Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 66th Edition. A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer up your pants.*

Strange bedfellows.

Politics, as they say, makes for strange bedfellows.

New Senate Whip John Barrasso with President Elect Donald Trump and President John F. Kennedy with his nephew Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Politics is, we also know, the art of compromise, but to what extent is a politician to blame for compromising with the truth?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been chosen by Donald Trump to be the new head of Health and Human Services.

He is, frankly, a nutter on health topics, who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near such a post.

John Barrasso is, by training, an orthopedic surgeon.

I've long suspected, well I'm pretty much certain, that Dr. Barrasso doesn't actually believe even half of what he's saying..He's doing it to 1) keep his Senatorial seat; and 2) advance himself in the Senate, even though at his age he could easily retire and be done with it.

Without getting too deep into it, I also believe that once you start compromising on fundamental things, you keep doing it, including with the truth.  You don't start off deep into it, but you end up there.

Dr. Barrasso was known, at one time, as "Wyoming's Doctor" and had spots on local television with health minutes, and hosted the Labor Day Marathon.  He continued to do this after he became Senator, a spot he was appointed to by the legislature to fill a vacancy before he was elected.

I've met him, as a physician, but can't claim to know him.  I've been with him on commercial aircraft numerous times.  I've always left him alone, as I figure that while traveling, people don't like to be bothered.  I don't.  Not everyone was like that, however, and I'd see people who recognized him treat him sort of like fans treated Elvis Presley.

Dr. Barrasso is originally from Pennsylvania.  With a solid Italian American parentage, and an early Catholic education, I'd guess, but don't know, that he was a Catholic up until some point.  He list himself as a Presbyterian now, and has been divorced, and later remarried.  He's in his early 70s.  Early on, his positions were clearly moderate Republican, but starting at least as early as 2016 they began to rapidly head towards Trumpism.  He had a right wing challenger in the GOP primary last go around, and while I think the chances of him every losing were small, he went hardcore to the right.

Now he's the whip.  Trump is going to expect him to whip up support for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, holds some of the nuttiest ideas on healthcare, and particularly vaccines, imaginable.  He shouldn't be anywhere near the Department of Health and Human Services.

Will Barrasso choke those down and support them.

Again, people don't get to supporting anything overnight.  Some do rapidly, some over decades.

RFK, Jr. has no business in this office.

Kennedys

Before moving on, hasn't the country had enough of the Kennedys?  

I certainly have.

The over tattooed and expropriation.

Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is taking a lot of flak.  Some of it is for things he's said or believes

Some of it for his tattoos, which are interpreted to mean things which they might not.

One of those tattoos is of a Jerusalem Cross.

The Jerusalem cross consists of a large cross potent surrounded by four smaller Greek crosses representing the spread of the gospel to the four corners of the earth.  It was used as the emblem and coat of arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem after 1099.

Hegeth is a member of a church which is part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.  Therefore, he's appropriating a Catholic symbol, while he's not a Catholic.  Indeed, he's not even close, as he's on his third spouse, something no adherent Catholic would have done.

He also has a tattoo on a bicep that states Deus vult, "God wills", a phrase that dates back to the First Crusade, but which has been appropriated by many groups over the years.   And it doesn't stop there.

“Israel, Christianity and my faith are things I care deeply about,” he's stated.

Perhaps he should learn more about the faith espoused by the symbols that he's had inked on himself.  Indeed, quite frankly, the men who cried Deus vult in the 11th Century and those who fought to defend the Kingdom of Jerusalem would have regarded him as a heretic. 

Anyhow,  one thing that I've worried about since the rise of Christian Nationalist is that Catholics are the ones who are going to take a beating in the end, even though its really a Protestant movement.  I can already see it starting to happen.  Former Senator Adam Kinzinger, who comments heavily on Blue Sky and Twitter, had a post noting that "the Crusades weren't Christian".  Oh yes they were, the thing they weren't is the edited version that English Protestants came up with to attempt to tar and feather the Church.  Others have been running around claiming that the Jerusalem Cross, which Catholics use a lot, is a Nazi symbol, which it isn't, or a camouflaged swastika, which it isn't.

The United States remains a Protestant nation, including in the way it reacts to symbols and in its misunderstanding of history.

