When Promiscuity is Your Sacrament, and You're Terrified of Normalcy

I guess it's to be expected that those omalophobic souls who make a cult of despising virtue, or chastity, or even such a bourgeois habit as commitment, would be screaming on Those Interwebs about that strange, evil guy who, you know, does strange, evil things and set himself strange, evil rules of conduct, because he has these strange, evil notions about a strange, evil institution called marriage, and has this strange, evil superstition that there's such a thing as temptation, and he loves his strange, evil wife enough that he wants to avoid both it and the chance of giving people who delight in that sort of thing excuses to gossip, (not that the previously mentioned omalophobia sufferers have any particular affinity for dishing...)

Do you REALLY see in another person's fidelity or continence an inherent reproach to the way you've chosen to live your life?
Are ya maybe... projecting?

I wonder if there's the odd chance that any of such screamers read today's lectionary?

The wicked said among themselves, thinking not aright:"Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;he sets himself against our doings,Reproaches us for transgressions of the lawand charges us with violations of our training.He professes to have knowledge of Godand styles himself a child of the LORD.To us he is the censure of our thoughts; merely to see him is a hardship for us,Because his life is not like that of others,and different are his ways.He judges us debased;he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure.

I Am Not "They"

I have only just noticed that Facebook, (where I am reading, sharing and liking but not posting for lent,) uses plural pronouns for me.
F'rinstance, "XXX changed their profile picture."
Is that because I needed to select from some long list of possibilities what "gender" I am currently "choosing"?
I am singular and female, but come April perhaps I'll do something silly - I've always liked the sometime-pretentious use of "one,"  or "ones" subbing for I/me/mymine... is that an option on FB?

I mean, now that feels trumps reals, and words have ceased to have meaning...

 

Sometimes, You Just Don't Know Against Whom To Root

Wealthy, conservative, wishes-he-were-still-closeted activist does battle against How-Is-Two-People-having-Sex-In-What-They-Think-Is-Private-NOT-Newsworthy? media outlet.
Former compared elite universities to the pre-Reformation Catholic Church.

“You have this priestly class of professors who aren’t doing a whole lot of work, supported by a system dedicated to convincing people to buy indulgences and amass enormous debt for the dubious salvation that a diploma represents.”

But the latter, Gawker is.... well, Gawker.

I think I'll just concentrate on a journey where the path to Virtue and Rectitude is better marked - who gets my vote in the 2016 Presidential Election.

The Catholic Fringe Unraveling On Both Selvages, and Overplaying One's Hand

A bit of hubbub of late over some ordained persons' calling out of some unordained persons, in some cases by name, (one of said ordained persons being in the habit of threatening unordained persons with civil lawsuits,) following the unordained persons having called out other ordained persons by name, some consecrated persons by name, and even, in several cases, an installed person whose name is... well, known to virtually the entire world.
Some of all of this is deserved, other instances are unfair, some of it is bullying and clericalist, some of it is barking mad.
Hardly is anyone in these wars ever 100% wrong, there are often good reasons, up to a point, and very often, perhaps usually, good intentions. (We must assume that last, until the assumption is proved wrong.)
Even the ill-intentioned will begin with the reasonable and kind and inarguable.
Sometimes people give themselves away, of course, frequently by overplaying a hand,
Ah ha, the observer says to himself, I was with you up till now, you first point was undeniable and laudable but I see now that that was merely a set-up to this balderdash, an attempt to lull us into amiability so you could sneak in some poppycock.
Man cannot keep himself from Going Too Far.
Been discussing the failed 1998 translation a great deal with a friend lately,
While I admit there are some clunky moments in the one in use today, I overall drastically prefer it to the rejected one.
But there are other words and phrases spurned by TPTB that I would have endorsed, and more, endorsed the agenda behind them - but the reformers, as so often, went too far.
They knew, they had to know, that eventually, when push came to shove the Catholic Church was not going to allow the Anglophone Catholic Church, no matter how many of us like to think of ourselves as an autonomous sect, NOT to say, "I believe," and "and with your spirit," and "for you and for... many," (I actually think they could have sneaked that one in with "THE many.") Perhaps not on this go 'round, but eventually, and couldn't we finally have a few decades of liturgical calm now?
(Oh, and for the record, sometimes clunky is waaaaaaay better than curt.)
I digress.
Anyway, the Rad-Trad fringe has a lot of right on its side, and honest, it is possible to decry the feminization of ministry, and see it as a wedge issue for the impossibility that looms so large in the spiralist agenda*, the ordination of women, without despising women. (I promise you, I am not a self-hating gyno-American.)
But likewise, it would be easier to believe die-hard traditionalists oppose women in Holy Orders on loving theological grounds is so many of them did not openly display such contempt for women. Protestations that no, of course not, women are not held in less regard by the Church would be so much more credible if Aquinas hadn't said we were “deficiens et occasionatus”, if so many functions besides the confection of the Eucharist were not reserved to priests, and oh, yeah, the priesthood is reserved to men.

