May 29th Was A Very Special Day! Yes, Really!

Why was May 29th so special?  Because it was the first ever (drum roll and trumpets, please),

MENSTRUAL HYGIENE DAY!

Ta-da!  Thus sayeth our overlords at the Department of Labor as they search for ever-new and innovative ways to squander put our tax dollars to frivolous good use!

Take a good look at that link and see how politically correct they are.  Even though only women can menstruate, they carefully avoid the word "woman".  Instead, we are "menstruating persons" or "menstruators".

Menstruators!  What a word!  Is this what the feminist movement was really about, that the word "woman" became one of the new unmentionables?  Can you just imagine what the late Helen Reddy would do with her iconic song?

"I am menstrator.  Hear me roar in numbers too big to ignore... I am strong.  I am invincible.  I am menstruating person!"   Somehow it just doesn't have the same sound to it!

The Department of Labor is a colossal waste of tax dollars. 

Here's a fun little exercise.  Below is Helen Reddy's song, with lyrics.  Join with the singing, but substitute "menstruator" for woman.  Feminists, you did this to yourselves, and us too.

President Trump - Latest Kangaroo Court Target

After the Garland 9 were tried for their roles in a clinic rescue last August, we knew we would see more kangaroo trials.  Today former President Donald Trump was the latest victim of another kangaroo court that progressives seem to be producing with increasing blatancy.  In New York City, he was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying documents in hush money matters.

If it sounds confusing to you, you're not the only one.  Anticipating such confusion on the part of jurors, the judge told them that they need not agree amongst themselves just what specific crime was at issue.  According to the AP, all the jury had to do was to agree that "something unlawful was done to promote Trump's election campaign", and it wasn't necessary to agree on that "something".  The judge gave them three categories of crimes, so the jurors could make their own choices from that smorgasbord.  Again, they didn't have to agree on the specific crime(s), just that something bad was done.

Trump's attorneys will file appeals very quickly, and I cannot see how New York's case will stand under higher scrutiny.  Frankly, their batting average in that respect is rather laughable.  Earlier today, the US Supreme Court ruled that New York violated the free speech rights of the National Rifle Association by pressuring banks to sever relationships with the NRA.  Let's also not forget the 2022 Bruen decision that reigned in New York's trampling of Second Amendment rights.

Regardless of political leanings, one can see that this is yet another miscarriage of justice that cannot be allowed to stand.

Father Fidel Rodriguez Defended The Blessed Sacrament In Florida

At the 10 am Mass on Sunday May 19, in St Thomas Aquinas Church in St. Cloud, FL, a woman presented herself for Holy Communion.  Because she didn't open her mouth or reply "amen", Father Fidel Rodriguez had reason to question her eligibility for receiving Holy Communion.  When he asked, she refused to tell him when she last went to Holy Communion or Confession.  He gave her a blessing.  The woman's name is Jetty Nique.

She tried it again at the 12pm Mass.  When Fr. Rodriguez asked about her last confession again, she replied it's "not his business".  Then she extended her hand towards the ciborium bowl, grabbed several Hosts, crushed them and threw/dropped them on the floor.  There was a struggle.  Father had to hold the bowl and defend himself.  It was then that he bit her, to defend both the Blessed Sacrament and himself from Nique's aggression.  LifesiteNews has an account of the incident.  Other video can be found at WRAL News.  

A commenter on the LifeSiteNews piece raises some interesting points.  The existence of these two videos speaks of an accomplice of Nique's who was at the ready to record her actions and the fallout.  It was a set up, no doubt.

Later Nique told the police "he wouldn't give me the cookie".  The cookie!  Either she is ignorant of just what the Consecrated Host really is, or she is being flippant to the point of blasphemy regarding the Real Presence.

As of this writing, charges have not yet been filed against Father Rodriguez.  None should be.  She grabbed at him and what he was holding.  He acted in defense of self and the Blessed Sacrament.  Parishioners who witnessed the altercation substantiate Father's account of the matter.

At Florida law, if a person "willfully and maliciously" disturbs a religious assembly (such as a Mass), it is a first-degree misdemeanor that can become a third-degree hate crime.

To their credit, the Diocese of Orlando is standing by Father Rodriguez.  Let us stand by him, too, and invoke the intercession of St Tarcisius. 

