Observations

As I had said, I ditched most "social media" during Lent.  By that, I meant things like Facebook (which I do have an account for), as well as others like Twitter or Tik Tok or what have you.  And then, primarily the 'debate' sites. I reserved the right to access Facebook if a picture of the grandkids was posted, or our city government, which only posts updates on Facebook, mentioned some news I needed to check out.  Otherwise, I steered clear. 

When Lent was over, I decided to go back and see what I'd been missing. I'm sorry I did.  I even went back to sites I had stopped going to long before Lent.  Simply because of their toxic nature.  It was like being on a month long Mediterranean Diet with daily kale salad chasers and then suddenly going to the state fair and eating fair food all day. Enough to make you sick.

I said it's no wonder mental health problems, drug addiction and suicide are rampant across the board when it comes to our youth and children today.  Look how the adults are behaving.  We like to tell ourselves that everyone in the past was as bad as our various problems and failings today.  Which I've often thought has to be the worst defense ever.  I mean, how bad to you have to reek when your go to excuse about different failings, or evils, or problems is that they were always as bad as we are today. Think on that. 

I'm sure several folks out there watched the 60 Minutes interview with Senator Ben Sasse.  That was an eye opener.  Talk about facing the inevitable with grace and strength.  And, as so often happens in the face of the tragic, a deal of wisdom.  Yet it's amazing how many people heard what he said and reverted to 'But his politics!'.  

Does this mean this sort of thing only happens because of social media?  That's what Senator Sasse meant when he speaks of social media being a major problem?  No.  I think we're at that stage where we're realizing no matter what we come up with or how clean and sterile we can make things, we're just people.  People who will never learn. Mark Shea once said people are part angel, part alley cat.  I like that.  Whether it's in caves, castles, or on computers, we don't really change, do we?  And nothing we come up with can avoid the taint of a fallen world.  Be it democracy, equality, capitalism, you name it.  Pick the best thing in the world humanity has produced and stand back and wait. 

I think that hit me when I returned back to those social media sites.  But it wasn't just those pesky Twitter snipits.  Perhaps it's my old timer ways, but I allowed myself to visit blogs during Lent because, quite frankly, they still seem to be less toxic. Perhaps because the toxic people have moved on to other forums.  Or maybe they don't lend themselves to quick, pithy digs and zingers followed by more of the same.  I don't know.  I do know I'm almost done with the others.  Even after Lent, I see no Easter reprieve.  Quite the opposite.  Because of Easter, I think there are better ways to go about living and communicating. 

Just like the thing we used to call the news media.  I often think at this stage in the game the world would be a happier and more informed place if we didn't have the media.  Likewise, I can't help but see a net positive for moving on, at least from these late generation social media platforms that seem to draw out the worst in people like extracting puss from a wound. 

But it's not just the format or the outlet of course.  It's why and how we approach it.  Because I confined myself to blogs, I found myself looking about for different blogs to read.  Believe it or not, whether Catholic or topical or hobby, many blogs have sort of gone the way of the butter churn over the years.  I even decided to go back to Mark Shea's blog, which I haven't graced on my own in many a moon.  And I saw something that was telling, and a bit sad.

I know from years gone by, sometimes around the big holidays like Easter or Christmas, Mark would back off a bit.  He would dig into his archives and bring back older articles or sections of books he wrote when he was less political partisan.  He appears to have done it this year.  And from what I can tell, he's still doing it.  No MAGA Nazis!  No Trump Hitler! No lying death cult gun murder blah, blah blah.  It looks to be something from one of his books back in the day, basically his take on Catholic social teaching.  Not his later one, but from years ago.  Like most of what he wrote back in the day, it wasn't bad.  Not the highest level of scholarly insights, but nowadays that's not altogether a bad thing.

Yet do you know what I noticed?  There were no comments.  Now blogging itself has declined to be sure. Was a time that if a post about Harry Potter or the A-Bombs on Mark's old page that garnered only a hundred comments it was a slow day.  And his wasn't alone.  Blogs with comments in the dozens for even a trivial topic weren't uncommon.   That has obviously changed as other outlets and platforms have taken over.  Today even some of the more traveled blogs might only see a few dozen comments addressing the hottest button issues of the moment. 

But I noticed his had - none.  At all.  Day after day of scrolling back I couldn't find any comments.  I mean, I know his readership has dropped, but nothing for days on end?  I had read some links to his blogs in recent years when they were emailed to me, and I definitely recall seeing comments.  Maybe not many, but at least something.  After scrolling back several weeks I only saw an occasional comment here, or a few days earlier there, and that was all.

It wasn't until I got back to his pre-Lenten leftwing rage machine that guess what?  In came the comments. Not tons, and largely the same individuals.  But those same individuals, who commented almost daily whenever the post was a variation on Satan Hitler Trump and the MAGA Nazis, suddenly vanished throughout Lent and through Easter thus far.  And that was a sad, and disturbing thing.

After all, it doesn't take a game show host to figure out why.  Given the comments I did see, what they said, and what type of post they were responding to, it's pretty obvious that Mark, to many of them, is merely a tool.  He trashes what and who they hate, and they appreciate it.  But when he gets back to that Catholic and Christian teaching rubbish, not the kind that attacks conservatives, but actual Catholic teaching?  Eh.  Obviously no big deal.  That's not why they show up each day. They show up to have their partisanship, their hatred of anything right of center, of America, even of Christianity, affirmed.  Or at least affirmed in such a way that whatever they do or think, they are free to do so without concern for any forthcoming consequences.

I've thought about that a lot. Right now we're in some pretty big life changes, and that has sapped much of my time and energies.  Nonetheless, on coming back I think I'll start reframing how I approach things.  I'm thankful that I can post pretty much anything under the sun and various folks will still comment. Maybe not as much as some hot button topic, but again, that's nothing new, and not automatically bad.  

Nonetheless, I think I want to stray from harping on the same things that others are day after day. In the past, I announced I would either step away from, or at least alter, the blog and how I approach it.  The most noteworthy case being on the eve of the Kavanaugh hearings, which were quite the eye opener to say the least.  Prompting me to rush back in with observations about the obvious. 

But now, I'm wondering.  Not sure how I will approach things.  I think on those Catholic convert celebrities I've mentioned and always imagine there but by the grace and all.  Yes, I enjoy the blog, and I always enjoy the comments, even when they say I'm wrong.  Sometimes especially, because that can give me things to think about. 

Still, I realized with looking at Mark's blog and what it's been reduced to, that I don't want it to merely be 'look at those sinners over there!'.  I mean, it is what it is.  Most can see the problems today, and sometimes I think they need to be mentioned or called out.  But I do miss the older blogs that were certainly geared toward the issues du jour, but also dwelt on other topics as well.  Sometimes fun, sometimes trivial, sometimes personal interests.  I think there's a healthy mixture there that's too easy to forget as we rush in each day to say 'Oh no, did you see that!'.  That's why I still visit blogs, like The American Catholic, that do a good job mixing the headline take downs with various other topics, Catholic reflections, personal interests, or just plain fun. 

