random thoughts

• The next time someone tries to tell you how much more sophisticated Europeans are ask them about the use of the bodies of aborted and miscarried infants to heat hospitals in the UK.  Sophisticated? Nope. Neo pagan is more like it. One out of every ten babies born in England are Muslim. Since they obviously do not love life in Albion perhaps the Lord is giving their land to others.
  
• There seems to be a lot of interest in Orthodoxy or the Bzyantine Catholic rite these days. I've encountered a number of Catholic people who are seriously talking about heading East.
• Steve Skojec is worried.    He's a serious family man,occasionally quite funny and a very good writer. He's no fake mystic or one of those poor people who waste their money running after false apparitions. The man comes across as  a solid regular guy who gets on with the business of living without whining  and probably knows his way around a barbecue grill. I can't pooh pooh him even if I wanted to. Our Lady said certain things would happen without great penance.   These things are horrible but they will be as direct punishment and as consequence for the actions of bad Catholics.
  
  
• I wish that everybody who seems to want a war with Russia would get up, take their own children if they even have any,  form their own Abraham Lincoln brigade, go to Urkaine and leave the rest of us out of it.
  
  
  
• I'm not going to see Noah. A movie has to be incredible for me to go to the theater and this one is not. For one thing the sight of him in  pants long before they'd been invented makes me giggle, and turning Methuselah into a wizard is just foul. On top of that  I've noticed that every single time someone says "Hey Catholics, we need to support this movie," it's been a bad movie.
  
  
  
• A 90 year old man died recently and one of his nieces arranged to have 30 days of Masses said for his soul. Another relative said this wasn't necessary because at Uncle X's age how much sin could he have? That's a mistake. The elderly are human just like anybody else, have souls to save and not all are wise. Never automatically canonize somebody when they die. Pray for them. As St. Bernadette a real saint once said to her sisters, "You will say I am in Heaven and  leave me roasting in Purgatory."
  
  
  
• I attended a beautiful funeral of another 90 year old Catholic man. He had 8 children and none of them are Catholic. One is an angry atheist, one became Jewish, the others seem to flirt with Buddhism or are Protestant or are "Christian" but unchurched. What a tragedy.
  
  
  
• Whenever I hear people say "Oh don't be like the Amish. Catholics are supposed to be in the world," I know that I'm listening to someone who knows nothing about the Amish. They are in the world. In the course of their working lives they come in contact with us all the time, they go to Walmart and other bargain priced grocery stores and have no problem with us coming to their businesses as long as we are decently dressed. The Amish are not dreamy poseurs but  are incredibly practical people. They know more about us than we know about them and many of the ones I've met seemed to be amused by us. So, if a Catholic family wants to live a less commercial life in the country and can make a go of it without killing themselves or their animals---good for them as long as they stay Catholic and do not fall into cult like behavior.