Theology of the Body gives me the creeps

Never trust anybody who spends their whole life talking about sex. Whether, it's Hugh Hefner, who is at least an open, honest pervert, the TV and radio love doctors, your "funny" uncle whom you were never allowed to be alone with, or the old Cottonmouthed neighborhood guy that all the kids were told to stay away from.

The sex obsessed freak is oftentimes an authority figure. All these stories we read about teachers preying on students aren't a new thing. It's always gone on but now they get reported. Frequently sex bores and fanatics have big fancy credentials. They went to an institute in Europe, or they wrote a lot of papers or like Dr. Kinsey, a real monster, they had a gulliable press who believed everything they said. The Theology of the Body people give me the creeps especially when I read stuff like this:

At a TOB meeting, Dr. Janet Smith stated that God is a stalker and that all lovers are pathological stalkers. I know the woman was just going for dramatic effect but this too much. I wouldn't go to this person for advice about love or God or much of anything.

Fr. Loya, whom I've never heard of before, but is apparently a big chief in the TOB tribe said that "TOB is not a big idea. It is THE big idea." I thought the big idea was Jesus.

To the SSPX folks

Some squirrely, people on Fisheaters.com * engaged in name calling aimed toward Charlotte at Cheeky Pink Girl. That wasn't very gentlemanly and she has a spirited response for them, but this dust up got me to thinking. I know that many people were hurt during the Vat II era. I recall reading about a man who was a teenager at the time, who witnessed his mother being brutally insulted by a fanatical get-with-the-times priest because she was praying the "old fashioned" rosary AFTER Mass. I get why people were left with scars and bitterness.

I know traditional/orthodox (pick your term) minded Catholics have been treated badly even today. Anyone who balked at the zeitgeist-- "Why did you move the Blessed Sacrament down the hall?", " Why is the lector wearing a mini dress and why do we have to see her underwear when she bows?" "Why doesn't Fr. give communion anymore but sits and lets the EMCs do it? "Why do you want to strip my baby naked and plunk his butt in the baptismal font and wave him around like Simba in the Lion King?" "Why is the choir singing music from Phantom of the Opera?"---were told to sit down and shut up.

Some people reacted by taking the blue pill and telling themselves that as long as they stayed away from parish activities, avoided the priest outside of Mass, and stayed away from butch nuns everything would be fine. Other people either took the red pill and decided to fight or they took the red pill and realized that things weren't fine but were too damned tired and chose to fight no more forever. Yeah, there's been pain in the pews but we have sympathetic pope now. I'll repeat that. We have a sympathetic pope. He's holding his hand out; don't be fools and slap it away while you go pout in the basement. What I've said about the Sr. Chisseters, the Pelosis, Fr. Rohr's and O'Briens and the snooty Anglo Caths who say they'd be willing to convert if it wasn't for our ugly churches and lame music, goes for the SSPX as well. You can not be Catholic but with conditons. Lyndon Johnson once said it was better to have enemies inside the big tent pissing out than standing outside pissing in but I'd prefer that the SSPX and others on the left side of the spectrum stop the flow altogehter. Either you're in or you're out. Make up your minds. If you are in, welcome. We'll work things out somehow. If you're out, say so and get the heck on down the road.

I personally am grateful when I find a reverent Mass, whether it's Novus Ordo or TLM. For those who don't like the NO, that's okay. Thanks to Pope Benedict you can go to an approved TLM. Yeah, you may have to drive for hours but the Mass IS available somewhere and the numbers of TLMs are increasing. My own parish St. Rita is now going to have the TLM every Thursday evening at 7:30, plus a Holy Hour on Wednesdays.

The good Lord has handed the the SSPX and the church in general, a great opportunity. Don't listen to Bishop Williamson and blow it. I hope Pope Benedict lives a long, happy life but let's face it. He aint Methuselah. The next pope could say, "To heck with it. They're all excommunicated." Opportunity is knocking at the door. It's time to answer it or go the way of the Old Catholics a sect unknown to most of the Catholic world.

