What I got wrong about Fr. Altman and disobedience

Yesterday, I got heated and wrote an essay about Fr. James Altman’s public response to his bishop. I classified it as disobedience, and called it satanic.

This was dumb of me, because it has to do with canon law, and I know almost nothing about canon law. I apologize for adding heat without light. I’m sure the bishop doesn’t appreciate any more muddying of the waters.

Let me be clear: I don’t think I’m wrong about Fr. Altman’s general attitude. If you have the stomach to wade through his many recorded words, you will hear an overwhelming and unvaried tone of arrogance and defiance, and a desire to put his own judgment over anyone else’s; and I believe he is causing scandal by encouraging his followers to adopt the same attitude of defiance. I haven’t heard or read anything by him that shows Christlike humility. However, I said he was currently disobeying his bishop, and I now believe I was wrong. Here’s some better information:

According to Canon Law Made Easy, the church tries to ensure a certain amount of stability when a bishop appoints a pastor to a parish. It’s common for a pastor to be appointed for an indefinite (and usually long) amount of time, and they can’t be removed from an indefinite appointment without grave cause.

But even if there is grave cause, the bishop can’t just say “go” and the pastor has to instantly go. The bishop has to follow a procedure which includes requesting the resignation. The pastor does not have to respond to this request, and he has the right to contest the removal. The priest can argue for staying, and two other pastors examine arguments from both sides. If the bishop still thinks the pastor has to go, the pastor can appeal to Rome. While this is going on, the pastor remains a pastor, but can’t function as one; and the bishop can’t replace him; he can only appoint a parochial administrator to do his job. 

So I was wrong to say that, in hiring a canon lawyer, Fr. Altman is demonstrating “utterly scrambled incoherent nonsense.” However distasteful it may appear for him to accept gobs and gobs of money while claiming he’s being persecuted, he is apparently pursuing his rights under canon law, which he is entitled to do. And this means that, while it’s hard to imagine his followers docilely accepting the bishop’s ultimate judgment on the matter, he’s not disobeying his bishop by not accepting his removal. I was just wrong about that, and I apologize. (I would, however, like to be a fly on the wall if Fr. Altman eventually makes his case in Rome. I have my quibbles with Pope Francis, but . . . well, I’d like to be a fly on the wall.)

The question is, what counts as a grave cause to remove him as pastor? Here is what Canon Law Made Easy says:
Canon 1741 gives us a list of the principle reasons why a pastor can lawfully be removed from office. It’s important to note right away that “principle reasons” are not the only reasons, so this list is meant to be illustrative but not exhaustive. They include:

-behavior which causes grave harm to ecclesiastical communion;

-ineptitude or permanent illness which renders the priest unequal to the task of running the parish;
the loss of the priest’s good name among parishioners, or their aversion to him;

-grave neglect or violation of his duties, even after a warning; and 

-bad administration of the parish’s temporal goods, causing grave harm to the Church, if no other way to eliminate this harm can be found.

 
 
Here, I will attempt to learn my lesson and not speculate on whether Altman’s behavior constitutes grave cause. The bishop seems to think it does (and has evidently been trying to resolve the conflict without making a big public stink). Here is the statement from the diocese:
 

“Fr. James Altman has recently made public the request from Bishop William Patrick Callahan that he resign his office of pastor of Saint James the Less Parish in the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, as well as his intent to decline the request. As a result, the Diocese of La Crosse will respond in accordance to the canonical process as needed for the removal of a priest from his office as pastor.

“During the past year, concerns have been expressed related to the ministry of Fr. James Altman, a priest in the Diocese of La Crosse. Bishop Callahan of the Diocese of La Crosse, and canonical representatives have worked to fraternally and privately address those concerns. The process has been pastoral and administrative with a desire toward a just resolution among all parties.

“The ministry of pastor was instituted in the Church not for the benefit of the one to whom it is entrusted, but for the pastoral and sacramental care of those for whom it is conferred. The salvation of souls takes precedence over the stability of the pastor in office when these two values come into direct conflict. Although attempts were made to allow Fr. Altman the opportunity to respond to fraternal correction, a resolution of this situation has been unsuccessful.

“It is important to note that this is not a penal remedy but a pastoral remedy. Bishop Callahan asks for your prayers for Fr. Altman, for the congregation of St. James, and the faithful of the Diocese of La Crosse and beyond. While any change made to the ministry of a pastor is difficult, it is done with the hope that God’s work of justice, reconciliation and healing may be realized in the Body of Christ for a positive outcome.
“The Diocese of La Crosse asks for the consideration of respect, safety and prayers at this time for all involved.”

One thing I got right in yesterday’s essay was calling for prayers for Fr. Altman, and I will include the bishop, and the entire parish, as the bishop requested. And I am grateful to readers who pointed out my error, and to those who offered prayers for me. 
 

While I’m apologizing, I also wanted to credit the folks who dug up and started circulating some of the quotes and videos I referenced, which I should have done sooner. Mike Lewis of Where Peter Is has once more done yeoman’s work, and I believe he is the one who first publicized Fr. Altman’s Pentecost sermon. @VagrantCatholic on Twitter transcribed and shared an excerpt from the discussion in which he blames Warsaw Jews for the holocaust; and Melinda Ribnek found and shared the video clip wherein he shares his views on the intellect of women. 

 

Share this:

Who’s in charge of Fr. James Altman?

IMPORTANT UPDATE: I made some pretty serious mistakes about canon law in this essay. You can read my correction here. I apologize for my errors and my rashness. I hope there is still some good to glean from my original essay, below, but you can judge that for yourself. 

A fundraiser for Fr. James Altman has raised over $100,000 for legal fees to defend him against  . . . being Catholic, as far as I can tell. 

