OKAY. SO, GOOD ART ISN'T EVERYTHING

A few weeks ago I blog-raved about the fabulous music at the United Nations area Holy Family parish at which my sister Val sings every Sunday. I noted that if I lived in Manhattan, I'd be at that parish every week.

Sadly, all that has changed.

This past Sunday, the priest homilist at the 12pm Mass decided to use the occasion of the Feast of the Holy Family to question the state's prohibition of gay couples adopting children. How bigoted, he declared, is NY, to stop homosexuals from adopting and raising children?! He posited the question to the assembled faithful, "Could it be worse for children to be raised in a loving homosexual home than in an orphanage?!"

The answer is a profound and pronounced, YES!

Yes, father. Although, the extremist spectre of orphanages isn't even a realistic one anymore, still, an orphanage would be preferable for a child, than a house where God's law is flagrantly disregarded. It is better to be raised in a secular setting, than one in which a matter of serious sin is treated as the norm. Borrowing from, St. Teresa of Avila, "It is better not to have a spiritual director than to have a bad one."

I don't give a damn if this priest wants to spout this kind of heretical-idiocy at parties or on street corners. When he does it from a church pulpit, during the homily, he is officially teaching contrary to the Mind of the Church. He is teaching error in the area of faith and morals. He doesn't get to do that.

This priest's sin of arrogance spread far beyond him proving that sin is never personal. My sister was stung to the heart, confused and then deeply conflicted as to what the appropriate response should be from a devout sheep to an errant shephard.

"BAA. BAA."

"Yes, annoying little sheep, what is it now? Can't you see I am singlehandedly challenging the mainframe of institutionally ingrained conventionalism?!!! I! Me!"

"BAA...well, dear shepherd, I don't want to be troublesome, but it seems like we have all moved past the pasture and are now waist deep in torrential muck. ...BAA."

"Idiot sheep! How dare you!!!!!"

"Oh, BAA...sorry, Shep...it's just that well, this muck stuff doesn't taste too good and well, some of us are eating it and getting sick...And the rest of us are just, you know, pretty much starving here...."

"That's your problem, sheep! You are so stuck in your old rigid ways, that you can't even tell that the stuff you have been eating has been part of a centuries old plot to keep you complacent and fat! I know! Me!!!"

"BAA. Oh?...I always kind of liked the old pasture..."


The days are coming, when the sheep are going to start verbally answering back these self-serving shepherds out loud from the pews. In any event, as regards this one parish, it is surely time for the sheep to 'wipe the dust' of the parish 'from their feet as testimony against them.'