You Might Be In a Neo-con Parish If:

Our friends at the National Catholic Register have done it again with this one:

You Might Be In a Liberal Parish If…

...your family has to split up to find the tabernacle.

...the pastor wears an Izod shirt and introduces himself as "Steve."

...there's maraca's in the band.

...your pastor's last name starts with "Pf".

OR HOW ABOUT

..."Steve" quotes Hans Kung in his sermon.

...There's more Eucharistic ministers than parishioners receiving Communion.

...The sign of peace last twenty minutes and includes bear hugs.

...The scariest four letter words to your parish council aren't H.E.L.L but EWTN.

...the DRE is a female Episcopalian priest.

Absolutely classic. But what's really the prevailing alternative? How do you know you're in a "faithful," modern-day, EWTN-oriented American neoconservative Catholic parish? You know, truly devoted to the pontiff, to insulate your immortal soul from all this now-disappearing dissent? Each point is a little more detailed, but here are a few clues to look for at your church.

You might be at a neocon parish if:

...they play "traditional" music, that is, by the St. Louis Jesuits and David Hass, or "On Eagles Wings," but on the pipe organ accompanied by a violin. Sometimes even with bagpipes. How solemn, at least no guitars and drums, though!

...Every Sunday Mass includes a meditative post-Communion rendition in Latin, alternating between either Franck's "Panis Angelicus" or Schubert's "Ave Maria" ONLY. That is, with a synthesizer backdrop.

...the pastor is 35 years old, and really does look like he's wearing a black skirt while prancing around the parish center in his cassock.

...Father Connell, the young pastor, prays in Latin with a lisp.

...Father Connell's best friend, Gary, is a layman. But he's always at the church helping out, also wearing a cassock.

...The tabernacle is in the center of the sanctuary alright, behind the altar. But it's bronze and the size and shape of a mini-refrigerator.

...The incense Father uses smells like frankincense with a mothball preservant.

..."John Paul," not "Francis," is Pope.

...When Pope Francis is referenced, it's about "how much like" John Paul II he really is.

...No social justice committee here. Pro-life dominates.

...But we don't want to degrade younger women with the Pro-life message. So the pro-life committee mostly talks about how younger, potentially impregnating men just need to "man up" and "find jobs."

...Air-conditioning the church was so costly, that those new Mary and Joseph statues are both made of Styrofoam.

..."The Crusades" refers to Bush's War On Terror.

...The votive candle stands in the narthex are electric.

...The pastor is always saying how all 20 teenagers in the youth group constitutes a "huge faith revival."

...There's incredible preaching about True Mortal Sin. That is, believing anything "negative" that the secular media says about the Church.

...The DRE (Director of Religious Education) is an ex-Legion of Christ seminarian who scratches out all reference to Fr. Maciel, the true author of his photocopied handouts to the students.

...Father's vestments aren't the 1970's tie-dye ones at all. Rather, they look like they're made of actual fancy Italian restaurant tablecloth fabric.

Now the stereotypical liberal parish (as described) has been fast disappearing since the 1990s, along with the clapping and banjo-guided singing. But what's been replacing it is a bunch of sanctimonious, hyper-sentimentalist, clericalist drivel. Hyperbolizing the liberal parish as anything "typical," nowadays, only steers attention away from the new set of problems now in place.

Even some "liberal" parishes evolve:

Whoopee for Wal-Mart, the New Bastion for R.I. and MA Employment

According to the Providence Business News, the economically hard-hit regions of Rhode Island and nearby Bristol County, MA, are in for a treat. Wal Mart is again hiring:

