Saturday, June 29, 2013

That poor Paula Deen

Hey Whitey!

She used the "N" word 30 years ago - under stress - and thus she is condemned today as a racist.  She's lost all of her endorsements-licensing deals, television show, everything.  Amazing!

Are only white people racist?  Are they, Cracker?

Alec Baldwin says a lot of crap too.  He said the "F" word.

Anderson Cooper is questioning why he gets by:
Anderson Cooper         @andersoncooper
Why does get a pass when he uses gay slurs? If a conservative talked of beating up a "queen" they would be vilified.
Baldwin didn't just say it 30 years ago either.

Of course Cooper is no angel - you may remember he made headlines for his Tea-bagging slur.

We all have a little bigot in us.



Song for this post here.  Cherring the pain.
 

 

The Politically Correct Method of Taking God's Name in Vain.



Obama does it.
“As long as we’ve got to fight to make sure women have access to quality, affordable health care, and as long as we’ve got to fight to protect a woman’s right to make her own choices about her own health, I want you to know that you’ve also got a president who’s going to be right there with you, fighting every step of the way,” said Obama. “Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.”

Pelosi does it.
Pelosi learned about the DOMA ruling when someone passed her a note during a press conference about health care, she said her first reaction was “Thank God.”
She thanks God for the nuns on the bus too.
From a 2011 floor speech in support of PP: “Indeed, more than 90% of the health care provided by Planned Parenthood is preventive care. For the majority of the women who use Planned Parenthood health centers, the center is the primary source of receiving health care services. Elimination of funding means that these women do not have health care of any kind. 
“Today’s legislation which has no chance of passing the Senate and becoming law, thank God, is just part of the Republican agenda that is the most comprehensive and radical assault on women’s health and reproductive freedom in our lifetime. And that’s saying something."  

Andrew Sullivan pretty much does it too.
"I think Jesus is weeping for joy. I don’t think Jesus is on the other side of this. Although I don't wanna claim to know anything about that. But I do know that Jesus was always on the side of love.”
And I suspect Jesus’ tears were of joy – because more children of God have finally been given the dignity he offered the most despised and marginalized of his time.
The Church hierarchy’s Ratzingerian turn against this minority in 1986, its subsequent callous indifference to us during the plague years, its rigid clinging to 13th Century natural law rather than what or rather who was right in front of them … these were all tragic failures from the top.  


 

 

James Turrell


Ronin, 1968 - James Turrell*

Charlie Rose interviewed artist James Turrell last night. 

His art is awesome.  I seriously could listen to him discuss light for hours. 

Seeing light with your eyes closed.  That is so contemplative.
TURRELL: Some people will go to the Grand Canyon and feel diminished by the experience, but I feel there are ways that you can be brought to that experience that can be just the opposite. You can actually perceive the cosmos and feel intimately a part of it, so that it doesn’t diminish you and your position in it, but you feel a part of it in a way that is powerful or empowering. - Interview
I know!


*Among Turrell's early works and simplest constructions is Ronin. A single fluorescent bulb was placed at the intersection of two perpendicular walls. This act was confounding and wonderful, creating the illusion of a shroud, of depth, and of open space—all with a single white light. - Source

Friday, June 28, 2013

The Ongoing Breaking News About the Scandals in the Vatican...


Rent-a-boy.

Michael Voris has had a series of breaking news items with new information about the paedophile ring of gay priests, monsignors and bishops - with Satanic links.  So far only a few news portals picked up the story, although a few bloggers have posted Michael's videos.  Most likely every Catholic news source is afraid to speculate until credible evidence is made public.  Though it all sounds like a prophecy of Malachi (Martin) and seems to prove Randy Engel right, no official statements have been made, save for one Cardinal Agostino Vallini claiming it is all false.

The story seems so pre-Conclave - which may explain why few are jumping on it right now.

However, a Vatican Monsignor has been arrested for money laundering.  Msgr. Nunzio Scarano.

