The Woke Juan

05/06/2026

Dear Catholic Priests,

Please stop posting thirst traps on your social media accounts.

Sincerely,

Juan.

02/06/2026

There is a gay man somewhere finally ending a live-in relationship and trying, however imperfectly, to live chastely. There is a le***an who, after years in a toxic relationship, has begun to give her life back to God and now serves as a lector.

There is a bis*xual man in the province discovering his love for a woman, intent on marrying her and remaining faithful to her. There is also a young woman who, after growing up under an abusive parent, is learning to forgive without allowing her wounds to define her identity.

There is a gay youth leader who has found the zeal to speak from conscience, even at the risk of being dismissed as someone with internalized homophobia and alienated by his peers. There is a young professional slowly distancing himself from circles that once encouraged him toward a life of hook ups and casual encounters.

There is a trans woman genuinely struggling with gender dysphoria, now beginning the difficult process of stepping away from feminizing hormone therapy. There is a trans man who is finding the courage to end a relationship with her partner, moved by a desire to live according to her faith.

There is a young man addicted to po*******hy who is only now beginning to process the abuse he suffered from a family member, an old wound that has shaped his compulsions. For the first time in his twenties, he has gone more than a day without falling into self-abuse and feels more power over the body memories of s*xual trauma.

There is a married man out there who has been living a double life and has finally decided to end his infidelities. He is planning to return to confession after more than a decade, even if he still fears the clergy because of what a priest did to him when he was a teenager.

There is a fifty-year-old woman often made fun of because she wears men’s clothes. Still, she remains faithful to her norms. She may be unmarried, but she has found a spouse in Christ, attending Mass daily and going to confession regularly.

There is a seventy-year-old engineer who still longs for companionship when he sees couples walking through malls or sitting together in parks. Solitude weighs on him more than he admits, but he has discreetly chosen to remain celibate.

There is a trans woman who, unbeknownst to many, has consecrated himself to Our Lady. Despite appearances that draw condescension from some of the older women in church, he continues to care for sacred images as a camarero. There is an effeminate choirmaster who still struggles with chastity and carries the burden of shame. Some parents and Church members are wary of him, knowing little about his past traumas and present sorrows.

Even now, there may be a man or woman receiving a dreaded diagnosis, wondering what the future will look like in a culture that has made s*xuality the most public measure of a moral life. There is a Muslim man who, amid confusion over his s*xual identity, fears the consequences — even legal ones — of being exposed and keeps the heaviness to himself. There is a woman being abused by her husband who is thinking of leaving the marriage for a female lover. There is a university student who grew up in a loving household but is frightened by the attractions he has begun to feel toward other men.

The secular world celebrates June as Pride Month. In practice, however, it often seems to make room only for those who adhere to a ‘doctrine’. But there are also men and women like those mentioned above. There is also history; there is nuance.

Will they be welcomed? Will their existence even be acknowledged?

Because if the LGBTQ community is truly diverse, then social institutions, private corporations, and public campaigns must also make room for men and women who have chosen a different path. Their choices should be equally honored. Their voices should also be heard.

And when you, a man or woman of faith, meet them, what will they hear first? S***m and Gomorrah and their sins? Or the truth that they are sons and daughters of God?

01/06/2026

It’s that time of the year again. And the best way to start what could be a contentious month is through prayer. For men and women who are struggling towards holiness, the news and discourse over the next couple of weeks can be triggering. Emotions will probably run high. If it is, don’t hesitate to mute social media pages or friends. Facebook’s snooze for 30 days is a welcome feature. If you can’t help it, the best antidote is humility. Speak with charity. Ground your actions and words in truth.

28/05/2026

28/05/2026

"Strickland writes as if Christ’s role as Savior from sin were more fundamental than Christ’s free gift of love and the Trinitarian communion for which he made us. And as Blessed John Duns Scotus and a long line of theologians have held, Christ would have become man regardless of the Fall (Ordinatio III, d. 7, q. 3). Sin has neither the first nor the final word, and neither is it central to man, it is rather a blemish.

The world began in love and ends in the same love. God made us first to be loved and to love, not first to be rescued. Redemption serves communion, not the other way around. To put Christ’s role as Savior ahead of his role as the great Lover of mankind is to functionalize Christ, and to treat the human person first as a problem rather than as a creature made for love, for God.

The Catholic tradition holds that neither grace nor sin abolishes nature. Sin obscures our nature while grace perfects it. And the image of God in man, though wounded by sin, is not erased."