It’s no wonder they’re excited about the jobs. Even though Massachusetts’ unemployment rate was at 6.6 percent in May, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Fall River’s unemployment rate that month was 12.5 percent, according to the Massachusetts Office of Labor and Workforce Development. The Fall River store is one of four Sam’s Clubs and Wal-Mart stores in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts in hiring mode. All together, the four stores are hiring for more than 450 jobs. Sam’s is owned and operated by Wal-Mart Stores Inc...Wal-Mart is hiring for 85 newly created jobs at each of its two relocated stores in Massachusetts, one in Fall River and the other in Swansea...
The Fall River Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart stores are bright spots on the employment landscape in what’s been a long, “tough time” for the city, said Jay Pateakos, vice president of business development for the Fall River Area Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
“We appreciate the kinds of jobs the big-box stores are bringing. People need to be employed,” said Pateakos, pointing to Fall River’s double-digit unemployment rate, traditionally one of the highest in the state, the decline of manufacturing and some of the city’s devastating job losses, such as Quaker Fabric...

Moreover:

Currently, Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart employ 11,000 people in Massachusetts and 2,400 in Rhode Island, said Scott.
The average wage is $13.86 an hour for regular full-time employees, with benefits, he added

But how many new hires are full-time versus part-time is not clear. Overwhelmingly, these stores hire employees part time. According to America magazine, the national Jesuit weekly:

Ms. Aubrey, 55, has been working for Walmart off and on for years. She earns $10.10 an hour and can barely afford her rent. “I am clearing less than $250 a week; I have been on food stamps since they cut my hours,” she complains. “They give you a measly 40 cent raise each year, then they increase health care costs or something else and take it all back.” According to Ms. Aubrey, only the department managers at her store are able to get full-time hours and “some of the old-time employees.”

She says, “The rest of us are part-timers. There’s a lot of single moms in my store and many of them, because of the part-time hours, get government assistance. There’s not only a lot of them on food stamps, there is a lot of them that qualify for Medicaid.”

Then there's this from The American Conservative blog:

Mark Krikorian and Stephen Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies recently said something that got me thinking about the curious phenomenon of the capitalist welfare state. They pointed out that although low-skilled immigrants receive a disproportionate amount of government benefits, the recipients are, for the most part, employed. In effect, employers are getting the taxpayer to subsidize wages: instead of Megalo-Mart paying workers enough to put a roof over their heads, it pays less and lets the public make up the difference. The company gets the labor and profit it wants while externalizing part of the cost of wages.

And there's a big slice of that 50 percent of households receiving government benefits: working ones. So much for the GOP's anti-idleness ideologues telling the chronically unemployed to get up and find jobs, because the Party has it where these prospective workers will still be on the dole. IDIOTS.

So much for all those gainful, full-time jobs coming to Fall River. Goes to show what kind of journalism the Providence Business News purveys.

First and Last in America

The other day, President Obama made this statement in reaction to the ongoing Trevon Martin saga:




While the not guilty verdict for George Zimmerman will stand, the president has more than a few salient points. Besides his own genuine experiences as described, with "a woman clutching her purse...," young African American males are, among other things, more likely to be incarcerated than matriculated in college or voc-tech, and the most impoverished and homicide-prone of all groups. There are certainly competing interpretations of this on the socio-political level, certainly when it comes to finding solutions.

But if one group is last in America, then which group is first? hint: the one that is among the least homicide-prone, absolutely the most educated, and brought up to routinely compete with and successfully beat their supposed oppressors. This manifests in their higher average incomes compared with their male peers. All of this while operating under a similar aura of oppression as the young, black male, courtesy of today's irrational, institutional feminism.

CASE IN POINT, this parody:

Judge Rules White Girl Will Be Tried As Black Adult

Here, I'm talking about the young, Millennial, Caucasian American female. Long prioritized by society, she's entitled to the best of both worlds from men and society, access to the full gamut of marketplace opportunity, and still a large swath of Victorian female privileges. They can openly blame the male species for their pelvic mishaps, and do so frequently.

Well, the true price tag has arrived, folks. Hold on to your armor, white knight baby-boomer daddies:

See it here:
And down here, too:

Helen Smith.

Author, "Men on Strike."

