Twenty Things That Caught My Eye Today: Getting Back to the Sacraments & More (June 17, 2020)

1. From the WSJ excerpt from John Bolton’s new book:

At the opening dinner of the Osaka G-20 meeting in June 2019, with only interpreters present, Xi had explained to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang. According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do. The National Security Council’s top Asia staffer, Matthew Pottinger, told me that Trump said something very similar during his November 2017 trip to China.

2. Washington Post: US Supreme Court halts Texas execution over clergy question

3. Man Seen On Video Shoving 92-Year-Old To Ground Has Been Arrested More Than 100 Times

4. Coronavirus lockdowns ‘conducive’ to human trafficking

5. Abortion and the Coronavirus Vaccine

6. New York Times: ‘When Am I Coming Home?’: A Tough Month Inside a Virus Recovery Unit

The front lines of the virus fight have shifted from intensive care units to recovery areas like 11 North, and similar units at other hospitals, like Rusk Rehabilitation at NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital. Here, doctors are finding that for the most severe cases, recovery can be a long and arduous process.

7. New survey finds widespread support for letting Church, not State, control internal religious direction

8. Ryan T. Anderson: The Supreme Court’s Mistaken and Misguided Sex Discrimination Ruling

Gorsuch’s theory does not test for sex discrimination. To be a case of sex discrimination, sex must not only be a “but-for” cause of differential treatment, but that differential treatment must also entail disadvantageous terms or conditions to which members of only one sex are subjected. The simplistic test that Gorsuch puts forth looks for the “but-for” cause and “negative” treatment, but it doesn’t link the two: it doesn’t look for disadvantages directed at individuals of only one sex. He’s offered half a theory of sex discrimination.

9. Andrea Picciotti-Bayer: SCOTUS LGBT Ruling Opens Floodgate to Sex Orientation Discrimination Lawsuits

Gorsuch is a highly respected member of the federal judiciary, and his record on the Supreme Court has been exemplary. Until Monday. Bostock is a disappointing aberration. A self-proclaimed “textualist,” Gorsuch claims he is faithful to the notion that “laws say what they mean and mean what they say,” and his Bostock opinion uses the language of textualism. But it hijacks this language in an egregious betrayal of textualism.”

Objecting to Bostock in no way endorses bigotry, hate or violence. As Archbishop Gomez explained in restating Catholic teaching, “Every human person is made in the image and likeness of God and, without exception, must be treated with dignity, compassion, and respect. Protecting our neighbors from unjust discrimination does not require redefining human nature.”

10. Senator Josh Hawley: Was It All for This? The Failure of the Conservative Legal Movement

It’s time for religious conservatives to bring forward the best of our ideas on every policy affecting this nation. We should be out in the forefront leading on economics, on trade, on race, on class, on every subject that matters for what our founders called the “general welfare;” because we have a lot to offer, not just to protect our own rights, but for the good of all of our fellow citizens; because as religious believers, we know that serving our fellow citizens—of whatever their religious faith, whatever their commitments may be—serving them, aiding them, working for them, is one of the signature ways that we show a love of neighbor. It’s time for religious conservatives to do that.

11. Reuters: Greek PM visits Israel, hoping to restore tourism and warning on Turkey

12. Wall Street Journal: When Workers Can Live Anywhere, Many Ask: Why Do I Live Here?

13. Julie Gunlock: Online Learning Is Failing My Kids

Over the summer break, schools need to figure out better ways to communicate with parents. And they need to give parents better access to school-based learning systems and more choices in how kids learn. Low tech options are a relatively easy thing to provide parents. It doesn’t involve Wi-Fi hotspots, Chromebooks purchases, video instructions, or zoom calls. It’s as simple as providing kids a paper worksheet.

14. Lessons from family quarantine

15. National Catholic Register: 94-Year-Old Doctor, Granddaughter of a Slave, Continues to Inspire

The 94-year-old doctor, with a smile, shares her secret to a long and happy life: “You do what you have to do. I love people. I love talking to people. And [have] a strong faith in God.”

16.

17. Watch: Britain’s youngest coronavirus survivor returns home

18.  As churches open, Catholic children and teens can finally receive the sacraments of initiation

Light of the World pastor, Father Matthew Book, said people were understanding about the delay.

“Spiritually we’re encouraging people to realize God is with us and is leading us through this desert,” he said. “What graces we thought we’d receive immediately have been delayed but God is giving us other graces now — perhaps even a deeper desire for these sacraments. For adults, it may be a reawakening of an appreciation for the Eucharist.

“The Lord is still with us, and his grace is at work during this patient waiting.”

19. A new classical school opens in Jacksonville, Fla.

20. The Babylon Bee: SCOTUS Hopes No One Realizes They Lost Their Copy Of The Constitution