Category: faith

TOP 10: Reasons I’m Not Converting to Islam (plus, the long story of how I almost began to kind of halfway think about considering converting)

September 3rd, 2026

Confession time! I’m about to get real honest here.

You may have noticed — or, probably not, who am I kidding — that MiTHology (4.0) has been down, or available only in a very abbreviated version, for a little while now. But it’s back! Why? What happened?

Well, a number of things. There’s been a lot of things happening in my irl life. One of which has been that I’ve been hitting a point of utter exhaustion — burnout, even — with regards to the whole identity crisis that has basically been the subject of this blog since its inception.

In recent times, I’ve found that it feels more tiring, more depressing than anything, trying to be a Traditional Catholic. Don’t get me wrong!, I’m fully aware that being Christian is not meant to be a cake walk; look to the examples of the martyrs and see that suffering is love, we must expect unhappiness in this world, and etc. etc. And I’ve never been big on feelings, anyway. Religion is an intellectual thing, for me, and always has been, so whether a religion is fun/pleasant or not isn’t really a deciding factor, for me, when it comes to whether it’s true.

However, I also don’t think the experience of being Catholic is supposed to look like “constant feelings of crippling social anxiety, self-doubt, and heart-pounding stress about not measuring up to some strict lifestyle standard.” I’m not even talking about religious scrupulosity. It’s more like a pathological case of “keeping up with the Joneses.” It’s not a noble struggle against sin and the world, or anything like that. It’s just a fucking drag.

For a long time, I was really feeling like: “the Traditional Church is no place for me, I simply cannot belong here, the social pressure is too much” – but at the same time, going back to the modern Church was no longer an option, now that I could see what a sad joke it is (I mean, “excommunicating” the SSPX, but meanwhile doing fuck-all about the “Proud Catholic” American politician who signed into effect a bill allowing abortion up until birth, for any reason? Give me a break!). I never stopped believing in Catholicism, but the whole system started to feel broken and uninhabitable, for me.

So, around this time, the time that I finally hit a burnout point with my Catholic life (and also at a low point, hormonally), I happened to stumble upon the topic of Islam.

As you may have seen in my other recent Top 10 post, a lot of things about it really appealed to me. A lot of things.

I said in that post that there was no part of me that was even remotely considering the possibility of converting. That was, actually, not entirely true.

Islam has a lot of things going for it. To someone who’s burnt out, and feels like living as a Catholic has become borderline impossible… it’s incredibly seductive.

I fear sounding “ecumenical” by praising the virtues of Islam here, but, you know what, I’m just going to be honest.

The really alluring thing, for me, was the simplicity. For someone whose faith is purely an intellectual endeavor, this is huge — Occam’s razor and all.

In Islam, it’s like this: there is one God, the Creator. Muhammad is his prophet, so do what the Quran says. End of story.

In Catholicism, it’s like: there is one God, the Creator. But also, God is a Trinity, Who begot the Son and they brought forth the Holy Ghost and don’t even bother trying to understand this because trying to express it in a way that makes sense is actually literally heresy. Also, Mary is conceived without original sin (which btw is a thing, which means that everyone, even newborns, are automatically guilty of something they never did and are born deserving of eternal hellfire; take a look at your newborn child and tell me this isn’t a counterintuitive teaching!) and is the Mother of God, i.e. of Jesus, Who is both God and man and was resurrected from the dead (!) and then ascended into Heaven in a cloud and also assumed His Mother up to Him soon thereafter, which is dogma although not in the Bible. Which btw is a collection of hard-to-interpret stories by many different authors from across the centuries and sometimes should be interpreted literally, other times poetically, so it’s authoritative but also you need an authority figure to interpret it for you. And if you don’t believe any of that you cannot call yourself Catholic.

What I’m saying is, Catholicism is complex and beautiful and has a lot going on, philosophically. It requires a lot more intellectual assent than Islam. A lot more prep work and formation. For me, who wasn’t raised Christian so struggled to get on board with Jesus and Mary, but never really struggled to believe in God, the basics of Islam line up much more effortlessly with what I know, at my core, without any kind of “intellectual assent” or “acceptance,” to be true.

What I mean is, I know that God exists like I know that 2+2=4. All the other Catholic doctrines, I accept because I’m told it’s so and I believe the Church is trustworthy, that its teachings are beautifully, perfectly logical. But, it’s hard to believe, on a gut level. It’s hard to believe that the Resurrection, the Ascension, or the Assumption really happened, or that babies are born guilty, or that a human woman could be the Mother of God. Those things are mind-boggling and require a lot of humility to accept. But I do choose to accept them, as an act of faith, because it seems to add up and I want to believe it.

But that feels a lot different from knowing, the way I know there is one God, the Creator.

There are lots of other things about Islam that I liked, too. The clarity. In Catholicism, there’s a lot of gray area, with regards to whether certain things are permissible at certain times and for certain people. For example: the issues of music, family planning, enjoying art, and exactly how much to give when it comes to charitable giving. In Islam, there are very clear answers to all of these questions! There’s no “better ask your parish priest.” It’s just a yes or a no.

And even in issues where there’s more wiggle room/gray area, like family planning, the answers are much more clear: a simple “it’s permissible but not good, and never required” – such a concise reply to a question that had been plaguing me for years, and no Christian ever seemed to have such a short and sweet answer to!

And how much should I give charitably?? Another question that’s stressed me out since my conversion twelve years ago! Christians play it by ear, it’s a very case-by-case type of situation, but Muslims literally HAVE A CALCULATOR where you punch in your income, assets, bills, and debts, and it spits out the exact number you need to give. I freaking love that idea!

It just seemed to make so much sense! Everything felt so clean and bright! Certain things about it just clicked with me, such as alcohol, music, and dog drool all being haram/unclean. So clear, so simple, so right.

Not only that, but everything about Islam looked, to me, much more consistently aligned with the Old Testament. The apparent disparity between the religion/spirituality of the Old Testament and that of modern Christianity has always been a bit hard for me to understand (and yes, I know there is a Catholic explanation, which I do understand and agree with; but the Islamic answer is much easier to understand, and requires much less in the way of mental acuity and flexibility and reading comprehension).

The simple, uncomplicated core tenet of Islam – “there is one God, the Creator” – felt so right, so familiar to me. It felt like what I had naturally believed all along, like something already built into me. – And guess what! It’s not just me. Muslims actually have a word for this feeling (“Fitrah”)! They believe that everyone is essentially born Muslim at their heart, inclined to believe in and serve the one true God. That’s why all converts to Islam are called “reverts,” even if they were never technically Muslim before. When I learned that, about Fitrah and reversion, it honestly give me chills.

And plus! To me, it seemed rather telling that Muslims view Christians with respect, thinking they’re on the right track but sadly misguided, while Christians talk about Muslims as if they are absolutely the devil incarnate. The same reason (among the many reasons, that is) that I went with Catholicism over Orthodoxy. We Catholics think of the Orthodox as our sadly-separated brothers in Christ, while the Orthodox (or, at least the online Orthobros) view us as EVIL !! and HERETICS !! and GOING TO HELL. Typically, my instinct tells me that the more generous, level-headed, polemic-free side of any argument is probably onto something. Because the truth doesn’t need a bunch of heated polemicists raging to defend it, right?

So yes. I was a bit seduced. I began to wonder if if was true.

But at the same time… I didn’t trust. I didn’t trust my own feelings or thought process here. And the fact that I felt so strongly, made me trust myself even less. How could I be feeling so strongly about another religion when like five minutes ago I was claiming to be all about Catholicism? What is happening? Am I that big of a flake? Am I really just one of those loony, unstable religious maniacs who’s always converting? “Oh look, this week she’s a Hijabi, what’ll it be next week? And she expects everyone to take her seriously!” What will I be in ten years, then – a Hindu?! And am I going to drag my children along on this roller coaster with me?! That’s not fair to them, to have an unstable mom who keeps changing up the truth on them, whipping the rug out from under their tender feet!

(Luckily, I wasn’t gullible enough to actually introduce my children to Islam. No, this only went on for a few weeks, and remained a private experiment, because I knew I needed time to figure it out before speaking about it to anyone; there was never a question of making it a family affair anytime soon. At least I’m not that much of a maniac, I guess.)

But is there really no substance to me whatsoever? Am I really just completely empty inside after all? (Truly, this is the first time in my 36 years that I can say I know what it’s like to feel “empty inside.”)

Islam and Catholicism: clearly, one of these religions is right and the other is wrong. The fact that I felt drawn to both, inevitably implies that somewhere along the way, I’d fallen for Satan’s wiles. It was all just massively discouraging.

Luckily, this whole time, I had a quiet intuition that I would never actually convert away from Catholicism. I think I somehow knew I couldn’t. This fascination with Islam, it was like developing a crush on someone new while you’re in a committed relationship. They say that when you first fall in love with someone, all their little quirks are so charming and endearing, and you’ll happily make excuses for anything they do – but after you’ve been together a while, those same quirks start to annoy you. (Husband, if you’re reading this, I’m not talking about you; it’s just an oft-repeated trope about long-term relationships; you do not annoy me.) If hypothetically I had chosen to think about converting… at this point, I had to admit, with a deep sigh, I could already foresee myself wanting to convert again in a matter of months or years. (And in Islam you’re liable to be killed if you do that, lol. No joke, that’s in the Quran.)

And besides my own utter emptiness and flakiness, which led me to believe that I can’t really be trusted to choose my own religion at all, there were several other things that turned me off from the whole Islam thing, and made me content to stay where I am.

And these aren’t your typical “Why I’m Not a Muslim” arguments. Believe me, I listened to and read a lot of those! And some of the most popular ones, I honestly didn’t find very compelling. I was even prepared to defend it in some of these regards:

I wasn’t swayed by accusations of it being “the religion of violence.” Because the Old Testament is seriously comprised of like 40% stories about the Israelites slaughtering entire cities, including women and children, to win the land for God. And that was seen as a good thing, a victory. If we believe in that, then why are we appalled by the idea that God is violent sometimes, even today? I don’t like the idea any more than you do, but, what if? As Flannery O’Connor famously quoted, the Bible itself says “the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.” I think our modern society is so pacifistic, so estranged from death, that we have lost touch with that primitive, bloody religiosity that we see in the O.T. and in Islam. And we Christians say that our religion was spread peacefully, “by the blood of martyrs,” but it’s not like the Crusades and the European conquest of the Americas didn’t happen. And besides all that, the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful folks who mind their own business, anyway.

Nor was I swayed by the accusations that the Quran is highly imperfect, that it was originally written with bad spelling and grammar, or that it’s not perfectly preserved as some claim. For one, Muhammad was illiterate, so it makes sense that if he (or his scribes) were writing down what God had spoken to him, there’d probably be grammatical/spelling errors. And even if there are slightly different versions of the Quran floating around in the world, I think it’s probably still more consistent, content-wise, than the Bible, which, we followers of Christ can’t even agree on how many books it has.

Nor was I swayed by the “just because it’s beautiful doesn’t mean it’s from God” argument. I wasn’t sold on the argument from beauty yet, but didn’t think I could dismiss it entirely without having some familiarity with Arabic. Apparently, the beauty and poetry of the language of the Quran in the original Arabic is unrivaled, so sublime as to be impossible for a human to mimic. “Well so what,” some Christians say. “Shakespeare wrote beautiful poetry, does that mean he was God?” I don’t think we should be so quick to throw this argument out without knowing the language. There are degrees of beauty, some things are more beautiful than others, and you can’t really compare when they’re not even written in the same alphabet. Shakespeare may be good, but no one was ever inspired to say of his works that “there’s no way a human wrote this.” There must be something to the Quran, then, maybe, I thought.

Nor even by the arguments from science, which normally go like this: a Muslim says “the Quran expresses scientific truths that someone in 600AD Arabia couldn’t possibly have known, things that humans wouldn’t discover to be scientifically true until centuries later!” To which a Christian replies, sarcastically: “you mean like that the moon was literally split in two, or that the sun descends into a pond when it sets, or that semen is produced between a man’s backbone and ribs?”

