Outside The Asylum

 The problem I've seen with this entire process of Synodalism, is that it is controlled by the old who are fighting the better spirits of the young.  In this, it's become very much SynOLDalism.  And thus, I offer this poem. With Apologies to St. John Vianny: Synoldalism: If the pope is a saint, the cardinals will be fervent; If the cardinal is fervent, the bishops will be pious; If the bishop is pious, the priests will at least be decent; If the priest is only decent, the people will be godless. The spiritual generation is always one-degree less intense in its life than the one who begets it in Christ.  Is it any wonder that in the United States, where we have seen a corruption of the clergy up to the very top of the chain, we have a problem with a belief in Transubstantiation? The original of this poem is the answer.  Please, God, Send us Saintly Priests!  Reignite the fervor of your people and the thirst for the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus ...

 I started all this out with agreeing with my Archbishop Sample that we live in a post-Christian society, in a post-Christian world- and that as far as the American Empire is concerned, our government is almost as bad as that which the Apostles faced during the fall of the Roman Republic. Almost as bad- I fear strongly it is about to get a LOT worse.  At work, I see much anti-Catholic and anti-Christian bigotry creeping in to corporate America.  It's pretty easy to see that the result of the battles over abortion, euthanasia, and gay marriage have left conservative Christians who are serious about social justice without a political home- and at times, without an economic home either as anti-Catholic marriage bigotry enforced by the courts has been used to close small businesses and throw people into poverty. Even within the church, the Vatican has chosen to marginalize conservative American Catholics to the point that some of us wonder if heterosexual lifelong monogamy in...

Once again, I should have called this series Trantor Earth. Here is an advert that promises to keep a family in vegetables in a mere 500 sq feet (50x10) on 5 gallons of water a day and a 240 volt split phase power supply.

 I'm starting out by reformulating the question in a way that indicates I've been listening to my Archbishop: Synod Question #3:  How to be Catholic in a Post Christian, Apostolic Oregon We need to recognize that we live in a post-Catholic- even post-Christian- world.  We can't assume even our children are absorbing Catholic Morality, let alone anybody else; in fact the indications in the world around us, from the lack of forgiveness central to "woke" theologies like CRT, to our involvement in wars around the world, to our abuse of wealth to bully smaller cultures, to the grand hidden genocide of abortion and euthanasia; the economy of Oregon is built upon a culture of death that is completely opposed to the Gospel and all it stands for. That's our starting point.  Our starting point is we live in an entirely hedonistic culture that is aware of Christ but no longer cares- or worse yet, sees our traditions as a threat to be eliminated.  We're almost back to...

 You are invited Saturday, March 5th, to the following events at St. Clare's: 2:00pm Adoration, Pro-Life Rosary 4:00pm Confession will be available 5:00pm Mass Immediately Following Mass, we will hold an Exemplification of Charity, Unity, and Fraternity for Richard Diregorio, as well as any other incoming members from other councils. Let's have a good showing to welcome brother Richard into the council.

Edit to include question: Question 2 - As a community of believers, what experiences of the Catholic Church have brought joys or revealed wounds? And how can these experiences help us grow together in faith and offer the hope and healing of Christ to the greater community in which we live?   We do indeed have a Great Priest in Christ, but I wonder if our hearts are truly clean.  I know mine isn't, that's why my hope starts with the great gift of purgatory- of which we got some scientific proof of this week with the reveal of fMRI data from a poor old man who died while in the MRI machine.  (  https://www.livescience.com/ first-ever-scan-of-dying-brain  ) If your brain truly is going to do an examination of conscience at the moment of death, reliving every moment of shame and joy from throughout your life, don't you want those memories of joy to overwhelm the memories of shame? We should want that, but we don't.  We often have habits of sin we are not willi...

  The most dangerous idea in the world is when one people decide that another group of people, are not human. The second most dangerous, is that which leads to the first, when one people decide that some irrelevant and irrational surface trait, means that other people are not human. That is where I fear this world is going.  That is where I fear we are already.