Show Notes:Contagious Faith: Why the Church Must Spread Hope, Not Fear, in a Pandemic by Phil Lawler (affiliate link)Doctor Anthony Fauci on why he left the US government | BBC NewsCovid Lockdowns Were an Elite-Made Tragedy - WSJImposed Mass Hypochondria by Leila LawlerFauci’s net worth — and his wife’s contribution First on Fox: Trump DOJ reaches settlement with pro-life protester targeted by Biden adminPhil Lawler’s SubstackLeila’s other Substack: The School for HousewivesLeila’s blog: Like Mother, Like DaughterYour paid subscription means a lot to us and helps us continue our work, but we are happy for you to receive our podcast in your email for free!Want to tell a friend? Please do! It’s a great way to help us!How about this, if you enjoyed listening to this one episode: Get full access to Happy Despite Them at leilamarielawler.substack.com/subscribe

Show Notes:Modesty:Sports Networks Urged To Ban ‘Inappropriate’ Shots of Female AthletesBook Club on my blog Like Mother, Like Daughter: A reading of Wendy Shalit’s A Return to ModestyOrgan harvesting:Can We Kill You for Your Organs, Please? (Wall Street Journal)Garnet Harper, a 35-year-old father of five beautiful children, was denied a life-saving kidney transplant in Ontario, solely because he wasn’t vaccinated against COVID (What I wanted to say about this tragic story of Garnet Harper is that clearly the covid shot isn’t that important: it was important enough to let him die, but not to disqualify his organs. Listen to what people do, and what they say when they aren’t directly addressing the topic. That’s how you know whether they are telling the truth about something.)The US ambassador’s diplomatic skirmish at the Vatican (with more reporting than just about the hotdogs and gelato)Phil’s SubstackLeila’s other Substack: The School for HousewivesLeila’s blog: Like Mother, Like DaughterYour paid subscription means a lot to us and helps us continue our work, but we are happy for you to receive our podcast in your email for free!Want to tell a friend? Please do! It’s a great way to help us!How about this, if you enjoyed listening to this one episode: Get full access to Happy Despite Them at leilamarielawler.substack.com/subscribe

Show Notes:Academic Scandal:Catholic Theological Society of America honors self-described queer theologian (CWN)Another scandal our bishops have failed to addressSynod report includes testimonies from civilly ‘married’ homosexualsLeftist Violence and Justice Amy Coney Barrett:Supreme Court justices make rare Capitol Hill appearance to push $230M security budgetSuspect in former U.K. minister’s killing rearrested on suspicion of act of terror.Carrie Severino on X:Sen. John Husted on the growing threats of violence against the justices: “Do you believe that they’re intentionally designed to intimidate you to alter or change the opinions of the Court?”Justice Amy Coney Barrett: “It’s hard to see how some of them are not designed to do precisely that. I think they’re designed to intimidate or designed maybe to punish after decisions that the person sending the threat didn’t like as a warning not to do it in the future.”There Can Be No Peace Or Unity With A Violent, Unrepentant LeftWesley Yang on X:I have no basis for thinking that Barrett has allowed fear of assassination to change any decisions. I do know that a federal court judge told a trans-identified man who brought a semi-automatic rifle to Bret Kavanaugh’s house after Googling the addresses of three of the other justices that she was “heartened” that his murder plot had led his family to start affirming his claim to be a woman and cited a Trump administration order requiring that male federal prisoners be housed with men even if they say they are women as one of the reasons she reduced his sentence from the 30 years dictated by the guidelines to eight years. The man explicitly declared that he had targeted the justices for murder in order to preempt the overturning of Roe v Wade with violence. With time already served, he’ll be out in four years.Books:House of Ten Thousand Books on IG — where I learned I must read Summer at Tiffany! This Is Happiness by Niall Williams (affiliate link)The Child from the Sea by Elizabeth GoudgeThe Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant: The Complete Annotated Edition (affiliate link)Phil’s SubstackLeila’s other Substack: The School for HousewivesYour paid subscription means a lot to us and helps us continue our work, but we are happy for you to receive our podcast in your email for free!Want to tell a friend? Please do! It’s a great way to help us!How about this, if you enjoyed listening to this one episode: Get full access to Happy Despite Them at leilamarielawler.substack.com/subscribe

