You Can't Make This Shit Up

Plus, his parent were sick fucks. Who in their right mind would name a kid Ronald, if your last name is McDonald?

Get the Story.

The Asshole Brigade

As you know, I'm going to the in-laws for Christmas, which I haven't done since 2001. At that time, we spent Christmas Eve with the father-in-law (who already had plans to spend it at his sister's and we along) and Christmas Day with the mother-in-law.

This year, I thought it would be nice to switch. I sent out an e-mail saying so. My mil got right to plan making for Christmas Eve. It took a week for hubands stepmother to send this e-mail.

Hi. Our plans are to go to Janice on Christmas EVE.. and I ALWAYS go to my Moms house every Christmas day with my family. The family is welcome to come over the 26th .. I do need to work the week before Christmas and my schedule is hectic before any holiday.Since the 26th is on a Sunday, we will be home. That is our plan....

Would have been to much to call us when I suggested the plan to say it won't work. Then I sould have called my mil right away and see if we could switch, but no.

Besides, why does a 60 some year old woman need to go running to her mommy's. It's not every year her husbands son and grandchildren come for Christmas. And if it's an issue of her kids, why not say, why don't you guys come over for Christmas, John's son'll be over,...Hell, why not invite us to your mother's. It's not like we didn't traet you and mother to lunch at The Boneyard this past June.

So the MIL is having us Eve and Day. She must be thrilled. We'll see granpa day after. My mother-in-law had wanted to take the girls to lunch at American Girl Place, and see the sights in New York. OH well. We can't have everything our way. Maybe we can do that right before Christmas.

Right Lung, Meet Left Lung

One of my local TV stations airs the Divine Lliturgy of St John Chrysostom on Thursdays at 11am. I decided to have my daughters watch this, teach them how they are just as Catholic as we are, one big Church different liturgies, blah, blah, fishcakes.

So I get this:

He's turning his back on his people!
No, he's leasing them in prayer.
He has his back to them!
He's like a general, and they are the people, all marching together toward God. In fact, in our Church, it was this way until Grandma was Aunt Julie's age,
That's not how I see it! He's turning his back on his people.


I tried to point out the similarities, like the Creed but they say "visible and invisible" instead of "seen and unseen". The kid just wants to know why they are singing it. Well, they sing the whole liturgy except for the homily.

She then starts to sing a recap of the homily (about a monkey getting it's paw stuck in a melon and being captured by a hunter). She was paying attention afterall!

It's That Time of Year

I've just about finished my Christmas shopping. I still have to get stuff for my kids' teachers, and for my niece's birthday. Dec 14--I just lump it in with Christmas shopping.

I got my mother-in-law a Chia Herb garden. My sister tells me it was a bad gift, she also thinks her fondue pot was a bad gift.

I got Hickory Farms gift boxes for my dad and father-in-law, cause they're impossible to buy for.

I got jedmunds something totally gay, but I didn't realize that till I already bought it, so I went out and got something different. OOh buyer's remorse.

I like Christmas shopping, but I hate spending the money, and stressing over whether I have enough to but presents this year, and the credit card bill when it comes in.

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving.

Me too, Barbara, Me too.

Barbara Nicolosi has http://churchofthemasses.blogspot.com/2005/11/meme-confession.html recently admitted that:

I confess, I too have never read The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I have never read these books, either. And it disturbs me greatly. The story is supposedly very Catholic. JRR Tolkien was a devout Catholic, one of his sons was a priest, and he converted CS Lewis from atheism to Christianity (though Lewis was never able to swim the Tiber). it's like you can't be a good Catholic and not like Tolkien.

But the books just bore me. And I fell asleep during the first movie. Well K-Mart had the DVD's on sale this past weekend. I picked up all three for $24. Maybe one of these nights when there's nothing good on, I watch one.

Fr Fushek Arrested

For supposed molestation. Mark Shea has some interesting commentary, as does Jimmy Akin. Amy Wellborn has some excerpts from the actual charges.

Now even though I'm no fan of Lifeteen, I'm not gleeful over this as some of the redtrads are. Yes, "The mass never ends, it must be lived, go and live the mass" is downright cheesy, not to mention against the rubrics. And all the the teens gathered 'round the alter for the consecration is an unquestionable liturgical abuse. And upbeat contemporary Christian music kinda sucks. Well, it really sucks, actually.

But Fr. Fushek bowed to the authority of the Church and discontinued them when told to due so, and instructed other chapters to do so. The fact that some Lifeteen chapters continue to disobey, and violate the rubrics, is unfortunate, but irrelevant.