What can I say?




"Yes he has an office in Rome,
but he stopped doing gay weddings
years ago."
 

Temptations, though troublesome and severe, are often useful to a man, for in them he is humbled, purified, and instructed. - Imitation of Christ





It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.            
The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.  - Ps. 119: 71-72





Art: "Temptation of St. Tony" - Director: Veiko Õunpuu, 2009

Thursday, June 27, 2013

The temptation to give in.



I didn't see that coming.

Yesterday's SCOTUS decision really hit me hard. 

Reading other blogs and commenters, I'm struck by how not a few Catholics seem to believe Church teaching on sexuality and marriage must change - in fact, they predict it will change.  They refer to the hierarchy as the old men in the Vatican with outmoded ideas and morality.  They say that Church teaching is too negative, too prohibitive, and so on.
(I mean, come on, do you even believe - and I am paraphrasing, that infertile couples... heterosexual couples, leave themselves open to procreation, though imperfectly." I mean, come on, anyone over 50, that is pretty imperfect, or that hetero couples using contraception make themselves "neutered,"??..that's theo-babble, to support teachings the Church, well more accurately - the creaky older male leadership, wont turn away from. )
Now that society has made homosexuality respectable, and is generally accepted as equal to heterosexuality - that is pretty much what has happened BTW - I was surprised by a new temptation to 'give in'.  The thought came to me: 'I could be married.  I could have a lot of benefits.  I could get my name on the deed.'  The temptation had me questioning my life-long struggle.  I came face to face with the temptation to give up.  I felt abandoned and more alienated than ever before in my life.  It seemed if I had been plunged into the deepest darkness.  As if all charity was zapped from my heart.  It was scary.

No damage must be done to the harmony between faith and life: the unity of the Church is damaged not only by Christians who reject or distort the truths of faith but also by those who disregard the moral obligations to which they are called by the Gospel. - Veritatis Splendour

I prayed my rosary, went to bed, and this morning Our Lord's words came to me, "... due to the increase of evil, the love of many will grow cold." Matthew 24:12

On my way to Mass I kept ruminating the Word I received upon waking.  Very often a particular scripture spontaneously comes to mind each day, without my preparing for it the night before - sometimes it is a passage from the daily readings - today it was not.  This morning it began with, "the love of many will grow cold" and then I recalled the actual verse: "... due to the increase of evil, the love of many will grow cold."

I mention it because it appeared as a light in the darkness for me.  Yesterday I also read comments of people, disappointed as I was, saying they felt like giving up.  That is a temptation.  Especially when we hear how joyful the Christian ought to be and we find ourselves discouraged.  It is a temptation.  We need to remember that joy is sometimes unfelt - yet it is deep in the soul, sometimes enlightened by Christ in His Word, in the Word made flesh - the Eucharist.  The temptation is to think it must be felt, to look for success or approval or affirmation when we find ourselves dejected.  The temptation is to give up when all seems against you.  "Father let this cup pass from me - but not my will but thy will be done."

Dissent, in the form of carefully orchestrated protests and polemics carried on in the media, is opposed to ecclesial communion and to a correct understanding of the hierarchical constitution of the People of God. Opposition to the teaching of the Church's Pastors cannot be seen as a legitimate expression either of Christian freedom or of the diversity of the Spirit's gifts. - Veritatis Splendor

