Two Fridays ago, we watched the second in our Friday Night Mandatory Lent Film Party Movie Series: The 2020 movie Fatima. (Last Friday, we watched Song of Bernadette, and I’ll have the review for that up soon!)
Here’s the Fatima trailer.
It was fine. We all thought many parts of it were fine. If you want to introduce someone to the basic story of what happened at Fatima, this movie will do the job. I don’t think it bridges the gap and makes itself a movie of interest for a general, secular audience; but it did try, rather than just assuming the spiritual subject matter would automatically make it a worthwhile movie, as so many Catholic and Christian movies do.
Overall, it had lots of missed opportunities and pointless extras, which made for a frustrating watch.
What I liked about it: It mostly had a good sense of place. I liked getting a better idea of what the town, the Cova, the clothing, and the architecture of the church and houses looked like. I was a little confused about what Lucia’s father was supposed to be growing — wads of grass, apparently? But the parched landscape effectively added to the pinched, anxious feeling of the story.
The casting of the three children was very good. They resemble the actual three children closely enough, and more importantly, they seem like normal kids. We see the actual children posed stiffly in black and white photos, and we end up thinking of them as Historical Figures, rather than real people.
I liked the cheerful, androgynous, Jewish-looking angel, and I liked the character of Mary well enough. It was probably smart to make her less like some kind of supernatural, glowy, oogy-boogy . . . well, apparition, and more of a very beautiful and peaceful and clean woman. It’s really hard to find the line between awesome and hokey, so they erred on the side of making her look human but inexplicable, and it worked. It would have been more effective to show less of her, though. You begin to grow tired of her almost unchanging little default smile. But it was a respectable and respectful rendition of Mary, for sure.
I liked that the parents were clearly torn, and loved their children, but had no idea how to respond to a crazy situation in a reasonable way. The social tension in the town was illustrated fairly well, and there was some good contrast between the political leaders and the Catholic townspeople.
The relationship between Lucia and her mother was compelling and plausible, and made a good foil for the more tender connection she has with her dad. The tension builds, and a few times, the viewer is invited to compare Lucia’s mother with the Holy Mother; but then once the miracle happens, the tension just kind of fizzles out, and the mother, after having tormented and accused her daughter throughout the movie, just smiles at her, and the Lucia grins back, and I guess they are fine. This is an example of the movie’s tendency to set up something interesting, but then decline to follow through.
All the townspeople turn up in the square to hear the names of the dead and missing, putting tremendous pressure on the children to intercede for specific beloved sons and brothers, including Lucia’s own brother — who is, in real life, actually her cousin. My husband pointed out that, as long as they were being tricksy with the story, they could have done something interesting by interspersing the story with scenes from the brother’s point of view, but they didn’t think of that.
Instead, they cut in to the story with conversations between an elderly Lucia and a cynical, secular author, cutting back and forth between the story of the apparition and Lucia remembering and defending it. I guess this framing technique is a Barbara Nicolosi signature move, like the Joker leaving a playing card on a corpse, because they pulled the same trick in There Be Dragons. In both cases, it should have been cut. In Fatima, it added absolutely nothing except some Harvey Keitel. At least he keeps his pants on.
Other odd choices: They show the vision of the pope being shot, which I thought everyone agreed foretold the attempted assassination of John Paul II. But in the vision, you clearly see the pope’s face, and it’s some other dude. The vision of hell was reasonably well done, though.
My biggest gripe: The writing was l – a – z – y, with not a single memorable line in the whole movie. The dialogue felt like a placeholder, meant to sketch out what ideas needed to be put across in each scene, with actual dialogue to be filled in later (but they never filled it in).
The dialogue was not only dull, it was thoroughly modern. The mother says to the parish priest, “Thank you for reaching out to me,” and the dad says, “At times our special gifts may lead to trouble,” which, Portuguese accents notwithstanding, convey nothing of the year 1917. There was very little effort to include the kind of small cultural touches that add so much to world-building in a movie. I felt like I was seeing an American 21st century family plunked into wartime Fatima.
The beginning and the end were brisk, but there was a vast, sloshy midsection that went on forever. 25 minutes could easily have been cut. We saw maybe half a dozen scenes of Lucia’s mother saying something like, “I know you are lying!” and Lucia saying something like, “No, I am telling the truth!” This grew tedious, and had the unfortunate effect of draining off my sympathy for the characters.
Essentially, they take a strange, thrilling, true story and make it a bit of a slog. One example: In real life, the three little kids were imprisoned in the mayor’s office and threatened with being boiled in oil if they didn’t recant. In the movie, they are interviewed somewhat sternly by a beleaguered mayor who’s doing his best, and then they go, “Aw, never mind” and send them back out to their parents.
I also recall that, in real life, when the sun danced, the ground and everyone there became instantly, miraculously dry. In the movie, they stay wet and muddy, which is much duller than the truth.
The final insult was the end, where the screen goes black and a quote from Albert Einstein appears, saying, “There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” A bizarre choice. The quote seems to imply that miracles are what you make of them; but the whole point of the miracle of the sun was that it was undeniably a literal (and fairly terrifying) supernatural miracle. Ironically, despite the blunting effect of the quote, the movie effectively portrays a much harder spiritual truth: That God’s ways can be hard and unfathomable, and we don’t know why some fervent prayers are answered and some are not, and why innocent people suffer, and so on. The tacked-on quote was just another self-inflicted wound by a movie that could have been so much better than it was.
We all watched it, including the five-year-old (who fell asleep about an hour in). It’s rated PG-13 I guess because it shows hell, and also horribly wounded soldiers and the pope being shot. It also has some spooky dream sequences.
It occurs to me that I should be applying some kind of ratings to these Lent movie reviews. I guess this one gets three out of five ashes.
Is this too irreverent? I’m so tired, I don’t know anything.
What with one thing and another, I never really went shopping this week (which I was supposed to do on Tuesday). I just kept running to the store and muddling through, and it ended up a pretty delicious week. We had already made plans for the kids to do some cooking, so that helped. Here’s what we had:
SATURDAY Tacos al pastor, plantain chips
Almost a very delicious meal. I made too much meat, which means I crowded the pan. I CROWDED THE PAN. Actually I didn’t even use a pan! There was so much meat, I attempted to broil it in the oven, and I crowded the oven.
