Halloween has gotten out of hand

When I was a child Halloween was for kids. Now it has decayed into something very low and nasty. When Rocky and I stepped out of church after Mass I saw four adults in Haloween costumes. One was a vampire and one was dressed as a prostitute and one was a cowboy. I'm not sure what the last one was because I looked away before I got a good look at him.  They were loud but looked away when parishioners glanced at them. When the church bells rang the Halloween revelers began wildly rocking back and forth toward the ground. I assume it was some sort of mockery of holy things  but as we hurried into our car I  wondered why these people felt the need to come to a Catholic church.

It's been a sickening week--- I binged on some restorative talks, crafts and a big boom

Holy Day of Obligations away from your own parish can be an adventure.

Mass was weird last night. Rocky was feeling bad so we did not go to the 7:30 PM Mass but went to an earlier one at St. Anthony's in Falls Church. We sat down in our pew and four or five teen aged girls sat down behind us. One dropped something and cursed. She blasphemed. Right there in church. Right in front of the Blessed Sacrament. At first I thought I had heard wrong. Then Rocky looked at me and whispered, "Did she just blaspheme?" "Yeah," was all I said. I looked back at the girls and an usher came up and told them to move. Rocky remained upset for the rest of Mass and later told me that he wished he'd stood up and rebuked them. He did not go to Communion. I wish I had done more than glare at them. 

A PRAYER FOR THE REDEMPTION OF BAD PRIESTS

A PRAYER FOR THE REDEMPTION OF BAD PRIESTS

Divine Savior Jesus Christ, Thou are the Good Shepherd who gives His life for His sheep. Oh, be in a very special way the Good Shepherd of those poor lost priests who are also appointed by Thee to be leaders of Thy people, but who have broken the oath of their holy ordination and have become unfaithful to their exalted calling. Bestow upon these poorest of the poor the very fullness of that pastoral solicitude with which Thou dost so faithfully seek the sheep that are lost! Touch their hearts with the irresistible ray of grace which emanates from Thine all-merciful love! Enlighten their minds and strengthen their wills, that they may turn away from all sin and error and come back to Thy holy altar and to Thy people. O most compassionate Savior! Remember that Thou didst once redeem the souls of Thine erring priests with Thy Precious Blood and in infinite preferential love didst impress upon them the indelible character of the priesthood. Put wholly to shame those miserable helpers of Satan who lay snares for the virtue of priests and endanger the holy ideal of the priesthood. Most graciously accept our prayers and sacrifices for poor priests who have gone astray and hear our earnest petition.

 Amen 

Imprimatur - Bishop John F. Noll (April 18, 1948)

St. Anthony of Padua, defender of the Holy Eucharist, obtain for us holy priests

St. John-Mary Vianney, model of sacerdotal holiness, obtain for us holy priests

St. Francis Xavier, patron of missionary priests, obtain for us holy priests

St. Therese of the Child-Jesus and of the Holy Face, victim offered for the sanctification of priests, obtain for us holy priests

Saints and Servants of God, obtain for us holy priests.

Thank you, Maureen Mullarkey

It's fashionable in Catholic circles to screech at Catholics who attend the traditional Mass. Even some priests who only offer it zealously wield the criticism lash.  Maureen Mullarkey has written a defense of traditional Catholics-- the smallest group in the all the different groups that make up the Church. .

The pope is blessing idols. The cardinals and bishops are embezzling, smuggling illegal aliens, and taking catamites. Father Skippy is running a freak show in the rectory and his antics have driven people out the door and some right out of the Faith. Sr. Scowl of the Pantsuit is escorting women into the abortion clinic and  weird, heretical stuff is going on the various New Movements but it's the man or woman who prefer to go to the traditional Mass who is the problem... yeah sure...
This gas-lighting campaign against traditional Mass goers is good for one thing. It's shows that somebody is afraid. Thanks to Maureen Mullarkey for being the Joseph Cotton character.

Boyer, Bergman and Cotton in "Gaslight".

Somebody threw the idols into the Tiber!

What will YOU do when the earth mother idol shows up at your parish?

Holy Roman martyrs, who refused to offer so much a pinch of incense to pagan idols, pray for us.

