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Return From Exile

I have returned! My one reader is surely thrilled. I'm sure you missed my penetrating insights into Hall & Oates, a band who hasn't released a studio album since at least we liked Dick Cheney. [Some people have never liked him.--ed.] But those are the people who dislike Top Gun and Applebee's, and they are not my kind of people. [Did you seriously combine those things?--ed.] Yes. Unabashedly.

I guess we missed talking about a few things. The pope was here. That's seriously exciting stuff. I love that guy. Is it crass to say that? People I greatly respect think there are perfectly valid reasons to critique him that don't involve YOUAREACOMMUNISTSTOPTALKING, and I'm sure that's so. Like episcopal appointments. Whatever. Against the long view of history, criticizing episcopal appointments feels like being a huge fan of Family Feud, and nonetheless hating Richard Dawson's ties. No one will care. They will say you have an unhealthy fascination with trivialities.

Suppose Cardinal So-And-So is on a bullet-train for the most intense fires of purgation at best. What does you or I clucking about it do? I can't think of anything. Doesn't it suffice to say, "Position X with respect to re-marriage and Communion is unclear thusly" and be done with it? If we understand the true teaching, and why it is so, we will keep believing and doing as we have done. In order to fully embrace what Jesus has for us, we all need conversion. That is not a clever excuse to despise someone. The Church is not a WWE pay-per-view.

A lot of folks who are fond of shaming others want it to be a total humiliation for the arrayed forces of laxity. Only one problem: Jesus loves those people. He's saving the score-settling for the end. I guess we should, too.

I don't know, kids. I just went through another All Souls,' and it struck me that Jesus doesn't give up on the stubbornest buffoon. At least from our vantage point, not even after death! Food for thought.
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