So the flavors were all there, but rather than being seared and juicy, the meat was in sort of wads, covered in a flavorful paste. Rather sad when you think what could have been.
I cooked the pineapple separately on the stove, and they turned out great. Gosh, I love seared pineapple.
I more or less followed this recipe, except I used pineapple juice instead of orange juice, and I used too much pineapple in the marinade and didn’t reserve enough for the tacos. The extra pineapple pulp did not help the pasty wad situation. But it’s a relatively simple recipe, and I admired the combination of ancho chili and pineapple. Very warming, and then you get your lime and cilantro and red onion, and it’s at least potentially a little party.
Guys, I’m not a very good cook. I’m adventurous, but I have terrible technique, and no respect for recipes, and I panic and make bad decisions that I know are bad decisions. The only thing that keeps me going is the promise that I can take pictures of food. Anyway, we’re gonna revisit this recipe when it’s warm enough to cook on the grill. I did remember to warm up the tortillas for once, so that was nice.
SUNDAY Stuffed shells, fried mozzarella sticks
A Lucy and Irene meal! Irene made the stuffed shells, which turned out to be a bit more work than she had bargained for, but she forged ahead.
Basically you slice each string cheese stick down the middle, then dredge in flour, then in egg with a little milk, then panko crumbs, then egg again, then crumbs again, then freeze, then deep fry.
Also delicious. We put them in the oven for a few minutes to make sure the cheese was melted, although that probably wasn’t necessary, as you can see it oozing out. The outside was crisp and crunchy and the inside was hot and melty. Perfect.
A lovely cheesy meal. And, uh, we had cheesecake for dessert. Look, we like cheese.
I don’t know if the kids had any great sense of accomplishment for what they produced, but I was proud of them, and so was Corrie.
Oh, and last Friday, Elijah made the mac and cheese, which is some knowledge he especially felt like he needed to be armed with before he leaves the nest.
Turned out great. My big secret about mac and cheese is just a normal white sauce with plenty of whatever cheese you have lying around, and then a nice squirt of mustard and/t several sloshes of tabasco sauce mixed in before you add it to the macaroni. And very buttery bread crumbs for the top. We use about three pounds of raw macaroni for the family, if you’re interested (and we generally have leftovers.)
So at least three of the kids are now armed with cheese skills. I made a big effort to just give directions to them, and not do it myself, which is a skill I am learning.
MONDAY English muffin pizzas
This was the meal Sophia chose to make. They turned out great, but I didn’t do as well with my end, and complained that there weren’t enough, even though I never told her how many to make. Also I forgot to take a picture.
TUESDAY Roast beef sandwiches
I think Damien made a paste of oil and garlic and salt and various things, pan seared the meat, and then roasted it in the oven. Whatever he did, it was fabulous as always.
Okay, here’s my hot sandwich dilemma. What if you want a toasted bun and also melted cheese? If you put it all together and then put it in the oven to melt the cheese, only the outside of the bun gets toasted, and the inside gets soggy, especially if you use horseradish sauce. But if you toast the inside of the bun first, and then put the stuff in and toast it again to melt the cheese, then the bun gets over toasted. It’s a problem.
Am I doing Lent right?
WEDNESDAY Aldi pizza
Nothing to report. It’s okay pizza, and pretty cheap for the size.
THURSDAY One-pan chicken thighs with butternut squash and garlic, green salad
Drop, drop, slow tears.
(This is the butternut squash fresh out of the microwave, where I cooked it on high for four minutes to make it yielding enough to cut, peel, and seed. It weeps.)
I changed up my normal “one-pan chicken and whatnot” recipe a bit, and I liked it. I added whole cloves of garlic, lots of paprika, hot pepper flakes, and a little maple syrup with the olive oil. I think I also put kosher salt, pepper, and maybe thyme.
Could have stayed in the oven a few minutes longer to get a little darker roast on the garlic, but it was tasty. A little spicy but just mainly warming, faintly sweet.
And several of us ate a green vegetable. It’s been a while.
FRIDAY I think seared scallops in cream sauce over fettuccine.
Ahem, continuing our spare and penitential menu. It’s not my fault the stores put seafood on sale for Lent! I grabbed a few bags a few weeks ago and stashed them in the freezer, and Damien volunteered to make something delicious with them. He said something about mixing cheese in with the pasta water so it coats the noodles. (Although he said that before he spent the morning digging through the ice so he could park his car next to my car so he could jump start it because I left the keys in it overnight.)
Some of the kids are fairly seafood averse, so I was trying to explain how accessible and inoffensive scallops are. If you are in this situation, I suggest avoiding the term “fish gumdrops.” It doesn’t help.
And now I’d like to point out that I cooked supper exactly twice this week: The tacos al pastor, and the chicken with squash. We had frozen pizza once, and everything else was Genuine Hot Dinner Made By Someone Else. Ghost of mother who has escaped babyland is here to say: Someday it could happen to youuuuuuu!
Just a basic recipe. You can add meat to the sauce or spinach to the cheese, or anything that strikes your fancy. Serves about 10.
Ingredients
212-oz boxesjumbo shells
232-oz tubsricotta cheese
8ozgrated parmesan cheese
4cupsshredded mozzarella, divided
4eggs, beaten
1Tbspgarlic powder
2Tbspdried basil
1Tbspsalt
1tsppepper
1/2tspnutmeg
4-5cupspasta sauce
Instructions
Cook the shells in salted water, drain, and rinse in cool water. Mix them up with olive oil so they don't stick together.
Preheat the oven to 350. Mix into the ricotta cheese all the seasoning, the parmesan, and 3 of the cups of mozzarella.
Spread a little sauce in the bottom of an oven-proof pan or dish. Stuff each shell with about 1/2-1/3 cup of cheese filling and lay the stuffed shells close together.
Top with the rest of the pasta sauce, and sprinkled the remaining mozzarella on top of that. Cover loosely with foil and cook for 45 minutes or longer, until it's bubbly.
Beat the eggs together with the milk in a shallow dish. Put the flour in another shallow dish, and the bread crumbs in a third.
Take each split cheese stick, roll it in flour, dip it in egg, and roll it in panko crumbs, then dip it in egg again, then panko crumbs again.
When you've coated all the cheese sticks, cover and freeze them for at least an hour.
Heat the oil in a heavy pot. You want enough oil that you can submerge the cheese sticks. If you put a wooden spoon in the oil and lots of little bubbles collect on it, the oil is hot enough.
