Update (7/17/2026): Footnotes reformatted; parenthetical added to footnote 2; minor typographical errors corrected.

The U.S. national debt, which is fast approaching an eye-popping $40 trillion, is a stubborn problem—one that’s been with us for several decades, long before it was politically expedient for the Republican Party to display a “national debt clock” during its 2012 convention to memorialize the onset, under then-President Barack Obama, of a (mere) $16 trillion national bill. (How quaint!)

Unhelpfully, the public’s polled concerns about the national debt (whose shape and scope you can start to get a sense of here) don’t translate into the pursuit and enactment of policies that would actually address it—because this is a classic case of “concentrated benefits, diffuse costs.” In layman’s terms, Americans are very supportive of cutting spending in the abstract, but as soon as particular programs, whose operation redounds to the benefit of identifiable persons, are proffered for the chopping block, the polling flips. For example, 60 percent of Americans believe the government needs to cut spending, but only 39 percent support making “significant changes” to Social Security and Medicare—two of the three major, so-called mandatory spending programs (the third being Medicaid) that are chiefly responsible for our exploding national debt. (I can hear the Zoomer chorus already: “Make it make sense.”)

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An intractable problem like this will not be solved by working strictly within the limits of the system as it is currently constituted; it is simply too sclerotic, with too many veto points that strangle genuine reform in the crib, and there is not enough concentrated harm spread across a wide enough swathe of society to spur the necessary action. We must instead cut the Gordian Knot—that is, take unconventional, outside-the-box action to ameliorate our plight.1

For the 21st century, however, it might be helpful to update the imagery to something a bit more familiar to people’s ordinary experience. Most solutions to the debt crisis are attempts, effectively, to put the Nation on a diet. For example, a recent Reason post sets forth a list of seven ways to “shore up” Social Security:

1. raise the retirement age;

2. reduce benefits;

3. raise the cap on Social Security earnings;

4. raise Social Security tax rates;

5. means-test it;

6. privatize it; or

7. do away with it altogether.2

As you’ll notice, the first five proposals are essentially forms of dieting: controlling inputs in order to, it is hoped, improve outputs. But, as a practical matter, dieting tends not to work for many people. (The exact reason(s) why is beyond our scope.)

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In this regard, GLP-1s (e.g., Ozempic) have been wonder drugs. But, alas, we do not have GLP-1s for controlling federal budgets; therefore, only the latter two proposals—privatization and abolition—are truly viable. But the entire issue with those ideas is that, as we’ve seen, they are simply not politically palatable: A majority of the public purports to recognize that runway entitlement spending is a serious problem but simultaneously does not support concrete actions to rein it in, when those actions would reduce or eliminate their receipt of welfare transfer payments. Famously, President George W. Bush’s ill-fated push to (partially) privatize Social Security 20 years ago was massacred in the court of public opinion. Bush’s plan went down in flames in large part for the sin of being a half measure. So, what do we do?

We opt for the only arrow left in the quiver when diet and exercise have failed, there is no miracle drug, and the hour is late: bariatric surgery. We need to drastically reduce our capacity to overspend, similar to the way that bariatric surgery dulls and nullifies appetite by shrinking its receptacle, the stomach, which in turn alters how the whole organism functions vis-à-vis its hunger systems.

Translated into fiscal language, we need to make it impossible to bring in as much revenue as we do, thereby reducing our appetite, our capacity, to spend as much as we do. Less revenue will, of necessity, mean less debt. This seems counterintuitive (and perhaps even an impossible goal), but I will explain.

What we need to do is simple: Repeal the Sixteenth Amendment (ratified in 1913), which authorizes the levying of a federal income tax. The goal is to make Leviathan incapable of consuming what it needs to continue running the deficits it currently does.

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Let’s do a little math:

• Total federal revenue each year is $5.2 trillion; this is comprised of, generally speaking, income tax (51 percent), payroll tax (33 percent), corporate tax (9 percent), customs duties (4 percent), and miscellaneous other sources (another 4 percent).

• The top 10 percent of earners contribute 75 percent of all revenue.

• We spend $7 trillion annually on, broadly speaking, three cost categories: mandatory spending ($4.2 trillion), interest on the debt ($1 trillion), and discretionary spending ($1.9 trillion).

• Hence, annual deficits are $1.8 trillion.

Interest payments and discretionary spending—the things that ordinarily come to mind when we think of “the government,” i.e., the military, infrastructure, all federal agencies, etc.—total $2.9 trillion.

The federal income tax, which accounts for just over half of all annual revenue, brings in $2.652 trillion annually; eliminating it would mean that annual revenues, all else being equal, would total $2.548 trillion. Which is only $352 billion short of covering discretionary spending and debt servicing (but not mandatory spending). To make up the shortfall, we could raise corporate taxes (to a level that would still be within the realm of reasonability, based on those of other developed nations and our own historical practice), or secure more revenues via tariffs (made more likely if President Trump’s long-held fondness for them catches on and endures).

The point, however, is that a world in which the Sixteenth Amendment has been repealed is one in which the money coming in the door, if dedicated solely to “mandatory spending,” would only fund those programs 61 percent, all while literally nothing else got funded; “the government” would shutter, and interest payments would be ignored, all so that Boomers can receive transfer payments that are 39 percent less than they should be, relative to the present. In that world, even something purporting to be “mandatory” would not take precedence over funding true, day-to-day necessities: national security, law enforcement, infrastructure, R&D, the work of our myriad agencies, servicing current debt, etc.

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To put a fine point on it: Uncle Sam will not mail out 61-cents-on-the-dollar Social Security checks without a military (and also nothing else that the government does).

This proposal is politically possible because virtually nobody likes paying taxes. Just a few months ago, 70 percent of voters expressed that their tax burden is “too high”; lifting the yoke of income tax—which is the largest category of tax burden that most individuals will ever pay—would be wildly popular. This is true even for Boomers, who, we must note, would not pay income tax on their withdrawals in retirement. There is nobody, besides the excessively masochistic, for whom paying fewer taxes is actually a problem.

* * *

But have you considered X, Y, or Z technical objection?

No. And it’s irresponsible to miss the forest for the trees in this case. The Constitution is not a “suicide pact.”3

But certain people who are about to retire will really suffer if we eliminate these programs by essentially zeroing out their funding in this manner; that’s unfair!

If the United States becomes insolvent, the lives of hundreds of millions, for potentially decades, will become unfathomably, materially worse—much, much worse than those of a fraction of present-day, living Boomers pursuant to this proposal. It is immoral to flee short-term suffering at the expense of longer-term health. We know this intuitively; it’s why we judge so harshly couch potatoes: They are mortgaging their future to pay for their lazy present, and everyone around them will suffer immeasurably more than if they were to take some discomforting initiative now to improve their health.

People paid into these programs. You can’t pull the rug out from under them!

Actually, “there is no legal right to Social Security.”4 And everyone going forward will get real returns on their investment from the market, rather than needing to pretend to be grateful for Social Security’s essentially non-existent growth. To wit: “The annual return on a 60/40 portfolio of stocks and bonds has averaged about 9 percent in the last 50 years, while the rate of return on Social Security is negligible.”

What part of mandatory spending don’t you understand?

Who’s going to enforce it? Game it out. Income tax is gone. We don’t have enough revenue to fully fund entitlements; what we get is one of: (a) a fully funded government (also making its interest payments); (b) partially funded entitlements and literally nothing else; or (c) a partially funded status quo (in which everything is worse relative to the present because the money is spread far too thinly to be effective). The only palatable, let alone sensible, option is the first one. Now, who is going to force the political branches to borrow $4.2 trillion—more than double our current annual borrowing—to save entitlements? The Supreme Court? Could Congress possibly survive if it borrowed such a sum to save these programs, in the teeth of an electorate that just voted, in essence, to abandon them by amending the Constitution to make it practically impossible to hew to them? Of course not.

* * *

Debt and deficits obey certain laws. Nations—especially the wealthiest in history—might be able to bend those laws for a time, but reality will always win out in the end. “If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.” Abolishing the federal income tax would bring that maxim to life. Our spending binge would be literally unable to continue. So, it would stop.

Sanity at last.

On June 25, 2024, the nine-member Oklahoma Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Drummond ex rel. State v. Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board. The six-justice majority’s opinion, just over 26 pages, answers the important question of whether St. Isidore of Seville—a Catholic, virtual, K-12 charter school (the School)—can contract with the state’s Charter School Board (the Board) to operate with public funding in the State of Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the arrangement between the School and the Board (the Contract) was unconstitutional under the Oklahoma Constitution, as well as under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Only one justice, Dana Kuehn, dissented.

Read the rest at Napa’s blog.

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In our founders’ time, it was common for those disfavored by the regime—especially high-ranking or ambitious politicians—to be deprived of their rights and their place in public affairs, without trial or recourse, by acts of the legislature known as “bills of attainder.” Our founders were so cautious of this particular form of treachery that they banned the practice not just in the U.S. Constitution but in every single one of the original state constitutions.

What the founders didn’t foresee, argues attorney Deion Kathawa, is the current predicament in which such abuses—like so much legislative business—would be absorbed by the other branches and carried out by political prosecutors in front of political judges. Donald Trump’s conviction serves the exact same purpose as these bills of attainder once did. That it is wrapped up in the creeping rule of the administrative state makes it doubly objectionable. The result, Kathawa argues, is a totalitarian threat somewhere between a Soviet show trial and a regression to the overreach that forced our revolution.

Read the rest here.

في كتاب جورجياس، جادل سقراط مع كالليكس، السفيه الذي رفض الجمال والحقيقة والخير، وحاول أن يظهر أن كالليكس، في التحليل النهائي، كان في خلاف مع نفسه. بالمثل، الهدف النهائي لهذا المقال هو الإقتراح بأن الأشياء التي يهتم بها وجميع المسلمين - تجد تحقيقها المثالي في المسيح وعروسه الكنيسة.

آمل أن يستفيد أي شخص يقرأ هذه البداية وأي تبادلات تتبعها، من اصطدام الكلمة المكتوبة هذا.

- ديون

أرى أن السمة البارزة في الغرب في الوقت الحاضر هو عدم تقديسه لله. لقد نسوه أهل الغرب. كنائسهم فارغة. وبالتالي، يعبدون أصنامًا ظالمة ومُطالبة: التنوع، والعدالة، والشمول، والتسامح، والراحة، والمكانة، والشهوة، والتعبير عن الذات. القائمة تطول.

