Tag: religion

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 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.
#9: “Till We Have Faces” by C.S. Lewis

June 15th, 2026

What a surprise to find myself here. I was not planning on reading this book.

For years now, I’ve kinda vaguely intended to read more C.S. Lewis — not having read anything by him since The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was forced upon me back in fifth grade, and bored me to tears — because, you know, being Catholic, you’re pretty much required to love C.S. Lewis (even though he was Anglican, not quite Catholic; he totally should have been Catholic). But I had no concrete plans to do so, because even though I love how quotable and brilliant Lewis is, I wasn’t sure if I’d like his fiction; that fifth grade experience had kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. And even if I had chosen to read him, this was not the book of his that I would have chosen. With very few exceptions, I’ve never cared for high fantasy.

But then, one night a couple weeks ago, my sister, who’s super smart and reads a ton of books (and also doesn’t typically read high fantasy), texted me at like 1AM to tell me that she’d just finished reading this book for the first time and was so amazed, she absolutely could not wait to talk to me about it! When I told her I had not read it before, she went and bought me a copy and had it overnight-delivered to my house so that I could read it. And here it is:

And here we are. I’m afraid I can’t say much of anything intelligent about this book, as I am not that intelligent. So if you’re looking for an insightful, enlightening essay about it, move along — there are plenty of those on the internet that you can go find. As ever on this blog, the only thing I can offer are my silly little impressions, opinions, and thoughts. And here they are:

As a non-fantasy reader: I loved this book! 5 stars. It only took about three or four pages for me to get past the “hmm, I dunno, this is pretty fantastical 🤨” and arrive at fully committed. And by about a third of the way through, it was un-put-downable. Pleasant surprise considering my former prejudice against C.S. Lewis’s novels. I actually loved being in the fantasy world he’s built. Glome is what the Greeks call a “barbarian” society, but by the end of the book we see it becoming more “civilized” and Greek-influenced, thanks to Queen Orual, who was of course educated by the Fox, a Greek.

Interestingly, it seems like the rationalization and “civilization” of this society — like, the way the new priest tidies up the House of Ungit and brings in a new, representational statue of a goddess, instead of the old giant rock — it’s heavily implied that these changes bring the society further away from the truth about the “Divine Nature.” Remove it further from the Truth.

One of the most interesting and impactful things, for me, was the constant association of the holy with the horrible. What’s Divine is mysterious, dark, bloody, stinking, grisly, terrifying, brutal — at once earthy and transcendental. Very real and present everywhere, instilling fear and awe. This ancient attitude toward religion is sorely lacking from modern-day American religion, which loves to portray Jesus and Mary as warm-and-fuzzy and friendly and “relatable.” Reading this book kind of reminds you what a healthy fear of God and awe of His ways should feel like. Even though the religion in the story is pagan, the truths in it are just as true in a Christian worldview and practice.

I’m pretty slow, but even I was able to pick up on the themes of self-deception, examination of conscience, penance, honesty with oneself — the symbolism of the veiling of her face, which reminded me also of U.H.I.D. in Infinite Jest (amiright?!) (someone smarter than me should really write a paper comparing/contrasting Orual & Joelle). So it’s rich in symbolism and metaphor and all without being heavy-handed. I appreciate that.

You all know I like delicious prose, and this is about as tasty as it gets. I love it so much I could almost literally take a bite out of it and ingest it (which is apt, considering how one of its major themes is that of the unsettling, visceral commonalities between loving and devouring — the Holy Eucharist, anyone?!). The phrasing is ancient-feeling and poetic, and you’ll discover lots of fun new vocab words.

It’s fun and accessible, but it’s definitely not what I’d call “light” or “pleasant” — this is certainly not in the “beach read” category. It’s sad, heartbreaking even, it’s upsetting, reflective, and very heavy — it will really make you meditate on your own moral blind spots, the sickness of your own soul, whether you can possibly be redeemed, and your own powerlessness to save yourself. Ya know, all that fun stuff! But it does all of this while being very sensorily rich and delicious and romantic and vivid.