A contributing factor in the social recognition of the role of women is a greater appreciation of their responsibilities in the Church: their involvement in decision-making, their participation in the administration of some institutions and their involvement in the formation of ordained ministers.

Well, yeah.... it could be.
And it could have been.
For centuries.
And the longer it took the Church, it still takes Her, to come 'round, the harder it is to believe that Her denial of the presbyterate to women isn't just part and parcel of Her denigrations and ignoring of other charisms woman might have to offer Her and all of mankind.
Anyway, among the much criticized bloggers, there's a fellow who in a newish thread is arguing against "sacramental trans-genderism,"
Good for him, good turn of phrase, and he's right, mostly.
But he can't let a side comment go without answering it with this stupidity:

universal suffrage was one of the worst ideas in human history. Personally, I'm all for head of household landowners being the only ones allowed to vote. They have the most skin in the game.

That's right.
Not everyone who is entitled to vote knows what he's dong, so let's limit it.
Oooh. Interesting.
How?
I.Q. test?
Determining the potential voter's logical acuity or moral fiber?
No.
By wealth and ownership of material goods.
And he caps it off with the inanity about "skin in the game."
Um, no. LITERALLY wrong.
His ideal voter may have capital staked, he may have money on the game, but we each of us, literally, have one, our own, skin in the game.
His idea is as contemptible as the idiot's in the UK who think young people's votes should count more than that of their elders in the BREXIT referendum, since they'll probably live longer with the consequences.
-------
(*Those who hold it might prefer the phrase "progressive agenda," but it aint' progress when you're going around in circles.

A Catholic Publication On Traditionally Masculine Roles - Not What You Think

 A periodical that regularly and peevishly revisits the women's ordination non-issue has an editor who deep down seems to understand that to insist that the idea that women's worth can only be properly acknowledged by having them assume male roles is... well, not only wrong, anti-feminist, and cock-eyed, - IT ACCOMPLISHES THE OPPOSITE FROM THE DESIRED EFFECT:

The idea that schools need to somehow “make” girls interested in [science, technology, engineering and mathematics]... reaffirms the social narrative that STEM is a prestigious boys’ club that girls must break into, and a girl’s intelligence is only validated once she excels in one of the more complex “boy subjects.”...
the STEM obsession is less about equality and more about masculinity.
[A female economist muses] "what does it say about me, as a staunch feminist, if I’m relying on masculinity to convey my worth?”
The underlying belief, whether STEM advocates realize it or not, is that traditionally male-dominated fields are more valuable to society than those that have traditionally appealed to women.... a field’s overall pay drops when women enter it in greater numbers. ...
Society simply undervalues jobs once women start doing them.

Do you think the rest of the editorial staff will finally see the clericalism of which they are guilty, that it is the notions THEY float that contribute to the denigration of not just women's roles, but all roles and offices proper to the laity?
Will they promote the Church's understanding of apostolate?

"An Ashley By Any Other Name"

I won't bore you with a map of the wormhole down which... no, one falls down rabbit holes, right? wormholes are more a matter of falling through, I think.... there. I've done it again.
Start over.
I won't go into how I ended up here, (thank you, Time Suck Yclept Interwebz), but because several young couples in my family are going through the minefield of whatever shall we name junior? and all the juniors so far have been girls, I found it arresting.
Large family, names have good and fairly immediate associations, but also, of course, unpleasant one; names are taken or over-taken; names create awkward monograms; names have too few or too many syllables for euphony; names sound too indicative of one nationality or another, (sometimes one appropriately enough claimed); names are oocky.
(That last is an actual, quoted appraisal of one suggestion.)
Add in some specific familial... I won't say requirements, but no one has defied certain expectations for generations... customs having to do with eldest offspring being named after a parent and bequests of purely sentimental value being given along with the name.
And smart aleck relatives who favor vaguely insulting or gross nicknames for pets and children.

Absent, yes, I will say sadly absent, from the negotiations is any thought of honoring ancestors, (other than in that one instance mentioned,) or the Faith.
This saddens me.
No thought of patronal saints, or looking to the liturgical calendar.

