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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread: *Less* (Small-C) Catholic Than the Pope

Late Night Open Thread: *Less* (Small-C) Catholic Than the Pope

by Anne Laurie|  August 31, 202112:53 am| 54 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Religious Nuts, Republican Stupidity

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i can’t stop thinking about this. imagine meeting the supreme pontiff of the world’s largest christian faith and being big sad because he doesn’t know your book. this is unbelievably sad hours here. this is a deeply broken human being. it rules. pic.twitter.com/rzEa5kygc4

— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) August 28, 2021

Blarts from the past — remember ‘Crunchy Con’ Dreher?

Convert to & then from Catholicism uses Pope as marketing tool for his book. https://t.co/kHm3fL3y9Z

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 28, 2021

The Benedict Option — Dreher argues for the formation of virtuous Christian communities in response to an increasingly secular culture — was influential enough to rate a Wikipedia stub before it faded like a sparkler. Dreher was so mad about the Pope’s refusal to embrace his theory of withdrawal from our fallen world (which: pretty much the opposite of everything Francis had endorsed) that he stomped off to join the Greek Orthodox Church. Unless he’s found an even more ‘rigorous’ faith since then…

Rod omitted the part where he ranted at the Holy Father about Oreos until the Swiss Guards tased him. pic.twitter.com/iP9DndQ2jy

— OneHitPopehat (@Popehat) August 28, 2021

oh jesus mary joseph pic.twitter.com/1YyI2WFKKa

— kilgore trout, horse paste suppository (@KT_So_It_Goes) August 28, 2021

I grew up ‘in The Church’, and IMO this is pretty much an adequate guidepost:

Dreher trending always reminds me of this absolute banger of a post https://t.co/1SyeRXXhWC

— The Mall Krampus (@cakotz) August 28, 2021

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Reader Interactions

54Comments

  1. 1.

    Timurid

    August 31, 2021 at 12:56 am

    Rigorous? I hear the Taliban is hiring…

  2. 2.

    CaseyL

    August 31, 2021 at 12:58 am

    Dreher’s descent into demented authoritarianism has been saddening hilarious to watch. It’s been interesting, in a slow-motion-car-crash sort of way, to see his obsession with policing other peoples’ sex lives lead him down the merry path to fascism, embracing the full-out racist and misogynistic accessory package that goes with it.

  3. 3.

    West of the Rockies

    August 31, 2021 at 1:01 am

    A tempest in a cracked teapot.

  4. 4.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    August 31, 2021 at 1:03 am

    I’m just here for the human zoo. That shit sounds awesome. If only we could keep ’em there.

  5. 5.

    Poe Larity

    August 31, 2021 at 1:08 am

    Maybe Francis heard that Dreher’s Benedict enclaves are modelled after NASA’s child slaver base on Mars.

    How about a gofundme for a SpaceX ride over so he can have his own private Hyperion.

  6. 6.

    Steeplejack

    August 31, 2021 at 1:08 am

    That Dreher saga was one of the highlights of the Twitter week, capped by the genius of “explaining to a cartoon rabbit.”

    Open thread, so . . .

    The Australian Broadcasting Corp has released an amazing documentary called “Fox and the Big Lie.” Here, reporter Sarah Ferguson eviscerates Sidney Powell, causing her to walk off the set.
    pic.twitter.com/MWPZhXzgHq

    — Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 31, 2021

    Jessica Huseman: “It’s sort of amazing to me that American interviewers who have spoken to her—though there have been few, I realize—haven’t even gotten down to the crucial level of ‘Do you understand the ownership structures of these voting machine companies?’”

    Nick: “That’s not their job, which means you have to contemplate what their job is.”

  7. 7.

    West of the Rockies

    August 31, 2021 at 1:15 am

    @Steeplejack:

    Her voice is dreadful:  Powell sounds like a vocal-frying goat from Alabama.

  8. 8.

