Get Out And Vote

It’s a good thing to do, even if you’re embittered about your election choices this year. Voting is a relatively recent human phenomenon, and it gives citizens a powerful voice, even if an indirect one, in the halls of government.

You may be fortunate to live in the state of Iowa. If so, you can vote tomorrow, even if you are not now registered. Simply e-search for your polling place and bring the stuff they tell you to bring: photo id plus proof of address. Check your state’s rules on same-day-registration/voting, if not Iowa, and come prepared. Your county auditor is the best place to start, and all you need to do is search for “(county name) + county auditor” and you should find all the info you need.

Avoid busy hours like lunch and dinner time. If you needed to take a lunch hour at 10:30 or 2 o’clock, it would be worth it.

Next time think about voting in advance.

And keep in mind, if your vote wasn’t important, political parties and action committees and all wouldn’t be flooding your swing state with ads and you wouldn’t be getting robo- and other calls. They are courting you. Make sure they pay for it. Make a choice or two tomorrow, and participate in a great American tradition. If you are living in Ames 3-3, I hope to see you at the polls tomorrow.

 

The Liberal Case Against Cardinal Mahony

I was reading in Tom Roberts’ book The Emerging Catholic Church and found an interesting anecdote about the retired archbishop of Los Angeles. Roberts was writing about research work done by sociologists Richard Schoenherr and Lawrence Young on the projected population of dicoesan clergy. They had troubling news for the US bishops, who, with the Lilly Endowment, commissioned a study on where clergy numbers were heading from 1966 to 2005. It was particularly troubling for the darling of the hate-Right, who was displeased about Dr Schoenherr’s history (as a person who had left active priesthood years before):

I reject that pessimistic assessment and feel that the Catholic Church in our country has been done a great disservice by the Schoenherr report.

…

(The report) presumes that the only factors at work are sociology and statistical research. That is nonsense. We are disciples of Jesus Christ. We live by God’s grace, and our future is shaped by God’s design for his church, not by sociologists.

Most interesting.

The bishops halted their funding for this research in 1990. It’s a puzzler on a few fronts, but maybe not really surprising considering the overall quality of the American episcopate over the past generation.

First, disciples of the Lord are shaped by the truth, and by our commitment to it. Let’s say we have information that the entire world is made up of pagans. Maybe the apostles were dismayed in the first century at this news. Regardless, they did not find it daunting that they were rejected by members of their own faith, and they develed deep into the pagan empire of Rome to spread the Good News. It would have been easier for Peter to say, “Too darn many people. Let’s just stick with Judea, and Matthew’s Gospel up to 28:15.” And perhaps for some of our sister and brother Catholics: they dwell on the smaller, purer church–because the alternative is just to dang hard.

Second, no serious and thoughtful person would decline to receive important news, even if it were bad. I had a repair guy tell me I’m on the hook for a $193 component for my furnace. Maybe I can bundle up in sweaters during the day and tuck myself under a comforter at night, but the reality is that if I want an operating heating system, I’m going to have to face the truth: one important part of my home is broke, and I have to pay to fix it. The sociologists are not shaping the future. They are just telling the bishops that the temperature is going to drop in their mansion if they don’t attend to what’s broken.

This is part of the cult of leadership around many leaders in our society. People have allowed their intellects to dull to the point where they attack messengers of bad news. I’ve felt the sting of people who are infuriated at bad news I bring. Sorry, but I didn’t have forty million abortions. Like them, I just live in a country that has them.

Count me as not surprised, but disappointed in Cardinal Mahony. There’s nothing really wrong with being a conservative. Some of my best friends are. But what is more troubling is a passive and unresponsive mode of engaging the good world God has given us. If a meteorologist predicts cold and snow, maybe I’ll wear shoes instead of sandals. But I won’t blame the weather forecasters if my feet get cold and red if I take option #2.

A wise conservative, when confronted with sociological trends, would take them under serious advisement. A spiritual person, when confronted with sociological realities, might look to her or his interior life, and assess what part of vocation unawareness is due to her or his own fault. Then take steps to change the things that can be changed.

Cardinal Mahony’s response to clergy sociological trends strikes me as neither wise nor spiritual. And what has it got him? Dr Schoenherr’s piece of “pessimism” has largely been right on. If Cardinal Mahony has been praying and beating the bushes for native-born seminarians for twenty years, it got him nothing. Maybe he rubbed his toes before heading out into a snowstorm in sandaled feet. They still got red. They still got cold. The loss seems less that the number of clergy have declined largely as sociologists anticipated. The loss is that the archbishop and his friends seem largely clueless.

