RIP

"Come to her assistance, all you Saints of God,
Meet her, all you Angels of God,
Receiving her soul, offering it in the sight of the Most High..."

"These are the times that try men's souls"

Goodbye, Terri by William Luse.

Where is her bishop?  Why isn't he the one in this picture instead of a child.

Eight Little Words...  You and me both, Dale.

It's okay in Florida to starve your wife to death.  Just don't try it with your dogs.

Posted 3/4/2005 by Michael Inman | Link |

How's Your Holy Week Going?

This is an excerpt from an email I got a few minutes ago.  The person who sent this goes to Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Bowling Green, KY.  This is only part of it.  I had to leave out the part about what happened at the "communal reconciliation service" to preserve the anonymity of the one sending the letter:

For Passion Sunday, Fr. Jerry decided the Gospel was excessively long.  Rather than have the Mass run long, he handed out a take-home homily with the bulletin.  I can scan it if you're interested.

For Holy Thursday, we had liturgical dancers -- four teenagers and an adult.  Lots of meaningful eyebrow scrunching and exaggerated beckoning to "the table of love."  I'm sad to say there were only a few dropped jaws in the assembly.  I saw one elderly woman leave.  We also had fresh-baked bread for communion.

If they did indeed have "fresh baked bread" for communion, then they had no communion at all.  It was invalid matter, thus no consecration took place.  It was not the Body of Christ, regardless of what the supposed "priest" says.

In the email, right before closing, the sender asked me:

Is it this bad elsewhere?

Posted 3/26/2005 by Michael Inman | Link |

A Public Thanks

Concerning Liturgies at his parish:  "I couldn't even tell what was going on," said a Catholic acquaintance just last weekend in the grocery store.  He holds joint worship services with protestants during Holy Week (not the first time).  He has contradicted Biblical truths during homilies.  To make things worse, he's the director of the Diocesan Office of Worship.

But on the local television news last night, I was proud of him.  The top story at six pm was local religious leaders being questioned about Terri Schiavo.  It was a dismaying parade of protestants looking concerned and carrying on about "quality of life" and all, basically advocating putting her to death.  Then, last on the lineup, was Fr. Larry McBride of St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Paducah who said, "... that there are basic rights that all people have and food and hydration is one of those basic rights and should always be provided, even though it may have to be extraordinarily administered."

Posted 3/26/2005 by Michael Inman | Link |

Oh Discordia!

One of these days the Catholic Diocese of Owensboro "newspaper" is probably going to take me off their mailing list.  Not this month, though, it would seem.  They usually provide for some entertaining (or depressing, actually) reading.  The March issue is particularly rich.

Page 3:  Looks like the cathedral hosted an "interfaith gathering" in January.  Baptists, Methodists, Assembly of God, "non-denominational"... What?  No Hindus?  No Muslims?  I thought you guys were supposed to be inclusive.  Pius XI must be getting pretty scraped up by all that spinning he is surely doing.  Speaking of ecumenism, on page 5 we have "one of a series of five" articles written by the "ecumenical committee" of the "Catholic Conference of KY".  I love this line by Fr. Ronald Ketteler, director of ecumenism for the Diocese of Covington, KY:

In turn, the Holy Father conceives ecumenical dialogue as a multifaceted reality constituted by elements that overlap and interpenetrate the dynamics of dialogue.

Anyway, let's keep going.  Page 17:  An article on Sister Lucia's funeral.  Overall a nice tribute.  Misinformation on the Third Secret, as usual.  No mention of the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Of course, that's because, according to Rome, It's already been done.  And, of course we know it has been done because just look at how Russia has miraculously converted to the Faith.  Just exactly which faith I guess Mary didn't specify.  Don't let the fact that the Catholic Church is the only religion not allowed to openly exist there fool you.  Oh, they're convertin' by the millions!  Why, it's Guadalupe all over again!  And the peace?  Oh the peace!

Page 21:  A list of "new members to enter Church on Holy Saturday", broken down by parish.  I almost feel sorry for them.

Page 28 and 29:  A two-page spread about "Catholic Schools Week" in the diocese.  Some pictures of what may have been a Mass [shudder].  Letters from students.  One says:

It was really amazing to see everyone participating during Mass  It was a special feeling of unity.

Page 30:  Glenmary sisters welcome new candidate.  A picture is worth a thousand words.

Here's a good one on page 40.  An article about the opening of a "Media Center" at the Cathedral.  Guess who sprinkled holy water at the "blessing"?

1. The pastor?
2. The associate pastor?
3. The bishop (it's the Cathedral, after all)?
4. The Ursuline DRE (what a priest she'd make!)?

Page 42:  Some ads.  Retreats at Ursuline Central.  "Come to the Water" and learn from the Samaritan Woman!

"During this weekend, retreatants will be invited to stop awhile beside the well of their lives, enter into adialog with Jesus who is waiting there, and receive from him even more generous gifts of living water..."

