Curmudgeon grapples with depression, death, and dying

Really fertile ground for an alleged humorist, doncha think?

But these less-than-cheery subjects are much on my mind of late.

Winter weather in Chicago can account for a serious mood indigo all by itself. We set something of a record recently for consecutive days of one sort of precipitation or another. It's been gray, it's been gloomy, it's been wet, it's been cold. We have less sunlight in an ordinary February, I believe, than in any other month -- and we're running well below average this month.

Of course, the Sun is out this morning, just to make me look like a liar.

But the weather alone does not account for my current funk.

I mentioned yesterday that I closed my downtown office and am now 'working' from home.

I didn't do this because I had paying clients climbing over each other to shower me with money. I did it because I didn't make one thin dime from the practice of law last year.

I'll let you chew on that for a moment. I did pay the rent, or at least my portion of the rent and electric and Internet. I paid a King's ransom for my Lexis research service. I paid my membership dues in all the various bar groups to which I belong. I paid medical expenses through the firm -- I operate as a C corporation expressly for this reason. But never, not once, during the entire year, was I able to squeeze out so much as a penny of salary. In fact, I had to lend my firm money to keep it going -- doing strange magic with credit card advances -- and the chickens are about to come home to roost on that venture.

All the years that I've been whining about my impecunious stature here on this blog -- in all those years but 2018 I was still able to pay myself something. Thus, last year was awful, even by my low standards.

My lease was up at the end of January. Rent was an expense I could cut, so I did. With efiling it really is almost possible to work from anywhere and still practice law.

I wish I still wanted to.

Now there's a problem.

I do have some work to do. Some of it may eventually realize income. Emphasis on eventually.

But what I've noticed lately is a complete disconnect between effort and results. I do good work on something -- what I think is good work, anyway -- and I get shot down by this judge or that one. I did actually "win" a case recently -- and, from a cynical lawyer's perspective I should be rejoicing because I not only won, my opponent filed an immediate appeal. And this on one of my only paying cases.

However... I should have won that case two years ago. I have been beating my head against the wall -- figuratively, so far at least -- filing motion on motion, raising argument on argument, laying out an airtight case -- and until the learned trial judge who had been handling the matter suddenly retired, I was losing. The other side would -- and I am not exaggerating -- make stuff up -- sometimes inventing some ridiculous claim in open court -- and the judge lapped it up. When I did win, the new judge based the ruling on something that, in all candor, was pretty much irrelevant, at least insofar as I was concerned.

I settled a case last year -- pursuant to client instructions, of course, but for far less than I thought the case was worth -- as it happened, the client's conduct had undermined the value of his claim, but let's leave that to one side -- and the insurance carrier immediately reported the settlement to Medicare. Which meant that I had to deal with Medicare's "Super Lien."

And the carrier should never have done this: My client had slipped past his 65th birthday during the pendency of the claim -- but he was not a Medicare recipient when the accident happened, nor was he a Medicare beneficiary during the entire time he treated for the injuries sustained in that accident. The carrier, in a move apparently calculated to add injury to its insulting settlement offer, made the bogus Medicare referral so that it could try and delay payment on the claim. This is illegal under Illinois law, as long as I made the undertakings required by §2-2301 of our Code of Civil Procedure, which I promptly did -- but I still had to complain to the Illinois Department of Insurance to get my check -- which I had to keep in my client funds account for the inordinate amount of time it took me to convince Medicare that it really didn't have a lien.

I could go on.

I don't have many cases these days but each and every one of them has some obnoxious, nonsensical twist that squeezes any satisfaction from the case that might otherwise exist. And/or the client doesn't pay. Usually and.

Long Suffering Spouse has noticed my depression, and she tries to encourage me to get back in the traces and work my way through all this.

Which, certainly, is the right thing for me to do.

But Long Suffering Spouse's situation also distresses me.

She is a teacher, of course, and, as indicated above, pretty much the sole breadwinner in the Curmudgeon household at the moment. And, because she teaches in the Catholic schools, she makes a fraction of what her colleagues do in public schools -- and she has no pension besides. (Actually, that's not entirely true -- the Archdiocese of Chicago did not discontinue its pension plan until shortly after my wife began teaching full-time. It lasted long enough for my wife to partially vest in the plan. I believe that, when our golden years arrive, we may look forward to $17 a month from that plan. Or maybe it was $17 a year. Whoopee!)

Basically, my wife works so that we have health insurance. (The Cardinal has not yet -- thank God -- discontinued that benefit.)

And, brother, does she work.

As the school's Spanish teacher, she sees every student in the building at some point during the year. She sees the middle school scholars three days a week, the fourth and fifth graders two days a week, and everyone else, from preschool on, one day a week for 'enrichment' during one trimester a year. Many days she has no break at all. Many days, she can't even go to the bathroom even once during the school day.

This has predictable consequences.

And because she has students during virtually every period of the school day -- when she does have 'breaks' she often has students in her room anyway -- she has no time for grading, or posting grades, or doing lesson plans, or doing any of the other tasks she has been assigned by an ungrateful and unsupportive administration. She's in charge of the honor society, for example. (And, for the record, I like her principal -- I'm just telling it like it is.) So, consequently, when my wife does get home (and after she makes a bathroom stop) she continues to work here. She falls asleep every night -- no exaggeration -- every single night -- grading, or posting grades, or doing lesson plans, or responding to anxious or angry parent emails.

Ah, yes. Parents.

Our school parents pay enormous sums of money to send their children to our parish school. For these prices, they expect miracles. In fact, they demand miracles.

And the teacher is always wrong.

I attended Catholic schools when I was a boy. We had nuns then. That's why the tuition was so much lower; the nuns were really paid next to nothing. Yes, even though modern lay teachers make a pittance compared to their public school counterparts, their salaries and benefits are still 90% or more of our school budget. Divide that up among the number of students in the school, and voila!, you have a princely sum per student.

When my older kids were still in school, the parish was allowed to subsidize the cost of operating the school -- and did -- some years kicking in as much as $250,000. The Archdiocese demanded an end to this before my youngest kids graduated. There is no way Long Suffering Spouse and I could have sent our children to Catholic schools the way things are now.

(And still the bishops wonder why Catholics are falling away!)

So it's understandable why the parents have such inflated expectations about what our school can do for their kids.

The problem is, of course, that the kids don't know any better; they don't appreciate the sacrifices their parents are making to send them to the parish school. So some of them behave as some kids have always behaved -- indifferent, even hostile, to attempts to teach them anything.

My wife's students hate her. She makes them work. She holds them to standards. She will threaten to actually fail those who will not toe the line. She doesn't always succeed at this because the parents of these miscreants scream bloody murder -- and the administration almost always intervenes on the side of those who pay the bills. The teacher is always wrong.

The funny thing is, those same kids will eventually, despite their best efforts, wind up in high school. Where they will retake Spanish I -- and, usually, get A's. The good students, who also hate my wife because, you know, they are kids and don't want to work (and we do?) will place out of Spanish I or place into an honors class and also get A's. Many of these kids, even some of those who were the most hostile and disruptive in junior high, will come back and express gratitude for the preparation they received from my wife. Some of their parents will seek Long Suffering Spouse out and praise her to the heavens -- these same persons who just a year or two ago were sending angry emails to my wife's principal -- and some will even have the good grace to admit that they were wrong back in the day.

There's some satisfaction in that.

But it doesn't stop the next crop of angry, demanding helicopter parents who, despite having access to their darlings' grades all trimester long, wait until the last week of the grading period to insist on extra 'help' or demand 'extra credit.'

I've tried to explain to my kids that there is a great deal of difference between "want to" and "have to." The psychic satisfaction from the many kids who come back and thank Long Suffering Spouse for their success would be so much greater if she didn't have to keep working to keep us afloat.

And Long Suffering Spouse carries the extra burden these days of worry about her mother.

Abuela is 85 now and is on what, if memory serves, is her third round of cancer treatment. Maybe fourth. The day after Grandchild No. 8 was born, Abuela went into surgery to have radioactive "seeds" planted in her liver. This is the second time this procedure has been done; the first did not keep the cancer at bay for even six months. (This was originally a colon cancer. I've had colon cancer.^* Mine did not escape the colon. Abuela's did, moving to the liver -- thus the seeds.)

My mother-in-law is not the world's most compliant patient. She's not eating or drinking as directed and, although her initial "numbers" following this most recent procedure are very encouraging, she is convinced that she will not recover this time.

Of course, Abuela says this every time -- but one of these days she must, of necessity, be correct.

And Long Suffering Spouse has become persuaded that this time really may be it. She is having definite forebodings -- and I have been with her too long to dismiss these out of hand.

I have long held the belief that Abuela was destined to outlast me. If she really is going, this time, I'm getting even more nervous than usual.

But I have whined too long today. I do have things I should be doing... and while there's more on these unhappy subjects I'd like to talk about, I'll have to come back to it later.

Perhaps. When I can better articulate what else I want to say.

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^* If you are interested, you can read about my somewhat cockeyed experiences here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The Devil hosts a celebratory banquet

It was quite a gathering in one of the lower circles of Hell last weekend, a sumptuous-looking banquet (though it tasted like shit, because it was made of shit) in an ornate ballroom from which the damned are usually barred.

The Prince of Darkness himself presided. As imps and other minor demons cleared away the gold plates, still reeking of horse manure, Satan poured himself another generous goblet of blood and strode to the dais, looking out at the many guests of dishonor.

