I would add that when a church feminizes in a strong way, it will not only lose its spine, it will lose its men. Further, when a church becomes strongly influenced by homosexuality, it will become subverted from within. That is why the Roman Catholic Church has been reeling since the 60s and it is why the Mainline Protestant churches have collapsed. Men can not respect a church made up of people like McCarrick, Bernardin, Weakland and Father Martin.
This is not to degrade the importance of women in Christianity. If the man is the spine of a church, the woman is to be the heart. The women of my parish light up my life.
For the new subscribers, I think you will find Rod Drehers site rewarding. The caliber of discourse is reasoned and often powerful. People who post here are intelligent, serious men and women. There is almost zero vulgar ranting and raving that you read on lesser sites.
We suffer from a true lack of integrated balance, more atomized & inverted by the day. Perhaps atomization & inversion go together. Oddly (?) the all-male bureaucracy is extremely feminized in terms of ethos, while also being highly left-brained and myopic. With so many in leadership and laity lost, the best path would probably be to highlight past archetypal saints, male & female, to provide behavioral guidance. But I don't know how we solve the problem of leadership other than time, and that is something that we don't have.
I couldn’t agree more about the bureaucratic attitude. And it’s not just the church. An erstwhile necessary attitude of neutrality and respect for all comers has itself degenerated into an ideological discourse that arouses no loyalty and much contempt. Such a discourse is inevitably hostile in a passive-aggressive manner to any definitive moral expression.
There has been covert sexual predation in the Roman Catholic Church at least since the institution of the celibate priesthood. What is new is that it can actually be challenged.
One might also argue that the church has always been feminine -- isn't it "the bride of Christ"? Christ is the masculine in that paradigm, the church is feminine.
Do you believe that celibacy leads to predation? If so, we would expect to find high rates of sexual offending among Orthodox monks and bishops.
The abuse crises of the 20th century is due to, among other factors, a wave of sexually disordered men who sought to hide in the priesthood combined with a lax and presumptuous attitude which said “this troubled seminarian will be fine, because God always gives us the grace we need for our state of life”. But what if he doesn’t respond to that grace? A normal man who fails to make use of the grace given him is just a mediocre priest. A sexual deviant can be a monstrous predator, however.
And of course, there are other times such as that of St. Peter Damien. But I do not believe that it has been a constant factor, or that celibacy is the cause. Being celibate does not turn a man into a pedophille, a pederast, or a rapist of adults.
Almost every significant question or problem has multiple causes and answers. There is very seldom One Answer That Explains Everything. I did say "at least since" -- because I know there are married predators who are not satisfied with their spouse, among other things. Also, men, and sometimes, women, in positions of power use that power to prey sexually who are not bound by any vow of celibacy. But a vow of celibacy certainly is a restraint that can result in covert predation, the same way price controls tend to produce a black market.
I don't know that sexually disordered men hiding in the priesthood is a particularly 20th century problem. What makes you think it never happened before? Sometimes of course it was out in the open, like cardinals who were known to have mistresses and the Borgia Pope having two children by his favorite long-time mistress. Trying to be celibate when the biological imperatives say otherwise is an inducement to covert fulfillment.
Did you know that Hitler once confided to his circle that he wished the Muslims had won the battle Tours? Islam, he said, is a warrior's religion and Europe would have been much better off than with Christianity, which he said was tainted by its Jewish origins. John Lukacs once wrote that it's well known that people hate what they most fear inside themselves, but what it was about himself that made Hitler hate the Jews we'll never know.
And Hitler had a very strong friendship with alHusseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who raised his own SS brigade in the Balkans. There are many photos of the Mufti with Himmler, Hitler, and co.
But Islam can also be said to have Jewish, or perhaps Christian-Jewish origins. I agree with C.S. Lewis that Islam is the most successful Christian heresy.
Yes, and the Book of Romans, Chapter 1, describes this explicitly and the fall into hellfires. It is not the weak and feminine homily that can do this. It is the explicit Word of the Lord G*d Almighty that is the most powerful weapon against homosexuality. The Word of the Lord is our defense. Mainline Protestant churches stopped believing what the Holy Scriptures say. Then they believe in whatever their itching ears wish to hear. Then they put women and homosexuals into the pulpits. And much worse. They will burn in hell. The Christian experience is perfectly defined in the Holy Scriptures. This is why the very center of Protestant worship is the exposition of the Word of God Almighty. Faith comes from hearing the Word of God. Then the Holy Spirit converts us and MAKES us Christians. Then we believe. And receive salvation. After that come the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s supper. The touchy feely nonsense of the smells and bells do absolutely nothing to covert pagans into Christians. The 2nd Commandment of the Law in Exodus 20, commands us to not make idols of graven images or icons nor statues.
I believe that JD Vance is correct in his interpretation of the Ordo Amoris. Our families, our neighbors and the welfare of those in our nation must come before the welfare of those more distant. This is justice not indifference.
That said, I am glad you are speaking as an Orthodox Christian; for a Catholic to speak as critically as you do might be likened to a military officer who criticizes the general in front of the troops.
At this point I don’t think the troops’ morale could be any lower. Anyone who is comfortable propping up Rome’s authority is delusional. We are sheep without a shepherd which at least has biblical precedent.
My experience is that the Authority of the Church is the most important of all issues to intellectual Catholics, whether they are Marxists or Trads. This systematic left-minded sort of perpetual game theory leaves out everything else that matters in the Church and the Gospels. We need those bright Catholics desperately, but they are mostly playing games while Rome and the world burn. The Church may only survive if the laity realizes that there is more than one way to be right or wrong, and the Church is not diminished by recognizing the incompleteness of one select definition of Authority.
I think I understand your point of view, though I am reluctant to speak ill of the successor of St Peter. I don’t believe I am playing left brained games at all. Pope Leo is not speaking ex cathedra so I am hardly obliged to agree with his remarks on migrants.
I’m not certain I’m right and have certainly been obsessed w/ authority distinctions myself, both before and after I became Catholic. Not saying you’re obsessed with them at all, just as an overall topic it seems to absorb & stymie attention, and it be interesting to see some different grapplings with it.
If I didn’t believe there was a lot more to Catholicism than papal authority I would have left long ago. I think your comments are pretty accurate. The ink spilt on why (or why not) we have to pay close attention to everything that comes out of Rome could surely be better spent. I think a major problem is that so little is asked of Catholics in the way of ascetic Christian living distinct from the world that they are searching for meaning in the minutiae.
Yeah, but that's beside the point. I'm not criticizing Leo and the other churchmen for being unfaithful to magisterial teaching. I'm criticizing them for inculcating an attitude within the church regarding migration that is wrecking European civilization.
Definitely something to this, Tara, and while I don't think it's limited to Roman Catholicism, it seems to be exacerbated there by the nature of the authority structure. Recall that Hans Kung was spouting all sorts of theological bilge but didn't really get in trouble until he started questioning papal authority.
With a caution that concerns for one's own cannot be allowed to completely eclipse all concern for others. And it would help if the GOP were not still preaching "I got mine" and practicing Randite policy whenever they can get away with it-- we're having a government shut down because they insist on huge tax cuts for their oligarch buddies at the cost of healthcare for working people who don't have insurance at work.
We have a shutdown because the Democrats want to prop up a failing Obamacare and extend health benefits to illegal aliens. And please don't waste time trying to argue illegal aliens don't get American healthcare.
Money is fungible, and is transferred by the states. And the original Democrat bill had Obamacare for illegals. I see you wasted your time anyway. Take the advice someone already gave you today. Stop picking nits and always trying to have the last word. It is childish and petty, and doesn't make you any more right.
"Money is fungible, and is transferred by the states."
