Reflections on Some of My Musical Interests - The True Giants in the Room

 I wasn't planning on writing again so soon, but a happy diversion caught my interest and I wanted to talk a little about it.  It involves music, and this is something I have been observing from afar but haven't had the resources to experience first-hand, but my, do I want to.  When I was in high school, I played saxophone in the school band - I started in 8th grade learning the alto sax, then was officially a part of the band in 9th grade when I played tenor, and then in my 10th and 11th grade years I played baritone sax, earning a letter and also becoming one of the senior members of our marching band.  Other than a brief bucket-list work with a society band when I was in college, it has been over 30 years since I last picked up a saxophone, and I am very rusty!  I do currently own a curved soprano, and one day when all the dust settles I want to maybe brush up a bit so I can play a little.  I love the soprano sax - it has a sweet sound, and it is compact and easy to transport.  But, I really miss playing baritone, and I also have always wanted to tackle the bass sax.  Up until perhaps I was in my early 20s, the bass sax was the biggest saxophone I knew of, and it was a mythical creature to me - I heard it occasionally on records, but never got a chance to see one much.  That is, until my seventh-grade year of middle school.  Let me tell that story a bit.

Romney Junior High School, where I more or less went to my whole tenure of middle school between the years 1983 and 1985, was not the best experience - frankly I hated it.  I was not a rich kid, definitely not a popular kid, and was often the subject of bullying and harassment from both the popular crowd as well as the rougher kids.  I dressed different, talked different, and listened to radically different music - you see, in my 6th grade year I was introduced to my first records in my collection, and by the time I started middle school a year later, I had perhaps a couple of hundred of them.  Music was my outlet from the stressful life of middle school during the week and facing a lack of financial stability at home (it gradually got better, but it was not easy).  I would listen to my collection I had on Friday night, and then listened to Henry Boggan's Sunday night show on WBT-AM, which got me basically started in collecting this music.  The more I got into my music, the more I also wanted to learn to play this great stuff too, and thankfully my middle school music teacher got me hooked up with saxophone lessons in the second half of my 8th grade year.  The man who taught us had two students - the other was a classmate of mine named Samantha, who was learning the sousaphone.  He was a good teacher, and I nailed the basics enough to land a place in the high school band a year later when we had moved and I started a new school - I had graduated to tenor sax, and played in the school jazz band with that while playing cymbals in the marching band.  The second half of my freshman year though was more tragic - we had moved to the small town of Rowlesburg in early 1985, and that year the town and most of our state was hit with a devastating flood that decimated the town.  Being the high school I started going to there had to operate like a MASH unit - we had classes in the Buckwheat Festival Hall in the county seat of Kingwood, and band was considered a luxury no one could really afford, as many students were recovering from flood damage to their homes and there were more pressing needs.  In contrast to the cliquish nonsense I experienced in middle school, in my freshman year I was able to be a classmate to a number of really brave kids who bonded together in the midst of what was probably the worst adversity they ever faced.  They accepted me with no prerequisites, and even today I am still friends with a number of them.  However, I did miss the band, but that would change when I became a sophomore the following year.

My sophomore year of high school got off to a rocky start - I was attending East Preston in nearby Terra Alta after my mom took a job taking care of an elderly nonagenarian lady out in the area of Salt Lick.  My first new months were an adjustment, but as the school year kicked off I began to find my place, and as it would turn out, my attendance at East Preston for the remainder of my high school years would end up being three of the best years of my life.  It was good to get back into the marching band again then, and our band teacher, the late Kenneth Garlow, was very happy to let me take up the baritone sax.  Being a "band geek" in high school was actually a fun experience, and let me give you a bit of that life now.

Unlike the regular classes during the year, the band was a big commitment - you had parades and concerts to play year round, and that meant essentially traveling all over West Virginia.  My weekends were usually spent traveling to parades, and during the summers I got to do a lot of that as well.  You will never truly appreciate the life of a traveling musician until you have to change clothes on a crowded bus with 40 other students, half of which were girls.  Most of us who were guys just wore our band uniforms over our street clothes, and although it could get a bit hot and sweaty having layers of clothes like that one, we did pretty well.  Some of the guys were smart - they wore shorts and t-shirts under their uniforms, so they suffered a bit less and their changing times were better too.  In the winter it was a bit better, as two things were true at once.  For one, it often was a good idea to wear your uniform over your clothes when it was 35 degrees out in the late Fall, and we also had a lot of other concerts that were indoors so changing was a bit more comfortable with the uniforms.  It was also good to carry a bit of spare cash with you too, as often we would stop off to eat and we also would tend to visit a mall if we went to bigger towns like Morgantown or Clarksburg - it was Mr. Garlow's reward to us for doing well at our performance.  I particularly liked the Meadowbrook Mall in Bridgeport, as it was considered "fancy" for small-town kids like us to visit there.  As an adult later, going to the mall was just something you did to spend a few bucks and get out of the house, and indeed, for eight years we had Valley Mall right next door to us in Hagerstown.  Back then though, even visiting a Pizza Hut was a treat. Sometimes, I miss the thrill of simple pleasures like that, as my battle-weary adult persona has forgotten the mystery that surrounded stull like that.  

On occasion, as one of the older members of the band, I would get called upon to do some things in a pinch.  On one occasion, our bass clarinetist who was a girl named Sherry ended up getting extremely sick when we were at a band competition, and the piece we were playing as a concert group rather than a marching band was called the Kensington Overture. It was a nice piece of music, but there was this solo part in it that, my goodness, was a bit challenging!  The solo was originally designated for a bass clarinet part, but being Mr. Garlow was a guy who followed the Coast Guard's Latin slogan "Semper Paratus," he wanted me to learn the solo as well.  Oh, did I struggle with that!  The key changes in that thing were a nightmare, but they sounded nice if they were played properly.  I did manage to learn it passably, and Garlow thankfully had enough confidence that I could pull it off if necessary.  And, then wouldn't you know it, Sherry falls ill!  So, I got the solo, and surprisingly I pulled it off with no issues and we scored decently with that.  It was at that point I knew I had mastered the baritone sax, and that was a proud moment for me.  As time went on, I mastered some routinely jazz and dance band techniques too, such as the "slurping sax" sound of Billy May's orchestra as well as the Lombardo vibrato.  That would come in handy later.  But, my career as a high school band musician would end when I finished my junior year, as Mr. Garlow retired that year, and I was not exactly too connected with the new teacher, Mr. Caplinger, so I retired from service as well.  It was a good experience for me, and the only regret is that I didn't keep my chops up all these years with practice.  I shudder to think of what I would sound like now, although I do still know how to play.  Like I said, once things simmer down a bit and I get more settled, I might just take it back up with my little curved soprano (I also possess a Xaphoon, which is also called a "Bamboo Sax."  It sounds something like a cross between a clarinet and an alto sax, but I have yet to master that too).  Also, I always wanted to play the trombone, so should I maybe venture there?  We'll see - let me get back into practice with the saxophone first!

I give my background with playing sax myself to talk about the one fascination I have had with that for years.  I always was enamored with rare and big instruments, and that is one reason why I took up the baritone sax - it was the biggest available.  What I really wanted to get my hands on though was a bass saxophone, but they were a bit hard to come by - even recordings of people playing it were rare then.  Going back to my years in middle school, I hung out a lot in the school library, and even had a study hall in there.  Surprisingly, for a small West Virginia town, the school had a subscription to Down Beat magazine, which then was the the major jazz publication on the market.  Down Beat in the mid-1980s was beginning however to shift from classic jazz to what we now call "smooth jazz," but even then there were still some good informative articles in it.  It was in an issue of the magazine that I came across a guy named Vince Giordano, who like me became enamored with early dance bands and he took up the bass saxophone.  Prior to him, there were essentially two names associated with the instrument: one was Adrian Rollini in the 1920s, and the other was Boyd Raeburn in the 1940s.  Rollini was the one though who put the bass sax on the map, and come to find out there is a rich deposit of his classic material from the 1920s and the early 1930s, playing in orchestras like Whiteman's, as well as with Fred Elizalde, the Filipino-American bandleader who did a lot for dance bands in both England and the US.  He later had his own orchestra, and had played with the likes of Bix Beiderbecke, Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Glenn Miller, Frankie Trumbauer, Henry Busse, the Dorseys, and so many others.  In my current collection that is mostly digital, I probably have close to a thousand records with either Rollini as a sideman or as a leader, and I became a big fan of his as a teenager.  Apparently, Vince Giordano did as well, even painstakingly transcribing Rollini's work to recreate it.  I talked to Vince a couple of times over the years, and he is a wealth of information on the dance bands of the 1920s.  As I would learn in the late 1990s though, the bass sax was still a small fish compared to three of its big brothers that began to surface.  

