Help a Knight out and some random thoughts

• The Knights of Columbus Virginia convention is coming up soon. I imagine there will be some discussion about the Norfolk Knights. Because St. Patrick's Day fell within the full 60 days the KofC bylaws require for a motion to be made no official decision will occur. I read on the Les Femmes blog that one good man, a Knight from Virginia Beach has drawn up a petition asking that the Norfolk Knights of Columbus Council #3548 be disbanded due to their disobedience and lack of helpfulness to their pastor. As I said before, because of the 60 day rule, no official punishment to the Norfolk Knights is likely to happen, however if this petition really gathers steam it will help somewhere down the road. Who knows it might even move the State Council to bend the 60 day rule and make a ruling during the convention.
  
  Fr. McGivney, pray for us.

• Patricia Januzzi has been reinstated at her job thanks to the Lepanto Institute and bloggers all around the USA and Canada who shone the harsh light of truth on an ugly, unjust situation. God bless everyone who helped Mrs. Januzzi but please, nobody get complacent. As Nikita Khrushchev is supposed to have said "Let your bayonet thrust. If it strikes fat, destroy. If it strikes steel, withdraw." The evil people who tried to destroy Mrs. Januzzi, are still thrusting their bayonets. Tomorrow it will be another teacher, or a nice little woman who sells wedding cakes from her home kitchen, or it will be ...you or me when we are told that it would be bad for our careers not to attend a certain wedding. The next time that bayonet thrusts, please God, that it strikes someone of steel.
  
• Fr. Z. says there will be no schism after the October synod and seems to indicate that he doesn' want to hear anymore about the matter. Steve Skokec begs to differ.   Is there going to be an official schism? Maybe, but what of it? We already have a state of undeclared schism right now. In my diocese and yours you can go to certain parishes where the priest either preaches heresy or comes damn close to it... and nothing is done about it. We have parishes where the nuns are teaching Tai Chi and yoga. At the Sisters of Bon Secours Retreat House  in Baltimore, website I could not find the name of Jesus on the first page or the second page I went to. Eventually, I had to use the site's search feature. The New Age vibe is so strong it should be obvious to anyone that this is not a normal Catholic place....but nothing is done about it. In my diocese, there is a parish that was featured in the diocesan newspaper showing its dancing girls leaping about and the pastor criticized Catholics who stay in their pews--praying--instead of jumping and hip thrusting.... and nothing will be done about it.  We have parishes where you need to walk and walk down halls, and stairs to find Our Lord in the tabernacle. We have parishes where it's obvious the priest behaves more like a high strung young girl than a man.... and that's okay. We have parishes where they have pillows and blankets for the charismatics who faint to the ground during Mass and healing services.... and that's not just okay, it's praised. We have parishes where no-one under the age of 45 has ever seen a real nun or a monk.  We have motivational speakers  and other loud laymen being treated as Catholic authorities and women's conferences that seem to be all about vanity and making oneself feel better and....nothing is done about it. Frankly, an official schism might be preferable to the soft schism we have now. At least it would be honest.
  
  
• Maureen Mullarkey writes a lovely essay on how a Jewish jeweler refused to sell her and her then, fiance a  wedding ring with a particular quote from the Book of Ruth because they were not Jewish. She did not raise a stink or attempt to ruin the business of an elderly survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. She bought the ring and used another quote. Imagine that.