JoeSee, just admit you don't have proof supporting the claim you're making. Jon calling you out for this isn't "picking nits" - though I realize nonsensical bull**** is core dogma for MAGA these days.
B. Green (and others) is not demanding "ever greater subsidies" just that the current subsidies remain the same.
C. It's actually refreshing to see a congressperson cite the interests of their constituents instead of the endless insider games of tit-for-tit in DC.
They get health care by showing up in emergency rooms, who by law have to treat everyone or transfer those they can’t. Then they don’t pay. I’ve had the misfortune to have to go to the ER & the waiting room was crammed with people, mostly foreign born, using it as their primary care. But we can’t just let people die. Even refusing to treat acute but non life threatening conditions would be morally problematic.
And excluding ANYONE from critical healthcare (and based on something extraneous like national origin) is pure evil-- and a good way to let a plague settle in unseen and unsuspected until it's too late.
“I’m asking you to play all the games you want w/those ok w/your point-scoring and last word obsession, but I’m not so let’s not engage. That’s the only thing I want you to take away from this comment.”
Further, from Tara Thieke today to you:
“You don’t have to play this game all the time, and I would prefer it if you refrain from engaging w/me whatsoever.”
"we're having a government shut down because they insist on huge tax cuts for their oligarch buddies"
no we have a shutdown because Schumer and the Senate Dems refuse to vote for what they did back in March. They are trying to force an additional $1.5 trillion to be added to the CR. the CR is designed to continue funding the government at its current levels. The additional $1.5 Trillion would go assist illegal migrants with Medicaid. The tax cuts from 2017 assisted the middle class more than it did the "oligarchy"
". The top 1% of earners paid an eye-popping $561,523 on average, while the bottom 50% paid just $822.
And the disparity doesn’t stop at dollar figures. When it comes to tax rates, the difference is even more striking. According to the IRS’s Statistical Tables by Tax Percentile, the average effective federal income tax rate for all Americans stood at 14.5%, but for the top 1%, it was 26.1% – seven times higher than the 3.7% rate paid by the bottom half of earners."
Re: he additional $1.5 Trillion would go assist illegal migrants with Medicaid.
That's a lie. Non-legal immigrants are not eligible for one thin dime of Federal Medicaid money and never have been. Isn't there a commandment about "bearing false witness"? Stop it.
Well, nothing will really change until and unless Catholics themselves start speaking. I write as someone who wants to see the West survive. It's where I live, and my children live. It's a civilization I cherish. While in theory I would love to see it convert to Orthodoxy, I don't see that happening anytime soon (and Orthodox countries have plenty of their own problems). If the West is going to make it, then Catholicism and Protestantism have to get their acts together. One doesn't have to be a Catholic, or even a religious believer, to be hugely concerned about the leadership of the churches, given that the core of the crisis of our civilization is a loss of identity, especially identity rooted in the transcendent (that is to say, in religion).
I am somewhat hopeful. Our parish church, the Abbey de la Cambre in Brussels, is full on Sunday, processions on holy days are thronged, young people all kneel on the often wet floor and Latin is seeping back into the the dignified Novus Ordo liturgies. Is there enough time for my generation to pass (I’m seventy) and for younger clergy to step in as bishops? I hope so.
I am a new subscriber. Thank you for your writing. You added in a comment, “One doesn't have to be a Catholic, or even a religious believer, to be hugely concerned about the leadership of the churches, given that the core of the crisis of our civilization is a loss of identity, especially identity rooted in the transcendent (that is to say, in religion).”
This is a very very important message to reiterate endlessly. The people who need to understand this are the many.
"Somehow, Orthodoxy manages to be masculine without being macho. We still revere our warrior saints from the early centuries."
We have this in Catholicism. What the Orthodox don't have is a hierarchy that is largely trying to erase it from memory, and if green shoots rise up from the scorched and trampled grass, crush it again. I like to call it ecclesial oikophobia.
I said it in the previous post and I’ll say again: your rant about the weakening of the Church in light of Pope Leo’s call to welcome migrants is one of the best I’ve ever heard. The sarcasm in it just lands so perfectly well. No wonder so many are subscribing to your diary.
I have been a Tommy Robinson fan for over 10 years and from north Florida follow the sick creeping Islamisation in that nation. Surprised you said the majority of Brits aren't Christians. Based on birth, if they go to Church or some biased poll? No one is an atheist in a foxhole. Best discussion of the topic and lack of free speech there..Dave Rubin's utube recent podcast with Andrew Gold.
He's referring to the 2021 census in England and Wales and the 2020 census in Scotland. In E&W 46.2% of people identified themselves as Christians, compared with 59.3% of the population in the 2011 census. In Scotland it's 38.8% compared to 54% a decade before.
That's a huge change in 10 years. Wokesters and 40 yo leftists born Christian all of a sudden think it's cool to say they are of "no religion." I don't think that stat holds up in a coming civil war there which Andrew Gold who lives in a suburb of London now dominated by Muslims says is inevitable.
Scotland is a bit different, but in England nowhere near 59% of the population were practising Christians in 2011, even in the sense of going to church at Christmas and Easter, thinking Jesus was nice, and believing in God. People used to automatically tick "C. of E." on forms, and all that has happened is they have stopped doing that.
This talk about civil war and mass violence in the (near) future does not address the “who-whom”. It seems to me that there aren’t really 2 equal sides confronting each other, but more like a “heavy “ one side against a much smaller and weaker side. Just like the Camp of the Saints, the “natives” are not putting up a real fight. And whatever pockets of resistance there may be, they will be eventually overcome, even with the help of the government. Houlebeque’s Soumission is probably the end result.
The MAGA movement is precisely against the weak feminized confusion of Western society, Exhibit A being Hegseth mandating the same physical standards for women and flabby officers in the military as for fighting men.
Show me MAGA lies greater than the other side pushing the Russia Hoax for years, that Biden was fit as a fiddle, that COVID did not come from a Chinese lab, that a man and man or woman and woman can be married, that an unborn baby is a disposable piece of tissue, and that gender is a matter of feelings.
The Russian scandalmongering (it was a total hoax-- the Russian really were meddling) was no greater than the Whitewater scandalmongering against Clinton.
So what, they've been meddling since 1917, where was the crime? Heck, Obama meddled in an Israeli election using US tax money. The Russia Hoax was scandalmongering, it was an investigation in search of a crime, as were the shampeachments. Whitewater didn't involve dirty cops illegally leaking fake stories to the media, then using those planted stories as justification for continuing the hoax, or lying to a court (FISA), or withholding exculpatory evidence from the court, which is itself obstruction of justice, or altering evidence against Clinton, spying on a presidential candidate, or lying to Congress when questioned. The Russia Hoax was all of that. IG Horowitz wondered why all the 'mistakes' just happened to go against Trump, and why it all wasn't shut down instead of the Independent Counsel launched when it was given what they knew at the time.
A totally unnecessary move-- pure grandstanding for the cheap seats.
Sharia Law is banned by the First Amendment as far as anyone ever attempting to make it the law of the land. If individual Muslims wish to follow Sharia in their personal lives they certainly may do so, just as Orthodox Jews can follow the old Levitical Law and the rest of us can strive to live by the strictures our churches preach.
Tell it to Christians in Dearborn, MI. The whole point of that huge Muslim complex in TX was to have it operate under Sharia Law, which is totally incompatible with our system.
If individuals (including whole churches) wish to adhere to some system of religious strictures, how is that wrong? I would even say it's their right to do so under the First Amendment. How not? Will you all criticize Orthodox Jews and the Amish for living according to what they see as God's law?
However Sharia is not and never will be "the law of the land" that everyone must obey.
