belief is shallow, superficial and useless. and together with this, we also must believe and how many people think this through, that no matter how the human race is, the most important event for a catholic in the entire history of the universe has only happened 2000 years ago. . .

>> who will kiss babies. and who will be very popular and bring prosperity. he will be the anti-christ because a great majority will flock to him including christians and catholics and their only will be a small minority who will say this

woman, this man is the antichrist. just as it has happened history does not repeat itself is the second coming is not a round yet but this is what happened 2,000 years ago just think of the difference of the crucifixion of christ. the majority only a small minority went from the leading in him and even a small minority there were jews who suffered for his sins. so we must understand in different ways we will not be persecuted but we will be a small minority who believe that human beings are different from all other human beings and all god is going to judge a us four is how do we

behave? how do we think? how to react? how do we speak too other human beings? they have three or four relationships in this world. in fact, he has a relationship, but everybody. he has a relationship with himself then he has a relationship with all other living beings and has a relationship with other human beings. we can only judge fell last one. we don't know we're not here to judge what is the relationship to god. we do not know what a person is to himself but we can only judge him how he acts with other human beings whether

babies or old people never mind other human beings in this for us has the belief that we are unique in the universe, we are not knowing that the son of god came as a human being. no matter what science and technology says we're both in space and time in the very center of the universe which is our universe. and you see perhaps almost surely pretentious preaching to you we live in a different world because the words are

being corrupted. the very phrase is being corrupted but as they told you the intelligent design thing gives me the creeps. these are good willing people or people who say equal sex marriage and so forth i do not want to go into this but you see, you see it emerson was a great wine and said the corruption of society leads to the corruption of language. i am convinced the opposite is true the corruption of language leads to the corruption of society. and i can give you the oodles of it examples of this intelligent design this

previous president said i would give you a basic example or i could give the $1,000. americans wanted to have the ownership society, and ownership society when before the presented to pressure and -- depression less than half of americans own their houses. i am not only speaking mortgages but second equity, right now less than three percent of americans own their house is. they are renters, not owners. i am not blaming them i am blaming the institutions the banks and presidents and institutions and demagogues

who say we live in the world for the very meaning of property. what is property? what is an asset? what is education? ownership? a lot of these words it have been leached out of their meetings. so coming back to my original shocking statistics, 42 out of 45 children in a middle-class suburb of new jersey never had it night after night supper with their parents. the educational children defense on the school's very little, it depends on the parents come it depends on the parent's where they learned what they really ought to learn but the most important thing in this world where we live where books are disappearing, language is accepted as corrupt, is the children ought to know and so many of them do not know, not

that they are habitual wires, that you really ought to mean what you say. and you really ought to say what you mean. this is not always easy and sometimes cannot be done but this is the essence of life. the world stage word communication the information society actually marriages, families contact is breaking down although they have blackberry's. don't forget to we're not near the end but let's go back to the beginning, it did in the beginning was the word. guide the talks by words, not buy the number and not the image. the word. and respect for the word is

the most important thing that we can give to our children. in one sense, it is very easy another it is very difficult but if i really speaking to very different members of the minority, this is what catholic education is all about, not the buildings and, not the football team or sex education. the respect for the word. thank you. [applause] >> now is the easy part to because i really looking forward to your questions.

[laughter] >> why is a 65 such a good year for a memoir? >> i guess it is a good age where you live long enough and you are still not affected by a two much sentimentalism and its ability. [laughter] -- to senility. not physically close to the mental peak of your maturity and going back on my life i was not an unhappy man but i think the best years of my life were between 55 and 75 so you have something to look forward two. [laughter]

>> and 65 is in the middle of that. i did not think of that. >> . >> kid talk about the state of catholic education in the university? >> i cannot tell you much about this because i am out of it. i am practical and i had to retire. it is now 15 years ago. i have now very few friends who are teaching universities and catholic universities with whom i am in contact with. i cannot tell you.

it is something in the with which i really do not have sufficient barry and sufficient information. i shall be very critical of education and, believe in education, a catholic education, but i don't think, my feeling is things have not changed very much in the past 10 or 20 years a generally across the nation. comparing catholic institutions is the catholic institutions and the members and directors and managers and directors, we are not immune to some of the fabs that led to a decline of intellectual standards in the '60s and '70s and '80s. we have not been immune to wit

and it would have taken a great deal of character that i don't think the relationship has greatly changed comparing it to nine catholic institutions, but this is on the basis of very insufficient knowledge i have right now. >> dr. lukacs you talk very tellingly about how difficult it is to find people who think it can you talk about those who want to think how they even find good sources of information in? depending like to know, what newspaper you get the word according to a particular point* of view? you are educating people today how would you tell them to

think? >> my hope i answer your question there really is something i know something about unlike your question. it is not the collecting of information. actually the word of information is also corrupted because information means formation something with a new what the people today regard as information is getting facts from the outside they can continue to information but they are not really information. information really is the ability to think for yourself, to make up your own mind and a very important element is there to recognize

