Category: Uncategorized

We are an Easter people

RC: I attended the kiddie Mass by mistake today. It was barbarous.
Paul: Can it beat the extraordinary minister wearing an Obama button while distributing the Most Precious Blood? This happened at the Mass my wife attended this morning.
RC: There was no second reading. The Alleluia was an arrangement of the Clorox 2 jingle (“Mamma’s got the magic”). The deacon’s homily used props (a stack of boxes and a Slinky) and slapstick. The pastor omitted the preface and Sanctus, causing much confusion. But, no, you’re still ahead. :-)

Yankee go home! (Michael Moore insults local war hero)

I’m usually one to speak out against anti-Americanism among certain of my countrymen, not engage in it myself. However, my dander is up this week after Michael Moore crashed our local all candidate’s debate (the Canadian election is tomorrow) just before our Thanksgiving long weekend (Columbus Day on your side of the border) and questioned the appetite as well as the patriotism of local Conservative Party candidate Cameron Ross, who also happens to be a full colonel and former brigade commander in the Canadian army. Moore then interviewed the other candidates after the debate, before following the socialist NDP incumbent door-to-door, according to local media.
Anyway, I was there and digitally recorded some of what happened. You can read about it in the National Post, Western Standard, Washington Times and Pajamas Media. Some of the footage I have includes Moore telling local Canadian candidates that Americans have a hard time understanding how to vote. Moore is now trying to turn the tables on Colonel Ross, whose campaign manager Ian Shields is considering filing an Elections Canada complaint (as a non-Canadian citizen or resident, Moore may have broken our election law). In doing so, Moore appears to be calling into question this candidate and former brigade commander’s patriotism, as you can see here.
The questions I have concerning Moore’s side of the story are numerous:
1 – He claims the Conservative candidate invited him up to go door-knocking with him. Why would a conservative do this in a riding (electoral district), knowing it could potentially alienate the base in a close fight as well as get himself into trouble with the party leader?
2 – Why would Moore, who has made his living attacking Republicans, accept such an invitation?
3 – Why did several members of Ross’s campaign, at the debate Moore crashed, tell me independently of each other (before having the time to collude) that nobody from their campaign had expected Moore to show up? (They were aware, however, that a film crew would be there doing a documentary).
4 – Who are these two individuals who have provided you with sworn affidavits? Are they connected to your film production team or the campaigns of one of Ross’s opponents? Did you yourself speak to Ross or to a member of his campaign before showing up?
5 – You claim not to have known Tony Martin, the socialist candidate, prior to following him door-to-door. Yet you were both present at the all candidate’s debate in which Tony participated (I was there too, and saw you), or for well over an hour. Subsequent to the debate, you personally interviewed Tony and the other candidates (with the exception of Ross) for a good hour. How could you not known, after the debate and your post-debate interview, that Tony was the incumbent and that he represented the NDP?

We’ve got a lot of work to do! (2)

The setting: 4:59 pm and 30 seconds. Choir loft at St Leo’s, Pawtucket.
We’re ready for Low Mass in the Extraordinary Form. A guy walks up to the loft and asks Brian if he can squeeze in “On Eagles’ Wings” somewhere, ’cause his sister (for whose benefit the Mass was to be applied) liked it.
We threw him over the side.
No, that’s not what happened. Really, the bell rang for the priest’s entrance (Saved By The Bell!) and Brian turned back toward the console. The guy kept talking. Brian shook his head. “Not at this Mass,” then he sat down and started the hymn. It was “Let all mortal flesh keep silence”. Just by happenstance.
Man, that request was so wrong in so many ways.
No, mister, paying the stipend for a Sunday Mass doesn’t turn it into your own family affair where you’re entitled to make requests about the music. This isn’t a wedding or a funeral. It’s a regular Sunday Mass. On the other hand, I might wish to get such influence just by giving a stipend. I’d do it all the time just to improve the music at my suburban parish!
No, mister, we don’t take last-minute requests. This is not the drive-through window: “Gimme a Mass of Creation with some Pan de Vida on the side”.
No, mister, we don’t play anything in English during the Traditional Latin Mass: it’s against the rules at High Mass, and the priest doesn’t allow us to do it at Low Mass.
And we do wish we could make you happy, mister, but we’re not going to play sentimental, sappy, overused songs from the ’80s that sound like a commercial jingle before or after the Tridentine Mass, because the congregation would rise as a man, hike up to the loft, and execute swift vengeance on anyone up there.
Just to escape, I’d have to throw myself over the side.