Saturday

Graduation and the Jesuit

Abbie graduates from the University of Michigan today; Alex turns 23 today. Both are in Ann Arbor. The idea of sitting through a two-hour graduation in "The Big House" terrifies me, so I attended the Baccalaureate Mass last night with my Mom and two of my other sons, then drove back home. Groggy morning.

I met a Jesuit priest who will start working for America magazine shorting. Heckuva nice guy. A liberal, no doubt, but Abbie helped him teach RCIA, and she said he never broached politics. And this is in Ann Arbor, where a person could be left of, say, Stalin or Obama and be in the mainstream. I spoke with him for maybe four minutes, but I think he knows Jim Martin very well. I was tempted to say, "Ah, yes, I used to be a fan, but when he came out with his pro-gay lovefest in the wake of Pope Francis' peculiar comments, I pretty much wrote him off." But I wasn't drinking, so I desisted.

Besides, I'm not sure I've been entirely fair to Fr. Martin. I went back this morning to find the Tweet that had me rolling my eyes, but I couldn't find it. I seem to recall that he was in the "Reply" section of one of his Tweets, hammering it out with the anti-LGBT crowd, falling back on the "hate argument" with much more vitriol than becomes a Catholic priest. I was thinking he'd kinda lost it. Again, I'm not sure that's entirely fair, but that was my impression based on some quick scanning of the online exchange. I also remember thinking, "It's 2015. This guy still doesn't understand that you don't engage in digital wars because they always bring out the worse in people, including oneself?"

Oh well. I really liked this liberal Jesuit priest last night, so I might actually start keeping my eye out for more material from, choke, America magazine.