Shortly after September 11, 2001, I was in a classroom addressing students at a Midwestern Catholic college, where I was a professor. Reuters News Service had run a story stating that it would not refer to the 9\/11 attacks as \u201cterrorist\u201d\u009d because one man\u2019s terrorist is another man\u2019s freedom fighter. I asked the students if they agreed. They did. I said I assumed then that they did not think the attacks were morally wrong. Their reply was that the attacks were wrong, but not morally wrong. What then did they mean by \u201cwrong,\u201d\u009d I asked. Did they mean \u201cpsychologically disturbing,\u201d\u009d \u201cpolitically incorrect\u201d\u009d?<\/p>\n
[This and another] personal experience[]… serve to illustrate in microcosm the ideological shift that has taken place in the U.S. over the course of the past forty years \u201d\u201d a shift toward an ever more pronounced secularism that is depriving us of the moral authority required for integrity and self-government, both personal and corporate.<\/p>\n