There’s really not much I can add to the conversation about such a famous masterpiece, so before I go I’ll just show you one of my favorite passages. Everyone always talks about Orual’s last words at the end of Part Two, and rightfully so, but here’s a part that I think deserves to be quoted more. This is when Psyche and Orual are talking on the night before Psyche is to be Offered, and Psyche’s telling Orual that she’s actually kind of okay with it, because in a way she’s always kinda longed for death:

Our longing for eternity, they say, is itself proof of an eternal God, and this passage puts that in words so clearly! I dunno about you guys but reading this my brain was like YES because I never quite had the words for it but this feeling is so relatable: always, every moment of great happiness, every experience of beauty, is always colored with a certain sadness, because it’s ephemeral, it’s passing away even now, and it’s like you can’t really sink into it enough. It’s never real enough. “Somewhere else there must be more of it” — exactly! This is our longing for Heaven.

This passage really makes you meditate on how great Heaven must be — if you think back, for a moment, over every joy you’ve ever wished you could freeze and live in forever, or every beautiful thing you’ve ever seen and somehow longed to immerse yourself in more totally — every good thing that’s passing away, all of that longing will be satisfied in Heaven, forever! And more! Sometimes we get so caught up in worrying about avoiding damnation that we forget to meditate on the joy of Heaven (it’s me, I’m “we”). And it’s better, after all, to strive for the joy of union with God than to just try to dodge punishment. We shouldn’t just be content to spend a few millennia in purgatory because, oh well, at least we’ll eventually get to the lower tier of Heaven — we should want to be as close to God as we possibly can! We should want to be great saints.

So yeah, as grim and heavy as this book is, it’s also uplifting, and I daresay it will help you grow in sanctity if that’s something you’re working on. Even if you don’t care for fantasy, or religion for that matter, give it a try if you haven’t already. It’s the very definition of good fun.
Should I go back to the NO?

June 8th, 2026

Disclaimer: my 10 month old has been allowing me only 2-3 hours of broken sleep per night, lately, which may have had an effect on the following post.

Doubt. Like: as I’ve said before: I’m pro-vaccine, but not completely “sure” of this stance; it just seems like the better option, for now, but I still have doubt. And, to be real honest, this is the same way I’m starting to feel about Traditionalism and my identity as a TradCath. If you’ve read my other Catholic posts, you might be under the impression that I’m super certain, that I’m confident I’ve finally found the Right Church. And I so wanted to be! Man, did I want to be certain of that! But, tbh, I am kind of not.

I saw a post on Facebook a while ago, some [modern] Catholic commentator, talking (disparagingly) about a certain breed of convert who can’t seem to stop converting. They find the Faith, but rather than resting in it, they keep moving, keep getting weird ideas, keep fault-finding, keep yearning, and mentally/spiritually are just always on the move, researching theories, delving into weird niches. Perpetual converts.

Sometimes I worry I’m one of those. Perpetually unsatisfied – always finding some reason why this can’t be it. This feels wrong. — But everything always feels wrong.

And the thing is, by this point, nearly two years into this RadTrad thing, I actually do believe that the SSPX is right about their mission and the state of the Church. I do believe that the new Mass is problematic, and that even the other Trad societies are questionable, that the SSPX is the safest place to get real Catholicism. Call me indoctrinated. But I mean I think it’s pretty evident that the Church is in crisis. Even a secular person can see that. You’d have to reeeeally reach to claim otherwise.

So, here in America at least, folks who go to SSPX are, necessarily, very countercultural. And because they’re all so countercultural, they cling to each other for community. They have to. I’m not complaining about this or accusing anyone. It makes perfect sense, it’s just the way humans are. “We’re the only ones who believe this; the outside world is our enemy; we must stick together and keep each other close.” Survival and all. It’s lovely actually.

But this “tight community” thing also creates an atmosphere of, well, cliqueyness. “If you’re not just like us, you don’t belong.” It ends up feeling like a highly exclusive club.

And I just don’t vibe with that. It spikes my anxiety like crazy. – but, so what? Maybe it doesn’t matter what I “vibe with,” though. Does it?

I’ve said that I’m convinced that the SSPX is right about their mission and the state of the Church. You’d think that that alone ought to be enough to convince me that I’m really, definitely, for sure in the right place, here at an SSPX chapel — vibes be damned. If all the other people who believe in the Truth are people who don’t happen to “vibe” with me, socially, that doesn’t change the fact that the Truth is the Truth. I’m not here to make friends. Community is cool and all, sure, but I’m here for the Sacraments. (My friend “J” used to talk about the problem of Catholics treating their parishes as “sacrament factories”: showing up to get their sacraments and then dipping, without mingling or making friends or developing a sense of community at all. I agree that’s a less than ideal structure, and generally people shouldn’t do that… but at this point, sorry, J, but I literally feel out of options here.)

