Final score for Halloween: Mother Nature 5 (inches of snow), trick or treaters 0

Today, Halloween, was both typical and atypical for us.  Atypical in that we got five inches of snow today, and a chill wind whipped through the neighborhood.  It would be very easy to attribute to the lousy weather the fact that we didn't get a single trick or treater today.  Except that that is the case virtually every year.  While I don't keep careful score, I think it's been at least four years since any trick or treaters rang our doorbell.

It's not that we don't have anything to offer - we have a ton of candy, and if I do say so myself, it's pretty awesome (including my very favorite, Snickers bars).  And on this very block there are a few kids.  It's almost certainly our location; we live on the street that funnels traffic from our subdivision onto a major arterial road, just a few houses from the intersection, so walking past our house isn't a path to lots of houses and candy for trick or treaters.  Oh well, more candy for us to eat.

And happy All Saints Day, everyone - the feast for which the Hallowed E'en is named.

Marriage, divorce, age and class

This recent National Review article offers some pretty good news about recent divorce trends:

Divorce rates skyrocketed in the 1970s and then stabilized in the 1980s. They have receded somewhat over the past 30 years. Today demographers estimate that about 40 percent of first marriages and 60 percent of second marriages will end in divorce. 

However, the authors, Alan J. Hawkins and Betsy Vandenberghe, offer a couple of caveats to this hopeful trend.

David French on the power of a new believer

New believers bring new life to church congregations.  The Roman Catholic church needs to get better at identifying, welcoming and initiating new believers.

Millennials and church

Christine Elba in the WaPo writes about what is lost when Millennials leave religion and don't come back. I was struck by this:

"Faith and practice can’t persevere through our generation without attendance, and neither can the hope they tend to bring."

Any of your parishes addressing the absence of Millennials with any success? 

Or would you just as soon have them light up a doob and crawl into their screens on Sunday morning?

My sense is that parishes see Millennials as a problem they would rather not deal with. Millennials don't accept Church teaching on important life issues--abortion, marriage, homosexuality, birth control--and they are easily bored by explanations. They are highly skeptical of promises of Eternal Life and a God who cares. They are more interested in social justice and planetary catastrophe, but that's not what anyone at church talks about. 

To what extent should the Church be willing to de-emphasize doctrine in favor engagement? And would that even be enough?

Happy Deepavali

Hopefully I am not engaging in syncretism by noting that today is the beginning of the Indian festival of lights.  In southern India it is called Deepavali. In the north it is called Dewali.  Though there is some variation in the narrative surrounding it, it is essentially the same celebration.

FWIW, Barron, Week 5. And more?

 I skipped commenting on Father George last week. He made the argument that if we found Jesus as our Savior in the Church, nothing the nitwits in the Church do should drive us out. We should drive them -- to conversion. I wished he had made it more personal, because he has talked about growing up poor, in India, and what the Church meant to him. But He didn't push out to sea very far from Bishop Barron's dock.
 Today, for Chapter 5, the grand finale starring Deacon Jack at every Mass, we got our sailing orders. One thing not everybody knows about Jack: When he was with the IRS he padlocked a Mafia warehouse in New Jersey. Not only that, but he had to tell the unhappy employees they wouldn't be paid because he had frozen the warehouse's bank account.
 IRS agents are not armed.
 Like Barron, but in his own New York voice, Jack dismissed all the one-shot answers and said the Church can only be saved by better priests. But since the priests come from the laity, we need better laity, too. So pay attention, get involved, and believe in action -- not just what they tell you. He got applause, which has been very rare around here since the pastor who structured his homily for cheering at the big finish (and brought in the organ to help) departed and sued the bishop for kicking him out of his house a/k/a our rectory.
 On the whole, I don't think the parish got much of a bang out of five weeks of reflection on Bishop Barron's Letter to a Suffering Church. I suspect those who were going to throw in the towel did it long ago and didn't say goodbye. The letter wasn't what was discussed over coffee. My men's group had four weeks to pick on the discussion but we didn't. Last week's Bulletin said discussion groups will be formed to go deeper, but this week's Bulletin is silent on the subject, and the parish calendar for November and December is pretty full already.