As for Dearborn, you do not know what you are talking about. Sharia is not the law of the city of Dearborn. No it isn't. As I posted in another comment here I was in Dearborn as recently as last May (I used to attend church there in the 90s) and I know what I am talking about.
Sharia is not the law of the land in Dearborn, but I'm not moving there any time soon, you know
We can stop this by choking off muslim immigration, and by deporting the (very high percentage of) illegals from muslim countries. It's too late for most of Europe, as Obama can tell you below.
The Amish do not consider non-Amish to be second class citizens, or in killing gays, or that only Amish can hold public office, or approve of wife beating, or say those who leave the church should be killed, or that it is a crime to criticize Amish beliefs.
There is nothing in Sharia that is compatible with western ideas of equality, democracy, and free speech.
The Amish and the Haredi Jews have no concept of Jihad. Amish are dyed in the wool pacifists, and the thought of that black robed crew who can barely drive and who “run like Phoebe” taking up arms against the American people is one of the most ridiculous things I can contemplate. But, Muslims—all of history tells us how that works.
Lots of things that are banned are happening. Take your comment on Dearborn below. Sharia is functioning in that city de facto. The takeover is incomplete, but progressing. A Muslim council member told someone if he didn't like a street named after a terrorist he should leave the city. Imagine if a Catholic council member said that to a Muslim.
Again, if people want to live according to their religion's commandments in their personal lives, why is that a problem? It doesn't affect the rest of us except in trivial indirect ways (e.g., Chick Fila closed on Sunday so we can't go there). Do you really want the government telling people how to practice their religion ?Think sbout it!
And Dearborn still has bars and booze stores, so no, Sharia is not the law of the city.
It's a bit more than that, in truth. I haven't followed this issue closely, but when there was debate about implementation of Sharia in the UK, it meant as a form of arbitration in family law and business agreements, so both sides agree beforehand to abide by the decisions of the imam. I think this is atrocious, but it has been in place for Orthodox Jews since the 19th century.
If two individuals of the same faith wish to settle some matter between them (in which no one else is directly involved) according to the precepts of their faith I can't see an objection to that. Lawyers generally do try to settle torts out of court so this would just be another alternative to going before a judge and jury. If there are other people impacted (for example, one of the parties is a business and hence employees and creditors would be affected) then there's a problem.
I don’t see how this could work in practice, but I kind of wish Christians in Western Europe could lie low for 50 years, maybe like the Sleepers of Ephesus, and let the Muslims, feminists, homosexuals, trannies, Satanists, tech billionaires, and racists all kill each other. We could then wake up and resettle the wilderness as sane people.
That’s what I feel like about Jews and Muslims in Palestine, actually.
Rod, do you follow Elizabeth Nickson? In case you don't, here's a post of hers about the damage to young women committed by our current social mores. It includes several testimonies from ex-witches who turned to Jesus, along with perceptive general observations. Nickson's own mother was destroyed by MKUltra, so she has been investigating various evils for a long time.
Re: We still revere our warrior saints from the early centuries.
But not because they were warriors of course, but because they were saints. A few days ago was the feast of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, long-time favorite saints in old Byzantium. They were two legionnaires who were "outed" as Christians and paid for it with their lives. Their hagiography has nothing to say about any martial exploits and focuses on their martyrdom instead. (Rod once had a commenter who was a Mennonite pacifist-- he always got flustered when saints like these guys came up, insisting that early Christians were pacifists since his church was the "restoration" of the real Church)
Put me down as greatly disliking graffiti as art in a church! In a back alley somewhere, maybe that stuff brightens things up a bit. But that's about it for my "appreciation" of the form.
As an aside it's finally fall in Florida! Positively cool out when I stepped out just now, and not supposed to reach 80 today. Will be wearing pants not shorts for my early morning ride.
Christian intellectual leadership has failed imho for the past century to engage with what The Body of Christ actually might mean in a global world. Instead, shamed (incorrectly) by certain scientific theories, they have retreated to the only place they think they can continue to find a high ground, ie social justice shaming campaigns. Blank slatism is key to that shaming, based on a shallow & even vicious interpretation of The Gospel. Blank slatism denies the fullness of The Body of Christ, the beauty & gift of particularities.
My guess is that if Church leadership is to avoid following this continued path of inverting values, they have to go back to where the problem lies, ie in abandoning science and the role of the Holy Spirit in living Creation. They are very afraid of this, but Goethe, Dr. Iain McGilchrist and other theologians have continually pointed out that the mechano-morphic worldview of the left brain is highly narrow & incomplete. It's the Church's job to pick up where they left off 400 years ago, and if they don't find that balance we will continue to suffer the polarities of extreme atomization w/ hyper-aggressive global homogenizing for the sake of oligarch control.
Churches should not "abandon" science if by that you mean denying scientific discoveries. However the theological truths are not scientific truths and churches should focus on the former not the latter.
My post clearly says the problem lies in the Church having already abandoned science, and wishes for them to re-enter it by refusing to allow materialists to hold the sole mantle of interpretation. You don't have to play this game all the time, and I would prefer it if you refrain from engaging w/ me whatsoever. Disagreement is great, but the persistent bad faith over a decade is not, and I'm not interested in having to add a disclaimer to every post b/c of deliberate misinterpretation.
I’m asking you to play all the games you want w/ those ok w/ your point-scoring and last word obsession, but I’m not so let’s not engage. That’s the only thing I want you to take away from this comment.
Rod, this garbage coming from the Catholic Church didn’t start with either Francis or Leo. It started with “Saint” JP II “the Great” (Fraud) appeasing Islam as part of his geopolitical agenda. As a result, bishops, not only encourage mass migration. Some turned their churches into residences for Muslim squatters, who desecrated them.
I wrote about this recently for conservative British outlet. It is well worth your and your readers’ time, even if I do say so myself:
Yup, Friday's post was classic and hit the proverbial nail on the head.
This is our monastery weekend, one of two occasions during the year when we can visit cloistered Poor Clare daughter Joanie (aka: Sister Mary Damiana). The whole family converges on the scene to include commentator son Matt who drove 500 miles to get here.
I'm going to mention Rod's article at the get-together. A lot of the sisters at the monastery appear to be either naive or clueless about what's happening in the wider Church. This does not surprise me. Heck, maybe it's a good thing in fact.
However, I keep Joanie informed in weekly letters...though I try to do so with less bitterness and disgust than comes through in my comments here on the topic. My Pope-bashing, even though totally justified, has to be tempered somewhat in certain environments.
About the prospects of civil conflict triggered by the defection and betrayal of the West's ruling elites, I continue to be skeptical. I don't see it happening and ironically for the same reason that some predict it: the mass de-moralization, anesthetization, and feminization of the Clueless Masses does not lend itself to popular revolts.
It turns out that Western Civilization dies not with a bang but rather a whimper...a very timid whimper.
Western civilization already died, before most of us were born. It was a casualty of the World Wars, and it corpse was incinerated in the crematoria of Auschwitz or perhaps vaporized at the Trinity Test.
You have a point, Jon. Civilizations don't typically die overnight. It's a process. First gradual...then sudden, to apply Hemingway's famous lines on bankruptcy.
Imagery that has occurred to me is that of a strong dam springing a multitude of small leaks until the weakened structure finally collapses. The collapse seems sudden but it's the product of long-term damage that was incremental and to the average person not even perceptible.
We're living on moral fumes...the residual but now rapidly evaporating heritage of many centuries and generations. It's a dystopia foreseen with spooky accuracy by the two great 20th-century prophets Orwell and Huxley.
