3.5 Time Outs: Sursum Corda

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who, I am sorry to learn, does not like leftovers for breakfast. Read the whole tragic childhood tale by clicking the photo:

3.5 Time Outs Tuesday — The Fulwilinator is on leave . . . will Larry finally seize power, or will SuperGirl Hallie Lord keep him at bay?

You’ll never guess where I saw the words Sursum Corda last Friday, when I was busy not getting my seven takes up on time for that other person.

***

Also I learned later in the day: Though “Sursum Corda” sure sounds like the name of a papal encyclical, it isn’t.

Which means: I gave somebody a little bit of wrong information. Nuts. But I also gave a lot of correct information. For example, you would have found it in this book – p. xxvii. And others like it.

But you know, if you google the words Sursum Corda + Pope Benedict, you get a lot of hits. Is it my fault I spend too much time on the Internet reading this stuff until it becomes one giant jumble of confused trivia? Wait, don’t answer that.

You may have noticed that adolescent boys don’t necessarily google these same topics. Which is why I have begun a massive print propaganda campaign, in which I subscribe to the publications I think my child should read, then leave them on the bathroom counter for him to discover when he’s hiding from his math homework.

Might I add that Catholic Answers, Envoy, OSV and The Register run some seriously good articles? It is as if all the stuff you read for free online is not the very best of contemporary Catholic writing, and that there is value to be had in paying writers for their work. I never guessed.

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So your hints for the solution to #1 are:

A.) The Inferno.

B.) In which city you can still see this guy’s house:

C. ) And this hat. Which causes me to pun horribly every time I see it:

3.5 Time Outs: Catholic Insomnia

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who reminds you, Men Can Blog Too.

Dark pleasures of homeschooling parents: Listening from the other room as your spouse valiantly tries to help a child with his homework . . . and noting that your spouse, too, is on the verge of breaking into swear words.

Who took the dry-erase marker off my refrigerator? I need it because . . .

Middle of the dark I wake up with busy-brain. I hear the neighbor’s truck outside. Must be getting near dawn. Which means: Stay still. Do not go to living room and read The Doctors of the Church for a bit to settle down. DO NOT GET A DRINK OF WATER.

Because: I need an undisturbed waking temp. Need.

Need.

***

I lay there a while. I wonder if the truck I heard was not my neighbor but the people who go around breaking into cars. I wonder if those people ever did read the Teacher’s Manual they stole last time. I wonder if the SuperHusband set his car alarm so that we’ll know when the car-breakers are opening his minivan whose side doors only open when the vehicle is locked and the alarms are set. I wonder what the car-breakers will think of the giant load of junk filling the back of my truck. Do they want old children’s games with missing pieces?

No, it is not the car-breakers, because the neighbor starts his truck up again and begins moving it around the yard. He does this. He loves backing up. Precisely. He has to back up many times.

And then he drives off, and it is silent. And still very dark. I worry: Is it actually close to waking-up time? Or is it the middle of the night and my neighbor is doing his late-night things that he sometimes does? Nuts if I’ve been laying here all quiet and still with no drink of water and no prospect of sleep, and it’s actually 1 am and not 6 am. I wonder why I have no clock on my side of the bed. About three times a year, I want one.

***

I give up. Grab thermometer, head to living room. Yay: 6:45. Double-Yay: 99.0.

One of these years my kids will understand why they sometimes find summer-weather temperatures written on the door of the fridge in the middle of January.

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Roman Holiday. Of course.

3.5 Time Outs: Girl Topics

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is just going to have to shut his eyes, or else pretend he’s a mom-blogger. Why isn’t there a vast network of dad-bloggers? Because what exactly is the guy equivalent of these topics below?

The in-laws called to find out why I’d posted a link to the Baby Name Wizard in Facebook. Was there something they should know? Yes. My nine-year-old had to write a piece of historical fiction as part of her Caddie Woodlawn literature study. She picked depression-era. I pointed her to the name wizard because I had this sneaking feeling “Kaitlyn” wasn’t such a period name. She’s found her new tool. Those graphs. They are addictive.

Take, read. Betty Beguiles has a free e-booklet out: Dressing with Intention. I completely 100% recommend it. Excellent advice for building a workable wardrobe that you can afford. Accountant-approved. Short, readable, encouraging, spot-on absolutely right. You cannot get better than that. Stop now and click the link, then come back later to finish here.

My friend Sandra sent me these pics:

She’s thinking of sewing her wedding dress along these lines. Is that not seriously cool? I told her to do it. No question. She has serious Jane-power going on, so it will be fabulous.

