PAVING UPDATE

 

NEARLY THERE. JUST SOME TIDYING UP TO DO.

FOR ROBERT AGAIN

I'm reading James Joyce's Ulysses again and in the first chapter there's an excerpt

from Oliver St. John Gogarty's poem that Joyce slightly adapted and changed the title:

"The Ballad of Joking Jesus" 

I'm the queerest young fellow that ever was heard.

My mother's a Jew; my father's a Bird

With Joseph the Joiner I cannot agree

So 'Here's to Disciples and Calvary.

'If anyone thinks that I amn't divine,

He gets no free drinks when I'm making the wine

But have to drink water and wish it were plain

That I make when the wine becomes water again.

For the full poem The Song of the Cheerful (but slightly Sarcastic) Jesus by Oliver St. John Gogarty you can look it up on the internet.

Oliver St. John Gogarty

Robert The Most Unchristian Catholic recently uses quotes from long dead authors, mystics and assorted nutters to preface his blog posts. I think he could do no worse by reading anything by James Joyce and copying and pasting some of the funny and irreverent things that he says.

If that's not appropriate he can at least just read the rude bits.

'Ulysses'

SISTERLY SCHISM

 Occasionally the Catholic Church and its members have disagreements on theology, history and the Catechism. When these are significant they can result in schism.

Recently two religious commenters on blog posts in this community, have been at loggerheads. Sister Mary Fruitloop who we first met in a post about stigmata:

SISTER MARY FRUITLOOP

And Saint Faustina who Robert first disinterred here:

SAINT FAUSTINA

And who I referred to here:

SAINT FAUSTINA 

These two have popped up a lot in comments and posts:

Saint Faustina tells us to pray in this way...

"Father I offer to you the body, and blood and soul and divinity of your son Jesus, for our sins and for the sins of the whole world." This makes sense to me.  - Robert the sinner.

Sister Mary Fruitloop - sorry - Saint Faustina was just plain nuts (and would have made both Jung's and Freud's day trying to psychoanalyse her). - The Curmudgeon.

Jesus told St Faustina that He delights in giving himself to us in the Blessed Communion.

       - Robert the sinner. 

"Jesus told St Faustina that He delights in giving himself to us in the Blessed Communion." There's a rude joke in there.

       - The Curmudgeon. 

There are many more but you get the gist.

I thought it time to get Sister Mary Fruitloop and Sister Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament (I told you she was nuts) aka Saint Faustina together to debate some of their differences of opinion.

Sister Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament 

Sister Mary Fruitloop

versus

THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON: Welcome Sister Mary Fruitloop and Sister Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament aka Saint Faustina let's take this opportunity to discuss ..... look, for simplicity's sake - not Saint Simplicty ha ha, that was a little joke there .... can we drop some of the titles and just call you Fruitloop and Faustina?

FAUSTINA: I don't appreciate that humour The Religious Curmudgeon, or should we just call you Curmudgeon (hee hee). I take my canonisation very seriously and to be entitled Saint Faustina sort of, well, gives me entitlement I ....

FRUITLOOP: Who made you a Saint then?

FAUSTINA: In 1965, with the approval of the Holy Office, Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of Krakow and later Pope John Paul II, opened the initial informative process into my life and virtues, interviewed witnesses and, in 1967, submitted a number of documents about me to the Vatican and requested the start of the official process of my beatification. That was begun in 1968 and concluded with my beatification on 18 April 1993. I was canonised on 30 April 2000, and my feast day is 5 October.

FRUITLOOP: Weee-ew! Get you. La de da. I guess being polish helped eh? I didn't see old Papa John Paul handing out the gongs to us Germans. I ...

CURMUDGEON: Sorry but I need to remind you Fruitloop to keep this civil ...

FRUITLOOP: Well where was she when they were handing out the sharpened knitting needles? Just saying.

FAUSTINA: Look Fruitloop, one doesn't have to flagellate oneself and stick bloody great pins into one's body to demonstrate a connection to Jesus and his love...

FRUITLOOP: Ha! No, in your case you just have erotic fantasies and tell these to those salivating priests who get a kick out of hearing what you say about hot flesh and blood and sweat and blood and hot sweat and eating and submission and ....ohhhh.. give me my needles! 

FAUSTINA: Here we go again. You just can't help yourself you silly old ..

CURMUDGEON: Sadly I think we'll have to wrap this up. Fruitloop..... please stop doing that and Faustina ...... well good luck with your saintly status but I fear that when the Russians overrun the Ukraine and Poland again they just might change all that.

"NAH, NAH, UMM .... NOTHING TO SEE HERE"

The Catholic Church in New Zealand says a more thorough investigation is needed before it involves police in its historic abuse findings.

Following a two-year inquiry, the church reported that it had found 1680 recorded instances of alleged abuse since 1950 - of which 592 alleged abusers were identified. Many of the complaints were upheld at the time, but it is not known how many resulted in a police investigation.

You can read the whole story here ......

