Recently, while I had the grace of reading and enjoying an interesting book, I met a Latin phrase which really made me reflect. So went this proverbial phrase: Qui bene usquit distinquit, bene docet. In other words, whoever distinguishes well, learns well.

In his Forum article, Love, Tolerance, and the Making of Distinctions, Bishop Robert Barron writes: “My great mentor Robert Sokolowski long ago taught me – in one of those lapidary remarks that strikes you immediately as right and important – that philosophy is the art of making distinctions. He meant that what brings together Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein is a gift for clarifying how this differs from that, how one aspect of an idea profiles itself against another, how seemingly similar concepts are in fact distinct.”

When we hold public conversations, especially concerning moral issues, let us be humble, wise and sensitive to make the right distinctions. In this way our arguments are clear, captivating and persuasive.