Follow1in3's Blog

There have been a lot of people that I have come across who act as though the Holy Spirit acting in one’s life takes away the free will to act. Unbelievable. It has also been my experience that there are legions of people who believe that every spirit they feel or has prompted them to act is the Holy Spirit. The mandate we have all been given impels us to test the spirit. So many times that does not seem like it has been done.

When Fr. Arius, known for the doctrine of Arianism his teaching about the nature of Christianity emphasized Christ’s subordination under the Father. The Council of Nicaea was convened out of which came the Nicaean Creed which refuted this heresy and solidified the Church’s teaching of the consubstantiality of the three persons of the Trinity. Did Arius believe that it was the Holy Spirit leading him to this revelation/error? Maybe.

Archbishop Marcel LeFebvre, founder of the Society of Pope Pius X, was excommunicated in 1988. His crime was ordaining bishops outside of the authority of the Vatican to name bishops, There are also other issues but I don’t know enough about SSPX to comment. Did he think the Holy Spirit was leading him? There was an issue with obedience there. Note; you do not have to be obedient to a bishop or archbishop if what they are asking you to do is illegal or immoral, (sin). That was not the case here. God pushes back.

No matter what you think about the current pope one does not fall back on the trope that the Holy Spirit put him in place. Once again the Holy Spirit can be ignored. Looking at the history of the papacy that is obvious. We have had popes who were not chaste, popes with mistresses and illegitimate children, popes who had personal enemies killed it goes on and on. Pope Francis would not even make the top ten awful popes list so leave him alone.

Now, of course, this leads back to the abuse scandal in the Church. I’m pretty confident that the Holy Spirit did not tell the people involved, clergy and others, to do what they did. I’m equally confident that it was not the Holy Spirit telling bishops and their sycophants to cover-up the whole sordid issue This is an example of not being under the obligation of obedience. There may be a price to pay but isn’t your immortal soul worth it?

Many people who got caught up in this sad Church chapter used obedience as an excuse to do the wrong thing. It is the same excuse that was used by Concentration Camp guards. It smells to high heaven and will exact a severe punishment. Hell. A number of the guards were hung. (Just sayin.)

The point is that the Holy Spirit, God, does not render your free will moot. You decide. Please don’t ignore the Holy Spirit. You do so at your own peril. But ignore any spirit that contradicts God or asks you to lie. That will not go well.

Santen, demons the demonic, that’s what the whole abuse issue is, not only in the Catholic Church but in every church and also in the world at large. The corruption of innocence by demonic evil is a great victory for hell. It is a great victory for the devil. Some of the abused turn to drugs, (a great evil). They turn to alcohol, (a great evil). Some choose sexual promiscuity, (a great evil). Murder, suicide, abandoning God, embracing the occult, all great evils. And there are more.

God is there for our salvation so those of us who have been abused need to know that God did not abuse us so we can not abandon Him. I am a priest and yet I know that the abandonment of God takes many, many forms. It is not just leaving the Church it also takes place in the abandoning of confession, the Eucharist, all the sacraments in general and this is the one that is insidious and done by most of us, the flagrant disregard for the commands of God.

I, for one, am bothered by the people who disregard Church teaching. Also the ones like me who are not always the most charitable. I once had a professor who frequently said, ” If you don’t know that what else don’t you know? ” I am sure he got it from someone else but I haven’t come across it. As I age I understand it more and more. I come across people that haven’t a clue what the Church teaches about life issues, about gender issues, about our human sexuality. And then there are a plethora of things that I freely admit that I am clueless about. To all of us I must ask if we don’t know that what else don’t we know? What I do not know could fill volumes.

There is an experience that I had that was a very particular evil that I had a second hand experience of. I was called to bless a home. It was an odd experience to say the least. Even writing about it now I’m getting tingling sensation. Back to the story. I walked into the house and felt nothing. In the kitchen I felt something. Disclaimer: Before going to this house I thought that the owner was nuts. I don’t any longer. In the kitchen I had the tingling sensation. Sitting at the table I don’t know what I felt. There was a fish on a stick decorative statue. I was getting very bad vibes from this fish. We prayed and I really felt like the fish was staring at me. the tingling continued. I said, ‘Ged rid of the fish.’ He told me it came with the house but he had the same feeling about it. During the tour of the house and continual blessings I had the same “FEELING” about other objects. He promised he’d get rid of the objects. I don’t even remember what they were but I remembered that fish. Obviously the objects in and of themselves were innocuous. But I seem to remember they all came with the house. Who lived there and what were they in to?