ليس الأمر و كأن الغربيين يكرهون الله؛ بل يعيشون وكأنه ليس حقيقيًا، أو إذا كان، فإن وجوده ليس له أهمية عملية. لا شيء في حياتهم اليومية يوحي بوعيهم به، أو حتى باحترامهم لله وبإرادته. على مرور العقود صار الغرب يقطع نفسه تدريجياً عن "إله إبراهيم وإله إسحاق وإله يعقوب" - "وَلَيْسَ هُوَ إِلهَ أَمْوَاتٍ بَلْ إِلهُ أَحْيَاءٍ" (متى 22:32). كمثل الأحمق الذي يقطع الفرع الذي يجلس عليه. حتى أن الجيل الحديث يختارون تعقيم أنفسهم بدلاً من طاعة أولى وصايا الله في الجنة: أَثْمِرُوا وَاكْثُرُوا. (تكوين 1:28).

من الذي يستغرب إذًا من موت الغرب أمام أعيننا؟

ليس كذلك في العالم الإسلامي - على الرغم من أن الإسلام تتجسد فيه انحرافات خطيرة عن حقيقة الله و المسيح عيسى والخلاص. الإيمان بالله في تلك الاراضي حي وبخير. أنا كاثوليكي متحمس، متدين، ويؤلمني شهادة هذا الاختلا.

ومع ذلك، أنا أحترم الحمية المسلمين في ممارسة دينهم. في ظل الفراغ الوجودي للغرب وفساده، من المنعش أن عشرات الملايين يتمسكون بإيمانهم على الرغم من أنهم غريقون في الحمض الفاسد الذي هو الحداثة. أكتب بروح مشتركة. أنا آخذ الله على محمل الجد، كما يفعل ملايين المسلمين. نحن مخلصون لله ونحبه أكثر مما نخشى عقوبات العالم لأن الله سيد على كل شيء وقد غزا العالم. نحن نعرف إله التاريخ و أن هذا الله ليس بتاريخ.

على هذه الأرض المشتركة، "هلم نتحاجج" (إشعياء 1:18). لنا أن نتصارع نحو ما يتطلبه الدين منا من فضيلة إعطاء الله حقه.

دعنا نطرح أن الإيمان بشيء أفضل من بلا شيء، ومن الأفضل أن نؤمن بالأشياء حميةً من أن نكون فاترين. فلا أحد يحب الجالسين على السياج - والمسيح أقلهم رضا بهؤلاء. في سفر الرؤيا، "سأتَقيّؤُكَ مِنْ فَمي لأنّكَ فاتِرٌ، لا حارّ ولا بارِدٌ" (رؤيا 3:16). العقل المفتوح مثل الفم المفتوح: الهدف هو إغلاقه على شيء صلب. الجلوس المستمر على السياج ليس علامة على "الحياد" المتطور الذي يستمر حتى يظهر "دليل" كافٍ. في الواقع، هذا اختيار لتدهور الروح، وفي نهاية المطاف، الموت.

إما أن تتحرك من على السياج و إما أن تتعفن عليه.

من يؤمن بحسن النية و عزم اليقين بمقدمة معينة، و لو كان مخطئاً، فله فضل على الذي يكون لامباليًا عند مواجهته للأسئلة الأساسية للكون، و على الذي يعارض أخذ مثل هذه الأسئلة بجدية. الشخص الأول يؤمن على الأقل بأن الأسئلة ذاتها تهم، مما يعني أنه مهتم بالإجابات ومنفتح على تلقي معلومات جديدة. أما الشخص الثاني، الذي لا يكترث بالمسائل الوجودية بنفس قدر اكتراثه بما سيأكله في العشاء أو أقل - فهو قضية ضائعة. روح هذا الشخص صم عن نداء الدين، و الدين يمثل "خارطة إلهية"، لو شئتم، لفهم الواقع: من أين جاء الإنسان وإلى أين يذهب، وكيف ينبغي له أن يتصرف خلال إقامته القصيرة الثقيلة على الأرض، وماهية علاقته الأساسية بالله.

من بين هذه الأشياء، يخطئ الإسلام في أشياء مفتاحية. ولكن أعيد مرة أخرى أنه من الأفضل أن تكون خاطئًا وتهتم بشكل عميق بمثل هذه المسائل من أن تكون لامباليًا أو معاديًا لاحتمال أي حقيقة يمكن العثور عليها، ناهيك عن حقيقة قد ترتبط به. (أرى القديس أوغسطينوس من هيبو أن أصل كلمة الدين في لغته هو "ربط".)

أثناء كتابتي هذه، نحن في قلب الصوم الكبير، الذكرى السنوية للكنيسة لآلام يسوع لمدة 40 يومًا في الصحراء مع العالم والجسد والشيطان. ذروة الصوم الكبير هي يوم عيد الفصح، يوم قيامة الرب المجيدة من الموت، يليه بعد 50 يومًا عيد العنصرة - عيد ميلاد الكنيسة، عندما نزل الروح القدس على الرسل في شكل ألسنة من النار. (أعمال الرسل 2:1-11). أما المسلمون، فهم يعتقدون أن الله خلق شخصية تشبه يسوع ليموت مكانه في جلجثة.

يهرب المسلمون من الصليب مصرين على أن يسوع نفسه هرب من منطقيته. وإذا فعل ذلك يسوع لجاز لنا أيضًا فعله، لأنه لا خادم أكبر من سيده. (يوحنا 13:16). هذا خاطئ، لكنه جذاب ومنطقي إذا وجدت نفسك تتجاذب نحو الإسلام. كما يعلن القديس بولس، الصليب "لِلْيَهُودِ عَثْرَةٌ، وَلِلْيُونَانِيِّينَ جَهَالَةٌ." (1 كورنثوس 1:23). فمن الطبيعي أن الناس سيتصارعون مع معنى الصليب. ومع ذلك، يجب بشأن الصليب شيء ما.

يمكن للشخص أن يقبله أو يرفضه، لكن تجاهله ليس خيارًا على الإطلاق.

رفض الصليب هو رفض يسوع كابن الله، وقبول الصليب هو قبول يسوع كابن الله. و العقيدة بأن محمدًا هو أعظم هذين الاثنين يعني أن يسوع لم يتحمل الصليب. لأنه إذا فعل ذلك، فسيكون أعظم من محمد.

نعم، أنا أقول أن الموت على الصليب إنجاز أعظم - إنجاز أعظم بلا منازعة - من النجاة منه. في حديقة جثسيماني، يسوع يتخلى عن نفسه تواضعًا طاعةً لإرادة والده الكريمة و هو يتألم منتظرًا الموت الآتي في جلجثا: "يَا أَبَتَاهُ، إِنْ أَمْكَنَ فَلْتَعْبُرْ عَنِّي هذِهِ الْكَأْسُ، وَلكِنْ لَيْسَ كَمَا أُرِيدُ أَنَا بَلْ كَمَا تُرِيدُ أَنْتَ" (متى 26:39). و هذا رغم أنّ "جَوهَرَهُ هُوَ جَوهَرُ اللهِ"، إلا أنه "لَمْ يَعْتَبِرْ مُسَاوَاتَهُ للهِ امتِيَازًا يَغْتَنِمُهُ لِنَفْسِهِ بَلْ جَرَّدَ نَفْسَهُ مِنْ كُلِّ شَيءٍ، آخِذًا طَبِيعَةَ عَبدٍ، فَصَارَ إنْسَانًا كَالبَشَرِ.." (فيلبي 2:6-7). القوة لخدمة الضعفاء؛ لذلك يجب أن يكون الأقوى خادمًا للجميع. (متى 23:11-12). يعيش يسوع هذه المهنة كاملًا، ويدعو كل واحد منا إليها. (عبرانيين 4:15؛ متى 5:48)

أنا على دراية بأن هذا يبدو غريبًا. حتى أنا، وأنا مسيحي كاثوليكي مؤمن ومتمسك بالعقيدة، أجد نفسي في بعض الأحيان أتراجع عن هذه التعاليم. إنها غريبة تمامًا، وتتحدى المنطق البشري، الذي يثمن القوة والجمال والطاقة والعقل فوق الضعف والقبح والعجز والبساطة والعدمية. ومع ذلك، يقول الرب: "لِأنَّ أفكَارِي لَيْسَتْ كَأفكَارِكُمْ، وَطُرُقِي لَيْسَتْ كَطُرُقِكُمْ، يَقُولُ اللهُ. فَكَمَا تَعْلُو السَّمَاوَاتُ عَنِ الأرْضِ، هَكَذَا تَعْلُو طُرُقِي عَنْ طُرُقِكُمْ، وَأفكَارِي عَنْ أفكَارِكُمْ." (إشعياء 55:8-9). في الواقع، يختار الله عمدًا "جهال العالم ليخزي الحكماء. واختار الله ضعفاء العالم ليخزي الاقوياء." (1 كورنثوس 1:27).

تغني مريم بجمال "الانقلاب الإلهي" عندما تزور ابنة عمها إليشيبا، التي كانت في ذلك الوقت عند نهاية حملها بيوحنا المعمدان: "أنزَلَ الحُكَّامَ عَنْ عُرُوشِهِمْ، وَرَفَعَ مَنزِلَةَ المُتَوَاضِعِينَ. أشبَعَ الجِيَاعَ بِعَطَايَاهُ الصَّالِحَةَ، وَصَرَفَ الأغنِيَاءَ فَارِغِي الأيدِي." (لوقا 1:52-53). فحسبنا أن نقول "فَمَا يَعْتَبِرُهُ أُولَئِكَ حَمَاقَةَ اللهِ، هُوَ أحكَمُ مِنْ حِكمَةِ النَّاسِ! وَمَا يَعْتَبِرُونَهُ ضَعفَ اللهِ، هُوَ أقوَى مِنْ قُوَّةِ النَّاسِ!" (1 كورنثوس 1:25).

إن الله مختلف عنا تمامًا فهو يفاجئنا تماماً. ولكن لا يعني هذا أن ليس في وسعنا أن نتبع خطته، وإن كان ذلك على بُعد و بجهد روحي كبير. إنه يترك لنا دربًا، ويمشي بجانبنا ونحن نسير كالحجاج إلى موطننا الأبدي معه. إنه يشجعنا و يؤيدنا في الطريق.

