The Painted Tin Ceiling of the Sky

The jukebox plays Frank,
and the old bar and grill sags
beneath dust and grimy walls,
lead paint peeling off from above.
-
(Memories sweet and sad
linger of the essence of you.)
-
Momentary reflection
is a mistake. For what
happened happened
both good and good
and with the bad.
-
(we never could quite
reconnect again - but we did try)
-
I miss the old days sometimes.
This old place will be a
coffee haven soon - what romance
can be sparked over latte and
a smoke free environment?
-
Youth it was so simple
and flawed.
-
(And they won't play Frank anymore.
Buy the CD - with your takeout grande.)
-
A mind wanders back
and wonders -
what I woulda, coulda,
shoulda done.
-
Life's journey
can be fickle.
Why test the fates?
Now - so late.
-
You are what you are
and where you should be.
Any other path leads
onto, into, assumptions
and imagined destinies.
-
The good road; the bad road?
Soft ego strokes.
Hard Ego Hits.
-
Soft karma (?)
a shuffle of the cards.
Hard fate - served
on plain white plates.
-
A mind wanders back
and wonders?
Why some judgement calls
did not hit the mark?
-
(Memories sweet and sad
linger of the essence of you.)
-
And saying I'm sorry
now to another long gone
or to one's self
seems far too lazy
and too late - too late.
-
In retrospect.
We had or seemed
to have so little control.
Best to blame the gods.
-
Only two things true
about life -
death and taxes.
(worth repeating -
death and taxes.)
-
Everything else, like love,
is or has been merely
coincidence perhaps.
-
And what is coincidence?
-
(like our meeting)
-
I told you once. Did you listen?
-
Coincidence is
nothing more than
excess energy - bouncing off
the painted tin ceiling
of the sky.

Article Source:  e-book, Painted Tin Ceiling of the Sky

The Real Housewives of Vatican County – USCCB

Archbishop Dolan’s New Committee of Religious Safety is starting to take shape.


Catholic Bishops Target Obama on Religious Freedom in the US

“…US Catholic bishops recently formed an ad hoc committee specifically aimed at addressing religious freedom in the U.S. The decision to challenge the president this way is a historic one, as this is the first time bishops in America have formed such a widespread group to address religious freedom in the country.

Among the religious liberty issues the group is unhappy with the Obama administration include: county clerks facing legal action for refusing to participate in same-sex unions; the administration's attack on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA); and the attack on the “ministerial exception,” which protects the right of religious institutions to choose their own spiritual leaders and teachers regardless of anti-discrimination laws.

He writes: “We are now committed regarding the urgent need we face to safeguard religious liberty inherent in the dignity of the human person.”

“I wrote to President Obama to object to the continuing threats to religious liberty in the context of the effort to redefine legal marriage promoted by his Administration. 

…If we do not act now, the consequences will be grave.”…

Bishop William Lori, who was selected to chair the new committee, says the bishops are serious about the new campaign and will seek the help of lawyers, added staff, lobbyist and experts in the area of religious freedom. …” 


The Archbishop of NYC in his role with the USCCB is determined along with his rich fat cronies to protect the rights of the Religious running the scam to continue to do so in an unheeded and entitled form forever.  A new instant Sacred Tradition, American style?

We need new laws to protect the sacredness of religion. Yeah, right.

In other words, in an ideal future, if you accuse bishops of protecting pedophiles, and it is printed in the New York Times, the NYT can be shut down or penalized to the point where nobody will talk about Church subjects in the press anymore ever again.  Great deal.

It would appear to me or my Cultural Christian sense of the decent that this Bill Donahoe PR style campaign to suppress all negative news about religion in America is not unlike the Blasphemy Laws that the Muslims keep trying to get the United Nations to adopt to suppress all criticism of Islam worldwide.

