The Journey

Today marks the one year anniversary of the Gadfly Report.  It has truly been a pleasure to have a small audience to share my thoughts and rally cries with.  To those who have read, to those who have sent me personal messages stating appreciation for the content, those who have attended anything I used the platform to recruit men to participate in… thank you!

To whom much is given, much will be required.  As Mr. Hichborn said in a recent men’s retreat, one's duty in life is to work out his salvation in fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-13), then to lead his family to heaven, and then to work on his immediate circle of influence as hard as possible to help others become saints.  I took that very seriously when I decided to pursue a liberal arts degree from an obscure Thomistic Catholic college in Front Royal Virginia.  I can’t say I knew exactly what I was in for when I accepted a position as a Catholic school teacher fifteen years ago, but it became pretty clear as I learned the sacrifices that come along with building a large family while accepting the compensation that comes with such a calling.  And that compensation wasn’t just monetary.  In teaching Moral Theology to America’s youth, I thank God for the opportunity to see up close how quickly this country was pacing toward imminent moral bankruptcy and societal collapse.  I definitely believe it is better to get the red pill at a slow consistent drip then to take a giant red horse pill all at once.

I served the Church professionally for ten years of my adult life.  There were moments where I felt proud to serve the Catholic Church in such capacity, and there were moments where it felt uncomfortable to tell people that I was an educator in the Catholic Schools.  There were times I felt supported by wonderful human beings and there were times where I never felt more let down.  

The biggest let down came in 2016, with the release of Pope Francis’s Amoris Latetia.  So worried about the potential scandal of not robustly supporting the head of my own religion, I was already in the habit of “Pope-splaining” dozens of strange things said by the Roman Pontiff.  “He’s South American, he shoots from the hip. I wish he were more clear, but it is what it is” and similar tropes I would force out of my mouth when need be.  

The atmosphere surrounding the much anticipated release of Amoris Latetia was shaking me all the way up to it’s release.  Then, I couldn’t believe how intense and boisterous the opinions were about the document IMMEDIATELY after it’s release.  EVERYONE on social media had a strong opinion.  “How can people have such strong opinions on this so quickly?”, I thought. “The thing is 270 pages and hasn’t even been out for more than a couple of hours.  Additionally, how many people who are yelling about it on Twitter really have that much training in Theology?”. Having received almost 20 years of formal Catholic education, all the way through graduate school, I determined that it was imperative that I do my diligence and see for myself what was actually in the encyclical.  I printed off all 270 pages of it and read it all over the course of a weekend.  

It shook my faith horribly.

For all of my training, I could not see how a plain and reasonable interpretation of it could be reconciled with the Church’s constant teaching on reception of communion for those who are divorced and “re-married”.  I could not see how it could be reconciled with Familiaris Consortio.  It further bothered me immensely that it indeed looked so political and mischievous.  How much do politics go into the drafting of an Encyclical for crying out loud?  Did he really hide the only thing that anyone was really looking for… IN A FOOTNOTE??  What else of the faith that I have revolved my life, my living, my purpose, my entire world and eschatological view of reality around has been passed down throughout the centuries like this?  What is going on?!

Everyone paying attention had a different reaction to Amoris Latetia.  Some found new ways to “Pope-splain”.  Some found ways to do Theological and logical double back handsprings to make the Encyclical compatible with Catholic Faith.  I know others who either stopped practicing the faith right then and there or just held out until the 2018 Summer of Shame before converting to Orthodoxy.  For me, I spent the next couple of years as a “Check the Box Catholic”.  I stopped caring so much.  I stopped praying the rosary.  I took my family to mass on Sunday, but didn’t really make much effort to grow in my spiritual life.  Heck, by the time the Summer of Shame came around, I shrugged my shoulders.  I am ashamed to admit how apathetic I became.  

Covid

And then Covid hit.  Like many, I held out hope for a couple of weeks that Covid was a genuine world threatening pandemic.  That there was a justifiable reason why my Church shut its doors to me and my family.  But instead of doubling down as a “Check the Box Catholic”, I was moved by grace the moment I realized that I was witnessing such a major vehicle of the New World Order install happening in real time.  A little digging, and I was faced with the reality that effeminate James Bond villains such as Gates, Soros, Schwab and their ilk believe that they will rape me and my family with never ending “vaccines” and microchips.  The grimmest interpretations of the UN’s Agenda 21 were now confirmed and the rate at which people were complying with the insanity was unbelievable.  Satan was never more clearly unchained.  But instead of going code white, as I did in 2016, this time I became inspired to man up.  I guess threats against everything one holds dear can have that power.

That is when I decided that I must do the work of a Gadfly.  While I feel like I have been everywhere and done a little throughout the whole valley since Covid started, I have found a particular joy in sharing my thoughts to those who are interested with those I have worked and prayed alongside.

So to celebrate the Gadfly Report’s birthday, I would like to thank the people I have been blessed to know because of the conversion I experienced since stepping into the breech over these last 17 months.  

Thank You

Article number one was on the first Jericho March in  November of 2020.  To all those who marched week after week with my family for those following two months, THANK YOU!  I never believed that our marching would overturn an election, but I believed that God cared that we cared.  Thank you for caring with me through all the rosaries, Divine Mercy Chpalets, and hymns we prayed together around the Capitol building.  From the first march of one hundred Catholic strong to the mid-December march of 1,000 total, including the “stop the steal” rag tag non-Catholics who just wanted to be led by the beautiful families praying rosaries, whom they had come to respect more and more each weekend… thank you!

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Anti-Big Tech guide, to those who resisted mask mandates through flash mobs and refused to serve the wolf in various other ways during the height of the pressure to comply with the “new normal”.  Thank you tfor resisting the trans-humanist agenda with me.  If my writing has convinced only one person to stop buying from Amazon, thanks for giving me the opportunity to influence.  

To everyone who has refused the vaccine, despite the dangers to their livelihood and to family relationships, thank you for making that sacrifice.  To every great family I have met in the Latin Mass community, thank you for being such pillars for years before Covid to ensure that the Latin Mass was available for guys like me who needed a fake pandemic to finally see the “New World Order” in play and to seek refuge in the community you fought to preserve over the last several decades.

Thank you to all the guys who read great books with me over this past year such as Live not by Lies, Life After Google, Under Siege, and Soul of the Apostolate.  It has been a real joy to have a group of guys able to grow intellectually and spiritually reading books that encourage solidarity and fraternity, guided by the common bond of our faith through such dismal times.  And thank you to the men who have demonstrated the importance to keep each other accountable with novenas and other special devotions.

To the men that I have gotten to stand next to while praying rosary after rosary in front of the abortion mills, where we have taken the fight directly to Moloch, thank you for being part of my life.  Thanks for being the kinds of friends that all real men should have.  

For everyone who attended, donated to, or promoted the retreat, thank you very much.  I truly hope it inspired some to find a place within this current battle to level up and take a stand.  For all the men who spent an evening listening to the precinct strategy pitch and who have decided to take today’s crisis as a push into grassroots participation in the political process and used the push to inject their faith-filled selves into the political forum, thank you.

Finally, thank you everyone for just being the kinds of Catholics who clearly demonstrate that they believe in their Gospel dictum to “  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that [Christ] commanded you” (Matt 28:19-20).  Thanks for building me up and being by my side while we have gone out to be who we were made to be in attempt to set the world on fire.

I am looking forward to working through this next chapter with such fine comrades right here where God has put us.  Whether here on the Gadfly report or out somewhere on the battle field, let’s keep doing this together Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.

God Bless,
Gadfly