Sort of a Seven Quick Takes post that mommy bloggers do.

At least the Pope is nice to people like me.

I have to start being more honest.

I went to confession and I want to start all over again.  I want to stop trying to have everyone like me.  I want to be kind to others.  I also want to let others live and let live.  I want to be faithful to the Gospel.  I don't want to just post platitudes and parrot pop-catholic-cultural opinions and stuff like that.

Recently, an old friend from high school who friended me on Facebook started preaching his Protestant doctrine on why the pope is bad and why we shouldn't venerate Our Lady.  He's my age.  He should know better - especially hawking that crap in my direction.  Truth be told, I'm not engaging the guy who happens to be some sort of minister.  He has access to Catholic teaching, authentic Patristics and Mariology, and I'm not talking about the BS people come across online like 'my mother wears combat boots' or the crap the Fatamists and other cultists peddle, and to be sure the asinine prophecy crap from locutionists and so-called prophets who imagine quotes and personal relationships with the likes of Padre Pio as a form of credential. There is a catechism non Catholics can read, and even research the footnotes while they are at it.  They will be pleasantly surprised by the extent just about everything is based upon Scripture.

True, Catholics who blog would do better to write about those things that perplex non-Catholics, but it seems they would rather write about their stupid controversies and character assassinations of those who are placed in authority over them, than actually evangelize anyone.  Others enjoy writing their fiction and parodies about what the Church believes instead of being a witness to the faith.  But I digress.

A couple more quick takes ...

Earlier in the day I received a really nice note from a friend who confessed to me that he has problems understanding Pope Francis and some of the things he says and does. He was specifically referring to a Pentin article with a reference to an Italian woman, proponent of abortion who met with the pope and spoke to an Italian parish about immigration. I'll post my response here, without revealing my friend's name. The reason I want to post this is because it explains a lot about me and my faith in this so-called 'crises in the Church'.

Anyway ... My email response:

Dear Friend,

To be honest - I too have problems understanding some things, as they are reported, as they seem to be, as they are. (That's my discernment abilities at work - not very good, to be sure.) I just have a bigger problem with those who attribute evil intentions to the pope. My sense of the papacy is bigger than the man - but people think I idolize the pope or I'm blindly ultramontane and all of that crap. Not so. Not at all.

Years ago when I was in St. Peters, a mysterious nun appeared to me out of nowhere, she told me to look at the light coming into the Church, I turned to look at the light pouring in through the window at the front of the Basilica, I turned to say something to her but she was gone. It happened in a matter of seconds, and no one was around. She promised me we would meet again. I never knew what it meant, but soon after Paul VI died and eventually JPII came along to illuminate the Church with the mystery of light. What I take from that is we have Peter - at the helm - no matter what. If he is killed as in the 3rd secret and Don Bosco's dream, another Pope is soon elected to take the helm. So I can't worry or be distracted - although I am at times side-swipped by human frailty and misunderstandings within the hierarchy and clergy.

Be real.

I don't know what The Pope is doing at times either, but what I do understand, I like. I like a poor Church - Benedict predicted it. I can be confused or have a problem with things that happen - doesn't shake my faith. Take Fr. Martin's SJ recent book - I disagree with his joining with New Ways Ministry - but I get his concern and wanting to 'accompany' - and I'm convinced he's sincere and faithful to Catholic teaching. Sometimes people make mistakes. But there are horrid Catholics online calling him a sodomite, a homosexualist, a closet case, and so on - because he ministers to people who say they are LGBTQ.

Yet Joe Sciambra just wrote some stuff on Facebook about a gay sex fair he attended with the intention to evangelize. He conceded that he was hit on and flattered by the attention, but told the man he 'gave up sex for Jesus.' That's cool. He also posted he had bodily fluids splashed on him. He's at a sex fair for crying out loud!  He's in dangerous territory. Anyplace else it would be lewd conduct and against the law.  Nevertheless, he's accompanying people he calls gay until they follow him and then he says you can't say gay. The reality is, he's associating with people who identify as gay. Just like Fr. Martin.  Yet I doubt very much Martin would take in a gay sex fair.