To which Mith replies: eh, so what? Science is cool but it doesn’t really sway me either way, when it comes to this stuff, because it seems that “trusting the science” is just as much a matter of faith as any religion. We humans love to think we’ve got it all figured out because We Did the Science. But trusting our own perceptions, or, to remove it even a step further, the perceptions of the authorities in academia just because they’re in academia, is a bold move. This is why I don’t have an opinion on things like evolution, the reality of dinosaurs, the literal or non-literal nature of the Genesis creation story, whether the moon was split, or where semen actually comes from. I think there’s more to the natural world than meets the eye, and the best we humans can do is infer… but I don’t necessarily trust it, anymore than I trust my own wishy-washy religious sentiments.

So no, the science argument didn’t sway me, nor did several other Christian counterarguments. But! There were some things I learned that did sway me back toward Catholicism. And here they are:

10. Islam’s prohibition on music, art, and dance. This was the first thing I learned about Islam that made me go: hmm, wait a minute, that doesn’t seem right.

However, as you know, I don’t trust my own feelings, so I didn’t let that sway me; after all, if I just follow whatever “feels right” to me, then my only religion is myself, right? I’m aware that the idea is to follow God not because He makes sense to us, but because He is God. So if He says “don’t make art or music,” then that’s that… right?

And plus, to further support the notion of an art ban: in the King James Version of the Christian Bible, the Fourth Commandment actually is translated as saying “thou shalt not make any likeness of any living thing.” – Not saying that I put too much stock in a Protestant interpretation. The Catholic interpretation here is that we are not to make any idols out of objects that we make ourselves. Which makes more sense, considering that right there in the same book, God commands Moses and the Israelites to construct the serpent on Moses’s staff and the angels on the Ark of the Covenant. So I think we Catholics got it right, with this one.

Drawing, dancing, and singing are such a natural part of being human. Kids start doing them when they’re still babies. It’s how they learn. If for adults these are sinful to do… at what age do they become sinful? How can something that’s good for little kids to do (because Islam even admits that kids should sing, draw, and play with dolls) become a sin after a certain age? It doesn’t add up, to me.

It’d be like if we were told it was sinful to have friends or to play or to laugh; just essential parts of being human.

Now, I get that something being natural doesn’t make that thing good. Plenty of things that humans do by nature are bad. But, those things are things that we teach our kids not to do. They aren’t things that are educational in the formative years and then become bad. That just doesn’t make sense. Bad is always bad.

I think the reason for the ban against drawing likenesses of living things, is because humans shouldn’t presume to try to be like God.

Which brings me to another interesting difference between Catholicism and Islam. As Christians, our goal is what the Orthodox call “theosis:” becoming God. Reducing the self until we are one with God, so that His will is our will, and we can be wholly united to Him in Heaven. Art – beautiful art, that is – aids in this process because, in creating, we are co-creators with God. Imitating Him and His goodness. Creativity is, after all, a gift that He has given us, made in His image as we are. And beautiful art can teach people about the goodness of God.

In Islam there is no such thing as theosis. Humans cannot be like God and shouldn’t even presume to try. Only God can create life, and to try to imitate Him is haram.

Personally, I think the Christian approach feels more right and more edifying. “It’s just that you’re an indoctrinated Westerner,” a Muslim might tell me, “and an art school alumna at that!” – but, creativity is universal, isn’t it? Is it really likely that something we encourage in our children, for their education, is actually satanic? I’m not buying it.

9. Ideas about marriage. The Quran explicitly tells husbands to “beat” their wives as discipline when they act up. And this is the literal word of God?! I’m no feminist, and am all for traditional gender roles in marriage, but I firmly believe that wife-beating is never Godly behavior. A Godly man can lead his wife without hurting her. “Love your wives as Christ loves His Church” is, imo, a much holier instruction for marriage.

And, the Quran tells men to take multiple wives – up to four, I think. And Muhammad himself had more than that.

Now, I’m aware that we see this a lot in the Old Testament, and if consistency with the Old Testament matters so much, then why should polygamy bother me?

Well, in the New Testament Christ specifically tells us that God allowed the Israelites to practice divorce because they were weak and God is merciful – but that does not mean that divorce is good. Makes sense that the same probably applies to polygamy. God made Eve for Adam; one man + one woman just makes sense; the nuclear family is written into the laws of nature, and it’s silly to argue that it’s not. It’s pretty evident to me that Christ clarified, sanctified, and perfected natural law marriage. Along with a lot of other things about the Old Testament.

8. Still continuing with the topic of marriage: one of Muhammad’s wives was literally six years old when he married her! And he was in his fifties at the time! Oh but don’t worry!, he didn’t consummate the marriage until she was nine… nine…!, and this man is supposed to be the ultimate model of virtue, the paragon of goodness, the example of exactly how we should behave, as humans. Hard pass. I’m aware that societal norms were different in 600AD Arabia, but I just don’t think there was ever a time or place in which it was morally okay for a 50 year old man to sleep with a 9 year old.

7. Allah literally calls himself “The Great Deceiver,” at one point in the Quran. Yikes! That freaked me out a bit. It directly contradicts what we Catholics say in the Act of Faith: “… I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived.” The latter sounds more like the God that my heart believes in. The former sounds… kinda like the opposite.

6. Which brings me to this one historical tidbit. Apparently, when Muhammad first received his divine vision, he was horrified, and thought it was satan, and immediately wanted to commit suicide because of it. Does that sound like something that came from God? How could anything from God make a person want to kill themselves? That doesn’t sound right to me; I couldn’t quite get past this one.

5. The Islamic idea of heaven, or Jannah, doesn’t sound as heavenly to me as the Christian Heaven.

This goes back to the theosis thing I discussed in item #10. In Catholicism (and Orthodoxy), for us to enter Heaven, we must become like God. Because Heaven is basically being one with God, engaged in eternal worship of God: the eternal glory of perfect love, of participation in the love of the Blessed Trinity, of singing the praises of God forever. That’s why, per a Catholic understanding, most people don’t actually want to go to Heaven, even though they might think they do. Most people just want satisfaction of their self-centered desires – a condition which is better suited to life in hell. Most people, if they could glimpse Heaven, would probably actually choose hell because it’s easier, and you’re more able to focus on yourself and your own desires. It’s more familiar, basically. This is why so few people go to Heaven – because so few people actually want to! If we truly want to, of course Christ will welcome us in. But to be a member of God we must actually let ourselves be made members of God via theosis.

So that’s the Christian take on Heaven. It’s challenging, it’s edifying, it’s beautiful, and it makes sense.

Muslims don’t do theosis. For them, Jannah is like an eternal dessert: a prize for being good on earth, a paradise of eternal pleasure. If I understand it correctly, it’s a place where Allah will let them enjoy whatever they want: beautiful spouses, delicious food, comfortable houses, just sheer pleasure and delight for all eternity.

It sounds appealing, sure!, but, imo this take on Heaven also kind of… demeans the human person? “Material pleasure is the best thing you can hope to achieve” – but, we’re not animals. And frankly, wouldn’t all that pleasure get kind of boring after a few millennia? This idea of heaven doesn’t really require you to become perfect. Just following the letter of the law doesn’t make you good, as Christ very well taught us. So I have a hard time believing that this is God’s design for humanity. God as I understand Him wants real happiness for us, i.e. the destruction of selfish appetites and living entirely in union with Him.

4. This one is more of a subjective reason than an argument, but, religion, after all, should be both subjective and objective, for us, so it makes sense that some of my reasons are subjective. Such a legalistic, black-and-white system can easily lead to despair, in my experience.

Case in point: as I became interested in Islam, for a brief period I started trying to copy their prayer style, to like try it on for size, if you will, while still praying as a Catholic; thinking maybe I could borrow some of the elements of their faith that I liked, and apply them to a Catholic lifestyle. So I had alarms in my phone. When the alarm goes off, you have a set amount of time to drop whatever you’re currently doing and do your prayers. If you don’t do them in that set amount of time, or if you don’t wash properly beforehand, or if you don’t have your feet and hands in the correct positions, or if something distracts you and you have to pause and talk to someone, your prayers are worthless. Or if there’s a picture hanging on your wall, your prayers in that room are worthless. Whew! I realize that the idea is that God just wants you to do your best and that’s what counts… but also, this mindset of “it must be a certain way at a certain time or it doesn’t count”… in my experience, which was just a few days, it made me just want to give up. I couldn’t do it on time, I couldn’t not be interrupted, so why bother. I didn’t know what to say anymore. My prayer life suffered.

3. Besides, upon further research, I found that Islamic moral philosophy is not always so black and white after all. Just like in Catholicism, you have your progressives and you have your Rad Trads. Opinions vary widely, from “the hijab is not required” to “women should cover even their fingernails, and must never speak in public because even their voice is ‘awrah.’” Likewise, some say “all music is haram because it intoxicates the mind, just listen to the Quran instead”; others contest this by saying “it’s really only music made on certain kinds of instruments that’s haram, so, it’s totally licit if you’re making music on a computer.” Or, “only certain lyrics and genres are haram, but classical is fine.” Same exact deal as us over here in the West! So, if you’re looking for a refuge of total clarity, I can report that this actually isn’t the way to go.

2. Going back to number four and the despair thing: in trying to think about things in Islamic-ish terms, I quickly became overwhelmed by a feeling that I was hated by God and certainly hellbound.

See, in theory, I like that Islam emphasizes God as sovereign creator instead of warm-and-fuzzy loving Father. I like that prayer focuses on “God is the Greatest” instead of “Hey Daddy God, here are all my wittle pwoblems, please make me feel better.” As a cerebral person who doesn’t feel love easily, the former feels more right to me.

In Islam, people are not God’s children, but his slaves. I initially found that a refreshing approach, and much easier to believe (because, seriously, it really boggles the mind to think that the great Eternal God cares a whit about little old me and my dumb little problems!). But, given the logistical difficulty of following every single little rule, in Islam, it’s super easy to fall into thinking “I’m a bad slave.”

Which is a terrible way to think. It’s one thing to realize that you are a beloved but disobedient child. That’s a challenge; it’s convicting and encouraging at the same time. You have to do better because God your Father cares about you. But, a bad slave – what’s even the point of your existence, now. Who cares about you? You’re not even wanted. You’re just trash, like, on like a cosmic level, you are literally trash. So, in trying to try on a semi-Islamic mindset, I very quickly felt hated by God (and am still kind of battling with this). In Catholicism, this is actually a sin – despairing of God’s mercy. So, this was a major red flag to me.

Love, while difficult, is, imo, a pretty important aspect of God, which is evident from our lived experience as human beings (love is the greatest thing we can experience, the greatest thing we are capable of, and the thing we desire most of all; why would we be designed this way if God were not, Himself, love?).

And finally:

1. It just didn’t make sense for me, practically. I had a creeping sense that I was following a bread-crumb trail of some knowledge not meant for me; that God had already given me the right religion; that He didn’t require me to go down a million Internet rabbit holes to find the true Faith. (YouTube really shouldn’t be where we get our religious formation.) I have a Christian husband and four little Christian children, and a great church near me. And there’s actually a scene in the Quran where some Jews come up to Muhammad and ask him to judge some conflict for them, and he points at the Torah and basically says: “that’s your judge!, why’d you come to me?” So… even Muslims believe that the Bible is a set of instructions from God for the Christian people. It just led me to believe that I already had found the right religion.

I don’t think it should be that difficult. I don’t think God requires us to jump through a million hoops to worship Him correctly. Catholicism is the universal religion, it’s literally everywhere, in every culture.

Sometimes I really think the Internet is a curse. We know too much. The internet is undoing the fall of the Tower of Babel. There are no more language/culture barriers. We need those. Humans aren’t designed to have that much free access to knowledge. Some things, we shouldn’t know about. Some things are dangerous for us to learn about.

