Hiatus until March 7.

So much stuff is going on in the Curmudgeon family's real life (mostly positive stuff, I'm happy to say) that I deem it advisable to take a little hiatus from the blog. Barring any unusual events that would leave me staring at a computer screen with nothing else to do (which I don't anticipate), I won't be posting until sometime after March 7. Also, since I won't be watching the blog for a while and can't jump in to delete comments that "cross the line" (not that there are many comments, and not that many of those comments "cross the line," and not that I really know from day to day where "the line" is) I've turned comment moderation on until then, and I probably won't be checking and clearing those comments until the hiatus ends.

In the last two months, my readership has grown from a dozen or so folks daily to something around fifty each day. I can't believe there are fifty people--or even five people--who care at all about what I have to say, but I do hope that most of you come back for a visit when I return.

Ciao, Tchuss, etc.!

--Curmudgeon.

Towers, towers everywhere

Ain't this cool? Originally, Redemptorist (Our Lady of Perpetual Help) was planned with a 225-foot tower. Redemptorist is pretty nifty as it is, but oh, what might have been!

I guess one could still build it today. After all, the Dallas Cathedral just finally got its tower in the last couple of years. I'll put that on my post-powerball project list.

Wow.

Cardinal . . . yawn.

Well, instead of a pleasant surprise (Chaput), we got a predictable Levada and O'Malley. Hmm. It was bound to be them. After all, once you're grand inquisitor, you can't hardly go on being a mere archbishop. And if you're in Boston, well, even if you're dismantling the Church there...

Still. Disappointing, though unsurprising.

Cardinal Bruskewitz?

Ha, ha, ha.

Lefty Catholic blogger Rocco de Palmo, in his Whispers in the Loggia, has suggested that Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz is being considered for a red hat. Laugh-out-loud-funny. Bishop Bruskewitz, like his predecessor, Bishop Flavin, has done yeoman work in Lincoln and given the country some better-than-average bishops from his surplus supply of priests (not to mention, given the FSSP a central place to call its seminary home), and he's wonderful to have out there at the USCCB meetings, speaking plainly and against conventional practice of Bernardin's Boyz (although to little effect so far).

But I can't get past the fact that Bishop Bruskewitz seems to lack charm and political savvy. He's given to distemper, which while perfectly acceptable in a "progressive," is intolerable in someone who isn't. Some of the statements he's made against the SSPX, publicly and in private correspondence (I don't have them at hand), are a case in point. He could have warned his people away from the Society without viciously attacking them (they weren't, after all very active in Lincoln, because he's been rather accommodating of canonically-regular traditionalists). But attack them he did, describing them as, among other things "non-Catholic," and now there's a chance he could have to backtrack if the prayed-for reconciliation happens.

Yes, these days one needs a little charm to be a good Cardinal, in addition to being orthodox and strong-willed. Olmstead? Yes. Chaput? Oh, Yes. Burke? Perhaps. Bruskewitz? Perhaps two generations ago, perhaps two generations from now. To paraphrase one of my fellow Evil Traditionalists, a good Cardinal has all the qualities of Bishop Bruskewitz, but he also has some qualities that Bishop Bruskewitz doesn't. I can't imagine him building and leading a coalition, wielding international influence in the next Conclave. He should keep up the good work in Lincoln, or go take over and clean up what the bishops haven't squandered and the bankruptcy judges haven't expropriated from Spokane or Portland. I just can't see Bruskewitz as a Cardinal.

Cardinal Pell?

Cardinal Pell may not be perfect, but he's certainly above average as current hierarchs go (admittedly, a low average to be above).

Did you see the interview transcript for Aussie TV on the lefties' complaint to the Vatican about Pell's tyrannical ways, and Pell's reaction?

PAUL COLLINS: Ultimately, freedom of conscience guarantees that a person is the ultimate… that the person's conscience is the ultimate moral norm of their behaviour. Cardinal Pell never stresses that. In fact, at times he has seemingly attacked that and kind of almost wants it abolished from Catholic teaching. And he seems to want to turn Catholic teaching into a kind of a dictatorship whereby we have no moral conscience whatsoever. I mean, that at least is the logical consequence of what he's saying.

JEAN KENNEDY: But the Archbishop of Sydney has dismissed the complaint out of hand, and taken a swipe at his moderate critics.

GEORGE PELL: I think it's a bit of a hoot. I mean, people like Paul Collins, Veronica Brady and Max Charlesworth appealing for protection to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, it's…. the poacher's turned the gamekeeper. I think it's… life is full of surprises, but this is a splendid surprise.

