The phrase in the title of tonight's talk, turbulent times, covers a very wide terrain of troubles

in our country, in the world, and in the church.

In the country, we are subjected on almost an hourly basis to politics by tweet,

and whether that's news Alexandria, Ocasio-Cortez, or the President of the United States,

or a whole cast of characters in between. In the world, we see a crack-up of the

post-Cold War settlement with new forms of aggression emerging all over the world, and in America,

deeply confused about how, if at all, it should address those problems.

And in the church, of course, we are in a period of unexpected doctrinal and moral instability

after a period of some stability in the life

and thought of the church during the pontificates

of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

The book that is available for your further Lenton penance

tonight,

the fragility of order, some of you may know that I had the

idiotic idea of naming my first major book with a Latin title.

It was called Tranquilitas Ordinus. Augustine's Tranquility of Order.

The subtitle was the present failure and future promise

of American Catholic thought on war and peace.

Big mistake.

When this one was coming out, some smarty pants said,

oh, are we going to have now fragilitas ordinance?

I said, no, I've had enough butchery of Latin titles on talk radio for a lifetime,

...