Abbey-Roads2

Once there were two sisters…

Martha was the sister of Mary - the Mary people used to say had been a whore - but when morals plummeted in the 20th century and whores became commonplace, Mary became known as a feminist and an evangelist.  Both sisters lived with  their brother Lazarus - who was thought to be quite a stinker until Jesus raised him from the dead.  (Did you know when he was raised from the dead he was naked except for a winding cloth?!)

So anyway, Martha had panic attacks and would get very nervous while doing all the housework, while Mary usually sat calmly, sipping tea, twirling her hair, studying ”A Course In Miracles”.  This may explain why she (Martha) took a lot of valium, only it really wasn’t valium in those days, although she did grow poppies in the garden along with hemp - just to make rope and sandals of course.  (Martha knew the truth about Mary’s past and that is probably why she often became so indignant with her.)

Nevertheless - Martha loved to entertain (sounds like another Martha, doesn’t it?), and that is why she had the apostles over so often.  One day, while very busy on the set of her home-decorating-cooking show for the Bethanites, everyone showed up unexpectedly, hoping to eat and drink.  Mary, always the party girl, joined the guests and just sat on the window sill, with a goofy smile on her lips, listening to all the repartee.  After awhile, Martha complained about Mary being such a lay-about, although, when she was told she (Mary) had chosen the better part, Martha literally “threw in the towel” (which is how we got that saying today BTW), and told everyone to help themselves to the food (which is how buffets originated BTW), and Martha decided to do her own thing (which is what hippies did in the late ’60’s BTW).  Of course the family was always very fashionable, if not countercultural, and the story might have  ended there…

Yet few people knew Martha had been a portrait artist - that is why so many icons of Our Lady are mistakenly attributed to St. Luke instead - St. Luke was a doctor - a podiatrist in fact.  Some say that after rehab, Mary worked for a time as his nurse-receptionist, and she ordinarily washed the patients feet (with her hair!) before they could see the doctor - although that may have been a medieval invention.  (But you see how these stories can get all mixed up when you have an agenda.)  Anyway, that day Martha decided to paint her lay-about sister Mary’s portrait - as she sat on the window sill.  Yes, you guessed it - the painting became known throughout the world as the “Mona Lisa” and has been wrongly attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci ever since the 16th century. 

I know, I know - but the family name of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus was Winschki (’W’ pronounced like ‘V’), which Italianated became Vinci - the name of the town Leonardo was from in Italy.  (Leo’s mother’s maiden name was Winschki - his dad’s name was Nardino - so Leo took Leonardo as his nome de plume, if you will - and someone else attached Da Vinci - the “Da” meaning “of” or “from” Vinci in Italian - I forget which.)  Anyway, how the painting came into his possession is still a mystery, and another story entirely, although it could possibly make an interesting book and movie.

The End

(This story is totally fabricated, just like the Da Vinci Code and dissident interpretations of scripture.  You know - like the one about the centurion and his gay-slave-lover he asked Jesus to heal.  As if!) 

Secular press calls the Holy Father the biggest homophobe on the planet…

And yet uber-Catholics post photos like this inviting irreverent and sophomoric comments and captions.  How very, very sad.  Sad, sad, sad - to see unemployed people wasting their vocation and academic achievements on such nonsensical theatrics. 

It’s a condition.

St. Peter knew it, as did the citizens of the Gadarenes… “Leave me Lord, for I am a sinful man”…  “and when they saw him they begged Him to leave their district.” [Matthew 8:34]

Yeah - so I’ll be offline again today.

And your ‘no’ mean ‘no’… - James 5

Today’s first reading at Mass reminded me of the Lord’s words from the Sermon on the Mount, “Say ‘Yes’ when you mean ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ when you mean ‘No.’  Anything beyond that is from the evil one.”  [Matt. 5:37]

Certainly these passages must give anyone pause when one considers the ongoing debate about admitting homosexuals to Holy Orders.  The Vatican just reiterated, indeed clarified Church policy regarding this issue.  All I can say is there must be a lot of homosexuals in the clergy and the episcopate to cause such an uproar over what the pronouncement means.