For the full story, as reported by the godless secular Australian media CLICK HERE and CLICK HERE.

Would that someone wearing a red hat in the United States could demonstrate such clarity, certitude, and good humor towards ridiculous dissidents! We've got men in our hierarchy who might be able to do it--Chaput in Denver has illustrated such abilities--but they're not yet in control.

Amici?

I've been saying it since I first saw Cardinal Arinze speaking to Raymond Arroyo on EWTN, shortly after taking over CDW, and long before I knew what a blog was, much less began reading them or started my own. The Cardinal is not a friend of the old Mass, and there's a good question whether he's even really a friend of the Adoremus crowd within the Novus Ordo. Reports on the Cardinal on the steps proposed for the SSPX reconciliation plan, steps that should be taken with or without the SSPX in tow:

The plan met some resistance. Informed sources say that Cardinal Francis Arinze, the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, insisted that the SSPX should be required to acknowledge the validity of the documents of Vatican II and the post-conciliar liturgy. The traditionalist group insists on celebrating the old Latin Mass, but the Nigerian cardinal was cited as saying that SSPX priests should be expected to participate in Novus Ordo as well.

Cardinal Arinze, sources reported, suggested that instead of a sweeping papal directive giving all priests the explicit right to use the Tridentine liturgy, the Holy See should issue a new document asking diocesan bishops to accommodate the desires of Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass. If the reports are accurate, it is not clear how the directive proposed by Cardinal Arinze's proposal would differ from the apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei, issued by Pope John Paul II, calling upon diocesan bishops to offer a "wide and generous application" of the papal indult allowing the use of the Tridentine rite.

The jury's still out as to whether the Holy Father will run the Curia, or, like his predecessor, he'll let the Curia run him. However, his handling of this matter will serve as a verdict, and we'll know what to expect for the rest of his pontificate, not just on issue #1 (the restoration of the old Rite and the weltanschung that goes with it, and the canonical rehabilitiation of those who--whatever their other faults--must be credited for preserving it), but on every other issue of governance as well. Pray, pray for Ratzinger, er, Benedict. Pray for Arinze, too!
*Unless you're a subscriber, the link above may not work; the story is subscribers-only. And if you're not a CWNews subscriber, you ought to be. It's about three bucks a month, and although it's a "Neo-Catholic" outlet run by folks that are indifferent-to-hostile to traditionalists, it's a really good one that deserves support. (Gosh, I seem to be doing a lot of commercials lately. If I had more than a few dozen readers, maybe someone would pay me for those plugs!)

St. John the Baptist Update

I updated my December 31, 2005, post for St. John the Baptist with some additional information and a photograph of the old church, which was closed in 1958 and eventually torn down for a road project. CLICK HERE to go to it.

Update to Assumption / St. Anthony's

I've updated my Assumption /St. Anthony's post from the first of the year. CLICK HERE.

Old St. Patrick's Oratory News

Well, sources tell me that the Old St. Patricks's Oratory community established by Bishop Finn on the Missouri side last year is moving forward with renovation and fundraising planning. A review of their website and reports from various quarters say the newfangled styrofoam sanctuary furnishings and baby-blue carpet are long gone and it's time to do the hard work (i.e., the work that takes a lot of money). I even heard (though it may have just been a joke, as I heard it fourth- or fifth-hand) that somebody was going to use the awful styrofoam canopy/baldachino thingamajig that was over the plastic altar as a hunting blind.

I also noticed that the Oratory changed its bulletin format. The old format was really well-done and must have taken a lot of time to produce. The new format, judging from the online PDF's, is much more practical, and even more suitable for its simplicity, and it obviously has a professional hand in it. It's nicer than just about every other bulletin I've seen around town (although, of course, I don't want to start any bulletin envy here--one can't judge a parish by its bulletin). One problem that hasn't been addressed in the new bulletin is that there still aren't enough typographical errors to give it that homey, cozy, "this is our parish" look. I remember as a kid getting blue-typewritten and mimeographed bulletins, where typographical errors on the stencils, when they were caught at all, were corrected by retyping the correct letter directly over the mistake. That of course, turned the affected word into just a blue blob. Maybe the folks at the Oratory, once they actually get into the Oratory, can do a "nostalgia weekend" once or twice a year where they type and mimeograph the bulletin instead of print it up all pretty.

