"Lord, Bless That Person I Hate So Much"

Over the next several weeks we'll be sharing links to Catholic writers and others who share the goal of this conference. Getting started . . .

Elizabeth Scalia writes at Word on Fire:

"Look, I’m no angel. I have spewed my share of snarls and made my mockeries—sometimes I’ve been clever, most of the time, not—but when I decided to stop writing about (or even seriously considering) politics anymore in 2012, it gave me the opportunity to see where I had been, what I’d been permitting to happen in my soul with my too ready mouth—and I didn’t like it. I wanted, then, to work toward delivering something better than the easy sarcasm and mockery that becomes too habitual, too quickly, and pulls your soul into quicksand, while others, feeling validated, are telling you how great you are.

"I wanted to love again—to actively, consciously, do the harder work of listening (and really hearing) and repairing my own flaws instead of jeering at the flaws of others, instead of pursuing what Pope Francis calls the “dark joy” of gossip, or one-upsmanship, and the sociopolitical hating that goes along with that and has become America’s default mode." This is what the Good Discourse conference is about: Learning to become a person who embodies the Love of Jesus Christ. Elizabeth continues: "I still need to work on loving more, loving better. 2012 may have been an instinctual turning point for me, but apparently loving is a wider corner than I realized, and I still haven’t fully turned. Then again, “to turn” is to convert. And conversion needs to be a daily thing, if we mean to live the faith rightly." It's a lifelong process. If you're interested in joining us for a weekend of conversion, reconciliation, and rediscovering your vocation as a Catholic writer, we'd love to have you join us.