And with the resurgence of "old-fashioned" names for girls, (flowers, or Old Testament heroines,) there has been no trendy rise of virtue names, has there?
Well, I suppose modesty and constancy are no longer considered virtues, and "Purity" would just be tempting fate...

But there is an irony to the above linked piece from 1985, to a degree that would probably shock the author were she alive - she wondered why "pink" children, girls, were being given names that "mask their gender."
If only she had known! By 2016 we would have been past such creaky notions, that the options for an infant's gender were binary! What, only "boys" and "girls"?
What an antiquated notion!
Not only are there dozens of conceivable genders, being "fluid" in ones gender is a gender in and of itself!

But perhaps most important of all, masculinity or femininity is hardly something parents, or even medical personnel can tell, or would dare to assume just from looking at the little, squalling, red thing.

Brave New Relativistic World that has such creatures beings in it, we can't call them "creatures" because that would imply something or Someone created them, and that surely can't be right...

Because Religious Freedom Means Performing Whatever Rituals You Want, Just as Long As You Don't Actually BELIEVE Any of the Things You Profess, Much Less ACT As If You Did

And no, you can't just live and let live and help those whom you cannot in good conscience advise to continue on the path they have set themselves find someone who can advise them.

You must either allow us to rub your nose in it or be driven from any active role in society.
A student was

dismissed from a master’s program in counseling at the university after his advisor claimed that it was unethical for him to decline to counsel same-sex couples and refer them to another counselor instead....
was almost finished with his degree in the program...when he sought to fulfill the degree program’s internship requirements,... at the Springfield Marriage and Family Institute. The university had approved the Christian-based counseling agency as an internship site.
[The student] asked his internship supervisor at the institute to speak to his class about Christian counseling, with the approval his instructor. ...
During the presentation, the counselor answered questions about the institute’s treatment of homosexual clients. It counsels these clients on an individual basis, but prefers to refer same-sex couples for relationship counseling to counselors whose religious views would better fit that purpose.
[Another] student complained to [the student's] faculty advisor... 
the faculty advisor ordered him to stop attending the institute and told the institute it was no longer a proper place for an internship. The university later stripped the internship hours from [the masters student's] record....
When [he] sought another internship, his advisor required him to meet certain suitability standards. The advisor later wrote to department officials and claimed that it appeared the student had not renounced his religious views and his support for the institute.

"Cause There's No Such Thing As a Slippery Slope, Chicken Little!"

Yeah, mixing metaphors, but here you are.

Norwegian bishop has said the country’s clergy will no longer officiate at civil weddings, after the predominant Lutheran Church’s governing synod voted to conduct gay marriages in Norway.
Bishop Bernt Eidsvig of Oslo told Catholic News Service that he would have to seek permission from the Vatican, saying: “It’s clear we must distinguish our own Church marriages from others.
“This is a matter of liturgy, so it doesn’t necessarily reflect broader change in our society’s moral values. But politicians may now get aggressive toward churches who resist these weddings, so the best option is for us to stop conducting marriages on the state’s behalf.”

No, no, nobody's trying to force you to do anything, we just want freedom to be who we want to be - nothing to do with you, really....

"Oh, Google - I Think I'll Miss Your Inept Suggestions As To What Pages Might ContainWhat I'm Looking For Most Of All...."

I'm serious.
I can't even remember what I sought, but this page SOOOO had nothing to do with it.
But, dove into the wormhole, wondered why page popped up with my search terms, read further to try to ascertain, became distracted by goofy conversation, forgot what I was looking for, and came across a comic gem.

As one does.

Okay, I am pro-life, but I have an ENORMOUS problem with this article. First of all, the generalization that it's only women who have abortions is false.
Actually, NOT ONLY WOMEN GET ABORTIONS. Trans-men get abortions. People of all types that don't fit into the normative "woman" gender category get abortions.

Thank you, Humpty-Dumpty.

Spoken by the....I mean, Speak of the Devil - Top Catholic Catechist on "Disordered" Inclinations

Speaking of how the Church uses the term "disordered," it seems that "the head of the Curia’s secretariat for catechesis"* has a little trouble with that bothersome need, "sentire cum ecclesia."
To whit: 

The Catholic Church’s doctrine still refers to homosexuality in terms of it being an illness or a disorder.... Speaking like that in today’s society is simply nonsensical.

Oh, well, then....
I make no claim whatever as to the prudence of a Maltese prelate asking for, or promulgating a position paper on a civil law, I know none of the particulars.
That said, the fact that he simply disagrees with what the Church teaches on a subject calls his objectivity on whether the Church ought to speak on said subject into question, no?

