Griffin Oleynick

I love the hater pope

Homan says CBP, ICE working on drawdown plan in Minnesota, but says "I'm staying 'til the problem is gone" Border czar Tom Homan gave his first news conference Thursday morning since arriving in Minnesota at the request of President Trump, and said "a lot of progress" has been made since he arrived, and he...

The problem won’t be gone until you are, Tom.

Pull all ICE and CBP agents out of Minnesota and stop attacking American communities.

The beatings will continue until morale improves I guess

On this St Augustine day, patron of the Augustinian Order, say an extra prayer for Pope Leo XIV, that God give him light, strength and that abundant charity which flows from the heart of the Savior,
and which St Augustine ceaselessly preached in the Church.

The September issue is here! Inside:
- @susanbreynolds.bsky.social on Trump and Pinochet
- Phil Christman on economics and Christianity
- @heidischlumpf.bsky.social on Catholic 'mom bloggers'
- Lynn Casteel Harper on the virtues of solitude
And more!
www.commonwealmagazine.org/issues/2025-...

Trump's Man at the Vatican CatholicVote relentlessly pushes the MAGA agenda. No wonder Trump made its cofounder ambassador to the Holy See.

"Will Burch function merely as an extension of CatholicVote’s Trump offensive in Rome? Given that personal fealty is a condition of working for this president, it’s a fair question."

@dominicpreziosi.bsky.social on Trump's man at the Vatican:
www.commonwealmagazine.org/trumps-man-v...

Demonstrating why he’s regarded as one of the best essayists in America, Phil Christman deftly synthesizes #politics, #theology, #popculture, and #ethics in this erudite and lively treatise. ✍️ Why Christians Should Be Leftists is available for #preorder! https://loom.ly/zaMTedU

ICE arrests appear to slow at Lower Manhattan immigration court – but masked agents still stalk the halls | amNewYork Masked ICE agents continued to apprehend immigrants attending mandated court hearings at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday.

BREAKING: The ICE officers at 26 Federal Plaza hate it when I show up for court observation.

Here’s my good-faith offer: if they’ll stop abducting people, I’ll never come again.

www.amny.com/immigration/...

St. Patrick’s Cathedral to Unveil Mural Celebrating City’s Immigrants

Instead of equivocating, Cardinal Dolan needs to explicitly acknowledge and repent for his own complicity in Trump's re-election.

He must also explicitly condemn the immorality of ICE raids.

"Immigration" isn't causing division or suffering. Trump is.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/a...

Welcome back! How were the trains and / or subways??

Ugh. Insane.

I took a ChatGPT survey

Going East | Tokyo World Champs Marathon Build: Episode 1 YouTube video by Clayton Young

Extremely pumped about the new Clayton Young series!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4cn...

Probably not surprising but Dante

Although given conditions in late medieval Italy monarchy probably seemed like a good idea at the time

This is very well done. Makes me wonder about how Catholic intellectual life in America, broadly conceived, can engage more intentionally in 'core theology.' Journalism has a role, as do the arts, criticism, etc.

You’ve heard me say it before: the only thing New Yorkers hate more than a politician they disagree with is one they can’t trust.

And you can’t trust a word Andrew Cuomo says.

Andrew Cuomo couldn’t allow his first, tepid recognition of reality — that the Israeli government, with the full support of the Trump administration, is starving the people of Gaza — last more than a few hours without walking it back.

This is someone who believes in nothing.

Somehow, I hadn’t realized you’d also written Safety Not Guaranteed until about midway through the show.

Saw that in Brooklyn last fall, equally amazing.

Thanks for sharing your gifts last night! It was the concert I didn’t know I needed.

Favorite band and favorite bridge in a single shot

@themountaingoats.bsky.social

Also, @guster.bsky.social were incredible

Submitting an op-ed pitch to the NYT demanding to know why Mamdani allowed this to happen

Opinion | This Is the Moment Democrats Have Been Talking About for Years

Amen to all this.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/o...

Liberal Catholicism, Dead Again? Every few months, some self-styled orthodox Catholic declares the exhaustion of liberal Catholicism. Rarely has a death notice been written so often for a corpse that stubbornly refuses to be interred...

Worth reading.

But I strongly disagree with Peter Steinfels' characterization of "left Catholicism" as too narrowly focused on priestly celibacy, women's ordination, and homosexuality.

www.commonwealmagazine.org/liberal-cath...

Thanks for considering! And of course it needn't be the "final word" on the subject—we hope such a piece could inspire other Catholic theologians / thinkers / religious to write up their responses to authoritarianism, too.

Feel free to DM or email!

Might you be interested in writing this up for @commonweal.bsky.social ? We editors—and we suspect many of our readers—would find it very nourishing

my hair and its highlights make their summer debut and, frankly, slay

Inordinately excited for this, first time seeing both @guster.bsky.social and @themountaingoats.bsky.social live!

Hopefully I can manage to 'keep it together' ; )

Gaza is starving. Where are the American Jewish leaders? A fear of being labelled antisemitic still deters American Jews and Jewish institutions from taking a position that is morally correct.

The mass starvation & killing of Palestinians in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli gov’t is a chillul hashem, a desecration of God.

Jewish leaders who criticized Zohran Mamdani for three words he doesn’t use should raise their voices loudly here as well.
forward.com/opinion/7575...

The Counterweight: Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching As we confront the political, social, and spiritual challenges brought on by the second Trump administration, the moment seems right for a clear examination of Catholic social teaching.

I got a lot of consolation from this episode

www.commonwealmagazine.org/podcast/coun...

Trump ❤️ Cuomo

One silver lining:

If you’re wondering how “good Christians” square Jesus, the sermon on the mount, Matthew 25 etc with mass deportation, and foreign gulags, this is it.

Their prayer might reasonably be construed as “Thank you, Lord, for my white skin.”