random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon

• Fr. George Rutler has a couple of wise things to say about  the people who have lost their minds over David Bowie including clergy who should know better.
  
  
  
• According to EWTN the Church has over 20 valid rites.  EWTN does not mention the unofficial rites such as the gay Mass, the contemporary music---usually from the 70s-- Mass, the  Spanish Mass, the Charismatic  howl and faint Mass or the gospel music Mass. All of these unofficial rites have passionate defenders and are either left in peace or have bishops who lavish them with praise.  Only one rite seems to get the Catholic speech givers, essayists and book sellers all hot and bothered. Only one rite turns mild seeming people into Captain Ahab spitting at the white whale. It is the indult Mass, the Ancient Mass, the Traditional Latin Rite Mass, the Tridentine Mass , the Extraordinary Form, the Old Mass or the TLM . Whatever you call it, I guess  the key to the executive washroom in the Catholic talker/writer circuit is take part in the mobbing of "traddies," ritual. How sad. How utterly sad. Imagine--- grown men (especially sad when it is a priest) and women turning themselves into  mean high school girls in order to make a few bucks.
  
  
• Judging by the English and German news I've been reading for the most part Germans and Swedes and Norwegians are grumbling about the sudden descent of young and aggressive Muslim males on them but they aren't yet willing to do anything but complain. Even the rapes are being  downplayed. Some people theorize that  European males, especially the Germans  are so beaten down by the aftermath of WWII that they'll never stand for anything ever again, good or bad including self preservation. Others theorize that this has something to do with feminism. Having been told that woman is superior all their lives the instinct to defend females has been gelded out of them. Whatever the reasons, I think the European leaders gambled and lost. They see that their people do not have enough babies to keep the welfare system going and they see that their people will never give up their cushy benefits so they bring in hostile foreigners in hopes that these men will go to work, pay taxes and keep the gravy train going. The trouble is, these young men seem  interested in something other than keeping dying countries afloat.