“Leaving aside windy expositions on his behalf of some grand, post-liberal vision for a “virtuous” administrative state (spare me, please), the key quote of Vance’s that sticks in my mind is this: “I think our people hate the right people.”
Nothing constructive comes from hate. And nothing good is communicated through hate.
A house divided, Lincoln quoted Christ saying, cannot stand. And Lincoln’s time in office was wholly consumed with a bloody war in which half the country elected to fight for the right to enslave their neighbors. It ended with a bullet in his head from a man who hated Lincoln for ending it.
Fast forward to today, what matters more than one man’s attempt on the life of a candidate is the context: an America in which people seem broadly resolved to hate their neighbors.
Until that changes, violence will find its inevitable place.”
Well-stated, Ed. We should pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Rosary for peace and reconciliation in our country and lead by example by loving our neighbors and all we encounter simply for who they are: our brothers and sisters in Christ. It was the love that our forefathers in faith had for each other that drew people to convert to Catholicism. We need to recapture that and radiate Jesus’ love to everyone God sends into our life each day. If we do that well, and Carlo Acutis and Mother Teresa offer two examples of how to do that well, we’ll both renew the Church and bring about peace and reconciliation in a world that is in desperate need of it.
There are so many people starved for love here in the USA, especially young men that seem lost and don’t have any sense of identity or belonging. We need to show them a better way to live by radiating Christ’s love to them.
Time, talent, and treasure. Divine mercy chapters and rosaries only require our time and personal piety. All too often, personal piety is still accompanied by “pick yourself up by the bootstraps”.
Many are PHYSICALLY hungry - not knowing from where their next meal will come. That renders their spiritual hunger quite moot.
Everyone points the finger at the (not usually accurate and root) causes of the fentanyl scourge. But feeding and sponsoring addicts in recovery - whether alcohol, narcotics, gambling or any other addiction - IS WHAT JESUS WOULD DO LIVING IN THE MARGINS. Sure he isolated and prayed to his Heavenly Father, but he did not have a rosary or pamphlet of the Divine Mercy Chaplet.
Oversimplifying what Ed said, we wear our Sunday best not in the margins and we hear the gospel. But do we live it as missionary disciples of the Lord Jesus? There is far more opportunity than just spending time in prayer and personal piety, praying that SOMEONE ELSE WILL BE THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
I agree with what you say. We need BOTH the actives and the contemplatives, and I wasn’t implying that we only need the contemplatives.
But there are also many who have all their material and physical needs met who are starved of real friendship and whose lives feel empty and meaningless. In my line of work, I encounter people like that all the time. All I’m saying is that there are people like that out there too: and they tend to drown the emptiness they feel in their lives through workaholism, heavy drinking, pornography, sleeping around, stuff like that.
It’s not just the physically poor who need our love, that’s all I’m saying.
And actually, I sponsor a little boy in Colombia through a Catholic ministry called Unbound so that he can go to school, and I am able to be pen pals with him and his family too as part of that. 🙂
> But do we live it as missionary disciples of the Lord Jesus?
While I had hoped to go to JesusCon in Indy with my daughter, I instead was sent to "my people" (whose conversion I desire: the St Paul the Apostle sense of one's people, except that mine are apparently "cosplayers") to pray the rosary in line at Tekko. As we were walking to the convention center in town a woman wearing a miraculous medal stopped us and we gave her money with which she was going to buy tacos (it was a street corner by a taqueria) and I hope they were good ones. But the rest of my time was indeed spent in prayer (the line was most of the way around the building, but it was mostly in shade and not too hot. Then we went in and went around the flea market long enough for another rosary or two.) So there are margins and margins... go where you are sent and do whatever is in front of you. I like giving people money for tacos because I understand that someone will be fed for a day. I do not know what good it does to pray a rosary for conversions and so when there is an opportunity to do something with concrete and immediate consequences, I don't want to underrate the vital importance of corporal works of mercy (without these, perhaps charity is dead in our hearts) but I also think in part I am being thrown a "look, just trust me" bone.