*I read Fisheaters and occasionally comment. There are good, sensible people posting and commenting at that site but there is a nutter element as well. I've read comments that made me raise my eyebrow and wonder as to whether the commenter has ever left his parents home, spoken to a woman without breaking into a nervous sweat or held a job that wasn't at a Catholic organizaion where a sympathetic friend or relative pulled strings to get him in.

Feverish thoughts on two movies

Well I'm sick today. I've been hit with a Summer cold for the first time in ages. I am cold but my skin feels hot. My bones hurt, my ribs ache from all the coughing, my glands are huge and my nose has rendered me socially unacceptable. So I'm confined to quarters and wandering from the sofa to the bed. Thanks to the Nyquil I've been having some pretty loopy dreams. The last one involved me lecturing a class on Christian lessons to be found in movies. Odd but when I woke up I thought for who knows how long about two movies in particular.

Ben Hur is one my all time favorites and I actually do think of it often when I'm heading up to communion. There's a scene where Judah has finally found his mother and sister and is trying to get them to Jesus so the Lord can heal their leprosy. When they discover that Our Lord has been crucified Judah thinks it's too late and he falls to his knees to weep, not only for his family but because he know Jesus has done no wrong. Then the rain starts and the Precious Blood flows down Golgotha to where Judah and his family are. His mother and sister are healed. When I go up to communion the prayer, "Oh Jesus, heal me of my sinfulness, the leprosy of my soul," frequently comes to mind.

And there's How Green Was My Valley, a movie that everyone passionately loves but I really don't care for. Roddy McDowell was adorable but a terrible thing is done by the "good guys" and no critic seems to have picked up on it. Aangharad and Mr. Gryfud, preacher are in love but she marries the son of the mine owner, with Gryfud presiding. They ruin a man's life but come off as the hero and heroine of the movie. It's funny. As a child I liked the movie but as a grown married woman I was repelled. Time is a real sentiment wrecker.

the race thing again

I was reading an essay by a doctor who was horrified when a black aquaintance told him that well-to-do blacks go on all black cruises---gasp, and have guest speakers like Louis Farakhan. From this the doctor concluded that a race war is on the way. He figured that if educated black people were paying to hear Farakhan speak then the underlass is just a roiling cauldron that's fixing to bubble over any year now.

I think the doc either heard what he wanted to hear or he simply got punked, as the kids say. Farakhan is old, and sick with prostate cancer. He doesn't travel like he used to and I don't think he'd be happy on a boat with alcohol, gambling, pork and women in bikins. Yes, there are all black cruises. Usually it's family reunions, associations, sororities, fraternities, music festivals and the like. I don't see what's so frightening about that.

Now, I do believe that the Obama era has worsened race relations. There has been stupidity on all sides. Rocky and I went to one of the black parishes in our diocese and found a framed photo of Obama on the wall next to MLK and St. Martin de Pores. I was so upset my stomach churned. Obama is not a saint, he's not the reward for our ancestors surviving slavery. He's not a prophet, prince or mesisah. As the economy tanks I think people, except for the creepy true believers are starting to wake up but I fear that it's too little too late, like the people who realized that Jim Jones was a monster right before their neighbors forced the Kool-Aid down their throats.

Lord have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

Lord have mercy.

St. Martin, pray for us.

St. Moses, pray for us.

St. Katherine Drexel, pray for us.

St. Josephine, pray for us.
Henriette deLile, pray for us.
Mother Mary Lange, pray for us.

St. Rocco Day

He's not the patron saint of kids with skint knees. You can read about him here.

a blow upon a bruise

The drunk driver who killed Sr. Denise Mosier was being represented by Catholic Charities in his deportation proceedings. So, when you give to Catholic Charities you are helping people who have broken the laws of our country beat the rap. Doesn't that make you feel all warm and cuddly inside?