(Do you understand how relieved I am when I learn that someone I really like is also a Jane Austen fan? I mean, yes, I have a couple very dear friends who don’t get the Jane-thing, and we adapt and focus on our common ground. But see, this is why there are more mom-bloggers. Because we can talk not just about Jane Austen, but about dressing like Jane Austen, and how our friendships are affected by Jane Austen . . . you begin to see. Football is not the same. Not.)

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Not always, but sometimes, when your daughter is in the Pit of Oppression over things that she can’t control and really are upsetting, even though no one else seems to understand that, but being nine is Not As Easy As People Say, the best thing is to put the littles to bed, pop a giant pot of popcorn, fire up the DVD player and watch

Forgiveness and Detective Work

Yesterday I finished my comments on the Penn State scandals by saying this:

Cultivating a heart of mercy and forgiveness is the only way bring ourselves to be willing to see that evil.

Today I want to elaborate.

***

When I talk about “forgiveness”, I don’t mean pseudo-forgiveness, in which we say things like “You didn’t mean to do it”, or “No harm done.” I’m speaking of actual forgiving, in which the guilty person has done something to injure, and the victim chooses to set aside wrath and revenge, and instead be at peace with the guilty one. It could be for a small matter or a serious one.

Why would forgiveness matter, when it comes to identifying egregious sins?

Short Answer: People who forgive are people who can see sin. People who do not forgive must necessarily overlook some amount of sin, or else go mad with loneliness and despair. Therefore, the habitual practice of forgiveness disposes one to more easily identify sin.

Long Version, Same Answer:

Here is how relationships work among people who know only condemnation:

The worlds divides into two groups: “good” people and “bad” people
The various things that good people do might be “wrong choices”, or “done in ignorance” or “under pressure”, or perhaps they are just “human nature”.
Someone caught doing something undeniably evil is a bad person. This boggles and overwhelms, when that person had heretofore been amongst the good ones, and furthermore the person still shows plenty of evidence of goodness.

Here, in contrast, is how relationships work among people who practice forgiveness:

The world doesn’t divide. People are people. We humans do a lot of good things, and some bad things, in varying portions.
There certainly can be mistakes and extenuating circumstances. But also sometimes we just plain sin.
Someone caught doing something undeniably evil is, well, just like the rest of us. The way is open for repentance and forgiveness, if the person chooses it.

I might be shocked or surprised when my dear friend sins in a way I would never have guessed. But that does not require me to condemn or reject, nor to make 1,000 excuses and insist such sin is impossible. Of course such sin is possible. I’m a rank sinner. Why shouldn’t other people be just as capable of evil as I am?

Forgiveness causes sanity. Habitually forgiving means no longer having to explain away one’s batty relatives, or tolerate spousal nonsense, insisting it’s “just their way.” Forgiveness means being able to say, “_______ was utterly wrong to act that way,” and still love that person, still maintain a relationship with that person.

Habitual forgiveness means being able to hear an accusation against a loved one, and be able to say, “Well, I don’t think so, but it is always possible. I’ll look into it.” There is no danger. If it is true, out of love for the other, you want the situation rectified. If it is false, better to know it. In either case, better to love honestly than to love a lie.

The irony of forgiveness is that one can better see sin, but also be less bothered by it. It is no longer necessary to put up with bad behavior by calling it good behavior.

***

The greatest hazard of condemnation is that it becomes impossible to see one’s own sins. To do so would be to condemn oneself.

This is a danger when it comes to protecting children from abusive situations. For if I convince myself of my own sinlessness, I must excuse the same bad behavior in others. And the more wrong actions I accept as good actions, the fewer clues I have at my disposal for detecting abuse. I’ve thrown out evidence.

***

As it happens, the habit of forgiveness also creates a family environment where children are more likely to tell their parents about abuse when it happens. And at the same time, the awareness of the signs of sin makes it less likely for parents to put their children into doubtful situations in the first place. Neither of those are magic force fields. Nothing parents do can keep children safe from all evil. But it helps. And when evil does strike, parents who have built that foundation of love and protectiveness have also given their children a place and a means for healing.

The Unbelievability of Sexual Abuse

[Note: I’ve changed minor details below in order to respect the privacy of the people involved. Also, this is a sensitive topic. Please skip this post if you suspect it may distress you.]