The first I had heard about the contrabass sax was in the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, which listed it as the largest member of the saxophone family.  As far as I am aware, no one had played one, with the possible exception of Sigurd Rascher, and finding one was almost an exercise in futility prior to 1995.  Then, something happened - a guy named Don Stephens formed a saxophone quintet called the Nuclear Whales Saxophone Orchestra, and Stephens would later add the mighty contrabass to the group's recorded repertoire.  This beast is 7 feet tall and weighs about 50 pounds, and seeing the case alone that it is housed in is awe-striking.  As a new interest in the contrabass started to take off in the late 1990s, some influential figures in traditional jazz began to record with it, notably Scott Robinson who featured it on his phenomenal album Thinking Big.  Then, it started being manufactured - the first one I had heard about was the full-sized one produced by Corsi in the late 1990s, but in the early 2000s the German instrument maker Benedickt Eppelsheim began experimenting with designs, and not only did he come up with a full-sized contra, but he also created a whole new range of instruments that mirrored the larger saxes called the Tubax.  The Tubax is not large - it is about the size of a standard baritone sax - but it echoed the range initially of the contra, but then Eppelsheim got more adventurous and created a subcontrabass Tubax.  This was perhaps the first attempt to get an even larger saxophone on the market, one that would even transcend Adolph Sax's original vision, and although it was still quite compact and not an actual contrabass saxophone, it still had the sound.  From there then we move to Brazil, and this is where the J'Elle Stainer Company came into focus.

The success of Eppelsheim's Tubax naturally spawned interest in even bigger and lower-register saxophones, and in the mid-2000s this Brazil-based company called J'Elle Stainer created the actual subcontrabass saxophone.  The first one was a compact model - it was huge, but stood about the same height as a bass saxophone.  However, they later wowed the world with the first full-sized subcontra, and that was something that blew the wildest imagination.  This monster stands about 9 feet tall, weighs in at around 70 pounds, and its register is so low that it will vibrate the guts of anyone sitting near it while it is being played.  One guy on YouTube actually did a dual with a pipe organist, and the range of both instruments is equal - the thing is massive!  And, it has several musicians who specialize playing it, including the Italian saxophonist Attilio Berni, concert saxophonist Jay Easton, and there is one other American artist with an Italian name whose CD I had but I cannot recall him for the life of me.  Even some contrabass players like Blaize Garza are now flirting a bit with the subcontra too.  I really wish I had my original CD collection, as there are a few others worth mentioning on this too - Paul Cohen definitely comes to mind, and I need to replace his very good CD showcasing some of these monsters. Composers likewise, such as the talented Adam Gilberti, have also featured this as well as some other whopper instruments (octobass flute, etc) in his Genesis Concert.  However, as would be discovered, the story definitely didn't end there.

The search for the world's largest saxophone did not end with the subcontra, as yet a bigger brother of it came along in just the recent past few years.  What we are talking about is the octocontrabass saxophone, and as of this time I don't think a full-sized one has been made yet although in Brazil at least one compact sized instrument is in existence - Brazil has a unique role in the evolution of the saxophone in recent years, and as you will see, what makes it more fascinating is that its biggest proponent is a small Pentecostal denomination there.   Getting back to the octocontrabass though, if it were to be manufactured as a full-sized standard saxophone, it would be over 13 feet in height and a preteen child could fit into its bell.  I am not sure who manufactured the flagship octocontra, but it is in Brazil, and yes, it is to be found in a church of all places!  Before I get into that though, it is important to note that like the slightly smaller subcontra, the octocontra hasn't had a lot of people producing serious compositions with it yet, with two exceptions - one is Slovene composer Igor Krivokapic, who composed his Fifth Symphony: Seven Trumpets of the Apocalypse, that features it.  Another composer, Dutchman Jan Van de Roost, also features a part for it in his composition Colores.  I still have yet to find these either as CD recordings or online, but I plan to search them out.  The most visible and prominent featuring of this massive beast for now is actually in church music, and in Brazil!  Let me tell that story now.

The Christian Congregation in Brazil is a stable Pentecostal denomination with roots in Italian Pentecostalism in the US that also produced denominations like the CCNA (Christian Church in North America), a fairly mainstream Evangelical Pentecostal denomination that holds beliefs similar to the Assemblies of God.  As I am reading about this, it appears that the Christian Congregation is worldwide, and does have American congregations - they date back to an Italian-American Pentecostal evangelist by the name of Luigi Francescon (1866-1964).  Francescon is also credited as being the founder of the CCNA as well as the CCUS, and he is essentially the father of Italian-American Pentecostalism.  Much like Florence Crawford's Apostolic Faith Mission in Oregon, the Italian groups tended to be more reserved and conservative in their worship, and a hallmark of their churches was the orchestra accompanied by an organ.  When Francescon began the mission work in Brazil that resulted in the establishment of the Christian Congregation in Brazil, the churches in that group kept that legacy and many of them ended up even today with some large orchestras that would rival the size of the official symphonic orchestras in many major cities.  For some odd reason, those Brazilian churches also latched on in the early 2000s to these massive saxophones, and therefore you see their orchestras filled with a dozen or more bass, contrabass, and subcontrabass saxes, many of them compliments of the J'Elle Stainer Company (I wonder if their executive leadership is part of this group, due to the large number of their saxes in those orchestras?).  Recently, the one and only octocontrabass sax showed up in their orchestras too, played by a young man named Bruno Ribeiro Valadares.  Much like Blaize Garza in the US here, Valadares seems to be a saxophone prodigy, and he has mastered the monsters.  He plays well too, as I have had the privilege of watching his videos on both Instagram and YouTube. 

I think what I will do with this point is conclude, as it is late, and I want to do a second part of this focusing on some wild ideas I am having that intersect my music interest and my Catholic faith.  After all, if Pentecostals can "embrace the present" by adopting a rather large and unusual musical instrument, then why can't we?  That is what I will talk about in the next part of this.  Have a good night everyone, and will see you soon. 

The Ethiopian Bible - Some Reflections

 In recent weeks, I have seen an increased interest in the Ethiopic Canon of Scripture, which is of interest because it is much bigger than your typical Catholic or Protestant Bibles - it has several other "lost books" (they are actually not lost to anyone, but just not widely translated) that are not included in Catholic or Protestant Bibles, and thus it has some reactions.  The typical Catholic scholar doesn't pay attention to it, and the Evangelical Protestant scholars (with a few exceptions) treat it like an abomination.   An official Ethiopian Bible that is translated into English as yet does not exist, although there are some English translations of it that are largely unofficial.  By an official translation, I mean in the strictest sense a translation that is sanctioned and approved by the Ethiopian Church.  There have been a couple of issues with this in recent years, so I will get into that briefly.

In past years, when an "official Ethiopian" document of any type has surfaced, it was in reality more than likely a production of the Rastafarian sects who have no official connection to the actual Ethiopian Church or its people.  There have been some good English translations of other Ethiopian texts - notably the Kebra Negast and the Fetha Negast - but as far as I am aware, no actual Church-sanctioned Biblical translation exists.  One has to be wary of what happens to pass as "Ethiopian" on platforms like Ebay or Amazon, because even if they are liturgical texts, often they are corrupted Rastafarian creations and are of no historical or theological value.  This is why it is important to do your due diligence before purchasing anything, because you could end up wasting your hard-earned cash on some cultic book.  I personally always try to search with the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church's American dioceses first, as well as the Geez-Rite Catholic parishes.  Usually, their clerics will be very helpful in directing you to credible books on their church and its history and theology, including their Biblical topics.   That being said, let me tell you of one feasible - albeit unofficial - English translation of the Ethiopian Bible I have come across. 

If one goes on sites like Temu or Ebay, you will see tons of offers for "The Complete Ethiopian Bible," and I tend to shy away from popular translations of stuff like that because more than likely something is fishy about them.  Most of these faux translations are generally plagiarized from a legitimate source, the work of Asher Wilson.  Asher Wilson is thankfully not a Rastafarian fruitcake, as his credentials seem to be as an Evangelical Lutheran; he coordinated his original work with a Dr. Rance Settle, and upon looking into his credentials, here is what I learned.  Dr. Settle is a pastor and theologian who currently pastors the Lamb of God Lutheran Church in Lewisville, TX, and he graduated with a D.Min. from Concordia Theological Seminary.   This is a church that is part of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod denomination, which means it is a pretty solidly orthodox and Evangelical church.  Concordia Seminary, based in Fort Wayne, IN, is also considered a credible graduate school and is also affiliated with the LCMS too.  So, Dr. Settle is not some off-the-wall quack or a hyper-charismatic or anything like that, which helps.  While there is not much available on Asher Wilson's credentials, he does have a website for his publishing company, Holy Word Press, and it can be accessed at www.holywordpress.com.  This is also the place where you can purchase the Ethiopic Bible translation he has produced - with the Bible translation itself is also an additional study guide, and I purchased both of them earlier this year.  The study guide itself is perhaps more intriguing than the translation, as it is thoroughly researched and includes discussion questions, a glossary, and a lot of historical background commentary.  I think it could have some value, as the publication is actually quite good and it seems that Wilson and Settle did their homework on it.  Again, however, this is not an officially-sanctioned translation of the Ethiopian Church, but thankfully it has also invested good scholarship.  A lot of the knockoffs I have been seeing that are mass-marketed seem to be stolen from Wilson's work, and Wilson is aware of it - on his official Ebay store page, he certifies his own work as genuine, and also issues a disclaimer about these knockoffs too.  If you want to see the actual book, here is a photo of it and the study guide below:

This comes directly from Holy Word Press's website, so it is the real thing.   Any other books similar to this that don't have an official documentation of the author's name should be avoided.  Some may disagree about the value of Asher Wilson's and Dr. Settle's work, but I am going to give it the benefit of the doubt for now until a Church-sanctioned translation is released. 