Fry the cheese sticks for just a few minutes a few at a time until they are lightly browned all over.
Drain them on a paper towel and serve while still piping hot. If the cheese isn't melted inside, you can pop the cheese sticks in the oven for a few minutes.
Bishop Joseph Strickland, the outspoken shepherd of the diocese of Tyler, Texas, is promoting a gargantuan new planned Catholic community calledVeritatis Splendor. The proposed compound will cover nearly 600 acres and will include “a grand oratory and seven institutes of truth.” It aims to eventually become home to dozens of Catholic families who can live, worship, and go to school together, as well as enjoying swimming, hunting, and horseback riding within a community that shares and preserves their Catholic ideals.
“There, the faithful can gather to produce the first wave of apostles, planting the seeds for other Veritatis Splendor locations nationally and globally,” said co-founder Kari Beckman.
“It is a community of true believers who work and live together to safeguard the deposit of faith through an uncompromising fidelity to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition,” the website said.
The first phase is to be an oratory “conceived in the architecture and structure of the Italian cathedrals erected in places such as Siena, Florence and Assisi.” To build it and fund other “advancement expenses,” Veritatis Splendor ultimately wants $22 million. As of March 3, they have raised over $37,00o.
But while the website and promotional video are full of apocalyptic music and imagery warning Catholics of wolves and masks, interspersed with video of sun-drenched outdoor Eucharistic benediction and a blonde cowgirl mounting a horse, it’s short on details about how the project will be governed, how funds will be managed, who has oversight over the community of priests who will live there permanently, and how it will ensure its residents live according to Catholic ideals, as they apparently must pledge to do in order to move in.
The site also doesn’t mention that the parent company behind the proposed Veritatis Splendor development, Regina Caeli Inc., was sued in a 2016. The lawsuit alleged that Regina Caeli, Inc. defamed a whistleblower who threatened to expose RCA’s alleged fraud, tax violations, and violations of the Fair Labor Standard Act, and that they allegedly fired his wife in retaliation. The plaintiffs alleged RCA is “run like a cult.”
However, the Veritatis Splendor promotional video refers to Strickland as “co-founder.” Several of the donors thank Bishop Strickland personally for leading the project, on the fundraising site. The bishop is prominent on the project’s promotional video and on the Veritatis Splendor website, which refers to him as “the last priest to be made a Bishop under the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI.”
In the video, Strickland says, “Where I come from, people speak plainly.”
The appeals email says, “Bishop Strickland and The Founders of Veritatis Splendor are asking you to join them in support of this mission through sacrificial Lenten almsgiving.” Although the email says Bishop Strickland is soliciting donations, it does not say in the email that the organization is private and not an official diocesan project.
Kevin Wandra of Carmel Communications, which handles public relations for Veritatis Splendor, said, “This is not a diocesan effort.” But the bishop is indisputably using his name and his office to direct donations and support to the project.
Donors who contribute $25 will receive his book, Guard the Deposit of Faith, but donors who contribute $10,000 are entitled to a tour and a private dinner with the founders, and it says “Bishop Strickland will also celebrate Mass for all those in attendance.”
It is common practice for priests to accept a voluntary stipend when they say Mass by request, and the typical amount is $5 $10. No stipend is required, though, so as to avoid even the appearance that Mass is being sold for money. The voluntary collection of a stipend is distinct from the practice of simony, or collecting temporal goods for spiritual services.
Mass with Bishop Strickland is only listed as a perk for donors at the $10,000 level; it is not offered as a perk to those who contribute $5,000 or less.
Wandra disagreed that listing Mass as part of a perk might possibly be perceived as simony.
“It is very clear that the donation is for Veritatis Splendor, regardless of whether one gets to receive a gesture of appreciation for that gift. For those who donate more than $10,000, we will be having a special dinner to thank them and show them in person the plans for the property. And Mass will be celebrated for anyone who attends as a courtesy since these will be planned for Sundays on the property,” Wandra said.
Priests who stay put
In a typical diocesan parish, the bishop assigns parish priests according to the changing needs of the community in which they live. Assignments generally last 5-7 years, but are rarely permanent, so that the needs of the entire diocese can be taken into account, and to discourage congregations from forming unhealthy attachments to individual priests. But in Veritatis Splendor, when the priests arrive, they will stay put.
“At the center of Veritatis Splendor will be a grand Oratory, led by a community of Catholic priests under a particular charism of apostolic life. These priests will reside in the community and be permanent members of Veritatis Splendor in East Texas and not subject to transfers or re-assignments,”the case statement says.
Wandra clarified that these priests will be Oratorians in the tradition of St. Philip Neri. Oratorians are not a religious order; they are secular priests (i.e., they have not made religious vows). Oratorians must have permission from the local bishop to found an Oratory (which is not a parish church), such as the one proposed for Veritatis Splendor; but the community of priests is relatively autonomous. They answer not to the bishop of the diocese in which they live, but to Rome. The bishop has, according to canon law, a duty to be “vigilant” about their spiritual well-being and about the effects of the community in his diocese, but the relationship between the diocese and such communities is not clearly defined.
The Veritatis Splendor site gives no information about the proposed community of priests or who would have authority over them. It does not specify that they are Oratorians in the tradition of Philip Neri (the word “Oratorian” does not always refer to this specific community of priests and laymen).
Laymen may not be aware that priests who live and work within their diocese are not necessarily under the authority of their local bishop; and that the diocese would not be obligated to disclose the same information about Oratorian priests that it would about diocesan priests.A confusion of this type occurred in the diocese of Manchester, NH,where the diocese disclosed the names of 73 priests accused of abuse, but did not include the community of Legion priests who lived and worked at a private Catholic school in the diocese, because those priests answered to their superiors in the Legionaires of Christ, and not to the bishop. Many NH residents assumed that the list disclosed by the diocese included all priests who lived and worked in that diocese, but it did not. (The Legion later disclosed its own list, but this, too was not comprehensive.)
Financial opacity
The project’s stated goal is to raise $22 million to “build the St. Joseph oratory and more.”
Although the fund drive has already raised nearly $40,000, it does not include any information about the proposed oratory, other than that it will be dedicated to St. Joseph and will be “fashioned to reflect the great Cathedrals you find in the beautiful villages across Italy.” The “statement of intent” form for donors simply says “I/We understand that my contribution will used [sic] for Advancement Expenses.”