"Due to the increase of evil, the love of many will grow cold."  They will give into temptations against faith and fall away.  Little by little.  They will be persuade to no longer 'love the truth' - hence the love of many will grow cold.
Today, however, it seems necessary to reflect on the whole of the Church's moral teaching, with the precise goal of recalling certain fundamental truths of Catholic doctrine which, in the present circumstances, risk being distorted or denied. In fact, a new situation has come about within the Christian community itself, which has experienced the spread of numerous doubts and objections of a human and psychological, social and cultural, religious and even properly theological nature, with regard to the Church's moral teachings. It is no longer a matter of limited and occasional dissent, but of an overall and systematic calling into question of traditional moral doctrine, on the basis of certain anthropological and ethical presuppositions. At the root of these presuppositions is the more or less obvious influence of currents of thought which end by detaching human freedom from its essential and constitutive relationship to truth. Thus the traditional doctrine regarding the natural law, and the universality and the permanent validity of its precepts, is rejected; certain of the Church's moral teachings are found simply unacceptable; and the Magisterium itself is considered capable of intervening in matters of morality only in order to "exhort consciences" and to "propose values", in the light of which each individual will independently make his or her decisions and life choices.   
[...] 
In particular, as the Council affirms, "the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether in its written form or in that of Tradition, has been entrusted only to those charged with the Church's living Magisterium, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ".41 The Church, in her life and teaching, is thus revealed as "the pillar and bulwark of the truth" ( 1 Tim 3:15), including the truth regarding moral action. Indeed, "the Church has the right always and everywhere to proclaim moral principles, even in respect of the social order, and to make judgments about any human matter in so far as this is required by fundamental human rights or the salvation of souls". -Veritatis Splendour


Our Father... lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  Amen. 

Pope Francis: Something is missing all right.







Yesterday at Mass the Pope said:
The desire to be a father is ingrained in all men...
"When a man does not have this desire, something is missing in this man. Something is wrong. All of us, to exist, to become complete, in order to be mature, we need to feel the joy of fatherhood: even those of us who are celibate. " - Vatican Radio
Oh come on.  I never, ever desired to be a father.

Looks as if I don't fit in - anyplace.

Even now, with the 'new normal' of gay marriage - which I reject - I cannot be normal. 


Keep yourself as a stranger and pilgrim upon the earth, and as one to whom the affairs of this world do nothing to appertain. Keep your heart free, and lifted up to God, because you have here no abiding city. Send thither your daily prayers and sighs together with your tears, that after death your spirit may be found worthy with much happiness to pass to the Lord. - Imitation of Christ
[I hope that still accords with Catholic teaching.]
 

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

O Mother of Perpetual Help, grant that I may ever invoke thy most powerful name, which is the safeguard of the living and the salvation of the dying. O Purest Mary, O Sweetest Mary, let thy name henceforth be ever on my lips. Delay not, O Blessed Lady, to help me whenever I call on thee, for, in all my needs, in all my temptations I shall never cease to call on thee, ever repeating thy sacred name, Mary, Mary.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Acts of the "Great Apostasy"

 


The National (Episcopal) Cathedral, Washington D.C. rang its bells to celebrate gay marriage.
In a statement, the cathedral’s dean, the Rev. Gary Hall, says the church is ringing its bells “to celebrate the extension of federal marriage equality to all the same-sex couples modeling God’s love in lifelong covenants.” 
Hall says the ruling should serve as a call for Christians to embrace religious marriage equality. - CBS
 

The Supreme Court rules on DOMA and Proposition 8


On the eve of the Stonewall anniversary, at the pinnacle of Gay Pride Month, what could be more appropriate?

First, a story.

When I lived in Boston, I had an acquaintance who was a Rabbinical student who also liked to go to Eucharistic adoration and was very much interested in Fatima, as well as Charismatic prayer meetings.  I lost touch with him, and never knew what became of him, but something he once said to me stayed with me through the years.  I must have mentioned to him that another guy I knew wanted me to move in with him.  The other man was also interested in a relationship.  I was living as a sort of hermit in a small room on Beacon Hill at the time.  I wasn't at all interested in a relationship or moving in with anyone.  The young man with whom I shared the story must have foreseen a strong temptation I would face later.  Interrupting me, he said something rather extraordinary, about throwing away my relationship with Christ in order to have more security.  He then referenced St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews, which in turn references the story in Genesis concerning Esau: My friend pleaded with me:  "Do not exchange your birthright for a meal."