Fr. Altman announced in his pentecost homily on May 23 that Bishop William Callahan asked him to resign as pastor of St. James the Less in La Crosse, but Fr. Altman doesn’t wanna. You can watch his homily here:

Fr. Altman has enjoyed a bubble of internet fame by promoting a hodge-podge of far right conspiracy theories in his sermons, in his church’s bulletin, and in independent videos and podcasts. He’s referred to people who support mask mandates as “Godless vermin.” He’s defied local ordinances about covid safety, and he has a long track record of saying cruel and outrageous things (a few examples: women can’t preach because all they’re concerned with is questions like, “Does this dress make me look fat?” whereas men want truth and straight answers; and the Warsaw Jews brought the holocaust on themselves by not fighting against abortion. There is more, but I don’t have the heart to keep hunting.)   

Why am I writing about this, rather than just shaking my head and minding my business? Normally I have no patience with people who spend their days amplifying ideas that disgust them. Unless you’re gathering information to make a specific argument, or building evidence to make a specific a case, then what’s the point? You’re just whipping up a froth of rage that will lift you up over the meaningful things that rightly demand your attention in your actual life. So I try not to reflexively engage in that.

But I guess I still have a little pocket of naïveté, because even though I’m not shocked by any of the ugly, awful things the guy has said, I am shocked by his open defiance of his bishop (who is, after all, not asking him to sin). This priest is apparently going to accept money to hire a canon lawyer to try to force the bishop to let him remain pastor of a church. I’m not an expert in canon law, but this strikes me as utterly scrambled incoherent nonsense. If he rejects the authority of the bishop, and he’s directed his flock to reject the authority of the pope (which he’s done), then who will he appealing to, exactly, by hiring a canon lawyer?  Who does he imagine is in charge? 

This is a dude who thinks a lot of things are diabolical. Being a democrat damns you to hell; wearing a mask is demonic; pretty much anything that he doesn’t like is either from hell, or will send you straight to hell. Fine, this is normal far right rhetoric.

But even if you believe he’s right about that stuff, how are you gonna say “I don’t have to listen to my bishop, but I’ll fight him until I can get what I want” . . . and then go into the confessional and tell someone it’s a sin to use a condom, or skip mass, or be a woman priest, or anything? How are you gonna pick and choose when obedience matters, without capsizing the whole ship? Either we have to do what the Church tells us to do, or we don’t. And if we don’t, then why are we here? Why is a man who rejects obedience asking people to call him “father?”

Show me a saint who rejected obedience, whether the person in authority was just or unjust. Show me a saint who set an example of defiance to a legitimate church authority, or any legitimate authority who wasn’t asking them to sin. 

Or, show me that time that Jesus was condemned to suffer and die, and rather than submit to the Father in obedience, he raised a bunch of money for a lawyer so he could keep on making podcasts. 

Look, I haven’t made it any secret that I’m feeling disenchanted with my faith these days (I know, so original). Things that used to make perfect sense feel sketchy and wobbly to me, and things that used to seem beautiful look dumb and pointless half the time. I’m clinging by my nails, here. But I’ll tell you what, I may be disenchanted, but I’m not a freaking idiot. I know who I am, and how unreliable I am. I know what happens if I make up the rules according to what suits me. I know where that path leads. I’ve smelled the smell that comes from that place where the worm dieth not. I know that worm, and I know how he likes to make you think you’re a hero for doing whatever you want. And I know what happens next.

If I want the strength of the Eucharist and the sweet relief of confession, the sanity and coherence of the Gospels, the beauty and splendor of the truth, it’s a package deal. I can’t pick and choose. So I obey the church, as best I can. And when I don’t obey, at least I know that I’m the one who’s out of line. 

Obedience sucks. Jesus obeyed the Father. It sucked. But it worked out, because God is God and God made the Church and that’s how it works. Obedience is central to our faith.  Every Catholic has someone to obey. It’s true of Fr. Altman, it’s true of pro-abortion Catholics, it’s true of Fr. Altman’s bishop, it’s true of the poor saps who sit in the pew and listen to him tell you who to hate and why and send him money so he can keep doing it. Every single person from every walk of life in the Church has someone to obey. Nobody’s exempt from obedience, unless you’re being asked to sin.

If you’re a priest and you’re not obeying your bishop, that doesn’t mean you’re independent or brave or bold. You’re still obeying.  You’re obeying the one who said “non serviam.” And I don’t mean that as a rhetorical “gotcha.” I’m gonna pray for Fr. Altman, because disobedience is literally Satanic. 

 

***
Image: Fr. Altman (Screenshot from video embedded above)

What’s for supper? Vol. 252: The bright-eyed marinator

Apparently it’s Friday! Here’s what we cooked this week:

SATURDAY 
Meatball subs

Had my sub outside with a short, chatty person who, after a rather violent bath, was drying her hair in the setting sun. 

I could try to pass off that sub as the sub that a silly child has clearly started eating sideways, but in fact that is my sub.

Damien made the meatballs. He uses the same recipe I do,

Jump to Recipe

except he’s much, much better at seasoning meat than I am, and they turned out very yummy indeed. 

SUNDAY
Beef gyros

This is it. This is the simplest, tastiest gyro marinade yet.

Jump to Recipe

It’s just olive oil, lots of garlic, fresh mint, oregano, and paprika, and salt and pepper. The wild mint has come up in the yard, so I added a big bunch chopped up. 

I don’t remember how I cooked the meat. Maybe I seared it and then roasted it, or maybe I just roasted it. It sliced up beautifully rare and juicy.

I served it with fries and sliced cucumbers and tomatoes and plenty of spicy yogurt sauce, and a little hot sauce. Three of the kids spontaneously said it was good! I don’t know if you realize what a dazzling triumph that is for me. 

I took some of the marinade and added it to some plain Greek yogurt, for a zippy dipping sauce. I also made my usual yogurt sauce, with fresh garlic, pepper, salt, and lemon juice. This is definitely the recipe I’ll be using from now on. 

MONDAY
Cumin chicken and chickpeas with yogurt sauce, pita, and red onion salad

An easy, very appealing one-pan meal I haven’t made in some time. You marinate the chicken thighs in a cumin yogurt sauce for several hours before cooking, then just spread it out on a pan with some seasoned chickpeas, and away it goes. The meat is SO juice and the skin is SO crisp and tasty. You really must try it. 