The Ethiopian Bible has become a source of increased attention.  Evangelical apologist Melissa Dougherty, for instance, released a whole video discussing it last month, and I am a bit wary of watching that as she tends to have some mildly anti-Catholic sentiments that tend to come out in her discussions, and while as an apologist I think she is quite capable (her work documenting the influence of New Thought teaching into certain hyper-charismatic circles, for instance, is quite good, perhaps the best since Hank Hanegraaff published his Christianity in Crisis 30 years ago) I see her biases interfering with her objectivity when it comes to the Ethiopian Canon.  On the other hand, there is my good friend Dr. Stephen Missick, who like myself has been an advocate for Middle Eastern Christian minorities for many years.  Stephen wrote a good book on Ethiopic Christian literature called Ethiopic Abdias: The Lives of the Twelve Apostles According to the Traditions of Africa.  Since he has just published it recently, I just received my copy of it last week and am still reading through it, but so far I like it.  As I just have stated, Stephen notes that an official translation of the Ethiopic Bible has not been made available yet, but he also found out as I did that the Ethiopian Church in the US is working on an English translation, and I intend to have one once they do for sure.  While Stephen and I differ on some minor things (for instance, I tend to agree with the Watchers theory of fallen angels messing around with human women as a source of where the demons come from, something talked about in the Book of Enoch, but Stephen is uncommitted to that interpretation, and I don't fault him for it), I believe both of us are excited to see an Ethiopian Bible in English that is official because we study and research the same things.  Indeed, the release of that when it comes will be monumental to Biblical scholarship in general, and I don't think it will be a minor news item when it happens.  So, we wait.  

In this area where I live now - Baltimore - I am approximately 30 miles from what is perhaps the largest Ethiopian-American community in the country, that being the areas of Bethesda, MD, and Alexandria, VA.  Likewise, there is a growing Eritrean population in the same area as well.  There are perhaps dozens of Orthodox churches in those areas, as well as at least three Geez-Rite Catholic communities, and thus there is no shortage of richness when it comes to getting to know these good people.  Even in Baltimore, we have 7 Ethiopian churches and one Eritrean church, and that is a good opportunity because they are within reasonable distance to visit.  I have made some good friends in their community, as well as being able to eat in their restaurants, shop in their stores, and yes, I did visit one of their churches in Alexandria a few years back.  The Ethiopians are a remarkable people, and they take their Christian faith seriously - I have come to really love them as a people too, as they are always open to share their rich history and Church traditions with me.  The most recent example of this was an Ethiopian-American who was my Uber driver home from work one day - I had a very delightful conversation with him on the ride home, and he was more or less telling me where Ethiopian culture could be found in Baltimore (he recommended a good Ethiopian restaurant I have to try too - I happen to love sega tibs, a delicious stir-fried beef dish that is addictive).  There is also one common thing I hear from practically every Ethiopian I talked to, and I tend to believe them and agree with them - the tradition is that Ethiopia is where the original Ark of the Covenant is, and there is a tiny church in the region of Axum that apparently houses it.  When I voice this to others, I understandably receive a skeptical response - one Orthodox bishop I talked to even said "show us an Ark and I will believe it."  I don't fault that skepticism, and it is really not a cardinal issue to split hairs over, but my response is always a calm smile and I tell them, "that's fair - wait and see."  The fact is for me though is that two things convince me of the fact this could be true.  For one, practically every Ethiopian I have talked to believes it.  Secondly, that tradition has been very longstanding in Ethiopia, so there has to be something to it.  It pays to listen to things when they are universally held convictions and there is a track record of whatever it is, and the Ethiopian Ark theory falls into that for me.  Modern scholarship, thanks to an over-reliance on the Cartesian influence from the Enlightenment, has become almost too skeptical for its own good.  Theology and History are not exempt from those influences either, which is why so many Catholic scholars in particular are swayed by the Teilhardian/Cartesian variety of theistic evolution when it comes to origins.  I think we do a disservice when we become so focused on the natural, physical, and tangible that we forget there is also a metaphysical dimension to reality as well.  Neither is better than the other, and both can be equally true at once.  This is why I am giving my Ethiopian friends the benefit of the doubt.  

It was my friend Stephen's video that got me thinking about this, so I just wanted to weigh in a bit.  Thanks for allowing me to share, and I will continue to update what I learn in regard to the Ethiopian Bible, including possibly a whole "deep dive" into Asher Wilson's and Dr. Rance Settle's work on their translation and study guide of it.  God bless, and will see you next time. 

Random Thoughts

 It is the first day of August as I write this, and I come with a lot of things going on in my mind.  For one thing, I decided that it was time to find another parish church after the pastor decided to focus on nonessential stuff like the SSPX (the nearest SSPX chapel to Baltimore is almost 2 hours away, so what was the point?) while ignoring some pretty looming issues in the Catholic Church in this city.  For one thing, the unfair characterization of the SSPX as "Protestant" was a bit much, and theologically it doesn't jive - where our good friar got that from evades my process of reasoning.  I had a very interesting email exchange with him most of today, and I think it best to move on at this point.  But that leads me to something I wanted to talk about in regard to how one can serve the Church.

Romans 12:4-5 states that the body has many members, and although each member has its own distinct function, they are all essential to the Body of Christ.  For all the rhetoric in annual diocesan appeals about investing "time, talent, and treasure," when the reality hits as to how to apply it, basically it is the diocesan powers-that-be saying "Give us your money, and screw your talents."  In other words, if they don't think you are "good enough" (although your hard-earned money you put in the plate is certainly OK) then they don't care what happens to you.  It amazes me at how many people languish in parishes who have so much to offer but they are coldly turned away by aloof clerics when they offer.  It's a scandal.  So, that leads to a question.

What is the difference between a parish priest and a televangelist?  Answer: the first has only a plate to collect in.  This is obviously not a blanket assessment of every parish priest, because there are many who do have a pastor's heart and love their parishioners, but I have seen it firsthand and it is not a good thing.  When the color of your money matters to a church more than your talents, abilities, and even your needs, then it is time to find another church and maybe cut off your money supply to them.  You may not even be giving much in some terms, but it may also be your best despite the amount.  Yet, you are for some reason not feeling appreciated, and it is a bit disconcerting.  Now, the idea of tithing is not a "give to get" scheme of course, but at the same time you are hoping that maybe something of your faithfulness would garner some appreciation of the fact that you, too, are a child of God and deserve some dignity.  I don't want to spend a lot of time commiserating over this, as I have wasted enough on it today already, but I want my readers to get a good message out of this - if you have a talent, find a way to use it for God.  If your church doesn't appreciate it or even care, then they can jump off a short pier into a deep lake, because thankfully God is bigger than them.  One of the reasons I started this blog as a matter of fact was to actually make a platform to share my ideas as well as develop a writing passion I have, and I think I have done well.  I am not garnering millions of views, but that is because no one else cares to listen anyway but I appreciate the ones who do.  You who are reading this now, you are not reading it by accident - you matter because God sent you here.  Therefore, if something I said challenges you and also motivates you, then I have done what I am supposed to do.  And, critics be damned - we don't worry about them, or detractors.  Not everyone is going to be adoring fans, and I get that - I myself have things I am not a fan of either, yet those things seem to be doing fine without me anyway.  May my detractors gain the same understanding.  

This is a good segway into what I discovered online today.  I was watching videos by this young guy named Jonathan Wright, who has taken it upon himself to do deep-dive research into Contemporary Christian Music (CCM).  As anyone who knows me can attest, CCM is definitely not my thing, as much of what passes as "Christian music" today is fluff and it is about making a fast buck rather than actual ministry - Jonathan seems to share that sentiment with me to a degree too.  But, I also admittedly learned some things from him about some very well-known CCM artists of the past, and I found it personally interesting.  One thing Jonathan did was he did a bit of a deep-dive into CCM star and my fellow West Virginian Michael W. Smith.  Now, Barbara loves this guy, and it's OK if anyone does as I don't think anyone will fall into moral turpitude listening to him.  However, to me it sounds like the guy - who is in his 60s now - never broke puberty in all honesty with his voice ( I feel the same way about Bobby Vinton, who sings similarly interesting enough).  There are many newer CCM artists who sound even worse than him now though, so he is definitely not the worst I have ever heard.  That being said though, I will say that I was impressed to hear about his story.  It turns out in the early part of his career as he was starting out in Nashville, he hit rock-bottom with cocaine use or something, and told God to do anything to get his attention, even breaking his legs if necessary.  Thankfully that didn't happen, but Michael did have a sort of renewal of his faith and in all honesty although his singing sucks his personal story is inspiring.  Then there was the story of Rich Mullins, who also died prematurely at the height of his popularity.  Mullins is the guy who wrote that well-known chorus "Our God is an Awesome God," and it's a good piece of worship music in all honesty.  However, this Indiana-born Quaker farm boy was also one who did his own thing, and although he faced a lot of challenges (including alcohol issues), an observer of his story comes away realizing this man was genuine, consistent, and there is much to admire about him as a person - despite making literally millions in royalties, Mullins chose to live on a modest $25K a year and he also kept his profile minimal.  Then come to find out, he was just on the verge of converting to the Catholic Church when he was killed in a tragic car accident in 1997.  I feel the same way about Michael W. Smith and Rich Mullins though that I also do about people like Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, and Gene Simmons - not a fan of the music, but respect them as decent human beings.   It also works the other way too - for instance, I love Billy Strayhorn's compositions (especially the great stuff he wrote with Ellington) but his lifestyle appalled me (in case some people who are not jazz fans don't know, Billy Strayhorn was as gay as a picnic basket).  I think Ozzy Osbourne in all honesty probably had a better chance at heaven than Billy Strayhorn did.  It proves that oftentimes the cover does not say much about the content of the book, something I was trying to educate my parish priest about today.   That was not where I was going with the discussion so I will get back on track.

