"As Anyone Who’s Paying Attention Knows, All Men Are Capable Of Rape ..."

In the past few days I have read a great deal about rape, what people believe to be true about rape.

Because a number of close friends and immediate family members of mine belong to groups/professions/races/genders/communities that seem to have a party line to toe on the subject I have heard a great amount of contradictory opinion expressed as "fact" in the past few days.

Let me assure you, no one with whom I am in contact has any first hand knowledge whatever of the actual facts of a number of cases that have been in the news, but that has not put any damper on twit. face, cocktail chatter...

So I was just curious as to what if anything could be definitively said of certain news stories, and I have fallen down a rabbit hole.

And I came across several accounts of a false allegation of rape made against a singer..celebrity? I had never heard of him, but I don't listen to that kind of music.

Anyway, said singer is apparently gentle and awkward and sensitive, (not to mention, mightily forgiving.)

Okay, fine.
But this:

Awkward and sensitive is all well and good, but as anyone who’s paying attention knows, all men are capable of rape.

What????
Let me rephrase.
WHAT???!???#???$???%???&????*???!!!????
ALL men?
Can you imagine in the wake of recent events someone saying, "All Muslims are capable of terrorism and hostage taking"?
Or, "All Blacks are capable of rioting and looting"?
"All  Republicans are capable of torture'?
"All Catholic are capable of child abuse"?

Or, to keep it in the realm under discussion, "All women are capable of falsely accusing a man of rape."

Yeah, how about that?

Would all right-thinking people jump up and down and scream about tarring the innocent with such a broad brush?
I surely hope so.

So how can anyone say something so stupid as that all men are capable  o such a heinous act?
All types, perhaps, all personalities, men from all walks of life...
But "all men?"

Not just no, but HELL no.

I dunno, you tell me....

Sometimes things remind me of other things...

Movies for Christmastide

In some matters I am a little prickly about not celebrating Christmas until Christmas, but at the nursing home, (where Himself agreed, "those people need as much Christmas as they can get,") it being Gaudete, and very few of our congregants knowing what year it is, much less day, instead of our usual closing hymn I suggested Joy to the World this morning, and was glad -  they sang up a storm.

But it is too early to begin Scroogeapalloza, (especially since we have no new versions this year,) and while the fruitcake is macerating, not a cookie has been baked yet.

HOWEVER -- I think it might be nice to watch The Holly and the Ivy one of my favorite Christmas movie, this evening.
An adult film, that takes faith seriously, (yes, it's a hundred years old...)
Beautiful performances, beautiful actors, (some of whom I knew before this movie, but Margaret Leighton, for instance?
Magnificent!
Why wasn't she a huge, huge star?

 

I know she died young, but she could have been, probably should have been, in Night of the Iguana.....

I had made a VHS recording of the movie decades ago whne it was shown on a local PBS station, but Himself finally found a DVD last year.

Get it.
Watch it. (I have a brother who won't watch "films" only "movies," he says. This is a film, by his reckoning, but it is woderful, nothing stuffy or pretentious, and  full of charm and wit and, mostly-- love.)

Eyes of Newt, Blind Worm's Sting, and Figgy Pudding

I like to eat.
I like to drink.

There, I said it.
I have tendencies toward gluttony, but I do believe that God made food delicious out of His providential love for us.

One of the things* I love about the holiday season - and I do mean the holiday season, not Christmas, but this entire part of the year, is the availability at not too great a cost, of food and drink in which one might not ordinarily indulge, in which one might not be able to indulge.

I don't roast a turkey, but I am very glad others in my family do. Mulled wine? what a treat! The supermarket has, for a short time, a luscious Red Leicester for only a few pennies more than a block of generic American cheese. And don't get me started on the glory that is a well made and well-seasoned fruitcake, (if your experiences have only led you to think that fruitcake is a brick-like joke of a food, I bemoan your deprivation, and pity your ignorance.)