Below the head table the entire room was filled with the shades of Catholic clergy -- priests and brothers and even a few nuns. Every one of these had stolen the innocence of boys and girls in their care -- parishioners, students, orphans, relatives. A great many priests, in fact, who'd carefully cultivated seminarians or altar servers. Teachers who had groomed students. So many who'd been 'treated' and returned to different churches or schools -- rested, refreshed, and more than ready to renew their pursuit of innocent children.

But none of these were at the head table.

No, as the Devil gripped the podium with one claw, and hoisted the goblet in the other, he looked right and left at the bishops and abbots and provincials, all garbed in their best ecclesiastical finery. Not by their choice. No, this was at the Devil's own insistence.

And he smiled.

It was a terrifying sight to behold, and those beholding it shuddered and shriveled.

Which only made the Evil One smile more.

"I drink to you, reverend fathers, brothers, and sisters," the Devil began, nodding gravely. "I could not have done it without you -- and I am grateful."

There was a buzz in the assemblage, despite themselves. Gratitude was not something ordinarily expressed by the Prince of Darkness. Anger, fury, hatred -- sure -- but gratitude? This was unexpected, and quite unsettling. None wanted to get back to their specific torments, you understand, but the Devil's gratitude stung more, at that moment, than their usual hot pokers.

The Devil paused. He knew that no one in the room followed events back on Earth; an eternity of torment leaves no time for such things. So they didn't know what they'd done to merit his thanks.

That made the coming revelation even more delicious, he decided. He chuckled.

Knees buckled.

"Without your betrayals of your vows, without your abuses of authority, the Irish would never have done what they did this week -- but I am especially grateful to your superiors, to the bishops, and abbots, and provincials here assembled" -- and here the Evil One gestured to include those at the head table. "Not all of them shared your interest in little boys or little girls," the Devil said in a confidential tone, "but they squandered the moral authority of the Church by protecting you instead of the children you defiled.

"And it's not just the lives of those that you ruined, or the many members of their families who renounced their faith when your depredations were finally revealed, so many of whom eventually came to me--" he paused again, savoring the thought -- "no, now the Irish -- the Catholic Irish of all people -- have voted to legalize abortion! And all because of you....

"Who will listen to a Catholic Church that protected the likes of you?" The Devil actually laughed. "So, thank you, thank you, thank you!" He lifted the goblet a final time, then drained it. "Now get the Hell out."

Fr. Timothy X. Warnn misunderstands Christmas

Timothy X. Warnn is the fictional name I've bestowed on the new pastor of our parish. Well, 'new' as in he's been there two years already, and it seems like forever. We can talk about why I'm still going there some other time. For now, though, let's talk about the poor man's confusion over Christmas.

Fr. Warnn (don't ever call him Fr. Tim!) is one of the more negative people ever to survive to adulthood. And I say this as a registered Curmudgeon, and therefore not exactly a sunny optimist myself. My good wife, who tries to find something to like in everyone, says he's not really evil, or out to deliberately destroy our parish; it's just that there is no way he should ever have been appointed to lead any sort of congregation. He also seems kind to his dog, she adds.

A week ago Sunday, on the Feast of St. Nicholas, Fr. Warnn was preaching that Catholics need to reject modern culture; if we're not counter-cultural, we're doing something wrong. (In Fr. Warnn's world, we're always doing something wrong.)

Did you know, he asked rhetorically, that in Japan they have a Christmas parade? He sneered, "Japan is not even a Christian nation!" -- I guess he thinks the United States is a Christian nation? -- but the Japanese Christmas parade only had Santa Claus and reindeer and elves and toys (no religious content at all, in other words), and this, apparently, is all wrong.

Except, of course, that it's Fr. Warnn who is all wrong.

We -- all of us, Catholics, non-Catholics, non-Christians, even non-believers -- can all participate in this kind of Currier & Ives, just-hear-those-sleighbells-jingling Christmas. A Jew, Irving Berlin, wrote "White Christmas." Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman are non-denominational. Christmas trees and Christmas lights are not religious icons. The message of "Peace on Earth" is a universal one -- and one we all need to heed -- whether we are Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu or atheist.

There's nothing wrong with celebrating that sort of Christmas.

That's what Fr. Warnn should have said. And then he should have added that we -- Christians generally and Catholics in particular -- have a Christmas that is all of that and more.

We Christians know where the message of "Peace on Earth" comes from. We know that this message is part of the glad tidings proclaimed by the angels to the shepherds guarding their flocks in the fields by night, the angels telling the shepherds -- and all of us, down through the centuries -- that unto us, in the City of David, a Child had been born, a Child destined to save the world. Fr. Warnn should have said that the Star of Bethlehem is still shining overhead for all of us, waiting to direct us to the Manger, if we are willing to open our eyes, and our hearts, and follow.

And he should have encouraged us to share this kind of Christmas, too -- we should want to share this Christmas, too -- but we should also realize that not everyone is ready, or willing, to accept this full meaning of the holiday. That's OK. We will share our Christmas joy with our neighbors on any terms that our neighbors can handle -- we don't have to reject Santa Claus to welcome the Christ Child. We know there's more to Christmas than Rudolph's red nose or Buddy the Elf, or even the change of heart experienced by Ebeneezer Scrooge or the Grinch, but believers can enjoy the secular as well as the sacred. The world has something wonderful in the secular Christmas, Fr. Warnn could have concluded, but we Christians have all that and so much more besides.

Of course, Fr. Warnn isn't the only one who misunderstands Christmas. He has equally dense counterparts in the secular world. There are those who bristle at Santa Claus and reindeer and elves as if they were Biblical patriarchs. Who get mad if you let "Merry Christmas" slip instead of "Happy Holidays." These poor creatures think that, because "Christ" is contained within the word "Christmas," the entire holiday is an attack on the First Amendment. They imagine a slippery slope running straight down from "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" to "Adeste Fidelis." Idiots. Wednesday is derived from Woden's Day (after the Norse god Odin), Thursday is Thor's Day, and Friday is Frigg's Day (for Odin's wife) -- but no one claims that these homages to the gods of Asgard undermine our Constitution.

And don't even get me started on the allegedly religious dopes who got mad this year at Starbuck's for not putting Christmas trees or other secular symbols of the holiday on their plain red seasonal cups. As if this 'omission' constituted an attack on the deeper, religious meaning of Christmas. Who storm out of stores where clerks say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." Golly, weren't we once concerned about the effects of "commercialism" on our understanding of the holiday? Good heavens.

There are aspects of modern culture that Catholics need to reject, but we do not need to reject what is good and wholesome in our common culture in order to enjoy what is special in our religious heritage.

Merry Christmas to all.

Chicago's new Archbishop says he wants to listen -- Curmudgeon would like to talk

Incoming Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich (Reuters photo).

Archbishop Cupich, welcome to Chicago. May your time here be a blessing for the Church as a whole, and for the Archdiocese and yourself both in particular.

You have stated several times now that you intend to start your term as Chicago's ninth Archbishop by listening, which is nice.

But to whom will you listen?

There are millions of people in Cook and Lake Counties, many of whom are (or were) professed Catholics. You can't hear from us all or you'll never do anything except go cold stone deaf. If you don't starve first.

Some of the folks who will surround you in these early days will be toadies and sycophants. I envy you the sport you may have in exposing them, watching their heads nod enthusiastically up and down as you say increasingly outrageous things, then watching them wheel and pivot like a flock of starlings when you pull back. ("On second thought," you'll say, withdrawing some silly suggestion, and enjoy the fun as the bobbleheads slam on the brakes in their haste to retreat with you....)

Some of the folks you'll hear from in your early days will have nothing good to say about your predecessor, Cardinal George. I suppose that approach curries favor in some circles; I've seen evidence that it sometimes works, even among churchmen. Anyway, these naysayers will counsel you to undo anything they think that Cardinal George did, to pull the plug on that, to ban this, to revoke faculties to this group or that one. Perhaps some of these nattering nabobs of negativism (Wikipedia credits William Safire with that one, but you probably remember it, as I do, being uttered by Spiro Agnew) will be balanced, somewhat, in your inner circle, by those encouraging you to blaze your own trail (clever pun, no?) but trying to steer you away from changing anything they may consider as a favorite project or cause of Cardinal George.

I respect Cardinal George's intellect, though I've not always agreed with him.

He spoke once at a Chicago Bar Association luncheon that I attended. This was several years ago. His subject was getting public funds for private schools -- but his manner was so professorial and his talk so well organized that I lapsed into a critical listening gear that I have been able to find only occasionally since college. I disagreed with almost everything he had to say -- I am a great supporter of Catholic schools, but to remain Catholic, I believe our schools must remain free of the corrosive influence of public funding -- but the Cardinal made a reasoned, reasonable case. If this is how he speaks at luncheons, I can only imagine the force of his intellect when he really buckles down. (The second speaker that day was also impressed. And he'd been paying attention, too: This speaker came up to the podium and said how pleased he was not to be the most controversial speaker on the program. I'm sure you'll meet this individual soon as well, particularly when the TV cameras are on. The second speaker that day was the Rev. Jesse Jackson.)

I also respect Cardinal George for the graceful way he has carried the cross of his own ill-health. Like another of your predecessors, Cardinal Bernardin, Cardinal George has given us a healthy model of how to cope with life-threatening illness.

Of course, I'm still mad at Cardinal George for saddling us with a bad pastor this past year.