Does the social atmosphere of a parish really matter? I think if you have plenty of options to pick from, sure. But in this day and age, in this crisis we’re in, we don’t really have the luxury of caring about social atmosphere. Trad parishes are so few and far between. Like most people, I have to travel a long distance to get to mine, and the only other options are prohibitively far away. So, if I were to let social atmosphere sway me, I’d end up back at the NO.

And you know what, maybe I just will! I miss some things about the NO sometimes. I miss how easy it was. Oh man do I miss how easy it was!! I miss not feeling intensely judged and scrutinized every single second that I’m on church property. I miss the ten-minute commute, allowing us to wake at a normal hour and saunter out the door at a normal time for the 11am Mass, which lasted an hour tops. I miss the nursery full of toys where my kids could play while I listened to Mass. I miss not having to struggle so much to get them to behave and sit up straight like The Jones’s perfect kids can behave and sit up straight. Because let’s be real, my kids were some of the only, sometimes the only little kids at that church! All the boomers and seniors were just so happy to see actual, real live children at church – there was no judgment! Or at least, comparatively very little!

Not so at the SSPX! Here, you’re an anomaly if you’re a married woman under 50 and not pregnant. Here, 8-9 is an average number of kids per family. Here, you’re an anomaly if you don’t have 20 acres and a cow. Here, if your kids fidget in Mass, it means that you’re modernist trash and failing as a parent and personally responsible for the downfall of Western society (that’s the vibe I get, anyway). Watch how you dress, watch where you step and when, watch how you speak. Eggshells.

As someone with AVPD, I’m more sensitive to social stress than the average person. Social stress at the NO was maybe 50-60%, about the same as a trip to the grocery store. Social stress at the TLM is a solid 92-98%, every week. It’s enough to really weigh on you, to cast a shadow of dread on the whole back half of the week. It’s gotten to where when I’m at home and see images of the TLM on the internet, I feel slightly queasy, sick with dread. Because it makes me think about the social stress of Sundays. Which is horrible! Only demons feel queasy at the sight of Mass. What is wrong with me. The anticipation of Holy Mass shouldn’t feel like that.

You know what would help?, the little voices say to me: a drink! That would really fix everything! — you see, you could say this is all taking a toll on my poor wittle mental health.

But, is that a good enough reason to switch back to an inferior Mass?

There are a couple of different stories I could choose to tell myself about this whole situation. Story one: me suffering through the social stress at the TLM, and taking the hit to my mental health because it’s a superior Mass, is a good sacrifice that I can offer to God in union with Christ, to show Him I love Him enough to make myself so uncomfortable week after week in order to honor Him as He deserves. This is my little cross, this is my lot in life. Story two: my feelings of dread and fear and “not belonging” are actually my God-given intuition telling me I need to leave, that it really is no place for me; maybe I can “trust my gut” and “listen to my heart,” as they say; maybe the NO is good enough; maybe comfort matters; maybe this is all a lesson in being softer and nicer to myself. Maybe something being more difficult doesn’t necessarily make that thing more noble.

Which story to believe? — well, it ain’t gonna be Story Two. It has a hole in it: I never said that the difficulty is what makes the TLM superior. It’s the other way around. It’s the superiority that makes the TLM difficult.

The TLM is superior, and that is a bigger issue than my anxiety, and that’s all there is to it.

And anyway, my feeling “different” from these people at church – is it just my imagination? I’ve been doing this shit since I was a kid. I’ve been aware of this pattern, but unable to break it, since I was in high school. I tell myself that everyone hates me and I don’t belong, and I start to believe it. And I start “identifying out.” And then leaning into that – really owning it. Doing little passive things to assert my differentness, like a quiet, cowardly middle finger to the imaginary haters. At my first college, the elite private rich white preppy heavily-Greek one, I leaned into the “alt” persona: facial piercings, zippers and grommets, bitterness and angst. Because I’m not like you all. At my second college, the public liberal art school full of weirdos and LGBTQs and atheists, I leaned into the “Conservative Catholic” persona: taking the piercings out, feigning asceticism, going to church, dressing more “normal” than everyone else. Because I’m not like you all. Wherever I go, I’m “not like you all,” and assume everyone hates me and so I start to become the enemy that I imagine myself to be, or whatever. How exhausting, how juvenile. I’ve noticed this tendency rearing its ugly head in me lately as all this church stuff has been weighing on me. It feels great, a small physical gesture, a minor wardrobe shift, a quiet act of rebellion — but is it a good kind of great?

