Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦

Deacon, husband, father, and Chancellor & General Counsel. Tutor in the Great Books. Host of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast @TheGreatB00ks.

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

My wife and I adopted a baby boy who contracted spinal meningitis.

On the feast of St Gemma Galgani, who had been healed of spinal meningitis as a child, he was completely healed.

Weeks earlier, not ever having heard of the saint, I had approved naming a chapel after her.

[Catholic Answers @catholiccom]

Story time! What are your best stories of a saint interceding for you? 🙏👇

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

If you have the opportunity to listen to @pleonidasp on Plato, take it.

I always learn a lot. ⬇️📚

[Pavlos Papadopoulos @pleonidasp]

One of the great joys of @HarrisonGarlic1's @TheGreatB00ks podcast is the opportunity it affords to dive deeply into a short portion of a great text. This week, I joined him to discuss Adeimantus's speech at the beginning of book 2 of Plato's Republic.

https://t.co/dU9u3PY35U

[Ascend: The Great Books Podcast @TheGreatB00ks]

The Theology of Socrates

If the divine exists, what must the divine be like? The question of "justice" in the Republic is inseparable from the question of the divine--and we have @pleonidasp as an excellent guide.

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

Amen.

“Pastoral reasons” has become a relativistic catch all to do whatever you want - often whatever is the most non-confrontational, milquetoast path.

[Catholic Sat @CatholicSat]

Pope Leo XIV in Argentina, warns priests of the gravity of doing something they know is wrong and then justifying their actions by saying it was done for pastoral reasons.

The Pope makes the hand gesture for inverted commas (air quotes) as he says “pastoral reasons.” Watch:

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

@wcgrimley @DioLafayetteLA Awesome.

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

For many, the question of what is just and what is unjust maps on to the optics of what appears cruel and what does not.

The optics of cruelty - usually masquerading as a discussion on justice - govern most legal, ethic debates.

Marriage, immigration, death penalty, etc.

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

@WheelmanForHire Congrats!

[Ascend: The Great Books Podcast @TheGreatB00ks]

About to record with @har10burg on the Timaeus!

[Ascend: The Great Books Podcast @TheGreatB00ks]

Small change for next week:

NEW SCHEDULE 📅

6. November 10, 2026 — Republic Bk 2: Adeimantus & Socrates’ Reaction (362d-369b) — Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos (@pleonidasp) , Wyoming Catholic College

7. November 17, 2026 — Gyges’ Ring Roundtable — Dr. Paul Jordan Diduch, SMU

Full reading calendar: https://t.co/WaXAnEYUSs

[Alex Priou @alexpriou]

Eros flees the bald, so you can be sure my thoughts are wholly sober.

Enjoy, and thanks as always to @HarrisonGarlic1 of @TheGreatB00ks!

⬇️⬇️⬇️

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

@TheGreatB00ks @alexpriou Always good to discuss Plato with @alexpriou - he always pushes us to look deeper into the text and find some new lesson.

If you can listen to Dr. Priou on Plato, don't miss it. @uaustinorg

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

@IMPERATORAUS And can recover it if she can awake from her acedia slumber.

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

Plato on democracies and immigration:

[Patrick Deneen @PatrickDeneen]

This is a nice write-up by Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters, reporting on the conferral of the Pius XI award, which I received recently from the Society of Catholic Social Scientists.

https://t.co/6sG8K6EHxG

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

“Act, and God will act.”

St. Joan of Arc

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

Plato on democracies and immigration:

[Ascend: The Great Books Podcast @TheGreatB00ks]

Something is wrong with democracy.

➡️ Fathers fear their sons, teachers appease their students, foreigners are made equal to citizens, and even criminals are treated gently.

In Book VIII of the Republic, Socrates warns of the effects of democracy and its blind praise of freedom and equality.

Yet, Socrates has something more in mind. For it is easy to critique democracy (for those willing to do it), but it is harder to critique the democratic qualities of your own soul. Would you be considered a democratic man?

Socrates offers a discussion on regimes as a mirror of your soul—a mirror we often hesitate to look within.

And within democratic soul lurks something that seems impossible—within the regime that gives the greatest praise of freedom dwells the greatest capacity for slavery.

Plato has something to teach you—if you are willing to listen...

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

@TheGreatB00ks @jennfrey Always deeply appreciate @jennfrey. We miss her here in Tulsa.

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

Voting is a moral act.

You must think of the good of your family, your neighbor, your community, and our common good.

You must also think of the rights and liberties of the Church.

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

@FrDylanSchrader @sacradoctrina Very good.

[Dcn. Garlick, Chancellor 🇻🇦 @HarrisonGarlic1]

@TheGreatB00ks @alexpriou @uaustinorg I always appreciate @alexpriou - glad he can join us for our first LIVE Q&A. Should be great.

[Ascend: The Great Books Podcast @TheGreatB00ks]

Tomorrow is a huge day for our book club.

We have our first ever LIVE discussion on Plato's Republic!

Not only that, but Dr. Alex Priou (@alexpriou) of @uaustinorg is joining — an opportunity to put your own questions about Plato to one of America's leading political philosophers.

Join us.
https://t.co/GgC3LJ3mG0