SOLD OUT!

Less than a week after a friend of mine forwarded me the announcement of Fr. Charles Curran's forthcoming appearance in Kansas City, I hear again from him and learn that the venue is full, and they're taking no more reservations for the speech by the dissident priest and discredited theologian on March 24. Too bad, so sad. I'm just glad my correspondent got a seat reserved before registrations closed. We'll wait to hear his report in a few weeks.

In the meantime, wouldn't it be cool to have a lecture by a real Catholic theologian at the same time, and very near the same place? Anyone want to set that up? Anyone?

Kansas City's Ecclesiastical Ruins.

The air cleared this afternoon a little bit, and the leaves aren't on the trees yet. So one can see a fair bit out my office window. I pulled my binoculars out of my drawer today, and looked out. And I counted. St. Vincent's. Blessed Sacrament. Holy Name. Annunciation. St. Michael. Holy Trinity. St. John the Baptist. St. Stanislas. Those are just the seven parish churches I can see that have been shuttered by the Diocese in the last few years. But for topography, and for demolition by-the-bye, I'd be able to see at least seven more.

No doubt, there are people working in Boston and New York and St. Louis office buildings who can see more recent ruins outside their windows.

But their more recent experience doesn't do much to lessen the shame of ours.

My last trip to that barbershop.

I asked Mrs. Curmudgeon what she thought, and she thought I was way past due. She reminded me that she had told me I was way past due last Saturday, too.

So I got in the car and drove over the river to get my hair cut in a quaint little working class barbershop. No real man really wants to go to some chain for a haircut...you know where the guy cutting your hair is a little too...stylish...and a little too friendly. No man wants to schedule weeks ahead of time and pay $40 for a foo-foo haircut where the whole place is a little too...stylish...either.

So I went to an old fashioned barbershop. I'd been there a couple of years before, and I figured it would be easier to get in and out of there than it would be to drive over to Kansas, and I had another stop north of the river anyways.

But apparently, the old guy in the white smock from the Norman Rockwell painting had since sold out to a couple of women at that barber shop I chose.

Well...ok. The line didn't look too long. And at least the TV wasn't blaring, and there wasn't an issue of Penthouse under the TV (like I noticed on my last trip to the quaint downtown barbershop I frequented a few times, years ago). It's not quite the same, having one's hair cut by a woman who wasn't wearing a white smock and didn't step out of a Norman Rockwell painting, but we must have some commerce in the world as it is...maybe.

Unfortunately, though, I wished the TV had been blaring. The two barber women were talking about their planned Mediterranian cruise, which was a week away. I wondered how they afforded such a vacation, at 12 bucks a head, because I certainly couldn't afford it. But that was none of my business.

And then the topic turned to a particular nude beach on the French Riviera. Apparently, in a whole shop of working-class folks, everyone had heard of this beach but me, and the conversation got lively--not disgustingly prurient, but lively. I wondered if I should walk out, but it was my turn in the chair, and so I hopped up, thinking surely they'd stop.

But they didn't. And I heard the woman cutting my hair tell the other woman that she had told her 16 year old daughter to "get over it and quit being so modest."

Wow.

Maybe a few years ago when I watched more television I wouldn't have been so surprised to hear such a thing come out of a mother's mouth. But believe me, I was surprised.

I did let her finish my head (where else on earth could I have gone to have it finished?) paid with a small, undeserved tip, and got the heck out of there without words, only a slight nod and an insincere smile. I probably should have said something, but I was at a loss. What does one say to such a mother?

I suppose an experience like this is good once in a while, particularly for the head of a family, so long as youngsters aren't in tow. Being in a group of people totally unlike you, socially and religiously, without the boundaries one has in a workplace (at least in my workplace) that keeps things from getting outright raunchy....being in a place like that serves as a bit of a reality check from time to time.

We forget, when we spend our social time with like-minded folks, and when our co-workers tend to practice at least a modicum of discretion, what inroads the Enemy has made, and why it's so important to protect our families from the world out there.