The owner went to confession. I gave him my rosary and told him to say it daily, and get to mass as frequently as possible. I also scheduled a day to go back. I took a half gallon of holy water with me and told him to drink it and use it around the house. He promised he would. Subsequently I saw him at mass and he told me about an inner voice telling him to destroy the rosary, get what he had thrown away out of the trash and bring them back in the house. All I could muster was to say that was not God, and don’t listen to that voice. It got weirder and I got more freaked out.

He got in with some really good people at the parish. And of course I got transferred. God got him with who he needed to be with. Now he has a support system that he did not have before. I’m grateful. Good people can and will fight evil. Good people help one another seek God.

I have decided that I will not write about the horrendous abuse and even more horrendous coverup of Sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. There is nothing new in the very poor handling of this whole fiasco. We have seen this over and over again in too many dioceses. And besides that the guilty actors for the most part try desperately to diminish responsibility and the destruction left in the wake of the abuse.

Instead I would like to focus on something that many people forget or sadly don’t even know. God loves everything he has created, us, the angels, the fallen angels/demons…everything. Since the meaning of the word love has morphed into something it is not, lets define it in the context of God’s love.

Yes, God loves the demons. Does that mean he forgives them? Does that mean he supports the sin that got them remove from heaven? No it doesn’t. Look at where God acted in the world with vengeance because people did not listen to him. Examples include Adam and Eve being banished from Eden, the great flood, smiting the first born of the Egyptians, Destroying their army. the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra, The list goes on and on. Even if some people define them as allegories it does not make the vengeance of God any less real. Vengeance is mine says the Lord.

Extrapolate this. God loves the abusers and the people who covered it up. (Truth be told the cover up and Church inaction was worse for me than the abuse itself.)

We also need to cling to the knowledge that God will forgive anything that we bring to him to forgive that we are sorry for doing or not doing. It is an error to say to ourselves that, “God can’t forgive that.”, when we are thinking about our lives. The only thing God will not forgive are the things we don’t confess and bring to him. The mercy is there we just have to take advantage of it.

That being said God will even forgives abusers if they come before him in humility and sorrow and ask for forgiveness. That is also true of those who lied and deflected blame in order to cover up the horrific events of sexual abuse. (That is harder for me to sallow but I’m working on it.) Like I said it was/is the cover up that caused me more harm than the molestation itself.

If the actors involved do not confess their sins then their souls will be lost forever. None of us should want that. We should never want anyone to spend eternity without God. Yet that is a choice that is made by some people. That is why we need to remember that love does not mean acceptance or endorsement of sin. We should never endorse sin. Yes God loves us and takes us where we are but he doesn’t want us to stay there. Sin is anathema to God and since we are all sinners we need to take advantage of the mercy offered to us. Being obstinate in our sin seals our fate. We also need to pray for ourselves, for our friends and family and for our enemies.

The bottom lines are; God will forgive us if we ask for forgiveness, we are loved by God, God is merciful and at the same time just so obstinance in sin will not end well for us. Pray, pray and pray some more. Ask God to show us what we need to confess so we gain heaven and eternity with him.

The Attorney General’s Report On Child Sexual Abuse In The Archdiocese Of Baltimore Interim Public Release (April 2023) Redacted By Order Of The Circuit Court Of Baltimore City Attorney General Anthony G. Brown has listed 156 abusers.

It makes me kind of sick and of course is a trigger for me too. It dates back to the 1940’s so people are going to say the perpetrators are dead and can’t defend themselves. Forgetting that the files of the archdiocese were used. Also some will point out that it stretches back to the !940’s as if the abuse so long ago is somehow less than abuse of today. Abuse is abuse is abuse and it has a devastating effects on victims, their families and on the Body of Christ. I would like nothing more than this demonic filth to go away but it doesn’t. So now we are left to deal with it, and it must be dealt with. The report also investigates the leaders of the Church who were instrumental in covering up this demonic filth. (More on that later.)

As Saint Teresa commented, “Much harm may result from bad company and we are inclined by nature to follow what is worse rather than what is better.” Abusers are bad company, those that cover it up are bad company, the deniers and defenders of abuse/abusers are bad company…

I have to stop, I’m having agita.

