Safe Haven

 Today, you’re 35. Or at least you would be, in this place. You probably know this, but we’re OK. Not great, but OK. We know you wouldn’t want us moping around and weeping all the time. We try not to. Actually, I guess part of the problem is that you didn’t know how much we loved you. And that you didn’t know how to love yourself. I hope you have gotten to Love by now. Not a place, but fills everything in every way. I’m not Him, but he probably said, “Dear daughter/sister, you have been terribly hard on yourself. Rest now, and be at peace.” Anyway, teaching is going well, and I tell the kids all about you. They all say you are pretty. I usually can keep the boys from saying something gross for a few seconds. Mom and I are going to the game tonight. And like 6 more times, before I go back to South Carolina. I have seen Nicky twice, but I myself haven’t seen your younger kids. Bob took pictures of the day we said goodbye, and we did a family picture at the Abbey. I literally almost asked

Update: I read the whole thing. I’m sorry, but what a weirdo. I thought you [Tom Darrow, of Denver, CO] made a trenchant case for why lockdowns are bad, and I definitely appreciated it. But a graduation speech is *not* the place for that. Secondly, this is an august event. It always is. I would never address the President of the United States in this manner. Never. Even the previous president, though he deserves it, if anyone does. Thirdly, the affirmations of Catholic identity should be more general. He has no authority to propound with specificity on all matters of great consequence. It has all the hallmarks of a culture war broadside, and again, a layman shouldn’t speak like this. The respect and reverence due the clergy is *always due,* even if they are weak, and outright wrong. We just don’t brush them aside like corrupt Mafia dons, to make a point. Fourthly, I don’t know where anyone gets the idea that the TLM is how God demands to be worshipped. The Church doesn’t teach that.

 I once had a friend, a dear friend, who helped me with personal care needs in college. Reformed Presbyterian to the core. When I was a Reformed Presbyterian, I visited their church many times. We were close. I still consider his siblings my friends. (And siblings in the Lord.) Nevertheless, when I began to consider the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church Christ founded, he took me out to breakfast. He implied--but never quite stated--that we would not be brothers, if I sought full communion with the Catholic Church. That came true; a couple years later, I called him on his birthday, as I'd done every year for close to ten of them. He didn't recognize my number, and it was the most strained, awkward phone call I have ever had. We haven't spoken since. We were close enough that I attended the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. His wife's uncle is a Catholic priest. I remember reading a blog post of theirs, that early in their relationship, she told him of the p

 Someone shut down a discussion--and potential veneration--by stating, "Jesus wasn't White." Which I could easily grant, especially for the sake of argument. But what does "White" mean? How dark would He have to be, before this Marxist-adjacent person would adore Him as God? Or at least allow the discussion to progress? Was it simply a way to invalidate all White perspectives? It seems to me that the universality of Jesus and the gospel message is a threat to certain kinds of essentialism. If there were value in say, "de-centering Whiteness," it would have to be in drawing out the richness of a cultural expression, and adding it to that which is universal. If there is therefore no access to the universals, or no relationship between the universal and the particular, then nominalism, solipsism, and relativism has won. On the other hand, part of the offense of Jesus is that he dared to take on a particular human nature, in a particular place, at a partic

 I'm no expert on these questions, or related issues, but as a theologian and a person wanting to understand and submit to the Catholic Church on the questions of religious liberty and conscience, I think that the Church has decided that, while a free conscience in error in questions of faith or morals isn't completely free, in light of the soul's true end, the possibility of error is preferable to compliance by compulsion. That is, assent compelled--either to the dictates of right reason, or to those of revealed truth--is itself contrary to charity. The existence of error, and the willingness to tolerate it in some sense, is not to say that truth and error are indistinguishable. Also, "Ultimate truth does not exist" is a statement expressing epistemic skepticism, and is not equivalent to, "People are free to make their own decisions and moral choices." Acknowledging the plain reality of misused freedom is not the same as endorsing freedom that has been

 Today was the final home game for the St. Louis Cardinals. Accordingly, it was the final regular season home game for Yadier Molina, and Albert Pujols, who have both made it clear that this season is their last. As you may or may not know, Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina now have the all-time MLB record for most starts as pitcher and catcher. It's possible that, given the great caution with which those players are handled, this record is completely unreachable. We will see. I do know that Wainwright is the best pitcher never to win a Cy Young Award as the league's best pitcher, and that he's within hailing distance of consideration for baseball's Hall of Fame. (In point of fact, he has carried the Cardinals this season, and has for several years now, despite celebrating his 41st birthday about 2 months ago.) You can't say enough about Yadier Molina. Once considered a light-hitting catcher, he's just finished his regular season career with a batting mark of .2

 This covers homosexuality/gender non-conformity, and anything related you can think of. Why? It starts with this simple assertion: Our bodies and our organs are for something, and that something is not exhausted in personal pleasure.  Sex is for creation. To be more specific, procreation. That's what it's for. To create new people is the reason we've been given this gift. To be sure, it gives pleasure. Most likely because people will not always do the things we ought to do, if none of it was pleasant. Why does it matter? If we were to say that "parents" were any two people, and that a "family" is whatever we say it is, we necessarily say   that the traditional view is wrong. Suppose we all chose to believe this, and acted accordingly. The human race would cease to exist. It's no longer about being tolerant of a rare variation; if various radicals are correct, everything we ever believed in is wrong. But we know better. We are seeing that transgender