In the meantime, does anybody know of a Catholic barbershop around town?

Thanks.

Thank you, whoever you are. You know why. I'm grateful and I look forward to the read.

--Curmudgeon.

Reminiscences

Permit be to revisit a couple of daydreams.

This was a fun post. Someday maybe I'll follow up with a chapter 2:

http://curmudgeonkc.blogspot.com/2006/07/massachusetts-interdict.html

I rather enjoyed this one, too:

http://curmudgeonkc.blogspot.com/2006/04/not-me.html

Thursday Musings

1. What on earth happened to my Blogroll? It was out of date before. Now it's just flat gone. Must have happened when I converted my template to the newfangled Google one. Hmm. Didn't notice until I went to clean out my Evil Trad reference. Maybe I'll just steal Wolfie's blogroll.

2. Standing in line this morning, to get some protein in my after yesterday's fast and abstinence, I had a good look at Ronald McDonald (yes, I know, but it was the most acceptable option where I was. The mom-n-pop place nearby has closed, and the other quick place has too much foo). Anyways, back to Ronald...has he always been so effeminate? I never noticed when I was a kid.

3. Mark your calendars! That paragon of Catholic theology, Fr. Charles Curran, will be speaking for the "Topics to Go" leftish crowd on "Loyal Dissent" at 9:30am on Saturday, March 24, at All Souls Unitarian Universalist "Church," in the shadow of Jim Stowers' American Century towers. Anyways, will Charlie wear his clerics? Well, probably. Media might be there, ya know. I'm sure he still has a suit in his closet, and by now he's taken a lesson from Richard McBrien and Andy Greeley to always have a picture of you in your clerics above some heretical caption. Better to undermine the church with, my dear.

4. Was Ronald McDonald always so effeminate? I never noticed when I was a kid.

5. Finally, I'm Evil no more. Yesterday, I quit. After some time of chafing under certain directives imposed by the Evil Overlord, who has transformed the League of Evil Traditionalists from a fun ring of good natured (mostly) traddies, both indulters and "irregulars," into a boring ring where "docility" is de jure, I'd had enough. The League of Docile Traditionalists? Naw, I'll pass. You'll notice I'm no longer sporting the "Evil Trad" button. I still greatly admire Hilary and certain others in the Ring, (including, but not limited to, Mary and the newest member, Gillibrand) though.

Forget about the SSPX

Okay, over at Kansas City Catholic, he had over 50 posts on the SSPX situation (one of which was mine). I'll spare you my usual rant about the arrogance and uncharitableness of the typical SSPX critic, and the harm that such a person does...for now. Like it or not, whether you view them as damned schismatics or noble warriors for the faith, they're not coming into a regular situation until they see evidence that there's a new wind blowing in Rome. Some folks don't think they'll ever come back.

So, let's just all forget about them for a couple of years. After all, they've been around for over 30 years, and during most of that time, they've been largely ignored. Let's all go back to ignoring them, and in the meantime....

In two days, I'm told by the latest internet buzz, the Holy Father will be finally acknowledging the right of every priest to say the old Rite (I'm sure it's true....this time). He ought to simply follow it up by freeing not just the Mass, but also the faithful who are attached to it.

Let's give the FSSP, and the other canonically regular traditionalists what the SSPX wants. Eh? Your Holiness? Nevermind Fellay and Williamson. Call Fr. Berg in. Consecrate him a Bishop...yourself...in the ancient rite...right there before the tomb of St. Peter. Dismiss the Ecclesia Dei Commission altogether and set up a new office to moderate traddie Catholic concerns. Send Msgr. Perl to work as a teller at the Vatican Bank, and bring in somebody from OUR side. Maybe Msgr. Schmitz? Send Cardinal Ricard back to drink his Bordeaux, and appoint in Bp. Bruskewitz and Abp. Burke (and their foreign equivalents, if any) to serve on the new commission alongside Bp. Berg. Give the FSSP the authority to operate worldwide in their own chapels, and serve their own faithful, without the intermeddling, the taxing, and the politicking of the modernist chanceries. Make the ICRSS an institute of pontifical right and do the same thing for them. Consecrate Msgr. Wach, too.