While Americans object to Muslim Sharia Law being brought to this country from a foreign source, they have little idea about how catholic or Christian Sharia from overseas is constantly being pushed incrementally in this country through the GOP/FOX NEWS culture wars agenda to make the secular state and human rights and democracy obsolete for the sake a few entitled church monarchists and GOP oligarchs.

“Modo Verum” (only truth) Laws – the new catholic sharia law coming our way in the next decade of the ongoing culture wars to reduce America to a pale version of the ideal catholic state – Franco’s Spain. (bow your head)

And brought to you by the Real Housewives of the Vatican, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.  If ever there was a more useless bunch of hypocrites on the planet, it is they.

What!?  If Christ is the groom and the Church is the bride, surely the bishops are the housewives of God.  And then there is the unimportant etcetera, the children, the rest of us???

Timothy Dolan has passed the bottle torch onto the infamous Bishop/Inquisitor Bill Lori of Bridgeport Connecticut to head this Religious Safety Committee to protect and force respect for sacred truth.  If anybody can whip the media into shape to bow down and worship the pope, it is he.

He and his four man committee came up with the PR gem “Zero Tolerance” to clergy abuse policy embraced by Big Daddy - Joe the Pope.  It has been a PR success.  Clergy abuse has ended.  Right?

Anyway, Bill Lori gets his Robespierre like reputation from dealing with some flaming liberal Catholics down in Washington DC on his way to his kiss ass promotion in Connecticut. His infamous three day Inquisition with a tape recorder running in 1997 is well documented.

  

Holy Trinity Parish – Washington DC

“…Last night, William Lori, auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Washington, Bernard Gerhardt, chancellor of the archdiocese, and another diocesan priest conducted the first of a series of interviews with committee chairpersons and parish staff. They are investigating alleged "liturgical abuses" at the parish. The "visitation" was supposedly occasioned by an incident that occurred during the Octave of Christian Unity when an Episcopal priest and a Presbyterian (I think) [editor's note: actually, she was a Lutheran] minister, both women, preached at a liturgy at Trinity and were later invited (it isn't clear by whom) to distribute communion.

With this opening, the archdiocese has begun a comprehensive review of the parish's liturgical practices and has forbidden the use of the Canadian bishops' lectionary and other inclusive language text, and the practice of allowing lay people to preach at non-Eucharistic liturgies such as vespers and reconciliation ceremonies. (A practice I believe is explicitly okay by canon law.)

… She requested that the pastor of the parish, Father Larry Madden, be allowed to attend the interview with her. This request was denied. She requested that, since the archdiocese was tape-recording the interview, she be allowed to have a tape recorder in the room as well. This request was denied. When the proceedings began, she was required to take an oath.

I think all of this is a lengthy pretext for firing a few Trinity staff people whom conservatives in the archdiocese have been gunning for some time…

…As you know, the battle at Holy Trinity described on my web site has heated up with Bishop Lori's three days stay there last week heading a "canonical visitation" team gathering evidence of God knows what all. The liberals are in an uproar, seeing the Inquisition lurking everywhere. The HT web site has a discussion group that is most interesting (but, of course, for I have several postings on it).

I, along with about 30 others, was summoned to be interrogated by the Bishop, the Chancellor of the Archdiocese, and by a young priest (there just so they'd have their needed third witness should any grounds (euphemism for dirt) sufficient for excommunication spill out). I am furious with their process…”

Timmy, good luck with your new Real Housewives’ committee on PR improvement, changing the subject on the sex abuse stuff etc.? (wink, nod)

How is your BFF Jameson doing these days?

St. Joseph’s Church Bethlehem Pa. – Parking Lot – 1905 Law

(The future St. Joseph's Bethlehem Pa.?)

As predicted, St. Joseph’s Church in Bethlehem Pennsylvania's journey into a parking lot to be used by Lehigh University students is on a slow but steady path to becoming reality.

St. Joseph’s Bethlehem Pa – New LU Parking Lot?

