If you think about it, I'm a modern day Saint Paul
allow me to reintroduce myself, my name is
In what is obviously a challenging and tense time in our country's history, I've spent a lot of time this year looking to the great Catholic writers for guidance and comfort. You've read my thoughts on Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin and Blaise Pascal and Gustavo Gutierrez and Oscar Romero and many others, but sometimes you have to go very old school, and it's hard to get more old school than Paul the evangelist. But today I want to do something different: rather than do a deep dive into Paul's most resonant and relevant writing, I want to take a close look at public figures who, I think, do the best job of emulating Paul today. While we can all think of many examples that each partially accomplish what Paul set out to do, only one writer fully lives up to the legacy of Paul: me. I am a modern day Saint Paul, and the reasons are obvious.
I'm a missionary.
The church's great missionaries have always ventured fearlessly into the worst parts of the world, ministering to throngs of heathens who often were poor and didn't even speak English. But as Junior Associate Editor of G.O.T.H.S., I venture into a place far scarier than Corinth or whatever: the fetid pool of American Catholic media, where hundreds of blogs and journals compete for the attention of readers that I would also describe as “fetid”. Lifesite is for old people who think everything on Facebook is real; Church Militant was for them, too (rest in power). The Remnant is for doomsday preppers. One Peter Five is for guys with very long beards (only guys, and specifically guys who have never talked to a woman). Rorate Coeli is for people who misspelled something in their search query. National Catholic Reporter is for mad libs who do Mad Libs. Chris Hale’s newsletter is for people who think we can stop fascism if we just call him “Drumpf” enough times1. First Things is for people in DC who say “mutatis mutandis” and work on legal rationales for executing women who get abortions. America is for people who don’t think that women should be executed for getting abortions, but that they should be imprisoned and left to die of sepsis. And Crisis, of course, is for people who cannot go outside for fear of being assaulted by “A Gay”.
Paul traveled to Asia Minor, Macedonia, Ephesus, and many other outposts of early Christianity. He was imprisoned and eventually martyred in Rome during the reign of Nero. I am braver than Paul, because I have done something far more harrowing than any of that: I have voluntarily read the writing of J.D. Long-Garcia.
I'm an evangelist.
Paul didn’t just go to remote corners of the world; he had a message to deliver, a message that the world as you knew it was wrong, that there was a different way that we could live, a different way than the powerful just stomping on the powerless for all time. In much the same way, I spread a powerful message across the internet: the people who claim to speak for Catholicism are usually pretty stupid and you shouldn’t listen to them. Some of them are bishops, but bishops are idiots2. Many of them say things that are just flat-out, demonstrably wrong and you’re allowed to notice when that happens. One of them is, again, J.D. Long-Garcia, whose writing, if you read it, may cause leprosy3. There is, in fact, a different way to be Catholic than watching EWTN and sharing links from Word On Fire, which I would argue is not really a way of “being Catholic” at all.
And this ties directly to our mission as a website for the past five-and-a-half years. The goal has never been for G.O.T.H.S. to be Catholicism's best website; rather, the goal has always been for G.O.T.H.S. to be Catholicism's only website - that is, a website so good that other Catholic websites, or any communication organs associated with the Catholic church, are embarrassed to still exist and fold out of abject humiliation. We have pursued this goal with remarkable, and dare I say maddening, levels of success.
I'm a hero.
My favorite movie of all time is the 2002 Jet Li martial arts epic Hero4. This means that I am also a hero.
I know what Jesus meant when He said 'the truth will set you free’
I happen to be right about everything, which is honestly a huge plus for me as an amateur blogger. I have never gone back to a post and said that “I was wrong about this person and they turned out to be great”5, although I have said before that “I should have waited to post about Abby Johnson until she said these additional stupid things that have just surfaced”. Being right about everything has allowed me to cultivate a really wonderful following, meaningful enough that I’ve been able to meet and connect with some very kind and thoughtful people. I am grateful for all of you, and from the bottom of my heart: I would appreciate it if you regularly told me, using whatever communication vehicles you prefer, that you like me and that I’m right about everything.
If you think about it, I’m a modern day Saint Paul. I’m a missionary, I’m an evangelist, I’m a hero. I’m one, I think, that knows what Jesus meant when He said ‘the truth will set you free’. But I've waited until the end of this essay to share the most important reason of all:
Apparently you can compare anyone to Saint Paul now for whatever reason you want.
It's true! I know that sounds crazy, but you're not gonna believe what happened last week!
Just so there’s no confusion about how I feel and what I think you should do: If you give money to Chris Hale, stop giving money to him. Give that money to the next unhoused person you see, and then ask that person if they're going to spend that money on drugs or alcohol, and if they say “yes”, give them more money. All of this is a better use of your time and resources than reading Letters from Leo.
I guess there were a lot of different links I could have put there.
I was once told by someone who knows Long-Garcia personally that I should try and be nicer to him in my writing because he is apparently a nice person. I politely declined.
I do have a lot of stylistic notes for my earliest essays, mainly that they all could have been a lot shorter and probably still accomplished what I wanted them to.