Should Priests blog? Part II

Fr. Pinot, French martyr

I've said before that priest's really shouldn't blog unless it's strictly their homilies and catechetical or apologetic material or posts about parish events. I've seen blogs by priests that were downright scary. A priest is an alter Cristus. He should not seem like a pop star tossing PR tidbits to his fans or a guru communicating his wishes to his groupies. His blog should never  leave readers wondering about how his lifestyle is financed or speculating that Father has too much time on his hands or if what they just read was written by a real priest at all.

Blessed Fr. Pinot,  courageous example for priests and us all, pray for us.
Mother Vogl, pray for us.
St. Pio, pray for us.
 Blessed Fr. Pro, pray for us.
 Blessed Fr. Popieluzko, pray for us.
Cardinal Mindzdenty, pray for us.
St. Fr. Edmund Campion, pray for us.
Priest martyrs of Nagasaki, pray for us.
Priest martyrs of Gorkum, pray for us.

St. Juliana of Liege

a Carthusian

St. Francis was not a bird feeder

The Poor Man of Assisi embraced the Cross and climbed the holy mountain of God. He bore the marks of the crucifixion and if his experience was like that of his spiritual son, St. Pio, he must have suffered every day of his life.  He was not skipping around Italy singing with a bluebird on his shoulder  and kissing St. Bernards. The sentimental presentations of him are cheap and don't come anywhere near the truth of the mighty saint.












*A curious man once asked Padre Pio if his stigmata hurt. The saint replied, "Do you think the Lord gave them to me for a decoration?"

Random thoughts...

Sacred Heart of Jesus I trust in Thee.

*I haven't given a dime to Catholic Charities in years and it looks like I won't be giving anymore in the near or distant future but they don't need it. They have a new sugar daddy and his name is Uncle Sam.  Les Femmes has the story. As I said before this is going to boomerang on the Church and it's already starting. People are not grumbling against the Episocopalian groups or the Baptist groups in the comment boxes I've read this weekend. They are blaming the Catholics and by the way, these people don't come off as the usual anti-Catholics. They sound like normal people who feel that they've been tricked.


*Pope gotcha down? I sympathize. I will not tell you to buck up or pooh pooh you and I think Michael Voris, whom I usually like, is wrong when he tells Catholics to take chill pill. St. Catherine of Sienna and St. Henry did not hush up and chill when it came to a messy papal situation. In Voris's defense I'm guessing that he's part of my generation. Except for the folks who were lucky enough to be in unhip backwater parishes, we mostly grew up with  crazy or effeminate priests, and bishops who seemed determined to stamp out what orthodoxy remained in their parishes.  The only one we had to look up to was the pope.  I suspect that for Voris to say one word of criticism about the Holy Father is going to be like passing a kidney stone. As for those who are openly expressing alarm over the current Holy Father, I will only say this: It must have been very painful for good Catholics who lived in Rome and daily saw Pope Alexander VI with his mistress and children. God has put us on this earth at this particular time to live with this particular pope for a reason. Mary, help of Christians, pray for us.


*I don't watch network TV anymore and haven't for years. Those of you who still do have a choice to make regarding CBS. 



*Awhile back there was a series of posts at the LMS blog on Catholic fashion. To be honest I found the whole thing tiresome and a little snotty. Catholic ladies, dress however you like ---as long as it's modest, appropriate to the situation and doesn't make you look a fool.




*I saw this on the Ramblings of a Deranged Mind blog and thought it was worth saving in my quote journal. While Americans are distracted by stupid stuff, things are happening and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Mother of Sorrows

St. Peter, penitent

It is said that St. Peter never forgot that he forsook Our Lord three times before the rooster crowed and did penance for it all the rest of his life.

Boomerang

 The diocese of San Bernadino in California is working with the Federal government to deal with the latest immigrant crisis. Other dioceses are doing the same and various Catholic Charities offices have received grant money to provide services.

I think this  is going to boomerang hard  on the Church. Digital Hairshirt has a couple of really good observations from a legal perspective. I myself lived through the mess of good intentions several years ago when Catholic Charities and the Episcopalians brought a large number of Somalis to my neighborhood. It didn't go well. Most of the refugees had never seen a toilet, a sink  or a stove and and they set fires at least once a week. Sometimes I'd be awakened twice in ONE night because the firemen were banging on the door looking for the fire. It was nerve wracking. And then  there were the social issues... The ladies and the children were fine but some of the young men were aggressive. There was also the matter of the smell.  The ladies naturally wanted to cook foods from home, most which to Western noses, stank horribly. My neighbors didn't blame the government. They grumbled about the Catholic Do-Gooders and busybodies,  (everybody seemed to forget about the Episcopalians) who, in their eyes created the dangerous mess. One town up the road that also got a lot of Somalis ended up demanding that Catholic Charities not bring anymore people to their area. I'll bet most of the people who lived through that experience still bristle or shiver when they think about it.  

St. Francis was not a bird feeder

Mass without pews

The Child Jesus, Savior of the World

I didn't care for this painting at first and then I remembered that I've seen little Orthodox boys in New York and in Pennsylvania with curls just like this. 

There are four lights.

Although I'm a classic Star Trek kind of gal, I  was usually content to watch Star Trek New Generation. The show's writers got heavy handed at times when pushing certain repugnant social views  and there are some episodes that I can't stomach to this day. I was very fond of Picard, Worf, and Data,  tolerated Riker, loathed Deanna Troi and was delighted when that horrible Wesley Crusher left the show. I think one of the greatest performances Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard ever gave--and there were many---was  in the two part "Chain of Command" episode. Picard has been taken prisoner and tortured. He is told that the pain will stop and he can live in comfortable captivity for the rest of his life if he says he sees five lights flashing when there are obviously only four. Picard refuses to lie to please his torturer and says there are four lights.


In a meeting with some members of the Franciscans of the Immaculate the pope may have  paraphrased a quote from St. Ignatius Loyola indicating that if the pope says something black is really white then we must believe it is white. What did the Holy Father mean by this? It is impossible to say and I won't speculate as so many people have done. I'll only say that the Holy Father appears to have gotten the quote wrong. St. Ignatius Loyola said or wrote:


We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears (emphasis mine) white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides. 

Saint Ignatius was not telling his order that they had to believe that an actual black object was white if the pope said so. That would have been ludicrous and a rejection of the logic that Jesuits became famous for. The saint was saying that if you think something is true, good etc. based on your own knowledge or experience, be docile and wise enough to realize that you don't know everything and in fact, you know practically nothing compared to the dogma of the Church. You may think it's okay to divorce and then take a lover as long as you don't live in the same house but the Church says it is not. You may think it's okay to miss Mass a few times in a month but the Church says it is not so. You may think that your concubine is the same as a wife but the Church says it is not so. Really, the saint was NOT saying go be a simpleton.

If your priest, a nun, a bishop or even the pope says it's raining when you can clearly see that it is not you are not bound to believe that or parrot it back. If you are told there are five lights when you see darn well that there are only four you are free to have the courage to say like Picard, beaten, exhausted, terrorized that no dammit, "There...are..FOUR...lights!"