Well, you've been warned, so if it does you have no one to blame but society.
I did my Morning News Scan Today, and it was pretty phreakin' awful. Awful enough that it made me mad...again.
The problem with that is I actually wish i was a good and holy Catholic, yet I am a member of a cultural sub-group--rednecks--that are pretty much not good at being Holy Catholics. This leads to cognitive dissonance. Actually, this dichotomy of identity is becoming difficult enough that cognitive dissonance isn't so much a temporary affliction, or momentary state of mental paralysis for me as it is a lifestyle. I'm usually caught between two imperatives, and one of them is the right one, while the other went out of fashion not long after the Maccabees! I was raised to fight back when someone offers you insult, or threatens your way of life. My Father taught that there are times when it's not only appropriate but the only ethical thing to do, under certain provocations, to bust somebody in the nose, just prior to a good sharp jab to the solar plexus and a knee to the face. (Yeah, I spent more than my fair share of time in the school office... .)
But the King left me a written order: "But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other as also."( Matt. 5:39) So much for my cultural values. (Has anyone else reflected that the first century apparently produced a bunch of mean a$$ed southpaws? Either that our they struck from behind a lot.) My desire to engage, in the combative sense of the word is, after thinking about it, generally sinful, yet I haven't got a pacifist bone in my body.
Maureen Dowd (my least favorite intelligent, attractive redhead of an appropriate age) wrote a nice article about Mother Delores Hart entitled "Where the Boys Aren't" for the New York Times SundayReview opinion pages. I have nothing against the article. But when I read the comments I was appalled at the sheer volume and vitriol of Anti-Catholic sentiment in particular, and Anti-Christian sentiment in general. I'm not talking about disagreement here, I'm talking about hate speech. Comments like "Sounds like someone was a coward--easier to hid in the Church than explore the wonders of her creator (sic)". Or perhaps "The Church is the perpetrator of the longest running, most successful con operation and assorted passel of crimes against humanity ever achieved". How about "'Nuns are a dying breed' you say; meaning meaning the nuns are going to the big sleep and not being replaced. That is good news". Or "...fear of her sexuality drove her decision.". They weren't all bad, my favorite comment reads "Maybe it's as simple as this...print or say anything about the Catholic Church and people who love to hate feel the need to "shout out". , from a Non-Catholic.
But by and large, expose my Scots-Irish, Redneck, Self to enough of this stuff, and I'm ready to fight.
There was another article in the Times about a priest with working class roots and a Harvard education, who is preaching against Birth Control. The article did take note that after people heard the preaching, the rate of contraception among parishioners dropped, Couples with grown children bemoaned their own use of contraceptives, a rise in effective evangelization, etc. But they looked for people who disagreed. Tellingly, the ones who did were all of a certain age--that is to say, gray headed. But they looked for the dissenters, and treated them as an authentic Catholic voice, when they are not.
It seems today that I"m picking on the New York Times, but really it's just an accident that it worked out that way. These pieces interested me on my search of the news aggregators (is that even spelled right?) and
so here we are. But the Times published an article on the 14th of this month, "Obama Shift on Contraception Splits Critics" that bothers me as well, mostly on a factual basis. One, what shift? The Regime rearranged words to continue, in fact to expand, it's design of making the Church participate in grave, objective sin. Not only that, but we have things like the phrase "The near unified front led by the nation's Roman Catholic Bishops to oppose a mandate for employers to cover Birth control has now crumbled amid the compromise plan that the Obama administration offered last week to accommodate religious institutions." Really? "near unified? 100% of the US Catholic Bishops have spoken against this--that's unified. moreover, far from crumbling, the front has expanded, and includes a unanimous vote by the Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America, Protestant groups, Jewish groups and others. Not only that, but the Times said that the Catholic Health Association endorsed the "compromise". It didn't. In fact, it denounced it. Carol Keehan endorsed it, and then the board of the CHA issued it's statement rejecting it. Likewise with the assertion that Catholic Charities USA endorsed it. And so forth. The Times also cites the leadership Council of Woman Religious, The Sisters of Mercy, and the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, none of whom are authorized to speak for the Catholic Church. Not only that, I have been unable to find any retraction or correction for the inaccuracies presented. And, of course, there are the comments: "Catholics (sic) talk about their religious liberty being threatened makes me ill." "We are angry Mary, that they groomed us when we were very young with their beautiful rituals then subjugated us with their horrible edicts. Not unlike pedophilia, come to think of it.". So on and so forth. mare hate speech, more inaccuracy, more Anti-catholic Bigotry.
This stuff goes back a long way in American History, it dates to before there was a United States. But it's picking up. I have the memory of going to a Pagan Gathering in 91, in which across the Haw river in North Carolina, on private land, a group of Christians had gathered and were singing "praise music". One of the enlightened, tolerant young pagan women expressed to general approval the idea "We should just be able to get a machine gun and shoot those Christians for singing like that, it shouldn't be allowed".
People hate us.