Back to Jesus, and his criticism of religious leadership:

Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not also blind, are we” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.” (John 9:40-41)

No, I think liberal Catholics have a lot to criticize in Cardinal Mahony. I wouldn’t count him as a fellow tribesman. Not by a long shot.

 

 

The Elevation of Anti-Gay Efforts

Even I was surprised when initiatives to oppose same-sex civil unions were elevated to the level of life-and-death issues like abortion and euthanasia. I have yet to read or hear a coherent and direct theological response to a few simple questions:

If the Church is opposed to genital activity among unmarried people, why does it not support legal actions taken against what is conceded to be sinful actions? Why does it oppose legal action that would permit actions which are morally good, or at minimum, morally neutral? So why is this a life-and-death issue?

People will continue to have sex outside of sacramental marriage, regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s initiatives. They will do so legally, by the millions. Most of them will be heterosexuals, and many of them will be married to other partners. What they will continue to be unable to do, according to the testimony of this Catholic and other citizens, is perform basic civic and personal duties for a loved one. Frankly, I think the bishops, the Knights of Columbus, and other well-meaning (I believe) Catholics are misguided in this political activity. They all have a right to conduct it–don’t get me wrong. But none of us possess the right to be right. And I’m willing to concede there is a moral argument against civil unions out there. I have yet to see a whisper of it, given the numbers of people around the world who marry outside of a Catholic Church, or even a Christian setting.

Jimmy Mac sent me this link of a visiting professor disinvited from USD for suggesting publicly that a conscientious Catholic could support civil benefits for same-sex couples. Clearly, this has confounded the Lay Internet Magisterium, so they take a page from the Karl Rove/Deal Hudson school for scandal. When you lack the moral or political arguments against a person, just go after their job.

My suggestion for Minnesota and Washington Catholics who aren’t getting good theology this weekend: Focus on the readings. But in considering “all his statutes and commandments,” don’t worry about shrimp and pork. Don’t worry about capital punishment on all those GOP politicians. Be less concerned about agricultural methods or poly-cotton blends or modern genetics. And tattoos? Immigration policy? Yikes. Talk about a hermeneutic of subtraction.

 

Sunday Mass, Beware: Politicking Ahead

I enjoy reading news outlets from beyond the US borders. The Vatican media is telling its readers that Catholics will decide the US elections. Pennsylvania Catholics are shifting to the president by five percentage points, at least, from four years ago. Thanks to that, there’s no swinging in the keystone state. About one-third of registered Iowa voters have already submitted ballots. I see lots of hand wringing over bishops getting into the political fray, but a few things on that:

Lots of Catholics have already voted. I like early voting because it throws expectations out the window, and makes partisan campaigning close to Election Day even more irrelevant.

Let the bishops speak. I don’t have any problem with them chasing alienated Catholics into doing the exact opposite of what they’re being asked to do. These bishops don’t realize that even Catholics who agree with them don’t like them and don’t like how they conduct themselves as governors of the Church. It’s going to take a lot more than being on the winning side in an election. Or the right side.

 

Falsification

Falsification is the principle by which a person tests her or his ideas for possible flaws. In a nutshell, a person considers a plan and then reflects on the possibilities that might derail the effort. Good scientists engage in it. A hypothesis is forwarded, and the researcher considers ways in which a theory can be proved wrong. It strikes me as a rational and orderly approach to the principle “What can go wrong, will go wrong.” Pessimism or pragmatism? Either way, it’s at the core of skilled scientific inquiry.

Something caught my attention in this month’s issue of Chess Life: Andy Soltis’ regular column “Chess To Enjoy.” In it, he looks at the difficult and complex relationship between optimism, worry, and success at the chessboard. In probing the idea of worry, he cites a 2004 study by Michelle Cowley and Ruth Byrne. In this research a group of chessplayers of varying abilities were tested, from average tournament players to the master level, and even a grandmaster. They were given various chess positions and asked to think “out loud” as they analyzed the situation and tried to find the best move.

