Sometimes serious, sometimes funny, always trying to be warmth and light, focuses on parenting, and the unique struggles of raising a large Catholic family in the modern age. Updates on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday...and sometimes more!
Over and over again, in everyday stuff and online, I find faces of despair. People have much to be angry over, and they're hurt they have to wrestle with this pain when there's so much that needs tending too. This great mess called life keeps getting somehow messier, and it's frustrating to people of good conscience, of good will, of good faith, to find themselves overwhelmed with the levels of stupidity, cruelty, indifference, clericalism, protectionism and self-indulgence and self delusion we're bombarded with on a daily basis.
In the Church, people are taking their children from schools, and themselves from the pews, because the leaders/princes of the Church have shown themselves to be poor shepherds in one of the most primary of roles, and as such, it is legitimate to question, how good they are at shepherding in any of their other functions. It seems, to the laity, the leadership of the Catholic Church does not yet grasp in its totality, how much damage they've created by their slow plodding approach to things in this situation.
I'm reminded of this scene.
The faithful are the hasty hobbits. They've said they'll address this in November. It' rather like Treebeard's telling Merry, "We've just finished saying Good Morning." and Merry's terse response, "But it's nighttime already! You can't take forever."
Elizabeth Scalia says as much in her very fine article here. I second all she recommends.
People do feel put upon by the public calls for prayers and fasting when it does not seem those who perpetuated or aided and abetted or ignored these crimes/sins are doing much at all other than publicly wringing their hands. However, what we are asked to do is still of great merit, not merely for their souls, but for our own.
I would love for Bishop after Bishop, even those who are good ones, to say, I renounce, I resign, I will serve at the lowest position, and for them to do it. We need to see something from the Bishops akin to this:
Even if they've earned a spot on the team by their efforts, talents and service.
They know the ways of the saints. Saint Maximilian Kolbe said "Take me instead." in the concentration camps. If he could surrender a place of no comfort for a place of certain death for love of Christ, for love of the other, a father who cried out, how is it no bishops, no cardinals feel this same push of the Holy Spirit? If they cannot see it, then what about us who can?
Well, if they don't, then, we who feel the pain of the fathers and mothers over their crushed children, and of the children who were so violated, we must say, "Take me instead." and that's why it's not wrong for the laity to pray and fast and offer penance. We need to take on something, something which will cost us, something public and I do not know what it is, but since we see the pain, and we know the depth of it, it's not enough to howl "Do something." If they don't get it, then it must be us who act.
I go back to the report, there are over 1,000 victims. There are over 300 priests. So there should be a 1,300 day penance, if only to give some hint of action on the part of the laity and yes, we will do penance for the guilty, and penance in reparation for the damage done to the innocent.
Yes. But what do we do?
1) Begin. Write on your calendar today, Victim 1. Writing it down, since we don't have the names, is a way of beginning.
2) Offer a sacrifice of today, of something today for victim 1.
3) Tomorrow, begin again, for victim 2.
4) If you forget, begin again anyway.
5) If you mess up, offer your foolish forgetfulness.
6) Keep at it.
For those who question, what good does sacrificial offerings do to the sufferings of the past, or of today, for the victims of the sufferings?
Answer, more than we can understand.
1) It acknowledges the reality of the injury done (something kept hidden for far too long).
2) Spiritually, you become united with Christ by your sacrifice/atonement. Christ suffered and died for each of us, we're not even doing much more than offering a splinter, but we can unite with Christ with that splinter.
3) It might prompt you individually to more, because the Holy Spirit always starts with mustard seeds.
The number of victims posted would take from today to Friday, May 21, 2021. May 21st is a feast day in the Catholic Church, the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, instituted this year by Pope Francis. I didn't know that until I googled it, it seems providential, to pray for each of these little ones harmed by the church, to the Mother who birthed Christ, who loves the Church as none of us do, and who wants all of us home at the altar.
7) When you get to day 1000, begin work on the alms giving and prayers for those who did or hid these acts. Here,
8) Give something away each day for 300 days. It can be time, it can be things, it can be money, but surrender something.
9) Why?
a) Because these acts occurred over time, and so time is something that must be given in response.
b) Because the only way we won't be driven from the life of the Church even as we cling to the faith of it, is by willful obedience, and this is a discipline which will allow us to lead by example.
c) Because these priests, who did these things, they also held the Eucharist, they were consecrated to Our Lord, and God does not want any of his sheep lost, and they were/are lost. We must be like the good shepherds to these lost shepherds with our prayers. The prayers will not be wasted, (but I did put them after the victims because yes, I'm still annoyed and flawed and know we all need time to beat that down. Our prayers will be like the Lord's invitation to their souls, to respond to the feast. We cannot save them, but we can participate in their salvation by our prayers. We can imitate Christ's mercy on the cross which came before anyone asked or acknowledged what they'd done.
It won't be a Year of Mercy or a Year of Humility, because it will take three years, six months and three weeks plus a day to embrace the 1,300 splinters, by the people of the Church for the Church, out of love of Christ, and all those injured by this grievous wound, this great thorn..
That day will be March 17, 2022, the feast of Saint Patrick's, and a feast day marking the chasing out of the snakes from Ireland. I didn't know that either when I googled it. So to me, feasting for the victims with the promise of Mary whose foot crushes the serpent, and with Saint Patrick, who chases the snakes away, is the proper response. For me, it is too wonderful and too perfect a timing not to begin.