All this serves, I'd note, to bury a deeper item that should be of actual concern, which is the American Evangelical view towards Israel.  This is not universal, by any means, but there's a branch of American Evangelicalism which sees itself as having a direct role in bringing about the Second Coming through its interaction with Israel.  According to somebody who knew him and commented on it recently (therefore at least making it somewhat suspect) former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who has been nominated by Trump to be Ambassador to Israel, and who is a Baptist minister, has those views.

Really, people with the apparent views of Huckabee and Kinzinger really have no business in the offices they've been nominated to serve in.

Hairless wonders.

This is sort of an odd aside, but the huge increase in male tattoos, including chest tattoos, has caused me to wonder, has there been a reduction in male chest hair in recent years?

Chest hair is a secondary male characteristic which is caused by a variety of genetic factors.  One of those is a high testosterone level, and for that reason, hairy chests have gone, at any one time, from being regarded as "brutish" to sexy.  Because of the conditions of the Second World War, Americans were acclimated for a time to seeing men shirtless, which was unusual, and for a good several decades after the war, hairy chested men, or just flat out hairy men in general, were in vogue.  Indeed I can recall seeing some 1960s vintage war movie with Fabian in it which was ridiculously hairy.

This is clearly really out now, but it still raises the question, what's going on.  Personally, I couldn't have a giant chest tattoo like Hegseth for the same reason that Tom Selleck couldn't.  I doubt that I really could have a tattoo anywhere safe for the the generally non visible part of my arms either.

It's interesting to note that there has been a substantial reduction in detected testosterone levels in the US since the 1980s.**

Maybe RFK, Jr. can look into that.

Creeps

It's a real irony that the man so many Christian Evangelicals saw as the Christian candidate has such a horrible personal tract record at least in the sexual ethics category, but perhaps that fact should cause us to be less than surprised that he nominated Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General of the United States.

There seem to be no doubt that Gaetz dabbled down in this category to a 17 year old.  Yes, he wasn't prosecuted, but he may have had a credible defense based on scienter.  According to at least one report, once he learned she was 17, he abstained from her favors until she was 18.

The thing here, however, is that this conduct is completely immoral.  Not only is it sex outside of marriage, which Christianity, but Gaetz is a creep who is fishing in the bottom of the well.  Frankly, this deserves further investigation as most 17 year olds or 18 year olds would have had no interest in Gaetz, so something should be done to figure out why they did and what's behind that.

This guy has no significant legal experience and shouldn't be anywhere near the AG's office.

Scenes from the American dumpster fire.

Strange bedfellows indeed.

At this point, however, if Matt Gaetz invited Mike Johnson over to the Playboy Grotto, if it still existed, I'd expect him to go.

Something about this photo just shows how trashy American culture has become.

Trashy.

I think there is sort of a faction in the Republican Party that has a strange kind of... sort of homoerotic fascination for Putin.

Boris Johnson recently stated this.

The fascination for Putin (who has a hairless chest, I'd note) is pretty weird.

Trad Rant

The recent election seems to have bubbled some stuff up from the bottom of the cultural dutch oven, and not just stuff like the weird things noted in the two above entries. Some of this is interesting to ponder, including pondering whether its a serious trend or something else.

One of them is the emergence of secular (and religious) trad women, holding a romantic, it seems, view of the not so distant path.

Here's an example.  Interesting trad rant starting at 21:00.

Interesting trad rant starting at 21:00.

This topic has come up here before, and the same way, more or less. The video clip above was cut down as a TikTok clip and reposted on Twitter, where it went viral.  Just the part where the young female Republican Trumpite starts the rant linked above.  We posted on this topic before, where a young woman, who was not aspiring to be a Hallmark farm wife, was having an absolute meltdown about having to work.

It's easy to dismiss this stuff, but there's something to it, which as noted, I've dove into before.  What's bizarre, maybe, is there somewhat to be some sort of minor movement.  Witness, in photos lifted from Twitter, although if I did it right, you can jump right to their Twitter feed.

I don't want to go to far in criticizing this, really, as it has a real appeal, as does a lot of sort of agrarian conservatism and Chesteronian distributism I see creeping into the culture, sort of sideways.  These people are sincere, and there's a real appeal to it.  Shoot, I'd live an agrarian life if people around me would allow it, or so I tell myself.

