Thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the shepherds of Israel
who have been pasturing themselves!
Should not shepherds, rather, pasture sheep?
You have fed off their milk, worn their wool,
and slaughtered the fatlings,
but the sheep you have not pastured.
You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick
nor bind up the injured.
You did not bring back the strayed nor seek the lost,
but you lorded it over them harshly and brutally.
Ezekial 34: 1-11
Uncensored thoughts about the collapse of our society.
Reading Catholic blogs and news sources, one would think the biggest problem in the world is who to vote for, banning abortion, banning gays from everywhere and everything, making sure everyone lives their lives according to the genitalia they are born with, making sure no one gets Communion unless they 'qualify', and the list could go on and on and on. Then there is the whole matter of who is a real Catholic and who is not - oh! Oh! Don't forget save the liturgy save the world. That will make things right - for Catholics.
A woman I know, whose kids go to catholic school told me she doesn't know why she sends her kids there, aside from the quality of education, but she complained they do not learn much of anything about their religion - if and when a class need to be cancelled, it's always the religion class. She told me they do not know anything about Mass, prayer, the commandments, and so on - as she was taught. And she went to school in the late 1970's and '80's - when we were already complaining about the quality of religious ed. at that time. I'm suggesting that even many Catholics may not know very much these days regarding faith and morals.
So you want to go for the 'Benedictine option'?
Yet back to my opening statement - Catholics are out of touch. How many insulate themselves from association with the 'underclass' if you will? Sending kids to Catholic school as my friend does, shields them from the harsh reality of inner city public schools ... maybe. Then, if you live in a fairly decent to a nice neighborhood - you might avoid the white trash types. The single moms, the unmarried cohabiting on again off again couples. The chronically unemployed. The woefully under-educated. White, Black, Latino, mixed race people from the underclass. It's not just minorities I'm thinking of. nor am I trying to discriminate or put people down with this, there are other 'drop-out' types. Call them pop-culture victims, covered with tats, piercings, multiple colors in their hair; some trans, some straight, others sexually fluid, others Therian, neo-pagans, atheist, agnostic, what have you - all very hip and with it.
These people live in our cities - usually. The point is, So many of these people rarely, if ever go to church, many were raised without consistent reference, and or examples of religious or traditional moral values. It's Lennon's 'Imagine' come true:
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today... Aha-ah...
Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...
Four-month-old Emersyn was killed by her father
Aha-ah ...
My apologies for the long introduction, but I was deeply disturbed and upset over this past weekend's news of a young father beating his infant daughter to death. She was his daughter, the mom is his girlfriend, she was at work, he was at home babysitting. As the story developed, people interviewed - his mom, said he was mentally ill - but they trusted him with the baby. He apparently used drugs as well. Here's the story:
Four-month-old Emersyn was killed by her father, Cory Morris, in Minneapolis, authorities say.
As he had done often in the past, Cory Morris cared for his 4-month-old daughter, Emersyn Morris, when the baby's mother left for work Saturday morning.
But throughout the day, he did not respond to text messages from Jenny Andersen, his girlfriend and Emersyn's mother. At 4:45 p.m., they finally connected by phone.
He was going to jail, he told her, because he had done something to their baby.
At some point during that day, murder charges say, Morris snapped and punched Emersyn nearly two dozen times as she lay on her bedroom changing table. After he called Andersen and his mother to tell them what happened, they told him to call 911. Despite paramedics' efforts, she died at Hennepin County Medical Center from blunt force trauma.
Morris, 21, was charged Tuesday with second-degree intentional murder in the baby's violent death.
"This is beyond comprehension," Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said at a news conference announcing the charges. - Finish story here.
I don't know how Morris was raised, what his education was, but I'm pretty sure this guy would not be interested in the least about what we as Catholic argue about or try to moralize about online, or even worry about regarding who goes to communion or who doesn't and all of this crap we get ourselves embroiled in. The couple is white - I mention that because everyone is equally wrought with guilt over 'Black Lives Matter' - another political bag of crap when you stop and consider how black kids - if they survive birth - are so often raised without 2 parents, usually a single mom with kids from different dads, under-employed - if employed at all, and more than ever, un-churched.
Where am I going with this? I don't know, but our society, our culture, our country is insane - it has fallen apart. Family life is in shambles. The moral-infrastructure has collapsed - or is close to it. We talk about CINOs - Catholics in name only - but I wonder if the majority of people in our country really even go to church or have any religion at all. Spiritual but not religious? Fine with me - but in that case, what's the source of their 'moral code'?
While looking for the link to the story about the local guy beating his infant daughter to death, I came across even worse horror stories - dads and moms doing horrible things to their children, live-in unemployed boyfriends beating and killing their girlfriend's babies. Go
here for a 'short list' of local abuse.
Imagine no restraints.
I thought my family life was bad - dysfunctional, disordered. At the very least I was educated in good Catholic schools, learned right from wrong, and so on. Yet apparently those days of the Baltimore Catechism are clearly a thing of the past. Though I strayed, I had a formation, a foundation to return to. Today many no longer have that. Many were never even taught that.
Even in good neighborhoods, it seems to me many people no longer have a desire, or a
need for religion, they confess a general morality, but no accountability - no need for church - so they don't go. They tolerate and accept single parents - grateful they chose to have a child - although they would understand if they had an abortion. They tolerate and accept cohabiting unmarried couples, gay or straight, and are happy to celebrate their child's gay wedding if they choose that. These are the 'nice' people.
No wonder the bad people are so bad.
I was listening to a discussion on PBS about Clinton and Trump, and someone mentioned Millennials don't like Trump because they perceive him to be 'mean'. Millennials don't like mean people. I suppose religion and morality is mean because if differentiates between good and bad. See - a permissive morality might work out well if you have some stability: Have a good job - or a good income - and you emulate the patterns set by your parents and grandparents - strive for an Ozzie and Harriet success story, have the form of an upright life with out all the restrictions. But we forget that there is a vast majority of people who are much different. They want all the good stuff you want, but they don't even pretend to follow the rules - they don't want rules.
Imagine ...
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...
It's like the kid in Milwaukee said during the BLM riots this past week:
“It’s sad, because you know, this what happened because they not helping the black community, like you know, the rich people, they got all this money, and they, like not trying to give us none.” - Source
Imagine all the people, sharing all the world... really?
John Lennon was such a jerk, wasn't he? Elitist scam artist.
So anyway.
My apologies if anyone thinks I'm being insensitive to the people who kill their kids, be they sane or mentally ill, under-educated or educated, religious or non-religious - that is not my point here. I just don't think religious people - myself included - are living in the real world when we carry on about religious, theological, and liturgical problems, while the culture disintegrates around us. We assess our political choices based upon our personal bias and religious convictions which on the whole seem to have little or no impact upon the lives I've discussed above.
That said - I've been just as dumb, just as bad, just as irresponsible as some of the 'types' I discuss here. So I am in no way saying I'm better, looking down on others, nor thanking God I'm not like them - I suppose what I'm trying to say, or express, is that we insulate ourselves from these harsh realities. At least I do to some degree. I look back on my own misdeeds and moan - never having known how bad they really were. Which means I have no right to be self-righteous about what is going on in the lives of others.
I suppose.
I may be wrong about everything.
So I stand condemned.