With all that said, not sure what things will be, and I don't want to make any predictions.  After all, there could be another Kavanaugh moment coming around the corner.  Nonetheless, as times and life changes make the daily post a thing of the past, I'll likely pull back and try to put more punch into fewer posts themselves, or at least topical ones.  Heck, I might even proof read something beyond hitting spellcheck!  Reserving the right, perhaps this time finally, of expending more energies on personal interests and frivolous matters that are easier to toss out, like the family or whatever tickles my fancy, yet are no less important when you think on it.  Especially if those interests coincide with family times and memories.  As Mr. Sosse articulates so well. 

It must be Catholicism

Mike Lewis, over at Where Peter Is, chimes in about the whole kerfuffle in Charlotte.  That is where some documents were apparently leaked (a popular trend I'm no fan of) that suggested a willingness by Bishop Martin of Charlotte to go after the Latin Mass in a way that would make McCarthy blush.  There was backlash, not surprisingly.  

The whole assault on the Latin Mass and the traditions of the Church, that reached a fever pitch during the pontificate of Pope Francis, is one of those things that reminds me I'm Catholic. Because as goofy as Christians can be in living up to Jesus' observations about the Children of Light v. the Children of this age, Catholicism usually wins hands down.  

At a time when the world is pulling itself apart, suffering and misery exploding, paganism is coming back in vogue, global elitists are musing about euthanasia, human sacrifice and even cannibalism, and a growing number of people are leaving the Faith or staying and insisting they don't buy most of the BS anyway - an entire swath of Church leadership has decided the important thing is to abolish the Latin Mass.   You know, that part of Catholicism that even non-Catholics have traditionally associated with the Church.  It's like the Allies saying in 1944 that before we storm Normandy, we need to take care of these squirrels in the yard. 

Eh.  That's the Catholic Church for you.  Lewis' take is everything you would expect from Lewis or any contributor at Where Peter Is.  But most who visit my blog have likely seen responses from those upset at Bishop Martin's actions, so this is another point of view.  

FWIW, the only reason I went there was to see if anyone at the site has mentioned Pope Leo's June 1st emphasis on the families, babies, moms and dads and all, as the rest of the world moved into the month of pride as virtue where sex is concerned.  So far, unless they have a hidden page, the answer would be no. 

If your best defense is that you were only joking about someone losing their home in the LA fires

 You might want to reconsider where you've ended up in life:

Yep.  Lewis is one of the contributors over at Where Peter Is.  Mostly that site exists to remind us that only reprobates dare question the singular orthodox awesomeness of Pope Francis, with not infrequent reminders that the Left's appraisal of anyone or anything right of center is a reliable witness.

Nonetheless, Lewis's apparent defense of his dig is a good remedy for those who labor under the delusion that somehow one side of the ideological divide is where the beautiful people are, and the other side are the meanies.  An argument not a few former conservatives have used over the years to justify their alliance with advocates of what those conservatives once so strongly condemned. 

Despite those who try to insist that is why they have aligned the way they have, however, Mr. Lewis does yeoman's work showing why appeals to the better behavior on one side or the other as justification for taking a stand is generally a fool's argument.  I suppose that's something. 

BTW, we won't even get into the irony that, once again, those on the modern Left today sound more and more like the old fundamentalist stereotypes of yesterday - "they're suffering because God decreed it!"  We'll leave it with Lewis's defense that he was only joking about Gibson losing his home in the LA fires.

UPDATE:  So already I need to clarify.  I'm not saying that this only happens to the left of center.  Of course not.  I'm pointing out that 1) those former conservatives who cling to the idea that history shows progressives are the good guys as opposed to those nasty rightwing types have reality against them and, 2) increasingly the modern Left acts very much like all the things it warned us about ages ago with its stereotypes of what conservatives and fundamentalists were all about. With that extra twist being that this is demonstrated here by none other than a former conservative. 

Telling

That's deacon, teacher of theology and Catholic film critic Steven Greydanus. You catch that?  First, note the use of the euphemistic leftwing media endorsed term 'gender affirming care.'  That is, more honestly stated, sex change procedures, in the case of this discussion being used on minors. But you can't say that because the overwhelming majority of Americans don't approve of turning underage boys into girls and vice versa.  We won't even discuss how fringe the unpopular idea is that parents should be barred from being part of such life altering procedures.  

But note, he appears to have no problem with laws that would keep parents out of the loop as long as actual surgery isn't involved. That opens the door for all of those preliminary procedures involving puberty blockers and messing with their hormones and physical development in the name of transgender activism.  Which, from what I read, he is more than happy to support as well as keeping parents out of the loop in those cases.  That's hardcore left beyond what even some on the left will tolerate.  And, in a dose of irony, contrary to Pope Francis's opinions about the subject. 

Basically, Greydanus continues to demonstrate that he will completely follow the Left, embrace it entirely and defend it whenever possible.  If impossible to defend something, then briefly acknowledge it, downplay it, and attack anyone trying to make it an issue. I'm thinking of those who tried to get him to forcefully call out the leftists and non-white activists who were openly cheering Hamas and the worst single day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. We tried, but it got us nowhere.  

This shows that the leftwing bubble our corporate oligarchy has formed continues to preach to itself in the mirror, despite a growing number of anyone under the sun questioning some of its agendas.  As my son said, the problem Democrats have is that they will never be radical leftwing enough to appease the zealotry of the coastal leftwing fringes.  In trying to do so, however, they are becoming far more leftwing radical than most Americans of any stripe will tolerate.  

And what of the Greydanuses of the world, who appear willing to follow the left wherever it goes?  Again, thralls of the leftwing bubble, but increasingly out of touch thralls who have sworn themselves to a movement a growing number of people are beginning to doubt, suspect and even fear.  

So what did last week teach us?

First, that I'm obviously a Beatles fan.  I know.  Given the rot in our society it seems odd to be a fan of something that many consider instrumental in furthering that rot.  But as long as other Christians eat their slice of the worldly pie, and justify it with copious appeals to Romans 14, I'll still like the Beatles (and other musical offerings from the whole sex, drugs and rock and roll era - tens of millions dead from AIDS and drugs being something we apparently have learned to live with rather than give up our playlists).

Second, I'm clearly growing tired of 'Issue Blogging.'  Let's face it, the blogosphere of 20 years ago is dead and gone. Twitter and other similar platforms that distill complex issues into sitcom level one liners are now the rage for Internet discourse.  Many Catholic  bloggers, especially to the left of center, have moved to sites behind digital walls that keep dissenting views from troubling them (I kid you not, find more than a couple leftwing Catholic sites that still have open comments sections).  Meanwhile the shadow grows and the suicide of the West continues apace. 

My boys and I were talking some months ago, as you know we're wont to do.  While discussing America's willingness to let the Marxist assault on our nation win out, we were pondering how these things happen.  Perhaps because we abandoned God?  Let godlessness win out? Were cowards and wimps who looked for slick excuses to avoid actually defending virtue and truth?  Or, as one of my sons suggested, perhaps the whole reason America and the entire era of democracy existed at all was merely to thwart the Nazis in their goal of exterminating the Jewish people.  You know, a lifting up Cyrus sort of thing. 

