Author: Jim Bowman

Jim Bowman covered religion 1968-78 for the Chicago Daily News, since then has written books, articles, etc., mostly on corporate history but also on religion (Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968), and more recently on politics (Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters -- Lulu.com, Kindle). Longtime Oak Park, Illinois, resident, he lives now on Chicago's North Side, where four of his and Winnie's six children live close by.

Has anyone beside me wondered why almost everyone goes to Communion at mass, no one holding back because he or she has not gone first to confession?

Confession out of style . . .

Dominus Vobiscum: Notes from a massgoer's underground

Yes. The last two previous popes have done so:

As John Paul II and Benedict XVI lamented, there is scant evidence in our communities of any awareness of the distinction between worthy and unworthy communions—one of the most basic lessons children used to be taught in their catechism class.

The way we were:

Children in those primitive “pre-Vatican II days” were taught to practice virtue and avoid mortal sin because they should desire to be able to receive the Lord and be ever more perfectly united to Him, until they reached the glory of heaven where they would possess Him forever. They were taught that if one received the Lord in a state of mortal sin, one committed a further and a worse sin.

Can you imagine Pope Francis talking this way?

They were taught that making a good confession, with sorrow for sin and an intention to avoid it…

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The Fifty-Year Descent to Footnote 351: Our Progressive Desensitization to the Most Holy Eucharist – OnePeterFive

Holy Communion not so holy any more . . .

Dominus Vobiscum: Notes from a massgoer's underground

Such a wake-up analysis:

The first major step was the allowance of communion in the hand while standing???a sharp break from the deeply-ingrained practice of many centuries of kneeling in adoration at the altar rail and receiving on the tongue, like a baby bird being fed by its parent (as we see in countless medieval depictions of the pelican that has wounded her breast in order to feed her chicks).

This change had the obvious effect of making people think the Holy Eucharist wasn???t so mysterious and holy after all. If you can just take it in your hand like ordinary food, it might as well be a potato chip distributed at a party.[1]

The feeling of awe and reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament was systematically diminished and undermined through this modernist reintroduction of an ancient practice that had long since been discontinued by the Church in her pastoral…

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Poll: Trump’s approval rating on the economy hits a new high – Hot Air

Mick ticks:

White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney spelled out Trump???s 2020 economic message on Tuesday ??? suggesting voters would still be willing to support the President even if they don???t like him personally.

???You hate to sound like a clich??, but are you better off than you were four years ago? It???s pretty simple, right? It???s the economy, stupid. I think that???s easy. People will vote for somebody they don???t like if they think it???s good for them,??? Mulvaney said during a talk at the Milken conference in Los Angeles. [Italics added]

What’s more obvious than that?

St. Ignatius alumni demand answers on 2017 firing of gay teacher ‘outed’ by student | Chicago Sun-Times

Messy, messy.

A group of alumni of St. Ignatius College Prep is demanding answers from the Near West Side high school after the story of a 2017 firing of a gay teacher resurfaced last month [Sun-Times
reported].

The teacher, Matt Tedeschi, wrote an essay in March sharing new details from his controversial firing, which he claimed at the time was because he was ???outed??? by a student as a gay man. In the essay published on Medium, Tedeschi revealed he had also been criticized by administrators when he forwarded a report of a student???s sexual assault to the school leadership.

One of the many wrinkles in the story:

Tedeschi, though, said he found out from an administrator that there were plans to terminate him solely because of the dating profile before the sexual assault was even reported.

Online dating profile?

Tedeschi???s trouble at St. Ignatius started in spring 2016 when a student found the teacher???s profile on the dating site OkCupid and learned he was gay, Tedeschi wrote in his [Medium] essay.

He dismissed that as a problem: “Other teachers at St. Ignatius have online dating profiles, he said, including profiles on OKCupid.” according to a DNA info story in 2017, when he was fired.

Well, if that’s not a problem, it shows how things have changed. (But you knew that, Jim.)

Tedeschi makes his case rather detailed and convincing — student sneaky troublemakers, administrators’ clumsy, covering-up responses, etc. Sneaky students you always have, Ditto clumsy, devious administrators — though a dear friend who worked many years in a high school office is quick to remind one of rules and laws that prevent administrators telling all they know.

Scandal is the issue, but so is equity.

After Trump, Le Déluge | Oren Cass | First Things

Early in this essay about redefining conservatism etc. in this rather good analysis of what Trump and his supporters hath wrought:

Options for the future shape of American conservatism are not confined to what came before Trump and what Trump himself represents.

His role is not that of builder, constructing some compelling new vision to compete with the old one, but of earthquake, toppling everything built with flawed principles on shaky foundations and leaving open space in which to build anew.

???More earthquake??? is not a rebuilding plan. The question is where old structures should be resurrected and what new ones should be preferred. [boldface added]

Put another way, Trump discovered and uncovered a new version of what was wrong well ahead of his candidacy and incumbency.

Pay attention, btw, to the rich commentary that follows . . .

Funny, funny from 1917 mystery short story, THE PROBLEM OF CELL 13 . . .

The amazing Professor Van Dusen . . .

Writers & Writing

. . . by Jacques Futrelle, introducing a main character, in a nice bit of deadpan:

Professor Van Dusen was remotely German. For generations his ancestors had been noted in the sciences; he was the logical result, the master mind.

First and above all he was a logician. At least thirty-five years of the half-century or so of his existence had been devoted exclusively to proving that two and two always equal four, except in unusual cases, where they equal three or five, as the case may be.

He stood broadly on the general proposition that all things that start must go somewhere, and was able to bring the concentrated mental force of his forefathers to bear on a given problem.

Incidentally it may be remarked that Professor Van Dusen wore a No. 8 hat.

Well I should say so.

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House Democrats Back Bill That Would Result in 500,000 People Losing Health Insurance – Reason.com

The party that can’t get anything right.

Democrats have spent years complaining that Republican health care legislation would result in fewer people with health insurance, often while pointing to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates showing just how many would go without coverage. But now Democrats in the House are backing legislation that would result in 500,000 people losing coverage, according to a new report from the CBO.

Put another way, the gang that can’t shoot straight.

Top Dem strategists launch secret-money group to rebrand party

Going for the gold.

“It’s no great secret that the presidential race will be won or lost in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio — if we can win back the narrative that the word ‘Democrat’ equals people who are fighting for folks who work hard every day, we can continue to win elections,” [exec director of the group, Future Majority, Mark] Riddle  [told Politico].

“If [Democrats] get defined as being about socialism and these other words people can hear about out of Washington, then I worry.” [first edit mine]

“Rebranding” here means effort to fool some of the people some of the time — enough to swing “folks who work hard every day” (ah those tried and true by now getting a big old) in the face of AOC et al.

I liken it to old-money GOP’ers pouring huge chunks of cash into the losing Mitt Romney campaign. Running from the tag Trump hung on them in his most recent State of the Union message.

And count on the Big T riding that horse all the way. While bragging on his economy.