And then just ignore the Society of St. Pius X for a couple of years.

And then, sometime in 2010 or 2011, when you can point to the FSSP, the ICRSS, and the many smaller institutes that have sprung up to operate under the pre-1965 regime, and you can demonstrate that Rome has lived up to its promises....the promises (by the way) your predecessor apparently made in 1988 to the founders of the FSSP (but didn't follow through on), and the promises you seemed to make to the Institute of the Good Shepherd just recently (but your own Ecclesia Dei Cardinal, Ricard, has already undercut ), maybe then you can call Fellay into your office, and say "Hey, look at this, Bernard. We're doing exactly as we promised. Look at Southern California. There are ten apostolates in Orange and LA, and I told Tod Brown and Roger Mahony to pound sand. Look at the Diocese of Linz. Traditionalists are the only ones left. Look at how Campos is spreading throughout Latin America. Look all over the place. It's what you've been asking for all these years. Now either be part of this or go into formal schism."

And then, having manifested your good faith, and having the traditionalist movement in full blossom....then the choice will be clear to them, and you'll be able to separate the faithful Catholics who (I believe) make up the bulk of the SSPX and their adherents from those who are truly outside the Church.

Or is such a suggestion somehow ridiculous?

British media faux pas; a bad report on the culture of death

One of my physician friends sent this over....

MUM GIVES BIRTH ..AFTER ABORTION
By Martyn Halle
EXTRA checks have been introduced at a hospital after a woman gave birth to a healthy baby - even though she'd had an abortion. Managers at Derby City General Hospital said additional measures have been implemented to prevent a repeat incident.

It seems that the British press isn't quite so savvy as ours. You'd never have the Wichita Eagle Beacon reporting on something so hideous as the birth of a child happening at Tiller's chop-shop on Kellogg, although one surmises that such a thing happens on a regular basis there, but is quickly . . . . corrected. My physician friend notes the quote at the end:

The local NHS trust carried out 1,301 abortions last year. A hospital spokesman said: "Although this happens rarely, a continuing pregnancy is a risk of this procedure. We take great care to minimise this."

I'm sure they do.

I have a disgruntled fan!

Well, most of my old fans (maybe four out of the five of them) were disgruntled about one thing or another. Why else would they have followed my 15-month, 500-page saga of hair-tearing, windmill-tilting, and foaming at the mouth?

But there's one who's disgruntled about me....the Slackjawed Trad.

I kinda like him, so far.

More on the Society of St. Pius X

Interesting, intelligent discussion re obedience and the traditional orders--with local implications--over at Kansas City Catholic. (No, I wasn't just surfing the net; Wolftracker told me about it personally).

I got my twocents in...perhaps late...but I got 'em in.

Oh, how I miss blogging!

Laid to rest...

Today the Curmudgeons attended the solemn Requiem and burial for a longtime acquaintance, and a decorated soldier in last fall's Missouri clone wars. Wolftracker marked his passing earlier this week.

While the "official" anti-cloning organizations sat back last fall, biting nails over whether or not the hypothetical semi-churched soccer mom in St. Charles or Lee's Summit would be turned off by the plain and simple truth, this guy--despite the hole in his head--actually went out and did something about it. And he used his edgy personality and marketing background to great effect. He did the hard part; we just passed the hat to get stuff printed and the folks at Missouri Right to Life found the money to run the billboards. Our friend was one important factor in closing the gap, so that Jim Stowers, who spent $30 million, almost lost his bid for the state of Missouri on November 7.

Looking through some of his non-cloning work today at the luncheon and visiting with his widow (may God bless her), I decided, with her consent, to rerun some of his work on that project: bumper stickers, billboard designs, and even his cloning party-crashing report. Enjoy, and take heart that, even though we won't have his talents in the next battle against the culture of death, we will, God willing, benefit from his intercession.