The Assumption

favorite devotion meme

Charlotte of Cheeky Pink Girl tagged me to play in the five favorite devotions meme. She's right, I'm not much for memes but here goes........

My five favorite memes are:

1. The rosary. I started praying the rosary every night after my father died when I was 13. Today I try to pray at least a decade every day. It is such a huge comfort to me. It's like sitting in Mary's lap.
   
2. The Severn Sorrows of Mary. I love this devotion. Mary promised that she will assist those who say this devotion at the hour of their death.
   
   
3. The Divine Mercy chaplet.
   
4. The St. Therese chaplet.
   
5. The 7 churches pilgrimage on the night of Holy Thursday. This one is a favorite of Rocky's as well. In Europe, Rome especially, people walk from church to church. We drive. It's usually around midnight when we finish but it's so worth it to sit or kneel or lie prostrate near Jesus in the various altars of repose.

Hail Mary, full of grace

Random thoughts

• I wish people would stop comparing Michelle Obama to Marie Antoinette. Antoinette was a vivacious young girl who didn't have a mean bone in her body. She was modest, charitable, gentle, well meaning and at the end of her life, a woman of enormous courage, dignity and grace. When urged to flee for her life she declined and chose to stay with her husband. She NEVER said, "Let them eat cake," that was a complete lie spread by her enemies and perpetuated by the ignorant.

• A growing number of conservatives and Catholics are saying that in the wake of the gay "marriage" decision in California it's just a matter of time before it's the law of the land and that the rest of us should just drop out of the whole civil marriage thing. They argue that the goverment shouldn't be involved in marriage anyway and that we all ought to go to our churches, synogauges, worship spaces, fetish huts or whatever floats your spiritual boat and get married that way. That sounds okay but do you really think the professional gays will be satisfied? If we abandon civil marriage---and I'm okay with that--- they will eventually follow us into our churches and demand to be married there. It's not about tolerance, it's about rubbing our noses in crap and making us say "thanks."
  
  
• I find the Inside Catholic site to be nigh on underable now. Between the new design and the recent low quality of the essays I think I'll skip it and read Creative Minority Report instead.
  
  
• My family reunion was great but a bit sad. One cousin has been blinded in one eye by glaucoma, another is still vital but is showing signs of age, an aunt has gone deaf... I found myself looking fondly around the room and wishing that I could stop time and keep everyone together healthy, laughing, just as we are. It was a childish wish I know but I was feeling tender and sentimental.
  
  
• Abortion really doesn't fix anything. The 1930s and '40s singer/actress Jeanette McDonald got pregnant out of wedlock while filming one of what became one of her biggest hits. The head of the studio told her to have an abortion. Jeanette told her sweetheart, Nelson Eddy that she'd miscarried. He didn't believe her and broke off their relationship. She lost her child and the one man she really wanted but she had the cold comfort of her career. Years later Eddy forgave her but by that time she was too old for childbearing and he'd married another.
  I thought about Jeanette when I read about the death of actress Patricia Neal. Patricia fell in love with Gary Cooper but he was married so she had an abortion. Both Gary and Patricia later converted or in her case, returned to Catholicism. She had a brilliant career but made it clear that she spent the rest of her life wishing that she'd gone ahead and had her baby.
  
  
• It's a mistake to call radical Muslims Medieval thinkers or use the term as an insult. In the Middle Ages Catholics built the first universities, castles that still stand, and the great cathedrals. They wrote poetry, sang songs and composed music that is still performed today. A Medieval queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine married the king of France, went on a crusade. Legend has it that she and her ladies rode to war dressed like Amazons. She divorced her boring husband and fell in love with Henry Plantagenent who became king of England. When she fell out of love with Henry she instigated a revolt against him and although it failed she survived the defeat, ultimately triumphed and lived to see two her sons crowned king. You think the Muslim world could've produced such a woman? And what about Saints Genvieve, Anthony, Gertrude, Francis, Dominic, Augustine of Cantebury,Leo, or Thomas? Our age has obviously not bred such powerful saints. The Middle Ages were a fascinating, complex, time, an age of legends.
  
