I try not to link to subscription-only content, but I have to comment in this case. Margery Eagan is the Boston Herald‘s resident lapsed liberal Catholic who gets her jollies whacking the Church she has abandoned for not conforming itself to her vision of the divine (i.e. her) will.
Yesterday, she turned her attention to Our Lady of Mt Carmel Parish in East Boston where a group of Italian grandmas have been sitting in protest of its closing, accusing the archdiocese of anti-Italian bias (right) and double-dealing and the usual litany of half-baked complaints. As I pointed out last December, it is less than a half mile from the next closest church (by car, not as the crow flies), there are 3 churches within 1 mile, and it trails all the other churches in parish statistics. But because a statue of Mary toppled at the last Mass, they have taken that as a sign that God doesn’t want their parish to close.
So here we are 8 months later and Eagan is trumpeting their cause, calling them Grandma Martyrs for the Faith, with Peter Borre of the VOTF-offshoot Council of Parishes chiming in, calling the archbishop a “jack-booted thug.” The protesters descend into hyperbole, claiming they’ve been “emotionally abused” by the archdiocese.
Eagan tries to summarize the events of the past year, but neatly forgets some important details.
Here’s the deal. Nine months ago, when the archidiocese shut their 100-year-old parish, Gina et al. set up inflatable mattresses and began a vigil to keep their church open. They raised money to pay bills. They held communion services with black market hosts. They scrubbed the neglected building: polished pews, hauled out broken vases, candles.
Black market hosts?
People steal them from Mass, and sell them to occultists and schismatics like the grandmothers mentioned above.
“nd with your ethnicity, I would expect more.”
Ethnic stereotyping? Say it ain’t so.
You might be surprised at what an emotional guy I am, but I don’t let emotions get in the way of logic. I am neither logic without emotion or emotion without logic. Unfortunately, it seems most of the protesters have let emotion direct their actions without taking the time to think about the facts, especially as I’ve laid them out in this blog.
Once again, someone resorts to making it all about me and my behavior rather than addressing the facts that I bring up.
Since Jesus is God, my logical and rational response would be to trust Him.
Emotions are real, but they should not be allowed to crowd out logic and reason as it has done. And you still haven’t addressed the facts I presented.
Yes, feelings get hurt, but adults don’t (or shouldn’t) dissolve into tantrums when it happens. They pick themselves up, let their brain rule their heart, and move on.
“Sometimes you seems very heartles”
Yes, you’ve said that several times. I get it. But you’re wrong.
I refuse to get into a battle of feelings. The problem with basing everything on feelings is that you can’t argue about feelings and you can’t accomplish anything based on feelings.
“You make me sad.”
“Well, you make me mad.”
So what?! What can you do about it? Mad. Sad. Stop acting like a child, grow up, and act with your head and your heart and not just with emotions.
Don’t preach to me. You don’t know me. When you have some constructive solution to the problem instead of “get in touch with your feelings” then I’ll listen to you. Until then all this “my hurt feelings” talk is just a distraction.