Tribalism, Gloria Purvis, and the Rest of Us

...or why I'm angry on a Monday morning.

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Almost four years ago, I had Catholic speaker Gloria Purvis on the now-defunct Catholic Feminist Podcast to talk about racism and how it affected her as a Catholic feminist. It was a popular episode that got mostly positive feedback. Gloria continued to speak out about race issues within the church, oftentimes on her EWTN radio show, Morning Glory, but also on numerous podcasts and Twitter and panels. This past week, EWTN announced its lineup for 2021, and noticeably absent was Morning Glory. 

People took to the digital streets with plenty of angry claims, from racism to cancel culture to silencing of a woman of color. What I think most logical people can assume happened is that politically conservative Catholics heard Gloria on the radio musing about movements like defunding the police, called and threatened their dollar$, and EWTN made a business decision. Whether or not that can be explicitly defined as racist is an interesting conversation that I’d be very willing to partake in, but either way, I think it was a choice that steps away from Mother Angelica’s vision. It’s taking someone who said nothing against church teaching and casting them out, narrowing the community EWTN appeals to. Mother Angelica was known to be a firecracker in her speech, similar to both myself and Gloria. Clearly, EWTN doesn’t mind speech that can be questionably uncharitable, considering Raymond Arroyo still has a show there.

Now, the lineup for EWTN is much more—well, EWTN-like. White. Conservative. Women with tastefully curled hair. 

Here is the truth: EWTN is a mammoth of an institution, one that does not currently reflect the dynamic community that is Catholicism. Whether or not it has to is a different argument all together. Certainly, not all pieces of media need to appeal to all people. EWTN has made clear who its target demographic is: old, traditional, and yes, white. Over and over, we’ve thrown up our hands asking why young people aren’t in the church, and over and over again, we choose to do things that will so clearly push them away. EWTN’s viewership is going to get narrower and narrower. Probably, so will the church pews—they already are. And when we say hmm, we just don’t know why the millennials would rather catch service at Empower Freedom United instead of Sacred Heart, we will be (partially) to blame. Yes, people should prioritize the Eucharist over pithy in-fighting or radio show choices. But years of shitty catechesis and a very, very loud culture have chipped away at their ability to do so. 

Gloria Purvis will be fine. She will probably launch a podcast, or a substack, or a ministry. The people that have listened to her will continue to do so. EWTN will chug along, its listeners missing out on what was a wonderful opportunity to hear from a sister in Christ. And we will get further entrenched in our own sides, refusing to come together to have conversations. 

All of this got me thinking about the way the culture intersects with our church. I had a reckoning with Critical Race Theory this year, one that I’m comfortable with. I no longer ascribe to things a desire for equality of outcome, I no longer pretend that Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DeAngelo are anything other than wrong. Gloria and I probably disagree on some things and agree on many others. I don’t mind holding unpopular opinions; if I did, I surely wouldn’t run a newsletter that included the phrase “Catholic Feminist”. 

But no one can deny the power of symbols, and the importance of all people young and old and black and white and single and married being able to see someone who looks like them in Catholic media. If you simply say it doesn't matter that the largest Catholic media company has no (that I can see—I may have missed someone) non-white people, I would challenge that, because of what it says about the makeup of the church. And so I find myself both angry at the cancellation of Gloria’s show and angry at the very loud, very online Catholics who did themselves no favors by clinging to what I believe is a damaging, un-Christian worldview of race. I find myself angry at EWTN for making a business decision within a ministry, and I find myself angry at people who eschew the fact that ministries with employees have an urgent need to make money. I find myself angry at Catholics who insist that Joe Biden should be given communion and Catholics who insist voting for Joe Biden is a sin. Breitbart readers and Kendi fans. I’m angry at all of you people, to be frank. 

