Saturday, July 14, 2018

Consecrated Virgins

Sorry - get your own association.


In the news again.

I didn't realize they had an 'Association', since the consecration takes place individually - the woman is not a nun or a religious sister, and usually lives alone.

It must seem weird to non-Catholics, almost like Vestal virgins from Roman times.  To learn more about them, go here.

Fr. Z mentions there is an uptick in vocations.  On one level it's kind of sad because vocations to the religious life might benefit - but whatever God wills.

Speaking of God's will, as in Canonical legislation, new guidelines suggest a woman may not have to have her virginity intact to make be admitted to the Order of Consecrated Virgins.  The Association of Consecrated Virgins are disturbed by that.

US Association of Consecrated Virgins condemns ‘shocking’ new rules... 
The US Association of Consecrated Virgins has said it is “deeply disappointed” at new rules issued by the Vatican that appear to say consecrated virgins need not be virgins. - Fr. Z

As Dr. Forunati might say, "and that little display of pride" may be why they are not nuns or bound to a religious community in the first place.

Whatever, their disappointment is being picked up by news agencies - good fodder for the angry ones who condemn every announcement from the Holy See.  Poor Steve Skojec no longer knows who or what or where the Church is.  He asks: "where is the Church? What does it consist of when 95% of parishes and bishops and priests and laity are actually not, in any substantive sense, Catholic?"

Some of these people seem to think they are holier than the Church.

Clearly I don't know a lot about Consecrated Virgins, but the complaint from the Association just sounds strange to me, which might be exactly why there is an adjustment in the rules.  When St. Rita sought acceptance by the Augustinian virgins, she was refused entrance to the monastery because she had been married.  Our Lord arranged for her miraculous entrance, and she was finally accepted.  On the other hand, Catherine of Siena was at first refused by the III Order Dominicans because of her youth and virginity - they were widows.  She was eventually accepted.

So you see, these things are not set in stone.  God's will is indicated by the Church.  The Christian follows Christ in obedience to the Father.



Was everyone molested as a kid?

Henry Scott Tuke


How common is it?

Yesterday I was talking to one of my relatives and found out he and a couple of his sibling had been sexually abused by neighbors.  Different perpetrators at different times.  The same happened in my family, different perpetrators at different ages.

A couple of my siblings repressed memories of what happened to them.  Two knew something happened but had no recollection of who or what.  I knew for sure my younger brother had been molested by a neighbor, because my mother told me and because there was a court case.  It's a complicated story but the court case was dropped because my parents blamed my brother for 'cooperating' with the perpetrator, and they in turn felt sorry for the perpetrator.  My dad beat my brother as a punishment.  Evidently my brother suppressed the memory and it only came out many years later when he was undergoing therapy.  He wrote to ask me if I knew anything about what happened to him.

Long story short, I told him what I knew, shared my abuse stories with him, and told him all that our mother told me.  I also shared a story of a guy who wanted my brother and I to come to his house.  I knew what the man wanted and I wanted to protect my brother.  So I scurried him away and we escaped the man.  I explained to my brother that I did everything I could to always protect him from anything like that.  I told him how I had taken him to church when he was a toddler and consecrated him to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.  He never knew that.

Denial is a powerful thing.  

My sister still has never recalled what happened to her.  I knew about it because my dad told me what he had done.  I also heard her screams in the room next to mine.  We all came through these things and to my knowledge, not one of us engaged in or repeated that behavior.  None of us have any sexual attraction to kids or teenagers.  Quite the opposite.  Thus molested kids don't always turn into molesters.  Maybe some do, but in my experience, victims would go out of their way to protect others from that kind of soul-destroying abuse.

Kids often believe they invited the abuse because they experience sexual pleasure or excitement for the very first time.  Little boys experience erections.  It is a great crime, a tremendous evil to awaken or arouse sexual excitement in a child.

How and why has this happened to so many kids?

My dad told me his dad did things to him that he could never talk about.  Is it generational?  My grandfather came over on the boat from Sweden.  Was he molested on the boat?  Did he see things in steerage kids shouldn't see?  Or was this part of his heritage as a farm boy in Sweden?

