Author: JenniferFitz

Prayer, meditation, and imagination

Meditative prayer, which my 5th graders love so much, asks you to use your imagination.  When we pray the rosary, we do this.  We think about the mystery, we imagine the mystery, we let our mind’s exploration of the mystery show us things we hadn’t seen before.

But if you have fallen into the hands of weirdness before, you can become scared of imagination.  When someone says “It is okay to use your imagination to help you pray”, we fear what they mean is “it’s okay to make up pretend stuff about God, or whatever it is you choose to believe that suits your fancies”.

No.  Not that.

But abuse does not disprove right use.

Father L. makes the case for right use of imagination. Go read.  It’s not just me and my woozy liberal friends* making this stuff up.  But for goodness sakes if it makes you nervous, just stick to the rosary for a start.   About as good a ground for rehabilitating your imagination as you could hope.

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*Ahem.  I’m not claiming me or my meditative-prayer liking mentors in the catechetical hierarchy are in fact woozy liberals.  Which would be laughable.  I’m saying, maybe when you see me post about these things, you fear that is what we are.  Nope.  Not.  But yeah, I will totally, yes TOTALLY lead a room full of ten-year-olds through a meditation on the gifts of the Trinity as explained in the Apostle’s Creed.  Salvation, all that.  With candles. And reflective music.

It’s almost as if kids want to spend time with Jesus.  Cultivate a prayer life.  Go figure.

More on the Economics of Ordination

Last night SuperHusband observed that one reason protestant ministers struggle so much with employment, is that there is a glut of bible-college and seminary graduates.   You want your child to attend a Christian college.  Christian colleges specialize in preparing students for church work.  Christian students are eager to do church work. Ten years ago in a boom economy, the roofing companies knew it and circled like vultures*.

Celibacy is a definite barrier to entry.  You may have had an inkling.

So we asked ourselves last night, what would happen if you did open the gates to ordaining married men?  Would the catholic church face a vocations-glut the way protestants do?

We suspect what we would see is a significant jump in late vocations.  The inability of a priest to re-marry is a strong discouragement for younger men with families, for good reason.  Men rightly don’t want to find themselves with a brand new baby and no mother to care for it.  If your wife dies, you need to have a plan B for who is going to help you rear your children, and remarriage is a pretty good plan B under ordinary circumstances.

These exact reasons are why young, pious catholic married men aren’t rushing off to become deacons.  Who are the deacons?  Older men whose children are grown.  Or at least grown enough, and the wife past the age of childbearing.

So that’s what we guess.  Open the gates of priestly ordination to married men, and we’d expect to see a vast conversion of deacons-into-priests.  Not 100%, necessarily.  But that is where the married priests would mostly come from — or reasonably should come from.

Economically there all sorts of interesting implications, but I’ll refrain from more crass calculating.   Suffice to say that celibate young men are still your best value per sacramental-salary-dollar.

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FYI Even though I can see the practical benefit to ordaining a significant percentage of our permanent deacons to the priesthood, I’m not convinced it is “the solution”.

Two reasons:  One is concern that the former-deacons will end up in an employment vortex of a similar nature to what our protestant kin suffer.  And that reason alone is enough to proceed very cautiously.    The other, more pressing, is concern that ordaining the permanent deacons is a band-aid of a solution.  Maybe even a bad band-aid.

My sense is that our shortage of vocations is caused by a deeply spiritual wound in the church.  One that can only be healed by precisely the kind of self-abandonment  and commitment to the gospel that lifelong celibacy entails.  We as a church suffer from a case of “Do you really mean what you say?”

A young man willing to pass over all the joys of marriage in order to serve Christ?  That’s a guy who means what he says.

 

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*In our area, since that time we’ve had a surge in immigration.  The would-be youth pastors have been supplanted by workers even more cash-hungry.  The best of whom are strong, competent, hard-working, loyal, and unlikely to be called off to the mission field without notice.  And legal, too.  Good for the roofing companies, not so great for the bible students.

 

 

 

Marriage, Stability, and Ordination

Dear Catholic Friends,

We need to talk about this whole married priests things.  Because no doubt some of you read Simcha’s post, and you thought, “Well, sure, those are difficulties.  But protestant pastors and their wives deal with these little parish politics all the time.  Surely we can do it, too.”  And the answer is of course we can.   We could even have sermons about tithing.

But here’s what you need to know: Protestant ministry does not have the job stability of the catholic priesthood.