A Reply (that shouldn't be necessary) to Bishop Strickland

23/05/2026

I admit I read some of the PGMN discussions with interest, particularly the ones that questioned the plan to integrate s*x education into DepEd’s public school curricula. On that issue, at least, they had a point. They even helped sound the alarm bells.

Parents are not bigots for simply asking what adults intend to teach children about s*x and identity. They are simply being parents.

That said, it was not exactly difficult to sense PGMN’s political leanings early on. I had an inkling. Its attempt to present itself as a kind of bastion of free speech came with its own blind spots. So it is not surprising to me that it revealed the altar before which it kneels so soon.

But this is where Rappler’s critique becomes interesting. Based on The Nerve’s analysis, certain PGMN views are described as “conservative” and “harmful.” It is ironic given that Rappler has never exactly been shy about its own left-leaning sensibility.

To be clear, I value Rappler’s reporting on corruption in Philippine politics. I think that work is necessary. Even valuable. But I am also not dumb.

On questions of marriage, family, s*xuality, gender affirmation, divorce, abortion, and same-s*x marriage, Rappler has hardly been a neutral observer. It has often framed these issues through the familiar “progressive” vocabulary of compassion, rights, inclusion, and identity, many borrowed from the US left.

I put “progressive” in quotation marks because there is nothing progressive about destroying the family, defending the death of the unborn, or pretending that the human body is malleable.

Have you ever read a Rappler piece that welcomed Filipino opposition over these issues? Haven’t they always demonized religion’s influence in the moral sphere? And even when religion was out of the equation, has Rappler ever bothered to accommodate the views of family and life advocates that presented non-religion position papers against these issues?

Rappler has only ever sympathized with the Church when it could pit it against political administrations. If not that, then they relied on former religious beat reporter Paterno Esmaquel's eager reinterpretation of the Christian faith peppers with buzzwords like inclusion and identity and the case of Catholicism and drag.

Rappler’s writers are entitled to their own views. But let us not insult everyone by pretending they offer neutral, detached, purely objective reporting on moral issues.

PGMN has an agenda. But so does Rappler.

I would argue Rappler perhaps even more so, if only because they are journalists. One of the first lessons in journalism and communication courses is agenda-setting theory. Basically, it proposes that while the media may not tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about. They choose which issues to highlight. They select which moral questions to treat as already settled. They filter which opinions to emphasize or be given a platform. People with biases making biased selections to control narratives they think are important.

Of course, PGMN is not media in the mainstream sense. But the point remains.

The difference is that one agenda is called out, scrutinized, and even pathologized, while the other is treated as journalism, as the fruits of progress.

Bias itself is not my problem. I do not think bias can ever be fully removed, especially when we are dealing with polarizing moral issues. Everyone has a view of the human person, the family, and society. Everyone is arguing from somewhere.

What bothers me is the sanctimony. It is Rappler’s pretense that only conservative views are dangerous, while progressive ones are not. Ideological extremes are harmful. And for Rappler, who continues to push for agendas that are harmful to human life, to do the labelling is ironic.

Peanut Gallery Media Network (PGMN) claims to be “the only Philippine media channel in pursuit of free speech absolutism.”

Data forensics group The Nerve conducted a narrative analysis of PGMN’s page — covering over 8,600 posts — and found content that leaned towards conservative and harmful views, promoting international right-wing personalities and their ideologies.

Read more in this piece.

21/05/2026

21/05/2026

This.

"Frequent confession was once normal—monthly, biweekly, or even weekly. But it became rarer among Catholics formed from the 1970s through the 1990s. Today, many Catholics go to confession only after major moral failures or when life feels spiritually overwhelming...."

"A certain sacramental reserve is needed: anonymity, modesty, brevity, objective structure, restrained questioning, simple penances that can be completed easily, and freedom from self-consciousness on the part of both priest and penitent."

"Catholics should not need a crisis, a spiritual emergency, or a major life problem to seek mercy. Frequent confession becomes possible again when the sacrament is allowed simply to be what Christ gave to his Church—ordinary, accessible, sacramental mercy."

Confession Isn’t Therapy
by Thomas Petri, O.P.

“The triumph of the therapeutic did not abolish confession. It made confession feel psychologically heavy, and many Catholics stopped going regularly.”

Read it here: https://firstthings.com/confession-isnt-therapy/