A Brief Word on the American Solidarity Party

Last updated on: January 29, 2018 at 3:43 pm By Mary Pezzulo

I am not a member of the American Solidarity Party. I greatly respect my hardworking and principled friends who are members of the American Solidarity Party. I stand with them on any number of issues. It’s just not my jam. I’ve been pretty shocked at the sparring between the different factions, excuse me I mean caucuses, of the American Solidarity Party lately. Just recently, for example, I accidentally started a public Facebook brawl between the particularly misogynistic he-man “family values” caucus... Read more

What is the real “Destructive Culture?”

Last updated on: January 25, 2018 at 4:49 pm By Mary Pezzulo

I keep thinking about that nonsense paragraph from Dreher that I tore apart yesterday. One phrase of his is rattling through my head: “the destructive culture of the poor.” He claims that no one would want to live next to Section Eight housing because of the “destructive culture of the poor.” The destructive culture of the poor. I mentioned yesterday that I think he’s dead wrong. There is no “culture of the poor.” Poor people are the least powerful class in the... Read more

Of Sh*tholes, Poverty and Rod Dreher’s Errors

Last updated on: January 24, 2018 at 3:37 am By Mary Pezzulo

I don’t usually read The American Conservative. I don’t usually read Rod Dreher. But today, my attention was called to an article where he muses on whether the president had a point about calling African countries “sh*tholes.” There’s plenty to raise the eyebrows in this article, but I’m just going to respond to one paragraph. This paragraph touches upon a topic with which I have a lot of firsthand experience, but I don’t believe that Dreher does. The topic is poor... Read more

That Bickering Body

Last updated on: January 24, 2018 at 1:49 pm By Mary Pezzulo

What’s on my mind, Facebook? Well, it’s a little too long for a status. My SAD therapy lamp came in in the mail today, which is awesome, but by the time I took a morning sunbath in the bright light it was three o’clock. There is something surreal about sitting in bright glaring full-spectrum light until your head aches, on a wet and cloudy January day. More surreal still when you start your morning at three in the afternoon after... Read more

To the Person Who Gave Dirty Clothes to the Poor

Last updated on: February 20, 2025 at 5:54 pm By Mary Pezzulo

We’re having a nice little thaw in Steubenville. It’s chilly and sloppy out instead of bitter cold. It’ll be almost Spring weather tomorrow, then dipping back down. The snows will surely come back several times before we’re through, of course. And I doubt even the warm spell will be enough to melt the mountains of snow we got last week. When Rosie went to Catechism class yesterday, she played in a drift outside that was nearly up to her waist. The... Read more

Keeping the Lights on in Winter

Last updated on: January 19, 2018 at 10:21 pm By Mary Pezzulo

Hey all, I’ll be back later tonight with another “real” blog post. This post is just your periodic reminder that Steel Magnificat is almost entirely fueled by gratuities. It’s also my family’s only income. For those of you who are just joining us, I am homebound more than half the time with a chronic illness. My husband Michael is the full-time homemaker because I’m rarely strong enough for housework and often need to be waited on like an invalid. Rosie is... Read more

The March for Life: Notes from a Lifelong Activist

Last updated on: January 19, 2018 at 1:48 pm By Guest Contributor

By Beth Hersom Today marks the anniversary of Roe versus Wade. Today, the 45th annual “March for Life” will crowd the streets of DC. There is enough of a history for precedent: Republican presidents address the crowd. The 45th president of the USA will make an address via satellite. My thoughts are disconnected. 1. There are really only two reasons to oppose abortion: misogyny or the inherent dignity of the human person. In my experience of thirty-some years, both are... Read more

Modesty and Nonsense: A Response to Anthony Esolen

Last updated on: January 18, 2018 at 11:35 am By Mary Pezzulo

This is getting to be a habit. The inimitable DOCTOR Anthony Esolen, whom I was yelled at for calling “Tony,” writes an article to do with sexuality and naughty bits, and I respond. I am told I must not respond because Doctor Esolen is a “good man and a fellow Christian,” and that makes it wrong to dialogue with him, but I’m not a good woman so I will. This week, Esolen is not writing at Crisis magazine but at... Read more

Winter Dark

Last updated on: January 17, 2018 at 11:03 am By Mary Pezzulo

This is the time of year that I don’t sleep very much. It happens every January. I have the post-Christmas fibromyalgia flare, and I don’t sleep very much, or not at the right time. I can’t drift off before seven in the morning, and then I either sleep until afternoon… or I don’t. I get up to the sound of the neighbors shoveling their sidewalks at eight o’clock and try to get through a day on one hour of rest.... Read more

Chronic Illness, Catholic Guilt and the Sunday Obligation

Last updated on: January 15, 2018 at 3:57 pm By Mary Pezzulo

I haven’t been to Liturgy since Christmas. I wanted to go. But with this sickness, I couldn’t. And I can’t go this Sunday either. Yesterday I was well enough for a walk, but sudden changes in weather are among the twenty or so things that make my chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia flare, so today I slept all day and I’ll be just as bad tomorrow. In the morning, I’m going to Saint Mattress and praying with my icons. I honestly don’t... Read more