Category: Blithe Spirit

The good and the bad, emphasis on Trib and Sun-Times

Go fund Chicago pastor whose people burned the gay flag? Nope.

The long arm of gay activism reaches into a very popular website.

In which Fr. Paul Kalchik came up a winner, with $16,000 raised, or was raised but now isn’t.

Go there, and you don’t find Fr. Kalchik.

And the money raised so far goes back to the donors, according to the Go Fund sponsor, or will be going there.

On Sept. 6, GoFundMe contacted Church Militant claiming that our “GoFundMe account has been removed due to a violation of our Terms & Conditions.” It went on to say it would refund all donations within 3–7 business days. Access to the site was immediately removed.

Although most donations have been refunded, multiple donors have complained they have not received their refund. Church Militant has contacted GoFundMe requesting an explanation why all donations have not been returned, but has received no response as of press time.

Not to worry, however. The Church Militant set up another appeal, at Funding Morality, where donations reached lotsa bucks from lotsa contributors:

1053

Contributors

$72,358.00

Donated

Happy ending to beat all: Job sees God, repents . . .

. . . and all falls in place.

Related image

Reading 1 JB 42:1-3, 5-6, 12-17
Job answered the LORD and said:

I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be hindered.
I have dealt with great things that I do not understand;
things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know.
I had heard of you by word of mouth,
but now my eye has seen you.
Therefore I disown what I have said,
and repent in dust and ashes.

Thus the LORD blessed the latter days of Job
more than his earlier ones.
For he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels,
a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she-asses.
And he had seven sons and three daughters,
of whom he called the first Jemimah,
the second Keziah, and the third Kerenhappuch.
In all the land no other women were as beautiful
as the daughters of Job;
and their father gave them an inheritance
along with their brothers.
After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years;
and he saw his children, his grandchildren,
and even his great-grandchildren.
Then Job died, old and full of years.

Us? We have to take it slow, calling early and often on the Great Deliverer, talking to Him, confiding, putting the whole mess into His hands, looking ahead when we too shall see Him.

via Saturday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Like the farmers and the cowboys in Oklahoma, the Senators sometimes get along

And sometimes they don’t, as we hear about a lot these days  . . .

WASHINGTON—The intense partisanship engulfing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has diverted attention from a raft of recent bipartisanship in the Senate during the past few weeks, drowning out issues that could appeal to voters in the midterms.

The chamber on Wednesday passed legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration for five years by a 93-6 vote. . . .

Also on Wednesday, the Senate advanced an opioid bill to President Trump’s desk by a vote of 98-1. . . . .

And last week, Mr. Trump signed into law a spending bill that increases military spending for the next fiscal year and keeps the government open through Dec. 7, averting a government shutdown days before funding was set to expire on Oct. 1. The Senate had voted 93-7 to approve that measure.

Sound and fury there is, but also, eek, bipartisanship!

via ‘We Don’t All Hate Each Other’: Senate’s Bipartisanship Obscured by Kavanaugh Fight – WSJ

Archbishop Chaput to youth synod: Developed nations stuck in a ‘moral adolescence’

In his homily on the synod’s opening day, Pope Francis spoke of Christ as “eternally young.”

Chaput called this image “not only beautiful but powerful” because Christ is “alive and vigorous, and constantly offering his disciples an abundant new life,” adding, “Thank you, Holy Father, for reminding us of that.”

And then, as understood in the image:

Of course, the Jesus who came into the world as an infant did not end his mission as a youth. He matured into an adult man of courage, self-mastery, and mercy guided by justice and truth.

He was a teacher both tender and forceful; understanding and patient – but also very clear about the kind of human choices and actions that would lead to God, and the kind that would not.

Chaput applied that insight to our day:

The wealthy societies of today’s world that style themselves as “developed” – including most notably my own – are in fact underdeveloped in their humanity. They’re frozen in a kind of moral adolescence; an adolescence which they’ve chosen for themselves and now seek to impose upon others. [boldface added]

As for the “instrumentum,” or outline statement of what the synod seeks to accomplish (approved by Francis, of course), it

does a good job of exploring the roots of that underdevelopment and the challenges to young people that flow from it.

But it needs to be much stronger and more confident in presenting God’s Word and the person of Jesus Christ as the only path to a full and joyful humanity. And it needs to do this much earlier in the text. [boldface added]

Quibble? I think not.

via Archbishop Chaput to youth synod: Developed nations stuck in a ‘moral adolescence’

Catholics for interracialism in Chicago, ages ago

Former Commonweal editor Peggy Steinfels reviews Oxford U. Press book about Chicago interracialism efforts in 1st half of 20th century and then some.

She finds names of people she knows from college days, as do I, from Jesuit days some years later.

Glory days of “Catholic action,” when a happy few fought a good fight, lovingly, giving witness to the truth — with minimal results, as I recall.

But witness mattered and matters still, I say.

via Minorities within Minorities | Commonweal Magazine