“This is a brand new mission and much depends on raising money to make it possible like any good mission. So there are things that we just don’t know,” said Lisa Wheeler, one of the co-founders of the project.
Kari Beckman, founder of Veritatis Splendor, is also the co-founder of Regina Caeli Academy with her husband Rich Beckman. The donation form for Veritatis Splendor asks that checks be made payable to “Regina Caeli Academy for Veritatis Splendor” at Regina Caeli Academy’s address in Roswell, Georgia. Veritatis Splendor is listed on its site as “a division of Regina Caeli, Inc.”
According to Wandra, the governing board of Veritatis Splendor is the board of Regina Caeli, Inc. According to RCA’s website, board members are: Rich Beckman, Fr. Peter Idler, Daniel Saegaert, Fr. Augustine Tran, James Faber, Jim Graham, Frank Scarchilli, and Fr. John Paul Walker.
In 2016, Regina Caeli Inc. (RCA), Rich Beckman, Fr. Peter Idler, Daniel Saegaert, Fr. Augustine Tran, as well as Steven Konsin, Norbert Maduzia, and Joshua Allen were sued by former members. The suit alleges that RCA defamed a whistleblower who threatened to expose RCA’s alleged fraud, tax violations, and violations of the Fair Labor Standard Act, and that they allegedly fired his wife in retaliation.
Regina Caeli is a homeschool hybrid tutoring program in which paying members homeschool their children for three days a week, using a standardized curriculum, and the school provides support and access to tutors and extracurricular activities. Parents who are also tutors receive a discount on the entire program, and all members are expected to fundraise and to recruit new members, in addition to paying tuition. Tuition, which covers two classroom days (for which uniforms are required), ranges from $2,800 per PreK student for a half day to $4,500 per high school student.
Many members describe Regina Caeli as the best of both worlds, and praise the supportive, close-knit community and structure it provides. But according to the two former members who sued Regina Caeli, Inc. and its board members in 2016, it’s “run like a cult.”
John and Marie Kruse of Michigan alleged that their family of eight children was kicked out of the program shortly before Christmas after John Kruse threatened to expose Regina Caeli’s alleged financial irregularities.
The suit alleged that, when John Kruse asked to review financial information so he could determine how the school was spending the money their group raised and solicited, the director responded that “it was not RCA’s ‘style’ to provide any financial information, other than the IRS form 990’s,” and then allegedly attacked Kruse’s motive for inquiring.
The suit alleges that, when John Kruse sent a letter threatening legal action if RCA did not provide more transparency, Marie Kruse was locked out of her tutor account so she could no longer work, and that the entire family was abruptly dismissed from the program. The suit alleges RCA threatened to sue John Kruse for communicating with other families in the program, damaging his reputation.
The Kruses alleged that “complete, blind, unquestioning obedience to RCA’s officers and the Directors is demanded or the family is subjected to humiliation, ostracization and expulsion.”
The suit alleged the RCA was not in compliance with Michigan’s laws covering charities who solicit funds, and that it misled parents about whether their donations would be tax deductible. It also alleged that Marie Kruse invested significant time and money in an intensive “Master Tutor Certification” program, but was denied the alleged promised raise in pay and choice in tutoring assignments.
The lawsuit was settled out of court.
I asked Wandra whether Veritatis Splendor will be more transparent than Regina Caeli in how it manages and allocates its funds, to avoid similar legal battles in the future. Wandra responded,
“Veritatis Splendor, as a project of Regina Caeli Inc., will be as transparent as a non-profit endeavor is required to be, and has done so explicably in all the ways expected. Regina Caeli Inc. already files its Yearly 990, issues an Annual Report made available to the public on its website and follows all the requirements of the IRS and the guidelines of the 501 (c) 3 tax code.”
Regina Caeli’s most recent tax forms list their total assets in 2018 at $4.2 million, with $3.4 million in liabilities.
“Any parent who questioned RCA’s lack of proportionate financial support for the Detroit Program was harshly criticized by RCA staff and accused of attacking RCA and pressured to leave the program,” the Kruse suit alleged.
The lawsuit alleged that RCA claimed they ejected the Kruse family for their “effort to ‘create discord and disunity in the community.'”
RCA denied the allegations and threatened to countersue the Kruses for defamation before the suit was settled out of court.
“Regina Caeli Inc. was not sued for fundraising fraud,” Wandra clarified.
Communication
When I called Veritatis Splendor co-founder Kari Beckman for comment, she declined to respond, but said that I should direct my questions to co-founder Lisa Wheeler at Carmel Communications, whose name and contact information are listed on the site’s case statement as the person to call for questions about Veritatis Splendor.
I told Beckman’s office that I had already left two voicemails for Wheeler and that she had not responded; but they said again that I should contact Wheeler. I then sent Wheeler, who is a Facebook friend, a private message via Facebook messenger. Receiving no response, I then wrote on Wheeler’s Facebook wall to ask her to check her messages and voicemail. She responded by denying that she had received any voicemails. She also denied that her name was on the Veritatis Splendor website, and denied that she was the point of contact for media inquiries. Wheeler also claimed that someone from Carmel Communications had already responded to the media inquiries I had submitted through the form on the site. (I had not received a response.)
Wheeler told me, “no one is avoiding answering your questions,” and then furnished me with Kevin Wandra’s name and contact information, which do not appear on the Veritatis Splendor site. Then, about an hour after Wheeler’s response, I received a response from the site’s media inquiry form.
Bishop Strickland declined to respond to questions either by phone or email. When Wandra responded, he indicated that he had seen the questions I sent directly to the bishop’s office, and “in order to streamline things” Wandra took the initiative of adding a response quoting the bishop to one of those questions. When I asked if he was speaking for the bishop, since the bishop had clearly shared my email with him, he did not respond.
*** Image with VS logo is a still from the promotional video embedded above. All other images are screenshots from the site, from the case statement, and from the fundraising site.
EDIT 7:25 PM March 3: I stated: “It is common practice for priests to accept a voluntary stipend when they say Mass by request, and the typical amount is $5.” The correct amount of a typical stipend is $10.
Some of the best advice I’ve gotten in my life didn’t sound like advice at all, at the time. It sounded like soothing nothings, like meaningless truisms from someone who didn’t understand what the problem really was. But in retrospect, it was the only possible course of action.