The Cardinal.

In fact Cardinal Rosales of Manila more or less contradicted  the Vatican’s prohibition shortly after it was made public:

Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales of Manila told reporters that homosexuals who do not “act out” can be good priests. His statement came immediately after the release of a letter in which Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (bio - news), the Vatican Secretary of State, confirmed that a Church policy barring homosexuals from priestly training applies to all the world’s seminaries.

Speaking on Radio Veritas in the Philippines, Cardinal Rosales said that the Vatican did not intend to ban chaste homosexuals from the seminaries. “A homosexual inclination is not bad but acting it out is an entirely different matter, and that is what is written in the sacred scriptures,” he said. - CWN 

So what does the Vatican really say?

“The Vatican policy on the question, explained in an Instruction that was released by the Congregation for Catholic Education in 2005, stipulates that a homosexual identity interferes with a man’s ability to achieve what the document termed “affective maturity and spiritual paternity,” even if the individual refrains from homosexual acts. The Instruction says that anyone who identifies himself as homosexual– whether or not he is sexually active– is not an appropriate candidate for priestly ministry.”- CWN

It was meant for other people. 

I’ve known a fair share of gay priests - how do I know, because they identify as such.  I don’t care if a person identifies as SSA, (same-sex-attracted), gay, queer, homosexual, homosexually attracted, what have you.  If a man identifies himself in this way, there is obviously something “deep-seated” going on.  But many do not believe the rules apply to themselves, or they may feel they are simply meant to placate the faithful.  (Dymphna  has a short post on how confusing this issue can become - it is related to the story of a Texas bishop’s assignment of a gay priest and that priest’s subsequent resignation.)

WDTPRS?  (What do the priests really say?)

Not every “SSA” priest admits his orientation outright, although there are other signs and signals to let another person know, if he wants him to know.  For those willing to discuss the issue, many say they have made peace with their orientation and have accepted it as a gift from God.  They claim to have arrived at a place in life wherein they can be faithful to their vocation, observing chaste celibacy.  So that is good, right?  Pretty much - if he kept himself pure…

Because…

For all of the challenges anyone faces when embracing a life of chastity - I think it is much easier for a gay priest to fall prey to temptation and satisfy the urges of nature, mainly because gay sex is easily had for the taking.  Just ask any married man, or gay man in a relationship, or one who just happens to like cruising and public sex.  (It isn’t always about self-hate when guys do this stuff.  When straight men go to a brothel or massage parlor is it because they hate their sexuality or something inside themselves, or do they just want a quickie, or happen to like dirty sex?) 

Then…

There is that “favored person status“, the “club” atmosphere.  All men hang out with the guys they like and share similar interests with.  Gay men hang out with gay people - and if they are hanging out with straight people, very often these people tend to be “gay” by association.   (J. McNeil, The Church and the Homosexual, 1976)  They’re pretty much open to the artistic, more spiritual and intellectual sensitivity of the SSA priest.  In addition, SSA priests know and cultivate friendships with like-minded priests.  When they become bishops, maybe even cardinals, they continue to cultivate and maintain these friendships and contacts.  The “old boys” - “old girls” club thing.

Cover ups.

The SSA priest understands the lonely isolation of gay men, the slips and falls, and frequent addictive behaviors they can become entangled in.  Therefore they more easily excuse and even cover up their brother priest’s  sin - sometimes assuring him that there was no sin.  It can be like “protective services” for errant priests.  You don’t have to agree with me on this, but you can believe me when I tell you I know what I’m talking about.

Circumventing the rules.

To me, it is a strange obedience when a priest or religious studies and disects a rule to discover all of its loopholes in order to legitimize one’s behaviour.  A priest once explained the loopholes of the Vatican ruling to me in this way:

I have had long discussions with folks in Rome on the three criteria published in the Instruction.  They were very carefully worded so as to respect the infinite variety of souls and of Our Lord’s work in them.  They were not intended to close the door absolutely.  They are principles; their application is entrusted to those who have the grace of state to do so.

