Intro to Series One
Stories of the weirdest, dumbest, saddest members of the Catholic church.
"I cannot think why we should be astonished at all the evils which exist in the Church, when those who ought to be models on which all may pattern their virtues are annulling the work wrought in the religious Orders by the spirit of the saints of old."
-St. Theresa of Avila
"It's not like any other job I know,
If you're a piece of shit, they don't let you go."
-Jeff Rosenstock
This is a time in my life, and a time in history, when I could really use a church, when I could really use a community of faith and get advice from strong moral leaders. But I’m Catholic, and, well, we've got a lot of problems of our own, as I'm sure you've heard.
I've been lucky to see some remarkable activism from people of faith in the past couple years, activism that specifically draws from their faith traditions. I've seen Jewish activists blockade ICE offices, pray the Kaddish, and fight to make sure the U.S. doesn't perpetrate the same atrocities they've seen in their own history. I've seen Protestant ministers revive the Poor People's Campaign and block the streets with working, unemployed, and homeless people singing hymns and drawing attention to the horrible inequality in our country. Catholicism does have a great tradition of radical activists who have stepped up in times of crisis, but right now it also has pastors selling MAGA hats and “combat rosaries”, billionaires trying and failing to build theocratic empires in Florida, and failed country musicians turning into odious anti-abortion protestors. I wanted to learn the stories of the weirdest, dumbest, saddest men in my church - not the criminals, but the grifters and wackjobs who come with the truly insane stories - as a way to better understand some of the challenges of the church in the world today.
I’ve written up three of these stories in some long-ish essays that will be posted here, or sent to your inbox if you subscribe. All three pieces draw from a wide range of sources and reporting and try to put them all in one place. If these get a good response, I’ll do more of them, because I have a long list of potential subjects. I have read some terrible books, watched some terrible videos, and permanently destroyed my recommendation algorithms in YouTube, Amazon, and Spotify while working on this, and I hope you'll subscribe to, read, and share this newsletter so I can get some good chemicals back in my brain.
To the extent that this project has a thesis, it's this: the shit that is ruining the world is also ruining the Catholic church. The three men I looked into couldn't be more different from each other, but the themes you'll see in their faith lives will be ones you've seen before. People of God are not exempt from toxic masculinity or alt-right YouTube videos or rich people thinking they're infallible or the desire for fame at all costs. So I hope that you find their stories interesting and funny, and that you find them helpful in understanding the church in this unique moment.
SERIES ONE SCHEDULE
12/2 - Tom Monaghan, Pizza Theocrat
12/9 - Rick Heilman, MAGA Pastor
12/16 - Randall Terry, Abortion Troubadour