Jason Manuel

ASU graduate.
Python + web programming + programming languages.

[ChurchPOP @Church_POP]

Calling all Catholic influencers and aspiring filmmakers!

For the second year in a row, hundreds of Catholics artists, entertainers, and content creators will come to Napa Valley this summer.

They’ll gather at the Napa Institute’s Arts Festival from July 20-21, 2026. It’s a one-of-a-kind forum where faithful Catholics can collaborate and build community to take back the arts.

This year’s headliners include David Henrie, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Michael Iskander, Jonathan Roumie, Jaakko Ohtonen, Floriani, and more.

And the festival has a new event: A competition to create a short film. The grand prize is $100,000.
The Napa Institute Arts Festival is an idea whose time has come.

Happening immediately before the Napa Institute’s Summer Conference—where over 800 Catholic cardinals, bishops, priests, religious, philanthropists, and lay leaders come together—the festival celebrates the unique combination of faith and creativity.

The festival will feature talent from music, art, film, and more—from around America and the world. The festival is complimentary for those attending the Summer Conference, which runs from July 22-26, 2026.

The whole Arts Festival will inspire you. But the biggest draw is sure to be the short film contest.
Run by Renaissance Rising, the contest is designed to “discover and develop compelling original short film concepts (10–15 minutes in length) that align with themes of faith, beauty, truth, goodness, and human dignity.”

The winner will be selected by a panel of distinguished judges—after they complete a live pitch.
The winner will receive $100,000 to produce their film, and EWTN will give the film its world premiere at next year’s Napa Institute Arts Festival.

Key point: Not anyone can make the live pitch. You first have to be selected as a finalist. And for that to happen, you must submit your entry by 11:59 p.m. on June 15, 2026.

If you want a shot at that $100,000, check out the eligibility requirements. Be sure to follow them to the letter. Yes, teams are allowed!

Even if you don’t want to participate—or if you don’t get selected as a finalist—you should still dig into the Arts Festival. And there’s plenty of time to register to attend both the festival and the Napa Institute’s Summer Conference.

Who doesn’t want to spend a few summer days in Napa Valley? Especially when you can look forward to a Eucharistic Procession with hundreds of participants, phenomenal meals and even better wine, and multiple days of world-class liturgy, community, and formation. Plus you’ll hear from some of the most inspiring speakers in the Catholic Church!

Check it out. And who knows? Maybe everyone will toast to your victory in the short film competition!

https://t.co/GcnqLSRaXW

[Reagan Priest @reaganspriest]

I sat down with a "New" entrant in the Arizona governor's race who is bringing some levity and outlandish policy proposals to an already topsy-turvy election year for the Grand Canyon state. @AzCapitolTimes @OCATCOfficial https://t.co/bOV6jhCy1Z

[Gravantus @Gravantus]

Every time a baby is found (alive) in a dumpster, pro-aborts always sound exactly like this

[ChurchPOP @Church_POP]

As we reflect in the Easter and Pentecost seasons on the glory in Christ’s resurrection and ascension, we remember that His redemption reconciled us not only to God and to our fellow men, but to all of creation. Many Catholics ignore or forget that third reconciliation.

Today, we must reclaim it.

It is not that faithful Catholics lack zeal for God's creation. We rightly pour our energy into defending life from abortion and IVF, and into recognizing the dignity of the poor. But on ecological teaching, many have gone silent — and the secular left has rushed to fill the void.

Those who shout loudest about the Earth often treat humanity with contempt, parroting anti-natalist rhetoric that frames human life as the enemy of nature. The absence of action has come at a cost.

We need a theologically grounded, pro-human, thoroughly Catholic approach to the environment—one that recognizes the dangers of left-wing environmentalism while still upholding our God-given mission to care for the Earth.

This is personal for me. A few months ago, I started a Catholic organization called Vita et Terra, Latin for “Life and Earth,” to help awaken authentic environmental consciousness among Catholics so that, together, we can become true stewards of God’s creation.

Ultimately, our duty to creation as Catholics is based on three basic principles: life, stewardship, and conservation.

1) Life
Above all, we must proudly proclaim the dignity of human life from conception to natural death. That means opposing abortion, euthanasia, and any ideology that treats people as disposable, as well as rejecting the lies of the secular environmental movement that treats people as a problem that must be solved to heal “Mother Earth.” Families are a gift, not a problem.

Further, our care for human life leads us to care for the environment.

Lead in water, cancerous pollutants, PFAS chemicals linked to infertility, pesticides linked to birth defects—these are not abstractions but direct threats to people.

A truly pro-life movement must fight the toxins that harm mothers and their unborn children and prevent environmental degradation that leads to suffering and pain.

2) Stewardship
Man was given “dominion” over the Earth (Genesis 1:26-28), and God’s first commandment to mankind was to “dress and keep” His ground (Genesis 2:15).

Instead of exploitative destruction of the Earth on the one hand or pagan-infused worship on the other, this is a call for responsible dominion.

Stewardship is rooted in the Catholic principle of subsidiarity. Communities know their land better than a distant government.