Why do I identify out all the time? And why at church specifically? These people agree with me on the most important thing, and agree with me that it’s the most important thing! We have everything that matters in common! Why must I pull the old “identify out” move here, of all places? – I feel so different from these people. I insist to myself that it’s because I’m not rich or a farmer… but, is it really just my sinfulness? My worldliness? Maybe all these people are just holier than me and I’m mad about it? Because I lack their strength and resilience? Because I like my little worldly comforts too much to let go of all of them? Maybe I feel uncomfortable around them because, in the company of such holy and wholesome individuals, I’m acutely aware of how dirty my soul is. Maybe if I gave up everything – my terrible music, my TV shows, my little stories, and above all this stupid blog where I post shitty, lowbrow, profanity-laden content bitching about my pet peeves and things I hate and gushing about my favorite rappers and my favorite gross shows on HBO and worst of all sharing my own shitty little stories that are all sensual and shallow and celebrate disordered romantic relationships – maybe if I gave up all that, I’d be less ashamed to show my face at Holy Mass.

Probably this is it. But am I willing to give all that up?

Should I shut down this blog, or make it into something else – something holier, where all I ever post is lovely clean wholesome and religious content? I originally created this blog to give my “weird” side a place to sound off – a place where I could be authentically myself, as like an experiment to see if it clicked with anyone out there in the universe. A message in a bottle out to sea. As a mom of littles and a TradCath, I don’t get to be my weird self irl too often if ever; Weird Mith wanted to breathe. I figured I’d let her. I figured this blog is just a bunch of harmless catharsis, but maybe this blog is a big part of the problem.

But watch. Watch me get rid of it and still feel unworthy, like an alien. I’ve tried this tactic before – “maybe going full ascetic monk will make me feel better about myself,” “if you want to have healthy self-esteem, do things that are esteemable,” “just don’t put a single foot wrong ever and everything will be ok” – and it never works. It actually tends to make things worse, and fuel the fire of my extremist, addictive, all-or-nothing thinking.

– but maybe that’s just me making excuses though because this blog is fun for me and I don’t wanna give it up.

So: given that I fully agree with the SSPX philosophically; and, given that I don’t buy Story Two above; and, given that I’m not willing to stop being a weirdo; that leaves me with only one available course of action: continue going to church where I am, and just fucking deal with it. Just put on my big girl pants and grow up and accept that life is hard and etc. etc. etc.

So I guess all this rambling brought me full circle. Right back to where I started. Going to Mass is just going to be a challenge and a sacrifice, I guess. I wish it didn’t have to be like that. Like the great Archbishop, j’accuse the Council: I blame V2. If the Church had never become fractured like it is into the Trads vs. Modernists – if Tradition had remained the norm – then Traditionalism wouldn’t be this exclusive, niche, countercultural thing! Then I wouldn’t feel like I had to “measure up” to belong to my own parish. – but, such are the times we live in. It’s a great tragedy, and keeping in mind what a great tragedy it is for the whole Church actually helps me put my own little suffering in perspective. My little experience of social alienation, it’s just one of many symptoms of the larger problem which is the crisis. For whatever reason God chose for me to live during this era of the Church in crisis. To complain about His will for me would be a gesture of ingratitude and disrespect. So I just have to keep going. So, in this post, I’ve solved absolutely nothing, really, except that maybe this blog is the problem. Maybe Weird Mith needs to die. If I don’t let her breathe anymore, she has to suffocate eventually, right? So I’ve solved nothing — just generated more doubt.
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.
Some thoughts on the passing of Pope Francis

April 30th, 2025

I write this not as any kind of expert on the papacy, the history thereof, or of Vatican politics or personalities. In fact, I admit, I am not really interested in politics at all. AP Government was my least favorite class in high school (besides gym); it all just seemed so arbitrary. I wish I were the kind of person who was interested in politics; it seems like such a mature, socially-responsible, unselfish thing to be interested in. But, unfortunately, the topic bores me to tears. And Catholic politics are only marginally more interesting to me than regular politics. I don’t really follow the news from Vatican City, beyond reading headlines. So, this little post will be mostly about my personal thoughts and reactions, and my experiences of being Catholic during this papacy.

It’s been over a week now since Pope Francis died. I’ve been digesting the news and sort of collecting my thoughts. I feel like I wouldn’t be a proper Catholic blogger if I didn’t at least post something responding to his death. So, here we go.

