Vero Beach

Contact: Sherry McMahon
Email: sjmcmahon@earthlink.net

2015 Update:

The Vero Beach Study Circle met for the first time on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in January 2016. Discussion concentrated on Jean-Pierre Batut’s “Totalitarian Tendencies and the Perversion of Language” (Summer 2015). Alex Ross, as discussion leader, gave a cogent synopsis, followed by group discussion expanding on the ideas of 1) political correctness; 2) the changing of language to mean something that no longer corresponds to its previous definition; and 3) the alarming parallels between our present day media and educational “thought police” on the one hand, and George Orwell’s 1984 totalitarian government as well as that of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Robert Hugh Benson’s Lord of the World on the other.

Leader Sherry McMahon shares that “members of the Circle found enlightening Bishop Batut’s explication of language as ‘opening a path’ to bring man to the full humanity intended for him by God. Euphemisms, vocabulary truncation, and attendant emerging social mores are being used to attempt to restructure our morality and faith. Abortion is now ‘choice,’ single parenting is now a family, invasion is now immigration, marriage is now gender neutral—examples abound. We are called upon, as disciples of Christ, to use our free will to reject the perversion of language, not to allow euphemisms to alter the perception of reality. With our free will comes a great responsibility. We need to say what is, no matter what the cost. As Jesus said to Pilate: ‘For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth’ (John 17:37). As Bishop Batut said, ‘The ability of language to say what is and to question false evidence is vital for the humanity of human beings.’”