في الواقع، الصليب هو سمة أساسية في اقتصاد الخلاص. كما شرح القديس أثناسيوس الإسكندري قبل سبعةَ عشرَ قرنًا، من المناسب جدًا أنه لبس ابن الله لحما بشريا و احتمل آلامه الحزينة ليخلص البشرية من الخطيئة والموت. المسيح "أشفق على نسلنا و أرحم على ضعفنا و تنازل إلى فسادنا. و ما كان له أن يترك الموت ليتحكم لئلا يهلك الخلق و يضيع يد أبيه في البشر عبثًا. فأخذ على نفسه جسدًا و لم يكن بمختلف عن جسدنا."

جوهر الله الأساسي، إذا جرأنا أن نحدد شيئًا كهذا، هو الحب. تقول الكتاب إن الله هو الحب. (١ يوحنا ٤:١٦). يسوع هو "وسيط وامتلاء كل الوحي" - الإعلان الذاتي النهائي لله إلى الإنسان. (في حديث الله § ٢). و لا بدّ للحب من الانتماء إلى مجتمع: لا يمكن للإنسان أن يحب في العزلة الوحشة. المحرك الأول عند أرسطو وحيد مكتمل بذاته ويبدو أنه لا يفتقر إلى شيء. و لكنّه يفتقر إلى الصداقة والحب.

الله هو ثلاثة أشخاص متميزون: الآب والابن والروح القدس. يشترك كل واحد منهم في نفس المادة، وجميعهم معًا في علاقة حب معطي سرمدي: رقصة. (استخدم آباء الكنيسة المصطلح اليوناني بيريخوريسيس - شيء مثل العبارة الضخمة "الإندماج الإختراقي المتبادلي") لكي لا نغوص في التفاصيل الدقيقة، ولتجنب إثارة الارتباك حول أعمق الأسرار، حسبنا أن نقول: "الوحدة الإلهية ثلاثية". (تعليمات الكنيسة الكاثوليكية، الفقرة 254).

محبة الله كبيرة و شديدة جدًا و في غاية الفائضة، حتى أنها تفيض في الخلق وتصل إلى ذروتها في الإنسان، الذي خُلق على صورة الله كشبهه من خلال الابن كلمة الله الذي كُلُّ شَيْءٍ بِهِ كَانَ، وَبِغَيْرِهِ لَمْ يَكُنْ شَيْءٌ مِمَّا كَانَ. التكوين 1:26؛ يوحنا 1:3. عندما سقط الإنسان، وضع الله خطاً لإنقاذه و شغله، حتى يضمه إلى الخلود مع نفسه. هذا ما يسجله العهد القديم. كله يشير إلى يسوع الذي هو ذروة تلك الخطة (لوقا 24:27)

بإيجاز، أصبح الله إنسانًا، يسوع الناصري المسيح، لكي يصبح الإنسان مشابهًا لله، ليُرفع إلى الحياة الداخلية للثالوث الأقدس لينظر إلى الرؤية السعيدة إلى الأبد.

يسوع هو الراعي الصالح. إنه يتفانى في رغبته في العثور على الخروف الضال، حتى يترك وراءه التسعة وتسعين الآخرين في قطيعه ليفعل ذلك، "وَإِذَا وَجَدَهُ يَضَعُهُ عَلَى مَنْكِبَيْهِ فَرِحًا" (لوقا 15:5). يسوع هو السامري الصالح. إنه يخاطر بحياته متهوراً لإنقاذ حياة غريب على طريق خطير. (لوقا 10:25-37). يسوع شبيه بأب الابن الضال، الذي "وَإِذْ كَانَ لَمْ يَزَلْ بَعِيدًا رَآهُ أَبُوهُ، فَتَحَنَّنَ وَرَكَضَ وَوَقَعَ عَلَى عُنُقِهِ وَقَبَّلَهُ،" وأعطاه ثوبًا وخاتمًا ونعالًا وأقام وليمة احتفالًا بعودته - حتى بعد أن أكل هذا الابن "مَعِيشَتَة[ه] مَعَ الزَّوَانِي"! (لوقا 15:20، 22-23، 30).

ببساطة، لا شيء يمكن أن يفصلنا عن محبة الله. كما يكتب القديس بولس، "أنَا مُقتَنِعٌ بِأنَّهُ مَا مِنْ شَيءٍ يَقْدِرُ أنْ يَفْصِلَنَا عَنْ مَحَبَّةِ اللهِ الَّتِي فِي المَسِيحِ يَسُوعَ رَبِّنَا. فَلَا مَوْتَ وَلَا حَيَاةَ، وَلَا مَلَائِكَةَ وَلَا أروَاحَ مُتَسَلِّطَةً، وَلَا شَيءَ فِي الحَاضِرِ، وَلَا شَيءَ فِي المُسْتَقْبَلِ، وَلَا قُوَىً رُوحِيَّةً، وَلَا شَيءَ مِمَّا فَوقَنَا، وَلَا شَيءَ مِمَّا تَحْتَنَا، وَلَا أيَّ شَيءٍ آخَرَ مَخْلُوقٍ يُمْكِنُ أنْ يَفْصِلَنَا عَنْ مَحَبَّةِ اللهِ الَّتِي لَنَا فِي المَسِيحِ يَسُوعَ رَبِّنَا." (رومية 8:38-39).

أما بعد فإنّ الصليب متفق مع الواقع و مع طابع الله. دعونا نتأمل لماذا. تساعد في ذلك قصة النبي أيوب المقدس.

باختصار، بعد الكثير من المعاناة، واللوم، والحوار، والحزن، وتأكيدات البراءة، والصلوات للإغاثة، سمع أيوب الله يتحدث "من العاصفة": "‘مَنْ هذَا الَّذِي يُظْلِمُ الْقَضَاءَ بِكَلاَمٍ بِلاَ مَعْرِفَةٍ؟ اُشْدُدِ الآنَ حَقْوَيْ الرجل، فَإِنِّي أَسْأَلُكَ فَتُعَلِّمُنِي. أَيْنَ كُنْتَ حِينَ أَسَّسْتُ الأَرْضَ؟ أَخْبِرْ إِنْ كَانَ عِنْدَكَ فَهْمٌ". (أيوب 38:1–4). بعدما أعلن أيوب عن جهله بحكمة الله، أوصى الله به بالصلاة لأصدقائه، وعندما فعل ذلك، استعاد الله لأيوب ثروته بعشرة أضعاف. (أيوب 38:5–42:16). "ثُمَّ مَاتَ أَيُّوبُ شَيْخًا وَشَبْعَانَ الأَيَّامِ". (أيوب 42:17).

في هذه القصة شيء عميق وصحيح. ومع ذلك، ما يُبهرني كم هي تفتقر. نعم، عظمة الله وحكمته وقوته وتصاميمه أعظم بلا حدود من فهمنا. بالتأكيد يلتزم المسلمون بهذا. في الإسلام، الله هو الإرادة الخالصة، غريب وفائق لدرجة أننا لا نستطيع فهم أي شيء من "منطقه"، إذا جاز التعبير. إذا أمر الله بأن الأبيض هو الأسود فهو كذلك، و يستقيم العكس ايضاً.

لكن هذه ليست الطريقة الكاثوليكية. نحن نؤمن بأن الله مفهوم لنا، حتى لو كان ذلك فقط بما هو ليس عليه - أي أنه بالضمنيات السلبية يمكننا معرفة شيء من الله وعن الله. لديه "سبب" خاص به، حتى لو لم يكن من السهل فهمه من منظورنا البشري المحدود والقابل للخطأ. ولهذا الصليب: لأن الله لا يكتفي بأن يصدر صوت الرعد علينا و نحن في عاصفة، و هو وراء حجاب من بقوة وقدرة وعظمة مخيفة. إنه لا يستخدم تكتيكات الصدمة والرعب، على الرغم من أن لديه كل الحق في ذلك.

بدلاً من ذلك، يقوم بأرقى شيء ممكن. إنه يدخل في فوضى وجود الإنسان و ما به ألمه والكسر، ويصبح كائناً إنسانًا، و هكذا يغير ماهية الإنسان تمامًا. إنه يواجه الخسارة الإنسانية والخطيئة والموت ويدمر سلطتهم تمامًا. إنه لا يتركنا وحدنا نبكي على معاناتنا، التي تسببها الكثير منها حرية الإنسان، فالحرية شرط مسبق ضروري لمعرفة الله ومحبته وخدمته. بدلاً من ذلك، يحترم حريتنا تمامًا لدرجة أنه يسمح لنا بإساءة استخدامها بأبشع الطرق: لارتكاب اللهوانية ضد ابنه الوحيد. إنه يتواصل معنا ويعيش بيننا بطريقة تناسب طبائعنا العقلية، على الرغم من أن ذلك يفرض عليه الانحناء إلى مستوانا. إنه يأخذنا على محمل الجد و يقوم مع الجنس البشري في التضامن الجذري. بدلاً من أن يشرح لماذا الآلام والخطيئة والموت ليس لديها الكلمة الأخيرة - كما قد يفعله أستاذ ضحيح غريب - يعرضه علينا في هيئة لحمية و هو يشاركنا في الجزء الأكثر رعبًا وغموضًا في نصيبنا: الموت و أحيانا الموت الأليم.

لكنه الله يهزم الموت و يقوم من بين الأموات في اليوم الثالث، مدمرًا في هذه العملية سلطة الخطيئة التي دُفنت معه و بقيت في القبر حيث مقامها.

فلنقل إذاً إن الصليب هو ببساطة النتيجة المنطقية لطبيعة الله، وجوده وجوهره. الله، مجتمع إلهي من الأشخاص الذين يحبون بعضهم بلا حد، يرغب في مشاركة تلك المحبة مع البشر، الذين خلقهم في حريته وصلاحه اللانهائيين لكي يعرفوه ويحبوه ويخدموه في هذه الحياة، ويكونوا سعداء معه إلى الأبد في الحياة الآتية.

يريد الله خيرنا الحقيقي دائماً. إنه لا يتوقف أبدًا. يعمل الله بلا كلل في حياتنا لجلب الجميع إلى معرفة الحقّ و به إلى الخلاص. إلى درجة أنه سيخفض نفسه ليولد من امرأة، العذراء المباركة مريم، ويعيش كإنسان، ليعلمنا كيف يريدنا أن نعيش. في الصليب و على الصليب و بالصليب يصالح يسوع كل الأشياء لنفسه. (تيموثاوس الأولى 2:4؛ كولوسي 1:20).