It reminds me of that lame "What If We Just said Wait?" movement.

If a single person, one single person who had publicly supported the the implementation of the new translation had opined that nonetheless, it should be postponed, I would have thought the reasons at least worth looking into, the position might have had some credibility.

As it was?

Not a jot.
--------------------
*Not sure the news outlet reporting this has the guy's dicastery or his position in it even close to correct.
Edit - I wonder if there is a "Maltese Curia," and this priest has nothing to do with the Vatican at all.

"Disordered Affections" and the Politics of Victimhood and What's Wrong With Me?

So far as I have been able to determine, no nearby church, (we are a one-car household in an area with minimal public transportation, so "nearby" is not a commendation to be dismissed lightly,) is offering special Adoration for the "23 Hours of Mercy," or even confession at any other than the regular times.
So during Mass this morning, I was considering engaging in that... thing? I don't want to dignify it by calling it a "practice" ...... where I don't focus on anything much intellectually, but let the Liturgy kinda wash over me. (This can be very spiritually rewarding, don't knock it till you've tried it.)
Sometimes a word or a phrase will suddenly be illuminated so that it is thrown into relief, and observed from a slightly different angle, there may be some insight to be gained.
But strangely, especially for Lent, it wasn't penitence and mercy that called out to me, per se - it was solidarity with other sinners, [good, so far!] and yes, a great, big helping of, "oh, for the love of pete, stop whining, you particular bunch of sinners, everyone else has to deal with that too, me and everyone else, YOU'RE NOT SO SPECIAL, [bad.]

It's odd, because such an attitude as I have is, the exact opposite of what we call "compassion," right?
The ability to willingly suffer with someone else?
And yet my actual thoughts are, don't you get it, you idiots? we all experience the exact same thing, so if you really believe that's somehow "suffering," we're all already suffering with you!

What in the liturgy prompted such unChristian thought?
It started early.
Opening collect....
We pray, O Lord, that we may be constantly drawn away from unruly desires...

"Unruly"? As in "boisterous"? Who're you callin'..... Oh, wait, no, as in requiring some effort to get them in line, subdue them, be their master rather than lave. Oh, good. I'll use that at Sunday school - we all have temptations to tame. Lions, animal analogies appeal to this bunch, I'll -
And my thought are off to the races and instead of contemplating and being in the moment and letting, or at least hoping for something holy to "wash" over me, I am elsewhere. Get your head back in the game, Scelata, at least TRY to listen to -
Preface....
You have given Your children a sacred time for the renewing and purifying of their hearts, that, freed from disordered affections...
Yes.
YES. 
We all have affections, attractions, desires, temptations - not "needs" but "wants" that are "disordered."
And some of them are objectively so.
But I know it's the D word, not the O word that's giving the Professionally Aggrieved and the Highly Ranked Amateur Umbrage Takers a hissy, so that's what I'm dealing with.
Nobody's looking for a special way to insult you, LGBTQDW activist, I promise....

And by the time my thoughts get this far, I am dropping to my knees, having barely regained mindful consciousness in time to join in the sanctus....

I just wish.... I just wish before people began wearing their offendedness like a backstage pass, especially as it regards language, they would actually examine that which has them miffed, what its context is, how else and how fairly it is applied, and what its usage is in the realm where they find it.

One advantage a "dead" language has for official utterance is that something precise and completely lacking in opprobrium is not easily going to suddenly drift into "you can't say that anymore!" territory.
(I'm looking at you, "thug," "handicapped," and "whore.")

Initiates and the Uninitiated

When I as a young whipper-snapper, the catechesis of callow Catholics was in a dormant stage, at least in my neck of the American woods.
We painted rocks and sang along with a guitar wielding high school girl from red plastic books, (the red plastic books may be a false memory, as Glory and Praise had not yet blighted the landscape - on the other hand, the girl in question, a friend of our family, was a world traveller, very sophisticated, she may have brought it back from somewhere exotic, like France. I'm just remembering, she was also the one who explained the meaning of "to sleep with." At a drive-in, us little ones tumbling in the back of the station wagon like pajamed puppies, adults and semi-adults in the two bench seats, there was a "coming attraction" touted which I now think must have been the Cardinal, while we waited to see something like 3 Lives of Thomasina. In it, a woman in a confessional said, "I slept with a man." I asked her later how sleeping could be a sin, and she explained that not much sleeping often occurred during the act of "sleeping with.")
Until Confirmation class virtually anything I learned about the Faith was from the way people behaved in church, which was very powerful, and from my parents, both by osmosis and deliberately.
As is only right.
But I digress.)
In any case, until I was an adult I never heard the specific phrase "sacraments of initiation." (My own confirmation was a good long ways after what we now know should have been the final of the three, I had skipped a grade and was allowed to make my Communion with my older class-mates, but according to the diocese, IIRC, had to wait for the Seven Gifts until I was the "right age." Although I was lucky, very lucky, suddenly, after years of strum and hum and craft projects, they wheeled an ancient nun with a hair-sprouting mole out of the back, wearing a mask like Hannibal Lecter, who TAUGHT us actual THINGS. You know, facts, and precepts and principles and doctrines. I shall be forever grateful to Sister Clare Cornelius.)
Another digression, sorry.

