Father Altman and Cancel Culture.....It's Good We Know Who Wins in the End

It seems that for quite some time, I have been led to write today's blog. The words come together when I sleep, when I pray and when I carry through my daily life. The fact is, for several weeks now, this blog has never been far from my thoughts, and I knew when the time was right, I would sit down here and write it. I actually wanted to write this on Sunday, but it still didn't feel like it was the right time. Yesterday however, I realized that now...is the time! 

Normally I don't write a lot of blogs like this, but today, I felt I needed to write it. Remember, sometimes I just put these blogs in God's hands and let the chips fall where they may. That is what is happening here. I couldn't not write this blog if I wanted to. Now just to be clear, you don't have to agree or disagree with me on any of this and of course, you can stop reading at any time, but maybe you won't. 

This blog is mostly aimed at the Catholics among you who read my blog, but it is also a cautionary tale for those of all religions, who have clergy that are not afraid to do their jobs, put God first, and speak the truth....even if that truth isn't popular. It is also about some things that have bothered me for quite some time. 

First of all, let's talk about churches. My church, your church, their church. Even before Christianity, there were synagogues where people gathered to learn about and worship God, and in times of trouble and worry, they were a refuge for the faithful to gather together. After all, regardless of our religious preference, if we go to church believing we are in God's house, then what safer place can there be? Churches have always been sanctuaries for those in need, those afraid, and even those in danger. Churches often hold the heart of the community as well as the souls of the faithful and it seems that when all else may fail, our faith leads us to God and His church. 

So let's take this back, to 1962, when the Second Vatican Council met. In my opinion, the SVC did not move the Catholic church forward with its modernization, but instead, put us on a path that has led us to where we are today. In case you are wondering, we aren't in a great place right now. In fact, in my humble opinion, there are just way too many Catholics in name only, and sadly this is not just everyday Catholics who fill the pews every Sunday. This also includes priests, bishops, cardinals, as well as governors, senators, presidents, and truthfully at times, I wonder if it doesn't even go higher than that. These CINO are hiding behind the Catholic church yet twisting and turning canon law and church teachings to fit their own personal agendas regardless of the outcome. It has been bad for a while, but now, we have come into a critical state. 

My mother, a Catholic woman to her core, always used to tell me that satan hated the Catholic church and he would love nothing more than to destroy it. How would he destroy it? Why, from within of course, and sadly, we have been seeing this happen over the last few decades. 

Now I could literally write for days on the atrocities that have occurred in the Catholic church and how I feel about them, but instead, today, I am writing about a few things of late that have nagged at me and as of yesterday, pushed me forward into writing this. 

So where was I? Oh yeah, Vatican II. It was in VII that it was felt that Catholics no longer needed to kneel to receive Communion nor receive it on the tongue. Now for those that may not be Catholic or who are Catholic but never opened a Baltimore Catechism, Communion in the Catholic church is NOT symbolic. It is not a cracker or a piece of bread and a dixie cup of grape juice. Jesus Christ Himself started the Catholic church (the first Christian church) and He made the Apostle Peter the first Pope of the Catholic Church. Thus it only makes sense that the Last Supper was the actual first Communion, handed out by Jesus Himself, to the Apostles. So when we as Catholics go to Mass and receive Communion, the bread is unleavened bread, the wine is real and both are consecrated by the priest during Mass. What this means to those scratching their heads right now is, that Catholics believe that when we receive Communion, we are actually receiving the body and blood of Christ. Don't believe me? Look it up and look up the miracles associated with consecrated Communion wafers. 

So think about this, if we are actually receiving the body and blood of Christ, don't you think a little reverence such as kneeling and receiving it on the tongue are in order? Yes, I am sharing another momism, because she taught me in great part my faith, by living it and being an example. She always told me never to receive communion in the hand, as my hands were not supposed to touch it, only a priest was to touch it. Personally, my hands are not pure enough, holy enough, or special enough to hold the body and blood of  Christ, and I am always in awe of those who think that their hands are. So, if I believe what the church has taught me, and I do, then if I took Communion in the hand, that would be exactly what I was holding, the body and blood of Christ, and I am simply not doing it. In fact, in my whole entire life, I have never received Communion in the hand and I am not even a big fan of Eucharistic Ministers giving me Communion, but often in church, we have no choice. My preference is always the priest and again.....NEVER MY HANDS!

As for the kneeling, it really just depends on the church, because most modern churches no longer have communion rails to kneel on. As a kid though, I do remember kneeling before receiving Communion, and in my opinion, it makes the privilege so much more solemn and respectful. In fact, I made my own First Communion kneeling, and that honor has never left me. 