One of the things I love about the foods of festivity is that they often merely require a little extra care, one unaccustomed technique, an unlikely combination of relatively every-day ingredients, or a single out-of-the-ordinary foodstuff.

The same goes for drinks - a drop of cassis transports a mediocre white wine, for instance.

But having said all that,  really....  what is one to make of ingredient lists such as these?allspice dram, honey syrup, amaro, Mezcal, bitters of Turin, Black Walnut Bitters, brown butter washed whisky?(not that almost everything doesn't taste better when browned butter is involved...)
I mean, I'm a lover of sissy drinks, but com'on - I'm not even all these ingredients actually exist.

Although not long ago I would have thought maple-bacon flavored liqueur was imaginary, too.


*I actually made a list, ranking them, in order to more intelligently be able to discuss "the reason for the season" with my CCD kids. The groaning board and exotic beverages was in seventh place.

Sacra Liturgia USA 2015

A remarkable line-up for the Sacra Liturgia USA 2015 conference has been announced to be held in June of next year:

Dom Phillip Anderson, OSB (Clear Creek Abbey)
Living the Liturgy: The Monastic Contribution to Liturgical Renewal
Raymond Cardinal Burke
Beauty in the Sacred Liturgy and the Beauty of a Holy Life
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone (San Francisco)
Liturgical Leadership in a Secular Society: A Bishop’s Perspective
Rev. Dr. Richard Cipolla (St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk, Connecticut)
Liturgy as the Source of Priestly Identity
Dr. Jennifer Donelson (St. Joseph’s Seminary, New York)
Addressing the Triumph of Bad Taste: Church Patronage of Art, Architecture, and Music
Rev. Dr. Matthew Ernest (St. Joseph’s Seminary, New York)
The Formation of Priests in the “Spirit and Power of the Liturgy” (SC 14): An Assessment of the Implementation of the Constitution and Proposals for the Liturgical Formation of Priests in the 21st Century.
Dr. Michael Foley (Baylor University, Waco, Texas)
The Reform of the Liturgical Calendar: The Reduction of Recapitulation
Mr. Gregory Glenn (Madeleine Choir School, Salt Lake City, Utah)
Liturgical Music is Non-negotiable
Dr. Margaret Hughes (Mount Saint Vincent University, New York)
Beauty as Educative?: Liturgy, Evangelization, and Catechesis
Rev. Thomas Kocik (Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts)
The Reform of the Reform
Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (Wyoming Catholic College)
The Reform of the Lectionary
Mr. Matthew Menendez (Juventutem Boston)
Youth and the Liturgy
Dr. Lauren Pristas (Caldwell University, Caldwell, New Jersey)
The Reform of Liturgical Texts of Principal Feast Days (Collects)
Rev. Dr. Dom Alcuin Reid (Monastère Saint-Benoît, Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, France)
Holy Week Reforms Revisited
Rev. Dr. Christopher Smith (Prince of Peace Parish, Taylors, South Carolina)
Liturgical Formation and Catholic Identity
Rev. Dr. Allan White, OP

An embarrassment of riches!

Advent - Who is Waiting For Whom?

"Today, the word is WAITING.
"The way we wait for Christmas, God's chosen people waited for ages, looking and hoping for the Messiah.
"But you know who else is waiting?
"God waits for us... remember the story about the Prodigal Son, and how his father was waiting, and looking for him? 
"That's the way God is waiting for us to come to Him -- and we can do it now, in the Mass... in Confessions, in prayer....."

I am less beat up by CCD since I began a conscious effort not to be goal oriented, for I realized that that way lay madness.
Instead, I use the book's chapter order as an outline, these are the topics to which they need to be exposed, I settle on a single word or short phrase as an umbrella under which to discuss the topic, ("waiting," of course, was about Advent,) and then I devise a half dozen or eight ways in which to approach it.
We briefly touch on what we did the previous class, and then I throw a whole lot of stuff against the wall and see what sticks.
If we get around to half of my little stratagems that's a lot, and sometimes we begin something and it instantly bombs, and I just bail on it, (that happened with a movie once, strangely - IMpreviousE, humans of that age were absolutely hypnotized by any moving lights on any screen of an size.  Oh well...)
What this means in practice is that I do a lot of work and a lot of preparation that I never even try out, much less see if it works.