You don't have to agree or disagree with me, Archbishop, about whether my new pastor (of whom I've written here, here, and here) is good or bad. I hope, however, that you will come around to my point of view as soon as possible -- but, in the meantime, I think you can agree that the local parish priests are the most important clerics in the lives of most Catholics. The world is in love with Pope Francis because he is perceived as a good pastor, and being interested in being a good pastor. Your appointment is seen as proof that Pope Francis is trying to make his bishops and cardinals pastors first; you enjoy a reputation of being a good pastor. You now will have the responsibility -- the heavy burden -- of appointing men as pastors from a pool that is... limited. But good pastors will spur a rise in vocations over time. Keep in mind, Archbishop, that the Church grows by example, not by dogma or discipline or even good preaching.

God bless you, Archbishop Cupich -- and God bless all of us who today become your flock. If you'd like to talk some more, there's an email link in the Sidebar... and even if you don't, I may try and offer some additional suggestions at a later date....

Arrogant or tone deaf? Regardless, the new pastor is brave

We begin this morning's exercise by giving a name to our new pastor. In his case, for reasons that will shortly become apparent, we will have to give him a first and last name.

As always, this is not the pastor's actual name. Nobody that appears in these essays is called by his or her actual name.

I do this to protect my own anonymity -- and, more importantly, my family's. In this particular case, the need for anonymity takes on a special relevance because my wife teaches in the parish grade school. Her job provides our health insurance benefits; there have been months where hers is the only income we've had. Too many months, lately. So -- while I'm not saying retaliation would be likely were I unmasked -- I live in fear. My last tenuous toehold on the middle class could be lost, at least for awhile, if I make my identity, or the new pastor's identity, too obvious.

In providing a name, I have searched the Internet, confirming (as best as I am able) that there is no person named Fr. Timothy X. Warnn. That said, I hereby dub the new pastor, Fr. Timothy X. Warnn. I apologize to anyone named Timothy X. Warnn, living or dead, and assure you that I'm not talking about you personally.

Heck, I even apologize to our new pastor. I know I'm not being nice. I much prefer to be nice. But I think I'm being fair. You, dear readers, will not be able to judge whether I am being fair, because you only know my side of the story. You can only decide if you like the stories.

And, so, without further ado, today's stories....

Attendance at Saturday's 8:30 a.m. Mass was larger than usual because the school football players were in attendance, along with at least some of their parents.

It is a tradition in our parish to have the junior varsity and varsity teams attend Mass on game days, when possible.

In the old days (when Oldest Son was playing) this was easy: All the games were on Sunday, and the teams attended 9:00 a.m. Mass, with all the boys in uniform, and the widgets (what we called the JVs then) in their jerseys and pads because their game was played first and they would go directly from church to pregame in the school gym or (if it was a road trip) possibly to the park where the game would be played. The kids all sat together in the front pews, on either side of the center aisle, the widgets on one side and the varsity on the other. Coach Gallagher and all the assistants would be in attendance, too.

Over time, this became complicated. Coach Gallagher had children of his own. As each new little one came along (Coach's oldest is a year older than Youngest Son), the logistics got harder and harder and, eventually, the 9:00 a.m. Sunday Game Day tradition had to be scrapped.

But it all worked out. Conference alignments changed and games were sometimes played on Saturdays instead of Sundays. One memorable weekend, when we had a Sunday game, we had a special anticipatory Mass on Saturday afternoon in the Monastery next door to the church. It was a very nice, intimate service... until one of the kids, who'd been battling a flu bug but didn't want to tell anyone lest he not be allowed to play, suddenly -- and dramatically -- lost the battle.

The real virtue of the kids coming to a regularly scheduled Mass, however, was that the parish could see the boys and feel a tie to the parish school (which the parishioners have so generously supported over the years). It never hurts to renew and reinforce those ties.

So it was on Saturday that the teams were in church for the regular 8:30 a.m. daily Mass, sitting down in front (just where, you'd think, the new pastor would want them) with their coaches. Yes, they were wearing their game jerseys.

Fr. Timothy X. Warnn, the new pastor, presided at this Mass and, to no one's surprise, he mentioned the boys sitting down front in his Homily.

What surprised, and angered, the kids' parents was how he mentioned them.

I never liked football, Fr. Warnn told the congregation. It's just one group of thugs beating on another group of thugs.

Oh, my.

There have been priests before in our parish who were not great football fans. They were easy enough to spot. But they had enough sense to offer a few words of encouragement for sportsmanlike behavior, cooperative teamwork, determined effort -- all the positives that football -- or any organized team sport -- can provide. At the very least they offered a prayer for the safety of the boys and for their opponents.

When we heard the story, we asked our informant about any qualifications (as above) that might have been offered by the new pastor. Nope, we were told, none whatsoever.

"How arrogant!" I fumed. "Well," said my wife, "maybe he's just a little tone-deaf." (Blessed are the peacemakers.)

But there was no making peace with the next person we ran across who mentioned Fr. Timothy X. Warnn.

She is, shall we say, a lady of a certain age. And she knows her own mind. Sometimes rather forcefully.

I think this is characteristic of many women of a certain age. Take my mother-in-law the other day. She was livid that someone had had the temerity to tell her what she should, or should not do (it was in regards to a social matter). "I will not be told what to do," she fulminated. "I'm 80 years old and I can do what I please."

And you'd better let her, that's all I can say.

Anyway, this other woman of a certain age said she'd come up to Fr. Timothy X. Warnn after Mass to ask him about something or other.

She addressed him as "Fr. Tim." In our parish we have traditionally addressed our priests as Fr. [First Name]. You've read here about our last pastor, Fr. Ed, for example. (Having a touch of the anti-clerical about me, I will often address a priest by his first name alone, dropping reference to his occupation. After all, I am not generally referred to as Lawyer Curmudgeon.)

But this lady of a certain age called the new pastor "Fr. Tim."

The Sun went behind the clouds. The temperature dropped 20 degrees. The pastor actually bristled. "You will call me 'Fr. Warnn,'" he said.

The lady of a certain age told us all this and asked if we knew yet of any petition drives to get rid of this new pastor. "I'll sign," she said.

Well.

Our new pastor may be un-American. He certainly is a control freak. And he may be either arrogant or tone-deaf -- but no one can deny that he is b-r-a-v-e.

Deliberately ticking off the ladies of a certain age? The core constituency of any parish ever? He must be brave.

The new pastor preaches an un-American sermon

Despite my best intentions, I've developed a deep and abiding dislike of our new pastor.

When my mother-in-law declared that she couldn't stand the new man, I defended him. Well, that was only his first week on the job. First impressions are hard to undo... but you have to give someone more of a chance than that, especially when it isn't going to be easy to get rid of him.

Because I wanted to keep an open mind, and form my own opinions, I wanted to hear the new pastor himself. I wanted to hear him preach; I wanted to take his measure from his own words, not from disgruntled parking lot rumors.

This turned out to be more difficult that you might think: My wife and I go to the early Mass on Sunday; the new pastor has offered that Mass exactly twice since he started in July. (Gosh, I wonder if my 7:00 a.m. Mass might be on the chopping block? Eh?)

But when he was there, I was prepared to listen.

The first time was inoffensive. Indeed, although he didn't cite his source, the first Homily I heard the man preach drew heavily on Book VIII of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (on friendship). Ah, I thought to myself, here is an educated man, one who has had some exposure to -- and is influenced by -- the Classics. That, I thought, counted in his favor.

But then came last Sunday.

I suppose I should have taken notes, but I'm not in the habit of bringing a pen to Mass. And I had no idea, coming in, what I was in for.

Sunday's Gospel reading was from Luke, the Parable of the Dishonest Steward. And, again, the pastor started out innocently enough -- and with a take on the tale I'd not considered before: When the shifty steward called in his master's debtors and allowed them to write down their notes (in the hopes that he'd be welcomed in their houses after his pending dismissal), the pastor said, he was probably doing no more than writing off his own commission. Well, I thought, that would explain the master's almost bemused take on discovering his steward's actions on his way out the door ("the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently").

I won't pretend to remember exactly how we got from that to the statement that sent me through the roof. But, somehow, he got from this interpretation to this flat statement, "For a Catholic, there is no separation of Church and State."

What?!?

Of course there is -- that is a bedrock principle of the United States of America, one of the things -- and I'd argue it's the single most important thing -- that has kept us from importing the world's religious wars even as we've imported citizens from every corner of our sorry globe. It is one of the things that makes -- and keeps -- America an exceptional nation (sorry, Mr. Putin, but it is so).

Now, if you want to say that a person should operate in the public sphere according to the morals and values he has learned from his church, I will agree. A person who pretends to profess one set of values at church and who jettisons them on exiting the parking lot of said house of worship is, at best, a hypocrite. That has always been my problem with the "Born Again" crowd of some other Christian sects -- "accepting Jesus Christ" can't be a free pass to Heaven, especially if one proceeds, despite being "saved," to lie, cheat and steal thereafter.

In fact, as I have argued before, it is how we live our lives, not what we preach, and certainly not what our priests and bishops preach, that attracts converts.

I listened carefully to see if the pastor would walk that statement back -- as I have just tried to do -- but he did not.

A priest who doesn't understand that church and state are separate is an Osama bin Laden wannabe. The late, unlamented Osama and the various "Islamist" sects are also contemptuous of the concept of separation of church and state. Religion (according to their own twisted lights) is the ultimate authority. Persons are not free to act in the public sphere according to their consciences which have been formed by their religious beliefs, but, rather, must act according to the dictates of their religious leaders.

That may not be as dangerous as it sounds for most Muslims because Sunni Muslims, the largest sect of that faith, do not have a rigidly structured clerical hierarchy -- although adherents of any number of 'schools' can do (and have done) terrible things, allegedly in the name of their religion, spurred on by the leaders of those 'schools.' But Shiites have imams and ayatollahs that parallel, in many ways, bishops and cardinals in the Roman Church. Thus, with no separation of church and state, the person acting in the public sphere must be guided in all things, not by his conscience, but by the current whim of the Ayatollah -- or of the Cardinal. Or of the pastor?

Actually, Jesus Himself provided a basis for the separation of church and state when He wriggled out of a trap that the Pharisees had set for Him. Matthew and Luke both tell the story: The Pharisees and Herodians (in Matthew's account) asked Jesus if it was lawful to pay taxes to the Roman state. The Roman occupation was not popular (the Jews frequently rebelled, ultimately resulting in Rome's decision to destroy Jerusalem, and the Jewish Temple, in A.D. 70). If Jesus said that paying Caesar's tax was not lawful he was preaching rebellion against Rome -- and could be dealt with as a political enemy. On the other hand, the Pharisees and Herodians, who collaborated with the Romans, at least when it suited their purposes, calculated that Jesus's popular support would instantly vanish if he said that paying taxes was lawful. You remember how it all worked out: Jesus asked for a coin and, when one was provided asked whose image is on this coin? That is an image of Caesar, came the response. And Jesus said, well, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." (The Catholic Bible uses "repay to" instead of "render unto," but however faithful that translation may be to the original text, "render unto" just sounds so much better in English, at least to my ears.)

Anyway, careful listening to the new pastor's sermon merely drove up my blood pressure. And it occurred to me: The wholly wrongheaded idea that church and state are not separate, and all the picayune, entirely unnecessary changes he's imposing on the distribution of Communion, or at the Sign of Peace, and the meat cleaver he will shortly take to the Mass schedule (despite the pretense of publicly welcoming 'input') -- it all fits together. This man is an Authoritarian-on-Steroids, drunk on his own Authority.

He can either sober up -- or go away -- or watch his large parish become small overnight.

More tomorrow.

Pope Francis gets it; new pastor doesn't

Back in March, when we were awaiting the election of a new Pope, I said that it was all rather exciting, but not particularly important.

Far more important, in my opinion, was the sort of new pastor we'd get at my home parish in Chicago. We've just become an Archdiocesan parish; the order of priests that served our parish for over a century has abandoned us because of the increasing age and infirmity of its dwindling membership.

Although I'm a Curmudgeon, I was not reflexively predisposed to dislike the new man; there would be changes, I knew, but I was ready to welcome the new priest. I wanted him to succeed. I was worried not just about him, but for him, too, when the rumor circulated that he would be the only priest assigned to our large parish, a parish that had been served by three priests until just a few years ago. Then we went to two priests. Last year, with the departure of the religious order imminent, we had our long-time pastor, Fr. Ed, and an octogenarian who volunteered to help out as much as he could. Even so, between them, we had our three weekday Masses almost all the time (four on Holy Days) and six weekend Masses, including an increasingly popular 6:00 p.m. Sunday Mass that brought people in from around the area.

Well, the rumor was that the new man would want to cut back on the Mass schedule. And, much as most of the parishioners thought that would be a shame, there was, I think, an understanding that one man alone could not keep up that schedule and do all the other things that the pastor of a modern Catholic parish must do.

Then came the good news! We'd get a curate -- a younger man, fresh out of Mundelein, newly ordained.

Things were looking up.

But the new pastor is still looking to cut back the Mass schedule, even though the cumulative age of the new man and his newer assistant probably don't add up to the age of the senior citizen priest who helped Fr. Ed maintain the supposedly 'grueling' schedule this past year.

The parish bulletin has been running some self-serving gibberish about why we need to cancel Masses. Some examples (rather freely translated):

• It's all the Cardinal's fault (the new guy manages to blame both Cardinal George and the late Cardinal Bernadin -- unless the church is 50% full, the Mass should be axed);
• Fewer Masses = better, even 'inspired' homilies (actually, if a priest would prepare a sermon just once it could be repeated two or three times that same day -- it's not as if the readings have changed);
• People sit too far apart -- they should gather 'round the altar (but have you ever seen how people 'fill in' seats on buses, trains, anywhere, really, where people gather? -- they leave as much space as possible) -- and, besides, wasn't it the Pharisees who crowded down front, beating their breasts, while the truly devout widow stayed in the shadows? God could see her, too.
• They should all sing (that sounds suspiciously Lutheran, but I'm willing to let that one slide since my wife likes to sing in church).

Now that the new pastor has had his say in the Bulletin our feedback will allegedly be appreciated -- but the word on the street is the new schedule, which is already set, goes into effect on the First Sunday of Advent regardless.

We have a big church -- not too big on Christmas or Easter, of course, when the joint is filled to overflowing -- but, according to the new pastor's statistics, there is no normal weekend Mass that even comes close to meeting the 50% "requirement" he has repurposed for his own selfish ends.

He can cut the weekend Masses down to one or two -- and he still won't fill the church. Most of the parish (yes, the ones who come out on Christmas and Easter) won't notice anything until Christmas anyway. That's when they'll show up and find the doors locked. Then they won't come back at all.

In the movies, Fr. O'Malley sang,
"I hope you're going my way, too."
In my parish, the new pastor
has quite a different approach.

The only thing our new pastor is going to accomplish by this wrong-headed scheme is to drive his regular parishioners away. My wife and I are already looking around.

But isn't that the exact opposite of what the Church says it wants to do?

Pope Francis, God bless him, has likened the Church to a field hospital, treating the spiritually wounded. He gets it; our new pastor doesn't. Do we close hospital ERs because the Chief Resident would like to get a couple hours more sleep on Saturday nights?

Fr. Robert Barron, now the Rector of the Archdiocesan seminary at Mundelein, is launching a new video series on evangelization this month. What would Fr. Barron say about our new pastor?

Evangelization involves filling empty seats, not cutting back on the opportunities to fill the seats. And how do we fill up the seats?

One thing we should do is welcome people -- and provide as many opportunities as we can for that purpose.

Frankly, the offering of the Mass, while it is something that only a priest can do, is among the less demanding tasks that a Catholic pastor is called upon to perform.

When the new guy sends up clear signals that he is hell-bent (and I use the term advisedly) on messing up the easy part, how can we expect anything but disaster from him on the tough stuff?

Our new pastor is a control freak that makes me -- a lawyer, and therefore a control freak myself, by definition -- look tame.

He's decided people reach too far with their Sign of Peace (a greeting ritual, usually a handshake, during the Liturgy of the Eucharist). The new pastor decrees that this should be only be given to the person immediately next to, or in front of, or behind. Don't wave at someone across the aisle, or nod across the church (you should be sitting next to each other anyway!) and, whatever you do, don't stretch across a pew to shake hands with someone. Oh, and those Eucharistic Ministers, the ones who help distribute Communion? Don't come up to the altar until the priest has concluded leading the prayer immediately before Communion ("Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof...) and, for God's sake, don't greet your fellow ministers! And no more Eucharistic Ministers may be dispatched to the back of the church (we have a central aisle which my church architect son-in-law may or may not consider a modern transept), even if Mass is crowded. (You don't want those people coming back anyway! We only want people who want to sit down in front.)

I could go on, but I think I've conveyed the gist: Rules, Rules and more Rules! Bing Crosby's fictional Fr. Charles O'Malley asked if we were going his way; our new pastor says 'Go My Way or Hit the Highway.' Compare this attitude to the one conveyed by Fr. Barron in the video below.

Which Church would you rather belong to?

And it's all the same Church!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Readers will have to indulge me for one more post about this new pastor, which I'll hopefully get out of my system tomorrow. I told you that I wanted to give this guy the benefit of the doubt -- so I really wanted to listen to his Homily last Sunday. What he said outraged me, as a Catholic, yes, but also as an American. But that's tomorrow, real world permitting.

Fr. Robert Barron on evangelization

This video has been out since February 2012 but it strikes me as particularly applicable to the situation in my home parish these days -- a parish in transition, as some readers may recall. I'm working on a post about it -- hopefully even general readers may find it amusing, even if it is quite serious to me.

But this nine minute (or so) video by Fr. Robert Barron stakes out the position I'd like to advance. Even as I try to be humorous.

Fr. Houdini vanishes

The religious order that has staffed our parish church for more than a century recently pulled up stakes and left town. They sold off the monastery next door and informed the parish that, starting this summer, our spiritual needs would be tended by priests assigned by the Chicago Archdiocese.

It's a sad commentary on the state of vocations in this country that religious orders are no longer able to maintain parish churches, but it's the truth. And it's not as if the Archdiocese is teeming with priests that can fill the void. So it's a very unsettling time for all of us in the parish.

It's a particularly unhappy time for us in the Curmudgeon home because we've become very fond, over the years, of Fr. Ed, the departing pastor. I served with him on the parish school board many years ago and my wife and I worked with him on other parish projects; he married Younger Daughter and Olaf and he provided pre cana counseling for Oldest Son and Abby and Hank and Older Daughter, too. He's a prickly, stubborn German and he's always rubbed some people in the parish the wrong way but he's been here, as pastor, twice as acting pastor, or as associate pastor for close to 20 years. He's probably pushing 80 -- but, if he's taken to fibbing about his age, he truly does have the energy of a much younger man. And, like a much younger man, our pastor has not been wild about being put out to pasture.

There's been talk he'd be allowed to stay on as pastor emeritus but he seems to have pushed his superiors in his own religious order once too often for this to be graciously allowed. I hear he's looking for a job.

Meanwhile, we had a grand farewell luncheon a couple of weeks ago at a local banquet hall. Many of the priests who've served our parish came back for the Noon Mass on June 30. The principal celebrant was the local provincial of the order that's pulling out. Our local bishop showed up to thank the departing order for its service and to reassure us that we'd still like our parish next Sunday, too. Fr. Ed was there, of course, but he and the admitted octogenarian who's been helping out this past year were consigned to the opposite ends of the long line of priests who gathered on the altar for the Consecration. Fr. Ed was a little late getting in line; he was helping an older priest in a walker get up the altar stairs.

I noted, at the end of the Mass, as the priests processed out, Fr. Ed lingered on the altar, tidying up. I wondered if there weren't some purpose in his dawdling; perhaps he was showing one and all that he was determined to stay on?

Long Suffering Spouse and I went to that final Mass and to the luncheon as well. We wanted to talk to Fr. Ed -- maybe even ask about some of the rumors about whether he would, or would not, be able to stay around. But there were thousands of people and we were not pushy. We'd find out something eventually; in the meantime, did it really matter whether we wished him well in person?

This past weekend was the official beginning of our parish's full integration into the Archdiocese. My mother-in-law attended the anticipatory Mass on Saturday evening and called Long Suffering Spouse with a full -- and highly critical -- report about the new pastor. "He didn't know what he was doing," she said -- repeatedly -- "and everything was different."

Note to non-Catholics: You probably don't see why that's funny. Well, the truth is, there is very little room for variance in the Order of the Mass. On any given Sunday, the prayers are the same, the readings are the same, the responses are the same in our church and in every church the world over. Only the language in which the Mass is offered changes. Some priests fudge the Eucharistic Prayer, I'm told, probably more because, even with glasses, they can't read while looking down at the Missal on the altar (it changes somewhat Mass to Mass) than from any intentional departure from orthodoxy. Fr. Pfleger, down at St. Sabina's on Chicago's South Side, somehow manages to make his Masses into spectacles lasting several hours, but I assume all the stuff he adds, including all the speakers we see on the Sunday night news shows, are placed after Communion when it is customary to make [much shorter] announcements (I don't know this for a fact, though someday I'd be interested in seeing for myself). But the bottom line is that there's not room for a lot of variety, and things couldn't have been too different, despite my mother-in-law's high dudgeon Saturday night. ("We skipped the Creed," Abuela fumed also, but lots of priests will skip that depending on how long, or overlong, their sermon went. And there was apparently some confusion about returning the unused Hosts to the Tabernacle after Communion. "I don't know if I can continue going there if things are going to be so different," my mother-in-law said.)

Long Suffering Spouse did her best to reassure her mother that things would be better, but Abuela was in no mood to be comforted. Eventually, she tired of repeating how different things were, however, so my wife could terminate the phone call and we could resume watching the White Sox lose. Again.

I told you yesterday how I began my Sunday morning. But, despite that, Long Suffering Spouse and I were only about 10 minutes late for 7:00 a.m. Mass (which, for us, is not terrible). We were interested in seeing how the First-Sunday-Mass-of-the-Post-Fr.-Ed Era might be handled, especially after Abuela's preview. We walked in the back of the church and discovered that the First-Sunday-Mass-of-the-Post-Fr.-Ed Era was being presided over by... Fr. Ed.

"Perhaps this morning we can talk to him," I whispered to my wife as we took our accustomed pew. She nodded.

The early Sunday Mass is the least formal of the Sunday Masses -- the organist isn't even there yet -- but Fr. Ed likes to sing. And unlike the octogenarian who'd been assisting him this year, he always liked to process down the center aisle after Mass, out into the vestibule, and to the parking lot entrance, there to greet parishioners. The altar servers, of course, always hope for a 'side out' -- a short walk into the Sacristy, where they could peel out of their gowns and race home to breakfast that much faster. At the end of Mass the altar servers stood on either side of Fr. Ed as he faced the Tabernacle, singing the final hymn a capella, waiting for the final bow that would signal their release. Without missing a note, Fr. Ed tried to signal that they should lead the procession down the center aisle, but they hightailed it for the Sacristy without a backward glance. Undeterred, Fr. Ed, still singing, headed down the center aisle and toward the vestibule.

It is considered good form to wait, in these circumstances, until the priest actually passes you before leaving your pew -- anything else would be leaving early. Since we always arrive late, we try never to leave early. Still, we left as soon as propriety allowed, intending to follow Fr. Ed out and chat him up a bit.

We hit the vestibule at a good trot -- and couldn't see him. Instead, inside the door to the parking lot, stood the new curate, offering to shake hands with any who would pause. We both stopped to take the new man's hand and offer words of welcome. But I was looking over his shoulder for Fr. Ed, and darned if I couldn't see him.

Confused now, Long Suffering Spouse and I stepped out of the church and into the parking lot, only to see the new pastor, also shaking hands with anyone who would pause. We paused. He noted Long Suffering Spouse's White Sox hat. "I'm glad to see that there are Sox fans up here," he said (our parish being firmly on the Cubs side of town). "There aren't that many of us, Father," said Long Suffering Spouse. I was still looking for Fr. Ed. I even had on my glasses.

"He's Houdini," I told my wife as we got back in the car. "He simply vanished."

"I'm sorry we didn't get to see him," Long Suffering Spouse agreed, "but I'm sure this was planned. The new guys were waiting while Fr. Ed ducked out."

"But where?" I wondered.

Our best guess was that he dove into the Ushers' Room -- it doubles as the Bride's Room, when occasion demands. It would have been on his flight path. Still, it was a pretty good vanishing act -- and a pretty good way to *ahem* usher in The-Post-Fr.-Ed Era. Meanwhile I suppose we'll catch up to Fr. Ed... eventually.

One footnote: Youngest Son, of course, did not join us for 7:00 a.m. Mass. But he did make it to the 6:00 p.m. "Last Chance" Mass. Youngest Son reported that the 6:00 Mass was presided over by the new curate. It didn't strike him as all that "different"....

Welcome, Pope Francis -- and here's some unsolicited advice

I happened to be online yesterday when white smoke was first observed coming from the Sistine Chapel chimney. I quickly logged onto the website for the all-news radio station here (you can't get AM reception otherwise in downtown Chicago) and then Yahoo! posted the ABC News TV feed. I watched and listened.

It was a nice touch when the new Pope asked for prayers from the assembled crowd before offering his own blessing.

And the Vatican is insisting that the Pope, a Jesuit, took his name from St. Francis of Assisi, not St. Francis Xavier (the Jesuit missionary).

There's never been a Jesuit Pope before, but the Superior General of the Society of Jesus is colloquially referred to as "the Black Pope." This raises protocol questions hitherto unimagined. As the scarred product of a Jesuit education, my first thought upon realizing Pope Francis was a Jesuit was can this be legal? Shouldn't the Pope be Catholic? (Note to my non-Catholic friends... yes, the Jesuits are Catholic, at least most of the time -- Pope Clement XIV actually suppressed the order in 1773, although Pope Pius VII restored the order in 1814.)

But at least the new Pope's status as an S.J. explains why he could be selected at the age of 76. Even though he allegedly was a strong candidate at the last conclave, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was not on the short lists of either the experts or the bookies this time because of his age. The Cardinals, it was felt, would be looking for a younger man. Of course, for a Jesuit 76 is practically youthful.

Bergoglio's selection was also seen as a surprise by those who assumed that the Italian Cardinals (still the largest single group in the Church) would want to recapture the papacy. But, though born in Argentina, Jorge Mario Bergoglio (like so many other Argentinians) is the son of Italian immigrants. I think the Italian Cardinals pretty much won.

I hope the entire Church comes out a winner, too.

The initial coverage is very favorable, of course, but it is for every new Pope. The Pope is the focal point of a great many conflicting hopes and the grumbling will begin sooner or later.

Pope Francis might as well go for sooner: If the Church wants to presume to instruct the world (much less the faithful) on matters of morality and conscience, it has to confront its own history of child abuse. It must extirpate those who have committed these crimes, regardless of rank, and openly punish those who have concealed, covered-up, or otherwise tried to evade the question of the Church's responsibility. Pope Francis should pledge cooperation with civil authorities for the protection of children. Abusers should be laicized and jailed -- unless, of course, the passage of time has made criminal prosecutions impossible. In that case, the abusers should be retired to a locked-down facility administered by the Church (these do exist). Any superior of an abusing priest or nun found to have shielded an abuser from prosecution should likewise be subject to prosecution or, if the passage of time has made that impossible, obliged to confess their misdeeds publicly and, in the appropriate cases, being forcibly retired to a life of contemplation -- and penance.

We will never rid the Church of persons who would exploit children. We can't get them entirely out of the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or out of sports programs or public school classrooms either. The abuse of children is not just a Roman Catholic problem; wherever there are children there will be those lurking nearby who harbor an unnatural attraction to children. But we Catholics can take the lead in honestly dealing with the problem. We can confront our ugly past and regain our future.

And the abusers? There aren't as many as the lurid accounts in TV and newspapers would make you think. We can keep our kids safe if we exercise a little vigilance and common sense. You don't have to call the cops because a priest hugs a child. But no one -- no priest, no teacher, no coach -- needs to be alone with your kid. Ever. Anyone who tries to get your kid alone is someone who should never, ever be permitted to do so.

