I stopped reading Kevin O'Brien a long time ago

Maybe that is what he means by not being rigid

I had a chance to meet Kevin at EWTN studios many moons ago.  I was there with the Coming Home Network. He was with a group doing something with theater.  It was there I met Mark Shea, and was invited to an after event gathering featuring wine, chocolates and much talk.  IIRC, Kevin struck me as a decent fellow.  

He probably still is, but the post-modern secular world does have a polluting effect.  Kevin's sympathies are clearly left of center.  He's also in the world of drama and theater, which is not exactly ground zero for Gospel values. Nonetheless, I still used to read him and see what he had to say.

Then came the great Lying for Jesus kerfuffle.  That tempest was brought to us courtesy of Dawn Eden.  This is how it happened.   At one point, a decade or so ago, an undercover pro-life investigation discovered that Planned Parenthood might be doing some pretty horrible things with those aborted babies.   The news shot across the Catholic blogosphere like wildfire. Multiple Catholics were up in arms and the outrage even began to filter into MSM news rooms. 

Suddenly, out of the blue, Dawn Eden took fingers to the keyboard and, along with another contributor, said not so fast.  Not that it was difficult to believe Planned Parenthood would do such a thing.  Not that the allegations weren't horrible beyond imagining.  But you see, this investigation was undercover.  They pretended to be people who were in situations that they weren't.  That is, they lied to be undercover.  And that, friends, was the real grave evil.  Whatever evils done by Planned Parenthood paled in comparison to Christians trying to fight evil while being less than 100% pure and honest. 

Bam!  I consider that the day St. Blogs died.  Almost overnight, the LIARS FOR JESUS topic exploded and boiled over.  Soon we found out there was no room for anything but pure, untarnished holiness when fighting for justice or life itself.  No matter what the cost.  Better Jews be hauled off to the camps than lie to save them.  Take that Corrie ten Boom.   At one point Mark Shea linked to a Catholic pediatrician who said he would let a thousand children be murdered rather than risk his soul by telling even a 'white lie' to save them.  

A growing number of Internet Catholics ran in that direction, cheering Dawn Eden for her enlightened guidance in this area.  Among them was Kevin O'Brien.  Those Catholics trying to justify lying for any reason sinned a great sin. They became the infamous 'Liars for Jesus.'  Yes, we bemoan Planed Parenthood and its operations (at least back then). Sure, we weep for the death of the innocent.  Of course we should try to fight evils and injustices in the world.  But never, ever should we think of doing so with anything less than pure holiness, or we immediately become the true, grave and intrinsic evil in the room.  Oh, and the whole Planned Parenthood story all but dropped off the radar by that point. 

Shortly after that time, a year or so perhaps, Kevin wrote a post celebrating the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  He mused about how Ferris was such a noble, admirable figure seeking to live life in a freedom of spirit. He talked about the inspiring themes coming from the film.  If there were problematic people in the film, it was everyone but Ferris Bueller:  His parents, his friends' parents, the school principle, society as a whole.  

I asked him if he actually had watched the same Ferris Bueller's Day Off that I watched.  A movie about how a self-absorbed teenager lies, dupes, cons, and manipulates everyone around him.  He lies to his parents.  He lies to his school.  He lies to the entire city.  He mocks their kindness as one lie after another spreads and leads an entire metropolis to rally together to help save poor Bueller, who doesn't need saved at all.  And he doesn't do it to rescue Jews from Nazis or keep babies from being slaughtered.  He does it all just to be a lazy ne'er-do-well who cares about the latest creature comfort or itch for fun more than anything else.  

How do you square the loftiest of all principles that says 'better to let a thousand children die than lie' with celebrating a movie like that?  That's like emphasizing the high virtues of chastity then recommending Debbie Does Dallas.  He responded with what I call 'word drool.'  That is, he wrote a bunch of gibberish that sounded pretty, but meant he knew what I knew, but what could he say?  That is postmodernity in a nutshell: you care about lying when you care about lying.  When you don't, you don't.  Just like any principle or truth claim in our post-modern age.  Just like whether human suffering is important or not, or anything is true or not.  Or whether siding with the slaughter of Jews is a deal breaker or not. And that was the last time I read anything he had to say.  

Based on this that came to my attention, I haven't missed anything. It's a twist-turn on 'how to keep our focus on those rascally conservatives amidst growing leftwing support for Jew hate and the extermination of Israeli Jews!'  He even references conservative David French who reminds us that right-wingers are terrible for  expecting pregnant mothers to bring all babies to term or daring to suggest the Science wasn't 100% awesome when it came to Covid.  Sure, there is some leftwing Jew hate, but let's not take our eyes off  the ball!

People like David French and Keven O'Brien remind me of why I align conservative.  Not just based on common sense and an objective analysis of secular liberalism's staggering failures.  But because conservatives, for all their shortcomings, failures, badness and sins, tend to be honest about being conservative.  They are conservatives.  They admit it.  They admit what they do and don't like.  