May almighty God have mercy on him, and may he rest in peace. Amen

Bumperstickers & Billboards:

















And the cloning party crasher's report:

Curmudgeon,

Phew!

I just returned from Satan's workshop, where about 30 of the deceived, the ignorant, and the willfully malicious were hangin' with Stower's handsome, eloquent puppet. Sorry I didn't catch his name.

They marked me right at the door – guy wearing church clothing, carrying a sheaf of loose papers. NOBODY carries papers in deepest, darkest Cass Co. unless they're a lawyer (there are no attorneys in Cass Co, just lawyers) or a process server. Or otherwise out to make trouble, which I was. Once I got into the gym, where the presentation was already in progress, I was flanked by the three women who were working the front door. (I wasn't late.) I thought that was weird – why did all three of them search me out and surround me?

I let the Mouth of Stowers give his presentation, which was naught but slickly packaged lies, one tumbling out after the other. The presentation was extremely thin on scientific facts, extremely thick on emotional, huggy-bunny "how can we let those mean, mean lawmakers in Jeff City ruin our precious chances for a perfect life, free from all pain and suffering, followed by eternal torment in Hell?"

There was ONE slide on the science behind Clone-and-Kill, and a great, steaming pile of unscientific crap – but it was GOOD unscientific crap. Here are the main points:

• It's NOT cloning. No, no, NO! Just what it is remains undefined, but it's definitely NOT cloning. Even though the Mouth of Stowers said that the process produced an exact genetic copy of the donor. Naw, THAT'S not cloning. It's......something else.
• The eggs required will come from the patient's dear old Mom, and his sisters, and his aunts, and his daughters, and great-grand-daughters, and may Almighty God help those poor guys whose womenfolk aren't willing to have their ovum hormonically squeezed out of them. The Mouth of Stowers (MOS) made it seem that all it would take was ONE egg, and, Voila! there would be a cure, all shiny and new and just laying there on the table! Cool!
• Amendment 2 is all but required for the continued economic growth of Missouri, kinda like the Royals. Or the downtown stadium. Without it, Stowers might just take his ball and go home! And we all know what that would do to the economy! I mean, before Stowers built Mordor on the Plaza, the economy of the State was just, I don't know, not good!
• Just look at all these doctors, and patient advocacy groups, who are behind this wholesale slaughter of human life! There are LOTS of them. So Amendment 2 MUST be good, right?
• It's not about human life, or abortion, or anything like that! (Chuckle, chuckle.) If anybody tries to tell you it is, just ignore them. They're just silly, silly. Neanderthals, really, or Ostrogoths, Pay no attention to them! (Chuckle, chuckle.) We are sophisticated, and scientific, and so modern!
• Religious people are against us. But look! We have Jack Danforth! He's an Ordained Episcopal Minister, and if he thinks it's OK, it's OK!
• Are there cures now? No. But look-we've only been killing human embryos since 1998 or so! We haven't had the time to really get funky. We need that TIME, which the evil Matt Bartle tried to take from us. Bad Bartle! But if you vote yea, everything will be fine. So trust us - there will be cures SOMEDAY, we promise. Really.
• There are 400,000 frozen embryos out there (really, trust us, there are) that the evil George Bush won't let us have! If we could just have this frosty population of a medium-sized city, which we could then kill, my, wouldn't all our lives be rosy!

Then it was Q & A time, which I blew big time. MOS asked for questions, and I sat on my tongue, waiting to see if there were "friendlies" in the crowd. There weren't. It was devolving rapidly into a Stowers love fest, which I decided to break up the way I know best. Tactlessly.

I told the MOS that "you don't 'grow' stem cells, sir, as you have erroneously claimed over and over again in your presentation. You grow a human baby, which you then kill...."