I haven't talked to anybody who would really know, and it wouldn't be my place to repeat any specifics even if I had, but can't imagine what it will cost them to catch up on 20 or 30 years of neglected maintenance, over and above what it will cost to restore the sanctuary that the previous bishops and cathedral rectors wrecked. If any of my readers has a couple hundred thousand dollars (or even a couple hundred dollars) that he doesn't know what to do with, he ought to send it to those folks at the Oratory.

While we're on the subject, if any of my readers has a couple dollars they don't know what to do with, they ought to send them to me so I can buy a big bag of Guy's Barbeque Potato Chips, a picked hot sausage, and a 16oz can of Coors. For some reason, that combination sounds really appealling right now.

At least Our Lady of Guadalupe?

OK. It's updated. CLICK HERE.

Or Bishop Hogan High School!

You're right. I didn't update Hogan, and don't plan to. I can't do everything, can I?

But you didn't update the Benedictine Convent!

Yes I did. Click here.

And the Loretto Academy?

Yeah, I updated that one, too, but didn't have any pictures to add. CLICK HERE.

What about Annunciation in KCMO ?

Yes, I've updated the original post from Nov 21, 2005, with a copy of scans and some detail from This Far by Faith. Click here.

Update to Holy Trinity

I've updated my November 20, 2005 post on Holy Trinity in Kansas City, Missouri, with an interior shot I found and with some very telling official parish history.

I must issue a warning to anyone who is already disgusted with the modern and post-modern effort to stamp out all beautiful things in the world: the phrase "replaced with a goldish-brown flocked wallpaper" is used (rather blithely) in the official history. If you're not up to reading it, please don't click on the link above.

Consolidation of St. Vincent's posts

I consolidated, without adding any new updates or photos, my three posts on St. Vincents. CLICK HERE. I reviewed the one poor photograph I found in This Far by Faith, and the accompanying article on the parish, and really don't have much to add that wasn't covered by the Regina Coeli newsletter mentioned in my last December 27 update, so I'll simply let the substance stand for now.

Modern Children's Books in the Curmudgeon House

We do have a number of quality children's books around the house—picture books of everything from saints to trucks, story books that are solidly Catholic, that contain decent paraphrases of classic fairy tales and children's stories, a few Little Golden Books and my favorites, Dr. Seuss. But Mrs. Curmudgeon, saint that she is, does take the kids to the public library now and then for a little variety, and with a watchful eye and a decent guide to children's books in hand, she keeps them clear of the Sissy Duckling and the Heather Has Two Mommies tripe.

But even the books Mrs. Curmudgeon does get let them bring home take a little critical work and a little filtering. For instance, Eldest Curmudgeon, approaching her fourth birthday, somehow (without regular access to television) discovered Thomas the Tank Engine, and she can smell those books a mile away. Mostly harmless of course, but when she and Mrs. Curmudgeon were flipping through one about Thomas being afraid of crossing the "Big Big Bridge," she stopped and asked Eldest, "So should you ever be afraid of anything, Eldest?"

To which Eldest replied, "No Mommy."

"Oh yes you should! Sometimes being afraid keeps us safe. Aren't you afraid of going into the street? Should you be afraid of going in the street?"

So much for teaching toddlers and preschoolers courage, eh?

On a couple of occasions, they've brought home books featuring "Lyle the Crocodile," the poor reptile who is loved dearly by his adoptive human family, but feared by the neighbor, and his cat.

"Eldest, why do you think the neighbor doesn't like Lyle?"

"I dunno"

"Do you think it's because the neighbor is just mean?"

"I guess"

"If you saw a crocodile, would you go up and play with him?"

"Yes."

"No, eldest. Crocodiles are large, vicious reptiles with sharp teeth, and they will eat cats, and other animals, and sometimes people, too"

"Oh." And here, a pause by Eldest, "I guess so. But Lyle's a nice crocodile and he wouldn't eat cats or people, would he?"

"Dear, I'd be very upset myself if a crocodile moved in next door and I'd want him out, too, even if everyone said he was a nice crocodile. I'd make them take him to the zoo, too. You never play with crocodiles, or any other strange animals, do you?"

"No Mommy."

Thank God we don't live on the Australian north coast, or I might have already lost a daughter.

Once again, a perfectly rational fear is being worked down. Teaching children that there is nothing to fear, and that the whole world and all persons in it must be approached as tabula rosa is positively wicked. Every marketing guru, every pervert, every PR hack, every political consultant in the world benefits from the destruction of a child's God-given instinct of self-preservation—a child's fear.