Take, for example, the time I complained to my priest that my prayer life was basically useless, because I was so distracted and couldn’t focus for more than a second or two. He smiled and said, “Well, just keep coming back to it.”
This advice sounded so dismissive and simplistic at the time. But years later, I have to admit that there is no other advice. There is no trick or shortcut to prayer. As soon as you’re aware that your mind has wandered, just pick up where you left off, simple as that. Prayer is only efficacious because God is listening, anyway, so you just do your best and trust Him to make something out of it.
It was hard for me to see what good advice it was because there was some hidden arrogance in my frustration. I thought my problem was so subtle and complex, there must be a subtle and complex solution for it. But it wasn’t, and there wasn’t. I just need to get over myself and try again.
Another example is something that may especially come in handy to people who are, as they say, extremely online. Are you ready? Here’s the advice: Sometimes you don’t have to do anything but wait.
Here is a little story about how I left the church, sort of, and then came slouching back home, more or less.
The late, occasionally great Mad Magazine once published a bit that showed people’s secret thoughts. A scene looks one way from the outside but is very different and allegedly very funny on the inside. The one I remember showed the inside of a church. The congregation piously bows their heads, apparently engaged in placid worship. But on the inside, the well-to-do man is freaking out over gambling debt, the adolescent boy is slavering over a sexy fantasy and the teenage girl is desperately praying for a negative pregnancy test. It is just as well I don’t remember what the priest was thinking.
This was supposed to demonstrate that religious people are a bunch of hypocrites who pretend to be righteous and clean but are actually a mess on the inside. Har har, religious people! Look how they live.
The cartoonist was, of course, not making this up. When my parents had found Jesus but not yet the Catholic Church, my poor mother was perpetually humiliated when people visited our shabby, disorderly home. She was overworked, outnumbered and struggling with undiagnosed thyroid issues. And their allegedly Christian landlord thought laundry lines made the outside of the house look tacky, so whatever my mother did, she did it fighting her way past a line of damp diapers drying slowly over the hot air vent. A poor substitute for the mighty wind of the Holy Spirit that they sought.
But conversion happens stepwise. She knew her fellow Christians believed that outward disorder and chaos were caused by secret sin, so if anyone came to her door, she fell into the habit of making excuses. “Sorry about the mess,” she would say, and then explain that someone had been sick or they just got back from a trip. Here was always some temporary, mitigating factor that explained the general chaos.
Then one day, she didn’t. Someone came over and saw their typical chaos, and what came out of her mouth was: “Sorry it’s such a mess. This is just how we live.”
I don’t know how long after that moment she began to feel a pull toward the Catholic Church, but this moment in our family mythology feels like a very Catholic moment. This is literally what the church is for: So you can have a house to be a mess in. It is your house; you are a mess. Why try to deny it?
This is just how we live, and it’s not new. Chaucer, anyone? Dante’s “Inferno”? The Gospels? This is just how we live. If there were no mess, there would be no reason for the church to be built to house it. If there were no sin, there would be no need for baptism and confession and the Eucharist. If there were no human misery and wretchedness, there would have been no need for God to become man. I know this, or I thought I did. At home in the Catholic Church, we are a mess, and we cannot seem to help opening the door to show all comers our own weaknesses and sins and hypocrisies.
But as I write this paragraph, it feels a bit like I am distilling the faith down to an Etsy-worthy wall hanging for suburban moms: Bless this mess, Lord!
But the mess of the church is no adorable, kid-style mess, with couch cushion forts and colorful alphabet blocks strewn around the rug. It is the sex abuse scandal, which continues to break and break and break on the shore like a punishing, never-ending tide. It is the scandal of pastors and bishops pitting faith against science. It is the scandal of open disobedience and contempt for basic doctrine. It is the general crappiness and malaise and infighting of Catholic culture and Catholic social media. It is the disorder where culture, tradition, doctrine and lived experience all try to inhabit the same living space. This is how we live, and it is a mess, and the mess goes down deeper than I thought.
A number of personal experiences have widened some cracks in my life that used to be manageable. I used to think my personal faith-house was rock solid. It is not. It was shored up with 10,000 little pebbles, and some of them carried a bigger load than they should have. Many of them have been swept away, and when I look at what’s left, I don’t even know what to call it. “Mess” seems inadequate. It’s nothing comfortable or homelike, anyway.
Episode three of our podcast, Double Feature With the Fishers, is up! Damien and I pour a little drink and talk about MASTER AND COMMANDER and APPALOOSA, two movies about (among other things) male friendship. In this episode, one of the ice cubes escapes and then Damien complains about Marvel movies for a bit, but then we get going. Two great movies, lots to say about friendship, identity, and also, you know, amputations, and shooting. No stretchy red suits at all.
This episode and all our archives are available to patrons who pledge as little as $1 a month through Patreon. You’ll get an email with the link to the podcast, and my undying thanks for helping keep this website (and our family) afloat!
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I did buy hot dog buns, but not nearly enough. I’m new here and have no way of knowing how to shop for food. But of course you can turn a mediocre meal into something very different, with the right presentation.
Pretty good meal, but I ran out of white wine for the risotto and had to add some red, and I really just don’t prefer it that way. Can’t beat white wine, butter, and onions. Oh, I also used beef broth instead of chicken, because I couldn’t find my chicken bouillon cubes. Several years ago, I switched from using bouillon cubes to using a giant jar of powdered chicken bouillon. YEARS ago. But I hid this information from myself for some reason, and also somehow didn’t see the giant jar of powdered chicken bouillon I keep on the counter. So I was forced to use beef.
The pork ribs, I just seasoned heavily with salt and pepper and shoved them under a hot broiler, turning once, and they always turn out juicy and nice. The hardest part is running over to turn off the smoke alarm when you turn the ribs over. The whole meal tasted better than it looks. We’re getting some more light these days, but still not enough to make food look good in the evening.
MONDAY Mexican beef bowls
Everybody’s favorite meal this week. I adore this meal. The marinade is only a few ingredients, and then you just have to roast the meat for 40 minutes or so, slice it up, and put in a little time prepping the other toppings — not really more work than prepping for tacos or something.
The only hitch was I only had three cups of rice; but I had picked up these silly taco shell boats (“Fiesta Flats“) on a whim, and was dubbed Mother Hero for my efforts. We had fried onions and sweet peppers, shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, plenty of cilantro, black beans + tomatoes and chili (one can of each, drained and dumped together), and some sweet corn charred in a pan with olive oil. And lime wedges and corn chips.
