FaithfulCatholic™ idolatry of Scott Hahn.

have no per­son­al crit­i­cism of Scott Hahn. (I get why some peo­ple do.) Rome Sweet Home and sev­er­al of his oth­er books were touch­stones for me dur­ing my con­ver­sion. I met him once, in Colum­bus, and he was very pleas­ant to me. I have no rea­son to dis­like him.

But I saw this today, and it was wild:

When the Catholic Left starts attack­ing Scott Hahn, you know they’ve lost it. Scott Hahn influ­enced (at least) hun­dreds of thou­sands of con­ver­sions and rever­sions over the past decade. Pick a side. We serve dif­fer­ent mas­ters.

“We serve dif­fer­ent mas­ters”?

So to have crit­i­cisms of Scott Hahn means that a Catholic “serves a dif­fer­ent mas­ter”? What you think of Scott Hahn is a lit­mus test for whether you’re serv­ing God or Satan? Scott Hahn is above crit­i­cism by any faith­ful Catholic?

That’s straight-up undis­guised idol­a­try.

The com­ments on that post are as trag­ic as you would expect:

• The left can’t han­dle the truth. JMJ.
• Wow satan must real­ly hate Scott Hahn.
• The Catholic left—like vam­pires in the light.
• I am wait­ing for the left to live like devout Catholics.
• That’s like going after Dol­ly Par­ton.
• Sick. They have shown their hand and God is not their Mas­ter.
• Hypothe­ses… the Catholic Left is a safe haven for unchecked men­tal ill­ness. Not to say they’re all men­tal­ly ill, or that the Catholic right is per­fect­ly sane and kind. I’m just say­ing there seems to be a lot of unrea­son­able anger and derange­ment over there. It’s like they’re con­stant­ly growl­ing when they talk.
• Sad that these peo­ple like to be pup­pets of the dev­il.
• They are pigs. They don’t know what it means to be a man of char­ac­ter, a gen­tle­man. Demon pos­sessed indi­vid­u­als whose mouths vom­it crap from brains mud­dled by crap. May they suf­fer severe con­se­quences for their dis­gust­ing behav­ior until they repent.

(I also find it iron­ic that the same peo­ple who feel Scott Hahn is above crit­i­cism by decent Catholics reg­u­lar­ly attack the Holy Father, as though attack­ing the Holy Father is a hall­mark of decent Catholic­i­ty.)

•••

I used to mourn over what has actu­al­ly been a bless­ing: that many of the apol­o­gists (and real-life friends) who were instru­men­tal in my con­ver­sion only end­ed up dis­ap­point­ing me.

But it was a bless­ing, because it’s a reminder not to idol­ize peo­ple. Peo­ple will let you down. Peo­ple are a mix­ture of good and bad. Only Christ is per­fect. Only Christ does not let you down. Only the Church has the full­ness of truth; apol­o­gists are fal­li­ble. Put not your trust in mor­tals who can­not save. God alone saves you.

In fact, Leila Miller is right, but not in the way she intends. You do have to pick a side. Either you serve the pop apol­o­gists or you serve God. You can’t serve both. Scott Hahn was not cru­ci­fied for you. Choose you this day.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.