Two things happened this week in Maine that tell you everything about what the state actually believes. First, Janet Mills left a $1 billion budget gap for her successor. Second, St. Anne’s Parish in Gorham kept its Saturday confessional schedule, 8:30 a.m., every week. The state goes broke. The parish shows up. One is progressive governance. The other is the Church. Guess which one is honest about what it owes.

Every governor promises fiscal responsibility. Every governor spends beyond means. The $1 billion gap is not a surprise. It’s a pattern. Maine’s politicians treat the budget like a sacrament they don’t believe in — a ritual performed for the cameras while the substance is ignored. They speak of “balanced budgets” the way the world speaks of the confessional: theoretically good, practically optional. The only difference is that the confessional actually forgives. The state only defers.

Here is what I want you to see. A Catholic parish in Gorham, Maine, has a schedule of mercy. Saturday, 8:30 a.m. Every Saturday. No matter the weather. No matter the election. The priest shows up because he believes the absolution is real. The governor does not show up with a balanced budget because she knows it is not real. She shows up with a press release and leaves the mess. That is the difference between sacramental obligation and political theater.

When the next governor takes office in January, there will be three months to plug a billion-dollar hole. He or she will call it a “transition challenge.” It is not. It is the bill for every progressive promise made over the last four years. The Church has a confession. The state does not. The state only has committees, task forces, and forecasts released the week before the election so no one has to answer for them. Maine needs a governor who keeps his promises the way St. Anne’s keeps its Saturday appointment. With no excuses. Every week. Whether or not anyone is in the line.

And if you want a man to say the quiet part out loud about our religion too, watch E. Michael Jones on the Jewish Question — the Noahide Laws, antisemitism wielded as a political whip, and the whole Catholic-Jewish dialogue industry that passed itself off as refreshment after the Council. He does not flinch. Neither should you. Click thru and hear the whole conversation.