Show Notes:St. John Henry Newman, Sermon 5: Love of Relations and FriendsParochial and Plain Sermons by John Henry Newman (affiliate link) — Well worth the cost for the hardcover volume. Newman will challenge you, both syntactically and spiritually, but that’s a good thing. (This volume makes a wonderful ordination gift, by the way.)Letter from Pope Benedict to the world’s bishops, accompanying Summorum PontificumCardinal Koch on SSPX consecrationsCardinal Müller on ancient and modern rites (Italian)Cardinal Bagnasco on the traditional liturgyArcbishop Gänswein on Traditionis CustodesCardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela on Summorum PontificumThe Bonfire of the Vanities: A Novel by Tom Wolfe (affiliate link)Your paid subscription means a lot to us and helps us continue our work, but we are happy for you to receive our podcast in your email for free!Want to tell a friend? Please do! It’s a great way to help us!How about this, if you enjoyed listening to this one episode: Get full access to Happy Despite Them at leilamarielawler.substack.com/subscribe

Show Notes:This week, Phil solos! If you have ever wondered what just listening to him would be like, now’s your chance! Is this a religious liberty issue? The 29-foot statue of Christ the King, dominating the horizon from its spot on the peak of Mount Cristo Rey, is certainly a powerful symbol of the faith. The border wall might be a similar height, but it would be a drab, functional structure, situated on bare barren ground, several hundred feet below the peak… The diocesan [Las Cruces] complaint suggests that the wall proclaims a policy of hostility toward outsiders, including those who seek refuge in the US. But the existence of the wall does not prevent people from entering the country; it only prevents illegal entry. The Catholic Church has never questioned the right of a nation to police its own borders.Bach, the Tartan Army, and the Ordo AmorisYour paid subscription means a lot to us and helps us continue our work, but we are happy for you to receive our podcast in your email for free!Want to tell a friend? Please do! It’s a great way to help us!How about this, if you enjoyed listening to this one episode: Get full access to Happy Despite Them at leilamarielawler.substack.com/subscribe

Show Notes:llinois Gov. JB Pritzker just signed a bill making it LEGAL to knowingly expose others to HIV — including through BLOOD DONATIONS.The Dangers of Compelled Speech by Jake WarnerThe Power of the Powerless, by Václav Havel Live Not by Lies, by Aleksandr SolzhenitzynFor when people renounce lies, lies simply cease to exist. Like parasites, they can only survive when attached to a person.We are not called upon to step out onto the square and shout out the truth, to say out loud what we think—this is scary, we are not ready. But let us at least refuse to say what we do not think!This is the way, then, the easiest and most accessible for us given our deep-seated organic cowardice, much easier than (it’s scary even to utter the words) civil disobedience à la Gandhi.Our way must be: Never knowingly support lies!Robert Reilly, Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything (affiliate link)Sword of Honor trilogy, by Evelyn Waugh (affiliate link)“Evelyn Waugh,” Rev. Paul Mankowski, S.J., Pontifical Biblical Institute of Rome [Update: the links in this series are broken; I will try to see if we can get a fix from the Center. Meanwhile, please read this book review, in which Fr. Mankowski discusses Waugh’s satire, including in his historical novel, Helena: Waugh on the Merits, First Things, Oct. 1, 2017. ~ Leila]Your paid subscription means a lot to us and helps us continue our work, but we are happy for you to receive our podcast in your email for free!Want to tell a friend? Please do! It’s a great way to help us!How about this, if you enjoyed listening to this one episode: Get full access to Happy Despite Them at leilamarielawler.substack.com/subscribe