With the advent of the internet, everyone and their little dog too, has at some point channeled their inner Lucy Van Pelt and offered unasked for expert counsel based purely on spleen.
We have opinions, we've found facts or something like facts to back them up, and we've learned how to use pathos, ethos and logos to push our opinions forward with such authority, everyone should just aquiese to our brilliance.
We'd all like to think we're inside the city of Gondor...but very often our arguments are the mental equivalent of GROND.
It doesn't matter if it's sports, health care, foriegn policy about a country we couldn't locate without google maps, law, education, ecology, Hollywood or cuisine, we have an infaliable opinion we will defend to the death and in the imortal words of Lena Lamont,
Singin’ in the Rain (1952) directed by Stanley Donen
Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont and Douglas Fowley as Roscoe Dexter.
Lina: Gee, this wig weighs a ton. What dope’d wear a thing like this?
Rosco: Everybody used to wear them, Lina.
Lina: Well then, everybody was a dope.
I don't know about you, but since everyone's become an expert, everyone's also become much less willing to hear anyone else's expert advice. It's in our conversations, it's in our television, it's how we view people in positions of power and influence, regardless of political party. It's making true friendship, true democracy (not merely the rule and will of the ones in power), and true community, hard to build, much less sustain and grow.
Pope Benedict the XVI spoke of the tyranny of relativism, I would add to that, the dictatorship of invincible self vetted opinion, which refuses any truth not arrived at by one's self. If truth is only accessible by an individual for an individual, it is not truth, it is preference, and if preference is elevated to the state of truth, actual truth itself, becomes almost impossible to state, much less endure.
So what are we supposed to do?
The opposite of what the world would suggest, which is double down and shout louder. Surrender the armchair. Surrender the need to be always the one with the last word, the only word worth listening to, and surrender the demand that others approve, share, like, and pay fealty via their agreement. The world is aching, bleeding, suffering unbearably from everyone's belief they either have all the answers, or have all the answers at their fingertips. When we have the answers, we don't have to actually walk with, suffer with, or listen to someone else's problems. We can give the right advice at the right time, check off the box and declare ourselves virtuous for our time.
Everybody, take whatever the issue is, and hold it like a gem, and see if you can see any validity (absent google) to a position other than your own. What if we tried seeing through each other's eyes where we could? And went out to get ice cream together when the problems were bigger.
Most of life is far more nuanced and complicated than we know, even in our own lives. Most of our life would not bear the levels of scrutiny and criticism we currently see heaped on anyone who speaks in a way someone else finds disagreeable. Surrender the need to be anything but kind. Surrender the need to get in the snark. Surrender the need to divide the world into the Order of the Phoenix and Death Eaters. Go out and meet people where they are, and discover that the world is bigger than the internet, brighter too and create fellowship.
How?
Eat together, walk together, play together, pray together. Learn together, suffer with, and suffer for, and when possible, create moments of light, humor and joy. Like this:
According to the Daily Caller, President Obama became the first siting commander in chief to directly address Planned Parenthood. He proudly bragged that the number one abortion provider is not going anywhere. He concluded his remarks with the remarkable, “God Bless You Planned Parenthood.” Tiny Tim was not available for comment.
Shrewdly, he gave the speech on a Friday, allowing the Saturday lull in the news cycle to bury his highly offensive remarks. If however next week, people are still disturbed by his asking the Almighty to bestow grace upon those who advocate the death of the most innocent for power and money in all circumstances, I’m sure Jay Carney will come to the podium to assure us that someone just sneezed and the president ad-libbed what any normal person would do when someone involuntarily expels unwanted blobs of cells.
We have come to the point that atrocities of the greatest magnitude no longer hold our interest as a nation. Or at least, the media has decided, they shouldn’t. Any attempt by Mark Steyn or others to rouse the imagination of the American public with the gruesome reality of abortion as brought to its logical conclusion via performance abortion artist Dr. Kermit Gosnell is met with a collective yawn. The moral compass of the country continues to mutter in its sleep, the unintentionally ironic slogan of the age, “COEXIST.” At best, we get people to declare the atrocities of the clinic in the city of brotherly love are an outlier, a deviation from the mean, the mode and median of the business of abortion.
However, the response of those who advocate pro-choice positions does not indicate that this doctor’s practices are the standard deviation from the sample, their silence speaks volumes to the reality of abortion, the clinics, the persons who perform these procedures and the aftermath of those “choices.” If this were unexpected or unusual, they’d be screaming disassociation, demanding that abortionist providers speak out to declare that you cannot judge us by the behavior of a single person who performed badly. They are not lining up to do this, they are running for the hills, hoping we will be distracted as we easily are, by anything and everything, so that things may go on as normal, meaning clinics like this go on doing what they do and everyone shuts their eyes to the trains that flow by on time every day. Dr. Gosnell is not the Westboro Baptist Church of abortion, he is the poster child of its practices.
We can tell ourselves this isn’t happening. It doesn’t make it so. We can say that the deaths of 55 million nation wide over 40 years has no effect on the people of our nation, but it doesn’t make it true. We can lie all day to ourselves even when there are feet in jars in front of us, it doesn’t mean we aren’t becoming blind to all that is good, true and beautiful as a people. It doesn’t mean we aren’t becoming like Gollum, forgetting the taste of bread, the softness of the wind, the smell of grass, even our own names as we allow for more and more of our future to be destroyed for the pleasures and convenience of the present, and we will weep, precious, we will weep to be so alone.