I thought that was an interesting take.  It certainly isn't non-biblical.  God's ways aren't ours.  Which might be why, at this point, it looks like God has given our nation up to its lusts and impurities.  After all, whatever good the nation had is mostly fading from the historical stage.  The nation so many are desperately trying to save died many years ago.  Young people have been told to believe that the United States and all the West are defined by their unforgivable and unique sins and need only be eliminated.  Cue the Jews now linked with Israel which is seen by the Left as part of the West that has to go. 

In the face of this, continuing to prattle on about the same old same old gets a bit tiresome.  Stress for the sake of stress.  A growing number of Christians are surrendering and giving in.  Many church leaders are making it clear that there is nothing the world can throw at us that we won't find a way to compromise the Faith in order to accommodate.  The media is a propaganda organ that is less concerned about slaughtered Jews than it is pinning a single crime on anything associated with the West.  And young fanatics are getting worse on a daily basis because they are encouraged to do so by the powers that be. 

Therefore, constantly posting on the same thing over and over again is just posting on the same thing over and over again.  It would be like having a blog in WW2 and spending every day fussing about the violence in the news.  I do think we are heading where we are heading: a post-Western, post-democratic world in a post-Christian era.  Back to the old paganism, secular version.  No particular God of worth, guaranteed eternal paradise if that's your thing, physical worldly priorities otherwise. If we have to crush someone, we promise it won't be you. Because what matters most is you, and the World promises to accommodate you accordingly. 

It won't end with that of course.  That's the 'we promise, all animals will be equal' part.  Already we are seeing that modified to some animals being more equal than others.  Which seems fine for so many today.  Even now, Jewish liberals in the face of 'death to the Israeli Jews' chants are trying to twist their concern about being exterminated with their fealty to this post-religious, post  Christian Western movement and utter hatred for its defenders.  All while the alliance to throw down the West that includes, but is not limited to, Muslims, Chinese Communists, and anyone from any group disenfranchised by the West, continues to make significant strides.

Therefore, I'm once again going to back down.  I can't say I won't mention anything in the news.  I've declared that intention before, only to find myself drawn back in when we took another crazy step toward the end (remember me ducking out on the eve of the Kavanaugh circus?).  Same with last week.  Our state made it clear that sex and drugs and the right to abort anything hindering our libidos is our core value.  The typically lame and impotent GOP continued to lose, and even liberal school board candidates seemed to dominate the win column as schools become more open about sex for kids, gender change for teens, and post-Western Marxist propaganda in the curriculums.  What to make of that?  See the paragraphs above.  

In the end, empires rise, and empires fall.  Our is falling.  The Church is floundering because it's not difficult to believe that a substantial number of our leaders just don't believe it anymore.  In Europe and America, except for those rascally Pentecostals, the churches are dwindling along with the civilization they helped build.  In Asia the Faith is strong, and God bless those African Christians.  But like all things, our own progressive fellows have made it clear they'll heap no end of scorn and contempt on those swarthy and dark skinned types when they dare challenge a leftwing dogma.  Just like those slaughtered Israeli Jews who are barely mentioned now in the news or on leftwing sites (compare that to endless weeks and months condemning Kanye West over his statements about Jewish people). 

So now what?  Well, I like the blog.  But sometimes I miss the early days, when it was one part fun and frivolity, about two parts issue and news or commentary just to comment.  Sometimes I added reflections on the Faith or life, like this:

Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.

They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.

The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things:  

Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us? 

For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.

The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.

Which came to mind in light of the crushing defeats of virtue and goodness we saw last week.  At the end of the day, the majority of us who inherited the West, including our leaders and religious guides, accepted the gospel of the World and have stood by amidst failure after failure to defend our inheritance.  Well, when that's the norm, blogging about it every day won't change things.

So I'll try to go back to the early days.  I won't not comment on the egregious, even as the egregious becomes more and more the norm. I'll try to reference funner things, family things, and just things in general. It may not be what people want (I discovered there is a stunning lack of Beatles fans among my readers), but it will be what I want.  

If I post on issues, I'll try to avoid being shaped by the latest news stories.  My sons often ask why I bother watching or reading the news at this point.  We know it isn't telling us the whole story, and sometimes verges on outright falsehood.  Why take anything the press says as any type of a launching pad for a thought, whether good or bad?  They have a point.  Not that all stories are false or missing important context.  But you never know which, do you?  As the late Michael Crichton explained with his Gell-Mann Amnesia principle: if you know the press got this story so horribly wrong because you know the topic at hand, why assume the next one dealing with a topic you don't know will be any better? 

Again, back in the early days of the blog the point was to sharpen my claws at writing.  I've always been a better public speaker (in certain settings) than writer.  A priest friend suggested the blog for that reason. And though I did reference the odd stupid or wrong or concerning thing coming from the world, I also posted on reflections, fun things, family outings, personal interests or similar topics much more often.  It may not have ginned up the readership, but it didn't feel like running up a down escalator every day either. 

So that is what I plan to do again.  As I said, I won't promise no more issue blogging.  When it finally hits the fan, I want my objections to be on record beyond just family and friends.  When future generations look back at this era and ask why, I don't mind my allegiances being on the public record, no matter how obscure.  I realize God knows, but it's nice to know that those future generations who will suffer for our folly will know who to blame and who not to blame.  But I'll try to find things to blog about that are more fun, light hearted, meaningful to me (and hopefully others) or just plain goofy.  That can only help at this stage in the game.  Goodness knows. obsessing about the latest has done nothing to stop the latest.  So why affirm the age old definition of insanity?

A Halloween reflection: Vampire plagues and progressive Catholics

Early onset vampirism in Salem's Lot: Know the signs!

So for fun this year, I reread Salem’s Lot.  I’m not much of a Steve King fan.  Marcus Grodi once said he believed King to be the greatest American author.  I assumed he meant in modern times.  Since he was my boss at the time, I didn’t debate the statement.  Suffice to say I don't consider King to be near the top of American writers. 

But I do like a couple of his books. One is Salem’s Lot.  It strikes all those little chords: the haunted house, the small town secrets, the cemetery, the vampire hunter team.  Fun stuff.  It also does a neat ‘vampire plague’ spin, being what Dracula wanted to accomplish in London but didn't.

As the story unfolds and the plague of vampires grows, you can see the main characters grapple with reality as they come face to face with pure, legendary evil.  You feel them recoil as one after another, people in the town vanish or, worse, begin to show signs of becoming the latest victims of this plague of evil enveloping their home town.

I thought of that as I reflected on my last discourse with Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong.  I have followed Dave for years.  He did the heavy lifting with Catholic apologetics, often going after unfair or false accusations leveled against the Church.  His was never a blog to read with only two or three minutes to spare.  He would take his time and unpack some pretty hefty issues down to the nitty gritty.  That was more than worth the visits to his website.