Oafish Behavior By Catholics

This post regards a not-so-new phenomenon prevalent among some Catholics on the internet to post and giggle at memes that are irreverent towards sacred matters or that utilize flagrant grammar and/or spelling errors.  When these are pointed out (and by far I have not been the only one to do so), the posters - or perpetrators - seem to take perverse pride in their irreverence and/or sloppiness.  They scoff at anyone who points out their errors.

This sacrilege is considered funny by some

We are accused of not having a "sense of humor".  Behind such accusations I suspect is a bit of group-think.  The memes are posted on Facebook with the expectation of eliciting laughter.  When someone voices an opinion that isn't one of hilarity, that person is subjected to none-too-subtle peer pressure to get with the program and to mindlessly giggle along with the rest of the crowd.  That group-think peer pressure is often invoked in the mantra "lighten up".  Their "lightening up" is really a dumbing down of holiness, piety, intellectual integrity, language integrity, and serious thought,  I touched on this several years ago, and not much has changed, except that I am seeing this more and more among people who call themselves Catholic.

The routine is that someone posts a meme that treats with flippancy matters of the Catholic faith, or involves crude jokes of sexual or scatological matters.  Obviously the poster intends others to giggle and chortle like mindless hyenas or chimpanzees.  That establishes the group-think expectation and many people fall right in.  Should anyone dare to question the so-called joke, the mob mocks them, accusing them of not having a "sense of humor".  It's rather similar to the snow-flakes accusing independent thinkers of engaging in "hate speech".  They are attempting to squelch thinking contrary to their own, most likely because it stings their consciences.  I find it eerily reminiscent of nazi-like behavior.

Since I wrote that post eleven years ago, I have been pondering that, plus the nonsense that has come up since.  Lately tik-tok videos have been cropping up, in blind compliance with various "challenges" that are made.  One of them involved a parent or other adult trusted by a baby, cracking an egg on the child's head and giggling over the child's distress by the assault.  Yes, it is assault.  Others involve the throwing of food at the child's face, again to record the child's reaction.  I am stunned that some Catholics take a nonchalant attitude towards these actions.  At what level of harm would they finally wake up?

I tried to come up with a word that defines these folks - again, many of them Catholics - who engage in this behavior, under the seeming anonymity of the internet.  While I wouldn't say they are acting in a manner typical of apostates, they certainly conduct themselves in manners that are more adolescent.  They act as though they are devoid of common sense and common manners.  The word I think, is OAF.  Most of the online definitions of that word include the word "stupid".  

If some reading this bristle at the definition, are you the sort that glories in your demonstrations of lackluster language skills?  Do you take pride in guffawing at irreverent and/or crude memes and jokes simply because they flash across your screens, being slaves to internet group-think?

If the shoe fits, wear it.  Or better yet, you could always decide that you will grow up and act like a reasonable adult, both away from the computer and online.

Larry Hogan, MD RINO Senate Candidate, Throws Babies Under The Bus

Disgraced by his son

Larry Hogan is falling all over himself to state that he now supports "restoring Roe as the law of the land" and now calls himself "pro-choice".   He is showing himself to be quite the chameleon.  The usual pro-abortion cabal look askance upon Hogan's statements, and quite frankly, I can see their point.  See here and here, for example.  This seems to be a clear case of him trying to please everyone but in the end, pleasing no one.

Regarding Roe v Wade, a little history lesson might be in order here.  That decision was handed down on January 22, 1973.  Five days later, a congressman from Maryland condemned the decision and introduced a Human Life Amendment in Congress.  He also gave one of the speeches at the 1974 March for Life.  The name of that MD congressman?  Lawrence J. Hogan Sr., father of the present-day turncoat who is now doing everything possible to trash his father's legacy.  Hogan Sr. was assisted in his efforts by his obstetrician brother, William Hogan MD.  Lawrence Sr. is pictured at the left.

Larry Hogan is a disgrace to his father's memory.  I certainly cannot support his campaign and I may well not cast any vote for the US Senator come November.

By the way - Hogan Jr, owing to his public espousal of the "right" to slaughter babies, needs to be denied Holy Communion until he repents and recants his errors.

Harrison Butker's Commencement Address

Harrison Butker, a kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, gave the commencement address last week at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.  The school is a small Catholic liberal arts college.  In his address to graduating students at a Catholic school, Butker gave a solid address, full of Catholic truth.  Alas, that truth runs counter to most of the pernicious myths polluting our culture and sadly, too many of our Catholic institutions.   Recall the Chicago priest who, inside a Catholic church, facilitated homosexual perversions; this was covered in my previous two posts.  Also recall that from April 17 through May 3, I relayed my first-hand account of the bile swilling forth from the Archdiocese of Baltimore's social justice offices.