"an America in which people seem broadly resolved to hate their neighbors"
This.
Depersonalizing anyone is the opposite of loving them and defies God as Creator of the Good. Perceiving someone as simply and only as a member of a group--MAGA, liberal, Islamist, white supremicist--blocks me from loving them, a repudiation of Christ as my Kurios. Metanoite!
Carlos the barber sounds like my kind of guy. I greatly dislike getting my hair cut because of the exact same thing “being held hostage, wrapped in a chair, like a deer at the mercy of a chatty python”.
My feelings exactly about going to the salon. It's lonely being a woman with such distaste for those establishments, particularly the noise in the them. Unfortunately for me, to tame my curly hair I need to be "held hostage, wrapped in a chair, like a deer at the mercy of a chatty python" two to three times a year.
The owner of my "beauty salon" is a man in his late 70s, has been cutting hair since he was a teen, and talks about thing interesting in science, History, and the like.
He tells me how glad he is to have someone to really converse with. That I didn't mind!
I feel for him. He's stick listening to all the gossip coming FROM the chair.
The other stylists that work for him are the usual chatty Cathy's. But it's a good sign that they have been there with him for at least the last 20 years which is how long I've been going.
I get to throw in a little theology/philosophy from time to time.
Agreed. One size fits all! My roommate did it in college and now my wife does it for me. That was one of my conditions for us to get married. I don’t care what my hair cut looks like, I don’t have to look at it. But she does!
“I think our people hate the right people.” -I agree that we shouldn't hate anybody, and that it is possible some things are missing from JD Vance's formation. Certainly we should pray for him and maybe we can charitably supply such formation--if he is a committed Catholic he should be open to going deeper.
Looking up the quote, though, I was disappointed to see it included as a part of a reflection written by someone else, and not presented as an interview or as a part of a bigger quote by JD Vance himself. Can anyone find the full interview, or at least the part where he makes that quote? Without that, it strikes me a little bit like trying to understand Pope Francis by reading a Scalfari article.
There's also the follow-up quote from the cited Reason article: "JD Vance strongly believes that the political, financial and Big Tech elites…deserve nothing but our scorn and hatred." The quote is similarly provided in isolation. And it has an ellipsis in the middle of it. And the Reason article says "our people" refers to the "Republican base", while in the original reflection Vance seems to point much wider ("There is no way to get to where I want to go with 52 percent of the vote.")
So, I think I know enough to say that 1. I'm not "reassured" by JD Vance either, but 2. further questions must be asked. I'll be praying for a JD-to-JD interview to hopefully get more clarity on these things!
Vance is an instant gratification venture capitalist and quintessential grifter. He wants our dollars not our prayers. A wolf in a Catholic sheep’s clothing. I’m surprised he isn’t running around in an Italian-tailored 33-button cassock.
If fairness to Dr. Hahn, it was a 2019 photo. So it was probably initial euphoria over Vance being received into full communion in the church (he donned his sheep clothing but did not yet have time to devour any sheep).
Haven’t seen the pic, but my hope and prayer would be that Hahn would have a good influence on him. Good to pray for all politicians, really, and not to give up hope on them.
I trust Hahn would seek to draw him closer to Christ—probably wouldn’t help to shun him.
To be closer to Christ, he has to be farther from Trump. I don’t see that happening until Trump goes to the great failed commercial project in the sky…
Sometimes I wonder if these pols (and churchmen for that matter) would be half as bad as they seem to be if I myself did my fair share of good work, prayer, and reparation.
I've given up on being able to vote for anything other than very imperfect politicians. You picks the lesser of the evils, and then you prays and fasts, you hopes, and you doesn't worry.
-Thank you for this fantastic reflection. I was compelled to read through it three times to fully soak in what you were saying. Its writing like this that I subscribe to the Pillar, and encourage the other Catholics in my sphere to help support it financially.