  
  

Priesthood in South Carolina

Riding the Crescent

I'm on the Crescent (named after the Crescent city because it goes all the way to New Orleands), train headed to South Carolina for my family reunion. I love train travel. Rocky, my mother and I had a delicous meal in the dinning car and then went back to our seats. The only tiny little flaw is that we have a bunch of people from New Jersey on board. The guys aren't so bad but the women sound like a bunch of geese honking.

Rest in peace,

Sister Denise Mosler was killed yesterday by a drunk driver. He was an illegal immigrant who'd been arrested before for DUI and was awaiting deportation. She was on her way to the convent in Bristow, Virginia. The other nuns who were in the car with her are in serious condition.

Eternal rest grant unto her Oh Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace.

With all due respect

Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala of Los Angeles recently made a comment about bloggers:

"We are particularly concerned about blogs that engage in attacks and hurtful judgmental language. We are very troubled by blogs and other elements of media that assume the role of magisterium and judge others in the church."

Bishop Zavala I wish you were particularly concerned about how ignorant the average American Catholic child is, or the day in and day out abuses of the Mass but no, you and your brothers are fretting about me speaking my mind.

Anne Rice

Well, Anne Rice has decided to quit Christianity. I wish I was surprised but really, if you look at poor Mrs. Rice it was just a matter of time. In many ways she's led a very sad life. Her parents are dead, her mother was an alcoholic who died from it when she was 13. Her little daughter died, her sister and husband died and her son is gay. She must feel like dandelion fluff in the wind.

I've never read her greatest literary work, Interview With a Vampire because when I was 14 I walked into book store and picked up what I thought was a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. It was one Rice's "erotic" novels, actually it was grotesque beyond my ability to describe it. I read a couple of paragraphs and was so shocked that I left the store and never had the slightest desire to touch anything by her ever again.

When she had her big splashy reversion to Catholicism I thought it was great for her sake but I also thought the big time bloggers and Catholic intellectuals who lavishly praised her autobiography and her blasphemous Jesus books--- seven year old Jesus striking a bully dead and then apologetically raising him back to life, a young Jesus having a chaste but angst ridden romance with a girl from Cana????--- were nuttier than a Benedictine fruit cake. I am comforted by the fact that most notable priests and bishops did not join the bandwagon.

Where there's life there's hope and the story is not over for Mrs. Rice. I don't think Our Lady, and St. Therese, whose statues have decorated her homes, are done with her. However, there's a lesson here: Remember the parable of the sower. And if you want to read about the life of Our Lord get a copy of Archbishop Sheen' book or Father Giuseppe Ricciotti's scholarly work.

The Virgin sleeping in the home of her parents

ugly truth is better than pretty lies

A lot of people are shocked (oh come on!) and horrified by the new story about a gay priest scandal in Rome. A reporter followed priests to gay clubs and watched them have sex with other men, which IS the whole point of going to a gay club. I can't figure out why anybody is surprised by this. Let's face it. For the last few decades the church has been heavily effeminate.

Over the years I've seen article after article asking where the Catholic men are. These articles mostly discussed theories as to why men weren't going to Mass or taking part in parish life but what a lot of people whispered was "Where are the manly priests?"

Read Goodbye Good Men some time and you'll get an idea of what the hell went wrong in our seminaries. One of my dear friends went to the Redemptorist seminary back in the 80s. He and all of his friends left because they could not stomach the open homosexuality. The last straw for my friend was when he walked in on an attempted seduction scene between a professor and a seminarian. He reported what he saw and was told to hush up and forget it.