.

I’m not going to be like one of those Christian polemicists who goes on screaming about how Islam is satanic. I don’t know for sure if it is. It has a lot of things going for it, but also some major problems. All I know is, I intend to remain Catholic.

So, that’s my take for now. This whole experience has caused me to completely lose any amount of confidence that I had in myself, as a religious person, tbh, so, I hope I will never wander even a single theoretical hypothetical inch from Catholicism again, and never intend to, but I’m such an idiot that who’s to say. Maybe I’ll get seduced by the Ba’hai Faith next. 🙄 Good grief. We really are such fickle and stupid creatures, humans. So anyway, I’m back now, still Catholic, still weird, still filling up your WordPress feed with my nonsense.
TOP 10: Things I’ve learned about Islam that made me, a TradCath, go “Huh, That’s Interesting”

August 9th, 2026
Let me be clear: I am NOT converting away from Catholicism! Nor will I ever be! Why would I go anywhere else when John 6:53 and we literally have the Mass right here. This post is NOT meant to be ecumenical in any way, in fact I’m pretty sure ecumenism is heresy and I don’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole.

No, but recently my husband and I were watching Jeopardy!, and there was a clue about Islam, and, as someone who’s interested in religion and philosophy in general, I began to think: “ya know, I don’t really actually know much about Islam at all. What do they even believe?”

Thus began an absolutely fascinating internet rabbit hole adventure that kept me up too late and made my husband wonder why I was “brushing my teeth” in the bathroom for 45 minutes.

Keep in mind: I can’t attest to the veracity of many of these claims, as my knowledge of Islam is pretty much limited to what I absorbed in forty-five minutes on YouTube while brushing my teeth. I have never even touched a copy of the Quran, and don’t personally know any Muslims; for all I know, many of these statements could be completely made-up; you can’t believe everything you hear on the internet, after all.

Regardless, the following concepts made me go “Huh!, that’s interesting”:

10. They apparently have clear rules written down right there in their book that tell them precisely how to go about every moment of their daily lives, in black and white terms. Wow! As someone who lacks an innate sense of balance when it comes to living a religious life, I can see how this would be extremely helpful. Sometimes I wish we Christians had such clear instructions. In Christianity there’s more left up for personal interpretation, which is cool, because not everyone is living the same life nor has the same disposition, and God meets us where we are. However, I also think it must be nice to be told in very plain terms exactly what you may and may not do, and when.

9. Gender relations. Three particular details in this category blew my mind:
- (a) apparently, women and men who are friends are not allowed to deliberately touch each other at all — they can’t even shake hands when meeting. Wow! Is it just me, or does that actually feel… extremely natural and right?! Like, tbh I always feel a bit strange when I’m introduced to a (straight) man and am expected to shake his hand. Like, um, isn’t that hand for your wife?? Like, I know what you do with that hand, and I know what straight men’s brains are like, sir, so please refrain from touching me. Only my husband gets to do that. I’ve always felt a bit neurotic and prudish for feeling this way, but evidently it’s not just me, it’s a tenet of a major world religion. Huh! I wouldn’t mind if this became a social norm in the West.
- (b) In their churches — ahem, mosques, I guess — men and women often assemble in separate areas of the space. Segregation. This is also something that some more traditional Christian churches do, and I think it’s a cool practice, reminding us that men & women are different and should be treated as such.
- (c) According to one video I watched, Muslim women aren’t even technically required to attend Friday prayer service!, just strongly encouraged. Wow! To me this is so interesting; while I certainly don’t disagree with the universal Sunday obligation for all Catholics, I actually don’t think it’s such a bad idea either for the expectations to be different for men and women. I’ve talked on here before about how hard it is on Catholic women to discern when they are required to go to Mass vs when they have a legitimate reason not to (pregnancy nausea, parenting littles, etc.), and it causes a lot of anguish for us. I feel like attendance being “strongly recommended” instead of “required but with exceptions” might create less stress for women (also, apparently Muslim women aren’t supposed to formally pray while on their period?!, which, ya know what, I kinda can get on board with, as I, like most women, suffer a lot and can’t be expected to do much of anything, at least not very well, on certain days of the month).
8. Modesty standards are on point. I already mentioned in my post on women’s fashion that I personally think Islamic modesty standards for women are awesome; but here’s a chance for me to rant about it again! The Islamic definition of modesty makes way more sense than the Western one. Like, I will never understand how fitted clothes can be considered “modest;” it’s so dumb to me to see these Christian girl influencers, all with their long, beautiful hair out, posing in tight little showy outfits that they claim are “modest” just because they cover a certain amount of skin. Something that hugs the shape of your body may be beautiful and all, but it really can’t be called modest. Likewise, a little sheer lace mantilla that decorates your hair rather than covering it — I wear one because it’s normal here, but I don’t think it exactly qualifies as “modest,” technically. Showing off your figure and/or your hair isn’t modest. People be like “modesty can be sexy!”, but I’m of the opinion that “modest” and “sexy” are mutually exclusive. However, you can be both modest and pretty, which much Islamic fashion is. (And please don’t @ me telling me I “don’t get it” about modesty — I understand just fine how for some people, “modesty” means dressing in a way that honors your natural, God-given beauty without flaunting anything or drawing undue attention to yourself. I just think it’s also clear that a woman dressing this way is still subjecting herself to the male gaze, which is her decision and I’m not saying she shouldn’t be able to choose that; within reason, people can dress however they want; it just seems like this can’t properly be called “modesty.”)

I’m not done yet! Catholic women like to talk about “Marian dress” as a modesty standard, but seem not to notice that in images of Mother Mary, she’s always got her hair covered and is draped in long, forgiving, loose-fitting garments that conceal her body, like a Muslim woman. And I take issue with the accusation that shapeless, loose-fitting clothes for women are “lazy and frumpy.” I 100% would wear a niqab, or at least a hijab (because let’s be real, we all know hair is one of the most, if not the most, eye-catching and distinguishing features of a person (what’s the first way most amateur authors describe a character’s physical appearance?), and can often make or break a person’s sexiness; no point pretending hair is a sexually neutral feature like an elbow or a nose), if it were socially acceptable for a white Catholic woman in America. The less I can be perceived and visually assessed — the freer I can be from the prison of the male gaze — the happier I am!

7. Cleanliness standards also on point. Apparently, Muslims are required to wash themselves before praying — it’s called “wudu,” or ablutions. Even their feet! Wow. I think it’s kind of cool — of course we want to come before God as free of the stains and stink of the world as possible. “Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” as the saying goes. We Western Whites, who (according to r/Hygiene, at least) have a reputation for being the stinkiest people, could perhaps do well to consider this concept of cleanliness/hygiene as not just practical but spiritual. Fascinating.

6. Very clear rules about music. Oh my goodness, how much easier my little life would be if we Catholics had our own version of “haram” and “halal” labels, which apparently apply to music and media as well as food. If I didn’t have to bother agonizing over what’s okay to listen to, didn’t have to bother with the hard work of discerning and reflecting and examining my conscience — if there were a clear, black-and-white “this music is forbidden” — how much easier that would be! Obviously I get why we here in the West don’t feel the need for such labels, and I love the beauty in that — important things are rarely easy, after all — but also, there are times when I feel like some strict black-and-white rules would be really helpful and make life easier. Would help those of us who suck at discerning. You know: a system that caters to the lowest common denominator, and all (it’s me, I’m the lowest common denominator).

5. Similarly, the rules about food. I’m vegetarian anyway, and I’m all for a system of dietary laws. There absolutely should be restrictions on the manner in which animals can be slaughtered for meat, and, if we absolutely must slaughter animals, there should be a spiritual element to their slaughtering. Otherwise it’s just selfish and brutal. Muslims and Jewish folks are way ahead of us on this one!

4. And, continuing in that same vein, the Islamic rules for fasting are way more clear and easy to follow, imo, than the Catholic ones. The whole “if necessary you may have two mini meals that together don’t add up to one meal” — what even is that?! I’m so weird about food and “meals” that I honestly don’t even know how to apply this one in my own life. Simply not ingesting anything until sundown makes so much more sense and is so much easier to follow, as well as feeling more like true fasting. I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with me stealing this method to use during penitential seasons.

3. Prayer positions. I saw one video where an imam was explaining why Muslims bow and prostrate themselves in prayer. It elevates the heart above the brain, demonstrating complete submission of the will and intellect. Isn’t that interesting?! I know Orthodox Christians do bowing and prostration too. We Catholics prefer kneeling upright, which I personally prefer because sticking your butt in the air is embarrassing imo. The only time I see a prostrate position during Catholic ritual is at ordinations to the Priesthood, and then they lay flat on their faces, so it’s a bit different. I kind of like this physical gesture, in theory, though. Humans are both soul and body after all, the two irrevocably intertwined (as much as I hate to admit it, given my issues with my body, lol!), and it makes sense to pray with our body too. “As we believe, so we pray,” said one of the Sisters who taught my kids’ Catechism class; I feel like elevating the heart above the head for prayer is kind of a cool example of that.

2. Specific, mandated prayer times! Again, for an undisciplined, forgetful, lazy, unstable, and irrational-minded person like myself, having mandatory prayer times sounds extremely helpful! “Figure it out for yourself”/ “do it whenever works for you” is pretty unhelpful, for me, who didn’t grow up religious and has struggled to figure out how to be so. Better Catholics with more discipline probably can’t relate, but, I kinda love the idea of pre-scheduled prayer times being non-negotiable.

1. Emphasis on our enslavement to God (“Allah”) rather than God as our loving Heavenly Father. Interesting! Obviously, I believe God is our loving Heavenly Father — Jesus Himself said so. I also think that many Christians in the modern West would do well to remember that He isn’t just our friendly “Daddy God” (🤮) but infinitely greater than we are, and has no need of us, and that He has no obligation to make sense to us or to make us happy. Like I said, I haven’t read the Quran, so I can’t really say much on how Muslims feel about Allah in comparison to how we feel about God, but, I just heard this difference briefly explained in a video, and I can appreciate this POV; it’s a helpful reminder for anyone of any religion, I should think.

.

So yeah, like I said, I’m not interested in converting or anything — why would I be — I just think these elements of their belief system are super interesting, and there are some elements that I think I’d even like to borrow and apply to a Catholic lifestyle. Which, as far as I can tell, is not an ecumenical/heretical thing to say, and I hope I haven’t accidentally sinned anywhere in this post. This was just a fun little learning adventure for little old me, is all, and rather enlightening to see some of the similarities and differences between this other religion/culture and my own, that might actually help me be a better Catholic.
The Presentation: a sestina (plus, a lengthy preamble about poetry)

August 1st, 2026
Click here to skip the preamble and jump straight to the sestina.

Ah, poetry. How do you guys feel about it? Let’s discuss.

Typically, I do not write poetry. For several reasons. The first being that fiction is simply more fun for me, both to read and to write. Probably I should try to get more into poetry, because as a busy mom it’s hard to find time to write whole novels anymore, and it’d be easier to focus on one single poem at a time. (Long ago, on day one of poetry 101 at my liberal arts college, the professor told our class that she used to be a novelist until she had kids – then she became a poet.) But fiction is just so much more fun, isn’t it?

The second reason being that poetry is so much easier to fail at – and the failure, vastly much more embarrassing. Mediocre prose is embarrassing, but easier to get away with if you have moments where it’s good. You can still salvage it. In poetry, one weak moment makes the whole thing shit.

And poetry as a medium is so much more honest and raw, like, there’s nowhere to hide, in poetry, so if you do it poorly, it’s just mortifying. Sharing a bad poem is like if you tried to sing a beautiful ballad but ended up just forcing everyone to watch you ugly-cry alone in the spotlight. If you were trying to act flirty and alluring for someone, and then farted. Just horrifying.