Word searches and scrambles, crafts, stories, Simon Peter Says, skits, scripture scavenger hunts, faith sharing, game shows, coloring, team quizzes... and of course, whatever I've planned for, the third of the class that might truly enjoy that way of learning will be absent, and I will have a group that would rather die than stand up in front of the class and and read lines, or can't draw a straight line if their lives depended on it, or are so unchurched that they don't know there are ten commandments much less what they might be.

On the other hand.... the kid who has been giving me the most trouble all year suddenly knows the answer to every question, and is paying attention to everything.

I also try to work in terms and expressions that I know they haven't a ghost of a chance of knowing, throwing them away without explanation, because I am a firm believer in taking advantage of the fantastic, elastic memories of the young.
Hearing the right words and becoming accustomed to them is important.
The mysteries of the Faith are beyond their understanding? they are beyond everyone's understanding.
But not exposing them to them is a certain path to ignorance.
It is all of a piece with depriving the people of God of the liturgical music that is their birthright.
And I feel very strongly that the best and the brightest have been repelled for too long by never being presented with anything that would challenge even the least capable student in the slightest.
So there have to be at least nuggets in the big mess of pottage that we're offering them that can engage those that could do more than coloring and stories and singing nursery rhymes.

Veiled Threats

So...  I wore a mantilla yesterday.
Himself thought it was beautiful.
I think the priest may have done a take.

No, not that extreme, just a little boggle.
But since calling attention to oneself is kinda sorta the antithesis of veiling, (not that I have any problem with doing so in the regular course of events, I am an attention hound, in fact,) I'll probably go back to hats at this parish.

Siste Mary Martha, (great blog, when did I stop remembering to read it?) had a post on the topic some time ago, with a bit of wisdom that had never occurred to me,

There was never a rule in the church that women had to wear a hat, because women were already wearing  hats.  You won't find a rule that says you have to wear clothing to church, because everyone already does that.

The Glory That Was Grease

Krug's tavern, a dive in the (perfectly safe,) Ironbound district of Newark, NJ makes a might fine cheeseburger.
This is not a concoction for foodies, but rather a weapon-grade amalgam of ground beef, American cheese and onions, on a bun that can barely contain its awesome might.
It's a sports bar, so it was important, and gratifying to learn, Yankees not Mets.

I am not going to tell you that on my so far only visit, I ordered and demolished, (what I only later discovered was,) a three quarter of a pound patty.
I would be ashamed for anyone to know that.
So I'm not going to say it.
No one must know that I made such short work of a 12 ounce burger that if anyone else in the party had left so much as a morsel on his plate, I would have said,

... you gonna finish that?

Mission Country

I was futzing around on the USCCB sites, and a document entitled "Guidelines for Receiving Pastoral Ministers" caught my eye.

"Receiving ministers"? what does that mean?

So, I follow a link... oh.

There's a book, for the love o'mike, a whole little booklet on how to go about finding, acquiring, vetting and credentialing priests and religious from other countries to serve in this nation.

When I was little my sister who was going to college in Florida wrote home, and  laughed about all the Irish priests here, "They're missionaries! They think the US is still mission territory!"

You know, we laughed, because we're a backward land, without resources. We need to import our religious, ha ha ha ha ha ha.....

And so we do.

Not laughing now.

"Covenant!"

I don't really know anything of Scott Hahn, seen a few minutes of him here and there on EWTN, but I just about did a full on spit-take when I saw this headline in Eye of the Tiber. (It's a few months old, but I had missed it till now.)

