The topic that I'll just address briefly this afternoon is, yeah, coin us on our political life.

Really just to ponder for a moment, not really what is politics.

We all have enough experience, in fact, to be able to answer that question.

But why do we have politics? I mean, what's the origin of our

political life? You know, why is it that we are seemingly thrust into the public square

and are forced to have political opinions and to work for political objectives.

What's this for? And why do we have it?

Most of modernity, you know, treats our political life as a kind of necessary evil.

You know, that politics somehow has its origin and sin, you know, that we gather and we work together

politically to overcome some kind of evil, whether that selfishness or things like that.

And that somehow, if we didn't have politics, or if we didn't have this

evil to overcome that politics is supposed to vanquish, then we'd somehow live happier

lives. And a lot of our political theories that drive our political thinking, and even our

political living today are based on this.

Aquinas, though, in the Thomas tradition, I would say more widely, the Christian tradition

has a different view.

And that's what I'd like to share with you this afternoon.

In fact, St. Thomas's understanding of the origin

of politics helps us to answer

the riddle that's raised in today's gospel.

The scribes

and Pharisees out of malice

...