When I do read poetry, I prefer, with few exceptions, older poems – the kind with distinct rhyme, meter, and/or form. My all-time favorites are “Heaven-Haven” by Gerard Manley Hopkins and, of course, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Butler Yeats. Also a big fan of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Generally, I have found that I really struggle to connect with the contemporary style of free verse – it just doesn’t make sense to me, unless it’s rhythmic enough to get stuck in your head like a catchy tune. (See: “Blue Poles” by Inger Christensen, “O Cheese” by Donald Hall.)

I dunno. Most poetry these days reads to me like prose with a bunch of arbitrary line breaks and a flippant disregard of basic grammar:
```
I went 
           to the grocery 
   Store
             I needed to buy 
oranges, but 
they were 
                Out
of oranges, and so I 
bought 
                 Clementines
```
… this is how it sounds to me, lol. No offense to any free verse poets reading this! You guys clearly have a poetic sensibility that I’m lacking, is what I’m trying to say.

I guess I’m a very primitive and basic type of person. A cavewoman. I don’t care for all this artsy, highfalutin stuff. I like things that feel good in my body, and/or that make me go “oooh! neat!”

(And the truth is, I used to write free verse myself, back in my teens and early twenties – just pages of emotional vomit punctuated by a bunch of arbitrary line breaks that I thought made it sound “cool” and “artistic.” Then I realized how bad it was, and stopped writing it. Maybe that’s why I’m so allergic to this style of poetry – even the good stuff gives me secondhand embarrassment for the poet, because it reminds me of the embarrassing trash that I wrote when I was an angsty teen.)

Structure feels safer. Poetic form forgives a multitude of sins, imo, and it’s harder to be cringey if you’re following a set of preexisting rules. For the last thirteen-plus years, the only poems that I have written have been sestinas, and the occasional sonnet. I especially love sestinas. Was introduced to them in the aforementioned poetry class in college, and fell in love, and never looked back.

I don’t think I’m that great at them or anything, but they sure are fun, kind of like a little word puzzle — very addictive. I used to write one a week, back in the days of MiTHology 2.0, as you may remember. I just love them! It’s so cool to see how all the pieces fit together. It makes my idiot brain go “oooh, neat!”.

I don’t write them much anymore, but below you will find my most recent one. Full disclosure, I actually wrote this one in hopes of submitting it to a certain beautiful, esteemable journal of Catholic poetry. “It’s a journal for Catholic poems,” I thought – “how could this not be a good fit!” However, upon further digging, I learned that this journal does not want “devotional/inspirational” poems.

Huh. Okay. Well, I honestly don’t even think mine counts as “devotional” or “inspirational” … but, it does express awe and wonder at the Divine, in an overtly Catholic way, so, hmm… just to be sure, I went and looked at the kind of stuff they publish, to see if mine would fit well there.

And guess what. It was all, without exception, free verse. None of it made sense to me at all. Just, whoosh!, right over my head. Waves of secondhand embarrassment, and flashbacks to eighth grade. Plus none of it was actually explicitly Catholic. Too much subtlety for me!

All of which led me to believe that this little thing I made would not be a good fit for that particular publication. As usual, my stuff doesn’t quite fit anywhere. Womp womp.

So I’m putting it here, because frankly I spent a good amount of mental energy on it, and don’t want that to go to waste. I suppose I could have gone ahead and submitted it just in case, but to be honest with you, I recently received a form rejection on a novel manuscript from a different Catholic publisher, and I’m just not feeling resilient enough for another rejection right now. So, whatever. At risk of looking like I’m ugly-crying in the spotlight, or farting while flirting, I’m putting this thing here, on my little personal blog, for you to see. Hey, at least here no editor can reject me! Without further ado.

The Presentation: a mom prays the fourth joyful mystery
```
Nothing that was yours was really yours.
Some basic clothes, perhaps – really, nothing.
The consecrated virgin knows no “mine”
except whatever modest food she’s given
and space to live, though you never did belong –
a misfit among sinners, too like the Father,

to Whom so young by your mother and father 
you were presented: your parents, no longer yours
now. In the temple, heaven's shadow, you belonged
from infancy, gentle hands holding nothing
but other hands, and prayers, all freely given
to God Who looked with love and called you Mine.

But didn't you ever desire something “mine”?
Was your pure heart ever tempted to ask the Father 
because if you had asked He'd surely give
His favorite daughter one thing to be yours?
Or was the gift the clarity of nothing?
And was the home the nowhere-to-belong?

And then there's me. For years I longed and longed
and then, at last, she came, and she was mine 
my very own, my treasure, as no thing
could be, even more mine than her father's.
How gravity and the flesh resist the “Yours”,
resent returning to Him what He has given.

Thy will be done, but still, please let me give
them everything on earth, for they belong 
to me. Are me. The soul admits they're Yours
but all the while the flesh screams mine, mine, mine,
surrenders, then pulls them back – not yet, Father.
The last truth is that I will yield nothing.

But, a poor and simple girl possessed nothing
until the perfect Son Who was given 
to her only, not even an earthly father
to share him with. At last: something belonged
to you. You could have said, This precious one is Mine
the Alpha and the Omega, entirely yours.

But from your Heavenly Father you withheld nothing.
“Here He is,” all yours, to Him freely given
to Whom He belonged, and Whom you could have called “mine.”
```
What if the antivaxxers are right?: Part Two

July 11th, 2026

I think I get it now… maybe. I think I can finally, officially, see it from the other side’s perspective.

As you all know, when it comes to vaccines, I’ve always been somewhere between cautiously pro-vaccine and furiously pro-vaccine; my attitude toward antivaxxers has vacillated between curiosity and rage. I know so many of them irl, and they are such smart people otherwise, much smarter than me – so how can they believe something so stupid?!

I’ve done the research. I’ve read all different opinions and taken them seriously. I haven’t dismissed either side, and I’ve continued to do my research, never quite satisfied with my existing knowledge. I keep landing on the pro-vaccine side, based on the available evidence – and thus, I keep wondering and wondering how it could possibly be that anyone with a brain could be antivax. Truly, it’s been bothering me a lot. I’ve been wrestling with this and wracking my brain trying to understand.

But I think I might understand now.

What finally got it through to me was not some personal experience (thank God!) nor reading some mind-blowing new statistic or evidence or personal take on the whole issue; no, it was, basically, a TV show.

The show is Widow’s Bay (2026), on AppleTV. And I didn’t actually even like the show that much. I liked season one’s beginning and its end, but it pulled a few stunts in the middle that were imo irredeemably stupid. I would have quit watching, but my husband was enjoying it. Anyway, the ending, like I was saying, was well done.

In the finale, we encounter a “trolley problem”-type scenario. Now, as a Catholic, I feel pretty confident about my answer to the trolley problem – the correct response is, you may not and must not pull the lever – and I was pleased to see my response represented in a positive light (even though it wasn’t the response that the main character went with).

In life, bad things happen; that’s inevitable. But when you intervene, that makes whatever bad thing happens your fault. In this life we can’t hope to eliminate all pain and evil. All we can do is try not to sin. That’s the only thing we have power over. And by choosing to harm someone… that’s something you cannot do. Good ends do not justify bad means.

It’s not often that my little personal worldview is depicted favorably on TV. Seeing my own philosophical stance represented so positively, so clearly and articulately, by such a good character, made me bask in a sort of self-satisfied glow, for a little while there.

And I started to think more about this whole position. You can’t pull the lever. You can’t intervene. What else does this mean, in life? And, hold on a second, does this apply to the vaccine issue?

What if vaccinating counts as pulling the lever?: Yes, you may prevent some bad things from happening (like serious illness) – but if other bad things do happen as a result (like serious vaccine injury, which is rare but real and very scary)… then that’s on you.

Now in the case of vaccinating, I don’t think it’s quite the same as the classic trolley situation in which a person is guaranteed to die. Because there’s no guarantee that vaccinating will result in harm. It’s more of a calculated risk. But, I also think that people who calculate and choose not to take that risk, are totally valid. Because the thought of being responsible for injuring your child permanently with vaccines… that’s a horrifying thought. Vs. if they got sick, then that would be tragic, but outside of my control.

“But it’s not outside of your control! You could have chosen to vaccinate!” — first of all, before you get mad at me, know that I do vaccinate my kids and will continue to do so (more on that below). Opting out of one risky preventative measure is not the same as accepting illness. I know plenty of antivax moms who are careful about protecting their kids’ health, not taking them places where there are contagious illnesses, etc. You can still try to avoid illness. But risking your kids’ lives to do so… I can see how that would amount to pulling the lever.

It’s not like antivax moms are out here getting their kids sick on purpose. They’d just rather accept consequences, the to-some-degree-inevitable consequences of humanity’s fallen nature, than risk being responsible for harming their kid, I guess.

But then why do I vaccinate?: because, I’ve calculated the risk in my unique situation, and determined it to be low: neither I nor my husband has ever had an adverse reaction to a vaccine, and our kids are generally very hardy and healthy. Vaccinating them is scary, but not vaccinating would also be scary. It’s a real life R.L. Stine “Reader Beware, You Choose the Scare” situation. Also, I do it for the simple reason that my husband is strongly pro-vaccine, and I pretty much follow his lead in big decisions like this. But if he were antivax, I’d probably jump on board willingly. Because philosophically I actually think the antivax position really holds water.

That does not mean, however, that I think antivaxxers should look down on those of us who do vaccinate. We’re not brainwashed government pawns. As I’ve said, we’ve done our research and chosen what we think is best for our families; “don’t tread on me,” isn’t that right? — I swear, the older I get, the more tired I am of people online trying to tell each other what to do. The internet is a curse. I’m about to go full Stoic and just stop having an opinion about anything outside of my direct sphere of influence.

In this post I haven’t delved into other reasons not to vaccinate, such as the ethics of how some vaccines are developed. That’s because I don’t see those reasons as particularly pertinent here. I identify as radically pro-life, but here’s the thing: (1) the few vaccines that were developed using aborted fetal tissue, those two abortions took place very long ago, and there is no remainder of the babies’ DNA in the vaccines; if the abortions were ongoing and every vaccine given meant one baby killed, then that’d be a very different story!, and (2) those are the only versions of that vaccine available to us, and (3) my obligation to protect my children outweighs my obligation to be a perfectly ethical consumer, and also (4) why can’t God bring about good out of evil? Human souls, souls loved by God, are born as a result of IVF and surrogacy all the time!, so clearly God can bring good out of evil, which is not to say that we should support the evil, but by enjoying the good fruits I don’t think we are necessarily supporting the evil.
Excommunicated?

July 7th, 2026

The usual disclaimer: I’m not an expert. I’m not like Kennedy Hall or Dr. Kwasniewski or Taylor Marshall or any of those super-smart TradCath commentators. I’m just some little random mom who comes to WordPress to process my thoughts & feewings and to seek out companionship & feedback. Please don’t take any of this seriously. It’s just my scattered little thoughts and impressions, as a lay follower of the SSPX.

I know I said a few days ago, before the consecrations, that I wasn’t too worried about the impending excommunication, because I was confident that I was on the right side no matter what. And that was true.

Now that it’s happened, though, I admit to being kind of troubled about it. Not troubled enough to stop supporting the SSPX or to stop going to their Masses – but because it’s an objectively very troubling thing to be told by the Pope that you are excommunicated. That is never a negligible thing, imo, no matter what.

And I’m troubled by all the vitriol and accusations and assumptions and threats from the modernist side. It’s troubling to see all this infighting within Catholicism. It’s ugly and shallow and it’s a really bad look for us. – “But this isn’t infighting,” you might be saying, “because the SSPX isn’t Catholic” – but how are they less Catholic than any of the bishops and parishes who’ve strayed so far from Catholic teaching without being penalized? “Catholic teaching = doing absolutely whatever the Pope says, no matter what,” you might be saying – but that’s not true. The Pope exists to uphold the faith, not vice versa. We worship Christ, not the Pope. How did we lose sight of that?