The room erupted, predictably, in jeers and catcalls. "It's not a baby, it's a ball of cells!" And etcetera. The usual pro-abort "logic". The woman behind me began a hyperintellectual litany of "Do you eat eggs? Do you eat eggs? Is it a chicken, or an egg? It's an unfertilized ball of cells!" Over, and over, and over.

The guy next to her told me he had three genetic diseases, and he needed a new liver. "And I don't care how many stems cells die before I get it!" he said. Oh, you're gonna get it, alright, I thought to myself. A group of women behind those two ethicists asked me, "When this amendment passes, and your children get a disease, what are you gonna tell them?" I pointed to Mr Disease Trifecta sitting behind me, and I said, "I hope that, unlike this gentleman, that they will be unwilling to take human lives to heal themselves."

Then the room just exploded with inane pro-choice cliches. The three chicks who shadowed me got up, and one of them said, "If anyone would like a more productive line of questions, MOS is going to step over here." My cue to step over there, and out the door, being followed by one of my Democratic Escorts.

I bought a bottle of wine on the way home.

Until next time....

Since we received the story above back in October, Mrs. Curmudgeon hasn't been able to pass the Stowers Institute without chuckling....Mordor on the Plaza.

Our fallen comrade also did s few great handouts and ads for the Diocese of Kansas City St. Joseph, but I don't have these in a format I can post on blogger.

Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

Me and Guy Crouchback

In my post-blogging life, I've been doing a lot of things. Lots of reading and writing. Most of the reading has been tedious, and most of the writing has been stuff that I pray will be put in a file drawer and never looked at again. I've had a fair bit of housework, too, which has kept me from doing too much reading for pleasure.

One thing I did pick up, though, was Evelyn Waugh's (perhaps most underrated) novels, Men at Arms, Officers and Gentlemen, and The End of the Battle, known as the Sword of Honour trilogy. Great read, I tell you. Great read.

If you haven't read Waugh, don't start with Brideshead Revisited. Save that one for later; the more you know Waugh, the more you'll appreciate Brideshead. My suggestion is that you start where Waugh started, Decline and Fall. A hilarious book, wherein you see Waugh's wit and style first emerge. Once you've done Decline and Fall, then you can move into the headier books. I'd read a couple more, though, before I hit Sword of Honour or Brideshead. Save A Handful of Dust and The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold until after Sword of Honour or Brideshead. They're downers. I would recommend that you also save Helena for later, because while it's certainly not a downer, I think you have to be familiar with Waugh to appreciate the way he applies the early stamp of 20th century British society to the late Roman Empire. Next comes Waugh's non-fiction. Perhaps because of my lack of enthusiasm for modern-day Jesuits, I haven't read Campion (no, I've got nothing against the old Jesuits). However, a friend just read it and it was highly recommended.

--Curmudgeon

PS, "But Curmudgeon, it's been two months! Why won't you complain for us?" Ok, in my stealing time here and there to read, I picked up a belated Christmas gift, Frank Sheed's Theology and Sanity. Although I'm just a little ways into it, I thought, "Hey,. I wonder what they're up to at Frank's publishing house, Sheed & Ward, these days?

So I looked 'em up. And after I read the "About Us" page, I didn't go any further:

A Brief History of Sheed & Ward Book Publishing

Founded in 1926 by Australian lawyer Francis Joseph Sheed and his British wife Maisie Ward, Sheed & Ward is one of the most eminent Catholic publishing houses in the world today. In its now 77-year old history, Sheed & Ward have published some of the most prominent names in Catholic thought, including Hans Kung, John Courtney Murray, Edward Schillebeeckx, Dororthy Day, Clare Boothe Luce, Jacques Maritain, Francois Mauriac, G.K. Chesterton, and Paul Claudel. In recent years, Sheed & Ward have published some of the most important contemporary Catholic and Christian writers from both North America and Europe, including Daniel Berrigan,
Andrew Greeley, Rowan Williams, Joan Chittister, Michael Walsh, and Daniel Harrington.

