Catholic Latesthttps://www.patheos.com/Catholic LatestenCopyright 2008-2026, Patheos. All rights reserved.Fri, 30 Oct 2026 06:30:22 -0400patheos-feeds:B1E3756B4F884A6A9FE67FBB992AA0A1https://www.patheos.com/~/media/images/components/navigation/patheos/patheos-logo-black.pngpatheos-feed-item:0C50E5404E214EC5B7EBA99DFB15C88Bhttps://www.patheos.com/blogs/mudbloodcatholic/2026/10/the-sermon-on-the-mount-part-iii-matthew-538-618/The Sermon on the Mount, Part III: Matthew 5:38-6:18The Sermon on the Mount, Part III (Matt. 5:38-6:18) Two-page spread from The Sermon on the Mount (1845) by Owen Jones, an illuminated manuscript version of Matthew 5-7, showing the Our Father and its immediate context. The Lord, in one of the best-known parts of the Sermon on the Mount, provides midrash on two more mitzvot....

The Sermon on the Mount, Part III (Matt. 5:38-6:18)

Two-page spread from The Sermon on the Mount
(1845) by Owen Jones, an illuminated manuscript
version of Matthew 5-7, showing the Our Father
and its immediate context.

The Lord, in one of the best-known parts of the Sermon on the Mount, provides midrash on two more mitzvot*. This brings the total number of commandments he has commented on to six—vv. 21, 27, 31, 33, 38, and 43—in three loosely-themed pairs: two on self-restraint (against anger and against lust), two on fidelity to commitments (against divorce and against oath-taking), and two on benevolence (against retaliation and, finally, against any limit on the "range" of our benevolence). Intriguingly, his rulings on the first, second, and fourth* mitzvot which he discusses "place a hedge around the law," in the usual style of a Prysha*: so as not to draw near to murder, avoid even anger; so as not to draw near to adultery, avoid even lust; so as not to draw near to blasphemy, avoid even oaths. Meanwhile, those on the third, fifth, and sixth effectively overturn the* miztvot in question: there shall be no more divorce, no more retaliation, no more limitations upon good will.

Yeshua then passes to the subject of religious hypocrisy, which is the kind of vice that naturally shows itself most easily in public religious practice. He addresses three of the most prominent religious duties of contemporary Judaism, namely almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. The fact that he selects three is again striking: with the repetition of the final Beatitude in 5:11, we wound up with nine Beatitudes, followed by six antitheses between the text of the Torah and Yeshua's halakhic applications. I'm not clear what this nine-six-three structure means—maybe it's no more than a mnemonic device.

Matthew 5:38-6:18, RSV-CE

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’a But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil.b But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you,c and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect,d as your heavenly Father is perfect.d

A tzedekah or synagogue alms-box, ca. 1820,
now housed in the National Museum of
American Jewish History in Philadelphia, PA.

“Beware of practicing your pietye before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

“Thus, when you give alms,f sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocritesg do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners,h that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your roomi and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

"And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.j Pray then like this:

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
—On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our dailyk bread;
And forgive us our debts,l
—As we also have forgiven our debtors;
And lead us not into temptation,
—But deliver us from evil.

For if you forgive men their trespasses,l your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.m

“And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you fast, anoint your headn and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

Matthew 5:38-6:18, my translation

Part of Blessed Are the Peacemakers (1917)
by George Bellows.

"You have heard that the message was: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.a I tell you not to stand against an evil [person]:b but whoever slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him; and to him who wants the law on you to take your tunic, remit your mantle also; and whoever impresses you [into service] for one mile, go two with him. To him who asks of you, give,c and to him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away.

"You have heard that the message was: You will love your neighbor and you will hate your enemy. I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who hunt you; thus, you will become sons of your Father in the heavens, because his sun rises on evil [people] and good ones, and he rains on just [people] and unjust ones. For if you love those who love you, have you any repayment? Don't even tax officials do the same thing? Or if you greet only your brothers, what excess do you do? Don't even the nations do the same thing? So you will be finished,d as your heavenly Father is finished.d

"Be mindful not to do your justicee before people, to be seen by them; for if you are not, you have no repayment from your Father who is in the heavens. So whenever you give charity,f do not sound a trumpet before yourself, like performersg do in the synagogues and in the avenues, so that they may be glorified by people; 'amin, I tell you, they are well out of it with their repayment. When you are giving charity, your left [hand] must not know what your right is doing, so your charity is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will give back to you.

"And whenever you pray, do not be like performers; because they love to stand in synagogues and on the corners of broadwaysh to pray, so they may appear to people; 'amin, I tell you, they are well out of it with their repayment. Whenever you pray, go into your storeroomi and, having closed the door on yourself, pray to your Father in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will give back to you. Praying, do not yammer on like the nations, for they deem that they will be listened to in their much-wordiness; so do not be like them, for your Father knows what needs you have before you ask him.j So you will pray like this:

The Our Father in Greek from the Church of
the Pater Noster (part of a Carmelite nunnery on
the Mount of Olives). Photo by Anton17, used via
a CC BY-SA 3.0 license (source).

"Our Father in the heavens: your name, be it hallowed—your kingship, come—what you want, come that to be, as in heaven, on earth also; our bread on which we subsist,k give us today; and remit us our debts,l as we too have remitted our debtors; and do not bring us into trial, but draw us away from the evil [one].

"For if you remit people their trespasses,l your heavenly Father will also remit you; yet if you do not remit people, neither will your Father remit your trespasses.m

"Whenever you fast, do not become sullen-faced like performers, for they disfigure their faces so as to appear to people as fasters; 'amin, I tell you, they are well out of it with their repayment. When you fast, perfume yourselfn and wash your face, so you do not appear to be fasting to people, but to your Father in the secret [place]; and your Father, who sees in the secret [place], will give back to you."

Textual Notes

a. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth/Eye for eye and tooth for tooth | Ὀφθαλμὸν ἀντὶ ὀφθαλμοῦ καὶ ὀδόντα ἀντὶ ὀδόντος [ofthalmon anti ofthalmou kai odonta anti odontos]: Two things need to be said about this law, which does appear in the Torah. It tends to draw criticism, despite its surface text being, when you stop to think about it, about as obviously and exactly fair as a penalty system can be (when applied to deliberate injuries, anyway—there's perhaps room to dispute when an injury is wholly or partly accidental). The first is, this law was not imposing revenge upon a culture as a requirement. It is generally agreed by commentators that the "eye for an eye" rule was a limit upon how much revenge one could take for an injury.

And second, from a very early stage if not from the very beginning,1 this law was understood by the judges of batym din2 as indicating not literally gouging out eyes or bashing in teeth, but paying punitive fines. This was a very common feature of the justice system in a world that lacked extensive prisons, and it wasn't a regional quirk. The Anglo-Saxon word ᚹᛖᚱᚼᛁᛚᛞ [werġild], (apparently) compounded from ᚹᛖᚱ "man" and ᚼᛁᛚᛞ "payment, price," was a standard legal term for the financial compensation paid to the surviving relatives of victims by those found guilty of murder or manslaughter3, 4; it remained current in English, as a word if not a practice, well into modernity. (J. R. R. Tolkien uses it in the chapter "The Council of Elrond," with the usual modern spelling weregild, to describe Isildur's claim upon the One Ring. The term is plainly an archaism even there, and fantasy even before Tolkien's day tended to be "backwards-facing" and therefore more tolerant of obsolete language; but even with those allowances, he seems to have considered it the sort of word a Briton in the 1950s would, at worst, have no great difficulty looking up.)

b. Do not resist one who is evil/not to stand against an evil [person] | μὴ ἀντιστῆναι τῷ πονηρῷ [mē antistēnai tō ponērō]: Obviously the Lord does not mean this absolutely; he himself displayed limited passive resistance during his Passion, to the extent of not answering many questions from both religious and civic authorities. Moreover, the Church has since determined a far greater range of responses to evil than "limited passive resistance" are morally licit. This is partly tied up with the particular example chosen by Christ here: turning the other cheek in response to a slap in the face. Then as now, a blow of this kind was a severe insult; it is this—disgrace, rather than danger—which the Sermon on the Mount is instructing us to accept with equanimity. (We may also be called to accept danger, and to do so with the Lord's example in mind; but there are other reasons than mere selfish pride which may instead move us to protect ourselves in those circumstances, especially if there are people depending on us for their well-being.)

c. Give to him who begs from you/To him who asks of you, give | τῷ αἰτοῦντί σε δός [tō aitounti se dos]: It's kind of flabbergasting to observe that, in response to this command from the Lord, such a large fraction of practicing Christians in this country just say "No." Not even make excuses for not keeping it, but flat-out go into denial about it being a command he gave at all, and reject with contempt and indignance the very idea of keeping it. This is not a good sign.

d. perfect ... perfect/finished ... finished | τέλειοι ... τέλειός [teleioi ... teleios]: The Greek adjective comes from the term τέλος [telos] "end," both in the sense limit, finish, conclusion and in the sense goal, purpose, objective. Once upon a time, the English word "perfect" was a better match: its ultimate ancestor is the Latin verb perficere "to finish," or more literally "to through-make." Hence, "imperfect" was not originally a synonym for "flawed," but merely meant "incomplete," giving rise to e.g. the grammatical use of the word imperfect.

e. Beware of practicing your piety/Be mindful not to do your justice | Προσέχετε δὲ τὴν δικαιοσύνην ὑμῶν μὴ ποιεῖν [prosechete de tēn dikaiosünēn hümōn mē poiein]: My choice of the word "justice" here is really not very satisfactory; it's motivated by my desire to translate as consistently as possible, even if the sense of certain words have to be stretched, and this one is stretching. I don't have proof for this, but I have a hunch that δικαιοσύνη here, "justice" or "righteousness," is translating the Hebrew term צְדָקָה [tz'dhåqåh] (or more probably, translating the Aramaic word that conventionally represented צְדָקָה in the first century). We have run across a similar usage to this one already in the Gospel of Matthew, back in chapter 1's description of St. Joseph.

f. alms/charity | ἐλεημοσύνην [eleēmosünēn]: This word technically means "pity, mercy" (as in Kyrie eleison), but was also used as a term for alms, very like "charity" in English.

Mosaic depiction (c. 120) of tragic and comic
masks used in ancient drama from Hadrian's
Villa, about 10 miles outside Rome.

g. the hypocrites/performers | οἱ ὑποκριταὶ [hoi hüpokritai]: A ὑποκριτής [hüpokritēs] (the singular of ὑποκριταὶ) was a stage actor. Although drama was not to my knowledge an art form ancient Jews went in for very much, it was still a thriving industry in early Roman Empire: Seneca the Younger (the Stoic philosopher and, uh, tutor to the Emperor Nero in the latter's youth—whoops) was a celebrated playwright in his day. One of the many conventions of classical drama that we have since dispensed with is that the actors wore masks aligning with the character or characters they were playing. The parallel to religious hypocrisy that lies in playing a role rather than being the role is obvious, and is then doubly and trebly accented by the manifest artificiality of actors' masks, especially given the masks' complete fixity of expression—a trait which I have to assume a segment of the populace in antiquity must have loathed as nightmare fuel.

h. at the street corners/on the corners of broadways | ἐν ταῖς γωνίαις τῶν πλατειῶν [en tais gōniais tōn plateiōn]: The word γωνία meant "corner, angle," as when we speak of polygons, many-sided and therefore many-cornered shapes. Broadways is also a literal translation of πλατεῖαι [plateiai], a derivative of πλατύς [platüs]; the name "Plato" comes from the same root, which is why it equates precisely with the name "Brad."

i. room/storeroom | τὸ ταμεῖόν [to tameion]: This word typically meant a windowless chamber in the interior of a house, used as a pantry or for some similar purpose.

j. for your Father knows what you need before you ask him/for your Father knows what needs you have before you ask him | οἶδεν γὰρ ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὧν χρείαν ἔχετε πρὸ τοῦ ὑμᾶς αἰτῆσαι αὐτόν [to tameion]: This reminder has long been, and remains, a considerable help to being honest in prayer: clearly, we are not likely to catch the Almighty off-guard with unforeseen information! In its way, this points us toward one of the important purposes of prayer. Although idioms like Make your requests known to God appear often enough in the Bible, they clearly are idioms, and we are not telling God anything he does not already know (and indeed, know far more vividly than we do). A lot of people can't see any point in prayer for this reason. If God knows what we need and is half as benevolent as Christians maintain he is, what on earth is the point? Doesn't it make more sense to see prayer as a primitive habit borne of an anthropomorphic, indeed a childish, idea of what God is—like animal sacrifice, where the smell of cooking meat was supposed to soothe God's anger over sin!

There are a few things to be said about this, one of them being that atoning for sin was not the only, or even the primary, purpose of sacrifice in the Mosaic Covenant. There were about seven or eight regular forms of sacrifice at the Temple, not counting occasional offerings for holidays and unusual life events; of these seven or eight, only two—the חַטָּאת [chaṭå'th] and the אָשָׁם ['åshåm], literally "purification" and "guilt"—were about pardon for transgression. Other varieties, like the thanksgiving offering (referred to in Greek as an εὐχαριστία [eucharistia]), were as or more important.

3rd-c. fresco from the catacombs depicting
Christians at prayer (source).

As for what the purpose of prayer is, C. S. Lewis (as usual) hit the nail on the head:

We are always completely, and therefore equally, known to God. That is our destiny whether we like it or not. But though this knowledge never varies, the quality of our being known can. ... Ordinarily, to be known by God is to be ... in the category of things. We are like earthworms, cabbages, and nebulæ ... But when we (a) become aware of the fact—the present fact, not the generalization—and (b) assent with all our will to be so known, then we treat ourselves, in relation to God, not as things but as persons. We have unveiled. Not that any veil could have baffled this sight. The change is in us. The passive changes to the active ... we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view. ... The Person in Him—He is more than a person—meets those who can welcome or at least face it. ...

This talk of "meeting" is, no doubt, anthropomorphic ... That is why it must be balanced by all manner of metaphysical and theological abstractions. But never, here or anywhere else, let us think that while anthropomorphic images are a concession to our weakness, the abstractions are the literal truth. Both are equally concessions; each singly misleading, and the two together mutually corrective.
—Letters to Malcolm IV

k. daily/on which we subsist | τὸν ἐπιούσιον [ton epiousion]: The term ἐπιούσιον is a famous problem. It's what's known as a hapax legomenon, something said only once—but usually this means "once in an author's corpus," not, to all appearances, "once in the surviving corpus of Koiné Greek as a language"! The word seems to be a form of an unattested adjective *ἐπιούσιος [epiousios]. This is itself apparently a compound made of the preposition ἐπί (meaning "on, upon" or "to, onto, against," but in compounds often taking meanings like "over" or "after, in addition to") plus a masculinized form of οὐσία [ousia], which usually means "essence, substance"—for οὐσία is derived in turn from one of the many forms of the verb εἰμί [eimi], "to be." Thus, ἐπί + ούσιος5 appears to mean something like "upon which we exist."

This may make "daily" sound like a good, concise alternative to clunkily explaining what the (probable) word ἐπιούσιος (theoretically) means, since the bread we live on is what we eat from day to day. However, there's a problem: that equivalence of exist with live, while conventional in English, isn't really part of Greek idiom.6 If anything, ἐπιούσιος would seem to imply something more directly metaphysical than "daily bread" in the literal sense of the phrase—something closer to the still-famous quote from the poet Epimenides of Crete, "In him we live and move and have our being." Accordingly, this is sometimes interpreted as a prayer specifically to obtain the Eucharist. However, whether because the Eucharist had not been instituted yet or because he meant this clause to be of broader application, or for both reasons, other interpretations are possible, so I opted for a rendering that (I hope) gestures in the metaphysical direction, as it were, without nailing its trousers to the mast.7

l. debts ... trespasses | τὰ ὀφειλήματα ... τὰ παραπτώματα [ta ofeilēmata ... ta paraptōmata]: Alternation between these two metaphorical synonyms for sin is quite common in contemporary Judaic literature, and remains so in Christian jargon to this day. No doubt this partly due to texts such as this one.

m. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses/For if you remit people their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also remit you; yet if you do not remit people, neither will your Father remit your trespasses | ἐὰν γὰρ ἀφῆτε τοῖς ἀνθρώποις τὰ παραπτώματα αὐτῶν, ἀφήσει καὶ ὑμῖν ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὁ οὐράνιος· ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ἀφῆτε τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, οὐδὲ ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ἀφήσει τὰ παραπτώματα ὑμῶν [ean gar afēte tois anthrōpois ta paraptōmata autōn, afēsei kai hümin ho Patēr hümōn ho ouranios: ean de mē afēte tois anthrōpois, oude ho Patēr hümōn afēsei ta paraptōmata hümōn]: This may be the single most terrifying verse in the New Testament (though it has stiff competition, from elsewhere within the Sermon on the Mount). It is worth regularly recollecting exactly what forgiveness is, in order to grasp why this is true. I'm not sure why, but we seem to be extremely prone to imagining that forgiveness is other things. Below is a list of several things which forgiveness is not. Not all of them are sins in their own right—some of them are; others are neutral; one or two are positive goods. The crucial point is simply that they are different things from forgiveness.

The "Ladder of Divine Ascent" ikon (12th c.)
preserved in the Monastery of St. Catherine
on Mount Sinai.

• Pretending that an injury done to us didn't hurt (when it did), or wasn't wrong (when it was).
• Saying no more out loud about an injury while privately stewing over it, so it poisons our treatment of the person we have "forgiven."
• Deciding we'd rather tough out the effects of an injury than deal with the drama of correcting it.
• Deciding we are simply above being bothered by an injury, a là Nietzsche's "master morality" thing.8
• Choosing not to think about an injury, merely for our own peace of mind.
• Getting revenge. (You might not think we could mistake this for forgiveness: I have a hunch that this is far too stupid a mistake to believe it's never been made.)
• Excusing or rationalizing an injury because the person who did it does lots of other good things.
• Recognizing that the injury done to us was, in fairness, not truly the injurer's fault, and we have no reasonable cause to resent them.

That last one can be particularly difficult to accept; but, unlike the next-to-last one, it's the sort of case that excuse properly applies to. "To excuse" is, in the Latin, the preposition ex "out of" plus the noun causa "case, cause, charge, legal grounds." The derived verb excūsāre thus literally means something like "to find cause for exemption (from a law or penalty)," or "to dismiss charges (implicitly, due to special circumstances)." That is a fine thing, but it belongs to the virtue of justice: if someone truly does have an excuse for something, what that means is that holding it against them is unjust, not fair play, an offense in its own right. Behavior that needs an excuse is obviously not ideal, but rejecting a reasonable excuse is unreasonable. This is a point on which the Judaic idea of צְדָקָה from note e above—a "righteousness" that includes not merely the stern duties of justice, but the warmth of humaneness, generosity, and pity—is a critical corrective to our strangely truncated idea of the Law.

Forgiveness, though. Forgiveness demands even more from us than being righteous and reasonable. Forgiveness is choosing to be reconciled to someone who has either done the inexcusable, or has at any rate injured us without excuse. Of course, a lot of wrongdoing is not black-and-white; often, an offender will have some excuse for what they have done, yet not enough to render them blameless. It is at precisely the point where excuse runs out that forgiveness picks up. That is its nature. This is why, although other words for it (like absolution, pardon, and remission) are also appropriate, it's good to make a point of calling it "forgiveness" at least some of the time: because it is inherently a gift given, not something anyone could ever demand on any grounds at all.

And that is why it is so frightening to be informed that we shall be forgiven exactly as we forgive other people. That rule is so indisputably and exactly fair, it's—even if you were sorry, how could you possibly appeal for mercy in the face of such a rule? You'd have to have a judge who was infinitely ... oh right.

Lavender flowers (lavender was often an
ingredient in ancient perfumes, as it is today).

n. anoint your head/perfume yourself | ἄλειψαί σου τὴν κεφαλὴν [aleipsai sou tēn kefalēn]: This suggests a little more than just one's daily grooming; perfumes would be used specifically for festive occasions. I take this to mean, not "spruce yourself up as fully as you would for a party," but something more like "make a little extra effort so as to be completely inconspicuous," which suits the rest of the text better.