.
The three criteria:  

1. those who practise homosexuality,
2. present deep-seated homosexual tendencies
3. or support the so-called “gay culture.”

Numbers 1 and 3 are self-explanatory.  Number 2 is more complex.  The deep-seated tendency is generally manifested in the individual for whom the SSA is very core of his identity.  All of his choices and all of his self-expression proceeds from what he perceives as being (ontologically) constitutional of who he is as a person.  Homosexuality as a state of being is a relatively new concept.  The traditional moral theology looks at one’s choices and behaviour: a question, not of being, but of doing, or saying, or acting out, or otherwise expressing what is an intrinsically disordered inclination. - Letter

Obedient dissent? 

Okay, perhaps SSA vocations can be reviewed on a case by case basis, thereby permitting a man with previous homosexual inclination to be ordained - that is a big risk to take though.  How can it be determined the man has resolved the issues of sexuality and the underlying psychological issues that affected the inclination in the first place?  What about a relapse?  It would definitely have to be an exception to obtain a dispensation to admit a “former homosexual” to a seminary or to ordination, and not the “rule” - as it seems to have been in the not too distant past.  That this is an issue for gay men already ordained suggests to me their personal issues have not at all been successfully resolved.

Or, Creative Fidelity?

Diogenes  has an interesting post on this same subject, he writes:

It’s no secret that the old line religious orders are the most fervid dissenters from the ban on homosexuals, and their superiors comprise a kind of Shadow Cabinet within the Church: hostile to the policy of the Holy See but outwardly deferential to its authority — and, most importantly, incubating in their ranks a parallel government and parallel apparat through which the “alternative” policies are discreetly advanced. The Shadow Cabinet’s own term for this genial subversion is Creative Fidelity, and any housewife whose husband protests he was “creatively faithful” to her during his Las Vegas business jaunt will be able to gauge the degree to which the Pope is reassured by the euphemism. - Ad dubiam. 

Yeah, so I don’t think that ”smoke of Satan” thing Pope Paul VI referred to was just about liturgical abuse either. 

Links:

David at Cosmos, Liturgy, Sex  has a couple of presentations which deal with these issues on a more anthropological, theological level, and are easier to understand. 

Nothing Extraordinary

The Vatican will ban gays from seminaries.

“Work out your salvation in fear and trembling.” - Philippians 2:12

I wonder if many of us understand what fear of the Lord  really means?  Since it surely seems to me fear of the Lord  is often lacking in the moral life, if not the liturgical and spiritual life,  of many Christians.  Of course, the absence of a spirit of fear of the Lord  may be obvious in the behavior of more dissident Catholics, it is not uncommon to note an apparent lack of it in the lives of mainstream Catholics as well.

Dissident Catholics are infamous for the various demands they make upon the Church to change her doctrines to accommodate assorted moral disorders which have become commonplace in the culture.  In doing so, these people presumptively dismiss any notion of sin or its consequences, which forms the basis of what is known as a servile fear of God.  According to some notions developed from post-Vatican II theology, servile fear of God  is often considered a negative, imperfect expression of devotion to be avoided.  Yet servile fear  is typically an initial, fundamental disposition in the spirituality of the pre-convert and newly converted soul.  The fear of hell is not a bad thing, after all, it is one of the components normally expressed in a good act of contrition. 