In light of the recent Penn State sex abuse scandals, Mark Shea wrote an excellent piece about Betrayal and the Power of Relationship, and Mary Graw Leary on Sexual Abuse and Moral Indifference. I agree with both. But I want to add one other observation:

Sexual abuse is very difficult to believe.

I once read about a woman who had murdered her school-age child. The neighbors were all quoted as saying “they couldn’t believe it,” she was, “Such a good mother.” They pointed to her diligence in making sure the child brushed his teeth — small things that showed her humanity and her visible love for her child. Whom she murdered.

Sin is like this. It is a corruption of something very, very good. Think of the devastation of a natural disaster — even after the land is ruined, there is still evidence of what once was. We see the few good and beautiful things that are left. We look for them.

It is a rare human (I have not met one) who is so consumed by sin that not a shred of goodness remains. And because sin prefers darkness, we all put our good parts forward, and conceal the rest. The more shameful the sin, the more diligently we cover it.

Sexual abuse violates something so sacred, so private and personal, that of course we want it hidden. Even the victim wants it hidden — that is, though of course wanting justice, does not want this very painful and intimate wound put out for the world to gawk at.

Because it is such a shocking violation of the one thing that should never be violated, it is difficult even for the victim to believe in it. Violent stranger rape? Yes, that is undeniable. But the subtle, groping hand of the pervert making his first tentative reach? It is easy to dismiss the internal shudder, the instinctive recoiling, as an over-reaction, perhaps a misinterpretation of a harmless gesture. The molester certainly wants it perceived that way.

I once had to review the background check of a creepy guy. You would not like this guy. Inappropriate comments, inability to hold down a steady job, lousy hair, a thousand clues that added up to one thing: Run a background check. I gave it a 75% chance he had a record. I didn’t know what — bad checks maybe? — but I knew it was likely we’d find something.

What we found was this: Lewd acts with a minor.

And it was hard to believe. Here was an obnoxious, unpleasant, barely-literate and sometimes-delusional jerk, but you know, he was also a nice guy. Held doors for people out of genuine consideration. Kept his work area neat and clean out of personal pride. Would do small kind things for others, expecting and wanting nothing in return. Original sin and personal sin corrupt, but they do not completely destroy all that is good and pure in a man.

I could have believed bad checks. I could have believed armed robbery. But lewd acts? Really?

Most of us understand greed, selfishness, foul temper, impulsiveness, desperation. We are tempted to pass our smallish 13-year-old off as two years younger, in order to get the child discount. Though we would never rob a bank, we can connect the dots and understand that a poorly-instructed man might fall into that temptation.

But sexual perversion is not a sin we understand so easily. That a man would hop in bed with a grown woman? Certainly. But not with a child. It is unthinkable. Men who have no qualms about murder, or robbery, or arson, instinctively and violently lash out against the fellow prisoner who is guilty of sexually harming a child.

How could you do that? It is like a lightning on a clear day, or a hurricane in a desert. We cannot believe it. It is utterly foreign to all that we know.

The abuser knows this. And so keeps it very, very hidden.

If someone had come to the officials at Penn State and said, “We believe the coach is embezzling,” or “Someone saw him doing crack in the men’s room,” there would have been an investigation. Reluctant, perhaps. But it happens — great men can be tempted in these ways. We understand it.

But sodomizing a young boy? It is easier to believe in a false accusation. That, after all, is motivated by jealousy or revenge or greed, emotions we all can understand. It is easier to believe my creepy, seedy colleague was victim of a viciously slanderous ex, than to believe he molested a child. How much more difficult to believe someone so polished, so successful, so good and kind on such a grand scale, could do something so vile?

Our culture doesn’t believe much in either sin nor forgiveness. Out of a desire to do what we like, we re-categorize sinful acts, calling them innocent so that we might indulge ourselves. Out of fear of condemnation, we justify yet more, giving them particular names that explain our extenuating circumstances. The person who questions immoral actions is the villain — called a prude, puritan, pharisee, or hypocrite — whatever can be made to fit.

How can we believe in unbelievable sins? We have to first believe in the smaller ones. And then we have to forgive — not excuse — those sins. Good, kind, lovable people do evil things. Cultivating a heart of mercy and forgiveness is the only way bring ourselves to be willing to see that evil.

Polarization and Politics

A friend recently resigned from her teaching position at a public high school. The students were having intercourse in the classroom while she was teaching. I assume this is a rare and extreme case; at the local blue-ribbon, top-rated public high school, the students show restraint, saving sex until they can get to the restroom.