There ARE things to fear, and there IS a place for fear in the world, even a place for unreasoned judgments—for prejudice. Richard M. Weaver (a contemporary of Russell Kirk who I like to think of as a Catholic soul who given time, would have cracked through his own southern protestant shell) had a great essay on this topic many decades ago. Life Without Prejudice was published in the first volume of the conservative journal Modern Age in 1957, and again in a book of the same title shortly after his death, and it has been anthologized a number of times, most recently in Ted Smith's collection of Weaver's shorter essays, In Defense of Tradition: Collected Shorter Writings of Richard M Weaver, 1929-1963. What can be said of prejudice can be said of fear as well, and I quote from the key paragraphs of his essay:

Life without prejudice, were it ever to be tried, would soon reveal itself to be a life without principle. For prejudices, as we have seen earlier, are often built-in principles. They are the extract which the mind has made of experience. . . . There is a kind of willful narrowness which should be called presumption and rebuked. But prejudice in the sense I have tried to outline here is often necessary to our personal rectitude, to our loyalty to our whole vision.…

Richard M. Weaver, without using Catholic terminology or appealing to Catholic principles, per se, lays out a Catholic worldview in this and in many other of his essays. In other times and other circumstances, he would have stood beside a man like Michael Davies. He's worth a good read.

But back to my point, as Weaver argued in the essay above with regards to prejudice, and as common sense tells us with regards to fear, these impulses are absolutely necessary. The enemies of the permanent things (to use his friend Russell Kirk's phrase), or the Enemy, is ultimately most effective in breaking the impulses down subtly, in innocuous children's books like Lyle the Crocodile, and slow shifts of everyday patterns, than they are, and he is, with books like Heather Has Two Mommies, coercion by Canadian thought police, and in-your-face protests by pimply, angry Oberlin college girls.

Just as it's been said (by many, including an FSSP chaplain I know) that Frank Sinatra's croon My Way is more satanic, and more dangerous to souls, than any of the crap that gets recorded by Marilyn Manson or other shock-rockers, a steady, uncritical diet of children's books like Lyle can ultimately be more dangerous to a child's soul than blatant modernist propaganda.

Catholic Blog Awards

Well, it's time for a certain, particularly self-certain subset of the Catholic blogosphere--the Mark Shea, Amy Welborn set--to engage in the annual Catholic Blog Awards.

...oh, do I sound bitter? Well, perhaps I am, because this year they eliminated the two categories I would have won in, hands down: Best Blog by an Idiot with a Camera and Mosst Typagraphcal Erors . . .

As it is, nominations were held earlier this month, and only five nominees in each of their categories were included in voting. I was among the top five nominees in NONE of the categories. It may be because nobody reads this blog, or because nobody likes it, but until I get affirmative proof to the contrary, I'll hold to the theory that it's unjust bias against me as a reactionary Catholic by a bunch of smell-the-roses neocons.

Anyways, I'm trying not to hold it against the one fellow member of the League of Evil Traditionalists who did get past the screeners, Der Tommisar--actually, he's the ringleader and a cruel tyrant, but that's another post entirely. I would encourage all of the people who read this (yes, both of you) to go vote for his blog at the blog awards in the three categories he's nominated for: Best Political Blog, Best Presentation, and most Bizarre Blog Post. CLICK HERE to go the the voting website. And if you do go to his website, marvel at his shameless self-promotion.

--Curmudgeon

Update to St. Francis Seraph

I did update my November post on St. Francis Seraph. CLICK HERE. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to locate any interior photographs, so if a kind reader has any, I'd be grateful if he passed them along. I will note, however, that the "new" high altar in the restored sanctuary of St. Anthony includes an icon of St. Francis Seraph, as is fitting for the parish that succeeded it.

I note the similarities between St. Francis and St. Thomas in Kansas City, Kansas. Both parishes lay in river bottoms (St. Francis, the Missouri North Bottoms, St. Thomas the Kaw Bottoms) whose residential neighborhoods were devastated following the 1951 flood, and whose residents never returned in significant numbers.

Update to Holy Name, KCMO

I've updated and consolidated my November 2005 post on Holy Name Church in Kansas City, Missouri, and my addition includes a comparitive rendering of the church exterior as planned/as built, and a picture of the sanctuary from 1972. CLICK HERE to go to the updated post.

Do take a look at it. Holy Name, which I first saw in the distance from the top of a downtown office tower in 2001, is the church which inspired me to this entire project. Its condition, and the condition of the surrounding neighborhood, tell us a lot about the Great Society, the Interstate Highway system, and of course, the Spirit of Vatican II. By their fruits you shall know them.