Footnotes

1See this article from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia on the lēx tāliōnis ("law of retaliation") for further details.
2Unless I'm sorely misinformed, batym din is the plural of beyt din (a Judaic religious court, a.k.a. a rabbinic court).
3Ancient Germanic societies, though we imagine them under intensely Wagnerian stage lighting, were not generally keen on the death penalty, at least not as imposed in an explicit way by public authority. Their harshest punishment was usually outlawry. This approached the death penalty, because anyone could injure or even kill an outlaw with no legal repercussions for doing so, and murder was among the few offenses that could get you outlawed, so there'd almost certainly be someone who wanted revenge on any outlaw. But even under this system, outlawry didn't necessarily require anybody to harm you (there were regional variations about this), and it might be possible simply to escape to somewhere your status as an outlaw was unknown. Furthermore, a person could be outlawed as a fixed-term penalty; e.g., in ᚴᚱᚬᚾᛚᛆᚾᛏᛁᚴᛆ·ᛌᛆᚴᛆ [Grœnlendinga Saga] ("The Saga of the Greenlanders"), Erik the Red is noted to have been outlawed by his local thing (the Norse word for a parliamentary gathering; to this day, the Icelandic legislature is known as the Althing, and yes, that does just mean "the all-thing," and I love how dumb that sounds in English)—anyway, Erik the Red is noted to have been outlawed, yet returns to Iceland only three years later, seemingly indicating that his outlawry was short-term.
4If you're wondering, yes, the Anglo-Saxon wer "man" is also present in the compound werewolf. It's the (now expired) English cognate of the Latin vir "man, male." The term goes all the way back to Proto-Indo-European, and has further cognates: one is the Sanskrit वी॒र [vīra] "man, hero; husband," which forms the latter part of the name taken by the founder of the Jain religion, Mahavira; another is the Icelandic word ver "husband"; a possible third is the Ancient Greek ἱέραξ [hierax], though if so, the meaning had changed to "hawk"!—on the assumption that the ancestral PIE term, *wiHros, was derived from the verb *weyh1- "to hunt," so that the primitive meaning of the noun was "hunter." If you weren't wondering, well, too bad, I've told you already.
5It has to take the masculine form, i.e. the one ending with -ος in the nominative singular, an ending cognate with the Latin nominative singular masculine ending -us (which in Old Latin had once been -os). The reason the adjective must take the masculine is that Greek adjectives have to "agree" in gender with the nouns they modify (like in Spanish), and it so happens that the word for bread, ἄρτος [artos], is masculine.
6Greek idiom does sometimes conflate to be with to be present, but this is a little different.
7"WOOLLEY: You mean, nail his colors to the mast. APPLEBY: No, nail his trousers to the mast. Then he can't climb down." (From Yes, Minister, Season 2, Episode 7: 'A Question of Loyalty,' written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn.)
8There is a concealed joke here. See, this sort of forgetfulness of injuries really does exist; Nietzsche was even more or less correct in attributing it to the "heroic temperament" he so admired, i.e. the loud, unreflective, cheerfully violent type of person who fights for the fun of it and bears no grudge when he loses. The real archetype of this personality, which is a fairly uncommon one, is not a Greek hero—even Achilles is, frankly, much too prone to resentment to qualify—but Tulkas, one of the superhuman Powers in Tolkien's Silmarillion. One can arguably trace the same lineaments in the historical person of Clovis I, and in the eponymous hero of the novel Peter Pan. The joke isn't (just) that the degree of unreflectiveness required to maintain such a personality is in truth quite rare among adults, and therefore can hardly have characterized any entire civilization, as Nietzsche wrongly and groundlessly pretended it did in Ancient Greece: the joke is that nobody who was like that would give a damn about Nietzsche or his ideas in the first place.

]]>Gabriel Blanchard

]]> ]]>Fri, 30 Oct 2026 01:03:37 GMTFri, 30 Oct 2026 01:03:37 GMTpatheos-feed-item:DD1AC7D9260C4A69862354C8BD6D5506https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thelatinright/2026/10/snoopy-and-the-gift-of-an-ordinary-afternoon/Guest WriterSnoopy and the Gift of an Ordinary AfternoonGuest writer: Pilgrim. Dancing in the Leaves This autumn’s news is much like every autumn’s. Wars drag on, prices climb, politicians quarrel, and the experts cannot agree whether the end will come by fire, flood, or algorithm. We scroll, we worry, and we feel someone ought to do something about it. Yet for Snoopy… Snoopy...

Guest writer: Pilgrim.

Dancing in the Leaves

This autumn's news is much like every autumn's. Wars drag on, prices climb, politicians quarrel, and the experts cannot agree whether the end will come by fire, flood, or algorithm. We scroll, we worry, and we feel someone ought to do something about it.

Yet for Snoopy...

Snoopy is wonderfully subversive. The world is full of people who need a cause, a campaign, a grievance, or at least a strong opinion about the state of civilisation. Snoopy needs a pile of leaves.

He dances in it, throws himself about with abandon, and finally announces, “I’m hooked on autumn!” Those who know him will know he’s hooked on all the seasons.

We have made happiness an extraordinarily complicated business. We pursue it through self-fulfilment, personal development, lifestyle choices, and the careful cultivation of our own importance. Snoopy finds it in the garden, courtesy of a season he did not invent and a tree that has not consulted him about its plans.

Chesterton would have appreciated the joke. The world is brimming with wonders, and our chief difficulty is that we keep demanding something more wonderful. We want to be astonished by the extraordinary while stepping over the ordinary. We search for meaning at the ends of the earth, when it may be lying in a heap outside the back door, waiting for us to jump in.

There is a Christian lesson here, though Snoopy would probably be alarmed to discover that his dancing had acquired theological significance. Creation is a gift before it is a resource, a spectacle before it is a problem to be solved. The leaves fall without asking our permission, and for a little while the world offers us beauty that we have neither earned nor purchased.

Gratitude begins when we stop treating such things as background scenery.

Autumn also reminds us that everything passes. The days shorten, and even Snoopy must eventually come indoors. But Christianity has never taught that things become worthless as they pass. The God who made the seasons also entered time, accepted the limits of mortal life, and transformed an ending into a beginning.

We need not turn every pleasure into a sermon. Sometimes a leaf is just a leaf, and a dog is just a dog enjoying himself. But perhaps one mark of grace is the ability to receive a simple pleasure without demanding it justify itself.

So let the philosophers debate the meaning of life, let the politicians rearrange it, and let the anxious modern soul devise another programme for becoming happy. Snoopy has found a better use for the afternoon. He is dancing in the leaves.

And if that isn’t a small reason to thank God, we may have made religion almost as complicated as happiness.

Thank you!

If you liked this article, please leave your comments below. I am very interested in your opinion on this topic.

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]]>Dennis Knapp

]]> ]]>Thu, 29 Oct 2026 21:09:42 GMTThu, 29 Oct 2026 21:09:42 GMTpatheos-feed-item:7FCF7AFA4FDF40FEAF786C2111BAE536https://www.patheos.com/blogs/publiccatholic/2026/10/detroit-archbishop-calls-voter-suppression-an-affront-to-god/Detroit Archbishop calls Voter Suppression an Affront to GodArchbishop Edward Weisenburger of Detroit says blocking voters offends God. A longtime voter responds by going to the polls in person, whatever it costs.

In what America Magazine called it “a sobering reminder about the importance of participating and preserving democracy.” Archbishop Edward Weisenburger of Detroit condemned government efforts to stop people from voting.

He called government voter suppression “an affront to God.” 

Trump’s “justice” department has reached absurd levels in its attempt to make sure that Republicans hold congress in the upcoming election. 

They’ve sent letters to election workers in blue states such as California threatening them with federal charges if they don’t comply with “justice” department demands that they refuse to allow people to vote and throw out ballots if they are suspicious the person might not be a citizen. 

Election workers aren’t cops. They’re just ordinary people like you and me. 

My mother was an election worker for years. Election workers are basically volunteers. Most of them are elderly women who give up their time to do this as a service to our country. 

Now they’ve got Trump and his personal henchman/attorney — who the Republicans in Congress obediently confirmed as Attorney General of the United States —hitting them with vague threats of being drug up on federal charges. 

This is not just an attack on these hapless election workers. It’s an attack on our right to elect who we want to govern this country. 

Election workers are an example of the many quiet heroes who keep this country running. A president who cared about America wouldn’t be threatening them. He would be thanking them. 

Another example of Trump’s “justice” department’s abuse of our freedom to vote is a wacko lawsuit it filed in the Alaska Senate election. 

That lawsuit came right out and said that if Trump’s Republican puppet senator loses the election, the “justice” department is going to move to stop the election from being certified. On the other hand, if Trump’s puppet wins the election, the “justice” department wants the election certified. 

That’s not hyperbole. Trump’s “justice” department put that in writing. 

Think about it. Trump’s “justice” department is suing to overturn the senate election in Alaska before the election has even taken place. 

If Trump’s puppet wins, they want the election certified. If Trump’s puppet loses, they want the votes of the people to be tossed in the trash and Trump’s puppet kept in office, whether he lost the election or not.  

Trump’s henchmen over at ICE are going to be present and, I would imagine, armed at polling places that Trump fears might vote Democrat. 

I’m an old woman. I’ve been voting longer than most of the people reading this have been alive. I have never once voted with an armed government thug overshadowing me before. 

This is America. We don’t do things like that. Or we didn’t. But that was then. This is now. Donald Trump and his puppets are running our government now. 

The Franciscan Action Network has been recruiting poll chaplains to help counteract government threats to our freedom to vote. “These poll chaplains may cast different votes, but they stand united against intimidation and for democracy,” Archbishop Weisenburger said. “That’s an example to us all … we will protect this fragile thing called democracy because it gives us our best chance at protecting one another.”

I have an absentee ballot. I need it for medical reasons. But I’m not going to use it. I’m going to the polls, no matter how hard it is for me to do it. I’m going to vote in person. 

I’m an American. My family members served in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. This is my country.

I’m voting to keep the freedom that was purchased with the blood of those who went before me. 

From America Magazine:

Less than two weeks out from the midterm elections, Archbishop Edward Weisenburger of Detroit offered a sobering reminder about the importance of participating in and preserving democracy.

“We’ve seen threats and acts of intimidation at voting locations. We have seen gerrymandering and voter suppression like closing polling locations in communities of color,” Archbishop Weisenburger said, addressing a group of parishioners and visitors at Gesu Catholic Church in Detroit on Oct. 21. “And while some might say, ‘Well, that’s just politics,’ I say, ‘It’s an affront to God.’”

“Just as the Catholic Church stands with immigrants, so too are we called to stand against racism and voter suppression,” Archbishop Weisenburger said.

 … “What does faith have to do with elections?” Archbishop Weisenburger asked. “Pope Leo wrote in ‘Magnifica Humanitas’: ‘Faith invites us to see … we are not merely neighbors to one another, but entrusted to each other so that each of us may take responsibility, as best we can, for the lives and wounds of our brothers and sisters.’

… “Every voter should be able to fully participate as a matter of human dignity and the common good.”

]]>Rebecca Hamilton

]]> ]]>Thu, 29 Oct 2026 13:40:57 GMTThu, 29 Oct 2026 13:40:57 GMTpatheos-feed-item:7A1535FBB0144DF8921C27F2F61E712Fhttps://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2026/10/why-mercy-not-condemnation-leads-sinners-home/graceMercysinWhy Mercy, Not Condemnation, Leads Sinners HomeSinners need to be shown mercy, so they are receptive of grace; just going around condemning them will leave them unreceptive of of grace.

Christ was accused of being a sinner, not only because of his willingness to be with them, but because he showed them mercy. He stopped a woman from being stoned. He proclaimed that tax collectors and prostitutes were closer to God than those who looked down upon them, thinking they were pious and pure, while the tax collectors and prostitutes were sinners. “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you” (Matt. 21:31b RSV). Many of those who studied the law and the prophets, those who held positions of religious authority, complained about the way Jesus interpreted or engaged the Torah. “Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,  ‘Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat’” (Matt. 15:1-2 RSV). These complaints were not made  out of any concern for hygiene; they were about concerns for ritual purity. Jesus' critics thought that Jesus treated purity laws in a blasphemous manner. It infuriated them and it is one of many reasons why Jesus was a challenge to them; he confronted their simplistic, legalistic, domineering and controlling mindset and exposed how it, not those who were merciful, ended up far from God and God’s ways.

Jesus showed us that we are to accommodate ourselves to the people we meet, to deal with them within their context, to show them love, taking into consideration their hopes and fears, but also dealing with them in such a way as to first address grave issues before addressing various secondary concerns. He explained that this is how God dealt with the people of Israel. “He said to them, ‘For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so’” (Matt. 19:8 RSV). Divorce is not good, but there are times in which it might be needed, that it would be worse if it is not given some allowance, which is why God accepted the flexibility Moses gave it. The intention was always for there to be no divorce, but that requires all marriages to be perfect, or at least, safe for those in them. Why God allowed divorce, why it was given such a dispensation, is that without it, a greater evil would have emerged, as many would have found themselves in abusive, if not, deadly situations if they were force to remain in a bad marriage.  In this way, we learn such accommodation is sometimes necessary, and when it is done, it is not done in support of sin, but rather, as a way to counter a greater sin, as Robert of Melun explained:

What Moses permitted was a dispensation. Since fornication is a lesser evil than murder, he permitted them to divorce their wives and take others lest they should be led to commit murder. That is, he permitted a lesser evil in order that a greater evil might be avoided. [1]

It is not right to read the mercy of Christ, and with it, the mercy of the church, as it is shown to sinners, accommodating to them where they are at, so as to help them better themselves and their situation, as supporting of sin. It is rather the reverse. It is about giving proper pastoral guidance, helping people avoid greater evils, greater, and worse sins. The mercy and grace offered in such situations will help those who accept it, and as it does so, it will help change the situation so that, over time the dispensation or grace might not be needed. The church is taking the sin seriously, but it is not dealing with it in a Pelagian manner. By the nature of the dispensation, that is, by the fact the church follows divine economia to help people in difficult situations, it is not affirming sin. Rather, it is embracing people the way Christ embraces everyone with love, and works with them, giving them more opportunities for grace, making sure they are not abandoned in the way legalists, who simply want to judge and condemn people quickly for their sins, would have them do. Such condemnation would have them stuck in their sins, and so reify them, instead of providing a way beyond them. And they would have to end up condemning Moses, the lawgiver, as promoting sin, just as much as they condemn the church for promoting sin, if their views were correct.

Sadly, throughout the centuries of the church's existence, legalists have consistently rise up, upset at the church's use of mercy. Each time, they denounce the church, claiming it supports sin when it shows mercy to some sinner. This is exactly what happened when, in the aftermath of persecution, the church let those who lapsed and denounced their faith back into the community of the faithful. The Novatians spoke against such mercy, even to the extent of attacking the pope; they entered into schism with the church as they promoted their small little sect as the pure, authentic church (despite the fact that no one is pure, we all sin, and Christ came for sinners, not those so caught up in such vainglory). Christ shows us, in his person, and thus through the church, the body of Christ, the truth proclaimed by the prophets, that is,  God is merciful, seeking to promote and use mercy instead of condemnation to bring positive change:

And as he sat at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples.  And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"  But when he heard it, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  Go and learn what this means, `I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners’ (Matt. 9:10-13 RSV).

Christ shows us how to take sin seriously. Condemnation is easy, but it doesn’t really address sin, and rarely does it help convince people to change. Most of the time, when confronted with such condemnation, they become defensive and respond by doing that which they are told not to do. This is why mercy is important; being merciful and kind to others helps them feel respected, it makes them feel cared for and loved, it helps them feel people are truly concerned for their own welfare. It also helps them understand, if they want to change, if they want to get better, the church is there for them, helping them along the way, realizing change often comes in steps instead of being instantaneous. The church will make sure that those who struggle and find themselves giving into sin, especially when sin has become an addiction or a bad habit, do not fall into despair as they know they will receive mercy and God will continue to be there for them despite their weaknesses.  Those who are quick to condemn often use the pretense of holiness to do so; they, like the Novatians, think the are pure, and so are ready to throw the first stone. They do not take their own sins seriously. Instead, they lift themselves up just like the Pharisee in the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. They ignore their own sins, and their own need for Gods mercy and grace. And as such, they do not get it. They end up up cutting themselves from God's mercy, the mercy which they need, perhaps even more than those they condemn, because of their pride and vainglory. Which is Jesus warned those who are judgmental risk being the ones who end up being condemned: “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get” (Matt. 7:2 RSV).

We must heed this lesson; we must learn to be merciful, embracing the grace found in that mercy, so that we can give to others the mercy and grace we have received. When we do so, we find ourselves receiving more and more of it, until we are filled with mercy and become vessels of mercy to the world:

If a man desires to obtain mercy in heaven, he should bestow it in this world. Therefore, since all want mercy, dearly beloved, let us make her our patron in this life so that she may free us in the life to come. Mercy abides in heaven, but it is reached by the exercise of it on earth. [2]

If we justify being judgmental by saying we are just condemning sin, if we justify being harsh and cruel to others, saying it is the best way to teach others right from wrong, we show we have yet to learn that which we want to teach others. While we must not be silent about injustices, while we need not be silent about sin, we must not be cruel, we must not be harsh, and if we are, we need to be concerned with ourselves and the injustices we promote by such activity. We must be loving, using love as the foundation for how we deal with others. If we are harsh and cruel, we are embracing the way of unlove, the way of sin, and we risk becoming nihilistic, seeking to destroy anything and anyone we believe is tainted by sin (as seen in the way people wrongly think the solution to crime is the death penalty). If we want to truly address sin, we must follow the way of grace: grace perfects nature, and that is what we should be doing, working to bring to perfection the good in others instead of focusing on the bad and using it to needlessly tear them down.  Again, we are told, when we do this, we will find such mercy coming back to us when we come come face to face with Christ:

But since “mercy will be exalted over condemnation” and the gifts of clemency will surpass any just compensation, all the lives led by mortals and all different kinds of actions will be appraised under the aspect of a single rule. No charges will be brought up where, in acknowledgment of the Creator, works of compassion have been found. [3]

We must try to be everything with everyone. This means, embracing them where they are at, as Paul said he did in his ministry:

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more.  To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law -- though not being myself under the law -- that I might win those under the law.  To those outside the law I became as one outside the law -- not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ -- that I might win those outside the law.  To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings (1 Cor. 9:19 -23 RSV).

This is not just the way of Paul but it is the way of God, the way of Christ, the incarnate God-man, whom Paul imitates:

In spite of all these things, God remains well disposed toward everyone. To no one does he deny his mercy. Why, he even bestows many good things indiscriminately upon all. He prefers to invite with acts of kindness those whom he could rightly subdue with punishments. Delay in retribution makes room for repentance. It cannot be said, however, that there is no vengeance where conversion does not take place. For, a hard and ungrateful mind becomes already its own punishment. It suffers in its conscience whatever has been deferred by the goodness of God. [4]

The church puts this in practice when it shows mercy, helping people who need it, not through judgment or condemnation, but by encouraging them, helping them grow and become the person God wants them to be.  This is why the church often uses dispensations, or deals with sinners who are in impossible situations, by way of “economia.” The church knows the need for grace; it knows that if it becomes too judgmental and makes it difficult for people to receive the grace they need to change and become better, it risks losing the lost sheep Christ, those Christ wants the church to find and bring back into good graces with God. Indeed, the church risks being the cause by which people stumble and turn their back on God, which it knows, Christ has warned against: ""Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea" (Mk. 9:42 RSV). Those who deny mercy, those who contend against the church and its economic use of dispensation, will have to deal with their own lack of mercy, their own denial of mercy, when they come to the eschatological judgment. Will they want to be the ones who made people stumble?

[1] Robert of Melun, “Questions on the Divine Page,” in Interpretation of Scripture: Practice. Trans. Franklin T. Harkins. Ed. Frans van Leiere and Franklin T. Harkins (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015), 329

[2] St. Caesarius of Arles, Sermons Volume I (1-80). Trans. Mary Magdeleine Mueller, OSF (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1956), 127 [Sermon 25].

[3] St Leo the Great, Sermons. Trans. Jane Patricia Freeland CSJB and Agnes Josephine Conway SSJ (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1996), 47 [Sermon 11].

[4] St Leo the Great, Sermons, 153-4 [Sermon 35].

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N.B.:  While I read comments to moderate them, I rarely respond to them. If I don’t respond to your comment directly, don’t assume I am unthankful for it. I appreciate it. But I want readers to feel free to ask questions, and hopefully, dialogue with each other. I have shared what I wanted to say, though some responses will get a brief reply by me, or, if I find it interesting and something I can engage fully, as the foundation for another post. I have had many posts inspired or improved upon thanks to my readers.

]]>Henry Karlson

]]> ]]>Thu, 29 Oct 2026 08:59:49 GMTThu, 29 Oct 2026 08:59:49 GMTpatheos-feed-item:A30282CE96AF4895B7698562E9A5D1D6https://www.patheos.com/blogs/steelmagnificat/2026/10/americans-are-equal-and-racism-is-wrong/Abdul Al SayedBernie MorenoOhio.RacismAmericans are Equal, and Racism is WrongIf you are an American and you don't believe that immigrants and the children of immigrants are your equals, we can't just agree to disagree.

I was trying not to watch yet another Republican rally in Ohio.

This one was in Chillicothe, Ohio, about three hours away. I kept trying to think of happier things, but once in awhile I'd check social media and see the video clips.