I don't believe in recovered memories. The current allegations involve confession, which means the Father is screwed, even if innocent, because he can't defend himself without breaking the seal of confession, which is of course, excommunicable

New Lows of Ridiculosity

Yes. This is from those charming people at PETA. "If you have pets, keep them away from daddy, cause he might gut them, too?" (paraphrase). My goodness gracious.

My Dissapointed Child

The kids wanted to go to New York for Thanksgiving, but we decided to stay home because it is a short holiday, and go to New York for Christmas instead. Apparantly, nit everyone got the second half of the memo.

My child: Jedmunds isn't coming for Thanksgiving, huh?
Me: No, I don't think so.
Child: But he's coming for Christmas right?
Me: Yes, I think so but we won't be here.
Child: (pauses) What do you mean, we won't be here?
Me: We're going to New York for Christmas.
Her: I hate you!! (Car door slams)

Aah. The cult of jedmunds. And an impossible child.

And Petro's Out of the Gate!!!

So, the primaries are what, seven months away? And Jim Petro has his gubernatorial campaign up and running. Not a day goes by when one doesn't see a commercial. One would think we at the height of campaign season. Well, I now know that

• As Auditor of State, Petro returned 15 million? billion? well 15 something. Oh wait his commersial just aired, it's 30 million to the people of Ohio.
  
• As Attorney General, he returned millions more
• He wants to save money by restructuring government.
• He wants to set a tax ceiling, unlike Ken Blackwell's "risky scheme". He doesn't actually say "risky scheme", at least, I don't think so. But the tone is there.

All I know is, it's too early to know who I'm voting for. I don't who the Democrats are putting up. I think I may have heard rumore of Ted Strickland. I just wish Jerry! would run. I might register as a D just to v ote for him.

RIP Pobert Hilkert

The pastor of my childhood parish died this week. On Halloween was the funeral for one of the deacons at the same parish, who had baptized one of my children.

Makes me feel old 'ya know?

Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Cathedral in Rome

More properly called the Patriarchal Basilica of the Most Holy Savior and Saint John the Baptist at the Lateran. You know, the Pope's "home" church. Many people think that that is St Peter's Basilica, but no, it's St John Lateran. St. Peter's is assigned to the Patriarch of Constantinople, for when he's in Rome, if he were to ever reunite with Rome.

So the Churches of Rome:

1. St John Lateran-The Patriarch of the West, aka the Pope
2. St Peter-The Patriarch of Constantinople
3. St Paul-The Patriarch of Alexandria
4. St. Mary Major-The Patriarch of Antioch
5. St. Lawrence Outside the Walls-The Patriarch of Jerusalem

Of course these schisms would have to end, the Patriarch submit to the authority of the Pastor of the Universal Church (aka the Pope) to claim their Patriarchal sees in within Rome.

Synods and synods

The World Synod of Bishops has ended. They've come up with some interesting proposals, although they tried to link every issue to the Eucharist (ie polygamy and the Eucharist).

Now a new synod has started and runs through through Saturday, specifically for the Chaldean Catholic Church. I will be held at the Vatican. There was another Chaldean synod held earlier this year in Baghdad.

Some big issues are:

The big influx of evengelicals trying to "Christianize" them. I mean, come on, aren't there plenty of Muslims to target?
The exodus from their homeland due to the war.
De-latinizing their liturgy, although some like it just the way it is.

So let's all them in our thoughts, and hope for the best for this Church.

An Update on the Urine Thing

So the teacher announced to the class that they can go potty if they need to. She also talked to my daughter privately.

Except my daughter won't tell me what she said. She only said that I'll send another e-mail and she'll get in more trouble.

I told her if she doesn't tell me, I'm definately send another e-mail, along the lines of

Dear Mrs X,

I understand that you clarified to the class that they may use the restroom as need be, and you also talked to my daughter separatley. However, thelil'lunatic will not tell me what was said, only that "You'll send another e-mail and I'll get into even more trouble." Naturally I'm very concerned about this and hope that we can get to the bottom of this.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Lunatic

Until the next time.

Another Mark for the "Homeschool" Column

My little girl came home from school yesterday, telling me that she "peed a little". Apparantly, her teacher wouldn't let her use the restroom, she needed to ask like five times. So when she was finally able to go, she didn't quite make it.

Naturally concerned by this, I wrote the teacher a note. Supposedly, it's a rule in the classroom, you can go if the teacher says no and you have to. Why not just let the kid go in the first place. Why teach them to be subversive. (Actually I told her the same thing. Next time, just go. If you get a detention, I'll straighten it out. {There is a place for discerning civil disobedience}. I tried to recommend just pee on the floor, but my husband said that would brand us as psychos.)

Anyway, children are often intimidated by those in authority. Not many have the audacity to defy the teacher and go waltzing out of the classroom, or rather galloping, as the case may be.