Others tell themselves that too, and also mock themselves, as for example, here:

Carpathian shepherdess.

Well, enough of all of that.

Footnotes:

*“A Little Song, a Little Dance, a Little Seltzer Down Your Pants”

**That may actually be due to the overall increase in the median age, as testosterone levels decline, normally, in males as they age.

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Friday, November 19, 1909 Sabin sentenced and Belgian abuse.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 19: 1909  George Sabin sentenced for Second Degree Murder for his part in the Spring Creek Raid.  He escaped on December 25,1913, while on a work gang in  Basin, and was never recaptured.

The sentencing is remarkable and significance as it effectively meant an end to private warfare over sheep in Wyoming, and it also meant that conventional justice had come to the Big Horn Basin, where previously juries would not convict in these circumstances.  This reflected in part the horror of the  Spring Creek assault, but also the fact that the Basin was now closer to the rest of the state, having been connected some time prior by rail.

Members of the leadership of the Church of England, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, and fifty members of parliament assembled at Albert Hall to protest Belgium abuses in the Congo.

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Saturday, November 13, 1909. Cherry Mine Disaster.

Labels: 1900s, 1909, Coal, Disaster, football, Illinois, Mining

Thursday, November 13, 1924. Polish Orthodox Church.

The Polish Orthodox Church was created as an autocephalous Orthodox Church by the signing of the Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos by Patriarch Gregory VII of Constantinople, recognizing the situation that had been created by the Russian Revolution and Poland's independence.

Mussolini introduced a bill to grant women the franchise in Italy.

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Labels: 1910s, 1914, British Army, Equine Transportation, Maritz Rebellion, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, South Africa, South African Army

2024 Election Post Mortem, Part I. What the heck happened?

And so the finger pointing, blaming, and name calling has begun.

The 2024 Presidential Election was supposed to be close.

It wasn't.  And that means something.  How did the nation elect a convicted felon who hung out with a procurer and who is a creepy serial polygamist, who also is likely sliding into dementia, as President of the United States?

Well, there are a lot of views out there.  We offer ours, including some things we noted early on.

1.  It turns out that we were correct that Biden shouldn't have run in the first place, and that Harris shouldn't have stepped into the breach.

Biden was supposed to be a caretaker President.  "Go with the Joe you know" only made sense as long as it was just one cup of coffee.  People didn't want a refill. Biden was supposed to carry on for four years while the nation got back on its feet from a traumatic Trump presidency and figured out where to go next.

Biden's diehard insistence on running again doomed that, and in some ways, the Democrats chances in 2024.

Biden, in his defense, was dealt a bad hand right from the onset.  Left with an economy impacted by COVID, he had to deal with it, and he did a good job.  The inflation that caused was not of his making, and he actually pulled off a soft landing.  In the future, he's likely to be regarded as having pulled an economic rabbit out the hat.

And his rallying to the cause of Ukraine is singularly responsible for the country not being overrun by the Russians.

But people are stupid about economics, and stupidly believe that once inflation slows, prices return to the pre inflation norm, which actually required deflation, which generally causes a depression.  That tar baby is now Trump's, as Trump won't be able to pull that off either.

More than that, however, Biden's advanced age was showing, whereas its seemingly not as noticeable with Trump.  It was real hubris of Biden to run for a second term, and he shouldn't have done it.  That set the Democrats behind.

When he finally stepped out, I noted that the time that Harris shouldn't step in.  She did.  She actually also ran a much better campaign than I initially thought she would.  Frankly, I don't know that I can blame her for running, or blame the Democrats for running her.  She proved to be too easy to tag with the issues that had hurt Biden, however, which did not make up the reasons that I thought she should not have run.

2.  It's actually the social issues, stupid.

El Paso Sheriff : What's it mean? What's it leadin' to? You know, if you'd have told me 20 years ago, that I'd see children walking the streets of our Texas towns with green hair and bones in their noses, I just flat-out wouldn't have believed you.

Ed Tom Bell : Signs and wonders. But I think once you quit hearing "sir" and "ma'am," the rest is soon to foller.

El Paso Sheriff : Oh, it's the tide. It's the dismal tide.

