Month: December 2019

Consider Rick Morrissey covering the Care Bears at the end of a mediocre season . . .

He makea-me laugh . . .

Chicago Newspapers

. . . He opens today’s loving analysis of the Monsters of the Midway at season’s end:

The Bears finished near the bottom of the NFL in offensive production, but let’s keep our eyes on the prize, folks: They led the league in teammates who really, really care about each other.

Coach Matt Nagy preached the camaraderie gospel all year, and it figures to pay off in a big way when the guys share feelings and toast marshmallows at the postseason camping trip.

Alas, however, “a ton of issues.”

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WHEN A FRIEND CROSSES THE BAR . . . A Jesuit funeral sermon, February, 2000

Sanctifying grace . . .

Dominus Vobiscum: Notes from a massgoer's underground

Pat preached. He had two points to make, he said, “before I get to Peter.” Peter was the deceased, his friend of 49 ½ years, since the two of them entered the Jesuits. Pat’s two points were that he stood on “holy ground” there in the retirement center for Jesuits of eight upper Midwestern states and that their suffering (as sick, invalided, dying) was “salvific.”

This “salvific” is related to “terrific” in its ending. The s-a-l-v part is related to “salvation,” as of souls. If something is salvific, it makes for, contributes to salvation of souls. It’s a Latin-word-turned-English, a staple of the course on divine grace – God’s gift to people that brings them around to (a) straight-and-narrow-path behavior and (b) everlasting life.

If you knew the vocabulary, as the Colombiere Center congregation did, you got Pat’s message: Pete, stricken with polio 45 years earlier, had not wasted his…

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McCarrick’s gifts: $600,000 to high-ranking prelates

Sickening. 

So they could see no evil.

The disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick sent more than $600,000 in cash gifts to Vatican officials and other influential prelates during his term as Archbishop of Washington, the Washington Post has revealed.

A legendary fundraiser, McCarrick brought in $6 million in tax-exempt donations to an “Archbishop’s Special Fund,” over which he had complete control. He drew on that fund to send gifts that included, for instance, $19,000 to Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Secretary of State; $6,500 to then-Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, the sostituto who handled everyday Vatican administrative affairs; $5,000 to the late Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, who was the papal nuncio in Washington; and a one-time gift of $250,000 to Pope Benedict XVI shortly after his election.

Including Benedict? God help us.

via Catholic Culture

‘An Awakening’ Among Black Voters

Can it be true?

Former NFL player Jack Brewer, who is black, will be among the many African-Americans to cast their vote for President Trump in November. He predicts that the President will receive over 20% of the black vote which may well hand him a victory.

Although 20% may sound almost too good to be true, two polls conducted last month by Emerson and Rasmussen showed Trump’s support among blacks at 34%. In 2016, he earned just 8% of the black vote. According to the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, “Republican presidential candidates since 1976 have averaged 10% support from black voters, ranging from a low of 4% for John McCain in 2008 when he ran against Mr. Obama to 17% for Gerald Ford in 1976.”

Yes it can, yes it can, as spelled out in Former NFL Player and Obama Fundraiser Now Supports Trump; Says ‘There Is An Awakening’ Among Black Voters

The Bransfield report: Post publishes secret Vatican document as parishioners demand answers – The Washington Post

Apparently super-exclusive.

. . . not yet been made available to the public, to civil authorities who are pursuing criminal charges against the former bishop, or even to officials of the West Virginia diocese that paid for the investigation.

Has pages and pages of victim interviews, names blocked out of complaining victims.

The report itself is available as a 60-page download.

The German Church Has Fallen—Why Is No One Reporting This?

German bishops consulted scientists and sexologists and gave thumbs up to (a) adultery and (b) gay sex.

Only one other English-speaking publication is covering this story, this one claims.

The German bishops have formally rejected the constant teachings of the Catholic faith on sexual morality, teachings that go all the way back to the Apostles and Sacred Scripture.

At least that appears to be the case based on a press release from the German Bishop’s Conference of December 5th.

LifeSite News has done an admirable job of reporting this historic break from the Apostolic faith. And it is thanks to their reporting that I was able to find out anything at all about this tragic event.

Hmm.

via New Walden

Mass-goer has close call . . .

He gives it to us straight.

Aggressively sought today by a fellow worshiper two pews ahead of me for what was sure to be an aggressive handclasp, I held back.

It didn’t matter. My fellow worshiper was not to be denied. I knew I had to act and act fast, or all was lost. Come up with something or be crushed by this enthusiast. In a flash it came to me, and I said it, holding up the threatened limb: “Bad hand.”

Without a blink, wink, or nod, like a quarterback deciding to run, he reached across the aisle to make the flesh-pressing contact he desperately needed.

A friend once suggested that a person might claim leprosy and thus fend off such a handshaker. Never tried that, but now I have a better way. Keep it simple. Say “bad hand.”

See also What’s the Deal with the Sign of Peace? for more on same topic.

As illustrated:

This ancient tradition dates back to the 2nd century writings of Justin Martyr, which was then symbolized with a kiss. However, it fell into disuse until Vatican II when it was revived as an optional practice.

Key word here: optional. It should not become a free-for-all meet-and-greet, and no one should feel pressured to participate.

Word to the wise . . .

The father said stop that, the small son complied but without stopping it!

In his Grace and Truth: Twenty Steps to Embracing Virtue and Saving Civilization, George W. Rutler tells of the child versifier who foreshadowed his future greatness.

Just as it is in our better nature to sing, so it is in our better nature to arrange words in poetry. In the late seventeenth century in Southampton, England, there was a boy who was addicted to verse. As a boy, Isaac Watts watched a mouse by the fireplace and said, “The little mouse, for want of stairs, went up a rope to say his prayers.”

His father told him to cut it out. The family had had enough of his constant scansion. He replied, “Father, father, pity take, and I will no more verses make.”

He didn’t keep his poetic promise. Instead, he became the father of English hymnody, writing hundreds upon hundreds of church songs. We still sing many of them: “Joy to the World,” “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”

A natural, to be sure.