Jump to Recipe

Really lovely with some fresh pita bread, garlicky yogurt sauce, and red onions and cilantro with lemon juice.

Great for people who like middle eastern food, but mild enough for people who don’t especially. 

TUESDAY
Kielbasa, cabbage, red potatoes; green beans

Another easy one-pan meal (or two pans, as the case may be)

I normally flip the components halfway through cooking, but skipped it this time, and that was a bit of a mistake. The kielbasa got a little burnt on bottom, and the cabbage was a bit flabby, but that was my fault, not the recipe’s.

Jump to Recipe

I usually make a mustard sauce with honey and wine vinegar and fresh garlic, but also skipped that, and put out a bottle of some kind of fancy trick mustard from Aldi.

Not bad at all. It was a hot, salty meal that you could easily eat with a fork, and I had no complaints. 

WEDNESDAY
Beef and broccoli on rice, red bean buns

Another surprisingly popular meal! I followed the marinade recipe from Damn Delicious to the letter, so I didn’t bother writing up a recipe card (which I generally only do if I alter the recipe). Slightly spicy (courtesy of sriracha and hot pepper flakes). The sauce didn’t thicken, but I wasn’t expecting that. My sauces just don’t thicken. I accept this. Yes, I used corn starch.

The pictures turned out bad, but it was a pretty dish, as well as tasty.

I had some bean buns in the freezer, that I grabbed when we ventured into a different supermarket a few weeks ago. I wasn’t really sure how to cook them, so I put them in the Instant Pot on the rack with a cup of water and set it to high pressure for 8 minutes. I also wasn’t really sure how they were supposed to taste, but that worked well enough, although I crammed twelve of them in there, so they stuck together a bit. 

What do you normally eat bean buns with? Are they an appetizer? These were sweet. I’m still very much a country mouse and don’t know much about other cuisines. 

THURSDAY
Chicken nuggets/supermarket sushi

I’ve spared you all the details of how busy we’ve been this week, but suffice it to say the schedule made me cry more than once, and also the car broke down again because of course it did. Hence Thursday’s meal. I accidentally bought something called “teriyaki chicken sushi,” which is an abomination. I mean, I ate it, but still. 

FRIDAY
Domino’s, and cake 

Today is Benny’s first communion and Benny, Irene, Lucy, and Sophia’s confirmation! There’s a long sad story about how we kept traveling over diocesan lines right when various parishes were switching order of sacraments, and then when we got caught up, we got covid symptoms and had to stay home. So we’re finally finally getting this done, and then having cake and pizza. Clara made this pretty “stained glass” cake:

We make this by covering a cooled cake with royal icing, which gives you a flat, dry surface to work on.

Jump to Recipe

Then you make your stained glass design with black icing (you can plot out the design with a toothpick first), then carefully fill in the spaces between the lines by spooning in jellies and jams of various colors. You can whip up the jelly with a little water to make it more spreadable. Very handy for people who have a lot of sacrament parties. 

And that’s it! 
 

Print

Meatballs for a crowd

Make about 100 golf ball-sized meatballs. 

Ingredients

  • 5 lbs ground meat (I like to use mostly beef with some ground chicken or turkey or pork)
  • 6 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups panko bread crumbs
  • 8 oz grated parmesan cheese (about 2 cups)
  • salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 400.

  2. Mix all ingredients together with your hands until it's fully blended.

  3. Form meatballs and put them in a single layer on a pan with drainage. Cook, uncovered, for 30 minutes or more until they're cooked all the way through.

  4. Add meatballs to sauce and keep warm until you're ready to serve. 

 

Print

Yogurt sauce

Ingredients

  • 32 oz full fat Greek yogurt
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 3 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • fresh parsley or dill, chopped (optional)

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together. Use for spreading on grilled meats, dipping pita or vegetables, etc. 

Print

Cumin chicken thighs with chickpeas in yogurt sauce

A one-pan dish, but you won't want to skip the sides. Make with red onions and cilantro in lemon juice, pita bread and yogurt sauce, and pomegranates, grapes, or maybe fried eggplant. 

Ingredients

  • 18 chicken thighs
  • 32 oz full fat yogurt, preferably Greek
  • 4 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 3 Tbsp cumin, divided
  • 4-6 cans chickpeas
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 red onions, sliced thinly

For garnishes:

  • 2 red onions sliced thinly
  • lemon juice
  • salt and pepper
  • a bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 32 oz Greek yogurt for dipping sauce
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced or crushed

Instructions

  1. Make the marinade early in the day or the night before. Mix full fat Greek yogurt and with lemon juice, four tablespoons of water, and two tablespoons of cumin, and mix this marinade up with chicken parts, thighs or wings. Marinate several hours. 

    About an hour before dinner, preheat the oven to 425.

    Drain and rinse four or five 15-oz cans of chickpeas and mix them up with a few glugs of olive oil, the remaining tablespoon of cumin, salt and pepper, and two large red onions sliced thin.

    Spread the seasoned chickpeas in a single layer on two large sheet pans, then make room among the chickpeas for the marinated chicken (shake or scrape the extra marinade off the chicken if it’s too gloppy). Then it goes in the oven for almost an hour. That’s it for the main part.

    The chickpeas and the onions may start to blacken a bit, and this is a-ok. You want the chickpeas to be crunchy, and the skin of the chicken to be a deep golden brown, and crisp. The top pan was done first, and then I moved the other one up to finish browning as we started to eat. Sometimes when I make this, I put the chickpeas back in the oven after we start eating, so some of them get crunchy and nutty all the way through.

Garnishes:

  1. While the chicken is cooking, you prepare your three garnishes:

     -Chop up some cilantro for sprinkling if people like.

     -Slice another two red onions nice and thin, and mix them in a dish with a few glugs of lemon juice and salt and pepper and more cilantro. 

     -Then take the rest of the tub of Greek yogurt and mix it up in another bowl with lemon juice, a generous amount of minced garlic, salt, and pepper. 

