Since We are Still Within the Octave of the Nativity of America

Here’s a little noodling on the relationship between patriotism and family.

I was, by the way, particularly amused by the guy who complained that I was “phoning it in”, since he apparently is under the impression that all blogging is LiveBlogging, with contributors pounding out their thoughts and posting them live with the ASCII still wet. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that all my posts at the Register are written and posted several days in advance, in part so that editors can give them the once over and say, “Thunderbirds are GO!” or else, on occasion, “What were you thinking? This piece ain’t going live till you fix X, Y, and Z.”

Anyway, I had a great time up in Edmonton at the Familiaris Consortio shindig. It is, as it turns out, an awesome Catholic family conference (now in its 16th year) that is held out in a rural area on the shores of Lac Ste. Anne, near a shrine to St. Anne that sports a huge covered area for Mass, a bunch of giant bigtop tents full of screaming joyous teenagers (for the youth presentations) and beautiful joyful families for the Masses. The participants–all 2000 of them–come out and camp on the grounds for four days, so how cool is that? Got to see my pal Danielle Bean, as well as meeting a particularly hilarious priest named Fr. George McInniss of the Fathers of Mercy, who taught me it is a mortal sin to swat a mosquito when it is sitting on a priest (or at least a priest named “Fr. George McInniss”. Plus, I made new friends with fine folk like Maurice and Vicky Beier, whose tireless efforts, along with the efforts of their kids, make the whole thing happen. Also a pleasure to meet was the dynamic Michael Chiasson, gung ho young Catholic evangelist who hails from Texas but now lives in Canada. People come hundreds of miles for this and more come every year. There were kids everywhere and we had a wonderful time! Go Canada!