I live in a cave, but I am not naive. People of reproductive age will in fact reproduce. What alarms is that the public school administrators are both persuaded they are unable to enforce a no-copulation zone, and also that they do not feel any obligation to attempt it.

These are public schools, so there are facts that don’t apply to, say, your local bar or brothel:

We taxpayers are required by law to send our money to these schools, under pain of fines, imprisonment, and forfeiture of assets.
Parents are required by law to send their children to these schools. If they do not do so, their children can be taken from them.

Most parents do not have an alternative public school available. Most parents cannot afford private school tuition. Homeschooling is daunting for most and impossible for many; appeasing the authorities is an on-going problem.

But what stands out most about this problem: No one really seems to care.

Why isn’t this in the news? Why isn’t this a hot topic at school board and superintendent elections? How can a school be top-ranked, or a county promote itself as “A Great Place For Families”, when this is the atmosphere in which students are expected to learn?

Apparently there is a vast gulf between those who feel these sorts of things are a serious problem, and those who feel they are no big deal*.

I keeping hearing all these complaints that American politics is so “polarized”. This is why.

*I don’t think this is a left-right divide. Not at all.

Love you cannot feel.

SuperHusband was out of town the other night, so about nine o’clock he phoned. When he is home, at nine we put everything away, and then talk to each other until ten. It takes about half an hour of steady effort for a conversation to really get going, but most nights it is hard to go to bed at ten, because we are enjoying each other’s company.

The phone is not this way. We each give a quick summary of our day, discuss any topics that require spousal input, and then that’s it. Like a business call. Only with two tired people who already did enough business that day.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you,” I say.

And then we hang up.

And I thought to myself as I put down the phone, “Really? Do we love each other?”

We say it automatically. Maybe when he said it to me, he was feeling all warm and fond and grateful inside. Doubtful. But possible. I was feeling tired and distant and still a trace irritable from my lousy mood the day before.

It is like water, the answer came immediately. Like warm water.

When you stick your hand in warm water, you notice it. Before, cold. After, warm. Ahh, you say. So nice.

After a while, you don’t feel it any more. The water is still warm, but now so are you. If you were to pull yourself out, you would suddenly feel very cold. But while you are in, you don’t notice the warm. You don’t notice anything. It’s just where your hand is.

To be swimming in love. Love so reliable, so steady, you can’t even feel it anymore. Happy.

Theology of the Body For Teens: Middle School Edition

The Catholic Company very kindly sent me a review set of the Theology of the Body for Teens: Middle School Edition bundle. Okay, so I begged for it. They sent an e-mail out to all the reviewers (they are still accepting new reviewers) asking who wanted it, and I gave it my best me-me-me-meeeeee! and made the cut! Yay! And then I told my DRE, who explained how she was busy trying to finagle a copy on loan from another parish. Because yes, it is that good.

What’s in the packet:

A student book. Eight chapters of substantial, readable lessons. Upbeat format. Rock solid teaching. You will need one of these for each student.
A teacher’s guide. It’s the student book page-by-page, with helpful teaching notes. Includes some lesson-planning ideas, answer keys of course, additional information about the Theology of the Body, and supplemental material on difficult topics. If you are teaching this as a class, you need this book.
The parent’s guide. This is a small book (75 pages, pocket-size) that explains what students are learning. It is more elevated, adult-level content, focused on how to parent middle-schoolers — it is not a re-hash of the student guide at all.
The DVD collection. There is a set of videos for each chapter of lesson, plus additional material on difficult topics, and a show-this-to-the-parents chapter that explains what the course is about. The videos are fun, held the interest of my small test-audience of adults (me) and kids (mine), and add significantly to the content of the course. You would want these if you were teaching this as a class.

What does the course cover?

Well, the focus is John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, but it comes down to: How do I live? What will make me happy? And what do I do with this body I’m growing into?

Most of this is not about sex. It’s mostly about virtue, identity, and love. How do I love and respect myself and others? How do I build good relationships? How do I know what God wants me to do? It’s a serious, useful, substantial set of lessons that really teach how to be the kind of person God wants you to be.

–>I read the student workbook first. I found it helpful for me, personally. To the point that in my opinion, parishes would do well to offer the course to both teens and their parents. As in: I myself, a grown-up, NFP-using, CCD-teaching, cave-dwelling bona fide catholic dweeb lady, found this to be a course that pushed me to grow in my Christian life.

What Age Student?