I loved Pope Francis. I respected him very much; he said and did a lot of great things, and touched a lot of hearts. He was our Holy Father, the Pope that God chose for us. I was shocked and deeply saddened to learn of his death, and have been praying for him daily.

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My initial discovery of Catholicism in 2012-2013 coincided with the end of Pope Benedict XVI’s reign and the beginning of Pope Francis’s. I was in college. I began my inquiry — attending Mass and meeting up with the campus ministry group and researching the faith — several months before the news that Benedict was retiring.

Here is a weird and silly little thing that I’ve never told anyone or even verbalized before, but may as well share with the internet, why not: I had a strange conviction, which I could not explain (it feels similar to the intuition that I get regarding the gender of my children in utero, which thus far has been correct 3/3 times), that my conversion was the direct result of Pope Benedict XVI’s prayers on behalf of sinners and unbelievers; that he was, somehow, at least partially responsible for my conversion. I still feel this way. I was a fan of his from the beginning, and, unlike some converts, never had any trouble getting on board with the concept of a hierarchy or a Supreme Pontiff, a Vicar of Christ on earth.

But, as you know if you know me or if you’ve read my little conversion story, I was very conflicted, in those early days, about some other aspects of Catholicism. I was still politically and socially quite liberal, and I didn’t feel right about joining a Church that opposed gay marriage, women priests, birth control, and abortion. I spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure this out. It was a weird time for me (for many reasons).

At some point in the midst of this turmoil, I heard the news that Pope Benedict XVI was retiring, which even I knew was unheard-of; the whole Catholic world was shook. Enter Pope Francis. It was a dramatic moment. He was so new and different. The first Jesuit Pope (I was not familiar, at the time, with all the controversy about the contemporary Jesuits), the first Latin American Pope, the first Pope to take the name Francis. Already, people seemed to be talking about him as the “liberal Pope.” Early in his papacy, he made the famous “who am I to judge?” comment, which, basically set the tone for the next twelve years.

You’d think that I, as a liberal-leaning wannabe-Catholic, ought to have been thrilled. This was the direction that I wanted the Church to go – wasn’t it? But something about it rubbed me the wrong way, and I couldn’t even explain why. It felt like something was crumbling beneath me. What was there to rebel against now?

I think it was evident, even then, that I didn’t actually want a modern Church. What I wanted was a secure foundation, a tradition to belong to: belong to surely enough that I could rebel against it, for a little while, like a teenager against its parents, but eventually come home. (I never really had a rebellious phase, as a teenager; I think perhaps this confused time was the substitute that my psyche came up with, for me.) Everyone knows that what stubborn, oppositional kids need is a firm hand: they need discipline, not permissiveness; that’s what they instinctively crave. It’s the same with unruly horses. A feisty horse only trusts a handler who’s strong and firm and fearless. It’s kind of counterintuitive; you’d think such creatures would thrive on gentleness and softness, but, it’s the exact opposite. That was me: I was the green horse, the oppositional child. On some deep level, I already knew that what I needed and wanted was something solid and unyielding.

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For the last week, it’s been seriously annoying me how everyone, especially non-religious atheists, are all over social media posting about how Pope Francis was “the best pope ever” and “just what the Church needed.” As if they’re experts on what makes a good Pope! Shouldn’t the fact that the liberal atheists love him so much, be a red flag in itself?

Yes, I loved Pope Francis. I loved seeing his photo on the wall in the vestibule in Church. He was our Holy Father, and I loved him like a member of my family. My own family of origin is not Catholic, and I don’t always agree with all of their life choices, and I love them none the less.

I don’t think Pope Francis was “the best Pope ever” or “exactly what the Church needed.” I’m no expert, but based on all the evidence I’ve seen, there are a lot of things that did not go well in the Church during his papacy. For example, Germany. It disturbed me quite a bit that Pope Francis would say mean things about Traditionalists and push further restrictions on the TLM, while turning a blind eye to the bishops in Germany, who are doing blatantly heretical things.

I know the stupid secular media likes to distort a lot of things Pope Francis said, to push their own liberal agenda. Like, he never actually, literally said that “all religions are a path to God,” nor did he approve “blessing of same-sex couples” (what he approved was blessing of each individual, which is kind of a no-brainer; literally anyone can get a blessing from any clergyman, no matter what the state of their soul). But, I did take issue with the way Pope Francis phrased some of these things. It just created more confusion. I think what we need at this time is a Pope who’s uncompromising, who leaves no room for misinterpretations.