People like O'Brien and French couch their leftwing sympathies in variations of 'I'm not a leftist, it's not my fault the thing wrongly called leftwing ideology just happens to incarnate the Messianic perfection of the Thrice-Holy God!  Hey, merely pointing out conservatives are usually fascists, racists, sexists and motivated by malice. Just following the science here!'  And when that comfortable narrative is threatened by, say, non-conservative, non-Christian, non-White and non-Western calls for ethnic cleansing and the slaughter of Jews, salvaging that unspoken narrative alliance becomes a top priority. 

I'm a stickler for consistency and basic honesty.  No matter my education, I have a meat and potatoes approach to virtue that I inherited from my less formerly educated parents.  Be honest, be consistent, be good, and be real.  And that includes following through with lofty values by which you define good and evil, even if it might impact a movie you like.  If you can't do better than that, I'll assume you can't do much good in anything.  Seeing so many on the Left pull Rodney Dangerfields over the leftwing Israeli Jew hate just goes to show what I mean by anything.  

I've been reading The Latin Right recently

Here is a link.  The blog is at Patheos, and I say more power to him.  I see some of the usuals who tend to wander about Patheos.  Not many of the old trolls, but quite a few who are obviously to the left of center.  As can be expected, some of their positions and rhetoric match the increase in madness we're seeing in the world around us.

Nonetheless, the blog author - one Dennis Knapp - does a pretty good job writing in a fair manner and being willing to engage maturely with those who disagree.  Not an easy trick at a place like Patheos.  

Just thought you might like to know about his site if you haven't stumbled across it yet, and perhaps step in and give a few pennies worth of thoughts here and there.  I resist the temptation to comment, but if others would like to jump in and join the fray, I doubt he'd mind.  

In follow up to my Greydanus post

 I was sent this:

Here's the thing.  I don't like the humor.  I don't like making fun of someone - and that's what it's doing - for something they can't help.  I know, he didn't have to run for office knowing full well the problems involved.  And that decision to push forward in the campaign despite the high likelihood of what we've seen happen is a fair debate.  I also know that it is 100% impossible to have a fair debate with progressives.  Even if you tried to lay it out in the most respectable manner, for daring to point out the obvious you'd be accused of hating disabled people or wanting them killed.

Nonetheless, I say we should do what Michelle Obama only spoke of doing, and that's take the higher ground.  Especially since, as Christians, that's part and parcel of the whole Jesus game.  Plus, it does no good to lower ourselves to their standards.  One, we don't have the institutions behind us to cover our tracks.  And two, we lose any moral high ground since actually having consistent morals is supposed to be one of our selling points.  It certainly separates us from the Left's here today, gone yesterday approach to morals. 

With that said, once again we see Greydanus's slip into the cesspool of leftwing rhetorical tricks.  Having spent my life listening to liberals mock and deride elderly Republicans, mock their misfortunes, and sometimes even mock them for their own handicaps (I recall George Clooney once mocking Charlton Heston's Alzheimer's - something I am no fan of at all), it's the height of disingenuousness to make such a partisan swipe.  It suggests strongly that it's not making fun of disabilities that is the problem, but who is doing the making fun of that is the problem.  

Had he simply called this out and said it was in bad taste, then no problem.  I would agree. But he then pulls a favorite tactic of the Left of using a single event to tarnish the entire pool of political opponents.  Perhaps he is so deeply lazy into his partisanship that he didn't bother to see if such rhetoric has been employed by his allies on the Left.  To be honest he would have to have lived in a hole for these last several decades to miss it.

Otherwise, he knows it's true and doesn't care because it's his side doing it.  Or he knows it's true and, like so many in our tutorial class today, is banking on his readers' own lazy ignorance so as not to be called out.  In any event, it's once again a bad look from someone who used to be one of the good guys.   

A little friendly social media advice

 If you're so beholden to the world of social media that you post this:

You might want to reconsider remaining on social media.  I tried to remember a time when I - or anyone I knew - would feel inclined to mention the passing of a relation while tacking on her politics, and I'm at a loss.  There might have been many things I would think of, some good others not, but it wouldn't have dawned on me to mention a "dead acquaintance (+ politics)*"    .  

When you remove God, the State happily steps into the void

*I notice he doesn't mention vaccinated, unvaccinated, masked or anything.  It appears enough to politically label the deceased.  

You have to hand it to Queen Elizabeth

A woman so amazing that she gets American Catholics to come together and celerbate the death of a Protestant English monarch.  That's not bad in the least. 

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if Deacon, Dawn and I disagree on the color of an orange.  I have expressed my disappointment with where these two have gone, as I used to have high regard for them both. 

But those are nice tributes, and I heartedly agree.  I especially liked Dawn's rainbow reference.  In the olden days, that would be more than coincidence in the minds of the general population.  I hope that was the intention of bringing it up.

It looks like the accolades are rolling in and it is one giant chorus of praise and adoration for Queen Elizabeth.  Let me join in with the chorus as well.  In an age that would have us divided in as many ways possible, it's nice that her one last act in this world is to be a point of coming together and agreeing. 

UPDATE:

Speaking of:

Nice.  Again, a global chorus of praise.  

