Random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon

• Simcha Fisher has attacked Christendom College and indirectly, the young men who go there. She seems to be saying that if a young man doesn't have vent to his sexual urges on campus he's going to blow up and turn into Edward Hyde or the Big Bad Wolf and all college girls are just helpless little lambs.

• Last week a woman posted a video of her husband sliding down the drive way  and finally falling and slamming into the mailbox. She said he was unhurt and fine with her posting the video and the thing went viral. It is funny but only until you stop to think about it.  This woman turned her husband into a figure of fun for thousands of people around the country.  Is that respectful? Is that loving? Would she have mocked her neighbors like that? If the husband had thought it was cute to show the world a  video of her slipping and trying frantically not to fall would people laugh or would they criticize him? Why is mocking your husband in public so acceptable?
  
  
  
• St. Mary's in Old Town, Alexandria has been made a minor basilica.   That gives us two in Virginia. The other one is in Norfolk. Rocky and I have been to St. Mary's many times and we visited the Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception once on vacation.
  
  
  
  
• We had a lot of  young college age visitors at Mass this week because of the March for Life. That was very nice to see.
  
  
  
• My brother-in-law invited us to his wedding. Since he is already married and because he's told us how much he dislikes us we looked at the invitation is some wonder and  did not attend.  Was it awkward? Not really. We haven't heard a word of complaint from him. 
  
  
  
• It's time for a revival of the beguine option.  The current pope doesn't seem too friendly to cloistered nuns or monks and the religious orders are subject to the whims of tradition hating bishops. In Oklahoma the bishop ordered a fledgling order to leave his diocese and in Texas a bishop ordered the Poor Clare nuns in his diocese to leave. This is going to keep on happening but lay men or women who live together and serve God would not be subject to any shenanigans. Let's say three or four lay women move into a house or apartment together and go to Mass, volunteer to visit the parish sick, and privately choose celibacy there is nothing the most liberal bishop can do about it.  A priest who has nothing to say about two male parishioners holding hands and kissing on church grounds wouldn't have a leg to stand on in he decided to harass the devout men and their roommates who come to Adoration or say the Little Office together at church.