No Country For Old Men. 

We warned prior to 2016 that Justice Kennedy's opinion in Obergefell had awakened a latent sleeping giant.  It did.

People keep analyzing the race in terms of the economy, which I myself partially did above.  But the big issue, to put it bluntly, is that Obergefell shocked many people into confronting the moral decline of the nation, something that had been going on for a very long time.

Sexual immorality in the US really commenced its roll in the late 1940s, as we've discussed before, and started to accelerate in 1953 with the launch of Playboy, and then really took off in the 1960s with the pill and the Sexual Revolution.  The irony of all of this, however, is the public tolerated it, although not always very comfortably, as it fit into conventional immorality.  That is, the White Anglo Saxon Protestant community basically tolerated a boys will be boys attitude at first, and then accommodated itself to other trends later, as long as things roughly worked out the way they were supposed to in the end, although they have not been working out for quite some time.  Once Obergefell came along, however, the public was asked to accommodate something else, and it hasn't, and for a host of reasons.  Transgenderism, which really doesn't exist, came hard on the heels of homosexual marriage, and it was just too much for large sections of the country.

At one time, it might be noted, it was a common assertion that the Babylon Berlin atmosphere of 1920's Germany had brought about the Nazis, in part, as they seemed to stand against unconventional immorality.  In truth, homosexuality was present in the early Nazis, but the movement did a good job of plastering over it so it was ignored, if known, just like Trump's flagrant immoral conduct with women is at least somewhat known, if ignored.  It allowed people to believe that that the Nazis would foster a return to pre 1914 moral standards, while ignoring that they would inflict new horrors.*  A lot of that has gone on in the populist movement as well, which sort of imagines that the country will sort of return to an imagined 1950s, or an imagined 1970s.

The Democrats didn't even try to do anything about this, but rather embraced the matters that the Trump populists and their fellow travellers opposed.  That's a big part of what occured.  Americans proved to be willing to go pretty far with changes in Christian morality before they started regretting it, which they did, but to be kicked into a new room with a bunch of very unconventional behaviors was more than they could bear.  It not only spawned a massive counterreaction, but it spawned radical new theories about the nature of what was going on, much of them false, and sort of a modified variant of a Great Awakening, that we haven't seen the end of yet.**  This reaction, moreover, wasn't limited to the US, but has been scene all over the Western World, caused by similar events.

You have to know the times you live in.

3. What we repeatedly said about abortion being a hill to die on was correct.

Hell Courtesan by Kawanabe Kyōsai.

Part of the solid evidence of the Democrats being marooned in a post Vietnam War liberal past is the absolute adherence to swimming in a sea of blood.

I warned earlier that grasping tight to abortion was a critical mistake for Democrats, but they saw it as a great issue, one that would turn women out to vote in favor of infanticide.

Instead, what it did was to force truly adherent Christians to vote against them, even if not to vote for Harris. I was one of them.  I voted for the American Solidarity Party.  I would have anyhow, but in a state that was close, this cost the Democrats votes.  It may very well have cost them the election.

Ironically, and the Democrats failed to grasp it, Donald Trump's wishy washiness on this helped him.  Lots of Evangelicals and even Catholics could rationalize voting for him as he seemed to be against abortion, sort of.  Hadn't his court brought Dobbs around?  And Republican women who otherwise adhered to the American Civil Religion could rationalize voting for pro abortion ballot measures while voting for trump, essentially voting for the things they were comfortable with from the 1970s, like abortion and birth control, while voting against homosexuality and transgenderism.

Indeed, the entire religiosity of the Trumpites is much like this, although not of the National Conservatives. They're okay with cheating men, up to a limit, premarital sex, and divorce, as long as the plumbing matches. They aren't okay with homosexuality.  Truly religious voters were never supportive of abortion, which Harris leaned deeply into.

Democrats should have known that and figures out a way to deal with it.  Even simply taking the same position as Trump, let the states deal with it, would have leveled the choice for many.  Or they could have just remained completely silent in the election on abortion and transgenderism, which would have caused some votes to swing their way.

If the Democrats don't modify their position on abortion, they're not going to do better in 2028.