Bishop Barron responds to Roe

 Here:

Yep. Succinct and true.  We allowed, if not encouraged, America's womenfolk to abort over 60 million pregnancies in the course of a few generations in order to sustain our modern sex and drugs culture. And we did this despite the rise of AIDS and tens of millions of lives otherwise lost or ruined to our unchecked debauchery.  Of course women were already aborting pregnancies before Roe, and those numbers had been increasing.  They increased pretty much in line with our post-war acceptance of a post-Christian era that would see whatever good lessons we tried to learn from WWII corrupted by the promise of a rampant narcissistic world.  A world where life ends when I say so, but my life never ends because everything is everyone else's fault.  A paganized message oddly embraced by no small number of Christians. 

Bishop Barron gets to the point, nonetheless, and reminds us of the horror we've lived through.  A horror that, unlike a Second World War, has been easily ignored by so many. And unlike the Second World War, where the world at least tried to learn a lesson or two, even now we're seeing millions fight to make sure we learn nothing at all from our abortion culture.  We're seeing them fight to keep piling on the bodies of aborted babies to sustain a cultural decadence that has piled on its own bodies by the tens of millions.  

They say the very existence of the Jewish people is proof of God's existence.  If that's the case, then the very fact that our post-Christian society still exists is more than ample proof of this God's longsuffering grace. 

Dawn Eden and which lives matter

In the below thread.   

Note the necessity of assuming ill motives for questioning BLM. A not uncommon approach in progressive discourse.  It doesn't seem to occur to her that many think it's heads-up-a-donkey's-derriere stupid to enshrine in future generations the idea that saying All Lives Matter is a bad thing.   Which is only another generation away from being convinced all lives couldn't possibly matter since saying they do is obviously wicked and evil.  Which is one more generation from the pressing need to discuss just which lives logically don't matter.

But that couldn't be.  It has to be that people disagree with BLM for some deficiency of character.  To her credit, she doesn't lean on the idea that anyone questioning BLM or wanting to say All Lives Matter must be racist.  That's it's own level of stupidity.  She leaves it with assuming some degree of cowardice, or perhaps political prejudice.  

For the record, I think black and white lives matter, as I think Asian lives matter, Hispanic lives matter, poor lives matter, rich lives matter, Muslim lives matter, Jewish lives matter, Socialist lives matter, MAGA lives matter, Donald Trump lives matter, President Biden lives matter, Christian lives matter, even Baptist lives matter.  And that's just the tipping point. 

I'm that much of a radical.  I'm sure Ms. Eden agrees with me. Or I hope she does. Because if we're already told not to say All Lives Matter, and then become further chastised for pointing out the wide range of lives that do matter, then it won't be generations we have to wait to see which lives are determined not to matter at all.  We'll already be seeing it. 

I will point out one queer statement she made above.  She says some who call themselves pro-life sin by committing murder.  She then says yet Catholics still call themselves pro-life. Theologically that's a train wreck approach to reasoning.  I'm not sure what she even means.  If she was typing it while driving on the freeway during rush hour in a hailstorm it might explain it.  But I can't fathom what she means by some professed pro-lifers sin and commit murder and other crimes, thus it's bad Catholics call themselves pro-life?  I was going to respond with a quip until I realized I couldn't come close to guessing what she is getting at. 

UPDATE:  It's sad isn't it:

I know she must feel brave and quite the crusader, but for those who live outside the Matrix, we can see it for what it is. 

Sometimes it is not worth commenting

When you see people respond to a discussion like this, you can bet your bottom dollar that further discourse is a waste of time. I'll bet most readers here will immediately see the glaring problem all too common on the Left. 

Deacon Greydanus speaks to the Roe leak

This is from his Facebook page.  Again, he banned me some years ago after suggesting my opinions about immigration are racially motivated.  That's where he was then.  Here is where he is now.  The comment was sent to me by a reader.  I was going to respond or go line by line, but I figured I would just post it and let others decide.  I know I've drawn my conclusions about what he did, and what he appears to be trying to do.

Facebook

Steven D. Greydanus

10 hrs ·

THOUGHTS ABOUT ROE V. WADE, RECENT SUPREME COURT NEWS, AND THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT

 1. I believe human life is sacred and inviolable from conception until natural death. Direct abortion is a grave injustice and a grave violation of the moral law.

 2. I believe no law permitting the wrongful taking of human life has any legal or moral validity. On the contrary, states are morally obliged to protect the lives of all members of the human family, including the unborn.

 3. In addition to having no legal or moral validity, I believe Roe v. Wade is terribly reasoned and without even nominal Constitutional validity. Roe is among the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time—along with Dred Scott (which excluded even free Black Americans from the rights of citizenship), Buck v. Bell (the 1927 pro-eugenics decision that included Oliver Wendell Holmes’ infamous opinion that "three generations of imbeciles are enough”), and Korematsu (the 1944 decision upholding the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII)—and absolutely should be overturned.

 4. I thus agree entirely with the statement of the documented drafted by Justice Samuel Alito, and leaked to Politico, that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.” If and when the Supreme Court overturns Roe, that will be a significant per se victory for justice, one long in coming.

 5. Supreme Court cases are decided when the opinion is issued, and there is a reason that deliberations and draft documents are confidential. Whoever leaked the document drafted by Alito, whatever their motives (I can think of possible motives in both directions), has further undermined the already damaged credibility and legitimacy of the Court.

