Safe Haven

 They make better Catholics than most Catholics. On the other hand, I don’t spend a great deal of time judging fellow parishioners. When I say that, I think of people who are indistinguishable from the worst heathen you could find. Stalin was a baptized Catholic. The mystery of the difference between mistakes and damnable willful choices is nearly as inscrutable as Providence itself. We can know what sin is, we can know by catechism and conscience that we need forgiveness, but why any of us do anything—especially knowing it’s wrong—is beyond my understanding. Aquinas tells us that we sin because we believe that the sin is an apparent good. And I will buy that. It must appear to be good in the affections; I do not become ignorant of intellectual matters long settled. To be frank, I must not be able to see the damage of the bad thing I have chosen. Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Sometimes, I question in some sense this prayer. “They sh...

 Misandry couldn’t get Dave Chappelle, (for now) because he’s Black. That’s still a good scoring play in the Grievance Olympics. If Dave were a woman, he’s golden. At least until trans activists either eliminate all biological women, or convince us to do it ourselves. It’s the same joke, you know. Google “Dave Chappelle prostitute uniform.” It wasn’t within the past 6 weeks, though, so that whole part of Dave goes down the memory hole. Shane Gillis is pretty liberal, too. His problem is, of course, is that he looks like a Trumper. Matthew Broussard relies on these stereotypes, though he’s liberal and Jewish. As he puts it, “I look like why Mitt Romney lost.”

 You hear and see the phrase a lot. First, a breakdown: “Toxic” means “harmful to living beings or systems.” Well, that’s probably not precise enough. A fired bullet is harmful to living beings, but only in odd cases owing to their manufacture could they be defined as toxic. There’s probably something about “disruption of biological processes, either acutely, or more slowly, that cause harm or death.” Anyway. We should probably define “masculinity” before we decide what toxic masculinity would be. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone concerned about this actually do that. The gender-neutral elephant in the room is that there has to be a link between biological sex and gender—the social expectations that coincide with one’s biological sex—that gender ideology denies. I think nearly everyone would grant that gender is often enforced too rigidly. And everyone does it. One group bothers the sensitive bookish boy they say cries too easily; another decides the girl we used to call a “tomboy” o...

 I think I could be forgiven for thinking that Christianity Today doesn’t have anything to offer me. What is an “evangelical” anyway? Personal conversion could never be dispositive of the description, because Protestants mistakenly believed that Catholicism and Orthodoxy have no such analogue. Granted, we cannot rest chiefly in a feeling, but if I have “inspirations” and “resolutions” as Escriva would call them, and I act on those in accord with the word of God, I do well. I defy anyone to hear Blessed Fulton Sheen and say he was being observant in some sterile way. “The life I live, I live to God” and “The life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20. You could get saved just reading or hearing that. You can’t say biblical inerrancy and infallibility is exclusively evangelical Protestant, because the Catholic Church taught it first, and still does. You can’t say that an inward testimony by the Holy Spirit belong...

 Kevin Gregorek, one of my buddies in a cohort I can’t tell you about—like Fight Club, but way cooler—compliments me fairly often for my ability to weave in and out of both Catholic and (orthodox) Protestant communities without going insane. Well, that last part is definitely in question. [You beat me to it.—ed.] In a lot of ways, I’m not even the best candidate to do it. I “got saved” in the evangelical parlance at 17 or 18, went to college, became Reformed and a huge nerd that I always was, baptized at 21, spent ten years there, and sought full communion with the Catholic Church at 31, actually receiving a Master of Theological Studies degree from Ave Maria University in 2014, after beginning an MDiv at Covenant Theological Seminary in 2005, and abandoning it in 2011. (At the same time I was received into the Catholic Church.) You could look at that and go, “Gravy, he’s either an idiot, a slacker, a cripple, or all of the above,” and you’re right on all counts. On one hand, I kno...

 Florida just executed a Vietnam veteran, for the killing of another serviceman long ago. I’m opposed to capital punishment anyway, as you may know. But this latest man is the 46th person executed in Florida while Governor Ron DeSantis has been in office there. 46! Even if I were a little more “in extreme cases, it’s necessary,” 46 is a lot. DeSantis has been Governor 7 years. He’s 48. It’s not like he’s been Governor for his entire adult life. Someone is making an effort not to show restraint, to say nothing of mercy. I don’t like the efforts to take clemency and commutation powers away from governors. I definitely know that I would resign, if my hands were tied like that. You don’t have to send hardened killers home with their mamas; life imprisonment isn’t a fun time. If you asked me why I don’t fit in as a Republican and conservative, this is the biggest reason why. On that note, I would probably prefer “originalist” and “textualist” judges to “vibes” and “living Constitution” ...