ANYWAY.

Since I am now in possession of this expression, the sacrament of initiation,  I was struck rather forcefully by a snippet I read.
"Family Day" in Italy was apparently an enormous outpouring of popular support for the Traditional, might I say Normal? notion of "family," despite possible neglect by, or at least ambiguity from the Pope and outright hostility on the part of some Italian bishops.
In following links to see what manner of man was head of the bishops' conference, I came across this from some time ago. It was,

reported that he said the Eucharist “is and must remain a ‘universal assembly’”, and that it must also be an “eloquent sign of the divine and his free gift for the ‘uninitiated’.”

I have nothing to say.
That was kind of a long way to go, I suppose for nothing to say.
Maybe I AM the Dutiful Brother.
But I want my prodigal brother to come home, I want him to!
But not to pop in for dinner, drop off his laundry for Mom or the servants to do and take off again, after pawning the finest robe and ring and sandals so he could squander the proceeds by resuming his life of dissipation.

Is that just me being selfish? Or is it me remembering that the spiritual acts of mercy are "not a devotion," they are required of us who dare to bear the name of Christian?

“When in the evening of life, we are asked if we fed the hungry and gave drink to the thirsty, we will also be asked if we helped persons come out of doubt, if we were committed to receive sinners, admonishing and correcting them, if we were capable of combatting ignorance, especially that concerning the Christian faith and the good life. This attention to the works of mercy is important: they are not a devotion. It is the concreteness of how Christians must carry forward the spirit of mercy.”

Equal Rights, Equal Healthcare, and a Modest Proposal

I admit, I'd never read this before, (h/t to Lifesite CORRECTION, h/t to Catholic World Report,) - the Affordable Healthcare Act? Life is not that long!!!!

Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities Proposed Rule

Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act

[seriously, 1557 sections?]

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a proposed rule to advance health equity and reduce disparities in health care. The proposed rule, Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities, will assist some of the populations that have been most vulnerable to discrimination and will help provide those populations equal access to health care and health coverage....individuals cannot be subject to discrimination based on their race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability....

I have a cunning plan!

The proposed rule requires that women have equal access to the health care they receive and the insurance they obtain. Moreover, the rule makes clear that sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity. For example -

• Individuals cannot be denied health care or health coverage based on their sex, including their gender identity.
• Individuals must be treated consistent with their gender identity, including in access to facilities.
• Sex-specific health care cannot be denied or limited just because the person seeking such services identifies as belonging to another gender. For example, a provider may not deny an individual treatment for ovarian cancer, based on the individual’s identification as a transgender man, where the treatment is medically indicated.

Don't you think every pro-life guy you know should trot on over to the nearest Planned Parenthood and ask for a pregnancy test? Demand one! And maybe insist on being given an abortion? after all, it's zir* body. Ze* should say that ze's been doing the backstroke in the gender fluidity pool and today woke up feeling all womanish.
Com'on, it'll be fun.
-----------------------
I should make plain, unlike many who are pro-life, I was in favor of healthcare reform. But I thought it should have gone much further than it did, I think socialized medicine is the only civilized set-up. The trouble is, we didn't get healthcare reform, we got health INSURANCE reform, it still costs a bloody fortune and it's still making the medical establishment, the insurance establishment and the pharmaceutical establishment filthy rich with the scams they have set up amongst themselves.
And the way the whole thing fell out, it made clear, it made it undeniable, the fetishization of abortion and contraception that sends tingles up the spine in certain quarters of what used to be called with some justification, the liberal movement.
Let's be honest, there are plenty of common and necessary heathcare services and drugs that are not required to be covered under ALL plans, (adult eye exams? foot care? weightloss surgery?) but contraceptives, some of which are abortefacient, was a hill the Obama administration was willing to die on - despite the knowledge that compromising on that would have allowed them to form a coalition with the USCCB which would have guaranteed success. But nope, they were going to punish those whose very refusal to embrace skankdom themselves feels, even without a word being spoken**, like such a reproach to those who revel in it  - they were going to insist that those puritanical types pay for it. Because make no mistake, this was never about healthcare, it was about silencing, driving from the public square those who don't espouse the notion that the only wrong or unhealthy sexual activity or attitude is continence.
Your body's working as it was intended? Great, you can get drugs that will stop that!
Oh, your body's NOT working as intended, you're infertile? Nope, probably not gonna give you any help with that...
----------------
* Not making this up. Anyone else worried that irony and satire are becoming redundnat?
** I, of course, am not such a one - I'm always ready to speak, or type a word. And "skankdom" is a pejorative that applies at least as much to men (whatever their "gender," she added sarcastically,) as to women. What can I say, I think sluts should be ashamed...