8 Reasons Straight Men Don't Want To Get Married

It seems that fewer and fewer people in general are getting married these days, and even fewer men seem interested. Men no longer see marriage as being as important as they did even 15 years ago. "According to Pew Research Center, the share of women ages eighteen to thirty-four that say having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in their lives rose nine percentage points since 1997--from 28 percent to 37%. For men, the opposite occurred. The share voicing this opinion dropped, from 35 percent to 29 percent." Why?

1. You'll lose respect. A couple of generations ago, a man wasn't considered fully adult until he was married with kids. But today, fathers are figures of fun more than figures of respect: The schlubby guy with the flowered diaper bag at the mall, or one of the endless array of buffoonish TV dads in sitcoms and commercials. In today's culture, father never knows best. It's no better in the news media. As communications professor James Macnamara reports, "by volume, 69 percent of mass media reporting and commentary on men was unfavorable, compared with just 12 percent favorable and 19 percent neutral or balanced."

2. You'll lose out on sex. Married men have more sex than single men, on average - but much less than men who are cohabiting with their partners outside of marriage, especially as time goes on. Research even suggests that married women are more likely to gain weight than women who are cohabiting without marriage. A Men's Health article mentioned one study that followed 2,737 people for six years and found that cohabiters said they were happier and more confident than married couples and singles.

3. You'll lose friends. "Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine." That's an old song, but it's true. When married, men's ties with friends from school and work tend to fade. Although both men and women lose friends after marriage, it tends to affect men's self-esteem more, perhaps because men tend to be less social in general. >

4. You'll lose space. We hear a lot about men retreating to their "man caves," but why do they retreat? Because they've lost the battle for the rest of the house. The Art of Manliness blog mourns "The Decline of Male Space," and notes that the development of suburban lifestyles, intended to bring the family together, resulted in the elimination of male spaces in the main part of the house, and the exile of men to attics, garages, basements - the least desirable part of the home. As a commenter to the post observes: "There was no sadder scene to a movie than in 'Juno' when married guy Jason Bateman realized that in his entire huge, house, he had only a large closet to keep all the stuff he loved in. That hit me like a punch in the face."

5. You could lose your kids, and your money. And they may not even be your kids. Lots of men I spoke with were keenly aware of the dangers of divorce, and worried that if they were married and it went sour, the woman might take everything, including the kids. Other men were concerned that they might wind up paying child support for kids who aren't even theirs - a very real possibility in many states. On my blog, I polled over 3200 men to ask how they would react to finding out that a child wasn't theirs after all. 32 percent said they would feel "anger and fury at the mother," 6 percent said they would feel "depression," 18 percent said "anger and depression," 2 percent said "none of the above," 32 percent said "angry at the system that forced them to pay," and only 2 percent "didn't care." One man commented that his ex-wife had taunted him with the knowledge that his 11-year old son wasn't actually his: "I was angry at the mother...I severed all ties to the boy. Some may see this as a failing. I see it as self-preservation, and to those that ask the question of whether or not the courts will make a non-biological parent pay child support, pay attention: YES THEY WILL! They see you as nothing more than a source of cash for the child. It seems that a person in these situations should be able to sue the real father for child support."

6. You'll lose in court. Men often complain that the family court legal system is stacked against them, and in fact it seems to be. Women gain custody and child support the majority of the time, as pointed out in this ABC News article: "Despite the increases in men seeking and receiving alimony, advocates warn against linking the trend to equality in the courtroom. Family court judges still tend to favor women, said Ned Holstein, the founder of Fathers & Families, a group advocating family court reform. "'Family court still gives custody overwhelmingly to mothers, child support overwhelmingly to mothers, and courts still give almony overwhelmingly to mothers and women,' he said. 'The family courts came into existence years ago in order to give things to mothers that mothers needed," he said. 'The times have changed and the courts have not.'"