Have you noticed how middle aged priests speak very carefully about their seminary days? Most don't seem to remember it fondly and say that they had to spend a lot of time keeping silent in order to get through and be ordained. The seminaries were a gay kingdom/playground for a long time and yes, we are reaping the miserable results. And there's something else: a lot of church women prefer a girly priest because he's more likely to let them have their way in running the parish. Until a scandal breaks out they're secretly delighted that their parish repels men. Scandals come but truth is better than lies. We need to face the truth and demand that the bishops clean up the cesspool. Until then we will keep on hearing about false hearted priests who use parish money to keep their lovers, Judases who abuse boys, and priests who preach a weak, strange gospel.

give converts a break

I was reading yet another snippy comment on a blog about converts and sighed. My husband is a convert of five years and he's a better Catholic than I, who was baptized at age nine.
He's a better Catholic than most of the Catholics I know. Last year a number of cradle Catholics asked him to take over managing the young adult bible study. He declined because of his work schedule.
Now I know it's true that there are a bunch of former Evangelical converts who have become obnoxious with their apologetics businesses. I don't care for these people. When I'm in a Catholic bookstore or at an event with books I pass right by their wares.

I've read defenders of the apologetics businessmen that argue that many of these guys were preachers and it's all they know so lay preaching and teaching is the only way they can make a living. I once read the blog of a married priest in South Carolina who enthusiastically praised Mark Shea for being so heroic. Me, being a smart alec wrote in, along with some other commenters that I didn't see what was so heroic. Father responded by saying it was heroic that Shea was giving himself fully to teaching us when he could've had a pleasant life in his old church. Since this blogger is an ordained priest I didn't say what I really thought and let it go.

There's a huge difference from the professionals and the passionate convert sitting next to you at Mass. The professionals are irritating but don't let them poison your view of converts in general. It's just not fair. Oh and one more thing, every single one of the first Catholics were converts. I think Sts. Paul, Peter, Martha, John, the Magdalene, James, and Jude and the others are pretty good company to be in.

Oh Bristol, Bristol, Bristol

Oh baby, I know Levi is kinda cute and he obviously has the sad puppy eyes and the silver tounge thing down pat but sweetie, darling if you marry him you'll end up supping at Sorrow's 24 hour diner with a long spoon.

Loved the Amish, hated Philly

On our last day in the lovely Pennslyvania Dutch country we came across a benefit auction for Haiti. There were hundreds of parked buggies and swarms of well mannered happy kids. Amish ladies sewed and donated over 100 quilts, there was furniture, food, and crafts for auction as well. I have great respect for the Amish in general but I was especially touched by the kindness of these people.

The next day Rocky and I went to Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love was an experience. The visitor's center is poorly arranged, confusing and had only one set of smelly restrooms that were at the end of a looooong hallway. And while the civilian staff was fine, the park rangers were shockingly rude and unhelpful. We got into the line at one o'clock but were curtly told us that we could not get into Independence Hall until the five o'clock tour. Okay, could we buy tickets for the five o'clock tour? Nope. Come back at five and wait. Gee, thanks.

Another ranger yelled at Rocky because he wanted him to move away from the ladies room. Rocky politely but firmly let the ranger know that no, he wasn't loitering, he was waiting for his wife. Thanks to a combination of heat and something I ate, I was suddenly, miserably, violently sick and took a good twenty minutes to recover. When I finally came out the ranger scowled but said nothing. Since this guy had sat on his butt all day in the nice air conditioned visitor center I don't know what his malfunction was.

Rather than wait around until five we took the Big Bus City tour and it was terrible. The tour buses are dirty, stinky and in run down condition, the windows are small so you can't see anything really unless you're on top of the bus in the double decker level. The buses have no air conditioning and in order to get people off and on quickly they never shut the doors. The highlights of the tour for me were seeing the Rocky steps and statue and the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. The cathedral ambassadors were very nice women and the cathedral is the most beautiful one I've ever seen. I'll go back to Philly one of these days but I'm in no hurry. The city really does a piss poor job handling tourists.