random thoughts on a Monday afternoon

• I grew up in a non-coffee drinking household so I never understood the lure of Starbucks. Every time I've been in one with friends I either ordered nothing or purchased my lime fizzy water and left. I didn't feel cool, or have some sort of religious experience. I mean, it's just coffee, the stuff that my grandparents used as a remedy for constipation. People act like going to Starbucks is a secular version of walking the Camino del Santiago.

• John Zmirak called Cardinal Cupich "one of the meanest and one of the dumbest." Standing in front of that foul looking crucifix I'd like to add "vicious". 

• I sat through a homily where the priest railed at us about the need to offer tender care for vulnerable, pitiful immigrants. I thought, "Wait a minute. If these people are so helpless and need to be taken care of like babies, how in Sam Hill did they get themselves from their countries to the US?   Why was Father talking about some very tough, resourceful people as if they were sub-normal intellectually or physical invalids? 

•  John Zmirak is talking about heart breaking things -- the venal US bishops who sell us out for government money, the immigrants legal and illegal who lose their Faith after being exposed to parish life in the US, etc. ---but he's so funny it's bearable.
  
  
  
• I dropped my American Association of Law Librarian membership years ago and never renewed. I also did not attend the 2019, convention that was in DC this year. This Federalist article confirms my decision.
  
  
  
• Fr. Faucher of Idaho was a filthy, sadistic pervert to put it as mildly as possible. He used drugs, drank so much that he claims to be suffering from alcoholic dementia and dabbled in Satanism. He hated God, the Church, and his own parishioners so much that he  urinated on a cross,  and into the wine used for Communion. He was so spiritually polluted that the diocese had his house exorcised before putting it on sale. 
  
  Why didn't he just leave the priesthood? I strongly suspect that quietly leaving wouldn't have been any fun. He probably got enormous satisfaction standing there at Mass watching his poor parishioners take the tainted Precious Blood. How he must have mocked them in his mind!  He also probably got pleasure by grinding the Faith down day after day. Can you imagine what he was saying in the confessional or what sly, careful heresies were contained in his homilies? I completely missed coverage of his story in Catholic news and only found mention of it at Ann Bernhardt's blog. 

Home alone is a dangerous practice

Some people say that if you have a heretic for a priest and your parish is just poison and you have no other parish near you then you are justified in staying home and just reading the Mass in your missal.   The temptation is strong for many people to say,"Nuts to this. I'd do better worship to the Lord at home," or the more tragic, "This parish is killing me but I can't go anywhere else so I'm staying home."

 I sympathize and I'm thankful that I've never been in that position. My geographic parish was weird but Rocky and I were to join another parish a few miles down the road. Thank you, Lord. Now that Rocky's work schedule has changed we go to another parish that is also very good. I know many people in different parts of Virginia and the country can't do this and they have to suffer through bad Masses or move. I  read comments from people who have gone the home alone route and they all seem came off as unhinged, (understandable-- faithful Catholics have been gas-lighted   by heretical clergy and the lay professional Catholics for decades), and distrustful of everyone. I've been dismayed by comments from home aloners who finally do get a chance go to a traditional Mass and find fault with everything-- the priest's hair wasn't neat enough, a woman had on short sleeves, the conversation over doughnuts and coffee after Mass was wordly and they conclude that staying home alone is better. This is a dangerous practice. You run the risk of turning into your own pope. You run the risk of turning into an irascible hermit and you might go down the road to being so  so personally  repulsive that anyone who meets you decides to never go to a traditional Mass. And of course, you're running the risk of going to Hell.

Saint Archbishop Sheen? Not So Fast, Please.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen's cause for canonization is underway and he is now a Venerable. Will he be canonized? Probably. Unlike  Paul VI or John XXIII there are actually many people who have been devoted to him for decades and who have been calling for canonization.  Should he be canonized? I'm not sure. When I was younger I would've said "yes," but after re-reading Sheen's works and accounts of his life I'm leaning towards "no." Does this shock you? I loved watching re-runs of archbishop Sheen's show and I was deeply moved by The World's First Love and his Life of Christ.  His 1967, book, however Footprints In A Darkened Forrest was a clunker. I first put it down to age and illness and maybe shell-shock from  his fight with Cardinal Spellman but his enthusiasm for  Fr. Teilhard de Chardin is disturbing:

  “It is very likely that within 50 years when all the trivial, verbose disputes about the meaning of Teilhard's ‘unfortunate’ vocabulary will have died away or have taken a secondary place, Teilhard will appear like John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, as the spiritual genius of the twentieth century.” 

Archbishop Sheen thought that a man like Teilhard de Chardin was a saint. Teilhard either was taken for a fool or participated in one of the greatest scientific hoaxes in history.   He also spent more time digging up bones and talking about secular and occult matters rather than conferring the sacraments.  Archbishop Sheen's was taken in by this man and also thought that Gandhi was a saint. Well, Mrs. Gandhi, their sons and some of his nieces would probably beg to differ.  It doesn't affect his personal holines but it says something about the dear archbishop's discernment.

Now,to be fair, I have to point out that a saint can make a mistake.  The Church does not say that a saint has to be 100%  correct about things that are not essential to the Faith from soup to nuts. St. John Bosco veered into papalotry on occasion in his letters. St. Vincent Ferer thought  that an antipope was the real pope for a time. Canonization requires martyrdom and/or heroic virtue.   

Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen was great in the film studio and was a fine writer.  According to the FBI, his personal habits were beyond reproach. That does not automatically make him worthy of canonization. The canonization process has been cheapened and it's an embarrassment to the Church. St. Josemaria Escriva and Pope St. Paul VI both had highly questionable pasts and are now canonized. This is a scandal to many people and enemies of the Church smirk over the stories of Paul VI's sex life.   Pope Francis is going to do as he pleases but the Church really needs to pull back and return to the intense rigorous process of canonization that we once had. 

Everyone in Heaven is a saint. Most saints have not been canonized. Their lives were hidden in the mists of antiquity or their heroism was known only to God or they did not have enough people working on their cause. Not every saint needs to be canonized. Allowing Fulton Sheen to remain a Venerable for a time or forever is no insult to him. St. Romuald, founder of the Camaldolese order waited over 500 years to be canonized. St. Martin de Pores died in 1639, and was not even beatified until 1837. St. John Fisher was martyred in 1535. He was not canonized until 1935!  There is no need to rush. There's no need to make a mistake that will blow up in the Church's face later. It has to be noted that there are people still living in Rochester who will tell you that the only thing the archbishop did there was to treat them like lab rats.  

If you don't want to get on the Sheen canonization now bandwagon just yet it doesn't mean you are a bad Catholic.  Look beyond the Archbishop's glamour and ask with honest curiosity and open heart if canonization in this case is really to the glory of Our Lord and the edification of His Church.

Our Lady of Good Help

let the hard rain fall

When then Cardinal McCarrick announced that he was going to retire to Mater Dei seminary I was shocked. Considering all the rumors about him it seemed hubristic and an open jab at anyone who was on to him. I remember wondering if anybody thought how bad it all looked. Now the word is out that Cardinal Wuerl is retiring to the John Paul II seminary.  They just don't care that we know.  It's going to break the hearts of many nice people but as long as the Blanches, Donna's and Queens of the Nile are in charge our only hope is that the Lord sends a hard rain of chastisement.

The Visitation

The Visitation

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON A MONDAY MORNING

Our Lady of the Angels, pray for us





• Louie smells a rat.  I think he's right. 

• If you encounter a person who says, "This is my truth," or "Only God can judge me," or "I want to change the world," you are probably in the presence of a narcissist or a flat out sociopath and are about to be cheated, lied to or worse. Run.

• It is Peter's Pence weekend. Complicit Clergy called for a for a boycott.  How did things go at your parish?

• For some reason every year at the start of Summer there seems to be a discussion in blogland and Twitter about annoying children at Mass. I think it has to do with the parents. At my old parish the parents were mostly upper middle class government employees, lawyers and and other professionals. Their kids did a lot screaming, running, kicking and banging. Our new parish has a mix of working class and middle class people and a racial mix. The kids are well behaved. As much as I loved St. Rita's I have to admit I never saw children act the way they did at the Mass we went to at any other parish we've ever visited.
  
  
• Sunday morning I woke up with a migraine and spent an unremembered amount of time with my hands over my face rocking back and forth. Sunday night I heard bubbling coming from the tub. I stood in the doorway and watched as my upstairs neighbor's toilet paper and waste came up into my tub and mercifully went back down. I wondered perhaps in shock what in all the Hells my neighbor has been eating and called maintenance. I told Rocky not to use the tub in the morning and went to bed. Monday morning at work looks fantastic to me.
  
  
  
• One of Rocky's brother Knights had a brain hemorrhage last night. In your charity please pray for him. 

A PRAYER FOR THE REDEMPTION OF BAD PRIESTS

Divine Savior Jesus Christ, Thou are the Good Shepherd who gives His life for His sheep. Oh, be in a very special way the Good Shepherd of those poor lost priests who are also appointed by Thee to be leaders of Thy people, but who have broken the oath of their holy ordination and have become unfaithful to their exalted calling. Bestow upon these poorest of the poor the very fullness of that pastoral solicitude with which Thou dost so faithfully seek the sheep that are lost! Touch their hearts with the irresistible ray of grace which emanates from Thine all-merciful love! Enlighten their minds and strengthen their wills, that they may turn away from all sin and error and come back to Thy holy altar and to Thy people. O most compassionate Savior! Remember that Thou didst once redeem the souls of Thine erring priests with Thy Precious Blood and in infinite preferential love didst impress upon them the indelible character of the priesthood. Put wholly to shame those miserable helpers of Satan who lay snares for the virtue of priests and endanger the holy ideal of the priesthood. Most graciously accept our prayers and sacrifices for poor priests who have gone astray and hear our earnest petition.

 Amen 

Imprimatur - Bishop John F. Noll (April 18, 1948)

St. Anthony of Padua, defender of the Holy Eucharist, obtain for us holy priests

St. John-Mary Vianney, model of sacerdotal holiness, obtain for us holy priests

St. Francis Xavier, patron of missionary priests, obtain for us holy priests

St. Therese of the Child-Jesus and of the Holy Face, victim offered for the sanctification of priests, obtain for us holy priests

Saints and Servants of God, obtain for us holy priests.