The problem with the CCM industry since a bunch of greedy corporate types started seeing it as a cash cow in the mid-1970s is the same one with most other contemporary music - it is canned, repetitive, and devoid of originality.  It just wants a good sound to tickle ears and sell, even if the message is so repetitive and annoying that it makes you want to whack your own self in the head with a rolling pin when you hear it more than twice.  CCM and the modern Catholic Church have that in common nowadays - they don't like new voices or original talent, and tend to let great potential rot on the vine rather than cultivating it.  This goes back to what is meant by transcendental properties of being in the philosophical context.  There are three things deemed as transcendental properties of being, and they are truth, beauty and goodness.  God is the complete incarnation of all of them - God is perfect truth, he is perfect beauty, and he is perfect goodness.   A fourth property - love - could also be included, but that is a whole category in itself.  God gave every human person brains, and with those brains an inclination toward these three things which reflects the individuality he gifted each of us.  How we use them is what is integral - do we use them or let them be wasted?   Also, what about when others fail to see them, and tell you that you are not "good enough" to do this, or that, because you didn't include a cover letter with a resume?   The hilarious thing about that is when I have been rejected for things I know I would be called to and excellent at, often the person chosen over me tends to fall miserably short, and whoever gave them that opportunity ends up regretting it.  Likewise, often people are pigeonholed by society and the need to survive to just settle for things they don't belong in, such as a crappy job that suppresses their natural talents, and often they become so burnt-out and discontented they leave on their own free will.  It is always good that you and God know the truth, but you still come up short on your rent.  That is perhaps the most constricting part of the current age we live in - people do not live up to their potential because often they are denied those things which could help them realize it.  This is going to lead to people having a lot to answer for one day, and unlike the quack psychopath Anthony Fauci, they can't plead the fifth to protect themselves.  Any rate, just wanted to share that. 

This is really all I needed to say tonight on these issues, so I will see you next visit. 

What it Means to be "Catholic"

 This is to sort of follow up on the last post, as since then a couple of developments have happened.  For one, I had applied for a position at my parish church that I am more than qualified for, but was curtly dismissed by the associate pastor with a one-sentence response.  I can accept that some things may not be God's will at that particular time, but to just be so curt and dismissive was, well, a bit disconcerting.  So, with that and also a bit of disagreement with the parish priest's letter in the bulletin this past Sunday, I wrote a very heated email to him about all this.  As I was writing it, I began to reflect on the term "Catholic" and what that really means.  The conclusion I came to is something I have held for a while, but perhaps it is time to enunciate it.

The literal meaning of the word "catholic" is simply universal - in that context, it means a church meant for all people regardless of background.  This has made the Church multicultural, and Christianity relates to anyone in any society because of the fact that Christ died for all, and the only thing one has to do is accept that gift from him.  The basis of the catholic dimension of our faith then is John 3:16.  However, it also relates to Romans 12:4-5, as well as I Corinthians 12:12-27.  The universality of the Church incorporates the diversity of its members, and that is why Acts 2 was in essence a reversal of what happened in Genesis 11 with the Tower of Babel.  Again, I also refer back to the Vincentian Canon regarding what the Catholic faith actually is - that which is held by everyone, at all times and everywhere. The implication then is that one hierarch, bishop, or prelate cannot monopolize the term, or say who is and who isn't Catholic without first weighing the evidence of faith, doctrine, and other things.  Therefore, that being said, I hold to the conviction that the Roman Catholic Church is not the entire Church, and I also hold a view that is more in line with the Christian East regarding the Pope's role - the Pope is the Bishop of Rome, and while his position has a level of primacy, it doesn't make him supreme over the rest of the Church.  In looking at how the early Church was structured, no bishop had supreme authority over others, as the idea was collegiality.  All bishops, therefore, possess Apostolic authority, and when one started being elevated over the others for political reasons, that led to problems that we see today.  So, when the bishop sitting inside the Vatican declares that he is supreme over all Christians, he is not exercising his appropriate office.  And, if he happens to not be of good will, is heretical, or just flat-out wrong whether out of ignorance and intention, then he is not to be heeded.  As mentioned yesterday, the one thing that always takes precedence over any bishop - including the Pope - is Magisterial teaching.  Where the Pope lines up with Scripture and Magisterial teaching, he is to be accepted.  Where he does not, he needs to be rejected.  The criteria is quite simple really.  So, when Leo excommunicated the SSPX over what was essentially nothing, he was wrong - he was also inconsistent in that there are far worse people than the SSPX who wear cassocks and vestments, yet they are allowed to run rampant.  This inconsistency needs to be called out for the nonsense it is, and that is what my contention was. 

That being said, I believe that other Christians can be rightly called Catholic who do not have full communion with the Vatican.  I mentioned the Orthodox, but there are also conservative Old Catholics, the SSPX, many sedevacantists, the Continuing Anglicans, the Polish National Catholic Church, the old CAC I have talked about a lot (also called Irvingites) and a group of Lutherans who have Catholic convictions that exist in their own communion as well.  Many of those groups hold probably a more authentic Catholic faith than some who call themselves Roman Catholic, and I recognize that for what it is.  Again, the conclusion is simple - you don't have to be Roman, or in communion with the Vatican, to be Catholic!  Hot take I know, but deal with it. 

Does this mean that Roman Catholics are not Catholic?  No, that is not the point at all.  There are many godly Roman Catholic people, as well as dedicated clergy, who definitely can be called truly Catholic, and they are part of that universal faith.  The point is they are not the only ones - God has a remnant in many places, and that remnant is going to surprise some people one day at who they truly are.  The berobed bureaucrats in the Vatican and in many diocesan chanceries may not be among those, as it has been correctly noted (I think it was a quote attributed to St. Chrysostom, but I think Wesley said it -  I will double-check that) the road to hell is paved with the skulls of apostate bishops.  Looking at it from that perspective, imagine the souls who were damned by self-serving clerics as they crunch the skulls of said clerics under their tortured feet as they are marched to their eternal damnation.  That should be a sobering thought to every Catholic priest and bishop today, because it is a warning regardless of whether the original quote was accurately stated or not.  People are watching, people are listening, and it should give pause for reflection.  Considering the sex scandals in Baltimore alone the past 20 years, and how many churches were shuttered because of those (one down the street here, what used to be St. Michael's, is now a brewery, and a couple of blocks away another parish, St. Ann's, has just closed).  The Archdiocese actually went Chapter 11 over that, and at that point the Archbishop and others should have had a check in their spirit that reminded them that close self-examination was necessary - I don't see that in all honesty.  And, even the current Pope has a blemish on his own legacy for aiding and abetting abusive clerics and not sufficiently addressing their indiscretions.  This series of ongoing scandals indicates that perhaps that Great Schism that many saints and visionaries talked about may be on the cusp of happening.  If it is, I will cast my lots with the side of orthodoxy.  The self-destructive actions of some apostate, heretical, and scandal-ridden clergy will not be tethered to me, sorry.  That is my gauntlet making a loud thud as it hits the ground. 

I am not saying this to be self-righteous at all, as God knows I am the least perfect of any soul.  However I am about consistency, and for good people of faith to be excommunicated and denied being Catholic while wicked people get a carte-blanche to do anything they want, it is a scandal of high proportions and it has to do with the Vatican trying to trademark the name "Catholic" as if it exclusively belonged to them.  Hence, my issue.  I think I will conclude these remarks there, as all that is said from my point of view has been said, and let those to whom it applies chew on it a while.

Aside from that, I wanted to mention that seven books are now published, and below are what they look like:

There are three of these books available on Amazon if you are interested, so feel free to support the sale of my books and do so.  I am hoping to do some more writing at a later time, but we'll wait and see what happens.  Thanks again for visiting, and will see you next time. 

What Constitutes "Catholic?"