For a long time, he also railed against other Catholics who were beginning to draw a line in the sand between good, GOP hating, Francis loving, new pro-life Catholics with stars on their bellies, versus stupid Francis hating Catholics who refuse to get in the progressive line.  More than once he posted long, almost tiresome attempts to reason with these Catholics who gave only one option, and that was to glorify them, the left, Pope Francis, and all that was pure Catholicism 21st Century style or pay the piper. 

Well, that was then.  Below is the discourse I had with him over a post dealing with Vatican II.  The whole of the post is here.  I have posted his end of the article summary, and my response.  My accounts of what happened are in bold, his answers and writings in italics.  The parts with no special font designs were my original posts in his actual comments section:

Brazilian Catholic writer Oliveira Leonardo has decided to start bashing and trashing Vatican II. I defend it and note that his oppositional zeal is utterly misplaced.

To which I responded with this comment:

I don't know, I think the discussion can be had.  I'm not sure the individual in question was claiming 100% of the problems in the Church are Vatican II.  There might be some who think that, but most I've read or listened to don't think that.  In fact, I've heard many not necessarily 'trashing or hashing' Vatican II, but who look at the state of the overall Church and wonder what went right, wrong and downright screwy after Vatican II.  I've heard more than one (including our priest) who clearly supports and celebrates Vatican II, but who also equally admits it was misused and abused by far too many Catholics to simply dismiss the subsequent decades as 'nothing to see here folks.'

I went back to see if there were any responses.  I noticed my comment was missing.  So I posted a question about what happened to it.  Seeing my question appear, I reposted my original comment.  Then I returned a day or so later and saw all of my comments were removed.  So I asked what’s up. And then Dave  answered:

I don't allow anti-Vatican II rhetoric on my pages unless I am in the mood for debating it (as I did in this exchange). Just take it somewhere else. I've had enough of it.

At that point, I responded:

Wait, was that my post? It couldn't have been, since it wasn't 'anti-Vatican II rhetoric' by any stretch of the phrase. All I said was the discussion about Vatican II can be had, and that most I know don't trash Vatican II as much as they try to figure what went wrong in the following decades. Which is true. So where did my comments go? I don't see them. Again, since again my posts were in no way close to 'anti-Vatican II rhetoric' I can't figure where they end up going.

Dave then responded:

That was my decision on my web page. If you don't like it, you can lump it.

With that pleasant little response, I answered thus:

You may do as you wish of course.  I wouldn't advise it since we've seen where others have ended up going with 'I have posted, now agree or be deleted.'  Mark Shea, of course, leaps to mind.  Best not to have comments at all if the only thing commenters are allowed to do is agree.   But again, despite seeing where others have gone with that approach, if that's where you wish to go, it is your blog.

Dave then responded once again:

If you bitch about it one more time, that'll be three strikes and you're out. What you are doing is universally agreed upon as trolling: continuing to strongly disagree on the policy of a site (how someone chooses to run his own pages), when the owner has made his view clear, that it crosses a line. Webmasters are benevolent dictators in their own domains. You don't like that? Get your own site and work for 29 years to build up name recognition, as I have.

You can pretend I am against free speech if you like. I guess that would be why I have 1,000+ dialogues, with my opponents' view (often, their complete article) on display for my readers. It's a standard lie when someone disagrees with me. Feel free to join the crowd there and make a fool of yourself.

I've dealt with THIS stuff for 25 years. St. Paul tells us to separate from contentious people. No one who is ever being contentious and divisive admits that he is.

This is my way of applying his command, while I still occasionally debate the issues, as I did in the OP.

With that, I then answered:

Well, there's not much I can say is there. Though I will say I had no intention of claiming you are against free speech. You might want to dial back the assumptions on that one. I would ask that you wait for me to do something before you begin piling on the problems with me if I do it. My only statement was questioning the wisdom of giving combox commenters no choice but to agree, given the track record of that approach to online discourse. Nonetheless, as you say, it is your blog and you may do with it as you wish. I'll respect your right to do so and drop the subject.

Dave then answered this way:

Wise choice. I just wrote elsewhere:

I have been totally banned for years at reactionary sites like The Remnant and Taylor Marshall's trash site. Peter Kwasniewski used to talk with me a bit. Now I am banned on his site, etc. One Peter Five banned me (under Skojec) when they had comments.

I only ban people who are persistently uncivil and hostile and won't follow my discussion rules: NOT because of what they believe. But I don't allow Vatican II-bashing or pope-bashing.

Certain folks call that "censorship." I call it Catholicism and Catholic unity.

"Best not to have comments at all if the only thing commenters are allowed to do is agree." If this lie from h e l l is NOT claiming I am against free speech on my blog, then we must have totally different brains, logic, and understandings of grammar and sentence meanings.

My final response, and my final comment on Dave’s social media platforms, was this:

With that, I'll leave you to it.

It’s worth noting this was not Dave Armstrong, c. 2006 when I first ran into him.  Or for that matter, it wasn’t him in 2016, ten years later.  It is, it should be pointed out, very similar to the likes of Mark Shea by 2016. 

I was informed it was becoming Dave Armstrong a couple years or so ago.  That was after Dave had a eureka moment, realized Pope Francis was absolutely right about banning the death penalty, came to realize the wonders of Pope Francis, and began banning people who hadn’t seen the light.  

I posted on this phenomenon of Catholics warming up to Pope Francis and growing in their intolerance of those who fail to agree, and how this was part of the war on EWTN waged by Pope Francis and his followers.  Not that those on the left, progressive Catholics or fans of Pope Francis are the only ones who do this.  But it seems an almost universal trait among those who are in those camps.

Because of that, I mentioned Dave was starting to sound strangely Sheaish in his dealings, which is never a good thing.  Dave visited my blog and protested that I had wrongly portrayed his approach to things.  He said this, despite the fact that I was going by people who he had banned for merely disagreeing with Pope Francis.  I accepted his perspective and figured fine, if he’s not going the direction that almost every Catholic who throws in with Pope Francis or progressive leanings seems to go, I’ll concede the point.

But now it’s this.  It’s like the feeling Ben Mears and Susan Norton have in Salem’s Lot as they begin to see more and more of the town show symptoms of being vampires.  As one after another shows the signs – bothered by sunlight, tired, sick feeling, strange dreams – they recoil all the more, for they know where this vermin plague of vampirism goes.

As I watch so many follow Pope Francis and inevitably end up going in the same direction in terms of intolerant behavior and vitriolic treatment of others; as I see so many jump in bed with the emerging Left, who inevitably follow the similar ‘I have spoken, celebrate or be banned’, I get the same feeling.  If it was just vampirism it wouldn't be so bad.  I fear it is much, much worse. 

Mark Shea is Abby Johnson's best hope

Heh.  Read the thread here:

You see that?  Notice that Mark is hanging Abby's former life as an abortion clinic worker around her neck like a millstone.  That she famously left that life, gave herself to Christ, and entered the Catholic Church seems more or less irrelevant.  The one who first showed me this thought Mark was eschewing the forgiveness of Christ.  I disagree. 