لهذا كان يجب أن يحدث الصليب. لا يهم مدى انغماسنا في طين الخطيئة. لن يتوقف الله عن ملاحقتنا حتى إلى الموت، بل لا يمكنه. ولهذا نصرخ بفرح وشكر وإعجاب كل عام في عيد الفصح، "يا خطيئة سعيدة، يا خطيئة ضرورية لآدم، استحقّت بها فاديا كهذا!"

Author’s note: The above is a translation of my March 19, 2024 essay, “Love it or Hate it, You Must Confront the Cross”; anyone who can read classical Arabic, enjoy

In the Gorgias, Socrates argued with Callicles, the sophist who rejected beauty, truth, and goodness, and tried to show that, in the final analysis, Callicles was in disagreement with himself. Similarly, the ultimate aim of this essay is to suggest that the things that all persons most care about, regardless of their religious faith (or lack thereof), find their perfect fulfillment in Christ and His Bride, the Church.

I hope anyone reading this opening salvo, and any exchanges that follow, will benefit in some way from the clash of the written word.

-Deion

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As I see it, the West’s signal feature at present is its lack of reverence for God. Its people have forgotten Him. Their churches are empty. Consequently, they worship cruel, demanding idols: diversity, equity, inclusion, tolerance, comfort, status, sex, and self-expression. The list goes on.

It’s not that Westerners hate God; rather, they live as though He is not real, or if He is, that His existence is of no practical relevance. Nothing about their everyday lives suggests an awareness, let alone a respect, for God and His will. For decades and decades, like a fool sawing the branch on which he sits, the West has been steadily cutting itself off from “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”—“not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Mt. 22:32 (NASB). So dramatic is this rejection that Millennials are choosing to sterilize themselves rather than obey God’s very first command to Man in the Garden: to be fruitful and multiply. Gen. 1:28.

Is it any wonder that the West is dying before our eyes?

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Not so in the Islamic world—despite the fact that Islam embodies dangerous perversions of the truth about God, Jesus Christ, and salvation. There, belief in God is alive and well. I am a staunch, devout Catholic, and it pains me deeply to see this disparity.

That said, I respect the fervor with which Muslims practice their religion. In light of the West’s existential ennui, its decadence, it is refreshing to realize that tens of millions hold fast to their faith despite being immersed in the corrosive acid that is modernity. I write in a shared spirit. I take God seriously, as do millions of Muslims. We are devoted to God and love Him more than we fear the world’s punishments because God is sovereign over all things and has conquered the world. We know the God of history—and, critically, that God is not History.

From this common ground, we can reason together. Is. 1:18. We can wrestle with what religion—the virtue of giving God his due—requires of us.

All things being equal, it is better to believe in something rather than nothing, and it is better to believe things fervently than to be lukewarm. Nobody likes fence sitters—Christ least of all. In the Apocalypse, He will spit the lukewarm out of His mouth. Rev. 3:16. An open mind is like an open mouth: the point is to close it on something solid. Perpetual fence sitting is not a mark of a sophisticated “neutrality” that lingers until sufficient “evidence” presents itself. In reality, it is a choice for spiritual decay and, eventually, death.

You either get off the fence or you rot there.

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Someone who sincerely and strongly believes a given proposition, even if he is in error, is superior to someone who is apathetic when confronted by fundamental questions of reality, or who is hostile to the prospect that he must take such questions seriously. The former person, at least, believes that the questions themselves matter—which means that he cares about the answers and is open to new information. But the latter one, for whom existential issues are of equal or lesser import than what’s for dinner—he is a lost cause. Such a one’s soul is deaf to the call of religion, which represents a “divine map,” if you will, for understanding reality: whence Man has come and whither he is going, how he ought to act during his brief but weighty sojourn on Earth, and what his relationship to God fundamentally consists in.

On these things, Islam gets key things wrong. But, again, it is better to be wrong and care deeply about such issues than to be apathetic or hostile to the possibility of there being any truth to be found regarding them, let alone a truth that binds. (St. Augustine of Hippo endorsed the etymology of religion as “to bind.”)

As I write this, we are in the heart of Lent, the Church’s annual commemoration of the mystery of Jesus’ 40-day struggle in the desert with the world, the flesh, and Satan. The culmination of Lent is Easter Sunday, the day of the Lord’s glorious Resurrection from the dead, followed 50 days later by Pentecost—the birthday of the Church, when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles in the form of tongues of fire. Acts 2:1–11. Muslims, on the other hand, believe that God created a Jesus “look alike” to die in His place at Golgotha.

Muslims flee from the Cross by insisting that Jesus Himself escaped its logic. And if Jesus did, then so can we, for no servant is greater than his master. Jn. 13:16. This is wrong, but it’s attractive and even sensible if you happen to find yourself gravitating toward Islam. As St. Paul proclaims, the Cross is “to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness.” 1 Cor. 1:23. Naturally, then, people will struggle with the Cross’s meaning. Nonetheless, something must be done about the Cross.

One can either accept it or reject it, but ignoring it is definitely not an option.

To reject the Cross is to reject Jesus as the Son of God, and to embrace the Cross is to embrace Jesus as the Son of God. Thus, to hold, as Muslims do, that Muhammad is the greater of the two is to hold that Jesus did not endure the Cross. For, if He did, then He would be greater than Muhammad.

Yes, I am saying that to have died on the Cross is a greater feat—infinitely greater, in truth—than to have escaped it. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus humbly and obediently abandons Himself to His Father’s gracious will as He anticipatorily suffers His impending death at Golgotha: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” Mt. 26:39. He does this because although “He already existed in the form of God,” He “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a [slave] and being born in the likeness of men.” Phil. 2:6–7. Power is meant to serve the weak; therefore, the greatest of all must be the servant of all. Mt. 23:11–12. Jesus lives out this command perfectly, and He calls each one of us to do the same. Heb. 4:15; Mt. 5:48.

I’m aware that this sounds bizarre. Even I, a faithful, orthodox Catholic, sometimes find myself recoiling from these teachings. They are utterly strange, and they defy human logic, which prizes strength, beauty, power, intellect, and competence over weakness, ugliness, impotence, simplicity, and incompetence. Nonetheless, the Lord says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, / Nor are your ways My ways . . . For as the heavens are higher than the earth, / So are My ways higher than your ways / And My thoughts than your thoughts.” Is. 55:8–9. Indeed, God deliberately chooses “the foolish things of the world to shame the wise” and the “weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong.” 1 Cor. 1:27.

Mary sings of the loveliness of “Divine inversion” when she visits her cousin Elizabeth, who was then most of the way through her pregnancy with John the Baptist: “He has brought down rulers from their thrones, / And has exalted those who were humble. / He has filled the hungry with good things, / And sent the rich away empty-handed.” Lk. 1:52–53. All this to say, “the foolishness of God is wiser than mankind, and the weakness of God is stronger than mankind.” 1 Cor. 1:25.

God, because he is so radically Other, is infinitely surprising. But that does not mean that we can’t follow His plan, albeit at a distance and with quite a bit of spiritual effort. He leaves us a trail, and He walks beside us as we journey, like pilgrims, to our eternal home with Him. He encourages and strengthens us on the way.

In point of fact, the Cross is an essential feature of the economy of salvation. As St. Athanasius of Alexandria explained 17 centuries ago, it’s deeply fitting that the Son of God took on human flesh and endured His most sorrowful Passion to save mankind from sin and death. Christ “took pity on our race, and had mercy on our infirmity, and condescended to our corruption, and, unable to bear that death should have the mastery—lest the creature should perish, and His Father's handiwork in men be spent for nought—He takes unto Himself a body, and that of no different sort from ours.”

God’s fundamental essence, if we can be so bold as to identify such a thing, is love. Scripture says that God is love. 1 Jn. 4:16. Jesus is “both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation”—the definitive self-revelation of God to Man. Dei Verbum § 2. Critically, to love requires community: One cannot love alone, in solitude. Aristotle’s Prime Mover is solitary, self-sufficient, and appears to lack nothing. But it does: friendship and love. As Pope St. John Paul II taught, “God in his deepest mystery is not a solitude.”

God is three distinct Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each shares the same substance, and all are, together, in a relationship of self-giving love from all eternity: a dance. (The Church Fathers used the Greek term perichoresis—something like the admittedly clunky phrase “interpenetrative indwelling.”) Without getting too deep in the weeds, and to avoid introducing confusion about the deepest mystery, it is enough to say, “The divine Unity is Triune.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 254.

God’s love is so immense and intense, so superabundant, that it overflowed into Creation, reaching its pinnacle in Man, who was created in God’s own image and likeness, through the Son, the Word of God, through Whom all things were made, and without Whom nothing was made. Gen. 1:26; Jn. 1:3. When Man fell, God set in motion a plan to save him, to bring him into eternity with Himself. That is what the Old Testament catalogs. All of it points to Jesus, Who is the culmination of that plan. Lk. 24:27.

In brief, God became a Man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, so that Man might become like God, to be taken up into the inner life of the Most Holy Trinity to behold the Beatific Vision for ever and ever.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He is extreme in his desire to find the one lost sheep, even leaving behind the 99 others in His flock to do so, and “[w]hen he has found it, he puts it on his shoulders, rejoicing.” Lk. 15:5. Jesus is the Good Samaritan. He recklessly and profligately risks His own life to save the life of a complete stranger on a dangerous road. Lk. 10:25–37. Jesus is like the Prodigal Son’s father, who, when the son “was still a long way off, [the father] saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him,” giving him a robe, a ring, sandals, and throwing a banquet feast in celebration of his return—even after that same son “devoured” the father’s “wealth with prostitutes”! Lk. 15:20, 22–23, 30.

Simply put, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. As St. Paul writes, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Rm. 8:38–39.

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Beyond all that, however, the Cross is deeply consonant both with reality and God’s character. Let us ponder why. The story of the holy Job helps.

In brief, after much suffering, reproach, dialogue, sorrow, affirmations of innocence, and prayers for relief, Job hears God speak, “from the whirlwind”: “‘Who is this who darkens the divine plan / By words without knowledge? / Now tighten the belt on your waist like a man, / And I shall ask you, and you inform Me! / Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? / Tell Me, if you have understanding.’” Job 38:1–4. After Job proclaims his ignorance of God’s wisdom, God instructs him to pray for his friends, and, when he has done so, he restores Job’s fortunes tenfold. Job 38:5–42:16. “And Job died, an old man and full of days.” Job 42:17.