7. You'll lose your freedom. At least, if you're charged with child support that you can't pay, you can be put in jail - and if you can't afford a lawyer, you don't have the right to have one appointed because, according to the Supreme Court, it's technically a civil matter, never mind the jail time. Fathers and Families found that it's the men who are jailed rather than women: "A new report concludes that between 95% and 98.5% of all incarcerations in Massachusetts sentenced from the Massachusetts Probate and Family Courts from 2001 through 2011 have been men. Moreover, this percentage may be increasing, with an average of 94.5% from 2001 to 2008, and 96.2% from 2009 through 2011. It is likely that most of these incarcerations are for incomplete payment of child support. Further analysis suggests that women who fail to pay all of their child support are incarcerated only one-eighth as often as men with similar violations."

8. Single life is better than ever. While the value of marriage to men has declined, the quality of single life has improved. Single men were once looked on with suspicion, passed over for promotion for important jobs, which usually valued "stable family men," and often subjected to social opprobrium. It was hard to have a love life that wasn't aimed at marriage, and premarital sex was risky and frowned upon. Now, no one looks askance at the single lifestyle, dating is easy, and employers probably prefer employees with no conflicting family responsibilities. Plus, video games, cable TV, and the Internet provide entertainment that didn't used to be available. Is this good for society? Probably not, as falling birth rates and increasing single-motherhood demonstrate. But people respond to incentives. If you want more men to marry, it needs to be a more attractive proposition.

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Get off your high horses, you Catholo-New Feminists. And most other self-described "feminists" as well. And Victorian traditionalists. Return to the living wage of the bygone era if you truly want your daughters to be well "taken care of," for starters. DISCLAIMER: I don't agree with every point that every author makes. I do not accept cohabitation.

The "Vortex" of Catholic Neoconservtives

In recent days, revelations emerged that Pope Francis spoke of a Vatican underworld that involves an actively homosexual clerical network. This video was produced by Michael Voris, who leads the ChurchMilitant.tv online media network.





Voris hesitates with this until the end of the broadcast, but then finally starts naming, well, institutions and entities that shill for the modern Petrine establishment at all costs. They are the usual suspects: EWTN (and apparently its prissy, effeminate news director), its weekly paper, the National Catholic Register, and various low-rated radio outlets, such as Ave Maria Radio, founded by former tycoon Tom Monahan.

You see, they are all fanatical clericalists. These are folks and institutions who do little more than simply identify with the clerical power establishment, like the American Bishops Conference, to establish their supposed sanctity. They act like a bunch of latter-day Pharisee concubines, and little else.

It's very simple: there's a difference between the Faith and its truths, and those who operate the Church. Many of those who lead the Church are faithful, though Scripture warns of being like the Pharisees, who represented the pinnacle of the religious establishment.

It's interesting how Voris mentions men's and women's conferences, that took place in March, as having been venues for certain speakers trashing him and defending the gay priest underworld as being largely non-existent. No doubt, such conferences promote the "New Feminism," which is bent on advancing a hybrid of Victorian-sounding pieties about women, combined with tightly-defined gender roles (50s style), and Andrea Dworkin-sounding condemnations of men's sexuality, all rolled together. On the sexuality front, it's really only men who do the sinning in what is now the post-sexual revolution era, as younger women are constantly "being objectified."

It's all about innate hypocrisy built upon other hypocrisies. Of course, "we'll lose the culture war if we go against other 'faithful.'" NEWSFLASH: They've already been lost.

It's past high time to gut the house and re-built from the bottom up.

Francis: keeping it real in his early days

The papacy of Francis, Bishop of Rome, has caught many off-guard in its debut. In particular, the way he has quickly filled the papal "shoes," as exemplified by his approach to Holy Week celebrations.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Observers have noted, for example, that Pope Francis, the first pontiff from the Americas, still wears the cross he wore as archbishop of Buenos Aires, rather than the golden one customary for popes, and that he has declined to wear the papal red shoes and other fancy vestments favored by past pontiffs.

Earlier this week, the pope indicated he wouldn't move into the pontiff's gilded official quarters in the Apostolic Palace any time soon, instead planning to stay at a modest Vatican guesthouse....