This passage, in particular, stuck out to me. It's worth more time pondering over:
"What do we do when we’re reminded that the political reality of popular democracy is and always has been that we are playing with live ammo — that every election cycle is a wide open choice, with self -annihilation absolutely an option?"
"And I think it’s fair to observe we have been collectively looking in the national mirror and asking each other if “you talkin’ to me?” for a while."
- Honestly, I think a better representation for where we are as a country and our state of mind is "Kenneth, what is the frequency?"
Trust in "Journalistic Integrity" has eroded below bedrock and into the asthenosphere. Our ability to believe any kind of news narrative that doesn't perfectly conform to our worldview has been subducted, deformed, and melted through the heat and pressure exuded by our political system and loss of shared morality.
I agree with you that the attempted assassination "felt somehow inevitable." All it takes is a weak spot in the crust of our collective sanity for a volcanic eruption to occur, bringing death and destruction in its wake.
quick copy editing note: “…..not a question which you would like can go unanswered” — suspect you meant “not a question which you would like to go unanswered”
That was my thought as well haha. Made me think of this quote from Ron: "The less I know about other people’s affairs, the happier I am. I’m not interested in caring about people. I once worked with a guy for three years and never learned his name. Best friend I ever had. We still never talk sometimes."
I haven't been to a barbershop or salon in ten years.
Right after I got married I went to the store and bought a nice set of clippers that has a variety of guards, scissors, and a smaller clipper for trim work. After having my wife cut my hair, one size guard the whole way around, twice the set paid for itself in savings.
Now, with four kids, I would have a very hard time justifying the cost of a barber. I can't make myself spend the money on self-indulgence niceties, like style.
My husband did the same after the death Joe, our extended family’s much beloved version of Carlos. My advice to other wives on the receiving end of these clippers is to embrace the opportunity but, if there are complaints, be willing to say, “And who was it who bought these clippers and asked me to use them?” My husband is very sweet about it, but I am not an unqualified success, only an unqualified barber.
I’m more troubled by JD Vance’s stance on the “abortion pill” mifepristone in a recent interview:
“You support mifepristone being accessible?”
Vance: “Yes, Kristen, I do.”
On a lighter note, my lady “barber” (stylist?) and I have always had an understanding: some brief chitchat initially, and then silence, unless either one of us initiates a dialogue at anytime during the following 20 minutes. That can result in constant conversation (depending on the subject matter), or total silence. We’re both comfortable either way. I feel fortunate to have this arrangement, and also that it came about through total happenstance. Though important, it’s not nearly as critical as getting a good haircut, JD, so just grit your teeth and gut it out.
Thank you for adding the Carlos section, Ed. The preceding section had me heading for a serious weep for our country. Do any constitutional lawyers out there have an opinion about the possibility that the stranglehold of the Republican and Democratic parties, and their manifest prioritization of maintaining office as more important than the common good, could be designated a clear and present danger to our country? Real question.
Yeah, I miss going to the barber in my home state. Simple, quiet, similar vibes. Usually a national geographic documentary on a small TV. The right kind of place for a good haircut.
I really appreciated both Ed and JD’s reflections on our current political environment this week (particularly as my family and I were in Paris for vacation).
I hope everyone enjoys their time at the Congress!
“Leaving aside windy expositions on his behalf of some grand, post-liberal vision for a “virtuous” administrative state (spare me, please), the key quote of Vance’s that sticks in my mind is this: “I think our people hate the right people.”
Nothing constructive comes from hate. And nothing good is communicated through hate.
A house divided, Lincoln quoted Christ saying, cannot stand. And Lincoln’s time in office was wholly consumed with a bloody war in which half the country elected to fight for the right to enslave their neighbors. It ended with a bullet in his head from a man who hated Lincoln for ending it.