If pachanama is good enough for the pope then look for parishes in the US to imitate him. I wouldn't be surprised if that idol shows up at the Jesuit  Georgetown University student chapel, which is a weird place anyway or in a Redemptorist parish or a Maryknoll chapel before the month is out.

Hey Catholic media! Here's an idea for you.

Who is that woman in the yoga pants tracksuit seen dancing with the Gospel, being carried in a canoe and dancing in the street? Who brought her and her buddies to Rome?

Church with an Amazonian face? Nuts!

Is this what a church with an Amazonian face means? Are we to imitate people who would have shocked even  the pagan Romans of  2000 years ago? Can you imagine how an Egyptian from 5000 years ago would have reacted to the Amazonian culture that the Vatican is celebrating in the synod? Is walking around naked, covered in dirt, exposed to insects and anything that could wound or cause infection, protected only by feathers and beads and offering one's breast to a hopefully toothless animal what Pope Francis thinks Catholic women all over the world should be doing? If we are to imitate people in such a state then is infanticide, pedophilia, sexual incontinence and paganism okay now? If all that should be overlooked  then I guess it's okay to have married*priests, priestesses, and gay priests with a live in lover.

If there were just one woman or man in Rome who'd be willing to tear this disgusting image down from the church wall I'd be proud to contribute to whatever fund was set up to pay the fine or legal defense.


* Married and having affairs with women and men--you know that would happen. Look at the Protestants. And what about the divorced priests? Will they get laicized or a do over with a new woman?

The Canonization of John Newman was an obvious trap...

The stomach turning Jesuit, Fr. James Martin is claiming newly canonized Cardinal Newman as a gay icon. Very nice people are arguing against him but this is exactly one of the reasons why Newman should not have been canonized in the first place. Both admirers and enemies have long noted his relationship with  Fr. Ambrose St. John. Some people read Newman's letter describing his feelings after Fr. St. John's death and were disgusted. Some were touched and said that Newman and St. John were just best friends and anybody who says anything else has a dirty mind. John Newman is going arlready being embraced and celebrated as the chaste gay saint and we can no more stop it than we can "take back," the rainbow symbol. The table was set and the Church's enemies inside and out are feasting. It's only a matter of time before we see artwork depicting St. John holding hands with or embracing Fr. St. John. I imagine someone is working on a variation of their 1847 portrait right now.

Portrait of John Henry Newman, right, and Ambrose Saint John by Maria Giberne, 1847

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Christ Cleanses the Temple

Trads In the Kill box?

I listened to a homily by what I'm guessing is either an ICKSP or   FSSP priest in which an earnest and devout Father X encouraged his listeners to stay calm and not worry about whether the order is sitting in a kill box and just waiting to be destroyed when Pope Francis gets around to it. After all, the Jesuits were suppressed and rose again.  Freaking out won't change a thing and a suppression may never come. I understood what the priest is saying here but I also get that people are scared and need to make decisions. People are wondering if they should  go through the trouble and in some cases the sacrifice of pulling up stakes and moving their family to be closer to a parish, oratory or monastery that has the traditional Mass when there is a possibility that it's all going to be shut down.

And then I watched this scene from King of Kings. The YouTube suggested viewing algorithm can be really funny at times.

The Fate of Fr. Escalante and other random thoughts on a Sunday afternoon

• Father Escalante of the St. Francis de Sales parish in Purcelville,Virginia  has been forced to resign from his parish. According to my bishop,  "Father Escalante freely admitted to conduct unbecoming and foreign to the clerical state involving two adults."
  What exactly does that mean? Did he make fun of a pious parish family? Did he curse during a homily? Did he mock the Blessed Mother? Did he tell a lie in front an audience and while being recorded? Did he promote sins against chastity? I can think of priests who did those things in the presence of multiple adults and despite complaints in some cases, they are still in good standing.
   If Fr. Escalante is guilty and might one day end up in my parish, I don't want this vague letter. Tell us exactly what he is supposed to have done. His main adversaries, were the director of religious education who has left the parish and the associate pastor, both of whom could land anywhere in the diocese so I'd like to hear what they have to say for themselves.  If Father Escalante is innocent then what is the real reason he's been ruined?
  
  
  
  
  
• The Devil is a liar and the uber mean joker too. So many wicked and stupid people thought that adding dancing girls to  the Mass would look like Vestal virgins or Rita Hayworth in Salome. 