I watched in confusion as Bernie Moreno, our Senator, went on and on about Abdul Al-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for the Senate in Michigan. "I campaigned with Mike Rogers because he's in a race with somebody that is an affront to me as an American, as a naturalized citizen. Abdul El-Sayed can be nowhere near DC. Do you think he understands that concept that our rights come from God Almighty? That Jesus came here for our salvation? He should be nowhere near Washington DC and Mike Rogers is going to kick his ass."

Al-Sayed isn't running for office in Ohio. No Ohio citizen can cast a vote for or against him. Why even bring it up?

Also, another speaker at this get together was the candidate for governor, Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy is also a non-white, a son of immigrants, and not a Christian. Do the people in the room not see the dissonance?

Next, I saw a video of Ramaswamy himself taking the podium to rant about Michigan. People from Ohio have been rivals with Michigan for I don't know how long, but not like this. Commentators below the video joked that Ramaswamy doesn't know he isn't white.

And then, of course, Donald Trump took the stage. He was heckled and flipped off by some in the audience, as he has been lately. He praised Jon Husted's rear end, as he has at every single campaign stop for awhile. And then, of course, he started ranting about Representative Ilhan Omar, who also isn't from Ohio. He berated her for coming from "Somalia, which isn't even really a country. People walk around killing each other all day." The audience ate it up.

What did any of this have to do with the Ohio midterm election?

I have been reporting on Donald Trump and his cronies for ten years now, and it's hard to shock me. But every once in awhile I'm still shocked.

I used to be a Republican. I was told they were the party of life and family values. I shouldn't have believed that, but I did. My last Republican vote was for Romney, who I respected and still do. I don't think the Republican party even has a plan or a platform anymore. They're just a collection of crass people, ranting about buttocks, defending sexual abuse, and being openly, appallingly racist.

Abdul Al-Sayed is an American, a natural born citizen of Egyptian descent. He was born in Rochester hills. Vivek Ramaswamy is also an American, a natural born citizen of Indian descent. He was born in Cincinnati. Being born in the United States is one way to become an American. Everyone who was born here, except the children of foreign diplomats, gets citizenship by birth. Bernie Moreno is a different kind of American, an immigrant from Columbia who became a citizen.  Ilhan Omar is also an American, an immigrant from Somalia who became a citizen. Another way you can become an American, is by immigrating here and being naturalized. We are all Americans. And we are all equal.

Americans can disagree in good faith on any number of topics, and we ought to. We can get in vehement disagreements on how to run the country in the best way, and that's an important part of the democratic process. If we all have different theories of what type of economics works best or what tax brackets there should be, I don't think anyone in that debate is a bad person. If we get into an argument over whether the local liquor store should legally be open on a Sunday or how fast the speed limit should be on the freeway, I don't think either person in that agreement is evil. There are all kinds of important issues we should have a lively disagreement about. But this dehumanization of people of different races and religions isn't one of those issues.

If you are an American and you don't believe that immigrants and the children of immigrants are your equals, we can't just agree to disagree.

If you think that somebody with a name like Abdul El Sayed isn't a real American, but someone with a name like, say, Annie O'Keefe, is, that's not just a political disagreement. That really does make you a terrible person, and a bad American. If you think that somebody who practices Hinduism or Islam isn't a real American and somebody who practices Roman Catholicism is one, you are also a terrible person, and a bad American.

I used both of those examples because my great grandmother happened to be named Annie O'Keefe, and she was devout Roman Catholic. She was an American citizen, born in Columbus, Ohio. But she was Irish-American and the Irish weren't considered real Americans at the time. They were despised as dangerous foreigners who worshipped God in a strange way.  Her family lived in desperate poverty in a tenement several stories off the ground in the slum district of Franklinton. That's where most of the Irish in Columbus lived. Remember that funny story by James Thurber, "The Day the Dam Broke?" The one where he recalls being in Columbus in 1913 during a bad spell of rain, and then a false rumor was spread that the dam had broken and their whole neighborhood was going to flood? Thurber's Columbus neighborhood didn't flood, but Annie O'Keefe's neighborhood did. A hundred people died. My great grandmother survived because a neighbor got her and her mother out of the apartment window in a rowboat. If she'd drowned, I'm sure many people in Columbus wouldn't have cared. They didn't consider her a real American.

I think a lot of my readers are American Irish Catholics with interesting family stories like mine. Do you understand that up until about fifty years ago, the ethnicity and faith that somebody like Moreno would be excoriating at an election rally, would be a Shanty Mick like you?

Same goes for you Italian-American Catholics, and Polish-American Catholics, and every other kind of Catholic in America. When you hear people mocking an immigrant or a person of a different faith, you should realize that within the lifetime of people still living in this country, they'd be mocking you. You'd be under all this suspicion. You'd be considered a terrorist and a danger to the country.

Either all Americans are equal, or you're in danger as well.

Either everybody has freedom of religion or nobody does.

The choice is, partly, up to you. The election ends Tuesday evening.

Choose wisely.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows and Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to “The Little Portion” on paypal or Mary Pezzulo on venmo

]]>Mary Pezzulo

]]> ]]>Thu, 29 Oct 2026 04:57:51 GMTThu, 29 Oct 2026 04:57:51 GMTpatheos-feed-item:1589C6FEE60045E29F64F4D427BEB9FFhttps://www.patheos.com/blogs/publiccatholic/2026/10/the-bishops-admitted-that-trump-used-them-that-takes-guts/The Bishops Admitted that Trump Used Them. That Takes Guts.I wrote a post on Monday in which I described the humiliating treatment a group of Catholic bishops received at the hands of the Heritage Foundation and Donald Trump. To put it in plain terms, the bishops got treated the way the American people have been treated. They were lied to and manipulated by someone...

I wrote a post on Monday in which I described the humiliating treatment a group of Catholic bishops received at the hands of the Heritage Foundation and Donald Trump.

To put it in plain terms, the bishops got treated the way the  American people have been treated. They were lied to and manipulated by someone they trusted, then bent over and violated for his own personal gain by Donald Trump.

A man name Mario Enzler, who is evidently affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, set up this meeting. Enzler is described by the Trump regime as their “Catholic liaison with the bishops.” He vaingloriously describes himself as “a saint in training.” 

I am guessing that the bishops were foolish enough to trust the Heritage Foundation connection. Personally, I have a low opinion of any organization that would create Project 2025. I also believe that everyone connected with the Trump administration is a manipulative liar who does not care what happens to this country and its people. 

Politicians sometimes use the phrase “in the barrel” as shorthand for “shooting fish in a barrel.” When someone’s “in the barrel,” they’re in a situation where they’re the target and they can’t fight back. 

That’s what happened to the bishops. Enzler invited them to a meeting with the prez, with what turned out to be a flat-out misrepresentation of the actual plan. He told them they would have a private conversation about issues they hold dear, and maybe also have an opportunity to pray — in private — with Trump. He put them in the barrel. 

What actually happened was that they were ushered into the Oval Office, Trump handed them some trinkets, then they were told to stand behind Trump and pray, and then they were ushered back out again. There was no conversation. 

They didn’t know they were being filmed, and they did not give consent for photos to be published. Immediately afterwards, the White House posted photos of the bishops standing behind Trump and praying. The photo was accompanied by White House language that made it seem that the bishops had endorsed Trump. 

The bishops overlooked several things when they accepted this invitation. 

First, Trump lies about everything, all the time. 

Second, Trump has a lifelong history of using people without concern for what happens to them. 

Third, Trump does not appear to have a conscience. 

Fourth, Trump’s operatives are just like him. 

If Trump’s White House says that someone is their “liaison,” I think it’s more than likely that this person is Trump’s amoral, sociopathic operative. I wouldn’t trust that person. 

It’s a tricky situation when We the People have made the mistake of handing our government over to people like that. We need to deal with them. But we can’t deal with them. Anytime any of us deals with that kind of person, we’re going to be lied to, manipulated and used.  

I believe that the Trump regime is satanic. I know that I’m not holy enough and I’m not smart enough to deal directly with people who are as completely under satanic influence as these people are. I’m also not holy enough and smart enough to deal with a master manipulator like Trump.

I believe that Trump is stupid and incompetent about everything but one thing, and that one thing is how to manipulate people and use them. He is a world class master at doing that. 

Which is why I was so aggravated with the bishops for falling into Trump’s trap. It frustrates me no end that people can’t see what is so plain and obvious. 

Then I went back and reminded myself of two things. First, I remembered my own oblivious sinfulness that was forgiven. Second, I reminded myself that other people haven’t had my life experiences. The truth is, I didn’t diagnose Trump. I recognized him. I’d seen people like him before. 

Which leads me to the purpose of this blog post. 

I was soooo aggravated and disgusted with the bishops for allowing themselves to be made into Trump’s fools. I knew that a lot of gullible people will never see past the photo. It’s going to do damage. 

However, I didn’t properly acknowledge that the bishops had the integrity and the courage  to stand up in public and say straight out that they had been lied to and manipulated and they were sorry. 

Everybody makes mistakes. You, me, the guy next door and the woman down the street: We all make mistakes. 

I’ve lived an entirely different life than these bishops. I’ve had evil come right straight at me several times. I can tell you, I’m no match for it. 

Evil can run you down, knock you flat, then grind you into the mud. You can’t reason with it. You can’t appeal to its pity, or remorse, or compassion. 

That’s why this satanic right wing is constantly preaching and teaching that empathy for other human beings is a weakness and the only righteousness is judgement and condemnation. That is satanic. It’s a direct attack on Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. 

The devil hates empathy and compassion because they are his undoing. Satan has no compassion or empathy, and neither do his people. 

I’m sure the bishops know all that. But I’m guessing that they know it from the protected vantage point of never having been run down by it. 

Until now. 

They got sideswiped by the evil of this world with that phony invitation to have a “private talk” with the president. They got lied to. They got used. Then they were told to get out.

But Trump didn’t count on them having what nobody else who comes around him seems to have. They had simplicity, humility and decency. They had a sense of responsibility to their positions as shepherds and representatives of the Church that was greater than their fear of the Mad King. They told the truth. 

They didn’t try to excuse themselves. They didn’t try to lie their way out of it. They didn’t get all huffy and stomp around attacking their critics. 

They confessed. Publicly. To the fact that they’d been used. 

That takes guts. 

It takes integrity.

I feel like these bishops are people you can trust. 

There is only one way to fight evil that has become this arrogant and powerful. That one way is the Way. 

You cannot defeat evil on your own. You can’t do it. But if you wrap yourself in Christ and then just trust Him and do the next right thing and keep on doing the next right thing, He will get you through. 

I know this. 

I know it. 

I have had the experience of evil almost destroying me. I have run away from evil. And I have been blessed to have Christ walk me through evil and get me to the other side. 

This bishops trusted all the wrong people, and they got snapped. But they weren’t destroyed by it. 

Because they did the one hard thing that destroys lies. They told the truth. They admitted the embarrassing truth that they got had by a bunch of psychopaths. 

I was really disgusted when I wrote that post on Monday. I owe these bishops an apology. I respect their integrity of purpose. I admire their strength of character that led them to simply confess that they had made a mistake and apologize. I’m grateful to them for doing it.

Because they did this, I think they are trustworthy leaders I can follow. Not because they got it right. Because they admitted it and apologized when they got it wrong. 

That takes guts. It takes integrity. It shows a genuine commitment to live up to the responsibilities of their office. 

I apologize for being such a gritch about all this in my post on Monday. What I want to say to these bishops — what I should have said — is Thank You. 

]]>Rebecca Hamilton

]]> ]]>Wed, 28 Oct 2026 15:49:23 GMTWed, 28 Oct 2026 15:49:23 GMTpatheos-feed-item:3B3D9AB6B0B344C9AE62A5E410D6F7EBhttps://www.patheos.com/blogs/faith4today/2026/10/sunday-readings-the-call-to-holiness/All Saints DayBeatitudesCatholic faithHolinessSaintsSunday Readings: The Call to HolinessExplore the readings for the Solemnity of All Saints and discover God's call to holiness, purity, and eternal hope.

The readings for the Solemnity of All Saints present a powerful message about holiness, eternal hope, and life with God. This year's readings draw our attention to the countless men and women who faithfully followed Jesus and now share in God's glory. Together, the readings remind us that holiness is not reserved for a select few. God calls every Catholic to pursue purity, trust in His promises, and to live according to the values of His kingdom. Let's look at this Sunday's readings.

Gospel Text - Matthew 5:1-12a

“When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven; Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted; Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land; Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied; Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God; Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God; Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven; Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven."

1st Reading - The Great Multitude Before the Throne

In the first reading, John sees a vision of heaven. He first hears about 144,000 servants of God who receive a seal on their foreheads. Then he sees an enormous multitude no one can count. These people come from every nation, race, tribe, and language. They stand before God's throne wearing white robes and holding palm branches. One of the elders explains that these are the people who endured suffering and remained faithful to God. They have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, meaning they have received salvation through Jesus Christ.

This passage offers hope and encouragement to disciples. The great multitude shows that God's saving work extends to people worldwide. Salvation is available to all who place their faith in Jesus and persevere through life's trials. The white robes symbolize purity and victory. The palm branches signify triumph. Together, these images show the final reward awaiting those who remain faithful. The vision reminds us that earthly suffering is temporary, while God's kingdom lasts forever.

Responsorial Psalm - Who Can Enter the Presence of the Lord?

The psalm begins by declaring that the earth and everything in it belong to the Lord. It then asks an important question: "Who can ascend the mountain of the Lord?" The answer follows. Those who have clean hands and pure hearts may stand in God's holy place. The psalm describes people who seek God's face and desire to live according to His will.

Psalm 24 emphasizes spiritual purity and sincere devotion. God does not merely look at outward actions. He examines the heart. Those who seek Him honestly and reject falsehood receive His blessings. The psalm also reminds us that God is the creator and owner of all things. Because everything belongs to Him, people should live in ways that honor Him. The call to holiness involves both outward conduct and inward transformation.

2nd Reading - Children of God

In this reading, John reflects on God's extraordinary love. He declares that we are called children of God. This identity is not symbolic; it is real. Through Jesus, Catholics become members of God's family. John also teaches that we do not yet fully understand what we will become in eternity. However, we know that when Jesus appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him as He truly is.

This passage focuses on Catholic identity and hope. God's love gives us a new relationship with Him. We are no longer strangers but beloved children. The reading also points toward future glory. We live with the expectation that we will one day share fully in Jesus' life. This hope encourages us to pursue holiness now. Knowing that they belong to God inspires them to grow in purity and faithfulness.

Gospel Reading - The Call to Holiness

In the Gospel, Jesus delivers the Beatitudes during the Sermon on the Mount. He declares that the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers, and those who hunger for righteousness are blessed. Jesus also blesses those who experience persecution because of their faith. He promises that God's kingdom belongs to them and that their reward in heaven will be great.

The Beatitudes reveal the values of God's kingdom. The world often praises power, wealth, and popularity. Jesus highlights humility, mercy, purity, and faithfulness. These teachings describe the attitudes and actions that mark the lives of the saints. The Beatitudes are not merely ideals. They serve as a practical guide for Catholic discipleship. We who live according to these principles become witnesses to God's love and truth. Jesus assures His followers that temporary struggles will ultimately lead to eternal joy.

The Catholic View

There are several common themes across the readings:

• Holiness Is the Goal of Every Catholic: Each reading points toward holiness. Revelation presents the saints in heaven. The psalm calls for clean hands and pure hearts. First John reminds us that we are God's children. The Gospel describes the virtues that characterize holy lives. Together, these passages teach that holiness is not optional. God invites every disciple to become more like Jesus.
• God's People Have a Heavenly Destiny: The readings consistently look beyond earthly circumstances. Revelation describes the multitude before God's throne. First John speaks about becoming like Jesus. He promises heavenly rewards to the faithful. These passages encourage us to keep an eternal perspective and trust God's promises.
• Purity of Heart Matters: Psalm 24 emphasizes the importance of pure hearts. First John calls Catholics to purity because of their hope in Jesus. The Beatitudes bless the pure of heart because they will see God. The readings teach that authentic faith begins within and transforms every aspect of life.
• Faithfulness Through Trials Leads to Victory: The multitude in Revelation endured hardship. The Beatitudes bless those who are persecuted for righteousness. Both readings show that suffering for God is never meaningless. Catholics may face challenges, opposition, or sacrifice, but God remains faithful and promises eternal victory.
• God's Kingdom Includes People From Every Nation: Revelation highlights a countless crowd from every nation and language. This image shows the Gospel's universal reach. God's invitation extends to all people, regardless of background, culture, or nationality. The Church continues this mission by proclaiming Jesus to the entire world.

The Final Word

These readings encourage us to seek holiness, remain faithful during trials, and place our hope in God's eternal promises. They remind the faithful that the journey toward sainthood begins today through daily acts of faith, mercy, humility, and trust in Jesus. As Catholics follow this path, we join the countless multitude who worship God and rejoice forever in His presence.

Please share your thoughts or any questions about this article in the “Comments” section below.

Stay updated on the latest articles and insights from the column. Subscribe to my newsletter to ensure you receive every new post. Click here to subscribe to the newsletter.

Peace

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]]>Dennis McIntyre

]]> ]]>Wed, 28 Oct 2026 14:01:54 GMTWed, 28 Oct 2026 14:01:54 GMTpatheos-feed-item:F6E39B0E23FA453395A9A472AF48A8D9https://www.patheos.com/blogs/beloved/2026/10/how-do-you-actually-let-go-of-your-worries/AnxietyFaithFearpeace of mindWorryHow Do You Actually Let Go of Your Worries?How do you let go of your worries? How do you let go and let God take care of you? The actual process can be different for each person.

Have you ever felt so worried you couldn’t even sleep? Worry doesn’t always look like a panic attack. Sometimes, it finds its way to us through overthinking or being unable to let go of a certain thought.

What if this or that happens? What if something goes wrong with my job? What if my children meet bad influences at school? What if my insurance can’t cover my medical expenses?

Even Christians can struggle with worries and "what ifs". Even though we know the Bible verses reminding us not to be anxious, we can’t help but feel uneasy about things we can’t control.

Despite our best intentions, worry can keep us awake at night. And it can eventually rob us of our peace of mind.

How do you let go of your worries? How do you let go and let God take care of you?

The actual process can be different for each person. Although there may be similar patterns, we can’t put everything under a confined box for everyone.

So instead of going though each detailed step, we can explore the various ways that can help us win back our peace of mind.

Here are some of the ways to help you let go of your worries:

1. Admit your worries and understand their cause

It is hard to let go of something unless you first acknowledge that it is there. As Christians, we are sometimes tempted to brush them off for fear that admitting them would mean a lack of faith in God.

While God wouldn’t want us to worry, He understands our concerns and is always ready to listen to our cries.

Why not talk to Him about those things that make you anxious? Perhaps voicing out your problems before your heavenly Father could help you understand the cause of your nagging thoughts.

2. Set aside time to deal with your concerns

Instead of always fleeing from our worries, we can set aside a specific time to think about our problems.

This would be better rather than thinking about them endlessly at night.

Try to sit down and describe the situation that bothers you. Ask yourself questions to dig deeper into the issue.

Think about your options. List down the pros and cons under each alternative course of action. If it is possible, set a realistic timeline for your plan.

3. Start a journal

If making a detailed plan is too much at the moment, you can start by journalling. Write down your unfiltered thoughts as you try to process them one by one.

Remember that you don’t have to address all your problems at once. But if you ever find yourself worrying at night, one thing that could help is to write your problems down instead of allowing your worries to remain floating in your head.

When worry starts to bother you at night, you can respond by “I don’t have to think about you right now. I’ll set aside time tomorrow.” You can even get your journal and write a simple reminder for this. Then give yourself a break and rest, having transferred your worries symbolically to your journal.

4. Ask God’s help

After identifying our worries, we can lift them up to God and ask for His help.

Ask for His guidance as we try to figure out the best course of action to solve our problems. Ask for His grace to keep us free from anxiety as we move without losing our peace of mind.

You can be honest with God. He knows you and sees everything you’re going through.

He also knows our limits. God knows when you have already done your very best and you still can’t see a way through your difficulties.

You can cry out to God and say, “Lord, you know I did everything in my power to address this. I offer it to you now. Only you can give me the grace to solve this. And you alone can keep my mind from worrying. I entrust this to you. Amen.”

5. Surrender the outcome to God

Sometimes, what worries us is the possibility that God may allow the more difficult path for us.

What if God does not grant our preferred blessing? What if He delays His assistance?

It would have been easier if God always did as we wished. But then that wouldn’t be for our good. We are not the ones who can see the future. And only God knows what is best for us.

Although He may allow us to experience some struggles at first, we can trust Him that we could never go wrong if we follow His will.

With God, even trials can eventually be blessings in disguise!

Isn’t it true that quite often, once we learn to accept the worst, our worries end and we begin to be at peace. And the good news is that the worst rarely happens.

In those few times that they do happen, we know we are not alone. And we are not blessed less. With God’s perfect plan, it will be revealed that we have been blessed more!

6. Cultivate good habits that ward off worry

Sometimes, we allow worry to be a habit. Before we realize it, we find it hard to break.