 I was not planning on writing again this soon, but today in our parish bulletin the commentary by our parish priest, a Dominican friar and basically a wonderful pastor and spiritual leader, got my attention.  While Fr. Michael really never gives me many issues or incentives to disagree, I politely differ with some of his thoughts on this one.  The discussion has to do with the SSPX, a traditionalist Catholic group who a month ago consecrated I believe four new bishops without Pope Leo's approval, and it led to an excommunication of the SSPX.  This has been an issue I have wanted to sort of let ride out, because in all honesty the waters can be a bit murky to paddle through as there are complexities.  However, in seeing our parish priest's thoughts today, there are a few things I need to say about it now.  This will probably be the one and only time I address this issue, so I am going to try to handle it as thoroughly as possible. 

Let me explain my own position first.  I am a conservative Catholic, and I should explain what I mean by that.  I am not a TLM-exclusivist, as I have nothing against a reverent post-Vatican II liturgy and indeed I attend a parish where it is celebrated reverently and there is nothing that I see as an issue.  I am also NOT anti-Vatican II - I do not think the Vatican II Council was illegitimate, and indeed some wonderful insights have come from the documents produced by it (I particularly love Lumen Gentium, as it is a sound document that echoes historic teaching).  That being said, I also don't have an issue with the TLM being celebrated either - it is a beautiful Mass, and if Catholics feel the conviction to celebrate TLM, then let them - Pope Benedict XVI recognized that as well.  I don't attend one myself regularly - although I have in the past - and I technically prefer the Eastern-rite or Ordinariate Masses, but I have no issues with it either.  This is why Francis's draconian Traditionis Custodius was problematic, as in reality it was Francis creating the problem and not the prelates of the SSPX.  I have a lot more to say about Francis's pontificate later, but for now I want to state my own background to provide some context into what I am about to say. 

As a conservative Catholic, I tend to hold some traditional things, but I am also open to things such as Charismatic Renewal (being a former Pentecostal, that is a part of myself I have preserved), and also more of a role for the laity in the life of the Church.  I also don't really take a position on married clergy either, as in reality I take an Eastern position that if a man is married prior to ordination, that should not hinder him from seeking Holy Orders.  And, as a convert, I don't see other Christian groups as non-Christian just because they are not Catholic - I have stated in my own testimony before that I knew I was Christian long before I was received into the Catholic Church, and I still have many Evangelical and Pentecostal friends I consider my brethren in faith - we know and serve the same Lord, and I don't think not becoming Catholic will be a restriction on their heavenly reward either.   That being said, I tend to be a little broader in my definition of what "Catholic" is too, as I don't think the Vatican has a monopoly on the term.  This too I will elaborate more later.  I am a drummer who marches to a proverbial different cadence, but I am still in lockstep with the same procession regardless.  That has led me to the conclusion that in reality there may be more heretical voices inside the Church that merit excommunication than there are outside, and some of them are in positions of immense authority (one of those is Cardinal Fernandez, who is a moral reprobate who doesn't deserve to call himself a bishop of the Church).  This too I will elaborate more on as well.   I may not even finish this today, so this will take a couple of days to fully write up so I won't be posting it on the same day I started it.  The discussion is too complex and detailed to do in a matter of 30 minutes of writing, in other words. 

Let us start by defining the word "Catholic."  In the broad sense, it means "universal," meaning it is a Church for all peoples and ethnicities, and that mirrors John 3:16 - Jesus Christ died for the sins of all mankind, and whoever receives him will receive eternal life.  The Church represents the fullness of that, and that is why the name "Catholic" exists.  So, what then do we mean by the Catholic Faith?  A statement attributed to St. Vincent of Lerins which is one of my favorite quotes summarizes that well:

"(The true Catholic faith is) what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all"

This is called the Vincentian Canon, and its purpose was to draw a boundary between orthodox faith and heresy, and included clear definitions on things such as the primacy of Holy Scripture, and the reliability of the Church to help people understand and prevent heresy from cultivating.  Notice, St. Vincent does not say the Roman Catholic Church, but rather the Catholic faith.  The Catholic faith transcends any ethnic designation, geography, and jurisdictional limitations, which means by default a couple of things can be true:

1. There are bodies of Christians who may properly be called Catholic but not be subject to, or in communion with, the Vatican.

2.  It also means that although many Protestants may have an incomplete faith, they still have enough of the truth that places them within a level of catholicity, especially the fact they honor and worship Jesus as God the Son and also practice at least two valid sacramental expressions - matrimony and baptism.  So, yes, Protestants are Christians in the sense they embrace a lot of the historic faith, and therefore they participate in the Deposit of Faith on some level.  Only in the acceptance of actual heresies - such as Unitarianism or Oneness Pentecostalism - would they be deemed outside that extended grace. 

3. By conclusion then, this means that were there are true believers outside the official Church, there are also false believers inside it.  Many of those unfortunately are part of the clerical caste too, as they are often bishops and cardinals.  A spiritually vibrant Evangelical Protestant, therefore, would probably have more of a chance of heaven than a corrupt Catholic bishop.  Even Dante recognized that in Inferno. 

Based on those criteria, which are rooted in the Vincentian Canon, is the SSPX truly Catholic then?  Yes they are.  In some cases, the priests of the SSPX may actually be more Catholic in that regard than the last Pope was (yes, in case you didn't catch that, I am not a fan of Francis).  Measuring one's Catholic faith doesn't require blind obedience to a certain Pope, but rather the measure is this - how faithful are they to traditional Magisterial teaching?  On that, some SSPX clergy would score highly, while cardinals like Cupich or Fernandez (not to mention renegade priests like James Martin and Richard Rohr) would fail spectacularly.   It is at this point now I want to take Fr. Michael's commentary and touch on some points in it. 

The first statement in Fr. Michael's commentary that bears examination is this - "To state clearly, as the Church has, the Society of St. Pius X is not in communion with the Catholic Church and we ought not to go to their chapels."  This opening salvo sounds canonical, and in an official capacity probably is, but we have a problem.  Just a couple of months ago, Pope Leo entertained the current Archbishop of Canterbury - who is a woman I might add - at the Vatican and even concelebrated some sort of "prayer service" with this heterodox priestess, who also advocates for LGBT theology.  Since King Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church in the 16th century over a divorce of all things, the Archbishop of Canterbury has not been in communion with the Catholic Church either.  So, if we are going to censure laypeople for attending what is essentially a Catholic Mass at an SSPX chapel, than perhaps the Pope himself should also be censured for doing what he did too - of course, the inclusion of a non-Christian mosque within the walls of the Vatican, or Francis playing with his little Pachamama dolls (pagan idols) should also be noted.  We are supposed to come down hard on the SSPX, but let this other stuff slide??  That is problematic on so many levels.  If I had the choice of attending Mass at a liberal Episcopalian church with a fake lesbian priestess versus an SSPX chapel, I think I would be more Magisterially compliant attending the latter.  But, what do I know - I am just a silly layperson!  I don't fault Fr. Michael for this at all, as I am certain he is probably saying what he's saying in good faith, but I would challenge him to look at some of this other nonsense going one in the name of "Catholic" and then issue a consistent statement on that too.  

I then look at another statement further down in Fr. Michael's commentary - "But Catholicism is also universal in time.  It belongs in every age and must in some way remain engaged with the present."  What he is saying here is based on the Latin meaning of the world "Catholic," which is simply "universal."  There is a lot to unpack in this sentence, so let's take it a little at a time and slowly digest it.  Yes, Catholicism is universal in time - that is the Vincentian Canon's assertion as well, and I totally agree.   However, what is the context of the statement?  If Fr. Michael means universal in regard to historic Magisterial teaching, he is spot-on and I have no argument with that at all.  And, as he notes, it does belong in every age and must in some way remain engaged with the present - absolutely, but what is that context as well?  Church teaching is not negotiable, and is established by both Holy Scripture and Apostolic Tradition - and, being that natural law and other things also are buttressed by that, it means that things true in the present have been and will be universally true in ages to come.  We can adopt language, technology and other things to be properly engaged with the present, but it can never be at the expense of established eternal truth.  That being said, where is the SSPX in this?  Are they in any way violating that teaching?  If so, specifically where?  I think Fr. Michael may need to clarify that somewhat to simplify what he means, as this can be a loaded gun that any heretical viewpoint can use to justify itself.  Even a slight misunderstanding of it can lead to monumental consequence.  In my estimation, the whole reason for the SSPX's existence was to preserve Magisterial truth, not replace it - yet, what I need to hear from Fr. Michael is why they get excommunicated while individuals like James Martin, and Richard Rohr can flaunt obviously heretical things and are considered untouchable - the same could be said of some cardinals too, and I mean people like Fernandez (who is very perverted) and Cupich (who is outright hostile against more traditional Catholics).  Francis excommunicates Archbishop Vigano, but then promotes a deviant like Fernandez to the second-highest office in the Vatican.  Again, a little consistency here would be nice!   This leads me to reflect on the word "Catholic" more and who or what can rightly be called "Catholic." 