He spoke much of "leaning into one's vocation".  Absolutely true.  I'm not sure what precisely he meant by "staying in one's lane".  One's vocation as a parent means that the parent must be fully aware of all the threats that have his/her family in their cross-hairs.  It means that they must be prepared to meet these threats where they make themselves known, even if the threats don't seem imminent at the time.  If the parent waits until his/her family is being immediately impacted, he/she has waited too long.  I pray that is not what he meant.  Anyway, here is the video, the one that has much of the progressive elements - including those within the Church hierarchy - railing and gnashing their teeth.

Archdiocese Of Chicago's Laughable Attempt At Damage Control

Regarding the debacle of which I wrote two days ago, it seems that Father William's order has put out a smoke screen apology of sorts.  Here it is.  Try not to laugh and/or scream too much as you read this cow-plop.  Commentary below.

In the first paragraph one gets a hint of the true motive for the apology - the video of the blasphemy/sacrilege that has now gone viral.  So is Father sorry for his gross sins in this matter - or the fact that he got caught and is now catching well-deserved heat?  The Vincentians are attempting to deflect scrutiny away from Fiducia Supplicans itself - scrutiny that must continue.

They quote Williams as saying that he wanted to provide the lesbians with "a meaningful moment of God's grace".  In reality, he did the opposite.  This would have been a true statement, had he urged them to repent of their mortally sinful sexual relationship.  Instead, he scandalized the lesbians as he confirmed them in their sin.

He said the episode has been a "valuable learning experience".  What was there to learn that he shouldn't have learned in religion classes and seminary classes?  What in hell do they teach in those seminaries?  I presume that Williams' priestly studies happened under the direction of the Vincentians.  They need to seriously revamp their priestly training.

Then he is quoted as being "deeply sorry for any confusion and/or anger that this has caused".  How about being "deeply sorry" for the peril to which he subjected the lesbians, as well as his own immortal soul?  Is he "deeply sorry" for the sacrilege against the Church, his own sacrament of Holy Orders?  Is he sorry for the obvious blasphemies that he committed?

This pathetic attempt at a "mea culpa" just won't suffice.  He committed public sin.  What will be his public acts of reparation?  Will that Church building, now defiled, be exorcised and reconsecrated?  Are they hoping that this one little attempt to cover their derrieres suffice to avert our gaze, or far more importantly, God's gaze?

I can't help but notice that we are not hearing anything from Father Williams himself.  Does he lack the courage and integrity to face good Catholics himself?  Perhaps the Archdiocese and/or Vincentians are afraid that if they allow him to talk, he'll just garner more eggs on the face for them.

It will be most illuminating if he remains pastor.

Cardinal Cupich, What Will You Do About This? We Await Your Action..

... or lack thereof, as the case may be.  At any rate, all eyes are on you.  For that matter, the same goes for you, Pope Francis.  What you do, or don't do, will indicate just what goal you had in mind with Fiducia Supplicans.  Notice:

• The priest is vested for a sacramental event.
• This is taking place in a church
• This was recorded, making obvious that this debacle was planned and not extemporaneous
• "Vows" are being exchanged
• The priest blesses them AS A COUPLE
• He calls their union "holy", blasphemous on its face

Differences Between Traditional Latin Mass And Novus Ordo

Some food for thought.

Archdiocese of Baltimore And Fiducia Supplicans Versus Protection Of Babies

We proceeded to the school cafeteria where lunch was served.  Along the perimeters tables were set up, with various "social justice" organizations were hawking their wares and dissident mindsets.  The only decent organization that I noted was the St. Vincent de Paul Society.   As you can see, LEAD had a table there.  They seemed to have learned one lesson from last year's expose of their nonsense; they did not give away little "gay-pride" flags.  However, their display table skirt was a gay-pride flag.  I suppose the poor dears just couldn't help themselves.  Among the offerings on the table were several of Fr James Martin's books.  At the opposite end of the row was a table for Pax Christi.  They seem to be having internal difficulties when it comes to being anti-baby-slaughter.  With all the regular "seamless garment" stuff, they are all in lock-step with each other.  Why do they seem to have difficulties decrying the evil of abortion?   Keep that question in the back of your mind as I relate to you the contents of the afternoon workshop.