The surest sign that we are made for something better than suffering and death is our absolute shock, aversion and puzzlement when faced with monstrous evil. We do not understand the deliberate destruction of the beautiful or the innocent. Further, when faced with that final reality, we come easily to see that everyone is beautiful and innocent; that we don't want anyone to die.
This past week's killing spree left everyone holding their own children a little tighter. We should recognize how precious and fragile the soft hand of a 6 or 7 year old is, and how much we should treasure when they want us to walk with them, read one more story, or fix just a little more breakfast.
But when evil manifests itself so gravely in our midst, (even when protocols and policies and laws were properly enacted to protect against such unthinkable acts), we wonder what should we do? What could we do? What must be done?
There will calls for gun control restrictions. There will be calls for better mental health care programs. Both are reasonable responses and if politicians can be reasonable, perhaps some societal good shall come from a great evil. However the real work cannot be done on a societal level, because what happened was not the end result of society, it was an act that is outside of society, it came from inside the heart of a single person.
If we need proof that society is full of people of grace, we need only look at the custodian who ran through the hall warning teachers, or the kid who led his class friends out, or the teacher who lied and died to protect her students or the principal, or any of the adults who sought to keep a touch of normal in an unnormal situation, to preserve a touch of childhood when the world had gone mad. There are far more people seeking to be light in the worst of situations, than those who seek to create the ultimate darkness.
There is a terrifying unspoken element to this story, that each of us contains within us, a heart capable of darkness. Not the same darkness, but there are all kinds of ways that we contribute to the isolation, loneliness, darkness, hunger and thirst of the world, by our words, by not talking, by our refusal to act, by our refusal to get involved. Getting involved in the world is a dangerous thing, it is messy. Furthermore, if we do act, we will not be the same.
But the everyday courage of going out your door and engaging other people, as you shop, as you park your car, order food, help with homework, greet a teacher, see a neighbor or sit in a pew, these are the little acts of love that can knit and mend 1000 cuts if they are repeated every day all our lives. We cannot stop sin in any hearts but our own, but we can encourage grace in others as we live by our lives. So read a story, decorate your home, make gifts, give generously, hug fiercely, feast with your family, pray through your anger, pray through your frustrations, pray through the tedium that eats at good will and good humor. It is the only way to be a light against the dark that seems often to gather and grow.
Everyday courage is love in action. Everyday courage involves meeting actual people and seeing them as beautiful, treating them as worthy of preserving, of serving, of walking with them, reading one more story, fixing one more breakfast. Everyday courage sees Gollum as Smeagol and hopes he can be saved. Everyday courage hopes even the killer of all these beautiful people, has found healing and forgiveness and peace, because everyday courage recognizes that "Many that live deservedeath. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement." even when it seems easy to judge.
What can we do? Light the pink candle, celebrate Advent, and be the people of hope, who do the everyday things with everyday courage.
Because I cannot square allowing for or promoting the perpetual acceptance of killing the unborn as a viable option, whether for grave or shallow reasons, (and with 50 million killed, some were grave, and some were shallow to be sure) I cannot vote for this president, ever. I must be at odds. His party may offer kind good words, but they also offer it on the backs of millions of innocent lives. Not thousands, not hundreds of thousands, millions.
This does not mean I go rah rah GOP, GOP is the place for me, because the Republicans have time after time given lip service to being pro life, rather than affirmatively address it, just as surely as they pay lip service to a balanced budget, to living under the rules that Congress passes, and lower taxes. The only conviction I believe is that every single one of them wants to get reelected. Now that, I do believe.
I don't know about you, but our government seems to every day find new things that it cannot live without and thus demand that we pay more and do without ourselves. I do not approve of torture or drone strikes or never ending aggression towards those we can decide upon a whim to put on a watch list or declare part of the war on terror. So I don't trust our government or the bureaucracies that weather every election. I don't trust that the policies advanced and financed so thoroughly shall evaporate over night if a different president takes office.
I worry that unless this mandate is dismantled utterly, the tentacles of Planned Parenthood will continue to exist to poison this land and whoever is leading it.
This will all try to continue to stand under the guise of women's health, because apparently, we can't solve any problems or help anyone if we don't provide free birth control and unlimited abortion first and foremost and always.
It's not true.
So every election is a bit of a problem for me, Whose's side are you on?
Side? I am on nobody's side, because Nobody is on my side.
Perhaps the President thought by signing into law a 2000 page monstrosity that included funding of abortion and by making it mandatory to provide contraception via insurance, making every Catholic culpable in the act of providing abortion and birth control and sterilization, it could erode our souls.
It very well could.
If we failed to respond, if we stayed asleep, everyone by their own actions unless they opted to go to jail by refusing to pay taxes, would become pro-choice. Even if we prayed by the clinics and offered to adopt, even if we did fasting and rosaries, by remaining loyal citizens and doing right by Caesar, we would be culpable of enabling evil. How could we be pro-life when we paid and voted into office those who promoted and funded the perpetuation of this evil forever. Eventually, we'd despair and quit and whimper away.
But there were some that resisted. And even the sleepy trees united when they saw what destruction would come from this policy. (It takes a lot to wake up an Ent...even more to move the President of a major Catholic University).
I may be shire folk, but I'm feeling rather Entish about all this. And seeing the 43 intuitions/organizations and Universities file a lawsuit to me is rather like the Ents going to War.