Instead they got this:

Churches all over the US and Europe have been foisting liturgical dance on the Faithful for decades but it was easy to roll one's eyes in disgust and mock it ...  

There were people who were revolted but most Catholics who were even paying attention just said, "Well, it's the Germans. What do you expect?", or "It's just that one weird parish in Washington state," or "It's an unfortunate abuse but Rome has not approved it and my diocese would never allow it..."

But now someone at the Vatican served up this: 

 So I guess dancing girls who can't even dance, are official now. Click on this link  to see the whole thing. I don't care to post it on my blog.

• By the time the Pope Francis show finally has it's last act he will have to go down in history as the man who convinced more American Catholics to convert to Eastern Orthodoxy than anybody else. This ceremony in the Vatican gardens probably sent a lot of people screaming over the wall. 

St. Boniface, pray for us and may your spiritual sons get ready to swing their gospel axes.

A PRAYER FOR THE REDEMPTION OF BAD PRIESTS

A PRAYER FOR THE REDEMPTION OF BAD PRIESTS

Divine Savior Jesus Christ, Thou are the Good Shepherd who gives His life for His sheep. Oh, be in a very special way the Good Shepherd of those poor lost priests who are also appointed by Thee to be leaders of Thy people, but who have broken the oath of their holy ordination and have become unfaithful to their exalted calling. Bestow upon these poorest of the poor the very fullness of that pastoral solicitude with which Thou dost so faithfully seek the sheep that are lost! Touch their hearts with the irresistible ray of grace which emanates from Thine all-merciful love! Enlighten their minds and strengthen their wills, that they may turn away from all sin and error and come back to Thy holy altar and to Thy people. O most compassionate Savior! Remember that Thou didst once redeem the souls of Thine erring priests with Thy Precious Blood and in infinite preferential love didst impress upon them the indelible character of the priesthood. Put wholly to shame those miserable helpers of Satan who lay snares for the virtue of priests and endanger the holy ideal of the priesthood. Most graciously accept our prayers and sacrifices for poor priests who have gone astray and hear our earnest petition.

 Amen 

Imprimatur - Bishop John F. Noll (April 18, 1948)

St. Anthony of Padua, defender of the Holy Eucharist, obtain for us holy priests

St. John-Mary Vianney, model of sacerdotal holiness, obtain for us holy priests

St. Francis Xavier, patron of missionary priests, obtain for us holy priests

St. Therese of the Child-Jesus and of the Holy Face, victim offered for the sanctification of priests, obtain for us holy priests

Saints and Servants of God, obtain for us holy priests.

The Last Judgement

not a gentleman

I stopped reading 1P5 partly because there just haven't been very many interesting essays for some time  and partly because I've been mystified by Steve Skojec's Jekyll and Hyde behavior. 1P5 Steve writes beautifully and is very impressive. Have you ever heard one of his podcasts? He has an excellent voice and some of the early ones were profound.  Facebook and Twitter Steve, on the other hand, can be so mean that  it really is like two different guys and when I first noticed it, the behavior was shocking. Now it's become a pattern and I'm tired of his act. 

Trash talking  about Ann Bernhardt's looks is definitely not the act of a gentleman. First off, Ann is not his woman. What she looks like is none of his business and he should restrict his attentions to his own wife. He has said that he couldn't help but notice that she looks different over the years but who doesn't, including him?  I don't want to read anymore excuses about his years with the Legionnaires making him prone to moodiness. A bad time in one's youth does not bestow a life time pass that requires other people to just accept rude behavior without comment. I don't see myself ever clicking  on the 1P5 site page again.

Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away?

I'm not so concerned about schism after the Amazon synod. I am concerned with how people will react. How many of our priests will stay faithful? More to the point, what will your and my pastor do?  Are Rocky and I going to have to find a new place to go to Mass? Will it come to finding a priest and going to Mass in a rented room or a basement? I am seeing more and more people in discussion forums and on Twitter who can't take it anymore and are heading towards the Eastern Orthodox.  Others say that they can't do that...yet and have decided to go to an Eastern Catholic parish for as long as they can. Who will stay and who will go away?

random thoughts at the end of vacation

• You can play the enfant terrible for only so long. After a while even patient gentle people start wondering if it's an act or if you really are emotionally defective. 