See most of us only know about protestant ministers from the front facade.  Church, steeple, open the doors and there’s the minister, his wife, and their denominationally-appropriate number of little people.  We think, ha!  This works just like the catholic church, only with wedding rings!  He goes to seminary, he gets assigned a church, his family helps out with vacuuming the pews and folding bulletins, what a life!

And we assume all this works just like the catholic church in another respect: Once a priest, always a priest.  Just do a half-decent job, and the diocese will find a little spot for you somewhere.

No.  It is not like this, anymore than getting  PhD means you’ll soon be a tenured professor.  If we could magically put clerical collars on every former pastor in America, you would drop your coffee.  Yes, your coffee, because that really friendly older guy working the morning shift at Starbucks?  The one that doesn’t say “ya know?” every other word?  He’s probably a former pastor.  (Or a PhD.)

One neat thing about being a a bachelor is that you don’t have a family to support. Men really understand this, which is why historically being a bachelor has had such appeal.  If there isn’t much work in your chosen profession, it isn’t the end of the world.  A friend with an empty couch, a few bucks for groceries . . . you can live on very little if you must.  It works out well for the catholic clergy:  In the unlikely event that there is a sudden glut of catholic (celibate) priests, well, it’s not exactly an employment crisis.  Always room in the rectory for one more bunk.

But if you’re a married minister, it’s another story.  Your church can only afford so much in the way of salaries, and there might not be a congregation hiring full-time, professional-wage staff just now.  But your kids still need to eat.  You can’t just take that assisant-vicar’s co-helper rotation with the minuscule stipend, and philosophically chalk it up to a time for extra prayer and fasting.   You’ve got to make a living.  A real living.  So you go back to doing whatever it was you did before you were ordained — construction, retail, maybe a professional position if you’re lucky and you have the skills.

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Now friends perhaps you think I exaggerate.  Perhaps you think I am using my broad powers of imagination to promote an arch-conservative agenda.  So allow me to give you a list of the “where are they now” of my personal, real-life friends who are former or current married protestant ministers.  All of these men have been through seminary.  They are intelligent, capable, competent, and could hold their own in the ranks of the catholic clergy.  (Which is saying something — I am surrounded by good priests.)  These are not internet friends, these are real guys I speak to in person on a regular basis.  So I’m leaving them as anonymous as I can:

Exhibit A: Was a senior pastor with significant experience, then his church let him go.  Returned to graduate school, earned a PhD, worked in a church position while in school. Couldn’t get a full-time job after.  His wife works full-time now, he homeschools the kids and cobbles together a combination of a freelance preaching gigs, ministry events, and other odd jobs.  (Need a tree cut down?)  Just picked up an adjunct teaching job he hopes will go full time.

Exhibit B: Pastor in a major denomination, congregation laid him off after decades in the ministry.  Applied for positions at other congregations within the denomination, no job offers.  He and his wife both found part-time work that gradually led to full-time work. She works in a nursing home, he works at a grocery store.

Exhibit C: Currently employed, full-time pastor with a major denomination.  And his wife works full time anyway, because there is no way . . . . Repeat: No Way they could pay their bills otherwise.  I know this because these people live in my neighborhood.  And you don’t live in my neighborhood because you are trying to impress anybody. Children attend public schools (no private school tuition), wear hand-me-downs, they drive old cars.  Normal modest middle class life, if you don’t count the part about every spare moment being utterly devoted to the needs of the church.

There are more, but I’ll stop there since you are begging for mercy.  But any more of this starry-eyed dreaming, and you’ll be sent to do rounds with the minister’s wife for penance.

Sincerely,

Jennifer.

 

 

 

Marriage & the vocation crises

Simcha explains why married priests are a bad idea.  H/T to Mrs. Darwin, since “D” comes before “I”, so I saw it there first.

Funny thought from the other week.  So I was sitting standing at mass and two of my students (from separate class-years) were serving that day.  And my very-attentive-to-the-Gospel self thinks:

1.) “Oh yeah, they’d make a great couple”.  Which leads to . . .

2.)  “Well, yes, allowing girls to serve at the altar does foster vocations.  Just maybe not the vocations we had intended.”  Which causes me to conclude . . .

3.) “Then again, where do priests come from?  You need the one vocation if you mean to have the other.”

So that’s what I think about while I am doing my best to look like I’m paying attention, but slip on my effort to actually be paying attention.  Yep, that’ll come up in confession. Again.