The workshop was entitled "Fiducia Supplian: Putting It Into Perspective".  The presenter was Keith Wildenberg, founder of Building Catholic Futures.  He's also a partnered gay man.  This organization ostensibly exists to facilitate the integration of LGBT persons into the Catholic Church.  As I read the articles on the web about this, it seems that most of the LGBT people bristle at the idea that their inclinations are intrinsically disordered.  The truth is that they are, given that sexuality is ordered by God for marriage and the procreation of children.

One question that Wildenberg asked at the beginning is "what is the Church supposed to do with the gay couples among us?"  Another was "what can we do to make our priests more comfortable with this?"  "Blessing prayers" were interspersed throughout the presentation.  These always invoked blessings upon the gay couple, asking that their homes be blessed, that they grow closer as a couple.  I emphasize as a couple for one simply cannot ask blessing on a couple without validating that which defines them as a couple, i.e. the disordered tendencies that drew them to each other.

Wildenberg tried to take the writings of various popes regarding friendship to justify the intrinsically disordered attraction found in same-sex couples.  He opined ruefully that the "Church is clear about what we can't do with our bodies; I wish it was clear about what we can do with our bodies."  This sounds a bit like randy, hormone-driven kids asking "how far can we go?"  Let's face it.  Anyone who asks that question already knows the answer in his/her conscience.  Much effort was expended to twist Church writings to lend legitimacy to the existence of gay couples.  That is, the talk was full of attempts to justify the objectively perverse attraction between people of the same sex.  About halfway through the talk, he said, "you can't bless their union but you can bless them as individuals.  And if they happen to be standing next to each other and you have two hands.."  Here the audience broke out in chuckles - and we know why.

So how much of that pow-wow session was smoke-and-mirrors?  Well, consider this recent news.  It was discovered that Father Joseph Williams, pastor of St. Vincent de Paul parish in the Archdiocese of Chicago, presided at a "same-sex blessing" with exchange of "vows" on April 22nd.   It was first reported in Our Sunday Visitor.  Fiducia Supplicans states that any "blessing" not be accompanied by any accouterments that might imply a sacramental event.  Father Williams was vested for the confection of a sacrament.  He recognized them as a couple, asking blessing on their perverted relationship.  A faithful Catholic notified the Chicago chancery and was assured that "it will be addressed".  I'll believe it when I see it.  If Williams is not disciplined for this sacrilege, we may safely assume that such "blessings" as he attempted are indeed the goal of the authors of Fiducia Supplicans.

Priest Blesses Lesbian Couple

Throughout the presentation, various people read sample "blessings" for gay couples.  Wildenberg had planned, as a closing activity, to have the audience break down into groups of 4-5 people so that we could compose our own "blessings" for same-sex shack-ups.  I prepared to leave at that point for there was no way I could morally pretend to engage in that sin and I wasn't prepared to destroy my own cover.  Fortunately, Wildenberg et al noticed that there would not be time for that activity before the closing event of the day.

There were quite a few other workshops, all having to do with various progressive causes: climate change, death penalty, labor organizing, racial matters, etc.  There was only one that even mentioned pro-life concerns.  Bear in mind that Maryland has on its ballot the question of whether or not the so-called "right" to baby-slaughter,   It is the so-called "Right to Reproductive Freedom Act".  Was it mentioned, at least once, in that "pro-life" workshop?  By the way - as I was perusing the tables of different organizations during lunch, there was no pro-life display.  Given that this was an ostensibly Catholic social justice convocation, I found such absence to be quite indicative of priorities being misplaced.

The title of that workshop was "Pro-Life, Social Justice, And Not Being Cringe".  In that description was not one mention of the word abortion, the method by which over 90 babies every day are murdered in Maryland.  Moreover, when I recall that I sat through two workshops in which gays lectured to us, in a Catholic school with permission of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, I find it rather backwards that the word "cringe" is being associated with pro-life activism.

To add to the authentically "cringe" factor of this convocation, I noticed that there were a number of Calvert Hall students were present, ushering people through the building and carrying materials to different locations.  I presume that they were doing this for service points or other extracurricular credits.  In forcing those boys to witness the progressives and deviants strutting through their school, the Archdiocese of Baltimore failed those boys miserably.

This year's convocation was no different than last year's debacle.  These are unabashed attempts to normalize gay perversion (and other anomalies) within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.  The fact that this is being done so openly and on Catholic property indicates that such twisting of Catholic teaching is done with the permission of the Archbishop of Baltimore - if not at his express direction.  The directors responsible for inflicting these convocations on Baltimore should be dismissed - even if that includes the current archbishop.