It’s just very sad.

I’m trying to figure out whether I, personally, am excommunicated or not. Rome said that all the lay faithful who “formally adhere to the doctrinal positions” of the SSPX are automatically excommunicated along with its Bishops. – but, which one of the Society’s “doctrinal positions” am I supposed to disagree with? They published that profession of faith shortly before all this, explicity stating all of their doctrinal positions for all the world to see, and it was literally just… the Catholic faith?! I’m confused. So by professing the Catholic faith we’re schismatic?

I guess the part we’re not supposed to agree with is that the modern Church is heading in the wrong direction — which is not stated as a tenet of doctrine in their document, but it’s obviously implied, it’s painfully clear from reading this actual Catholic doctrine! It’s so clear that it’s the modern Church that’s becoming less and less Catholic. From my little uneducated lay POV, I really feel like this misunderstanding about schism stems from a misunderstanding about what the Catholic faith is. Like I said, we’re not Pope worshippers, contrary to what Protestants think of us. Apparently this is yet another way in which a great many modern Catholics think like Protestants. Just another symptom.

Some article I read clarified that not all lay faithful are in schism, and that it’s a case-by-case basis. Am I among those in schism? I admit, I hope not – I don’t think I have a schismatic attitude. I love the Pope and my diocesan Bishop and believe in their legitimate authority and pray for them all the time. I keep apprised of what’s going on in my diocese. I mingle with NO Catholics (at least, I have been doing so, up until now – now, I’m kind of afraid to, given the atmosphere). I wish we could all just get along – I don’t see why Rome can’t just let the SSPX in, formally. There are so many different flavors of Catholicism within the Church, even the Melkites, Maronites, et cetera, who look very different from your average Roman Catholic and don’t even share many of the same rituals; but it’s the Society who has to be excluded? Why?

– I feel like it’s just that Rome doesn’t want any of its members to speak up about what’s wrong with the modern Church. Which feels, imo, not very “synodal” of them. A little hypocritical, I daresay.

It’s really sad. Reading the commentary online, it’s obvious to me that it’s the modernists who are being hateful and divisive. The Society and its followers are expressing only sadness and sorrow and a humble resolve to keep the Faith – meanwhile, all the NOrmies are name-calling and saying we’re all going straight to hell and making wild assumptions about the mindset of individuals within the Society. Just very poor taste. I’ve even seen people making fun of the way our new Bishops look (as if it’s not the modern Church that embraces ugliness). Just petty, sad, immature stuff.

And it’s really sad to me that the Society tried to reach out to Pope Leo for like a year prior to these consecrations, begging him to meet and talk, and they kept getting ignored. Until literally a day or two before the consecrations, when everyone was already on site and getting set up – then he sends a letter saying “no, wait, let’s talk!” – isn’t that just blatantly recreating exactly what happened to Archbishop Lefebvre prior to his consecrations?! He begged Rome repeatedly for permission and they kept ghosting him, and he was literally worried that he wasn’t going to live long enough to get it done, which was why he made the call. To me it seems obvious that the Society has always acted out of a sincere desire to uphold the Catholic faith in a state of emergency, and Rome has been rather mean to them.

So yes, I do believe, earnestly, that I’m on the right side of this argument. Given the way that the Society’s been excommunicated in the past, then un-excommunicated, then given faculties, now excommunicated again – to me, that just shows that it’s Modern Rome who’s being inconsistent with their position, not the SSPX. You can belong to something and disagree with some things about it. You can believe in someone’s authority and still take issue with how they exercise it. Who among you readers has never once disagreed with a single one of your parents’ decisions? But does that mean you’re not a member of their family?

It’s sad. I’m just trying to do the right thing for my family. I want to bring my kids where they will be taught the whole, real Catholic faith, and where they will experience real beauty and reverence, as a remedy to all the evils that surround us in the secular world. That’s what religion is supposed to be. I’ve literally seen Catholics in Facebook comment battles arguing that “the Church needs to modernize to keep up with the times” and “our interpretation of God’s Word must be perpetually changing and fluid” and stuff like that – good grief! Are we for real?! It’s just really sad.

As you all know, I’ve been Catholic for almost twelve years, the last two of those with the SSPX. I don’t think the world of the Society is perfect by any means, and have certain issues with certain apsects of the lay subculture – but, the real Catholic faith is more important than any of that. (One upside to all this, for me, is it’s renewed my commitment to the SSPX way, when for a minute there I was starting to waffle due to the social pressure.) It’s been very difficult for me, personally, to figure out how to go about all of this. I have four kids and a husband, and in my family I’m the spiritual decision-maker, the one who teaches the kids the faith and takes us to Mass and all that. And I’m no expert – I’m just some girl who converted from atheism! It’s been really hard, honestly, probably one of the most difficult decisions of my life if not the most difficult, to determine whether to stick with the modernists or to go the way of the RadTrads. I made my choice from a place of sincerity and prayer – at least, I hope I did. Only God really knows my soul, doesn’t He, and I guess it’s possible that I’m operating from some secret arrogance or pride that even I can’t see – but, to the best of my knowledge, that’s not the case, and all I can do is keep praying that He will help me to know myself and know how to follow Him.

As of right now, I still think the SSPX is in the right. I still sincerely believe that they will, one day, be vinicated, and that the Archbishop will be canonized and recognized as a hero who singlehandedly saved Catholic Tradition. Hopefully within my children’s lifetime.

So yes, I’m confident that I’m on the right side, but I’m still sad and troubled about it all. I know some lay faithful out there just totally don’t even care – “Rome isn’t even Catholic anymore,” they say, “so anything they say is meaningless” – I don’t agree with that. It does matter what Rome says, even though it’s also true that there are problems with modern Rome. I wish people could be more balanced about all this. I wish people could have some compassion. The way the modernists get so heated about the traditionalists – to me, it shows very plainly that they know something is wrong with the way they’re doing things – otherwise, why would they get so affronted? I think they know, in their heart, that something is wrong, but they’re too afraid to do something about it for fear of being labelled “schismatic,” which, if I’m being really cynical and conspiracy-theoristy, might be exactly what Modern Rome wants – to use fear to suppress Tradition. I hope that’s not true but that’s kinda how it looks. It just feels to me like a big ugly family feud.

Well, this has all been a bit rambly and pointless and venty, but I’m going to put it out there anyway because, as usual, it’s my silly little personal blog and I can post what I want on it. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, but know that any hateful and bigoted comments will be deleted.
On the eve of “excommunication”

June 30th, 2026

I’m wondering: what is belief?

I write this here post not as any kind of expert — just as one little random layperson who doesn’t even worry much about Church politics or goings-on, and barely even reads the news. When it comes to matters of faith, my aim is to take care of my family, and so that’s where I keep my focus. I just attend Mass, at an SSPX chapel btw, and say my prayers and mind my own business.

Before you holler “schismatic!”, hear me out.

I’ve only been going to the SSPX since 2024. Those of you who know me will remember how I agonized for months, reading and studying and earnestly praying and waffling repeatedly back and forth, losing tons of sleep and basically losing my mind, over whether or not to switch from my friendly neighborhood NO to the nearest SSPX.

I always, on some level, knew that the SSPX was the right way to go. But all this complicated business about “obedience to Rome” and “irregular canonical state” and all that, had me over-intellectualizing the whole matter. I won’t go into all the issues here, or the actual reasons why the SSPX is right, although I kind of touched upon them, in my own humble terms, in a previous post.

Suffice it to say that at last I came to see that it’s actually very simple — the SSPX position is so commonsense, it was (and remains) truly painful to see how so many people seem to deliberately cover their eyes and go “la la la” real loud in order to not acknowledge what’s going on — and all my overthinking had been a laughable waste of time. I’m confident in what I believe now.

Which brings me to the point of this post: what even is belief? I know what I believe, which is why I’m not worried about the impending “excommunication.” I am confident that my family and I are on the right side.

I know what I believe — but what exactly is this action of believing, and how do we do it, and how do we know we’re doing it. My own answer to this question feels murky to me, so perhaps writing this little post will help me clarify it for myself.

I became Catholic in 2014, for reasons that were entirely intellectual. It was evident that I needed a religion; Catholicism was a logically watertight system, and seemed superior to all of the others for numerous reasons, so I went with that.

At first I was worried that I didn’t actually “believe” all the things the Church taught. This felt like an obstacle to conversion. But then I learned that “belief” is not just some feeling you have inside. It’s a choice. I could choose to believe. As long as I was willing and did my best to walk the walk, that was enough. That was groundbreaking!

Well for ten years I tried to walk the walk, but something about church never clicked for me. I felt uninspired — something about the NO world felt, in some hard-to-articulate way, shallow and fakey. Too normal. Too worldly. In that environment, I actually sometimes felt embarrassed for trying to take Catholicism seriously, like I had the strong sense that a priest would laugh and roll his eyes at me if I asked him a question about sin or doctrine, or asked him to make time to hear confession; like my fellow parishioners would laugh at me for wanting to wear a veil or kneel for Communion. I felt malnourished.

Until I found the SSPX.

On some level, I knew immediately that they were right about things. That this was real Catholicism. This was serious. These priests, I trusted their advice, I trusted them with the welfare of my eternal soul. I felt inspired! I felt spiritually fed. — But of course, I couldn’t trust that feeling, could I? Because belief is not just a feeling, I knew that! Belief is a behavior. It’s a choice.

So, I had to figure out what to choose.

Thus began the over-intellectualizing, the agonizing. For a while there, I even considered Orthodoxy, and the path before me forked off in not two but three directions. Each side, I found, had many intelligent people arguing in its favor. Each side could be described as “a logically watertight system.” So how on earth was I to decide?!

What it came down to, even before I was able to admit that that’s what it was, was: intuition. Just some feeling inside. Even though Orthodoxy seemed sound, it just wasn’t right for me, a white American; the arguments could go on forever (and indeed have been going on for a thousand years now), but the arguments in favor of Catholicism were, I decided, good enough for me. When it came to choosing between the NO and the SSPX, that took a bit more time. And what ended up swaying me, even before I’d made sense of the logical “why”, was: intuition.

And no, it’s not just about the “vibes.” I know a lot of modernists like to accuse RadTrads of doing what we do just for the vibes, because we like the aesthetic and enjoy LARPing the 1950s (actually, these accusers are even further off than they realize: if anything, it’s the 1850s these Trads are LARPing, lol). I can’t speak for everyone, but for me personally, I don’t care that much about historical reenactment. I’m no crunchy mom; I like modern medicine, Tylenol, rap and hip-hop, vaccines, TV, grocery shopping, alt fashion, tofu, the internet, and all kinds of modern conveniences. I live decidedly in the present day. But what the SSPX offers — not just their “aesthetic,” but the actual substance of Tradition that underlies and informs that — is timeless.

“You’re just boasting about how stupid you are,” you may be arguing: “you couldn’t understand the texts, so you lazily went with the place that ‘felt’ cooler, and now you’re romanticizing your own stupidity, calling it ‘intuition.’” You know, I’d be lying if I said this never worried me! I’m not that brainy; I simply do not care to pore over a jillion Vatican documents and dry old encyclicals and big thick tomes of nonfiction. Maybe if I forced myself to do all that…

But here’s the thing: I don’t believe that God requires that of us. I don’t believe He is hiding the truth behind some kind of intellectual paywall. He’s not a 400-level professor who’s going to assign a bunch of heavy reading and only award Heaven to A+ students who read the most books. Simple folks like me can find the truth too, even with the aid of intuition.

Which is obviously not to say that intellect is useless! The right Church does need to be logically watertight. They do need to teach things that are edifying and smart and challenging, and for that reason, priests do need to be disgustingly educated. Lay folks, however, do not. Lay folks like me, see, our job is to use our God-given faculties (including both reason and intuition) to know where to go to get our formation, and to be the best little lay folks we can.