I hope you are right about the U.S. I’m writing from Croatia, parts of which (including Dubrovnik) suffered greatly in the 1990s civil wars following Yugoslavia’s breakup. But I was struck by Will Donohue’s remarks about how we Olds don’t understand how enraged the right wing ppl of his generation are over Charlie Kirk. That, and Thibault de Montbrial identifying the Kirk murder as a turning point for America precisely because Kirk was not a politician. For me, the Democratic response to Jay Jones’s foul violent words spoke volumes. I think we could be in more trouble in the U.S. than many of us think.
Hey Rod, when you're interviewing Will Donohue make sure to ask him what he thinks of the vile stuff being spewed by Tucker & Candace. I guarantee you he won't have the guts to go on the record about that.
Advocating for Invasion and Replacement is a communion breaker for me.
If the RC Church were right on everything else (And it is not.), I would still refuse to join it because of its ongoing treason. And I could say the same for a number of other churches.
Rod, start working on your new book now. Call it “The Final Christian Generation”. As for me and mine, we are off to WV with eyes on MT a few years down the line.
Don't forget Western Europe and the US are a very small percentage of global population, Christianity is exploding elsewhere. I was reading 30 years ago in Cambodia there were an estimated 200 Christians, today there are 600,000. The center of Christianity is shifting from the West to the two-thirds world, much as it once moved from the Middle East to Europe.
Western culture has become far too unbalanced towards the feminine virtues over the masculine. Or, rather, it has become too oriented toward the stereotypical feminine expression of virtues that we should all share as opposed to the masculine expression of them. I would say that's because our society has become oriented towards the immediate relief of a problem without consideration of the long- term consequences, which is a stereotypical feminine view of the world.
I'll try to give a couple of examples. There's a clip from one of the more recent episodes of Joe Rogan's podcast making the rounds on social media. Rogan ended up supporting Trump in 2024 and has become disillusioned over the administration's immigration efforts. Rogan is upset at the idea that an illegal who's been here 20 years should be removed just the same as one who rushed the border during the last Biden administration. He demands that Trump should "have a f*cking heart" regarding the poor, pitiful illegal roofer who's established roots in Anerica.
The problem is that illegal roofer, the illegal gardener, the illegal nanny, and the illegal tomato picker have been undermining the wages and livelihoods of millions of native- born Americans for decades. The progress of those people has been retarded by cheap immigrant labor.
We had some major renovations done to our house this summer. We hired a guy who is a friend of a friend. The work was done primarily by him and his son, with some of the work subcontracted to other men and their sons.
This guy primarily makes his living subcontracting himself to bigger projects, like laying flooring when new apartment complexes are being built. He told me that he'd like to expand his business to be able to just do home remodels exclusively and quit taking the "corporate" jobs entirely.
The problem is that he can't compete with other guys who are willing to hire illegal immigrants to staff their business. He's afraid to do it (beyond just thinking it would be wrong) because he figures he'd be the one caught and punished as a small operator when the big operations are already doing it. So he gets by with just his son and makes a good living, but he's stuck not doing exactly what he wants to do.
For my second example, I've mentioned my Boomer mother who has taken on a volunteer role as an English teacher to a Jordanian Muslim woman who lives here with her deceased husband's family. She is well- educated and seems perfectly nice.
My mother can't see that this woman's very presence in the country is a problem. She has no reason to be here. Jordan, I'm given to understand, is a nice enough place as Muslim countries go.
The problem is that this woman is, in my mother's eyes, "a good one." Therefore, any and all of her fellow coreligionists deserve the same chance to come to America. My mom doesn't grok that when enough of them infiltrate a place, they take it over. The "good ones" are the problem because they give normal people like my mom the idea that there won't be a problem down the road.
My mom doesn't know about the problems Europe has. She doesn't know about how the call to prayer is blasted five times a day in Dearborn, MI while church bells are silenced by noise ordinances. She doesn't understand how Minneapolis has behind mini- Mogadishu by the importation of Somalis. She just knows that the one Muslim she knows is "a good one," therefore all the others are potential good ones.
This failure to appreciate second, third, and fourth order consequences in favor of the immediate cessation of suffering or experience of gratification is a feminine trait going back to the Garden of Eden.
Church bells still ring in Dearborn. I've attended an Orthodox church there. Albeit that church, like many others, has an electronic carillon system. And of course other than the Pascha midnight service the bells will ring in daytime, maybe just on Sundays. (I grew up in another Michigan city where our local Catholic church played the Angelus three times day-- morning, noon and late afternoon. That was the practice for St Leo's in Little Italy in Baltimore too)
I've also heard the mosque in Dearborn's call to prayer when I've been in the city (as recently as last May) It isn't all that loud though no doubt annoying to those who live just blocks away, But less than a mile away (at English Gardens on Ford Rd) you can barely hear it over the traffic noise.
Less than a mile away over traffic IS loud. I have been driving there during the call (stopped at a nearby Polish deli) and it really surprised/distracted me as my windows were up and the radio on-took me a few moments to sort out what was going on.
Odd. It didn't bother me at all. Just as church bells don't. Whereas loud cars in need to muffler attention, or with boombox stereos cranked up full blast drive me to swearing. But maybe we're talking about different mosques? The one I've heard it from is the big mosque on Ford Rd near Fairlane Mall and the Southfield Freeway-- it's right next to my erstwhile Orthodox Church
The Church had forgotten its purpose. They need to read the exhortations of St Paul. His wise words are as relevant today as ever. They follow too much the devices and desires of the machine.
Fantastic comment, sir. I pray we heed the warnings.
Well said. I was just in Europe for six weeks, beautiful old churches but it's like looking at a corpse.
I would add that when a church feminizes in a strong way, it will not only lose its spine, it will lose its men. Further, when a church becomes strongly influenced by homosexuality, it will become subverted from within. That is why the Roman Catholic Church has been reeling since the 60s and it is why the Mainline Protestant churches have collapsed. Men can not respect a church made up of people like McCarrick, Bernardin, Weakland and Father Martin.
This is not to degrade the importance of women in Christianity. If the man is the spine of a church, the woman is to be the heart. The women of my parish light up my life.
For the new subscribers, I think you will find Rod Drehers site rewarding. The caliber of discourse is reasoned and often powerful. People who post here are intelligent, serious men and women. There is almost zero vulgar ranting and raving that you read on lesser sites.
We suffer from a true lack of integrated balance, more atomized & inverted by the day. Perhaps atomization & inversion go together. Oddly (?) the all-male bureaucracy is extremely feminized in terms of ethos, while also being highly left-brained and myopic. With so many in leadership and laity lost, the best path would probably be to highlight past archetypal saints, male & female, to provide behavioral guidance. But I don't know how we solve the problem of leadership other than time, and that is something that we don't have.
I couldn’t agree more about the bureaucratic attitude. And it’s not just the church. An erstwhile necessary attitude of neutrality and respect for all comers has itself degenerated into an ideological discourse that arouses no loyalty and much contempt. Such a discourse is inevitably hostile in a passive-aggressive manner to any definitive moral expression.
There has been covert sexual predation in the Roman Catholic Church at least since the institution of the celibate priesthood. What is new is that it can actually be challenged.
One might also argue that the church has always been feminine -- isn't it "the bride of Christ"? Christ is the masculine in that paradigm, the church is feminine.
Do you believe that celibacy leads to predation? If so, we would expect to find high rates of sexual offending among Orthodox monks and bishops.
The abuse crises of the 20th century is due to, among other factors, a wave of sexually disordered men who sought to hide in the priesthood combined with a lax and presumptuous attitude which said “this troubled seminarian will be fine, because God always gives us the grace we need for our state of life”. But what if he doesn’t respond to that grace? A normal man who fails to make use of the grace given him is just a mediocre priest. A sexual deviant can be a monstrous predator, however.