What we can do is to replace it with other habits. We can start good habits that guard our peace of mind and help deepen our faith in God.

Here are some habits that could help:

- Cultivate a grateful heart by counting (and even listing) God’s blessings
- Sing songs of praise to ward off anxious thoughts
- Read the Bible and list Bible verses that help you overcome your worries
- Pray and deepen your relationship with God
- Accept and carry your cross, offering your sacrifices to God
- Look forward to your heavenly reward

The Value of Time and The Source of Our Hope

Worry is never on our side. It traps us into thinking we’re doing something when it only makes us busy with fearful thoughts.

Instead of worrying, let us spend our time being grateful for God’s blessings, asking for His help, and creating plans guided by God’s wisdom.

Always remember God’s goodness and how He carried you through the most difficult times. Sing songs of praise, listen to inspiring words and think of the good things that are yet to come.

Spend your time praising instead of worrying. Believe in God’s strength when you are weak. And if you ever fear the difficult days ahead, face each moment one prayer at a time.

God is still in control and we are never alone.

“Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.” - Philippians 4:6, NABRE

“Pray, hope and don’t worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer. Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key to God’s heart.” – St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina

“Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.”
- St. Teresa of Ávila

Related Article: What Keeps Even Christians Worrying?

You may also want to download Jocelyn's book "The Secret To Answered Prayers"

]]>Jocelyn Soriano

]]> ]]>Wed, 28 Oct 2026 12:28:07 GMTWed, 28 Oct 2026 12:28:07 GMTpatheos-feed-item:7CA1CA738B0340D0B712CBC7384B394Fhttps://www.patheos.com/blogs/faith4today/2026/10/nba-kalshi-and-polymarket-a-risky-new-partnership/KalshinbaNBA IntegrityPolymarketPrediction MarketsSports BettingNBA, Kalshi, and Polymarket: A Risky New PartnershipExplore the NBA's partnership with Kalshi and Polymarket, prior gambling concerns, integrity risks, and a look through the faith lens.

The NBA has officially entered the growing prediction market industry through new partnerships with Kalshi and Polymarket. League officials say the agreements will increase oversight, improve integrity protections, and create new ways for fans to engage with basketball. However, the move comes as the NBA continues to deal with the fallout from gambling scandals involving league personnel.

Supporters argue that these partnerships provide safeguards and transparency. Critics see a contradiction. They question why the league would deepen its connection to prediction markets after recent gambling-related misconduct damaged public trust in professional basketball. For Catholics, the issue raises broader questions about integrity, stewardship, and money's influence on sports.

Who Are Kalshi and Polymarket?

Kalshi and Polymarket operate prediction markets. These platforms allow users to buy and sell contracts based on the outcome of future events. Instead of placing traditional sports wagers through sportsbooks, users trade contracts tied to questions such as who will win a game, a championship, or another measurable event.

Kalshi is a federally regulated prediction market exchange overseen by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The company has expanded rapidly by offering markets tied to politics, economics, weather, and sports.

Polymarket is a prediction market platform that has gained significant popularity through cryptocurrency-based event contracts. It offers markets on a wide variety of public events and has become one of the industry's most recognized names.

Supporters describe prediction markets as information exchanges that reflect common expectations. Critics argue that, from a practical standpoint, many sports-related prediction contracts function similarly to gambling. They are correct.

What the Partnership Includes

According to the NBA, Kalshi and Polymarket will become the league's "Preferred Prediction Market Exchanges." The agreements include several key elements:

• Both companies will gain access to official NBA data through Sportradar, the league's official data distribution partner. This data will help operate and settle approved NBA-related prediction markets.
• The companies will receive rights to use NBA intellectual property, including league branding and logos.
• The partnerships establish integrity protections. The NBA says the agreements limit the types of markets that may be offered, restrict participation by league and team personnel, and require the sharing of information related to suspicious activity and investigations.

The NBA also announced a Memorandum of Understanding with the CFTC. League officials say the agreement creates a framework for cooperation and information sharing regarding NBA-related prediction markets. League executives argue these measures will help protect the integrity of professional basketball while allowing fans new opportunities to engage with the sport.

What Is the Difference Between a Sportsbook and Predictive Markets?

There are some major differences between Sportsbooks and predictive markets:

• Sports Betting (Sportsbooks): You are betting against the sportsbook (the "house"). The sportsbook sets the odds and includes a built-in fee called the vig, or juice (usually ~4% to 10%), ensuring the house profits over time regardless of the outcome.

  • Standard bets are fixed-odds contracts that remain open until the end of the event unless you accept the sportsbook's cash-out offer, which often carries high built-in margins.
  • Focuses strictly on sports.
  • They are regulated state-by-state by Gaming Commissions

• Prediction Markets: Operate like a stock exchange. Users determine prices entirely through supply and demand. You buy and sell "shares" in an outcome (e.g., a share paying $1 if a team wins and $0 if they lose). If a share costs $0.60, the market is pricing a 60% probability on that event.

  • Allow continuous trading before and during an event.
  • Cover a wide variety of real-world domains beyond sports, including politics, economics, technology, entertainment, and current events.
  • The CFTC regulates them primarily (Financial derivatives).

Where They Overlap

The line blurs when prediction markets feature sports categories. If you buy shares in a team winning a game on a prediction platform like Kalshi or Polymarket, the financial motivation and result are virtually identical to placing a moneyline sports bet. However, the market dynamics—better liquidity, lower fees, and market-driven pricing—distinguish the trading experience. The main overlap, as far as the NBA is concerned, is that vulnerability to inside information is the same with sportsbooks and predictive markets.

Why the Partnership Is Questionable

The partnership's timing has drawn criticism because the NBA is still dealing with the fallout from gambling scandals involving individuals connected to the league. One of the most significant cases involved former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter. The NBA permanently banned Porter after an investigation found that he disclosed confidential information to bettors, placed bets on NBA games, and manipulated his participation in games to influence bet outcomes. Porter later pleaded guilty to a federal wire fraud conspiracy charge related to the gambling scheme. The scandal damaged confidence in the integrity of NBA competition by suggesting that insider information and manipulated player performance could influence betting outcomes.

The partnership also comes after broader investigations into gambling-related activity involving other NBA figures. These cases have reinforced concerns that expanded gambling and prediction-market activity can create conflicts of interest and increase pressure on athletes, coaches, and league personnel. Critics argue that although the NBA says the partnerships will improve oversight, the league is also becoming more financially connected to industries that create temptation and integrity risks. Some observers question whether the solution to gambling-related problems is deeper involvement with gambling-adjacent businesses.

Others counter that prediction markets already exist and that partnerships provide the NBA with greater visibility and control than remaining outside the system. Even so, the conflict remains difficult to ignore. The league is promoting stronger integrity measures while simultaneously expanding relationships with companies whose business models depend on people wagering on future outcomes. This calls the NBA's integrity credibility into question.

The Catholic View

Jesus consistently emphasized integrity, honesty, self-control, and faithful stewardship. His teachings focused on serving God rather than pursuing wealth or personal gain at any cost. In Matthew 5:37, Jesus taught His followers to be truthful in all things: "Let your 'Yes' be yes and your 'No,' no." The gambling scandal involving Jontay Porter violated that principle because it involved deception and the misuse of trust.

Jesus also warned about the dangers of allowing money to become a controlling influence. In Matthew 6:24, He said that people cannot serve both God and money. While prediction markets and gambling aren't identical in every respect, Catholics should carefully consider whether financial speculation on sports encourages healthy stewardship or an excessive pursuit of profit.

Jesus also taught that leaders carry special responsibility. Luke 12:48 states that much is required from those who have been given much. Professional athletes, coaches, and league officials influence millions of people. Their actions should encourage integrity rather than create opportunities for corruption.

As the NBA seeks to balance fan engagement, business growth, and competitive integrity, questions will remain about whether expanding ties to prediction markets truly reduces risk or creates new challenges.

Please share your thoughts or any questions about this article in the “Comments” section below.

Stay updated on the latest articles and insights from the column. Subscribe to my newsletter to ensure you receive every new post. Click here to subscribe to the newsletter.

Peace

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]]>Dennis McIntyre

]]> ]]>Tue, 27 Oct 2026 17:57:00 GMTTue, 27 Oct 2026 17:57:00 GMTpatheos-feed-item:AE29EC7999174D59996A598D545A262Chttps://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2026/10/desert-fathers-and-mothers-on-anger-and-community/AngerDesert FathersDesert MothersDesert Fathers And Mothers On Anger And CommunityWe will likely get angry; when we do, we must not be blindly led by our anger but instead deal with it rationally.

The desert fathers and mothers often reminded each other against the dangers of anger, telling each other how their anger will lead them to act poorly. “An elder said, ‘Strife delivers a man to anger, anger to blindness, and blindness makes him work all manner of evil.’”[1] We need to find balance in our lives. We must strive to be charitable to all people, lifting them up, but we must do so without ignoring the expectations of justice, and with it, what we need to do to help make for a more just world.  Ignoring grave injustices is not charitable, either to those who suffer from such injustice, but also to those who commit them, because those who commit them will eventually have to face the consequences of their actions, and the less they have to deal with, the better it will be for them.

Justice and mercy should always go together. When we look for justice in the world, when we look to promote the ways of justice, we must always be flexible in the way we deal with injustices; we need to deal with each situation separately, always making sure we do so, not with some sort of legalistic vengeance, but with mercy. Simplistic notions of retribution, such as an eye for an eye, does not promote true justice, as all it does is cause more suffering in the world. What we need is not retribution, but ways to help heal the harm which has been done, both to the one who has suffered some injustice, but also to the one who committed it. We need to embrace the way of restorative justice. Sadly, we tend to confuse retribution, revenge, with justice, and as a result, what we do tends to make things worse, not better, when we say we promote "law and order."

It is always better to build each other up, to help each other become better, than it is to strike out at those who make us angry.  “One of the fathers said, ‘A harsh word makes the good bad, but a good [word] benefits everybody.’”[2] We are made better by being gracious with each other because we are interdependent with each other; we are connected with each other, so what affects one of us has some effect on the rest of us. We are not mere individuals without any connection that links us together. To be a person is to transcend individuality and find ourselves through our relations with others;  it is through our personal existence we find we do not exist independent from others, but interdependent with them. This is usually forgotten when we think of justice in the retributive sense, and when we do that, we fail to see how we are going to be adversely affected by act of retribution because what diminishes one of us diminishes us all.  The more we try to punish someone, making them suffer as a result of our anger, the more we will find we lose a part of ourselves as well.  This is not to say, in our mercy, we will should not stop to those causing problems; we might even have to do things which will appear to others as being a form of retributive punishment, as we will do the same thing as those who simply engage retributive justice will do, but the reality is that our intention will affect the outcome of our actions.  Both a doctor and a torturer might end up amputating an arm, but their aims, the way they do it, and the end result of their actions, will greatly differ; the doctor will save the person's life, making it better, while the torturer will make it that much worse, as the person will suffer an unnecessary loss.

Those who are angry, those who want to simply punish someone without any concern of the welfare of the person they punish, might end up improving the common good because they will have put an end to some injustice in the world. But the common good would be even greater if the person who is being stopped can also be corrected and turned back towards doing what is good and just. The interdependent nature of society suggests society needs and the people in it need each other. When society loses someone, everyone suffers from that loss. This is one of the reasons why the death penalty, however much anger and the desire for retribution might suggest it, must be rejected, because society loses the potential good which remains in the person it executes.

To truly seek justice, we must engage prudence, understanding justice is about making things right, and not just about punishing those who have done wrong. Irrational anger suggests the way to make things right is to hurt those who have angered us, and, because of the pleasure we receive when we strike out in this way, we end up confusing such pleasure as proof that what we do is just. It is not. Many things give us momentary pleasure which prove to be wrong, which is certainly the case when we give in to irrational anger. Yes, we will likely give in to it many times in our lives, but after we do so, we can look back and see the kind of harm we have caused, both to others, but also to ourselves. Obviously, not all kinds of anger are equal, and not all kinds of actions we do out of anger are equal. Often, there are reasons to be angry, just reasons, but we should respond to those reasons rationally, not letting anger take control of us and what we do. When we know what is causing us to be angry, we will have a better understanding of what we need to do in order to have our anger subside, which is what we need to do if we are to find ourselves returning to the peace which Christ tells us to pursue.  Anger, by itself, grants us no such wisdom, which is why we must not let it control us. On the other  hand, we must not think if we ever grow angry, and with it, tempted to do things which we know are best not to do, that such a temptation shows proves we have lost our spiritual center. Rather, when we get angry, we find ourselves being tested, and what we do with that anger will help shape who and what we become. The more we resist our worst impulses, the more firm our resolution will be in the future:

One of the fathers said, “Unless a tree is blown this way and that by the wind, it neither grows up nor puts down a root. Likewise , a monk – unless he is tempted and prevails, he does not become firmly established.”[3]

It is best not to grow angry, but, due to the injustices in the world, and the way we often find ourselves being frustrated by them throughout our lives, this is nearly impossible. In some ways, we can even say it is right and just to be angry at injustice, but we should let such anger encourage is to pursue justice, which anger does not know how to do. This is why we should not let such anger take control of us.  Rather, we must take control of it. If there is something which we are justly angry about, the anger should inspire us to discern what we can do that will best rectify the situation. Anger can easily blind us, but it can also enlighten us, showing us when something is wrong; but, once we know something is wrong, it is imperative we deal with the problem in a just fashion. If we don't, we risk doing all kinds of evil, establishing new kinds of injustice, in return.

[1]  The Book of Elders. Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Systematic Collection. trans. John Wortley (Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2012),  186 ( N 634).

[2]  The Book of Elders. Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Systematic Collection,  186 ( Macarius 39).

[3]  The Book of Elders. Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Systematic Collection, 187 ( N 396).

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]]>Henry Karlson

]]> ]]>Tue, 27 Oct 2026 16:40:53 GMTTue, 27 Oct 2026 16:40:53 GMTpatheos-feed-item:2622EEA0E7BA4EF1B9910F71BA44FD6Dhttps://www.patheos.com/blogs/publiccatholic/2026/10/pope-leos-docs-ok-his-latin-american-trip-next-month/Pope Leo's Docs OK His Latin American Trip Next Month. Pope Leo’s doctors say that he is well enough to go on his planned Apostolic Journey to Latin America next month. The doctor made this judgement two weeks after the Holy Father had the lower lobe of his right lung removed because it had a cancerous tumor in it. Further tests indicate that the...

Pope Leo’s doctors say that he is well enough to go on his planned Apostolic Journey to Latin America next month. 

The doctor made this judgement two weeks after the Holy Father had the lower lobe of his right lung removed because it had a cancerous tumor in it. Further tests indicate that the cancer has not spread and the pope does not have to undergo radiation or chemotherapy. 

Frankly, I am amazed. I was several years younger than Pope Leo is now when I had a double mastectomy. Two weeks out from that surgery, I was still dealing with drainage tubes. But he stood in the window at the Vatican, prays the Angelus and gives a brief homily just a few days after surgery. 

Now, he’s planning a full-on Apostolic Visit to Latin America, with all the long flights, walking, standing, endless lines of people, public masses, extensive public speaking and press interviews that entails. 

I think that his personal sense of mission to speak for Christ in a suffering world must be stronger than anything you or I could imagine. I also think that the Holy Spirit is sustaining him. 

We should continue to pray for him, and not just because he is recovering from a serious surgery. Pope Leo is only human, and just like the rest of us humans, he needs prayer to sustain him. 

From Vatican News:

“Dr. Luigi Carbone confirms that the Holy Father’s recovery after the surgery continues, and the latest medical examinations attest to his good health and favorable clinical condition,” it said. “Based on his current clinical status, as well as the instrumental and laboratory tests performed, there are no contraindications that would prevent him from undertaking his upcoming Apostolic Journey to Latin America as planned. The Pope is following medical recommendations with great care and diligence, and with a deep determination to continue serving the Church.”

]]>Rebecca Hamilton

]]> ]]>Tue, 27 Oct 2026 12:27:53 GMTTue, 27 Oct 2026 12:27:53 GMTpatheos-feed-item:8852A8BAEFFA412E91EB3D935E9CBBC8https://www.patheos.com/blogs/publiccatholic/2026/10/heritage-foundation-dog-walks-bishops-into-photo-with-trump/Heritage Foundation Dog Walks Bishops into Photo with TrumpIf you dance with the devil, the devil don’t change. The devil changes you. Line from the movie 8MM Well hell. That is literally what I thought when I saw the photo. Our American bishops just can’t get it through their skulls that they have zero anointing to play power politics. They’ve lived their lives...

If you dance with the devil, the devil don’t change. The devil changes you.

Line from the movie 8MM

Well hell. 

That is literally what I thought when I saw the photo. 

Our American bishops just can’t get it through their skulls that they have zero anointing to play power politics. 

They’ve lived their lives in a free America with sane presidents who weren’t baby-raping, extortionist psychopaths. They’re evidently still living in the world of yesteryear when the president believed in America, wanted to build instead of tear down, and had respect for God. 

They’re like a lot of Americans. They cannot wrap their little minds around the horror show we’ve put in power over this country. They also can’t grok that they’ve got some very nasty, ruthless “friends” in the Catholic power politics sphere. 

The Heritage Foundation evidently dog-walked 12 of our bishops into a meeting with Trump. Trump proceeded to get a photo of them praying over him and looking for all the world like they were putting the imprimatur of the Catholic Church on every evil thing he does. 

Two of these bishops have been man enough to come out and publicly admit that they were manipulated and used. They’ve issued public apologies for allowing themselves — and the Church along with them — to be misrepresented by Trump. 

I respect the fact that they had the guts to issue public apologies. That was exactly the right way to handle this. It’s necessary for the continued witness to Christ of the Church and the public belief in the legitimacy of the moral voice of the Church.

The other bishops in that photo need to do the same thing. This is not a situation for shucking and jiving, ducking and hiding. They need to get out in front of this thing and man up. 

This is serious stuff. 

If We the People don’t manage to stop Trump with our votes or nature doesn't stop him with old age, Trump could very well go down as one of the great monsters of history. The things he’s doing are leading to a black hole of suffering, destruction and death. He could end up killing millions of people. 

Whatever happens, that photo is going to be used by the enemies of Christ and the Church to “prove” that following Christ has no meaning in real life. Generations of people have seen the photo of Catholic bishops saluting Hitler. This is the same kind of thing. 

The message this photo will be used to portray is an ugly one. 

Enemies of Christ will ask what’s the point of being a Christian if Christians don’t care if powerful men rape kids? What’s the point of following morality when the bishops endorse moral depravity? What’s the point of being Catholic if Catholic bishops bow down before Herod?

That’s the message people who attack the Church and Christianity will attach to that photo. 

The Catholic Church is the White Whale of Christianity. This isn’t a photo of a bunch of hayseed, self-made, screaming and shouting clergy from small denominations praying and wailing over Trump. This is eight of America's Catholic bishops. This is The Church. 

So yeah, this is a big deal. Trump wanted that photo to put out among the gullible and the not-too-involved Catholics to delude them into believing that he has the endorsement of the Catholic Church. The whole point of that meeting was the photo.

I have a very healthy respect for Trump's abilities to co-opt people and use them. I think he is an absolute Svengali in his ability to corrupt people, destroy their morals and twist them into his willing puppets. He has made himself into a false idol who has replaced Christ in the hearts of millions of “christians.” 

I do not understand what the bishops thought they were going to accomplish by talking to this guy. 

Nothing that they have to say means anything to Donald Trump. I’ve never known anyone as effective at using lies, cruelty and manipulation to get power for himself as Trump. But I have known and done battle with my share of manipulating psychopaths. 

People like that don’t look at other human beings and see another person. They see prey. They don’t care what you think. They don’t care what you feel. All they care about is how they can use you to get what they want. 

I don’t think Trump cares about the bishop’s moral teaching. What he cares about is their power to influence the votes of Catholics. 

He didn’t meet with them to negotiate with them. He had them in the Oval Office to get that photo so that he could use it to get hispanics to believe that Jesus wants them to vote for their own destruction. He wanted that photo to convince Catholic women that they are morally obligated to support rapists. 

He wanted a photo of the bishops praying over him. He needed that photo as a tool to leverage the power of the bishops to influence the votes of Catholics to give him the power to continue with his unholy agenda of hate, greed, lies and destruction. 

The bishops are very intelligent, well-educated men. But they are totally out of their depth dealing with someone like Trump. 

I’ve read that people from the Heritage Foundation called the bishops and got them to attend this meeting. That’s the same Heritage Foundation that foisted Project 2025 on us. Project 2025 is the blue print that Trump is following to dismantle and destroy this country.  

Project 2025 is the enemy of just about every bit of the Church’s social teaching. I could enumerate the ways in which Project 2025 violates both the Gospel teachings of Christ and the Church’s social teaching, but it would take several blog posts. It’s the apotheosis of the “oppose abortion and kill anybody else you want” fake morality of today’s right wing. 