Why did I need to overcomplicate things? I knew already, I feel it in my body when I’m in church: the SSPX teaches what I believe. It’s been a journey to get here. It’s taken me all these years to accept that belief actually maybe is, in part anyway, just some feeling that you have inside.

I think it’s got to be both, actually; for me, it can’t be one without the other. I can’t assent with my brain unless I feel it in my body too, and don’t get the feeling in my body unless my brain agrees with what’s being said. But the feeling in your body — it does matter, after all, which was news to me, a very cerebral person by nature.

So maybe belief is like a “whole person” experience, more real and tangible than I formerly thought.

All I know is, from both study and empirical/lived evidence, I believe the SSPX is right. It feels so good to be able to say, with confidence, that the place where I go to church really represents what I believe (even if I don’t always feel like I fit in well with the lay Trad community, socially speaking, as my readers very well know). It’s not just a placeholder or a franchise of some big organization. It’s real.

Which is why I’m not bothered by the impending “excommunication.” It’s sad, sure — devastating even — this is not how I hoped things would go, and I’m sad that the Church is splintering, and selfishly sad that I had to live during the crisis.

However, I’m not disturbed. I’m not rethinking my decision from a couple years ago.

Which is actually significant, because normally I’m extremely thin-skinned and highly susceptible to peer pressure; normally, hearing a bunch of people talk shit about something I agree with, would bother me deeply, or possibly even start to make me disagree with that thing. But not this. I see so much anti-SSPX noise online and it just makes me feel… kinda sad for the people who believe all that. And grateful to have found a safe haven where I can rest and tune out the noise. There’s so much peace to be found when you finally realize what you really believe, and can have confidence in that!

But so this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. Is all of this to say that there is a subjective element to the truth? That it’s not 100% objective? — I don’t think so, and don’t want to be accidentally heretical or anything here, and am certainly not equipped to talk about this anyway; but it just makes you wonder. I guess “believe” is different from “know” for that reason; it’s a different action, and probably does involve more subjectivity, or something.

Anyway, I’m praying tonight for the new bishops and for the healing of the Church. I hope you are too.
Leave Big Families Alone

June 28th, 2026

When you’re married, it seems like everyone in the world wants you to have exactly two kids: one boy, one girl. No more, no less. You announce your first, and everyone is thrilled! “Oh goody! Oh hurray! You’re going to be parents! Babies are so wonderful!” Then: “When is the next one coming? I hope it’s a [whichever gender you didn’t have the first time] this time!” (And if it’s the same: “oof, I’m so sorry, what a bummer!”) Then, you announce a third, and people start to give you funny looks, raised eyebrows. Like: “on purpose?” “but why though?” God forbid you have a fourth or more. People, even strangers, seem to take that really personally.

My husband and I, we have four kids, the oldest being six, the youngest being almost a year old. And people around us are always telling us how much they love our kids. “They’re so wonderful! They’re the best kids!” (Which they are.) “You’re such good parents! You’re doing so great!” (Which I hope we are.) But then, practically in the same breath, with feverish urgency: “you’re done, right? You’re not having anymore? You’re getting a vasectomy, right?”

Good grief. Get your story straight, people.

For one, stop asking about the state of my husband’s/my reproductive organs and whether we plan to mutilate them. That’s no one’s business but ours, and why are you so obsessed about them anyway — gross. And for two: does you like our family or does you don’t? ‘Cause you’re sending pretty mixed signals.

(This hypocrisy annoys me almost as much as people who offer condolences & sympathy when you have a miscarriage, but then in the same breath are pro-choice. Did a human being die, or did one not? Did that baby’s life matter, or did it not? SMFH. Get your story straight.)

“But Mith,” you might argue, “of course we like your kids and your family. That’s precisely why we don’t want you to have anymore kids. Because the ones you have are so great that they deserve your full attention and all the nicest things you can afford for them. We don’t want them to have to sacrifice. And plus, having that many kids would be too hard, you’d be unhappy, and we want you to be happy.”

I’ll cut the snark now. This is valid. Let’s not be radical. You may not agree, but I actually think I’m pretty moderate on this whole issue. If you have a legitimate reason to believe that having additional kids would put a family in a bad state — like, maybe the family is homeless or on the literal verge of homelessness, or maybe one of the parents is struggling with active addiction, or maybe there’s a debilitating genetic condition that they’re likely to pass on, or maybe the mom suffers from serious postpartum depression — those are valid reasons for the parents to avoid future pregnancies. (Still not valid reasons for you to ask them about their private parts though — come on now.)

But. If it’s just that you see the way they’re living and you personally wouldn’t want to live like that: stop projecting. Besides. You just said a minute ago that our kids seem so happy and well-adjusted, now you’re saying they’re disadvantaged and doomed to a life of abject misery? Which one is it?

Yes, there are valid reasons for a couple to avoid having kids. You not agreeing with their lifestyle choices is not one of them.

“We love you and want you to be happy, that’s why we want you to stop.” With this argument, you’re projecting your personal idea of “happiness” onto someone else’s situation. Just because you wouldn’t want to live like them doesn’t mean they’re doing something wrong.

“But it is wrong for them to put their existing kids in a situation where –“

Where what? Where they have to make some sacrifices? Where they don’t get to have every single material item they’ll ever desire? Oh, the horror! I also don’t get to buy every little thing that I want — may as well go kill myself immediately, because this is no life worth living!

Ahem. I said I’d cut the snark.

“But we love you and we don’t want to see you struggle.” Thanks, but isn’t struggling to some extent a part of the human condition? It just doesn’t seem to me like avoiding financial/material discomfort is a compelling enough reason to avoid what is basically the greatest thing a human can do: co-create a new human life. Because human life is a really good and cool thing. Even when it involves some discomfort.

I get that the people who make the “we don’t want to see you struggle” arguments are coming from a place of love.

But it’s also a place of fear, isn’t it? And I get that too. The two unfortunately tend to come hand-in-hand. I love my kids so much that I’m plagued by constant fear that something bad will happen to them. The fear is intense.

But you can’t let it rule you. You can’t let fear govern your every decision. If your objective is always “avoid discomfort and stay safe at all costs” — you’re going to have a bad time and an empty life.

Like, I have driving anxiety, and am constantly petrified of car accidents, especially when my kids are in the car — I never for a moment am able to forget how their risk of death or catastrophic injury skyrockets every time I put them in the car, and how I have zero control over other drivers. But if I let this fear govern me, if I opted for “safety at all costs,” I’d never take them anywhere — to friends, to lessons, to church — we’d just sit at home. And what kind of a life would that be?

You can’t just make major decisions out of a desire to avoid all discomfort. Being a parent at all means inviting a certain amount of sorrow, pain, struggle, and sacrifice, and accepting that those are part of life now.

“We just want you to be happy.” — Again, thanks, but for some of us, the “happiness” that we’re striving for isn’t about peace in this world. Not that I’m like super holy or anything. That’s not what I’m trying to say. It’s just for me personally, the good of a human life outweighs a bit of material discomfort.

“Easy for you to say now while your kids are little. Wait until they’re older and your house is crowded and they all want the bathroom at the same time and they resent you.” You know what: valid. I do worry about this. I do worry that my kids will resent me, for this or any other reason. I worry all the time about their mental health as adults, and do all I can to try to protect them and fortify them.

But, I also try not to make important decisions based off of fear of other people’s opinions — even people who are very important to me. I would like for my kids to like me, and I hope they do — but that is, to some degree, outside of my control. All I can do is my best. Life decisions need to be informed by my conscience and what I believe God’s will to be.

And I need to try to raise my kids to not care so much about this world, to not be so hung up on their physical circumstances in this life. Because this is not all there is. I need to keep in mind that I’m raising souls for eternity.

.

This whole idea of controlling how many kids we have, as if kids are not unequivocally a good thing to have, is, if I’m not mistaken, a pretty modern innovation. Even a great many couples who for religious reasons don’t use birth control are infected by it — this idea of “should we be open to life or should we not?” I think a more appropriate, sane, and healthy approach to the whole question is a respect and awe for the mystery of life, and gratitude for it.

So I guess if you believe that this life is all there is, then sure, I can understand your concern. But that POV just frustrates me so much — again, the hypocrisy. People rarely seem to think it through. People rarely seem to take it to its logical conclusion. If you really believe this life is all there is, then sure, why have kids — why do anything at all! Philosophically, I have more respect for those nihilists who say extreme stuff like “humans are actually morally obligated to commit suicide” than for people who just float through life trying to enjoy it as much as they can until they die.

But that’s just me. To each their own, right? Isn’t that the creed that y’all secularists claim to live by? I apparently can’t cut the snark, sorry. Unless you’re my husband, my parish priest, or my medical doctor, please leave me alone about how many kids I have. That is all.
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Happy Feast of Saint Kevin

June 3rd, 2026

, a.k.a Naomh Caoimhín (or Cóemgen), Abbott of Glendalough, Patron Saint of blackbirds, the Archdiocese of Dublin, and the Republic of Ireland. Also, the patron saint of me.

This will not be a very informative post, but more of a personal reflection, so if you’re looking for historical info on St. Kevin, you can move right along (or, shoot me an email and I can recommend some cool books).

Icon by Uncut Mountain Supply, which is actually Orthodox, not Catholic, but they do beautiful work and I highly recommend them

As I said, this is not an informative post — but here are the basics, in case you’re unfamiliar. St. Kevin lived in 6th century Ireland, and became a hermit in the wilderness at Glendalough, County Wicklow, then was made an Abbott when a monastic city grew up around him there. In this icon, which is my favorite depiction of him, you can see the round tower and his cell, both still located at his monastery in Glendalough.

You can also obviously see the blackbird’s nest. The most famous legend about St. Kevin is the one where, as he was praying in his cell, a blackbird alit upon his outstretched hand, and Kevin, who like many of those Celtic Saints had a particular affinity for nature and animals, remained so still and peaceful in prayer that the bird built a nest there, and laid her eggs right in his hand. The Saint thus remained kneeling for the whole forty days of Lent, until the baby birds hatched on Easter.

Or so the legend goes. There are more stories like this about my patron saint. He also had supernatural exchanges with a cow, an otter, even a sea monster. Who knows if those things “really happened.” I like to believe that they did, but imo it doesn’t really matter that much.

Saint Kevin probably gets so fed up with hearing from me, some random weird American girl who’s not even a very good Catholic. I imagine he wonders how come I don’t go pester some other, more popular saint, like St. Thérèse of Lisieux or St. Teresa of Avila or St. Gemma Galgani or St. Catherine of Siena or any other of those great women who are frequently chosen as patronesses of white female English-speaking Catholics. Why did I choose a male hermit from the sixth century, whose feast day isn’t even mentioned in the Roman calendar — or, I guess you might ask, why did he choose me?

Story time. Way back in 2007 when I was still a depraved atheist teenager with no regard whatsoever for my eternal soul, I tagged along on a family vacation to Ireland, and was taken on a day trip to Glendalough as a tourist.

It made an impression. If you haven’t been there, you should go; see for yourself. I remember thinking: “wow! Christianity is still dumb, but whatever this guy Kevin was about — that, I kind of feel like I could get on board with!”

Seven years later (and the significance of that symbolic number doesn’t elude me, now), I was officially received into the Catholic Church. I took St. Kevin’s name at my Baptism, because I felt like I owed my conversion, in large part, to him.

But also because back then, in my early twenties, I still took great pleasure in being “weird” and “different,” as a Catholic. I was still pretty liberal. I wasn’t like those basic, “cookie-cutter” Catholic girls who went with Thérèse or Catherine — no, not I! I was edgy and unique! I pretended to roll my eyes and lament that no one had ever heard of my Patron Saint, but was secretly tickled.

But as time went on and I became — well, I won’t say a “better” Catholic, but hopefully a less-bad one, I stopped wanting to look so unique and edgy. Humility and all. I learned to appreciate the Little Way. Now, I longed to look more “cookie-cutter.” For a time there, I worried that maybe I should have chosen a more “normal” Patron Saint. Like maybe I’d done something wrong.