I have friends who told me they are in discussions with their financial advisor whether or not it is to their benefit financially to get married in Minnesota now that same sex marriage has become legal.  Gay marriage is very much about inheritance, financial security and benefits.

Today the Supreme Court enacted rulings that support gay marriage.
The U.S. Supreme Court today paved the way for same-sex couples to marry soon in California, effectively leaving intact a lower-court ruling that struck down the state's voter-approved ban on gay marriage. 
In a ruling that assures further legal battles, the high court found that backers of Proposition 8 did not have the legal right to defend the voter-approved gay marriage ban in place of the governor and attorney general, who have refused to press appeals of a federal judge's 2010 ruling finding the law unconstitutional. 

The Supreme Court ruling, which found it had no legal authority to decide the merits of a challenge to Proposition 8, sends the case back to that original decision -- and the only question now is how quickly same-sex couples can marry and whether that ruling will have immediate statewide effect.
The Supreme Court also struck down a 1996 federal law denying benefits to same-sex couples, a major victory for gay rights advocates seeking the right to marry. In a 5-4 ruling written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the high court found the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional because it violates the equal protection rights of same-sex couples. 
The Supreme Court's decision in the DOMA case immediately provides full federal benefits to same-sex couples in the 12 states that have legalized gay marriage, and would apply in California with Proposition 8 overturned. It also would provide federal benefits to the more than 18,000 same-sex couples married in 2008 before Proposition 8 was passed. - Source

USCCB responds: Today is a tragic day for marriage and our nation.


 

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Rumour has it.... the Pope called all the Cardinals together for a meeting.

Michael Voris in Rome...
surprised by Fr. Z.


I know!  Michael Voris broke the news earlier at Ax the Apostate!  Watch the video there.

No one knows what is going on - they just know somethin's up.

In the video, Michael is wearing a light weight, very pale - with just a whisper of celadon-green - summer suit, and what appears to be matching belt.  Sporting beneath, a crisp white shirt with cuffs showing under the suit-coat sleeves, no tie - open collar - molto bene!  He must have been awakened quickly from siesta for the breaking news bit, as his hair was a bit flattened on one side - quando a Roma!

So anyway - no one knows anything and I'm going to bed.

(I'm going out on a limb here and predicting the Pope called the Cardinals together to tell them he's going to resign - he's sick of it.  I could be wrong.)





 

St. Teresa's Place in Hell...


Somewhere...

I thought that would be a great title for a painting:  St. Teresa's Place in Hell.

Then I recalled the image shown above, thinking it may fit that description already.

Teresa's place in hell:
Some considerable time after our Lord had bestowed upon me the graces I have been describing, and others also of a higher nature, I was one day in prayer when I found myself in a moment, without knowing how, plunged apparently into hell. I understood that it was our Lord's will I should see the place which the devils kept in readiness for me, and which I had deserved by my sins (1). It was but a moment, but it seems to me impossible I should ever forget it, even if I were to live many years.

The entrance seemed to be by a long narrow pass, like a furnace, very low, dark, and close. The ground seemed to be saturated with water, mere mud, exceedingly foul, sending forth pestilential odors, and covered with loathsome vermin. At the end was a hollow place in the wall, like a closet, and in that I saw myself confined. All this was even pleasant to behold in comparison with what I felt there. There is no exaggeration in what I am saying. - Autobiography

Image shown above: 
"The sculpture allegedly representing Sr. Restituta Kafka unveiled in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. Sr. Restituta was arrested and murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War. In June 1998 she was declared a blessed by Pope John Paul II. Her new sculpture shows a female face without veil and with big breasts. It will be placed in a side-chapel of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. The bust was created by Alfred Hrdlicka, the same artist who caused a worldwide scandal with a painting representing Christ’s Last Supper as a homosexual orgy. The controversial painting was exposed in the diocesan museum of Vienna. Hrdlicka calls himself an atheist and Stalinist." - Source

I missed Midsummer's Eve.


 


I don't know how I could - I love to set fires in my backyard - it must be all the storms that caused me to forget.