...let Jesus lead us to the mountain to pray.  We will spend this week with the deeply human questions that surround life and death, our origin and destiny, pain and suffering, love and freedom, and the relationship between God and us.  The questions are old, and the truths they seek are eternal — but our insights into them are new.  And deep in the mystery of our very person, we will discover the Transfigured Christ.

The last four pages are upside down and mostly in Spanish.

Posted 3/11/2005 by Michael Inman | Link |

"A handful of prelates occasionally utter some sensible words but in the end remain, as in Jackson's phrase, simply 'less knaves than others.'"

Ain't... that... the... truth.

Posted 3/3/2005 by Michael Inman | Link |

Someone Needs To Get A Life

So, this morning I noticed some referrals from a rather strange site.  I was curious how a link to this site got on there but something in the URL made me a little uneasy.  So, I upped all my security settings (to be safe) and looked at the site.  It's a blog site hosted by blogspot (blogger).  Hmmm.  Vulgar.  Not a blog, really, but just a bunch of juvenile dirty jokes posted one after another.  No links anywhere.  Then... I relaxed security just a little and reloaded the page.

Aha!  Still no link to my site but a whole slew of thumbnail photos (not good ones - let's just say) with links to not-so-good sites started showing up on the left.  Hit stop... hit escape... the pictures stopped but I still had a lot of data transfer activity going on.

The attention-starved loser who is responsible for that site has some scripting on his page that is randomly choosing a Bravenet user hit counter.  This is causing other web sites using a Bravenet counter to register hits that look like referrals from that site.  The last entry had a bunch of comments left by people who had also noticed referrals to their websites from that guy's page and weren't happy about it at all.  I spent about twenty minutes trying to find any sort of a link on blogger.com to report this but couldn't.  From what I've seen, they probably don't care, anyway.

Posted 2/11/2005 by Michael Inman | Link |

The Armadillo Has Left The Building

Is it just me or does this current season of Austin City Limits stink?

The lowest point so far has to have been these guys.  What the hell was that?

Posted 1/23/2005 by Michael Inman | Link |

Reading Assignment for Today:

For I had become a self-taught scholar of "liturgical abuse" and arming myself with Inaestimabile Donum, other documents from the Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW) and selected Q&A responses from some of the more conservative Catholic periodicals, I thought I had presented what was an incontrovertible case.  [More]

Focusing on what were identified and scrutinized as "abuses" was merely a distraction from the real issue at hand. The "abuses" were but symptoms of a much larger problem with the liturgical revolution itself, and its fruits which have become the natural result of what was at its inception and remains today — to borrow Cardinal Ratzinger's term — a "fabricated liturgy."

Posted 1/19/2005 by Michael Inman | Link |

Politics is Politics

If I have, in the past, identified myself as a Republican it is solely because of the party platform, not any individual or group of people within the party itself.  Unlike Sean Hannity, I don't twist myself into incoherent knots attempting to explain away every stupid thing Republicans do.  Although I could never vote for a Democrat (because of the party platform alone), I don't necessarily support all Republicans either (unlike some folks in our local party whose emails we regularly get).  For years homeschoolers in Kentucky fought against a barrage of introduced bills that would violate the privacy and rights of homeschooling families.  Almost all of these bills were authored by one state representative, Republican Barbara Colter.  Thankfully, she has been replaced.

In the most recent election in Kentucky, Republican Dana Seum Stephenson ran against Democrat Virginia Woodward for a 37th district senate seat in Jefferson County.  Stephenson won the election.

There was only one problem.  Stephenson wasn't eligible to run for office in Kentucky.  One of the requirements is that you have to have been a Kentucky resident for six years prior to the election.  From 1997 to 2001 Stephenson lived in Indiana so that she, according to a local newspaper article, could attend college in Indiana without having to pay the higher nonresident tuition.  During that time, she "voted, registered her car, paid taxes and bought a home in Indiana."  Now, I'm no rocket scientist but I think that fairly well made her an Indiana resident for a few years there.  But, no, Kentucky Senate Leader (Republican) David Williams has decided to hell with the residency requirements we're gonna seat Stephenson.  He's even gone so far as to accuse a judge who ruled her not eligible as "pitting the courts against the senate".  Senator Bob Leeper attempted to suggest that they hold a special election since Stephenson did not meet the eligibility requirements and Williams wouldn't even let him propose it on the senate floor.  This has disgusted Leeper so much he initially resigned, then reconsidered and changed his party affiliation from Republican to independent.

As much as I'd like to see the Kentucky legislature swing even more Republican than it has in the last few years, this is not how to do it.  Mr. Williams apparently doesn't think that abandoning the state government eligibility requirements in this case will set a dangerous precendent.

Kentucky Senate Leader David Williams and the local Republicans who are abandoning their common sense to defend his actions are not doing the Republican party in Kentucky any favors.  When the Kentucky House and Senate swing back to the Democrats after the next election, we'll have them to thank for it.