"The Danish Girl"

Thanks to "For Your Consideration" dvds, I have watched a number of newish movies with Himself, of late, movies which I would have probably seen later when they were free, or never. (I don't think I'm violating an terms of their possession if I watch them with him.)
Generally, after I view or read a piece of work like this, I go back to see what reviews, "experts," etc., had to say about it.

I've read that it is a piece of transgender activist "propaganda," that some involved in its creation see themselves now as adding their voices to the acceptance of transgenderism....

Frankly, I was surprised by the refreshingly un-PC pov of The Danish Girl.

To me, it seems to present, in very sympathetic terms, the life of a delusional man, and they way his life was constricted, and ultimately ended by the mental illness from whihc he suffered.

What the intentions of its creators' were, I can not say, but that is what I "got" from it.

Eddie Redmayne gave a very detailed, but more technically proficient than moving portrait of Einar Wegener. (I should say up front that I go in to this with a bit of hostility to Redmayne, because I think he has an Oscar that belonged to Michael Keaton. Not his fault, so I'm sure I'll forgive him eventually, as I will Tom Hanks for having the Oscar that by all rights was Anthony Hopkins' for Remains of the Day.)

On the other hand, that may have been intentional, and appropriate, because except in rare cases of congenital sexual ambiguity, men suffering from such delusions can, at best, aspire to a kind of "technical proficiency" in their pretense, rather than anything real. Overacting is always easier than being, hence, the caricatures of femininity presented by so many drag queens and trans-gender "women."

Alicia Vikander is the soul of the movie.
It is a love story, and her character is the one who provides actual love, (though even she fails at the real test of the lover - wishing, and acting for, the good of the beloved. Much harder than enabling, perhaps?)
Regardless of the truth of the story, in this film of an apparently highly fictionalized novelization of a truish story of an attractive madman, her portrayal of the wife who loved him through and despite his descant into insanity was wonderful.
Her husband's delusion, his betrayal, his pitiful learning to play a part, (as if ones gender is a matter of gesture and posture!) his lies, his truly insulting - to an actual woman - notion of womanhood, and finally, his absurd attempt to have organs implanted in order to bear children at an age when pregnancy and childbirth would have been improbably for an actual woman - the clear-eyed love she exuded was tragic, beautiful and riveting. (I understand that actual Gerda, for all that gender idealogues want her to be a lesbian icon, finally gave up and married another man while her damaged husband was still alive.)

Let Me Get This Straight, AP, I Can Call Myself a Man, If I Want To....

Even though I have a uterus and the XX chromosomes with which I was born, and the breasts I, uh... grew along the way, I can call myself a "man" if I want to, and the Associated Press will respect that, and use male pronouns for me.

You know, if I said that was how I "self-identify."

But it doesn't matter that I self-identify as such, the AP won't call me "pro-life"?

I asked if they considered themselves “pro-life,” even though Associated Press style didn’t approve! AP’s preferred language is “anti-abortion,” which we’re using in this article.

Aside from that fascinating fact, this is a very interesting, and very honest casual survey of pro-life demonstrators, from the point of view of a journalist who... what, is pro choice? Probably, since she treats pro-lifers as an exotic, hitherto unknown bunch.
But her position is irrelevant, because it's just fair, honest reporting.
And it's nice to see acknowledged, for a change, that the Pro-Life movement is no more monolithic than the Pro-Choicers.

