JD Vance, Catholic Convert and Author of "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith," on James Talarico

“He won’t shut up about having traditional Christian values makes you a bigot, and I got to say, a guy that age who is so obsessed and focused on transgender children — I don’t know about you, but I never want to see that guy’s web browser history.”

Rescued Climbers Relied Too Much on AI

 Rescued Climbers Relied Too Much on AI

Political Issue: should we have clear signs and policies about behavior on public land. Recently I went down to Headlands Beach which has an annual sand sculpture display. This year there was a sign warning that defacing public artwork was a 5th degree felony and could face a $2500.  In all the previous years the art displays had been almost totally destroyed probably by kids who think that half the fun of building sand sculpture is destroying them after wards. 

We need to have clear signs and policies about things like camping and hiking on public land. They probably need to have some legal consequences if people are going to pay attention to them. Otherwise, many people may assume that getting into trouble doing these things is all part of the fun of doing them.

And of course, we also need to have clear signs and policies about the use of AI. Otherwise blaming misadventures on AI will also become a part of the whole experience.

Legal Issue: How do people go about finding out about their legal responsibilities before doing things? Especially given the myriad of possibilities: situations, laws, policies, etc. 

On Justice and the Lindsay Clancy Trial

 I hadn't been paying a super amount of attention to the Lindsay Clancy trial.  I just thought it was a tragic situation.  But it had been going on for nearly six weeks, so impossible not to read some things about it.  I thought this article on the America site was good. The title sums it up :

We are expecting too much from the Lindsay Clancy trial - America Magazine

And I think it is true that we are expecting too much from the trial, if the aim is perfect justice. 

New Liturgical Season of Creation?

Liturgy has always been a living growing entity. Before the invention of printing, liturgies varied from place to place. Manuscripts traveled from place to place. Much of our holy week liturgies were formed by pilgrims coming back from the Holy Land, e.g. the Palm Sunday procession.

 We may be witnessing the evolving of a new liturgical season of creation, beginning with September 1st and ending with the Feast of Saint Francis on October 4th. 

BELOW IS A DRAFT OF A POST FOR MY "WEAL" WEBSITE. A SELECTION OF LINKS AND TEXTS THAT I WILL ORGANIZE BETTER. 

WE SHOULD BE CREATIVE AT THE GRASSROOTS LEVEL IN FORMING A SEASON FOR CARE OF CREATION

FOR EXAMPLE, LABOR DAY RATHER THAN SEPTEMBER 1 OR A SUNDAY SEEMS AN IDEAL DAY TO CELEBRATE THE CARE OF CREATION.

FROM THE BEGINNING THIS HAS BEEN AN ECUMENTICAL PROJECT.  THE MODEL OF THE ANGLICAN CHRISTMAS EVE SERVICE OF NINE LESSONS AND CAROLS SEEMS IDEAL. 

I PROPOSE A SERVICE OF LESSONS AND SONGS AROUND THE THEME OF CARE OF CREATION.

WHAT SCRIPTURE READINGS WOULD YOU INCLUDE? The Genesis account of the creation from the Easter Vigil seems an ideal beginning.

WHAT SONGS WOULD YOU INCLUDE? In the Lessons and Carols service, there is a beginning carol, and more than one carol per reading. Some of the carols are chosen to be used each year and sung by the congregation. Some are sung each year by the choir because they require more technical virtuosity. Some are new each year. The Season of Creation international committee has a theme for each year. This year it is flowing water from Ezechiel. What songs about flowing water would you include this year?  

WHAT PSALMS WOULD YOU INCLUDE?  I am thinking of nine psalms about creation which would precede the Service of Lessons and Songs of Creation. It would cover the assembling of the community.  Similar criteria to the songs above including some songs about water for this year.

As an undergraduate I took an anthropology course on childhood and society at the University of Washington in Seattle. The professor had done his research on native Americans in the Northwest. He was deeply impressed by their ritual creativity in song and dance. He attributed this to the fact that young people on the periphery of the assembly were encouraged to imitate their elders who led the assembly. That meant by the time they became leaders they had a whole repertory of song and dance to use creatively. I had already experienced several forms of the Liturgy of the Hours and resolved to let it unfold naturally in my life as I experienced more music and ritual. Anthropologically I think we all have the capacity to be liturgically creative.

POPE LEO WILL CELEBRATE THE NEW MASS FOR THE CARE OF CREATON SHORTLY AFTER NOON TODAY. CHECK OUT THE YOUTUBE VATICAN WEBSITE

LIVE | Pope Leo XIV’s Holy Mass for the Care of Creation | September 1, 2026

EWTN Live Mass & Devotions

Scheduled for 12:20 PM Eastern Time

Pope Leo's Homily at Today's Mass for the Care of Creation

Actually, a good summary of the Season of Creation!

Liturgy as a living entity

 I thought this article in NCR was interesting, especially since I lived through the liturgical reforms of Vatican II: 

Pope Leo says Vatican II's liturgical reform was 'necessary' for lay involvement | National Catholic Reporter

The impetus for liturgical reform and more participation of the laity was already happening well before Vatican II.  During the later 1950s, and 1960s, when I attended grade school, the nuns who taught us were already implementing the "Dialogue Mass", in which the students learned and recited the responses said by the servers. The responses were still in Latin, and the students had the English and Latin daily missals to follow.  Of course this wouldn't have happened without the consent of the pastor. 

There were even places where the priest said Mass facing the people, though I think this was "ex officio" not formally permitted yet. 

One thing that was very noticeable with the changes of Vatican II was a greater emphasis on the Scriptures, with the three year cycle which we observe now.  Before that, it was a one year cycle, with more repetition of readings, and fewer Old Testament readings. 

Of course it was a learning curve, and some people didn't like the changes at first. But it seemed like people got used to it, and the vernacular liturgy was well received. But not everybody was on board, including now some younger people who would have had no memory of the "before times".

From the NCR article:

Bonus track: a homily I didn't give yesterday: Uniting under Peter

 For the second month in a row, I prepared a homily I didn't give.  In fact, I prepared two I didn't give.  I am going to share one of them here.  

You may recall that last month, I wasn't happy with what I had prepared, so I completely rewrote it, very shortly before I was to give it.  

This month, the circumstances were different: I was scheduled to preach; but I also was scheduled to serve as a deacon with a visiting priest. We get quite a few visiting priests on weekends these days, as our large-ish parish (2,800 registered families) only has one priest and we have five masses scheduled every weekend.  At least in our parish, and I think at other parishes, it is considered the courteous thing to do to give the visiting priest the option of preaching at masses for which he's scheduled.  Our rota of visiting priests is fairly stable so I know most of them, and so on deacon preaching weekends, it's not uncommon for me to work out with the visiting priest ahead of time which of us will preach. 

But in this case, the visiting priest was new to me and to the parish.  He is an instructor at the seminary, which suggested (to me, anyway) that he is sharp and might have some interesting things to share with our congregation.  So I quickly deferred to him.

Here is the one I came prepared to give:

It's time to say who I am

I gave this brief homily yesterday.  That day's readings, the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A, are here.

This homily was meant to tie into a special occasion: at the mass at which I preached, we baptized a 14 year old young man who had been receiving private instruction.  During the homily, I addressed him ("Jared") directly.  I kept the homily quite brief so the mass+baptism wouldn't run too long.