 

Print

One-pan kielbasa, cabbage, and red potato dinner with mustard sauce

This meal has all the fun and salt of a wiener cookout, but it's a tiny bit fancier, and you can legit eat it in the winter. 

Ingredients

  • 3-4 lbs kielbasa
  • 3-4 lbs red potatoes
  • 1-2 medium cabbages
  • (optional) parsley for garnish
  • salt and pepper and olive oil

mustard sauce (sorry, I make this different each time):

  • mustard
  • red wine if you like
  • honey
  • a little olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • fresh garlic, crushed

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400. 

    Whisk together the mustard dressing ingredients and set aside. Chop parsley (optional).

    Cut the kielbasa into thick coins and the potatoes into thick coins or small wedges. Mix them up with olive oil, salt, and pepper and spread them in a shallow pan. 

    Cut the cabbage into "steaks." Push the kielbasa and potatoes aside to make room to lay the cabbage down. Brush the cabbage with more olive oil and sprinkle with more salt and pepper. It should be a single layer of food, and not too crowded, so it will brown well. 

    Roast for 20 minutes, then turn the food as well as you can and roast for another 15 minutes.  

    Serve hot with dressing and parsley for a garnish. 

Print

Marinade for beef gyros

enough for 4-5 lbs of meat, plus a little extra to mix into yogurt sauce if you like

Ingredients

  • handful fresh mint, chopped fine
  • 1 head garlic, minced or crushed
  • 1-1/3 cups olive oil
  • 4 tsp dried oregano
  • 2 tsp paprika
  • kosher salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together and marinate meat. If you like, take a few spoonfuls of the marinade and mix it into 2-3 cups of Greek yogurt with a little water, for a sauce.

Print

Royal icing

An icing that dries hard, so you can use it to glue pieces together, or use as a flat surface to decorate. Add less sugar to make it thinner and pour over cookies or petits fours; add more sugar to make it more thick for spreading or piping. It will be stiff enough to decorate over within about half an hour, and it will be like cement in four hours.

Ingredients

  • 4 egg whites
  • 6 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
  • 2 tsp lemon juice

Instructions

  1. In an electric mixer with a whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites on high until they are opaque and foamy.

  2. Add the sugar a little scoop at a time, continuing to whisk on high. Add the lemon juice.

  3. Keep whisking on high until the icing is as thick as you want it. Adjust how much sugar you add to make it as thick as you want.

  4. Keep the icing covered tightly, with plastic wrap touching the icing, until you're ready to use it because it starts drying out immediately.

Double Feature with the Fishers, new podcast episode: MORTAL KOMBAT and MORTAL KOMBAT

New podcast! For this episode, Damien’s out and our oldest daughter Lena is in, as our resident expert on . . . MORTAL KOMBAT. Both of them! There’s a new movie and and old movie and maybe something is wrong with us, but we loved them both, and we had a certain amount to say about it (and Ghostbusters II, and various other tangentially related topics).

To hear this and all podcasts, you simply merely pledge as little as a dollar a month via Patreon, which helps keep this site ticking along. If you are a patron and did not get a notification of the new episode, please let me know and I’ll make sure you get it. 

Has the pandemic made you entirely too awesome? A quiz

Here we are, just about on the other side of the pandemic. Yes we are. Quiet, I said we are and I can’t hear anything else right now or I’m going to go completely out of my gourd.

Here we are, as I say, just about on the other side of the pandemic, and almost since day 1 of the lockdowns and restrictions, we’ve been hearing about people turning into slugs who no longer know how to carry on a conversation, drive a car, or put on pants. So many publications are focusing on people who’ve let their lives slither southward down the drain like an unguarded bowl of tapioca. But here at The Catholic Weekly, we do things a little differently.  Here, we turn our gimlet eye on the real villains of the pandemic. The people who used their  time too well.

I threw together a little quiz to help you assess whether you’ve officially gone too far and have allowed the global pandemic to make you entirely too awesome to live. 

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. 

 
Image via DepositPhotos

When neuroscience discovered hardness of heart

Does lying become easier with practice?

Common sense and experience say, “Of course,” and now some neuroscience researchers agree with that assessment. In Aeon, Neil Garrett of Princeton describes how he and three other researchers tested a group of people to see whether and how they could be acclimated to dishonesty. Here’s how the study worked:

“We had participants lie in an fMRI scanner and send messages to a second person, who sat outside the scanner, by entering keyboard responses. Participants were instructed that their responses would be relayed via connected computers. In some stages of the task, participants had repeated opportunities to make their messages dishonest in order to earn additional money. Importantly, they could be as dishonest as they wanted to – it was entirely up to them and could vary from message to message. This allowed us to see if the messages were equally dishonest, or if there was a change in people’s willingness to be dishonest over time.”

They discovered, as expected, that people initially had a strong emotional and neurological response to lying; but as they continued to lie, they felt less and less of a physical emotional response (flushed cheeks, racing heart) and, accordingly, their brains’ amygdalae responded less and less.

The study is especially interesting because the participants’ brains were reacting not to conditions outside their control, but to their own free choices. So, yes: Lying gets easier with practice.

It’s hard to know what to say about a study like this, other than, “Well, duh.” We’ve all seen this phenomenon. The first time we do something wrong, it feels wrong, and it feels bad. The second time we do it, it doesn’t feel great, but there’s less of a hurdle. The third and fourth time, it becomes even easier and less troubling. And eventually, with practice, we can barely remember why we thought the behavior was wrong in the first place, much less muster up any enthusiasm for quitting it – especially if we think we’re getting away with it. As any alert human knows, consciences are shallow wells, and run dry quickly if they’re not replenished.

The Church already has a word for this phenomenon, even if she hasn’t specified which region of the brain does the legwork. It’s called “hardness of heart,” which leads to vice, or a habit of sin, and it first rears its head in Genesis. It’s only a few chapters from Eden to the Flood. Vice is very efficient. Sin clears the way for more and more sin to roll through on more and more level ground.

Not only does sin become easier, but it becomes easier to commit worse sins. The researcher in the “dishonesty” experiment noted that, after a few repetitions of dishonesty,

“eventually, the door flew open: they could be much more dishonest than at the beginning, but with increasingly limited emotional sensitivity.”