Barr's speech at Notre Dame - redux

Trying to catch up. I have not had my computer for a couple of weeks. But we did have a whole lot of social activities and three different groups of house guests. This is a VERY rare thing for us these days. Mostly we stay at home and putter and do errands and occasionally have a conversation in the street with a neighbor or maybe the grocery clerk.  No socializing, no guests.  But, whenever it rains, it pours.  I slept 12 hours straight after the last guests left. So, the social whirl is over, the bed linens have been washed and rewashed three separate times and put back on beds to stay for a while, I have my fixed computer back and a few moments to catch up.

So, Barr's speech

Jean: The main problem I see is that Barr is over-generalizing about religion, the Media, the Founders, and everything else. What simple-minded pablum.

Say It Isn't So!

She wouldn't do this....would she?  I'm speaking of rumors that Hillary Clinton may be contemplating another run for the presidency.  I don't believe she would be serious about it; she's many days late and many dollars short. It would make Trump's day if she pulled a party-splitting move like that. Hopefully she has more sense, even though she is probably still smarting over 2016

The Ambiguity of Symbolic Speech UPDATED

In Synod's Home Stretch, The "Revenge of the Statues"?

Jim’s last post on a prolife rally reminded me of the ambiguity of all symbolic speech.  It may rally the base, but it also rallies the opposition (maybe as much or even more).  Most importantly, if handled poorly, symbolic speech can move the “middle men” to the other side. 

This might be happening at the synod of bishops. Rocco’s image of the women of the Amazon, their female fertility symbol smashed and thrown into the Tiber, emerging as the first modern Roman Rite women to be clothed in the stole of the diaconate, says it all. 

In a tweet Rocco reports the striking rebuke of the vandals and their defenders from Knoxville’s @BishopStika (ie. nobody’s “liberal”):

“Amazing to see all the racist hatred against the people of the Amazon region. Costume and culture are mocked as so many American Catholics think they have it together. Here we worship money, status, personal opinions, political parties, guns, vengeance, and politicians.”

Rocco remarks on the irony of the effect of B16’s precedents

If married former Protestant clergy can be ordained as priests, why not natives of the Amazon?

More stunningly if the Anglicans can get their own rite, and the traditionalists can get their own form of the Roman Rite, why not a Rite for the Amazon. Who would have thought that B16, the hero of the liturgical traditionalists may have paved the way for further inculturation of the Roman Rite.

In an earlier post Rocco summed up what he thought was important about this synod. first the synod process itself as a model for church government, and then inculturation as model for Catholicism.

Coming Soon: A Cultural "Revolution"?

UPDATE Thanks to Rocco

Pope Francis has said the following:
Good afternoon –I’d like to say a word on the statues of the pachamama that were taken from the church at Traspontina, that were there without idolatrous intentions and were thrown into the Tiber.
Before all else, as that happened in Rome and as bishop of the dioces, I ask the forgiveness of those who were offended by this act.
Now I’m able to tell  you that the statues, which have created a great clamor in the media, have been recovered from the Tiber. The statues weren’t damaged.
The commandant of the Carabineri (Italian police) wished to inform us of this recover before the news became public. At this time the news is confidential and the statues are in the custody of the Commandant of the Carabineri.
The Commandant will be very happy to follow whatever indication is given on the publication of this news and the other initiative to be taken in regard to, as he says “the display of the statues during the closing Mass of the Synod”  So we’ll see. I delegate the Secretary of State to respond to this.
This is beautiful news-thank you.  

Pro-life rally

This past weekend, I attended a pro-life rally and march.  It seems that the practice of taking to the streets is not just a historical footnote - it's alive and well in 2019.

Anti-suicide crowd in London as Brexit is postponed again.

More stones thrown in Boris Johnson's path per the Guardian.
Here's the Guardian account of the crowd...and it was raining! they said.

Sunday Celebration in the Absence of a Priest

Today I learned about SCAP, which is the acronym for the "Sunday Celebration in the Absence of a Priest".  The backstory is that one of the priests in our deanery had a death in his family and will be out of country for at least a couple of weeks. In the past, a retired priest or a religious order one would have been recruited to fill in during the priest's absence.  However none of those people are available, having already been called into service. And the absent priest had been covering three rural parishes.

The Versatile Nancy Pelosi

                                   At Work

At Prayer

Contrary to the news coverage...UPDATE

...William Barr is not nuts, at least about the Freedom of Religion (see 1st amendment). and he may not be 100 percent right about secularist attacks on religion, but but maybe 67 percent on target.  Read his UND speech for yourself.