These bishops have got some nasty-mean "friends" and their nasty-mean friends dog walked them into the Oval Office. They served them up. 

From The Guardian:

“We should never have been put in that position by the White House,” wrote Grob, adding that he had harbored reservations and “wish I had heeded them”.

Bishop Joensen wrote that “many things tied to this present Administration” were “blatantly at odds with our Catholic faith”.

He said none of the bishops was unaware the meeting fell close to an election, but insisted that none had intended to endorse a party or candidate. “I wish I had been more shrewd and less simple, like those who exploited our meeting for partisan political purposes.”

Grob said the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind the Project 2025 rightwing blueprint for the second Trump administration, arranged the meeting. The bishops, he said, were told it would be a private discussion of immigration enforcement, religious-worker visas and human dignity, with a possible chance to pray privately with the president.

After 90 minutes with domestic policy staff, they were ushered into the Oval Office, handed commemorative tokens and, Grob detailed, directed to stand behind Trump’s desk and pray. Nobody told them a video was being recorded, he said, and they never agreed to its release.

Joensen said officials connected to the White House Faith Office invited him, and that the agenda also covered fertility treatment incentives, abortion-inducing drugs and tax credits for private schools.

Archbishop James Golka of Denver, another participant, told his archdiocese’s publication that he understood why many saw the video as an endorsement but that it was “never my intention”. “I’m heartbroken that people are hurt, and that there are people intentionally using this moment to sow disunity,” he said.

Bishop Scott Bullock of Rapid City told the National Catholic Reporter that a Heritage Foundation representative had invited him and that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops was “not unaware” of the meeting. He did not say who in the leadership knew.

From A Public Apology - Archbishop Jeffrey Grob

… So, following a 90-minute discussion with White House domestic policy staff and advisors, we were eventually ushered into the Oval Office. The president greeted us, took a seat at his desk and presented us with commemorative tokens. We were then directed to stand behind him and pray. After which several photos were taken and we were ushered out. Unbeknownst to the group of bishops a video was also taken. But permission for the public distribution or posting of either the video or photos was not given by the bishops.

It did not take long thereafter for the White House to post a video and photos of the prayer. 

…I feel a heavy sadness, not only over the pain I caused, but also for the fact that something so sacred to a group of religious leaders, prayer to our Heavenly Father, would be manipulated in that way. We came in good faith to try to work for the betterment of our fellow human beings, to ease their suffering, to build up the common good, and to pray with a president, not to pose for a political photo opportunity to benefit the few. We should never have been put in that position by the White House. I did not go without reservations. I wish I had heeded them.

]]>Rebecca Hamilton

]]> ]]>Mon, 26 Oct 2026 14:16:35 GMTMon, 26 Oct 2026 14:16:35 GMTpatheos-feed-item:93AD337A386442AE8C9221ABE67B45DChttps://www.patheos.com/blogs/catholicbard/2026/10/thoughts-and-prayers-for-peace-of-mind-and-soul/JesusPeaceThoughts and Prayers for Peace of Mind and SoulI have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 I’ve been having a lot of Anxiety Lately. I’ve become...

I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace.
In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer
I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33

Cast all your anxiety on him,
because he cares for you.
1 Peter 5:7

I've been having a lot of Anxiety Lately. I've become fearful and stricken with worry. I woke up at 1 in the morning recently and felt scared. Scared of what I'm not sure, but the feeling was just there. My friend from middle school Gabriel Andreason wrote a book on this topic which I just got in the mail. He starts off his book describing anxiety.

Anxiety does not knock. It walks in, takes a seat, and dares you to pretend it is not there. It shows up anywhere and everywhere, in meetings, while you are sitting in traffic, during dinner with your family, and in the quiet moments before sleep when your body should finally be allowed to rest. There is rarely a warning, only the familiar tightening in the chest, the racing mind, and the sense that something is wrong, even when nothing obvious is happening.

On the outside, life keeps moving. You show up, perform, lead conversations, and meet expectations. On the inside, your nervous system stays braced, alert even when there is no immediate danger. Carrying that kind of vigilance can be exhausting, especially when no one else can see it.
UnAnxious (2026) Gabriel Andreason

You can read an interview with him by clicking on his name above.

Perhaps you too have also felt some type of fear or runaway anxious thoughts. So, in order to remedy my worrisome mind, I've found some encouraging and uplifting words about peace from Catholic writers and saints for me to think and pray about when I'm feeling anxious, nervous and afraid.  I've created this list for You and Me.

My Peace Perspective

My perspective on peace is coming from a Catholic/Christian perspective so it will mostly appeal to those who faith in the Judeo/Christian God. But if you're not a believer in God or Christ, if you're not a churchgoer or non-religious, I welcome you to read this anyway. Perhaps you will find some of these words stir something in your troubled soul. If your hurting, it can't hurt to look and perhaps find some inspiration.

It's a little long so you can read the whole thing or skim or skip through and pick out something that jumps out at you.

If faith is not part of your story right now, you are still welcome here. Take what resonates. Leave what does not. Stay curious. There is no need to rush. Some sections may feel familiar. Others may invite you to linger longer than you expected. That is part of learning how to listen differently—how to develop a “flow state” with the Holy Spirit, and how to go deeper within yourself, with Jesus, where transformation is found. -UnAnxious (2026) Gabriel Andreason

There is more to say about peace and ways to go about obtaining it then what is listed here, these are just short reflections on why it is good to have peace and the importance of peace. Seek out other resources and talk to a real human to go further.

If you like this pass it on to someone who might need it and like and subscribe.

Let's begin our journey.

Dear brothers and sisters, whether we have the gift of faith or feel we lack it, let us open ourselves to peace! Let us welcome it and recognize it, rather than believing it to be impossible and beyond our reach. Peace is more than just a goal; it is a presence and a journey. Even when it is endangered within us and around us, like a small flame threatened by a storm, we must protect it, never forgetting the names and stories of those who have borne witness to it. Peace is a principle that guides and defines our choices. Even in places where only rubble remains, and despair seems inevitable, we still find people who have not forgotten peace. Just as on the evening of Easter Jesus entered the place where his disciples were gathered in fear and discouragement, so too the peace of the risen Christ continues to pass through doors and barriers in the voices and faces of his witnesses. This gift enables us to remember goodness, to recognize it as victorious, to choose it again, and to do so together.
Pope Leo XIV Message of the Holy Father for the 59th World Day of Peace 2026:  ( 1st JANUARY 2026)

Before We Get to Peaceful Thoughts

I don't know what your fear and anxiety is. I don't know what you're struggling with, but I do know there is one fear we should all have. One healthy fear. I mention this because it is important and we can't go on to getting real peace without this particular reality that is important for us to know about.

The One Healthy Fear

At the end of our lives, we will be judged. Our eternal destiny will be determined by how we lived our lives. A healthy fear of the Lord (one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit) will keep us on the right track and motivate us to stay close to him. That’s the kind of fear that we all need!

Jesus’ warning isn’t designed to force us to spend every waking moment worrying about going to hell, but it should serve as a wakeup call.
A Worrier’s Guide to Peace | Catholic Answers Magazine  Gary Zimak (9/1/2014)

Good Grief man, how is this supposed to help with peace? This seems to be the complete opposite of it.

Well, What is Peace?

Peace has been defined as the tranquility of order. Think about that: when we’re at peace, things are properly ordered in our lives; there is harmony. Therefore, when there is disorder in our lives due to sin, we lack peace. A person who is living a double life cannot be at peace. An employer who is cheating his employees cannot be at peace. An employee stealing from his employer cannot be at peace. An unfaithful spouse or an unfaithful priest cannot be at peace. A person consumed by greed or a hunger for power cannot be at peace. A person consumed with envy cannot be at peace. You see, Jesus wants to drive sin out of our lives so that he can “refresh our souls” as Psalm 19 tells us.
What is robbing you of peace? - Where Peter Is - Fr. Michael Najim (March 7, 2021 )

Well, True Peace comes from being right with God. If you're not right with God, you need to know that you're not right with God so you can be right with God. Thus, this little reminder in case you just need to know.

“The nearer Christ comes to a heart, the more it becomes conscious of its guilt; it will then either ask for his
mercy and find peace, or else it will turn against Him because it is not yet ready to give up its sinfulness. Thus
He will separate the good from the bad, the wheat from the chaff. Man's reaction to this Divine Presence will be
the test: either it will call out all the opposition of egotistic natures, or else galvanize them into a regeneration
and a resurrection.” ― Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ
Book of Heaven FJS Quoets

It's necessary to mention this reality which is why I mention it.

Just remember that

The Church teaches that Hell is Real -CCC 1035
And God Wants No One to Go to Hell.

NOONE

CCC 1058 The Church prays that no one should be lost: “Lord, let me never be parted from you.” If it is
true that no one can save himself, it is also true that God “desires all men to be saved” (1 Tim 2:4),
and that for him “all things are possible” (Mt 19:26).

God wants you to be with Him.
This is right there in the
Catechism of the Catholic Church
I don't know about you but that fills me hope.

O.K. I wanted to get that one reality out of the way and then concentrate on

 The Remedy For That Fear
And All Fears.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. -1 John 4:18 -New Revised Standard Version

When we are afraid, Jesus is knocking on our door. And we have two choices: We can worry about our problems, or we can open the door and let him into our lives. One option brings misery; the other brings peace and eternal life: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).
A Worrier’s Guide to Peace | Catholic Answers Magazine - Gary Zimak   (9/1/2014)

If Jesus Knocks
Let Him In And
Adopt this as your motto.

Jesus, I Trust in You!

This consoling message is addressed above all to those who, afflicted by a particularly harsh trial or crushed by the weight of the sins they committed, have lost all confidence in life and are tempted to give in to despair. To them the gentle face of Christ is offered; those rays from his heart touch them and shine upon them, warm them, show them the way and fill them with hope. How many souls have been consoled by the prayer “Jesus, I trust in you,” which Providence intimated through Sr. Faustina! This simple act of abandonment to Jesus dispels the thickest clouds and lets a ray of light penetrate every life. Jezu, ufam tobie.-St. Pope John Paul II
'Jesus, I Trust in You' | The Divine Mercy

"Let us go forward in peace, our eyes upon heaven,
the only one goal of our labors."
-St. Therese of Lisieux
Catholic Saint Quotes on Peace – The Little Catholic

"O soul steeped in darkness, do not despair. All is not yet lost. Come and confide in Your God, Who is Love and Mercy."
-Jesus to St. Faustina
Catholic Saint Quotes on Peace – The Little Catholic

Learn From Mary

“From Mary we learn to surrender to God’s Will in all things. From Mary we learn to trust even when all hope seems gone. From Mary we learn to love Christ her Son and the Son of God!” St. John Paul II
Best Saint Quotes on Mary - Little With Great Love

Let us ask the Virgin Mary, Door of Heaven, to help us cross the threshold of faith and to let her Son transform our life, as he transformed hers to bring everyone the joy of the Gospel.
Angelus, 25 August 2013 POPE FRANCIS (Sunday, 25 August 2013)

Where Does Peace Come From?

Peace comes from knowing God loves us. And not just saying we know it, but knowing it in our flesh and bones.

If we acquire peace, then we find that all the good we do pours out, even in the face of great suffering or hardship. The saints aren’t saints because they never sinned; they are saints because they harbored a peace laced with the understanding that they were loved infinitely by God—despite their own sins, sufferings, and temptations. When we accept our smallness with humility, we receive the light of his peace and presence. -Maintaining Inner Peace - Word on Fire -Christopher Hazell (May 16, 2022)

To me, one of the fascinating things about the English language is homonyms—words that sound the same but have a different spelling and meaning. A good example of a homonym phrase is in the saying

“No Jesus, no peace— know Jesus, know peace.”

Besides being a catchphrase for a t-shirt or bumper sticker, this statement reflects a profound biblical truth. In tumultuous times we long for peace, but without Jesus such inner harmony is impossible.
No Jesus, No Peace — Today Daily Devotional - Sergei Sosedkin (March 18, 2023)

Saintly Advice on Peace

Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things pass away.
God is unchangeable.
Patience gains everything.
He who clings to God wants nothing.
God alone is sufficient.
– Teresa of Avila –
Deeper Christian Quotes

At a moment when simple tasks like grocery shopping and answering the door are stressful, it can be easy to get pulled into a world of concerns. On days like this, we’re fortunate to have a saint we can turn to who offers a peaceful, calming perspective. St. Pio of Pietrelcina, whose feast day is Sept. 23, is quoted as saying,

“Pray, hope, and don’t worry.

Worry is useless.
God is merciful and will hear your prayer.”

'Pray, hope, and don’t worry' - Catholic Review
Rita Buettner (September 22, 2020)

St. Padre Pio understood human anxiety. He counseled countless souls burdened by fear, illness, and uncertainty. His advice was not complicated theology — it was direct and practical.

First, pray. Bring everything to God. Nothing is too small or too heavy for His care.

Second, hope. Trust that God is working even when you cannot see it.

And finally, don’t worry. Anxiety does not change outcomes — but trust changes the heart.

In these three steps, Padre Pio offers a path to interior peace rooted in surrender.
Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry – Meaning (St. Padre Pio)

Be Not Afraid

Someone exists who holds in His hands the destiny of this passing world; Someone who holds the keys to death and the netherworld (cf. Rev 1:18); Someone who is the Alpha and the Omega of human history (cf. Rev 22:13) — be it the individual or collective history. And this Someone is Love (cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16) — Love that became man, Love crucified and risen, Love unceasingly present among men. It is Eucharistic Love … He alone can give the ultimate assurance when He says, ‘Be not afraid!’- St. John Paul II
‘Be Not Afraid’: John Paul II’s Message to a Fearful World – EWTN Great Britain
Regis Martin, October 22, 2026 – National Catholic Register

The popular Catholic hymn “Be Not Afraid” has been included in the hymnals of every Christian denomination, but people might be more likely to sing it in a time of fear or grief than at church.

As a hospice chaplain, I sang this song to many people as they neared death. I sang it through my tears to my own mother on her deathbed in 2013. Thank you. Susan C. Mitchell, BCC-ret ( Catholic board certified chaplain, retired.)

— Susan Mitchell (@chevychasesusan) February 14, 2018

“Be Not Afraid”: The song that eases the biggest transitions in—and out of—life - America Magazine  Colleen Dulle (June 14, 2018)

God Wants You To

Be at Peace,

St. Francis de Sales

said: “Go to prayer in faith. Remain there in hope. Go out only in love.” And: “Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, not even if your whole world seems upset. If you find that you have wandered away from the shelter of God, lead your heart back to Him quietly and simply.”

His most famous admonition was to “be at peace.” In the world he lived in, he knew how violent things could get. In the world he lived in, he knew that peace was a much-sought of commodity, a “rare pearl,” as it were; and that laypeople as much as vowed religious were in great need of it. So, St. Francis de Sales admonished the people of his day and of ours, to be at peace.  He said:

Do not look forward in fear to the changes of life;
rather look to them with full hope as they arise.
God, whose very own you are, will deliver you from out of them.
He has kept you hitherto, and He will lead you safely through all things;
and when you cannot stand it, God will bury you in his arms.

Do not fear what may happen tomorrow;
the same everlasting Father who cares for you today
will take care of you then and everyday.
He will either shield you from suffering, or will give you unfailing strength to bear it.
Be at peace, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imagination.
The Saint Whose Gentle Words Reported the "Good News" - America Magazine

One good reason to have peace within yourself is so you can give it to others.

Peace Be With You

“You must first have peace in your own soul before you can make peace between other people. Peaceable people accomplish more good than learned people do. Those who are passionate often can turn good into evil and readily believe the worst. But those who are honest and peaceful turn all things to good and are suspicious of no one. … It is no test of virtue to be on good terms with easy-going people, for they are always well liked. And, of course, all of us want to live in peace and prefer those who agree with us. But the real test of virtue and deserving of praise is to live at peace with the perverse, or the aggressive and those who contradict us, for this needs a great grace. … in this mortal life, our peace consists in the humble bearing of suffering and contradictions, not in being free of them, for we cannot live in this world without adversity. Those who can best suffer will enjoy the most peace, for such persons are masters of themselves, lords of the world, with Christ for their friend, and heaven as their reward.”
— Thomas á Kempis, p.72-73
An Excerpt From Imitation of Christ
Morning Offering for October 23, 2026

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum – “the peace of the Lord be always with you.” We hear these words just prior to the Agnus Dei during Holy Mass.  Interior peace of soul, a fruit of God’s purifying love, is thus necessary for authentic and lasting peace with our neighbor. St. James touches on this truth in his epistle: “From whence are wars and contentions among you? Are they not hence, from your concupiscences, which war in your members?” (Jam. 4:1). In other words, the root of all conflicts among individuals, families, and nations is ultimately a lack of God’s peace in the soul. If we desire peace in our relationships with others, we must first “let the peace of Christ rejoice in [our own] hearts” (Col. 3:15). Then, and only then, will we be able to love – not only those who love us, but even our enemies, as Our Lord commands (see Matt. 5:43-48)
Joy, Peace, and Patience: Keeping Our Catholic Cool in Tough Times - OnePeterFive -Matt Gaspers (November 3, 2017)

Some Practical Ways to Love Others

Loving others brings peace. Here are some ways to do it.

Never let evil talk pass your lips; say only the good things men need to hear, things that will really help them. Do nothing that will sadden the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed against the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, all passion and anger, harsh words, slander, and malice of every kind. In place of these, be kind to one another, compassionate, and mutually forgiving, just as God has forgiven you in Christ. - Ephesians 4:29-32
Morning Prayer, Friday, October 23, 2026 · Divine Office

We who are strong in faith should be patient with the scruples of those whose faith is weak; we must not be selfish. Each should please his neighbor so as to do him good by building up his spirit. Thus, in accord with Scripture, Christ did not please himself: “The reproaches they uttered against you fell on me.” Everything written before our time was written for our instruction, that we might derive hope from the lessons of patience and the words of encouragement in the Scriptures. May God, the source of all patience and encouragement, enable you to live in perfect harmony with one another according to the spirit of Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and voice you may glorify God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. - Romans 15:1-6
Evening Prayer, Friday, October 23, 2026 · Divine Office

You Can Only Do So Much

Quotes of St. Vincent de Paul

“Blessed be God that you have arrived in good health! Oh! take great care to preserve it for the love of Our Lord and His poor members and be careful not to do too much. It is a ruse of the devil, by which he deceives good people, to induce them to do more than they are able, so that they end up not being able to do anything. The spirit of God urges one gently to do the good that can reasonably be done, so that it may be done perseveringly and for a long time.” Coste, Vol. 1, Letter 109. – To Saint Louise, June 1632, p. 160.

“Our Lord wants us to serve him with common sense, and the opposite is called indiscreet zeal.” Coste, Vol. 1, Letter 85. – To Saint Louise, 12 October 1631, p. 128.

“Although God commands us to love Him with our whole heart and with all our strength, in His goodness He does not however desire that this should go so far as to injure and ruin our health through making all those acts [of excessive zeal to acquire virtue]. No, no, God does not wish us to slay ourselves in that fashion.”

“You will see a great amount of misery that you cannot relieve. God sees it as well and does not want to give those who suffer greater abundance. Share their trials with them; do all you can to provide them with a little assistance and remain at peace.”
On "Balance" - VinFormation

Prayers For Peace

Recently when I felt anxious at work I went to the chapel and knelt down and prayed for some peace. Through the remainer of my shift I actually had some peace. God heard my prayer. He always hears my prayer. And he actually granted me what I asked. I was grateful and amazed. So if you pray for peace God will hear you and grant you some peace. Doesn't mean it won't come back or that you won't have to seek out someone to talk to about your lack of peace, but it will help you along.

Tommy Robinson ��@TRobinsonNewEra (October 26, 2026) Heavenly Father, help me to trust You with the things I cannot change. Give me courage to do what I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus, and fill me with Your peace, which surpasses all understanding. Amen.

Rich Mullins - Hold Me Jesus (Live at FBC)

So hold me Jesus
cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

Lord Jesus, You said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I come to You now with my restless heart. Calm the storms within me, quiet my anxious thoughts, and order my desires according to Your will. Let me find my rest in You alone, for You are my peace. Amen.
12 Powerful Catholic Prayers for Peace (Updated: June 23, 2026)

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]]>Mark Wilson

]]> ]]>Mon, 26 Oct 2026 13:08:56 GMTMon, 26 Oct 2026 13:08:56 GMTpatheos-feed-item:31FB3E7870CD4B95B52B8A3FAA101A35https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2026/10/religious-liberty-for-all-not-just-christians/politicsreligionReligious LibertyReligious Liberty For All, Not Just ChristiansReligious liberty, like free speech, has limits; when someone abuses it, going beyond those limits, they can be stopped.