I don't think Mark is thinking of Christ's forgiveness one way or another.  Or at least I hope he isn't.  I think he's trying to be clever.  He's trying to say that Abby is some sort of horrible hypocrite for not sending herself to jail for all those babies she helped abort.  Note that Mark does a little switcheroo with the terms.  

Abby is obviously talking about what happens if a woman aborts a pregnancy if it becomes illegal.  Mark slickly injects the term 'post-abortive' to suggest Abby means any woman who has ever had an abortion before.  Which isn't what Abby - or anyone I've ever heard - appears to be saying.

Here's the funny thing however.  If we accept Mark's premise that if Roe is overturned and abortion made illegal then Ms. Johnson should send herself to jail, then Abby's best hope is Mark.  After all, Mark and most New Prolife Catholics are burning the midnight oil to help keep Roe on the books and thus the abortion mills churning along freely and legally.  If that's how things end up and Mark's side wins, then Abby will have no reason to go to jail!

Well done Mark.  Protecting women  like Abby Johnson from jail time by bravely fighting to wreck anyone who would try to overturn Roe v. Wade.  I can't think of anything that more perfectly demonstrates the mindset of the New Prolife Catholic movement.  :) 

A visit from Sam Rocha

If you recall, I commented on a Twitter post of Sam where he blasted EWTN, Word on Fire, and other Catholic outlets.  He asserted that they avoid discussing the teachings of Pope Francis because they're cowards intimidated by everyone's favorite boogeymen, Republican conservatives.

OK.  I poked fun at how he framed it, and mentioned that it sniffed of the old liberal definition of diversity (that is, anyone right of center is a fascist ready to storm the walls with pitchforks and torches).  Something I've listened to tolerant and open minded liberals claims for decades. 

Anyhoo, Sam visited the comments section to take issue.  Initially his focus was on setting the record straight about his particular job title and educational position.  Fair enough.  A couple of us, however, tried to get Sam to speak to the subject of the post itself.  Sam insisted I had taken the Twitter post out of context from a thread of Twitter posts on the subject.  He also said this existed within the framework of larger conversations he has had about the issue. 

Despite attempts to get him to comment or provide links to the greater conversation, he didn't make further comments or provide links. So I did my best to find what I could to set the record straight.  

I was unable to find any blog posts or articles by Sam that seemed to touch on the subject, though he might have accounts I don't know about or can't access.  With some help I was able to piece together the larger Twitter thread which contained the post I referenced (remember, I personally don't have Twitter, but usually get images of Twitter posts from other sources).   Here is what I found, my comments below:

Maybe it's me, but I didn't see anything in the surrounding Twitter posts that changed my impression of the initial post.  It's mainly saying people are ignoring Pope Francis's teachings, especially referencing Fratelli Tutti, which he sees as prophetically calling the Ukrainian war.  He mentions that individuals refused to read Fratelli Tutti, and then he wades into EWTN and WoF.  After that, he takes a shot at 'post-liberal' Catholics.  

Not sure what he means  by that.  There is such a thing as post-liberal theology.  Go Yale.  If he means the same, but within Catholic contexts, I don't know. Or if he is using it in some other manner I'm likewise not sure.  Nor do I know what he means by coy liberalism.  I guess that's one of those traits of social media that I fall into sometimes - using my own personal terms and assuming everyone knows what I'm talking about. 

The only troubling part I caught was his assertion that WoF doesn't speak to Pope Francis's teachings where they might offend those Conservative Republicans.  With a quick Google search, I found several links to WoF articles and videos where they do cover his teachings, and that includes ones I know that conservatives take issue with.  So that's a case where it's not true they don't speak to those teachings.  Perhaps Sam means they don't speak to them to the degree or in the manner he would prefer. IMHO,  however, that doesn't rise to being called cowards, simply because something isn't done up to a personal standard. 

But there you have it.  Sam provided no links to broader conversations about the topic, so I can't speak to those.  I obtained images from the larger Twitter thread.  I don't know if that was all the context or not.  But unless something big was missing, nothing in the surrounding Twitter posts really changed my assessment of his initial post - a leftwing partisan style swipe at people more or less not on the left side of the tracks, or at least Sam's assessment of what should be the proper side of the tracks.  With scholar talk. :) 

A New Prolife Catholic passionately defends President Biden's pro-abortion crusade

Yep.  Not much to say really.  Those who believe we will stop abortion by giving people more money, well, there is that.  As Catholics, the solution can't be supporting contraception as a way of curbing abortion rates. I suppose there could be something biblical about thinking that the more money people have, the less they sin.  I'm betting it isn't that easy, however, and I personally believe it's our relationship to the Almighty and Jesus Christ that is the ultimate answer.  But that's me.  And the priest who spoke at our parish yesterday. 

I won't bother with unpacking the opinion piece itself.  I think most of the linked to blogpost speaks for itself.  Except to say that is Exhibit A for why I no longer get anywhere near his blog or anything he writes. I'm trying to keep my heart and mind on Jesus as best I can, and I'm sure that wouldn't help a bit. 

Alrighty then

So I'm still thinking about this comment from Catholic apologist Mark Shea that was posted by Donald McClarey here:

I can't think of a more Protestant approach to Catholicism than wishing that part of Catholicism and those Catholics I don't like to be eradicated from Catholic life and done away with.  The essence of Protestantism is, after all, saying this or that part of the Historical Faith sucks and is wrong and evil and brought by all these reprehensible reprobates in the Babylonian Captivity, and it's high damn time we send it and them to the cornfield.  It's not Sola Scriptura that is the capstone of Protestantism, no matter what the theologians say.

And there is no better demonstration of this mindset that the Catholic apologist's comment above.  

Mark Shea might just approve this message

Martin and Lewis on Pope Francis and division in the Church

Martin and Lewis.  Heh.  I was proud of myself for that one.

Anyhoo, Fr. James Martin tosses out a high five for a piece that is making the rounds in Catholicland.  Mike Lewis at the Communist sympathetic America magazine, has penned a rather direct piece about the divisions in our Church and who is responsible.  It shouldn't come as a shock that the problem is those critics of Pope Francis over there.  

I won't spend an hour penning my appraisal of Pope Francis one way or another.  I will say one thing that has bothered me about his pontificate for some time.  That is, he has a knack for not using the First Person Plural when speaking about the problems in the Church.  Most often, he tells the World it has every right to despise the Catholic witness - and it's because of 'those Catholics over there'. 

His whole 'we have met the enemy, and it's those Catholics over there' has brought about something I've never seen as plainly as I see it now.  That is, we have an entire culture of Catholics who routinely remind us that the problems with the Church are 'those Catholics over there'.  I get that this probably isn't new.  But it was looked down upon in the early days of my entrance into the Church.  If you had such a view, it was usually centered on a particular issue, and then there was usually some 'says I, the greatest of all sinners' qualifier, just to make sure. 

We didn't want to be a Catholic pharisee after all, standing there, thanking God that He didn't make me like those Catholics over there.  You can certainly point out error.  It might even be Christian to confront error and those advocating error.  But never, ever just sit there and say you're not as much the problem as anything 'those' Catholics do.  

