Maxima culpa

“Sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

— Granny Weatherwax (Terry Pratchett)

• Lydia Polgreen posted a gift link to her column in today’s New York Times, “In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War.”
Her conclusion starts with the remarks of a high-school student:

“ICE might not break into my house and try to take one of my family members, because we’re all white” Fee told me. “But I’m not gonna not care, just because it’s not gonna happen to me. That’s irresponsible, that’s disrespectful, and it’s sinful, honestly.”

For all their military gear and unchecked power, the federal agents flooding this city, like the president ultimately commanding them, seem unprepared for what they are facing here. Like the agent who slipped on ice, they have misjudged the ground beneath their feet: a state full of ordinary people — real estate agents, high school students, solar energy consultants — who’ve decided that watching their neighbors being dragged away is an intolerable sin.

• Yesterday’s “smart things” post included David Dasharath Kalal’s RNS column on “a racist refusal of the Eucharist.” That column was the first I’d seen of that story, which blew up on the Nazi-bot/porn-on-demand site X, formerly known as Twitter.

The Friendly Atheist waded into the muck over there to cover this: “A Catholic racist refused the Eucharist from an Indian woman, then bragged about it online.” That’s a great summary of the story with Hemant doing a good job explaining how this gray-haired Groyper named Mike is violating his own purported Catholic faith, and why this is something other than — and more troubling than — hypocrisy.

He also digs through the full history of Racist Mike’s Twitter feed to reveal a bit more about this guy:

One thing articles about Mike have not pointed out, though, is where he goes to church.

I can answer that one for you because Mike loves to overshare. He said in a video last year that he attends Saint Elizabeth Roman Catholic Church in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania.

Well, OK then.

St. E’s is about a 10-minute drive from here. I’ve been there a lot because my kids played softball and rugby on their fields. Only been inside the place once, for my older daughter’s confirmation (wrote about that years ago here, see: “My family’s involvement with a criminal conspiracy“).

I’ve never met racist Mike, but I’ve met a lot of guys just like him, either here in Chester County or back in Delco where, at weddings and funerals, I’ve heard the same and worse from white Catholics who never missed a Sunday and never failed to miss the point.

Like Mike, those church-going white folks all seemed to understand that their attitudes and actions weren’t something their religion condoned. So they’d do that thing where they’d look over both shoulders to see who was nearby before saying the worst of it — making sure there weren’t any of those people, or any priests within earshot. (Or either of my daughters within earshot, because that’s a mistake a few folks have learned not to make again.)

Or they’ll do the kind of half-joking thing Racist Mike does in his video, where he acknowledges that “I did a bad thing in church today,” and tries to pass it off as just something rascally and mischievous, like, “I’m violating the Greatest Commandment and committing a mortal sin, ain’t I a scamp?”

Hemant highlights this aspect of Mike’s video. “I’m not gonna receive [the Eucharist] from anyone who’s non-white,” Mike says, “Sorry. … I guess I’ll go confess this to my priest. But I’ll continue doing it. That’s the compromise.”

Hemant writes:

It’s also strange that he says he’ll confess this to a priest because a confession only counts, according to Catholics, if you’re sincerely atoning for your sin. And Mike makes it perfectly clear he’s not going to stop being racist.

That misunderstanding of confession led to a community note on X/Twitter explaining that confessions don’t count if you have “no intention of avoiding [that sin] in the future.”

I think Mike knows this, which is why he’s seeking absolution from another source, using Twitter as his confessional as he drives down Rte. 100 to the Chipotle over on Swedesford Road. (Gonna have to be even more careful driving around here with this guy on the road.)

It may seem odd for me to suggest that a guy bragging online about his unrepentant racism and his refusal to ever repent is somehow “seeking absolution.” But again, I’ve met a hundred of these guys and this is what all of them are looking for — absolution without repentance. And on some level, they all understand that nobody is able to give them that — not their priest, not their “liberal” relatives, not even their “Black friends” (i.e., the co-worker acquaintance who usually puts up with them somewhat because they’re at work).

On some level they understand that this dilemma is not due to the particulars of Catholic doctrine, but to the basic reality of how the universe is and how it works. They understand that absolution without repentance is a contradiction, an impossibility.

And so even as they flail about seeking someone, anyone, who might offer this impossible absolution they also seek out others who have similarly exempted themselves from the possibility of grace through their own stiff-necked refusal to repent. Without the possibility of absolution, they seek the poor substitute that is possible — the company of others who are also gritting their teeth and also pretending that they also don’t care whether or not they ever receive the absolution they desperately need.

That’s irresponsible, that’s disrespectful, and it’s sinful, honestly. An intolerable sin.