As a strong defender and promoter of religious liberty, I have consistently been disappointed in the way many of my fellow Christians abuse the concept. They reject its proper use, which is to promote the dignity of the human person and the freedom they should have to believe and express themselves in accordance to those beliefs, so long as their actions do not hinder the common good, and turn it into a tool to promote religious supremacy, domination, and control. When I see it used in such a manner, I always find it important to indicate what is involved with religious liberty, often quoting from Dignitatis humanae to do so:

This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.[1]

Too many Christians want to use religious liberty as a way to justify doing anything they want to do. They think there should be no limits at all put on them as they exercise their faith. This is how it quickly becomes a tool for religious supremacy, especially when the same ones who act this way try to find ways to limit people of many other faiths from following their own beliefs and practices. That is, they think, in relation to themselves, religious liberty is an absolute, and they will claim they are being persecuted if they are not given such an absolute right to do anything they want, even if what they want to do has little to no real connection to their faith. This is why I always have to look at what is being said when a Christian claims they are being persecuted for their faith, because, sadly, what they call persecution is just them being told to behave.

Society has a right to promote the common good, to protect everyone in it, not just a select few; this will often mean society will have to  promote a delicate balance to protect the rights of everyone. When someone thinks that means they have the freedom to impede others, and say their religion makes them do it, society also has a right to say no, just as it has a right to say no to those actions which are abusive or harmful in nature:

Furthermore, society has the right to defend itself against possible abuses committed on the pretext of freedom of religion. It is the special duty of government to provide this protection. [2]

The promotion of religious liberty, just as the promotion of freedom of speech, is vital for a free society; but if someone wants to use and abuse their freedom to go against the common good, to undermine the rights of others, then they exceed what is proper and just and can and often should be stopped. Indeed, looking at how some people use and abuse the notion of free speech should help us understand why we can't treat it as an absolute -- and I'm not just talking about the problem associated with yelling fire in a movie theater.  I am talking about those who like to cause offense, those who like to be confrontational, and demand the right to be heard wherever they want to go, all the while seeking to silence anyone and everyone who they disagree with. They think they have a right to enter private spaces and speak, and if they are told they are not welcome, they complain about having their freedom of speech violated; and yet, they will be the first to remove anyone saying things they do not like from their spaces.  This is exactly the problem I and many others had with Charlie Kirk; he tried to go into university settings, demanding they welcome him and his confrontational style, claiming if they did not welcome him, they were silencing his speech, while at the same time, he was having his followers attack university professors, trying to get them fired, effectively having them silenced and losing their actual right to speech. I believe if you want free speech, if you want to claim to be a free speech advocate, you must advocate it not just for yourself, but those who you dislike and oppose. Charlie Kirk certainly had a right to speak, and he could have done so at many places who welcomed him, but those who opposed him and the problems he caused also had a right to deny him access to their space, especially as he promoted actions which undermined the common good and actually caused harm to people in the spaces he wanted to speak at. Charlie Kirk, far from being an advocate for free speech, fought against its proper application and tried to change its meaning. He thought it meant that he could say whatever he want wherever he wanted to go, all the while he did all he could to silence those who held views he hated. His view was "absolute free speech for me" and "limited for you." This is something I find common happening with religious liberty, especially from Christians; they are trying to use the same logic and tactics to transform its meaning, so that it means Christians alone have the right to religious liberty, and it is not just a conditional right, it is an absolute right for them, so that nothing they want to do can be stopped by society. This is why so many of them falsely claimed religious persecution when  COVID required places of worship to be temporarily closed; they didn't realize the due limits of religious liberty could require Christians to follow proper public safety measures.

Christians are right to say they should be allowed to believe as they want, and to teach their faith to those interested in learning what they have to say. But it doesn't mean they can do so any way they want to. Those who think they can use coercive tactics, forcing people to listen to them and to them alone, those who think they can lie about others and their faiths as a way to convince people to become Christians (and deny the rights of non-Christians), have gone beyond what religious liberty permits. They are actively threatening civil society. Indeed, they can be said not only to transcend the limits of religious liberty, even as they have transcended the limits  which must be in place to preserve authentic free speech (because defamation must never be seen as protected speech). While people should be able to speak, to teach their faith to others, they can’t exercise undue force, intimidation, or coercion when they do so, and if they do, those actions are actually hostile to religious liberty because they end up denying the religious rights of others:

Religious communities also have the right not to be hindered in their public teaching and witness to their faith, whether by the spoken or by the written word. However, in spreading religious faith and in introducing religious practices everyone ought at all times to refrain from any manner of action which might seem to carry a hint of coercion or of a kind of persuasion that would be dishonorable or unworthy, especially when dealing with poor or uneducated people. Such a manner of action would have to be considered an abuse of one's right and a violation of the right of others. [3]

Once again, this is something I see many Christians do not seem to understand. They often confuse evangelism with proselytism, which is why they think their rights are being denied them when they are told they cannot put undue pressure on others. I see this happening in the United States, with the rise of Christian nationalism. Not only are they trying to give forms of Christianity rights which no one else has, they are use positions of power and authority to promote not only a warped version of Christianity, but one with a rather insidious, hateful ideology. While this is never good, it is worse when it is happening with the military, because that is turning the military into a violent arm of Christian nationalism. Rarely, if ever, when things go this way, are they stopped without bloodshed (caused by those who want to hold onto power). This is why I am very much opposed to Hegseth; it is quite clear what he is doing when he has Christian nationalist speakers addressing soldiers, suggesting they are, in some way, to be God’s army in the world. Sadly, the defense given to this is that Hegseth and Trump are promoting religious liberty, which is absurd, as he is denying nearly two hundred faiths from being recognized by the military, making it difficult for their faithful practice their faith and to get proper spiritual guidance.

Proselytism is wrong because it is aggressive, manipulative, and often dishonest in the way it tries to have people convert to Christianity (or to change which Christian affiliation they follow). Proselytism can be and should be stopped, but speaking to others, explaining one’s faith, without such manipulation or coercion, must not be understood as proselytism; they should be seen as protected acts of speech and religious liberty so long as those speaking show respect to their audience. While it can sometimes be a fine balance, in general, the abuse is obvious, and I find it, in the modern world, being perpetuated by those embracing some form of  Christian nationalism. They seek to combine religion and politics, and to do that, they seek to hold positions of power and authority and then enforce their religious practices by rule of law. Indeed, they end up claiming their religious beliefs are being violated when they are not able to hold supremacy, and that is what they mean when their faith is being attacked; that is, they are upset they don’t have absolute control, and they believe, by right, they should have it. This is also why they view other religions with suspicion, because they assume others must be just like them; it is all about who has control, and in the process, Christian nationalists show themselves to be far what Christ wanted them to be as he spoke against such an attitude:

But Jesus called them to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.  It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant,  and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matt. 20:25-28 RSV).

Christian leaders, be they leaders in the church, or Christians who hold positions of authority in civil society, should always lead by example, engaging loving service to others, being concerned about them and their needs instead of seeking power and control over them:

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed.  Tend the flock of God that is your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly,  not as domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock   (1 Pt 5:1-3 RSV)

While I cannot deny Christian nationalists as being Christian, I can point out they  that they don't do what Christ told his followers to do. Christians are called to to serve others, to love others, to love their neighbors as themselves instead of seeking power and control for themselves. Christianity is to be promoted by love, not proselytism. I think that is key to the way Christians should treat religious liberty. Their concern should be for their neighbor, what they do, what they promote, should be considered in the way it impacts their neighbor; since many Christians have a hard time being empathetic, indeed, as many of them think empathy is a sin, they must be reminded that Christ told them to treat their neighbors as they would like to be treated, and so they should always consider how they would feel if they were treated the way their neighbor is being treated.  Christians should be at the forefront defending the rights of Jews and Muslims alike, even as they should be defending the rights of people of all faiths, as they would like others, including Jews and Muslims, to defend them and their rights.

Thus, the right to religious liberty should not be used as an excuse to act poorly. Christians should not act like bullies. Religious liberty should not be invoked to justify proselytism; it certainly should not be used to promote religious supremacy or find excuses to ignore laws which promote the common good and defend society. Religious liberty should not be used to defend actions which unjustly cause people and their livelihoods to be put at risk, which is why I am glad Archbishop Thomas Wenski in Florida is staying strong in affirming the right of Catholic schools to expect and demand their students to be properly vaccinated, pointing out that it is not a violation of religious liberty to deny those who will not be vaccinated from attending their  schools. Most, if not all, of those making religious liberty arguments against vaccination do not have any religious teachings they can point to which say they cannot be vaccinated. It is another example of people trying to use religious liberty as a vessel for their own ideological preferences and desires, all the while denying actual promotion of religious liberty as they to try to force Catholic schools to ignore Catholic principles which promote universal vaccination!

Religious liberty has responsibilities to it and it is those responsibilities which I see are often ignored by those who would like to use religious liberty as an absolute to force civil society to follow their own particular ideological views, views which often have little to nothing to do with religion. They make a mockery out of religious liberty, and in doing so, cause people to reconsider whether or not it is a good thing. This is why I am often saddened and upset in the way I see many Christians trying to use religious liberty. It is not being promoted properly. It is not being used to help everyone. They think it is a right that they, and they alone, have. And they think it can be used to ignore basic obligations they have to society, when those obligations have them do something they don’t want to do.  Thanks to them, and the way they have abused the category, many presume others, when talking about religious liberty, are doing the same thing. I have seen it happen to me, which of course, is far from the case. For, I respect the common good, and with it, the rights society has to defend itself from those who would use religion to ignore their responsibility to society, or worse, to harm it. I look for the promotion of the common good, and with it the rights of people of all faiths, and no faiths, to follow their faith so long as they  cause no unjust harm to others. But, I have no problem, if such harm can be shown, for people to be told they must conform (which is why, for example, I have no problem with zoning laws, or building codes, being used for places of worship, because, without them, a home-church or home-place of worship can end up not only being a great nuisance, but a threat to their neighbors).

[1] Dignitatis humanae. Vatican translation. ¶2.

[2] Dignitatis humanae. Vatican translation. ¶6.

[3] Dignitatis humanae, ¶4.

* This Is Another Post From My Personal (Informal) Reflections And Speculations Series

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N.B.:  While I read comments to moderate them, I rarely respond to them. If I don’t respond to your comment directly, don’t assume I am unthankful for it. I appreciate it. But I want readers to feel free to ask questions, and hopefully, dialogue with each other. I have shared what I wanted to say, though some responses will get a brief reply by me, or, if I find it interesting and something I can engage fully, as the foundation for another post. I have had many posts inspired or improved upon thanks to my readers.

]]>Henry Karlson

]]> ]]>Mon, 26 Oct 2026 05:50:24 GMTMon, 26 Oct 2026 05:50:24 GMTpatheos-feed-item:69CD7AF104FE4AD5870158E00F8D37F5https://www.patheos.com/blogs/labmind/2026/10/francisco-de-verascola-a-basque-martyred-in-georgia.htmlBeatificationCatholic ChurchFrancisco de verascolageorgia martyrsGordexolaFrancisco de Verascola, a Basque martyred in GeorgiaOn September 17, 1967, in the town of Gordexola close to Bilbao, Spain, an altar was built in the neighborhood of Beraskola where Friar Francisco de Verascola was born in 1564 (the dedication is pictured above). Every year since 1946, a celebration is held in memory of the friar who will soon be beatified in...

On September 17, 1967, in the town of Gordexola close to Bilbao, Spain, an altar was built in the neighborhood of Beraskola where Friar Francisco de Verascola was born in 1564 (the dedication is pictured above).  Every year since 1946, a celebration is held in memory of the friar who will soon be beatified in Savannah, Georgia on October 31st of this year.  This last September, the current Bishop of Bilbao celebrated Mass at the altar.

Present at the Beatification Ceremony will be two descendants of the friar's brother: Imanol Goitia Inoriza and his mother Maria Isabel Inoriza de Villota.  Despite being separated by four centuries and twelve generations, Imanol and Maria Isabel are thrilled to be part of this celebration.

Friar Francisco was born on February 13, 1564, in Gordexola, a town in the Basque region of Spain. He entered the Franciscan Province of Cantabria and was ordained to the priesthood in 1590. One of 12 Franciscans volunteering to help the promising mission in La Florida, he set sail for the New World on July 14, 1595. In his early 30s, he was the youngest of the missionaries assigned to the territory of Guale.

Due to his enormous stature, he was nicknamed “the Cantabrian giant.” He often joined the Guale youth in athletic games, and he occasionally served as bodyguard for visitors to the Georgia coast. In early 1597, he accompanied another friar on an expedition to La Tama (an interior land near present-day Macon), his size and strength making an impression on the warlike natives of that region.

In September 1597, as he was returning from a supply trip to St. Augustine for his mission at Asao, he was ambushed and overpowered by a Guale war party. He didn’t even have time to take off his hat.

Francisco's hometown has expressed an interest in the beatification of its local friar for quite some time.  In 1946, a commission was created to promote his beatification.  Among the members was the mayor, the pastor, along with members of the city council and the local sports club.  In 1954, in conjunction with the U.S. Bishop's, Father Ignacio Omaechevarría presented to the Congregation of Causes of Saints a biography of the friar titled "Vizcaya Blood in the Marshes of La Florida."  In 1965, the local bishop wrote a pastoral letter titled "About the Basque and Sports on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the birth of the missionary and martyr Friar Francisco de Berascola."

In 1971, the Sports Club Beraskola was founded, named in honor of Francisco.  The current president of this club will be present at the Beatification, and will bring the local team's soccer jersey with the friar's name on it.

Even though time has passed, the memory of this friar has been kept alive among his people.  This has not been the case with some of the other friars to be beatified.  When I spoke with Father Krzysztof Kielczyk, Pastor of Cuacos de Yuste in Extremadura, the hometown of Friar Blas, he expressed to me that nobody in the town was aware of the beatification process for one of its own local missionaries.  Father Kielczyk stated the town now has less than 800 inhabitants, and that he hopes this beatification will enliven the faith of its people.  The Saturday following the beatification, the local bishop in Plasencia will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving.

The Beatification Ceremony can be watched live on EWTN or live-streamed at www.diosav.org.  It begins at 11am on October 31st.  If you are unable to join in person, please do watch it, and be part of this great event for the whole Church!

Cross at the altar in Beraskola

Parish San Juan de Molinar, Gordexola

Dedication of the Altar

Commemorative sports banner with Friar Francisco de Verascola

]]>Father Pablo Migone

]]> ]]>Mon, 26 Oct 2026 00:55:17 GMTMon, 26 Oct 2026 00:55:17 GMTpatheos-feed-item:D4A54BB54306490DA6FF5F5E9F207C14https://www.patheos.com/blogs/jenniferfitz/2026/10/close-out-sale-how-to-book-of-evangelization/Book Saleclearance saledeep discountDiscipleshipevangelism bookEvangelizationClose-out Sale - How to Book of EvangelizationClose-out sale on the Evangelization book, currently at $5 a copy. Best deal you are going to get, order ASAP.

Quick side note about a book sale, please let anyone who'd be interested know about it, and here shortly you'll get a proper post on what I'm doing for Martinmas this year.

Backstory: I received word recently from Our Sunday Visitor that The How-to Book of Evangelization is going out of print in early November. I'm pleased to see that if you order directly from OSV's website, they are now down to $5 a copy, which is a phenomenal deal.

=> When rights revert to me, we'll be out of print for quite a while, but I can assure you that given what paper costs these days, even with a future edition you are highly unlikely to ever see that good of a price again.

Also, I'm not aware of any expected changes in our hypothetical future edition, so you aren't missing out on some secret evangelization technique I was sitting on for the big second-printing reveal.

Thus, please, go ahead and jump on it. I do not have an update on what current inventory levels are, but if you are looking at a bulk order for a parish or diocese, give OSV a call and see what they can do for you.

If you're curious, no I don't have a plan yet for how I'm going to proceed. The choices are to see if another publisher would like to pick up the title (unlikely, since I'm not in a position to do big events and sales promotions, hence OSV stepping aside) or else go with one of the many independent/self-publishing options.

The option that lets readers access the book with minimal hassle from my end will be the one that wins.

]]>Jennifer Fitz

]]> ]]>Sun, 25 Oct 2026 21:03:11 GMTSun, 25 Oct 2026 21:03:11 GMTpatheos-feed-item:EF0146F6A5364BEBBE74810E0C395BB9https://www.patheos.com/blogs/summacatholic/2026/10/is-faith-really-blind-what-skeptics-get-wrong-reason-catholicism/Is Faith Really Blind? What Skeptics Get WrongDoes faith require abandoning reason? How does the Catholic Intellectual Tradition provide a rational foundation for belief.

Faith is belief without evidence and reason. So saith the famous (infamous?) atheist Richard Dawkins. But is that true? Is faith a blind leap in the dark? Worse yet, is faith believing something we know is false or that cannot be proven?

While this is obviously not the Catholic Church’s conclusion, it does raise a question. Does theology or philosophy possess a rational foundation for faith?

This paper explores such a foundation known as the praeambula fidei (preamble to faith).

The Praeambula Fidei

The view that faith must never be divorced from reason has a long and storied history in Catholicism. The Catholic intellectual tradition (CIT) is predicated on four precepts.

First, faith and reason are complementary propositions. Catholic theology is firmly grounded in the conviction that grace builds on nature. This is another way of saying that God works in and through His creation. Moreover, since God is the source of all truth, reason (philosophy, science, empirical inquiry) and faith (theology, Scripture) do not contradict, but mutually enhance one another.

Second, that reality is imbued with the sacramental. That is, the invisible, or divine, can become visible through the ordinary, material world, such as history, art, nature, and human experience.

Third, aspects of truth can be found in multifarious places. Rooted in thinkers like Saint Augustine, the tradition embraces insights from diverse cultures, scientific disciplines, and even non-Christian sources (such as Aristotle and Cicero).

However, (and this is the fourth precept) the Catholic tradition resists a fragmenting or partitioning of knowledge. Instead, Catholicism strives for an integrated vision of reality in which all academic disciplines connect to a common end.

These precepts form the basis of praeambula fidei and appear across historical settings. The synthesizing power of the precepts helped merge Jewish monotheism and covenantal history, Greek philosophical rigor (Plato, Aristotle), and Roman structures of law, order, and governance.

In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas harmonized Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology, laying the groundwork for systematic university education and natural law.

In turn, the Catholic Church helped establish the modern university system in medieval Europe (e.g., Bologna, Paris, Oxford), viewing the campus as a place for the universal search for truth.

This led Catholic clergy and lay scholars (such as Gregor Mendel in genetics or Georges Lemaître, who proposed the Big Bang theory) to advance science, alongside centuries of patronage and production in literature, architecture, and music.

Finally, papal encyclicals such as Pope John Paul II’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae outlined the Catholic university’s mission to bridge empirical science, philosophy, and theology.

Ultimately, the preambles of faith refer to foundational, rational truths that can be known through natural human reason alone before a person makes a supernatural act of divine faith. Put differently, the preambles of faith provide the rational foundation for the suprarational act of faith.

This point is worth dwelling on because it is the error made by people like Dr. Dawkins. Catholicism distinguishes between what is contrary to reason (irrational) and what is above human reason (suprarational). Dawkins conflates the suprarational (articles of faith like the Trinity) with the irrational, whereas the preambles show that the articles build upon, rather than violate, rational foundations.

Still, the preambles are not themselves aspects of faith. Rather, they serve as the philosophical runway for faith to take flight. In Catholic theology, these truths prove that believing the Gospel is an inherently rational act, preventing faith from slipping into blind emotionalism (fideism).

So what are these truths, and how can reason alone know them?

Natural Theology

The preambles of faith are truths about God and human nature that unaided human reason and philosophy can know and demonstrate. These truths are discovered independent of divine revelation.

Traditionally, the praeambula fidei are philosophical and logical propositions asserting God’s existence, the immortality of the soul, the reality of objective truth, and the historical reality of divine revelation through signs like miracles.

In turn, the claims of the preambles of faith are generally contained within the larger sphere of natural theology.

Natural theology in the Catholic tradition studies God’s existence and attributes using human reason and observation of the created world, without relying on divine revelation or Scripture.

Of epistemological importance is that the preambles to faith act as a bridge to supernatural revelation and faith. How does this process occur? Natural theology provides the rational proofs for the truths that constitute the praeambula fidei.

To understand their connection, it helps to see how the two concepts intersect. The praeambula fidei is a theological term for the specific truths that must logically be true before one can make a rational act of supernatural faith. Examples include the proposition that God exists, that God is one, and that the human soul is immortal.

For this reason, natural theology is the highest branch of metaphysics. It is a purely philosophical effort to understand God’s existence and attributes by examining the created order (cause and effect, contingency, design) through natural reason alone, without relying on divine revelation.

In short, natural theology is the tool, and the praeambula fidei are the product**.** When one uses rational arguments for the existence of God (e.g., the Five Ways), one is practicing philosophical theology or metaphysics. The conclusion wrought from such rational arguments (e.g., God exists) becomes a preamble to faith.

This fact allows the praeambula fidei to serve as a vital bridge between philosophy and theology. The rational arguments that lead to the preambles to faith become the subject of the theological inquiry.

