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

The Story So Far For those just tuning in, this series is about gender transition in Catholic doctrine. If you have the time and inclination, you can read the first, second, and third parts of this series at the highlighted links; if not, I’ve done my best to summarize below. About a month ago, a few Catholic priests tweeted some extremely ignorant remarks on trans issues. This made me pretty angry, for several reason. People authoritatively spouting nonsense usually gets... Read more

Go to these links for the Dawn and Brunch of the Gender-Havers, respectively. If you’re just entering in on this series, it’s about problems with how Catholics—especially Catholic clergy—talk about trans people. (I realize the series title is not exactly transparent, but I am nothing if not committed to bits.) I’m discussing five such problems in this series, and covered the first two in my previous post. Both they and this third problem are expressions of a kind of intellectual... Read more