And yet, since the ascension of Pope Francis, it has become almost normative to hear Catholic bemoan those Catholics over there who are clearly the problem.  And why not?  So does Pope Francis.  Again, he may say it sometimes, and perhaps it gets lost in translation.  But I'm at a loss to think of many times Pope Francis has said the problem with the Church is 'us', 'we', 'me first and foremost'.  He may have said it, and I don't want to be on record saying he never has.

He just doesn't do it often, at least compared to how often he tears into 'those Catholics over there' for being rigid, obsessing with doctrine, dwelling on Truth, and other such bothersome things.  And when speaking of the Church's witness, he has little problem dwelling on the failures of 'those Catholics over there' as the big sticking point.

So I've come to expect Catholics on the Internet to rush to their blogs whenever Pope Francis says something, and rejoice that he is finally and forcefully calling out 'those Catholics over there.'   I've seen it so many times now, I've lost count.  Pope Francis will let fly at some group of sinners, or more specifically, sinners in the Church, and good Faithful Catholics will rush to Twitter or St. Blogs to rejoice that he is finally calling out 'those Catholics over there.'  

If there was no other reason to have a problem with Pope Francis, that is a pretty big reason.  First lesson in pastor school was always to make sure you use 'we and us' as much as realistically and truthfully possible.  The last thing you want, after all, is a congregation that is sure it's everyone else in the congregation who is the problem.  And always blasting 'them and they' is a great way to get minds thinking in that direction.  Which could be why it might be less Pope Francis's critics, as much as he and his supporters, who play no small part in the divisions they so often bemoan. 

The breakdown of modern Catholic apologetics

Is best displayed by this, in which one of the leading Catholic apologists today approaches the complexities of the Syrian crisis and Isis with kudos for such a brilliant and penetrating assessment.

One reason I still visit Catholic and Enjoying it

Is because of the phenomenal quality that several of the regular readers bring to discussions.  TMLutas still hangs out, bringing economic sense to discussions on the evils of Capitalism.  And in this little piece, in which Mark once again says 'evil gun cult, we must do anything, if you disagree with my non-solutions then Gun Cult!', several great commenters step in to bring sense, reality, and facts to the table.

Particularly compelling is Mike Flynn's point that if you look at certain metropolitan areas in Canada and the US near the Canadian border, it's amazing how the homicide rate fluctuates.  Sometimes, the rates in Canadian cities exceed their US counterparts.  It's amazing.  We're brainwashed by the media and the Left to think that the US is this giant homogeneous thing, where murders are everywhere, white cops are killing everyone, guns are everywhere killing everyone, and all you need to do to avoid this horror is step into any place in any other place in the world and it's John Lennon songs and flowers in the hair.

Such might be Mark's view, though his contribution to the debate is about as incoherent as they come.  It might be I'm just not clever enough to get his solutions, but when he increasingly raves about things outside of actual Catholic doctrine like gun control, it's like some bizarre version of 'You're stupid about guns because Frankenstein never scared me!'  Huh?  That's what I feel like reading Mark's contributions, especially when set in juxtaposition to Mike's, Pete the Greek's, and Stu's contributions to the subject.

Humbled and honored by The American Catholic

Thanks to the efforts of Nate Winchester, it looks like my blog has been mentioned on The American Catholic.  Wow.  Talk about letting a chihuahua run with the great danes.  So I'm a little taken by my goofy little blog home being mentioned by Donald McClarey.  The American Catholic continues with the thankless task of reminding us that not everything to do with American religious conservatism is as stupid and bigoted and evil as Comedy Central and Huffington Post say. Heck, you can actually be Catholic and value traditional ideals and experiences, even if they sometimes coincide with traditional American ideals and experiences!  Radical.  For some places in the Catholic blogosphere, saying that is as tolerable as opening a Kosher deli in 1940s Berchtesgaden.

I still should be honest and admit that I am having issues with certain aspects of Catholic thought and life and the ways in which the Church is edging ever closer to the post-Christian, secular Left model of reality.  There were always some issues, as there will be whenever someone enters a new tradition.  There were when I became Christian in the first place.  The problem has been that I've not reconciled these issues ten years later, especially in light of where the Church has clearly been moving in recent years.

Sure, the treatment we've received, the slammed doors, the cultural issues have made it difficult. But be that as it may, I'm still at a point of struggles.  And as people who know me can attest, I won't just stand around, shrug my shoulders, and accept things.  Not where eternal questions are concerned. The good news is that there is more in the historic Christian Faith that I value, so I will never simply leave.  But how things end up working out in my Faith walk remains to be seen.  Just thought I would put that out.

On a more personal note, yuck!  I can't stand that video.  Marcus didn't give me any prep time or a pre-show interview as usually happened with the guests.  I was more or less dropped on the stage and told do my best with no clue what to expect.  If I don't ever watch that again, my life's fortunes could only improve.

But thanks to Nate and to Don for lowering the quality quotient of The American Catholic by including my little voice in the chorus.

Personal Note: Start proof reading my posts!   :)

With arguments like these

Who needs enemies.  It makes no difference at this point.  CAEI is beyond help.  There are a few who keep plugging away.  Though I had resolved to stop going there, some events compelled me to continue for a time.  But only for a time.  But reading things like this, that would embarrass an uneducated fundamentalist Baptist evangelist in a tent revival on sawdust floors, are increasingly a waste of valuable time.  Still, I have to continue for a few extra weeks, perhaps a month or so.  Until then, I have to endure this.

When I visit some parts of the Catholic blogosphere

I think of The War of the Worlds.  So these alien vessels were lying dormant for thousands of years, waiting for the signals from space to awaken them and prod them into action.  So there seems to be an entire segment of the Catholic world, most notably on the blogosphere, that sees itself as the First True Catholics since the apostolic age, or perhaps since Aquinas.  The world has waited as the True Church sank into slumber, awaiting the first Trinitarian Popes to come and awaken them.

Probably not accurate, but I think it.  I especially think it when I see things like this.  I admit, I paraphrased what was said by my team lead.  I took some liberties and condensed what he said and other points he has made.  He also didn't serve overseas, but was wounded while serving here in the states.

In another setting I might elaborate and be more detailed.  But notice antigon.  Now antigon hates me with the white hot fury of a thousand suns.  Don't know why.  But he loathes me and holds me in contempt.  He is why I'm still there. For reasons I don't know, antigon has taken it upon himself to charge in whenever I comment and begin calling me names.  Calling me a moron, dolt, idiot.  Accusing me of being stupid, a liar, a wimp, a sissy.  And strangely enough, Mark has done nothing but join him a couple times to accuse me of being a right wing partisan to boot.  There is no way in the world I'm leaving the blog and letting him think he's the reason.  Hence my remaining for a time.