So today I'm proud of the University of Notre Dame again. I'm hoping Saint Mary's College finds her voice to speak too and Boston College and all the other places that came into being because they were Catholic, not because they were universities, but because they were Catholic.
As a hobbit in this battle, I'm stocking up on rocks.
Today I'm going to irritate everyone. I'm going to talk about politics AND religion.
The media would have us believe there are no women opposed to the HHS policy. It's a harder lie to sell than usual because most of us actually KNOW someone who is opposed to the HHS policy and some of those people we know are female. But they keep stumping it.
So I'm putting up today some links to good reads which 1) lay out what the HHS policy is and 2) lay out what the Church's position is not (a religious attempt to impose a theocracy). As far as I know, even the day before the HHS policy was imposed, artificial birth control was cheap, legal and available. To hear the screechings of those in favor of this gross overreach of the government, you'ld think a tsunami of babies was threatening to flood the streets and drown all the women if the Federal Health and Human Services hadn't stepped in to save the day.
Michael Novak lays it out nicely here.
Archbishop Chaput as usual is speaking strong truth with charity.
and Deacon Bickerstaff outlines a good course of action here.
The power to by executive/bureaucratic mandate determine the extent to which we MAY practice our beliefs (where they stop binding us), is a direct threat to our religious liberty and anyone who thinks this is the limit, is wilfully blind, deliberately obtuse, wants this curbing of religious expression to assuage their own unwillingness to live out their faith life or is just a partisan hack.
Yes. I'm angry today.
Why?
Because I do see the assaults on all sides. When Komen decided simply not to continue to award grants to Planned Parenthood because it was under Federal investigation for not reporting sex trafficking, statutory rapes and having unsafe conditions for medical procedures (which go unpoliced and unchecked as a benefit of being protected by one political party that sees abortion so necessary and so noble as to warrant no scrutiny whatsoever), Planned Parenthood squealed like a stuck pig.
I'd say a stuck fetus but they wouldn't acknowledge the reality of such pain.
They were going to loose a whopping .058 % of their budget --and they went postal. Komen jumped back into line. Message to other corporations received. Don't cut our funding or we will destroy you online. All the good you've done for 30 years doesn't count for squat.
The same was done to Catholic Charities. You've helped with adoptions for years. You've done loads of good, feeding the poor, helping the homeless, you've been a living breathing outreach of the beatitudes, faith in action in all the communities. Drop your opposition to gay adoptions or you're gone. Some of the Catholic Charities --Massachusetts and Illinois, were gone. Other places weighed what they do, and bowed their heads and said, "By your command." I know they still do good, but the state forcing an organization to surrender one tenet they hold dear, can force another. Catholic Health Association is only too happy to dispense birth control, sterilization and abortion drugs, now that it's mandatory.
At some point, when you keep surrendering values, you cease to have them.
And that I suspect is the point, to swap faith for politics and make our Government our God. All knowing, all encompassing, all reaching...infinite in appetite and control...but it does not love us.
To the "Oh, you're overreacting." crowd. I present the following link: Humanae Vitae Prophetic.
Also the Guttenmacher Institute's helpful memo: (Emphasis mine). "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, drawing on these recommendations, requires new private health plans written on or after August 1, 2012 to cover contraceptive counseling and services and all FDA-approved methods without out-of-pocket costs to patients. However, existing plans are exempt from the requirement so long as no significant negative changes, such as cutting benefits or raising cost-sharing, are made to them; DHHS has said that most of these plans will likely lose this protected status within a few years. "
And then, there is the little noted (we must not speak of it) process of Same Sex marriage becoming the default new unspeakable of other than as good. Like Planned Parenthood, thuggery of thought abounds. (If you do not hail it for the benefactor it is to all of humanity, you are a close minded dope who hates poor people). So also, if you oppose same sex marriages for any reason, you are a bigot. Pure and simple.
Yesterday, Maryland legislature passed by the narrowest of margins, the "Civil Marriage Protection Act." Barring a change of conscience by the Governor himself, (O'Malley proposed it) Maryland will become the 8th state to decide marriage is a contract between two people regardless of gender, but with restrictions on inbreeding. I read the bill.
(No aunt/uncle/cousin/brother/mother/father/sister/son/daughter stuff is specified so we have some standards).
Given that there are already lawsuits and established precedents for the suing of businesses that refused service for gay couples seeking marriage, how long before the Church is hit on this front or simply Christians or Catholics who don't want to promote a sinful act via providing a venue? So far, the answer is the photographer gets sued, the B&B gets sued, anyone who speaks or even simply says "No." gets sued. Saying anything other than "Great, here's the contract." will get you sued. Saying anything other than "Why didn't we create this law sooner?" will be tantamount to hate speech.
I understand how hard it is to address, because really, rallying around "status quo" of over 2000 years seems goofy. Also, the forces in support of this proposition are well organized and have the media and the existing government power structures on their side. Just as abortion was rewritten by Roe vs. Wade by Judicial fiat, when state regulations made up a patchwork quilt of contradictory policies, so also a patchwork currently exists for Same sex marriages and those contradictions will inevitably be presented to the nine judges in DC.
The Full Faith and Credit of contracts across state lines will demand resolution at the Supreme Court. We can't avoid discussing it forever just to avoid being called names. By not thinking about this or addressing it, we're sputtering to come up with arguments because we haven't wanted to think about this. That constitutes a poor defense. We lose.