There is something deeply true about this story. And yet, what strikes me is how ultimately unsatisfying it is. Yes, God’s majesty, wisdom, power, and designs are infinitely greater than our comprehension. Certainly Muslims hold to that. In Islam, God is pure will, so alien and transcendent that we cannot fathom anything of His “logic,” so to speak. If God commands that white is black, and vice versa, then so it is.

But this is not the Catholic way. We believe God is intelligible to us, even if only by what He is not—i.e., by negative implication we can know something of and about God. He has a “reason” proper to Him, even if it is not easy to grasp in our limited and fallible human perspective. And this is why the Cross happened: Because God is not content to thunder at us from within a whirlwind, cloaked in over-aweing power, might, and strength. He does not “pull rank” with shock-and-awe tactics, though He has every right to do so.

Instead, He does the most sublime thing possible. He enters into the mess—the pain and brokenness—of human existence, becoming a real human being, and by doing so utterly transforms human being. He confronts human depravity, sin, and death, and He completely destroys their power. He does not leave us alone to wail about our suffering, much of which is caused by human freedom, a necessary precondition for knowing, loving, and serving God. Instead, He so thoroughly respects our freedom that He allows us to misuse it in the most dreadful manner: to commit deicide against His only Son. He communicates with and lives among us in a manner befitting our rational natures, even though it requires Him to stoop down to our level. He takes us seriously by standing in radical solidarity with the human race; rather than merely explain why suffering, sin, and death do not have the last word—like some aloof, cosmic professor would—He shows us, viscerally, by partaking in that most terrifying and mysterious part of being human: dying (often painfully).

But, because He is God, He conquers death by rising from the dead on the third day, totally destroying in the process the power of sin, which was buried with Him but stayed in the tomb where it belongs.

All this to say, the Cross is simply the logical result of God’s nature, His very being and essence. God, a divine community of Persons Who love each other infinitely, desires to share that love with human beings, whom He created in His infinite freedom and goodness in order to know, love, and serve Him in this life, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.

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God wills our ultimate good, all of the time. He never stops. God is constantly laboring in our lives, to bring everyone into knowledge of the truth and, thus, salvation. So much so that He would lower Himself to be born of a woman, the blessed Virgin Mary, and live as a Man, to show us how to live as God would have us live. In, on, and through the Cross, Jesus reconciled all things to Himself. 1 Tim. 2:4; Col. 1:20.

This is why the Cross had to happen. It does not matter how far we have sunk into the muck of sin. Even unto death, God would not—indeed, He cannot—stop pursuing us. Which is why we cry out, in joy, thanksgiving, and awe, each year on Easter, “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”

On Tuesday, Ohio became the seventh such loss. There, by a margin of 53% to 46%, voters approved an amendment to the state’s constitution establishing a right to abortion.

If the first six post-Dobbs losses weren’t clear enough, surely the seventh conveys the message clearly: The pro-life movement has an abortion problem.

And the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have one.

Read the rest at The Blaze.

Dubium about the claim that the widespread practice of the blessing of same-sex unions would be in accord with revelation and the magisterium (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2357). 

According to divine revelation, confirmed in sacred Scripture, which the Church “with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, . . . listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully” (Dei Verbum, 10): “In the beginning” God created man in his own image, male and female he created them and blessed them, that they might be fruitful (cf. Gen. 1:27-28), whereby the apostle Paul teaches that to deny sexual difference is the consequence of the denial of the Creator (Rom 1:24-32). It is asked: Can the Church derogate from this “principle,” objectively sinful such as same-sex unions, without betraying revealed doctrine?

Rather than providing a yes-or-no answer, which is what that particular dubium, as well as the four others, sought, Pope Francis gave a fairly lengthy seven-part response, which I will briefly outline before explaining why at least some of it is worrisome.

The Pope Answers

Parts (a) and (b) affirm that marriage has “a unique essential constitution,” namely, that it is “an exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the begetting of children. . . . (Amoris Laetitia, 292).” Part (c) states that “the Church [therefore] avoids any kind of rite or sacramental that could contradict this conviction and give the impression that something that is not marriage is recognized as marriage.” That said, part (d) asserts that the Church “must not lose the pastoral charity that must permeate all [its] decisions and attitudes. The defense of objective truth is not the only expression of this charity, which is also made up of kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness, and encouragement.”

From that move, the critical piece of Pope Francis’ response comes in part (e):

For this reason, pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or more persons, that do not transmit a mistaken conception of marriage. For when a blessing is requested, one is expressing a request for help from God, a plea for a better life, a trust in a Father who can help us to live better. (Emphasis added.)

Part (f) both acknowledges the reality of objectively sinful situations and states that “pastoral charity itself demands that we do not simply treat as ‘sinners’ other people whose guilt or responsibility may be due to their own fault or responsibility attenuated by various factors that influence subjective imputability (cf. St. John Paul II, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 17).” Finally, part (g) cautions that “[d]ecisions which, in certain circumstances, can form part of pastoral prudence, should not necessarily become a norm,” and, consequently, “it is not appropriate for a diocese, an episcopal conference or any other ecclesial structure to constantly and officially authorize procedures or rites for all kinds of matters.”

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What’s the Big Deal?

The first thing to notice is the implicit suggestion, seen throughout the first four parts of the pope’s response, that doctrinal truth and pastoral care are somehow irreconcilably opposed to one another. That is false, for as then-Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “[o]nly what is true can ultimately be pastoral.” Beyond that, it is strange to characterize a same-sex couple’s seeking a “blessing” of their relationship as a plea to God for His help for them to live a better life. First off, what merit could there be in “blessing” a relationship that entails objectively sinful actions? In what sense is it even possible for such a thing to be “blessed”?

Moreover, does not the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation—which effects “a true ‘spiritual resurrection,’ restoration of the dignity and blessings of the life of the children of God, of which the most precious is friendship with God”—already provide the means to live in accord with the Gospel? Certainly, blessings are valid and good, but if the point is to “go and sin no more” (Jn. 8:11), one wonders what more an innovative, parish-by-parish “blessing” could add to the awesome power of that Sacrament.

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How to Think About Why the Pope’s Position is Troublesome

Consider an unmarried couple. All (orthodox) Christians would agree that for them to intentionally engage in sexual intercourse would be fornication, a grave sin. Moreover, for, say, the man to inflame the (lustful) passions of the woman (or vice versa) is itself sinful—because he has set in motion the commission of a series of acts which have intercourse as their natural terminus but which cannot be morally fulfilled in their current state of life. “Fooling around” sends the unmarried couple hurtling down a path toward the performance of an act that they cannot sinlessly engage in. To put it bluntly, foreplay cries out for—it points to—sexual intercourse, and the former is not an end in itself but is instead a “participation” in the latter.

Pope Francis’ suggestion that it might be proper to “bless” same-sex couples’ relationships is wrong, or at least harmful, for similar reasons. Remember, he plainly admits in the first half of his response to the cardinals’ second dubium that marriage is a real institution with a particular nature/form, that marriage is a reality in which same-sex couples qua same-sex couples cannot participate, and that the Church cannot recognize things that are not marriages—here, same-sex unions—as marriages. That should be the end of it.

But it is not.

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Pope Francis seems to nudge same-sex couples toward believing and hoping that the Church can (and perhaps will) offer more to them and their relationships than what is actually possible. Just as it is immoral for the unmarried couple to have sexual intercourse (and so they should not do things that tend toward that act), Pope Francis should not make statements that can be construed as suggesting that something is metaphysically possible when it is not. At a minimum, what he should do is tell the truth in charity, strongly discouraging the idea that the Church might be open to a de facto change in Her teaching on marriage—a nullification of principle via practice. And he should do so unambiguously, avoiding unclear statements that partisans can seize upon to push their own agenda to “update” the Church’s teaching.

The unmarried couple should strive for chastity, staying far away from anything that might lead to fornication. So, too, should the Church be exceptionally clear about the nature of marriage and the correlative truth that same-sex unions can never be marriages. Thankfully, no lasting damage has yet been done; we would do well to fervently pray that that remains the case.

The House of Representatives worked diligently on Saturday to pass a 45-day continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown. The House Freedom Caucus refused to support any measure that included funding for the ongoing war in Ukraine. Setting aside that peculiar revolt against the foreign policy blob’s ironclad preference for permanent war, however, it was a fall day in Washington, D.C., indistinguishable from so many others.

Until it wasn’t.

Read the rest at The Blaze.

On abortion and transgenderism, American conservatives are in danger of losing some eminently winnable ground.

Read the rest at The Blaze.

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Note: Due to word-count constraints, I wasn’t able to elaborate on something important. My argument is pro-life only if the ultimate goal regarding abortion remains fixed on attaining full protection of unborn life. Prior to the realization of that goal, however, Trump’s instincts on abortion are basically correct; it would be a mistake to take the maximalist position (or even something like what Florida has done) when that is currently too far outside the Overton Window, it has no chance of nationwide success, and an attempt to force it through might even backfire and make the country less, rather than more, committed to protecting life.

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Of course, there is a danger of over-reading my argument to say that we must robotically defer to polls. But that’s wrong (and not just because polls can be wrong) because a statesman’s task is not merely to follow public opinion but to shape, mold, and direct it in service of the common good. Naturally, then, a statesman works with what he has. He may say contradictory things from one moment to the next, or not press his rhetoric to its logical conclusion, but if his ultimate goal remains the same, then he has, in truth, been consistent in the way that matters. See Winston Churchill’s “Consistency in Politics” for a fuller discussion.

Now, I don’t pretend to know whether that is, in fact, Trump’s orientation toward the full pro-life position; it might not be. Regardless, I certainly don’t think that what he’s said is disqualifying. Everyone needs to take a breath.

One typo fixed on Monday, September 25, 2023, at 4:50 p.m.

The myth originates from the Watergate scandal 50 years ago.

Read the rest at The Blaze.

I cannot fully express how humbled and honored I’ve been that you’ve taken this journey with me. Here’s to many more hottakes—just not in the immediate future!

—DAK

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On a whim, I decided to read it once again, and I think that my (oppositional) thoughts have settled enough to put in print.

Hitchens’ core thesis is that the concept of “addiction” is nonsensical: “The chief difficulty with the word ‘addiction’ is the idea that it describes a power greater than the will. If it exists in the way we use it and in the way our legal and medical systems assume it exists, then free will has been abolished.”

Quite a bold claim. But it’s wrong—though I understand the temptation to think and to argue such a thing.

