Once included among the capital sins, acedia has been identified with both sloth and sadness. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, defined it both as "disgust with activity" and “sadness about spiritual good.” Today’s guest, RJ Snell, argues that acedia is the chief spiritual malady of our age, underlying the malaise, nihilism and despair so prevalent in the modern West.

Links

R.J. Snell, Acedia and Its Discontents: Metaphysical Boredom in the Empire of Desire https://amzn.to/2xTTBhQ

Thomas’s 2015 review of Snell, Acedia and Its Discontents https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otc.cfm?id=1307

Thomas’s 2015 review of Nault, The Noonday Devil https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otc.cfm?id=1283

Forthcoming book: R.J. Snell and Robert P. George, Mind, Heart & Soul: Intellectuals and the Path to Rome https://amzn.to/2zO9Uhk

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