For many people, including many misinformed Catholics, the only right use of this word is with the adjective Roman in front of it.  However, I have to ask - does every Catholic have to be Roman??  I would say no.  For one thing, the Orthodox and Oriental Churches hold Catholic theology, as does groups such as the Polish National Catholic Church, the Continuing Anglicans, and yes, even the SSPX.   All of these are said to be "in schism" with the Vatican, but in many cases people in those churches have a more solid Catholic faith than a lot of individuals who identify as "Roman Catholic." I was probably as Catholic when I was a Continuing Anglican as I am now in communion with Rome, but would that be acknowledged?  I believe it should.  I was more Catholic then, I would assert, than some people who were "born Catholic" ever were - I reference the former CFO of the school I taught at, who denied basic Eucharistic theology but called himself Catholic.  Yet, the SSPX are the ones being punished.  Again, I have a huge pet peeve with inconsistency, and it seems like conservatives and traditionalists are getting whaled on while leftists and actual heretics get a free pass - maybe that is what is meant by "engaging with the present."  With 60% of professing Catholics having issues with the Church's teachings right now, and younger people being attracted to more traditional Masses, why is Leo picking on the SSPX??  That is some food for thought I hope Fr. Michael may consider.  I am going to address the inconsistency of this in Fr. Michael's writing shortly, but wanted to give this as a pretext. 

Further down toward the end of the writing, Fr. Michael then makes this statement I wanted to address: "This does not mean that elements of the Second Vatican Council, or of its implementation, do not need to be better understood and worked through.  But to draw a line and claim that the Church no longer lives and moves within time strikes at the heart of what it means to be Catholic."  Again, there is a lot to unpack here, so let's just dive into it.  I said before that personally I have no problem with recognizing the good things of Vatican II, and indeed, some reform was necessary as long as it is consistent with the historic Magisterium of the Church.  However, I would clarify the statement by stating that the question that some traditionalists have about Vatican II is not so much about its elements (although some may say so) but indeed is more about their implementation afterward.  A lot of bad theology and practices have resulted from the misappropriation of things in the Vatican II documents, misappropriations I don't believe some of their original drafters intended.  That misappropriation is not even so much from the Council Fathers, but rather of a group of "advisors" called periti that exerted some undue influence - I am talking about openly questionable individuals such as Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx and others who cloaked their heterodox positions in ambiguous language so as to almost invite misappropriation, and they had their roots in the earlier heresies of people such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.  It is from the ambiguities of these periti that most of the muddled water of ideology in the Church came from, and it is precisely that garbage that Archbishop Lefevre, the founder of the SSPX,  had concerns about.  Engaging the present was never an issue - that is a natural process - but radically redefining truths held since Apostolic times definitely is a problem.  So, I think there are a couple of other aspects of this I need to address because they tie into how this stuff spreads among Catholics at times.

There seems to be this misunderstanding that the Pope is somehow infallible even when he farts on the toilet for some reason, and that simply is not the case.  The Pope is a human being, prone to sinful things like any of us, and thus there is nothing divine about him.  For Catholics to try to give the Pope more authority than the Church ever did, I say this - you are setting the Pope up to be more like a Warren Jeffs, a Jim Jones, or a Sun Myung Moon than you are as the actual representative of Christ's Church, and you are basically putting a big bulls-eye on your back for any Protestant Fundamentalist evangelist to try to force-feed you Chick comics about that.  The late Bishop Fulton Sheen once accurately said that most people hate what they see as the Catholic Church rather than what really is the Catholic Church, and when we start to endow the Papacy with powers it never was intended to have, we create an impression that is false.  Even though the proper title of the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, the fact these are mortal men has led to a lot of bad Popes over the centuries, and Popes who have made dumb - albeit human - mistakes and have failed in their mission.  The last Pope, Francis, is a glaring example of that - he stunk as a Pope in all honesty, and some of what Leo is doing now merits scrutiny. It doesn't take away from the office, and definitely does not supplant Magisterial truth, but it still does damage when others see it.  The Pope is not Christ - he is a fallible man, and like all of us, he will sin.  He holds his office with a lot of responsibility, and if he fails to carry that out, he fails as a spiritual leader.  In matters of faith and doctrine, the Pope is subject to a higher standard - the Deposit of Faith.  If a Pope is in agreement with the Deposit of Faith, we accept it.  If he is not, we can throw it out.  On this one, the Pope erred, I am sorry - he was inconsistent in punishing the SSPX but letting people like Fernandez, Richard Rohr, and James Martin prance around without consequences too.  He is also inconsistent in punishing these SSPX faithful and denying them the title Catholic while he covorts with faux female "archbishops" of the Church of England, which is not in communion with the Holy See either.  If the Pope is doing junk like that, do we blindly accept that?  NO!!  The Pope needs to accept responsibility for his actions too, as he may actually be declaring himself schismatic by doing them, and don't get me started on Cardinal Tucho Fernandez - that character should have been defrocked and excommunicated decades ago when he published his first soft-core porn book.  And then there is James Martin, prancing around like a prissy pony at "pride parades" who gets rewarded with papal audiences, while the SSPX leadership is snubbed.  Consistency is needed, and I would like to see Fr. Michael address those inconsistencies as well instead of just focusing on the SSPX.

In the concluding paragraphs, Fr. Michael goes on to essentially equate the SSPX with Luther, and he calls them "Protestantism with a lot of Latin."  Yet, the Pope himself fellowships with actual Protestants like the faux Archpriestess of Canterbury.  I would not call the SSPX "Protestant," because they don't hold to Protestant teachings theologically - their doctrine is thoroughly Catholic, perhaps more so than some who profess to be Catholic, and that label was not fair.  While I don't agree totally with some in the SSPX, and I think perhaps a little more dialogue should have happened before excommunications were thrown at them (maybe Leo could have actually met with them?  Now, there is a radical thought!), but at the same time I don't denounce them as "Protestant."  It is, after all, very possible to be Catholic without being in communion with the Vatican - the Orthodox have done that for over 1000 years, and then you also have other groups (sedevacantist groups, the Polish National Church, the Old Catholics, Continuing Anglicans, the Oriental Churches, and others) who also embrace the Deposit of Faith perhaps even more fully than do many Roman Catholics.  So, if being in communion with the Holy See is a definition of "Catholic," I guess that means the fictional Fr. Guido Sarducci from the old SNL skits can celebrate Eucharist then, no?  Again, we need to be more judicious with terms like "Protestant," as a whole theology goes with Protestantism and the SSPX does not subscribe to that particular theology.  I embrace a more Vincentian view of what it means to be Catholic, and that at times does transcend the walls of the Vatican. 

A lot more could have been said on this, and it is not a subject I wanted to address but had to.  Thank you for enduring this lengthy discourse with me, and will see you next time. 

More Perspectives - Homesteading Thoughts

 Here is another collection of thoughts regarding the last discussion, and there are some interesting things to talk about.  I wanted to first off just acknowledge that I have been busy this week with these reflections, as there seems like a lot to say.  That being said, let's get into the discussion.

One of the things about the ideological Left is this campaign they have about "climate change."  We are encouraged to "go green," reduce our "carbon footprint" by not eating meat, driving cars, or wearing furs, and we are constantly lambasted by crazy people like that Greta Thunberg person about how dangerous the planet is, and that the next cow fart (in the illustrious Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's pearls of wisdom) will blow up the planet and kill us all.  Some of the more radical proponents of this movement even want to kill off people, and they are self-hating humans who actively promote things like genocide, abortion, and other indignities against personhood.  They want to give chickens the right to sue KFC for frying them, and some of them want to even charge the Jolly Green Giant with a felony for encouraging the murder of innocent peas and carrots.  The more unhinged these Leftists become, the more inconsistent and ridiculous their own arguments look.  Let me just cite one glaring example that proves this is a control issue, and not real environmental stewardship.

I live in Baltimore, which is rife with Leftist politics.  You cannot go down a street here without seeing a dozen rainbow LGBTQ flags, painted "Black Lives Matter" and "Abolish ICE" slogans, and other fiery rhetorical garbage being flaunted like a skirt on a French poodle.  Yet, take a closer look at those same streets - they are full of abandoned row houses, some with trees growing out of the top of them,  and the streets are littered with garbage while any surface is choked with the incoherent markings of graffiti.  I would say that those are very big "carbon footprints," but the ones that holler the most about "global warming" and "climate change" are not out attempting to clean up those neighborhoods.  In Baltimore it is on blatant display, but you see it in other cities as well.  If these Leftist loonies were really that concerned about the environment, you should be seeing armies of them out there with trash bags and pressure-washers cleaning up the streets and walls, but where are they??  If anything, with a corrupt city government in place, it seems to actually be getting worse.  The utopian paradise the Left promised looks just like that - trash all over, graffiti vandalizing every constructed surface, and the nasty tangy smell of mercaptin (our housemate here says it smells like marijuana - who knows?) wafting through the air as the city slowly decays.  It is also not uncommon to see rats the size of Welsh corgis out there, and the official city bird of Baltimore is a giant cockroach.  Yeah, good job AOC and Greta - where are you??  Let me just expose a dirty little secret the Left doesn't tell their voters.