4.  What we noted as long ago as 2016 about ignoring rust belt issues is still true.

We noted a long time ago that Trump's 2016 victory was brought about in part due to a massive discontent over immigration issues and American jobs going overseas.  Both Democrats and Republicans were complicit in this for years.

The problem here is that this festering sore has become infected, and crossed from discontent into malevolence.  Basically, its much like small town Germans thinking that a local Jewish butcher was odd, to thinking he's in league with evil. This has been downright scary.

Democrats woke up to the problem of decades long mass illegal immigration, but too late.  Now, it appears, we're about to engage in a mass immorality.

This one was a hard one for the Democrats.  Biden screwed up early in his administration on this issue.  Harris was tarred with it.  It would have taken a different candidate to distance from it, perhaps, quite frankly, a Hispanic one.  There are solutions, but some of them are quite out of the box, very pre 1940, and a bit drastic.

Likewise, Trump introduced his absurd tariffs concept.  The idea is underdeveloped and economically flaccid.  But Rust Belt people don't care as in their minds if electric vehicles don't come in from China, 1965 Chevrolet Impalas will come back. This won't happen, and this will rapidly prove to be incorrect.

5.  Demographics change.

Roman Catholic Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe (Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe), Dallas Texas

Dedicated in 1902 as the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, this cathedral was renamed the Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe in 1977, when another aging Dallas church dedicated to the Lady of Guadalupe was torn down. This cathedral has the second largest parish congregation in the United States.

Democrats in the 1960s abandoned white Southern racists in favor of the minorities of the time, much to their credit.  Up until that time, African Americans had been Republicans.  Democrats remembered that Italian American and Irish Americans had been, and were, theirs.

But they failed to notice that Roe v. Wade shattered the Catholic immigrant retained vote of earlier eras. For some reason, they didn't grasp that retaining abortion and embracing transgenderism and abortion would come to offend  large groups of American, and even immigrant, Hispanics, who had a similar Catholic morality.  And they didn't grasp that at the pew level, this was also true for the Black Church and many African Americans, who came to resent having their cause compared to ones based on sexual orientation or practice.

They also forgot that minority adherence to patronage only lasts as long as poverty does.  Once a demographic moves into the Middle Class, it begins to disappear within a generation or two.  Irish Americans and Italian Americans were once solidly Democratic.  This hasn't been the case for a long time.  Hispanics have been moving out of poverty, and so have African Americans.

And Hispanic Americans, which are a diverse group to start with.

This left the Democratic party a party of old Boomers, and the white upper middle class, and lower upper class, white, effete, elites.  They're aren't enough of them to win an election.

Footnotes

*The Nazis ended up sending homosexuals to the death camps.  They were highly resistant to women working, and only relented on it as the war began to go very badly.  They'd also encourage pregnancy, including out of wedlock, by German women, which was definitely contrary to traditional Christian morality.

This is of note, not because there will be death camps, but because Germans voting on morality issues didn't get what they bargained for at all.  Americans doing the same in the 2024 election are likely to find they may be surprised.

**As an example, while at the county courthouse to vote early, I encountered an elderly man wearing a MAGA hat who was informing people that transgenderism "wasn't invented here", whatever that would mean, and that this was a reason to vote for Trump.

First U.S. Armor Engagement of World War Two Display, National Museum of Military Vehicles.

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M3 Stuart Light Tanks. Outside Display. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: 1940s, Armor, Army, British Army, National Museum of Military Vehicles, North Africa, Tracked vehicles, United States Marine Corps, World War Two, Wyoming (Dubois)

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: St. Hubert

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: St. Hubert: 55 miles south of Buffalo is the mission church of St. Hubert's. Located near Sussex WY, Mass has been celebrated around these parts sin...

I've been so busy I missed St. Hubert's saint day.

St. Hubert is the patron saint of hunters, and I usually note the day. 

Sunday Morning Scene, part Pars Duo: Please, stop.

Next year with be a Jubilee Year in the Catholic Church. For some reason, the Church felt it needed a mascot for this.

This is what it came up with:

How does a 2,000 year old institution in possession of much of the Western World's great art, come up with something so juvenile, and indeed something that looks like its out of Pokemon?