–> For the record, I have no particular opinion on whether girls should be altar servers*.   Either my pope, bishop, and pastor know what they are doing, or else if they are failing spectacularly then thank goodness that one it isn’t on my head.  I figure my layperson watchdog powers are better served if I just stick to worrying about the ten commandments.

But I thought, hmmn.  Maybe someone in the hierarchy has actually thought about this?  And having a little catholic match-making service in the sacristy is all part of the program?  Sort of long-range strategic plan.  How else do you expect the thirty practicing catholic kids in the city to actually get to know each other?

Or not.  But my goodness I’m definitely with Simcha on encouraging our youth to pick just one vocation at a time.   I have yet to meet a priest or a married man who isn’t sufficiently poured out with just the lot God gives him.

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*I do think that in parishes where only boys serve on the altar, it is important to have some counterpart role for the girls.  Could be something completely different.  But a specific place where they can serve in the church from an early age.  Ideally something that fosters uniquely feminine vocations.  There is a longer missive associated with this, but I save it for another day.

Sunday Thoughts

Three of them:

1)   Months on end spent vomiting really is excellent preparation for parenthood.   Allows you to stand calmly in the bathroom door at midnight and give your child practical tips for dealing with her stomach virus.  And you are thinking, “Ha.  Wish I couldda kept my popsicles down when I was pregnant with you.”  But you don’t say that.  You are tender and encouraging, and very pleased with the thought that the likely break is coming not at 14 weeks, or 24 weeks, or heaven forbid 40 weeks, but probably in just a few hours.  Still, you will be quite happy when it is all over.

2)  P.G. Wodehouse.  Our friend.  Just the companion for the restless mother, relaxing in the wee hours between pep-rallies in the bathroom.  Better on the second reading, I’ll add.

3) H/T to The Pulp.It for this article on why you should not shop on Sundays.  And since I am not afraid to be insufferable, let me just totally ruin your plans . . . Going out to brunch does more of the same.  Just say no.

Sunday:  Get up.  Get a shower.  Go to Mass.  Come home.  Rest.

Works great every time*.  Try it.

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*Actual mileage may very, subject to some limitations due to VOMITING CHILDREN.  DID I MENTION VOMITING CHILDREN?!  Actually just one of them.  SuperHusband took the healthy people to the usual mass then penitentially kept them out on the playground awaaaay from the ill sibling.   I went to the Spanish mass after lunch.  Lovely Mass, need to go to it more often.  Note to self: Learn Spanish.  Worth the risk.

Hoodlum-Loving Pro-Life Ninjas

The reference to ninjas is tucked inside Simcha Fischer’s otherwise apolitical posting of a Loretta Lynn housewife song:

It seems like a pretty good follow-up to the March for Life, doesn’t it?  You know, that day when hundreds of thousands of ninjas march to show their support of women and babies.  I say “ninjas” because they somehow slip by the attention of the media — amazing!  It’s like they were never there.  And yet they get the job done.

Our local March for Life, however, was not entirely ignored by the media.  Our free entertainment weekly, which doubles as our incisive political reporting weekly*, made mention of the event:  Our intrepid reporter tells us that the March happened, and then utterly topples the foundations of the Pro-Life movement, by pointing out that all those aborted babies would have grown up to be criminals anyway.

Not his idea, he was citing Levitt & Dubner in the very famous Freakonomics.  (The hardcover was published William Morrow, 2005.  You can buy other versions now, of course.)  The book doesn’t make any moral prescriptions, by the way — economists general don’t.  But it really does set forth the theory that the drop in the crime rate that occurred in the 1990’s was the direct result of Roe v. Wade.  The idea being that the really bad mothers know they are really bad mothers, so they abort their children rather than raising them up to a life of crime.  And 18 years later, you and I reap the benefits of that instinctive act of preemptive genocide.

If only all those marching ninjas had known!

But all mockery aside, our reporter got to the bizarre heart of the Pro-Life movement: We actually believe that even the children of ne’er-do-wells should not be summarily executed.  We are willing to take the risk that you, child of poverty, decadence, and a very broken home, may or may not live out the hope embodied in your cute little baby smile.

Radical freedom.  The idea that the right to life belongs even the children of those other kinds of people.   The idea that having lousy parents is not, in itself, a capital crime.

And so I’m thankful to our reporter for giving us such a clear vision of the divide.  We see how those who want to apply the abortion chapter of Freakonomics to public policy feel about the human race:  What’s a few million dead bodies, if it lowers the crime rate?