 6. I thus agree with Chief Justice John Roberts that the leak “was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here,” and I hope that the investigation that Roberts has directed the marshal of the Supreme Court to launch will identify the culprit(s) and hold them responsible.

 7. The Court’s legitimacy has been damaged in part by increasing partisanship conduct in the process of confirming nominees, an issue implicating both sides.

 8. To my mind, it seems that Democrats began the politicization of the confirmation process with nominees Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. On the other hand, the last bipartisan confirmation process was for a Republican nominee, John Roberts, and since then Republicans have been the worst offenders. In particular the blocking of Merrick Garland in President Obama’s last year in office, the rushing in of Amy Coney Barrett in President Trump’s last year in office, and, finally, the evident determination of Republican leaders to block *any* nominee of President Biden if they have the power to do so regardless of circumstances, constitutes such a profound challenge to the legitimacy of the process that it would be hard to critique any Democratic response, including packing the Court if they have the power to do so, as excessive or unwarranted.

 9. In the process of getting the Court they wanted, conservatives have been implicated in, and have largely embraced and defended, troubling evils.

 They elected and largely supported a president credibly accused of sexual assault or misconduct by over 25 women. Many women, including conservative, Christian, pro-life women, have felt betrayed and alienated by the indifference of conservatives, including pro-life conservatives, on these matters.

 The Trump administration instituted a policy of systematic family separations at the border. Thousands of infants and children were separated from parents or guardians for months or years. Parents were tricked into agreeing to self-deportation on the promise of being reunited with children who were never returned to them. Infants and children slept on concrete floors with no one to care for them but slightly older children. Detainees had inadequate access to soap, toothpaste, and sanitary pads.

 Beyond all this, immigrants who had lived here all their adult lives, for multiple decades, were wrongfully deported to countries to which they had no meaningful connection and in some cases didn’t even speak the language.

 Trump stoked racial animosity. Among many other things, he made common cause with White nationalists, told congresswomen of color to “go back where they came from,” and called neo-Nazis and White supremacists “very fine people” (do *not* start with me on this, I am not wrong and I have receipts). Many Black Americans and other people of color, including pro-life Christians, felt betrayed and alienated by the indifference and complicity of their White brethren in connection with these events.

 Trump promoted election denialism and misinformation. He tried to influence or intimidate state officials into not certifying election results. He tried to force Pence to reject the election results on January 6. He had a legal team prepared to defend this and supporters in government pushing for martial law. He helped to instigate the Capitol attack. The full consequences of all this are still unfolding.

 This is just scratching the surface. To a sigificant extent—especially insofar as conservatives continue to deny or defend on the above points—the pro-life movement is tainted with all of this.

 10. Overturning Roe, while a significant per se victory, will not of course end or outlaw abortion in the US. At most, it will leave greater power to the states. What actions will conservative states take with this new liberty?

 Troubling signs include the new Texas law, which washes the state’s hands of its own obligation to enforce the law and instead incentivizes private citizens to sue anyone they suspect of aiding or abetting in an abortion. This may lead to ugly court proceedings (e.g., an activist plaintiff hoping for a $10,000 payout hauling friends or family members into court over a D&E that might have been a second-trimester abortion or a post-miscarriage procedure).

 Conservative states tend to have high maternal and infant mortality rates. They also have higher rates of out-of-wedlock births, single mothers, and children living in poverty.

 There is nothing pro-life about any of this. Overturning Roe will be a pyrrhic victory if we lose hearts and minds, not to mention our souls, in the process.

As a final note, I'll address that last sentence. It's a fair and true sentiment, but could easily be applied to any issue: Global Warming, fighting racism, immigration reform, feeding the poor, defending women's rights, etc.  Perhaps that's the best way to understand everything he wrote above.  

Mark Shea, Gollum and a Lenten reflection

The late M. Scott Peck once wrote that the character Gollum, from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, "is perhaps the finest depiction of evil ever written."  It was from his book People of the Lie. In that book, Peck took a look at evil from the view of psychoanalysis.  Much of that appraisal of Gollum could be wrapped up in the singular obsession Gollum had for the One Ring to the exclusion of almost anything other priority or action. 

I thought of that when I saw this over at The American Catholic:

Whew.  Tough to stomach.  Tough to imagine that this is what Mark came away with after that horrible news of mothers and babies killed and maimed in a war zone.  I think Donald McClarey says it right: 

Imagine hearing about a possible war atrocity and thinking that this is an opportunity to bash your domestic political opponents.

That's serious Gollum level obsession there on Mark's part.  I would like to think that Mark doesn't see every bomb and every dead child as an awesome chance to attack those white conservatives he so clearly despises. But I have a hard time doing so.

A word of warning to all of us:  Mark can make us rather complacent because, well, most of us aren't Mark, so we imagine we're not doing all that bad.  But as Elrond said of Sauron, even Sauron was not evil from the beginning.  Mark was not always this way, no matter what you think of him.  Why Mark is where he is now, I don't know.  How he incarnates almost everything he once condemned about Internet discourse, while spending his online life attacking so many things and people he once cherished or valued, I don't know.  I have my gut feelings, but I could never be sure.

What I do know is that I don't want to end up like Mark, or the many on Catholic sites and outlets who know what Mark is and cheer him all the more because he's on their side.  That sort of thing is as good as giving Jesus two black eyes and a bloody nose.

