I can’t decide if T.S. Eliot’s “Murder In the Cathedral” would be fun to see on stage. It’s fun to read. Everyone is saying their moral dilemmas. THIS shoulda been the Broadway musical.

What bothers me, I think, isn’t the historical thesis. It’s not wrong to say that Christianity in a particular way generates the concept of equality among men (however ironically it did so). It’s the supposition that this equality, granted by Christianity, requires Christianity *to be true.*

Evangelii Gaudium

really wish he’d say something about immigration, mass deportation, a higher minimum wage, and universal healthcare (all concerns of the USCCB)

We are so back. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k4N...

"[T]here is no more potent dwarfing of the present than by viewing it as a mere link between a glorious past and a glorious future." Eric Hoffer in The True Believer.

The right thinks that old stuff is theirs by association and then they constantly reveal how little they know about it. Because their love of old stuff is really a kind of futurism that hates the present. The future had better be the past because the present is the worst.

The thing about structural racism is it helped people think about systems and institutions as engines of racial inequality. As opposed to personal animus. The thing about the US right now is the sharp worsening of both while refusing to discuss either feelings or institutions.

this truly is the thing that makes the united states exceptional, and right wingers hate it so much they want to destroy it

I like to get mean in a niche way and say that most people’s idea of natural law is already-out-there-now. (You don’t even know how devastating that is for me to say. It’s so mean.)

guy who is mad at Nolan’s Odyssey because it depicts the sea as blue instead of wine-dark

Not that it’s important, but Hans Urs von Balthasar would *hate* this thesis. He’d object that, no, your ultimate identity is in God and in your personal call by God, which is a strictly supernatural identity and calling.

Whenever I teach our course on the Franciscan tradition, students really love Margaret of Cortona.

lolll anti-pope D&D that’s just a very good reference

Here’s my review of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous so far, which I got for free: this game hates me. It’s like if Dragon Age: Inquisition wrote me a letter and the letter said, “all the buttons will be confusing because I hate you.”

I fail to see how “my weapon is made of Death’s spinal column” is anything but the best phrase in the world, but we can respectfully disagree on this, that’s fair.

"A commander of an Iran-backed militia has been charged with plotting to attack Jewish sites in the United States, including a synagogue in New York City, federal authorities said." www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/n...

American exceptionalism is so everywhere in American culture. Everybody’s gotta be special enough to not count (and therefore to count). We all have to be the elect somehow. Which requires, of course, the damned.

And don’t get me started on Tennyson or James Joyce.

But no shame on Devil May Cry for desecrating all three. It’s too fun to feel shame.

You can't really desecrate Homer. He probably wasn't even a single person. The Iliad and the Odyssey were developed over time as part of an interative oral tradition

I have read they are canonically Methodist, yes. And the most influential Methodist in the United States by far rn is a Kansan pastor... Currently running for Senate as a Democrat.

Rejecting MAGA because they’re rude is the most American Midwest response possible so I agree.

This was one of my criticisms of Assassin’s Creed… well any of them, but especially Valhalla: everybody’s wandering around like they’ve taken Intro to Philosophy rather than existing as a regular person who probably is just going to accept the new thing by making it into an old thing. lol

It makes complete sense to me that the Kents are religious. They live in Kansas. I feel like… Methodists probably? United Methodists for the cuddly factor, imho. Anyway, making sense of Clark as a miracle somehow guided to their home by God really works for them.

This is amazing. I love it so much. It’s a bit like me showing up to a farm to explain animal and vegetative souls according to Aristotle. And I’m explaining it to the avocados as if they need to know about their place in the ladder of being to grow properly.

Little kid at wedding rehearsal looks up at me. "Hello, church!"

I’ve read this “Moral Issue X is the ultimate neoliberalism / liberalism” argument among postliberals a few times. Feels a lot like when we (Catholics) blame Protestants for the free market. (How dare you, Protestants. No, I’ve never heard of Spain or Portugal.) Uhh… I genuinely prefer natural law.

Fulton Sheen has two books written in reply to America’s entrance into WW2 (one in 1940, 1942) and they’re a fascinating picture into American Catholicism at the time. He’s not excited about war. They’re kinda weird? Awkward in retrospect? He’s most famous for “Life Is Worth Living,” not these.