Which explains why you would need thousands upon thousands of ninjas, if you wanted to go head-to-head with a regime like that.

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*I am not kidding about the politics — in addition to vast coverage of bars, restaurants, and services with 1-900 phone numbers, it really is the only local paper that does investigative reporting.  And we wonder why the mainstream newspapers are failing.

Usury Part 3: Lending Gone Right

This is the post where I propose that there is an acceptable kind of lending at interest.  Which we can then use to evaluate other situations and see how they stack up.  Here goes:

Imagine for a moment that I give up my life of prayer, goofing off, and educating children (let us not contemplate which one I put most effort into — hint, the prayer part could use a lot of work), and decide to start a business.  Any kind of business, but one that produces a tangible product.  Knitting socks, growing tomatoes, something like that.

[If either of those sound immoral to you, just imagine me producing something that you think really truly ought to be produced.  We’re going for an unimpeachably worthwhile productive activity here, for the purposes of our study.  And we are going to refrain from comments about how my knitting and gardening skills are only slightly better than the prayer life.]

Now imagine that I have the talent for this business, all the necessary organizational skills, even the ability to file my taxes properly. (Which I actually can do!)  But that YOU are the one who has the cash I need to buy supplies.  And you’re perfectly willing to invest in my business.

So what do we do?  Surely the Church does not require you and I to abandon all prospects of a business venture, on account of the peanut butter and chocolate never being permitted to touch.  You have the cash, I have the rest, we can change the world one sock at a time, if only we can join forces.  Our current options are this:

Become full partners in a business. It’s like getting married, only harder to put asunder if things go awry.  You love me, but not that much.  Really all you want is to fund some yarn purchases in exchange for a cut of those huge margins I’m gonna make on my extraordinarily unique sock creations.

I sell you stock in my company. If it’s a publicly-traded company, it will be relatively easy for you to sell off your portion of the business if you so desire, but you may or may not get your desired share of the profit if you do that.  If it’s a privately held company, it’s eerily like that partnership option.  And from my perspective — do I really want you having a voice in how I run my sockworks?

–> Really what you and I both want is for you to contribute some cash to this year’s sock run, and at the end of the season you take your cut of the profits and move on.  Maybe we’ll join up again later, maybe we won’t.  But we want a nice, clean, short term arrangement.

Now in certain staunchly Muslim countries I am told that to get around the usury problem, a profit-sharing type of financial instrument is available.  But here in the U.S., we either have ownership equities (those stock or partnership options rejected above), or . . . DEBT.

Yes, debt.

Our friend, debt.

Bet you never thought I would type that ever.

But here’s what:  Debt is simple.

You want to contribute some cash to my sock works in exchange for a share of the profits.  Now we could, in theory, set up something to do exactly that.  I say you’ll get, say, 10% of the profits off of this year’s sock production in exchange for buying a year’s supply of yarn.  But where does that leave us?

–What if we disagree about how to calculate the profits? I feel sure sure sure my knitting needles will depreciate fully this year, and you think I can get a good twenty years out such sturdy bamboo.  (Which means lower costs, more profits, a bigger piece of pie for us to split.)

–What if I have more than one product line, and you only funded one of them? Now the accounting gets really rough.  How do I allocate my call center costs between the project you funded (all that beautiful chartreuse wool — thank you!)  and the project my other faithful reader funded? 

-And that’s not even taking into account horrible management decisions, strange market conditions, and everything else. Surely I would have made much more money, you argue, if I’d gone with the other shade of chartreuse.  And if only we had waited 14 months before settling up instead of 12, you would have gotten 10% of a much bigger pie, what with the sudden epidemic of Sheep Flu that hit right after I paid you off.

Summary: Profit sharing is complicated.

So we simplify our agreement.  I expect that if I use your $100 to buy wool, I can turn around and sell the socks for $150.  Dividing the proceeds fairly, after taking into account my other expenses, we agree that if I pay you back the $100 plus an additional $5 as your share of the expected profits, that will be a win-win.  And we agree that I’ll pay you back exactly one year from now, rather than having to worry about exactly when the project is over.

Will one of us end up the loser?  Maybe.  I might not sell as many socks as planned, and I still have to pay you the $5 interest.  I might make more profit than planned, and you still get only a measly $5.  But it is a clean arrangement, built around the real expected values of what wealth the sock project is going to generate.  If it is part of an overall habit of making prudent business decisions  over the long run, it should balance out.  Maybe this project you get the better end of the deal, next time chance favors me, but in the long run, when we aggregate all these little arrangements we work out within the business community, we both get our fair share.

And that, I think, is the basic model of why and how debt can be good.

Usury, I argue, is something else.  A situation where we pretend to have good wholesome debt, but in fact one of us is abusing the financial instrument to exploit the weaker party. We’ll look at that in Part IV.

 

 

 

c.a.i.t.u. & other castle news

CAITU: Coolest Author In The Universe.

[Be French.  Speak in Acronyms. It’s good for your brain.]

I’ve lately determined that the CAITU is John McNichols.  Who totally took care of my beleaguered boy after my complaining post the other week.  And that’s not the first time he’s proven his credentials, though I will not embarrass him with too many tales of his kindness to internet strangers.

(And FYI, no I’m not an old friend of his brother-in-law’s cousin’s law school roommate’s favorite veterinarian.  I have no stock in Sophia Press. I get no commission on the sales of Tripods Attack, which you should read, because it is fun and because it is what we need more of — enjoyable catholic fiction.)

So that’s how you become the CAITU.  AND you write a steampunk alternative history alien-attack G.K. Chesterton catholic thriller, AND you take care of the fans with Strom Thurmondesqe responsiveness.

Nominations for SCAITU are still open.  I think maybe the alien thing isn’t strictly required.  But it helps.

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Other Castle News:

Thinking of going with Kolbe next year. For the two big kids.  Am open to opinions if anyone wants to share.  (Have already mined the brains of a couple trusted internet friends who are long time happy Kolbe families.)  The reason is this:  My kids really like checklists.  Love ’em.  Mr. Boy just wants to get his assignments, get them done, and be free.  Aria likes forms so much she begged the SuperHusband to buy her a blank receipt book she saw at the hardware store.  (I consoled her by printing off a handful of 1040-EZ’s to play with.  She’s thrilled.)

We were planning to switch to a more formal curriculum with one of the major catholic curriculum providers come high school.  Mr. Boy will be hitting middle school, so time to make the transition and learn the expectations, so he isn’t blown out of the water in 9th grade.  Kolbe has a decent no-nonsense high school curriculum* of the kind that has gotten students into college for the past three generations or so.  AND, they issue checklists.  Which would free me up from writing my own.

So that’s what we’re thinking about.

Despite being a little out of rhythm this week, due to relatives visiting over the weekend, school is going pretty well this month. Which is noteworthy any time you combine “homeschooling” with “january”.  What we’ve been doing is after breakfast and a morning clean-up, kids work independently on checklist items.  (For the two littles, that’s just a box of activities they can choose from at will.)  Then I call each kid in for an individual class, youngest to oldest.  Then group class for penmanship, french and science.  Then big kids get work assignments for the afternoon, and littles are free.  When we stick to this, it runs pretty smoothly, and everyone is happy.

January is Science Fair Month. We took a break from Zoo Pass Science Class to work through A Drop of Water, and this week kids are now pausing that to conduct science experiments.  Mr. Boy wants to know if acorns pop like popcorn.  Aria asks whether hard boiled eggs truly are easier to peel if you plunge them into ice water after cooking.  And the Bun is attempting to freeze bubbles.  Results to be revealed to the admiring real-life public on the 29th.

Deskavation Sucessful. Found it.  Wood!  Then lost it again.  And I’ll have you know my miraculously-given organizational system is still working, even with intermittent clutter-flooding.  But here’s what, and sit down before you read this: The girls room is clean.  Consistently clean. Three girls ages 4, 6 & 8, in a 12×12 room that is also used for storage. As the SuperHusband said before we tackled the place, we have 1950’s living space, 1990’s lifestyle.  (And I would add: 1930’s personality.)

We cleared out the excess junk, designated and labled places for everything, including certain spots labeled “empty” so no one tries to pile stuff there. Then we developed  a successful inspection method.  We go through the room, and check each drawer and shelf, and toss anything that doesn’t belong there into the middle of the floor.  I look on the label to remember.  It is so much easier to ask “Are all the things in this space the ones on the label?” than it is to try to negotiate a generic sort of fuzzy standard of cleanliness.

The foot is great. Not exactly normal, but highly highly functional.  In the category of attending pro-life marches, visiting museums, grocery shopping, cleaning out the house, all that stuff.  It’ll do.

That’s the highlights of castle news.  Upcoming on the blog:

  • Usury part 3, of course.