Therefore, especially during Lent, let us all reflect and make sure we're not heading down that broad path that Mark and so many of his supporters have chosen, and all for politics and defending the latest media narrative.  That could also include those fighting the latest media narrative, or siding so passionately with the other side of the political aisle.  As believers, our sights are supposed to be set on higher things.  Things that tell us the appropriate response to the awfulness of Mark's above Twitter post is simply to pray for his soul. 

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.  Colossians 3.1-4

I have no clue what this means

 

I've seen the initial post eviscerated by more than one tolerant and compassionate Catholic.

I don't know exactly what Mr. Sammons meant about men leading the Church.  It's been a long lament since I became Christian that men hold the 'formal and technical' leadership in various (but not all) Christian traditions.  They sure don't live it, however.  Perhaps that's what he means.  Maybe he means men need to stop leaving church to hit the links and watch the games and making women do everything but lead in name. 

Whatever he meant, whether something common sense, or a secret code for society to revert to the Handmaid's Tale, I don't know.  One thing I do know is that I have absolutely no clue what Alt's response is about.  I get the feeling he thinks it's really one golly gee of a zinger.  Or he maybe he just wrote words because jargon words.  It's anyone's guess I suppose.   

Like asking Fred Phelps to discuss gay rights

As I've said a thousand times, we Protestants had people like Fred Phelps. Sad but true.  But even the most hardcore fundamentalists I knew wouldn't get near Phelps with a 10' pole. 

Yet Mark is frequently picked as a contributor to, or speaker at, Catholic publications, Catholic podcasts, Catholic seminars, Catholic parishes and Catholic colleges and schools.  See the difference?  That's one point for Protestant discernment. 

UPDATE: As if to demonstrate, I saw this link where Mark goes after his favorite undesirables, the white conservative Christian with white skin, preferably of the male variety.  Nothing really to bother with, any more than I would go to Westboro Baptist and try to reason with them.  It's enough to make people aware and then move on.  There are some people who are beyond reach on this side of heaven.  All that's left to do is prayer and fasting.  

A blogging sabbatical

I'll be stepping away this coming week, owing to many things that developed over the last week.  A rough week it was.  Nothing horrifying, just things that demand time and attention.  With a new quarter for homeschool and ever changing fortunes on the home front, it will take more time than I'll have even for my rather lickety-split approach to blogging. 

Plus, I'll be kicking around blogging and social media in general.  As I've quoted my sons many times, the Internet has a lot of good, but a lot bad.  Social media, on the other hand, is mostly bad with only a little good.  Except Twitter, Twitter is of the Devil, to wit:

Now, Mr. Dailey, once big on St. Blogs, Chesterton and frequently quoted contributor to all things Catholic, knows full well what happened in Virginia.  He's not stupid, and he's informed enough to know a major scandal that broke out was Terry Mcauliffe hunkering down on pushing parents out of school boards.  Worse, this hunkering down occurred even as a school board was accused of covering up the rape of two girls because it might hinder transgender agendas.  We all know that's what the cover up was about.

So no, Mr. Dailey, it's not imaginary.  It's real.  Yet Mr. Dailey takes the hard left partisan hackery approach of simply not giving a damn.  Two raped girls and it doesn't even exist, much less matter. What camps in the German woods?  There is blind partisanship, then there is evil. 

It's almost wrong to single out Mr. Dailey, however, since this sort of apologetics for the manifold evils of modernity has become the norm across much of the former Catholic blogosphere.  As my oldest son said, it's enough to make you sympathize with those Germans who draped the Swastika over the altar.  Not only is it defending evil, but they attack anyone out here trying to stand up to the grave evils and mortal sins advocated by this godless paganism that has run amuck in our culture.

With that said all appeals to reason and good will are over.  What can we do but fuss on a daily basis?  To not do anything will be as complicit in the coming storms as those who did nothing 80 years ago.  Yet simply bashing one's head on the computer screen and having to wade into such hellpit sites of evil, lies, slander and all the fixings needed to defend that which is clearly of the demonic is tiresome.  If not being a near occasion of sin. 

So I'll be kicking things around.  I won't stop blogging or even make the pledge.  I already have a couple times, and just when I was ready to walk away, some new level of evil crazy happened and drew me back.  Nonetheless, I'll think things through and ponder just how I want to move forward, what I want to focus on, and how I want to approach things, now that we see the world and its designs for what they are.  The world has had its Suribachi moment, it now sees mop up as the next course of action.  What to do next will be my focus. 

I'll be back next week, all things equal.  Till then, God bless and I'll see everyone then.  I might comment on other blogs, but it'll be next week before I'm back here.  TTFN. 

Oh, as for me, I stand behind the much reviled Archbishop Gomez, for he would have us reach out to the World for Christ, rather than put Christ into the closet in order to make way for the World. . And that is my Catholic Church, not the Church that bows and cowers before the latest dictates of the secular World. 