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Considered reflection on the concept of addiction reveals not that its existence abolishes free will in toto, as Hitchens maintains, but, rather, that it fatally cripples a critical portion of our free will. Anyone who has struggled in vain to not eat the cookies in the cookie jar, or who has tried but failed to refuse a birthday dessert at the office (remember those?), knows something of what this experience is like.

Hitchens’ implicit view seems to be that for there to be true freedom of the will, it must be absolutely unencumbered by any social pressures, psychological forces, biological drives, conscious desires, unconscious longings—anything that can encumber the will, yields a not-truly-free will. And Hitchens must believe this; after all, proponents of the view of addiction against which he argues would maintain that addiction is simply an extremely powerful form of such pressures/forces/drives/desires/longings—one that is so potent that it totally impairs the will in a critical respect, shackling it to the object and outlet of the addiction (e.g., food, sex, drugs, alcohol, etc.). In other words, addiction—which influences behavior quite a lot—is a phenomenon whose difference from those other phenomena—which also influence behavior, though to a lesser degree than does addiction—is one of degree, not kind.

But Hitches disclaims that radical view of free will (which is good, given that it’s obviously false). As social, embodied creatures, the existence and operation of such things are “baked into the ‘freedom’ cake,” so to speak. In other words, our freedom is, of necessity, bounded. Human freedom just is channeled and limited by the fact that we are fleshly, politico-social animals (who can reason and speak as well).

To insist that “true” freedom requires freedom from any influence whatsoever is to insist on an impossible fantasy world: Our freedom is not God’s, Who is the Source and Summit of true human freedom.

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Hitchens goes on to acknowledge that such things as social pressure aren’t destructive of free will and that they can have a salutary effect in helping so-called addicts kick their “habits” (as he prefers they be called). As he writes,

supposed “addicts” can and do give up their supposed addictions. It is not only smokers who do this. I also know several formerly very heavy drinkers who have done it, generally because of fears for their health or their professional standing. Even heroin abusers, and gamblers, can and do just stop. Reason has overcome desire.

Consequently, in Hitchens’ view, “the whole idea of ‘addiction,’ as a power greater than will, is overthrown. Once again, if ‘addiction’ exists, these people cannot exist. If they exist, ‘addiction’ cannot exist. Since we know that such people do exist, the riddle is solved.”

But this is a false dichotomy.

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It is not that addicts have no freedom at all, across every moment of every day, with respect to every choice they might make. If that were true, then of course no person could recover from his or her addiction—because no person could ever make a choice to take steps to tackle his or her addiction. Everything such a person did would be defined and controlled by his or her addiction—the addiction would run “all the way down.” But people achieve that outcome—freedom from the daily, practical oppression of their addictions—on a daily basis. Therefore, something in Hitchens’ understanding of the nature and scope of addiction must be off.

As I see it, the flaw in Hitchens’ view is that it requires believing that addiction is a completely totalizing phenomenon—i.e., that it structures and determines absolutely every single choice the so-called addict makes, regardless of whether it be directly related to the addiction or not. In other words, for Hitchens, a true addict would be someone whose will is so absolutely and utterly enslaved to and by the addiction such that, even in his more lucid moments—like when he is spatially and psychologically far from the object of his addiction (i.e., not immediately in thrall to it)—he cannot make choices that will eventually help him be free of his compulsive need to “act out” (to use the language of Twelve Step programs). And because no such person exists, “addiction” is a “fantasy.”

But that goes too far.

Addiction does impair the will utterly, yes, but the scope of that impairment is not absolute. Addiction doesn’t penetrate so deeply such that even seemingly unrelated decisions (e.g., the addict’s choice of what breakfast cereal he’ll have in the morning) are simply a necessary function of addiction’s operation. Our addict remains genuinely free in critical respects, most importantly in his ontological core, as a creature made, out of love and for love, in the holy image of Almighty God. That is a freedom that cannot be erased by anything, and it is by having recourse to it that one can find “sustainable relief” from one’s addiction (to use another Twelve Step program phrase).

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Hitchens ventures a guess as to why our culture has embraced the current understanding of addiction:

It was the triumph of the Christian religion that for many centuries it managed to become the unreasoning assumption of almost all, built into every spoken and written word, every song, and every building. It was the disaster of the Christian religion that it assumed this triumph would last forever and outlast everything, and so it was ill equipped to resist the challenge of a rival when it came, in this, the century of the self. The Christian religion had no idea that a new power, which I call selfism, would arise. And, having arisen, selfism has easily shouldered its rival aside. In free competition, how can a faith based upon self-restraint and patience compete with one that pardons, unconditionally and in advance, all the self-indulgences you can think of, and some you cannot? That is what the “addiction” argument is most fundamentally about, and why it is especially distressing to hear Christian voices accepting and promoting it, as if it were merciful to call a man a slave, and treat him as if he had no power to resist.

But Man is a slave to sin. St. Paul tells us this very clearly: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Rm. 7:15.) Is there a better, more succinct description of “addiction [to sin]” than that?

The truth is, addiction is more powerful than an addict’s will to resist; millions will testify to that fact. But that doesn’t mean that the whole idea of addiction—given the reality of human freedom—is somehow bunk, or that the situation is hopeless.

Indeed, many have found that very hope through various Twelve Step programs, which shepherd these souls to peace and freedom by inviting them to acknowledge and then to live out the following simple, yet profoundly deep, spiritual truths:

1. We admitted we were powerless over addictive sexual behavior—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

Hitchens is right that “the century of the self” poses a major problem. For it is precisely self-reliance—an inability to see everything in life, even our freedom, as a gift from God, Who loved us into being and wants nothing more than to be in a loving relationship with us—that has gotten us into this mess.

Until we re-learn that freedom is only intelligible and effective when it aims at the Good—God Himself—we won’t grasp the reality, and more importantly the limits, of addiction. Freedom and addiction are not at odds; in truth, they are intertwined.

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Our idols—of which addiction is one—always enslave us. And it is only by having “no other gods” before the one true God, by “lov[ing] the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might,” (Deut. 6:5), that we can be truly free.

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From the show description:

In this episode of The Moral Imagination Podcast I speak with Deion Kathawa about his essays at Public Discourse Technology and Dignity. We discuss a number of topics including

• digital technology

• social media

• biotech

• genetic engineering

• CRISPR

• post and trans-humanism

• transgenderism

• technology and power

• how tech effects the rich and the poor and middle class

Kathawa argues that the new digital and biotechnology threaten our human in explicit and implicit ways from distraction to liquidation to degradation and that we need not only better law, but authentic religious practice, liturgy, and human friendship to resist these threats.

We discuss the religious and philosophical sources of transhumanism from materialism to gnosticism, and human perfectibility and various thinkers including C.S. Lewis and Robert P. George. We also discuss the difference between transhumanist / transgender philosophy which sees the body as either malleable that needs perfection or the body and sexuality as something to escape from in contrast to the Christian view of the being and the body as good and part of who we are as embodied, embedded persons.

There are links to some good resources at the end, too.

Huh? What’s a “blackpill”? Some new concoction courtesy of Big Pharma?

No, actually. It’s worse. (I know, hard to believe.)

The “blackpill,” explained

The concept has its origins in incel internet circles. For those who don’t know, “incel” is short for “involuntary celibate”—think Elliot Rodgers, who, before he killed six people and wounded 14 more in Isla Vista, California in 2014, made a video manifesto, among others, in which he said, “I’m the perfect guy and yet you [women] throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men instead of me, the ‘supreme gentleman.’”

According to the “pill jargon” page on “incels wiki,” the blackpill is “[a] pessimistic, nihilistic or defeatist version of the redpill, where [some]one accepts the fate nature has bestowed upon them, and resigns themselves to the fact that the world is naturally unfair and will always remain so.” To have swallowed the blackpill is to be blackpilled, and one who dispenses blackpills, or who holds a certain critical mass/number of blackpill beliefs, is a blackpiller.

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Logically, then, someone can be blackpilled about any number of topics (indeed, “incels wiki” explains that a blackpill generally “refers to a proclaimed fact with particular dire and inevitable consequences”). But the blackpill that I want to focus on has to do with romance and dating. This particular blackpill is that

men’s dating problems require systemic rather than personal solutions, if a solution exists at all. It has emerged in opposition to the redpill movement which instead promotes self-improvement and various dating tricks.

I don’t normally quote the Anti-Defamation League, but they have a helpful guide to online “pills.” There, blackpiller incels are described as “believ[ing] that their situation is permanent and inescapable. In a blackpilled world the sexual marketplace is governed exclusively by genetics. A man is either attractive to the opposite sex or he is not, and no amount of self-improvement can change this.”

As a result, a common phrase you’ll see bandied about in blackpill circles is, “You’re either coping or roping”—the latter being to commit suicide. Whether any given commenter using such macabre language is serious or not is often hard to tell.

To sum up: The blackpill is a doom drug; it’s nihilistic in scope and generates despair in the one who ingests it.

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We should take the romantic blackpill seriously

However, I want to be careful not to give the impression, based on the descriptors I’ve used, that blackpill ideology is frivolous. It’s easy to dismiss a view by deploying charged rhetoric against it (like, e.g., calling someone who favors a non-porous border and lower immigration flows a “xenophobic bigot”). A slur is not an argument, nor is a slogan, even though they’re exhilarating, and easy, to use. I do think the blackpill is both wrong and destructive, but I want to take it seriously, if for no other reason than so many of my fellow men are in thrall to it.

The people for whom the blackpill appears to be true deserve an interlocuter who takes their position seriously, especially because those who adhere to it are in quite a lot of pain. Too often they are dismissed as freaks by mainstream commentators, and their struggle is mocked.

Whatever else I might accomplish in this post (and any possible future ones),1 I promise that I won’t mock romantic blackpillers, those who struggle and fail to attain romantic love, which is one of life’s great, albeit very mysterious, joys, not to mention a source of deep meaning.

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All that being said, I’ll just cut to the chase: Blackpillers have a point. There is a subset of men for whom romance is nothing more than an endless series of continuous strike outs with women. And these strike outs do appear to correlate with certain traits over which they have no control, like height. To state the obvious, tall men have a much easier time with women. Moreover, many blackpillers argue that certain facial structures—and even race—are highly determinative of romantic success. Without extreme—and probably impossible—medical interventions, these traits are fixed. It’s not my intention to get into the empirical dimension of this debate, mostly because I think it’s a distraction from the real issue: what drives the blackpill worldview.

