The backlash to this statement of solidarity for Pride Month has been very clarifying and revealing. Sadly, it has also been quite predictable. But there have also been a lot of positive responses in replies and private messages.

https://twitter.com/samrochadotcom/status/1664332719114039296

One regret is that it came as a surprise to some. This shows me that it came far too late. But I also know it is the fruit of conversion in my own spiritual life. I am blessed to stand with the LGBTQ+ community, a place I have not always stood before. I still have much to learn.

Look, it is transparently obvious that trying to run a "fidelity" month as a counter to Pride Month implies that the relationships Pride Month celebrates lack fidelity of a particular kind. It is just a more passive aggressive rebranding of the "traditional family" rhetoric. Those who want to try to pull this one off will need to, at minimum, have everything in order where they are trying, without evidence or argument, to imply disorder. And many of them don't, well beyond Mr. Russell (e.g., Dreher and Trump). It is easy to see this double-standard.

The criterion for my account of whiteness as placeless is *nostalgia,* longing for home. There are diasporic peoples who have been or are displaced, but, unlike whiteness, their nostalgia, their longing has a proper object. Whiteness has no place or location nor is it a diaspora. I am grateful to the critics of an earlier tweet on this subject for enabling me to refine this idea against their criticism.

After the 2020 election, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops chose to not draft an instruction that would potentially restrict reception of the Eucharist, despite a strong desire to "instruct" Catholic Democrat politicians like Biden and Pelosi by some bishops, this past fall. After this effort failed, one of the bishops who supported the general instruction has now directed it specifically at Pelosi within the jurisdiction of his archdiocese, with the support of bishops who also supported it.

I was born and raised in full time Catholic ministry in parishes and apostolates. I attended Franciscan University of Steubenville. It took over 30 years to find a voice to speak out against the injustices and evils I had seen and felt countless times for, and within, myself. I have felt the injustice of another person spanking you or ordering your parent to spank your 2 year old brother; forcing dress and food codes and even telling you that a bed mattress is corrupting.

When Peterson talk about the Bible as "meta-truth" (which would mean the condition for the possibility of there being truth), he is actually cashing out his 1999 claim in *Maps of Meaning* that the order of Meaning (capital M) must tame the chaos of Being (capital B). This claim rest upon an ontological inversion, a retreat from and rebellion against metaphysics, and the resultant idea of meta-truth is simply a codification of myth as a the POSTMODERN substitute for classical Truth (capital T).

The hyper-emphasis upon a Catholicism that *answers* has had a deleterious effect upon the Catholicism that *questions* and *calls* and *responds.* This deleterious emphasis, on my view, is not about pitting certainty over faith or other generic issues of religious belief; it is about occluding and even damaging the deepest and most difficult core of Catholicism for the sake of its surface appeal.

Just bought the domain leftcath.com for two years. Might try to start something with it. I honestly have no idea what to do with it, but it seemed like a thing to do.

I do not find it unimaginable that fascists could be Catholics. It is demonstrable historical fact. My arguments against Catholic fascists are not aimed at denying their Catholicism so much as demonstrating their errors which, with fascism, is often a project of identification. The contrast I want to draw here here is that critics of various forms of Catholic leftism often work from an incompatibility thesis where the form of leftism is asserted to expel the Catholic from their own faith. It is an argument from excommunication which is stupid.

Fr. Darin posted a farewell tweet where he tagged me to try to give the impression that I was somehow causing him to delete his own account despite him deleting his replies to me and blocking me a full day ago. This tactic of tagging me despite being blocked by him was effective. I have had my replies and DMs full of folks telling me I am somehow bullying this priest who wandered into my replies, deleted most of his interactions and then blocked me. He is also getting a lot of pats on the back and so on. Nice move, Father. You have my respect.

I called a priest racist after he entered my replies to like defences of Rogan's use of the n-word, replying/deleting calling me "slow," replying/deleting a confederate flag defence, and liking a melanin joke about African worship. Many have demanded me to retract and apologize. I am not going to retract what I said based on the reasons I said it, but I did decide to look over his Twitter feed to see if this was a new thing or not in order to respond accordingly. Here are tweets or RTs relevant to this matter only since January 1, 2022.