There is some conspicuous lacunae in his analysis, but all you fans of Alexis de Tocqueville (and who is not a fan?) should give Barr a fair but critical reading.

Paul Krugman was among the very critical opinionators on Barr's speech. (Paul, paul, I'm shocked and disappointed; I thought we agreed about everything.)

UPDATE....OOOPS: It looks like Liberal Catholics have come out against Barr's speech at UND. More fodder for the culture wars. " 'A threat to democracy': William Barr's speech on religious freedom alarms liberal Catholics."   Phillip Shenon in the Guardian. 
So many things to be alarumed about!

Another wedding report

As I reported here at NewGathering, last month I attended a wedding at which the bride and groom custom-designed the ceremony.  I attended another wedding this past weekend, and the approach was different - to say the least.

Buying my last car

My Prius died about six weeks ago.  It was a sudden cryptic hybrid death that gave no details.  I decided not to fix it since it was already eating oil, a 2010 Prius problem.  I donated the car to Habitat and transferred ownership of my mother's 2009 Camry to me and that is now my vehicle.  I was afraid that if my mother didn't see her car in the driveway, she'd repeat her meltdown of last year.   I envy people in other countries like Bangla Desh who can't afford cars.  Their old people don't define their self worth in terms of ownership of a 700 kilogram machine and the right to drive it.  But the next car I buy may be an electric car.  If so, it will be my last car, if I live a year or twenty years.  There are no hundreds of moving parts operating at high temperature.  No oil changes.  A new battery every ten years but the car should last a very long time.  Brake changes every 250,000 kilometers.  I have nothing against internal combustion engines per se.  They are remarkable technological achievements especially in their present form.  They still have their advantages over electric vehicles.  But that robust physical simplicity is really attractive.   By the way, Mercedes Benz is halting R&D directed at development of new internal combustion engines in the next few years.  Of course, public transportation would be better, but I'll probably still need a car unless I reposition into a more urban environment.  If it's electric,  I'll have to be happy with it until death do we part.

Thank you

This is my homily for today, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C.  The readings for today are here.

FWIW Barron Week 3

 Today the pastor provided what he called the meditation, what the GIRM says should be the homily and what we used to call the sermon. The GIRM was ignored. The text was a statement by St.  John Henry Cardinal Newman, conveniently raised to the altars this very day, that Bishop Barron used in his "Letter to a Suffering Church.
 Barron left some ellipsises. Our pastor had the comment, without ellipsis, on the AV and read it at the beginning of his, hmm, comment. It begins, in the book: "The whole course of Christianity is... but one series of troubles and disorder." It ends, after listing the sins of our past: "The cause of Christ is ever in its last agony."
 The pastor likes lists, and he had one that summarized Newman. It began with "scandal, stupidity," and ended with "wickedness." In between were almost all the words in the English language that begin with "dis-" or"mis'-." He ran through the list two and a half times in the course of his comment, treating it as attributes of the Church.
 Also following the bishop, he cited Paul's, "We hold this treasure in earthen vessels."
We are -- Paul, Baron and our pastor all  agree -- the earthen vessels. He ended with a meditative prayer that, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, we will rise above ourselves.
 Not a word about Naaman or ten lepers.

Celibacy Isn't the Only Issue

To read media accounts of possible solutions to the shortage of priests in Amazonia, one would think that the main and only hang-up is the celibacy requirement.  But according to this article on the NCR site,
 "If the prelates attending the Vatican's Synod of Bishops for the Amazon ask that Pope Francis allow the ordination of married men to address a lack of Catholic ministers across the nine-nation region, the path for implementing such a proposal is fairly straightforward, say four eminent canon lawyers."
"Among the two main possibilities: Francis could issue new norms allowing bishops in the region to deviate from the church canon requiring clerics to remain celibate, or could invite the bishops to make appeal to the Vatican for special permission on a case-by-case basis."
This article from Crux outlines some of the other hurdles. The one I am going to focus on concerns education and formation.

Theater of the absurd

From the WaPo:

President Trump told reporters Friday that he didn’t know whether Rudy Giuliani was still his personal attorney, adding that the two hadn’t spoken since Thursday.

“I don’t know,” Trump said, responding to a question about the lawyer as he prepared to leave the White House for a rally in Louisiana Friday evening. “I haven’t spoken to Rudy. I spoke to him yesterday briefly. He’s a very good attorney, and he has been my attorney.”