New Scott Hahn Drinking Game Has Readers Taking Shot After Every Mention Of Word “Covenant”

Steubenville, OH––A new, dangerous drinking game invented by Franciscan University of Steubenville sophomore Ben Johnson, known as Covenant, is sweeping Catholic universities. The game, which involves players reading any book ever published by Scott Hahn, and then taking a shot of whiskey or beer every time the word “covenant” is mentioned, is raising major concerns with university officials.
What originally started out as fun for some has now turned dangerous, officials are reporting, with one man listed in critical condition and at least 47 others being admitted to area hospitals for alcohol poisoning. Now health professionals are warning Catholics of the dangers of playing Covenant.
“This is one of, if not the most, lethal games I’ve ever come across,” said Dr. Candice Jarvis, medical adviser to the USCCB. “The thing about alcohol is that it affects your ability to recognize how many times Scott Hahn uses the word “covenant,” and it absolutely effects your ability to ask the question of whether or not there are any synonyms of the word he could be using. You go into the game thinking the word will be read two or three times, and next thing you know you’re on your 26^th shot after just a few paragraphs. I’d even venture to say that it would be safer if students took a shot after every mention of the word ‘the.’”

When Trivial Pursuit was new(-ish) the standing joke in my family was that if you didn't know the answer you still had a good shot at getting it right by shouting out either "Reykjavik!" or "contract bridge!"

Well, there's a kid in my class who loves to shout out answers to questions, but not to actually bother think before he does so.
Every week there is a single word or short phrase on the board for that weeks topic, as well as another for whatever we discussed the previous week, and whatever those words are, he latches on to one of them and volunteers it as the answer to whatever I've asked, regardless of sense.

For two weeks now, it's been "covenant."

"Covenant!"

"This one's covenant, right?"

"I'm gonna guess covenant."

"Covenant?"

"Covenant, it's covenant!"

"I'm sure it's covenant!"

If I'd been doing shots, I'd have alcohol poisoning.

Sartorially Challenged Catholic

I like a skinny-legged jean.

Shouldn't be a problem but most such are also low-rise.

I hate low-rise trousers. They are ugly, flirting on the edge of indecent, and since the top edge sits below the widest part of the torso, they must depend on tightness, (and friction, I suppose,) to hold them up.
If they are tight enough to stay up most of the time, the waistband must actually create an indentation where one does not naturally occur on the body, with the inevitable result of muffin top, and the probable result of indigestion.

More fashion-forward brands now offer high-rise skinnies, but they tend toward stupidly over-priced.

And why is the material in women's jeans  hardly ever as sturdy as that used in men's?

So, I who need to re-read the instructions just to remember how to sew on a button, or even thread a needle, I decide I will buy a good, long-wearing, sturdy, will-survive-the-nuclear-holocaust, rivet-sporting, they-should-make-fish-scaling-gloves-out-of-this pair of jeans, put a little tuck in the waistband and take in the legs.

Oh, they look great, I'm so pleased with myself, think I'm so smart....

Trouble is, the fabric in women's jeans, especially skinnies, almost invariably has some spandex in the blend, whereas the serge de Nimes in heavy-duty, stand-up-to-real-work mens' is all cotton.

So the first time I go to genuflect in them, I discover that my knee just won't bend that far and I do a face plant.

Yes, first world problem, but still.... (and don't scold me, I wasn't wearing them to Sunday Mass.)

‘Wearing the Veil’ on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

My poor husband will probably feel uncomfortably conspicuous, and it's the most minimalist  of Ordinary Form Masses at the most casual of parishes that we will attend, (and need I add? nary a word of Latin is ever spoken or sung,) --  but I'd been thinking about wearing a veil to Mass Monday morning.

Frankly, if I do we shall actually be less conspicuous than usual, since I am "that one that wears a hat," to most of my fellow parishioners.