And of course, there are other times such as that of St. Peter Damien. But I do not believe that it has been a constant factor, or that celibacy is the cause. Being celibate does not turn a man into a pedophille, a pederast, or a rapist of adults.
Almost every significant question or problem has multiple causes and answers. There is very seldom One Answer That Explains Everything. I did say "at least since" -- because I know there are married predators who are not satisfied with their spouse, among other things. Also, men, and sometimes, women, in positions of power use that power to prey sexually who are not bound by any vow of celibacy. But a vow of celibacy certainly is a restraint that can result in covert predation, the same way price controls tend to produce a black market.
I don't know that sexually disordered men hiding in the priesthood is a particularly 20th century problem. What makes you think it never happened before? Sometimes of course it was out in the open, like cardinals who were known to have mistresses and the Borgia Pope having two children by his favorite long-time mistress. Trying to be celibate when the biological imperatives say otherwise is an inducement to covert fulfillment.
Did you know that Hitler once confided to his circle that he wished the Muslims had won the battle Tours? Islam, he said, is a warrior's religion and Europe would have been much better off than with Christianity, which he said was tainted by its Jewish origins. John Lukacs once wrote that it's well known that people hate what they most fear inside themselves, but what it was about himself that made Hitler hate the Jews we'll never know.
And Hitler had a very strong friendship with alHusseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who raised his own SS brigade in the Balkans. There are many photos of the Mufti with Himmler, Hitler, and co.
But Islam can also be said to have Jewish, or perhaps Christian-Jewish origins. I agree with C.S. Lewis that Islam is the most successful Christian heresy.
I suppose I mean non-Nicene heresy. Even within Nicene Christianity, many denominations consider others to be heretical.
I think Dante said it first, if not St. Thomas.
Well said - thank you.
Interested readers, especially Catholic ones, should search out these two books:
https://podles.org/church-impotent.htm
https://podles.org/sacrilege.htm
Dr. Podles is not unknown on the comment threads here, and so perhaps he will have something to say about these matters.
I, for one, have found the site rewarding and the discourse in the comments section intelligent and informative.
Yes, and the Book of Romans, Chapter 1, describes this explicitly and the fall into hellfires. It is not the weak and feminine homily that can do this. It is the explicit Word of the Lord G*d Almighty that is the most powerful weapon against homosexuality. The Word of the Lord is our defense. Mainline Protestant churches stopped believing what the Holy Scriptures say. Then they believe in whatever their itching ears wish to hear. Then they put women and homosexuals into the pulpits. And much worse. They will burn in hell. The Christian experience is perfectly defined in the Holy Scriptures. This is why the very center of Protestant worship is the exposition of the Word of God Almighty. Faith comes from hearing the Word of God. Then the Holy Spirit converts us and MAKES us Christians. Then we believe. And receive salvation. After that come the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s supper. The touchy feely nonsense of the smells and bells do absolutely nothing to covert pagans into Christians. The 2nd Commandment of the Law in Exodus 20, commands us to not make idols of graven images or icons nor statues.
Sola Scriptura
I believe that JD Vance is correct in his interpretation of the Ordo Amoris. Our families, our neighbors and the welfare of those in our nation must come before the welfare of those more distant. This is justice not indifference.
That said, I am glad you are speaking as an Orthodox Christian; for a Catholic to speak as critically as you do might be likened to a military officer who criticizes the general in front of the troops.
At this point I don’t think the troops’ morale could be any lower. Anyone who is comfortable propping up Rome’s authority is delusional. We are sheep without a shepherd which at least has biblical precedent.
My experience is that the Authority of the Church is the most important of all issues to intellectual Catholics, whether they are Marxists or Trads. This systematic left-minded sort of perpetual game theory leaves out everything else that matters in the Church and the Gospels. We need those bright Catholics desperately, but they are mostly playing games while Rome and the world burn. The Church may only survive if the laity realizes that there is more than one way to be right or wrong, and the Church is not diminished by recognizing the incompleteness of one select definition of Authority.
I think I understand your point of view, though I am reluctant to speak ill of the successor of St Peter. I don’t believe I am playing left brained games at all. Pope Leo is not speaking ex cathedra so I am hardly obliged to agree with his remarks on migrants.
I’m not certain I’m right and have certainly been obsessed w/ authority distinctions myself, both before and after I became Catholic. Not saying you’re obsessed with them at all, just as an overall topic it seems to absorb & stymie attention, and it be interesting to see some different grapplings with it.
If I didn’t believe there was a lot more to Catholicism than papal authority I would have left long ago. I think your comments are pretty accurate. The ink spilt on why (or why not) we have to pay close attention to everything that comes out of Rome could surely be better spent. I think a major problem is that so little is asked of Catholics in the way of ascetic Christian living distinct from the world that they are searching for meaning in the minutiae.
Yeah, but that's beside the point. I'm not criticizing Leo and the other churchmen for being unfaithful to magisterial teaching. I'm criticizing them for inculcating an attitude within the church regarding migration that is wrecking European civilization.
Definitely something to this, Tara, and while I don't think it's limited to Roman Catholicism, it seems to be exacerbated there by the nature of the authority structure. Recall that Hans Kung was spouting all sorts of theological bilge but didn't really get in trouble until he started questioning papal authority.
With a caution that concerns for one's own cannot be allowed to completely eclipse all concern for others. And it would help if the GOP were not still preaching "I got mine" and practicing Randite policy whenever they can get away with it-- we're having a government shut down because they insist on huge tax cuts for their oligarch buddies at the cost of healthcare for working people who don't have insurance at work.
We have a shutdown because the Democrats want to prop up a failing Obamacare and extend health benefits to illegal aliens. And please don't waste time trying to argue illegal aliens don't get American healthcare.
A flat out bare faced lie. Even Marjorie Taylor Green won't repeat it. Just leaving for church but I will be back later today to explain in detail.
(Of course illegal aliens get healthcare- but not under any ACA program. )
Money is fungible, and is transferred by the states. And the original Democrat bill had Obamacare for illegals. I see you wasted your time anyway. Take the advice someone already gave you today. Stop picking nits and always trying to have the last word. It is childish and petty, and doesn't make you any more right.
The ACA marketplace subsidies are NOT (144 pt bold rent font) transferred to the state!!!!!
They go directly to the insurance plan an applicant selects on his behalf.
"Money is fungible, and is transferred by the states."
JoeSee, just admit you don't have proof supporting the claim you're making. Jon calling you out for this isn't "picking nits" - though I realize nonsensical bull**** is core dogma for MAGA these days.
A troll supporting a troll. What a surprise.
I have fun things to do, but I'll let Marjorie Taylor Green have her say on the ACA subsidies-- you won't, I think, accuse her of being a leftwinger.
https://georgiarecorder.com/2025/10/10/marjorie-taylor-greene-sounds-alarm-over-expiring-health-care-subsidies-as-shutdown-continues/
I won't accuse her of knowing what she is talking about either. Demanding ever greater subsidies for a failing program is the epitome of failure.
A. The program is not failing.
B. Green (and others) is not demanding "ever greater subsidies" just that the current subsidies remain the same.
C. It's actually refreshing to see a congressperson cite the interests of their constituents instead of the endless insider games of tit-for-tit in DC.
Jon, I believe you are an honest man. But you are wrong to call JoeSee a liar.
They get health care by showing up in emergency rooms, who by law have to treat everyone or transfer those they can’t. Then they don’t pay. I’ve had the misfortune to have to go to the ER & the waiting room was crammed with people, mostly foreign born, using it as their primary care. But we can’t just let people die. Even refusing to treat acute but non life threatening conditions would be morally problematic.