Currently under the ownership of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., Sheed & Ward are continuing its founders' original vision
and expanding it to meet the challenges of the publishing world of the 21st century. Drawing both from the storied tradition begun by Frank Sheed and Maisie Ward in 1926 and innovative strategies to bring the company forward, the young, dynamic Sheed & Ward team are committed to being the preeminent publishers of Catholic writing in the English-speaking world.

If only they published Rembert Weakland and Richard O'Brien, they'd have it made, eh?

Approaching 60 days....

...and I'm still not blogging. And Oh, but I want to!

What I really don't get though is that I still get 30-60 hits a day, down from 150 or so when I was really trying. So it goes.

OK, I'm going to try this "quitting blogging" thing again...

At the chiding of a spouse and a clerical friend, I'm going to try, once again, to give up blogging. So much to say, but there will always be stuff to say.

Maybe I'll take up smoking instead.

Wish me luck.

Where's the pro-death interfaith service this year?

You may recall that last time Kathleen Sebelius was inaugurated, she had her interfaith hootenany at Assumption church, across the street from the Statehouse. Sensible people and faithful Catholics went ballistic--the pastor at Assumption (the parish of my father's childhood, BTW) was letting a pro-death pol celebrate her Tiller-funded victory in a Catholic church.

So they went to the chancery with their concerns, and Archbishop Kelleher wrung his hands a little in the press, but he refused to use his authority (your staff has a hook on the end for a reason, your Grace), and he let the sacrilegious show go on.

Well, it's time once again for Sebelius to go through her celebration of herself, and I just got an email from a concerned Knights of Columbus member asking us to contact the chancery and ask Archbishop Naumann to make sure it doesn't happen again. Naumann seems to be of stronger mettle than Kelleher, based on his recent columns dealing with Sebelius and her worldview, so we hope this won't be an issue, and we hope that Sebelius's enablers will not even attempt to defile a Catholic church again, but it wouldn't hurt if you contacted the chancery and let him know you're concerned, now would it?

abnoffice@archkck.org
12615 Parallel Parkway
Kansas City, KS 66109
Phone: (913) 721-1570
FAX: (913) 721-1577

And if you decide to call, do be nice to Mrs. Klingele. She is NOT one of the rats of which I spoke earlier.

Another post from retirement...

As I sit here in the virtual retirement community, my thoughts go back the heady days of blogging, and I hop online to page through the website of that repulsive little rag I love to hate, the Kansas City Star. Whenever I didn't have anything to say, I could go to www.kansascity.com and get fuel for an instant rant.

What's been in it lately?

On Thursday, a report on the chancery rats' plan* to put the church out of business in Wyandotte County: lull the parishioners to sleep with administrative consolidations, quietly transfer money from the solvent parishes to the ones that are broke, and keep the buildings open for a year or two, so that no one's looking when they start selling off property. Folks at Holy Family, and St. Cyril's, and Our Lady & St. Rose, don't think for a moment you've dodged the bullet! Look at what Meitler did in St. Louis. It's still coming....

And today, the Saturday Faith spread....always a good laugh (or it would be if you didn't cry out for the lost souls who put it together). Bill Tammeus thinks it would be a good idea if that evangelical preacher Ted Haggard would embrace his sin, rather than repent of it. Gotta love this line:

If people assume their sexual orientation is sinful, there’s no way they can love their truest selves. That means a balanced, loving, authentic, responsible life of service to others is impossible.

See it's sexual "orientation," what we used to quaintly call "temptation," that evil, orthodox Christians condemn, it's not the act of will--i.e., actually engaging in buggery. Because, of course, we don't have free will. We aren't creatures of reason (except for the folks running the Stowers Institute. They are.). We're all beasts, subject to our passions, etc, etc., etc.

Now I remember why the Curmudgeons don't take the Star.

--Mudgie

*I'm not including the Archbishop among the rats, but I do wonder why he won't get a cat, or at least set some traps. His brother priest from St. Louis, now his episcopal neighbor, has made good use of his, but could probably spare a few.