I get a bit of a silly out of watching my cousin’s gerrymandered diocese being carved up into quarterly spreadsheet dividends and bonuses for the guys in charge up there in Allentown.

Speaking of which, I can remember when I predicted that the new temporary bishop John Barres was only there to bring his specialized child abuse settlement MBA into play in Pennsy after being the heavy hitter in wiping up the Delaware sex abuse mess.

New Temporary Bishop - Allentown - John Barres

I called John Barres temporary, I never thought he was also going to be a part-time bishop as well of Bishop McShea’s consolation prize, the Allentown diocese, a gift from his cronies in the Vatican back in ‘61 for favors rendered.

I say part-time in that I have read that retired Bishop Cullen is still performing confirmations up there?   Bishop Cullen is chained to his dining room table reviewing every line of his secret clergy sex abuse files from his role as caretaker of such files when he was Cardinal Bevilacqua’s pointman on that when he worked in Philly, in the same job they have indicted Monsignor William Lynn doing after Cullen’s promotion to Bishop of Allentown?

Bishop John MBA Barres is too busy to do confirmations?  Too busy with the flowcharts,  pay out settlement possibilities and overall economic health of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, as an unofficial clergy abuse settlement consultant to Philly, preparing paperwork, in lieu of these attacks on “Religious Liberty” by the sheer audacity of civil courts indicting “innocent” priests and their keeper, handler, enabler – the innocent until proven guilty Monsignor Lynn???

Whatever.

It takes money to build spreadsheets and pay lawyers for depositions and Bishop Cullen’s timely review and refiling of his Philly files? – I guess if you can’t tear down St. Joseph’s in Bethlehem, I guess you can sell part of the property.  Rectory and unattached parking lot for sale $220,000.

Diocese of Allentown selling rectory, parking lot of Bethlehem church in legal battle

The handful of parishioners at St. Joseph’s  have got some sort of ruling from some cubbyhole in the Vatican that they are entitled to worship in a sacred place.  The Church is sacred.  The rectory and auxiliary parking lot are not.  Splitting hairs and definitely not the spirit of the matter.

I have never been to St. Joseph’s but I am willing to bet that it has a chapel.  No doubt when the spreadsheet guys need more cash, the sacred space at St. Joseph’s will likely be reduced to the chapel.  It is probably possible to tear the old church down and leave the Chapel in place in the middle of the new LU parking lot?

 

One has to wonder if public access to the chapel will be provided or that parishioners in order to gain access to their sacred place of worship will have to pay a parking fee and park near the chapel etc.

Whatever again.

I see that there is a laity based concept floating around the liberal Catholic think-osphere.  I believe the concept is based on the French "1905 Law" that separates church from state.

That some catholics and legislators in Connecticut, in reaction to the abusive draconian treatment, and attitude of the Bishop/Inquisitor of Bridgeport, is pushing for state law and I would imagine state chartering of businesses to separate the clergy from the money end of the operation of the catholic church/businesses in Connecticut.

"...Bishop Lori has opposed legislation by Rep. Michael P. Lawlor and Sen. Andrew McDonald that would remove control of the diocese from the bishop and place it into the hands of laymen. The legislation had been written with the help of liberal Catholics, including Connecticut attorney Thomas Gallagher, a contributor to the group Voice of the Faithful.

Similar Separation of church and state legislation was adopted in France in the early 20th century, which is called the 1905 law..."—William E. Lori, Wikipedia

This is something I think the people in Bethlehem and Pennsylvania should look into.

Have a nice day. 

Herman “Mark of” Cain – GOP Flavor of the Month - Occupy Wall Street

“…Republican presidential contender Herman Cain amplified his criticism of the Occupy Wall Street movement, calling protesters jealous Americans who "play the victim card" and want to "take somebody else’s" namely mys Buick. …”

In other words, FUIGM or FYIGM to be grammatically correct.


Can we call him Herman or just plain Mr. Cain?