My cousin didn't mention any details about what happened to him, he just said it probably has happened to more people than we know.  Probably.

I was of course molested by neighbors, beginning at a very early age.  I kept it secret, except to confess it in confession.  Once or twice I got yelled at about it by the confessor, but I did my penance, and of course I accepted responsibility for it.  Intellectually I know kids aren't responsible, but emotionally and spiritually I experience the guilt differently.  The sense of mortal sin - the fear of it - influenced me since my first confession, hence my concern to protect my siblings from any such harm.  Once in Junior High my sister came home, followed by a man - I saw her running towards the house and when the guy saw me, he turned and walked away.  I followed him as my mother called the police.  Followed him downtown, and he was arrested after going into a women's restroom.  I'm not sure what I could have or would have done if I cornered him, but I was determined to somehow protect my sister.

You are not what happened to you.

Some kids who were molested turn out to be gay, but not all of them.  My mother told me when my dad was beating my brother he kept shouting, 'you're not going to turn out like Terry!'  (And they wonder why I left home and never went back.)

Joe Sciambra writes about how many men he knows who were sexually abused as kids, a fact which coincides with my experience.  Most every gay person I have ever known had an experience of  sexual abused - but mostly as teen boys.  Authorities and activists now regard that as paedophilia, but it's not.  It is technically called ephebophilia.  When it is male on male, it is gay.  Frequently boys who were victims were made more vulnerable because they needed a 'father' figure, or sought the affection/approval of an older, more virile male.  If they remain homosexual, the attraction to older men usually remains constant.  That would eliminate any attraction for younger boys or men as an adult.

So what is wrong that these things happen, over and over?

What happened to you?  That's a question that we might ask ourselves.

No one knows. 

Song for this post here.


Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Remembering Tab Hunter

1931-2018


Joe Sciambra wrote a piece about him on his FB page:  "RIP - Tab Hunter. A life-long Catholic, his autobiography is very good; and I think unintentionally instructive concerning the origins of homosexuality. "

Tab Hunter kept it secret - but even then it didn't help his career.  I'm happy to know he was Catholic and I believe he was a practicing Catholic.  I believe his death was unexpected, so I hope he frequented the sacraments, and I hope he has a Catholic funeral. 
It was not until 50 years after “Battle Cry,” when he wrote his autobiography, that he publicly discussed his homosexuality; his love affair with the actor Anthony Perkins; the rage and wrath of his parish priest when, as a 14-year-old boy, he haltingly confessed what had happened in the dark of a movie theater; and years of being “painfully isolated, stranded between the casual homophobia of most ‘normal’ people and the flagrantly gay Hollywood subculture — where I was even less comfortable and less accepted.” - NYTimes

I obviously do not know very much about him, except that he was a gay actor from the '50's-'60's.  Robert Redford played a character seemingly based on him in a film with Natalie Wood, titled Inside Daisy Clover.

I'm not aware of Tab Hunter being active in gay rights.  His description of feeling painfully isolated from normal people, as well as uncomfortable and less acceptable by gay people, resonates with many, I think.  I have always said that as a group, or 'subculture' I do not like gay people - so I understand Mr. Hunter in that respect.  His experience of isolation from 'normal' people is related to my discussion in "The dishonesty is too much" post.

May he rest in peace.

Monday, July 09, 2018

The dishonesty is too much.


The boys in the choir.


I just read a post on another site about hidden homos in traditionalist camps - Church Militant evidently ran a story on it.

A comment from a male choir director alerted subscribers to CM that choirs and TLM celebrations frequently involve homosexuals as directors - and sodomites in the choir!  Another comment revealed that a former SSPX man told a fellow that he was gay and didn't fit in with the group (SSPX pilgrims).  The gay man later became an FSSP priest.  That set the other commenter's teeth on edge - sodomites in traditionalist orders and groups?!  Oh my!  Who would have thunk it?

Like that is somehow a surprise?  Same Sex Attracted men - gay or not - actually populate your pews, choir lofts, schools, seminaries and monasteries, along with priests and bishops who also admit privately that they too 'have SSA'.  They are in the EF just like they are in the OF. 

These people paint your frescoes, make your statues, design your churches and monasteries.  They do your flowers, bake your cakes.