Random thoughts and rattled nerves

• In the last few weeks I've come to admire pro-life workers even more than I ever did before. They risk enduring violent attacks, arrest, rough treatment while in jail, and verbal abuse every day they go out to protest or pray. But the worst thing, I've come to see must be the stabs in the back they get from their fellow Catholics.  I'm beginning to believe that a good chunk of the people in the chanceries and the pews would like to forget about abortion altogether. Oh they'll donate to the local Unwed Mother's Home and they'll show up for the Life Mass----maybe, but they are embarrassed by anything else.
  
  
  
• I read a couple of blog post decrying celebrity priests and I thought do you mean like Father Baker, Fr. Flanagan, Fr. Bessette, Fr. Casey, Archbishop Sheen or Father Peyton?  Not every priest is meant for parish life. God has different jobs for all of us. I don't have a dog in the Father Pavonne fight  and never paid much attention to him at all but I'm shocked at how many bloggers have turned against him. Did they hate him all along or are they just instinctively reacting like a wolf pack that has come across a wounded beast?
  
  
  
• The Pentagon says that military chaplains may perform same sex marriages. Of course nobody believes this is the end game. The next shoe to drop will be that chaplains will be ordered to do such weddings. In six months to a year some poor Catholic chaplain is going to be in trouble because he'll refuse to say a Nuptial Mass or give the Nuptial blessing without Mass to a homosexual copule. I hope I'm wrong. Betcha I'm not.
  
  
  
• One of my relatives is very ill and after my mother and I were  finally  able to visit-- barge in actually-- and see for ourselves what's really going on we discovered that this relative is in appalling living conditions. I've contacted  authorities and social workers and I'm working on a rescue plan but it makes me sick to think that my relative actually came to this state. I'll write more about it later but I haven't slept well since. I guess I must be suffering from a form of delayed shock but the urge to sit and wail or vomit is very strong. Christ in Heaven, oh sweet merciful Christ! I just can't believe what I saw this week. The only comfort I've been able to find is in the rosary and in this painting by James Tissot. I know that Jesus is right there with my relative in the middle of the awfulness. 

Random thoughts

• Some amateur bloggers, mommy bloggers in particular but I've seen dad's do it too, tell too much about their teen aged or adult children. One Catholic blogger I occasionally read isn't shy about discussing her child's former drug problem. The constant harping on this sad time in their lives leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It comes off as passive aggression. If the kid gave permission to tell this story to the world it's not a betrayal of trust but it since the blogger uses her and the kid's real names and photos this is not helpful to the kid's future. I'm a law librarian. When I'm not looking up laws and government regulations I am sometimes called upon to search for witnesses or to find out what I can on a potential client. I always start with the free publicly available search engines, news and blogs. One day someone like me is going to do a search on this blogger's child and will read about the drug problem. The kid's resume will go straight to the trash.  Thanks a lot mom.

• How long does a person have to be dead before we can speak the truth about them? When Betty Ford died Jill Stanek wrote frankly about Mrs. Ford's abortion activities and did not wish her well. The Anchoress chided Miss Stanek on her blog and I  wonder why she thought Miss Stanek was so wrong. Betty Ford was a big time abortion supporter. How big? Well she was publicly for abortion back in the early 70s and she created a politcal action comittee to funnel money to pro-abortion Republican candidates. Betty may have been a lot of fun at parties and the epitome of charm and refinement  but slaughtering prenatal babies meant a lot to her. I see no reason to be nice about that.

• A Knights of Columbus chapter recently opened up at my parish. The head knight is a good guy and the knights do good work but Rocky won't be joining. Primarily, because he's just too busy and second, because the national leadership of the Knights just aren't what they used to be. Michael Voris has decided to leave the KoC and talks about his reasons here.

•  A friend of mine had to have a colonoscopy and she was very frightened about it. My husband dedicated his weekly  holy hour to praying for her. If you ever get gloomy about the state of the Church or if it ever seems like the people in your diocese are the biggest Candyland Catholics you've ever seen, go to Adoration. Tell you fears, worries and troubles to Jesus and He will restore you. While doing our holy hour we prayed with whites, Hispanic, Asian, old and young people. Seeing those quiet, loving, pious people always gives me such a lift.
  
  I know some bloggers are quite frank about their distaste for pious, devotional people. I can't agree. I'd rather be like the decidely unhip little woman at church who always kneels to the floor when passing the Blessed Sacrament than the cool kid, oh so sophisticated Catholics who mock her and people like her.
  
  
• This is a magnificent painting of St. Claire by Ardith Starostka.
  

*Little Way is absolutely correct. Nobody , except perhaps a humble saint somewhere who was given divine knowledge, knows where Betty Ford ended up. In her last moments she may have repented. However calling foul behavior heroic as some of her hagiographers did is going too far.