    FredW

    August 31, 2021 at 1:15 am

    To be fair, he joined the Russian Orthodox Church (not Greek) and it was way before he wrote the Benedict Option.

    I used to read his blog years ago — he could be interesting so long as you stayed away from marriage equality, then it was off to the funny farm.

    Then it turned into non-stop “the libs are practicing soft totalitarianism to oppress us true believers” all the while turning a blind eye to the hard totalitarianism the R’s were trying to do.

    Daniel Larison blogged at the same place at the time. I think it is important to read people who disagree with you — so long as they are sane and argue in good faith — something lacking in today Right.

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    August 31, 2021 at 1:15 am

    Trivia:

    1) With 1.5 crimes per citizen, Vatican City has the highest crime rate in the world.
    2) The ATMs in Vatican City speak in Latin.
    Source
    .

  10. 10.

    JoyceH

    August 31, 2021 at 1:15 am

    @Steeplejack: ​
     

    That Dreher saga was one of the highlights of the Twitter week

    My Twitter highlight of the week was the person who said of Ed Asner: “He had spunk. I like spunk.”

  11. 11.

    Steeplejack

    August 31, 2021 at 1:24 am

    @West of the Rockies:

    And that’s one of her better qualities!

    I hope she gets her ass handed to her in her legal problems.

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    August 31, 2021 at 1:25 am

    Have never heard of Dreher, have not the slightest idea who he might be, and most important why I might possibly have the remotest interest in knowing.

  13. 13.

    Steeplejack

    August 31, 2021 at 1:27 am

    @JoyceH:

    ? A great callback.

  14. 14.

    Steeplejack

    August 31, 2021 at 1:29 am

    Wrapping up Afghanistan . . .

    The Onion: “Nation Stunned That 20-Year Catastrophe Could End So Catastrophically.”

  15. 15.

    danielx

    August 31, 2021 at 1:33 am

    @West of the Rockies: ​
     

    Powell sounds like a vocal-frying goat from Alabama.

    Thanks, I’m going to hear that voice in my dreams.

  16. 16.

    prostratedragon

    August 31, 2021 at 1:35 am

    For some reason running through my mind this week:

    “What happened to God?”  — Foster (Will Patton), The Rapture.

     

    @JoyceH:  That’s cute.  I like spunk too.

  17. 17.

    danielx

    August 31, 2021 at 1:40 am

    @NotMax: ​

    I get that every morning when I touch the iPhone News icon: who the fuck are these people and why am I supposed to care what they think, eat, wear, where they vacation, or who they screw? Whatever the algorithm, its mojo just ain’t working on me or for me.

    But I’m a weirdo, I don’t watch television to speak of so I’m way outside the normal curve right there.

    ETA: somebody asked me once about tv as a conversation starter: I responded that he presupposed I would want to converse with somebody who thought television comedies were a worthy topic. He said I was becoming cranky.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    August 31, 2021 at 1:42 am

    @JoyceH

    In memory of Asner. And another.

    ;)

  19. 19.

    NotMax

    August 31, 2021 at 1:56 am

    @danielx

    Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight. And another.

    ;)

  20. 20.

    Mary G

    August 31, 2021 at 1:57 am

    @FredW: Same here. I originally came to Balloon Juice to read a sane conservative, and in the same spirit read Larison for years – he ragged equally on Republican and Democrats for the forever wars and has been screaming into the void about starving children in Yemen since 2015.

    I had to stop when I was unable to resist hate clicking on Dreher. He’s gone all the way down to kissing up to Orban in Hungary and hinting that America could use an authoritarian administration to keep liberals from changing children’s genitals at the age of four.

    Larison’s gone to a substack, I think, and tweets every once in a while.

  21. 21.

    The Pale Scot

    August 31, 2021 at 1:58 am

    @West of the Rockies:

    The look on her face reminds me of the Python skit with Cleese in drag offering her exclusive theory about Brontosauruses

    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2oh8ia

  22. 22.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    August 31, 2021 at 2:07 am

    @NotMax:  Dreher gets (or used to; I can’t be bothered to keep up) column space on the NYT editorial page as a regular; I think he was hired so he could expose us to a young, cutting-edge conservative thinker.

