Mass in a Mask

Northern Virginians were allowed to go back to Mass on May 29. Rocky and I went to St. Thomas Moore Cathedral. It was unpleasant. Sitting with my mask on from the time we went in for confession to the end of Mass actually made me dizzy. I kept having to take the mask off and ignored anyone who decided to look at me instead of the altar. Air conditioning really would have helped. Catholics in DC and the Arlington diocese are still dispensed from Mass indefinitely and I may take advantage of that because frankly I felt  physically worse during Mass than I have during this entire Corona crap nightmare.

another doubtful beatification?

I've seen books about Marthe Robin in Catholic bookstores but never paid much attention. Apparently she's up for beatification and some people have doubts. 

The Church already has some embarrassing beatifications and canonizations from the past 30 years so God willing if this woman was a fake it will be exposed.

A wild memory and random thoughts on a beautiful Saturday afternoon

• What the heck is going on with Michael Voris's hair? When did it become platinum blonde and why does it look like JFK Jr.'s hair when he was a toddler?
  
• When I was 13, my father died. The next month I was walking to school and saw a man dressed in a shiny white suit and shoes. He was standing at the bus stop and looked at me with a kind smile. He seemed to glow.  I immediately thought it was the angel of death. My state of mind in that terrible time was that if my father could die then anything was possible. I walked toward him and then to my surprise, past him. I got to the corner and looked back. He was gone. Later I mentioned the episode to my mother. She told me that the man was in white probably because it was Spring and he just felt like busting out in his white suit. He smiled, she explained because he was probably a pleasant man who saw a pleasant and wholesome sight: a nice looking child in a Catholic school uniform going to school. She also pointed out that the glowing effect I saw was just the sun on all that white polyester. She went on to explain further that he was gone when I looked back because he was at a bus stop. The bus must have come and gone and I just didn't notice because I was so stunned. 
  I responded,"Oh! You're right," and then told her that I was still proud of myself because I didn't cry or try to run but went straight to my destiny like a grown person should. My poor mother sat down and tried to say something wise. Instead she just hugged me and said, "Oh baby." I imagine that some days she must have felt like lion tamer with a particularly wild cat.
  
  
• I don't understand the whole British NHS cult thing. They've been told to stay away from the hospital and hide at home in isolation to protect the NHS and not cause the doctors and nurses to be overwhelmed with unimportant cases while battling Corona. But isn't the purpose of a national health service to serve the people? If they aren't taking care of the sick then what the heck are they getting paid for?
  
  
  
• My dad used to say that one day the scientists were going to cook up something in the lab that would kill us all. I'd always laugh at his joke but I understood that he was telling me, through humor that Dr. So&So can be a crook or fanatic or wrong just like anyone else and that I should worship nobody but God.
• Joe Biden says that any black person who does not vote for him is not black. So I guess the whole Civil War thing never happened and Joe actually has pride of ownership over black people's votes if not their bodies. I'm reminded of the Louisiana Democrat who boasted and was correct that the only way he'd lose his race would be if he got caught with a live boy or a dead girl in his bed. Joe was incredibly insulting and he's been given a pass by the media because he's the Democrat.
• My old parish is having communion services. My current parish is sticking to You Tube Mass. Rocky wants no part of either choice.
  
• Dear bishops and clergy of Minnesota, the worst the governor can do to you is arrest you. Fr. Kowalski, pray for us.

I'm wearied to my back teeth by Father Z

Once upon a time in the 60s an archbishop looked at a parish and decided that the church wasn't being used enough. Without telling the parishioners or the parish priest he announced that he was giving the property to the federal government. The church and school would be torn down and turned into public housing. The parishioners didn't take this lying down. Eventually protesters surrounded the archbishop's limousine  and screamed, "Give us our church back you son of a bitch!" The archbishop had been accustomed to adulation for most of his career and was so shocked that he had his driver leave the area. He backed down and resigned later that year. The archbishop was Fulton Sheen.

I'm not saying I approve of the Rochester folks' language but the concept of reminding a bishop that he works for God and is supposed to care for his people and not act like Simon Legree and the slaves, is not new.

In the present day Bishop Stika of Tennessee has told his people that they can only have Communion in the hand and has Tweeted that anyone who creates a scene will be kicked out. He has also Tweeted that angry Catholics have called his office and been insulting. He even accuses people of being mean and threatening to the elderly lady answering the phone at his office. Bishop Stika has said some wild things in the past. He's danced on the razor's edge of heresy and fell over on occasion.

So considering the source of the accusation why does Father Z. trust  with no reservation what Bishop Stika says and just lambastes  Catholics as being selfish, cruel jackasses. Father Z has disappointed me so many times that I just stopped reading his blog years ago. His great strength is  cooking posts, travelogues, jokes and cozy-come-sit-by-fire-and-bring-your-drink tales and that's okay but it wasn't enough to keep my attention. "Brick by brick" may have been a decent strategy when JPII was alive and even when Benedict was timidly reigning but it stinks like five day old fish now.

 I understand that he believes that traditional Catholics should behave like the French Resistance in WWII : smile, be pleasant, speak softly and don't attract hostile attention so you can secretly act. He'll never stand openly. He'll always smack the sheep around if they get out of line and he'll always encourage us to grin and be loudly thankful when a bishop allows a traditional Mass in the worse neighborhood in his diocese.

 I'm tired of traditional priests constantly putting traditional Catholics down. I'm tired of feeling like   most of the "leaders" of Trad Inc. are really running a managed opposition campaign.

random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon

Saint Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us

• Church Militant TV started out as Real Catholic TV. Now its become something of a  folie a deux.
  
  
• I'm sick of the word "grooming." A grown man who pays lavish attention, buys gifts and seduces a young girl or boy and then sells them to other grown men for money is just a plain ole nasty vicious pimp.  Primly saying "grooming" is like spraying lavender water in a stall that hasn't been mucked out in ages. A grown man who seduces an underage girl and calls her his secret girl friend and loses interest in her once she's 18 is just a pervert. Let's not sugar coat these people.
  
  
  
• Is Pope Francis really Catholic or is he just a cultural and career-wise Catholic? I'm not trying to be funny and I'm not being sarcastic. Argentina has a lot of witchcraft and I don't mean silly college girls playing with love spells and candles. I mean the real stuff; the pre-Columbian paganism and folkways mixed with frank Satanism. This is not unique to Argentina or Latin America. Here in America  there are people don't have a problem going to a root doctor (a witch) and still going to church.  The thought about how Francis was raised and what he marinated in as a young man came to me a few years ago when I was watching a nature program of all things. The host was in the country-side in  Argentina and saw a crossroads shrine to a bandit-"saint", The host noted that the villagers were Catholic but also were at ease with something close to voodoo or santeria. I wondered if this doesn't explain part of what is wrong with Francis.
  
  Remember when he joked that he doesn't go to the doctor instead he goes to the witch? Ever wonder why he's so anti-normal Catholicism and saving souls but seems to love pagans and primitivism? This all came back to me when I read about the pope's latest joke.  My father-in-law used to say that when he was deployed to Turkey he found Istanbul to be quite sophisticated and modern but when he went out to the rest of the country and saw the villages it was like going back centuries. Maybe outside of Buenos Aires it's like that too, to an extent and perhaps, Francis consciously or not,  embraces the old folk ways and the "simple" people  as part of his cultural heritage.
  
  
  
  
•  Hey bishop of Kansas do you have anything to say about this? After May 6, people going to church will be required to give their names and contact information. The church is apparently required to also take note of when the people arrive and leave.