In his first general audience Wednesday, Francis said that Catholics needed to "be the first to move towards our brothers and sisters, especially those who are most distant, those who are forgotten, those who are most in need of understanding, consolation and help"...That contrasted with his predecessor, who viewed the church's relationship with the secular world as largely adversarial, and responded by defending the church's fundamental beliefs and rituals.

Until Pope Francis, no pontiff had ever washed the feet of a woman or a Muslim on Holy Thursday, which marks two of the most important institutions in Roman Catholicism, the Eucharist and the priesthood...For Pope Francis, in a Holy Thursday Mass, to clean the feet of two women, including a Muslim from Serbia, left some speechless...

If Rome has a McDonald's, it won't be long until Francis will be found, with his ecclesial cadre, having a post-audience happy meal.

People look at this with raised eyebrows to say the very least. Some are thrilled with his down-to-earthness, while others are simply appalled. These 'others' include American neoconservatives, along with the return-to-all-Latin traditionalists. The former, of course, is most concerned with strengthening the authority and influence of the papal and episcopal (i.e., bishops) offices over the Church and the world. The latter fixates on reviving traditional expressions, both in papal pageantry and liturgy in general. So far, it's not going so well, as so noted.

One of the most-read traditionalist blogs, "Rorate Caeli," reacted to the foot-washing ceremony by declaring the death of Benedict's eight-year project to correct what he considered the botched interpretations of the Second Vatican Council's modernizing reforms.

"The official end of the reform of the reform — by example," ''Rorate Caeli" lamented in its report on Francis' Holy Thursday ritual.

A like-minded commentator in Francis' native Argentina, Marcelo Gonzalez at International Catholic Panorama, reacted to Francis' election with this phrase: "The Horror." Gonzalez's beef? While serving as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio's efforts to revive the old Latin Mass so dear to Benedict and traditionalists were "non-existent."

Virtually everything he has done since being elected pope, every gesture, every decision, has rankled traditionalists in one way or another.

I think it's important to underscore this fact: he's a Jesuit. Jesuits, of course, are regarded, on balance, as being part of the liberal wing of the Church. Though dogmatically, that's not always true at all. Bergoglio was a no-nonsense, hard-liner among major South American prelates, especially when it came down to major doctrinal and social concerns on the national stage: abortion and contraception, preserving opposite-sex marriage, opposing euthanasia, opposing Communist liberation theology, and so on. Unlike in 90 percent of Europe, where all previous popes hailed from, abortion is ILLEGAL in Argentina. Might that owe somewhat to Bergoglio?

In the last dozen or so years, I visited a number of Jesuit order churches, from the east coast to as far as San Francisco. Four were parishes, one was a college campus church. While I am a fan of the Jesuits (yet no real liberal), and do adore the more solemn, formal liturgies, these places of worship defied category.

Compared with most other modern-day, large parishes, these churches offered distinct liturgical variety among their weekend Masses. Spanish Masses, contemporary guitar Masses, even liturgical dance Masses. But they all held, as central, a very rubric-heavy, solemn Sunday Mass with many traditional trappings (among them, incense and polyphonic music, large pipe organs with a trained choir). And I do mean beautiful and reverential, much of what would appeal to conservative-minded churchgoers. Yet, to some degree, it also appeals to what and who largely remains the Jesuit "clientele": the more affluent and educated.

The solemn masses at the Jesuit parishes were far better done, and more "high church" than at the average parish, including most supposedly conservative parishes I've been to. Better sacred music, nicer church buildings, and far better preaching.

For certain, the parishes are very social justice oriented. But there were also rosary societies, frequent Eucharistic devotions, and certainly Ignatian activities and retreats.