Even voting against such things in a referendum has been insufficient. Look at California. The law as expressed by the people's will was irrelevant to the state supreme court. Also Federal Government has refused to support the "In Defense of Marriage Act" that is on the books.
Everywhere, secular tyranny is on the march. It goes unacknowledged as such by those who agree with its policies or at the very least, think it won't affect them. But our capacity to live out or even acknowledge the tenets of our faith is being slowly boiled to death.
So consider writing a letter or contacting the Governor. He's Catholic and as such, might be moved by good apologetics or reasoned defense. At the very least, he'll have to knowingly decide to ignore his own faith to sign it.
An example from a new blogger on the block: The Paladin's Best Friend. Yes he sent it to the Governor. Yes he signed his real name. Go over. Say Hi. He's just starting up.
The thing is, I note a touch of discouragement and despair in the tone and tenor of the world right now. Those that voted for our current administration are frustrated and I think feel slightly shocked and betrayed that the promise held out, isn't. Those that are voting differently, aren't so enthused either. We've created this Leviathan of a government. We've created this Leviathan of debt. We've got all these intractable seemingly impossible problems and there doesn't seem to be an answer, or at least not an easy answer. Like stepping on the scale and knowing you must diet or opening a bill and knowing you must cut back expenses, everything seems earth shatteringly beyond our will, beyond our capacity, just beyond. We are struggling to summon the will.
There is not one institution of government that still holds our trust. There is too much money, too much bloat, too many back room smoke filled deals, too much favoritism, too much politics, too little truth, too many partisan hacks, too many moments of hurt and broken promises, personal failures, corruption and cover up for us to easily allow ourselves to hope that someone, anyone can par back the weeds, the mess, the massive piles of regulations and laws. Too many free fall shouting voices to be able to sift through the facts. We have all of the earth at our finger tips and it overwhelms. We cannot take in everything and thus long for a touch of peace, a touch of genuine quiet of the soul and that is the one thing not available via MasterCard, the government, the Internet or the world.
So we aren't hoping for much, we certainly aren't expecting or demanding much, because we don't think much can be done.
Still Gandalf himself knows, we shouldn't despair. "For even the wise cannot see all ends."
So the object is to press on. To do right. To speak bravely. To speak true. To speak from the heart. To pray for everyone and....if I may close with a different but equally favorite movie,
I'm Catholic and I have ten children. So no one should be terribly confused about where I stand on things even if I didn't have a blog. Still, sometimes the world demands that we not simply quietly witness, but publically state our faith. It is a hard thing because despite writing more and more and in recent years almost daily since 2005 on some level or another, despite having articles in Catholic papers and proclaiming my Cathoicism, there are moments when it is hard.
Right now, all of us who hold our Church and our faith dear, are having something of a Peter moment. On facebook where opinions fly fast and furious and snark on the right and left is just a click away, it is particularly irksome.
Do I let "Today's lil' reminder: Jesus never mentioned homosexuality or abortion. Not once. #stopblamingJesusforyouropinions" slide?
Do I ignore "I support Planned Parenthood." and equally smug unctous comments that are designed to allow echo chambers of opinion to snigger at those they deem too stupid to not agree about the perceived hang ups of my Church.
"Hang ups" because my faith teaches that sex is sacred, sex is a gift, that it has a context within the confines of a committed sacramental relationship instead of thinking sex is meaningless and therefore should have no limits as long as pleasure is the objective? Should I armor up and counter attack? Then there are these other abuses of one sort or another, like birth control and abortion and pornography and the like, sexual sins that injure men and women and in some cases, children. And I know, I don't want this fight.
I'm tired. I don't want to deal with this stuff. It's facebook for crying out loud! So I click off and wonder, was that an opportunity to speak up that I dropped? Was someone else reading, hoping someone would speak up?
Then the question formed: was it like that for Peter? I'm here. I've followed you all over. I've been with you. I'm watching. I just want to warm myself by the fire for a moment. I'm still here. If they just leave me alone for a moment. "You were with him." someone says. And all the other disciples, hiding, perhaps hoping someone would make the first move, uncertain what the first move is, afraid they will be the one called to speak up, hoping to stay quiet, lie low.
Then the rationalizations begin. I'll just click away. I just want to not fight this battle today. I've already posted so much it just makes me angry. So I go to the news. National Poll says the Public backs the Assault on Religious Liberty....I can't get away. Peter thought he'd found a hiding spot too. But the crowd pressed upon him, "Weren't you one of his discipiles?" and again he said, "No." The smug responses over and over again saying, "No one really practices it." and "Why shouldn't they have to pay for this?" and it feels like being surrounded and trapped in Hornburg at Helm's Deep.
"So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?" the King ponders.
It is not a rhetorical question. It is a real question. It is a cry of despair, like Peter's at the knowledge both that his Lord was being led off to death and his own betrayal. It is similar to the slips of despair one can feel perusing the next wave of assaults on Catholic values. There are only two outcomes. Stay and eventually be overwhelmed and destroyed...or "Ride out. Ride out and meet them."
And even if we somehow get the Forest and the Rohirrin run through the ranks and rout the orcs at this gate, there are those armies and they are marching and they are far more than all we could call up and I see the next battle, the battle for middle earth yet to come.
We will have to fight gay marraige next. We are fighting it now. It is in the Maryland State senate today. It has already been overturned in California. Speaking up will bring about a world of grief. We will be labeled homophobes, bigots, fools, idiots, zealots, racists and hypocrits. We will be called out. We will be called out and demanded that we deny our Church, show that we would slice off this portion of our faith, or that, so that we fit the world better. Just a little denial.
