How Character Dies

Sunday, August 16, 2026

Few bits of news have haunted me more than the revelation that Anthony Fauci used his position to lever cash prizes for himself.  Yes, it is government corruption, but when combined with his diaries, it is something worse.  The man’s quest for fame, and now revealed, fortune is almost the stuff of fiction.  Like the bad guy in a fable, it is as if he was concocted to be an object lesson in what not to do.  Something is so wrong in the man’s soul that I pity him as much as I condemn him as a government official.

The article where I encountered this news about Fauci closes by noting:

Fauci has previously touted his own “ethics,” in explaining why he no longer is a practicing Catholic.

“First of all, I think my own personal ethics in life are enough to keep me going on the right path,” he told a BBC interviewer in 2023. “And I think that there are enough negative aspects about the organizational church, that you are very well aware of.”

“But as far as practicing it, it seems almost like a pro forma thing that I don’t really need to do.”

Those comments of his are old news, but this latest news gives them a different twist.  I can practically read the letter between Screwtape and Wormwood wherein Screwtape encourages his nephew to tempt his patient to constantly look at news about corruption in the church while ignoring his own self-examination and confession.  I can almost see the black hole in Fauci’s heart grow with each new prize application until it consumes his entire internal life.  Christ’s exhortation about planks and specks becomes all too real:

“Do not judge, so that you will not be judged.  For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.  Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, the log is in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye!

We must take great care that in our efforts to deal with Fauci as appropriate given his government position and practice, that we do not commit the same sin.  We cannot let our condemnation of him replace our own self-reflection, confession and effort to be more Godly.  We cannot let the hole in his heart become the hole in our heart.  And we must pray for him, his very public sins notwithstanding.  He has nothing left but his ego and it is slowly being crushed in a vice of public opinion.  His pain is most real and deserving of our sympathy, even if his crimes are equally real.