Tuesday, April 15, 2014

random thoughts



*Last year a priest from the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter gave a series of short homilies on the the Passion that have been very useful to hear.



*The weirdest thing about being in my 40s is the frequent feeling of deja vu. I look at the news and realize that I've seen this all before. The media in America whips people into hysteria about this or that epidemic and then when they get tired they go on to something else. My mother refuses to watch any 24 news channel and I see why.


*Today is the anniversary of my father's death. It boggles my mind to think that he's been gone longer now than all the years he was with me. In your charity could you please pray for him?






*Restore-DC-Catholicism: When Emotions Trump Intellect And Will - The Father Ray Kelly Fiasco gently but firmly points out a few things about the Irish singing priest.




 



*There is going to be a Catholic art competition and exhibition in Latrobe, Pennsylvania this Summer. I may have to make a trip up there to see it.



*Bill Donahue of the Catholic League says the pedophilia crisis is over. I think he's wrong. I think it will never be over or at the very least it won't be just a page in the history books  like the dates of the Black Death until most of the people currently on this earth are long dead. Heck, it's been 150 or so years since the Civil War and people still get into heated debates about the cause of that fratricidal conflict.

Twenty years from now people will still be coming forward claiming to be victims or that they know  someone who was victimized. Lives of whole families have been ruined, the suffering went on for decades and for untold numbers of people, it still goes on.  And there is something else---to paraphrase something  a young priest in Texas once said in a speech, knowing as we do now, that these predators were operating unchecked by bishops and cardinals  and certain high ranking or well connected clergy serving at the Vatican has scalded the hearts of untold numbers of people. Men and women have lost their Faith and may never get it back because of what happened. Telling them that most of the men who did these crimes are elderly or dead now doesn't cut it. Especially since we can't be sure that is true.