Your great example is why they all need to be deported.
You should be able to walk into any emergency room in the US and the only people there should be Americans or legal non citizens.
So tourist would be excluded? Think about it.
And excluding ANYONE from critical healthcare (and based on something extraneous like national origin) is pure evil-- and a good way to let a plague settle in unseen and unsuspected until it's too late.
To quote commenter Tara Thieke from today to you:
“I’m asking you to play all the games you want w/those ok w/your point-scoring and last word obsession, but I’m not so let’s not engage. That’s the only thing I want you to take away from this comment.”
Further, from Tara Thieke today to you:
“You don’t have to play this game all the time, and I would prefer it if you refrain from engaging w/me whatsoever.”
My heartfelt thanks to Tara Thieke!
FFS, a tourist would be a legal non- citizen under Ataraxis' hypothetical.
Denying people healthcare in a medical crisis is some inspiring Christian witness, Ataraxis!
You've finally come up with a take dumber than your rambling defense of tariffs. Congrats!
MAGA > the Beatitudes
Once all the illegals are all gone, they can have their medical emergencies taken care of in their Third World home countries.
Not my circus, not my monkeys.
This is true,of course, and for uninsured Americans too. Maybe we should be billing their home countries
"we're having a government shut down because they insist on huge tax cuts for their oligarch buddies"
no we have a shutdown because Schumer and the Senate Dems refuse to vote for what they did back in March. They are trying to force an additional $1.5 trillion to be added to the CR. the CR is designed to continue funding the government at its current levels. The additional $1.5 Trillion would go assist illegal migrants with Medicaid. The tax cuts from 2017 assisted the middle class more than it did the "oligarchy"
". The top 1% of earners paid an eye-popping $561,523 on average, while the bottom 50% paid just $822.
And the disparity doesn’t stop at dollar figures. When it comes to tax rates, the difference is even more striking. According to the IRS’s Statistical Tables by Tax Percentile, the average effective federal income tax rate for all Americans stood at 14.5%, but for the top 1%, it was 26.1% – seven times higher than the 3.7% rate paid by the bottom half of earners."
https://nchstats.com/who-pays-most-taxes-in-america/
I suggest you expand your news sources
Re: he additional $1.5 Trillion would go assist illegal migrants with Medicaid.
That's a lie. Non-legal immigrants are not eligible for one thin dime of Federal Medicaid money and never have been. Isn't there a commandment about "bearing false witness"? Stop it.
And yes, I will post this here too and you seem to need it. Marjorie Taylor Green (no leftwinger nor a proponent of illegal immigration: https://georgiarecorder.com/2025/10/10/marjorie-taylor-greene-sounds-alarm-over-expiring-health-care-subsidies-as-shutdown-continues/
Well, nothing will really change until and unless Catholics themselves start speaking. I write as someone who wants to see the West survive. It's where I live, and my children live. It's a civilization I cherish. While in theory I would love to see it convert to Orthodoxy, I don't see that happening anytime soon (and Orthodox countries have plenty of their own problems). If the West is going to make it, then Catholicism and Protestantism have to get their acts together. One doesn't have to be a Catholic, or even a religious believer, to be hugely concerned about the leadership of the churches, given that the core of the crisis of our civilization is a loss of identity, especially identity rooted in the transcendent (that is to say, in religion).
I am somewhat hopeful. Our parish church, the Abbey de la Cambre in Brussels, is full on Sunday, processions on holy days are thronged, young people all kneel on the often wet floor and Latin is seeping back into the the dignified Novus Ordo liturgies. Is there enough time for my generation to pass (I’m seventy) and for younger clergy to step in as bishops? I hope so.
I am a new subscriber. Thank you for your writing. You added in a comment, “One doesn't have to be a Catholic, or even a religious believer, to be hugely concerned about the leadership of the churches, given that the core of the crisis of our civilization is a loss of identity, especially identity rooted in the transcendent (that is to say, in religion).”
This is a very very important message to reiterate endlessly. The people who need to understand this are the many.
Welcome.
"Somehow, Orthodoxy manages to be masculine without being macho. We still revere our warrior saints from the early centuries."
We have this in Catholicism. What the Orthodox don't have is a hierarchy that is largely trying to erase it from memory, and if green shoots rise up from the scorched and trampled grass, crush it again. I like to call it ecclesial oikophobia.
I said it in the previous post and I’ll say again: your rant about the weakening of the Church in light of Pope Leo’s call to welcome migrants is one of the best I’ve ever heard. The sarcasm in it just lands so perfectly well. No wonder so many are subscribing to your diary.
I have been a Tommy Robinson fan for over 10 years and from north Florida follow the sick creeping Islamisation in that nation. Surprised you said the majority of Brits aren't Christians. Based on birth, if they go to Church or some biased poll? No one is an atheist in a foxhole. Best discussion of the topic and lack of free speech there..Dave Rubin's utube recent podcast with Andrew Gold.
He's referring to the 2021 census in England and Wales and the 2020 census in Scotland. In E&W 46.2% of people identified themselves as Christians, compared with 59.3% of the population in the 2011 census. In Scotland it's 38.8% compared to 54% a decade before.
That's a huge change in 10 years. Wokesters and 40 yo leftists born Christian all of a sudden think it's cool to say they are of "no religion." I don't think that stat holds up in a coming civil war there which Andrew Gold who lives in a suburb of London now dominated by Muslims says is inevitable.
Scotland is a bit different, but in England nowhere near 59% of the population were practising Christians in 2011, even in the sense of going to church at Christmas and Easter, thinking Jesus was nice, and believing in God. People used to automatically tick "C. of E." on forms, and all that has happened is they have stopped doing that.
This talk about civil war and mass violence in the (near) future does not address the “who-whom”. It seems to me that there aren’t really 2 equal sides confronting each other, but more like a “heavy “ one side against a much smaller and weaker side. Just like the Camp of the Saints, the “natives” are not putting up a real fight. And whatever pockets of resistance there may be, they will be eventually overcome, even with the help of the government. Houlebeque’s Soumission is probably the end result.
Funny how the French can be so “prophetic “.
I think the Benedict Option is our best hope.
Re: I think the Benedict Option is our best hope.
I've said it before: The Benedict Option was the best thing Rod has come up with. And his current MAGA passions are an (intellectual) apostacy.
The MAGA movement is precisely against the weak feminized confusion of Western society, Exhibit A being Hegseth mandating the same physical standards for women and flabby officers in the military as for fighting men.
Maybe MAGA will do some good along the way, but I've seen rugs that lie less than MAGA pols do.
Show me MAGA lies greater than the other side pushing the Russia Hoax for years, that Biden was fit as a fiddle, that COVID did not come from a Chinese lab, that a man and man or woman and woman can be married, that an unborn baby is a disposable piece of tissue, and that gender is a matter of feelings.
Unanswerable!
The Russian scandalmongering (it was a total hoax-- the Russian really were meddling) was no greater than the Whitewater scandalmongering against Clinton.
So what, they've been meddling since 1917, where was the crime? Heck, Obama meddled in an Israeli election using US tax money. The Russia Hoax was scandalmongering, it was an investigation in search of a crime, as were the shampeachments. Whitewater didn't involve dirty cops illegally leaking fake stories to the media, then using those planted stories as justification for continuing the hoax, or lying to a court (FISA), or withholding exculpatory evidence from the court, which is itself obstruction of justice, or altering evidence against Clinton, spying on a presidential candidate, or lying to Congress when questioned. The Russia Hoax was all of that. IG Horowitz wondered why all the 'mistakes' just happened to go against Trump, and why it all wasn't shut down instead of the Independent Counsel launched when it was given what they knew at the time.