Why the blackpill falls short

Because SK readers are some of the most astute in the world, I suspect you’ve figured out by now that the blackpill is just the modern term for the sin of despair—which is the flip side of the virtue of hope. But this modern terminology obscures more than it illuminates (though, admittedly, it’s quite a lot fun to use).

The reason that despair is a sin is because it violates the First Commandment—you shall worship the Lord your God and Him alone shall you serve (see Deut. 6:13-14; Mt. 4:10)—which is connected to the theological virtue of hope. By and through hope, “we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.” (See Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 1817.)

As for despair, by and through it,

man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins. Despair is contrary to God’s goodness, to his justice—for the Lord is faithful to his promises—and to his mercy. [See CCC, para. 2091.]

Romantic blackpillers’ despair stems from their belief that they have no control over their situation. In other words, blackpillers are convinced that they’re subject to, and swamped by, forces totally outside their power: Their freedom to improve their lot is merely an illusion. It’s doom and death—“lay down and rot”—all the way down, as far as the eye can see, forever.

The technical term for this would be biological/genetic determinism. For blackpillers, genes are God.

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But that is a contentious and contested philosophical claim, which has not been adequately justified by professional philosophers, let alone internet blackpillers. Blackpillers like to point to studies, charts, graphs, and various data to “prove” that romance is a rigged game, and that they and their ilk are doomed to be its losers. But human freedom is real, and to hold that only material causes matter is to fall prey to the conceit of scientism, the idea that empirical methods can answer all questions—indeed, that all questions and issues are merely technical, susceptible to technocratic resolution. Scientism evacuates the world of the spiritual and the mystical, which are far more necessary to Man’s life and flourishing than data and material comforts.

Truly, “Man does not live by bread alone.” (See Mt. 4:4.)

At bottom, however, we might grant everything the blackpillers say—minus the biological/genetic determinism premise, of course, which is basically silly; nobody lives as though they have no freedom—and it doesn’t change the fact that they’re wrong about the purpose of life.

Implicitly, and in typical Darwinian fashion, blackpillers hold to the view that the point of life, the highest good, is to reproduce. Romance is just the way to get to that end state. Many of them act as though not being able to ensure that their genetic information will carry forward into the future through their children and grandchildren is the worst tragedy possible. But that’s an exceedingly odd view for a materialist to hold. Eventually, they’ll die, and when they do, they won’t even be aware that they failed in this quest; they’ll be gone. Poof. What will it matter if they didn’t succeed in passing along their genetic code by reproducing?

The resolution of the tension, the weirdness, is that biological/genetic determinism is false. We are spiritual beings who care about justice and love—because those things are real, more real than what we can merely see and touch. What blackpillers want deep down is a meaningful relationship with someone. (Many say this in the comment sections; they lament that, even if they do manage to find a woman to settle down with, she’ll only be with them for security, after she’s had her real fun with the “Chads” of the world, to whom she’s genuinely attracted.)

Blackpillers want to be accepted and loved. They want to have done something meaningful with their time on Earth. But in the face of that desire, they’re gripped with the realization, which cripples them, that life is suffering.

Honestly, I don’t disagree. Life is hard. Really hard. Sometimes almost unbearably so.

But there is a way through it. Catholicism, my religious tradition, has quite a lot to say about suffering. Take the Book of Job, which describes immense, world-shattering tragedies that befall a righteous man: His family is slain, all his wealth destroyed, his body is afflicted with disease, and his friends blame him for his misfortune before they abandon him.

I dare you to tell me that you have it worse.

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The point of all this is to note that the telos of life is to live well. Finding a partner, in the last analysis, is irrelevant to whether you’re virtuous, whether you’re walking faithfully with and toward God, the only lasting desire of the human heart.

Everything blackpillers say about romance can be true, and it still wouldn’t change the fact that they’re deeply wrong about the deepest level of reality. However desirable and fun it would be to have a significant other, a partner, a spouse, such an accomplishment isn’t the point of life. Rather, God—knowing Him, loving, Him, and serving Him—is.2

Instead of reading whatever I, just some guy on the internet, might produce regarding this issue, I invite you to take some time to learn from a true statesman; incredibly, the speech was given by Lincoln when he was just 28 years old (and . . . now I feel like I haven’t accomplished nearly enough; thanks, Abe). Here’s an excerpt:

The question recurs, “how shall we fortify against [mob rule]?” The answer is simple. Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;—let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap—let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;—let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.

Until next week,

DAK

Hochman’s essay has much to recommend it. It’s a useful, fairly comprehensive guide to the contours of the new Right, which is focused in the immediate term on passing “anti-critical-race-theory laws, anti-transgender laws and parental rights bills.” It also describes how it came to be. The new Right is “distinctly different from the culture wars of the late 20th century, and it reflects a broad shift in conservatism’s priorities and worldview.” As the title of Hochman’s essay plainly suggests, “The conservative political project is no longer specifically Christian.”

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This is correct, but it’s a big problem—and why I cannot wholeheartedly and unreservedly endorse the new Right. Much like Irving Kristol on capitalism, I can only give it two cheers, though I’ve no doubt that it can be a useful vessel. In the decades since World War II, conservatives have been beating a hasty, pathetic retreat. “[O]n issues like school prayer, no-fault divorce and homosexuality,” conservatives have been routed. That we are finally scoring some “Ws”—having pivoted to “questions of national identity, social integrity and political alienation”—is a huge relief.

But I can’t pretend that these successes are unalloyed goods, and we shouldn’t view them that way.

A fundamentally atheistic, or pagan, and certainly libertine (though thankfully in important ways less libertarian), political Right—while it might rack up some important short-to-medium-term political and policy victories—will ultimately fail in the long term if it is not deeply rooted in and informed by authentic Christianity.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand why Christianity has lost its “senior partner” status in the movement, moving from its full-time driver to now a part-time one—and probably soon to be a mere disgruntled passenger. Critically, Christians have not proven themselves to be worthy leaders and stewards of the Right. Many today are—and have been for a while—weak, compromised, foolish, spineless, and unwilling to engage in the rough and tumble of politics to secure individual rights and the common good. In a sense, it’s fitting that they’ve been dethroned.

But it’s nonetheless not a development for which we should affirmatively cheer.

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Christians are called to be for the world like unto leaven, so that the “bread” of society might rise up as a pleasing offering to God (see Lk. 13:20-21). Thus, their exclusion from politics can portend only long-term negative trends and consequences, regardless of how things might seem to us in the here and now.

Fundamentally, only a robust, orthodox Christian politics has the power successfully to resist, rebuke, and push back progressive, technocratic Wokeist tyranny. All of the things that the new Right claims to want—serious enforcement of immigration laws, protection and promotion of a distinctly American way of life, colorblindness, gender sanity, parental rights (especially in education), and genuine self-government—have Christianity as their strongest foundation.

You can rage at this assessment all you want, but it’s true. Sure, Christianity might tend toward, e.g., more lax immigration policies. But what else is going to help you push back against the Left’s current constellation of priorities: trans madness, racism, bureaucrats-as-parents, and globalism as far as the eye can see? Barstool-ism? Joe Rogan? Bill Maher?

Obviously not.

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What we need is a strong, vibrant, living intellectual tradition that provides a compelling meta-narrative—a story about reality—into which people can slot themselves and find their footing as they navigate life’s challenges and hardships. Dave Portnoy’s talking like a Democrat on abortion—“just let a f---ing woman do what she wants with her body” he said after the draft opinion in Dobbs was leaked—simply won’t cut it.

Which leads me to my final point. These new members of our coalition ought to have a little humility. Sure, the old guard failed quite a bit, but that doesn’t entitle freshly minted Rightists to swagger onto the scene and start calling all the shots as though they’ve been here from the beginning. Bluntly, you haven’t put in enough time to gatekeep “true” rightwing politics. Heck, I’m not even sure you are properly classified as a member of the Right. Have the self-awareness to be grateful for what’s been accomplished and the grace not to bluster about as though you have all the answers and now own the joint.

We’ve been burned by the neocons, the former Communists who migrated into the Republican Party; we should be wiser this time around and not let our movement be coopted and tamed by interlopers with their own priors and worldviews that are not necessarily conservative/rightwing.

Admittedly, my statement of what I would prefer probably amounts to little more than shouting into the void. As Hochman correctly notes, America is much less religious now than it was after World War II—a trend that appears as though it’ll continue apace, which will simply push Christians into the position of being quasi-creative minorities. That’s not the worst position to be in, frankly; much good comes from such as these, if they are committed to their role.

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Our task, in that scenario, would be to tend to the flame of Christianity, keeping it burning bright, so that when the world rediscovers its need for something more—as it desperately casts about for the antidote to its inevitable entanglement with nihilistic ennui—we will be there, ready to offer the hope and message of Jesus Christ, Who is “the first and the last, and the living one,” Who died, but is “alive for evermore,” and has “the keys of Death and Hades” (see Rev. 1:17-18).

Update (June 3, 2022, 6:55 p.m.): Minor grammatical changes (and the addition of of a couple of missing words) throughout.

I must also offer an apology for yet again depriving you all of sweet, sweet #content. But there is a good reason (well, maybe not “good” but certainly reasonable: I’m busier than usual this time of year). For one thing, I’m preparing for a top-secret conference this weekend, and then the next weekend, I’ll be attending my delayed (by two years!) law school commencement ceremony at Our Lady’s University.

My hope, however, is that by June, I’ll be back to providing you the regularly scheduled, email-delivered shots of intellectual adrenaline that you’ve all come to c̶r̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶j̶u̶n̶k̶i̶e̶s̶ expect each week.

Pax Christi.

—DAK

• Dating/romance and the “blackpill” (to get a sense of what it’s all about, see this YouTube channel)

• In keeping with my desire to engage with others who take religion seriously, I’m noodling various essays on:

  • The “hiddenness” of God and the challenges that poses

  • God as the Divine Director/Maestro

  • The wonder of God’s gentleness

• A lengthy (and already recorded!) appearance on “The Moral Imagination Podcast,” produced by the wonderful Michael Matheson Miller, in which we discuss my two-part Public Discourse essay on transhumanism (forthcoming . . . at some point—stay tuned)

If any of this excites you (or you have thoughts to share, which don’t even have to be related to any of this), drop a comment below. And if there’s anything you want me to write about, likewise.

Finally, let’s take this opportunity to spread the word about SK. I want this substack to be a household name (preferably before I go to meet my Maker!).

Thanks for all your support. It means more than I can adequately express.