    The great Charlie Pierce would demolish him occasionally in his online pieces for Esquire, between bouts of highlighting David Brooks’s grandiose follies (Pierce’s invention of Brooks’s photo op dog, an Irish Setter named Moral Panic, is one for the ages.)

  23. 23.

    Chetan Murthy

    August 31, 2021 at 2:13 am

    @a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio: Wait, wasn’t the dog’s name “Moral Hazard” ?  Coulda sworn ….

  24. 24.

    Steeplejack

    August 31, 2021 at 2:17 am

    @a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio:

    Are you perhaps thinking of Ross Douthat? He writes for the New York Times. I don’t think Dreher ever has.

  25. 25.

    Chetan Murthy

    August 31, 2021 at 2:20 am

    @Steeplejack: Doubthat?  Do you mean the Apostolic Nuncio to 42nd Street ?

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    August 31, 2021 at 2:25 am

    @The Pale Scot

    Cleese pulls off being in drag better than does Robert Mitchum.

    :)

    (And it was deucedly difficult to call up a decent still from the otherwise eminently forgettable movie that one comes from.)

  27. 27.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    August 31, 2021 at 2:34 am

    @Chetan Murthy:  I may have misremembered. Your version does sound more like it.

  28. 28.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    August 31, 2021 at 2:35 am

    @Steeplejack: There are two of these idiots? Dear heavens.

  29. 29.

    opiejeanne

    August 31, 2021 at 2:40 am

    @NotMax:  What movie is that? I can hardly recognize Mitchum.

  30. 30.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    August 31, 2021 at 2:41 am

    @Steeplejack: the 2021 onion would hate the 2001 onion…

  31. 31.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    August 31, 2021 at 2:42 am

    @danielx: i already do… from my jim breuer’s goatboy reads li’l bo peep cd

  32. 32.

    frosty

    August 31, 2021 at 2:45 am

    @danielx: You are becoming cranky. But what the hell, just own it.

    PS I haven’t watched too many comedies lately, it’s more like Travels By Narrowboat.

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    August 31, 2021 at 2:45 am

    @opiejeanne

    Girl Rush. A vehicle for the never quite clicked comedy duo of Brown & Carney.

  34. 34.

    Ten Bears

    August 31, 2021 at 2:47 am

    Rod who … ? He wrote a book? Well, so did I, several. Nobody’s ever heard of me either.

    Seriously, a gold lace dress … ?

  35. 35.

    opiejeanne

    August 31, 2021 at 2:49 am

    @a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio: They are legion.

  36. 36.

    opiejeanne

    August 31, 2021 at 2:54 am

    @NotMax: I loved this tidbit: Allen Carney died at the age of 63 in Van Nuys from the excitement of winning the Daily Double at Hollywood Racetrack.

  37. 37.

    Tony Jay

    August 31, 2021 at 3:14 am

    I used to hate-read Dreher too, until 2016 when that shit just wasn’t funny anymore.

    He’s the guy who ‘proved’ that Liberals were the real racists because ‘Brown Sugar’ = Racist Stones = Long haired Lefties = Suck on that, Libtard.

    A tiresome fart of a man sticky with the treacle of his own self-righteousness. I’m not sure if anyone ever pointed out to him how his calls for a parallel Christian Community living alongside but separate from mainstream society echo those of the founders of the Taliban, etc, but I am sure that if they have, he’s scuttled away offended before coming back the next day to post article after article after endless bloody article spiralling down the drill hole into crazy town as he ‘suddenly understands’ how this latest example of intolerance just shows how truly authoritarian the Left is.

    The Pope was right to blank him.

  38. 38.

    Freemark

    August 31, 2021 at 3:27 am

    @frosty: Good I’m not the only one watching that. It’s deliciously boring.

  39. 39.