Whatabout
Whatabout, whatabout, whatabout...
By the way, Trump & Rod's buddy Vance supporting IVF is not far removed from "that an unborn baby is a disposable piece of tissue".
You mean whatabout Whitewater?
Nice to see Texas banning Sharia Law, and Florida about to do the same.
A totally unnecessary move-- pure grandstanding for the cheap seats.
Sharia Law is banned by the First Amendment as far as anyone ever attempting to make it the law of the land. If individual Muslims wish to follow Sharia in their personal lives they certainly may do so, just as Orthodox Jews can follow the old Levitical Law and the rest of us can strive to live by the strictures our churches preach.
Tell it to Christians in Dearborn, MI. The whole point of that huge Muslim complex in TX was to have it operate under Sharia Law, which is totally incompatible with our system.
If individuals (including whole churches) wish to adhere to some system of religious strictures, how is that wrong? I would even say it's their right to do so under the First Amendment. How not? Will you all criticize Orthodox Jews and the Amish for living according to what they see as God's law?
However Sharia is not and never will be "the law of the land" that everyone must obey.
As for Dearborn, you do not know what you are talking about. Sharia is not the law of the city of Dearborn. No it isn't. As I posted in another comment here I was in Dearborn as recently as last May (I used to attend church there in the 90s) and I know what I am talking about.
Live not by lies.
Sharia is not the law of the land in Dearborn, but I'm not moving there any time soon, you know
We can stop this by choking off muslim immigration, and by deporting the (very high percentage of) illegals from muslim countries. It's too late for most of Europe, as Obama can tell you below.
I can't see myself ever moving back to Michigan ever. Too gloomy in the winter.
The Amish do not consider non-Amish to be second class citizens, or in killing gays, or that only Amish can hold public office, or approve of wife beating, or say those who leave the church should be killed, or that it is a crime to criticize Amish beliefs.
There is nothing in Sharia that is compatible with western ideas of equality, democracy, and free speech.
The Amish and the Haredi Jews have no concept of Jihad. Amish are dyed in the wool pacifists, and the thought of that black robed crew who can barely drive and who “run like Phoebe” taking up arms against the American people is one of the most ridiculous things I can contemplate. But, Muslims—all of history tells us how that works.
Lots of things that are banned are happening. Take your comment on Dearborn below. Sharia is functioning in that city de facto. The takeover is incomplete, but progressing. A Muslim council member told someone if he didn't like a street named after a terrorist he should leave the city. Imagine if a Catholic council member said that to a Muslim.
Again, if people want to live according to their religion's commandments in their personal lives, why is that a problem? It doesn't affect the rest of us except in trivial indirect ways (e.g., Chick Fila closed on Sunday so we can't go there). Do you really want the government telling people how to practice their religion ?Think sbout it!
And Dearborn still has bars and booze stores, so no, Sharia is not the law of the city.
It's a bit more than that, in truth. I haven't followed this issue closely, but when there was debate about implementation of Sharia in the UK, it meant as a form of arbitration in family law and business agreements, so both sides agree beforehand to abide by the decisions of the imam. I think this is atrocious, but it has been in place for Orthodox Jews since the 19th century.
Thanks for this.
If two individuals of the same faith wish to settle some matter between them (in which no one else is directly involved) according to the precepts of their faith I can't see an objection to that. Lawyers generally do try to settle torts out of court so this would just be another alternative to going before a judge and jury. If there are other people impacted (for example, one of the parties is a business and hence employees and creditors would be affected) then there's a problem.
The problem is that vulnerable people, especially women (in relation to family law), get pushed into it.
I don’t see how this could work in practice, but I kind of wish Christians in Western Europe could lie low for 50 years, maybe like the Sleepers of Ephesus, and let the Muslims, feminists, homosexuals, trannies, Satanists, tech billionaires, and racists all kill each other. We could then wake up and resettle the wilderness as sane people.
That’s what I feel like about Jews and Muslims in Palestine, actually.
Rod, do you follow Elizabeth Nickson? In case you don't, here's a post of hers about the damage to young women committed by our current social mores. It includes several testimonies from ex-witches who turned to Jesus, along with perceptive general observations. Nickson's own mother was destroyed by MKUltra, so she has been investigating various evils for a long time.
https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/we-hurl-our-most-precious-treasure
Oh my gosh! I read about this MK-ULTRAing case years and years ago, and didn’t realize it was Elizabeth Nickson’s mother until just now.
Re: We still revere our warrior saints from the early centuries.
But not because they were warriors of course, but because they were saints. A few days ago was the feast of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, long-time favorite saints in old Byzantium. They were two legionnaires who were "outed" as Christians and paid for it with their lives. Their hagiography has nothing to say about any martial exploits and focuses on their martyrdom instead. (Rod once had a commenter who was a Mennonite pacifist-- he always got flustered when saints like these guys came up, insisting that early Christians were pacifists since his church was the "restoration" of the real Church)
Put me down as greatly disliking graffiti as art in a church! In a back alley somewhere, maybe that stuff brightens things up a bit. But that's about it for my "appreciation" of the form.
As an aside it's finally fall in Florida! Positively cool out when I stepped out just now, and not supposed to reach 80 today. Will be wearing pants not shorts for my early morning ride.
Christian intellectual leadership has failed imho for the past century to engage with what The Body of Christ actually might mean in a global world. Instead, shamed (incorrectly) by certain scientific theories, they have retreated to the only place they think they can continue to find a high ground, ie social justice shaming campaigns. Blank slatism is key to that shaming, based on a shallow & even vicious interpretation of The Gospel. Blank slatism denies the fullness of The Body of Christ, the beauty & gift of particularities.
My guess is that if Church leadership is to avoid following this continued path of inverting values, they have to go back to where the problem lies, ie in abandoning science and the role of the Holy Spirit in living Creation. They are very afraid of this, but Goethe, Dr. Iain McGilchrist and other theologians have continually pointed out that the mechano-morphic worldview of the left brain is highly narrow & incomplete. It's the Church's job to pick up where they left off 400 years ago, and if they don't find that balance we will continue to suffer the polarities of extreme atomization w/ hyper-aggressive global homogenizing for the sake of oligarch control.
Churches should not "abandon" science if by that you mean denying scientific discoveries. However the theological truths are not scientific truths and churches should focus on the former not the latter.
My post clearly says the problem lies in the Church having already abandoned science, and wishes for them to re-enter it by refusing to allow materialists to hold the sole mantle of interpretation. You don't have to play this game all the time, and I would prefer it if you refrain from engaging w/ me whatsoever. Disagreement is great, but the persistent bad faith over a decade is not, and I'm not interested in having to add a disclaimer to every post b/c of deliberate misinterpretation.
The problem is not science, but rather scientism. An important distinction to make.
I’m asking you to play all the games you want w/ those ok w/ your point-scoring and last word obsession, but I’m not so let’s not engage. That’s the only thing I want you to take away from this comment.
Thank you!
Well said. I have a friend who argues like this not online but in person, and it's extremely annoying, not to mention taxing.
Thank you!
It might be time for a bunch of us to collectively vote Jon off the island via the block function. He's been in rare form today.
Rod, this garbage coming from the Catholic Church didn’t start with either Francis or Leo. It started with “Saint” JP II “the Great” (Fraud) appeasing Islam as part of his geopolitical agenda. As a result, bishops, not only encourage mass migration. Some turned their churches into residences for Muslim squatters, who desecrated them.
