Michael J. Sauter

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Michael J. Sauter has lived his whole life in Western NY, in and around Rochester and the Genesee Valley. He has worked in factories and on dairy farms and in various ministries in the Catholic Church at the Abbey of the Genesee. He currently directs Catholic Campus Ministry at SUNY Geneseo.

Recent Essays

‘Spiritual but not Religious’ Revisited: An Urgent Case for the Psychiatric

Michael J. Sauter - April 13, 2022

Look at our priests or bishops now. Do they seem any more advanced in the cure than anybody else? Some do. But so does the guy who took the snow tires off my car last week, and I don’t know if he’s ever darkened the doors of a Church. I just know that he had an air of spiritual freedom about him, such that somebody might think, “I want what he has. I wonder what makes him tick.” There’s a beginning.

Life Under Sycamores

Michael J. Sauter - January 3, 2022

Frank Mulder is preaching the same Gospel. Pictures of Frank Mulder make him look like he could be a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, on a bicycle, planting sycamores instead of apple trees, helping people, one by one, break free from the threefold madness of money, planning, and crowds.

Grail and Anti-Grail Quests

Michael J. Sauter - May 4, 2021

"After all, if you are too small to do anything, what need is there to stir!”

A Testament to Friendship

Michael J. Sauter - April 13, 2021

Canadian author and broadcaster, David Cayley, who conducted two lengthy radio interviews-turned-books with Illich (in 1988 and 2000) and had a decades-long friendship with him, has written a gripping and unconventional biography of this deeply unconventional man.

Bridging the Gap Between Narrative and Reality: Guido Preparata

Michael J. Sauter - March 3, 2021

Modest and hopeful, but backed up by a lot of thought and research, Guido Preparata's work is at least a beginning. Surrounded by lies, it’s high-time we started telling another story.

The Cauldron of Degrowth

Michael J. Sauter - October 19, 2020

In a nutshell, Degrowthers make a bold case that a future worth living is not about doing more with less, it’s about doing “less with less,” and it’s not at all hard to sense an idea whose time has come.

Feeling Claustrophobic in the Big Wide Open

Michael J. Sauter - May 12, 2020

I worry about our ever-expanding cult of safety and nod in agreement with so much of sociologist Frank Furedi’s description of the “Paradox of our Safety Addiction.” He argues that “the zero risk mentality breeds a culture of anxiety and a hunger for authority.”

Two Cheers for Two Popes

Michael J. Sauter - January 31, 2020

In short, we need to rely less on building rigid ideological superstructures and more on our guts, guts kept healthy by a diverse diet of conversation and friendship. We need to have more personal encounters and trust in the general “goodness” of people. In other words, we need to take the seriousness with which we treat this Left-Right stuff down a notch and lighten up!