Twitter is where Catholics go to dance with the Devil

Really.  So Dave Armstrong and Scott Eric Alt got into a spat.  I'll leave them to it.  But that made me look for more of Alt's take on Armstrong.  Exactly why Alt felt the need to unload on Armstrong is beyond me.  It could be that Armstrong, a passionate and supporter of Pope Francis, still isn't properly leftist enough.  For most on the Left, being 99.9% leftist is as good as being 100% white MAGA conservative racist Nazi deplorable after all.  But who knows. 

In any event, I did a Lenny and Squiggy's bathroom moment, held my nose, screamed, and went over to Alt's Twitter feed, which also had shares from other New Prolife Catholics.  I'll get to some of the other fantastically bad, ignorant, and downright apologetics for evil I found from others.  This is what leapt out at me on Alt's Twitter (again, I'll leave his clash with Armstrong to others to care about):

Wait.  What?  Please tell me just how Fr. Pavone is wrong.  I get that he's playing on words and I'm not sure emphasizing that abortion is killing a baby delivers much punch today. After all, the big pro-abortion tactic nowadays is to be pro-abortion, and not just pro-choice.  Admit it's killing a baby, boast in the fact, and rejoice in the fact that the divine vaginal does give you power over life or death, or those sexist men ain't getting any tonight (which appears to keep most men in their place where saving babies is concerned, ahem). 

But how is Fr. Pavone wrong?  I read that, read it again, read it a third time, and finally read it once more, and I can't see how he's wrong to the point of dumb.  So please dear readers, comment below and tell me what I'm missing. It might be so obvious I'm missing it.  Perhaps my deep suspicions about anything Alt writes is blinding me to the obvious.  But I would dearly like to know

This is either the most brilliant argument ever

Or stupid.  But then, she's an academic type, so it can't be stupid. 

Goodness knows I can't figure out what she's saying.  Is this an argument?  Angry feminists, but Jews and Jew feminists, so ... what?  I might just be slow on the draw, but I can't figure it out.  Does that mean she shouldn't be upset with conservatives or vaccine skeptics because some are Jews? Or by using the word 'Jews' it should stop all debate?  I have not clue one what she is getting at.  I get a feeling it was as well thought out as a fortune cookie. 

Of course she follows up with this:

Which, I guess, means saying something like 'many Jews have been angry feminists, and that often their anger has been deeply thought out, valid, and justified'?  I dunno.  Again, I get the feeling she's in the middle of a conversation with an invisible party who must be saying things nobody can see.  Because the parts I'm seeing make no sense, or at least make no point that I can tell.  

This is why I've concluded listening to Ms. Weiss about anything would be like going to Ringo Starr for harp lessons.  A waste of time.  Another reason I'll be going back to my self-imposed Twitter ban, because people post things like this and others think it's brilliant. Or at least act like it's brilliant when the agenda suits them.  Which then leads to this:

Chillingly evil.  Teaching your kids to fear for their lives because of those 'not me' types over there - in the name of Catholicism of course.  It reminds me of Debbie Wasserman Schultz bragging how she scared the shite out of her kids by telling them Conservatives wanted to tunnel under their house and kill everyone.  Parents should warn their kids about the evils of the world.  They should also be wary about warning them who the evils are.  But purposefully scaring the bejesus out of your kids in order to teach them to hate and fear your ideological opponents means you learned little from the last century. 

There's enough of that in the world.  I don't need to see people celebrated for their Catholicism doing the same.  And sadly, you'll find it nowhere else more often than you will on Twitter. So, back to the ban. 

Where did Twitter go?

The essence of most Twitter posts

Astute visitors to my blog will notice a sudden and dramatic drop in posts referencing Twitter images.  Images is all I could reference, of course, since I proudly don't do Twitter, nor do I have a Twitter account.  While over the years I've sometimes referenced a particular Twitter post, I generally avoided them just like I avoid Twitter altogether.

My sons, after all, have a perceptive saying that I think sums things up rather accurately.  The Internet can be good, but has a lot of bad; social media is mostly bad, with only a little good; but Twitter is of the Devil.  I'm inclined to agree. 

Like all things, I know there can be good people of good will, even those I disagree with, who take to Twitter to muse or joke or throw out ideas.  Most Twitter posts, however, are what I would consider the worst level of pre-adolescent style rants and idiocy that I remember from my middle school days and the kind that define the worst of modern online debate.  Heck, our locker rooms back then featured more mature takes on the issue of the day than what I see on Twitter today.

That Twitter became a trusted source of information for the modern news media is all I need to know to place no value in the modern news media.  They could say they get their sources from middle school locker rooms and I'd hold them in higher esteem. That's why I typically avoided Twitter altogether.

But after last year, when I stumbled across a site that kept up with various Twitter posts, mostly from Catholics, I began seeing that as a quick and pithy go-to myself to keep my finger on the pulse of what is happening today.  Perhaps it is a good source for understanding the currents of thought in our modern age.  If so, God help us. 

Most of what I saw as I kept going there, however, was childish, snotty, stupid and false statements that could best be summed up with a simple '#I'm God/They're Hitler' template.  Most of what I was seeing was nothing other than that.  Children in adult garb just high-fiving each other for being what God hoped to be, as opposed to those stupid subhuman sinners over there.