    Phylllis

    August 31, 2021 at 3:30 am

    @Freemark: Adds to watchlist. Labor day weekend plans set.

  40. 40.

    burnspbesq

    August 31, 2021 at 3:36 am

    Ugh. Dreher.

    That is all.

    ETA: IIRC, he used to occasionally get shredded in the pages of National Catholic Reporter. You have to be waaaaaayyyyyy out there for that to happen.

  41. 41.

    Freemark

    August 31, 2021 at 4:14 am

    Anyone know what happened to Joe Walsh? Since Trump became President he actually seems reasonable. Or is it just because the bar is so low for Republicans now?

    So many people arguing about and asking the question, “Who’s to blame?” And I’m like, “Blame for what?” We’re finally ending a 20 year unwinnable war, we’re finally getting all of our troops out, and we’ve evacuated over 120,000 people. Blame? I think Biden deserves credit.

  42. 42.

    mrmoshpotato

    August 31, 2021 at 4:47 am

    Who?

  43. 43.

    Tony Jay

    August 31, 2021 at 5:02 am

    @burnspbesq:

    Its all – and I do mean all – about the dinero. Book sales drive everything that guy fulminates about. Being able to apend “Too salty for the Liberals’ favourite Pope” to the latest printing of his screed should be worth a few more sales, and that’s what’s important in the Kingdom of Mammon.

  44. 44.

    WereBear

    August 31, 2021 at 6:08 am

    I once read an account of a women whose family, with young children, became part of one of those Benedict colonies.

    She bitterly regretted every moment. At least one estranged child. I don’t think the marriage lasted.

    So much misery, while the Right Winger “thought leaders” raked in it. I no longer thing they are sincere and deluded.

    They are, and long have been, pure con artist. And nothing more.

  45. 45.

    Gvg

    August 31, 2021 at 6:11 am

    @Freemark: Trump. Actually I never wondered till you asked because the surprising thing is that their weren’t millions more republicans who saw what Trump and the GOP leadership were. It is kind of interesting which ones revolted and which ones got worse. I guess it might be enlightening to know the specifics.

    Joe Walsh is still the dick who didn’t pay child support and every once in awhile he still has opinions that are totally wrong but typical Republican, however he consistently speaks out against Trump. He has a way with words and the pithy put down.

  46. 46.

    Geminid

    August 31, 2021 at 6:13 am

    @Freemark: I think what happened to Joe Walsh is that he decided to stop trying to be elected. A lot of Republican politicians who know better have said stupid stuff trying to keep up with their party as the the tea party cranks and then trump dragged it over the edge.

    Someone once said, “A politician is a sick man who gets well by being elected.”

  47. 47.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    August 31, 2021 at 6:23 am

    The Aristocrats!

  48. 48.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    August 31, 2021 at 6:32 am

    @opiejeanne: ​

    LOL That would have been a great alternate ending to “Guys and Dolls”

  49. 49.

    Ksmiami

    August 31, 2021 at 7:14 am

    @Mary G: for his heresy of being a compassionate human, Larison was fired from TAC.

  50. 50.

    FredW

    August 31, 2021 at 9:37 am

    @Mary G: Same here! I’m so old I remember when Cole was a conservative :)

  51. 51.

    Just Chuck

    August 31, 2021 at 10:31 am

    His next will be Latvian Orthodox. He thinks he has the Kavorka.

  52. 52.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    August 31, 2021 at 10:52 am

    @Freemark: he’s almost as good as denver riggleman, who also gets points for the sasquatchporn

  53. 53.

    bowtiejack

    August 31, 2021 at 10:55 am

    Dreher is a very silly person.

    Of course, like any silly person, he doesn’t realize it.

  54. 54.

    opiejeanne

    August 31, 2021 at 11:50 am

    @WereBear: There are Benedict colonies? Is that like the town in Florida started by the owner of Domino’s Pizza, supposed to be open only to Catholics and birth control will not be sold in the pharmacy?

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