This meat is so good, so tangy and savory. My current favorite thing to do to beef when it goes on sale. Whenever we make this meal, I scoop up plenty of the gravy and pour it over the whole thing. I firmly believe this is good for my heart and will enable me to live forever, a Gravy-filled Hero Mother forever.
TUESDAY
Nobody knows what we ate on Tuesday. I don’t have any pictures, so it probably wasn’t very good.
WEDNESDAY Chicken caprese sandwiches, fries
A fine meal. I took some chicken breasts, drizzled them with olive oil, and heavily seasoned them with salt, garlic powder, and oregano and dried basil and rosemary, and roasted them, then sliced them thin. February tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, freshly ground sea salt and pepper. Toasted buns. Very nice.
We ate late because I had spent a good part of the day shopping for Corrie’s birthday party, putting her presents together, and baking a ridiculous cake, as you will see.
THURSDAY Domino’s pizza
Corrie’s birthday! We’re still not having guests, so we made it as festive as possible with just us chickens, considering that several of us chickens had to work during the day.
She requested a Teen Titans cake, and drew this helpful diagram for me:
Sure, kid.
So I did what any loving mother would do: I begged one of my other kids to deal with it. I did bake a cake, and decorate it so it looked sort of like a sort of comic book city at night, sort of:
And then Clara made EXTRAORDINARY cookies of the Teen Titans. She printed pictures of the characters, cut them out, traced them in dough, cut the cookies out, and then I guess just freehanded in the design with icing.
Note, her decorating equipment consisted of plastic sandwich bags with a little hole cut in the corner.
The most amazing part was that she worked on them all day, and then when it was time to serve the cake, she didn’t even wince as we went ahead and ATE them. Two of them played wishbone with Beast Boy’s legs.
So, Corrie loved her cake, loved her presents (well, except for the one she opened after waking up shortly after dawn, and it wasn’t exactly the way she expected, and she did not love that), loved the piñata Irene made for her, loved her Teen Titans decorations
and pretty much liked her party games. She had asked for a balloon shooting game with a stuffed animal for the big prize and then bad prizes for the rest of the prizes. It turns out that a combination of darkness and snow and a very old BB gun and balloons is . . . less than ideal.
The balloons wouldn’t pop! We had to bring the game inside and stab the balloons with a knife. Coincidentally, Corrie won the big prize, and everyone else got bad prizes, which included some seltzer and a can of tomato paste.
Phew. That was some day. I honestly think it would have been easier and more relaxing to invite a bunch of kindergarteners over for a few hours.
FRIDAY Elijah’s mac and cheese
I had the brilliant idea to get the kids to pick a favorite meal and cook it for everyone during vacation week. But I didn’t shop until Tuesday, and then we had various things going on that confused me, and now vacation is just about over, and here it is Friday. So today, Elijah is going to make mac and cheese.
I think we can squeeze some kid-made dinners out over the weekend, too. Irene is going to make stuffed shells, and Lucy is going to make breaded mozzarella sticks. Sophia earned some side eye by volunteering to make English muffin pizza, but dinner is dinner. Clara already earned her stripes with the Teen Titan cookies, and Lena was going to make the caprese chicken sandwiches but I forgot and made them myself by mistake. Moe has been doing inventory at work and I didn’t have the heart to ask him to cook, too.
Okay, that’s it for this week! Here’s some recipe cards for yez. And stay tuned, patrons, for a new podcast episode! This week Double Feature with the Fishers tackles Master and Commander and Appaloosa.
Pour over beef, sliced or unsliced, and marinate several hours. If the meat is sliced, pan fry. If not, cook in a 350 oven, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I cook the meat in all the marinade and then use the excess as gravy.
I’ve been awfully busy lately. Even on a lazy day, I’m busy busy busy, accomplishing this, working hard at avoiding that, distracting myself with this, putting a lot of effort into putting off thinking about that, praying this devotion, avoiding that one. In between activities, I was scrolling through Facebook on my distraction machine, and came across a short essay that smacked me right between the eyes: A Not-So-Radical Proposal for Your Lenten Season: Do Nothing.
The author, Jake Braithwaite, SJ, describes how his life was jam packed with busyness. And he was busy doing good things: working, studying, spending time with friends. But, he says:
“When the rare slow moment came I would be overwhelmed by the range of emotions that might overtake me: wounds I’d let fester, exhaustion I’d ignored, difficult moments I’d refused to process.
“Where had all this been hiding? Had it been here all along?”
He says:
“When starting to discern becoming a Jesuit, I was forced to take more time outside of my routine to pray. For me, the revelation of silent prayer was that I wanted something different than the life that, on the surface, was quite satisfying. I realized that part of the reason I filled every waking moment with activity was that I didn’t want to listen to that voice that was calling me in a different direction.”
This isn’t exclusively the problem of a young man discerning his vocation. This is my problem. I know what my vocations are (mother, wife, writer), but it’s very possible to do all the right things according to your station in life, and still not feel entirely present in it, because you never stop doing what you do, and just be who you are.
I hear how clichéd that sounds. It sounds like a poster in the waiting room of someone who smells like patchouli. But the danger of always doing, without ever just being, is very real. If you don’t believe me, then think how hard it is to stop doing the things you do, and just be the person you are, even for five minutes, in front of God.
It’s hard, very hard to do. Even when we’ve turned off exterior distractions — internet, music, TV, podcasts, physical business — it’s hard to stop the mental wheel. I’ve spent entire hours literally, physically in front of Jesus at adoration, and I don’t even realize until the time is almost up that I’ve spent the whole time jabbering spiritually away, trying to phrase things right so I trap the Lord into giving me an answer or experience I can stuff in my pocket and take home with me. Or at least to fill up the time, because I feel like that’s what I’m here to do: To fill up time. To do something, rather than just to be something.
He’s not mad at me, when I do this. He’s still glad I’m there. But I think He’s also patiently waiting for me to shut up for a minute so He can do His thing. So He can be His thing. So He can just be God, and I can be who I am, in front of God.