“A spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.”- Isaiah 11 

In the second lesson from Matins of the ancient Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, these words are placed upon Our Lady’s lips: 

“I am the mother of fair love, and of fear and of knowledge, and of holy hope.”- Ecclus. 24

So often this notion of fear of the Lord  is dismissed by people who use the words of St. John to deny its necessity; “Perfect love casts out all fear.”  Certainly this is true in so far as perfect love casts out servile fear.  However, it is love and devotion which obtains for us the gift of filial and reverential fear, which inclines us to holy hope.  This holy hope is our confidence in the power of God to help us do the good our will intends, this hope inspires our trust in his mercy and promise of salvation.  Tanquerey writes:

“The gift of fear perfects the virtues of hope and temperance.  It perfects the former by inspiring us with a fear of displeassing God and of being separated from him.  It perfects the latter by detaching us from the pleasures that could bring about that separation.  Hence it may be defined as a gift which inclines our will to a filial respect for God, removes us from sin, displeasing to him, and gives us hope in the power of his help.” - The Spiritual Life

Familiarity breeds contempt.

It is fairly obvious when the fear of God is lacking in certain groups or individuals.  As concerns dissident Catholics, the second letter of Peter perhaps offers examples of such people.  Though highly educated, their academic achievement seems to have erroded their faith, or at least replaced any fear of God they may have known.  The following verses from 2 Peter might be applied to these fearless  dissidents: 

“…Those who live for the flesh in whatever corrupts and who despise authority.  These bold and arrogant men have no qualms whatever about reviling celestial beings,” (or even bishops) ”on whom angels, though greater than men in strength and power, pass no opprobrious sentence in the Lord’s presence.  These men pour abuse upon things of which they are ignorant” (or indifferent)…” - 2 Peter 2:10-12

Yet even amongst faithful Catholics, a certain lack of  reverential  fear of God may be detected.  Especially when we consider the casual attitudes people have regarding Mass attendance and decorum in Church, the neglect of the sacrament of penance and lack of reverence for the Eucharist.

A correction of conscience.

Properly understood, the gift of the fear of the Lord is necessary in order to correct our conscience.  We need to understand that any offence committed against God, “the Infinite Good, demands an infinite satisfaction”, as he told St. Catherine of Siena.  Thus holy fear is comprised of three principal attitudes:  1) A living sense of God’s greatness, and his goodness.  2) A deep contrition for the least faults committed against the Divine Majesty.  3) Avoiding sin and the occasions of sin, as well as conforming ourselves to God’s will, living with confidence in his saving power. 

The gift of the fear of the Lord restrains us from presuming an inappropriate intimacy with God.  Tanquerey explains:

“This gift is necessary in order to avoid an excessive familiarity with God.  Some are tempted to forget God’s greatness and the infinite distance that separates us from him, assuming towards him and towards holy things an unbecoming familiarity, speaking to him with too much boldness, and treating him as an equal.” - The Spiritual Life

Reverence. 

It is unfortunate that in our days, many traditional Catholics, especially those devoted to the traditional Latin Mass, are often accused of pride in their piety and observance of the proper rubrics and decorum while attending Mass.  This demonstrates to me how extensive is the loss of a proper spirit of the fear of the Lord, when its principal hallmark, reverence, is considered a form of pride.

Art: Tree of Jesse: Isaiah 11.  Source    

Family matters…

Last night a close-enough relative got married to someone she barely knows.. well, they’ve known one another for 3 months or so - he proposed after 12 days.  (My first mistake was asking if her mother did a background check on the guy.)  Needless to say, I did not attend.

The happy couple have been living together for a month or two - how does that work now days?  You get up in the morning, get ready for the wedding, go wherever it is the ceremony is to be held, and then you return home after the reception.  Where’s the mystery?  Or better, what’s the big deal?   

The wedding took place at a  hotel, and of course it wasn’t a Catholic ceremony.  Not that that is so unusual - it happens all the time in Catholic families - even the most uber-Catholic ones.  In this case it is a little unusual, especially since the young woman was raised in an Italian Catholic home, sent to Catholic schools - grade school through college, and her mother always insisted her daughter was a good Catholic girl - almost Maria Goretti-like,  when evidence suggested otherwise. 

“Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be apostate.”  That was a country western song wasn’t it? 

[This post probably should have been on my other blog, Abbey-Roads 1.] 

