They say you know you’re getting old when cops start looking like kids. I say you catch your first whiff of your own grave-dirt when priests start looking like kids. This first occurred to me two years ago, when I attended an ordination ceremony for three new priests of the Diocese of Phoenix. One, whom I’ll call Fr. D, I knew slightly though Communion and Liberation. (Since CL doesn’t ask its members to whistle, or screech, or boil over, or... Read more
A friend of mine, actually one of my old parish’s most accomplished busybodies, once talked her way into the hotel room of a 1950’s rock guitarist when he was performing in the Phoenix area. Her goal — her sole goal — was to get the legend’s autograph for a friend of hers. After sizing my friend up, the man smiled. Cocking his head toward another man, who was holding a camera, he asked her, “Do you object to pictures?” When... Read more
Researching last week’s piece on tattooing revived somewhat my old interest in Polynesian culture. With no pig to stick or roast, I had to indulge my enthusiasm the virtual way — by watching a YouTube clip in which a mixed group of Maoris performs a war chant. The effect was suitably horrifying. The performers managed to sustain their fury till the end — a theatrical coup when you consider none of the chanters had much reason to be angry at... Read more
Yesterday, at the Crescat blog, Katrina Fernandez wrote that nobody has ever died from not having sex. Initially, her statement struck me as a bit reductive. No, the body doesn’t need sex in the same way it needs food and water, but it does appreciate sex — so much so that it’ll thank people for supplying it. Researchers have found that regular sex raises the antibody immunoglobin, burns calories and releases endorphins that can fight migraine. All things being equal... Read more
Several years ago, a friend of mine covered his enormous tricep with a portrait of his parents. On the whole, it was a good tattoo, even if the black-and-white fine-line work did resemble a style popular among inmates of Arizona’s state penitentiaries. For some reason, he’d had it superimposed on an older, cruder piece — a single strand of barbed wire — with the upshot that he appeared to have sent Mom and Pop to Auschwitz. Stories about tattoo faux... Read more
Mark Shea’s May 1 column, the one in which he informally canonizes the late Perry Lorenzo, might not qualify as a revolutionary act. But it will, I think, represent something — a subtle but important tonal shift in the intra-Church conversation on homosexuality. If Mark himself doubted his column represented something new, he probably wouldn’t have bothered writing it in the first place. Lorenzo, who died at the age of 51 in December, 2009, had served as education director for... Read more
It’s a shame I wasn’t in a church with an open confessional last Saturday. I would very much like to have seen the look on the priest’s face when I told him, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been…oh, about 15 minutes since my last confession.” It’s not that I’d committed any fresh outrages since being dismissed with the Lord’s pardon and peace. I just realized, as I stepped out of the church, into the courtyard with the... Read more
A naked blonde lies staked to the ground, straddled by a man who means to insult her, in the Victorian sense of the word. Gulping back terror, she warns her assailant that if he goes through with his plan, she’ll make sure he goes to jail for the rest of his life. Even in her last, desperate bid to protect the integrity of her body, she speaks with perfect composure, sound jurisprudence, and even a hint of compassion. St. Agnes... Read more
Many observers have a hard time believing that the LCWR really was “stunned,” as it has claimed, by the results of the CDF’s recent doctrinal assessment. In the past, after all, women religious leaders made no bones about mistrusting Rome. Claiming Our Truth, published by the LCWR in 1988, predicted: “fidelity to society and church may, at times, mean loyal dissent.” In 2000, regarding the Vatican’s censure of New Ways Ministries founder Sr. Jeannine Gramick, LCRW president Sr. Camille d’Arienzo... Read more
Years ago, on a discussion board, someone started a thread titled: “What are your food confessions?” Broadly, the title meant: “What favorite dishes are you afraid to claim in polite company?” As so often happens, respondents seized on the call to confess as an excuse to show off. Responses ran along the lines of: “Gator’s pretty high in cholesterol, but it hits the spot, especially when you’ve caught it yourself!”; “Got hooked on roast shoulder of rock ape when I... Read more
Diary of a Wimpy Catholic
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