And the Catechism nods gravely:

 

“Deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin.”

The author in the study says,

“This study might suggest a pessimistic view of humanity, with everyone gradually becoming emotionally null to bad behavior, more corrupt and more egotistical. But that’s not the only way to see these results. One positive message to take away is that emotion plays a crucial role in constraining dishonesty. Perhaps that means a solution to dishonesty is available: strong emotional responses in situations where dishonesty is a temptation could be reinstated so as to reduce one’s susceptibility to it.”

I don’t mean to be rude; but again, I say unto you: DUH. The Church is way ahead on this one, too. Why do you suppose we confess our sins out loud to a priest? It’s not because the Church wants to humiliate or discourage the penitent, but because she is well aware that strong emotional responses reduce one’s susceptibility to temptation. It grabs our attention when we have to kneel in a little box and croak out loud, “I hit my little sister” or “I masturbated to porn” or “I stole five dollars from the cash register.” It reignites that healthy, desirable emotion of shame and revulsion, which makes it easier to resist doing those things again.

(Of course confession also offers forgiveness and grace, which strengthen our souls and reunite us with God! But I’m speaking here only of the psychological effect of confession, as it’s intended to work.)

The researcher continues:

“There have also been a number of behavioral interventions proposed to curb unethical behavior. These include using cues that emphasize morality and encouraging self-engagement. We don’t currently know the underlying neural mechanisms that can account for the positive behavioral changes these interventions drive. But an intriguing possibility is that they operate in part by shifting up our emotional reaction to situations in which dishonesty is an option, in turn helping us to resist the temptation to which we have become less resistant over time.”

He is right again. “Cues that emphasize morality and encourag[e] self-engagement” are, for Catholics, things like reading the Bible, praying sincerely to God and the saints, doing penance, spending time with other Catholics who share your values, talking and reading about the Faith, receiving the sacraments regularly, and actively and consciously pursuing virtue, rather than just trying to avoid sin. These behaviors are all “cues” that bolster that emotional/neurological response, making it easier for us to be honest rather than dishonest.

Now, we can approach these actions as “positive behavioral changes” which we hope will stimulate emotional responses which will, in turn, engage certain areas of our brains, making it easier for us to do what we perceive as moral. But the question is, Why? Why go to all that trouble to manipulate your own brain?

You could say that it’s an evolutionary imperative, something we do because society rewards us for behaving in ways that are sometimes mutually and directly beneficial to those involved, and sometimes beneficial to the survival of the species.

Or, you could say that our eternal Father created us to love him and serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next, and that his Son gave us the Church and the sacraments to help us find our way back home, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The two realities, neurological and spiritual, do not oppose or negate each other. When we discover how our brains actually function in response to the world, this is not proof that there is no soul, or no such thing as objective morality. But recall the scene in C S Lewis’ The Dawn Treader, where Eustace (converted, but still habituated to certain patterns of thinking) says,

“In our world, a star is a huge ball of flaming gas,” and Ramandu responds, “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.”

Practice habituates us to sin, deadens our consciences, reduces our horror of evil, accustoms us to vice – or, if you like, neurally adapts us, making us less sensitive to stimuli after repeated exposure. Either way, thank God we have the sacramental means to fight back.

***
Image by pramit marattha from Pixabay
This essay was originally published in a slightly different form in The Catholic Weekly in 2017. 

What’s for supper? Vol. 251: Viva la vacuna!

Friday again! What do you know about that!

Before we go any further, feast/shield your eyes on this:

Clara made Moe a Frasier cookie cake for his birthday. AS ONE DOES. 

With extra cookies. 

SATURDAY

I think the people at home had burgers, but Lena and I went OUT for burgers, because it was her birthday (kindofalongtimeago) and we finally managed to go out (and ate outside, since Lena’s not fully vaccinated yet). We both had teriyaki burgers with pineapple. Not bad! The burger didn’t taste much different than normal, to be honest, but it was tasty. I guess I forgot to take a picture. There were a lot of distracting dogs going by. 

This being the world’s swankiest birthday celebration, after we ate, we went to the dollar store, and then we went to see the new Mortal Kombat movie (the theater was almost empty and we wore masks. doot-do-doo, normalizing continued caution, doot-do-doo). We LOVED the movie. It was so gleefully stupid.

Haha, I forgot about the part where the guy stabs the other guy with a knife made out of his own quick-frozen blood! Quite a few funny moments, some well-done fight choreography, and it had a kind of dumb-innocent sweetness. Of course it was insanely violent, because it’s Mortal Kombat, but if you’re okay with that and want to be cheered up, I recommend this movie. 

Oh, and we played a dinosaur shooting arcade game. Happy finally birthday, Lena!

Also, don’t tell anyone, but unless we’re in the throes of COVID-20 by then, we’re going to see Hadestown in November. !!!!!

SUNDAY
Shrimp skewers, steak, fresh bread, key lime pie

Mother’s day! We do have a lot of celebrations around here. My family has gotten pretty great at mother’s day. I was showered with thoughtful gifts, went to Mass, went for a run, spent most of the day gardening (well, mostly installing a new mailbox, which I did so boneheadedly that I don’t even want to remember it), and then Damien grilled up a feast, and we ate outside while looking at my new flowers. 

People always say “You deserve to be pampered!” and I always say “do not consider what we truly deserve” but anyway the shrimp and steak were wonderful, and so was the pie, which Clara made using this recipe

and I had a truly lovely day. 

MONDAY
Vemonter sandwiches

Always popular. Ciabatta rolls, a few thick slices of roast chicken, a thick slice of sharp cheddar cheese, bacon, green apple, and honey mustard. 

I had the brilliant idea to use the pineapple corer on the green apples, but I could only find one piece of it. So I used it anyway, which resulted in this Escher apple

and a slightly mangled hand. I continued using it for five more apples, because I’m the kind of person who keeps going “ouch!” but then sticking my hand in there again.  