In announcing this, Archbishop Rino Fisichella stated that the cartoon imagine, titled "Luce" (light in Italian) was inspired by the Church's "to live even within the pop culture so beloved by our youth."  This presents the classic problem of the elderly, now the Baby Boomers, recalling the desires of "youth" in terms of when they were fairly youthful themselves.  Indeed, in my mind it brings to mind attending the "Teen Life Mass", or whatever it was called, that used to be held on Sunday evenings.  I generally tried to avoid it, but when I did, you'd find a guitar band with bongos for the music, lead by a Boomer, and a bunch of aged Boomers who would sway and whatnot to the music.  

In contrast, if you hit some Masses with a lot of young people, you'd find young women, some down in their teens, wearing mantillas.

I'm pretty convinced that in 2024, with ready access to the Internet, and all the news that's on it, combined with all the sewage that's washed up with it, such as horrific political arguments, the revival of racism, far right and far left extremist, Hamas murder and rape of young people in Israel, an aged geezer in the Kremlin trying to revive the Soviet Union, and young women prostituting themselves on TikTok, a childish cartoon from the 1980s isn't really going to win hearts and minds.  Indeed, its even worse than the Comic Sans Serif font and 1970s vintage art that was officially used for the Synod on Synodality.  And it gives emotional support to the Orthodox who are looking for reasons not to come back into the Church, even if superficially. This sure doesn't look like something Saints Cyril and Methodius would have passed out.

I've long held, and have stated it here, that Western culture had experienced Post World War Two materialism and found it lacking, and that the generations that have come up in the wake of the Baby Boomers are struggling to through the cultural innovations of the 1960s and 1970s off.  We don't believe that "Greed is good" or that the Sexual Revolution was freeing. The problem is that so much was destroyed that recovering is hard, particularly when the aged hand remains on the tiller.  Often that aged hand reaches out with what it thinks the young want, not grasping what that is, and actually making things worse.

This cartoon is really bad.  Somebody should look around the Vatican and see if something serious might be available.  The young Catholics in blue jeans, the mantilla girls, and myself, will all be thankful.

Postscript

I'm hating this image slightly less after some Twitter person made some interesting riffs off of it, but I still don't like it.

Sunday Morning Scene; Part One. Contrasts

Last Sunday I came in and sat at the back of the church, as I always do.  I was way back, with only about two rows behind me in the church itself.

When Catholics come into Mass the first thing they do, after finding a pew, is kneel and pray.  Indeed, the degree to which Catholics stand and kneel is confusing to a lot of American protestants, although not so much to Episcopalians and Lutherans, whose churches are closely based on the Catholic Church.  Members of the various Protestant denominations common in the US out side of the "mainline" Protestant churches tend to focus on that and not grasp why Catholics are doing what they're doing.  What they often don't get is that Catholics fully accept that the words of Christ that he was transforming bread and wine into his actual flesh and blood.*  Indeed, a lot of Christ's Jewish followers couldn't accept that either, and left him immediately after the Last Supper.  Outside of a few Protestant faiths, quite a few Protestant faiths that ironically claim to fully believe the Bible, sure don't believe that.**As consuming the flesh and blood of God is a serious matter, Catholics kneel in prayer before the Mass even begins.  And they again kneel and stand in respect elsewhere.***

After kneeling in prayer, I sat down, or rather back, and realized that somebody had come in behind me.  I scooted over slightly as I didn't want to be in their way as they prayed.  I still was seated pretty close to the aisle, however.  By that time a young couple with a very young and very cute toddler had taken up the other half of the  pew, but there was still plenty of room on my side.

Shortly before Mass, a couple came in, a young man and a young woman.  The young man asked me "can we sit here?" and I immediately scooted over.  You could tell right away simply by looking at him that he was from a ranch.  He was wearin ghte  type of blue jeans that younger ranchers wear, and had that tall think look that is so common with them.  He also had the easy familiarity that most ranch people do.  He and the young kneeled and prayed, and then he put the kneeler up, due to his tall stature.

The couple knew all the songs that were sung and sang them audibly, which I rarely do.  Again, they had the easy familiarity that rural people tend to have.  When the Rite of Peace came, in which Catholics say "Peace be with you" to each other and shake hands, he shoulder hugged the girl and shook my hand. She then reached over with a broad smile and shook mine as well.

