The Guitar has always been incompatible with the Faith

In the Winter issue of Drawing Magazine, there's an article on the Spanish Masters, of which Francisco de Goya is counted. The drawing above is titled "A Nun Frightened by a Ghost", c. 1812–20 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Now, way back when this was produced, roughly 140 years before Vatican II, de Goya had no way of knowing what was down the road for the Church...or did he?

Either way, it's plainly obvious that the nun is more frightened by the guitar than she is by the musical directo- um, I mean ghost.

Should the Church throw her lot in with popular culture in order to gain "relevance"?

I've linked to an article by a religion writer for the Huffington Post. As you can imagine with anything from the HuffPo, it's decidedly anti-Church in it's outlook. The writer, a 23 year old who classifies himself as "...grew up Catholic" to avoid the impression that I would ever participate in such silliness...", puts forth the idea that if the Church could just get with the popular culture, his generation would find the Church on the way toward becoming "relevant".

I believe we've seen, since the 1960's, too many instances of the Church trying to be "relevant" to the popular culture. The effort to throw open the windows and let the World in has been a failure. Instead of evangelizing the world, the world and it's secular viewpoint has infected the Church, or more clearly, has infected the thinking of many inside the Church. We don't need a Church to "play down" to the popular culture, we need a Church to stand strong against it and call it out of it's darkness.

Pray that the Church continues on her road of Restoration, and that She resists the temptation to become "relevant" to the popular culture.

Read the article (and get a load of the comments)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tyler-mahoney/the-99-lost-sheep-20-some_b_823611.html#s240996&title=Fr_James_Martin

Footprints of Vatican II ( a parody )

What if a heretic had written that famous poem?
(Click to see larger)

Progression of a Convert

Some of you may remember that old poster from the 1970's of some guy on a drug trip (no, this was NOT in my room - it was in a friend's room), where it showed his progression from "normal" to "wasted". For some reason that popped in my head the other day.

Since my return to the Faith in 1998, I've gone through all of the stages shown here, and would guess many others have also. Things are better than they were 12 years ago, to be sure, but sometimes panel # 6 still applies.

Suffering

I made the unfortunate mistake of going to Mass yesterday. Well, not that going to Mass was a mistake, just that going to my parish on the 2nd Sunday of the Month was a mistake. I forgot that it was Guitar Mass Sunday.
Why our pastor allows this is beyond me. He says the Mass with reverence and class, so the music just doesn't square with it all. That type of music is for those parishes where they promote any of the many pillars of the Hippie Generation (recycling, gay rights, sex education, et al.).

My son asked, when we heard the first "twang" of the guitar, "Dad, can't we just leave and go to St. ???'s". I told him we'd just offer this up this week. But on the next 2nd Sunday, we're going somewhere else.

If anyone has tips on how to convince the pastor to put an end to this, I'd love to hear them.

Me thinks they doth protest too much...

I missed this a couple of weeks ago, but Mary Rose over at the Prodigal Catholic Daughter has a post about more whining at the National Catholic Distorter about the investigation into LCWR communities.

She does a great job of commenting on the whining:

http://catholicprodigaldaughter.blogspot.com/2010/01/national-catholic-reporters-series-on.html

Which one of these is not like the others?

Now that Christmas card season is done, I thought I'd catch up on some of the Catholic news I've been missing.

Apparently the Vatican has a MySpace page? Well, I suppose once you've jumped on YouTube, all the other social media can't be far behind. But I read that one of the songs on the Vatican playlist is by Tupac Shakur? I had to double-check, because that sure sounds like a Curt Jester April Fool's prank.

But sure enough, it's there. And over at Catholic Sensibility, I see that some Paulist Father thinks it's an excellent choice for Advent: "I can’t help but think that Shakur’s song makes a fine Advent anthem. This holiday season is all about change and renewal. That grasshopper-eating prophet of repentance, John the Baptist, takes center stage in the liturgical readings, exhorting his followers to make way for a new day."

Um, yeah. What's next - will they add "Creeping Death" by Metallica, which sings about the Passover (believe it or not)?

Try as they might, too often when the Church tries to "be relevant" it just comes off as a little...lame.

Link: http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/vatican-music-page-includes-tupac/

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Not that this is a complete list, but you get the idea. Take the poll and vote on which of these has had the worst effect on the Mass.

Time for some pruning?

Luke Coppen over at the Catholic Herald (UK) has a good article on the "pruning" that the Pope is getting started in the Church.

He has some interesting points and it's worth taking a look at:
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/editor/index.shtml#e19062009

My own opinion is that rather than prune back the overgrowth from Vatican II, he should cut the whole tree down and start over. Of course, that could never happen, even if the Pope wanted to, because the enemies within the Church walls outnumber the ones outside.

A Papal Apology I'd Like To See

Couldn't you just imagine it? The Pope given an opportunity to apologize for all these awful "Catholics" in the public square and in the hierarchy? That would be just too rich.

Fruits of Vatican II indeed!