A comment from a reader:

As a millenial male whose conservative Catholic identity is currently breaking away piece by piece, I take interest in this issue. For an involuntarily celibate humanities casualty in the economic wasteland of the California interior, making below minimum wage online and being driven to mass by his parents, the entire Benedict Option debate seems like the luxury of those who can afford to form families to protect. I became Catholic three years ago. I quickly gravitated to the Latin mass because I love the exotic beauty of the language and the sacredness of the music. But over time I realized that in both pre- and post-VII Catholic communities, the entire culture of the faith is oriented around three groups: priests, religious, and married parents. I don’t have a vocation to be a priest (and in any case take antidepressants), I can’t join a monastery because of my student loan debt, and I lack the sexual-economic marketability to become a parent. The plight of the involuntarily single male is overlooked in the Catholic discourse; it’s viewed as an unnatural state, a peculiarity. The church spends tremendous energy advocating the unborn and extolling family life, but does little to actually promote family formation. Where is the church helping me find a job and a mate? I sympathize with gainfully employed family men such as Ahmari and French and their desire to preserve Christian family values, but what do Christian family values mean to me if I am shut out from family life, perhaps permanently? Traditionalist conservatives only seem to care about people with families. I know this isn’t actually the case, but it is true that their discourse is heavily accented on those with the economic fortuity of having a family. I haven’t gone to church in three weeks. The underlying cause of my disillusionment was the frustration described above, but it was precipitated by my disgust with the church’s position on abortion in case of maternal life endangerment, which I could no longer accept after Alabama included this exception in its law. I was also embittered by the plight of a friend whose wife divorced him against his will; if he had had a Catholic wedding, the church would say tough luck, he can’t remarry. No longer keeping the faith, I am tempted to affiliate myself with socialism. The techno-plutocracy isn’t going to get any more humane as the march of automation concentrates the wealth and the jobs in the hands of ever fewer people. I am a default conservative on marriage, abortion, and immigration, but I am willing to overlook these issues if the Sanderses and Ocasio-Cortezes of Congress are truly prepared to make life more dignified for unemployed and underemployed young people. Rod, I have great respect for you and enjoy your blog, so please don’t simply dismiss this comment as incel raving. You recently wrote a very respectful and compassionate post about a young conservative who embraced Islam. Please show the same compassion for young conservatives tempted by socialism.

I’m not going to make fun of this guy. He’s desperate, and his desperation is not something to mock. When I was researching the Sovietization of Eastern Europe earlier this year, I discovered that the mass loneliness, displacement, and aimlessness of young men in postwar Eastern Europe played a significant role in the establishment of Communism there. Of course the Red Army played the largest role, but there were people who were hungry for what Communism had to offer, because everything was broken, and they longed for solidarity and stability.

If you have something serious to say to this young man, let’s hear it. If you’re only going to make fun of him, don’t bother, because I won’t publish it. I have been hearing from too many unhappy single people lately, and have been frustrated by my inability to help them, to tolerate poking fun at what they’re suffering. All they’re asking for is the kind of things that most people have always taken for granted: a spouse and a family. Neither the Church nor the State can find him a spouse, but that longing is sooner or later going to make a connection with something.

UPDATE: This e-mail came from a reader who is an observant Catholic in his 30s, married with children. I’ve taken out other identifying details. I think he’s 100 percent correct here: