Christmas with the Latin Trads

For Christmas Mass this year, I attended a Tridentine Indult Mass, the only one currently held in my geographically large diocese. I've been there a few times, and I've always had a hard time following along, but I at least get the feeling a lot is going on.

Before getting to my point, let me preface by saying that I am not a Latin Traditionalist. I think I agree with 95% of what they have to say, and prefer the Tridentine Mass to the Novus Ordo, but I've chosen to go the Eastern route. In fact, I think it's fairer to say the Byzantine Church chose me, or that I was always Byzantine and just didn't know it. And I still prefer the Syriac Maronite Church to the Tridentine Rite. I'm lucky that I have four entirely different Catholic liturgical rites at my disposal, all less than half an hour from my house.

But I can't help but feel like I've been cheated. I grew up in a Novus Ordo parish, with all that goes with it - guitars, altar girls, lack of incense, etc, and spent a good chunk of my life as a mediocre Catholic. My churchgoing was always an intellectual exercise - I went because I knew I had to. I never got much out of it until I discovered my other options. Now that I've spent a good year trying to reorient myself in a Godly manner, in my late twenties, I'm overcoming things that may have never been an issue if I didn't grow up in such a soft, effeminate, permissive, and disoriented church. I've discovered that my alleged Catholic education certainly didn't form me in any useful way, and when I look at the sad state the Church is in worldwide, I can only wonder if a spiritual life might have been easier if I had some leadership early on.

Now, I can't stand before God and point to Vatican II and Paul VI and the Novus Ordo and blame them for my slackness, but I can't help but wonder if God is going to hold the Church leadership in any way accountable for a sorrowful lack of leadership in today's world. I think I could have done better, and been less of a mess, if I had a community of strong Catholics with which to interact. It's hard enough to be good, even with good leadership and a vibrant Catholic culture - both of which I have never had access to.

A very telling illustration...

... of that rat bastard S.O.B. barbarian Hans Kung and one of his fellow travelers:

Strangely accurate web quiz

Located here.

"Your hemispheric dominance is equally divided between left and right brain, while you show a moderate preference for auditory versus visual learning, signs of a balanced and flexible person.

Your balance gives you the enviable capacity to be verbal and literate while retaining a certain "flair" and individuality. You are logical and compliant but only to a degree. You are organized without being compulsive, goal-directed without being driven, and a "thinking" individual without being excessively so.

The one problem you might have is that your learning might not be as efficient as you would like. At times you will work from the specific to the general, while at other times you'll work from the general to the specific. Sometimes you will be logical in your approach while at other times random. Since you cannot always control the choice, you may experience frustrations not normally felt by persons with a more defined and directed learning style.
You may also minimally experience conflicts associated with auditory processing. You will be systematic and sequential in your processing of information, you will most often focus on a single dimension of the problem or material, and you will be more reflective, i.e., "taking the data in" as opposed to "devouring" it.

Overall, you should feel content with your life and yourself. You are, perhaps, a little too critical of yourself - and of others - while maintaining an "openness" which is redeeming. Indecisiveness is a problem and your creativity is not in keeping with your potential. Being a pragmatist, you downplay this aspect of yourself and focus on the more immediate, the more obvious and the more functional."

Great book

Read "The Church Impotent" by Leon Podles.



I read it last year, and may have already recommended it, but I was just thinking of it, and it's really good. It discusses the historical roots of the current effeminate church. Apparently, it didn't begin just with Vatican II.

Why? *Yawn*

In another tedious move, the Vatican will pay for the defense of Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister. He may be Christian, but I don't think he's Catholic, and I wouldn't care even if he was.

I'll make no judgement today on what the Vatican thinks of Saddam or Iraq or America. But it seems they spend a lot more time and energy on things like this than they actually do defending and expanding Christendom or trying to save souls.

How about putting this energy into rooting out practicing homosexual priests?

Watching "My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss"

... I thought again about how much I hate having a job. My wife summed it up nicely: I'm not exactly lazy, but I don't like bosses and schedules and restrictions and responsibility and dress codes (which is especially odd, in that I enjoy dressing up when nobody forces me).

There's too much else to do - surf the internet, read, go to church, play games, travel, play with your pets, spend time with friends, anything.

Having always been a dreamer, I've become a bit of a radical. Cubicles, strip lights, wheeling and dealing, even telephones have always been a put-off to me. But now, I find I don't even like people who like to work, or like those things. The worst example is Donald Trump. A complete tool. But, there are all these yobs who love him as well. Businessmen are an American aristocracy, without the benefit of good taste, breeding, or refinement.

Nor have I ever gotten any real satisfaction out of work. It's always just been a means to feed myself. And I've always had jobs where the people around me seem to find that satisfaction, and even base their self-identity around their employment. This was especially true when I worked as an editor at a newspaper. Other editors and the reporters found some sort of pride in it. My wife also seems to get fulfillment from being a teacher. On-the-job emotional gratification is completely alien to me.

And at 28, it's starting to bite me in the backside. In lots of ways, I need to get on with life, make more money, and have more stability. But it's hard when you have an English degree, and don't have anything in particular that you want to do. In fact, what I want to do is put my feet up and smoke a cigar, drink a cup of coffee, and read a book.

And I see no way I can change; it's just my personality. If I wasn't fulfilled in radio, newspapers, or working for a nonprofit, I'm certainly not going to find it in a cube farm, another office environment, or any given blue collar job.

PC Scrabble, who knew?

A good friend of mine and I play scrabble at each opportunity, which works out to about every two weeks. He plays frequently with his wife and I never get to play outside of our visits. Nobody else in my life likes the game. So, despite my Brobdingnagian vocabulary, his grasp of strategy and practice enables him to beat me three quarters of the time.

Tired of the situation, I bought the latest computer Scrabble version, to get in some covert practice - the game even has trainers. But it uses an expurgated dictionary! The manual says that it's for "recreational and school use," so they cut about 165 words out that are acceptable in tournament play, but offend certain groups. This didn't bother me terribly until I tried to play "jew" on a triple word score (4+1+8 times 3 = 39 points!) and the computer denied it.

When I realized that "jew," since proper nouns are never allowed, can only be played as a verb (and was thus banned as offensive), I was furious that this egregious political correctness would cost me the game. So I found the list of words on Google and typed them all back into the computer's dictionary. Spending an hour typing words like "papistry," "bazooms," "wop," "crapper," and "darkie" made me feel like a naughty fourth-grader. But now I can play real Scrabble again.

Someone READ my blog!

I received an email from someone who actually read my blog. After coming to, and fetching a cold glass of water, I decided maybe I should post on it again.



I've never actually advertised it anywhere, so I'm a bit surprised. Mostly, it's written for my own benefit, and I figured that if I started sharing the link, I'd feel obligated to maintain it, and then it would cease to be fun. More like a job for which I don't get paid.

As a side note, who'da thunk it that when I went looking for an image to display my joy, I'd find a guy with a crown? Too perfect.