I wrote about this recently for conservative British outlet. It is well worth your and your readers’ time, even if I do say so myself:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/is-the-catholic-church-complicit-in-the-islamisation-of-europe/
I'm afraid you're correct. You want to laugh go find JPII's biographer, Weigel, and ask him about Orthodoxy.
Yup, Friday's post was classic and hit the proverbial nail on the head.
This is our monastery weekend, one of two occasions during the year when we can visit cloistered Poor Clare daughter Joanie (aka: Sister Mary Damiana). The whole family converges on the scene to include commentator son Matt who drove 500 miles to get here.
I'm going to mention Rod's article at the get-together. A lot of the sisters at the monastery appear to be either naive or clueless about what's happening in the wider Church. This does not surprise me. Heck, maybe it's a good thing in fact.
However, I keep Joanie informed in weekly letters...though I try to do so with less bitterness and disgust than comes through in my comments here on the topic. My Pope-bashing, even though totally justified, has to be tempered somewhat in certain environments.
About the prospects of civil conflict triggered by the defection and betrayal of the West's ruling elites, I continue to be skeptical. I don't see it happening and ironically for the same reason that some predict it: the mass de-moralization, anesthetization, and feminization of the Clueless Masses does not lend itself to popular revolts.
It turns out that Western Civilization dies not with a bang but rather a whimper...a very timid whimper.
Western civilization already died, before most of us were born. It was a casualty of the World Wars, and it corpse was incinerated in the crematoria of Auschwitz or perhaps vaporized at the Trinity Test.
You have a point, Jon. Civilizations don't typically die overnight. It's a process. First gradual...then sudden, to apply Hemingway's famous lines on bankruptcy.
Imagery that has occurred to me is that of a strong dam springing a multitude of small leaks until the weakened structure finally collapses. The collapse seems sudden but it's the product of long-term damage that was incremental and to the average person not even perceptible.
We're living on moral fumes...the residual but now rapidly evaporating heritage of many centuries and generations. It's a dystopia foreseen with spooky accuracy by the two great 20th-century prophets Orwell and Huxley.
I hope you are right about the U.S. I’m writing from Croatia, parts of which (including Dubrovnik) suffered greatly in the 1990s civil wars following Yugoslavia’s breakup. But I was struck by Will Donohue’s remarks about how we Olds don’t understand how enraged the right wing ppl of his generation are over Charlie Kirk. That, and Thibault de Montbrial identifying the Kirk murder as a turning point for America precisely because Kirk was not a politician. For me, the Democratic response to Jay Jones’s foul violent words spoke volumes. I think we could be in more trouble in the U.S. than many of us think.
Hey Rod, when you're interviewing Will Donohue make sure to ask him what he thinks of the vile stuff being spewed by Tucker & Candace. I guarantee you he won't have the guts to go on the record about that.
Advocating for Invasion and Replacement is a communion breaker for me.
If the RC Church were right on everything else (And it is not.), I would still refuse to join it because of its ongoing treason. And I could say the same for a number of other churches.
Rod, start working on your new book now. Call it “The Final Christian Generation”. As for me and mine, we are off to WV with eyes on MT a few years down the line.
Don't forget Western Europe and the US are a very small percentage of global population, Christianity is exploding elsewhere. I was reading 30 years ago in Cambodia there were an estimated 200 Christians, today there are 600,000. The center of Christianity is shifting from the West to the two-thirds world, much as it once moved from the Middle East to Europe.
The US is the fourth most populous country in the world so it isn't that small a fraction.
The US is about 4.3% of global population, a small fraction.
True. But only two nations (China and India) have a larger percentage. I was wrong previously about us being fourth-- we're third now.
Western culture has become far too unbalanced towards the feminine virtues over the masculine. Or, rather, it has become too oriented toward the stereotypical feminine expression of virtues that we should all share as opposed to the masculine expression of them. I would say that's because our society has become oriented towards the immediate relief of a problem without consideration of the long- term consequences, which is a stereotypical feminine view of the world.
I'll try to give a couple of examples. There's a clip from one of the more recent episodes of Joe Rogan's podcast making the rounds on social media. Rogan ended up supporting Trump in 2024 and has become disillusioned over the administration's immigration efforts. Rogan is upset at the idea that an illegal who's been here 20 years should be removed just the same as one who rushed the border during the last Biden administration. He demands that Trump should "have a f*cking heart" regarding the poor, pitiful illegal roofer who's established roots in Anerica.
The problem is that illegal roofer, the illegal gardener, the illegal nanny, and the illegal tomato picker have been undermining the wages and livelihoods of millions of native- born Americans for decades. The progress of those people has been retarded by cheap immigrant labor.
We had some major renovations done to our house this summer. We hired a guy who is a friend of a friend. The work was done primarily by him and his son, with some of the work subcontracted to other men and their sons.
This guy primarily makes his living subcontracting himself to bigger projects, like laying flooring when new apartment complexes are being built. He told me that he'd like to expand his business to be able to just do home remodels exclusively and quit taking the "corporate" jobs entirely.
The problem is that he can't compete with other guys who are willing to hire illegal immigrants to staff their business. He's afraid to do it (beyond just thinking it would be wrong) because he figures he'd be the one caught and punished as a small operator when the big operations are already doing it. So he gets by with just his son and makes a good living, but he's stuck not doing exactly what he wants to do.
For my second example, I've mentioned my Boomer mother who has taken on a volunteer role as an English teacher to a Jordanian Muslim woman who lives here with her deceased husband's family. She is well- educated and seems perfectly nice.
My mother can't see that this woman's very presence in the country is a problem. She has no reason to be here. Jordan, I'm given to understand, is a nice enough place as Muslim countries go.
The problem is that this woman is, in my mother's eyes, "a good one." Therefore, any and all of her fellow coreligionists deserve the same chance to come to America. My mom doesn't grok that when enough of them infiltrate a place, they take it over. The "good ones" are the problem because they give normal people like my mom the idea that there won't be a problem down the road.
My mom doesn't know about the problems Europe has. She doesn't know about how the call to prayer is blasted five times a day in Dearborn, MI while church bells are silenced by noise ordinances. She doesn't understand how Minneapolis has behind mini- Mogadishu by the importation of Somalis. She just knows that the one Muslim she knows is "a good one," therefore all the others are potential good ones.
This failure to appreciate second, third, and fourth order consequences in favor of the immediate cessation of suffering or experience of gratification is a feminine trait going back to the Garden of Eden.
Church bells still ring in Dearborn. I've attended an Orthodox church there. Albeit that church, like many others, has an electronic carillon system. And of course other than the Pascha midnight service the bells will ring in daytime, maybe just on Sundays. (I grew up in another Michigan city where our local Catholic church played the Angelus three times day-- morning, noon and late afternoon. That was the practice for St Leo's in Little Italy in Baltimore too)
I've also heard the mosque in Dearborn's call to prayer when I've been in the city (as recently as last May) It isn't all that loud though no doubt annoying to those who live just blocks away, But less than a mile away (at English Gardens on Ford Rd) you can barely hear it over the traffic noise.
Less than a mile away over traffic IS loud. I have been driving there during the call (stopped at a nearby Polish deli) and it really surprised/distracted me as my windows were up and the radio on-took me a few moments to sort out what was going on.
Odd. It didn't bother me at all. Just as church bells don't. Whereas loud cars in need to muffler attention, or with boombox stereos cranked up full blast drive me to swearing. But maybe we're talking about different mosques? The one I've heard it from is the big mosque on Ford Rd near Fairlane Mall and the Southfield Freeway-- it's right next to my erstwhile Orthodox Church
The Church had forgotten its purpose. They need to read the exhortations of St Paul. His wise words are as relevant today as ever. They follow too much the devices and desires of the machine.
And perhaps St. John: “For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” John 12:43