I remembered St. John's Day of course.

And today, it is the 32nd anniversary of the first apparition at Medjugorje.
Medjugorje is flooded with pilgrims gathering to mark the 32nd anniversary of the Virgin Mary’s apparitions on June 24-25. Without citing sources, the local news portal  reports that 100,000 people are expected.
Though this figure is likely too high, Medjugorje being unable to house this many pilgrims, many come from nearby areas which could serve to make the expected number more credible. - Source
It's rather remarkable that devotees retain their enthusiasm after all of these years.  I wonder if the Pope will greet the pilgrims via radio or something?

I'm still waiting for an official decree from the Church.


 

Monday, June 24, 2013

Dead people's stuff...

Theater people. - Edward Gorey


That is what I used to call stuff in junk-antique shops.

Yesterday I went to an estate sale of a well known costume designer.  He worked in Hollywood and came to fame as director of costume design for the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis for many years.  A flamboyant and theatrical character, I met him a couple of times at event 'openings' over the years.  He always dressed the part of a Maestro, capes, jewels, Tudor-style, with attitude.  He was quite a snob, very much an egotist and hedonist, although - and I hate saying it this way -  he always impressed me as sort of 'dirty' and 'greasy' - physically and morally.  Not long ago, he had a retrospective of his designs at a local museum.  He had been feeling his age and ill for some time, and died last year, no funeral from what I understand, although a memorial of some sorts may yet be scheduled.  'Friends' who later surrounded him in his weakened state, held the estate sale, which ended yesterday.  I went to the sale hoping to find art materials or European style frames, but found nothing for my use.

Needless to say, the Maestro - which is the only way I want to identify him here - was obviously gay and obviously non-religious.  It was a strange feeling looking through his possessions at the sale, which was held in the banquette room of a local German restaurant, the walls fittingly decorated in Bavarian style trompe l'oeil.  Some of his design sketches were for sale, amongst which was a male nude study, a young man masturbating.  The curator running the sale, feigning lecherous amusement, asked me what I thought he was doing.  He facetiously protested that it must be gay!  He then rather lasciviously described another large painting from the Maestro's collection, a large nude male, oil on canvas, by an unknown artist.  He wasn't so much trying to be provocative, rather I think he believed he was being entertaining and friendly.  I was polite and friendly, but never played into his game.

The visit haunted me however.  I got the impression I was indeed going through a dead man's possessions - very much like the scene from A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge looks on as scavengers go through his things.  I had the impression or intuition I 'knew' all about his life. 

Every once in a while, the man running the sale shouted across the room to customers, "I can take more off that if you are interested."  The Maestro had tons of junk, endless CDs and DVDs and VHS tapes, fabrics and trims for costumes, weird Neapolitan style angels he crafted for a Christmas shop in a local department store - they were never purchased BTW.  Everything at the sale was just a portion of all the stuff he had accumulated in his lifetime.  Later in the day, another friend told me the designer had a room full of books, mostly pornography and gay erotica.

In fact the deceased was quite obsessed with young men, call boys and hustlers, therefore the one drawing by him was most likely some kid he hired to entertain him.  I don't have words to express the level of desolation I felt over what impressed me as vain emptiness.  All the precious possessions, now dilapidated, currently on sale to the lowest bidder, objets d'art once most likely so coveted, luxurious possessions which the owner surrounded himself with to enhance his status and impress his fans... now useless to the owner and to some extent, the curator of the estate.
If a man is fundamentally egotistical, his intimate conversation with himself is inspired by sensuality or pride. He converses with himself about the object of his cupidity, of his envy; finding therein sadness and death, he tries to flee from himself, to live outside of himself, to divert himself in order to forget the emptiness and the nothingness of his life. In this intimate conversation of the egoist with himself there is a certain very inferior self-knowledge and a no less inferior self-love.
The intimate conversation of the egoist with himself proceeds thus to death and is therefore not an interior life. His self-love leads him I to wish to make himself the center of everything, to draw everything to himself, both persons and things. Since this is impossible, he frequently ends in disillusionment and disgust; he becomes unbearable to himself and to others, and ends by hating himself because he wished to love himself excessively. At times he ends by hating life because he desired too greatly what is inferior in it - Garrigou-Lagrange