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Yes, you read that correctly. You’re not a real conservative if you think Roe—which licensed the deaths of more than 60 million babies over the course of nearly 50 years—should go.

Stephens begins by telling us what he thinks it means to be “conservative”:

Read the rest at American Greatness.

At present, the West’s singular, distinctive feature is its lack of reverence for God. Its people have forgotten Him. Their churches are empty. Consequently, they worship cruel, demanding idols: diversity, equity, inclusion, tolerance, comfort, status, sex, and self-expression. The list goes on.

It is not that Westerners hate God; rather, they simply live as though He is not real, or that, if He is, His existence is of no practical relevance. Nothing about their everyday lives suggests an awareness, let alone a respect, for God and His will. For decades and decades, like a fool who saws off the branch on which he is sitting, the West has been cutting itself off from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God not of the dead, but of the living. So dramatic is this rejection that Millennials are choosing to sterilize themselves rather than being fruitful and multiplying, as God in Genesis commands. (See Gen. 1:28.)

Is it any wonder the West is dying before our eyes?

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Not so in the Islamic world, even though, to be clear, my view is that Islam embodies dangerous perversions of the truth about God, Jesus Christ, and salvation. There, belief in God is alive and well. I am a Catholic, and it pains me deeply to see this disparity.

But do not hear what I am not saying. I am a staunch Catholic, though I certainly respect the fervor with which Muslims practice their religion. In light of the West’s existential ennui, its decadence, it is refreshing to realize that tens of millions take their faith seriously in the face of the corrosive acid of modernity. I write in a shared spirit. I take God seriously, and so do millions of Muslims. We are devoted to God, and we do not fear the world’s punishments because God is sovereign over all things and has conquered the world. We know the God of history—and, critically, that God is not History.

From this common ground, we can reason together. We can wrestle with what religion—the virtue of giving God his due—requires of us.

All things being equal, it is better to believe in something rather than nothing, and it is also better to believe things fervently than to be lukewarm. Nobody likes fence sitters—Christ least of all. He says that He will spit the lukewarm out of His mouth at the end of time! (See Rev. 3:16.) Perpetually sitting on the fence is not a mark of a sophisticated “neutrality” that lingers until sufficient “evidence” presents itself. In reality, it is a choice for spiritual decay and, eventually, death.

You get off the fence, or you rot there.

Someone who sincerely and strongly believes some proposition, even if he is in error, is superior to someone who is apathetic when confronted by fundamental questions of reality, or who is hostile to the prospect that he must take such questions seriously. The former, at least, believes the questions themselves matter—which means he cares about the answers and is open to new information. But the one for whom existential issues are of equal or even lesser import to what’s for dinner—he is a lost cause. Such a one’s soul is deaf to the call of religion, which represents a “divine map,” if you will, for understanding reality:  whence Man has come and whither he is going, how he ought to act during his brief but weighty sojourn on Earth, and what his relationship to God fundamentally consists in.

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On these things, Islam gets key things wrong. But, again, it is better to be wrong and care deeply about such issues than to be apathetic or hostile to the possibility of there being any truth to be found regarding them.

I write in the Roman Catholic Church’s Easter season. On Easter Sunday, and throughout the 50-day Easter season, which ends on Pentecost—the birthday of the Church, when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles in the form of tongues of fire (see Acts 2:1-11)—Catholics commemorate Jesus Christ’s Resurrection from the dead following His brutal Crucifixion on Good Friday. Muslims, on the other hand, believe that God created a Jesus “look alike” to die in His place.

The effect of such a view is an avoidance of the Cross by insisting that Jesus Himself avoided it. And if Jesus did that, then, logically, so can we. This is wrong, but it makes sense, if find yourself attracted to Islam. As St. Paul explains, the Cross is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (1 Cor. 1:23.) Naturally, then, people will struggle with the Cross’s meaning. Nonetheless, something must be done about the Cross. One can either accept it or reject it, but ignoring it is definitely not an option.

To reject the Cross is to reject Jesus as the Son of God, and to embrace the Cross is to embrace Jesus as the Son of God. Thus, to hold that the prophet Muhammad is the greater of the two, then of course Jesus did not endure the Cross—for, if He did, He would be greater than Muhammad.

Yes, I am saying that to die on the Cross is greater—infinitely greater, in truth—than to have escaped it. Jesus humbly and obediently abandons Himself to His Father’s gracious will as He suffers the anticipation of His impending death in the Garden of Gethsemane: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Mt. 26:39.) He does this because “though He was in the form of God, [He] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited” (Phil. 2:6). The greatest of all must be the servant of all. (See Mt. 23:11-12.) Jesus lives out this command perfectly (see Heb. 4:15), and He calls us to do the same (see Mt. 5:48).

I am aware that this is bizarre. Even I, a faithful, orthodox Catholic, sometimes find myself recoiling from these teachings. They are quite strange; they defy human logic, which prizes strength, beauty, power, intellect, and competence. Nonetheless, the Lord says, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways . . . For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (See Is. 55:8-9.)

Mary sings about the loveliness of “divine inversion” when she visits her cousin Elizabeth, who was then far along in her pregnancy with John the Baptist: “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” (See Lk. 1:52-53.) All this to say, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Cor. 1:25.)

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God, because he is so radically Other, is infinitely surprising. But that does not mean that we cannot follow His plan, albeit at a distance and with quite a bit of spiritual effort. He leaves us a trail, and He walks beside us as we journey, like pilgrims, to our eternal home with Him. He encourages and strengthens us on the way.

In point of fact, the Cross is an essential feature of the economy of salvation. And it is fitting that the Son of God should endure His Passion to save mankind from sin and death.

God’s fundamental essence, if we can be so bold as to identify such a thing, is love. Scripture says that God is love: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” (1 Jn. 4:16.) Jesus is “both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation” (See Dei Verbum § 2)—the definitive self-revelation of God to Man. Critically, love requires community. One cannot love alone. Aristotle’s Prime Mover is solitary and self-sufficient, appearing to lack nothing. But it does: friendship and love.

God is three distinct Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each shares the same substance, and all are, together, in a relationship of self-giving love from all eternity. Without getting too deep in the weeds, and to avoid confusion, it is enough to say, “The divine Unity is Triune.” (See Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 254.)

God’s love is so immense and intense that it overflowed into Creation, reaching its pinnacle in Man, who was created in God’s own image and likeness (see Gen. 1:26), through the Son, the Word of God, through Whom all things were made, and without Whom nothing was made. (Jn. 1:3.) When Man fell, God set in motion a plan to save him, to bring him into eternity with Himself. That is what the Old Testament describes. All of it points to Jesus, Who is the culmination of that plan.

In brief, God became a Man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, so that Man might become like God, to be taken up into the inner life of the Most Holy Trinity to behold the Beatific Vision for ever and ever.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He is extreme in his desire to find the one lost sheep, even leaving behind the 99 others in His flock to do so, and “[w]hen he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.” (Lk. 15:5.) Jesus is the Good Samaritan. He recklessly and profligately risks His own life to save the life of a complete stranger on a dangerous road. (See Lk. 10:25-37.) Jesus is akin to the Prodigal Son’s father, who, “while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him” (Lk. 15:20), giving him a robe, a ring, sandals, and throwing a banquet feast in celebration of his return (Lk. 15:22-23)—even after that same son “devoured [his] property with prostitutes”! (Lk. 15:30.)

Simply put, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. As St. Paul writes, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rm. 8:38-39.)

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Beyond all that, however, the Cross is deeply consonant both with reality and God’s character. Let us ponder why. The story of the holy Job helps. In brief, after much suffering, reproach, dialogue, sorrow, affirmations of innocence, and prayers for relief, Job hears God speak, “out of the whirlwind: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.’” (Job 38:1-4.) After Job proclaims his ignorance of God’s wisdom, God instructs him to pray for his friends, and, when he has done so, he restores Job’s fortunes tenfold. (Job 42:1-16.) “And Job died, old and full of days.” (Job 42:17.)

There is something deeply true about this story. And yet, it is striking in how unsatisfying it ultimately is. Yes, God’s majesty, wisdom, power, and designs are infinitely greater than our comprehension. Certainly Muslims hold to that. In Islam, God is pure will, so alien and transcendent that we cannot fathom anything of His “logic,” so to speak. If God commands that white is black, and vice versa, then so it is.

But this is not the Catholic way. We believe God is intelligible to us, even if only by what He is not—i.e., by negative implication we can know something of and about God. He has a “reason” proper to Him, even if it is not easy to grasp in our limited and fallible human perspective. And this is why the Cross happened: Because God is not content to thunder at us from within a whirlwind, cloaked in over-aweing power, might, and strength. He does not “pull rank” with shock-and-awe tactics, though He has every right to do so.

Instead, He does the most sublime thing possible. He enters into the mess—the pain and brokenness—of human existence, becoming a real human being, and He transforms it utterly. He confronts human depravity, sin, and death, and He completely destroys their power. He does not leave us alone to wail about our suffering, much of which is caused by human freedom, a necessary precondition for knowing, loving, and serving God. Instead, He so thoroughly respects our freedom that He allows us to use it to commit deicide against His only Son. He communicates with and lives among us in a manner befitting our rational natures, even though it requires Him to stoop down to our level. He takes us seriously; rather than merely explain why suffering, sin, and death do not have the last word—like some aloof, cosmic professor would—He shows us, viscerally, by partaking in that most terrifying and mysterious part of being human: dying (often painfully).

But, because He is God, He conquers it by rising from the dead on the third day, totally destroying the power of sin in the process.

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All this to say, the Cross is simply the logical result of God’s nature, His very being and essence. God, a divine community of Persons Who love each other infinitely, desires to share that love with human beings, whom He created in His infinite freedom and goodness in order to know, love, and serve Him in this life, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.

God wills our ultimate good, all of the time. He never stops doing so. God is constantly laboring in our lives, to bring everyone into knowledge of the truth and, thus, salvation. (See 1 Tim. 2:4.) So much so that He would lower Himself to be born of a woman, the blessed Virgin Mary, and live as a Man, to show us how to live as God would have us live. In, on, and through the Cross, Jesus reconciled all things to Himself. (See Col. 1:20.)

This is why the Cross had to happen. It does not matter how far we have sunk into the muck of sin. Even unto death, God would not—indeed, He cannot—stop pursuing us. Which is why we cry out, in joy, thanksgiving, and awe, each year on Easter, “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”

Update (May 1, 2022, 5:39 p.m.): Minor grammatical changes.