If Williams and (majority leader) Kelly aren't careful, voters will revolt much the same way they did in the 1990s when they kicked Democrats out of office. They should take the advice of Winfield Rose, a political science professor at Murray State University. He said Republicans should show they are different and end the hard-line partisanship that has caused gridlock in Frankfort. Kentucky would be much better off.

~Bill Bartleman, Paducah Sun Newspaper

Posted 1/17/2005 by Michael Inman | Link |

Blessing Our Oneness?

Someone please explain this one to me.

Remember "Renew 2000"?

Posted 1/13/2005 by Michael Inman | Link |

Update 1/16/05:  The pagan prayer on the website of the Archdiocese of San Francisco has been changed, apparently due to the large response of people taking issue with it.  Originally it bore a strong similarity to the Renew 2000 prayer discussed here.  Dale Price has some details here.  He also has the original prayer listed as it was originally posted on the San Francisco Archdiocese site.  Note, also his link to the Wiccan site and the similarity.  More on Bettnet here, with follow ups here, and here.

I Can Add "Installed a Water Heater" To My Resume

Finished installing the Water Heater From Hell today.  The old one sprung a leak yesterday around mid-morning.  That's when the adventure began.  Apparently our water heater was of very unusual dimensions; taller and skinnier than the usual ones of our particular capacity.  It figures.  This is the weirdest house.  Remind me to tell you about our rare and criminally expensive Zinsco circuit breakers sometime, (When we built our addition, the guy at the electric supply store gave an evil laugh when I mentioned what type breakers I needed). Eventually we found the right size water heater on display at a local hardware store, asked the plumbing guy for that one, met him at the dock, loaded a big long box in the truck, and brought 'er home.  I had the pipes mostly replumbed and the new one in place when I discovered it was not the same one that was on display in the store.  This one was fatter.  I could have installed it but I would never have been able to get the washer or dryer out of the room.  By the time we made the discovery the hardware store had closed.  This was after we had already made two return trips for various fittings and such.  I had to temporarily sweat the cutoff valve back onto the unfinished feed line so we could at least turn the water on and flush the toilets.

The next morning the folks at the hardware store informed us that the exact model on display was discontinued and had been replaced by the one sitting in our laundry room.  After a short conversation they agreed to bring us the one on display in exchange for the one we had.  Okay, back to work.  Got everything hooked up and, after one more trip to the store for a flexible natural gas line, filled it up with water.

No leaks.  Great.  Pull off the gas cover and light this candle.

Wha?  A drip behind the gas cover?  Must be condensation.  Lit 'er up and finally admitted that something was leaking... really leaking.  It was the fitting behind the gas regulator where the temperature sensor goes into the tank.  It was little consolation knowing that at least it wasn't one of my (many) soldered fittings (you know the "pipes" screen saver... never mind).

Maintaining an amazing amount of composure, I drained the tank, removed all the gas fittings from the regulator, unscrewed it from the tank, wrapped the threads with copious amounts of teflon tape, and reinstalled it.  Everything back together.  Refill.  So far so good.  Relight.

Ahhh, a hot shower.  I am now officially an expert on water heater installation.  Our neighbor (no, not this one... and yes, it's still barking... right now, in fact) just had her water heater replaced a few weeks ago and her old one sat on her front porch for a couple of days.  Maybe we'll drag our old one over and set it on her porch and see what she says... heh.

Posted 1/11/2005 by Michael Inman | Link |

Least Successful Pickup Line Ever:  "I see you're drinking 1%.  Is that 'cause you think you're fat?  'Cause you're not.  You could be drinking whole if you wanted to."

On the advice of my sister-in-law, we rented Napoleon Dynamite a few days ago.  I was determined not to like it for no other reason than my sister-in-law had talked it up right after carrying on about how good What's Eating Gilbert Grape was and how Johnny Depp was just misunderstood when he said what he said.  We were in Memphis visiting.  The previous night was spent playing music with some old picking buddies and my head was hurting too much to argue with her (note to self - next time you're offered Crown Royal, decline).  So, the next day after we got home, Janet rented them both.

I did get some consolation by not liking Gilbert Grape at all.  Sure, it had its moments but almost all movies, no matter how bad, have at least a few moments.  I admit, though, when Depp's character Gilbert finally gives a much deserved smack to Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio), I cheered.  Not very PC of me... Arnie might have been autistic but he was also completely spoiled.

Napoleon was a very different movie than just about any other I'd seen in a long time.  It's hard to describe.  There was no profanity, no violence, no sex (other than Uncle Rico's bust enhancer ads - which were perfect for his character).  If you don't count Alison's Olsen twin or Hilary Duff movie rentals, it's one of the very few movies we've all watched more than once before returning.  It was every bit as funny the second time through... in fact, that time we started chuckling as soon as the DVD menu came up.  Alison and I have just about driven Janet crazy going around the house saying "Gosh!", "Sweet!", and other catch phrases from the movie (you'll have to watch it).

Go rent it.  Your kids can even watch this one with you.  You'll either love it or you'll hate be ambivalent about it.