TUESDAY
Pork bibimbap

It’s been too long for this champion of all bowl dinners. Someday I will have authentic bibimbap, but I’m pretty happy with the version we’ve come up with. Everyone gets bowl of rice, and you heap on meat with lots of sauce, various fresh and pickled vegetables and crunchy noodles, and slap a fried egg on top. The sauce seeps down, the egg yolk trickles down, you have layers and textures and all kinds of mingling of cool and spicy and savory and mellow, and it’s just scrumptious. Pure happy food. 

I had mine with sugar snap peas, baby pea shoots, crunchy noodles, plenty of spicy sauce (new recipe below), and sesame seeds. Normally, I’m opposed to sharing photos of half-eaten food, but look how beautifully the egg yolk made its way to the bottom and mingled with the rice: 

Every time I make this meal, I prowl about the world seeking a new recipe for the meat. This time I marinated it in a standard mixture of brown sugar, red pepper flakes, minced garlic, kosher salt, and pepper, seared it in oil, deglazed the pot with a little water, then put it in the slow cooker for 6 hours, and shredded it.

It was tasty, juicy and not too spicy for the kids. But the sauce I made with it was va va voom. Very spicy and warming. Here’s the recipe card:

Jump to Recipe

Oh, I suggest frying the eggs in oil, rather than butter, to give them a nice crisp, lacy edge.

WEDNESDAY
Pizza

Last week, Rebecca in the comments mentioned she made a pizza with artichokes, bacon, and blobs of pesto, and man, did that sound good, so Damien went and did likewise, plus sun dried tomatoes and some fresh parmesan shreds on top of the mozzarella.

He also made one with onion, feta, fresh garlic, and fresh parmesan, for a total of three cheeses, three cheeses! So good. And if you play your cards right, you can have three pieces of pizza and still come in at a calorie deficit for the day. WHICH I DID.

THURSDAY
Mexican beef bowls

A very fine meal. I didn’t go bananas with the toppings, as I sometimes do, with roast corn and corn chips and spicy beans and whatnot, but there was a big pot of rice, lots of well-marinated beef strips, sautéed peppers, cheese, sour cream, and cilantro. Here’s the recipe for this lovely piquant marinade:

Jump to Recipe

Here’s a beef bowl photo from ages past:

HOWEVER, Damien and I hit two full weeks after our second shot on the very day that the CDC announced that such people could do pretty much whatever they want! So we set dinner on the table for the kids, look’d at each other with a wild surmise—and went to the Winchester, I mean Chili’s.

Look, we really like Chili’s. It’s cheap, the food looks exactly like the pictures on the menu, the waitresses has no interest in forming a relationship with you, and this particular Chili’s boasts a beautiful view of part of Home Depot and a tree. I had grilled salmon, rice, and broccoli and kind of a lot of margaritas, went to lie down, got a little cussy on Twitter, watched the Sopranos, and went to bed. ¡Viva la vacuna!

FRIDAY
Spaghoot

Kids 12 and up are getting the first shots today! The older kids are getting their second ones next week. Full immunity by the beginning of summer vacation, you guys. Little by little, we’re getting there. 

 

Print

Spicy sauce for bibimbap, etc.

Drizzle this over any meat or dish that needs a bump in flavor. A little goes a long way! Adapted from the New York Times cooking section

Ingredients

  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 2 inches fresh ginger, grated or minced
  • 1/3 cup gochujang
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce
  • 2 Tbsp mirin (can substitute sweet red wine)
  • 2 Tbsp honey
  • 1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
  • 1 tsp fish sauce
  • 1 tsp sesame oil

Instructions

  1. Heat the olive oil and lightly sauté the garlic and ginger.

  2. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir to blend, and continue cooking at medium heat for several minutes until they are thickened.

 

Print

Beef marinade for fajita bowls

enough for 6-7 lbs of beef

Ingredients

  • 1 cup lime juice
  • 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1 head garlic, crushed
  • 2 Tbsp cumin
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 Tbsp paprika
  • 2 tsp hot pepper flakes
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. 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.

It’s not too late to cancel your wedding

Jennifer’s wedding dress hangs in the closet of her guest bedroom. It’s never been worn. Jennifer (not her real name) called off her wedding two months before the date, and she says it was the hardest thing she’s ever done. Her friends were shocked; her parents were distraught. Her maid of honor stopped speaking to her. Jennifer had made non-refundable deposits, was was surrounded by gifts from her bridal shower when she announced the wedding was off. 

It was very late in the game to change her mind. But it wasn’t too late.  

“I think the hardest part was being honest with myself,” Jennifer said. 

She and her fiancé had been together for six years, engaged for nine months; but it wasn’t until the last minute that she finally acknowledged their relationship just wasn’t healthy. 

She’s not alone. By some estimate, 15 percent or more of engagements don’t end in marriage. But a couples who’s been together for a long time — or a couple who’s blundered quickly toward marriage, without taking time to discern the wisdom of their plans — can feel like they’re locked in one they’ve announced their plans to wed. 

“It’s a difficult situation when there’s the romantic delusion that somehow this marriage is going to beat the odds,” said Father Joe Tonos, pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church in Oxford, Miss. 

“It’s like the Percy Sledge principle: ‘When a man loves a woman, she can do no wrong,’ or vice versa,”  he said. And so they forge ahead, despite all the warning signs. 

Or sometimes, as in the case of Melissa (not her real name), they know very well that something is wrong, but they don’t know how to extricate themselves from what feels like a trap. 

Melissa broke of her engagement to her abusive fiancé well after their wedding plans were underway. 

“If you’ve announced the engagement, the pressure is on to live up to the expectations by following through with the marriage. But the people who might be surprised by the news of the broken engagement do not have to live with a broken relationship, or suffer through a future divorce,” Melissa said. 

With the help of a counselor, she found the courage to call the wedding off, and she was amazed to discover how supportive and gracious her friends and family were. 

Nevertheless, Melissa said her experience was humiliating. “I felt like a failure,” she said. 