Until one day I was chatting with my good friend “J” (whom you may know from this post; God rest his soul), and he asked me about my patron saint, and I, all abashed and apologetic, launched into my spiel about how I’d chosen Saint Kevin of Glendalough back when I was still a stupid liberal edgelord Catholic. But J, without hesitation, was like: “no, that makes sense; he’s a perfect saint for you. I totally believe that he chose you. I’ll pray to him for you.”

It was like a little light went on. Something clicked or something. Ever since then I’ve felt less apologetic about my Catholic identity: a child of Saint Kevin, one of the legendary Celtic patrons of Ireland, shrouded in mystery and poetry and, well, weirdness. Because really, the legends of the Celtic Saints are pretty bizarre at times. It’s a whole other flavor of the Faith.

There are many more things I could say, both about the Life of Saint Kevin and about my friendship with him, but I won’t keep you too long. I’ll just say this: initially I was drawn to him because of his solitary nature: the way he retreated far away from society, spurning human companionship (even kicking one girl off a ledge, they say — don’t worry, she was fine) in favor of that of animals. But over the years, I’ve come to see more clearly how God intends me to learn from Kevin’s example (the aforementioned kicking of the girl off the ledge is not irrelevant here). And I continue to see it more and more clearly, in quiet and nuanced ways, as time goes on and I spend more time with the stories of this great Saint.

Which imo is just concrete proof that God knows what He is doing long before we do. An appropriate analogy here, Glendalough being such a wooded place, is our inability to “see the forest for the trees.” While I’m getting overwhelmed and confused by tree after tree, God sees the forest, and always has. Saint Kevin, model of courage, went into that forest and made a home there. Saint Kevin, model of humility and charity, then allowed people to come to him and build a city even though he preferred solitude. Saint Kevin, model of patience, let another creature make their home in his very hand. Saint Kevin, Abbott of Glendalough, ora pro nobis. Happy Feast Day, readers.
Is it ok to enjoy love stories?

May 12th, 2026

This post is related to my post on music, and also inspired in part by an article I read a couple months ago in Benedictus – actually, it was an excerpt from an old book called “The Ecclesiastical Year,” and it was about the Feast of the Annunciation, a.k.a. Lady Day. If you read Benedictus you might remember the piece I’m talking about.

“Love reciprocally for and from a mother is one of the safest kinds: it contrasts with the dangers of love for a lady sought in marriage passionately, the perils of which are well illustrated by those romantic stories which so pleased readers in the days of chivalry, and in which St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and St. Theresa found some delight which they afterward repudiated.” Basically, the point of this little excerpt seems to be that the love for and of Our Lady is purer and more perfect than any fleshly love; superior, obviously, to the sort of love told about in love stories. Thus her “knights” on earth are better examples of real chivalry than any of those fictional characters which we enjoy so much.

The author doesn’t completely disparage the whole genre of chivalry/romance, though. “[T]he well-instructed Catholic does not need to be told that he must not starve out all love for family in kindred in his zeal for loving Jesus and Mary.” It’s only the misinformed and ignorant, Fr. Rickaby asserts, who react dramatically and violently to the Church’s advice to be cautious regarding fleshly affections: basically, getting all up in arms, claiming that the Church ‘hates love’ or some such, and veering hard to the opposite extreme: idealizing passionate love, claiming that it’s the greatest thing on earth, “an inspiration to high deeds and noble living, as well as a source of ennobling power.”

Which, this seems to be still extremely true of society today, don’t you think? Those who hate Catholicism love to accuse us of hating love – as if we’re all stuffy and prudish and afraid of pleasure. Which is very false. And it’s definitely true that our culture idealizes romance. I’ve talked in other posts about how weird and unfortunate it is that, as a society, we’re so obsessed with romantic love – it seems like every song on the radio, every popular TV show and movie, glorifies romance as if it’s the one thing to be desired above all else. Which attitude is, I think, pretty unhealthy for young folks to absorb.

I don’t want to be one of the ignorant and misinformed people that Fr. Rickaby is talking about in this excerpt. Obviously, I’m aware that there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a romantic story, as long as that romantic story is healthy, orderly, clean, and appropriately contextualized: always secondary to, and always leading towards, love of God.

But, I guess my question is: is it ever okay to enjoy a secular love story per se? It’s similar to my question about enjoying pop music. Basically, the question underlying both of these seems to be: is it ever okay to deliberately arouse the passions/excite the emotions over something secular?

Of course it’s true that we can safely enjoy some secular things, as long as we don’t get carried away. But what does it mean to get “carried away?” How do we know if we’re getting carried away? And, does reading/watching romance stories, or listening to love songs, fall under the category of safe secular things that we can enjoy in moderation? Or is it always an occasion of sin?

Getting carried away: I imagine “getting carried away” would mean that you’re enjoying a thing so much that you neglect your religious duties, or find yourself tempted to sin. So is it only bad to arouse the passions if it leads you to sin or temptation?

Or, is arousing the passions always bad all the time, simply because you’re getting yourself into a state in which your emotions have taken over and the will/intellect is no longer in charge?

– But then: just because you are arousing the passions for a while, does that always mean that the intellect has been subordinated? Isn’t it possible to enjoy a bit of (clean) titillation for a little while, as long as you are able to put it down and walk away and go about your business when the time for it is done? If you’re addicted to pleasure, that’s a problem, obviously. But if you’re able to decide when and how much to indulge, and stop when you’re done… is that still a problem, I wonder?

And obviously, I’m not talking about pleasure/stimulation that’s sinful. I think (emphasis think, don’t know for sure) that it’s possible to enjoy a love story without lust getting involved.

Let’s take an example. One of my favorite guilty pleasure shows: Outer Banks. (CAUTION: SEASON 3 SPOILERS AHEAD, stop reading here if you haven’t yet watched season three.) Take the scene where JJ rescues Kiara from that detention camp place her parents stuck her in. It’s so romantic. Completely non-sexual, but, still tugs on the heartstrings and makes you feel all mushy inside (at least, if you’re a dork like me, I guess). Similarly, let’s consider another embarrassing guilty pleasure of mine: the song “As Long As You Love Me” by Justin Bieber ft. Big Sean. It’s a totally clean song, nothing sexual in it, not even any innuendos or allusions. And (for me, at least) it gives you the feels in your heart, but is not what I’d call erotic or sexual or anything like that. (I know some would say that the rhythms alone make this song base and sexual, even though the lyrics are pretty innocent.) Works like these ones light up pleasure centers in the heart/chest region, but not so much the loins. So: are this scene and this song safe territory? Or is such romance always lustful because of what it leads to/evokes/suggests? Is it okay to enjoy things like these, in moderation?

I really don’t know, which is why I am writing this post. I’m not trying to make excuses for myself. In the past, back when I had MiTHology 2.0, I used to write all of these awful posts attempting to dissect the teachings of the Catholic Church that bothered me, and to “disprove” them — to prove, for example, why things like non-traditional marriage and female priests should actually be okay. Lol. I am no longer doing that, here. I hope I’m not that arrogant anymore. My priest told me that listening to impure pop/hip-hop music is a sin, so, that’s that; I accept that as the truth. I’m just thinking out loud here, and wrestling with a teaching that I find difficult, and looking for outside opinions if anyone is actually reading this and has an opinion that they care to share. Probably I should work up the nerve to ask an actual priest about all of this, but I have AvPD, and asking people for things is really hard.

No longer making excuses; trying not to, anyway. But it’s awfully tempting. Because sometimes, sinful things look awfully pretty and well-done, like fine art. There are some rap music videos that a part of me thinks are absolute works of art, and certain performers in that genre are undeniably talented at what they do, like, their skills are impressive to listen to! It’s really amazing to me what Nicki Minaj can do with her voice. I’m like, surely it must be okay to just appreciate the talent at work, here? – But, on that note, you could, in theory, have “really well done” porn featuring talented actors and beautiful scenery, I guess, and it would still be porn and therefore despicable. There do exist, I guess, really skilled and agile pole dancers, but pole dancing is still a sinful thing to perform in public. A beautifully-designed dress can be a fine work of art and still really immodest. So, just because something is well done, doesn’t give me an excuse to enjoy it.

Something like porn is obviously always bad. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m just wondering how okay it is to enjoy a nice clean love story – specifically, one that’s not necessarily Catholic. I’m aware that there are good Catholic works of literature out there that deal with the sacrament of marriage and with healthy Catholic relationships. Those are surely fine and good to enjoy in moderation. But, something like Outer Banks, while not smutty or graphic like some other shows, is decidedly not Catholic. Pop songs like the Justin Bieber one have nothing to do with God – but are they necessarily evil?

Like I was saying about these two examples: they are certainly sensual, in a way, in that they are pleasing to the senses; but the pleasure centers that they light up are more emotional than sexual. Does that make them better, safer?

Obviously, not all fleshly love is bad. The love that an atheist mom has for her children is still a wonderful and powerful thing. The love between two friends, regardless of whether they are Christian or not, is a good and beautiful thing. The sentiment of love is good and beautiful. As Fr. Rickaby said in this excerpt, it’s not like all Catholics are required to give up their love for their earthly family! That would be ridiculous! Even romance is good and healthy and all, if it’s engaged in without sin.

But enjoying romantic stories? Or even just emotional stories/songs at all, in which the whole gist of the story is a relationship between mortal characters? As someone who loves these, I guess I’m just wondering whether it is ethically permissible to love these.

What do we think, fellow Catholics? Is it safe to cherish ~feelings~ about non-religious things? Is it okay to enjoy a clean romance novel here and there? Are non-sexual romantic pop songs okay? Is it ever okay to intentionally arouse the passions about something secular?
Am I the only TradCath on earth who’s not antivaxx?

April 25th, 2026

I have already addressed this issue in a previous post, but recent events have brought it back to the forefront of my mind, so, here we go again I guess.

It disappoints me that virtually all of my fellow Traditionalist Catholics here in the USA are anti-vaxx.

As you know if you read my other post, I’m not enthusiastically pro-vaccine. I’m not one of those people who proudly posted a selfie with a Covid vax bandaid and some virtue-signally caption about the importance of getting vaccinated. I’m skeptical. I’d never get my kids the Covid shot.

I do get my kids their routine vaccines – but I dread doing so. I hate it. Because I know there is a risk of harm every time.

But I still do it, because the risk of harm is very slight, and the protection against serious disease is basically guaranteed. And very valuable.

“But all the mysterious shit and heavy metals that they put in your body…” so they say, but I simply don’t see enough evidence that the things they put in vaccines are so harmful. Pretty much every one of my friends and family, and everyone I ever knew, growing up in the pre-internet, pre-antivaxx era, is fully vaccinated, with no adverse effects.

Again: I don’t love doing it, but the protection from serious illness is worth it to me.

“But they’re made from aborted fetal cells” — I’ve looked into this one, and yes, it’s unfortunately true, and I wish they’d find a new way to make these vaccines.

However, two things: (1): my duty to protect my children and my community from serious illness is more pressing, ethically, than my obligation to not purchase unethically-sourced goods, and (2): in the case of the origins of these shots, the cooperation with evil is very removed, very distant – many degrees of separation between the aborted child and the vaccine that my child receives, especially if (3): no other vaccine is offered against a certain illness. Which reduces or even negates my culpability.

Furthermore, nothing in Catholic doctrine or papal writings is against vaccinations. Catholicism is very pro-preventative medicine. Catholic hospitals throughout the decades have offered vaccines.

The antivaxx movement is a trend. A trend that’s arisen because of the internet. (Ironic, considering that the same people who are antivaxx are the ones who hate the internet and say we shouldn’t use it.) That’s all it is. It’s American trads trying too hard to retaliate against the secular mainstream culture.

And yes, the secular mainstream culture is bad, and the government is not trustworthy. However, it is also true that modern medicine does some good things, and vaccines provide valuable protection against disease.