In Canada, in the Province of Quebec, the law has changed on religious education in the schools to present a 'balanced' mix of every religion. Parents are unhappy. Of course government is the only enterprise in which those who pay for it (otherwise known as clients or customers) get it the way the provider wants, not the way they want. What happens in Canada is important to us, because theFascist Faction progressive elements in the US look toward Canada for inspiration and models of how to do things. I won't comment on the law in Canada, because, well, I'm American and they are a sovereign nation. I will mention the commentary on the news stories I read. Actually, on one comment. "Forcing your faith onto your child is interfering with their freedom of religion". That's the most dangerous comment I've read so far in 2012. How long before some Fascist Church Hater progressive child advocate uses this as the pretext for a law suit, probably a class action suit, against churches to put a stop to Sunday School? Hmmm?
Well, all this put together gets my back up. Severely. And it makes me ready for a good old fashioned Sockdologer. Unfortunately I have this "whole conscience thing", that makes me think about the Kings Orders, like But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt 5:43-47) This shouldn't get my back up, because we were warned, and we should be expecting this. After all, The King told us Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matt 5: 11,12) Besides, in a real way, this is a measure of our success. If we were completely ineffective, no one would give a rats butt about us! Not only that, but this is going to be a cleansing process for us. After all, things are going to get hard for the Church in the US now, harder than they have been for a century, maybe ever. We need to hold to what the King said, and remember that when it gets hard, he told us what not to do; As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hers the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but enures for a while and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. Harder for most Americans than financial or legal disability is ridicule and hostility, not being cool. This is going to send a lot of people on the path of apostasy, not because of intellectual considerations, but because they are uncomfortable not being part of the in crowd. But for people like me, the danger will not be conforming to the dominant paradigm, but becoming wrathful and hostile in our opposition., a temptation that will set us into opposition to the Kings explicit orders on how to react to persecution.
My upbringing urges me to direct action, after a point. I was taught that it can be immoral, cowardly, to let rules and regulations stand in the way of sticking up for yourself. My blood and my culture tell me the time approaches to hoist the black flag and fix bayonets, as my ancestors did a The Cowpens, at Culloden, at Bannockburn, at Sterling castle and back even to the days of Buodicca. But my Lord and My God tell me otherwise, in fact he tells me Blessed re those who persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 5: 10). I need to remember that, and to remember that no matter how put upon, Guy Fawkes isn't a saint, and he wasn't a martyr. He was a criminal.
My prayer is that I shall have more of St. Stephen in me, and less of Guy Fawkes.
I did my Morning News Scan Today, and it was pretty phreakin' awful. Awful enough that it made me mad...again.
The problem with that is I actually wish i was a good and holy Catholic, yet I am a member of a cultural sub-group--rednecks--that are pretty much not good at being Holy Catholics. This leads to cognitive dissonance. Actually, this dichotomy of identity is becoming difficult enough that cognitive dissonance isn't so much a temporary affliction, or momentary state of mental paralysis for me as it is a lifestyle. I'm usually caught between two imperatives, and one of them is the right one, while the other went out of fashion not long after the Maccabees! I was raised to fight back when someone offers you insult, or threatens your way of life. My Father taught that there are times when it's not only appropriate but the only ethical thing to do, under certain provocations, to bust somebody in the nose, just prior to a good sharp jab to the solar plexus and a knee to the face. (Yeah, I spent more than my fair share of time in the school office... .)
But the King left me a written order: "But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other as also."( Matt. 5:39) So much for my cultural values. (Has anyone else reflected that the first century apparently produced a bunch of mean a$$ed southpaws? Either that our they struck from behind a lot.) My desire to engage, in the combative sense of the word is, after thinking about it, generally sinful, yet I haven't got a pacifist bone in my body.
Maureen Dowd (my least favorite intelligent, attractive redhead of an appropriate age) wrote a nice article about Mother Delores Hart entitled "Where the Boys Aren't" for the New York Times SundayReview opinion pages. I have nothing against the article. But when I read the comments I was appalled at the sheer volume and vitriol of Anti-Catholic sentiment in particular, and Anti-Christian sentiment in general. I'm not talking about disagreement here, I'm talking about hate speech. Comments like "Sounds like someone was a coward--easier to hid in the Church than explore the wonders of her creator (sic)". Or perhaps "The Church is the perpetrator of the longest running, most successful con operation and assorted passel of crimes against humanity ever achieved". How about "'Nuns are a dying breed' you say; meaning meaning the nuns are going to the big sleep and not being replaced. That is good news". Or "...fear of her sexuality drove her decision.". They weren't all bad, my favorite comment reads "Maybe it's as simple as this...print or say anything about the Catholic Church and people who love to hate feel the need to "shout out". , from a Non-Catholic.
But by and large, expose my Scots-Irish, Redneck, Self to enough of this stuff, and I'm ready to fight.
There was another article in the Times about a priest with working class roots and a Harvard education, who is preaching against Birth Control. The article did take note that after people heard the preaching, the rate of contraception among parishioners dropped, Couples with grown children bemoaned their own use of contraceptives, a rise in effective evangelization, etc. But they looked for people who disagreed. Tellingly, the ones who did were all of a certain age--that is to say, gray headed. But they looked for the dissenters, and treated them as an authentic Catholic voice, when they are not.