A lot of the quotes from Pope Francis that I see these non-religious liberal fans of his posting, have nothing whatsoever to do with Christ. A lot of feel-good, warm-and-fuzzy, vaguely spiritual, “one big human family” type sound bites. I don’t know how much of that is accurate, like, how much of this the Pope actually said; and it’s certainly not true that he never spoke about Christ, of course he did!, but, I just don’t love that that’s the image that people have gotten of the Pope. Doesn’t it seem like he ought to be inseparable, in the eyes of the public, from Christianity? Surely this is largely the media’s fault. I’m not trying to make accusations. I just don’t feel right about where things are at, with this papacy.

I also am not entirely comfortable with the whole liberation theology philosophy that he pushed, which basically turns the Church into one big charity organization, and gives the impression that the way to save your soul is by being nice to others and giving money to charity. That is not what the Church teaches. We are not saved by doing good stuff. If our soul is in order and our priorities are straight, then good works will, without fail, arise naturally from that; which is why “faith without works is dead.” But it doesn’t go the other way. The Church is not a social justice organization. Its mission is Christ’s mission, i.e.: to save souls. You don’t save your soul just by doing charity work. If you read even a little bit of the Gospel or the great saints’ writings, this is painfully evident.

This liberation theology thing trickles down from Rome to individual parishes around the world. Which explains why I always so lost and misplaced in the NO churches that I belonged to.

I’m not built for missionary work, marches, or volunteering on the streets. I’m an INTJ/ILI with AvPD. I’m still figuring out how to best serve God and the world in my life, but I know for sure, after many, many awkward failed attempts to “push myself out of my comfort zone,” that ministry work, committees, and “being active in the community” are not my calling. For someone like me, there’s no place in the modern Church. Someone like me will always feel like they simply cannot belong or fit in, in a Church that teaches liberation theology. It wasn’t until I found the SSPX, where real Catholicism is taught, that I understood all of this about myself and the Church.

Why would a Pope eschew the beautiful, perfect Catholic Tradition, which is the actual essence of Catholicism itself? It’s confusing, to me. Confusion, that’s the thing. I feel like this papacy was marked by confusion. I’m grateful that I found a safe haven of sanity in the SSPX.

The Society has the most commonsense approach to all this. Of course Pope Francis is our Pope. Sedevacantism is silly. Vatican II was a valid council. But it’s also true that, since Vatican II, Rome has veered away from Tradition, which is a problem. Thus, the SSPX recognizes the authority and legitimacy of the Pope while also continuing to teach the faith in its entirety, because someone’s gotta do it.

So yes, I loved Pope Francis. One of my favorite things about him was that he addressed climate change head-on. I know the whole question of climate change is up for debate, in the Traditional community; lots of people aren’t even sure that it’s real, or firmly believe it’s a hoax. But I feel like there’s enough evidence for it (including the simple fact I’ve observed myself, over my 35 years of life, that fall and winter are getting warmer and less snowy, and summer is getting longer and hotter) that we ought to do something about it. And by “we,” I mean humanity in general: specifically big corporations, the food industry, the air travel industry. Little people like you and me, there’s really not much we can do, and tbh I’m sick of being shat on from all angles for not doing enough when even my very best efforts are not even a drop in the bucket compared to the steps that need to be taken by these huge organizations; but, what else is new. But that’s a rant for another day, lol.

And I loved that he was so compassionate. He was nothing if not compassionate and loving; in so many ways, he was really Christlike. I was sad when he got sick. I helped my young daughter mail him a get well soon card, and we pray for him all the time.

But no, I don’t think he was the best Pope ever. And I sincerely hope and pray that our next Pope is someone friendlier to Catholic Tradition.

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It’s scary to think about dying. About going before the judgment seat of Christ. Even more so for a priest, let alone a Bishop or the Pope himself! With that much responsibility for souls, the judgment will be so much stricter. I read somewhere once that “the road into hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.” It’s a sobering thought. I’m not pretending to be any expert, like I said, but I do think it’s super important that we all pray for our deceased Pope. Pope Francis himself once said that he likes to think of hell as empty. It’s a nice thought, and I sure hope he’s right, but unfortunately there’s a lot of evidence to the contrary.

The Church is really divided and confused right now, and it’s sad. I hope that, in praying for Pope Francis and his successor, we Catholics can find unity. Hopefully the next Pope will help us work towards that.

Tag: religion

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Some thoughts on the passing of Pope Francis