Top players would find a candidate move, then spend considerable time searching for ways in which the opponent could counter. Players below master level routinely engaged in confirmation bias. When they found a move they loved, they would look for affirmation, then play it. Great chessplayers are thought to be far-thinking in their calculating processes. And the Cowley-Byrne research confirmed this. But more striking to psychologists was the content of the extended calculations. Masters underestimate their candidate move, presume the best of an opponent, and look for flaws in their idea. Amateurs are overconfident, grow attached to their good ideas, and look not so much to the best of what an opponent can deliver to counter their efforts.

Some observations …

In more than a decade online, I have to say that the internet is full of amateurs. People who have good ideas, and who trot them out there with the highest hopes. Often, issues are quickly muddied up, even if they’re citing good authorities. It’s the confirmation bias of chessplayers below the level of master. They don’t test their ideas in the crucible of critical thinking. Things have probably worsened for people who just hang with like-minded allies. Their arguments don’t get poked, probed, and pushed back.

I could use more falsification in my ministry. We’re just starting to revise Communion ministry procedure at the altar in my parish, for a possible implementation after we return to the church and when the pastor comes back from his leave. Lots of things have been suggested, and in one particular suggestion to get the chalices in the hands of the lay Communion ministers more expediently, I take the role of the pessimist. What can go wrong with this procedure? What is the likeliest way for people to mess it up? If it strays too far from old practice, what will I do with the dozen to twenty people our of ninety who never read updates, won’t attend a review session, or who have been doing it for so long they can’t break old habits without great difficulty?

Have I inherited this pessimism from my chessplaying days? Or 25 years of parish ministry? Not as much as would like.

At any rate, it’s a good spur to examine some aspects of my life. What are my presumptions? About parenting, personal finances, hobbies, and even blogging? Is there anything I’m doing that I think is a good idea, but that maybe isn’t? This is one reason I value my wife and our relationship. Being rather different in many personality aspects, we negate the tendency for confirmation bias in one another. We have unity on the essentials: love, respect, faith. We challenge one another on important things: parenting, finances, lifestyle choices. It works better because we’re not the same, because we disagree, and I count my blessings for being a better person and that I don’t have an echo chamber going along with every good notion that pops into my head.

Our bishops, alas, do not enjoy this grace. The higher one goes in the church hierarchy, the more one senses that confirmation bias rules the day. Minds and hearts and spirits are like those chess amateurs. They find a good move. They believe in it. They look around them for confirmation. They don’t think of the negative consequences, and they don’t seem to test things morally, intellectually, theologically.

 

Truth and Revision

What to do when the search for the truth and the embrace of it confronts us? To the point where it might suggest a wholescale change in the way we see things?

Christopher Columbus is outed as an advocate and practitioner of sex slavery. This is not really news. Lots of loyal Americans looked on 1992 as an awkward moment, and others no less loyal lamented the beginning of a genocide against natives of our western continents. What on earth to do with this? Am I obligated to renounce my membership in the Knights of Columbus? Or just decline to use the man’s name or even the usual acronym, “KC” or “KofC”?

I was thinking about a city in which I once served. The local Catholic High School is named for “Columbus.” (Why not a saint? Don’t ask me.) Suppose some students, faculty, parents, or other Catholics began a campaign to change the name. Would I be obliged to support it? Would opposition be dismayed from a sense of passing a positive judgment on a person who fell far short of a Gospel ideal as viewed through a modern lens? Would the lack of support from Catholics possibly cede the moral high ground to secular feminists or others supporting or conducting such a campaign?

How much scrutiny should the Church apply to its saints? Does declared sainthood mean or even imply that criticism of the person is out of bounds? What about honest research? Does avoidance of history serve the truth? And which is more damaging to the faith: that heroes are revealed as sinners, or that we hide the “scandalous” news from others?

Looks like a dozen questions, give or take. I have a lot of questions today, and very few answers. Comments are welcome if you have either or both.

 

Pennsylvania Pushback

Mark Silk at RNS looks at the Catholic vote in the Keystone State. Citing a five percent Catholic swing toward the president from 2008 to a recent poll, the columnist takes aim at the new archbishop and his religious freedom theme:

It also tells you something about the political impact of the state’s outspoken archbishop Charles Chaput, who was installed in the See of Philadelphia a year ago.

…

Obama’s surge among Catholic voters doesn’t mean the bishops’ campaign has been ineffective, just that Catholics don’t regard religious freedom as the most salient issue. My guess is that Chaput would disagree. The point of his campaign has been to make the issue as salient as he can.