So this all brings me to this last year. I was literally amazed beyond words when Catholic churches and really any Christian churches locked down and no longer held Mass or services. I remember one Sunday sitting at home, watching Mass online, and thinking to myself that God must feel so abandoned that His people had so little faith in Him and His house, as to shut down and lock down. It really did not sit right with me, and even though bishops and cardinals gave all Catholics a dispensation for not going to Mass, it still felt wrong, and we all know that no bishop or cardinal has ever made an error in judgment. 

I couldn't help but think that if we had true faith, that church would likely be the last place the virus would get us, and if masks were so crucial to saving us all, then all we had to do was wear one and be on our way to church. Apparently though, the government and those governing the church didn't agree. Was this because there wasn't a thimble full of faith between them all, or was there another reason that people were locked out of their churches? It has been a big question on my mind. 

Then, when churches opened up again, the Catholic church in my opinion made another grave error and refused to allow Communion on the tongue. This I found to be reprehensible, and rather than be refused Communion on the tongue, I simply didn't go to Communion. For my heart and soul, this was the right thing for me whether others agree or not. 

Of course, the thinking behind this for the church was to "protect" the priest and the Eucharistic ministers but it really made no sense to me. First of all, there should be no Eucharistic Ministers, especially during this time. Second, the priest and his mask and a gallon of hand sanitizer should pretty much make him safe and if you add in a little faith, then there should not have been an issue at all. I couldn't help but think, what if Father Damien had refused those in Molokai, Mass or Communion on the tongue? Thank God his faith was greater than that of many of our more modern priests. 

Apparently, today's priest and clergy of all denominations seem to have forgotten that in times of great stress, fear and unrest are the times that people search out God. It is at times like this when many souls are brought to God. These people aren't looking for an hour on TV with a live band, they are looking for face-to-face contact with someone who has the best interest of their soul at heart and who has no fear, but only the desire to bring them to Our Lord. This however can't happen if God's doors are closed and His clergy don't appear to have enough faith to throw the doors open and know that God's will, will be done. 

I have pretty much kept my feelings about all of this to myself all of this time. I have prayed a great deal about it, and just watched and listened. I have seen so many people that I never imagine would fall in line do so, as their fear seemed to override their faith. At times I even wondered if I was the only one feeling this way.....until yesterday. 

Yesterday, I saw a video of a priest, Father James Altman, out of La Crosse, WI, being asked to resign by his bishop. He was accused of inciting and being divisive. Why? Because he ignored COVID limits and did his job. The job he was ordained to do. The job he was called to do not by his bishop or the governor of WI, but by God. He listened to his faith and not the government. He did what he felt was right as a priest and we have no idea how many souls he might have brought to God in doing so, and apparently, that does not matter. His bishop is far more concerned about man's mandates (not laws) than he is about God's laws. Seems like someone may be in the wrong business and I'm thinking it is not Father Altman. 

Then last Sunday, May 23, 2021, Father Altman gave an amazing sermon which was recorded, and sadly, if the bishop and the church have their way, it might have been his last one as a priest. He spoke about Pentecost Sunday and tied it in beautifully to the fight he was fighting and what is currently going on in his church and churches throughout our country. Here is the sermon he gave. I encourage you all to listen to it. If it doesn't make you feel sad, a bit ashamed, and tremendously angry that this is happening to a priest, a man of God, who chose God above all else and is being punished for it, then in my book, you may need to re-evaluate your faith a bit. And yes, he called out a lot of things that I myself have felt. It was really great to hear a priest speak to right and wrong according to the teachings of the Catholic church. We certainly need more of it and more priests and clergy like him. 

So for those of you reading who have held on this long and aren't even Catholic, first of all.....thank you. Second of all, this isn't just priests that this can and is happening to. This can happen to good clergy of all Christian faiths. Those who disagree with Father Altman or who aren't brave enough to stand up for what is right themselves, are trying to do what they do best and cancel Father Altman. Sadly, I know that there are ministers, pastors, and clergy all over who are also dealing with being called on the carpet as they also have broken no laws but did in fact side step mandates that were both unConstitutional and also trying to supersede God's laws. I don't see this as just a slap upside the head of this particular priest, but a pummeling of all faithful religious people who put God first and everything else second.

I have no doubt that those in power are not going to let this issue with Father Altman go easily as they would love to make an example of him and show us the consequences of his perceived deviciveness, as an open threat to any other clergy thinking of stepping "out of line." I also have no doubt that Father Altman will likely not go quietly and whatever suffering he goes through because of this, is paving his path to heaven. 

Standing up for what you believe in is getting harder these days. Calling out the wrong in the world, and living your life for good in spite of the evil that resides around every corner is not easy and I have every belief that evil will not let up any time soon. As for me, I will continue to take Communion only on the tongue, I will support good priests and their message, even if it's not a popular one and I will call out those who are evil and cut them no slack, even if they call themselves Catholic. Those who propagate evil and even evil itself can damage my church but they have no power to destroy it. Bottom line, if you have ever opened a Bible, regardless of whether it was a Catholic or Protestant Bible, they all end the same way.....God wins and evil loses. 

So until next time, may you stay strong, may you stay faithful, and may you remember just who wins in the end.  

Social Distance, Shelter in Place, Lock Down

In 1920, when the clock struck midnight that New Years Eve/Day, the world began to change. The year 1920, brought us prohibition, bathtub gin, flappers, shorter dresses and even shorter female hairstyles, while men took on a more dapper style with with wide lapels, pin stripes and fedoras. It was also the beginning of many Americans owning motor cars, radio's and telephones. All of these things changed everything about us, from how we dressed, to how we drank, got around, got our information and how we communicated. The world in fact seemed to be a bright new place in 1920, ushering in products and opportunities which would have a profound effect on our culture, jobs, homes and life in general for all the decades that followed. With WWI over and Henry Ford's advances in manufacturing with the assembly-line, 1920 set the decade up for what looked like unending fiscal and personal success. On the surface America was shiny, but like any year and any decade, there would be cracks in the facade and the shininess would fade. Still though, we were working our way into an unforgettable 20th Century.

Now, looking at 2020, the world once again changed on New Years Eve/Day, but into something far different than what we celebrated a hundred years before. As we said goodbye to 2019 and drove headlong into the new year and new decade, our world and our country were far from a joyous and exciting time and place. Going into 2020, we drug a lot of baggage from the past year that had been building far longer than the previous decade. We brought in political unrest, racial unrest, Constitutional unrest and a loss of morality, faith and humanity as we had become a world in which our own individual self-interest was our goal, we were our own gods and humanity was only an after thought as long as we were getting what we wanted. We had become a world where the only conversations we wanted to have were the ones in which we were agreed with and in which our opinions came out of the mouths of others. We had quit sharing ideas and growing in an effort to be the loudest voice with the only opinion. We were a world of fake news, fear mongers and power hungry, money driven leaders. Worst of all, because we the people had lost a sense of who we were, we became ripe for those who told us we needed to be taken care of, led and controlled for our own "best interest" and safety. We were blindly following those who cared nothing about any of those things, but only the power they could control us with.

Yes, this is what we ended 2019 with and this is what we entered 2020 with. Now, five months into this new year and decade and we seem to be losing ground, losing stability and losing our rights as free individuals in a free country. The worst part, no one is actually taking our stability and rights from us....we are simply willingly handing them over with the misconception that this will keep us safe. Welcome to 2020. My how a hundred years has changed us.

Much has happened this new year globally and much has happened in my life personally. It has all made me very introspective and emotionally frustrated. It is one of those times where I have to get it out or mentally choke on that which I find emotionally breaking. So here it goes:

As we came into 2020, we were still dealing with an unprecedented Presidential Impeachment where the news was fake and the "facts" were fluid, changing as the agenda saw fit. Of course in the end, it was nothing more than a gigantic waste of taxpayers money, congress did no actual work and the American people, regardless of which side of the fence they were on, were forced into the acknowledgement of just how little our elected officials actually cared about the good of the country as they were willing to raise the debt with a legal farce and attempt to destroy an economy that was struggling to get back on it's feet.

Once the impeachment charade was over, there was barely time for Nancy Pelosi to remember that her job entailed more than trying to impeach her nemesis, when we were hit with the Corona Virus (i.e. COVID 19). Now I won't rehash the onset of this virus, the stupidity of those who ran out to buy enough toilet paper to get through the decade or mass hysteria that ensued in the early days of this pandemic. After all, I have already written a couple of blogs concerning that and I am sure you all know by now how I feel about it all.

No, what I want to discuss on this blog is the here and now and the whole lock down, shelter in place, social distancing, killing our economy and making us all angry assholes thing.