Don't be crazy.

People will say, 'yeah but' - but what? Martin is a priest, he's straight, and reaches out to LGBTQ people and groups.

Sciambra is ssa - he identifies as formerly gay - and he reaches out to sex fair performers who splash bodily fluids on him. That's different alright. See what I'm getting at? It's maybe my version of a misperceptions theory, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one not getting it.

I think the Holy Father deals with reality, with real life - that's why I love him. He's honest. So is Sciambra - I hope - and so is Fr. Martin. I live in a place, you do too, where for the past 40+ years all sorts of people have spoken at Catholic universities and parishes. (We've hosted Gloria Steinem.) They've been protested, condemned, and Catholic teaching upheld. That's what bishops and clergy do, and in some cases laymen do too.

Leaving one's comfort zone.

I'm sort of tired of the double talk by anti-Francis people - almost as much as I am by so-called liberals and progressives - know what I'm saying? They agitate from both sides and fill cyberspace with exaggeration and lies, rumor and gossip, and discredit authority.

I didn't read the Pentin article, I don't like his journalism - he's a step above 1Peter5. That said, neither did I follow the story and blow back on the pope praising that woman for her support of immigration. P. Benedict may have done likewise - I can't remember where I've read some of his statements on dialogue and speaking and listening to 'gentiles' but I feel certain Benedict 'gets' what Francis says and does in speaking and associating with sinners. Call me naive and dumb - but what I don't understand, I surrender to God. If Ganzwein and significant others haven't resigned or abandoned ship, then I am not worried.

I could go on and on about the exasperation I can feel and sometimes experience as well - but I don't have the time or wit to do so. But I sometimes have problems too - I end up distrusting the news sources before I distrust the Holy Father. The things I don't get, I don't have to get. As Therese would say, I'm too little.

I'm not at all disturbed if you have problems with the pope, or disagree or anything like that. We are friends.

These problems will pass away.

One priest friend, well a couple, no longer message me. One friend reproved me telling me I didn't have to deal with all the people who come to him and say the pope ok'd this or that. I'm sure he didn't like it when I said that is the time to correct and teach the faith - with good humor. I told him what I'd say, "I don't know what the pope said or what people are saying he said, or what you think he meant - but this is what the Church teaches poodle, and it can't be changed." And then smile and say you are always available if they have any more questions.  Or just tell him the same thing matter-of-factly and let him go.

Another friend accused me of trying to channel Pope Francis - I thought that was funny and absurd at the same time. I have no authority to teach, nor would I dream of speaking for the Pope.  I'm capable of a healthy anti-clericalism all on my own, based upon experience, I might add.

'Supposing the Pope looked up and saw a cloud and said 'It's going to rain', would that be bound to happen?'

That said, Francis is the kind of Pope I idealized when I first came back to the Church - a poor pope, a pope who walks across the street to pick up a man who stumbled. A free pope, unencumbered by pageantry and the trappings of office.  Paul VI could only act symbolically, giving away the tiara. JPI only hinted at mercy and forgiveness even for the most habitual sinner. JPII taught the little ones not to be ashamed of piety and devotion - and not to be afraid! Benedict was kindness and mercy and love - deeper than any intellectual comprehension. Francis is all of these. It's the papacy, the chair of Peter that Catholics venerate - the vicar of Christ - not the man. Neither do we venerate volumes of encyclicals and dogmatic interpretations of this or that, like the Torah or Quran.

Simple Catholics, ordinary Catholics, little Catholics live with sinners, they are sinners; when challenged, they rely on the catechism, the scriptures, the rosary, the Mass, and the priest - if he is available to them, and not off in some vacation condo, or at a seminar, or the Acton Institute, or when his schedule is all filled up with fund raising and dinner engagements.

So, that'll do for today.

Yeah - not really - but I need to lighten up and not take myself so seriously.