“It was also empowering, though, in an odd way. I knew the decision was the right one, and despite the pain of it all, I felt a great deal more peace once I’d called the engagement off than I did while we were still planning to marry,” she said. 

For a Catholic marriage to be valid, the spouses must be free to marry; they must freely consent to the marriage; they must intend to marry for life, to be faithful, and to be open to children; and they must (with some exceptions) marry in front of two witnesses and a priest. 

But this is the bare minimum. A couple looking forward to their wedding day should also be joyfully looking forward to spending a life together. They should experience some peace together. They shouldn’t be working hard to ignore red flag about each other or about their relationship. 

Most of all, they should never feel obligated or trapped by the wedding plans themselves, no matter how much money and time have been poured into crafting the perfect celebration. A wedding is just one day, and it’s possible to recover from cancelling it. It’s much harder to recover from a wedding that goes off perfectly, but which is the first day of years of misery and disaster. 

Father Tonos recalls counseling a friend to break up with his girlfriend who constantly made him unhappy. The friend protested: “What? And throw away the past two years?”

“Don’t count the past investment,” Father Tonos said. Instead, think of the future, and of how it will be to spend the rest of your life with this person. 

Melissa wishes she could tell her former self, “I know that right now, it feels like you’re trapped, like you can’t live without your partner in your life, but you also can’t imagine living with them. Marriage will not make those feelings of doubt and pain go away. By continuing a relationship that is mutually exclusive with your happiness, you might also miss other connections and opportunities that are where you’re meant to be, and who you’re meant to be with.” 

Melissa has since become engaged to another man, and she has “zero doubts.”

“Taking control of my life after this broken engagement was very hard, but it empowered me to really get to know what I needed to be happy in a relationship that would last,” she said.

Jennifer, too, is grateful for her experience, agonizing though it was. 

“I’ve learned so much. I’ve learned that wedding bells do not define my worth. My vocation is no less because I didn’t go through with this,” she said. 

Jennifer and her ex-fiancé are still friends. He even thanked her, shortly after the cancelled wedding, for being strong enough to do what needed to be done. 

“Running to escape my problems would never have worked,” she said. “Facing them head on has done wonders for my life. I believed in ‘us,’ but now I get to believe in myself. I also know now that the Lord will never abandon me.” 

 

 

***

This article was originally published in Parable magazine in spring of 2020. Reprinted with permission. 

Photo by Marko Milivojevic on Pixnio

 

What’s for supper? Vol. 250: Flandemic!!1!

Look, it’s Vol. 250! A few months ago, when I noticed this milestone was coming, I decided to do something really special. Then I forgot about it and just kept on cooking stuff. So here we are. 

Today’s post does include two vidyas: One of me thumping the side of my very first flan, to see if it ripples in waves, or wobbles as one; and one of me attempting to turn said flan out of the pan. Stay for the flan drama, which includes schlorping!

Here’s what we ate this week:

SATURDAY
Smoked ribs and brats; spicy Asian coleslaw

Damien got a new smoker to replace the one that was essentially a rusty garbage can. He christened it with these wonderful smoked ribs, while several of the kids and I went to explore Madame Sherri’s castle and forest. There is a short loop trail and a longer loop trail, so we chose the short one, hiked half of it, somehow looped into the long one, did the entire thing, rejoined the first one, and finished that. I think. There was a mountain involved. In my defense, I am stupid.

Anyway, we did get back home eventually, and there were these magnificent ribs waiting for us: 

He made three racks of ribs, and also smoked a bunch of beer brats, too. We had leftover spicy Asian coleslaw from last week , so that rounded out the meal. 

Absolutely delicious. I’ll put the recipe card at the end. 

Jump to Recipe

SUNDAY
Hot dogs, fries

Nothing to report. I don’t even remember what we were doing on Sunday. Something strenuous, no doubt. 

MONDAY
Caprese chicken burgers, broccoli and dip

Elevate that chicken burger! Plenty of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, kaiser rolls, and tomatoes and basil. 

I forgot to get cheese, but nobody noticed. 

TUESDAY
Salad with chicken, strawberries, feta, and walnuts

Here I would like to pause and congratulate myself for serving all the meals this week in the correct order. I had tomatoes, basil, strawberries, and (as you will see) avocados and mangoes, and we ate everything when it was ripe.  I’m just patting myself on my back for this achievement. And it’s easy, too, ever since I grew this third Pfizer arm. *pat pat*

Anyway, broiled chicken breast with salt, pepper, and garlic powder; strawberries, feta cheese, red onions, and toasted walnuts. Toasted by putting them in the microwave for a few minutes. 

Oh, and croutons. We had no end of leftover hot dog buns in the house, which make great croutons. Tons of butter, pepper, garlic salt, and oregano in a 300 oven for maybe half an hour. 

WEDNESDAY
Tacos, guacamole and chips, flan with mangoes, palomas

Just regular old tacos, to everyone’s relief. And some guacamole made with a sight tactical error: I used canned tomatoes because the two tomatoes I had set aside the other day vanished down someone’s gullet. I know canned tomatoes are no good, but I did it anyway. I don’t know why. 

Jump to Recipe

Anyway, the big deal was that I wanted to make flan for the first time. I adore flan. I adore custards of any kind. I had heard that flan is rather fiddly to make, but I wanted to at least try. 

Guys, it was really easy. This recipe has five ingredients, and the hardest part is how boring it is to stir the sugar when you’re melting it for the topping. So basically you have to stir it forever over a medium heat, so it melts into a lovely caramel: 

Then you pour it into your dish (I couldn’t rustle up enough ramekins, so I made one big flan) and let it spread over the bottom and a bit of the sides. 

(It hardens like candy at this point; but after it sits for several hours with a custard on top of it, it loosens up into sauce again.)

Then you whisk together the rest of the ingredients — eggs, condensed milk, evaporated milk, more sugar, and vanilla — and blend them well, and pour them into the pan on top of the caramel. Then you bake it, covered, for a long time in a water bath (which just means inside a bigger pan that’s full of hot water. This steams the custard and helps keep it cooking at an even temp throughout). 

