The enemy of both dying Orthodoxies, Punk and Catholicism, was...well, virtually everything else: the vast hordes of pursuers-of-happiness who lived lax lives full of divorce, abortion and other conveniences, yet felt themselves on a first-name basis with Jesus. Fighting the pursuers of happiness seemed a lost cause then-but Catholics love lost causes.
[...]
I didn't see any contradiction. And still don't, really. Oh, I get the surface irony. But in the larger, terrifyingly bland landscape of California circa 1978 there really wasn't much of a contradiction. Punk and Catholicism were virtually indistinguishable, huddling together way over at the dark end of the cultural spectrum. Both were proudly celibate in a culture that still celebrated promiscuity. And both took the heat for their heresy.
("Dead Catholics" by John Dolan)
A commentor where I found this story summed up this writer's character as "contra mundum," implying this guy's closer than he thinks to Athanasius.
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