It's like the right wing Jewish people, they've fooled themselves that their nutty Protestant 'allies' won't turn on them when the opportunity presents itself.

it's further complicated by the people who would traditionally be anti-catholics being in cahoots with these people in many cases

like sure the church hates integralism now, but we’re only a century and a half removed from the pope being king of central italy.

also… it’s not unfair to associate integralist anti-liberalism with catholicism since the church aggressively opposed literally every stage in the development of modern liberal governments.

Even if you think they’re not representative (they’re not), ignoring their presence won’t make them go away

Almost no Catholic I know that isn't an academic knows who Adrian Vermeule is, but they do know Robert Barron, who is still to many people just a nice man who wants people to go to Eucharistic adoration

In the American context, this also confluences with an increasingly socially conservative clergy (and by extension hierarchy) and (anecdotally, I will admit) a "depoliticized", heavily aestheticized popular liturgical revival, neither of which are strongly opposed to this political project

TIRED: epstein didn't kill himself
WIRED: epstein emailed himself a lot, apparently

lotta heavy hitters on there. john kery. mandelbbrot. barrack barak. HBJ berge. clinton pastrana. dubai castro. pople queen. pres king pm. but we must be prepared to let our favs suffer the consequences of their actions

Trump is not and has never been a bright man but he was once quite canny and even now can definitely still read and write. Epstein legitimately comes across as perhaps dumber than any adult I've ever met? and for someone as insecure as Trump, the Idiot Billionaire makes you feel good about yourself.

…& among people who did not participate but did not raise objections, you have different shades of culpability—are they ignorant, & if so is the ignorance "willful," etc?

For example, there are people who likely participated in the sexual abuse. Others did not participate but also did not have any misgivings about possible signs of abuse. Others he managed to meet because of his wealth & connections, but they probably were never familiar with him. Et cetera.