Nicely, this is an initiative on colleges, not something started by crones like me. I did wear a hat or veil to Church as a little one, but I don't remember when we stopped. Pretty sure we all went bare-headed by the time of my Confirmation, (don't remember First Communion.)

Was women covering and men uncovering in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament something that had the force of law at any point, or was it mere custom?

This is a question I have about so many of what I have come to realize seemed arbitrary changes in the wake of the Council.

The question of when Christmastide ends, for instance - I know, I know, it's the Baptism of our Lord now, but prior to that, was it officially or only customarily anything different?

Anyway, in one of the Rose's bureaus there was a mantilla in a little case, and I think I shall veil.

"But if one went to them from the dead, they will ....."

.... they will what? check out this cool site you've linked to? buy male enhancement drugs?

I get a LOT of spam, (AOL, doncha know...) but I think today is the first time I received  a missive from the dead, or at least under the name of a loooooong dead acquaintance

See?

What ever you put on Those Interwebs does last forever.

Maybe the spammers are biblical scholars and figured that fulfilling the pleas of Dives in Luke 16 would make their sales pitch irresistible.

Do Journalists READ What They Have Written?

This is neither a criticism, nor an endorsement of the papal action covered in this article, (I have no knowledge on which to base an opinion that a military authority can or cannot be too military and too authoritarian, nor of the skill with which Daniel Anrig failed in or fulfilled his duties, and therefore have no opinion at the present.)

But it is reported everywhere that the commander of the Pope's Swiss Guard has been asked to step down.

In this theoretically objective article, the writer informs his readership that,

the Argentinean Pope, who has established a warmer, more inclusive style of governance since being appointed pontiff in March last year, found the commander’s manner overly strict

Okay.
Making news for sacking people doesn't offer the best evidence of this warmth and inclusivity, but say that it's so.
But warmth and inclusivity are in line with the meme of the humblest, least authoritarian prelate in the history of the Church.
A couple paragraphs later,

the soldier said: “I can’t, it’s against orders.”
The Pope replied: “I give the orders around here.”

Umm.... no.
I mean, yes, the Pope gives orders and is entitled to do so, and entitled to have them obeyed, but again, doesn't giving orders that abrogate the power to command of ones subordinates pretty much the very definition of authoritarianism? Isn't THAT being "strict"?
So much for Subsidiarity....

Frankly, such disregard for facts that don't support the storyline you've chosen reminds me of how Matthew Fox, the noted space cadet,  found irony in Benedict's declaring St Hildegard a Doctor of the Church, when he was, you know, so misogynistic and all; rather than finding what was obviously there - evidence of the pope's high regard for women.

Makes you wonder what else Fox could and couldn't find.
You know, with his own two hands.

Me, I'm hoping any Swiss Guards facing unemployment go out start forming pike squares for, I dunno, Cardinal Burke? Cardinal Sarah? Anyway, anyone else who might be .... in danger of some sort in the Church?
Purely ceremonially, of course.

How does a pike square do in fending off gossip?

Distant Melody...

All right.

Whatever else it's virtues, (and they are many,) and it's faults, (they are a few,) Distant Melody re-arranged as a duet between the sweet Wendy and the incomparable Kelli O'Hara as Mr.s Darling was worth the time investment of watching the live Peter Pan.
I love the show, it is special and bittersweet for me for too many reasons, and so far there are things I would change and things I loved about the production, (Christopher Walken is a hoot and a half, how i wish he had recorded this a decade or so ago, but even still!!!!!) but I am most assuredly not hate watching it -- it's a live classic musical on tv in 2014!!!!!

How can I not be happy about that?

(Distant Melody has made me cry since I was four years old, by the way.)

There's... an energy that is the sine qua non in live performances, much different from film or tv presence. In S of M  last year, Carrie Underwood couldn't act a darn but she knew what live performance energy requires, and she provided it.
Not sure, (the far better actress,) Alison Williams, the principal this time around, gets that.

Too bad, because she might have the physical equipment - it's not about vocal competence, it's about understanding that the performance of the songs has to provide the emotional climaxes.

