“Corona Rusty” Reno shows us how you promote the Culture of Death.

irst Things edi­tor R. R. (Rusty) Reno had a melt­down on Twit­ter that won him—let me check—zero defend­ers. It was all about how real men don’t wear face masks because they have courage, and if you wear a face mask you are a cow­ard, a slave, and a “moral mon­ster.” Even Jon­ah Gold­berg and Erick Erick­son and Rod Dreher took him to task, and Dreher has screen­shots, which I don’t. Here’s Dreher:

What a con­temptible set of tweets. If you think masks are a bad idea to wear, fine, make that case. But to call peo­ple who wear masks cow­ards?! They are actu­al­ly try­ing to pro­tect oth­er peo­ple from get­ting sick. …

I do not under­stand, nor will I ever under­stand, why the pres­ence of face­masks in the mid­dle of a dead­ly pan­dem­ic, spread in part by spit­tle, that in two months has killed 80,000 Amer­i­cans, is such a trig­ger for a cer­tain kind of right-winger.

Mary Pez­zu­lo of Steel Mag­ni­fi­cat has more. Her post is not so much about Reno as it is about the true dif­fer­ence between courage and cow­ardice. It’s worth read­ing, as every­thing she writes is.

Now Reno has delet­ed his Twit­ter account alto­geth­er, and I’m not entire­ly sure why. Per­haps he did­n’t have the, ahem, courage to face the push­back; I don’t know. My inter­est is in what he has pub­lished recent­ly at First Things.

An arti­cle enti­tled “Coro­n­avirus Real­i­ty Check,” pub­lished on April 27, begins this way:

Data are com­ing in, and their import is clear. The coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic is not and nev­er was a threat to soci­ety. [Despite over 80,000 deaths.] COVID-19 pos­es a dan­ger to the elder­ly and the med­ical­ly com­pro­mised. Oth­er­wise, for most who present symp­toms, it can be nasty and per­sis­tent, but is not life-threat­en­ing.

Okay, so COVID-19 is not a threat to soci­ety, just to old peo­ple. Just to peo­ple with pre­con­di­tions. They’re not part of soci­ety at all. Soci­ety is com­prised of the healthy and young and robust. (Reno, by the way, is past six­ty.)

This is how you pro­mote the Cul­ture of Death: when you posit that a health prob­lem that threat­ens only old peo­ple, or fee­ble peo­ple, is of no con­cern to “soci­ety.” But you have a Cul­ture of Life when you act and talk as though every life is of equal val­ue and equal­ly worth car­ing for and sav­ing.

And part of how you do that, when there is a pan­dem­ic like COVID-19, is by wear­ing a face mask. Wear­ing a face mask is not about the per­son doing the wear­ing, it’s about every­one else you might infect. It’s about the 80-year-old Rosary-pray­ing grand­moth­er you pass in the super­mar­ket, and it’s also about the home­less dia­bet­ic you ignore on your way there. It’s an act of love for your neigh­bor, who is Jesus. It’s one of the spir­i­tu­al acts of mer­cy. Care for your neigh­bor is, in fact, one of the most coura­geous acts a man, or woman, can do. With­out love, I am noth­ing.

If you don’t like wear­ing a face mask, what­ev­er pri­vate rea­son you may have for not lik­ing it, per­haps now is the time to offer it up. I’m used to hear­ing Faith­ful­Catholics™ advise the poor and sick to offer it up. But some­how, when it comes to your own dis­in­cli­na­tion to wear a face mask, “offer it up” does­n’t apply.

•••

Reno wrote all that last month, and this month he test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19. He shares this sto­ry at First Things, in his “Coro­n­avirus Diary” dat­ed May 12. Among the things he tells us here is how he snuck into a hos­pi­tal emer­gency room that was closed to unau­tho­rized vis­i­tors. He admits that the surge of patients in the ear­ly days of the pan­dem­ic was “intense.”

Then he writes:

In ear­ly May new and more reli­able tests for COVID-19 anti­bod­ies were released. I went in to have my blood drawn. The lab report came the next day. I am pos­i­tive for the anti­bod­ies, which indi­cates that I have already been infect­ed by the virus. No sur­prise.

So Reno has COVID-19. Yet he has not put him­self in quar­an­tine, and he scoffs at face masks as “cow­ardice” of some kind. What has he done instead?

Well, he says that for the past two weeks he’s “gone on long rides” with his “reg­u­lar cycling part­ner.” One Sat­ur­day, he went on an “expe­di­tion” through Queens. Last week­end he went to New Jer­sey and went to a Dunkin Donuts, and then dou­bled back and trekked through Stat­en Island. He emailed a friend in Brook­lyn, ask­ing about whether he’d like to accom­pa­ny him to a speakeasy to sit down and con­verse with those “who dis­sent from the con­sen­sus.” He’s attend­ing illic­it Mass­es and can’t give the details because his bish­op might “take puni­tive mea­sures.” He’s roam­ing New Jer­sey and the five bor­oughs.

All the while he knows he is pos­i­tive for COVID-19, and all the while he refus­es to wear a face mask. This is will­ful endan­ger­ment of the health and even the lives of oth­ers.

Who knows how many peo­ple in New York and New Jer­sey Reno has infect­ed unnec­es­sar­i­ly? What we do know, from Reno him­self, is that if it’s main­ly the old or immuno­com­pro­mised, they’re not real­ly part of soci­ety any­way and he has no respon­si­bil­i­ty to them.

•••

I’d say Reno is anoth­er Typhoid Mary, except that Typhoid Mary was­n’t as bad. Typhoid Mary (her real name was Mary Mal­lon) was asymp­to­matic and like­ly had no idea she had typhoid. But Coro­na Rusty knows he has COVID-19 and roams about among the pop­u­lace any­way. He’s worse. This is self­ish­ness, under the guise of courage and high decen­cy, that is beyond tol­er­a­tion by a tru­ly pro-life and civ­i­lized soci­ety. Reno, not those who wear face masks, not those who social dis­tance, not those who quar­an­tine when they test pos­i­tive, is the real “moral mon­ster” here.

“Mon­ster” may be too kind a word.