Really.  Be they Catholic apologists, doctors, professionals, published authors, professors - what I saw as often as not was rhetoric not worthy of my twelve year old.  I wouldn't tolerate him having those attitudes and thinking that sort of approach to discourse was anything close to acceptable.  Arrogance, pride, hatred and contempt - those are not what being human, much less Christian, is all about.

So I stopped.  I won't say I'll never reference a Twitter post.   Again, sometimes there can be rare good things, or humorous things, or pithy things that make me smile - when they're not banned by Twitter for failing to be appropriately leftist.  And if someone shows me a Twitter post and I think it's important, I might talk about it.  But I won't follow sites that keep constant updates with Twitter, since I consider it a cesspool of sin, and a near occasion of sin.  I'd just as soon visit the ironically titled Friendly Atheist or other such pits of wretched than waste my time on something I don't even subscribe to that is worst than anything else in modern discourse. 

The right way to do history

Courtesy of Donald McClarey at The American Catholic.   As opposed to the dumpster fire of presentism and intolerant judgmentalism (at least toward the Christian West and America) that defines the Left's approach.  It's as good a treatment of the Gettysburg Address and its context as you'll find on this side of a history book. 

The deacon versus the priest

Apparently a priest has dared suggest that our problems are not due to a failure to conform to socio-political policy solutions and narratives.  

Instead, he's suggested it's our nation's rejection of Christ and the Gospel and abandoning God that's the problem.  Worse, he dared suggest that things like murder and lynching are bad because, well, it's bad to murder and lynch people irrespective of the skin colors involved.  This he says as opposed to our current sanctioned opinion that murder, while bad, can be made worse based on the skin color of those involved.  He even went on to say that the Civil War was fought by brave men in order to end the common practice of human slavery.  I mean, we all know people can only have one motivation at a time, and since it appears many in the North were worried about preserving the Union and - worse - didn't see slavery and racism the way our perfect generation does today, it couldn't have been about slavery (except the Nazi Southerners who only fought to preserve slavery and for no other reason).  He then dared to suggest we need some stats and data before we run about yelling Systemic Racism and White Privilege, and muses that there could be a different way to see the problems we're all witnessing.  Whew.  

Well, this just won't do, and deacon and film critic Steven Greydanus swooped in to correct the misguided priest who dared suggest such things:

So there you go.  The Civil War couldn't have been about anything but the worst things, you can't think our problems are connected to some universal rejection of Christ as opposed to failing to see the political and social solutions that stand before us, and what the hell is wrong with people who don't first consider ethnicity and skin color when thinking of the horrors of lynchings and other forms of death and violence?  Oh, and apparently White Americans don't think there's racism today.  Not sure how, but apparently it's true. 

Two different perspectives for Catholics in 21st Century America. 

As for the whole voting and being a Democrat, I'd guess you can be a faithful Catholic and vote for either Democrats or Republicans.  Exactly how that is possible is for others to say.  As long as you're consistent, however, that's fair.  

Catholic blogs and websites I'll be watching

Here.   I'll certainly look for others.  Mike Flynn (TOF) is worth a read, when he does post.  John C Wright is a firebrand, and typically of more abrasive stuff than I feel comfortable with.  Nonetheless, he also has been calling out warnings against the encroaching war on the Christian West for some time, and was obviously right in doing so.  Plus he is good at unpacking lofty subjects that are often way over my head.  Of course The American Catholic has been a goto, not just for Catholic info, but for great insights into history, plus an annoying tendency to have shout outs to movies I've never heard of - and me considering myself a film buff.

I have made my peace with Rod Dreher.  Dreher was an evangelical who converted to Catholicism who then moved to Orthodoxy.  Though he remains Orthodox, I'd say a good 50% of what he writes and who he references is decidedly Latin in nature. Many of those he hangs with are Catholic, and he often looks back longingly toward Rome, giving only the most occasional nods to remind us he is Orthodox.  Whether he's run into some of the problems I discovered, I don't know.  I just notice that trend.  He clearly hasn't shuffled off the Latin coil any more than I could.  Though his collapse during the Covid-19 pandemic, and his willingness to haul those gathering to worship off to the prisons, showed he won't be the one to stand firm once the storm hits, that doesn't mean he doesn't have occasional good insights.  Especially when he can set aside his never-trump badge and focus on seeing the world through Christian lenses.   He is also a good resource for tapping into those such as I met in my Orthodox days.  He knows many like I met from Islamic countries or the former Soviet Bloc whose basic attitude toward what is happening in America is 'what the hell is the matter with you, you're already 1/3 Soviet and don't even realize it!'

I'll also put in a nod for Fish Eaters, that site I first stumbled on ages ago when I was first thought about taking the Tiber plunge.  That site continued to be a pit stop for me over the years, and though not friendly in any way toward Vatican II (and with some good reason), it does yeoman's work when it comes to breaking down the nitty-gritty and 'whys and what fors' of Catholic life.  Believe it or not, if you're not Catholic, it's darn confusing to figure out all the Catholic bells and whistles.  A single place to go that says 'that's why we cross ourselves and how' is worth its weight in gold.

