Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Funerals
I love funerals like the one this morning. The kind where the survivors feel compelled to keep telling you that they are "no longer Catholic" and ask for good protestant hymns like "Amazing Grace" and "How Great Thou Art." (Not that I have anything against those classics; I like them both.) I just tell the organist to throw in a Marian hymn as well. And I make sure that I wear my Our Lady of Guadalupe stole to the cemetery.
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14 comments:
Are you saying you have a devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe?
Just curious...
Yes. That is my favorite title of Our Lady.
I've been to the Basilica in Mexico City twice. Unfortunately, at the time I was not well disposed, although I recognized how amazing it was to be there...and I had a sense of her maternal presence that has never left me. Hard to explain.
Have you ever been able to go there?
OK...this just came up, and now it's serious. As a fellow devotee to Our Lady of Guadalupe...prayers for discernment needed muy rapidamente y con mucho...con muchas....bendigas. :}
I have the info in a post - and my biggest prayer is for discernment.
No, I have never been blessed witht he opportunity to visit. Someday maybe!
I will pray. I shall check out your post.
God bless.
You know, it would help your credibility immensely if you disclosed more concrete information as to who you really are. I have serious doubts to your claim of ordination inside the Catholic Church. I guess you have your reasons for continuing incognito, but your personal truth and message suffer tremendously for it.
So here is your dilemma: you disclose who you are or something concrete about who you are that can validate your claim as a priest, or you can choose safety while your credibility suffers, and subsequently any pernicious observations you may uncover from your perpetual vigilance over these Catholic “lunatic fringe” groups. What do you value most? You or the Truth as you see it? It’s one or the other. There is no mid-way point of rest.
Thank you,
Tom
Tom:
Thanks for your insights.
My response is that the only credibility about which I care is my credibility with the people whom I am called to serve in my parish. This website is just an aside, a little hobby as it were, an opportunity for me to express my thoughts. That's all. People are free to take it or leave it. The truth is my opinion matters for precious little, therefore it matters not whether people believe I am or priest or think it is merely a front.
You are correct in your basic premise, though. And if I took this as anything more than a little aside to my real ministry among the people of God in my parish I would be forced to do as you suggest.
The funny thing is that for the most part the things upon which I comment in this blog are of no interest to the people I encounter in the pews. They are more concerned about the day to day task of living the Gospel in the real circumstances of their lives than they are in judging everyone else for their orthodoxy or lack thereof.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts! God bless you.
"...the only credibility about which I care is my credibility with the people whom I am called to serve in my parish." Good answer!
Thank you for your response. You were most gracious to take time out to address my comments, albeit circumventing the questions at hand.
I cannot see any credibility between the face you supposedly give to those in the pews, and the "face" with which you surface in bloggerville. Clearly what you supposedly offer from the pulpit is a bunch of crock you yourself don’t believe in, but feel you have to dispense as a way of placating those who can have you removed. Such a disturbing inconsistency makes me think who you really are deceiving, those who read your blog or those whom you supposedly meet inside the parish? The definition of hypocrisy is one that suits you well, sir.
I for one DO NOT hate you, nor do I wish any calamity upon, nor do I hope for a face to face meeting with you to set you straight in anyway shape or form. My position is one that lets you be what you are (or think you are), with the knowledge that TRUTH has a life of its own, cannot be contained, and will reveal itself at a day and time God deems it appropriate.
I will leave you with these last few words: Priest or no priest, liar or lunatic, sooner or later who and what you really are will come out whether you like it or not, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.
Tom
Tom:
I must admit that your response has me a tad bit confused. Why are you assuming that there is an inconsistency between who I am here and who I am "from the pulpit"? If I somehow suggested that it wasn't at all my intent.
My point in my earlier response was only that the issues that so vex people out in the blog universe aren't the sort of things that the rank and file Catholic in the pew are, for the most part, worried about.
What I preach and what I write are both what I believe. A priest preaches on the Scriptures. And if the scriptures point in that direction I will preach against the tendency for all of us to fall into the trap of the pharisee.
The last words about "who and what" I really am coming out seem designed to cause me anxiety and fear. I don't really know why. It's not as if others (lay persons, priests, even bishops) haven't raised the same issues. I don't have a fear of "being revealed;" i simply choose to blog pseudonymously. My world and my priesthood most assuredly wouldn't come crashing down around me if my true identity were discovered!
"The last words about ‘who and what’ I really am coming out seem designed to cause me anxiety and fear."
Those were not my intentions whatsoever, although your sequestered identify implies revealing who you really are might have less than favorable consequences for you.
"It's not as if others (lay persons, priests, even bishops) haven't raised the same issues."
The majority of those at odds with the Catholic Church are honest dissenters who have enough courage and character to put their true identities behind their propositions and philosophies, irregardless of how undesirable their assertions might be. The cowardly (or what might only be the crazy, in this case) never experience the compelling convictions that drive these unabashed objectors.
"i simply choose to blog pseudonymously. My world and my priesthood most assuredly wouldn't come crashing down around me if my true identity were discovered!"
Probably not. So why don't you give it a shot and see what happens?
Blessings,
Tom
Tom:
Please let me first make it clear that I am not at odds with the Church. I may be at odds with some peoples' ideas about the Church.
I have not spoken against any dogmas or doctrines of the Church. I have questioned mandatory celibacy (which even plenty of Bishops have done, particularly those facing an acute shortage of priets). I have suggested that the Tridentine Mass isn't going to magically solve the problems of the Church. And I have have chided the far right for their hatred. So calling me a cowardly dissenter is rather ludicrous.
There are many people out there who blog without revealing their true identities. I don't know why people seem obsessed with figuring out who I really am. Some people take this stuff way too seriously! I merely got irritated at some of the stuff I read and thought it would be fun to counter some of the nonsense with my own thoughts.
Fr. Charles Ledderer, The Dakotas, USA you are impersonating a Catholic priest. Your identity is fictitious. There are people on here that are believing you. I am asking you not to trick people anymore.
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