And that’s when I realize the problem is just as much me as it is anyone else. It’s all of us who go online to complain, and complain endlessly, about all those Other People. If only They were holier. If only They “got it”. I saw a tweet that made me want to vomit the other day—something along the lines of, “How can those MAGA Catholics read the story of the rich man and Lazarus and not shake in their boots?” I mean, my God—literally. The hubris. How can ANY of us? Do you really think the Gospel is only for those broken down people on the other end of the political aisle and not your own crooked heart? Do you really think you’re in a safe cocoon of holiness because you believe in state-run healthcare?! The more I scrolled, the more I noticed it: all of us, just complaining about each other. How the other votes, yes, but also how the other spends their money. How the other names their kids. How the other eats. How the other breathes; I mean, Jesus. All of us, just pointing fingers all damn day. 

I’m losing my ability to disagree with a person without wanting their radio show cancelled. 

Take Matt Walsh. I, to be blunt, can not stand Matt Walsh. I think he’s a provocateur who values retweets and rage over virtue. His tweets about the death penalty made me want to take a shower.

It would be so easy for me to start a riot against Matt Walsh! So, so easy. I could quote tweet his dumbest arguments against, like, dads doing diapers. The man is ridiculously mockable. Rallying the troops to call him a misogynist would take less energy than making my 4-year-old lunch. 

But other people can stand him. They can stand him just fine. I am married to one of those people. 

That doesn’t make what he says good, or even true. He is straight up wrong on the death penalty, and I believe that as part of my Catholic faith. And yet, aren’t there things he says that are true, too? Is he the literal antichrist, intentionally sewing seeds of discord? I wouldn’t hire him as a writer for the Catholic Feminist. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t helping other people learn some truths here and there. I don’t agree with plenty of things he says. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t occasionally stretch my mind and make me think.

The marketplace of ideas isn’t just ideas you like. It’s so much harder, and so much more fruitful, to engage with ideas rather than shut them up. If you hate Gloria Purvis’ ideas, call into her show. Pitch your own show! Talk about it on a podcast. Write an op-ed. The options are unlimited. 

I recently read a piece in Tablet, the Jewish magazine, that has stuck with me for weeks. I’m not sure why—maybe it’s the vision of this grumpy old man drinking tea while walking through a pasture that touched something in the deepest desire of a suburban Trader Joe’s princess such as myself. But I’ve bookmarked it on my laptop and keep returning to it again and again. David Samuels writes, “The good news is that the most important events of my life, and your life, will always take place more or less within a 25-foot radius of wherever we are standing. Like the Beatles said, all you need is love. So, try to be kind, and avoid making sweeping statements about large classes of people. Give food to the hungry. Tell your children that you love them. And please, whatever you do, don’t embrace anyone’s sweeping program for remedying historical injustice, because history’s victims are already dead—and soon, there will be plenty more of them. I can hear the sound of the engines revving up, even from here.“

Catholicism has fallen prey to so many other issues affecting the world: sex abuse, money scandals, and now, tribalism. The me-vs.-you party we’re all too happy to attend. 

So, how can we fix this problem of tribalism among Catholics? How can we come together for fruitful discussions? I’m not sure. But here are some ideas. 

For starters, we all need to prioritize our own spiritual life. If you don’t spend time in daily prayer, I really don’t feel the need to know your opinion of any public ministry. We’ve replaced our own silent prayer time with making Insta graphics on Canva about gentrification.

Secondly, we need to take a big old bite of humble pie and see our own prideful blind spots. So many of us have become focused on our own Rightness that we forget the goal—that everyone goes to Heaven. A true, deep love of neighbor, meaning a desire for their good. We no longer want things like Kamala Harris’ deep conversion; instead, we want to see her lambasted in the public square. We’ve stopped longing for our neighbor’s salvation and started longing for their comeuppance. I want Matt Walsh and Timothy Gordon and Kamala Harris and everyone else who makes me squirm to go to Heaven. 