After mass on Sunday an unhinged man tried to use his obtuseness to try and pick a fight with me. It did not work. My homily about not changing the word of God into something it is not was apparently lost on him. Society and God’s truth often clash. The abortion issue is one of those things that clash with truth, as does assisted suicide. First off they are not political issue they are moral issue. There are a lot of people who do not understand that or do not care. I also touched on suicide of Brittany Maynard who committed suicide with the blessings of her mother, step-father, husband and the state of Oregon. She was applauded for her bravery, taking control of her situation and dying with dignity. RUBBISH! She wasn’t brave she was a coward, and her family were ghoulish enablers. When Robin Williams, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain committed suicide it was reported as a series of great tragedies. Kate Spade was a high-end designer who combined sleek, utilitarian shapes and colorful palettes in an entirely new way. She also had battled crippling depression. She was 55. Anthony Bourdain was called the “original rock star” of the culinary world. This made Anthony Bourdain’s death all the more tragic. He continued to struggle with his mental health throughout his life. He was 61 years old. After suffering for many years from depression, paranoia, memory loss and insomnia, Williams died by suicide at his home in Paradise Cay, California. Over the length of his career, he was awarded the Grammy, several Emmy’s and an Academy Award. He was given many tributes by fellow performers and others in the industry he worked in after his suicide. He was 63 years old when he died. So I must ask why was Ms. Maynard, celebrated as brave and applauded by many for her suicide, while Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain and Robin Williams suicides were looked at as tragedies? Would they have been less tragic if the state allowed their deaths, or a physician were involved? Now let’s look at the issue of abortion. Once again it is not a political issue although it has been made into one. Nor is it a religious issue per se. It is a moral issue…a life issue. So when is killing a child something to be celebrated? Yet there are people who do celebrate it. DEMONIC! And now in the history of our so-called civilization there are people screaming for the “right” to kill an unborn child up until the moment of birth. DEMONIC! And what is even more disturbing and DEMONIC is the call for letting a baby born alive after a failed abortion attempt get no medical treatment and die. I don’t care what you call it or the reason for it, in actuality letting a baby outside of the womb die is called infanticide. If the mother does not want the baby there are plenty of people who do. So at this point in our society there is no respect for life. That leads me back to the unhinged and obtuse man and his rant about gun violence. If a society has devalued the lives of the sick and the unborn, (or born alive after a botched abortion), wouldn’t it be logical that there are mass shootings because there is a greatly diminished respect for life. So shooting an adult, a teenager or a child means nothing to the perpetrator…because respect for life has been greatly diminished and means nothing. I would never own a gun not that I believe it is wrong or immoral but because I am a person who constantly loses his wallet, keys, phone and glasses. Could you imagine me with a gun. People ask, why does it keep happening? Well, what do you expect in a country that has cheapened the meaning of life for years. This leads to other issues against life…less final I admit, but still Demonic. Of course, I am going to leap to the Church and the sexual abuse issue. If you respect life you are not going to molest children, use your position of power against children or other adults, twist the word of God to justify sin or ignore it totally. There are other issues I know but my own obtuseness blinds me. I do have to say that global warming, poverty, joblessness do not rise to the issues of abortion and suicide. They are in a different category. But the Church and her weak response not only to the issue of sexual molestation by clergy but also to any sexual relationships that clergy are involved in and other abuses they may have participated in. I know this is going to be hard to believe but there are some priests, some of them bishops, who twist and change the word of God and allow error to run roughshod over truth. And lest we forget there is only one truth, and that truth can be acted upon by anyone of good will. But there is still only one truth.

I am reading the encyclicals of pope Leo XIII more specifically Sapientiae Christianae but not in Latin. He was a prophet. “It is a high crime indeed to withdraw allegiance from God in order to please men, an act of consummate wickedness to break the law of Jesus Christ, in order to yield obedience to earthly rulers, or, under pretext of keeping the civil law, to ignore the rights of the Church; we ought to obey God rather than men.” Acts 5:29

What part of that is so difficult to understand? Granted, we are all guilty in some degree of doing just that but it is screamingly obvious in both the Church and in politics that God is often sacrificed for earthly power. Pope Leo goes on to reiterate human laws should never be set above divine law. When that has been done trouble has commenced, both in society and in the Church.

So what is the answer? The easy answer is to hold that stated truth in the forefront of our minds while acting. It should not be forgotten by any of us least of all priests and politicians. Yet it has been forgotten. We all are warped because of original sin.

When non-Catholic clergy make grand pronouncements, that are not even original, that pro-life people are just pro-birth, besides it being incorrect it makes me think, ‘so what?’ Being born means you are opened up to infinite possibilities. Abortion takes those possibilities away, and have you ever heard of pregnancy centers? When Catholics, clergy and lay people, say similar things besides it being dumb it shows zero understanding of God the creator of life.

