Ba Ba Black Sheep, Have You Any Bull?

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

Fr. Corapi is a train wreck. How sad.

The gig is up. I pray the man still has the ability to lay it all down and come home.

Last week while dealing with the of luminaries in the Boston Chancery, I heard a snippet of the closing arguments of the Casey Anthony trial struck me: It is fascinating how people will pile one lie on top of another just to stall the inevitable.

While SOLT has done the right thing publicly revealing what they know..all this time, Fr. Corapi had his own brothel which he retreated to and his supervisors didn't know? What were they doing? Running a travelogue blog? What else don't they know about their priests?

Fr. Corapi had to know that a civil trial would bring his charade to an end. He was just buying time. Out of fascination, I checked his website to see how close to SOLT's announcement he kept the charade going and he had a 50% off inventory clearance, last chance sale during Fourth of July weekend.

What gets me is, he took on the persona of a crusader for falsely-accused priests which he had to know would compromise men who are really falsely accused. The poor man has sunk as low as a soul can get. God help him.

As a sucker for a sob story, I have have been sucked into the vortexes of narcissists, here and there along my journey. When the veil rips, when all is said and done, I have never let those experiences change who I am. Never let those experiences rob me of my trust and love or true charity. Sometimes it's taken me a while to get there, but through the grace of our Sacraments and the magnificence of God, all things are possible.

It was plausible to me that a crusade to restore the rights of falsely accused could be distancing itself from the ecclesiastical for a civil trial.

A man, or woman, deserves - and has the right to - the presumption of innocence. The accuser has the burden of proof. . Juries set murderers free when they feel the prosecution has not met the burden of proof.

This can't be turned upside down.The President sets terrorists free when the evidence is thin. Even if you are incapable of charity, you are required to acquiesce to the laws of the land. Our priests are entitled to the presumption of innocence until the evidence presents itself.

You only have to look around the internet and our comments boxes here at TTC to see the torment of turning everyone into the boogeyman (or boogeywoman!)

The question is out there, did Fr. Corapi ever really have a conversion, or was the whole thing a beard. It's a good question. My limited experiences have left me with the belief that these people suffer from a combination of mental and spiritual problems. A tangled mess from sin. The evidence that he required a confidentiality agreement and paid people huge sums of money for it does not bode well.

I actually think a confidentiality agreement may benefit our Lord in some circumstances. Our human weakness and flaws can scandalize the truth we proclaim. I wouldn't want the weeds I'm not pulling from my yard so I can go to the beach or the times I react poorly to frustrations and challenges to be splashed all over the Deposit of Faith. But if you've got enough dirt going on that you pay somebody 100,000 to keep quiet about, that's another story all together. You shouldn't have to pay anybody at all - but the truth is, most employers work it into severance agreements.

$100,000 is a bit of an indictment if you ask me.

I was struck by the readings this week . The Old Testament readings, Jacob, with the help of his mother Rebekah, trick his blind and dying father to giving the blessing that belongs to Easu to Jacob. Eventually, he struggles all night in the tent with God who spares him his life. In the New Testament, Jesus is driving out demons.

The Magnificat had a fortuitous reflection from Father John Tauler, O.P.:

Against...good men the fiends who have fallen from the order of the virtues level their fiercest strokes. All their cunning devices are set to work to hinder their salvation; for they, if they but persevere to the end, will be given the places in that rank of heavenly spirits from which those demons themselves have fallen. The malignity of these evil spirits is inevitably great, and it works incessantly. We must stand our watch against them with sleepless vigilance; for often times their deadliest scheming takes the form of something good. Especially do they strive to divide and scatter our affections away from God and to waste them upon a multiplicity of created things. Often enough, when one has reached a state of moderate virtue, the demons will do their utmost to hinder him from advancing to that further state of perfection which God would have him reach. This is a very dangerous condition to him, and the devil is well aware of it; in our times there are more souls thus halted, while God calls them to go forward, than at any previous time. Saint Bernard says: "In the way of God, to stand still is to go backward".

In this state of stagnation are all those worldly hears , who say: We do as any good works as others do, and that amply suffices for us,; indeed, we are better than those who pretend to greater perfection and we will continue in the good ways of those who have gone before us. But, when some great trial comes upon these men, then shall we hear their lamentations: it will be shown that they were not as good as they thought they were. The evil spirits will work their fiendish will upon them, and at last lead them away without resistance. The contrary will be the case with fervent spirits, who have hearkened to the counsel of these good angels. When their trials are passed and gone, they will be found all purified and made holy by them; they will be, as it were, on terms of familiar friendship with those bright spirits, who will continue to conduct them towards a happy end.

I'm reading another book sent to me by a gracious TTC reader. I have more to tell you about my encounter with this gracious woman, but I'll save that for later. The book is called The Prayer of the Presence of God by Dom Augustin Guillerand, A Carthusian Monk.

We must pray always in order to be on our guard. Our life, both of body and souls, our natural and supernatural life, is like a fragile flower. We live surrounded by enemies. Ever since man rejected the Light that was meant to show him the way, everything has become for us an obstacle and a danger; we live in the shadow of death. Instead of pointing to the Creator and leading us to Him, things show only themselves, with the result that we stop at them. The Devil, to whom we stupidly gave them when we gave him ourselves, speaks to us through their many voices; his shadow darkens their transparence.

The tempter is lurking all around this vortex. Watch out, least we trip and fall ourselves.

Ad majorum Dei glorium.