In a text message to The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey shortly after the president’s comments, Giuliani confirmed that he’s still representing Trump.

“Yes,” Giuliani wrote. “I am still his attorney.”

Flying to the office

... or the pharmacy, or the diner, or church, or wherever else we may be prone to drive.  CCN is reporting that Boeing and Porsche are partnering to develop a flying vehicle.  And apparently they are not the only ones; the news report mentions some other companies that also are pursuing it.  The video report includes brief video clips (or animations) of the various prototypes.  The Boeing/Porsche model, I'm sorry to say, looks more like the sea plane that landed in the jungle river in that opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, than a Jetson's saucer.  All in all, I'm guessing that our grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, will be the ones scudding high over urban traffic to pick up the kids from school. 

Unimpeachable history

President non-sequitur has achieved a higher level of non-sense. In defending his precipitous withdrawal of U.S. troops from the border area separating Turkey and the Kurdish occupied area of Syria, Trump reminds us: "the Kurds didn’t help us in the second world war, they didn’t help us with Normandy as an example."

DUH!

Neither did Turkey, which was neutral to the very end...

Trump claims he wants out of our endless wars. His decision to withdraw gave Turkey the green light to attack the Kurds. Brilliant!

And then....if the world calls Turkey an occupier, President Erdogan of Turkey threatens to deport 3.6 million refugees to Europe. Also Brilliant.

The Guardian on Normandy.
The Guardian on Erdogan's threat.

Donald Trump, starring in the role of "Donald Trump"

If you don't watch television or read tabloids, you probably didn't see Donald Trump coming.

FWIW, Barron Week 2

 The second of five Sunday homilies (sermons?) on Bishop Baron's "Letter," was delivered by our transitional deacon. He preached on the Habakkuk in the Lectionary, about taking your gripes and anger to the Lord.  Said we should do it and encourage others to do likewise.
 He brought in people who have gripes about the contemporary Church, including lousy preaching and music. So the sermon was not limited to, but included, anger about sexual abuse an its cover-up. But it was mostly about how God listens to anger and can deal with it. Quite theological. No mention of Eli, though.
 Next week: Chapter 3. And one of the Carmelites will have to do it. I also found out that Letters to a Suffering Church is a parish, not diocesan, project.

Replacing obedience to bishops with obedience to conscience?

I was horrified when Benedict created a bunch of new cardinals, and I read the oath they take to the Pope in the report of this event that was in NCRonline. God was mentioned only once. - the pope was mentioned several times, as they were swearing fealty to a man, including promising to obey everything asked and not to reveal "secrets". 

Is It Worth It? UPDATE

I have a dream:  A van pulls up in front of the White House. Two men and two women get out and enter the front door. An hour later the door opens, they come out, they usher a man in a straight jacket into the back of the van, two men sit on either side of him, the two women climb into the front of the van and drive off.

Today's (Thursday) burst of Trumplogeria badgering Ukraine and China to come up with Biden-dirt boggles that part of the mind that tries for rational explanations. There ain't none. That makes the slow walk through impeachment look like an answer in search of an question. What is it?

Pelosi's measured walk up to impeachment proceedings suggests that she too might have been waiting for the folks with the straight jacket. Perhaps she was. But yesterday she had this to say on a call Wednesday afternoon with House Democrats:

“I do think that this is a moment beyond Donald Trump. He’s almost not worth it, to do an impeachment, because he is so what he is, but the Constitution is worth it, and our democracy is worth it, and our ‘Republic, if we can keep it’ is worth it.”

Update: Except for Mitt Romney and Rob Portman (on Trump's appeal to China), Republicans have been super-shy about impeachment. So it's interesting to watch the full frontal on Trump's free-lancing on Syrian policy, promising Erdogan of Turkey that U.S. troops will be pulling back from the North Eastern Turkey-Syria border. Lindsey Graham, bf, went ballistic on hearing the news. Even Mitch McConnell stepped up to the plate. I'll post some links way down in the comment section. 

Bishop Barron: To the barricades

 I read Bishop Robert Barron’s Letter to a Suffering Church today. I mentioned earlier that it was the subject of the homily at my church last Sunday and will be again for the next four Sundays, and that they were handing out copies last week.

 This morning I got a nudge from one of the Dominican Associates. She said she earlier had bought copies for her group, and one of the members, a Dominican sister, gave it back to her and said it was “too dark and depressing.”

 That bad?

 I thought I had better read it quickly.