Many leftists and their billionaire benefactors actually don't believe actual "climate change" exists either.  It's mainly a talking point to where they can extort more money, tally more votes, and make fabricated scenes of their own proported victimhood.  They seized on a tactic of fear to hold onto power, and there are enough stupid idiots who buy it.  It's really a brilliant scam when you think about it - the newest Leftist politician promises to save the planet, and yet the city he or she rules over is a garbage pit.  That describes Baltimore's political establishment to a tee.  The bottom line is that they don't give a damn about a nonexistent manufactured crisis - they just want power.  And, they will lie, cheat, and steal to get it.  Until we change the system, it will continue as a vicious downward cycle too.  And, that friends is your bottom line.  

The other half of this argument is that it is "White Christian men" who are the fault of all this, and that is almost laughable considering that in Baltimore especially, many of the communities with the worst urban blight haven't seen a White face as a neighbor in decades.  However, are conservative religious people - in particular men - the real problem?  Do we just not care about the world around us?  Let's blow that argument out of the water.

When God initially created our world as recorded in the first couple of chapters of Genesis, his exact words at the end of each creative cycle were "it is good."  Then he created our ancestors, Adam and Eve, and gave them dominion (stewardship) over the earth.  What that means is that we are mandated to take care of God's creation.  For this reason, littering and waste, as well as urban decay, are not acceptable, and indeed the most recent cleanup efforts often do come from more conservative  activists, not liberals - Scott Presler is a good example.  Scott is as gay as a picnic basket, and while I would differ with his lifestyle choices, one thing about him is that he has done commendable work cleaning up cities, and he is politically conservative.  A few years ago he did a campaign to clean up streets in Baltimore, and you have to admire someone like that.  However, often for his efforts Scott is put in situations that could potentially endanger his life - many of the blighted neighborhoods in cities are also strongholds of criminal activity, and a White guy like Scott probably sticks out like a sore thumb.  Scott and others like him need our prayers for their protection, as they are doing a valuable service that often the local political establishment doesn't appreciate, and we need more out there like him.  Too bad Greta Thunberg, who is all mouth and no brains, doesn't have similar convictions to put action behind her words like Scott Presler does.  Greta is an attention whore (forgive the language, but it fits) and she couldn't care less about actual environmental cleanup work.  Do you think that seeing people at risk in the inner cities concerns her?  Of course not!  And it doesn't matter to other mouthpieces like Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Congressman who isn't worth the taxpayer dollars that pay him.  It is also not a concern of greedy Maryland Governor Wes Moore, or crooked Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (a dude that really needs a good introduction to a comb).  These people don't care that rats the size of rottweilers roam the neighborhoods they claim to serve, and this is why all of them would do the world a service if they just resigned and were replaced with more capable leadership.  Democrats - and Leftists in general - don't care about service; they care about control.  And for all the loud rhetoric, I have yet to see any of them who put some substance behind their speeches.  Yet, conservatives are the bad guys - really?  All is not as it seems, and let me now get into why.

Unlike much of the propaganda, many of us who are conservatives actually hate trashy neighborhoods, and we try to clean up after ourselves.  And that has led to some radical conservation ideas that are not only appealing, but would be a huge benefit to society as a whole.  One of the things I read about and would love to try myself at some point is to build something out of discarded glass and plastic bottles as well as aluminum cans.  I watched a couple of things on YouTube recently where some guy actually collected plastic soda bottles, melted them, and then molded them into beautiful walkway tiles.  With a firepit and a bit of epoxy and cement, you can actually do a lot with discarded materials.  I saw another TV documentary years ago where a guy built a house out of glass bottles, and it looked amazing.  If I am ever blessed with the land to do it, I would love to undertake a project like that.  This would even extend to reclaimed building materials from demolished properties.  As the old saying goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure," and some truly beautiful things could be created from what we dismiss as garbage.  That means there needs to be an uptick in recycling as well - some cities have constructed power plants at city landfills, and they burn garbage as a fuel source to power homes in the city.  That is a great idea.  Imagine the amount of paper, cardboard, and other stuff like that which could be turned into something sustainable.  Once the combustible stuff is burnt, then the ash could also be repurposed as actual landfilling material, and it would be a way to reclaim landscapes.  Or, the ash could be mixed with certain chemicals and even turned into a sort of concrete to aid in public works.  Obviously, vegetable and organic waste can be used to cultivate flora, both as sustainable gardens as well as providing composting to parks and other natural features to enrich the plant life.  The thing is, the ideas are out there, and they could be easily executed with minimal expense, but we again have greedy bureaucrats (often the same Leftist hacks that whine about "climate change") who block those efforts, and that is truly reprehensible.  In all honesty, they should be recycled too by firing them from their positions of authority and making them sort the garbage to recycle - it would be a humbling and educational experience for them.  I could see Jamie Raskin now with his elbows deep in piles of garbage, sorting what is to be useful and what can be incinerated for fuel - that is a beautiful picture, and he could have Greta Thunberg and AOC join him.  And, have a true conservationist like Scott Presler as their boss, and give him full authority to really crack the whip on them.  That would be a scenario of true, poetic justice.  I see the potential of a book in the works here as well as a lot more discussions.

When I talked about intentional communities yesterday like those of the Catholic Land Movement, I see those as the places where things like this could be put into practice.  The key attribute of a homestead is minimizing waste and making use of everything - that means the manure the chickens and horses create nourishing the gardens, and the parings of the vegetables and fruits as well as meat bones making the recipe of a rich compost possible.  As intentional communities are not Luddites like our Amish and Mennonite friends, this also means the recycling of plastic, paper, and other things as well.  This is why, if I had a homestead, I would want to build a huge incinerator kiln on the property and put it to use - it would have to be a kiln that would get to at least 800 degrees inside, and could reduce even the toughest material to a fine ash.  The ash in turn could be utilized in other ways - it can be mixed with clay and water to create a cement, or it could provide even exterior insulation and other uses.  Nothing is wasted, in other words.  That is what true conservation is all about, and if it is done right, there will be no need for garbage collection or anything unless it absolutely was necessary.  With trash ash, manure, composting material, and other things readily available, it would ensure that a place would have a raw material available with which to sustain operations.  This is not even utopian fantasy, because the one realization of this is that you will get your hands dirty if you are consistent, and you may have to endure some smells and other things you don't find pleasant either.  But, the reward in the end is accomplishment, and the satisfaction of knowing you were a responsible steward over your resources.  Again, this would definitely warrant more examination, and I may revisit this at some point to develop it more.  

Thank you for allowing me to pontificate again today, and I promise, this is the last screed until at least the end of next week!  Have a great weekend everyone. 

Perspectives on Politics and Other Things

 I wasn't planning on writing today, but a lot has been on my mind and I have a lot to catch up on since last having time to do so over a year ago.  So, I am just going to make some commentary on a few things I have been seeing lately.

A disclaimer first.  In the course of composing these articles here, oftentimes a couple of things happen.  For one, a lot of my content is "off the cuff," meaning I write it as I think it.  If I were to develop some ideas more later, I would probably do my own extensive edits on myself.  Secondly, and that being said, I apologize for the occasional typo you may see in these articles - at the end of each year, I cut, paste, and compile the year's work into an annual book, and in those I generally do a grammar and spell check so they will look better.  Spelling and grammatical errors happen for a variety of reasons, some of which include the computer I am working on sometimes "burping" when there is a power outage or something, and then a segment of the text gets either repetitive or omitted to a degree it doesn't make sense, so often I will catch that and fix it.  Self-publishing has been both an education and an adventure, both as far as blogging is concerned but also in publication of print books.  I still have much to learn to refine things in those areas, so bear with me there. 

So, in doing a number of perusings the past couple of days, there are some topics I just wanted to skim today.  For the first, I came across two different things that immediately grabbed my attention.  One is an organization called Christian Villages, which is largely made up of Evangelicals, and the second is one I came across the other day called Ark Homesteads, which has a similar mission but is Catholic.  In looking over those, I have a couple of observations.

To begin, I have always been attracted to the idea of self-sustaining Christian communities, as I think it would be a way to solidify relationships with like-minded people as well as providing a degree of structure one normally does not find in contemporary society.  These ideas have been around for a while, and there are some good models of success to look at with them - one is the town of Ave Maria in Florida, just as an example.  Ave Maria was started as a university by the guy who founded Domino's Pizza, Tom Monaghan.  In time, a whole community grew up around the university, and today it is actually a shining example of how Catholic social teaching can be lived out in a more structured setting.  While Ave Maria is probably the best one I know about that exists today, there could be smaller and lower-profile communities as well - that would surely be worth looking into.  I have a lot to say on this, so let me continue.