But the more profound differences were also more subtle. Some of the Jesuit priests, though wearing the proper vestments during Mass, were otherwise in civilian clothes, not the standard clerical black outfits. Some were on a first-name basis with parishioners, or introduced themselves using a first name, sans the prefix "Father." In other words, they were less clericalist. Writes Russell Shaw:

Clericalism, however, is...a caricature. It fosters an ecclesiastical caste system in which clerics comprise the dominant elite, with lay people serving as a passive, inert mass of spear-carriers tasked with receiving clerical tutelage and doing what they're told. This upstairs-downstairs way of understanding relationships and roles in the Church extends even to the spiritual life: priests are called to be saints, lay people are called to satisfy the legalistic minimum of Christian life and scrape by into purgatory...

Of course, where I differ with Shaw is on John Paul II. No pope in modern times has done more to re-characterize and caricature the clericalist state than the great saint pontiff himself. Note the results, you know, the ones that sank the Benedict XVI papacy.

Some neoconservatives, who tend to go along with whatever the Vatican says and does on most things on the basis of authority, are catching on. Writing in the mother of all clericalist, neocon rags, The National Catholic Register, Father Roger Landry makes no bones about what Pope Francis is all about, and what's on the horizon:

One of the most urgent reforms facing him is the restoration of the moral credibility of the hierarchy, and especially of the priesthood. The scandals of clerical sex abuse and tales of Vatican corruption have not only severely undermined the Church’s moral authority, but given the impression that living by the Church’s teachings forms freaks and moral monsters rather than saints.

In his first couple of weeks as Pope, as well as his 14 years in Buenos Aires, Francis has been charting out the trajectory of priestly reshaping...Diocesan priests do not take a vow of poverty, but commit themselves to a simple lifestyle. In many places, this principle is given lip service, as members of the clergy drive fancy cars, frequent the finest restaurants and live in exquisite digs...Second, throughout his time as archbishop, the future Pope spoke out forcefully against priests’ living a “double-life.” When he was asked in a 2010 book-length interview, El Jesuita, about the common saying in Argentina, “I believe in God, but I don’t believe in priests,” he replied, “Many of us priests do not deserve to have them believe in us.”

In Buenos Aires, if the priests found themselves in difficult circumstances, he would help them address their situation, even if it meant their deciding to leave the priesthood. What he absolutely wouldn’t tolerate, however, was priests’ living incoherent lives, because he knew how much that harms and scandalizes God’s people (blogger's note: JPII put a moratorium on men leaving the priesthood, or being laicized, expecting them to work out their double lives).

...Like the Good Shepherd, the priest must seek to be the servant, not the lord, of the rest. This is the exact opposite of the haughty clericalism that in many places has hurt many and wounded the Church.

This is very profound, coming from Father Landry, a noted grad of North American College in Rome. I guess he knows a few of his classmates well when he writes "haughty clericalism." He certainly isn't talking of the Spencer Tracy-era priests he never encountered. Believe me. For the younger ordinands who view themselves as only about sharing in divinity, as entitled to deference and comfort, this will be a shock. It WILL drive a good many of them out of the priesthood. Good riddance.

The substance of the Church is true and real. The culture of the Church can change, and change it will. These changes won't be to everyone's liking, perhaps not always to mine. But here we have a shepherd-leader who is a Vatican outsider, who will reform the curia and the hierarchy. I believe the changes are coming, and they're coming fast!

It seems that, all at once, the old order that dominated the last quarter of the 20th century, and ushered in the 2000s, has dissolved. Not only am I speaking of a papacy bent on political power (instead of tending to internal Church matters), but also a Republican Party in the U.S. bent on state, military, and corporate power.

On a man being a "stable, good provider"

This is often an opening in any discussion about marriage with the supposedly tradition-minded today. The Art of Manliness site calls it one of the "five switches" of manhood.

We’ve all heard this phrase before; it remains common even in our modern society. When someone says that a man should be a good provider, what they invariably mean is that he should have a good job that earns a steady income, one which enables him to provide food, shelter, and the nice things in life to his family.