How could all of the things going on that are an affront to God including; abortion, euthanasia, gender issues, sex work & trafficking, child molestation, gay marriage et.al. be okay with God? (Of course that is not an exhaustive list.) The Church and the child sex scandal was in no way okay with God. Abortion is in no way okay with God. Homosexual activity is in no way okay with God. It does not matter how many people tell you differently or who they are. If they are leading people astray, and they are, they are not your friend and they are not God’s friend. (It doesn’t matter if they are priests, cardinals, other clergy, politicians, activists or citizens.) Stick with God.

I have three friends plus me who are trying to comprehend evil in the Church and/or people in the Church, people who proport to believe in what the Church teaches, what Christ teaches, but do not live that way in a consistent manner. When most people who believe and who do live their belief in the teaching of the Church and of Christ fall short we call that sin. When we see our own sin we reconcile with God. We have a grace filled Sacrament for that. Unfortunately not everyone does that. Some people in the Church, bishops, priests, employees are so wrapped up in evil, (whether they know it or not), that they are hard of heart and prideful. The pridefulness is manifested in either inaction in the face of the evil or in the obstinate embrace of that evil. Again, this is either knowing or unknowing.

Take for instance the clergy sexual abuse scandal. Countless priests and bishops seem to have disregarded not only the teachings of the Church but also the teachings of God. Then some priests, bishops and Church employees got in front of their congregations and the news media and lied about the entire situation. It is impossible for us to make any of them do the correct thing. The same goes for some congregants. We just have to pray for them and ourselves. (Never pray for some one else without praying for yourself also.)

When it is not about the sex scandal but some other abuse in a parish or in the Church the evil is still real and it seems to hurt individuals. There is even less caring then. Psychopaths and sociopaths are in every aspect of life, that is true in the Church too. Unfortunately that fact sometimes makes complaints about real evil being perpetrated fall on deaf ears.

Stay close to the Sacraments, pray for your enemies as well as your friends, and as difficult as it is sometimes, let God be God.

Here is a text back and forth that says an awful lot about what pew sitters and former pew sitters think is important:

J. Pew sitter-I have been trying, slowly, to get a fallen away Catholic I work with back in the Church. The latest revelations from Baltimore just destroyed everything. Do these people ever stop? What is it going to take to throw these abusers out of the priesthood? What is the problem?

Me-Tell the fallen away Catholic that it’s not God it’s men. God gave us rules to live by, rules that beget happiness. The priests and bishops involved in this diabolical filth are in no way living lives that God approves of or beget happiness.

J. Pew sitter-Honestly people are tired of hearing that.

Me-But it’s the truth.

J. Pew sitter-I told him that and he said, “I’m tired of hearing that, It’s been 25 years since we found out what they did an they are still doing it.” And then it came up about the pope protecting Fr. Rupnick.

Me-Well short of becoming an international serial killer to take out all the bad actors there isn’t anything he can do. I tried.

And going to hell because of all the bad actors involved is stupid. Tell him to put on his big boy pants, pray and get back to the God’s Sacraments.

J. Pew sitter-John step back and look at what you wrote. You want me to tell a man Who rightly has been scandalized RIGHTLY by the filthy criminal behavior of priests and bishops worldwide that’s been going on and is still going on to put on his big boy pants. You think God will condemn people who were driven out of the Church by perverted clergy. You really believe that?

Me-Yes, he needs to put on his big boy pants. God has been quite clear about not putting faith in men and not God. God takes us where we are but does not want us to stay there.

I have some authority in this. Yes it makes me angry too but since it is beyond what I can fix I need trust in God. We see how man screwed this up.

J. Pew sitter– People can only be betrayed for so long before they walk away. The Church has failed to impart the Faith for the last 60 years. No Catholic alive today was taught anything about suffering and carrying the Cross. So putting on big boy pants is not going to work. People are leaving by untold numbers. Until real change is made…

Me-Still, Jesus said to the people to do what the Pharisees say not what they do. I agree it is bad and people haven’t been taught the faith. It is the faith that matters not what Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Blase J. Cupich or John Lunness say it is what God says. The priests and bishops that did this to kids in no way represent God. They will pay and eventually we will see it.

How horrible for them to not only be guilty of crimes against children and the coverup of those crimes but also causing people to be scandalized and leave what leads to heaven. Being petulant and putting the blame on God when blame lies squarely on man is dumb. One of the things I had to do was put on my big boy pants in order to move forward. I learned that there was nothing I could do to fix this situation so I had to try to fix myself. Men are passing. God is eternal. Our focus needs to be on eternity.