The problem with the concept is simple - it can be a potential for cultic activity too.  We saw that with Jonestown in the late 1970s, and I don't think anyone with any moral scruples wants to see that repeated again.  However, one thing to understand about Jonestown though is that it was not technically a Christian community - Jim Jones was a cult leader, an ideological Marxist, and he more or less used a religious face to advance his own nefarious agenda.  Despite that set of facts though, it is understandable why some people would not want to consider a Christian community of any sort.  Because we live in a fallen world, even a good idea can end up bearing tragic fruit if it is in the wrong hands, and that is what happened at Jonestown.  The idea of Christian community is something that has the potential for devolving into utopian fantasy as well, and if that bar is set too high, then the potential for future problems is there.  I believe this is one reason why perhaps the idea of a "Christian community" can scare people.  I get that totally, and that is what I want to look at in regard to the first group I looked at, Christian Villages.

The idea that birthed Christian Villages comes from a guy named Jon England and his wife Melanie.  If you will go to https://www.christianvillagesbook.com/book1774561831825, you will see he also wrote a book about it.  Intrigued by this, I joined his mailing list, but it didn't take long to see where the potential issues were, and I will get into that shortly.  In the book (which you can download as a digital copy for free), England talks about four stages that are necessary for the establishment of a Christian village:

1. Foundation

2. Formation

3. Fellowship

4. Fruitfulness

In order to achieve these, England notes that it will cost a lot of hard work, a loss of conveniences, and also a sacrifice of independence.  It is one of those types of books which seeks to model what the "first Christians" lived like, and there are things in it about accountability, communal living, and also some sort of authority.  In reading some of the material, England seems to be drawing from some poisoned wells such as Discipleship/Shepherding, the Bill Gothard-type model, and it seems like he wants to do some sort of totalitarian control over people who "covenant" with him in the experiment.  Those are some serious red flags, because it sounds like the potential for a cult, and I began to back away from it shortly after discovering what was in the material the book contains.  The wording is nice, true, but often an intent lies underneath the rhetoric, and that intent is what produces the fruit of whatever is being created.  I don't think England's intent is healthy at all.  And, that leads to a couple of other observations about this I want to make clear.

First, I still love the idea of an intentional Christian community by all means.  However, it must be truly Christian, and not built upon some idea of utopian perfection in the mind of its creator. This means you acknowledge those who are part of it as unique persons created in God's image, and you recognize that natural law grants them rights that cannot be violated - if someone tries, they act outside God's will.  Secondly, while it is OK to have dreams, there are two important and sometimes painful lessons I have learned over the years that will save someone a lot of heartache if they grasp them early.  The first is that utopian visions are a personal thing in the mind of the person who creates it, and maybe will not reflect the ideas of others.  Secondly, in this life you cannot expect perfection - you do your best, and nothing wrong with that, but be prepared for some things coming against you.  As communities are made up of concupiscent human beings for one thing, not every day will be perfect, and we will inevitably not agree on everything.  So, if one person is in control and imposes their will on others, it will create some problems.  I think England may be running a risk of this if he institutes his model, and I have already seen emails where he is demanding huge investments from people who are just curious about the idea, and that cannot be good.  Third, instead of trying to suppress differences, be a true community and listen to ideas - sometimes another person may have an idea you didn't think about and it may be an "aha" moment for the life of that community.  Respect and appreciation for differences - and I am talking about minor individual differences that characterize all of us - will prove more cohesive than divisive, and a good leader understands that.  If Jon England wants any success with his own vision, he will need to realize this quickly.  Otherwise, he will disintegrate into another potential Jim Jones. 

This is what I wanted to share about Jon England's Christian Village model, and now I want to contrast that with a Catholic intentional community model that has more potential in all honesty.

Ark Homesteads (see their website at https://www.arkhomesteads.com/) was the creation of a family, the Amezcuas.  Two brothers - Erick and Aaron - bought with their families a parcel of land in Missouri for approximately $53,000.  In contrast to the Englands, the Amezcuas have a very sustainable and realistic plan that started a community with their families, and now they want to offer the idea to other Catholics.  The brothers mentioned they did this in 2021 I believe, and they moved from California to rural Missouri because they essentially thought some things about the world were getting somewhat negative to deal with.  There is nothing remotely utopian about this family though - they recognize limitations in budgets, and they also are aware that in order to have a Catholic community, beliefs have to be in line with Magisterial teaching, and that means the potential of cultic development is minimized.  They also don't pressure people like the Englands do - they just tell their story, and they are still in the formative stages of creating these communities, such as the acquisition of land, etc.  The way their model works is that an interested family can buy a small parcel on a bigger tract of land at a fair price, and then build their own home according to their own plans.  At the center of that community will be a parish church, and I am assuming some other infrastructure such as schools, etc., will come into play as well.  My advice to the Amezcuas would be to seek good outside businesses to invest and set up shops and things as well, kind of like Tom Monaghan did with Ave Maria, and it could be a potential income source for the families who invest as well.  I might actually initiate a conversation with Erick and Aaron about that and see what they think.  

Intentional communities, then, are a good idea.  However, they must be implemented responsibly and properly, and a narcissistic dictator cannot be the person with the controlling interest or it devolves quickly into a cult.  I have more to say on this in the future, but just wanted to bring it to attention as it is an idea I have thought about myself for some time.  There is a sort of exhilaration about creating and self-sufficiency attached to owning a piece of land, but also the appeal of true community - a place where you have close friends and know they have your back - is part of it as well.  I have had some ideas of my own over the years that relate to this as well, including my own ideas about recycling, and at some point I think I will talk about that in another discussion given the length of this one already.  However, to wrap up this part of the discussion, I like the idea of both forging a legacy in land for future generations, as well as a decent community of people who live around you to both witness this as well as their own participation in building legacies of their own.  It is appealing. 

I never got to the political thing yet, but wanted to touch on that briefly now.  I have been reading things online from people I have known over the years, and I see something interesting.  Let me go on record first as saying that although I voted for Trump as President, and so far I believe he is the best choice for the job compared to everything else that is out there, I am not always in agreement with everything he does.  However, I am also not going to let disagreements on minors detract from the issues of major importance, as I feel that Trump is steering us overall in the right direction for once, and that is why I voted for him.  I have seen others though - many of whom are conservative by conviction - almost lament the "old days" of Obama and Biden's weird regimes, and that is disconcerting.  I have seen people who self-identify as "conservative" basically supporting unvetted illegal immigration, letting the LGBT agenda run rampant over our nation dictating new moralities that are in direct contradiction to Christian convictions, and even being soft on inner-city crime.  One of the most glaring people who do this is former VP Mike Pence.  I don't know, but despite the golden image Pence often displays, I just don't feel right about the man - something is off with him.  Sure, he says the right things, and he projects the image of an upstanding God-fearing guy and all, and to be honest, as a person he may actually be decent, but it is just that for me something does not seem quite right.  I see this with other self-styled "conservatives" too,  and I believe that is one reason why for many years the "woke Left" has dominated society and culture.  Thankfully, that has begun to change, and at least now it seems like "wokeness" is going out of vogue (even other Democrats are seeing how ludicrous it is).  Yet, you have the Mike Pences almost mourning its demise, as if they loved the enemies of our faith.  There are still a few of these even in the Trump administration - that Dr. Oz character is one of them, and I am convinced he is a Turkish agent as well as being disgusted with the way he has targeted Armenian-Americans in Los Angeles - and they are doing no one any favors.  Simply put, they are relics of the neo-con era of Bush Jr. and McCain, and they no longer have any relevance.  As we see the Left get more unhinged because they know they have lost the war, I also get disgusted at seeing so-called "Christians" and "Republicans" patting them on the back as they scream and saying "there, there" to them.  Faux conservatives have chosen their side, and they are using a person - Trump - to project their own stupidity upon while our nation tries to recover.  The neo-cons in particular - a group I could never personally support - are probably worse than the most radical Democratic Socialists because they are the ones making people like AOC possible.  This is why if Mike Pence were to just fall into a well of obscurity and disappear (which actually seems like what he has done) I don't think his presence would be missed all that much.  Like I said, I don't totally see eye-to-eye with Trump on everything either, but I also think for our nation right now he is what is needed - God doesn't expect a perfect saint to be a secular power in a nation, and Trump is definitely no saint!  But, God can still use people like Trump for the greater good, and that is what I am looking at.  Someone said a few years back that we don't elect pastors as President, but leaders.  Leaders fail, they are like most of humanity not perfect, but what we should be asking ourselves is if said leader is overall having a positive impact or not.  Trump's legacy will ultimately be based on that, and not what goofy things he may have done in his life over the years.  Remember also, it was not that long ago when Trump was the darling of those who are now trying to kill him - the Trump of 30 years ago was not a conservative Republican (and in all aspects, he still isn't in all honesty) and he was the darling of people like Hillary Clinton and those who slander him now.  We need to start separating fact from fiction, and be honest about Trump and others - they may not be our cup of tea personality-wise, but God allowed them to be where they are for a reason, and I see him as an answer to many prayers.  "Woke" is dying, as it is being exposed for the radical mess it is, and we largely have Donald Trump's presidency to thank for that.  Therefore, that is what I wanted to say when even so-called "conservative" voices tend to condemn Trump.  

This was a long post, and probably more could be said about it - I already see subsequent discussions in it in a couple of places.  However, thanks for bearing with me, and will see you next time.