Bruskewitz at it again

Haven't had much commentary on strictly Church stuff lately, what with having given up blogging and with my previous focus on the fight against the Missouri cloning amendment. But yesterday in the car, I heard an audio replay of EWTN's The World Over, in which Raymond Arroyo went to far less effort to conceal his disdain for most of what the USCCB is up to than he has in previous years.

And apparently, many of the Bishops put forth even less effort than Mr. Arroyo. Arroyo had a number of Bishops commenting on various things---the disconnect between "official priorities" and staffing; the line items in the USCCB budget; the method by which business is conducted).

Among the snips he played for us was one from Lincoln Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz. The impeturbable ordinary of the Cornhuskers rose during discussion of some-or-another document (I think it was The Spiritual Value of Fibre: a Pastoral Response to the USDA's Proposed Revisions to the Food Pyramid), and quoted Cardinal Ratzinger on the pointlessness of the national bishops' conferences. I checked yesterday and today to see if the audio of the program was available at EWTN.com, but it's not. When it is, if I'm around, I'll find it, link to it, and tell you at what point in the clip you'll hear it.

But it was pure Bruskewitz: he quoted Ratzinger (whatever happened to the Cardinal anyways?) stating that the national conferences had no teaching authority and no ecclesial role to play. Bruskewitz just wanted everyone in the room to keep that in mind, he said, as they considered the document. To that, Bill the Bankrupt Bishop Skylstad, at the podium, meekly asserted that the statemnts he quoted were 20 years old, and that of course Skylstad saw great value in the Bishops' conferences and they've done great things (like give him an excuse to leave his mess in Spokane behind?).

I think Dusty posted on this, too. One or the other of us will probably have a link up when the program is archived online.

Don't spoil this...

Another thing I've had time to do since I gave up blogging is reading the opinion pages.

And here's one I read this morning. Whaever you do, DON'T spoil the column by scrolling to the bottom to see who the author is until you've finished reading (no, it's not "Just Tom" Gumbleton, but it could be).

USCCB Budget

Yes, I'm no longer blogging, but...

For those of you keeping score, the budget for the Vatican is reported to be about $250 million. That's about what it costs, say scattered reports, to run an entire government, and conduct the business of the Church in Rome (including dry cleaning all those white cassocks and preserving all those artifacts and historic buildings).

By contrast, the USCCB has a budget of $139 million.

OK, so the USCCB has no diplomatic missions to fund. It has no army to support. No streets to sweep. No centuries-old buildings to maintain. No artwork. No tourists to its modern office building. No Piero Marini productions to stage. No need for somebody to vacuum up dustbunnies in the Paul VI audience hall. And most significantly, it has virtually no canonical authority. It does nothing but issue statements that make Teddy Kennedy proud. And somehow, the USCCB spends more than half of what the Vatican spends each year.

And somehow, none of us can be surprised.

If you live in a diocese where your Bishop isn't a loonie, are you asking your Bishop what's going on back there?

--Curmudgeon

Hat tip to somebody. I saw this a while back somewhere, and meant to post on it before I gave up blogging. As it was, I had to go rediscover the data, but you get the idea.

Anglican Schmanglican.

Well, at least it's obvious that the British hierarchy isn't particularly interested in winning souls to the one true faith. Twice this summer, in June and in July, before I gave up blogging, I ranted against the (widely expected) non-response of American prelates to the latest Episcopalian outrage. At least the Americans and the Brits are in step:

English Catholic, Anglican bishops in 1st joint meeting

In England as well as here, it's no skin off the real Bishops' back that the heretics are "consecrating" chicks as "bishops" and giving the green flag to infanticide. They must stand shoulder to shoulder with the laymen in the pretty robes who have occupied our Churches for centuries, and see to "our responsibility to work together as partners in mission and service to the people of our country."

Shh! Don't as what mission, or what service.