"Even your accent gives you away, surely you were with the Nazorean." and we will mumble or swear, "I tell you I do not know the man." to get the crowds to back off, to let us stay safe, stay unseen, stay unmarked by the crowd. I don't want to do this. I really don't. I'll just go off of Facebook until things clear over. Because speaking up, stating that you are proud to fight beside men once more can get you killed.
Pippin: "Maybe Treebeard's right. We don't belong here, Merry. It's too big for us. What can we do in the end? We've got the Shire. Maybe we should go home."
Merry: "The fires of Isengard will spread. And the woods of Tuckburough and Buckland will burn. And all that was once green and good in this world will be gone. There won't be a Shire, Pippin."
We have to be willing to speak. So I'm saying yes it's true. I really really really believe that sex is sacred, that artificial contraception creates great pain between a man and a woman in their relationship and reduces the gift of sex to a purely recreation act. I really believe that the Catholic Church understands how hard this is, and is equally hard on everyone; asking self sacrifice of all of us. Of singles, chastity, of married, openness to life, perfect fidelity and restraint and governance of appetite, of vocationally called, permanent purity. None of us are given a pass. I also know our sexual selves reflect our faith lives, and our souls are injured by both what we do and don't do, what we allow, what we indulge, what we ignore. Yes, and I believe God knows I believe it and expects me to live it.
So I'm here, taking that one more step and going farther from home than I've ever been even though I haven't yet left the shire itself. Peter eventually gets it and says, "Lord you know I love you." and takes on the task to "Feed my sheep." Pippin also eventually recognizes, we can't just hide, we have to act and battles at the White City of Gondor. He climbs the tower and sets the beacon. It is a little thing that lets the world know, "We need help." because the armies press from every angle, because it is a little but greatly couragous thing to do.
It was so much easier when my biggest worries were second breakfast.
First, the Administration wants to utterly dictate the extent to which we practice our religion, that it be limited to our thoughts, not spoken, not lived out in the minutia of our lives.
The HSS mandate has upset a lot of people, a lot of Catholics, a lot of individuals on both sides of the political aisle. This is a good thing. We should be uncomfortable. Catholics are not supposed to be comfortable in a singular political party, we're supposed to call the Democrats to be champions of the unborn, and the Republicans to recognize the dignity of the poor that survive the womb. There isn't a party in which a Catholic should feel wholly comfortable, indeed, if one feels wholly comfortable inside a party, one is probably ignoring some tenet of one's Catholic faith. God didn't say "I favor the GOP or Jesus would be a Democrat." Man makes that affiliation to flatter himself and demean his political opponents and their followers. He is wrong in either case.
The protest against the HHS policy isn't just from the USCCB. Douglas Kmiec, who was one of the most prominent proponents of this Administration thinks this is a violation of religious liberty, Over 135 bishops in the US, a number of Imams, Episcopal and Orthodox clergy have expressed concern that this policy overreaches. Even Chris Matthews, hardly a Fox News sycophant for the GOP, felt deep concern at this federal policy.
While the Friday announcement of "accommodations" was supposed to make everything better and certainly there were sycophantic pundits and even Catholics willing to carry the water for this administration, sober judgement of the new/old HHS policy indicates that the administration is (as is typical of this administration), doubling down.
Not only will I not alter the policy in your favor, I will tighten the restrictions and speed up the process by which you must comply (6 months and all will provide free birth control --it's just the insurance will pay). So we're all morally free of blame because we're not buying it, we're just purchasing the Insurance. The Insurance is providing it....Free...like tortilla chips and salsa at the table. Calories consumed by those free chips still count. Providing the service is immoral. Relgious institutions and organizations have refused to purchase such plans that provided those services in the past because they don't want to provide such services period. They don't want to provide them as an added bonus feature! It was never about the money, it was always about the morality stupid!
It is coercion via government fiat. Obey or be destroyed. Bow willingly or be forced to kneel via heavy fines. Give out policies that provide free birth control, abortion drugs and perform sterilizations because we say so, or watch as we take over. Pay to play or go home.
In places where the religious exemption is narrow, (up to now) universities and school districts that wanted to hold true to the faith in their practice as an entity, gave extra money to allow individuals to purchase a prescription plan which would provide if necessary. That is the change. That self insured approach that would relegate the decision to the individual, has been removed. There is no out. If the government declares you must purchase a product you deem immoral, then purchase it you must or face swift steep fines. You can comply or we can drum you out of business. Hardly the actions of a free people, or of a government that respects the rights and liberties of a free people.
I have good friends who have told me, "Hey, what's the big deal? We already fund Planned Parenthood to the tune of 33 million to pass out birth control (or so we've been told), we already do this if we work for a secular business and pay into insurance." And I know the arguments, that we already pay for everything. If I go to a discount store, I'm exploiting cheap labor. If I buy pink ribbon yogurts, I'm supporting Planned Parenthood. If I work in a business that is non denominational and for whom this is not a morally troubling issue, my premiums also pay for products like birth control pills and sterilizations and abortions and Plan B's and RU486ing baby medications.
But this is different.