Fast forward to today, what matters more than one man’s attempt on the life of a candidate is the context: an America in which people seem broadly resolved to hate their neighbors.
Until that changes, violence will find its inevitable place.”
Well-stated, Ed. We should pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Rosary for peace and reconciliation in our country and lead by example by loving our neighbors and all we encounter simply for who they are: our brothers and sisters in Christ. It was the love that our forefathers in faith had for each other that drew people to convert to Catholicism. We need to recapture that and radiate Jesus’ love to everyone God sends into our life each day. If we do that well, and Carlo Acutis and Mother Teresa offer two examples of how to do that well, we’ll both renew the Church and bring about peace and reconciliation in a world that is in desperate need of it.
There are so many people starved for love here in the USA, especially young men that seem lost and don’t have any sense of identity or belonging. We need to show them a better way to live by radiating Christ’s love to them.
Time, talent, and treasure. Divine mercy chapters and rosaries only require our time and personal piety. All too often, personal piety is still accompanied by “pick yourself up by the bootstraps”.
Many are PHYSICALLY hungry - not knowing from where their next meal will come. That renders their spiritual hunger quite moot.
Everyone points the finger at the (not usually accurate and root) causes of the fentanyl scourge. But feeding and sponsoring addicts in recovery - whether alcohol, narcotics, gambling or any other addiction - IS WHAT JESUS WOULD DO LIVING IN THE MARGINS. Sure he isolated and prayed to his Heavenly Father, but he did not have a rosary or pamphlet of the Divine Mercy Chaplet.
Oversimplifying what Ed said, we wear our Sunday best not in the margins and we hear the gospel. But do we live it as missionary disciples of the Lord Jesus? There is far more opportunity than just spending time in prayer and personal piety, praying that SOMEONE ELSE WILL BE THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
I agree with what you say. We need BOTH the actives and the contemplatives, and I wasn’t implying that we only need the contemplatives.
But there are also many who have all their material and physical needs met who are starved of real friendship and whose lives feel empty and meaningless. In my line of work, I encounter people like that all the time. All I’m saying is that there are people like that out there too: and they tend to drown the emptiness they feel in their lives through workaholism, heavy drinking, pornography, sleeping around, stuff like that.
It’s not just the physically poor who need our love, that’s all I’m saying.
And actually, I sponsor a little boy in Colombia through a Catholic ministry called Unbound so that he can go to school, and I am able to be pen pals with him and his family too as part of that. 🙂
I love Unbound!
> But do we live it as missionary disciples of the Lord Jesus?
While I had hoped to go to JesusCon in Indy with my daughter, I instead was sent to "my people" (whose conversion I desire: the St Paul the Apostle sense of one's people, except that mine are apparently "cosplayers") to pray the rosary in line at Tekko. As we were walking to the convention center in town a woman wearing a miraculous medal stopped us and we gave her money with which she was going to buy tacos (it was a street corner by a taqueria) and I hope they were good ones. But the rest of my time was indeed spent in prayer (the line was most of the way around the building, but it was mostly in shade and not too hot. Then we went in and went around the flea market long enough for another rosary or two.) So there are margins and margins... go where you are sent and do whatever is in front of you. I like giving people money for tacos because I understand that someone will be fed for a day. I do not know what good it does to pray a rosary for conversions and so when there is an opportunity to do something with concrete and immediate consequences, I don't want to underrate the vital importance of corporal works of mercy (without these, perhaps charity is dead in our hearts) but I also think in part I am being thrown a "look, just trust me" bone.
"an America in which people seem broadly resolved to hate their neighbors"
This.
Depersonalizing anyone is the opposite of loving them and defies God as Creator of the Good. Perceiving someone as simply and only as a member of a group--MAGA, liberal, Islamist, white supremicist--blocks me from loving them, a repudiation of Christ as my Kurios. Metanoite!
Enjoy the vacation!
