Vice Column: Letter to America
Clement Harrold Student Government Vice President Just shy of four years ago I arrived in Steubenville, Ohio, after more than 30 hours of travelling. Though not my first time in the United States, this particular journey had certainly proven the most eventful. Upon arriving on the east coast, I discovered that my connecting flight to […]
Vice Column: On logs and splinters
Clement Harrold Student Government Vice President In a penetrating passage in “The Screwtape Letters,” the older devil advises his nephew in the following terms: “Be sure that the patient remains completely fixated on politics. Arguments, political gossip and obsessing on the faults of people they have never met serves as an excellent distraction from advancing […]
Blessed are the pure of heart
Clement Harrold Student Government Vice President Among the most sobering aspects of Dr. Stephen Sammut’s recently published study on pornography and mental health are his findings on the sheer volume of men on this campus for whom porn remains a real and ongoing struggle. This is an uncomfortable topic, to be sure, but one which […]
Vice Column: Toward an academic culture
Clem Harrold Student Government Vice President For more or less the entirety of my time at Franciscan University of Steubenville, I have been devoted to promoting the academic culture on campus. Freshman spring I founded what has gone on to become the largest intellectually-oriented student group on campus: the Veritas Society. Sophomore year I became […]
Vice Column: A failed church
Clement Harrold Student Government Vice President “This house believes that the American experiment has failed.” So reads the motion for last weekend’s Dumb Ox Debate, the first of this semester. Though provocatively worded, the House’s position has proven thought-provoking for me, such that I have spent considerable time reflecting on the question over the past […]
Biden, masks and the false idol of unity
Clement Harrold Student Government Vice President In a recent video, Bishop Robert Barron described the word “divisive” as “comically ineffectual,” an alienating sentiment with which I am in full agreement. As Barron rightly noted, any time in life that you make a “decision” (from the Latin “de caedere”), you are deliberately choosing to “cut off” […]
Why face masks are no small deal
Clement Harrold Student Government Vice President Funnily enough, nobody has ever asked me to amend the U.S. Constitution, or at least not yet. But if they did, I imagine my proposed 28th amendment might read something like this: “A well-regulated student body being necessary to the sanity of a free campus, the right of the […]
In defense of Antonian Hall: a complaint against complaining
Clement Harrold Student Government Vice President As someone with a strong propensity to melancholy, I am well-versed in pointing out problems, highlighting negatives and taking a generally pessimistic approach to life (all in the name of “realism,” of course). Such is my temperament. But that doesn’t mean my attitude is a good one. In fact, […]
Vice Column: Running as martyrdom
Clement Harrold Student Government Vice President I hate running. It’s intense, it’s painful, it’s tiring and almost from the moment I start, I just want it to be over. I also suck at it. Kind of like my spiritual life, come to think of it. And yet, just as with my spiritual life, in spite […]
Vice Column: Airplane mode will save your soul
Clement Harrold Student Government Vice President In his thought-provoking article “7 Reasons Why Your Smartphone Is Bilbo’s Ring,” the Rev. John Hollowell offers a sobering insight into the untold detrimental effects wrought by our cell phones in our day-to-day lives. Reads the first reason: “You randomly worry that you don’t have it, check your pocket, […]