Now, you'd think insults, accusations, and a flagrant disregard for fellowship would be a problem.   Not so for the modern Fanboy Catholic who dominates the blogosphere.  It's a bizarre mix of liberalism, fundamentalism, and the worst stereotypes of Catholicism. The teachings of the Church and Christ simply don't apply to them.  Be assured, not all Catholics are like this.   But it's enough that this approach is becoming more popular, and in fact Mark has been rewarded for this direction.  So someone in the Catholic world likes the combination.  Especially if they consider themselves the first True Catholics who long awaited the coming of the only Popes who really matter.

Catholics for consequentialism?

For those who have never visited the Catholic blogosphere, you might be shocked to find that consequentialism is the most horrible sin one can commit, and it apparently is unique to the United States.  I mean, you can do just about anything and be swell and awesome, but consequentailism might be outside of the reach of God's grace.

So it was at first a bit of a shock when I saw that Mark Shea, one of the most vocal crusaders against consequentialism, posted a post in which he seemed to be saying stealing from people with abundance was justified.  Of course by abundance, we always mean people with more than us.  Not us.

Now there is a long history of feeling that those who have obtained their wealth dishonestly deserve what they get.  And if you steal from someone who has taken wealth wrongly, and give it to those who are in need, there are worse things in the world.  But this post seemed to be saying the rich deserve what they get, no rules.  No Commandments.  As long as you're doing it to the rich, you're in the clear.

Now, in fairness, I've learned that consequentalism, like so many things across the Catholic blogosphere, is only an evil as long as it advances the Cause or wins the latest argument.  So when Catholics violate the Church's clear teaching about how to treat others, or not judging, or interpreting what people say in the best way, it doesn't matter.  For the sake of greater good they are free to ignore those teachings.  Even the teachings of Jesus! And that's how they justify it!  They're doing it for the greater good.

And clearly if it isn't an intrinsic evil, there is no end to the wiggle room that Catholics can find across the blogosphere to justify things.  Why, it has been said a million times that it's better that ten thousand babies be murdered than to tell a white lie to save them.  Nonetheless, you are free to be dishonest, deceitful, and to weave entire tapestries of falsehoods as long as you don't technically lie.  After all, being false is not an intrinsic evil.  Only lying is.

So unless you can show that all stealing is actually an intrinsic evil, then sometimes it might be awesome.  That's not to say you can ask such questions about interrogation methods or anything.  Then you're just trying to be stupid and consistent.  In the case of torture, it's always evil and anything done might be evil without question.  But stealing isn't always evil so it can sometimes be right unless not.

See how easy it is?  Are you confused yet?  For my money, I was more interested in this post, in which Mark praised those holding truly consistent pro-life ethics, including an obviously progressive evangelical who, by his own website, opposes increasing the legal restrictions on abortion rights.  Sure, like most liberal Christians he says he's opposed to abortion.  Just like President Obama.  But like most, apparently he believes that the right to abortion shall not be infringed upon while we seek to eliminate the root causes of abortion like poverty. Something that used to be not pro-life.

Perhaps I misread the evangelical, but he echoed, along with his support of gay marriage, the same viewpoints I heard other liberal evangelicals hold.  So I would be interested in knowing how someone opposed to legally restricting abortions can be consistently pro-life, while a person holding to the Church's traditional teaching - and still its official teaching - regarding the death penalty is not.  But then, again, if you're asking questions like this about the Catholic blogosphere, or how a self proclaimed conservative Catholic can love liberalism and hate conservatism, then I'm afraid you're just being stupid and consistent.

Obviously busy

Busy, busy, busy.  Mostly struggling through life, juggling the older three having jobs, home school, and our oldest prepping for college, remembering to be there for our youngest, helping my Mom, and continuing to get zero from the Church in terms of either material aid or vocational direction.  With that, I must admit, we've been casting our eyes askance at other potential ecclesiastical alternatives.  Still, theologically and, to be honest, culturally I'm Catholic.  Always have been, even in my Protestant days.  So it's like finding out your wife is having an affair.  Do you just leave her, or work through the betrayal and the pain and heartache in the hope that something will turn a corner?

Nonetheless, as we struggle with bills, a bleak future, and a clear message from those in the diocese that 'you don't serve our kind', things are tough time-wise.  And with juggling so many things, the blog has obviously taken a back seat.

Still, I've had a couple emails and some questions, such as why am I still visiting CAEI when I said I would be done with it at Easter, and a profound question asking our take on some current issues in the news.  I'm working on the second, and will elaborate on the first.  But for now, a reader sent this link along and all I have to say is 'yep.'

This explains why so many Catholics have gotten so mean and unbelievably fundamentalist in their zeal to defend the Pope and the Church.  Proud of their conservative leanings and their belief that authentic conservatism and the Church are one and the same, they are stuck admitting that both this Pope, and the Church in recent years, is tacking seriously to the left.  Its approach to economics, political policy, social issues, theological and critical scholarship, scientific theories of human origins, are all more in line with a more liberal viewpoint than anything Catholics would have recognized even 50 years ago, much less 100 years ago.

Therefore, their desire to be both loyal to the Vatican, which for many is the same as being loyal to the Church, and yet insisting they are ever and always just good old conservatives like grandma used to make, produces quite the strain. One of the favorite go-to answers to why Pope Francis sounds so liberal if he really isn't one is that he is just misquoted.  Or his words manipulated.  Or stupid evil Catholics and Francis haters aren't smart enough to get his wise words.  In any event, he's just not to blame. Ever.

Well, John-Henry Westen at LifeSite News disagrees.  He believes, somewhat foolishly, that if you are in the business of communicating important things - like the Gospel - and you continually see your words being twisted by powers that ostensibly represent the powers of Hell, then a new strategy or approach might be in order.  And yet, it isn't.  Pope Francis continues, as does the Vatican, to lean on 'we didn't mean it that way' as the favored approach to insisting that the somewhat liberal sounding words weren't really liberal at all.

In keeping with the mood of the post-JPII Catholic apologetics world, expect Mr. Westen to be skinned.  At least verbally.  For I've found that for some Catholics, ever since the rack and thumbscrews went out of style, the world of apologetics and the blogosphere are  the best they can do.

Consigned to the Catholic Blogosphere

The Catholic blogosphere, like any part of that segment of modern reality, should not be the only place where people go to grow in their faith.  Mostly fueled by amateur apologists, it is a hotbed for all the things that make the Internet generation flawed at best.  So why have I spent so much of my time there?

Well, you have to understand Catholicism.  Even Catholics - yes, even those apologists defending the Church - admit that fellowship and outreach are not the strong suits of Catholic living.  Koinonia is the Greek word for fellowship.  Some Protestant churches used to suffer from what we coined Koinonitis.  That is, we have all the people we want, we want no more.

Catholics seem to have this in spades.  Because many parishes are, in fact, monstrous churches with thousands of families, you imagine it won't be that way.  Most Protestant churches that suffered from this were usually smaller congregations.  So you imagine that in Catholic parishes with thousands, there would be no problem finding groups to fit in.  And you'd be wrong.

After ten years, we have yet to fit in.  Hired by a Catholic lay ministry, involved in RCIA and other educational endeavors, kids in youth groups, public speaking, you'd think we'd have found that magic group to rub shoulders with.  And again, you'd be wrong.

