Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Where there is no mercy, there is no justice



Pope Francis said earlier this week with another homily about his favorite subject: Catholics who practice living in a state of Sanctifying Grace every day are rigid corrupt hypocrites without mercy.

Speaking of the Scribes and the Pharisees who took the adulteress before Jesus, Francis said their hearts were corrupted by rigidity: “they thought they were pure because they observed the law” (…) but they did not know mercy” he said.

“They were not saints, they were corrupt. Because this kind of rigidity leads one live a double life: on the one hand they were condemning these women, and on the other they were seeking them out for a bit of fun. The description used by Jesus for them is hypocrites: they had double standards.”

And the Pope referred to those within the Church who judge and condenn others, saying they too have double standards. “With such rigidity – he said – one cannot breathe”.

I guess we're supposed to break the Commandments every once in a while. When temptation comes along, we're supposed to say yes to the devil so we don't stiffen up.

Celebrant: Do you reject Satan?

Parents and Godparents: When fidelity isn't stifling my breathing.

Celebrant: And all his works?

Parents and Godparents: Not all his works.

Celebrant: Do you reject sin, so as to live in the freedom of God's children?

Parents and Godparents: Not rigidly.

Celebrant: Do you reject the glamor of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin?

Parents and Godparents: We accept the glam of sin when we need to limber up.

Celebrant:Do you reject Satan, father of sin and prince of darkness?

Parents and Godparents: Not always. Is this going to take much longer??? Your questions are making us uncomfortable and seem mean spirited.

With the devil harvesting souls, the Romans gathered to brainstorm solutions. The fix is in. The time has come to encourage Catholics to loosen up and sin.

They are getting serious about mercy and justice.

Earlier this week, Dave Pierre circulated macabre details of an incident involving mercy and justice that took place at the Immaculate Conception School in Revere.

Cardinal O'Malley fired a beloved custodian for going peepee in the potty.

Beloved school administrators and teachers were also terminated for letting him use the potty.


Like many urban Catholic schools, Immaculate Conception School in Revere (on the working-class outskirts of Boston) lacks adequate space, so it had been a "common practice for a number of years" in the school for adults to use the student restroom so long as there was not a student already in there.

Well, at some point at the end of last year, a mother called the school to report that her kindergarten-aged son felt "uncomfortable" walking into the restroom and seeing the school's 64-year-old custodian using a urinal. (The restroom was just steps away opposite the janitor's office.) [Addendum, 3/18/15: The Revere Advocate reported in late January that the janitor used the bathroom in question "for upwards of 17 years without incident."]

At no time did anyone ever report or even suggest that anyone had committed any behavior in the least bit sexual or criminal. Never.

In other words, the boy walked into the restroom and saw what anyone would see if he walked into any public men's restroom – such as at the theater or Boston's Fenway Park.

The school was at a loss at how to respond to the mother's phone call, but at some point, someone came up with the idea that the concern should somehow be reported to law enforcement. Big mistake.

Overreacting, Cardinal O'Malley and the Archdiocese of Boston immediately forced the resignations of three employees of the parish and its school: Father George Szal, the popular parish priest; Alison Kelly, the school's principal; and an unnamed second-grade teacher.

The Cardinal's reason for forcibly removing the trio was that the group had somehow failed to report the issue to law enforcement and the archdiocese "in a timely manner." Shockingly, the archdiocese reportedly gave the three "an ultimatum – resign or be fired."

There have been dozens of innocent priests swept up into farcical accusations made by hysterical women subsequently removed by the mercy and justice of Cardinal O'Malley.

They were treated with breathtaking cruelty, their reputations and vocations ruined, slandered and abandoned, left to financial, emotional and spiritual ruin.

Dave Pierre has done a fabulous job indexing gross injustices in a book ironically called "Double Standard"

Perhaps Dave should send the Holy Father a copy and ask him to explain his own hypocrisy.

Juxtaposed against the public publicity stunts as crusaders of justice and mercy, it's been tough to stomach.

But to the best of my knowledge, Cardinal O has never given a lay person a dose of his justice and mercy before.

Branding an innocent man, someone's husband and father, a pervert for using the men's room.

Yet even after both local police and the local district attorney investigated the case and discovered that nothing even remotely criminal had occurred, Cardinal O'Malley still would not reverse his impetuous decision. The lives of four innocent people (the trio plus the custodian) would remain tarnished.


This is their idea of applying mercy and justice.

Disgusting. Just. Simply. Disgusting.

It is hard to articulate how upsetting this is to the righteous, just and merciful Catholics. Our hearts break for the custodian, Fr. Szhal, the teacher and others who are victims of hysterical and cruel nutters.

I've never understood why men line urinals up along a wall and go tinkles in front of each other. A custom left over from the Roman empire? Custodians and school administrators are not accountable for the custom, which is practiced in every public building in America.

It was clear nothing inappropriate, perverted or sexual happened.

If you work in a Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Boston, you better get yourself some diapers.

7 comments:

Left-footer said...

Brilliant!

StevenD-Jasper said...

i wonder if omalley believes in God.

Anonymous said...

The inmates are running the asylum.

TTC said...

Good is bad and bad is good. Evil is virtue and virtue is evil. Lies are evangelized and truth is silenced. Merciful people slander people who use the potty as perverts. People who care about families and the poor and justice, do this to other human beings.

Anonymous said...

Urinals save space and are more efficient than having only toilets. Also, men as boys were forcibly conditioned to expect less privacy in this regard as a means of preparation for military service, when they would have none. I can recall gang-toilets (no dividers) in scout camps in the 1960s and 1970s: the explanation given was, this is to get you ready for when you do military service.

TTC said...

Interesting history - thanks for it.

Whoever the mother was that made a phone call when her son saw a man at a urinal when he walked into the bathroom should be driven to the border of Mexico while we all wave bye bye.

Seriously. Our men can't use the toilets now without the nutters calling the police and the bishops branding them as perverts to appease the hysterical.

breathnach said...

The custodian should declare himself/herself/itself a transgender. Then a lawsuit and PR campaign could be ginned up declaring that the imposition of gendered bathrooms by the reactionary Archdiocese caused the custodian incredible emotional distress. His distress was aggravated by the imposition of a male gender identity by forcing the custodian to relieve himself in the 21st century equivalent of the auto da fe: the urinal. Cardinal Sean would quickly call for emergency consultation with the congregation of Saint Cecilia's parish and a seven figure settlement and a welcome back LGBT Mass in the school hall at Immaculate Conception in Revere would quickly follow. The confused boy and his confused parent would join in to celebrate their new found transgendered mentor.