The books are targeted towards middle-schoolers — grades 6th to 8th. I may be under-estimating his maturity, but I felt that my own 6th grade boy, who lives a fairly sheltered catholic-homeschool life, and is not one bit interested in girls, he was not ready to fully benefit from the program. I held onto a copy of the student book for us to use at home, and when my parish offers it next year (please God), I will send him then. But for girls (who mature earlier), and for boys and girls who are more fully immersed in our sex-saturated culture, this is about on target for as young as 6th grade.

Sex-related topics are taught in a wider context. First students learn how we use our bodies to communicate, how we must make an effort to grow in virtue and purity, and how we should not use others for our own gratification, within the wider context of regular life. It is only after these essentials are thoroughly explored, many weeks into the course, that students are shown how they apply specifically to sex.

Sexual topics are dealt with directly but modestly. If you don’t know what porn is, all you’ll find out is that it is “the display of images for the purpose of arousing lust”. (Lust is “a vice that causes people to view others as objects for sexual use”). So this is a step more mature than earlier-grades catechesis, where the details of “impurity” are left entirely to the reader’s imagination. If your student is not yet ready to learn about the existence of pornography, sexting, and fornication, hold off on this course for now.

Difficult topics are not presented directly to teens. There are some video segments the instructor can choose to present depending on the maturity of the group, as well as supplemental teaching material in the teacher’s manual. One teaching technique I found very helpful was a script where a teacher reads a scenario (young people gathering in the alley behind a movie theater), but the actual misbehavior is not specified. The teacher then asks: What do you think was happening there? It’s an opening for students to share the kinds of things they know are going on in their community, which the instructor can then address as appropriate.

I’m cheap. Or poor. Do I need to buy the whole nine yards?

The materials are made to be used together. For a knowledgeable parent wanting to teach at home for the minimal investment, purchasing just the student book would provide a substantial lesson for the least cash outlay. Note however: The other items do add to the overall content of the course. This isn’t a case of the videos just repeating what the book says, or the parent book being a miniature version of the student book. Each element contributes new and useful material. If I were teaching this in the classroom, I would want the whole collection, no question about it. As a parent, I would want my children to view the videos.

Is it Protestant-friendly?

It’s a very Catholic program. (Don’t let the “Pope John Paul II” thing fool you.) You’ll hear references to saints, to the sacraments, the Catholic faith. BUT, keep in mind, this is all just normal healthy human life. Love, virtue, modesty, chastity — these are for the whole human race. The message is right on target with what any Christian youth program would want to teach. So if you are comfortable with Catholic-trappings, you could work with the whole course as-is, and just explain to your audience that it was made by Catholics. If not, you may want to get the materials for yourself, and use them to train yourself how to teach these topics to your teens.

Summary: I give it a ‘buy’ recommend, if you are responsible for teaching a young person how to act like a human being. Thanks again to our sponsor The Catholic Company, who in no way requires that I like the review items they send, but would like me to remind you that they are a fine source for a Catechism of the Catholic Church or a Catholic Bible.

Be Modest at Church in Four Easy Steps

This topic has been in my head for a while, and I was waiting for fall so no one would be embarrassed. But this article here got my attention, courtesy of I think maybe Fr. Z or the Pulp.it or maybe both — primarily thanks to my being wound up late at night and goofing off.

What I see at Mass — and of course out in the wider world — is that a lot of really good Catholics don’t have a clue about modesty. These are super wonderful people. Kind, pious, regular mass-goers who are living out the Christian life day after day. And honestly? They are trying to be modest.

–> My experience is that the people who struggle most in the two-few-clothes department are the more pure among us. It doesn’t occur to them just how weak their fellows can be. It’s like putting out giant trays of brownies because it just never occurs to you that some people will be tempted to eat too many. (But some of us? Yes we will be.)

***

But our culture’s at the point where vendors of athletic clothing think nothing of mailing out catalogs with ladies in their bras on the cover. And not a sports bra. I mean, underwear-underwear, done pin-up style.

[Hint to businesses: If my son has to carry in a picture of a seductively-posed almost-naked lady from the mailbox, I am never buying your products again. Did I say that clearly enough?]

And that was the event today that made me decide it was time to share the Four Easy Steps. Because when you live in a world where everybody everywhere is forgetting to put their clothes on, it’s really hard to know what’s modest and what’s not. And all the great essays about “Put on your clothes! But it’s really about internal holiness and don’t be judgmental!” don’t really help, if no one will tell you which clothes you are missing.

So here you go, Four Easy Steps for Dressing Modestly at Mass:

Cover your shoulders.
Cover your knees.
Don’t show any cleavage.
Tailored is good, tight is bad.

