Many Kinds of Catholics
Rick Santorum, a Roman Catholic running for president, doesn’t have the backing of Catholics if you look at the results of the primary in Illinois, a very Catholic state. He lost the Catholic vote big time according to political pundits. His brand of Catholicism is out of the middle ages, not even just from the 19th century. Read this column from the New York Times by columnist Frank Bruni. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/opinion/bruni-many-kinds-of-catholic.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1332604904-jRWwCMn2MjJuFVbsWVoi+g
Such enormous arrogance
I have been neglecting my blog recently and putting my vitriol on my Facebook page (which see). Vitriol against those in power who would use that power to force their opinions on others – to control others. I speak mainly of recent caustic remarks by Republican candidates against Obama and everyone else who supports him. Their position on the condemnation of contraception and the denial of reproduction rights for women are especially destructive and dangerous. It is a real challenge to even begin to explain their distorted and voracious mistruths and innuendoes because of the intensity and the sheer numbers of their attacks. Their condemnation on contraception is especially pharisaical since their wives and daughters are in all probility practicing it. Poll after poll states that almost 94 percent of women (including Catholic women) practice some form of birth control. Who are they kidding? What monumental dishonesty. What gargantual deceit. What sanctimonious hypocrisy. Words fail me!
A sad story
I had to write a sad article for the River Reporter – my newspaper – about a couple in Shohola Township who were township officials and are being accused of several crimes in a grand jury investigation report. Donald and Nelia Wall are being accused of several counts of conflict of interest in their duties as official, of extortion, of tampering with township records to cover-up infractions they committed. In the exercise of their duties, they illegally urged people who were looking for permits from the township to use their company called TLC Excavating. Don allegedly tampered with his time sheet in order to get more pay from the township treasury. He also used his office of zoning officer to promote their business. These charges will probably ruin their lives especially if they go to jail. They are two likable people who volunteered for many charitable causes. It’s just a sad story. You can read my article in the River Reporter that comes out next Thursday.
Republican illusions
It seems that the majority of Republicans are living under the illusion that they know best what is good for the earth. If we let them have their way and continue on this course, we will see devasting consequences on the entire earth community. They will destroy the rain forests, lose top soil, contaminate water (gas drilling), lose wet lands, deplete the ozone layer, continue to lose 10,000 species each year, melt the polar ice caps, support birth control (Santorum) and see population skyrocket. We must oppose them and work together to reverse these trends.
The old neighborhood
The old neighborhood in West Philadelphia where I grew up during the Great Depression was in many ways a wonderful place at a wonderful time. Everybody was poor, Irish and Catholic. Everyone helped neighbors in need whenever they could. One family with many children on our street lost their home,and had all their possessions put out on the street during a rain fall. One neighbor took one of the children in. “He’ll fit right in with the rest of our breed,” the neighbor said. People knew everything about their neighbors’ lives since in a row house where the walls between houses were thin, you heard almost every word. You could hide very little.The street was like a family. That kind of comeraderie could never be recovered.
The complete audience of my book
I met a friend who came up from Philadelphia for a visit and told me he had just finished my book. He gave me some good advice about it that no one else has. He remarked that the second chapter of my book would turn off many Catholics still connected to the church. It’s titled “Karma” and bewails the fact that my karma put me into the Catholic church and the priesthood. I bemoaned that fact and said that I would prefer to have been a cockroach. (A snide remark whose sense disparaged the church unnecessarily, he said.) My retort was that I was not aiming the book to conventional Catholics who are still enamored by the church. “But why allienate them unnecessarily?” he said. “You don’t know what their state of mind is,” he said. “Many of these folks could be helped by your story, opening their eyes to the excesses of the Catholic leaderskhip. Why shock them and turn them off? And why do it in the earliest chapter? Why not wait until a later chapter when they might be more ready to accept what you say?” The more I thought of his remarks, the more I began to agree with them. I have the ability to make changes to the text since I am the publisher and have the right to do so. The only unanswered question is how much would it cost me to make the changes. If I only have to change a few of the offending sentences, it may not cost much. What do you think?
The most excellent education
In the seminary I received a most excellent education, something you couldn’t buy today not even in an Ivy League college. Perhaps you still can at Oxford or Cambridge. It was a classical education: the Humanities, the Greek and Latin writers in their original languages, Plato and Aristotle, the “philosophia perennis.” I consider myself fortunate to be exposed to this heritage. Later, in the major seminary, I completed my classical education by becoming a philosophy and then a theology major, studing mainly Thomas Aquinas, the famous scholastic philosopher/theologian of the 14th century who was the pincipal architect of Catholic theology.
Unfortunaely, we never went deeply into the modern philosphers, stopping our study at Emmanual Kant, the man who slew the old philosophy and paved the way for modern, scientific thought, subjectivism and the modern world.
What we think creates our reality
Our lives are the manifestations of our thoughts. It’s our persistent thoughts that create our reality. I believe that I attract the things that happen to me. If I think negatively all the time, negativity will dominate my life. If I see only what’s wrong with thing, “my things” will become wrong. I mustn’t give negative things my energy. Merely ignore them.
What does it mean to be spiritual?
There is an enormous difference between religion and spiritality. They are not the same. You can be very religious and not at all spiritual. It’s best to be religious and spiritual if you want to be a member of a religion. Frankly, I do not. But I am very spiritual. So I ask what does it mean to be spiritual? Spiritual means that your awareness is interior. You meditate daily and practice awareness and mindfulness through the day. You realize that you are one with every person on earth and act accoringly by practicing compassion and love in your everyday life. You don’t practice only on Sundays but everyday. As much as you can be, you try to be mindful of all of your actions, aware of the beauty of the earth, the hills, the valleys, the clouds and all creation. You can literally get high with all life.