I've been to other important estate sales of antique dealers, my own gallery curator, and other local personalities in the arts I've known or was acquainted with.  I've usually had the same disquieted feelings.   They all had their 'collections', their social circles - public and 'private' - think Tina Turner Private Dancer.  Their celebrity, their status, such as they deemed important, all come to nothing at death - to some extent, demonstrating the sterile separation of their existence.


I get the impression young gay men today think they are different - more pure - in the sense they can handle gay sex, gay relationships, be monogamous, and so on.  Hence they become more respectable, appear more centered, insist they are more integrated - and accepting of themselves.  No doubt, some of the more religious types really do project a more respectable image and lifestyle, but gay is gay, and gay men will be gay men.  "All their plans come to nothing."  The facades crack and fall apart sooner or later. 

I'm not fooled.  Homosexual acts are disordered, immoral and gravely sinful.  Fill your life with whatever you want, project the cleanest, most well ordered conventional lifestyle - it doesn't make it right.  There are no compromises to be had.  You can't serve two masters.  One cannot do evil, condone evil, promote evil, and remain in the state of grace.
[P]ride is a bandage over the eyes of the spirit, which hinders us from seeing the truth, especially that relative to the majesty of God and the excellence of those who surpass us. It prevents us from wishing to be instructed by them, or it prompts us not to accept direction without argument. Pride thus perverts our life as one would bend a spring; it hinders us from asking light from God, who consequently hides His truth from the proud. - Garrigou-Lagrange
 

If the Pope didn't show up, there has to be good reason.



Although, we just might not have a 'need to know'.

What some critics attribute to a show of humility and poverty on the part of His Holiness, often accusing him of disrespect for the papacy, seems to me to be more appropriately attributed to genuine charity.  For instance, ignoring protocol, going 'out of bounds' to greet the faithful or speak informally with visitors - I see that as a kindness arising from charity.

Therefore, if the Pope was a no show for a concert - if anything, I would suppose he felt obliged, in charity, to attend to a more pressing need.

That said, the Holy Father did send a message to the participants:
(Vatican Radio) Below is a Vatican Radio English translation of a message sent by Pope Francis to the participants of a Concert for the Year of Faith held on Saturday.

I would like to say thank you to all those who made this concert possible and who organized it in the Year of Faith. In particular, I thank the soloists, the choir of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Conductor Juraj Valčuha for the remarkable performance of this monumental Symphony, which not only makes us live a moment of pause and elevation of the soul, but provokes in us all feelings and emotions that drive us to reflection. Thank you so much. "
However, if you really feel you need to know more...

Why Pope Francis did not attend yesterday's concert in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall -Andrea Tornielli 



 
 
 
 
 

The Demolition of Churches in France



Too expensive to maintain.  Really?

The amazing story.  The Soviets once demolished churches to eradicate religion.  I think it may still be working. 

"Russia will spread her errors throughout the world..." - Our Lady of Fatima

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Heavy Burtations in Minneapolis - Again!


As I sat looking out the window, the tree on my boulevard flew by - it was so Wizard of Oz-ish I laughed out loud.

This was my storm damage from Friday night - I moved the tree off my hedge, which was already winter damaged, and stacked the branches on the boulevard, waiting for the city to haul it away.  I inserted my Sarah Palin cut out to look as if she was crushed by the tree, but she was kind of camera shy.  The trunk of the fallen tree is in the foreground - I considered making a shrine out of it, pretending a miraculous image was revealed within, but the neighbors were watching me.

This is the fourth tree I've lost to storms since I moved in 23 years ago.

 


I could see it from my house.