I was cracking ice off of the tips of my touch-screen gloves and surveying protesters, trying to learn who had come to the march and what kind of post-post-Roe v. Wade world they wanted to build....
The majority of the marchers weren’t protesting abortion simply as an abstract, political problem. Seventy-two percent of the people I surveyed told me that they knew someone personally who had had an abortion....
The crowd I surveyed matched some expectations of the anti-abortion movement (83 percent of people I spoke to were Catholic), but the crowd was younger (36 percent under 25) than I expected and, for a movement often lumped into a war on women, included more women than men (60 percent female).

New Primer from Minister of Education in Alberta

(I should 'fess up, up front - I DETEST the phrase, "best practices." I can see the pursed lips of a facilitator pretending her orders are merely advice before we break up into small discussion groups, every time I hear it.)

Jack and Jill went up the hill,
To fetch a pail of water,
Jill decided she's a boy,
Jack claims to be your daughter.

No, I kid...
What the M of E actually issued was a set of protocols? suggestions?
Best practices.
Mandatory guidelines for enabling the mental illness that is currently most fashionable.

 

 "Time to make the donuts peace with the insanity"

 

The Catholic bishop of Calgary's having none of it.
 Bully for him.

Rolling Stone Reporter Not Noted For Her Journalistic Rigor Strikes Again, But That's Not My Question

A "journalist" who's been down this road before apparently helped whip up outrage about a innocent man accused of rape.
But, you know, it was a chance to get in some licks on an institution that stands against everything much of what Rolling Stone is for, so what difference did it make if it was all a lie, and if men went to jail while the liar made a financial killing, and had their reputations ruined, and died in prison?

What difference?

It served its purpose.

It's a horrible, horrible, ugly, ugly story, and it's pretty completely covered in the linked Newsweek article, but I am left with one very off topic question.

How is a 67-year-old man suffering from heart disease handcuffed to a hospital bed, kept under armed guard, and possibly "denied a ... lifesaving heart operation"; when we are a society so solicitous of the welfare of our prison population that their elective sex-change operations are covered?

Maybe Pennsylvania is backward....
(Yes, I'm aware that that is not a trans-sexual, much less a prison inmate, but rather than marvelous Sean Bean. Or is it Seane Beane? or Swhawn Bhawn? Anyway, it's a joke. Just because it isn't funny doesn't mean it's not a joke.)

New, Improved, "GendrLite"? Not So Much, With a Rudolf to the Rescue Again

Not sure if the German Bishops' Conference had considered the catchy trademark, I think "GendrLite" would have attracted the yoof, 'cause, you know. Misspelling and missing vowels.

GendrLite

Doncha think? But a spoilsport in their midst has played the reality card.
A bishop, in bishop's clothing, as it were.

Celebrating the feast of St. Wolfgang, who was Bishop of Regensburg from 972 to 994, Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer taught in an Oct. 31 homily that gender theory – the idea of separating biological sex from gender – does not contribute to equality, and is ultimately a denial of nature and the goodness of creation. It puts at stake the essence of man and woman, denying their nature as potential fatherhood and motherhood.
A bishop's pastoral ministry, he said, “includes the duty and the responsibility to act as a guardian, to raise his voice, as necessary, to draw attention to discrepancies or errors, however convenient or inconvenient this may be.”
“Recently, just such a necessity has again arisen.”
Bishop Voderholzer noted that the German bishops' conference published a flyer in late October which “was written to declare these theories as being basically compatible with Catholic belief, in contrast to an extreme form of gender mainstream, and it claims to be formulating the Catholic position on this issue.”
“In my opinion, the former appears impossible – finally, there is no such thing as 'gender light'. The concept lowers the drawbridge and opens the gate to positions irreconcilable with the Christian faith. And the flyer not only fails to present the Catholic position, it leaves it out completely.”
The bishop also noted that the publication “was released in the name of the Conference of Bishops, of which I am a member, without my having previously seen its content, much less having approved it.”

Rudolf helping save Christmas Christian thought, (not to mention credibility.)

Praise be St Wolfgang, and St Rudolph. I'll have to look up who they are.

The Way One "Lives Ones Sexuality"?

[A newly appointed Catholic archbishop has] said, “I have much respect for gays,” including “their way of living their sexuality.”

While that statement may be open to interpretation, it certainly will be seen as far more gay-friendly than [the new archbishop's predecessor].
No disrespect to either of the prelates in question, or to John Allen who reports this, but what are these multifarious interpretations?
Unless celibates are under discussion, I am having difficulty in ascribing more than one meaning to praise of a homosexual's "living [his ]sexuality."

Help me out here?