And should I start a deskavation series? Because here’s the thing: Most organizational tips are written by people who are already organized.  So they say ridiculous things like “throw out your catalogs as soon as they arrive”, or “write all event dates in your calendar the moment you learn of them, then throw the original away”.  Ha!  You make it sound so easy.

But I’m thinking that just like there people who can’t magically keep their bank accounts balanced just by “spending less”, but need little tricks like cash envelopes to make it work, there are people like me who need painfully obvious baby-step methods to keep the house running smoothly.  And we’re discovering some of these things. So I thought maybe that might be helpful.  Or else entertaining, in a voyeuristic reality-show kind of way.

 

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*Yes, I know that this whole “classical” education label thing is about as accurate a historical replica as a Red Ryder wagon is to a horse and carriage.  That’s fine.  I’m not running a seminary here.  We are the trade-and-merchant class, our children are signed up for a nice practical education that will get them into engineering school.  And ask my pastor about roofs, sound boards, and programmable thermostats — you could do worse than a business or engineering degree if you have a calling to become a parish priest. But for those who really do want the same type of education as Thomas Aquinas (whose grandfather was not a plumber), this guy is doing his best to re-create just that.

MED-I-TATE, MED-I-TATE . . .

That was my 5th grade boys last night.  Whole table of them, begging to close class with meditative prayer.

Yes.  True story.

Loyola Press has been sending down a workshop leader to educate the local catechists for a few years now, and every year we’ve been put through the paces of meditative prayer.  Good stuff.  I would guess 2/3rds of the prayer exercises we learn are to my taste, and the other 1/3 are more appreciated by teachers of younger grades.

So anyhow, this was the year we finally got to experiment on the kids institute prayer sessions on a regular basis.

What we do is this: We open class with a short set of “normal” prayers.  We do the teaching stuff.  And then at the end we clean up the room, light candles, turn down the lights, put on reflective music if appropriate, and one of us leads the kids through some kind of prayerful reflection.  Each class is same set-up routine, different meditation.  We get them from our textbook and associated resources, or else we make something up.  (Something easy to lead, like slowly reading through a traditional prayer and letting the kids reflect on the meaning).

First couple rounds we had to work out some glitches, which required catechists to pretend we knew what we were doing.  Among other lessons, we learned to end the session before kids ended it themselves by getting all squirmy and goofy.  I think it helped that my brilliant co-teacher used the time after our first couple attempts to let the kids share what they thought.  When you’ve done something new, you want to talk about it.

And now they totally love it.  They ask for it.  They rush to clean-up. (Yes, with boys yelling at each other and pushing and shoving to put supplies away.)  They beg for real candles to be lit —  I have about ten zillion on our little prayer table, lighting up the crucifix and our paperboard icons.

And then they sit quietly and pray.

Lovely lovely.

Christians Caught in the Act

I’ve got a real weak spot for people who take the Gospel earnestly.  Joel & Rachel write here about “Why We Love the Mennonites”.  They share seven ways the Mennonites they have known act like actual Christians.  Point #7 gets to the heart of it*:

Jesus is the centre of everything they do. All the points mentioned above are because they are trying to take Jesus seriously as he is presented in the Bible. That following Jesus is about more than just saying a one-time prayer. But it is entering into a kingdom that is slowly permeating and overtaking this world. Not in violent, loud ways, but in subtle ways. In a powerful love that actually believes the love of Christ is the most powerful force in this world and God entrusted his people with that power to use it for his glory and for his kingdom. Sometimes in Christian circles that become very social justice driven, for some reason Jesus plays a less central role. I love the Mennonites because Jesus is the center and is the motivation for everything they do.

Other than a disagreement about the details of non-violence, and of course the necessary passion for good catechesis, this is all catholic teaching.  (It is not a huge surprise that protestants talking about protestants tend to prefer doctrinal minimalism. You just ignore that part.)

Take-away lesson is this:  Act like a Christian. If you managed to pull off all seven points, you could accidentally end up beatified.

And your hostess, Guilty Party #1, adds this: Don’t whine about church unity when you haven’t got your act together.  This is exactly why the church is all torn up right now.  Peace and unity are the product of holiness, not the other way around.

This ends our morning kick-in-the-pants.  Have a great Wednesday.

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*Apparently good German cooking is strictly optional.  Though didn’t Thomas Aquinas study in Cologne?  And see how well he turned out.  I wouldn’t toss the spaetzle too hastily.