And that’s it. Follow those rules, and you will have to really goof it up to not be wearing enough clothes.

Now for some clarifications. Consider this the advanced course:

1. Actually I don’t think bare shoulders are always and everywhere a near occasion to sin. Witness what I wore to my dad’s wedding, and what my own daughters wore last May for the crowning of the Blessed Mother. This can be done modestly, or modestly-enough. Lots of not-immodest sleeveless outfits at my church. But it is so, so easy to go wrong. And it’s just not worth agonizing over. Put on a little sweater and you know you’re good. Buy something with sleeves, you’re good. Why argue about strap thickness when it so, so easy to just be sure?

UPDATED to point you to a quote in the combox. A reader asked about sleeve length. I gave it my guess, and then asked the guys for an opinion. Christian LeBlanc came to the rescue with his usual no-nonsense analysis:

Short or long sleeves, either is ok.

No sleeves starts to distract. Thin straps/ bare shoulders/ bare backs distract more.

It has to do with the amount of skin, I think, even though the skin exposed is basically mundane.

–> So there you go. Not just me makin’ things up to repress the masses. Guys notice this stuff. Be kind to them. They are trying to pray.

(And anway, you know you are freezing at church. They set the A/C so that poor man saying Mass in all those vestments on a 105 degree day doesn’t fall over.)

2. Ditto for knees. I did a quick look-around the last couple weeks, and sure enough, there are tons of ladies at my parish wearing just-above-the-knee skirts that were perfectly modest. The trouble is this: It’s really hard for the modern-media-saturated brain to distinguish between the skirt that is long enough, and the one that is not. Who runs around with a ruler in hand, figuring out the perfect modesty formula? Knees, on the other hand . . . almost everyone has knees. They are easy to identify, so you can tell right away whether they are visible or not.

–> Once again, this is a rule I don’t always follow. (See “Dad’s wedding” above. Plus of course in regular outside-of-Mass life, I wear shorts. It’s summer. Shorts. Summer. Shorts. They go together.) But you know, I’d be willing to sacrifice an outfit or two, in my fictional world where parishes made dress codes, if it meant my son doesn’t have to look at swimsuit models at church. Cover the knees at Mass and it’s hard to go wrong.

3. Cleavage. Cover. The. Cleavage. Do you know what that part of your body is for? It is for feeding your baby. Do you know that when you walk into Mass with those girls on display, it makes nursing babies and toddlers hungry? And it attracts other attention as well. Do you honestly want people salivating at the sight of you? As in, actual drool? Are you ready to feed the masses to whom you are advertising? No. Save it for your own baby.

This is a rule for 100% of the time, everywhere you go. Fabric is your friend. Cover the cleavage.

[Perfectly fine to be actually feeding a person during Mass. If that person if your offspring, not yet to the age of reason. Good, holy, necessary thing to do. With the cleavage covered.]

4. Tailored yes, tight, no. This is another pretty firm rule. Okay, so my daughters were telling me today that my t-shirt was tight, and I promise it was not, but, you know there’s a few decades there where the ol’ body stockpiles emergency calories just in case, and so yeah, there is a certain subgroup for whom staying ahead of the fitted-versus-tight curve is kind of a challenge. I suppose we need to fast more. But even with that allowance made, yes there should be some measurable amount of air between your body and your outer garments.

These aren’t rules for all time. These are rules that work for 2011 in most parishes in the United States. They err on the conservative side, not because I think you need to be extra-conservative, but just to make things really silly easy.

If you are currently wearing not that many clothes to Mass, give them a try. You can say some lady on the internet dared you do it.

You’ll be more comfortable indoors when the A/C is set too high, but you won’t be too hot standing outside on the patio after Mass, chatting with your friends. You’ll attract the attention of the kinds of men and boys you actually want to meet. The ones who care about you, and see you as a real live person, not just as a pin-up model or an underwear catalog. Mothers of teenage sons will thank you.

Try it. What can it hurt?

Will there be fake news in Heaven?

The IC is having a book-release party for Felon Blames 1970s Church Architecture for Life of Sin. Go take a look.

Someone was asking me yesterday which blogs I follow, and of course I completely blanked out. (Um, look at my sidebar?). But I believe I’ve read every single post by the Ironic Catholic since however many years ago it was I discovered the place. And probably on that day I scrolled through the entire archive.

Intelligent, clean-cut catholic satire that *is* funny and *is not* mean. How many other writers could sit in the middle of that venn diagram?

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