With all due respect, I think that American trads are trying so hard to be “counter-cultural” that they’re saying “no” to certain harmless and even beneficial things as well. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if you will. Swinging the pendulum too hard in the opposite direction.

And this is why this country is seeing new cases of things like measles and polio. It’s because of the antivaxxers.

As a trad who vaccinates, I feel really alone and frustrated. I feel alienated from my peers, and like they’ll think I’m a traitor and/or an idiot if they get to know me too well.

I’ve been going to my TLM parish for almost two years now. This was my first introduction to the Latin Mass. I’ll admit, in the beginning I was starstruck. As you know if you’ve read my previous posts on the topic, I thought I’d found something of a Catholic Mecca. I cherished a secret little belief that the SSPX was rather perfect, that they could do no wrong. “These people,” I thought to myself, “have got it figured out!”

But I see now that, like any human institution, it has its flaws. And one of those, in my humble opinion, is that its faithful tend to take the counterculture thing to an unhealthy extreme. People accuse SSPX trads of being “a cult,” and that is entirely untrue and uncharitable. But I can almost kinda see how they get that reputation now, given how they seem to live by these niche cultural standards – standards which are optional, not at all mandatory, for Catholics.

Which I can understand. Like I said, the culture is bad, and we can’t trust the world nor the government. I’m not saying my fellow trads are stupid. Not at all! They’re very smart. I’ve actually observed that trads tend to be more well-read, more high-achieving, and more knowledgeable than most “normie” Catholics. I have a ton of respect for my fellow trads, and am honored to be in their company! But, it also seems to me that they’ve largely fallen victim to a misguided philosophy. That some untruth has perhaps snuck in with the truth that they’ve found; ridden into their minds like a parasite on the back of the truth.

It’s disappointing to see. However, it’s also kind of liberating.

Because for a while now, I’ve been laboring under this delusion that all these lay trads, my fellow parishioners, had it all figured out. That I just had to copy them, to blend in with their lifestyle and subculture, in order to be a good person. I idolized them, and that’s on me.

But then this vaccine issue got rubbed in my face again. And now I see, now I realize, that the subculture is not perfect. It’s just a subculture, and it has its flaws. I don’t need to live just like them in order to be a good Catholic.

Which takes the pressure off. I don’t need to live like the Amish! I don’t need to live on a farm! I don’t need to raise chickens or make sourdough! Those things are lovely, but not required! I don’t need to even want to do those things!

Wow! I can breathe. A great weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Being able to see the subculture for what it is, is so freeing. But also, like I said, disappointing. As you all know, I’ve never fit in anywhere; I’ve always longed for a place to belong, to find My People. It would be nice if the people who shared my religious beliefs were not so strict about their cultural norms and preferences as to feel like an exclusive club.

I wish I could find some other trad Christians who aren’t antivaxx. If you fit that description, please feel free to leave a comment – it would bring me great peace of mind to know that you exist.
Hoping mechanisms: how to persist in light of the fewness of the saved

March 3rd, 2026

Well, this is it: this is THE Question That Keeps Me Up At Night. After this one, I may as well just shut this whole column down. It’s the question to literally end all questions. How many of us will actually make it to Heaven?

In case you’re new here, I’m a Catholic — certainly not an exemplary one though. I’ve been Catholic going on twelve years, and about a year and a half ago I became Traditionalist.

The fewness of the saved is something I never heard about before becoming Trad. It’s not really talked about in the modern Church. You can see why they don’t want to talk about it. It’s a scary thought, the scariest thought that there is. Human language cannot accurately describe how scary of a thought it is. I don’t even like to talk about it — in fact, as I write this, I have to keep pausing to write other things to keep my focus divided, because I simply can’t get too immersed in this topic. So it’s probably gonna take a while to finish. Which is why I’m only just now getting around to writing this post, even though it’s my #1 Question That Keeps Me Up At Night, and I’ve been writing these stupid little QTKMUANs for over a year now.

So why now, you ask? Why am I writing about this now? For the simple reason that YouTube randomly brought it up with me again. I.e., the channel Sensus Fidelium, which I subscribe to and you should too, just posted a sermon on this topic within the last day or so. So it popped up on my feed, and all it took was me seeing the title on my screen for that horrible sinking feeling to come over me once again. Threatening to pull me under.

Luckily, I think I’ve figured out how to cope.

The first time though, it really dealt me a blow. The first time I learned about the fewness of the saved was around the time that I became Trad. I’d heard that this was something Trads believed in, so I looked it up. And I found, lo and behold, a sermon on YouTube.

I can’t find the exact video again, but there are a ton of similar ones on YouTube (topic: fewness of the saved, sermon by St. Leonard of Port Maurice; listen at your own risk). The one that I watched, it literally opened with “beware, do not listen to the following if you’re already really worried about hell” — so, I shoulda just turned it off then and there, but I was curious. And then, after listening, for like two and a half days, I lost the ability to really function. I just kinda sat there staring into space. No point weeping. No point doing anything.

Because here’s the tl;dr: we all already know that few are saved — the narrow gate, and all — but apparently, it’s way fewer than you even thought! According to some saints, less than one percent of practicing Catholics will make it to Heaven. Way less. (Not to mention 100% of all non-Catholics, which in this scenario just goes without saying.) This sermon cited saints’ visions of like a hundred thousand souls all going before the Judgment Seat, and out of all these, only five even make it into purgatory. All the rest are damned. This information may not be an approved dogma of the Church, but it was taught by canonized saints and Doctors of the Church, and it’s certainly not disapproved.

Hearing this, I was like: well, F. Because let’s face it. I’m far from one of the best Catholics I know. I ran the math: my hometown has a population of 79,000. If only five in 100,000 even have a shot at salvation, then that means maybe only three people in my whole city will be saved. But wait, I thought, my heartbeat starting to race. I have a husband and four kids. And I can easily name many people in my city who are holier than me and my family. I know way more than three people in my area who are sincere and devout and say their rosary every day.

It felt hopeless. It felt very convincing and very hopeless. If my chances are that slim, I thought, then why even bother? At this point I may as well give up. Just quit trying to be better, just eat drink and be merry while I still can, because after this nothing but suffering for all eternity awaits me. I.e.: it led me to despair.

But wait. Isn’t despairing of God’s mercy a sin against the First Commandment? I wrote about this a bit in a recent post. Hope is a virtue. We need to have hope. So maybe watching this video even though I knew it might lead me to despair was actually me failing to avoid a near occasion of sin. Maybe I should stop dwelling on it and go to confession. Maybe I should abandon this post.

But… is it true though? Most members of my religious community seem to think so. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus — yes, I do believe that: outside of the Church, there is no salvation. I accepted that a long time ago.

However I also believe (and keep in mind here, I am not an expert nor a theologian, and these opinions are my own) that this doesn’t necessarily mean that no non-Catholics ever go to Heaven. All salvation comes through the Catholic Church; maybe that means that, sometimes, through the prayers and sacrifices of faithful Catholics, even some non-Catholics have a chance. And obviously if they are in Heaven they are Catholic now. I don’t know; this is just what I like to think.

Because I obviously believe that God continues to purify our souls after death. Our journey does not just abruptly end when we die. Knowing that to be true, then wouldn’t it make sense for Purgatory to be a very crowded place? I can’t help but feel like that must be where most of us end up after we die. I’d personally feel much more satisfied, and find it much more believable, if it were phrased to me this way: that, out of 100,000 practicing Catholics, only five walk straight into Heaven, and the other 999,995 have at least a decent shot at getting into Purgatory. That seems fair to me.

But maybe that’s just wishful thinking. It’s not about what Mith thinks is fair, after all. I’m not the judge.

And of course, we don’t want to presume God’s mercy. That’s a sin as well. “Oh, it’s okay, I don’t have to work on myself now, I’ll just do some extra time in Purgatory for it lol” — no, we mustn’t think like this. If we don’t do our best, then sure, we do deserve hell. Are most of us doing our best? — who’s to really say? We might have convinced ourselves that we are doing our best — but we’re not the judge. God knows us and our motivations and intentions better than we do.

So I really can’t “disprove” the extreme fewness of the saved, and I’m not here to do that, however badly I wish I could. I can’t argue against it, and I won’t do that, because whenever I see folks online doing that, it just strikes me as desperate, pitiful attempts to cope. Stamping their little feet going “no! it’s not fair!”, like toddlers. Oh believe me, I get it. I understand needing to cope, because this knowledge is literally impossible to live with. But burying our heads in the sand is probably not the best way to do that.

“But I just don’t believe it, Mith. I just don’t feel that it’s true, that most people burn in hell. That just doesn’t line up with my perception of a loving God.” Are you really gonna gamble your eternal soul on what you “feel like”? Do you really trust your own little perceptions that much? We’re so small. We’re all products of our time and environment, and this concept of a warm-and-fuzzy, lovey-dovey God who just wants you to be a good person, is a pretty recent trend. I’m not willing to risk it all for a trend. God’s perspective is very different from ours. We tend to think He sees things our way. Reading the Old Testament is a real eye opener in that regard.

I can’t argue with Saint Leonard of Port Maurice or any of the great saints who professed the fewness of the saved (there were many, even St. Thomas Aquinas himself). So, what can I do?

How do we cope??

I could complain about it — although that’s probably sinful, to resent God’s justice.

I guess the only thing I can do, is the very thing I was just talking about last week: hope.

I can hope that more than 5/100,000 go to heaven. I can hope that it’s much more than that. And that the non-Catholics that I love have a chance. To get a bit more crazy and extreme with it, I can even go so far as to hope that my sorry little pathetic self has a chance! Hope, radical hope, is a virtue, after all.

But hoping doesn’t mean ignoring the strong likelihood that only extremely few really are saved.

What I’ve figured out for myself is, you have to master the art of living with this information in your peripheral, but not looking squarely at it, at least not for too long. You have to do your absolute best to live as if it is true, but hope against hope that it’s not.

And, you have to be devoted to the Blessed Mother. I’ve heard of personal accounts from people who had near-death experiences, telling how they came before the Judgment Seat and just knew that they deserved hell — that, in light of God’s unfathomable goodness, it was only fair, really; they didn’t even argue. But who should come and intercede on their behalf but our beautiful, gentle Mother. She always has mercy, and Jesus loves her so much that He will do what she asks of Him. She can save even the most hardened sinners. And never was it known that anyone who fled to her protection was left unaided!

I was reading a book recently in which the author reminded us that, each time we pray the rosary, we ask Mary to pray for us at the hour of our death 53 times. If we pray it daily, that’s 19,345 times a year. I’m 36; let’s say I live another 30 years. If I don’t miss a day, that’s 580,350 times — not counting all the rosaries I’ve already prayed up to this day! Surely my loving Mother cannot ignore that, right? Isn’t that some slightly reassuring math?

But… don’t so many Catholics say their rosary every day? Pretty much all of us? How do we reconcile that with how few of us allegedly go to heaven?

Maybe we think we’re praying with sincerity, but like I said we don’t really know ourselves as well as God does, do we?

I guess the last coping mechanism I’ve landed on and that I’ll share with you here is, we must keep in mind that God is good. His will is perfectly good. If He lets us go to hell, then that is for the best. If I end up in hell, I guess I’ll at least know, while I’m burning, that it’s because God is good and all is as it should be. That all is right with the world. I don’t guess that would console me at all, since there is no consolation in hell. But, it’s something. It allows me to persist.

And of course, the goodness of God also inspires hope.

So in conclusion, hope not only serves as an antidote to despair, but also allows us to cheerfully go about our business here on earth, doing our little jobs and raising our little families and posting on our stupid little blogs, even while knowing that all but like 1/20,000 of us are most likely going to burn in hell for all eternity.

So, let’s hope, readers! If you’re reading this, I’ve said a Hail Mary for you; maybe you can say one for me as well.

Category: faith

The Presentation: a mom prays the fourth joyful mystery