With the president now twice as likely to steal Montana or Arizona from the GOP as Mr Romney might pocket Pennsylvania, my sense is that this election is breaking bad for the bishops. I’m not surprised, especially considering a possible stubborn pushback factor among voting Catholics when pounded relentlessly on an issue. I thought I saw it six years ago in Missouri. Bishop Finn’s young and inexperienced pro-life staff at the chancery helped pull the anti-ESCR effort to a dead heat a few weeks before election. But then proceeded to treat churchgoing Catholics like nails to their hammer. Sometimes when people pound a little too strongly and dominate the conversation without an edgewise word, they send a signal they might not want to send. The talking gets a bit brittle. And the final edgewise word might be next to that black-filled oval on Election Day.

I recommend pro-life young turks and their bishops give up the video contests with guns and shooting and be schooled in a more subtle game, one that reflects real politics and human interaction. A contest where lowering one’s head and running fast doesn’t break down a wall. I wish the political pro-lifers had more the subtlety of a stone rather than a hammer.

 

A Fly In The Soup

Rod Dreher and a few on the Catholic Right are waxing outraged over this piece of the Fr Benedict Groeschel fallout: firing NCReg interviewer John Burger.

I’ve known a lot of colleagues in ministry get fired in far pettier circumstances. Often orthodox conservative Catholics crow when someone they dislike loses a job. Deal Hudson was famous for engineering it. And getting cheered on about it. If this latest episode is poignant for some of my brother and sister believers, then good for them.

I’m more sympathetic to John Burger than you might expect. But still: I hesitate getting fully onboard Rod’s train on this one.

That Fr Groeschel interview was an in-house puff-piece. It was conceived, it seems, as a feel-good feature about a popular guy who worked for the same outfit as the interviewer/editor. It wasn’t serious journalism as portrayed by the Sally Field character getting grilled by her newsroom colleague here. NCReg and EWTN and their followers were supposed to all read it, and feel a little bit better about themselves. There’s nothing wrong with good news, mind you. Until it ran off the rails of good public relations and became a wedge among those on the Catholic Right, and an occasion of shock elsewhere. In that light, Mr Burger didn’t do his job. His mistake was that he didn’t seem to recognize when the interview morphed from a friendly chat into a minor blockbuster hitched to Jerry Sandusky and the disgraced Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado.

Let’s say a food reporter visits a restaurant and sees a fly land in the soup. Maybe that’s news if the whole room is having an Amityville moment. Maybe not if a single wayward insect found its way onto the outdoor terrace. There’s a judgment to be made about what is essential to the story. With a feature that focuses on local restaurants as good places to eat, maybe the journalist just asks for another bowl, please, and reports on the blend of meat, veggies, and spices. The entomology not so much. Unless, of course, the newspaper is part of a conglomerate that owns a rival local restaurant chain. Then the whole story would be journalistic fodder. Maybe the same is true of NCReg and their handling of John Burger.

I’m usually not happy to hear of a person getting fired. A solid, experienced, qualified person is hard to replace, and involves its own costs: search committees, temporary work loads for colleagues, orienting a new employee. Not to mention moving vans, home sales, and change-of-address forms.

I’m sure the employees at the NCReg have gotten a message loud and clear: don’t screw up or you’re next. The only problem from a Christian viewpoint is that the message is to protect the organization at all costs. That doesn’t seem to be very different from the US bishops, the Legion of Christ, or Big Time College Football.

 

Barbarians at the Gates? Which Ones?

I see some of my Facebook and orthodox conservative Catholic friends are waxing I-told-you-so on “top director” Nick Cassavetes’ suggestion that incest is okay. It’s all the fault, so we are told, of the gay marriage movement. And it was all entirely predictable.

The comments come after he unveiled his latest movie “Yellow” – in which a woman had an incestuous affair with her brother that is in prison – at the Toronto Film Festival. The movie does not yet have a distributor in the states.

Okay.

A guy who has directed seven films in sixteen years is not a “top” Hollywood director. He seems closer to being the Joe Shlabotnik of Tinseltown. And wonder of wonders–he has a movie made about incest.

So let’s review. A guy who wants to get his film shown in US movie theatres makes an outlandish statement or two about sex between consenting adults. The dude seems to want attention. In a capitalistic, wanna-make-money way. So the Catholic Right complies with the request, and the publicist earns a paycheck for the week.