Merry Christmas!!!

No it's not Christmas. It's almost as good though. It's election day! I love election day. It's so exciting. I can't wait for the polls to close, and the returns to start scrolling across my television screen. Even though it's an off year, it's still good.

How will Issues 2, 3, 4, and 5 turn out?
What about Issue 117?

Who will be the mayor of Cleveland?
How about the 8 people running for the 4 spots on my suburbs city council?
And the Board of Education?
The garbage fee?

Who will win that nasty gubernatorial race in New Jersey?
The parantal consent law in California?

Only about two hours left.
My heart's all a jittery.

Flu Shots

Okay. Today was the big take the kids to get their flu shots day.

Child #1-age 2--perfect angel. Didn't even cry.

Child #2-age 7--needs vaccine--very good. Afterwards said, "gee that hurt"

Child #3-age 9--determined not to get shot. Totally uncooperative. If you've never expieienced trying to hold someone down while also removing some clothing, you've never lived. In the end, two nurses and a doctor were required to get her the shot. I could have been more forceful with her, but I didn't want CPS called on me. Because I really felt like doing something that would get CPS called on me.

The Catholic Church and the Bible

Over at Pandagon, there has been a lot of misunderstanding as to how Catholics regard the Bible.

I'm here to clear those up. the Catholic Church believes the Bible is the inerrant word of God. However, not everything in it is literalistically true. It contains poetry, allegory, metaphor, etc.

It is historically true, but not necessarily historically accurate. The writer's weren't ther to write a history text, but to relay events from their perspective as these events relate to our salvation and our relationship with God.

The moment the evangelicals admit that the bible is not the inerrant truth and infallable is the moment they have no way of sticking their head in the sands and refusing to hear our stories of how the earth is not flat and that we all evolved from primates. It is the moment that doubt enters their minds.

Actually, protestants often say that the the Bible is a "fallible collection of infallible books". Catholics believe that the Bible is infallible, in matters of faith morals and salvation. However, we do recagnize different types of literary devices.

If you think the inerrantists are nuts[*] you'll just love the "King James Only" crowd. Ayup - there are people who honestly believe that the King James bible is the sole true scripture. I shit you not.

Yup. And not only that, some people think only the 1611 version in acceptable. It's like somehow this particular version was dropped out of sky by God himself, and that Jesus and his apostles went around speaking King James English.

I remember having a conversation with a woman who was studying to be a nun, and who had a very cynical view of human nature, in which she was explaining why she thought the authority of the Catholic Church was necessary. In her view, Protestants simply tried to substitute the authority of the Bible for the authority of the Church, which she felt was naive, since individuals couldn't really interpret the Bible properly.

If that's anything like an accurate presentation of the Catholic position, then it would make perfect sense that the Catholic Church would reject any notion of Biblical inerrancy -- if it was flawless, there'd be no need for the authority of the Church.

First of all, the Catholic Church does believe that the Bible is inerrant. However, if all we needed was the Bible, and we were all able to interpret it properly all by ourselves, there wouldn't be 30,000 different Protestant sects out there, all using the Bible as their guide. And part of the authority of the Church Magisterium is the authority to coerrectly interpret the Bible. Hell-they compiled the New Testement. They look at Tradition and the writings of the early church fathers to understand how the earliest Christians understood something, which is how we understand it.

If the Pope says the bible isn't exactly true, the bible isn't exactly true.

You really need to get a better grasp on Papal infallibility. Try here .

Those Darn French Riots

I am really worried about the future of Europe. As we all should know, these are the Muslim Frenchman who are rioting. A crises that has been festering in Europe is slowly coming to a simmer.

ManyEuropean countries have a sizable Muslim minority that is and refuses to be assimilated. Combine that with the fact that aside from the Muslims, Europeans don't have children. How many years until these countries have Muslim majorities, and then western law is replaced with Islamic law?

I think that the Islamists may finally succed, this time in a more slow and insidious way, their longterm goal. They had been thwarted in 1683 by Polish King John (Jan) Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna, in 1571 in the naval battle on the Mediteranean at Lepanto, and in 732 at Tours/Poitiers by Charles Martel.

Yes, if things don't change, the Muslim exapnse into Europe may finally be achieved.

And a school of thought believes that once an area is in Muslim hands, it should remain so, or be recaptured. I do think certain fanatics do want to achieve that. They lost Spain 700 years ago, after holding it for 700 years. There is also Greece, and a big chunk of Southeast Europe.

European nations need to get control of there countires. They need to stop granting asylum to radical clerics who advocate the overthrow of secular nations. You'd've thunk Theo Van Gogh's murder wwould have been a wake up call. Hopefully this will be.