But interestingly:

This definition of being a provider is well-ingrained in our society and in the male psyche. In fact, when men lose a job, and thus their identity as a provider, they tend to get very anxious and depressed...Last time, we mentioned the fact that in very primitive societies, men and women provided about equal resources to their tribes; women gathered nuts and seeds, and men hunted big game. In fact, for much of human history, men and women contributed fairly equally to the family economy. The idea of the stay-at-home wife who lounged around the house while her husband toiled all day outside the home is a relatively modern conception of family life. It wasn’t until the 19th century that we saw this idea take hold in the West and even then, the working husband and stay-at-home wife dynamic was typically only available to the wealthy and middle-class. In most families, both men and women had to work in some capacity in order to keep the family afloat financially.

Of course, it all really changed mid-20th century, following the War. America had fermented itself as a superpower, and prosperity was not out of reach for anyone able-bodied and un-feeble-minded.

This month, I've redebuted with a lead feature in New Oxford Review, a Catholic monthly (or at least for 10 months, including two combined issues.) In it, I give much further elaboration on the above-mentioned point, pairing it against the modern realities of female competitiveness.

I couldn't say it in the article, but my true sentiment is this: when a younger, millennial generation gal wants a "good provider," she may as well say, "I'm a little girl, pamper me." She wants a SOLE provider to take care of her like daddy did, including listening to her pouting and tantrums. And guess what? Men -- those who stay planted in front of the latest version of X-box, with bong in hand -- aren't striking out. No, they're on strike. Only some of the wimpiest, most Moma-devoted (and I don't mean the Blessed Virgin) males seek out and put up with such nonsense.

Today's Americana mating scene works this way: she screws around with a bunch of guys (a mixture of 'dates' and boyfriends), then will fault men collectively for the "fallout" that comes with promiscuity (especially for women, many would say). Then when it's nearing time to settle down (give or take, age 30), she'll sort through the more steady, serious men like she has a million and one options to her name. He'd better have a 'steady' job and income, one in excess of hers, yet a guy who at least vaguely excites her much the way her former flames did.

The strike continues.

Monsignor John Allard's Stunning Admission

Late yesterday (Feb. 25), news broke of yet another Catholic priest in the Diocese of Providence (R.I.) being named as an accused sex abuser of minors. This is the second priest removed in as many months in Rhode Island.

Yet, a couple of things make this matter even more stunning. Monsignor John Allard was a high-ranking clergyman in Rhode Island, named a monsignor (or "chaplain to His Holiness") almost two decades ago. He spearheaded many youth outreach efforts in the state as well, settling in as the de facto spiritual figurehead in Woonsocket, a historic haven of French-Canadian Catholicism.

What else? He admitted his guilt.

For almost a decade, George Weigel, most recently the author of Evangelical Catholicism, declared that the Church in the U.S. "has cleaned house." True, the rate of allegations being discovered or newly made has dropped hugely in recent years. But consider also how the allegations that were revealed a decade ago against scores of priests had collected after many decades of Bishops sitting atop them and doing nothing.

These new allegations against two of R.I.'s local clergy each date back 25 and 30 years. And that's exactly the point: they're NOT new. Therefore, the Bishops haven't cleaned house yet.

These incidents are quite a lot for some people around this state to bite off all at once. I'm especially referring to the laypeople who looked up to Monsignor Allard as their point of contact to the divine. Usually, parishioners are stunned, while many get combatively defensive when their pastor is accused. It's as though claims against their spiritual sage is a direct assault on their own personal moral integrity, as now some are feeling the shame of looking up to such filth as a moral compass.

The easiest things to do are deny or minimize the situation. As outrageous as it is, a good number of Allard parishioners (present and former) have taken to the internet to do so. Even when he ADMITTED IT!

In general, the following are some of the bromides that "faithful Catholics" use when their favorite priest gets accused. These are NOT specific to the Allard matter itself, and are hypothetical:

"These allegations are old. It happened so long ago. Why does it matter now, since then he's done so much good."

