The Future of This Substack

A Note of Thanks and Some Thoughts on What Comes Next

Writing this blog has been a huge honor. If you had gone back in time and told me a few years ago that I would be writing articles viewed by thousands of people, I would have laughed at you. But that’s exactly what has happened. Right now, my two most heavily viewed articles sit at over five thousand views each, and I’ve written a number of others that have been almost as popular. I do not deserve the support that I have received, and I strive to make myself worthy of it. Trying to represent and defend the Catholic faith as charitably and as truthfully as possible has always been my objective, although I have fallen short of that goal on more than one occasion. Nonetheless, even having the opportunity to write in front of such a big audience is an incredible privilege.

In addition to the sheer amount of traffic that I have received, I’ve been surprised and amazed to see that many well-known public Christian intellectuals have taken the time to subscribe to my blog. Patrick Flynn, Christian Wagner, Caleb Jackson, Thomas Mirus, Gideon Lazar, Ethan Muse, and Isaac Hess are all readers of my work. Without exception, all of these individuals are far more learned than I am, and so their taking an interest in my work is incredibly generous.

Indeed, if you’re subscribed to my blog and don’t subscribe to Gideon Lazar, I might start to question your judgment. His blog is one of the most valuable that I know of, and I’d highly recommend it.¹ By contrast, whatever you do, do not subscribe to Isaac Hess. Granted, he is an incredibly intelligent and thoughtful critic of Mormonism, not to mention a warm individual with a clearly infectious love for the faith. Yet all of those virtues pale in comparison to Mr. Hess’s chief vice. As I recently discovered (to my horror), he is a Dodgers fan. Since I am a longtime supporter of the Detroit Tigers, this is not something that I can look past.

(In all seriousness, though, subscribe to Isaac Hess. He’s a great blogger and a very likable person. I particularly liked this recent post of his.)

I’m also grateful to Matthew Adelstein, better known on here as Bentham's Bulldog. Although he is sadly living in denial of the fact that I am much better looking than he is, he remains an extremely kind and generous fellow. A big percentage of my subscribers have come from his referrals. If it weren’t for the fact that he regularly reads and shares almost all of my posts, I wouldn’t be where I am today. He even very graciously invited me onto his podcast — you can watch our conversation here.

Matthew, I want you to know this: your relative lack of handsomeness has been forgiven. You’re a great friend, and I’m hugely grateful to you for helping me to get this blog going. I am honestly not sure what temporary lapse in judgment caused you to think that my early articles were good, especially when one considers the fact that you are so much smarter than I am, but I’m very glad you made that mistake!

I am also, of course, grateful to you, my dear readers. Many of you hold views very different from mine, yet when you express disagreement, you all do so politely and respectfully. The fact that you enjoy reading and commenting on my work in spite of our disagreements is yet another big honor. I love you guys, and I want to serve you all as well as I can. If God can use this blog to bring even one soul to Christ and His Church, my efforts will have been worth it.

To that end, I am going to try to do a lot more on here in the very near future. I am now free from college for the summer, which will give me more time to study theology and write. Presently, I’m averaging about one article a month; I want to increase that. Going forward, I’ll try to put out a new article every single Monday. I might scale back if that proves to be too much, but that’s what I’m aiming for right now.

Additionally, I have decided to turn on paid subscriptions. I don’t think I’ll start paywalling anything just yet, although I might very well end up doing that at some point in the fairly near future. At this point, paid subscriptions are simply a way for you to show support for this blog and my future writing efforts, if you are inclined to do so. I have deliberately priced them at just $5 a month, or $50 a year, which is on the cheaper side for Substack.

In any case, that’s all that I have for now — I’ll have much more to share very soon. I once again thank you all so very much for reading. Viva Cristo Rey!

1. Although Mr. Lazar’s skill as a defender of Catholic orthodoxy is unquestionable, the question of whether his beard is more impressive than Patrick Flynn’s remains open for debate. I shall leave it to my readers to adjudicate this matter.