St Joseph, the Indispensable Man

I have been a bit hot and bothered of late about all thing faithyy and politicky and culturey and society... society-y, I guess.
But as someone, somewhere recently quoted from someone else, (Bernanos I think?) indignation never saved a soul.
Nor did it.
And I've also been thinking quite a bit about anger lately, and pace, my most recent confessor, your diagnosis was wrong, but your prescription was perfect.
You see, what I thought was (occasionally righteous,) anger did not really rise to to the grand level of anger -- it was mere indignation.
And like most sins or even unpleasant traits, it could be traced back directly to the grand-daddy of all sins, Pride. Why should this happen to ME? How could she say that to ME? Why must I put up with...?

DOESN'T THE UNIVERSE KNOW WHO I AM?

And the fact is, I am among the very most fortunate of human beings.

And I'm not just referring to the gratitude due for having enough to eat and healthcare, and being able to read, and living in a nation where I can vote, and all that that puts most first-worlders in, what? the top 1% of humanity for sheer good luck?
I'm talking about my family. My parents. My home. My friends, my siblings, yes -- but mostly, my parents.
I grew up with such a vision, such an example of how a life of authentic love looks - I don't think .00001% of humanity in all of history has enjoyed the like!
Anyway, after thinking about that, I have determined to try to live my life under the patronage of St Joseph. I have decided to lay my cares, regarding society. And culture. And politics. And, especially, the Faith --
I have decided to lay these cares at his feet and ask him to formulate how my prayers should be presented before the throne of the Lamb, and then, just, you know -- let me know what my prayers are.

I think a great many of the wounds of this weary world could be bound up and healed by a study of, and devotion to, St Joseph, and I don't mean just churchy faithy matters.
Saint Joseph is the Indispensable Man.

Now, I know Saxon White Kessinger's poem was about pride, and sought to convince the puffed-up that there's no such person as the "indispensable man," and I know, or at least think I recall, that there's a bio of Geo. Washington that opines as how, for this nation and its history, at least, our first president was indispensable.
But there IS such a person, and he was necessary to a far greater and more numerous people than the citizens of just our puny nation.

St Joseph is that Indispensable Man.
Think about it. God could have come to earth in any human form, but He chose to be helpless and humble, to enter history, time as we can understand it, as an infant, born in obscurity.
So He chose to have a human Mother.
But he was not begotten by a human, so a father was not needed for procreation.
Now, you might say that in those days, (as if other times were so different from ours...) a human father was needed for physical protection, fiscal support, etc.
But Mary had a father, she had an uncle who was a priest, a man of some stature -- an angel could have whispered to any male relative, it's okay, she's a good girl, help her take care of the kid that's on the way...

That's not how God arranged it.
God thought it was important for His human self to have a visible, that is, a human father.

Now -for whose benefit?
So often, God's signs are for someone other than to whom or on whom an event has occurred.
Miracles are for the faith of the onlookers, the loaves and fishes is not so much to fill the bellies of the crowd as to instruct the disciples in how they are to continue His work.

That little family in Bethlehem, and then Nazareth, Jesus Mary and Joseph, the Holy Family exists as a family to show the importance of the family; the Domestic Church is not just our first and most important school of the Faith, it is the very foundation of society, it is the building block of all culture.

We need to relearn this.
A society where human lives are begun in laboratories, where children are parented by committees, where the state decrees what one must and must not teach ones children, where men "become" women by wishing and declaring it so - a society like this needs to relearn the simple Truths that Joseph's mere existence teaches us.
We need St Joseph.
We need the model of fatherhood, yes, but we also need the model of manhood he gives us, he is the ideal for all men.
It is impossible not to think that our nation would not be a better place if thousands upon thousands of families were not left fatherless by mass incarcerations of young men from certain segments of society. It is difficult not to suppose that half a world away another nation would not be the demographic time bomb that it is, if its fathers had been able to rise up and say no to the murder of their unborn children and had protected the daughters born to them instead of throwing them away in hopes of a son next time. It is hard not to imagine that the most celebrated strumpet of our time would be a different person without coming from a broken home and being raised by a stepfather with delusions about sex and his own manhood.
And I am convinced that, had they grown up with more stability and with a proper understanding of how we are meant to love and care for each other, most of the generators of popular culture would not be hawking the filth and nihilism that they do.
Why St Joseph?
All men should look to him as a model of manhood, not just fathers, for all men are called upon to protect.

And perhaps, most especially, he is the model for the priesthood, for the celibate, for the man who offers his very life to the Church.
As Mary is the type of the Church, the Spotless Bride? St Joseph is the type of the priest, the man who should love Her and Her children as much as if they were begotten of his own flesh.

Saint Ioseph, Most Indispensable, pray for us!