But I doubt it. The lefty's keep going on about a marginalized minority. Let's acknowledge that they at least partially marginialize themselves. God save us from the bleeding hearts.

Woo-hoo!!!

After an interminable hiatus, Arrested Development is on tonight! And for a full hour. I hope it's a good one. It better be a good one. So pop some corn, sit back, and enjoy.

The Liberal Agenda of the Entertainment Industry Strikes Again

I'm sure most of you guys watched CSI last night. If I had a personal relationship with one of their writers, I'd have one thing to say:

"Cite?"

For those of you who may have missed the eppy, Catherine claims to a Dr. who runs an embryo adoption service that that some Pope (I can't remember if she said 1600's or 16th century) said that a fetus wasn't human until the 40th day. And implied that that had been the position of the Catholic Church.

Cause I sure as hell can't find any type of papal document from the medieval/renaissance period saying that a fetus wasn't human until such and such a point. And this is after spending significant time at New Advent, a website I generally avoid.--too cerebral for me.

The fact remains that the Catholic Church has always opposed abortion. For Example:

The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. With us there is no nice enquiry as to its being formed or unformed. In this case it is not only the being about to be born who is vindicated, but the woman in her attack upon herself; because in most cases women who make such attempts die. The destruction of the embryo is an additional crime, a second murder, at all events if we regard it as done with intent. The punishment, however, of these women should not be for life, but for the term of ten years. And let their treatment depend not on mere lapse of time, but on the character of their repentance.

St Basil, 188 AD

Sure, there have been philosophical/theological debates about exactly when ensoulment happens. Aquinas happened to believe it took 40 days for conception to complete.

Nevertheless, no Pope ever made any binding declaration of the type CSI implied. And even if some Pope held to some personal view which doesn't hold up to modern science, the fact is it's no more binding than if Benedict said he likes Domino's better than Papa John's. It doesn't set an official Church position on the pizza wars.

Besides, why the fuck does it offend their pro-choice sensibilities if someone chooses embryo adoption, rather than dumping them or destroying them for their stem cells? I guess they feel that valuing these nascent little lives undermines their "choice" position.

The Rare Lefty Post

I took my daughter the pulmonologist yesterday. During the visit, I asked about flu shots. He, unfortunately, didn't have any. He doubted he was going to be getting any, either. He thinks they've been diverted to Florida, to the hurricane shelters.

Now, I'm the last person to start whining about the government doing something, and not just letting things work, but my God!!!

The grocery store has flu shots (which they'll only give to those over 18) but a pulmonologist can't get them?!

Something is definately out of whack there.

So anyways, I called the pediatrician. They do have flu shots, and actually are offering them for all three children.

So, it all worked out in the end.

All Souls Day

Remember to remember all of our departed family and friends today and throughout the month of November.

A Tale of Two Masses

I went to Church twice yesterday for All Saints. I went to the noon and the 7 pm masses. It was an illuminating expierience. I've come to the conclusion that all faults I find with Mass come from the music department.

The noon mass was very reverant, and had no choir. So we used the antiphon instead of a hymn. and before the antiphon, father led us in three Hail Mary's. The Hail Mary's were preceded by (and I'm just going on rough memory with the first 2)

• Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.
• "The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
• And the Word became flesh

We recited the Gloria and the Lamb of God as it is in the Sacramentary. The homily was terrific. Church Militant, Church Triumphant, Church Suffering. There are many Saints the Church doesn't know about. Many may be related to us.

Then there was the 7pm mass. The choir was there. The opening hymn was For All the Saints, that is a given. I don't remember the Offertory or Communion hymns. The Gloria was sung and altered so the language was inclusive "Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God's people on Earth" . God forbid we say "peace to his people on Earth". We can't slap a male pronoun on God! God forbid!

As with all masses celebrated with this priest, we offered the Prayer of the Faithful through the intercession of Mary, and wrapped them up with a Hail Mary. His Homily was also very good. Told some anecdotes of different Saints. Philip Neri shaved half his head. Moved on to our own journey to sainthood. Our salvation must be worked out with fear and trembling.

Then on to the closing hymn. If she wanted to choose a hymn based on the day's Gospel reading, a better choice would have been Blest Are They. And I can't believe I'm reccommending a song by David Haas.

No. We got We Are the Light of the Lord. Gee, I thought Jesus was the light of the world. Yeah. I guess a case could be made for Christians spreading the light of the gospel, a little beacon of God's light in a depraved world or whatever. But the song, like so many, is a bit too self-aggrandizing for me. I just hear too many "Yea, us" songs at Church.

So, any wasy, I was struck by what a difference a choir can make.

Solemnity of All Saints