We resist this — or at least I do — because we are afraid. I’m afraid God will tell me that I’m not good enough, or that I need to change something radically. Or maybe I’m afraid there will be nothing, which means — what? That God doesn’t have anything to say. Or maybe He does, but not to me. At very least, I’m afraid that, when I settle and be still, the things I half-know about myself will stop flittering around my head and will land.
But I’ll tell you what, I’m also afraid of living the rest of my life disjointed from myself, with my body and soul out of synch, building my day out of layer upon layer of camouflage, always scampering around like a monkey in front of God and calling that a life. It’s exhausting. I’m tired of it. I’m so tired.
Braithwaite describes spending time walking in a city alone. He says:
“With long days to walk and think, I was able to sort out the parts of my life where God was most active and the parts where it was hard to find God. As Ignatius puts it, I was able to name the consolations and the desolations.
“I noticed the parts of my life–even the challenging ones–that left me feeling energized and alive. On the other hand, I noticed the parts of my life–even the surface-level happy ones–that left me feeling empty and dry and used up.
“I didn’t solve everything in my strolling, but I started to notice some patterns. I was finally able to hear God’s voice because the noise was turned down. I couldn’t block it out with the distractions–parties and drinking and social media and to-do lists and podcasts and music and movies and shows and idle fretting about work—that were my preferred methods.
“Instead, I just had to be present to exactly what I was feeling at each moment. If I was sad, I just had to be sad for a bit. If I was excited, I just got to experience it rather than try to share it on an online profile. If I was worried, I lived through the worry instead of numbing it.”
Reading this, I thought to myself, “THAT PUNK!” Because he goes on to encourage us to take quiet walks through our own neighborhoods, to let the still, small voice of the Lord speak to us about who we are. Who has time for wandering around? Not me! I have kids! I have a job! I have dinner to a make and errands to run and emails to answer.
But. I do have time when I wake up in the morning. I have a few minutes where I’m coming into consciousness, and before looking at my calendar and checking all my various notifications, I can place myself in the presence of God.
I do have time in the car when, rather than turning on music, I can have some silence.
I have time when I’m cooking, when, rather than catching up on the news on my smart speaker, I can just do what I’m doing, make what I’m making.
I have time before bed, when I can lay down my novel and think through my day, with all its nonsense and joys and mistakes and frustrations and little triumphs, and, without even analyzing or summarizing or commenting on it, I can turn it all over to the Lord before I fall asleep.
For goodness sakes, I can go to the bathroom without bringing my phone with me. I don’t mean to alarm you, but if God can speak to Elijah on Mt. Horeb, he can speak to you on the toilet.
I don’t have aimless hours where I can wander and meditate; but I do recall that, when I seek out and lean into smaller moments throughout the day, longer spans of time do tend to open up, once I’m more open to seeing them.
“Rather than optimize your Lent with a waistline-conscious fast or a bold test of your willpower, simply take time each day to do nothing. Sit before the Lord, let God marvel at you as you marvel at God. Maybe even while you’re eating french fries.”
Well, I’ve tried everything else, and I’m fresh out of ideas. I guess maybe it’s time to do nothing for Lent, and see how that goes.
They’re upset because when Disney+ re-released The Muppet Show this weekend, sixteen of the episodes came with a content warning reading:
“This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together.”
As a recovering Rush Limbaugh Conservative, I understand why people are upset. Libs can’t walk three feet without tripping over something that offends them. Things that just used to be good clean fun are now crimes, and everybody’s a victim.
These are things I used to say and think. Like most pernicious ideas, they’re not entirely untrue. You can find far-left activists who really are ridiculous, who really do get offended over nothing, and who really do long to see themselves as victims — and who really do want to squash joy, crush free speech, and silence anyone who disagrees with them. My kids had an English teacher who refused to teach Moby Dick because it didn’t have any female characters and was therefore sexist. That’s just a small example. There’s a push from much more powerful people to crush things that don’t deserve crushing (sometimes cynically shielding actual offenders in the process).
But content warnings aren’t an example of this; they’re the remedy for it.
The Daily Wire and others have referred to the addition of content warnings as part of “cancel culture.” It’s literally the opposite: Rather than refusing to broadcast the show, they’re showing it.
Cancel culture says, “This says or implies something I don’t agree with; therefore, it must be gone.” Content warnings say, “This says or implies something you might not agree with. Here it is anyway; you decide if you want to consume it or not.” This strikes me as manifestly conservative: We report, you decide. And they can’t be accused of insensitivity, because they did warn us! Their butts are covered.
Don’t get me wrong: Disney+ is doing this because broadcasting shows makes more money than not broadcasting them. But in practice, it’s actually the perfect balance of free speech and personal responsibility. It may be the lifeline we need to drag us out of the quagmire of actual cancel culture, which really does make good things disappear.
That being said, conservatives have made other objections to the inclusion of content warnings. But I think they’re equally bogus.
The first is an objection to the very fact that there are warnings at all. This is disingenuous, especially coming from conservatives.
When my kids want to watch a movie or show I’m not familiar with, and I don’t have the time or desire to watch it with them, what do I do? I look it up. I see if it includes nudity or violence or cussing or themes that may not be appropriate for their age. This is standard practice for responsible parents. Different parents are leery of different things, but there’s nothing new or outrageous about offering a content warning so we can make reasonable decisions. Heck, I remember chortling when a Batman movie warned me it would contain “menace.” I hope so!
It’s a core principle of American conservatism that Hollyweird is trying to pervert our youngsters, and we have the right and the duty as responsible parents to know what kind of media they’re consuming and to make independent choices about that. At least in theory, content warnings are an excellent tool to help us do just that.
Also, memories are faulty, and standards change. Most adults, especially parents, have had the experience of watching a movie or show we haven’t seen in decades, and being shocked at how — something — it is. How sexist, how violent, how racy, how racist, how crude. There are even memes about this phenomenon: Showing a beloved movie to your kids and then leaping for the remote because OH NO I FORGOT THIS SCENE. I’m old and tired, and happy to get an assist, to avoid this kind of thing.
The second objection has to do with what kinds of things earn a warning in 2021. And this is where conservatives will have a harder time; but if they’re Christians, they probably shouldn’t.
In theory, warnings are useful to parents, left and right, to have a heads-up about content. In practice, they’re are often a little less helpful. Saying “The following may be offensive to some viewers” is about as useful as saying “The sun may rise.” (I had a kid who found owls offensive, reasons unclear.)