Not that nobody has been open to us.  We've met very friendly people.  Helpful people.  People who would stop and chat for a few.  Even invited to a couple houses.  But it's been like being friends at work.  You know how if you're working with someone you can get to be friends over time?  But then if you transfer to another position or task, and aren't around that person, it sort of fades.  And if you see them six months later, you have to start from scratch.

That's been this.  Priests have so many people to shepherd, they don't have time for constant discipleship and instruction.  And attempts to fit into other groups have often resulted in us sitting by ourselves listening to those who know each other chitchat.  No matter how many times over ten years we've tried to fit in, at the end of the day, we still feel like outsiders.

Some of it is our parish.  A parish with no small set of issues. Mostly liberal, it's fought the recent influx of some fairly conservative Protestant converts.  But beyond that, it's been the way in most cases we've encountered. Those who have made us feel the most welcome are grey haired well past the point of retirement.  In many cases, because they still see value in a Protestant clergy convert.  Younger Catholics, however, don't seem to.  And those in our age group, as well as that of our kids, have felt no compunction in letting us know we'd best get used to sitting by ourselves at the annual picnic.

Even joining the Knights of Columbus didn't help.  And I typically found myself trying to get into the conversations, but ending up standing along the wall, listening to those who know each other carry the conservation.

Hence, in order to find some fellowship, some avenue of interaction, I've been consigned to the dreaded Blogosphere.  A place not for the weak hearted.  At best you can get some who are willing to engage in questions or disagreements on a mature level before being called a hater of the Church or Jesus.  At worst, it comes right out of the gate with accusations of being stupid, evil, not caring about dead kids, Jesus, God, or whatever.  And then it goes down from there.  That not including the obvious blindness to sin, evil, wrong, and other things that a new convert shouldn't be able to recognize as easily as they make it able to be recognized.

Now I would gladly have gone anywhere else for my formation.  But Catholics are, even now, notoriously sketchy with adult education.  Some parishes have done better.  Others still struggle.  But even then, formation is only so effective without the added lair of fellowship.  And that is where a major lack has created a major void.  Leaving Catholics who would seek to grow to turn to the modern equivalent of an English boarding school, where cold and heartless brutality and stunning self righteousness substitutes for actual Christian guidance.  That can only cause problems, unless the new believer is wanting some group that he or she can join in which we thank God for not making us like those loser Catholics over there.

Just thought I'd throw that out.  For all that Protestants might lack, they seem to have what the Church could use.  They understand the importance of instruction and fellowship, not as two different issues worth tackling, but as a single whole needed to help new believers grow from milk to meat in their faith diets.

The Church of now and me

My penance is pretty much coming to a close.  I've chosen to endure that Lenten obligation through the actual Easter Week.  When most are finally getting their chocolate, coffee, Sports Illustrated Swim Suit editions, or whatever they gave up, I'm still plugging through.

Granted, the last week's worth of posts haven't been what they are sometimes capable of.  That happens around major holidays.  But this post illustrates the chasm between CAEI, the direction of the Church, and me.

It is a post answering a person who is clearly more sympathetic to the LGBT worldview than I am.  Not that I believe gays should be hated or murdered. But I don't think it natural, normal, or right.  Nor do I think that as long as there is no physical penetration, anything gays do is therefore completely morally neutral or without side effects. One of my understandings of sin has always been that the commands against sin isn't some weird, fickle thing on God's part.  Sin actually is something that tears apart the created order one way or another.  To paraphrase Merlin, when a man sins, he murders some part of the world.  Hence God's commands against the sins.

Now Mark answers the individual with respect and even high fives, despite the individual's confession that he/she and the Church part company regarding this supposedly mortal sin.  No problem.  As the possibility of universalism has been entertained there and across the Catholic blogosphere, things like mortal sin and sexuality seem to diminish in importance.  Like secular liberalism, things that directly impact me - war, death penalty, poverty, torture - those are the things we go crazy about.  Things that I can potentially enjoy or get something from - sex - become less important, if not just fine altogether.  When the hereafter is a sure thing, it becomes an unimportant thing.  And this life suddenly becomes the sole focus of what I, and by extension the Church, should care about.

If it was just CAEI, it wouldn't be a big deal.  But it isn't.  As I've said, I think the tension with CAEI, it's claim to be the blog of a 'conservative Catholic', and the clear and obvious fact that it respectfully disagrees with all but a couple of the sins of liberalism, while dismissing almost anything to do with traditional and conservative values, is due to the Church's obvious lurching to the Left of center regarding a growing number of issues and teachings.

From homosexuality, to war and capital punishment, to evolution, to climate change, to immigration, to education, to the role of women, to economics, to scholarship (biblical and otherwise), to general behavioral issues and individual ethics, the Church and the latest product of liberal and secular thought are increasingly sounding one and the same.

Yes, Jesus still really lived and really died and raised from the dead.  Mary is still Immaculately conceived.  Only men can still be priests.  And gays can't get married.  And God made evolution happen.  But apart from that, the differences between the Church's approach to a host of topics and the general assumptions of a liberal, European socialist thinker, are increasingly few and far between.

So a conservative blogger who has stated his undying loyalty to the Church is in a pickle.  When the Church is increasingly modifying how it interprets itself in light of increasingly progressive, liberal, and even secular perspectives, what is the loyal Catholic blogger to do?  You can just admit what the Church is doing and change your moniker.  Or you can insist you are ever and always conservative, and when properly understood, there is no difference between being so and being loyal to the Church.  No matter how obviously skewered the outcome is.

And so you get numbers of Mark's readers, the majority being to the left of center, coming in to put various spins on this.  Some defending homosexuality.  Some attacking the Indiana law.  A few giving thumbs up to the post (it was well written and many parts were good at unpacking what the Church teaches about disordered appetites).  But there is a general respect and willingness to agree to disagree.  And even against more confrontational support for the LGBT viewpoint, Mark is restrained and leaves his rebuttals succinct and without vitriol.

Imagine it being a post dealing with conservatives, conservative views and readers defending conservative interpretations of the Faith or its teachings.  You don't have to.  There are legions of posts doing that.  Read and notice the difference.

Again, what is a person to do who wishes to be 100% loyal to the Church without admitting that the Church is changing how it approaches its practice of the Faith?  But I've come to find out it's what Catholics have always had to do.  Because contrary to the image that many have, the Church does in fact change.  And it always has.  In fact, if you want a tradition that doesn't change, you'd have to look east.  The Orthodox Church, even admitted to by Evangelical scholars from my ministry days, is about the only tradition close to what the Faith was centuries ago.  With a few modern conveniences aside, its teachings and its practice and the approach some 1500 years ago are still pretty close to the same.  But the Roman Church?  Go into a time machine and go back a thousand years, and you would be a lost as you could hope to be.  That is, if you survived long enough to point out the differences.  And that, to me at least, explains the tension and the contradictions that you find, not only on CAEI, but a growing number of Catholic outlets as well.