I therefore ask: Can I blame “the atrophy of the chest” in men — and the resultant disregard for truth — for most of the world’s problems?

What hath an entire century of rampant secularism, relativism, and other “isms” wrought in men? Whatever it is, it ain’t pretty.

Along with scores of other powerful men, are the pope and the EP clever but hobbled? Have they traversed their entire lives with core character deficits nurtured and rewarded instead of corrected and healed? I’m sure they think they have everything figured out. I’m sure they believe they are making the world better. But with “atrophy of the chest,” aren’t they fundamentally flawed? Basically untrustworthy? Chronically out of whack? If they are missing the stable sentiments of love, humility, and compunction, what honor, truth, or godliness should I expect from them?

Lewis notes deftly that “no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that ‘a gentleman does not cheat,’ than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers.” https://orthodoxreflections.com/men-without-chests-the-metaphor-for-our-times/