Ever hear a homily with TMI?

[hedgehog]

Yesterday was dedicated to the Conversion of St. Paul, at least in the Syracuse Diocese. So the homily was about how life comes at you suddenly with changes you never expected. The priest was talking about waking in the middle of the night to see flashing lights all over in front of his house because a car had flipped over. Now, if he had just started there, it would have been a decent homily. However, he began with " I got up the other night at about 2AM to go to the bathroom and ......"

[shrike]

1. You're lucky

The assistant pastor started out with a perfectly nice sermon on conversion. It was postcard Sunday after all, and I feared the worst.

Just when I started to relax, he began to rail about "converting" those who were pro-abortion, comparing abortion to slavery, the holocaust, etc.

THEN he had the ushers hand out postcards, asked everyone to fill them out at that very moment (I refused), and finally asked the ushers to collect the cards and give them to him. Then he stood at his chair and shot murderous glances around the church; the cards collected only made a small stack.

I honestly think many more people would be willing to at least consider taking action if he'd handled it differently. I didn't attend the 9:30 mass, which the pastor celebrated, and in my experience the pastor isn't nearly so judgemental on these matters.

The assistant pastor is fresh out of the seminary, and very conservative in his views. He managed to work an anti-gay marriage mention into every sermon (I'm getting tired of it), and I suspect he voted for McCain. He seemed quite pissed off after the election.

The pastor, OTOH, has been anti-Bush long before being anti-Bush was cool. I always loved how he worked subtle criticisms of the Iraq War and American Imperialism into his homilies. (He's more of a Vatican II guy.) However, this assistant pastor is taking a bigger and bigger role, and it may be time for me to bid this parish goodbye.

[rug]

2. They handed out the postcards in my parish too.

I knew they were going to but didn't know if they had the decency to do it after Mass was over. I got the headsup when I dropped my daughters off for Sunday school. The teachers weren't there and when they did arrive they said the 8:30 Mass ran late because of the postcards. I asked them if they were handed out after the Mass and they said no, right after the homily. So I went home and emailed the pastor that if he was going to hold a political rally in the middle of Mass I wouldn't be at the 11:00 Mass.

So he emailed me back a 27 minute long youtube video of abortion and told me to watch it if I wasn't going to be there. I emailed him back some pictures of mutilated patients after illegal abortions.

I swear, this blind, persistent obtuseness on abortion and what to do is going to turn the Church into a latter day Bund.

[shrike]

3. Here's what frosts me

The church is also anti-death penalty, though most non-Catholics don't know this. (Why would they, we never talk about it.) I live in a death penalty state. Barring any last minute appeals, a convicted murderer will be executed in our state six months from now. Think any of the local Right-to-Life groups will take up his cause? Hell, no. Every priest I know is anti-death penalty, but do any of them (in my diocese) have the stones to say so from the pulpit? HELL, no.

Catholic social teaching clearly states that ALL life is sacred, not just some life. But from the way most Catholics act, some life is more sacred than others.

[rug]

4. There's a lot of inconsistency. Their rationale is capital punishment is not "intrinsicaly" evil.

Although slipping a condom on your pecker is.

The whole approach to moral theology needs to be overhauled.

[47of74]

7. They occasionally make noise about it here in Iowa...

Occasionally. As in maybe a couple times a year. A lot less than abortion or insisting on keeping people on life support.

[47of74]

5. There was one several years ago...

I remember one from several years ago where the priest (an older far right one) said during a homily that actually told a woman's dog that said dog wouldn't be going to heaven because said dog did not have a soul. What a terrible thing to say to the dog, and what a terrible thing to repeat in a homily - especially at a mass where there were children present.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

6. Aristotle and Aquinas would disagree with him, animals have souls, albeit non-rational ones.

But what do they know?