 I guess I’m a fanboy, though I haven’t seen all of his films by any stretch. You just get to trust a director, you know? This is a big statement, but I stand by it: Nolan is at the Spielberg point; I assume you understand. It’s very possible for him to lay an egg, as they say, but it’s odd, you know? Interstellar is my shining example, but I love Insomnia, a 2002 remake of a Finnish film. This one stars Al Pacino as a dirty cop with a good soul, and Robin Williams as a serial killer who knows his secrets. I was all of 22, and I still left the theater believing it should have won Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards. Dunkirk is one of the 20 best films I’ve ever seen, and some say 1917 is also on that level. Inception’s only weakness was that it was a half-hour too long, and Oppenheimer deserved every bit of praise (and money) it got. I don’t necessarily think Nolan is attempting to help us preserve a forgotten moral consensus, but the films adj...

 I just have this crazy belief that people are responsible for the things they do. They might not be fully responsible, or we might say, culpable. Medical reasons come in here, and in principle, I have no objection. We’re going toward the idea that everything is medical, and that no one is responsible for their decisions. If you ask me why I don’t fit in as a Democrat and progressive, this is why. Don’t misunderstand me: I think we should do a lot more to support vulnerable people. But those same people prefer stacking programs on top of programs that don’t actually pay for anything, just to seem like better people than their opponents, which (to be fair) doesn’t seem hard to do. I’ll probably be on the same Medicaid waiting list until I am dead. There was a school shooting in Oregon. A guy once served by special education, returning to “punish” those who helped him. They must exist, but I have never met a bad special education teacher in my life. Those are, on the whole, wonderful...

 Guns get juxtaposed with abortion. “If right-wingers really cared about…” “If they were REALLY pro-life, they would…” Go ahead. Make the argument.  First off, you don’t really want to compare the scale of this. 60 or 70 million unborn children killed. If I gave you every suicide and counted it like a school shooting, the scale would still be massively in the right-winger’s favor. Abortion is the worst genocide in human history. It should pre-empt every regular program on TV, like a daily 9/11, but worse, but it won’t. Too many “well-meaning” people would have to face their guilt and their complicity. Too many women would have to face the self-infantilization that makes them murderers. We have to sit with that last word: murderers. It’s “extreme” to say that, you say? Murder is the unjustified taking of an innocent human life. What is it, if it’s not that? What is it? We’re rightly all relieved that the Fort Hood shooter won’t be immortalized on video in death. It’s monstrous,...

 Which isn’t to say that I never did. And I’m reasonably happy if the Chiefs and Travis Kelce win. That makes Empress Taylor happy, so who am I to argue with her? But it started with the conspiracy to move the Rams from St. Louis back to Los Angeles. That hurt. And it’s clear that the NFL has known about traumatic brain injuries due to football for a lot longer than they let on. I just can’t really enjoy it without my conscience bothering me. So I just don’t. I understand football better than most fans. I just don’t see value in watching anymore.

 You know, the Zac Brown Band song. I love that song. I like songs like it. Maybe I’ve been sad a lot in life; I don’t know. I understand that I’m sappier than a forest of maple trees. I knew Aaron The Rat would know it. For all you know, he wrote the bloody song himself. It’s just one of those songs. Fairly sure I know every word. Though the second word in the first line is “trade,” not “take.” It sounds like “take.” Though that would mean he would have said “take” twice in that first line. So OK. Zac Brown is the kind of guy who’s been listening to James Taylor all his life, and became a musician. (In fact, they sang “Colder Weather” with James Taylor on an awards show.) Ordinarily, dance-pop doesn’t break your heart, unless it’s a-ha. I digress. Here’s the first line of “Colder Weather”: “She’d trade Colorado if he’d take her with him.” — It’d better be a good song, because it’s not “Baby One More Time.” This ain’t “Rhythm Of The Night” by DeBarge. As soon as he starts, you are ...

 Precisely one day after the pope reaffirmed CCC, 2267 on the death penalty--especially in light of the justified furor of the US president and the Department of Defense (not blessing the name change) announced they're going to livestream the execution of the Ft. Hood shooter--the pope announced that he's got a concerning nodule on one lung, and that doctors advised him to let them remove it. I never actually saw The Butterfly Effect, but it was a film about how a small action can have a totally unexpected impact on others and things. Far be it for me to guess at the workings of Providence, but it seems like this struggle for Pope Leo has provided many Catholics and separated Christians another opportunity to love and pray for him. As a side-note, when I say that I don't care what other Christians say about ethics or doctrine, I don't mean it strictly; I only mean that we're the Church founded by Jesus Christ; Peter is going to lead, even if other scattered disciple...