Wonderful Matters

On the way to work this morning, heard a news report that announced a lot of victims of the Catholic Church priest sex abuse scandal were upset about things so much that they were going to meet with Cardinal Roger Mahoney to really get down to business. To take some dramatic steps to get to the bottom of things. Very very serious steps. They were going to ask him some questions. "We want answers, mister! We want to know what's going on! We want the truth!" Ever hear this before? I have. A zillion times. Problem. If they actually asked someone who would tell them the truth, they'd go, "Nah. That's not it." And then go on talking with their puppet Jesus. Every single person starts out with a puppet Jesus. This is something each individual converses with about the things that matter. The puppeteer asks, "So what is the truth about things?" and then the puppet Jesus answers. Oh it doesn't have to be anything like Jesus. A common one is, "S...

Yesterday I made note of the turmoil some Catholicists are enduring over the priest sexual abuse scandal. Thought about the question, "What to do?" Here are some variations of that question, and some ideas for answers. 1. "Why doesn't the Catholic Church get rid of Roger Mahoney?" Some radio talk show guys here in Southern California have referred to him as "Don Corleone" Mahoney. They certainly get that part. What they don't get is that whoever they replace him with will just continue to do the same things. Oh yes the Catholic Church may fire him to make itself look good, and his successor will certainly paste smiles all over his face while sprinkling in a few firm "This won't happen on my watch" pronouncements. But he'll still be the duly ordained agent of Cain, using extreme deceptive arts to manage the sin of those under his charge. 2. "Why don't Carl Marziali and his wife go somewhere else themselves for religious gr...

Yesterday I made reference to an opinion piece that appeared in the Los Angeles Times that is quite typical of the confusion a good Catholicist has when he is brutally exposed to the truth about the Church. That truth has been quite splattered across the news, but both the befuddlement and the truth have been around for millennia. Yes, there is indeed nothing new under the sun. The only thing that would be new in any of this is the liberating realization of what it all means. It blows me away that people who so brashly proclaim how much they know and how much they are above it all will never go beyond the "I'm simply mystified stage" regarding why Cardinal Roger Mahoney is still running the LA Archdiocese. "I'm just mystified. I can't see how this guy who covered up all the sexual abuse is still in office. I'm mystified. Aren't you? You are too? Yeah, so am I. Mystified." Really, have you ever heard anyone say why he is still there? It's har...

This opinion piece appeared in today's Los Angeles Times, hot off the presses as the Catholic priest sexual abuse settlement is still steamin.' It is a story that has been told before a gazillion times by equally disconsolate people, but rarely with the commensurate resolution. Thing is, I don't have a lick of time tonight to address that here, but you can get a hint from my last blog post. You can also get the full treatment from the Bible, it's all there, the complete and thorough resolution, but so few people read it with the intent to actually find it there, that it may not matter what I say anytime here. Anyway, until tomorrow.

Recently the pope made more official some official declarations that the Roman Catholic Church has been officially making for centuries. When they do this it gets some media attention, mostly because so many chafe at the fact that the Roman Catholic Church is claiming to be the one true church. A mainstream news take on it all is here at the Los Angeles Times . What irritates people is that the church gets all puffy about how you can't earn God's favor or go to heaven or be a good person without the Roman Catholic Church. To keep from being too intolerant the church will say things like other institutions are means to grace or they are respected communities of belief and all the rest of it. But it still holds: The Roman Catholic Church is the true church . Want to know something? They're right . Yes. It's true. They are correct: The Roman Catholic Church is the one single true ecclesiastical body. They can make such a firmly veritable proclamation about this s...

Isn't it interesting that now that the subject of immigration is dead in Congress, it is nowhere in the news. Once the gods of the Catholicist have stopped making it an issue, it doesn't much matter any more. Over the two weeks since I posted my take on immigration, I thought I'd amplify a couple of things. I'm really adding nothing new; in fact, nothing I write is new, at least this is my goal. That may seem counterintuitive-- you'd think I'd want to be putting up stuff that's new and fascinating , after all, that is kind of the idea behind a blog, isn't it?-- "What's new that Dave has found out?!..." The fact is, my goal is to be about as redundant as possible--redundant about the word of God that is. If it isn't already in there, then what I'm saying may go against that. So please, challenge me about what I say and tell me if it isn't already in His word. I want to know. Anyway, back to the immigration thing-- I thought I...

The reality of non-profit activity becomes more and more pronounced as I look around with an inquisitive mind. I will tell you that I am graciously open to learning as much as I can about these operations. Some of those things seemed to jump out this week, and I thought I'd share them with you. 1. On July 4th I was visiting with some of my wife's family, and her aunt asked us if we'd like to come to the Lotus Festival in Los Angeles this weekend. This festival is a big do-up for intercultural stuff, and she is a top director of some kind. Interestingly she brought up that they had recently formed a non-profit in order to raise money for the affair. After she told me what the festival was about, I asked her if a detailed explanation of all that was included in the application for non-profit status, you know, so the government knows that it's all for a good cause. She said, "Oh no, what we do is put together bylaws. We have to let them know how we operate, so everyon...