This is the government demanding that people pay for what they deem immoral and in violation of their conscience even if they are in the business of trying to live out their faith. That should matter, even if the violation isn't considered a big deal by some. We should protect the Amish and the Quakers and the small time churches that hold things dear we disagree with, just as surely as we should the mega churches and the Jews and Mormons and the Muslims and the Atheists and the Catholics. It is not okay for the government to dictate to a church or to people who take their faith seriously that they must violate their faith. The government cannot give dispensation from one's faith. The government cannot give us forgiveness for our sins or tell us what is and is not a sin. This is Caesar trying to render what is God's and demanding that we swear allegiance to Caesar first.
To those who say it makes no difference, it is a drop in the bucket, it is a nothing to get upset over issue:
We take stands all the time, not because they are popular or guaranteed to come out in our favor, but because we believe them to be important. If on occasion, we should boycott Starbucks or Coca-cola because as corporations they engage in practices we deem objectionable, (divestment for South Africa in the 80's was trendy as I recall, and now free trade and fair trade) then we know that sometimes simply speaking up changes the landscape, changes the argument, changes opinions, informs the public. The USCCB and others who spoke out, did so because the Government suddenly and abruptly demanded a new level of civil obedience that required religious disobedience. It was wrong. It still is wrong. It should be fought, regardless of how it plays out, because it is right to fight this ruling. It is right to say the Government should not be in the business of defining religion or the practice of religion or the limits of how one may conduct one's self in accordance with one's religion.
In this case, why would we talk about such things ever? They are personal private decisions, none of the Church's business. Stick to God and serving the poor and stuff like that. Catholics are not supposed to compartmentalize their faith and take it out for special occasions like Christmas and Easter
Our religion says God loves us as a father does his child. My dad cares what I read, what I think, what I do, what I don't do. God cares for me more than my dad does. I believe that this is so for everyone. God cares about how we conduct ourselves in all things, not simply if we serve the poor. He cares how much we love, He cares that we do even the littlest things with great love, and He cares if we enable sin when we could stop it.
We're not supposed to limit our love to when it is convenient or popular or publicly approved. We're supposed to be seamlessly Catholic. Ergo, we cannot stay silent and we cannot pretend that it doesn't affect our souls. Silence on moral issues invites presumed allowance, leading to greater demands for more silence. Even if 90+% of Catholics do not follow the teaching, it is still the teaching. Truth does not evaporate because a false argument is more popular, it is merely ignored.
But, as Galadriel says, "Some things that should not have been forgotten, were lost."
What we practice, what we say and what we do, what we do not say and what we do not do, defines us. What we allow, what we ignore, what we pretend isn't, and what we hope is, reveals who we are in our limited capacity to affect and understand the world. Dorthy Day understood that her actions of serving the poor stemmed from her love of Christ, and that the acts were a manifestation of her internal faith.
Likewise, Catholic hospitals are created from that same core, as are Catholic schools and Universities. They were founded by orders, they are designed to teach children with the faith, all of the subjects infused with the faith, and as such should not be considered somehow compartmentalized from the rest of one's faith. . Organizations that at their core and beginning and inspiration and purpose, are Catholic --revealing Catholicism via acts educating --University of Notre Dame, serving and living out the beatitudes --Catholic Charities for example, should not have to violate the source of their corporeal actions in order to be allowed to exist by the state. To my mind, this is secular puritanism and it is as unforgiving of non-believers as the Puritans ever were. Catholic Charities closed up their adoption agencies in Massachusetts because they were told to violate their religious beliefs in order to stay in the business.
But to the HHS point itself; So Catholics should just go along? Should just shrug their shoulders? At any point should Catholicism or the faithful say we won't do this? If not, then Sir Thomas Moore and all the Martyrs of the Church were the greatest bunch of saps ever. Imagine, standing up to the popular and powerful all for one's faith! They didn't do it all in one sweep, most of them started by simply speaking out or refusing to go along to get along. Their lives and writings often reveal a deep struggle to hold true which (if it is unnecessary), seems a fool's decision at best, if not the actions and thinkings of madly insane people. Ultimately, they had before them Christ and the State; Jesus and Caesar; the Church and the King. The saints chose one way. The same choice is before us now, perhaps not to the extent of martyrdom, but that makes any cowardice on our part all the more shameful. We don't fear the prospect of death as they did and still, we won't speak.
The thing is, we've (Catholics/the Church) often failed to stand up in the past and even now. We are still indited for those failures. We will always be held accountable for those failures. The Catholic Church and its body is supposed to be courageous, is supposed to speak out, is supposed to know right from wrong and always side with Christ, and to be luminous in its acts of mercy, it's daily business, its everything and all things. Because we are sinners, because we are fallen, we often give a dim reflection of what should be blinding light.
We're supposed to serve lavishly, give lavishly, hope lavishly, pray lavishly and love lavishly. We are often misers on this point with all of our gifts, burying them in the yard for fear of reprimand, for all sorts of reasons. We're called to recognize that we must not let ourselves be afraid, we must not be misers of our gifts, we must speak, we must act, and we must follow Christ first in all things. We're supposed to Be Catholics first, not Americans. We're supposed to be Catholics first, not Liberals or Conservatives. We're supposed to be Catholics first, not Republicans or Democrats. We're supposed to be Catholics first, last and always. Alas, we are fallen and often put those other labels first, when what we should do is speak "Friend" and enter.
Thanks for reading. I have taken a few hits lately for speaking out in the writing community. But as I said to another friend who disagreed, if we can't ever have a discussion about hard issues about which we disagree, then why do we bother talking? If we can't say what we think without being called names or calling names, we don't have an argument of ideas, we have a fight of emotions (See Beck and Olberman) --and that proves/improves nothing.
