Not Straw Men, But Men
An Open Letter to Mike Lewis on His Rendering Faith into Straw
Preface: Context for the Reader
The following essay is a response to an article titled "When the Scales Fell from Our Conservative Catholic Eyes," published on Where Peter Is by Mike Lewis. The author recounts a personal journey away from what he characterizes as a rigid, politicized form of conservative Catholicism, culminating in his renewed embrace of Pope Francis’s pastoral vision. In the process, he critiques many of those who express concern about Pope Francis, suggesting they are driven by political ideology, motivated by fear, or loyal more to a cultural identity than to Christ.
While Lewis’s personal story deserves respect, and his call to deeper charity is not without merit, he also makes sweeping generalizations, conflates theology with politics, and dismisses legitimate concerns raised by bishops, cardinals, theologians, and faithful lay Catholics around the world. Most troubling is his failure to engage the actual substance of those concerns—including the widely publicized Dubia—with any theological seriousness.
What follows is not a personal attack, but a call to elevate the conversation. It challenges the tendency—so common in our time—to dismiss others by mischaracterizing them. It invites readers to consider what true fidelity to the Church requires: clarity, honesty, and the courage to face truth not as we imagine it, but as it is.
It was the village harvest festival, and the children were asked to build scarecrows for the annual competition.
One boy dragged his in last. It wore an oversized sweater, scuffed brown shoes, a crooked ballcap—and a hastily scowling face. The boy didn’t name it. He just began:
“This one’s always at school before everyone else. Stays late, too. Total teacher’s pet. Always has his hand up—even when nobody asks a question. And the suit? With a pocket protector? Seriously? He thinks he’s better than all of us. I just don’t like him.”
The crowd went still. He hadn’t said the name—but everyone recognized the resemblance. It looked a lot like Henry.
But no one laughed.
They knew Henry. He helped clean up after recess. He sat with the lonely kid at lunch. Maybe a little too eager with the rules, maybe a little awkward—but sincere. Good.
This scarecrow might’ve shared his outline, but not his soul. It was all straw and spite.
The teacher finally spoke: “That’s not Henry. That’s a scarecrow. And dressing it in his clothes doesn’t make it him.”
Dear Mike,
Such is the essence of a “straw man” argument. And sadly, it's what marks your thought.
You speak of fidelity, yet construct a caricature of those crying out—not in rebellion, but in anguish—for clarity, coherence, and fidelity to the Church's enduring teachings. You replace them with your idea of them. And then, having dressed them in the garments of political ideology and pharisaical rigidity, you beat them into submission with a polemic that never once addresses the actual theological concerns they raise.
You invoke names like Bishop Robert Barron, Archbishop Charles Chaput, Scott Hahn, Cardinal Raymond Burke, and Cardinal Gerhard Müller—as if merely saying them is sufficient to render judgment. But tell me: did you truly walk with them? Did you listen to them beyond the soundbites? Do you actually believe these men—formed by decades of prayer, scholarship, pastoral care, and fidelity to Christ—are best understood through the lens of partisan ideology? That their work, their witness, their wounds, are reducible to politics? Or is it possible—just possible—that they are guilty of something far more threatening to this age: being simply, stubbornly faithful?
We tuned in to EWTN not because it confirmed a narrative, but because it spoke with clarity when others went silent. We read First Things and supported Word on Fire because they proclaimed truth with intellectual and spiritual depth. We subscribed to The National Catholic Register and Catholic Herald because they did not treat faith as a PR campaign. We turned to Catholic Answers not for ideological talking points, but for answers grounded in the Catechism, Scripture, and the Fathers.
And you—having once drawn from these very wells—now dismiss them all with a wave of the hand, as though fidelity were some kind of partisan offense.
If you stood in a room with any of these men—or better, knelt beside them before the Blessed Sacrament—could you honestly say they were fairly represented in your article? Could you still call them ideologues? Or would you finally see what many already do: that they are not your scarecrow. They are not driven by control or fear. They are men who believe, who love, who suffer for the truth—and who refuse to trade the Cross for applause.
Respectfully, your letter isn’t fidelity. It isn’t pastoral. It’s performance.
You assign labels—“conservative,” “reactionary,” “partisan”—as if orthodoxy were a position on a political spectrum, rather than a response to a Person who said, “I am the Truth.” The invocation of such terms, over and over, betrays the underlying problem: your framework is not theological, but ideological. You don’t wrestle with what the Church has always taught. You simply place anyone who does in a box labeled “suspect” and move on.
But the Church is not a box. She is a Bride.
You mention the Dubia, but you do not engage their content. Five yes-or-no questions rooted in Scripture, magisterial documents, and centuries of teaching on marriage, morality, and the Eucharist remain unanswered. What is at stake is not preference, but principle: Can a pope contradict what the Church has always taught? If not, then why are faithful bishops and cardinals being vilified for asking the question?
History gives us reason to ask. Pope John XXII taught a serious error about the beatific vision. Pope Honorius I was condemned for failing to uphold the faith. Popes are not impeccable. And when their words sow confusion—as many believe Pope Francis’s have—it is not schismatic to ask for clarity. It is a duty, particularly when souls hang in the balance.
Your reference to Donald Trump is particularly revealing—not because you assess his flaws (which are real), but because you invoke him as a kind of shorthand for everything wrong with those who disagree with you theologically. But theology isn’t shaped by the headlines or personalities of any political season. And Trump, flawed as he is, was not—and is not—the standard of truth, nor the enemy of it. What’s more disturbing is how easily the invocation of his name bypasses real moral reflection. Is our alignment with the Church’s teaching to be evaluated based on media portrayals of a political figure? Are we to shape doctrine based on our feelings about a man who was, for all his shortcomings, responsible for more pro-life protections, religious liberty advances, and judicial appointments favorable to the moral law than any president in recent memory?
And if we’re going to dismiss someone’s entire witness because of perceived political proximity, shouldn’t we pause to consider how many of our perceptions have been carefully constructed by the very institutions that told us Joe Biden was at the top of his cognitive game, that boys can become girls, and that fentanyl pouring across open borders isn’t really a crisis? The same institutions that, for four years, manufactured a straw man for public consumption—while calling it journalism. (Please see my article, “Which Gospel Are We Talking About?”)
What’s most striking is that the very flaws you ascribe to others—ideological entrenchment, blindness to complexity, refusal to listen—are the ones your article most clearly embodies. It does not engage the people it critiques. It does not answer their questions. It does not treat them as persons worthy of dignity and thought, but as problems to be dismissed.
And that, perhaps, is the greatest irony: in accusing others of building walls, you have built a scarecrow. You’ve hung it high, set it aflame, and called it a victory for truth.
But it isn’t Henry.
And they aren’t straw.
We are not straw men. We are men.
So let this not end in protest, but begin in prayer.
This is about roots. It’s about our heritage—not one we presume to determine, but one in which we are determined. As the pope does not determine the Office, the Office determines the pope. The same is true for each of us: we do not define the Faith—we are defined by it. And we are not saved by projections or performances, but by a Person who gave His life to make us true.
So if I may—let us invoke your beloved literary ancestor. C.S. Lewis, who shared your name, once wrote: “The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered.” The danger is not in the asking. It is in refusing to truly hear the question—or the person asking it.
Jesus, we avail ourselves to You. Purify what is unclean. Burn away what is prideful. Restore what is broken. Let us not settle for projections—of ourselves or of one another—but receive the grace to see, and to be seen. Not as straw men. Not as enemies. But as sons.
Until we have faces, Lord—until we are truly known—teach us again how to love.
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