The Abomination Which Causeth Desolation I’m now concluding my series on Pride month celebrations. It began with my case for why Pride is in reality a pro-life idea, and I rebutted a number of common Catholic objections to Pride in the second installment. I intentionally waited until after June ended to finish this series; I did not care to post any critiques or concessions during Pride month, partly to drive home the point that the critiques and concessions could wait.... Read more

THIS POST DEALS WITH SEXUAL ABUSE. PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION. The Image of Gog The Vatican reached a new low the other day. (Well, a new low to my knowledge.) I speak of a recent pronouncement made on the subject of Slovenian priest Fr. Marko Rupnik. You may have heard of him. In addition to being a Jesuit priest and author of several books, he is also a liturgical artist of considerable repute, whose mosaics grace the shrines of Our... Read more

This continues my discussion of Pride celebrations from last week. Ye Have Heard That It Was Said To review, the objection to Pride celebrations we had next to consider ran along these lines: What about all the sexual immorality? You make such a virtue of accepting Catholic teaching about homosexuality—which is the least you should be doing, and you’ve admitted many times to not actually observing this teaching. Can’t you at least admit that the “identity” Pride festivals celebrate is rooted... Read more

A Summer Festivus How should Catholics respond to Pride festivities? A classic question for the apologist, which we can only assume slipped the minds of the Apostles, else it would surely be addressed in the New Testament. In order to give any sincere, intelligent answer to this question, we need to know what Pride is. Social media abounds in Catholics who are eager to tell us that pride is one of the seven capital sins.1 Luckily, words only ever mean... Read more

CONTENT WARNING: RACIST AND ANTI-SEMITIC TROPES AND LANGUAGE. Hope In Fools Dr. Janet E. Smith recently announced her decision to withdraw from the Hope Is Fuel conference. Hope Is Fuel was put together by Patrick Coffin, a professional apologist formerly associated with Catholic Answers (and, as of the last few years, a public sedevacantist1). Dr. Smith is a respected conservative theologian, with a specialty in bioethical issues, particularly contraception. Other speakers slated for the conference included—and to my knowledge still... Read more

A Sign of Contradiction Christian nationalism has gotten popular in the US over the last decade or so. It isn’t the same thing as Trumpism: Trumpism is a version of Christian nationalism, and a fairly crude one, but there are much more sophisticated types. This is why educated, literate voices like Doug Wilson and Stephen Wolfe can promote Christian nationalism among Protestants as a serious political project; it’s a little like theonomy,1 which Wilson has been preaching for decades. Among... Read more

Low Sunday The first Sunday after Easter is known in the English tradition as “Low Sunday.” It has other names; one of the more famous is “Quasimodo Sunday,” after the first two words of today’s introit1: Quasi modo geniti infantes rationabile sine dolo lac concupiscite (“Like as newborn infants, desire the milk spiritual, without deceit”). It is after this introit that Victor Hugo’s Quasimodo is named. The origin of the English name isn’t certain. One theory is that it’s in... Read more

Palm Sunday In the rash lustihead of my young powers, .    I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years— My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream. .    Yea, faileth now even dream The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist; Even the linked fantasies, in... Read more

The Veiling of the Ikons The Fifth Sunday in Lent, this past, is also known as Passion Sunday. Falling one week before Palm Sunday, it used to be the beginning of a discrete sub-season within Lent, known as Passiontide. One observance from this period that remains common is the veiling of ikons, crucifixes especially. Purple is the most traditional color for the veils, if I recall correctly (but white and black are also used); it makes me think of something... Read more

I. As it’s the twentieth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, a lot of people on Twitter have been looking back on said invasion. I reflected on it a little myself this morning. I was fifteen at the time, still an evangelical (increasingly curious about Catholicism but still very far from converting), in the middle of high school; the invasion was a major contributor to my growing cynicism about American Christianity. It wasn’t just that the US had entered... Read more