the limits of your mind, how much there is i really do not know. the purpose of all knowledge is not so much quantitative, accuracy, it is understanding. and understanding is a very profound thing. if there are two human beings, a husband and wife, parents and children and friends and colleagues, associates, a competitor's , is the best thing and your relationship is if you try to understand them. not just accumulate an immense amount of material but to the understanding has something to

do with what i talk to you about earlier the relationship of human beings. it to means participation. he may be very opposite. but you try to understand. now this understanding, and i am perhaps going a little bit, obviously it is good for you to get information, but it really should be in the formation -- it should make you think not just collect data. let me give you, you can see we are all original sinners and information and knowledge of other human beings, other countries, other religions or other groups can never be completely. but try to understand them and

this is a level thing about level -- lovely thing about human understanding is that we are fallible and it is necessary in complete. what i say to you or to my wife or to my children is never exactly what they hear. it is different from the mechanical world where you push a button and it goes on our it does not. it is never exactly because it is not a question but associations and that is the charm of human communications. if two people completely understood each other, that would be unbearable. [laughter] unbearable. let me give you another

example. when you know, another language well then the same word translated in a dictionary but this does not only refer to an english or french word somebody like my wife says something and says it differently and that is the very charm of her relationship. do you see what i am saying? so much of our thinking is ready-made. look at television. here is the difference between reading and television. obviously there are good television programs and bad

books obviously. a book necessarily i have deplored the decline of reading of books but a book is not necessarily good. but still, a book or a newspaper you read the text. here you have squiggles and black and white. every letter is a squiggle. you have to recount the picture yourself. you read this and you have to imagine a this involves a high year kind of mental activity the picture is ready-made even with a picture there is the element of imagination because i say this looks like an to suze somebody who does not know and suze does not see that but to a lesser extent

the mind is much less active or creative looking at the picture by reading the text. uc the intellect and i am not speaking of crossword puzzles, and the mind imagination has muscles to. they have to be exercised just like the physical muscle house to exercise there are many things where we have to make up our own mind. it is difficult. it is a much more difficult than having our mind made up by somebody else. i am a great believer in the importance of peace and ideas but let's be honest, we don't have ideas. we choose them. we choose our idea that is

comfortable for us if we have a competitor who is better than we are and somebody tells us that he is a cheat it is comfortable to believe that. but we have to try to be honest with ourselves and in fuse this two hour children. and the absolutely inescapable element is you really ought to say what you mean and as much as possible you ought to mean what you say. >> you are talking about the

importance of the word says the word became flesh among us it has a central role to play for the catholic. john paul to did a lot of work on the theology of the body that it had a meeting and to violate aspects of the body is a violation of the body it seems like an extension i remember your book where you showed the formality and elegance and etiquette of the earlier years where there's a certain formality in terms of the teeeighteen in the way they dressed, then the more casual later on and also you talked about school buildings in terms of size but what about the importance of the form of the building like st. joe's university old campus? those buildings speak something symbolically that i think impressed on those students that go there that there is a meeting, a kind of

elevation to the aesthetics that is different. i am wondering what roles to the trading and etiquette and even aesthetics play an education in that regard? >> obviously things change and there is a decline, obviously you see again, behavior and manners tell us something with a human being and even if he is fashionable or not. even manners, manners have a certain moral element to them. we know this. there will be a reaction to this but again i tell you what does not, although i am very old-fashioned and reactionary, i think it would be a great mistake to simply

that we have to have great respect for the past but you must not idealize it. human nature does not change. i said this before, i do not want to repeat myself the pendulum does not swing back. let's not have sentimental and rose colored the view of catholic life and catholic believe for catholic behavior of 100 years ago. in many ways it was better, in other ways it was not. perhaps it was a little somber what i said but i have to tell you after all since you have spent a rainy sunday afternoon to come here, i really don't know why.

[laughter] to tell you something that we have to steer ourselves, it is not difficult you can even take a little pride in it. we are now a minority, a small minority. we will remain a small minority. that is why we must also field just like readers, just one example. that is how we can take a certain type, not but some kind of pride in it. and it will rise some time a new sense of community. and what will find most people, not everyone because most human beings are fallible is the quality of our belief manifest did of how we deal

and how we think of each other. i think i have answered enough questions [applause] >> john lukacs the author of over 20 books including five days in london. dr. lukacs is a member of their royal historical society of the united kingdom and former president of the american a catholic historical association. for more information visit the web site.

>> thank you for coming out on this beautiful day, a history lovers. well we were driving up here i live-in palo alto, i thought we are the most fortunate people on the planets and all of history to live and a california. it is just so gorgeous up here. of palo alto and the south bay the character, the terrain and entire environment changes after you go after that wonderful bowl thank you bridge and here we are in beautiful corte madera it is a pleasure to be here. you can hear me? is this better? i will speak