I’d say Mr Cassavetes has more in common with Jerry Springer or Howard Stern than same-sex couples. Looks like simple exploitative, opportunistic entrepreneurship to me–the kind of stuff that political candidates favored by the orthodox conservative are lining up with this cycle.

 

An Unhelpful Comparison

With a broad range of internet sources, I find the spectrum of Catholic responses on various issues to be … interesting, to say the least. I’d like to tease out a few recent news bits and offer up an unhelpful comparison. Why unhelpful? Mainly to underline the occasional lack of logic among some believers who are otherwise trying their best to align themselves with the Truth, as they understand it. I will note that some recent events, like the conviction of Bishop Robert Finn, tends to open up divides in what often seems to be a Catholic conservative internet monolith. It’s not the only case. And it won’t be the last. The internet gives hundreds of millions of people the opportunity to make a judgment on an issue before some Celebrity issues a decree on it.

One of the students I know follows lifesitenews, and in my Facebook feed I found this brief opinion piece a few days ago. It’s the one I blogged about on Tuesday.

(T)hose Catholics who cannot bring themselves to believe the formal teachings of the Church on life and family matters it would be more honest to leave the Church rather than betraying Her.

For (at least) two generations now, there has been a wide range of Catholic opinion and political acitivity on abortion, which is what this stance from HLI is all about. One can oppose abortion in all circumstances, something like the absolute pacifist approach to war. Killing is always, always, wrong. And a Christian just shouldn’t kill under any circumstances. Or there would be the individual personally opposed–which is likely most Catholics. But some Catholics would see the criminalization of abortion as an ineffective or impractical or unpopular solution, and therefore an optional stance for a believer.

Between the two positions there are all sort of concession spots. The GOP presidential ticket absolves the situation of rape. Presumably the mother’s danger-of-death clause, too. And then one would have more extreme positions: anti-abortion folks who endorse the assassination of providers, plus people who, despite medical evidence to the contrary, have no problem with ending a life with a heartbeat, brainwaves, and all the natural infant qualities.

But let’s get back to the clause, “it would be more honest to leave rather than betray.”

Certainly Bishop Finn has given grave scandal to the people of his diocese, for a single thread of mismanagement that permitted a person with an admitted addiction to child pornography to circulate among Catholic children. A good percentage of Kansas City Catholics are outraged. Would it be more honest for Bishop Finn to leave the Roman Catholic Church? Would it be more honest for him to just leave the diocese? To be sure: I’m certainly not arguing for the man to be ejected into the Anglican Communion. But this would be an “unhelpful” comparison to the HLI spin on the Pope Benedict talk. Can one make a case for Pope Benedict suggesting Bishop Finn leave Catholicism? If one is prepared to take the point of scandal seriously and follow the HLI reasoning to a logical conclusion.

Or perhaps we’re talking about the betrayal of the political pro-life movement instead of the Church. Then, naturally, the comparison doesn’t fit and isn’t very helpful.

The deeper issue is really people we don’t like with whom we’re stuck. A lame duck bishop for sixteen years. Catholics who vote in contrary ways to us. People who don’t even argue the same positions we do on the core moral issues of the day. Lots of Catholics earnestly say that “Life” is the number one issue. But it’s really not. For Christians, faith is the core issue. Christians routinely and historically set aside their lives for the witness of the faith. And I think the matter of a Catholic chased out of the Church possesses a similar gravity to the ending of a human life. And if you don’t think that way, then compare to what Christ said in the Gospels about losing one’s life. And maybe that’s unhelpful for some readers. Just like the people who won’t leave the Church, you’re still going to have to wrestle with the reality of faith. Your own. Other people’s too.

 

How Far To Take The Knights’ Pledge?

David Gibson at RNS reports on Cardinal Dolan’s challenge to the major party candidates for US president and vice-president to sign a civility pledge. Not just any pledge; this was penned and promoted by Carl Anderson and the Knights of Columbus.

I don’t know if the Jovial One is out of his element on this. Does this request only cover the official Obama-Biden and Romney-Ryan campaigns? Or does it include the oodles of ads produced, with or without approval, by shadow and parallel political groups? What I mean is, if Mr Obama told the labor unions to cool it, and Mr Romney delivered the same message to the Koch brothers, would the pledge be expected to be adhered to?

And if so, how enforced?

And if not, isn’t the whole thing meaningless, as it’s mainly about the ads we have to endure between now and early November? Who the heck cares who penned or approved them?