Private property and time-tested practices such as responsible hunting, fishing, and regenerative agriculture have often conserved more habitat than top-down federal mandates.

Hunters and anglers fund wildlife management through licensing fees and have restored wetlands and forests for generations. These practical, traditional ways of keeping the Earth are much more effective than bureaucratically imposed ideology.

3) Conservation
We inherit the Earth first from God and then from our ancestors. It is our obligation, then, to hold the Earth in trust for our children.

We fight real pollution—industrial waste, excessive carbon emissions, forever chemicals, contamination that harms both people and wildlife—but we refuse climate alarmism. Conservationism must serve people, not undermine us.

These principles of life, stewardship, and conservation offer Catholics a foundation to engage on environmental issues without ceding ground to anti-human environmentalists.

They also give environmentalists a source of hope and a reason for their efforts.

In 2023, a study found that more than a quarter of conservationists are “mentally distressed,” trapped in secularist themes of doom and despair.

Their ideology gives them no reason to believe that humanity can successfully tackle a “climate apocalypse” and no reason why they should even care to protect the Earth in the first place.

Catholicism, on the other hand, offers hope and purpose.

Not only do we have the power to protect the Earth as God’s chosen stewards, but we have a duty as well, because it is what God has called us to do. Our robustly God-centered, pro-human vision gives us faith in our capacity and reason for optimism.

We Catholics already carry the pro-life banner with courage. It is time to extend that same courage to the rest of God’s creation.

Clare Ath is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Vita et Terra, a conservative Catholic environmental nonprofit that champions care for creation.

https://t.co/B7ij6oMMmX

[Jason Manuel @JasonAManuel]

@IsaiahLCarter What's bs about daylighting?

[Bus Driver Dan @Dan_Christensen]

Good people of Twitter. I have been posting for 18 years about my life as a @Trimet bus driver In @Portland. I plan on continuing this mission of telling transit stories but I need some help to get by the next couple months.
https://t.co/OwdTFh4xMI Please help if you can and or repost and share if my stories have every help you.

[Katherine Argent @effthealgorithm]

Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???

[Fr Matthew P. Schneider, LC @FrMatthewLC]

Please pray for this young local priest (@ArchdioceseHart) who is in the hospital awaiting a transplant to survive. https://t.co/SEDvCfHykc

[A @sugarsweet_A]

I’ll do anything to not have to go back. I will end up treated worse, pregnant again, and more poor than now. Impossible. Help me please I’m begging. I’m pleading. Pray to God please send someone who can help me before I have to do crazy stuff to pay rent PLEASE

[Zy @ZyMazza]

I don't really do Apologetics anymore.

Aquinas famously said "To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary; to one without faith, no explanation is possible" but even more importantly the Apostle Paul said "they will know we are Christians by our love."

But even more importantly than that Jesus Christ Himself said "by their fruits you will know them."

The way I see it there is no explanation necessary nor is there one that is even possible. That's the nature of faith.

But, if there is one way laid out for us to win souls it is by example. The ultimate apologia is living a life so joyful and serene that other people can't help but ask you "what is your secret? how do you do it?" and you can tell them "through the Grace of God and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ"

And honestly if no one is asking, I'm starting to think, best to not even bring it up. I'm obviously not not letting the Holy Spirit shine through me if no one is curious about what I'm doing or how I'm doing it. Honestly half the time or more I fear I would be a discredit to God to volunteer that I consider myself a follower of His; what example does that set?? I'm no saint...

But if someone were to ask I won't deny my Lord either. Nor should I. So I think I ought to try to live such that people ask. Maybe.

So my unsolicited advice to believers is to stop offering unsolicited advice to unbelievers. Live a life so aligned with God's will that people can't help but solicit advice from you, and then give it.

[Sam Ashworth-Hayes @SAshworthHayes]

In the United States car seat laws mandating use until age 8 save 57 lives each year at the cost of about 8,000 births.

[Adam Rackis @AdamRackis]

When your drug dealer complains you’re not doing enough drugs

[Samuel Benson @sambbenson]

Interesting new @pewresearch analysis: Infidelity is the lone issue polled that a majority of both Republicans and Democrats agree is immoral

88% of Democrats and 93% of Republicans say married people having an affair is wrong

[Fyodor Dostoevsky Collection 🪓 @Dostoevskyquot]

To love another person is to see them as God intended them to be.

[Philip Bunn @PhilipDBunn]

Marcus Aurelius's Meditations? Augustine's Confessions? These people are idiots. Don't listen to illiterate people. Don't give them your time or your money. Read a book instead.

[𝚌𝚕𝚞𝚖𝚙 𝚘𝚏 𝚌𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚜 @ZELLKLUMPEN]

abortion is killing kids.

[Luke Miller @ArchdeaconLuke]

Botolph Blossom Bollards! @WorldBollard

[Crashing the Political Party @CPPShow]

This week we’re joined chairman of the @AmSolidarity. Give it a listen wherever you get your podcasts!

Links to a few places below.

[jacob @thesoggyblanket]

Photos I took in the cemeteries of South Louisiana

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

Here’s a letter to the editor that every degrowther should read: