I am a great admirer of the Christian-rap artist Father Stan Fortuna, a Franciscan priest in Father Benedict Groeschel’s band of brothers, the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. (Some of his right-wing Catholic detractors label him “the Irreverend Stan Fortuna”; I think he’s delightful.) He has a new book out called U Got 2 Love, and I must admit I find one of the book’s central gimmicks quite distracting: Father Fortuna appears to have systemically eliminated all final g’s in his text. Example, chosen at random: “So at the end of the day, ‘the end of time’ has less to do with our dyin, and more to do with us livin — livin life to the full with the fullness of love.” Now, I think that dropping g’s is cute in spoken usage – I do it all the time myself. But there’s something about seeing it in cold hard print that makes it look a little too self-consciously populist, a little too suggestive of the prospect that someday, someone who insists on a final g will be condemned as an aristo-elitist enemy of the people, doomed to the tumbrils with the duc d’Enghien and Mitt Romney.

But let no one doubt that I can read the signs of the times, and that I learned my politics from the Vicar of Bray. So here goes: I found Father Stan’s book highly edifyin, and I promise that readers will learn a lot from it, about livin, lovin, contemplatin, and prayin.