The Rosary Shrine, and Christmas Gifting

The Dominicans of Summit have a lovely website, and their blog has pictures of the stunning beauty that is winter in the northeast.
(I know, I know, if you have to live there, the aesthetics of a heavy snowfall are kinda moot.)

As it happens, I was at the shrine as the snow fell.
(The Rosary shrine is a place I MUST go, a place much beloved, for various reasons)
And their driveway is even steeper than "the best sledding hill in Summit," within their walls.
Himself was worried about driving up, but it wasn't bad at all.

Besides their soaps and candles which are fantastic and make lovely gifts, they sell quite a few different items that you should consider as you do your Christmas shopping.

Seriously, lavender pet shampoo?
BRILLIANT!

They don't have them on their site, but I bought a really neat knotted cord rosary. A perfect stocking-stuffer if you have a chance to stop by - and very inexpensive. I'd been looking for something that added less weight to my travel bag than my crystal one, but that wasn't tacky plastic, and this certainly fit the bill, (not that I would forsake my glow-in-the-dark plastic rosary, which dangles from my nightstand lampshade, for worlds!)

Lily Allen?

I came across a picture of a celebrity who was unknown to me. (this is a very common occurrance as I age, not in small part to my having a different definition of what being celebrated means than do some people....)

Anywho, she is a singer, (not of the kind of song to which I am wont to listen, I feel, [quite strongly even without actual aural evidence],) sprung from the loins of parents who are also in the business they call show.
She looks like this:

Is it any wonder that I jumped to the conclusion that she was the daughter of the marvelous Helen McCrory?

(I apologize if I have insulted one or the other of them as regards to age and when such a birth could or could not have occurred. I suspect Miss McCrory is more of an age to be a sister than a mother to the other woman, though YoungPeopleNowadays. And the lifestyle of the pop singer and the whorish presentation of many of them does encourage a sort of decay - look at that poor little girl from The Parent Trap remake, who, with a very little help from plastic surgery has morphed into someone of the vintage of Donatella Versace, or the mutton-oft-dressed-as-lamb pop singer surnamed Ciccone.

A make-up person who was something of a hair and cosmetic historian told me once, while painting my face, that pretty much up until the '50s young people were desperate to appear and act like "grown-ups", and then Youth Culture hit and adults began trying to look like children. Perhaps Lindsey Lohan simply represents a swing of the pendulum.)

Waste Not, Want Not, I Suppose....

I am all for using up, wearing out, making do.... I put every last thing in the bin or can or compactor.

But what in blazes is "recycled gold"? Isn't nearly all gold the gold floating around in people's possession nowadays more or less recycled?

(Dinosaur bone, I'll grant you, is recycled in a way, though really no more so that anything made of wood, since it used to be... um, part of a tree.)

At the risk of sounding like Sancho... "I like him, I really like him"

USCatholic, which can be depended upon to have the wrong take on almost everything except social justice issues, (on which they are almost always right,) suggests we take a survey to "rate the Pope.

I think, and said so in the question that asked us to give the Holy Father a grade, that it was unseemly to "rate" him, but I did answer questions, which made me reflect on him, in a good way.

I am by nature judgey. I have to fight against my tendency to "keep score" in relationships, (a friend whose life was saved by a 12 step program calls it "taking other people's inventory," so I think that may be the AA lingo for the same activity?)

I don't know if this is a universal experience but even with those I most love -- perhaps especially with those one most loves, because one spends so much time with, and thought on, them -- numerically the points against predominate.
But that gives the wrong impression because even if at times fewer in number  the pros drastically outweigh the cons.
A thousand thousand failures to...  say, return milk to the refrigerator? it's nothing compared to a single smile.
On balance -- it's love.
Right?

So I am very glad I took the survey and thought about me and Uncle Frank, because at the end of the day, I love him.