Francis, tell the world this, and mean it. And follow up. The screaming will be loud, and sorely overdue, but if you insist on claiming a tie to Francis of Assisi, remember what he heard in a vision back in 1205, "Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins." Fix our house, Francis.

While waiting for a new Pope: In defense of celibacy

I heard a Charles Osgood segment on the radio yesterday morning in which Francis Cardinal George of Chicago and Evanston's own Garry Wills, professor, author, and former seminarian, were both interviewed on the subject of priestly celibacy.

Mr. Wills and Cardinal George are both brilliant, whip-smart men and I could only hope they might someday condescend to converse with a middlebrow like me. But they probably shouldn't be invited to the same party.

Cardinal George defended celibacy by saying it is a sign of total commitment -- give all that you have and follow Me -- or, as Matthew put it (10:29-30), "[T]here is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come." The priest is supposed to put his vocation ahead of everything -- family, friends, possessions -- and celibacy is a sign of this.

Mr. Wills scoffed. If this were so, he argued, why would anyone go to a married doctor? He or she is not fully committed to the profession. Why would anyone allow their children to be instructed by a married teacher? He or she is not fully committed either.

With all due respect to Cardinal George, Mr. Wills gets the best of this exchange.

We all know the Church imposed celibacy on the priesthood in the Middle Ages, as much to preserve Church property as for any other reason. Down through the ages, celibacy has been winked at, if not outright ignored, by many priests, bishops and (yes) even a few Popes. And a public vow of celibacy provides some cover for child predators who have disguised themselves as priests. On the other hand, allowing priests to marry would be no guarantee of child protection: Jerry Sandusky was married, for example.

But I would not be too quick to encourage a relaxation of the rules against allowing priests to marry.

The parish priest has too much to do to have a healthy family besides. Sure, he can make many of his sick calls during the day, and some meetings can be scheduled during the business day. But most of his work is of necessity done at night, when the laity are home from work and can attend board and committee meetings that keep the community going. Instead of helping his own Timmy with his homework, Father would have to meet with the parish school board and discuss the revisions to the math curriculum. Tomorrow it's the Bible study group. The Parish Council needs to talk about the budget again. The next day the Holy Name Society meets. And Father would be well-advised to make an appearance at the girls' volleyball tournament and the boys' basketball game. There's a wedding rehearsal on Friday. And the phone will ring at the oddest hours, because Death and Sickness keep their own schedules. There are Sunday's homilies to plan, and homilies for the upcoming weddings and funerals, and he still has to say Mass daily, usually more than once a day. Maybe he can even find a little time to pray.

Of course, the solution to this crushing workload is to divide it up among many priests -- but vocations are few.

Well, say the advocates of married clergy, wouldn't vocations increase if priests could marry? (Might it not double if women could be priests too?)

I can't deny the possibility -- but marriage takes time and effort -- and even if the workload were more equitably distributed there would still be calls at odd hours and meetings. Some married clergy would succeed and some would, inevitably, fail. In a church that does not permit divorce, what do we do when the marriage between Father and Mrs. Smith breaks down irretrievably? And, you know what...? Those pesky property problems that motivated the Popes in the Middle Ages would rear their ugly heads again: The parish church might not be left to be divided between Father Sam's son and daughter, but a wage would have to be paid that allows Father to support his family (and could we pay enough for him to afford Catholic schools?) and there would be retirement and insurance expenses.

If the new Pope were to call me for advice, I do have something to suggest. If we're still waiting for white smoke tomorrow, perhaps we can talk about it then.

What not to expect from the new Pope

The College of Cardinals, at least those 80 and under, are locked in the Sistine Chapel at this hour, praying and politicking over who will be the next leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

It's kind of exciting.

But it's not really important.

Let me explain.

I am, as many of you know, a church-going Catholic (whether I am a good Catholic is not for me to say). The religious order that served my home parish for over a century recently decided it could no longer staff our church, so we are about to get a new pastor assigned by the Archdiocese of Chicago.

From my perspective, that's far, far more important than who will become the next Prisoner of the Curia in Rome. I'll have to deal with the new pastor; at least, I'll have to sit through his sermons. Or, if things go really badly, I'll have to start looking around for a new parish.

The fella in the white cassock in Rome is not going to change things that much. The Catholic Church doesn't work that way. Glaciers zoom by comparison with Mother Church. The church will have rules requiring priestly celibacy for the foreseeable future; maybe they will be observed and enforced with greater rigor. The church will not suddenly ordain women as priests. The church will not change its teachings on abortion or birth control. Even if the new Pope is determined to make great changes, he will find he must move slowly... incrementally.

But the new man in our rectory is a long way from Rome. I hope he will be celibate -- but some priests are not. Some have girlfriends (or boyfriends) and some flaunt them. I hope our new pastor will be a good role model for children -- but some priests are predators. I hope he will be an honest, capable administrator -- but some priests steal with both fists. Others are such naifs that people around them can steal with both fists. I hope he will be open to the parishioners' ideas about how things should be run -- but some priests are pig-headed dolts who hear no one but themselves and do whatever they damn well please. It is already rumored that our six weekend Masses will be reduced to three or four at most. Our three weekday Masses will be cut to one or two. We will have only one priest, not two (only a few years ago we had three) and he won't be able to keep up the Mass schedule and do all the other things that must be done. How he does whatever he can do will have much more influence and impact on my life than anything that comes out of Rome.

We had a meeting in the parish a few months back where we could give some feedback to the archdiocesan authorities about what we'd like to see in a new pastor (unlike many Protestant churches, we do not choose our priests; they are assigned to us and we make the best of it). The good fathers who came to the very well-attended meeting were not surprised to hear the concerns we raised. "Basically," one of the priests told me after, "your parish wants Jesus Christ with an MBA. Well, guess what? We all want that."

I heard that same job description used in connection with what Catholics want in a new Pope, too.

So I'll tell you what: We'll let Jesus Christ with an MBA be the next Pope. For our new pastor, we'll settle for Bing Crosby in Going My Way.

That's not too much to ask, is it?

It is?

Well, pray for us.

Steve has a large helping of Catholic guilt at a party

Regular readers may remember my friend Steve, the guy who 'retired' after 30 years' service with various public agencies. Once he could pull his pension, he went to work 'part time' for a charity that he'd worked for many years. Some weeks 'part time' comes to 80 hours. He gets a stipend for his labors, but nowhere near enough to live on without that pension.

When we read about public pension double dippers, folks who quit one public job, then take another so that they receive both salary and pension, I think of Steve: Not everybody takes advantage. Some people try to do good with the advantages they already have.

Anyway, Steve is an observant Catholic, just as I claim to be. He could hardly be anything else; one of his uncles was a priest, two of his aunts were nuns.

In addition to his 'part time' charity work, Steve volunteers at the neighborhood food pantry. The food pantry is run from the local Methodist church, but all the neighborhood churches support it to one degree or other. Steve is not the only member of our parish to volunteer his time there.

As a result of his weekly service there, Steve has become friendly with the Methodist minister and several members of her congregation. And, over the holidays, the minister began talking up a party for the pantry volunteers. She finally set the date for last Sunday, after her morning service. Steve decided he would go.

Steve's life is complicated, just like everyone else's. His wife, Charlotte, is taking care of her aging parents (they're both nearing 90 and in rapidly failing health) and that takes up a lot of their time. And we found out that the father of a college friend of ours passed away last week; the wake would be Sunday. And between what they had to do on Saturday and Charlotte working during the day on Sunday and the wake on Sunday evening, Steve realized that he hadn't figured out when he'd go to Mass.

"Maybe I'll just go to the Methodist service," Steve told Charlotte. She didn't say anything; she looked at him and waited.

"It's the same Jesus," he protested, a little defensively.

"Your uncle and your aunts are spinning in their graves," Charlotte said. But, ultimately, if he was to get to the party and if they were to get to the wake, going to the Methodist service seemed the best fit for his schedule.

Still, he told me, he was feeling a little guilty as he walked over to the Methodist church. He headed for the side door, the better to slink in anonymously.

That proved to be a bad idea. Just at that moment, the minister emerged from the parsonage next to the church, wearing her vestments for the service, also planning to enter by the side door. She greeted Steve with a big hug.

"I had to go then, didn't I?" Steve asked me later.

I agreed.

"I wonder. Does she get any extra points for bagging a Catholic convert?"

No, I assured him. Methodists are mainline, mainstream Protestants. It's the Evangelicals who think converting a Catholic is the next best thing to baptizing a pagan baby. (I'm very good at inventing stuff like this when the situation demands.)

Steve explained that one other of our fellow parishioners had also come over for the service; a food pantry volunteer, she was planning on going to the party, too. The minister sent Steve over to sit with her.

"I wonder what she must have thought," Steve said, speaking of the lady from our parish. "Half the congregation greeted me by name." He paused. "It's a small congregation -- there weren't that many people there -- but most of them seemed to work in the pantry."

She probably knows them, too, and the same way, I suggested.

"It was a nice enough service," Steve said, continuing, "and I was right at home during the sermon. It went on way too long. She kind of meandered, just like our priests do." He named one priest in particular; some years back, Steve had wound up on a committee to advise the poor man on how to tighten up his homilies.

(Olaf happened to be in the kitchen when I told this story to Long Suffering Spouse. He snorted derisively at the bit about the wandering sermon. "You should see the pastors at my parents' church," he said. "There are three. Each one takes longer than the next."