You do want your eggs to be room temperature so they meld nicely into the custard. Here’s a tip I didn’t know until this week! You can take cold eggs and put them in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes, and guess what? They warm up! If they’re not warm enough, do it again. How about that? 

So here it is in its bath:

The hussy!

It took considerably longer than expected to cook — almost 2 hours. You will know when it’s done when it wobbles as one, rather than rippling, when you bump it, like so:

 

 

Then you cool it, chill it in the fridge, and then you run a knife along the edge to loosen it, and flip it upside down, and that’s how you get that gorgeous caramel sauce gracing the top. For some reason I thought this, too, was worth documenting on video, so here I am, schlorping it out of the pan:

 

 

And here it is! Lovely, lovely caramel flan, shining like the setting sun. 

It has a bunch of air bubbles along the outer edge, which apparently is a point against it, but it didn’t bother me!

I had a bunch of mangos, so I scattered those over the slices of flan. 

Truthfully, it was fully sweet enough and didn’t need the mango. Next time I will try maybe toasted coconut, or toasted pecans maybe. Or nothing. It was so good on its own. Silky smooth, creamy, mellow, buttery, warm, rich. Just perfect. 

Damien also made a new-to-us drink: Palomas. It’s tequila with grapefruit soda, and salt on the rim. 

It was pretty good. Not as good as the fact that the grapefruit soda is called “Squirt.” 

THURSDAY
Puntas de filete

Something new. It’s basically — well, pieces of meat in a sauce, served over rice or noodles (fideos). That doesn’t narrow it down much, but the kids liked it, and I thought it was tasty enough. The version I made is very mild. 

I browned up some beef chunks in oil, then took the meat out, melted a bunch of butter in the same pot, and cooked up some diced onion, then minced garlic and serrano pepper, then added in beef stock, crushed tomato, bay leaves, and salt. Put the meat back in, heated it through, and that was it. 

Here’s the recipe I used, from an actual paper book called The Border Cookbook: Authentic Home Cooking of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico. 

If you’ve got all your ingredients prepped, it comes together very quickly. I served it with cilantro, on rice cooked in chicken broth, which the kids like so much, I’m starting to think they’re making fun of me in some way.

If you’ve made this dish, tell me your favorite variations! I definitely want to make it again, but with a little more flavor in the sauce. 

FRIDAY
Sugar rub chicken thighs, brats, Fasier cake

Today is Moe’s 19th birthday, so Damien fired up the smoker again, and we’re having sugar rub chicken thighs, which everybody loves, and I guess a Frasier cake. Clara’s been slaving over it for about 48 hours and I’m almost afraid to look. I sure do have weird kids, but they make cakes for each other, so that’s nice. 

For the chicken thighs, Damien uses the same sugar rub that he used for the pork ribs (or I guess it’s never quite the same, but it’s the same basic idea), so if you want to do this recipe (WHICH I RECOMMEND), just do the sugar rub part. 

Jump to Recipe

Oh, one more thing: We’ve been using white pepper a lot, because, I don’t know, we lost our regular pepper. White pepper is really interesting. It’s not necessarily more spicy than black pepper in itself, but it adds a kind of fizzing spark to other things and enhances their spiciness, somehow. I like it! But you have to not get carried away. 

And them’s the facts!

5 from 1 vote
Print

sugar smoked ribs

the proportions are flexible here. You can adjust the sugar rub to make it more or less spicy or sweet. Just pile tons of everything on and give it puh-lenty of time to smoke.

Ingredients

  • rack pork ribs
  • yellow mustard
  • Coke
  • extra brown sugar

For the sugar rub:

  • 1-1/2 cups brown sugar
  • 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 2 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 2 Tbsp salt
  • 1 Tbsp white pepper

Instructions

  1. Coat the ribs in yellow mustard and cover them with sugar rub mixture

  2. Smoke at 225 for 3 hours

  3. Take ribs out, make a sort of envelope of tin foil and pour Coke and brown sugar over them. close up the envelope.

  4. Return ribs to smoker and cook another 2 hours.

  5. Remove tinfoil and smoke another 45-min.

  6. Finish on grill to give it a char.

 

 

Stepping out in doubt

Has anyone ever told you there are jokes in the Bible? The one I found the other day made me laugh until I cried.

A little background, first. My old therapist had one of those wretched inspirational posters on his wall. It was a stock photo of a misty lake, and the caption said something about needing the courage to step off the shore so you can begin your journey.

It never made sense to me. What kind of journey is that? We don’t have to wonder what will happen when someone steps off the shore: They sink. Step off the shore, under you go. Bloop! End of journey.

Well, that poster may have been an illogical cliché, but it also turned out to be decent advice—as long as you don’t take it literally. But it was terrifying. Feeling nothing under my feet is the worst thing I have ever felt. There is always the temptation to scramble around and flail your way back to familiar ground because even if you recognize that your old life is a disaster, at least it is familiar.

But I did it: I stepped off into the void many times over the course of several years while I was in therapy. I was learning what in my psyche was craziness, what was garbage and what were traps I laid for myself, but also what was good, sane, powerful and admirable. What truly belonged and could be developed further and how to do it. It was an untangling process, and what was salvageable about myself was much more solid and worthwhile than I had feared. It is such a cliché to say “I found myself,” but that is more or less what happened when I took a big step away from security. I discovered, to my relief, that there was a real me there, in the heart of all the dysfunction.

Then, armed with a new sense of self, I started working on untangling some relationships. This was, if anything, even more terrifying. I knew that if I cut away everything that was unhealthy, there might be no relationship left.

People are who they want to be, and if you are going to become healthier and more whole yourself, you have to let other people be who they choose to be. Sometimes this means the relationship will end. You will lose someone you did not want to lose. This is a thing that happens sometimes, when you step out, away from secure footing. Many of my relationships changed. Some became stronger. Some were lost.

Then, at a certain point, my therapist asked me to look hard at my relationship with God and with the Catholic Church.

Read the rest of my latest for America magazine. 

Image: Ivan Aivazovsky 1888 Jesus walks on water (detail)  Public Domain