random thoughts on a Sunday afternoon

• One of my neighbors is a Protestant. She spent half an hour talking to Rocky about Pope Francis and her opinion of him was pretty low. It wasn't the usual Protestant theological ignorance either. Everything she said  was about his political meddling and his trip to Egypt and Rocky said he couldn't come up with a single defense.
  
  
• I just found a blog that has daily recordings of the Lauds from the Divine Office. 

• If you meet a little girl whose non Christian parents are from  Cameroon, Uganda, Niger, Ghana, Togo, Iraq, Benin, Yemen, Central African Republic ,Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania ,Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Mali, Eritrea, Egypt, Djibouti, Guinea and most especially, Somalia chances are that she's been or will be mutilated. Parents used to send their daughters home for "a visit" to get it done because they knew this didn't fly in America. Now we have doctors who are cocky enough to do it right in here.
  
  
  
• Sometime this Summer I think Rocky and I will visit the Benedictine monastery in Richmond and see if we can get a viewing of their Shroud of Turin exhibit. 

• St. Padre Pio's relics are going to  be at St. Ann's in Arlington, Virginia in May. 

• In your charity could you please pray for the repose of the soul of one of my mother's neighbors? I'll call her Mrs. Stone. About two years ago she took up with a man who was young enough to be her son. Her friends tried to warn her that this was dangerous but she refused to listen.  Eventually, Mrs. Stone's neighbors and relatives realized that they never saw her anymore and that whenever someone tried to call or visit her, the gigolo always had an excuse as to why she could not come to the phone. Finally someone called the police and she was found in her bedroom in a near comatose state.  She died in the hospital the next day.  Mama is pretty upset about this.

• The Orthodox have married priests and yet they have  had pedophilia cases. Rabbi's get married and yet rabbi's have been arrested for seducing boys.  In order to avoid the mess of a dating pastor some  Baptist congregations never  hire a pastor unless he shows  up to the first interview already married. The situation of the married preacher having sex with women members of the church is such a common story it's the subject of many, many jokes, books and films. Those married preachers have been caught with under-aged boys and girls too.  A lot of church's have had scandal, misery and financial expense over the Youth Minister.
  
  The pervert who enjoys sex with pre-pubescent children or teenagers is a crafty monster.  He will assume any disguise in order to get access to them. He will marry a woman he has no sexual interest in just to get at her children and in some cases, their friends. He will join organizations that cater to children. The Boy Scouts have paid out a lot of money due to  predatory Scout Masters.  Numerous Summer camps have had "trouble" with married and presumed normal, camp counselors molesting the young campers.  A new story about teachers and their students seems to make the headlines every day. Dedicated perverts have sat for years in seminary  classrooms and gotten themselves ordained in order to  hide behind a clerical collar or cassock. Do you actually think that sex with a woman or even just a farcical marriage can cure perverted sexual desires? That's about as pitiful and dangerous as the South African men who cling to the filthy superstition that sex with a virgin will cure AIDS.