Lastly, we must differentiate the preambles of faith from the articles of faith. While the preambles of faith are truth claims based on human rationality alone, the articles of faith are claims grounded in the mysteries of revelation that human reason could never discover on its own (such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, or the Resurrection).

Because God has revealed both types of truth, natural theology serves two critical purposes for faith. First, natural theology demonstrates that faith is not a blind, irrational leap (fideism). If natural reason can prove that a supreme Creator exists, then it becomes entirely reasonable to listen to what that Creator might reveal.

Second, it fulfills the famous scholastic axiom that “grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.” Supernatural faith (a gift of grace) presupposes a rational human mind capable of knowing foundational truths about reality (nature).

Conclusion

Contrary to the musings of skeptics like Doctor Richard Dawkins, properly developed religious faith is never divorced from reason. Indeed, within the Catholic tradition, faith presupposes reason. If this is true, then there must be evidence available and amenable to human reason. The concepts contained within the praeambula fidei are just that evidence.

]]>David Schloss

]]> ]]>Sun, 25 Oct 2026 14:55:17 GMTSun, 25 Oct 2026 14:55:17 GMTpatheos-feed-item:C4A242F8368041AEB26257390979C196https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2026/10/glory_in_christ/ChristcrossGloryRichVaingloryGlory Is Found In Christ, Not False PietyGlory is something we receive from Christ, and it is something which we are to share with others, not hoard up unto ourselves.

Paul warned us not to engage false piety; not only does vainglory emerge from it, such vainglory reinforces and encourages the use of false piety in order to receive respect from others. While we can pretend to be pious in order to receive worldly honor and glory, what obtain will be transitory at best. True, lasting glory comes from and is found in God. We can partake of and experience it because it is something God shares with us through Christ. If we open ourselves to it, it will transform us so that like Christ, we will not view such glory as something to hold onto and hoard up in ourselves; rather it will be something which will motivate us to act on behalf of others, helping them experience what we have experienced, to share in the glory, and the joy, which we have received. Indeed, the more we try to hold onto it without sharing it, the more it will fall out of our grasp; the more we are willing to share what we have been given with others, the more we will be given, transforming us to become greater, able to receive and share more of Christ's glory.

To receive that glory, the glory which we are to share with others, we must follow after Christ. When we do so, we will find that there are many legitimate ways to do so. We are given freedom in Christ, and that freedom would be lost, if there were but one way, one kind of discipline or spirituality available to us. This is why we should not expect ever Christian to be the same as each other. Over time and space, and dealing with the personal qualities which makes us distinct, we will find there are diverse spiritual disciplines and practices followed by the faithful. Paul emphasized this in the way he said Gentile converts should be treated by the growing Christian community. Some Christians in his time thought conversion to the Christian faith meant Gentile believers would have to take up and put into practice the complete Law of Moses (which, for men, meant they had to be circumcised). Paul said this was not right. He warned us when we begin to assume one way, one kind of discipline or spirituality, as absolute and to be followed by everyone, it quickly is used by those who engage false piety, those seeking personal glory, as a way to promote themselves and judge those who do not follow such a discipline. Their practice becomes a show, one which hides how far they are from where God wants them to be:

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that would compel you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who receive circumcision do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh (Gal. 6:12-13 RSV)

Based upon this text, it seems some suggested Gentile converts should become circumcised so that they can fit in, and not because they saw it as a necessity; others, however, saw it was a way to try to exercise power over the developing Christian faith, and they wanted to use circumcision as a way to identify a full or proper member of the  growing Christianity community. Jewish tradition allowed for converts, but conversion was not emphasized; there were some who converted, and some who were circumcised, but most who came to accept the basics of the Jewish faith who remained outside of the Jewish community. They didn't get circumcised, but were recognized as God-fearers. Christianity took what it was given by the Jewish tradition and develop it. Paul knew those who said one had to be circumcised to follow God did not represent the Jewish tradition, and he knew that had to be recognized in the Christian tradition. It was important for Christians to welcome God-fearers into their community, to recognize their conversion, without putting demands on them that was not found within the Jewish tradition. Thus, Paul said what Christians needed to remember is the cross. We found true glory, not in following unnecessary rules and regulations, but in the cross. It is with the cross we find true glory, the glory which is offered to all the Christian faithful, no matter their background; it is not gained by any false piety, even false piety which came out of good traditions, but in union with Christ. Such glory requires us to be humble, for it is in and through such humility, we will follow Christ, in whom we will find our true glory:

But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation (Gal. 6:14-15 RSV)

Reading what Paul said carefully, we should note that after rejecting the notion that Gentile converts should be circumcised, he also wanted to make sure Christians didn’t create a new rule saying Christians shouldn't be circumcised.  Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision in themselves matter. What matters is the way we are made new, and we are made new in Christ. We must live the way Christ wants us to live; that is, we are die to our old selves, to all the ideologies and all the sins, which helped us establish a false sense of who we are. Humility and repentance helps us do that. “Nothing is so deadly to sin as self-accusation and self-condemnation with repentance and tears.”[1] By turning away from sin, we allow Christ to make us new (or renewed) creations who live and thrive, not in and with any self-made glory (vainglory), but and with him and his glory. “Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16 RSV). Peace is found when Christians come together in harmony, no longer fighting each other over which form of piety is best, no longer trying to force each other to conform to one way of living out their faith. We can be in harmony with each other, and share in the peace of Christ, when we stop judging by outward appearances, such as those who like to judge the worth of people by their wealth, suggesting those who are rich have been shown God’s favor. Jesus’ story of Dives and Lazarus shows the error of that ideology:

There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.  And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, full of sores,  who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table; moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.  The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried;  and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom (Lk. 16:19-23 RSV).

If possessing wealth proved someone had God’s favor, then Dives, the rich man, would have been welcomed to Abraham’s bosom when he died because his wealth would have proved God’s favor was upon him. He wasn’t. The man Dives, and so many others, likely judged as lazy and worthless, the man who suffered much of his life, begging just to survive, was the one who proved to have God’s favor. When we judge the poor, as Dives and others passing by Lazarus would have done, we show how far we are from Christ and what Christ wanted us to learn. We prove we still judge on outward appearances, and with it, follow the way of vainglory. We might not be judging on circumcision, like some did in the first century, but we still would be judging on a basis of “the flesh,” establishing a false notion of glory, and in doing so, we have yet to fully open ourselves up to Christ and his glory.

[1] St. John Chrysostom, On Wealth and Poverty. Trans. Catharine P. Roth (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 89 [Fourth Sermon on Lazarus and the Rich man].

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N.B.:  While I read comments to moderate them, I rarely respond to them. If I don’t respond to your comment directly, don’t assume I am unthankful for it. I appreciate it. But I want readers to feel free to ask questions, and hopefully, dialogue with each other. I have shared what I wanted to say, though some responses will get a brief reply by me, or, if I find it interesting and something I can engage fully, as the foundation for another post. I have had many posts inspired or improved upon thanks to my readers.

]]>Henry Karlson

]]> ]]>Sun, 25 Oct 2026 05:10:03 GMTSun, 25 Oct 2026 05:10:03 GMTpatheos-feed-item:C5D227AB83E84F959EB65AFDE11E1732https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thelatinright/2026/10/tolkien-resurrection-of-the-body-trangenderism/gender identityhuman sexualityJ.R.R. Tolkienprogressive CatholicsWill God Raise Us as We Are or as We See Ourselves?Death separates body and soul, but resurrection reunites them. A Catholic writer asks whether our bodies are something we have or part of who we are.

Tolkien, Resurrection of the Body, & Transgenderism

I address this article to Catholics who believe that transgender identity reflects a reality God intended within His creation. Drawing on Scripture, the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, and the imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien, I will examine the relationship between body and soul in light of what Christians profess in the Nicene Creed: “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.”

In J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology, Glorfindel exemplifies Elven heroism and virtue. During the Fall of Gondolin, recounted in Tolkien's writings, Glorfindel sacrifices his life fighting a Balrog, one of the ancient angelic spirits corrupted by Morgoth. Though Glorfindel defeats the Balrog, he falls to his death, and his fëa (spirit) travels to the Halls of Mandos.

In Tolkien's mythology, Elves, unlike Men, remain bound to the world. Their fëar (spirits) cannot depart from it, and their hröar (bodies) possess a form of immortality, although violence or profound weariness can bring about their deaths. When an Elf dies, the fëa may answer the summons to Mandos, where it can remain disembodied or eventually receive a restored body.

This restoration differs from the Eastern concept of reincarnation. The Elven spirit does not enter an unrelated body or begin life as another individual. Instead, Tolkien envisioned a profound intimacy between fëa and hröa, such that the spirit's enduring relationship with its original body allows for the restoration of that same bodily form.

Glorfindel does not return as a different person occupying an arbitrary body. He returns as Glorfindel.

Tolkien's mythology raises a profound question about the Christian understanding of resurrection: Is our body merely something we possess, or is it integral to who we are?

Christianity Promises the Resurrection of the Body

As an incarnational faith, Christianity does not teach that salvation consists merely of the soul escaping the body. Scripture identifies Christ as the “firstfruits” of those who have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians 15:20). His resurrection anticipates our own, when God will reunite our souls with our glorified bodies.

The Catechism makes this plain in paragraphs 997–999. Death separates the soul from the body, but God will ultimately restore their union through the power of Christ's resurrection. Paragraph 999 explains:

Christ is raised with his own body: ‘See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself’; but he did not return to an earthly life. So, in him, ‘all of them will rise again with their own bodies which they now bear,’ but Christ ‘will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body,’ into a ‘spiritual body."

Just as Christ rose with His own body, we too will rise with ours. Though transformed and glorified, our bodies remain our own. Resurrection perfects our embodied existence rather than abolishing it. Unlike Tolkien's account of Elvish re-embodiment, in which a body corresponding to the original is fashioned anew, Christian resurrection restores and glorifies the very body that belonged to us in earthly life.

Aquinas: The Soul Is the Form of the Body

St. Thomas Aquinas develops Aristotle's understanding of the soul in the Summa Theologiae (I, Question 76, Article 1). For Aquinas, the soul is the substantial form of the body, meaning that it gives life and form to the human body. The soul does not constitute a complete human person temporarily inhabiting biological machinery or some interchangeable vessel. Rather, body and soul together constitute one human being. Death separates what naturally belongs together, while resurrection restores that unity.

Nor does Aquinas teach that souls exist as independently male or female substances that God assigns to bodies. Instead, his anthropology emphasizes the essential unity of body and soul. Our bodies are not merely possessions or instruments of an interior self. They belong to our very identity as human persons.

The implications are significant. If our bodies participate in our personal identity, we cannot simply dismiss biological sex as irrelevant to who we are. Scripture reinforces this understanding by identifying sexual differentiation as part of God's original creation.

Male and Female: Part of Creation, Not the Fall

Returning to Scripture, Genesis 1:27 tells us that God created humanity male and female. Sexual differentiation existed before original sin. Unlike disease, aging, and bodily corruption, it is not a consequence of the Fall but part of God's original design for humanity.

Echoing Scripture, the Catechism teaches that “sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul” (CCC 2332). It further states that “everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity” (CCC 2333).

More recently, Dignitas Infinita addresses this question directly. Paragraph 59 emphasizes that “biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated.” It further insists that sexual difference belongs to God's creation, preceding our individual decisions and experiences.

This brings us to a crucial question: If sexual differentiation belongs to the goodness of creation, why would resurrection eliminate or reverse it?

The Resurrection Test: Male, Female, or Neither?

Consider a thought experiment. Suppose a biologically male person sincerely identifies as a woman. This person dies and, at the general resurrection, rises in a glorified body.

What sex will that resurrected body be?

Possibility A: Male. This preserves continuity with the person's original biological sex and suggests that bodily sex reveals something objectively true about personal identity that subjective experience cannot overturn.

Possibility B: Female. This raises questions about bodily continuity and the goodness of creation. Why would glorification require changing the person's original sex? Would this imply that the created body fundamentally misrepresented who that person was?

Possibility C: Neither. Some might appeal to Matthew 22:30, where Jesus teaches that there will be no marriage in the resurrection. However, the absence of marriage does not necessarily mean the abolition of sexual differentiation. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas argues that both sexes will rise because sexual differentiation belongs to the perfection of human nature (Summa Theologiae, Supplement, Question 81, Article 3).

Possibility D: We Do Not Know. Christianity does not reveal every characteristic of our glorified bodies. Nevertheless, the Church's teachings on bodily continuity, the goodness of creation, and the unity of body and soul remain relevant.

As Catholics, we understand that human beings exist as a unity of body and soul. Consequently, we must distinguish between a person's sincere interior experience of gender identity and the objective reality of biological sex. The authenticity of an experience does not necessarily establish the truth of the conclusion someone draws from it.

Two Competing Anthropologies

At the heart of this discussion lie two competing understandings of the human person. From a Catholic theological perspective, the issue is not fundamentally about pronouns, bathrooms, or political controversies. Rather, it concerns the relationship between the body and personal identity.

A strong transgender anthropology holds that a person's internal gender identity can determine who that person truly is, independently of biological sex. Conversely, classical Catholic anthropology maintains that body and soul together constitute the human person God created.

The latter challenges the former by affirming that biological sex is not merely an external characteristic, nor is it something subjective experience can redefine. While Catholic anthropology recognizes the reality of interior experiences, it questions whether those experiences possess the authority to override the meaning of the sexed body.

When we consider Aquinas's teaching on the unity of body and soul alongside the doctrine of bodily resurrection, a fundamental question emerges: Does our interior understanding determine who we are, or must that understanding also account for the bodies God created us with?

Glorfindel and the Meaning of Restoration

Let us return to Tolkien's fallen hero, Glorfindel. As a devout Catholic, Tolkien drew upon a Christian understanding of the human person in developing his mythology. Glorfindel's restored embodiment reflects the enduring relationship between fëa and hröa, echoing Aquinas's understanding of the unity of body and soul.

Although Tolkien's fictional account differs from Christian resurrection, it illustrates an important principle: the body is not merely an accidental accessory to personal identity. Restoration does not mean replacing one's embodied identity with an entirely different one.

Christianity makes an even stronger claim: God redeems the whole human person, body and soul.

Final Thoughts: God Raises Us, Not Just Our Consciousness

From Tolkien's fëa and hröa to Aquinas's understanding of body and soul, and ultimately to the resurrection, one consistent truth emerges: our bodies are integral to who we are. Just as Glorfindel's restored body reflects his enduring identity, the Christian resurrection does not discard our embodied nature but restores and glorifies it. God does not merely save our souls; He redeems the whole human person.

This leaves us with a fundamental question: When God raises us from the dead, does He change our bodies to conform to our subjective understanding of ourselves, or does He restore and glorify the embodied persons He created?

Thank you!

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]]>Dennis Knapp

]]> ]]>Sun, 25 Oct 2026 00:57:59 GMTSun, 25 Oct 2026 00:57:59 GMTpatheos-feed-item:B0431C9299524E3E861E362D482F42F9https://www.patheos.com/blogs/publiccatholic/2026/10/pope-leo-is-it-possible-to-have-joy-in-difficult-times/Pope Leo: Is it Possible to Have Joy in Difficult Times?I can’t shut things down for the Sabbath without sharing this message from Pope Leo with you. Have a blessed and holy Sunday my friends....

I can't shut things down for the Sabbath without sharing this message from Pope Leo with you.

Have a blessed and holy Sunday my friends.

]]>Rebecca Hamilton

]]> ]]>Sat, 24 Oct 2026 23:09:53 GMTSat, 24 Oct 2026 23:09:53 GMTpatheos-feed-item:FDEBEA889D114566ADF751984DDFDC53https://www.patheos.com/blogs/faith4today/2026/10/critical-php-bug-exposes-millions-of-websites-worldwide/Christian ethicscybersecurityPHP vulnerabilityremote code executiontechnology newswebsite securityCritical PHP Bug Exposes Millions of Websites WorldwideA critical PHP vulnerability threatens millions of websites, prompting global outages, emergency patches, and security alerts.

A critical security flaw in PHP has triggered a global cybersecurity response and raised concerns across governments, businesses, and technology organizations. Security researchers recently disclosed two severe vulnerabilities, collectively known as "PHP2Shell," that could let attackers remotely execute code on affected servers without authentication. Because PHP powers a large percentage of the internet, experts warn that millions of websites could be at risk if administrators fail to install emergency patches.

The discovery has already led to bad actors taking advantage of the vulnerability, precautionary website shutdowns, security alerts from government agencies, and a worldwide race to secure vulnerable systems. The situation demonstrates how deeply connected modern digital infrastructure has become and how a single software weakness can affect organizations on a global scale. Let's look at the situation.

What Is PHP and How Does It Work?

PHP is an open-source programming language that developers use to create dynamic websites and web applications. Originally introduced in the mid-1990s, PHP remains one of the most widely used technologies on the internet today. Popular platforms such as WordPress, Wikipedia, and many business websites rely on PHP to generate content and process user requests.

When a visitor opens a website, the server uses PHP code to retrieve information, process transactions, display content, and interact with databases. Unlike simple static websites, PHP-powered sites can respond to user input, manage customer accounts, process online purchases, and provide personalized experiences. Industry estimates suggest that PHP supports approximately 70% of websites with identifiable server-side technologies. This widespread adoption makes PHP essential to the internet, but it also means that a critical security flaw can have far-reaching consequences.

What Is the Exposure?

The newly disclosed vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, could allow attackers to execute malicious code on vulnerable PHP servers remotely. Security experts assigned the flaws a severity score of 9.2 out of 10, placing them among the most dangerous categories of software vulnerabilities.

The flaws affect PHP's internal handling of request data and memory management. According to security advisories, attackers may be able to exploit these weaknesses before application-level security controls can stop them. Successful exploitation could permit criminals to gain unauthorized access to servers, steal sensitive information, install malware, modify website content, or disrupt services. The vulnerabilities affect numerous PHP deployment methods, including Apache with mod_php, PHP-FPM, php-cgi, FrankenPHP, and LiteSpeed environments. Government agencies, cybersecurity firms, and software developers have urged organizations to update immediately to patched PHP versions.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI, and the United Kingdom's National Cyber Security Center have all issued warnings encouraging organizations to patch or temporarily disconnect vulnerable systems if updates cannot be applied immediately.

Major Outages Reported to Date

The disclosure of the PHP vulnerabilities triggered precautionary shutdowns across multiple countries as organizations rushed to secure their systems. Reports indicate that government websites and services in the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, France, and Germany temporarily went offline while administrators applied security updates. Dutch systems affected included government portals, digital identity services, and transportation-related websites.

In the United Kingdom, officials reported that dozens of government services were temporarily unavailable while agencies implemented patches. Cybersecurity authorities stated that these shutdowns were largely precautionary measures rather than evidence of successful attacks. Other organizations reportedly affected by temporary disruptions included portions of the Wikimedia infrastructure, the Internet Archive, Wikipedia systems, and several public-sector services. Security researchers also reported millions of attempted exploit scans and attacks following public disclosure of the vulnerabilities. Experts emphasize that many outages were intentional defensive actions designed to protect users and data while security teams completed remediation efforts.

The Catholic View

While the PHP vulnerability itself is a technical issue, the response reveals a stark contrast between harmful exploitation and the values taught by Jesus Christ. Those who exploit these technical vulnerabilities for personal gain show little regard for the people they harm. In recent years, cyberattacks against critical sites and infrastructure have put people at risk. I spent the last 16 years of my career in Healthcare IT and saw the number of cyberattacks grow exponentially. Critical clinical systems and information were unavailable, at times for extended periods, because of these exposures and vulnerabilities. Software developers need to strengthen their testing processes for critical applications and services so they can find and remediate vulnerabilities before cybercriminals exploit them.

Contrasting Jesus' Values

Jesus consistently taught honesty, stewardship, responsibility, and care for others. In John 10:10, Jesus warns about those who come "to steal and kill and destroy," while describing His own mission as bringing life and abundance. Cybercriminals who exploit software vulnerabilities often seek to steal information, damage systems, or disrupt for personal gain. These actions directly oppose Christ's teachings.

Jesus also emphasizes loving one's neighbor and treating others as we would want to be treated (Matthew 22:39; Luke 6:31). Organizations that rapidly disclose vulnerabilities, develop patches, and protect users demonstrate principles that align more closely with Catholic stewardship. They work to safeguard people, preserve trust, and reduce harm. The response to the PHP crisis highlights a broader truth: technology can be used either to serve others or to exploit them. Christ's followers are called to pursue integrity, accountability, and service in every area of life, including the digital world. As cyber threats continue to grow, Catholics can support ethical technology practices that protect communities rather than endanger them.