J. Pew sitter-I hear you. But regular everyday Catholics don’t. The Church has no moral authority left. People think the Church is a worldwide pedophile ring. I don’t know how to fix it. But just the fact that the Church folded when the governments of the world said stop the Mass and the Sacraments says a lot. The Church abandoned us when we needed her the most. I could go to Walmart but not to Mass. And the bishops didn’t bother to fight it at all. They left the dead unburied. Until the Church is reformed people will continue to leave.

Me-Agreed.

You can’t fix it. I can’t fix it. It seems that a majority of bishops don’t want to fix it and that includes the Bishop of Rome. The only thing I can say is God will fix it. I truly believe that. Personally I’d like sooner rather than later…but since God does not exist in time we could be dead…that would be okay too.

Being in the midst of the cross you have been given to carry as it is being transformed into a different cross is daunting. I have often told people that no one has just one cross to carry throughout life. Life has a way of throwing all kinds of things at us that we have to deal with, carry if you will, the burdens and crosses given to us. God, thank God literally, is more than willing to help us carry these crosses if we let him.

My cross is morphing. Where it use to be my own molestation at the hands of a priest and all of the tentacles of that molestation reaching into all aspects of my life. At least I knew how to deal with all the damage of that, of course I have often handled it badly. There were times, especially at the beginning, that I did not know what carrying that cross would encompass. At one point I thought that the hierarchy would leap into action to fix this mess. Then after news report after news report on the hierarchies inaction and then even worse their cover-up of the abuse I got angry. I have a great deal of trouble reconciling what was done to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All that keeps playing through my mind is satan is the father of lies. It looks to me like so many people in the Church got on board with lies.

As incredibly frustrating as that still is for me it now takes a back seat to my new cross; Ataxia. So many people have never heard of it. Because of that they do not understand how devastating it can truly be. To say it is a coordination disease is much to simplistic. True my coordination is compromised and progressively getting worse but the question I ask myself is how long can I keep doing what I am doing?

In 2019 I had my very first ambulance ride. I was coming down the steps from the third floor of my condo with a bag of trash in each hand, I will never do that again, and I fell, banged my head, lost my glasses, bled a little and had a huge goose egg develop pretty quickly on my forehead. I was afraid that if I went to sleep I would not wake up. Since the pastor did not answer his door I called an ambulance to take me to the hospital. Also in 2019 I had a TIA. My father had several and his Neurologist said Ataxia contributed to them. If I raise the Eucharist or chalice to high I fall backward. Steps are not my friend nor is any elevation for that matter. I have to sit in the shower. I have to sit to get dressed. I cannot ride a bike. Sometimes just moving will make me loose my balance. Once in the bathroom I moved wrong and fell. All I could think of were the words, “I’m cold and I am shamed lying naked on the floor,” from the song ‘Torn’. At least I still have my sense of humor even if I was not, “shamed”, lying on the floor. I could not get up so I crawled to my bedroom and used the bed to pull myself up. Then of course I was exhausted so I laid down.

Sometimes I get tired after doing one thing. For example I am a relatively sloppy person. In the past if I got fed up with my own messiness I would be able to clean it up in a day. No more. After doing one thing I am done. Also when I do fall down all of my strength leaves me and it is really difficult to move and to get in a position where I can get up. A few times Andre, one of my cats, ran over to me after I fell. Isn’t that cute, I thought, he is concerned about me. After the third time he came running over and bit me. My toppling over must have scared him…or he was hungry…I haven’t decided.

So that is my lovely new cross. Just like the molestation their are some people who do not get it. I may walk like I’m drunk but I’m not drunk, I may tire easily doing things so I am limited as to what I can do, Sometimes I flop down to sit. Sometimes I cannot get up from a chair. I dislike the phrase my new normal but that is what it is. So we will see where this new cross leads me as I carry it.

Shifting gears in my priesthood. I have ataxia and it’s getting worse. For those unfamiliar with ataxia it is a degenerative disorder that effects many things most importantly a persons balance. there is no dizziness, just loss of balance. When I fall I also loose all strength so getting back up is difficult.

Focusing on the priest sexual scandal, which has been mishandled in everyway possible way, only frustrates me. Dealing with people who have no intention of coming up with real solutions to this problem is maddening. So I have to evaluate what it is God wants from me to do. Now I’m not only a member of the exclusive sexually abused by clergy club, but now I’m also a member of the marginalized disabled community. Good times!

Although not thrilled with the latest development I’ll have to see where this takes me and where it is that God wants me and what it is that he wants me to do.