It seems today that I"m picking on the New York Times, but really it's just an accident that it worked out that way. These pieces interested me on my search of the news aggregators (is that even spelled right?) and
so here we are. But the Times published an article on the 14th of this month, "Obama Shift on Contraception Splits Critics" that bothers me as well, mostly on a factual basis. One, what shift? The Regime rearranged words to continue, in fact to expand, it's design of making the Church participate in grave, objective sin. Not only that, but we have things like the phrase "The near unified front led by the nation's Roman Catholic Bishops to oppose a mandate for employers to cover Birth control has now crumbled amid the compromise plan that the Obama administration offered last week to accommodate religious institutions." Really? "near unified? 100% of the US Catholic Bishops have spoken against this--that's unified. moreover, far from crumbling, the front has expanded, and includes a unanimous vote by the Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America, Protestant groups, Jewish groups and others. Not only that, but the Times said that the Catholic Health Association endorsed the "compromise". It didn't. In fact, it denounced it. Carol Keehan endorsed it, and then the board of the CHA issued it's statement rejecting it. Likewise with the assertion that Catholic Charities USA endorsed it. And so forth. The Times also cites the leadership Council of Woman Religious, The Sisters of Mercy, and the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, none of whom are authorized to speak for the Catholic Church. Not only that, I have been unable to find any retraction or correction for the inaccuracies presented. And, of course, there are the comments: "Catholics (sic) talk about their religious liberty being threatened makes me ill." "We are angry Mary, that they groomed us when we were very young with their beautiful rituals then subjugated us with their horrible edicts. Not unlike pedophilia, come to think of it.". So on and so forth. mare hate speech, more inaccuracy, more Anti-catholic Bigotry.
This stuff goes back a long way in American History, it dates to before there was a United States. But it's picking up. I have the memory of going to a Pagan Gathering in 91, in which across the Haw river in North Carolina, on private land, a group of Christians had gathered and were singing "praise music". One of the enlightened, tolerant young pagan women expressed to general approval the idea "We should just be able to get a machine gun and shoot those Christians for singing like that, it shouldn't be allowed".
People hate us.
In Canada, in the Province of Quebec, the law has changed on religious education in the schools to present a 'balanced' mix of every religion. Parents are unhappy. Of course government is the only enterprise in which those who pay for it (otherwise known as clients or customers) get it the way the provider wants, not the way they want. What happens in Canada is important to us, because the
Well, all this put together gets my back up. Severely. And it makes me ready for a good old fashioned Sockdologer. Unfortunately I have this "whole conscience thing", that makes me think about the Kings Orders, like But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt 5:43-47) This shouldn't get my back up, because we were warned, and we should be expecting this. After all, The King told us Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matt 5: 11,12) Besides, in a real way, this is a measure of our success. If we were completely ineffective, no one would give a rats butt about us! Not only that, but this is going to be a cleansing process for us. After all, things are going to get hard for the Church in the US now, harder than they have been for a century, maybe ever. We need to hold to what the King said, and remember that when it gets hard, he told us what not to do; As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hers the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but enures for a while and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. Harder for most Americans than financial or legal disability is ridicule and hostility, not being cool. This is going to send a lot of people on the path of apostasy, not because of intellectual considerations, but because they are uncomfortable not being part of the in crowd. But for people like me, the danger will not be conforming to the dominant paradigm, but becoming wrathful and hostile in our opposition., a temptation that will set us into opposition to the Kings explicit orders on how to react to persecution.
My upbringing urges me to direct action, after a point. I was taught that it can be immoral, cowardly, to let rules and regulations stand in the way of sticking up for yourself. My blood and my culture tell me the time approaches to hoist the black flag and fix bayonets, as my ancestors did a The Cowpens, at Culloden, at Bannockburn, at Sterling castle and back even to the days of Buodicca. But my Lord and My God tell me otherwise, in fact he tells me Blessed re those who persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 5: 10). I need to remember that, and to remember that no matter how put upon, Guy Fawkes isn't a saint, and he wasn't a martyr. He was a criminal.
My prayer is that I shall have more of St. Stephen in me, and less of Guy Fawkes.
1 comment:
"The near unified front led by the nation's Roman Catholic Bishops to oppose a mandate for employers to cover Birth control has now crumbled amid the compromise plan that the Obama administration offered last week to accommodate religious institutions."
Now THERE is an example of wishful thinking if I've ever seen one!
About the St. Stephen vs Guy Fawkes thing; I just finished a biography of St. Joan of Arc. Wow!
She had no qualms about mixing it up with the enemy, she'd always warn them to surrender or else. Then she'd get down to business, after the fighting was done she'd be seen weeping for her enemies and praying for their souls.
While she'd avoid fighting anyone herself she had no qualms about leading men into battle, holding onto her standard as she rode and thus avoiding any direct combat.
Theres more, but you get the point. The whole "turning the other cheek" thingy runs the risk of courting suicide. Some time back I read of how the "black robes" taught some Indian tribes to live as pacifists, willing to die rather than make war. Their Iriquois neighbors very cheerfully helped them out with that.
I'll try for more St. Joan of Arc than Guy Fawkes, never thought much of his beard anyway.
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