, don’t make the proverbial mistake of throwing the baby out with the bath water.  I suspect that you are exaggerating a little bit when you say that sororities are “evil” and that you are going to abandon yours and start a campaign to eradicate them from your campus.  We must make some important distinctions before you go off and do something so rash. (As a budding philosopher, you ought to be learning how to make distinctions.) I will take your word for it that the normal behavior of your sorority sisters is scandalous; if gossip, backbiting, promiscuity, abortions, drinking, and drugs are the norm, you are right to be disgusted and repelled.  And if they are the norm not only for your sorority but for all the other ones as well, then you are indeed in the midst of an “epidemic of vice and sin,” as you so energetically put it. Now for the distinction: do your sorority’s statutes state that the institution exists to encourage and foster those activities?  I highly doubt it. Rather, they probably claim to further sound human values like friendship, loyalty, community service, solidarity, etc… So the problem, perhaps, is not the sorority itself, but the current state of the sorority. Therefore, destroying the sorority system may not be the best option.  You could use its current state of decay as a springboard for a movement of reform, or as an inspiration to start a new sorority (a Catholic one maybe?). And since sororities are still such a big influence on campus, you might end up doing more good for campus culture by trying to return to their original purpose rather than wasting your energy on the futile task of eliminating them altogether.  Anyway, keep me posted and I’ll be happy to keep sending ideas. By the way, your situation reminds me of today’s saint.  Augustine and some of his fellow Roman monks were sent by Pope St Gregory the Great to re-evangelize England after it had been conquered by the pagan Anglo-Saxons.  Queen Bertha (Christian, the noble daughter of the King of France) had wed King Ethelbert (later St Ethelbert) and brought her private chaplain with her across the English Channel, so the Pope saw a golden opportunity.  When Augustine and company arrived, they faced a people and a culture imbued with superstition, violence, and idolatry (sounds a lot like your college). They worked patiently and prayerfully, energetically but tactfully, and in the mere seven years of Augustine’s mission there (OK, he had seven years and you only have four years – but you have computers and telephones, and he didn’t) they converted the majority of the mini-kingdoms.  One of their brilliant strategies is particularly apropos for your current struggle. Instead of demolishing the old pagan temples, they would simply rearrange and re-consecrate them for Christian worship. Thus they eased the transition from false religion to Christ’s truth. Food for thought, isn’t it? Love, Uncle Eddy

Dear Phil, You are just a freshman; you’ve got so much time ahead of you – three more big, fat years at college, and then a whole lifetime!  But you are wise to pose the question you asked in your last note: how can you make the best use of your college years? I imagine that this question has arisen because you have experienced a few qualms of conscious about how you utilized your time during your first year.  If that’s the case, don’t hesitate to bring it up in confession – ask our Lord’s pardon for any wasted, irresponsibly used time; time is a gift from God just like all the other gifts he gives us, and we ought to use it well. There is an awful lot to say about time management, especially in today’s super fast-paced post-modernity.  As your loving uncle, however, I would like to give you one simple word to guide your use of time during these beautiful and critical college years: training.  Yep, you are in training. Only God knows what mission he has in store for you, what battles you will be called to fight for his Kingdom, what divine secrets he will want to communicate to the world through your words and example.  These years of your education are part of the plan; they are years in which he wants you to develop your talents and ready yourself to receive your marching orders. He is counting on you take advantage of every minute to build a solid character, form an agile and robust intellect, hone your interpersonal skills, learn to communicate, and learn the art of living.  The centerpiece of it all, however, has to be a deep, vibrant, dynamic, and heartfelt friendship with Christ. With that in place, the Holy Spirit will be able to take care of all the rest. Just like he did with today’s saint. Philip Neri abandoned a promising clerkship to move to Rome, where he spent two years almost entirely in prayer and sacrifice, forsaking the pleasures of the world in hopes to discover how he was to serve the Lord.  He became so close to God, so filled with zeal, that he almost single-handedly ignited a religious revival among the corrupt and worldly people and clergy of the Eternal City. He is still today known as the Apostle of Rome (even though he was born in Florence).  He started all kinds of ministries, spent entire days in the confessional (he would tell people their sins even before they confessed them), and acted as a spiritual adviser to a steady stream of repentant cardinals, clergy, laity, and even a Pope or two. He had put his relationship with God first and kept it there, and that’s all God needed in order to ensure that his eighty years of earthly life were filled with incomparable joy, immense love, and incredible apostolic fruit. So then, you would like a bit of advice on taking advantage of your time.  Well, if you can keep in mind that these are your training years (and they will never return) and that the core of all your training is your relationship with God… In that case, I’d be willing to bet that you finish with no regrets. Love, Uncle Eddy

Dear Beth, If it is true that the pen is more powerful than the sword (which I am willing to admit) than I am quite relieved to have your pen on our side.  Another writing prize? I daresay that you will probably be able to pay your entire tuition with proceeds from essay contests if you continue along these lines.  As your loving uncle, however, I have to put in a little caveat: you put in a couple of cheap shots in that last paper – praising Napoleon to the detriment of the Pope (who was truly charitable to the ungrateful emperor) was clearly (to me anyway) a clever way to ingratiate yourself with those anti-Catholics on the panel of judges.  Tut tut, my darling little authoress, beware the prowling lion. If you begin now, while still an “amateur,” to make little compromises for the sake of worldly success, you may someday end up winning a Nobel Prize, but it could cost you a pretty eternal penny. Better to keep God first in everything, developing your talents to the full, but using them only to further truth, justice, and beauty – not your personal fame, power, and vanity. Take today’s saint, for example.  The Venerable Bede was sent off to a monastery school in northern England when he was seven years old, and he spent the rest of his influential and exemplary life within that convent’s walls (with the exception of a few trips to visit friends in other monasteries).  By his own description, he spent “my whole life in that monastery, devoting all my efforts to the study of the Scriptures, and amid the observance of monastic discipline and the daily charge of singing in the church it has ever been my delight to learn or teach or write.”  And boy did he write. Commentaries on the Bible, compilations of the works of the Fathers, the most famous Ecclesiastical History of the English People (the only source of English history before to the 8th century), countless sermons (many of which still form part of the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours), and much else besides.  But he always wrote what he wrote out of love for the truth and wisdom of God. He put it best himself in this little prayer: “And I pray thee, loving Jesus, that as thou hast graciously given me to drink in with delight the words of thy knowledge, so thou wouldst mercifully grant me to attain one day to thee, the fountain of all wisdom, and to appear forever before thy face.”  During the brief illness that led to his death, he spent his time (confined in bed) dictating a translation into English of the Gospel of John, dying only a few moments after finishing the last sentence, with the “Glory be” wafting heavenward on his final breath. So wield that pen well, my delightful little niece, so that when you bring it with you to our Lord at the end of your life (may it be a long and prolific one), he will give it a place of honor in his royal arsenal, and welcome you home with a glad smile.  Keep up the good work. Uncle Eddy