STUFF NEWS

....... but I've selected some outtakes and only slightly edited them for you:

Victim advocates, who said the inquiry likely covered a fraction of overall abuse, questioned what would be done with the new findings.

"There's still a lot not clear from our analysis about how many of the allegations were upheld," Cardinal John Dew told the Herald when asked about the plans for the investigation.

What old Dewdrop meant was: "Our analysis was so  shallow and our investigation so incomplete that god (mea culpa) knows how many victims are ou there."

"Most of them have been. But considerable research is still needed to be done to see how many have been upheld, and that is something we're continuing to work on."

Meaning: "All of the allegations are actually true but we continue to pretend that they aren't and hope that they will go away".

Dew, the most senior representative of the church in this country, said the information had not been centralised until now and had been spread across dioceses and congregations. Further analysis would show what had happened to the perpetrators and what redress had been made to the complainant, he said.

What he didn't say: "For years we've expected the heads of dioceses and congregations to bury this information and woe behold any priest, monsignors or bishop who didn't destroy the evidence".

Asked what would be done with upheld complaints that had not yet been referred to police, a spokesman noted that many of the alleged abusers had died. The spokesman reiterated that more work was needed before any action was taken.

What the spokesman meant was: "We've been stretching this out for a long time now pretending to investigate but actually hoping that all of the  abusers loyal priests brothers and nuns would die off and that the children victims alleged complainants would also die. We're getting close to that now but more work is needed to bury the evidence and deny culpability so - stay posted."

It's interesting that this comes out now just when old Cardinal 'Ratbag' Ratzinger is in the news for supposedly covering up sexual abuses in his various parishes but saying that he didn't know it was going on. Well, we've heard excuses like that before from 'good' Germans who claimed "We didn't know" when asked about their knowledge of extermination camps (some right next to the towns that they lived in).

EX POPE BENEDICT ASK FOR FORGIVENESS

I wonder what Robert has to say about these stories or will we have to wait until he's been to Mass on Sunday to get his briefing?

EVOLUTION VS CREATIONISM

 The old evolution vs creationism argument is never-ending and it seems to be central to christian beliefs.

Robert (the apathetic sinner and toilet cleaner) mentions creationism a lot in his posts and firmly believes that his god created humans in his own image which doesn't really explain why we all look so different. Maybe old god didn't create a decent mirror back in the day and every-time he looks at himself the image is a bit distorted.

Here's Robert's latest post ...........

......  in which he once again acknowledges the existence of a 'creator'.

 

"I might have concluded "Creation needs an intelligent creator".

           - Robert the apathetic sinner and toilet cleaner 

I'm in that other camp that believes in evolution so I guess there's no possibility of agreement with Robert. Maybe we should meet somewhere in the middle:

LIVING WITH A WOMAN (an ongoing series) #1095

"Can you sell or give away those curtain things we took down." 

Said The Old Girl this morning as she was repainting the door frames that I'd already painted (don't ask).

I folded up the curtains, dusted the curtain rods, took photos of them and created a post on Neighbourly offering them for FREE.

Just after I'd started the post I suddenly thought, looking at the photo of the curtains in situ, that there should be 4 curtains, not the two that I'd folded. There should have been two curtains to each rod.

"Where are the other two curtains?" I asked her.

She looked at me strangely.

"What other two curtains?" she asked me back.

"The other two maroon curtains to go with the sets that we're giving away" I answered.

"We're not giving the curtains away Matey" she said "and besides, those two other curtains you mention have been installed and in use to cover the new French doors ever since we took the old blinds down - BACK IN NOVEMBER!"

The two curtains that previously covered one of the side windows, that I'd forgotten about.

"Oh" I said. "So why did you ask me to put them on Neighbourly?"

"I asked you to give away the curtain rods only" she said with an unsaid 'sheesh'.

"Oops I " answered rushing to delete the Neighbourly post before I received a lot of  answers from prospective recipients.

Sheesh!

"WHAT IF ALL THESE FANTASIES COME FLAILING AROUND?"

 

LOSING MY RELIGION - R.E.M.

"Consider this
Consider this the hint of the century
Consider this the slip
That brought me to my knees, failed
What if all these fantasies come
Flailing around
Now I've said too much .........

.... That's me in the corner

That's me in the spot-light Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no I've said too much, I haven't said enough .." 

*********************

This morning The Old Girl and I talked about religion which is rare for us being atheists. Admittedly The Old Girl, as an atheist, is a bit more red toothed' than I am but we generally agree that religions are a ridiculous concept and that its devotees, especially the Catholics are batshit crazy. Take Robert. Please.

We were having a discussion about something and I said "It doesn't matter - the world will blow up some time soon anyway."

That led us into talking about Putin, Russia and the imminent invasion of Ukraine. The Old Girl said that Nostradamus's prophesies might be coming true although they did focus on the Middle East. I said that the Christian crazies will all come out soon with "the end is nigh" and "repent now" messages. We then discussed that if Robert's god did come down to help the Christians he/she/it should be 'man' enough to say: "Oops. I fucked up. Sorry about that. I could have and should have prevented all of this bad stuff right from the beginning. Mea Culpa*"

Naturally any references to god, Christians and crazies led me straight to Robert. Here's his latest witter.

