Tag Archives: catholic

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. People in large groups. Concerts are one of the very few times I’ll concede to intentionally heading out into a crowed place. In just about every other endeavor, I make efforts to avoid finding myself in that situation. As Agent Kay well knew, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals.” The sheer density of people in large venues makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I’ll overcome it given enough motivation, but I’ll never manage to be entirely comfortable with it. 

2. Pope Francis. According to a news report I read, “Pope Francis praised Indonesians on Wednesday for their large families and suggested that people in other countries are choosing to have pets rather than bring up children.” That’s fine, but Jesus Christ there are now more than 8 billion people on the planet already. How can someone with such reach and influence honestly believe that the solution to any of the current problems facing the planet is to throw more people into the mix. The world population has grown by one billion people in the last 14 years, and you can see the hash we’ve made of that. Maybe, even with the words of the Holy Father to the contrary, it’s time we look at trying something else, because just throwing more bodies at our problems clearly isn’t getting the job done.

3. Clothes shopping. One of the many “fun” facts about weight loss is that clothes I was wearing at the beginning of this past spring no longer fit. Coats, sweatshirts, sweaters, long sleeve shirts of all varieties – not one in ten winter/cool weather things in my closet come close to fitting properly. I’m attempting to rectify that through online shopping, but my house has mostly become a waypoint for clothing as I shuffle it from a business’s shipping office back to their receiving desk in hopes that a refund may eventually be applied. Nothing fucking fits right, sizes make no sense, and I’m once again sick to death of shopping. I honestly have no idea how anyone has a good time with this process.

The “right” causes…

Posted on by

While the smoke was still rising from Notre Dame, social media lit up with posts decrying the ultra-wealthy who were anteing up sums measured in hundreds of millions of dollars for the rebuilding of the cathedral for not giving to the “right” causes. I lost track of the number of posts that said something to the effect of “Don’t give to Notre Dame because water in Flint or because the church is rich (which is a half truth at best because the wealth of the Roman church tends to be in items they can’t sell off or borrow against like St Peters or the Vatican museum) or because Puerto Rico.

It’s utter nonsense, of course. If you bothered to know anything about how cathedrals across Europe were originally financed a thousand years ago, you’d pretty quickly find that the local nobility and ultra-wealthy of the day gave lavishly to the cause. These symphonies in stone wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the funds that flowed in from those elite sources. 

Ultimately, these posts illustrate one of my unreconciled problems with the left – the simple fact that I don’t need their help and certainly not their permission when deciding how to allocated the money I put in the time to earn. It’s like the they just can’t resist telling me how they know better where and for what to spend my money than I do. I guess being a holier than thou do gooder is easy as long as someone else foots the bill. 

As for me, everyone can piss right off with that nonsense. Every time one of these lunatics tries to jam their hand a little further into my pocket, you can expect me to resist with all available energy. I’m no billionaire, but I’m proud of knowing that some small portion of my donation will go to restore or preserve such an important part of western civilization… But the hand wringing bleeding hearts should feel free to send their own check to the charity cause of their choice. I promise I won’t say a word about it, no matter how pretentious and attention seeking a cause they’ve selected.

Conceding defeat…

Posted on by

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE —- OFFICIAL STATEMENT

I come before you this evening with a heavy heart. A few moments ago, I sent a tweet to Pope Francis, congratulating him on his election as your next Pope in Rome. Your support of my candidacy for these past few days has been a source of strength for me, but tonight we must come together behind the victor and accept that my dark horse candidacy was, at best, a long shot.

I have no intention of letting this sound electoral defeat drive me out of the arena… and if asked, I would happily serve as Vice Pope or in any other position that didn’t necessarily require poverty and chastity as conditions of employment. Unfortunately, tonight was simply not my time to step up to the big chair. It’s a fair bet that we’ll get another chance at the job since the Sacred College has once again chosen someone old enough to be my grandfather (and an actual Catholic) for the job. I do, however, find it suspicious that the ballots were all destroyed before they could be independently validated and the formal announcement was made before appeals could be filed with the court, but I digress.

So in conclusion: Congratulations, Your Holiness. We’ll see how things turn out next time around.

Lifetime appointment…

Posted on by

Aside from the celibacy thing, I’ve always thought being Pope would be a pretty good gig. You get to live in one of the world’s best and largest museums, you’re the absolute monarch of your own sovereign country, your personal bodyguard has those snappy uniforms, you’re head of the only organization I can think of that dates back to the time when a Caesar ruled the known world, and about a billion people go along (more or less) with whatever you tell them because you theoretically speak with the voice of God.Slide1 Let’s be real honest, even for a non-practicing Protestant like me, that sounds like a pretty sweet job. Plus, it’s a lifetime appointment, so it’s not like you’ve got some wackadoodle member of a House of Representatives running around trying to impeach you.

I’m not making light of Pope Benedict’s decision to resign. I think it shows a remarkable degree of self discipline to walk away from the kind of temporal authority that goes along with the fancy hats and armored thrones of his office. The guy was basically elected king at 78 – an age by which I plan to be either retired for over a decade, dead, or possibly both. By 85, I don’t think I can fault him for wanting a little down time before going off for a more personal and very final introduction to his maker.

Of course there’s more to the story than has come out in the media. Over two millennia the Catholic Church has gotten very skilled at guarding its secrets, so we may or may not ever really know what was going on inside the Vatican when the decision was made. I guess one of the perks of being the Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter is you really don’t have to justify yourself to anyone.

If the princes of the church are looking for an unorthodox candidate, I’m happy to throw my hat, as it were, in the ring. My Latin is a little rusty, but pope-ing it seems like good work if you can get it.