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Twenty Five Things That Caught My Eye Today: Ukraine, Erasing Women, the Fearless Babylon Bee & More

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A local resident crosses a damaged street in the southern port city of Mariupol Ukraine, April 3, 2022. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

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2. Zelenskyy Says Post-war Ukraine Will Emulate Israel, Won’t Be ‘Liberal, European’

However, such measures would not serve to undercut Ukrainian democracy, he added, declaring that “an authoritarian state is impossible in Ukraine.”

“An authoritarian state would lose to Russia. People know what they are fighting for,” he said.

Such language is “not new,” Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Michael Brodsky told Haaretz, stating that the Jewish state has “always been a role model for Ukraine, at least in terms of security and self-protection.”

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5. Crux: Ukraine’s man in the Vatican says papal trip to Kyiv would be ‘message to end the war’

The possibility of a papal visit to Kyiv, something Francis said was “on the table” while he was in Malta this weekend, came up during the conversation.

“I know that Russia is trying to convey in every possible way, formally and informally, that a papal visit would not be acceptable for them, because it would be a clear sign of support for Ukraine,” he said. “But I’m sure that all the other nations are in support of this idea. I spoke with the newly appointed American ambassador; twice I met with all the ambassadors of the European Union, and all of them expressed their support for a papal visit. And the Holy Father said the visit ‘is on the table’, and this is an expression I had heard over two weeks ago: ‘It is on the table’.”

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7. Crux: HHS expected to propose health care rule on abortion, transgender services

It is believed that sometime in April, HHS could announce the proposed regulations, which would not only disallow religious exemptions but would have a broad cost and compliance impact on all U.S. employers.

“The memo prepared by the Leadership Conference provides the best forecast of what the new regulation will say. We don’t know for sure what the regulation will say but there is good reason to believe that it will be quite similar to the memo signed on by 30 sexual rights activist groups including Planned Parenthood,” said attorney Martin Nussbaum of Nussbaum Speir Gleason in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a legal firm which advises the Catholic Benefits Association.

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9. AP News: Tennessee advancing bill banning abortion pills by mail

Under the Tennessee version, delivery of abortion pills by mail would be outlawed and anyone who wanted to use abortion pills would be required to visit a doctor in advance and then return to pick up the pills. The drugs may be dispensed only by qualified physicians — effectively barring pharmacists from doing so. Violators would face a Class E felony and up to a $50,000 fine.

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11. Ryan T. Anderson: How the Person Became a Self

If our sexuality is our deepest and most important inner truth, and politics is about the promotion of the truth, then it was inevitable that sex would become politicized. Whereas cultures used to cultivate the virtues that made family and religion flourish, in modernity the law would be used to suppress these institutions. They stood in the way of sexual “authenticity,” and politics sought to create a world where it was safe—and free from criticism—to follow one’s sexual desires. Hence, the push to redefine marriage legally was never really about joint tax returns and hospital visitation, but about forcing churches to update their doctrines and bakers to affirm same-sex relationships. Affirmation of the sexualized self is the key to our new politics. And our new language. What was once called sex “reassignment” surgery is now known as a gender “affirmation” procedure. And federal mandates will punish you if you object.

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Any effective response, then, needs to challenge those long-brewing conditions, both intellectually and culturally. Trueman calls on the church to preach sound doctrine boldly, to live in an intentional and counter-cultural way according to biblical and liturgical seasons (to embody and promote an alternative social imaginary), and to challenge the sexual revolution both from above and from below. From above by exposing the various misguided preconditions that make the sexual revolution plausible, and from below by demonstrating the truth about the human person and the body—so that there is no tension between faith and reason, science and revelation. Most importantly, Trueman calls on the church not only to bear witness to the truth, but to be a place of belonging for the broken. Families, in particular, will need to consider what this means in the formation of their children. Simply attending church each Sunday will not cut it anymore (if it ever did). Socially embodied ways of living in conformity with ultimate realities will prove essential. 