Carlos the barber sounds like my kind of guy. I greatly dislike getting my hair cut because of the exact same thing “being held hostage, wrapped in a chair, like a deer at the mercy of a chatty python”.
My feelings exactly about going to the salon. It's lonely being a woman with such distaste for those establishments, particularly the noise in the them. Unfortunately for me, to tame my curly hair I need to be "held hostage, wrapped in a chair, like a deer at the mercy of a chatty python" two to three times a year.
I'm lucky.
The owner of my "beauty salon" is a man in his late 70s, has been cutting hair since he was a teen, and talks about thing interesting in science, History, and the like.
He tells me how glad he is to have someone to really converse with. That I didn't mind!
I feel for him. He's stick listening to all the gossip coming FROM the chair.
The other stylists that work for him are the usual chatty Cathy's. But it's a good sign that they have been there with him for at least the last 20 years which is how long I've been going.
I get to throw in a little theology/philosophy from time to time.
Agreed.
Which is why I have cut my own hair for years now. I try to have my wife check it for consistency of length, but otherwise "wash and wear".
When people complain about hairstylists I offer to cut their hair for free, but caution them that I only know how to do one cut.
Agreed. One size fits all! My roommate did it in college and now my wife does it for me. That was one of my conditions for us to get married. I don’t care what my hair cut looks like, I don’t have to look at it. But she does!
“I think our people hate the right people.” -I agree that we shouldn't hate anybody, and that it is possible some things are missing from JD Vance's formation. Certainly we should pray for him and maybe we can charitably supply such formation--if he is a committed Catholic he should be open to going deeper.
Looking up the quote, though, I was disappointed to see it included as a part of a reflection written by someone else, and not presented as an interview or as a part of a bigger quote by JD Vance himself. Can anyone find the full interview, or at least the part where he makes that quote? Without that, it strikes me a little bit like trying to understand Pope Francis by reading a Scalfari article.
There's also the follow-up quote from the cited Reason article: "JD Vance strongly believes that the political, financial and Big Tech elites…deserve nothing but our scorn and hatred." The quote is similarly provided in isolation. And it has an ellipsis in the middle of it. And the Reason article says "our people" refers to the "Republican base", while in the original reflection Vance seems to point much wider ("There is no way to get to where I want to go with 52 percent of the vote.")
So, I think I know enough to say that 1. I'm not "reassured" by JD Vance either, but 2. further questions must be asked. I'll be praying for a JD-to-JD interview to hopefully get more clarity on these things!
Vance is an instant gratification venture capitalist and quintessential grifter. He wants our dollars not our prayers. A wolf in a Catholic sheep’s clothing. I’m surprised he isn’t running around in an Italian-tailored 33-button cassock.
If you look him up, he’s a political shapeshifter too.
I just threw up on a picture of Scott Hahn clinging to him…
Yikes! What the heck has happened to Scott Hahn!!!
If fairness to Dr. Hahn, it was a 2019 photo. So it was probably initial euphoria over Vance being received into full communion in the church (he donned his sheep clothing but did not yet have time to devour any sheep).
I just posted a note to this effect in fairness to Dr. Hahn. Thankfully the church has a real disciple and preacher in Scott Hahn.
I jumped ship in 2016 and woke up to what was going on in the GOP and started supporting the American Solidarity Party.
Same, but with the Democrats.
Haven’t seen the pic, but my hope and prayer would be that Hahn would have a good influence on him. Good to pray for all politicians, really, and not to give up hope on them.
I trust Hahn would seek to draw him closer to Christ—probably wouldn’t help to shun him.
To be closer to Christ, he has to be farther from Trump. I don’t see that happening until Trump goes to the great failed commercial project in the sky…
Commercial real estate project
I hear what you're saying.
Sometimes I wonder if these pols (and churchmen for that matter) would be half as bad as they seem to be if I myself did my fair share of good work, prayer, and reparation.
I've given up on being able to vote for anything other than very imperfect politicians. You picks the lesser of the evils, and then you prays and fasts, you hopes, and you doesn't worry.