Many of the questions were agree/disagree or multiple choice, and no ones fault, the choices were very simplistic; there's no other way to word them, almost all answers seemed to demand an explanation, a mitigation of what seemed on surface either praise or condemnation.
(There was also plenty of Phil Indeblanc's work.)

Pope Francis represents a major change in the direction of the church?
Disagree, he represents a new way for non- and dissenting Catholics to misrepresent actual Church teaching.

By now, I expected that Pope Francis would have made more concrete changes in the church.
Disagree, one might hope, but surely not expect more rapid progress in reform of Church governance.
I think the refusal of msm and even Catholic media to accept the difference between what the Church is free to change and what She may not has been a great distraction for the Holy Father and the Church in general.

The widespread media coverage of Pope Francis has been:
Harmful because the media often misrepresents what Francis says. But also helpful because you cant speak to someone without getting his attention, and Pope Francis has certainly done that.

The comments Pope Francis has made on controversial topics often distort church teaching. -
Disagree
I think besides deliberate, or at least unprofessional misreporting, some of the ocntroversy may be generated by a certain casualness, not to say carelessness in the way the Pope expresses himself.
However, I don't read Italian, Spanish or German, and I am not convinced his words are always translated correctly, either by official or unofficial sources.

The area where I would most like to see more action from Pope Francis is:
I believe the Eucharistic Liturgy is the source and summit of our Faith, and clearer and more explicit teaching, (and example,) on the Liturgy and the Sacraments would go a long way to sanctifying the people of God so that we would more readily take up our mission.
Sometimes his big and wonderful personality can distract from that.
You adore the Blessed Sacrament, you kiss a parrot - which picture is going to make the news?


I think Pope Francis’ frequent off-the-cuff interviews and informal approach have:
Made the papacy much more appealing to the average Catholic.
But being appealing is not an absolute value.

I have been inspired by Pope Francis’ humble and simple lifestyle -
Disagree, inspired to what?
It doesn't mean a whole lot more than President Carter carrying his own garment bag,  Bush clearing brush or Pope Benedict walking over to his old apartment to pick up some papers or riding on a bus.
It's the stuff of photo-ops if it's played that way, (and if it weren't played that way, in most cases we wouldn't even know about it.)

I believe that Francis will make major reforms in the Vatican during his papacy.
Agree, I have great hopes for more stream-lined and accountable Church governance.

Pope Francis doesn’t speak enough about abortion.
 I disagreed
I don't know if he does or not.
I might say, he doesn't speak LOUDLY enough - again, if his more quotable remarks take the focus off matters that are truly life or death, I don't know if he is giving the subject short shrift, or it is just not being reported.
Did he ever speak out on the abominable Belgian bill concerning assisted suicide for children?
Not that I could ever read anywhere.

I find Pope Francis’ comments on homosexuality and same-sex relationships troubling.
Not at all - he merely expressed Church teaching, albeit, not as eloquently as he could have, leading to misunderstanding.

 I think Pope Francis is causing too much division within the church.
Until the parousia She, and really, the entire world, will always suffer from division.
(And I wish USCatholic would capitalize.)
Division is caused by those who deliberately divide themselves from the Church and what She teaches.

One thing about Pope Francis that has been a disappointment to me is…
Did any of us know enough about him to have expectations, and thus, disappointments?
Not I.
I could wish he would perform his task as celebrant with a little more attention to liturgical niceties because the Holy Mass is not a random collection of arbitrary references obeying arbitrary rubrics, (this would also be an outstanding sign that the pope is the servant of the Liturgy, not its master,) and that he would acknowledge the weight people may inadvertently give the words of a pope by expressing himself a little more carefully.

I like His palpable joy in the Gospel.

I'm learning not to jump to conclusions about people based on secondary and even tertiary sources.

I hope for reconciliation with the Orthodox, the Anglicans, the SSPX, Lutherans.... you name'm, (hope, not expect.)