For most of the country and I guess a good part of the world, it was at first suggested we "social distance." While the words were familiar, their term is now one that will go down in history as a key phrase to the 2020 pandemic. In my opinion, social distancing was nothing more than common sense and I took it to mean, if you are feeling unwell, don't go to work, don't go to the club, don't go to the store, don't go to school. You should stay home and take care of yourself, thus preventing the spread of your germs. Apparently what everyone else heard was: Run out and shop like there is no tomorrow. Breathe on everyone and become angry if you are not able to buy more than 100 rolls of toilet paper and 25 canisters of disinfectant wipes. I'm not sure how social distancing meant such different things to different people, but in no time, we were off and running with the spread of the virus running rampant.

Social distancing then went from use common sense, to now you all are going to shelter in place. This was the step where the government decided that we couldn't be trusted to use common sense, so they were going to get a bit heavy handed and start enforcing laws that didn't exist and spread the word that the government and not the people were in charge. Now in all fairness, the people did act a fool over the social distancing, so we basically handed them the authoritarian governmental grounding that they gave us. The shelter in place was the beginning of school closings for the year and a limiting of numbers of people who could gather in any one place. It started at 250 and gradually made its way down to 6. I was afraid I was going to have to start kicking people out of my house.

Finally, we went into full on lock down. I have hated this terminology from day one because it is subliminal terminology which brainwashes us into believing the government can legally control us in the guise of "protecting" us. Without written laws on the books they cannot, but that did not and does not stop them from trying to intimidate and over reach. Lock down is a term used in prisons as a means to control a population. In the last couple of decades, it has made its way into our mainstream thought processes as a term of "safety" in instances such as school shootings. The bottom line though....lock down is still a means to control a population and control us they have.

During this lock down, we have been forced (again...no laws on the books and completely unConstitutional) to shut down businesses, social gathering places and we even been prohibited from having graduations, funerals and church services. We have been forced to wear masks even though "science" tells us that they can cause more health problems than they solve and people have been encouraged to turn on one another and rat out their friends, family and neighbors to the "authorities"  if they "think" they are breaking non-existent laws. Meanwhile, our economy that was just about back on it's feet has all but tanked. Small businesses are dying, big businesses are losing ground and all the businesses that were gradually coming back to the United States in the last few years, may have to leave again, just to survive. And even though all of this started months ago, we are still being forced into government mandated restrictions based in nothing but their say-so. Blessedly, some are wising up and realizing we can't continue this crap indefinitely, but certain governors of certain political persuasions are dragging out the reopening states, business and the economy as long as they possibly can. Why?

While I have never been a conspiracy theorist, this whole situation would have any thinking person doing just that.....thinking. Never in history have we had a pandemic that has caused this kind of behavior from the leaders or the people. You have to ask yourself,  if  with the media we have, are we being given the actual facts? With the corruptness we have seen from congress, are the media being given actual facts? When you have medical professionals and scientists who can't agree on things as simple as the safety of wearing a mask and mortality numbers are not agreeing, you have to wonder just what the facts are? Yet we as a people, seem to cringe with each media report even when many of those reports have been debunked. We are so fear obsessed that we are throwing our rights out the door, for the promise of a little safety. We have gone from being the land of the free and the home of the brave, to the land of the controlled and the home of the afraid. You do realize that we are not the first people to be afraid of something. We are simply the first people to hand over our rights because of that fear.

Believe me,  I am not saying that COVID-19 isn't real and that it can't kill people. What I am saying is that COVID-19 has been a convenient excuse to cultivate fear and hysteria, to make the people dependent on the government, to pass legislation in bills that might not have passed otherwise (Nancy you naughty girl) and to conveniently change the rules of an election year and how we might possibly "be allowed" to vote. It has also set the stage to change how our children will be educated, how we shop and what will be available for us to shop for and even how we will be able to do business.....if many even have businesses left. It's all a little too iffy for me to fall into what the government would like me to believe. I have too many questions and there simply aren't enough accurate answers.

Now I know that there are those of you who have lived in fear since the moment you heard the word "virus." In fact, I know there are some of you that haven't been out of your homes except for extreme needs since March and you are extremely angry with those who do go out (unless they are deemed essential...another word I hate.) I also know that as you read this, you are already thinking of all the stats, articles and statements from medical professionals that you can argue back at me with. To you I say, don't bother. I have read so much on both sides and I really don't believe much on either side. I also am not going to argue this with anyone. These are my thought and my feelings.....and maybe they will be my undoing, but I refuse to spend my life as a prisoner of fear. I have social distanced, sheltered in place and even locked down. I am done. Now, like it or not.....from this day forward.....I'm going to live my life. Now where's my flapper dress and my automobile? I'm going to town......and ain't that the bees knees! ;)