There will be others naturally.  I'll keep more of an eye on things again when it comes to those naughty blogs who like to confuse politics or other agendas and opinions with the faith. Many I visited back in the day are less Catholic and more political now, especially those that swing left.  Because of that, and because I now have a keen interest in the tradition of my family, I'll watch to see how much false teaching and unchristian attitudes are percolating around those sites.  Especially since, unfortunately, many of those represent the majority witness among Western Catholics and even Catholic leadership.

And that includes Pope Francis and some of his shenanigans.  I don't dislike, much less hate, Pope Francis, but he does do things that I find bothersome coming from a prominent religious leader.  For instance, if you've ever noticed, he has a tendency to call out 'sinners' when musing on problems among more conservative and traditional believers and Western democracies, while merely calling out 'sins' when those apply to problem that are the left of center or outside the Christian fold.  That is, Pope Francis calls out 'rigid' Christians or the evils of Arms Manufacturers, but will only speak of 'abortion' (not those who get them) as a sin, or marriage between a man and a woman, but not homosexuals.  See how that works?   I doubt that's a coincidence, but it's a type of slickness that doesn't sit well when one is charged with speaking the Truth clearly and openly, where our yes should be yes, and our no should be no.

So I'll be doing my homework.  Since I don't have the time to study, I won't declare mine a 'Catholic blog' now more than I did.  I think to do that, I need to do the heavy lifting I'm just not ready to do at this point.  It will be my blog, from one who now has seen the three main brothers within Christianity and can speak to the experiences of each.  I simply have settled in the one I feel hits the mark the closest and, despite all evidence to the contrary, likely has the best chance of weathering the upcoming and nearing storms. 

Banned by Mark Shea - again!

Yes kids, it's that time of year again.  So Mark banned me for the third or fourth time.  I've lost track. I seldom visit his blog anymore, unless someone sends me a link or posts a pic of a comment or piece he's written.

The last post I visited was linked by a friend who noticed Mark returning to the old 'Trump is a racist who loves and praises Nazis' meme.  Apparently, the good Deacon Steven Greydanus had affirmed the old media story about Trump praising racist Nazis because everyone at the Charlottesville protests some years ago was a racist Nazi.  An old reader who goes by 'Pete the Greek' stepped in to poopoo it with an article that broke down those who were there.  Apparently there were actually people there who repudiated the racists and white supremacists while still believing the statues of Confederates should not be destroyed.  That, of course, would call into question the idea that Trump praised Nazis, since the charge rests on each and every person at the protest being a full blown racist Nazi.

So I read the linked to article, and then commented.  It pended for a day or so and then I saw on my Disqus feed that it, and all of my posts on that article, had been removed:

Beyond that, when I went to post on the page and ask why it was removed, I once more saw the old standby so common on Mark's media outlets:

Yep.  Once more Mark banned me.  'Pete's' posts were also removed.  I later found out he, too - a long time visitor - was banned.  Why?  Did I threaten or accuse or label or insult anyone there?  Not that I can see.  Nor did Pete.  Neither of us did what Mark says are the only reasons he'll ban someone.  So go figure.  At least he didn't fire off some false accusation against me when he did it. 

Anyway, as I said, I didn't go there much anymore and almost never comment.  I find his comments section to be among the most vile I've ever seen on the Internet.  It's almost like an icon into the fifth circle of Hell.  When I did comment I tried to remain neutral on some trivial point.  It didn't matter.  We were both banned just because. So I figure at this point there's not much left to do for Mark than pray for his soul, and the souls of those who are being led astray by his works.

And pray for those who keep calling Mark a 'great Catholic apologist.'  You can insist, if you believe so, that he was a great apologist.  There's certainly a case to be made.  But at some point you have to call a spade a spade.  As one wag said about Mark, King Henry VIII once penned a great work defending the Catholic Faith.  That doesn't mean he remained a heroic defender of the Catholic Faith for the rest of his life. 

If anything, the biggest threat to Mark is those Catholics who should know better who keep lifting him up, dismissing the problems as nothing other than Mark just 'getting a bit too political'.  Part of it is Mark's fault for banning so many who merely call him out, creating a tight little bubble of self-affirmation for those who visit to affirm him.  Why he does it or has spiraled down into what he's become I can't say.  But his could be a giant 'everything wrong with the Internet Age' case study.  And those who continue lifting him up, even while they see what he does and has become, are the real culprits.  They have no excuse. 

As I've said a thousand times, if you reward a child for bad behavior you'll get a child who behaves badly. As much as Mark engages in myriad sins and absurd arguments to fuse his own opinions with the Gospel while allowing those who advocate endless blasphemies, heresies, intrinsic evils and sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance to have a blank check on his social media outlets, it's hard to say much when he keeps being rewarded and even praised for doing the same. 

GRUMPY UPDATE: It came to my attention that I didn't include a link to the offending post.  No, I didn't.  I would no more include a link to that blog than any blog advocating falsehoods and calumny, hatred of those things and people I hold dear, blaspheme, heresy, or any grave and intrinsic evil.  That blog, and especially the horrendous comments section, does that almost as a matter of course.  When I visit, I only do so when someone provides the means to bypass Mark's blog link so I don't give it any visits.  When I bother, I access the comments through Disqus.  I do not go there if humanly possible, and I will never link to it on this blog again.  If the Devil had a street address, I wouldn't tell people how to visit him.  I'll do the same in this case.