iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

In St. Louis today and tomorrow, freed from the chains of Texas' stupid laws and Bluesky's stupid interpretation of them. So... how has everyone been the last few months?

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

That's so silly. But we'll see. It's better than giving them my ssn. I don't get why Bluesky is even doing this. No other social media site has asked me for this. And my understanding was that the law was about pornography, not social media.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Which VPN do you use? I'm not sure it's worth it to me to spend the money.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

It's a shame because I've enjoyed interacting with so many of you. But alas.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Friends, you may not see me again on here. Bluesky has been demanding I prove my age because I live in Texas, and they want me to give them as proof info I don't think they should have. I'm only able to get on now because I'm out of state for a couple days.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

"Sometimes all of politics seems like one long debate over the French Revolution." - David Brooks

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Ross Douthat's recent interview with Vance was very interesting on that score.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I would be ok with this if it were happening in a more politically neutral way. If he had interviewed President Biden, for example. It's not like it would be difficult to balance this out.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

100 percent. It's the one thing I want them for, and it's the thing they seem least interested in doing. I can get the book professionally edited and have a professional cover made without them. My one traditionally published book has sold worse than all the others.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Wow, talk about being hoisted on your own petard!

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

And in this era, trad publishing is not always the best way to go. Many of the things the publishers used to do for you they now expect you to do on your own. It's really just social capital now.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Is there somewhere I can see how those figures were arrived at?

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Worth noting that it does not have to be that way. We do not have to go back far into even the history of presidential politics to find it. Whatever disagreement I have with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, both were men who sought the common good. We can do this differently.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

This is spot on. Elected office is a noble pursuit if one pursues it for virtuous reasons. The problem is that we have allowed politics to become empty of even the pursuit of virtue, which means only those who are deeply amoral are going to be drawn to it.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Not sure if it's being a parent or being a teacher, but I have an irrational love of when teenagers are defeated by stuff like that. That moment of disgust when they realize their mastermind plan won't work is always so satisfying.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

A similar phenomenon- I used to repeat the quote "He who marries the spirit of this age will be a widower in the next." That is, until I learned that it was from the one time dean of Canterbury Cathedral, William Inge, who proved his own quote true by being a eugenicist.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Bro, there is nothing reasonable about us. Trust me.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

A sin no one has ever confessed to you before? Or literally a new sin that you had never even imagined possible? Because that would be impressive.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Yes, perhaps, though honestly, I think some of that is him working out the details of his own story, not unlike the way Luther does.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

So long and thanks for all the fish.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Oh, I see. Yes, there is a difference between wrestling with faith and obsessing over our own lack of ability to fully comprehend what God is doing.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

After reading that, I'm just mystified. That speech was patriotic and relentlessly positive. I can't fathom what Barron is talking about.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

I'm afraid I don't follow what you're saying.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

I think the issue is less doubt than anger. You can wrestle with doubt, but anger is just poisonous. If you carry that with you when you come into the Church, eventually it blows up in your face. Conversion is a process of healing, not a way to win an argument.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Yes. It's like people who cheat on their spouses because they've found their "soul mate." If that's your modus operandi, you'll never stop looking. There's always a sexier "One True Church" just around the corner.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Totally. Drives me bonkers when Catholics do that, especially my fellow former Anglicans. There is no good to be had in celebrating the fighting of other Christians. And if you use that as a recruitment tactic, better be prepared for who you get eventually to turn their anger on you.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

100 percent. John XXIII's opening remarks to Vatican II make it clear that's where he's coming from.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Lefebvrist sounds like some kind of Eastern European knock-off version of a carpet cleaner. "Get goulash stain out with Lefebvrist or your money back!"

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

This kind of thing drives me batty. He's decided to use something he clearly does not understand as an opportunity to prey on the Catholic faithful. It's disgusting. I would never dream of doing this in reverse (and believe me, Orthodoxy provides plenty of opportunities). Stay. In. Your. Lane.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Just picked up the TMNT / Ghostbusters crossover to read.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

"Beauty is not really an attribute but a proper name of God. It is value--goodness, truth, beauty--from which all that is derives its ultimate right to be." - Romano Guardini

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Post a random picture or absolutely nothing will happen because the internet is not sentient.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Currently watching Independence Day, a movie that dares to ask the controversial question, "But what if the aliens are bad?"

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

So there are really big stakes, which is why it is generally better when it happens the other way, action following long and careful discernment.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I see what you mean, but my inner Newman wants to frame it differently. Sometimes the Church acts and then discerns meaning later, but part of that discernment is looking for continuity. And the upshot of that is sometimes realizing that what was done in the name of the Church was never the Church.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

I mean, sure. But I don't think most of the guys who leave go because they're faithless. If they've lost faith in anything, it's the Church.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

I think you're right. I'd say more, but I'd get a phone call I don't want.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

It's easier to treat men like they're just cogs in a system when they feel like they have no option to leave.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

My total guess would be that the rate of priests leaving is worse now, not because the problem is new but because there isn't the same fear there once was of being rejected by society and family for leaving.

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Fr. Jonathan @fatherjonathan.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

That disappearance rate, sadly, is not far off of normative diocesan priests in a lot of places. The crisis in the priesthood has nothing to do with numbers.

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