ROBERT'S CRAZY BOX

Robert mentions a crazy by the name of Maria Faustina Kowalska who was canonised (don't ask) as Saint Faustina.  Robert states that he's listening to a podcast series on this particular crazy as he's now finished listening to " 365 days of batshit-crazy Catholic nonsense" - an ongoing series.

Here's a link to Faustina:

Saint Faustina

And here's a summary of the contents.

 A Polish Saint, who reportedly had visions of Jesus Christ Himself (sic), is Sister Mary Faustina Kowalska.

Poland has a history of very religious people (Pope John Paul II) which is a by-product of the centuries of strife and repression that it has endured.

Born in Głogowiec, Poland in 1905, Helena Kowalska was stirred from an early age to join religious life. At the age of seven, she already knew she wanted to be a nun, though her parents didn’t support the idea. Still, religious life drew her like a magnet, and her parents would ultimately prove unable to counter its force.

In a later age she would have wanted to be a princess, an astronaut or a president.

At age nineteen, while attending a dance, Helena had a vision of Christ, who told her to drop everything and immediately travel to Warsaw to join a convent. It was a testament to her faith and piety that she set off for the capital in obedience. She joined the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and received her habit and religious name of Faustina in April 1926.

At this dance she probably met some charmer who told her to drop her pants and then, after spiking her drink, spirited her away kind of like those hippie cultists like Charles Manson did with naive young women in the 1960s.

In 1930, Sister Faustina was transferred to a convent in Płock, Poland, an assignment that would have an inconceivable impact on her life and on Roman Catholics everywhere.

More likely some kind of mental institution funded by the Catholic Church.

One February night, Sister Faustina was in her room when she said Jesus appeared to her, dressed in white, with red and white rays emanating from His heart. He told her to paint an image of the way He appeared, signing it with the phrase “Jezu, ufam Tobie” (Jesus I trust in you). Initially, few took her story seriously. It wasn’t until after Sister Faustina took her final vows in 1933 and was transferred to Vilnius (today the capital of Lithuania) that she was able to begin fulfilling Christ’s request of her.

This sounds hallucinogenic to me. If Faustina wasn't taking drugs or eating funny mushrooms then her own internal chemistry was creating schizoid components which explains the fantasy.

While working as a gardener in Vilnius, as part of that city’s convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, Sister Faustina met Father Michael Sopoćko, who was the nuns’ confessor. She told him about her conversations with Jesus, and he was initially skeptical, going so far as to order that Sister Faustina undergo a complete psychiatric evaluation. After taking all the necessary tests, she passed and was declared mentally sound.

Father Michael Sopoćko should have been investigated. His name alone sounds suspicious and he probably lusted after Faustino who, going by that portrait of her, was easy on the eye.

Father Michael Sopoćko

 After that, Father Sopoćko was fully dedicated to helping Sister Faustina complete the mission given to her from above. He tasked an artist, Eugene Kazimierowski, to paint a picture based on Sister Faustina’s vision of Christ.

Grooming.

 

 At one point, Sister Faustina had written in her diary that Christ elaborated on His image proclaiming, the two rays denote Blood and Water. The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls. These two rays issued forth from the very depths of My tender mercy when My agonized (sic) heart was opened by a lance on the Cross. These rays shield souls from the wrath of My Father. Happy is the one who dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him. (Diary of Sister Faustina, 

Painting the image wasn’t enough, however, as Sister Faustina had received further instructions from Christ to ensure that it would be publicly venerated and that the second Sunday of Easter become a feast day called Divine Mercy Sunday. Unfortunately, Sister Faustina would not live to see all of this come to fruition.

In 1935, she had another vision, which inspired her to write the Divine Mercy Chaplet, a rosary-based prayer recited by faithful Catholics to this day. Not very long after, Sister Faustina was diagnosed with tuberculosis and moved to a sanatorium in Krakow, Poland. She died on October 5, 1938. She had reportedly spent her last moments praying in ecstasy.

It's a pity that Fruitloop Faustina's Jesus didn't warn her that Poland, in a few short years was going to be devastated first by Nazi Germany and then by Stalinist Russia but I guess that old Jesus was more interested in having another feast day named after him.

It's all laughable really and suggests some kind of mental illness exacerbated by the fact that she was taken away at a young age and cloistered. Her fantasies suggest yearning (sexual and also missing the love of her family) that no-one in their right mind could suggest was saintly  ....oh. that's right, it's catholicism we're talking of here.

OK, let's leave it there. In the link above there is mention of how she was canonised which makes me think that given it's so easy nowadays (no longer having to be roasted alive or shot full of arrows) that I could become a saint if I pulled the right strings. Maybe Robert can give me some ideas or at least write a reference for me.






* For those who didn't make the 'P' classes back in school this means "It was my fault" in Latin.