You know, thinking about it, I wonder if unfocused preaching isn't something of an unconscious homage to Moses and the Jews wandering in the desert. They wandered around lost for 40 years, according to the Bible -- and I've sat through a great many sermons that seem just as lost, and last nearly as long.)

Anyway, Steve said, the party was nice enough and he stayed long enough to make clear that he appreciated being invited. But soon enough it was time to walk home.

Steve paused.

"You know," he said, "on that walk home, I encountered one person. Just one. Care to guess who that person was?"

I thought about it for a second or two. "Our pastor?" I asked.

"Yes," said Steve, "Fr. Ed. As he came up to me on the sidewalk he said, 'Good afternoon, young man. I'm on my way over to my friend Sam's to watch the football games.' He was asking me to tell him where I was coming from, I just know it. And what was I supposed to say? I'm just coming back from services at the Methodist Church? I didn't have time to come over to our own church this morning?"

I tried to think of something witty to add here, but I was laughing too hard. So Steve continued. "A light must have gone off at the Rectory," he said, "one of ours has gone off into one of their buildings."

"Maybe they put microchips into us at Baptism," I ventured. (No, I didn't mean it; I just wanted him to keep going.)

"I thought of that," Steve said, "but Charlotte reminded me that microchips hadn't been invented when we were born."

Good point, I said.

"Charlotte figured it out. 'I warned you your aunts and uncle wouldn't let you get away with this one,' she told me. That's got to be it. They have more pull than I realized."

Now we were both laughing. "You know," Steve said, "you can't write stuff like this."

But I just did.

Thinking about evangelization generally, conversion in particular

Regular readers already know that Younger Daughter and her husband Olaf are residing under our roof.

Olaf follows neither of the two major faith traditions of our household. Oh, he will accompany us and his very pregnant wife to 7:00am Sunday Mass, but he is very definitely not Catholic. His roots are Lutheran -- one of his grandfathers was a Lutheran missionary in South America -- but Olaf himself is, at most, an agnostic -- a skeptic -- at times inclined to outright atheism. His parents got swept up in an evangelical movement -- they are proud believers in Biblical Inerrancy (you'll not watch any dinosaur shows in their house) -- and Olaf, mathematically inclined as he is, rebelled in an equal and opposite fashion. How Newtonian.

Now I am not inclined to criticize sincere people who believe as they do in order to live a better life and secure their place in the World to Come. (I don't want persons holding these beliefs organizing the science curriculum in the schools any more than I'd want to put the Amish in charge of NASA, but that's another story....) On the other hand, Olaf was also raised as a Cub fan -- and having that sort of infidel under my roof stretches my tolerance to the breaking point.

But, seriously, I know my wife and daughter have hopes of someday bringing Olaf into the church. I think Catholicism provides the flexibility and intellectual rigor that could attract Olaf, eventually. At this point, though, when he sees us watch shows on dinosaurs, I think it indicates to him that our religious principles are shallow, or merely cultural. It has not yet dawned on him that sincere religious belief and science can be compatible -- and even complimentary.

The one thing I know for certain is that Olaf would resist any direct approach to conversion. Pleading won't do. Pamphlets certainly won't.

That got me thinking about evangelization.

When we think about it at all, we think that Christianity spread by mission. During His lifetime, Jesus sent his earliest followers out to proclaim the Good News to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" without a "sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick." Jesus instructed them to move on from places where they were not well received, shaking the dust of the place from their feet. (Mt. 10:5-15.)

After the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, after receiving the Holy Spirit on tongues of fire, the Apostles spread out across the world with the Gospel message. The most famous missionary of all joined them along the way: St. Paul, once a persecutor of Christians, brought Christianity with him all around the Roman world. His letters to communities of believers in various cities and towns are still read in churches today.

And these missionaries seeded the Christian faith, planting it here and there.

By the time Constantine became Emperor, not quite 300 years after the Crucifixion, Christianity was sufficiently widespread, and Christians sufficiently numerous, that it made good political sense for Constantine to embrace Christianity as the official religion of the Empire.

Missionaries did not accomplish this.

In the second and third centuries, Christians were not out proselytizing and sending missionaries door to door. Many hid in the Catacombs when persecutions came. Those identified as Christians might be martyred for their faith. Nero used Christians as human torches in the first great prosecution of Christians after the Great Fire in Rome in 64 A.D. In that and many subsequent persecutions, Christians were torn apart in arenas by wild beasts or executed by gladiators.

And yet Christianity grew during these trying times. The ranks of Christians swelled. From a tiny sect, Christianity grew to the point where it became politically astute to make Christianity the official faith of Rome. Granted, the persecutions were not constant in the years between Nero and Constantine; there were many years, even decades, of peace in this area or that one. But there were no great missionary movements in these years -- nothing to compare with the journeys of St. Paul or the later epic voyages of the Jesuit missionaries -- nothing, even, to compare with the mission work of Olaf's own grandfather.

So how did it happen?

I think it must have happened person-to-person, family member to family member, slave to master (as in the case of Sts. Serapia and Sabina), or neighbor to neighbor. It must have been the examples set by Christians, their serenity, their certitude, that attracted others to them. It is how the Christians lived -- and not just how they died so willingly, even cheerily, though they did not court death or volunteer to be slaughtered -- that attracted new believers. Persons observing them must have passed through a 'they-must-be-crazy' phase to a 'maybe-they-are-on-to-something' phase before converting themselves.

Our daily lives are our best witness of our real faith, or lack thereof. That is how we really evangelize. That is evangelization. Moving back from the general to the specific again, it will not be dragging Olaf to church that eventually brings him around (if he is to be brought around); rather, it will be what he sees there -- and in our home -- that may, someday, excite his interest.

Of course, St. Monica also prayed a lot for the conversion of her son, St. Augustine. But that's another story too....

In a kinder, gentler America, we might perhaps have a rational discussion about abortion

We might even be able, in such a Nirvana, to calmly and rationally explain why some would want to deny abortion even to victims of rape.

(And, no, Rep. Todd Akin, it has nothing to do with whether or not the rape was "legitimate." Keep your dunce hat on and stay in the corner.)

The woman raped is a crime victim, plain and simple. What is not so simple is when rape involves another victim, one brought into being by the crime.

This does not always happen -- (No, Todd, not because the woman's body 'shuts that whole thing down.' I'm not going to tell you again. Sit in the corner and be quiet!) -- this does not always happen because, as anyone who's ever intentionally tried to conceive a child will tell you, not every instance of intercourse produces a child. But, potentially, possibly -- and rarely -- the violent crime of rape will result in the victim becoming pregnant.

It sure as hell is not her fault. (Todd! Last time! Sit!) It sure as hell is not her choice.

But neither is it the fault of the unborn child.

Now many -- I dare say most -- people would not consider the few cells that could result within a few days of a rape to be an "unborn child." The ardent anti-abortionists do.

The zygote becomes a blastocyst about five days after conception. It is a little ball of cells, with no discernably human characteristics whatsoever. But this tiny ball of cells, unlike every other tiny ball of cells in a woman's body, can divide and grow and grow and divide into a baby. In this sense, the anti-abortionists have a point. And Older Daughter, in the throes of irrational exuberance before her first IVF failure, proudly emailed pictures of her blastocysts, taken at the time of their implantation, so that we could "see our grandchildren."

It hurt me deeply just to write that sentence.

In a kinder, gentler America we could see that, in the very rare case where pregnancy results from a rape, the needs of both victims should be considered. However, in any world I know from experience, the thought of saddling the rape victim with the obligation to carry, each and every day, for nine months, a swelling reminder of a violent assault seems cruel in the extreme. Perhaps in a kinder and gentler America the rape victim would receive adequate support from friends and family and society in general so that she could heal from her crime even while carrying the product of that crime to term. But not today. A contemporary woman who could make the choice to carry a baby conceived in the course of a rape to term, would be uncommonly brave. Her choice should be celebrated -- but the obligation to carry that child should not be imposed. And certainly not imposed in the unkind, angry America of the present day.

Since his nomination to the Republican ticket, Paul Ryan, who has been identified with the ardent anti-abortion crowd, has already moderated his stance to acknowledge that abortion should be available to victims of rape or incest or when medically necessary to save the mother's life (and that may be, from the standpoint of apolitical medicine, almost never -- see, this 2009 post in which a doctor explains why).

Americans support or oppose a right to abortion depending on the questions asked. When the question is posed whether abortion should be available to rape or incest victims or when medically necessary to save the life of the mother, strong majorities say yes, absolutely. On the other hand, when persons are asked whether abortion should be available "on demand" or used as a means of (or substitute for) birth control, strong majorities say no, no way.

I am a practicing Catholic. But I'm also a practicing cynic. And, as a good, practicing cynic I believe that most Americans, if pressed, would oppose abortion except in cases of (1) rape, (2) incest, (3) to save the mother's life, and (4) when a 'nice girl' gets 'in trouble.'

It is that last category that gets the ardent anti-abortionists up and out to the abortion mills, fingering their Rosaries and loudly praying and holding up horrifying pictures of aborted fetuses.

But I have news for them: They can not end abortion by making it illegal, or nearly so, any more than the temperance movement could end the scourge of drunkenness by enacting Prohibition and the Volstead Act. We haven't stopped idiots from texting while driving simply by passing laws banning the practice. We can't make gay marriage advocates go away by legislatively defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, nor can we make gay marriage universally accepted by judicial decisions striking down those statutes. We didn't stop drug abuse by declaring a War on Drugs either.

