Possible bombshell in the Catholic culture wars

I remember the "Crunchy Con." He was a former Methodist who first converted to Catholicism, then converting to Eastern Orthodoxy in 2006. Has he returned to Catholicism?

 

Man I sure hope a lot of right wingers follow him to their Hungarian paradise, especially Tucker. I hear Russia is a really great place for disgruntled right wingers too.

 

I occasionally read his 'Crunchy Con' blog on Beliefnet yeas ago when he converted to Greek Orthodox from Catholicism. He made a big stink about the sex scandals. Trouble seems to follow him. Or he takes it around wherever he goes.

 

Columnist Rod Dreher Talks Orthodox Christianity And Nationalism

Columnist Rod Dreher Talks Orthodox Christianity And Nationalism
October 28, 2022

Previously, Dreher was most known for proposing “The Benedict Option” in a book by the same title — the idea that Christians who want to preserve their faith from cultural influence should separate themselves from society and live in intentional community with each other. Dreher has written two other New York Times bestsellers: “Live Not By Lies” about Christian dissidents in Soviet times and “The Little Way of Ruthie Leming.”

Dreher recently made headlines with news that he and his wife are divorcing and also for his decision to move to Budapest to work for the Danube Institute, a conservative think tank and a close ally to Orban’s right-wing populist party. A few weeks before his journey to Budapest, Dreher talked to ReligionUnplugged.com contributor Jovan Tripkovic.


[Jovan Tripkovic, interviewer and author, asks Dreher about his conversions. First to Catholicism in his early 20's, then to the Eastern Orthodox faith 20 years later]

Rod Dreher: I was raised as a mainline Protestant, but we weren’t very observant. I had a conversion to Catholicism after an experience at the age 17 in the cathedral at Chartres in France. … I had never imagined that Christianity could produce a building so beautiful. Being present in this medieval cathedral made me desperately want to know the God that had inspired men to build such a temple to his honor.

I started the search that ended with me six years later becoming a Catholic. I was a Catholic for many years, very devout, almost militant in my Catholicism. But it was a very intellectual Catholicism. When I started writing as a journalist about the sex abuse scandal, a good priest warned me — he said, “If you continue going down this path of investigation, you're going to go to places darker than you can imagine.” I said, “Well father, thank you for the warning, but I feel that I have to do this as a journalist, as a Catholic and as a new father” because I had my first born child. And he said, “I want to encourage you, and I will help you, but just prepare yourself. This is going to be evil, very dark.”

 

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/...ey-shows/0000017f-f0d1-da6f-a77f-f8df4ad60000

One-third of Hungarians Are Antisemitic, New Survey Shows
According to the poll, 29 percent of Hungarians agree with the statement that 'intellectuals of Jewish descent keep the media and culture under their control'

Around one-third of Hungarians hold either moderately antisemitic views or strong ones, the country’s largest Jewish group claimed last week, citing a survey conducted on its behalf in late 2019.

Twenty percent of Hungarians can be described as strongly antisemitic and16 percent are moderately antisemitic, according to the poll that was carried out in November and December of 2019 by Medián Opinion and Market Research Ltd. on behalf of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities, or Mazsihisz.

 

One of my favorite things to do when I visited European countries was to spend time exploring the ancient churches and cathedrals. They are awesome in the truest sense of the word.

Like Dreher, I also was a convert to Catholicism and remained a member of that church for 8 years until I felt compelled to leave for a number of reasons. Even then I spent several years under the spiritual directorship of an amazing nun of the Order of the Sisters of the Cenacle. Sister Elizabeth Hillman was a woman of deep faith and it was through her that I came to appreciate what I read in "America" the Jesuit publication you mentioned in a prior post and other works. Have you read anything by Rene Girard?

 

Girard is deep and complex. I found myself re-reading a number of chapters to fully grasp and follow his thinking. Worthwhile. I would recommend "The Scapegoat"

Happy Landings

 

The added context here is that he is pretty clearly a closeted gay man who recently divorced

 

Sounds so "Essene" dosen't it? Hole up in a cave and convince yourself that your ideas are all "of God" and without objection.

SMH, hopefully they were hitting the "DMT" for inspiration.

 

Big (but not unqualified) fan of Dreher and Hungary alike. Insofar as I understand Benedict Option, it’s a far healthier strategy than grasping the levers of power. And Orban may be the only halfway sane head-of-state in Europe.