Well, exactly as our Lord demanded in Matthew 10, 8. He didn’t mention stamps or shipping costs, right?

I am *not* going on a pilgrimage to Peoria, IL for the sake of Fulton Sheen’s beatification — I assume it’s as boring as my nowhere, IL hometown — but I am extremely excited to see a beatification. Which St. Louis gets to host because Peoria doesn’t have a big enough building. www.celebratesheen.com

Men get sailing analogies and types of wood. Women get flowers and feelings. Both genders get Spring (the season of the year) and the wind as long as it has the correct other adjectives (i.e., boats or flowers). Enjoy your springtime fresh-cut lavender and your stormy sea in May, everybody.

lol what the fuck did Nietzsche do to lose so many times (including to "Can't")

Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation. Easter allows us to experience awe and wonder at God’s creation and remind us how God’s creation relates to our concern for the dignity of work and the rights of workers. usccb.org/sjp

This kind of argument just doesn’t even want to think about how randomly councils get ejected from tradition and stuff like that. It only can focus on the one council (Vatican 2) and the super special argument for why this one and none of the others are not real.

Totally forgot to share this! Got to have a lovely exchange with Paul DeHart and his book, “Unspeakable Cults” over on Syndicate (which holds public scholarly forums). We meditate on the historicity of Christ, the role of faith and understanding, and MONSTERS. Yay! syndicate.network/symposia/the...

She writes that "We gave up seeing the meaning of the world in exchange for power over it." "Seeing meaning" = not knowing. That which is not adequate to Thomas's (nuanced, developing) epistemology = not Thomas. I want to offer the author one of these: books.google.com.af/books?id=CeW...

lolllllll

I lament all schism but also I think these SSPX guys are jerks. Unity is great but they’re being jerks. So… yeah. www.ncronline.org/vatican-warn...

I often wonder, in a slightly stupid but important way,”Do biases in the rest of society impact the study of minorities?” And the answer is always “yes, duh.” The bias here being: psshh, who cares about *women.* With a scholar trying to redress that. www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/05/pers...

I don’t know… given how reticent DC is to iterate its characters lately, it’s nice to have an author willing to juggle a bunch of the problematic, neglected ones in a way that lets them each contribute their helpful little thing (Conner’s TK still working in Kandor, for ex, makes him so useful!).

Man, this is easily Kara’s best story arc ever — at least in the 2000s. (I don’t know that old stuff almost at all.) Everybody who’s otherwise a useless cameo soldier gets stuff to do, including poor Conner, who’s had SO little to do. Kara gets weird challenges and new friends. It’s a delight.

Received word that probably means I’m gonna have to read more stupid things from the US Catholic right but I guess it’s like penance, maybe. As long as people have found my complaining helpful, it’s a good penance for my many sins / origins in the Catholic right. (I was a teenager but still.)

“It is helpful to think about this image less as an indication of messianic self-identification and more as an instrumentalization of religious symbols. The image on Truth Social did not create this dynamic; it simply illustrates it.”

So far my use of “power” has focused on inviting nice but not famous people (scholars) to come be nice to our students. I’m not good at this, maybe. Or, alternatively, famous people (scholars) are scary.

Me: Keep your lamp alight for the Master's return. Unwise virgins: I thought we were supposed to have 2.5 babies? Me: *Sigh*. How are you supposed to have 2.5 babies when you need enough oil to keep your lamps alright? Also, how do you have half of a baby? Unwise virgins: Ohhhhhhhh

(shoving aside Dr. Oz) Enough about babies. Let’s talk about holy virginity’s witness to the eschaton. Indeed, our death to the world testifies to the death of Christ. I don’t need to have 2.5 babies to testify to death, now do I, doc? Shh— don’t say words. The answer is No, I do not.

The push to go to Blue Books makes me audibly groan … going back to an inferior technology that doesn’t actually reflect how people write in the real world because we can’t control cheating is not a fix. I don’t know what is, but things are bleak and it’s bad at the levels below us.

Much as I love people telling faculty not to freak out, I think teachers get to feel sad when hard-earned skills (for example: I learned how to do this interactive lecture thing I’m so proud of) are no longer useful. Especially when their teaching repertoire is usually pretty narrow anyway.

The number one sport at my basketball summer camp is basketball. Students crave basketball.