Your grandmother's funeral that he presided over so graciously was probably so long ago, too. The infant baptisms and weddings he performed were ages ago. Suffering from sex abuse -- especially by a PRIEST -- has no comparison to other afflictions in life. So many of today's Catholics have a huge victim mentality as it is, seeing themselve as "persecuted," while having been mainstreamed into society for generations.

"You can't just presume he's guilty like that!"

Nor can you presume that, just because he's your family favorite, the accusers are liars. The record reflects a high rate of accused being found guilty, or admitting to some degree of guilt at some later point.

"Most priests are INNOCENT. This kind of publicity over one accusation makes them all look bad."

Of course most priests are not so depraved. But just consider how much the accused have moved around over the years. How many rectories they've lived in, and how many other priests they've lived with. These "innocent" priests want to save face, for themselves and the Church, and say and do very little about it. In certain respects, they are just as guilty. How many American Catholic priests have vigorously spoken out against this? Sure, some would be censured, but it's easy enough for a bishop-enabler to do so to one priest detractor, because so few others band together with him to expose this crap.

"You heathens are denigrating Christ's One, True Church! You are against us no matter what because of your secularism.

Their secularism wouldn't be so strident were it not for your hypocrisy. Another way you put it is to accuse your detractors of "casting the first stone." Christ decreed that millstones be wrapped around the necks of these perverts, as they're tossed into the ocean. How's that for throwing stones? Don't throw them, WRAP them! Otherwise, it's the Catholic Church and their pharasiac proctors who cast the initial stones, simply by always assuming the moral high ground by virtue of their Church affiliation alone. How can these Catholics EVER preach sexual morality to ANYONE, while simultaneously waving their fists in the air in favor of the lowest of deviants?

"You're not a true Catholic!"

Right now, I'd be tempted to wear that as a badge of honor.

"You know, some of us are very influential. We own businesses, hold executive positions, are fairly successful dentists, lawyers, and so on. When you accuse the priest of our lovely, prominent parish which we fund, we'll find ways to shut you up!"

Go right ahead. Just ask the attorneys among you about "anti-S.L.A.P.P." statutes, and how they can be used against you in court. That, and your businesses and lines of work can be named publicly on blogs like this one (along with your public priest deviant defences). These livlihoods will suffer for sure. No matter how "aggressive" an attorney you find yourselves, any defamation action on your behalf will fail.

"You have NO Right to say ANY of what you're saying about priests and the Church!!!"

If that's so, then you have no right to even practice your faith. You see, it's all covered under the First Amendment. Both freedom of religion (preventing government intrusion upon it) AND free speech (preventing established Church suppression of it) MUST coexist. There's simply no way to argue against Obama's impositions on the Catholic Church through the Affordable Care Act, citing Freedom of Religion, then turn around and harange people over exercising speech rights. Maybe this is why the liberals have no problem targeting Catholic institutions in particular.


As far as Allard, something remarkable happened. HE ADMITTED IT. This sets an enormous precedent in the local church. Further clerics who are accused are now under pressure to do the same, when in fact guilty. Yet, there are still the most brilliant among the holy pew rollers who flout the truth and post snide commentaries as this one:

As Jesus himself said: "Let the one without sin throw the first stone." We are "forbidden to judge" one another. I believe this is an opportunity for all of us to look within ourselves and reflect on our own lives, what we have done, what we have failed to do, our sinful thoughts and hurtful words...none of us are without fault even our leaders...This priest is stellar and has inspired the lives of many, I do not believe and will not believe that he would ever take advantage of any child. There is more to this and Satan himself is at the head of this. If this takes you away from your faith, then you never had faith at all."

Allard was known to be kind of liberal in clerical circles, so not judging was likely his teaching, never the Church's. Satan is at the head of this, alright. Drawing so many out of the Church, leaving so many like this behind in the pews to pose as "faithful." Yes, there is more: read the news release from the Bishop, the investigation into Allard is ongoing.

So stay tuned.