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{"id":97304,"date":"2016-09-20T09:52:20","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T16:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=97304"},"modified":"2016-09-20T09:52:20","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T16:52:20","slug":"mea-culpa-occasioned-by-a-really-thoughtful-piece-on-hope-for-the-redemption-of-the-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2016\/09\/mea-culpa-occasioned-by-a-really-thoughtful-piece-on-hope-for-the-redemption-of-the-gop.html","title":{"rendered":"Mea culpa occasioned by a really thoughtful piece on hope for the redemption of the GOP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2026wrapped in a generous and beautiful retrospective on the career of George Wallace.<\/a><\/p>\n

It occasions some thoughts on my own harsh words for the debased ruin that is the GOP. \u00a0Yesterday I remarked on the growing habit of turning prayer into hexes that is happening among Super Catholics. \u00a0Then, last night, I went to prayer gathering at the local parish called \u201cDwelling Place\u201d. \u00a0It\u2019s basically like walking into a big warm, candlelit place of pure love and mercy. \u00a0Balm just to be there and sit in the Presence (the Eucharist was on the altar in a monstrance). \u00a0It was a group of lovely charismatic Catholics, my wife among them, just praying and adoring Christ and \u00a0offering prayer for anybody who sought it. \u00a0There was gentle music and scripture readings and reading from St. Theresa of Avila and, now and then, somebody would offer a word of knowledge for this or that issue people were struggling with.<\/p>\n

One was for folks who had suffered the pain of divorce. \u00a0If you wanted, you could stand to indicate you wanted prayer. \u00a0I felt prompted to do that, so I stood. \u00a0Somebody (dunno who since they were behind me) came and quietly laid their hands on me and prayed.<\/p>\n

It occurred to me that I\u2019ve been a participant in a divorce\u2013the divorce between the Church\u2019s teaching and the bizarre funhouse thing that is now American Conservative Catholicism. \u00a0This thing that hates the pope and battles the Church on every right wing culture of death priority and makes ever excuse possible for a man like Donald Trump. \u00a0And it\u2019s not hard to see that I\u2019ve been angry\u2013sinfully angry\u2013in response to it. \u00a0I got to thinking about my own angry prayers. \u00a0In my own mind, those prayers have always been directed to abstractions and ideas. \u00a0It\u2019s the GOP, not the people in it, the ideas, not the persons, that I have said I want smashed, and destroyed and ground to a powder.<\/p>\n

But in that place, with all those sweet, good people just seeking the love of God for others, it was hard to listen to my own voice and think \u201cYessiree, that sure does sound like love.\u201d \u00a0It mostly sounded like me being angry.<\/p>\n

So I guess I\u2019m saying \u201cMea culpa\u201d on the whole \u201cprayer as sublimated anger\u201d thing too. \u00a0Please forgive me.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"