12. Suzy Weiss: The Teen Girls Aren’t Going to Forget

In the past, Earth-shaking events—the Great Depression, World War II, Vietnam—had forced kids to grow up. Teenagers got jobs or were deployed overseas, and when they came back they settled down and had kids or left home and fled to the big city. The point is that they started their lives. 

Covid did the opposite. Instead of nudging young people out the door, it anchored them to their parents, to their bedrooms and to their screens. And now that the madness is finally ebbing, they’re unsure how to proceed. Galanti said, “it’s like a sci-fi show where people went to sleep and woke up two years later, and the world has moved on but they haven’t.”

Holland said that, when school started up again in person, “I didn’t feel like I belonged. I felt like I should still be a freshman.” 

13. Archbishop Charles J. Chaput: “Things worth dying for”: What those words demand from us now

The world has always been a dangerous place. But it’s especially so now. We’re living through a kind of global, cultural re-formation that hasn’t been seen, at least here in the civilization we call “the West,” since Luther and moveable type, the Wars of Religion, and the Enlightenment. We can’t afford sclerotic leaders — and that applies to every form of public leadership, both political and religious. Age diminishes the willingness to sacrifice, to risk, to see things clearly, and to face conflict. And in a time of unavoidable conflict, ambiguity and feebleness are toxic.

Because there are, in fact, “things worth dying for.”

14. Chloe Shoemaker: Youth Mental Health Crisis Gives More Urgency to School Choice Movement

In the first six months of the pandemic alone, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that hospital visits for mental health-related emergencies increased 24% for children ages 5 to 11 and 31% for adolescents ages 12 to 17. The agency found in a follow-up study that emergency room visits for attempted suicides also increased by 50.6% for teen girls and 39% for adolescents overall compared to the same period in 2019.

The situation is dire enough that the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association declared it as a national emergency last October. Psychologists collectively fear for American children’s futures because these mental health problems are set to peak and persist well after the pandemic.

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16. Ericka Andersen: Women, Do We Need an Intervention?

Millennials reportedly drink less than other age cohorts, but health statistics overall aren’t improving. From 1999 to 2017, alcohol-related deaths among women rose by 85 percent. That’s a mind-boggling number, and I, like many others, hope alcohol will one day follow the path of cigarettes — now a social ill slapped with bold warning labels.

17. Michael L. Krieger: Can We Create a Healthier Sexual Culture?

Our desires, she argues, are not truly our own. And it is this gulf between what we think we want and what we actually want that leaves us feeling unfulfilled even after we get it. “The capitalist ideal that has formed our understanding of ‘independence’ tends to preclude connection and solidarity in favor of the possibility of private gain,” she writes. “The fierce privacy and optionality that we idolize can tend toward dehumanization and alienation…” 

But all is not lost. Emba argues that our socially constructed desires can be deconstructed, and that it’s possible to reimagine a new sexual code that emphasizes the kinds of connection and solidaristic ties that seem, for so many, out of reach.

18. Charlie Camosy: Rethinking sex: Culture, consent, and robots?

In short: we’re liberated, but we’re miserable. 

Viewed from a vantage point of say, 50 years ago, it would look like we have reached an apex of sexual freedom. In a post-sexual revolution, post-feminist movement world, we’re more unfettered when it comes to sex than ever before. 

According to our expressed cultural preference for liberation, this should make us happy. Yet for many people, young people especially, it hasn’t. 

A dogma of sex positivity has created new stigmas that make it harder to say no or express discontent. A lack of norms and standards has left them feeling lost and confused about how to interact with others. And a definition of freedom that rests on a belief that sex means nothing and that the most successful person is the one who cares the least has left people hurt and lonely.

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20. Tony Rossi: New Book Profiles Ukrainian Teenager Who Outwitted the Nazis and Survived the Holocaust

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22. Crux: Italian bishops relax restrictions for Mass-goers, give tips for Holy Week

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25. Putin’s Army Flies Planned Parenthood Flag So No One Will Criticize Them For Genocide

 

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