The Final Word

The discovery of the PHP2Shell vulnerabilities has exposed one of the most significant internet security risks in recent years. Because PHP powers a large portion of the world's websites, the flaws prompted emergency warnings, precautionary shutdowns, and rapid patch deployment efforts across the globe. If you have critical applications or services you depend upon, check with your IT teams to ensure this vulnerability has been addressed. While cybersecurity teams work to reduce the threat, the event reminds us that digital infrastructure requires constant vigilance. It also highlights the importance of ethical responsibility, stewardship, and protecting others, values that remain as relevant online as they are in everyday life.

Please share your thoughts or any questions about this article in the “Comments” section below.

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Peace

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]]>Dennis McIntyre

]]> ]]>Sat, 24 Oct 2026 21:11:45 GMTSat, 24 Oct 2026 21:11:45 GMTpatheos-feed-item:8602CD77582845E8A323717754F9AA9Bhttps://www.patheos.com/blogs/jappersandjanglers/2026/10/dark-night-of-the-scarecrow-another-for-the-spooky-season/deliveranceHickspolitationhorror movieTexas Chainsaw MassacreTV MovieDark Night of the Scarecrow: Another for the Spooky Season"Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981), as is probably clear from its name, is not exactly kino. It’s what Gregg Turkington would call a “popcorn classic.” Made for TV, Dark Night of the Scarecrow is the most fun I’ve had with an at-home movie in a long time."

I don’t usually like using the word kino. Partly because I knew it from German long before it became English-language internet slang. Parly because its saturation means AI fruit videos almost certainly get called kino a million times a day. But the word has its place: it fits when a movie strikes us in the way nothing else can, when the visual, aural, and theatrical elements of a film break through our fleshy carapace and touch the soul.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981), as is probably clear from its name, is not exactly kino. It’s what Gregg Turkington would call a “popcorn classic.” Made for TV, Dark Night of the Scarecrow is the most fun I’ve had with an at-home movie in a long time. It’s eerie, gorgeous, and goofy all at once. It brought me back to watching Goosebumps VHS tapes as a kid, soaking in the absurd stories of fantastic creatures in realistic-feeling environments. My soul, perhaps, did not feel the piercing ray of the sublime. But I had a damn good time.

What makes this little TV film so fun is its sense of place and willingness to play on common and obvious human feelings. We open with a shot of a large mentally handicapped man and a child playing together. At first, he destroys a flower. Anyone who has seen Frankenstein (1931) will fear destruction. We, the viewers, don’t know these people, and it’s natural enough to hope for the protection of the child. In other words, tension is immediate.

But she’s fine and so is he. In fact, the film will mostly concern the man’s fate at the hands of local yokels who resent him for his kindness and innocence. The movie has touches of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Deliverance (1972); it doesn’t shy away from playing into stereotypes common to Hicksploitation. That said, it includes myriad little details that lend it a sense of reality and place. The primary yokel lives at a boarding house where he drinks alone in his room, for example. Constant match cuts successfully build and release tension.

The thing is just well made. A Halloween classic.

]]>Chase Padusniak

]]> ]]>Sat, 24 Oct 2026 18:29:16 GMTSat, 24 Oct 2026 18:29:16 GMTpatheos-feed-item:F2F52768333B44BABEB3F25E9F62F21Ahttps://www.patheos.com/blogs/publiccatholic/2026/10/the-internet-tool-or-mind-suck-we-decide-which-it-will-be/The Internet: Tool or Mind Suck? We Decide Which it will Be.May you live in historic times. various attributions Scientific American’s cover story for November is an article about the damaging effects of internet addiction. I think we all know intuitively that the internet can become destructive if we spend too much time there. Now there is a substantial body of scientific data that corroborates that...

May you live in historic times.

various attributions

Scientific American's cover story for November is an article about the damaging effects of internet addiction.

I think we all know intuitively that the internet can become destructive if we spend too much time there. Now there is a substantial body of scientific data that corroborates that intuition.

Internet addiction is destructive to individuals, families and all of society. The power of algorithms to ensnare people and, in many instances, hold them captive, has a clear scientific basis. The algorithms are carefully constructed to affect the human brain's reward structure in much the same way addictive drugs do.

Scientists are not backing away from the word “addiction” regarding the behavior of people who replace normal human interaction with the internet. Hard-core internet users find it almost impossible to give up their screen time, even when it is damaging their relationships and health.

Wasting Your Life on the Senseless Scrolling

I have caught myself wasting large parts of my days roaming through the internet. I start with reading news links, then segue to videos and classes about my hobbies, then I do a bit of on-line window shopping. I might even stop off to pray my Rosary with a website that gives me the illusion that I’m praying with a group of people instead of alone. 

When I look up, hours of my day are gone and I am left with the feeling that time is moving too fast for me to get the things done that I need to do. 

Gamers are often addicted far beyond that. People who spend a lot of time in chat rooms are often the most addicted of all. 

The internet is an organizing tool for predators.

There is also a far darker side to internet addiction. Predators and people who are intent on doing violence discover one another on the internet and form groups in which they trade ideas about how to harm other people more effectively and get away with it. 

Steve Jobs famously said that the computer is a “bicycle for the mind” because it speeds up our ability to accomplish things the same way that riding a bicycle allows us to travel faster than we could by walking. What he didn’t say, and may not have really considered, is that the interconnectedness of the internet can create unreal worlds which addict and hold people so profoundly that it can isolate them from the real people in their lives, and twist them into angry caricatures of themselves. 

Internet "friends" can't replace real human relationships.

The interconnectedness of the internet is not based on real human connection. It provides none of the essential give and take of normal human interaction. 

You can unfriend people or block them if they annoy you with a click. That is impossible with a real person. The flip side is that when you’re tired, lonely, defeated, or when you're joyous and triumphant, internet “sharing” is as insubstantial as vapor. 

The comfort, peace and strength that comes from the touch of a human hand, the simple presence of someone who is there next you, is totally lacking in internet exchanges. You know — and the people who are talking to you on the internet know — that the minute you switch off the machine, the contact will end. 

The internet does not replace the warmth of human companionship. It can’t give you the peace of the sound of the wind in the leaves in the trees in the park. It does not replace the feel of the sun on your skin, or the satisfaction of thinking through a problem, creating a piece of work, or just sitting around the kitchen table and talking about the day’s events with people you know and who know you. 

It can never provide anything like the peace and grace of deep prayer. 

The internet is not life. If you allow it to take over your days, it can become a kind of living death in which you dream your life away online instead of living it. 

Algorithms can enslave people

There is another kind of darkness in all of this. This is a darkness that, in some ways, has societal implications that are more grave even than groups of predators, insurrectionists, terrorists and shooters encouraging and teaching one another how to be more effective in the harm they do. 

What I’m talking about is the deliberate and often malicious use of algorithms to manipulate people’s minds. Meta (Facebook and Instagram) recently had to pay $18 billion as a result of a lawsuit it lost for manipulating the children who go on its websites. 

Many foreign countries — the European Union, Ireland and Brazil among them — have taken action against Meta for algorithmic manipulation, election interference, and the spread of coordinated disinformation.  

Despite all that, the computer is still a huge boon to us. It is a wonderful tool. The internet gives us a chance to stay in contact with people we love who are far away. 

I quit Facebook and Instagram because my account was hacked and I discovered that Facebook does not protect the people who use it service. The only thing that I miss is the groups where I could ask questions and learn things related to my hobbies, and the ability to keep up with friends from church, school and my time in elected office. 

It’s a great convenience to text family and friends. I also exchange texts with old friends who live thousands of miles away from me. That allows us to still be in one another's lives. 

But — and I can’t say this strongly enough — it does not replace seeing them in person on a regular basis. Even with lifelong friends, the intimacy of texting is something of an illusion. When you see them again, you quickly discover just how much was lacking. 

The internet can become a barrier to spiritual growth.

Perhaps worst of all, internet addiction can become a barrier to spiritual growth and your commitment to God. Far too many healthy people are choosing to "do church" on the internet rather than attending services with other Christians. I've been sick a number of times these past few years, and having the mass available online has been a gift.

But it's sort of like taking vitamins instead of eating a good meal. It does not replace the real thing. If you can go to mass, you need to do it. For your own sake.

Real prayer can be hard. It requires deep honesty and really being there with all your heart and soul. I have sometimes prayed the Rosary with a web site simply because it's the lazy way.

But when you don't put anything into it, you don't get much back. I've found that when I pray the Rosary with an online web site, the interaction with the website truncates the meditative quality of praying. It becomes a barrier between me and the One to Whom I am praying. I realize as I write this, that I'm cheating myself and God with my lazy praying. I need to back away from on-line praying and pray for real.

The internet and computers are fine tools as long as they serve us. But when we let maliciously employed algorithms that are hooked up to somebody else’s greed for power and money turn us into things that serve the goals of the people who own the websites we visit, that is time to back away. 

God allowed us to live in these times and He has equipped us to deal with them.

The phrase May you live in historic times is a curse. Most history is made by upheaval, death and destruction. 

No one who values the good life would chose to live in historic times. But none of us gets to choose. 

You and I are living in historic times. We are not bit players in this story. You and I and all of us together are the ones who will decide whether we allow these historic times to run without limits until they destroy us all, or if humanity gets through these historic times and moves forward.

I believe we were born now because God chose us to be the ones who are living in these historic times. That means we are able to handle the challenges facing us. But we have to do it. 

We can’t let our inventions rule us. We have to rule them. 

That requires clear thinking. 

And clear thinking requires that we back off the internet a bit and put it — and the billionaires who run it — back in their respective places. It’s a highly addictive, mind-sucking tool. It can help us. Or it can control us. 

It’s up to us to decide which it will do.   

]]>Rebecca Hamilton

]]> ]]>Sat, 24 Oct 2026 17:08:31 GMTSat, 24 Oct 2026 17:08:31 GMTpatheos-feed-item:2137CFD26D294D788326FAE66BB2AC29https://www.patheos.com/blogs/labmind/2026/10/beatification-of-the-georgia-martyrs-what-to-expect.htmlBeatificationgeorgia martyrssavannahBeatification of the Georgia Martyrs: What to expect?As the Beatification Ceremony of Pedro de Corpa and Companions approaches on October 31st, here are a few things you can expect. The largest gathering of Catholics in the history of the Diocese of Savannah. Founded in 1850, the Diocese of Savannah has never had a large number of Catholics. As a matter of fact,...

As the Beatification Ceremony of Pedro de Corpa and Companions approaches on October 31st, here are a few things you can expect.

1. The largest gathering of Catholics in the history of the Diocese of Savannah.  Founded in 1850, the Diocese of Savannah has never had a large number of Catholics.  As a matter of fact, the Catholic Church was forbidden in the original charter creating the colony of Georgia in 1733.  Until the U.S. Constitution was adopted in 1789, Catholicism was not allowed.  We anticipate that close to 10,000 faithful will gather at the newly constructed Savannah Convention Center.  This will be, by far, the largest gathering of Catholics ever in the Diocese.
2. Two relatives of Friar Francisco de Verascola will attend.  A small group of lay people from the town of Gordexola will travel from the Bizkaia Province of the Basque Country.  Two of them, mother and son, are descendants of a brother of Friar Francisco.  In addition to them, the home parishes of three of the five friars will be represented by their Pastors.  Archbishop Emeritus Vives Sicilia from the Archdiocese of Urgell will officially represent the Spanish Bishop's Conference.
3. The unveiling of a new image of the blessed.  Traditionally, a new image of the newly beatified is unveiled during the brief Beatification Rite.  The Diocese of Savannah called for artists to submit works of art.  One of the over 100 paintings stood out above the others, and it will be presented for the first time.  As the faithful leave the ceremony, they will receive a prayer card with the image, along with the newly approved collect prayer in English and Spanish on the opposite side.
4. Exquisite music.  Close attention has been placed on the music of the ceremony.  There will be beautiful music from the time of the friars, as well as music composed specifically for the special day.
5. The presence of many Franciscans.  The Franciscan Order initiated the Cause for Beatification of Friar Pedro de Corpa and Companions in 1984.  The Franciscan Holy Name Province of New York provided unwavering support during the process, until it merged with other U.S. Franciscan Provinces to create the current Our Lady of Guadalupe Province headquartered in Atlanta.  Friar Gianni Califano, the Postulator of the Cause, will travel from Rome and will stand next to Bishop Parkes as they request Cardinal Frank Leo from Toronto to beatify the friars.  This year, the Franciscan Order is celebrating the 800th anniversary of the death of Saint Francis, drawing attention to many Franciscan events throughout the world, including this ceremony.
6. Limited parking.  Though the Convention Center is a large and beautiful building, parking is limited.  Many of the faithful are coming by bus or making arrangements to fill their cars to the max.  Once parking spots at the Convention Center are filled, attendees will be directed to the EnMarket Arena from where they will be able to ride a bus to the Convention Center.  Ferries run about every twenty minutes from River Street downtown to the Convention Center providing another option - park downtown and take the ferry.  Whatever you choose to do, make plans to arrive early.  The doors open at 8am.
7. An opportunity to learn about the Guale.  As you enter the hall where Mass will be celebrated, you will have an opportunity to visit an exhibit to learn about the indigenous who lived on the Georgia Coast from the Savannah to Altamaha Rivers.
8. The presence of many bishops.  Among the estimated thirty bishops who will attend, will be present Bishop Stephen D. Parkes (the current Bishop of Savannah), the previous diocesan bishop, the Archbishop of Atlanta, Gregory J. Hartmayer, and Bishop Emeritus Kevin J. Boland.  Last year when Pope Francis called for the beatification, Bishop Boland was particularly excited.  Ordained in the late 1950s for the Diocese of Savannah, he is likely the one living member of the clergy who has advocated for this beatification for the longest period of time.
9. Large screens to follow the Mass better.  Since the hall of the Convention Center is very large, there will be large screens along the sides of the hall so the faithful can see better what is happening.  The Mass will be live-streamed on the diocesan website, www.diosav.org, on EWTN, and on diocesan social media accounts.
10. Many prayers answered.  Throughout the years, many have prayed for the advancement of this Cause, so that Friar Pedro de Corpa and Companions' sacrifice would be officially recognized by the Church.  Even though the earliest reports of their death in 1597 already referred to them as "blessed" due to the nature of their deaths, the process that has unfolded since 1984 will now come to a close.  The example of heroic virtue lived out by these friars is now presented to the whole Church as worthy of imitation.  At a time when marriage and family face many challenges, their prayers and witness for the faithful will bear tremendous fruit.

Pictures belong to the Diocese of Savannah.

]]>Father Pablo Migone

]]> ]]>Sat, 24 Oct 2026 11:18:36 GMTSat, 24 Oct 2026 11:18:36 GMTpatheos-feed-item:3E228A759D2D4E9EBA93990B48D77092https://www.patheos.com/blogs/steelmagnificat/2026/10/vivek-ramaswamy-is-all-american-and-evil/Amy ActonCatholic schoolImmigrantsVivek RamaswamyVivek Ramaswamy is All American, And EvilRamaswamy is not "acting like a Hindu" or "acting like an Indian" when he behaves so crassly. He's acting like a rich, spoiled, American.

We need to talk about Vivek Ramaswamy.

I know, I know, I don't want to talk about Vivek Ramaswamy either, but I've been doing nothing but that for the past several days anyway, and you need to listen. If you haven't already, you can refer to my Substack to see my previous remarks. Do give me a follow there if you would; that's where I put my political writing that doesn't directly pertain to my Catholic faith. In case you didn't know: this week, Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for governor of my home state of Ohio, released an attack ad against his rival, the Democrat Amy Acton. The ad featured Acton's estranged mother, Donna Arthur, rasping that her daughter is a liar who "needs help" and no one should vote for her. Donna didn't give many specifics, which was puzzling and awkward.

For about five minutes, right-wing pundits were insisting that this would end Amy's campaign. Five minutes was how long it took for the media to report what was already public knowledge: as a child, Amy Acton was the victim of rape. Her stepfather, Donna's husband, was indicted for raping Amy, but Donna and her husband fled the state before he could be prosecuted and never spoke to Amy again. Amy and her brother had been removed from their mother's custody and spent the rest of their childhood in their father's care. It was later revealed that in addition to standing by her man even after he allegedly committed incest, Donna Arthur has an extensive criminal history. She's been charged with writing bad checks, theft by deception, and several counts of animal abuse, including leaving a kitten to die in a car. She isn't a nice lady. Vivek Ramaswamy selected the most hideous person imaginable to rant about her ungrateful daughter on camera for thirty seconds, called it an attack ad, and accidentally reminded the media that his opponent overcame horrific childhood trauma to become a doctor.

The result of this astonishing ad was, largely, an outpouring of support for Amy Acton. Most everyone was horrified at Vivek's bad taste. Even John Husted, the Republican candidate for Ohio's Senate seat, and the outgoing Republican governor Mike DeWine, denounced it. Acton saw a surge in fundraising. About the only people still defending the ad are a befuddled President Trump, who snapped at a reporter and called her "fresh" for bringing it up; J. D. Vance, who hates everybody; and Ramaswamy himself. Vivek has doubled down. He's proud of the ad. He explained that he was pointing out where Amy was "flawed" as if being a victim of childhood sex abuse and incest is a character flaw. This has made the outcry against Vivek even worse, as well it should be. The man should never hold office or manage anything bigger than a lemonade stand. My heart goes out for Amy for having gone through such a tragedy.

I'm not upset that people realize that Ramaswamy is scum. But I'm concerned that people on social media are claiming it's because he's Indian-American, and a member of the Hindu faith.

I've seen a lot of takes about the supposed dishonesty of businessmen from India, how chauvinistic Indians can be, the way Hindu belief in karma leads to victim-blaming. They think this is the explanation for why Ramaswamy is such jerk. It's making me awfully uncomfortable.

I'm certainly not an expert in Indian culture. I do like to learn about it; I always enjoy teaching the class on India to my students at the after-school geography club. I am not an expert on Hinduism. I did study it a little in an undergraduate comparative religions course. We read the Upanishads. I liked them. I do have a great deal of knowledge of what it's like to be an American from Ohio, because that's what I am. And I can assure you, Vivek Ramaswamy is acting entirely American.

Ramaswamy is a natural born American citizen. Immigrants who become citizens are Americans too, of course, but Vivek was born and raised in Cincinnati. His mother was an immigrant and became a naturalized citizen, and his father is a lawful permanent resident who chose to retain his Indian citizenship; Vivek is a citizen because he was born here. In that way he's exactly like my Irish great-grandmother who was born in Columbus, who also had a name and a cultural background that American WASPs found silly, and who also was treated like she wasn't a "real" American. At the time, her Catholic faith was viewed as a frightening foreign religion and not a proper American one, just as Ramaswamy's Hinduism is being treated now. His experience is quintessentially American.

While in Cincinnati, before he went to Harvard, Ramaswamy happened to attend a posh Catholic prep school, Saint Xavier. In a recent development, Saint Xavier's alumni have publicly denounced Vivek, by the way. But that's not my point.

My point is, Ramaswamy is not "acting like a Hindu" or "acting like an Indian" when he behaves so crassly. He's acting like a rich, spoiled, American prep school kid.

Of course, there are all kinds of nice and well-adjusted people who went to prep schools. I have wonderful friends who went to St. Charles prep school in Columbus, for example. But think of the stereotype for a moment: a rich kid from Cincinnati who went to an extremely expensive prep school and then to Harvard. Always wears a snazzy suit. Weird, slicked back Jimmy Neutron hair. An extremely high opinion of himself. You're not sure what he does for a living, but you know he's in "business" and "tech" and other expensive-sounding things. Constantly putting other people down, and especially cruel to women. When he finds out a girl who's his rival has been poor and a victim of abuse, he decides to bully her in the most sadistic way he can possibly manage. He sides with her abuser. He tries to humiliate her in public and it backfires because most people have at least a smidge of empathy. He does not consider the fact that this makes him look like a monster. To the extent that he understands why people are angry with him at all, he keeps doubling down and finds them unreasonable. He views having been the victim of rape, a character flaw to be made fun of.

What does that sound like?

If you had no idea who I was describing, would you think the stereotype was particularly Indian?

If I said I was talking about a man named Pius Athanasius Maximilian Kolbe Jones, wouldn't you believe me?

Yes, now we get to the "Catholic" part of "Catholic Prep School." The fact is, Catholics, of which I am one, have absolutely no business lampooning somebody else's religion for denigrating a victim of childhood sexual abuse. We've been there and we've done that. No, we're not the only ones who have. Protestant churches also have skeletons in their closets. All religions have abusive people in them. But the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and their enablers earned us a reputation. Saint John Paul the Second covered up sex abuse his entire life.

Vivek Ramaswamy isn't loathsome because he's Indian or Hindu. He's loathsome because he's made terrible choices. And those choices are stereotypical choices of a spoiled, rich American who went to an expensive Catholic school.

Please don't vote for him. But also, stop making fun of his race and religion. They are beside the point.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows and Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to “The Little Portion” on paypal or Mary Pezzulo on venmo

]]>Mary Pezzulo

]]> ]]>Sat, 24 Oct 2026 02:57:28 GMTSat, 24 Oct 2026 02:57:28 GMT