At some point it should become obvious to even the densest among us that constantly hurling imprecations across a cultural divide, or banning practices that a bare majority opposes, or litigating to strike down practices that a strong and determined minority opposes -- that all of this is futile. And I say this as a politically aware citizen and, more, as a lawyer: The law has its limits.

Instead, we must build consensus. Persuasion, not compulsion. Slowly, surely... rationally. We gotta at least try. Maybe someday we can have our kinder, gentler American, can't we?

Can't we?

Venting along with Curmudgeon: The family way - Part 1

Long-time readers (or really good archive browsers) will recall that Older Daughter got married in July 2009. She and her husband Hank live in Indianapolis (Hank's hometown) where Older Daughter works as a nurse.

Their union has not yet been blessed by children.

With many young couples during the first several years of their married life, this is not an issue: The young people need to get established in their careers, acquire some of life's necessities, pay down their college loans -- that kind of stuff. Besides... a young husband and wife have to learn to live with each other. That's not always easy, and it can get really complicated when children arrive. A lot of young couples go out and get a dog before they get around to producing issue; the dog becomes a practice-child. Older Daughter and Hank got a dog.

But they wanted a real child. They've wanted a child for some time now. There are some areas that a father does not discuss with his daughter, certainly not in any detail, but I have been reliably informed (by Long Suffering Spouse who also, thankfully, spares me most of the details) that the young people worked at the project for some time before deciding that something, or someone, must be amiss.

They consulted medical professionals and submitted themselves to a battery of humiliating tests. The doctors concluded that Older Daughter's plumbing was in good working order but that Hank could do with a little work.

Hank submitted to surgical intervention.

There will be a brief pause while I cringe.

There were more humiliating, highly personal tests. Apparently Older Daughter and Long Suffering Spouse actually talk about this stuff. Apparently in detail. I can't even think about it without cringing.

(Pardon the additional pause.)

Anyway, the passage of time (and, presumably, the resumption of normal relations, but -- again -- I don't talk about these things) failed to yield the desired result.

Older Daughter and Hank sought out a fertility specialist. After still more humiliating and invasive testing, they were deemed candidates for in vitro fertilization (Wikipedia spells it 'fertilisation,' but that looks wrong to me and the Blogger spell-checker).

IVF -- a test-tube baby! This is something that was confined to the realm of science fiction for much of my life (Louise Brown, the first 'test-tube baby,' was born in 1978).

I consider myself a good Catholic, but I think that if the Church is reflexively opposed to IVF, it is confused. There is no question that the Church is right to be opposed to IVF where conception can be achieved in the natural course (the rumors about the 'turkey baster' and Michael Jackson come unwillingly to mind); nor is the Church wrong to encourage adoption as the safest and most morally responsible course for infertile couples. Also, there are techniques and procedures engaged in some IVF clinics that are destructive of human embryos, before -- and apparently even after -- implantation. These practices can be condemned without rejecting IVF outright.

There are ethical objections and issues that responsible medical practitioners can address and accommodate. The Church should not automatically condemn couples who seek to have their own biological children where reasonable and responsible safeguards are observed. There is no deeper instinct in any species, with the sole possible exception of self-preservation, than the instinct to pass one's genes along to the next generation. If the Church truly condemns all IVF at present, it may be that this stance is a legacy of Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae. But it must be remembered that this encyclical was issued in the 1960s, before IVF was actually possible (although it was horrifyingly imagined in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World). I have faith that the Church will catch up with science on this, with appropriate ethical guidance and safeguards.

In the meantime, Older Daughter and her husband were going to try IVF. I won't tell the Pope if you won't.

To be continued.....

Parent-teacher conferences, now -- and then

Long Suffering Spouse will be working late tonight. She has parent-teacher conferences starting after lunch and continuing until 9:00pm. No appointments are necessary. My wife is not expecting that a lot of parents will be coming to see her, in particular, but the math teacher is next door and my wife is sure to get a lot of her overflow crowd.

We didn't have parent-teacher conferences when I was a boy. We had report cards every so often -- but if further contact were required, it was because someone was in big trouble. And that someone was always the student.

I was in a Chicago Catholic grammar school through the sixth grade. This was in the days when the Catholic schools were pretty well chock full of nuns; a lay teacher was a rarity. Sociologist and popular author Fr. Andrew Greeley sometimes referred, in his fiction, to the parish in which I spent my youngest years as "St. Praxides." I think that's how he spelled it, although the closest name in the actual Litany of the Saints is probably St. Praxedes. Fr. Greeley actually functioned as an assistant in my parish in the late 1950s; one of the most minor accomplishments of his distinguished career is that he baptized me. But Fr. Greeley's St. Praxides was a troubled place. The hostility toward the South Side that emerged in his later books was understandable: the West Side Irish (which he was) and the South Side Irish did not always get along. John R. Powers' books about "Seven Holy Tombs" (a reference to all the cemeteries along 111th Street) were more or less about St. Christina's, not the parish in which I was born, but those familiar with The Last Catholic in America, etc. will know a lot more about the culture I remember from my childhood than those who have read only Fr. Greeley.

In that culture, whatever Sister said was Law. If Sister said I misbehaved, I'd get clobbered at school. If I complained to my mother, she'd clobber me too, just for upsetting Sister. If, on some rare occasion, my mother thought that, perhaps, I might have been unjustly accused, she'd still lay into me -- "That's for a time you got away with something then," she'd say. Or, "Offer it up." The debits and credits of heavenly accounting were, and remain, a Mystery to me. But, apparently, one's unfair suffering today could be applied to reduce the just punishments we'd earned from real sins at other times. My mother was just cutting my eventual sentence in Purgatory. Besides, in all fairness, most of the time I got in trouble at school, I was entirely at fault.

Tonight, my wife will meet her students' parents and say mostly positive and supportive things about the children's progress and potential. I don't even know why the schools have these conferences any more. The parents already know the kids' grades because my wife's gradebook is online. Tonight is not a social occasion -- my wife is dreading it -- but, if the conversation is forced or awkward, none of my wife's meetings tonight will be as awful as the one that concerned yours truly, some 44 years ago.

I was in the fifth grade. The fifth and sixth grades had recess together in the morning. One morning, for some reason, the sixth graders refused to immediately line up to return to class when the bell rang. I have no idea why the sixth graders staged this impromptu sit-in (which probably lasted a minute and a half... or less). Maybe it was just because it was 1967; revolution was in the air. Still, as I recall it, I and my classmates lined up in good order when the bell rang. We'd not done anything wrong. Nevertheless, because we were there, our class was also punished. We were ordered to write "I will get in line and return to class quietly when the bell rings" 100 times.

I chose not to do the assignment. Showing all the flair and passion that would later make me an abject failure as a lawyer, I instead used most of my time to prepare a brief demonstrating that the sixth graders were entirely at fault and the punishment meted out to us fifth graders was entirely unjust. Not satisfied with these efforts, moreover, I decided to add a personal note expressing my outrage at this treatment. Naturally, when speaking on my own behalf, and not on behalf of my peers (as their entirely undesignated spokesman) I felt no need for any rhetorical restraint. I signed my name and everything. (I wonder, now, if I put "JMJ" on the top of the first page of either document. The initials stood for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and were pretty much required on every paper we submitted in those years.)

Looking back, signing my name was not particularly brave: After all, by process of elimination, the identity of the malcontent would have been readily determined. But I certainly eliminated any need for lengthy investigation.

I was dragged by my ear to the principal's office. There it was determined that this transgression was so horrible, so outrageous, that my parents would have to come to school and show cause, if any, why I should be retained as a student. Notice the use of the word "parents." Most of your run-of-the-mill felonies could be handled by calling a kid's mother. This, however, was so awful, so contemptible, that my father would have to brought in as well.

As near as I can recall, this marked the one and only one occasion where my father actually entered a school building for or because of me. I grew up in the age of Paternal Aloofness. Fathers worked. Mothers handled the domestic scene. Fathers left early in the morning and came home at dinner time. Then they did whatever they wanted. Or whatever they had to do. My father was a lawyer. But he used to teach the real estate licensing course at night to pick up a little extra money. Whether fathers were home at night or not, kids generally stayed out of their way. If a father was obliged -- forced -- to enter into the domestic sphere, it amounted to a disruption of the Order of Nature.

I remember nothing of the rest of that terrible day until the evening. I remember sitting in the living room of my parents' home that night awaiting their return.

I was imagining the savage reprisals that would be inflicted on my person because I had caused my father to be summoned to school. I fully expected to die. I had even begun to imagine that death might be a blessed relief.

Then my parents returned.

My mother must have rushed past me. Clearly, I was no longer her concern.

My father sat in one of the living room chairs. It was become the Throne of Judgment, I thought. I braced myself.

"So," he said, rather wearily, now that I think of it, "I understand you've been doing some writing...."

He never raised his hand to me. But he sounded so disappointed. It was the severest punishment possible -- and one I did not, and could not, have anticipated. To this day, I still wish he had just gotten angry and given me what for.

The rest of my penance was fairly light, at least when compared to my imaginings: Instead of writing the sentence 100 times, I was required to write it 500 times. I did... more or less. I know I wrote it, as directed, well over 100 times. But I also edited the sentence, slightly, shortening it. The sum of the assigned sentences and the shortened sentences equaled 500 and the nuns decided I was back in their good graces. More or less.