But the specific warnings on the Muppet Show episodes specify that they will “includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures.” In other words, it’s going to include a bit that makes some group of human beings look stupid or crazy or subhuman, for laughs.
I don’t have a list of the specific scenes that earned warnings (Newsweek has a list of the episodes), but I’m guessing the group of human beings are not oligarchs or mean bosses or anyone else who has power and influence. It’s almost certainly groups of people who have less power and less influence: Certain ethnic groups, maybe victims of domestic violence, being treated as if they themselves are jokes.
And this is what is actually at the core of objections against content warnings: Conservatives who are angry about the warnings want to defend punching down. They want to defend the practice of making fun of people who can’t fight back, for the sake of a joke. And they want the practice to go utterly unchallenged, even fleetingly.
This is something I’ve been trying hard to grow out of — or at least to be more consistent about, because I am a Christian. Here’s an example: I once told a funny story that hinged on a Chinese accent, and I got swatted down. I asked why my story was hurtful, when a joke involving a French accent wouldn’t be. And the answer was: Because Chinese accents get treated as evidence of stupidity and backwardness in a way that French accents do not. And that was right. I learned something, and now I’m more careful, because I’m a Christian, and I don’t want to punch down.
Being a parent, and having to think hard about what it will do to a developing young heart to see certain scenes and hear certain phrases on TV, has made me think hard about . . . well, my own heart. I’ve had to change. We’re supposed to change. We’re supposed to take it seriously when we realize we’re wounding someone. At very least, we should think it over, and not dismiss it out of hand as liberal fragility.
I do understand that, when Disney+ or some other corporation chooses to put a warning on something, they do it inconsistently. They will warn the audience if they’re going to show something that current cultural standards finds offensive, but they don’t bat an eye over something else that’s equally offensive, but not in a popular way.
My friends, so what? If you know better than Disney+, then good for you. It doesn’t hurt you to see a brief warning. Nobody’s preventing you from watching, and nobody’s making your mind up for you. All they’re doing is saying, “Here’s an idea; take it or leave it.” If your kids see a warning and have questions, then talk to them about what you think, and defend your take, and listen. If you just shut the conversation down and refuse to entertain the possibility that you’re wrong . . . isn’t that . . . cancel culture?
Before I say anything else, I recommend this movie if you are cold. This is one of the sunniest films I have ever seen. There’s nothing flashy about the way the movie is filmed, but you absolutely feel like you’re in the blazing hot streets of old Jerusalem. You could warm your hands by the natural light emanating from the screen.
It’s also very emotionally warming, and I was of two minds about that.
The basic plot: A married couple, Malli and Moshe, who fairly recently converted or reverted to their strict Orthodox Jewish faith, have no child and no money, which brings them great grief. They can’t pay the rent, and they also have no means to celebrate Sukkoth, the holiday commemorating the Jews’ exodus in the desert. You’re supposed to erect a booth outside your home and eat and sleep in it, and supply it with “four species,” including a citron, some sort of highly cultivated ceremonial citrus fruit.
I didn’t really understand why Moshe and his wife Malli doesn’t have any money (he works at the temple but hasn’t been there enough lately, so they don’t pay him?), and I was a little confused about who it was who was miraculously inspired to help him; but the upshot is that the couple’s prayers are answered immediately and spectacularly.
But there’s a hitch! Along with the bounty come some guests, one of whom knows Moshe from before his conversion. This puts a strain on everyone, and how they respond to the strain just about wrecks everything.
One thing I loved is the intimate, friendly way the couple prayed to God. The motions and rituals of their faith felt very foreign, but listen to how Moshe, almost out of hope, talks to God as he sits on a park bench:
Malli has a similarly cozy and intimate prayer life, at one point calling God “a sweet guy,” if I remember correctly.
But the way God responds to their prayer is the thing that left me feeling a trace bit uneasy about the movie. It was difficult to know how hard to try to analyze what was happening here, because I’m so ignorant about the culture depicted. I want to say what I think it meant that the guests cut the costly citron that was supposed to bring a blessing for a baby boy, but I’m not sure I understood enough of what it meant on the literal level to analyze it on a metaphorical level.
In any case, it’s definitely a story about trusting God in the simplest way possible, and maybe not trying to over-analyze or comprehend all the twists and turns of providence, but accepting the whole will of God as-is, including the miraculous and the mundane. The couple explicitly references Sarah and Abraham, the faith-filled but childless couple, and also more obliquely Job, the suffering but bewildered servant who accepts that he can’t comprehend God’s ways. And they’re also Moshe and Malli, who have been married five years and buy their clothes second hand.
This is a couple who love each other so dearly and love God so affectionately and trustingly, it’s lovely to see — and excruciating when those relationships are under stress. In their particular story, they want some things very desperately, and when they pray hard enough, God gives it to them. I have not noticed that this is how it works in real life! But this is a fairy tale or maybe a folk tale.
It’s also very much a beginning. The couple is fairly young in their faith and their life together. Maybe God is showering bounty on them to give them a good start, and it seems very likely that this couple will be up to the challenges the rest of their life together will surely bring, when prayers don’t get answered so directly.
There is also some gentle exploration of what it means to belong to a community, and whether or not it can be righteous to violate the norms. Moshe and Malli are willing to be a little transgressive because they think it’s the best way to serve God, but they also very much draw their strength from the mandates of the community, which is portrayed with utter respect even as its flaws are revealed. Interesting stuff.
It’s also a very funny movie, with a kind of childlike goofiness that many people don’t realize is very typical of Jewish culture. The couple are married in real life (Moshe, played by Shuli Rand, wrote the screenplay, but neither had acted before), and the connection between them is authentic and familiar. Lots of wonderful, very human relationships in the movie, between friends, between people who don’t trust each other, between elders and the people they advise, between people who feel more or less comfortable in this tiny, intense community.
We watched the movie on Amazon prime but it’s currently streaming on several different platforms for a few dollars [where to watch]. If nothing else, it will cure you of the idea that orthodox Jews, with all their elaborate rituals and whatnot, use ceremony or spiritual formulas to replace a relationship with God. It’s so tender, intimate, in turn agonizing and joyful — and, as I said, sunny.
Suitable for all ages, although it does have subtitles. Lots of smoking, so if you’re a quitter, watch out.
Up next: Probably Song of Bernadette, which several people have noted supplies more than you’d expect from the Golden Age of Catholic Hollywood.
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