One of the many reasons I speak out on Catholic media issues is because I can in the sense that my secular occupation and present station in life give me the ability to be vocal in ways many who are working in Catholic media and letters do not and, I believe, would if they could. If the EWTN, WoF, Relevant Radio, conferences, parish and diocesan speaking, Newman list universities invites, and so on club was not so insular, there would be many, many more people speaking freely. But I cannot resent anyone for feeding their family.

While Jordan Peterson spends his early disgraced retirement from U of Toronto actively defending Joe Rogan, offering to personally host episodes deleted from Spotify where Rogan uses the n-word, Word on Fire and my alma mater are doing this: Word on Fire has a whole subpage for Peterson, including @BishopBarron's endorsement calling him "The person most responsible for reintroducing God and the Bible into mainstream secular culture today."

Archbishop Gomez' letter to a Congress in Madrid is so sloppy and wrong, it may finally be a reason and serve as evidence to write about an idea that I have been wrestling with for around 20 years. The core idea is not my own; it was made first by my professor at the time, John White, and I resisted it fiercely for years. Only recently have I begun to realize that his insight is correct and consequential.

There are Catholics who turn to quick apologetic rebuttals to stock Protestant accusations and actually end up ceding the territory of the argument to a Protestant terminology and, in that sense, become simplistic anti-Protestants, unwittingly outside Catholic tradition. An example of this is in the term ‘worship’ when we are accused of worshipping Mary. Both English usage and a Catholic theology of worship have ample and subtle usages of that term. Allowing a Protestant one-dimensional usage to stand without correction and reframing is an L.

Yesterday, Bishop Barron, on a personal FB account, replied to an article posted by a Catholic Deacon. The article is by Black Catholic in the *Black Catholic Messenger.* +Barron said that the author needs to wake up, called CRT repugnant, and accused the deacon of calumny. Bishop Barron also asserted that "everyone hates racism and wants to address it" and noted that he had recently had dinner with another Black Catholic. An hour later, he posted photos of this dinner on this official social media accounts.

It makes conservative Catholics in the US extremely angry that their ideological foils (which hilariously includes the Pope!) never teach or promote overt theological errors while they, the great orthodox and faithful ones, do it on the daily and even rely upon it to survive. No one is beyond reproach. Everyone's ideas deserve scrutiny, but that is not the same as promoting heresy or directly challenging Church teaching. On that matter, I've never said a single word that is unorthodox or heretical in all my public work.

I listened to Gloria's debut podcast episode late this morning and I've thought about it all day long. My wife and I spoke about it on our walk. It has lingered. I will probably re-listen tonight and maybe again tomorrow. Let me share a bit of why here, in an appreciation thread.

https://twitter.com/gloria_purvis/status/1397181540585680896

First, the sheer moral significance of Gloria debuting her show on the anniversary of the murder of George Floyd is enough to meditate on for a long time. The courage and statement and, of course, her "straight no chaser" opening monologue that simply starts THERE.

No big deal, but once again, whilst grilling, a stranger of a particular presenting identity, just *had* to confront me. In this case I was grilling next to the other public grill being used by a Spaniard and we were, naturally, speaking to one another in Spanish. This person... ...walked up to us (socially distanced) and asked "are you using BOTH grills?" I replied "Well, *I* am using this one here." The person realized they assumed we were a common "you" incorrectly and doubled down by exclaiming, "well, ugh, both of the other grills are not working!"

In reply to @BishopBarron’s Angelus interview, shared on his Facebook page, repeating his well-known thoughts about contemporary social activism, I have posted the reply to follow. angelusnews.com/arts-culture/b… @BishopBarron: You have said this same thing, in different ways and to different degrees, about this idiosyncratic usage of the term "woke," but you have yet to name anyone who is doing it.

THREAD

I thank @Kinder_Cons for his astute comments on my recent remarks published by @brianfraga, and especially for his measured criticism. I want to reply with a small clarification, but I will first post the original post and the notes to follow, with my reply thereafter. Here are my remarks contextualized by @brianfraga: patheos.com/blogs/onthecat…