A picture, in this case a cartoon, being worth lots of words, let this simple message sink in if you will.

From an English pastor of a Novus Ordo parish. He tried to introduce the top one on a regular basis but had near-“riots” on his hand. Did so with school children, who did not complain. On to a new parish assignment, where he will be “treading carefully” in the matter.

Personally, I keep the head down. Even top-notch pastors look out at us worshipers. I think, here’s to you, everybody! Said genially. of course, but not always. I know I caught a bona fide glare from one fellow with whom I had tangled . . .

Later: Oh, I didn’t notice. He’s had a fervently appreciated EF (Latin) mass monthly, on a Sunday at 5 p.m. So he has found some market for it.

More here on how the latest from Francis “falls short.”

Vos Estis Lux Mundi, the new papal directive for handling sex abuse charges, takes a few steps toward reform within the Catholic Church. But the papal document???a??motu proprio, carrying the force of canon law???falls well short of an adequate response to a burgeoning scandal.

He can’t or won’t get a handle on it. Why the heck not?

There’s more, as to instructions on how bishop reports bishop:

. . . the bulk of the papal document addresses a specialized question: How should Church officials respond to charges of misconduct lodged against a bishop? Here the pope fails to address the fundamental challenge to the credibility of the Catholic hierarchy. The new policies were obviously drawn up in response to the worldwide scandal that erupted last year with the revelations of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s chronic sexual misconduct. So perhaps the best way to illustrate their deficiencies would be to imagine how things might have developed if these policies had been in place in the late 1990s, when rumors of McCarrick’s sexual escapades began to circulate.

Under the new system, a complaint against a bishop should be brought to the attention of the metropolitan archbishop in the region. But McCarrick was the metropolitan archbishop—first in Newark, then in Washington, D.C. In such a case, the new policy stipulates that the complaint should be sent to the Holy See. But reports about McCarrick were conveyed to the Vatican, and for years nothing happened. Later, when McCarrick retired, complaints might have been made to his successor, Cardinal Donald Wuerl. But again, Wuerl was informed.

Why would Francis pick on this solution as if it were no solution at all if the rot went so high and so deep?

Say it isn’t so? A congressman making moolah out of his job?

A charity run by the wife of Rep. Elijah Cummings received millions from special interest groups and corporations that had business before her husband???s committee and could have been used illegally, according to an IRS complaint filed by an ethics watchdog group.

Cummings, 68, a Maryland Democrat, is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. His wife, Maya Rockeymoore, 48, is the chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party and briefly ran in the state’s gubernatorial race last year. The couple married in 2008. Cummings was once heavily in debt ??? in part due to hefty child support payments to his first wife and two other women he had children with ??? but his financial situation has improved considerably over the past decade.

And a Democrat at that, one of them who want Trump to come clean about his finances!

Shocking.

Ideological simplicity.

A recent news item engaged in some virtue signalling by suggesting that elderly people be offered free rides in electric taxis. Such a laudable idea was lacking in only one thing ??? how would it work? Could an elderly person having a heart attack ring such a taxi to get to hospital at 2 AM or use it to get to Mass at 8 AM? Would the electric taxis come regularly, or for any reason?

Ideas of such monumental, ideological simplicity do not really allow for questions, nor for any definition of virtue. Not only that, the contemporary engagement in virtue signalling could not be further from the notion of virtue as a western society has understood it for centuries. Many know that St. Thomas Aquinas defines virtue as ???a good habit bearing on an activity,??? about which Father John Hardon, SJ, once explained as: ???the concept of virtue, then, is the element of habit, which stands in a special relation to the soul, whether in the natural order or elevated to the divine life by grace.???1

It’s a personal thing.

Baby on board:

Human being, in 3D and in colour

The law recently passed in Alabama meant to restrict the legal right to abort ??? a law clearly meant for a test in the Supreme Court ??? has leftists of all shapes in a state of hysteria.

It is a bit, albeit on a smaller scale, like watching the movie of Trump election again: countless Libtards inordinately whining and screaming as a reaction to their impotence to stop the tide of common sense.

I have bad news for the poor, deranged feminists of both sexes: their evil struggle is doomed in the long term.

The advancements of technology make it more and more difficult to deny the personhood of a baby in the womb. The very vocabulary says it: I did not use the expression ???a future baby in the womb???. The baby is here, as a baby, when he is in the womb.

???Baby on board???.

But they seem to be understanding that already — actually have understood it for some time — with their infanticide promotion.

She said that she would do it, and indeed she did.

However:

Not everyone appreciated the remarks.

Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, an erstwhile ally who has had a falling out with her over his attempts to block her choice of Ald. Scott Waguespack to be Finance chairman, said Lightfoot’s executive order “means absolutely nothing.”

“It’s not worth the paper it’s written on,” Beale said.

Aldermanic prerogative is a custom that isn’t codified in city statute, he noted.

“There’s no such rule as aldermanic prerogative, there’s no such law,” Beale said.

Nothing there there, he said, forebodingly.