The Sacrament of Confession and the Unforgivable

An almost continuous thread through modern pop culture is the Celebrity Apology Tour.
There are patterns to some of this - discovery, then denial; proof, then halfhearted admission with excuses; egress from public scrutiny with a request to respect privacy that was previously flamboyantly discarded, then re-entry into the public sphere reciting from the approved script.

Sometimes ones audience holds a grudge, sometimes ones supporters are perfectly willing to pretend it never happened while enemies are unwilling to let it go, sometimes one never regains the public's fond gaze, and sometimes ones misdeeds are an on-going but amiable source of a kind of friendly mockery.

Strangely,  qualifying for this last seems to bear no relation to the seriousness of the offence.

Just at this moment, two particular tours being conducted have caught my attention, one by Ray Rice, a football player who beat his wife,or rather, by his surrogate, (his victim, just to tangle things up,) and the other by a bad boy internationally renowned fashion designer, John Galliano, who was temporarily banished from that headiest of milieus for drunken anti-Semitic remarks.

The on-going debate over communion for the divorced and remarried in the Church has caused me to think of these things in relation to my own life.
I am a beneficiary of the Catholic annulment process, (and I believe Himself supposes himself to be as well,) and at the time he was making his case, so to speak, we talked and talked and talked about the whys and wherefores of the failure of his first attempt at marriage.

There had been an indisputable, and explicitly declared intention on the part of both parties against the indissolubility of marriage, and in discussing this we talked about various potential non-negotiables in the on-going commitment of sacramental.
I say "potential," because we of course, arrived at the conclusion that there were none in actuality.

None.

In short, that there was nothing that was unforgivable.

Is there unforgivable sin? I admit to having trouble wrapping my head around the wording in Matthew 12. And I have heard absurd exegesis on it.
But I think, in trying to express it in a way that I and my catechitees, (yeah, I said that, I invented that word,)  can grasp, I can boil it down to - the only unforgivable sin is limiting God's mercy by believing ones sins are unforgivable and refusing to accept God's forgiveness.

Why do we fail to seek His forgiveness? Is there any sane human being outside of fiction, (Verdi's Iago, Shaffer's Salieri,) who knows God and deliberately sets himself up in opposition to God? to God's will? who, to paraphrase Groucho, wouldn't want to be in any Heaven that would have him as a resident?

One of the most-read priest/bloggers on Those Interwebs is constantly urging his readers - Go to confession!

Why do we not? Pride, sometimes, for sure. But shame keeps some from taking advantage of this immense gift, the Grace that is there for the asking!

But I wonder if we shouldn't add a step to the recommended preparation for the sacrament - besides the examination of consciousness, or perhaps as a part of it, to be mindful of those to whom we may owe forgiveness and to give it them.

FORGIVE.

I think actively considering our forgiveness of others will lead to a greater openness to God's forgiveness.

We don't want what we deserve, and we shouldn't want it for others.
We want more, so much more than we merit, we want the eternal life that Christ won for us,

 the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him?

How can we be tight-fisted with our mercy when God is so generous with us?

 In the horrible, horrible tragedy in Ferguson, a question often asked was, even if the dead man, Michael Brown did everything of which he was accused, did he deserve to die?

And the answer is, of course not. (That is not to express any opinion on what part of the blame he might or might not share for the escalation of events that led to his death.)

But this leads me to ask, does Ray Rice, for instance, deserve to never work again for what he did? (And that's without even getting in to the fact that the victim  of his violence would suffer as much as he from his being driven out of his field of employment.)

 Isn't recidivism in criminals, who have had their punishment, often directly tied to their being denied entry back into normal society?
I don't know, I'm asking.

And just to wrap this up with a contradiction, to show that I am inconsistent and unprincipled in my stances, Himself and I are both agreed that physical violence would indeed a deal-breaker.  (It would not, however, lead to divorce, just complete and possibly permanent separation. And it's a deal-breaker the way kidnapping by Martians is.)