Ed and JD, was turned away from the noodle last night at about 9:45, place was overflowing! Congrats. By the way, you’re going to need a bigger boat!
"Thy neighbors"
-Thank you for this fantastic reflection. I was compelled to read through it three times to fully soak in what you were saying. Its writing like this that I subscribe to the Pillar, and encourage the other Catholics in my sphere to help support it financially.
This passage, in particular, stuck out to me. It's worth more time pondering over:
"What do we do when we’re reminded that the political reality of popular democracy is and always has been that we are playing with live ammo — that every election cycle is a wide open choice, with self -annihilation absolutely an option?"
"And I think it’s fair to observe we have been collectively looking in the national mirror and asking each other if “you talkin’ to me?” for a while."
- Honestly, I think a better representation for where we are as a country and our state of mind is "Kenneth, what is the frequency?"
Trust in "Journalistic Integrity" has eroded below bedrock and into the asthenosphere. Our ability to believe any kind of news narrative that doesn't perfectly conform to our worldview has been subducted, deformed, and melted through the heat and pressure exuded by our political system and loss of shared morality.
I agree with you that the attempted assassination "felt somehow inevitable." All it takes is a weak spot in the crust of our collective sanity for a volcanic eruption to occur, bringing death and destruction in its wake.
quick copy editing note: “…..not a question which you would like can go unanswered” — suspect you meant “not a question which you would like to go unanswered”
The entire Carlos section is a "Ron Swanson or Ed. Condon" situation.
Thanks for a great night last night, guys!
That was my thought as well haha. Made me think of this quote from Ron: "The less I know about other people’s affairs, the happier I am. I’m not interested in caring about people. I once worked with a guy for three years and never learned his name. Best friend I ever had. We still never talk sometimes."
I haven't been to a barbershop or salon in ten years.
Right after I got married I went to the store and bought a nice set of clippers that has a variety of guards, scissors, and a smaller clipper for trim work. After having my wife cut my hair, one size guard the whole way around, twice the set paid for itself in savings.
Now, with four kids, I would have a very hard time justifying the cost of a barber. I can't make myself spend the money on self-indulgence niceties, like style.
My husband did the same after the death Joe, our extended family’s much beloved version of Carlos. My advice to other wives on the receiving end of these clippers is to embrace the opportunity but, if there are complaints, be willing to say, “And who was it who bought these clippers and asked me to use them?” My husband is very sweet about it, but I am not an unqualified success, only an unqualified barber.
I’m more troubled by JD Vance’s stance on the “abortion pill” mifepristone in a recent interview:
“You support mifepristone being accessible?”
Vance: “Yes, Kristen, I do.”
On a lighter note, my lady “barber” (stylist?) and I have always had an understanding: some brief chitchat initially, and then silence, unless either one of us initiates a dialogue at anytime during the following 20 minutes. That can result in constant conversation (depending on the subject matter), or total silence. We’re both comfortable either way. I feel fortunate to have this arrangement, and also that it came about through total happenstance. Though important, it’s not nearly as critical as getting a good haircut, JD, so just grit your teeth and gut it out.
Ed Condon for President
Thank you for adding the Carlos section, Ed. The preceding section had me heading for a serious weep for our country. Do any constitutional lawyers out there have an opinion about the possibility that the stranglehold of the Republican and Democratic parties, and their manifest prioritization of maintaining office as more important than the common good, could be designated a clear and present danger to our country? Real question.
Yeah, I miss going to the barber in my home state. Simple, quiet, similar vibes. Usually a national geographic documentary on a small TV. The right kind of place for a good haircut.
Ed., I feel more endeared to you in the way of internet community with every passing Friday. Have a great vacation.
I really appreciated both Ed and JD’s reflections on our current political environment this week (particularly as my family and I were in Paris for vacation).
I hope everyone enjoys their time at the Congress!