Turning around to the pew behind me, I recognized the couple there whom I've known for decades.  They've always been devout Catholics, but they've become increasingly traditional as time has gone on.  Three decades ago they looked pretty much like anyone else in the pews.  But that's evolved to the point where he's always in jacket and tie at Mass, which is fine, and she wears a mantilla, which is also fine.  Still, their whole family tends to be quite noticeable due to their appearance, which is interesting.

This time, the woman in that couple remained kneeling during the Rite of Peace, and in prayer.  I noticed a couple two rows up did the same thing.

That's new.

And that makes it impossible to offer your hand.

I've never been big on shaking hands, but the Rite of Peace has been in the Mass forever.  It was first describe in writing by St. Justin Martyr in 155.  The sign of peace, shaking hands, was introduced in 1970 and was actually borrowed from the Eastern Rite, so its been there for over fifty years now.  I don't recall it ever not being there.  Not too many other people do either.

Right after that occurs, Catholics go up to Mass, going from a kneeling position to standing to do so.  Receiving Communion changed sometime in the 70s as well, and I do recall that, barely.  What I recall is that we received on the tongue, and we received the Eucharist only.  Around that time people started receiving in the hand, and you could receive the Precious Blood as well.  I changed to the hand around that time, and I presume but don't know we were asked to.  It was the way that very early Christians received.  I've never adjusted to the receiving the Precious Blood and as I"m now 61 years old, I'm obviously not going to.  You don't have to receive both species.

Prior to the 1970 something, there was always an alter rail.  I can remember the alter rails existing, but I can't recall how we received Communion with them.  I know that itw as different from how we now do it.  It switched to a receiving line at some point, and I think it was before the alter rails came out.  

Around a decade or more ago, some people took to kneeling to receive Communion. That is fine, and a sign of piety, but it is startling if you are not reach for it.  There are certain people who always do,a nd if you know that, you can be prepared for it.  If it suddenly happens and you aren't ready for it, you have to be careful not to trip.  The young father in front of me did kneel, which I should have known he would as he was there the week prior, and did then.  Still, it startled me.  No accidents occurred however.

When I returned to my pew, the order of the couple was reversed which is common.  She sata next to me this time.  You kneel again until the Priest returns to his seat, at which time everyone sits.  The young man put th e kneeler up again.  The young girl slapped him on the thigh in the way that only people who are very familiar with each other do. She obviously wanted it down.  

I noticed at that time that she was wearing cowboy boots, and they're the type of cowboy boots that reach cattlemen wear.  It's hard to explain, but if you've worked cattle, you can tell in an instant a pair of cowboy boots that have actually been worn by somebody working cattle.  Here's were the real deal.  For that matter, he was wearing a sort of soft low boot that is super common amongst ranchers and cowboys who aren't working.  My wife has a pair as well.

On the way out of the Church after Mass, they were in front of me.  She was dressed nicely but casually and again in a way that made it clear she was from a ranch and still worked cattle.  The same was true of him.

What of all of this?

Well, I don't know.  It's an observation of people.  But its interesting to me that the young couple, who were not married (they got into separate pickup trucks when they left) knew all the hymns, and the form of the Mass perfectly, and were very obviously practicing Catholics, and perfectly natural, whereas there are other people who are adopting forms of dress and behavior that make them stand out in a way you can't help but notice.

Footnotes

* John, Chapter 6

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; 39 and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread[c] which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.” This he said in the synagogue, as he taught at Caper′na-um.

The Words of Eternal Life

Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that should betray him. And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

**Quite a few Protestants have a "sola Scripture" position in which they claim to believe the scripture alone, something made difficult intellectually as nowhere in Scripture does it say what is scripture, and the Biblical Canon was put together by the Catholic Church.  For that matter, the chapters included in  some Eastern Orthodox Biles includes text the Catholic Bible does not, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible has more books in it than any other Bible.

Anyhow, if you believe Scripture, you have to accept the Catholic position on the Eucharist, which almost no Sola Scriptura church will.

***St. Paul warned that those receiving in a state of mortal sin were becoming ill due to the Eucharist, and some had died.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Albin Wyoming.

Churches of the West: St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Albin Wyoming.:   

St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Albin Wyoming.

 

This is St. Joseph's Catholic Church in the tiny town of Albin.  Presently, Masses for this community are being heard in nearby Carpenter, rather than here.