Show Notes:We both wrote pieces, and in this episode, we discuss the topics (which are related) just the way we do at the dinner table (with a bit extra to fill in the blanks for you). Join us! Phil’s article:My article:From the archives:More on Amoris Laetitia: More on the inopportune document suppressing certain Marian titles:Your paid subscription means a lot to us and helps us continue our work, but we are happy for you to receive our podcast for free!Want to tell a friend? Please do! It’s a great way to help us!How about this, if you enjoyed listening to this one episode: Get full access to Happy Despite Them at leilamarielawler.substack.com/subscribe

Show Notes:Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love): apostolic letter of Pope FrancisMichael Haynes on X: Debate about Amoris Laetitia has renewedThe president of the Episcopal Conference reminds everyone that one cannot receive communion if the marriage breaks down and there is another relationship.God Has No Grandchildren: A guided reading of Pius XI’s encyclical Casti Connubii, On Chaste Marriage (affiliate link) by Leila M. Lawler, Foreword by George Cardinal PellFiducia Supplicans — Vatican document on “gay” blessingsCoptic Orthodox Church report on May 2024 meeting between Pope Tawadros and Cardinal Fernandez May 4 letter from Pope Leo to Pope TawadrosNgaio Marsh, Inspector Roderick Alleyn mysteries, Death in Ecstasy (affiliate link)Agatha Christie novels reworked to remove potentially offensive language — other works as well!Your paid subscription means a lot to us and helps us continue our work, but we are happy for you to receive our podcast for free!Want to tell a friend? Please do! It’s a great way to help us!How about this, if you enjoyed listening to this one episode:16 Likes∙ Get full access to Happy Despite Them at leilamarielawler.substack.com/subscribe

Note Bene: We read the entire encyclical and we didn’t use AI. And we don’t use AI to draft, write, or edit our own writing!Show Notes:Full text of the encyclicalAnthropic co-founder Chris Olah’s remarks on Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical “Magnifica humanitas”The importance of Pope Leo’s first encyclical (Phil’s preview of the encyclical— posted before it appeared)Pope Leo breaks new ground with encyclical on AI (News/Analysis by Phil, posted on the day it appeared)No, the just-war tradition is not ‘outdated’ (Phil’s comment on the encyclical’s treatment of just-war theory, which we didn’t even have a chance to discuss in our podcast)Promise and problems in Magnifica Humanitas (Phil’s reflections a few days after publication)Other interesting analyses of the encyclical:Idols of the Valley (Yuhal Levin in New Atlantis)Pope Leo Isn’t Standing Athwart the Singularity (Ross Douthat in the New York Times) (archived here)Between Thomas Aquinas and Silicon Valley: The first encyclical of Leo XIV (David Berger)AI Chatbots are Evil by Marc BarnesMore on what we recommend on Catholic Social Teaching and Natural Law in general:Whether the intellect is a power of the soul? Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologiae Divini Illius Magistri, encyclical on Christian education, Pius XI (1929); good overview of “the three societies” of flourishing human life.Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching by Anthony Esolen (affiliate link)Knowledge and Decisions, by Thomas Sowell (affiliate link)Your paid subscription means a lot to us and helps us continue our work, but we are happy for you to receive our podcast for free!Want to tell a friend? Please do! It’s a great way to help us!How about this, if you enjoyed listening to this one episode: Get full access to Happy Despite Them at leilamarielawler.substack.com/subscribe

Show Notes:Abortion Drug Makers Admit They Care About Money, Not Women by Jordan BoydOn Application for Stay: GENBIOPRO, INC. v. LOUISIANA, ET AL. Why the Left lies about Amber Thurmon by Leila M. Lawler (survey of the black box warnings on the abortion pill ingredients)The importance of Pope Leo’s first encyclical by Phil LawlerYour paid subscription means a lot to us and helps us continue our work, but we are happy for you to receive our podcast for free!Want to tell a friend? Please do! It’s a great way to help us!How about this, if you enjoyed listening to this one episode: Get full access to Happy Despite Them at leilamarielawler.substack.com/subscribe