One last thing, to those who think the Bishops have no business speaking out because the Church in recent years has failed to be a good steward of its people; The Church, like her people, is an imperfect vessel. I see components of her beauty and I agonize when she is less than what she is called to be.
That we fail sometimes does not negate that we are right now. The Church is speaking with authority and truth. We must stand with her stewards and princes.
As for the rest of it, I have few answers. I recommend prayer and fasting and petitioning for intersessions from Blessed Pope John Paul the Great and Blessed Mother Teresa. They embody the whole of the Church, the male and the female, the call to deep prayer and evangelization and profound knowledge of the history and the Church and her teaching and her great wisdom, and the need to feed the hungry, the poor, nurse the sick and sell everything and follow Christ. Neither compromised their faith or their actions. They understood the deep mystery of suffering, both physical and spiritual, they got the hard reality of service and the need to sit at the feet of Christ in Adoration. We need the strength of both, the clarity of both, the wisdom of both, and the intercession of both.
We should be doing this anyway, but I'm asking for deep prayer not for the outcome of healing, health, wholeness for all. Lastly, we need to act.
Having a large family, the costumes themselves often reflect themes. For instance, this year, superheroes seem to rule the roost. So far, I have Batgirl, Wonder woman and Spiderman and Super girl. I was rooting for a full Justice League. Naturally, one contrarian child decided to be Bobafet. Still, the idea of having a coordinated holiday sounded fun to me, so we began brainstorming for next year.
Thus was born, the REJECTED HALLOWEEN THEME COSTUMES for My Family in 2008.
10) Government/Timely: The Supreme Court Justices. Although we would also have a 4-5 split as typified by the current nine judges, few of the children had the judicial temperament necessary to a role on the bench. The temptation to use the gavels for something that could probably get one disbarred or at least, disciplined by a parent would be overwhelming.
9) Religious: Using the parents as well, Moses and the Ten Commandments. Dad would get to be Moses. But when I chose HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER, it felt more like an editorial than a costume choice.
8) Sports: The Offensive line of the Redskins. We have no problems internally, but no one was interested and sometimes, they don’t show up.
7) Out of Season: Santa’s eight tiny reindeer plus Rudolph. This was a cute idea, so maybe we’ll save it for a Christmas card.
6) Themes generated because Mom NEEDS to get out more: Pooh Corner, Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends and the entire cast from Green Eggs and Ham.
5) Nominated by Teenaged Son: The Nine left Nimas Morgul on Midsummer’s Eve. (LOTR). Having the nine ring wraiths seemed a bit macabre even for total fans like us. Doing the Fellowship was also problematic because no one wanted to be Boromir or for that matter, Frodo. They’ve seen the movies. “I don’t want to have my finger bitten off.”
4) What’s For Dinner: Using Mom and Dad too, the 11 herbs and spices in the KFC recipe. (Too much cholesterol for the two grownups).
3) Younger Brother Getting Into the Act: The ten pins and a bowling ball. Nixed by Mom for obvious safety reasons.
2) Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Scotty, Nurse Chapel and Yeoman Rand –the original Star Trek series. This one broke down for three reasons. 1) The gender ratio proved too great. 2) None of the girls were willing to be any of the girls other than Uhura. 3) We couldn’t blame them.
1) We’d be Abbot and Costello, and the kids would be Who’s on First, What’s on Second, I don’t Know’s on Third…Today, Tomorrow’s pitching, Why, Because and I Don’t Give a Darn! Then we realized. We never found out what the guy’s name was playing left field.
But then again, What’s on second. I don’t know. Third base!
Happy Halloween is coming, but for a real treat, try.Humor-Blogs.com!
At a Comic Book Shop in the mall, there was a rack of costumes. While Batman, Spiderman and Superman were well represented in all sizes, only two costumes appeared to have been ordered to fit women wanting to indulge in Halloween traditions: Halle Berry' Catwoman and Daredevil's Sai wielding ninja girlfriend, Electra.
Good luck fellas.
Now I read and have read comic books since I could read. To this day, I am puzzled that the costume purveyors don't have Marvel Girl, Storm, Kitty Pryde, Phoenix, Dark Phoenix, all manner of Catwoman and Batgirl costumes available for October 31st. Who wouldn't want to dress like the Winsome Wasp or Megan of Excalibur, or Emma Frost after she joined the X-men. Honestly, I'd have suited up my entire group as the X-men if the manufacturers had created any options other than Wolverine.
But it isn't just the X-men that suffer from this problem. It happens with Lord of the Rings and Star Wars too. I mean, Eowyn rides into battle, hacks up the Witch King, providing the turning point in the battle and is there a costume for her? No. Not even a wig and pretty dress from her time in the Rohan court!
And I remember when Star wars first came out. There were Han Solo figures, R2D2, C3PO, Chewbacca, even the unfortunate ewoks and Jabba the Hut, but Leia? Forget about it. Princess Amidala is available but most people over the age of 20 would like to erase from their adult memory, any recall of Lucas' second trilogy that prequelled the first.
Searching the costume sites is a dicey endeavor. Lots of the potential outfits border on the pornographic. I mean, they make the Halle Barre and the Electra pieces look a bit like Maid Marian and Juliette. Maybe the comic book guys are banking on desperation to close the deal.
I've however come up with my own idea for Halloween, and I'll even get to be a superhero in the process. This year, I'm the Invisible Woman.