The Second Phase of the Synod on Synodality has commenced, and concluded.

But it isn't drawing a lot of attention, at least so far.

I think fatigue has just set in on these things.

Blog Mirror: Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke on Voting.

As Election Day approaches, many have raised serious moral questions regarding how to vote. Sadly, in our great nation, we confront a situation in which both major political parties espouse certain agenda which are flagrantly contrary to the most fundamental tenets of the moral law, agenda against the inviolable dignity of innocent and defenseless human life, agenda against the integrity of marriage and its fruit, the family, and agenda against the free exercise of the virtue of religion. As Catholics, we should be clear that the moral law is certainly binding for us, but it is, likewise, binding for all men and women because it is written upon the human heart by God. For Catholics, as for all men and women of good will, the question is: In fulfilling our civic duty to vote, how can we be obedient to the law of God written upon our hearts in the present situation of deplorable moral and therefore cultural decline and decay.

In attempting to answer the question of how to vote in good conscience, I refer to the Pastoral Letter, “On Our Civic Responsibility for the Common Good,” which, as Archbishop of Saint Louis, I published on October 1, 2004. A PDF version of the Pastoral Letter is accessible at the following link:

On Our Civic Responsibility for the Common Good

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While I recommend the study of the Pastoral Letter, I offer the following indications for the question of how to vote with moral integrity.

1. First and foremost, let us pray and fast for our nation that it will once again serve the good of all its citizens, especially of those who are threatened by the present prevalent anti-life, anti-family, and anti-religion agenda, by obedience to the moral law. Let us pray for the conversion of our national culture from violence and death to peace and life.

If you are not already participating in the Nine-Month Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe – Mary Immaculate, Mother of God and Mother of America – , “Return to Our Lady,” invoking her intercession for the conversion of countless souls in our homes and in our nation to faith in God and obedience to His law, I invite you to join now, especially as we approach Election Day. The prayer of the Nine-Month Novena and spiritual reflections regarding our response to the current moral crisis in our nation can be found at the following site:

Nine-Month Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe

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2. Secondly, we must be abundantly clear and tirelessly steadfast in our opposition to the anti-life, anti-family, and anti-religion agenda which are destroying families, communities, and our nation. No candidate for public office should confuse a vote for him or her as support of the policies and programs of these iniquitous agenda.

Today, there is an urgent need for individuals and associations of individuals to raise the consciousness of the citizens of our nation to the manner in which these agenda threaten the common good, the good of individuals, of families, of local communities, of the nation. We must use all the means of communication at hand to speak to the hearts of our fellow citizens, for God has written on every human heart his law which serves human life, marriage and the family, and the practice of religion.

3. We must study carefully the agenda of each candidate to see whether a candidate, even though he or she espouses morally objectionable programs and policies, will, in some way, limit the evil. If a candidate will, at least, limit the evil, we must support the limitation while insisting on the need to eradicate the evil altogether.

4. We must further consider whether it is reasonable to hope that a candidate in question will, at least, hear the voice of a rightly-formed conscience on questions like procured abortion, sexual reassignment, and religious persecution, that is, whether there is hope that our opposition, as indicated in no. 2, will receive any hearing at all.

While the agenda of both major political parties is so fundamentally objectionable, we must ask ourselves whether there may be some ray of hope to advance the transformation of our national politics in accord with the moral law by voting for a particular candidate.

5. Before the desperate situation of our national politics today, some have concluded that they cannot vote for any candidate, but, if there is even the smallest ray of hope to effect some change in view of effecting ever greater change for the common good, it is not right for us to fail in responding to the ray of hope. Only if no candidate provides any ray of hope of serving, at least in some part, the common good, especially in what pertains to human life, marriage and the family, and the practice of religion, are we justified in not voting at all.

Yes, the present situation of national politics is morally disgusting, but we are a people of hope and can never excuse ourselves from continuing the daily work of seeking the conversion of our personal lives and the transformation of our national culture.

It is my hope that the above indications will help you in fulfilling your duty as a citizen to vote for the candidates who will most support the common good. Be assured of my prayers for you and your homes.

Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE

October 22, 2024 – Feast of Pope Saint John Paul II