From a homily sent to me by my Bruderhoff  buddy in New York:

A few years ago I viewed a public service advertisement on  television. Produced by an alcoholic rehabilitation group, it was intended to awaken people whose families had become dysfunctional because they were denying a self-evident fact, namely that someone in the family was an alcoholic and the unwillingness to acknowledge it was distorting, indeed ravaging, domestic life.

In the ad a family is relaxing in its living room. The father reclines in an easy chair perusing the newspaper.The mother sits on the couch sewing. A little girl watches TV. All of a sudden an elephant enters the living room and begins to upset things with almost every move. By the time the ad concludes, the family’s world has been turned upside-down. The father’s easy chair is tipped over, he is sprawled on the floor, his glasses are broken but he continues to try to read the newspaper. The mother lies on the couch underneath a busted lamp struggling to re-thread a needle and the little girl peeks around the elephant in order to watch a now crushed television set. However, in spite of this shattering breakdown in community life, no one is capable of speaking the plain truth: “There is an elephant in the room and it is ruining everything.” 

All continue to ignore the obvious. Like people myopically concerned with properly rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, everyone’s attention is entirely absorbed by incidental tasks which would be proper and right except for one terrible fact: there is an elephant in the room. This fact transforms these otherwise acceptable activities into dead-end escape routes from truth and reality. Said spiritually, good loses its goodness when it is permitted to become the agency by which evil is left unnamed and hence is allowed to engulf an ever greater area of life.

- From: “The Man Who Chose To See”

Lindsay Lohan  was just arrested - again - after recently leaving rehab for the second time in her 21 year old life.  Robert Downey Jr. went through this up and down process as well, although now he seems to have found some stability in his life.

The success of rehab is of course, recognizing one has a problem, along with some real motivation to change one’s life.  But nothing works without humility, which usually comes when someone reaches absolute bottom - but not always.  My brother felt that rehab was filled with a bunch of losers, and he sure wasn’t going to attend any support group after he left rehab, with the same low-lifes he had to be nice to in the treatment center.   My brother died of alcohol related disease at the age of 45, he never got over his addiction.

One cannot make any progress without humility - no matter what the sins or faults, diseases or addiction one suffers from.

I can’t tell you why… 

A woman I know, who lost her faith in God, left the Church and returned to neo-paganism, explained to me one of the reasons she left was because she could no longer accept a God who permitted suffering.  (Actually, she said, ‘demanded suffering’.)  The woman, now in her 30’s was raised by an alcoholic, drug addicted mother.  She and her sister were often left alone and had to forage for food in dumpsters.  My friend was also sexually abused by her mother’s friends.  (The traumatic effects of her childhood ordeal remain with her as an adult.)

Why would God do this to a child - or at least permit this to happen?  Fellow Catholics more or less told her to suck it up - get over it, offer it up.  Some even told her it was a punishment for sins, to which she cried, “What the hell did I do?  I was a little kid?”

Job’s friends.

These are nearly impossible questions to answer, aren’t they?  Sanctimonious explanations just don’t cut it sometimes.  Try to explain to someone in the midst of their suffering Paul’s words, “God makes all things work together for the good of those who have been called according to his decree”. - Romans 8.  Usually, if you try to tell someone these things, especially when they are in the throes of moral crises, it can be like throwing holy water on a possessed person - it just increases the anguish, pain and rage.  Pious platitudes just don’t work - especially the dismissive, ’offer it up’.

Joseph.

The first reading of today’s Mass deals with Joseph’s brothers, fearing Joseph would punish them after the death of Jacob, because they had abused Joseph and sold him into slavery.   Joseph responded in tears, declaring, “Have no fear.  Can I take the place of God?  Even though you meant harm to me, God meant it for good, to achieve his present end, the survival of many people…” - Genesis 49.  Joseph, a wise man, was able to discern the purpose of God, who permitted him to go through such abuse and hardship.  Often, God’s purpose isn’t always so clear to ourselves. 

God’s ways are inscrutable aren’t they.

(Art: Joseph sold into slavery.)