Thirdly, we need to acknowledge that people are different and that while some universal truths hold, many others hang out in shades of gray. Jesus did not say he wanted free, universal healthcare. He didn’t say he wanted Republicans in the white house. He didn’t say he wanted to defund the police. He didn’t say he wanted affirmative action. That means all of these things should be rigorously debated, thought through, held to the light and observed. It means you may grow closer to Christ through Matt Walsh or Gloria Purvis or, I don’t know, both. It means if you don’t like Morning Glory, don’t listen to it, or better yet, listen and critique it thoughtfully, instead of making EWTN narrower. It means that you might not like an acoustic guitar at Mass, but it ain’t in the Catechism, so telling someone else that attending a Mass with Audrey Assad music instead of a Gregorian chant is damning them to hell is incorrect. 

Lastly, we need a reckoning of courage. My husband is fond of saying how cowardly we all are and for a while I fought against that idea but honestly…I am. I am a big ole coward. I get nervous that people in the Very Secular Publishing World I inhabit will get mad at me. I’m afraid I’ll lose Substack subscribers. I’m anxious about ticking people off. There’s this new trend, now, where people only leave positive reviews of books and say that if they didn’t like a book, they just won’t review it at all, because authors worked so hard and they don’t need to be discouraged. On the one hand, I get it—I did work hard! Bad reviews hurt my feelings! On the other hand, have we completely lost all ability to critique ideas or texts in a thoughtful way? Again, what takes more courage—calling EWTN to get them to cancel Morning Glory, or writing a well-thought out op-ed challenging Gloria’s viewpoints? Retweeting Matt Walsh with an eyeroll GIF or having a serious conversation with people in your life about why some of his views are troublesome? I’m not saying you need to engage with every Jack and Jill on Instagram, but posting that anyone who disagrees with XYZ can follow me now just seems so petty and odd to me. We need courage—courage to interact with ideas with humility, courage to have an open mind to the idea that we’re wrong, and courage to “shut it again on something solid” in the words of GK Chesterton. 

I didn’t listen to EWTN before. I won’t now. They probably know that. I’ll be over here, watching the cows and drinking my tea with David Samuels. 

My Nightstand 

Here are some things I’ve been reading lately that have made me think!

• Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín: I absolutely *adore* this movie about an Irish immigrant to the US, so I thought I’d grab the book and give it a read. Love, love, loving it so far.

• Year Zero: The above-mentioned Tablet piece that I keep reading and re-reading on how technology is causing us to completely lose the ability to connect.

• My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell: You guys, I really, really did not like this book. I knew from the subject matter it would probably be risqué but I kept reading about the beautiful prose and I’m a sucker for lyrical language. Yes, the writer has immense talent…but holy DARK, that title doesn’t lie. If you think solid literature leaves you with a feeling of hope, just know that this one will leave you with a feeling of utter despair.

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Who’ve I Been Listening To?

Here are some movers and shakers online that I enjoy pointing others towards. They are not always Catholic; but I find that learning from people who aren’t Catholic can be incredibly interesting at times as it helps to stretch and challenge my faith in a way that strengthens it. Disclaimer: I do not agree with every single word that comes out of their mouth. In fact, I may disagree with them strongly! Please don’t e-mail me saying so-and-so is pro-choice or so-and-so tweeted the F word in 2015. You have a brain and I fully trust you to use it in a discerning way. These are just some people that have made me think, lately! 

• Bible in a Year podcast (If you would have asked me EXACTLY what my spiritual life needed this year, it would be this podcast. There are so many bible podcasts but so few Catholic ones, and you know I’m a Fr. Mike fan 4eva. Plus, I once had the good fortune of taking a scripture class from Jeff Cavins, so I already had a slight foundation of the way they split the Bible up into subsections. Highly recommend this daily show! Right away in the first episode, Fr. Mike discusses Eve being Adam’s “helper”.)

• The Pillar (JD Flynn left CNA to start this new project and I’m veeeeery excited about it.)

• Abigail Shrier (Abigail wrote a book about teen girls and the transgender movement that is going to piss a lot of people off but did make for some fascinating reading.)

• Aimee Murphy (A Catholic activist, Aimee always shares interesting articles and teaches me about issues I’m uninformed on.)

• Nadine Brandes (A YA author who loves Jesus—not something that’s always easy to find; ha.)