• I was reading about a cheerleader who managed to fool her incredibly unobservant parents, delivered a baby, killed him and buried him in her parents' yard.  She got off. A jury found her not guilty. The first thing that popped into my mind is that parents really shouldn't let their daughters be cheerleaders or join the dance squad at school. You sit there and  clap and grin like a fool while she does a routine that a stripper would approve of and then are shocked when she acts out sexually..... And you parents who send your daughter to swimming and gymnastics ought to consider the huge amount of sexual interference that goes on from coaches, team trainers and doctors in both sports.
  
  
• Rocky and I went to Pennsylvania on vacation last week and went to Mass at a Redemptorist parish. It wasn't bad. Father gave a sound homily and while he was surprised that I received on the tongue he didn't refuse or frown,  but it was almost comical because everything I expected from a Redemptorist parish happened.
  
  Eucharistic ministers in albs? Check
  Altar girl? Check
  Music from the 1970s? Check
  Jokes from the priest? Check
  The shortest version of the Confietor allowed? Check
  Lay person giving a talk after Mass and before the dismissal? Check

To be fair, the parishioners were very pleasant and Father was happy to greet us after Mass and ask us to come back for Mass on our next vacation.

• Monsignor Rossi is "on retreat." 

random thoughts on a Sunday afternoon

St. Giles, pray for us

• The College of Cardinals has has 13 new members. God help us.
  
  
• I don't like doing housework on Sunday but my mother is spending the night with us tomorrow and I think I saw a mouse in the living room last night. If we were in South Carolina I'd ask one of my relative if their Feist dog could spend the day with me. They great little vermin hunters.  Instead I'm putting out traps and hope that if they don't get him the rodent will at least stay quiet and out of sight while Mama is here.  (Update: the mouse did not make an appearance while my mother was here!)
  
  
• C.L. at  Vincit Qui Se Vincit  has some very good thoughts after reading my thoughts on the call to unite the clans.
  
• Back in the 80s and early 90s corporate America sold us out by taking all the factories to China and other countries where they could pay a child a pittance an hour and work him all day. Working class Americans lost their jobs they were told that it was progress and to deal with it. There is a lot of talk today about the opioid "epidemic," as if it just happened but despair has been growing for at least three decades. The alcoholism, drug use and family destruction went through the roof in whole swaths of the country and it was either ignored, mocked or dismissed.  Kids were told that if you had a college degree in anything you'd never have to walk home in shock after finding out that the entire plant had closed. Well, a little bit legislation called  the Immigration Act of 1990 created the H1-B visa and made things....interesting for Americans with Bachelor's degrees. By the mid to late 90s people who thought they were bullet proof were stunned to find out that they weren't.
  
  The experts on TV, and in magazines and newspapers  told us that if you wanted to be safe you had to go beyond the Bachelors. A Master degree was the answer until it wasn't. For the past five years or so Americans have been told that STEM is the way to save themselves. Umm, no. STEM OPT gives foreign students a 24 month Visa extension if they pursue a science, technology, engineering or math program. If you think a STEM degree makes you safe you may be in for the same horrible surprise that one of my uncle's  faced when Bethlehem Steel closed or you may get to feel the same crushing fear some of my cousins faced when the textile mills closed in South Carolina. Nobody is safe.
  
  
  
  
  
  
•   I tell my relatives and best friends, ‘If you want your children to fight for their faith, send them to public school. If you want them to lose their faith, send them to Catholic school.’ ~Archbishop Fulton Sheen
  
  I'm sure the archbishop was talking about the Catholic-lite schools but there are still people in Rochester, NY who remember that one of the first things he did was to order the closure of a Catholic school. The families of the students fought back ferociously and the decision was dropped. The incident that ended the archbishop's time in Rochester was his decision to give St. Bridget's Church and school to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The reaction from the parishioners was intense and the idea was dropped and Archbishop Sheen put in for retirement.
  
  
  
• Eternal rest grant Oh Lord unto Thy servant.....

Fr. David Tanko was murdered in Nigeria. He is the 11th priest to be murdered in an African country this year. 

• I've read comments from Australians on multiple sites who are pretty much content with Cardinal Pell's conviction because all though he could not have done what he was convicted of but because of all the things he's been suspected of over the decades. Has Australian law always been like that or is this something new?