 

 

 

As A Priest, Acts of God

I note that blogocommenters are going either goo-goo or gah! over Archbishop Dolan’s invite to pray “as a priest” at Tampa’s GOP Convention in a few weeks. I confess I can’t get excited either way. The Cardinal is a US citizen, perhaps a card-carrying Republican. And if the local bishop is okay with it, why is it a bother to me? Or anyone else?

The New York archbishop stumbles in the eyes of some by inviting the president to dinner. The blogocritics pile on. Yawn. This is pretty much the same, isn’t it? Cardinal Dolan gets places, and he’s not afraid to spread it around, is he?

I just point out that actions have consequences. He associates with the president, and some critics will pounce, and pounce with bile. He associates with the GOP in a rather formal way “for a priest,” and that action has predictable consequences too. For me, it seems to be part of the cult of celebrity. Our culture is soaked in it, and the Church has its moments of hero-worship too. Me, I just can’t get excited about it one way or the other. I am watching Hurricane Isaac. What do you want to bet that Rep Bachmann and conservative others don’t think a hurricane strike on the GOP is an act of God?

 

Shabby Treatment

From Bishop Lynch’s tribute to Bishop Trautman:

I accompanied Bishop Trautman and others on his Committee to the Congregation for Divine Worship to make the strongest case for gender sensitive (aka “inclusive”) language only to have him treated very shabbily by an American Jesuit either still in or just finished graduate education at Rome’s Gregorian University. That was an awful moment that the bishop took far better than I did.

Shabby treatment: pretty much the modus operandi for those who can’t muster either a sliver of charity or half a brain of good theology.

 

Archbishop Dolan’s LCWR Moment

Archbishop Dolan concedes he’s bothered by criticism of his invitation of the president to the Al Smith dinner. Mark Silk at RNS dismantles some of the giving-scandal concern.

My sense is that the word “scandal” has a particular meaning. In the theological and moral context, it does not mean “stuff I disagree with,” as defined by rabid pro-lifers and other ideologues. Professor Silk cites Thomas Aquinas and the Catholic tradition in suggesting that if a person is scandalized by another person’s good behavior, other moral qualities (such as envy) may be involved in the so-called scandalized. It seems that everybody needs to not only step back and take a deep breath, but conduct an examination of conscience.

On NPR earlier this summer, I recall Bishop Leonard Blair was bothered that Sr Pat Farrell and the LCWR declined to define themselves as pro-life in exactly the way the politicos want. This is sort of what’s happening to Archbishop Dolan here. He’s the LCWR. His pro-life critics are the CDF and Bishop Blair.

Perhaps it is possible for a person to embrace full moral goodness and live the anti-abortion message 24/7/365. At some point a certain radical standard cannot be met. Do political pro-lifers skip meals, decline to watch tv, get less sleep, refuse entertainment, and become hermits in order to further the cause? If someone is criticizing the Al Smith dinner, can other activities of pro-lifers be fair game? Things like walking the dog, sipping a coffee, taking a vacation, or sending one’s children to college? Because that’s where the logical approach will find this line of thought, when taken to extremes.

I feel badly that Archbishop Dolan is feeling the heat on this. But I’m not at all surprised. Anger has to go somewhere. And many of my otherwise fine brother and sister pro-lifers have allowed a basic good–the defense of human life–to color and cloud relationships. Not to mention obscure an even greater good than life. Faith itself.

I don’t feel badly, though, that the good archbishop is in good company with the Misunderstood. The LCWR likely would tell him to just take a number. His last word:

I’m encouraged by the example of Jesus, who was blistered by his critics for dining with those some considered sinners; and by the recognition that, if I only sat down with people who agreed with me, and I with them, or with those who were saints, I’d be taking all my meals alone.

I’d tell the man this is about more than being a solo foodie. This strikes at the very heart of the SCGS* movement. Divide and conquer, it seems to me, and an attempt to get 1.2 billion Churches of one. Good army slogan, perhaps. Less so for the cause of the Great Commission.

* Small Church, Getting Smaller

 

Gratitude, And Lack Thereof

Frequent commenter Jimmy Mac sent me the link to this YouTube video. The LCWR sisters thank the waitstaff at the hotel. As of this morning, ten likes, twenty-four dislikes. I guess some Catholics still bristle at the notion that sisters set a good example by showing gratitude. That sums up a good chunk of the opposition, I would say: a lack of gratitude.