Communist plans to shut down Churches.

Communist Mayor Bill De Blasio has stated that if Churches or Synagogues hold religious services with more than ten people he will direct the cops to disperse them. If they do not comply he will seize the buildings and permanently throw the houses of worship out.

In America. In 2020.

Bishop Dolan is silent. All of the Catholic church is silent, The Jews are silent. De Blasio doesn't mention the mosques so maybe that doesn't apply to them.

Did we throw out the Constitution? Did we repeal the Freedom of Religion clause?

Where is the outrage? Where is the push back?

Where are the Americans?

Is Obama a Christian?

So all the media nitwits are champing at the bit to destroy Scott Walker because he wouldn't express an opinion on Obama and if he is a "Christian." Walker is not buying into there narrative so he just basically said "ask him." The media pussies are going crazy.

Now I have had many arguments with people about who is a good "Christian." Big arguments with some of you who post here who I consider friends. We really differ about one important point.

A good Christian goes to church. Or at least a good Catholic. Just as a good Jew goes to Temple. You can tell me all the bullshit you want about just going to church doesn't make you a Christian. Are there hypocrites who go to church and are not "good Christians." Sure tons of them. But there are even more bull shit artists who claim the title of Christians but don't feel they have to go to Church. Except on holidays or to get married or planted in the ground.

Obama never goes to church. When he did he went to a racist anti-semitic church. Now he claims he never followed the doctrines or even really listened to what the estimable Reverend Wright had to say. He claims total innocence of the pernicious swill ladled out by this cut rate preacher.

He seems to much more likely be a Muslim. He sure likes to defend every atrocity they commit and refuse to call a spade a spade. So to speak.

In any event who in their right mind would claim that they know that he is a "good Christian."

Good for Scott Walker. Throw the meme right back at them.

It is time for my favorite Gospel once again

Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 

He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said, "Take these out of here, and stop making my Father's house a marketplace."
His disciples recalled the words of scripture, "Zeal for your house will consume me."
At this the Jews answered and said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?"
Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."
The Jews said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?"
But he was speaking about the temple of his body.
Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.

So Father Chris was rushed to the hospital this week for surgery. He is fine Thank God but we had to have a substitute Priest from Visitation Parish in Red Hook. Now the problem is that the guy is Polish and almost incomprehensible. The rhythm of the whole Mass was off. He would talk over the organist and mutter under the music. He read different passages then normal. Everybody was messed up and all over the place.

I was at a big disadvantage as I had forgotten my glasses so I couldn't even read the missal. But I did know the Gospel since as you know it is my favorite.

Then the organist decided he was Protestant because he kept playing Protestant hymns. He played "Now We Gather at the River" and "Amazing Grace" and I thought I was in a Western or something.

The Archdiocese of New York just announced that is was closing about 30 churches and merging about 100 others. Now this is the Archdiocese that covers Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island and Westchester. We are in the Archdiocese of Brooklyn which covers Brooklyn and Queens.

They are shutting down most of the churches in Manhattan because only about 12% of the Catholics in the diocese live in Manhattan. At one time these churches were packed with the Irish on the West Side and the Italians in the Lower East Side and in Harlem. But now most if not all of the immigrant Catholics are gone. The Hispanics don't live in Manhattan anymore and are mostly found in Queens of all places. So these churches are only for funerals or weddings and are very sparsely attended under normal conditions.

The church has a bunch of expensive properties that the real estate moguls have their eyes on and I bet the princes of the Church will be selling them off piece by piece. Money changing by selling the Temple.

Just a regular Sunday

Today was the feast of Corpus Christy. The Body and Blood of Christ.

All of the usual faces were in church today. No visiting fireman. Nobody that only shows up on Christmas and New Year’s. Just a regular Sunday and a regular summer in a regular year.

In the homily Father Chris mentioned that 13 new priests would be consecrated today at the seminary. That is an exceptionally big class. In the past three years they consecrated 27 new priests. In the same time 57 have died. The numbers aren’t going to work. He said by the end of the decade at least three of the neighboring parishes will close. Not for a lack of the faithful. But for a lack of priests. Unless they import them.

At one time they would import them from Italy or Ireland. When the great swathes of immigration hit New York these immigrant priests would come and tend to their flocks. However that does not seem to be the case with the current mass of immigrants. In this as in so many other things they are very different than previous patterns of immigration.

The best bet for the Church is to import priests from Africa, China or the Philippines. These areas are still a hotbed for true believers who are not busy signing up for the latest politically correct cause. We have a visiting priest from Ghana every August and I have to say he makes me sound like a dirty hippie. I look forward to hearing him preach the word even if I don’t hardly understand half of what he has to say. He works in deepest darkest Africa with poor sick kids dying of Aids. He doesn’t have much patience with trendy American nonsense. We need to import some more of these guys. The bishop should be more like George Steinbrenner and less like Donald Trump.

There was a phrase in the second gospel where Jesus said “Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever." Now how does one interpret that? Does that mean that everyone who went before will not get to heaven? I don’t think that is right. I mean Moses and Noah and Zachariah and all those dudes don’t make the cut? But it could be. That Old Testament God was a tough guy. He didn’t hold with nonsense. He smited you big time when you got out of line. Pillar of salt stuff or getting swallowed by a big fish. So who knows? It is something to think about.

I get restless when we go away from the basics. Going to Church on Sunday. Honoring your mother and your father. Helping the poor and the sick and the lame. Standing up for the innocent. Especially the innocent unborn. Taking the body and blood of Christ and knowing that it makes part of the community of faith. Not dabbling in the politics of resentment and reparations and income inequality and every other thing. Maybe that makes me a “Shite” Catholic. Not cool. Not trendy. Not on board with the latest thing. Not playing the tambourine and singing pop songs in church.

Just a regular guy. In a regular pew. In a regular church. On a regular Summer Sunday.

Thanks Father Chris

My parish priest Father Chris Cashman called me up today to check on me. He has done it periodically to see how I was doing. I told him I was really going to try to get to Midnight Mass but he told me not to worry about it. The doctor and my wife are vetoing it because of the wound in my groin where they did the operation but I think I will be fine. Or will just sit down when I should be kneeling or something. But they are putting their foot down.


I have to see if I can finagle a way to get there. I hope that I can. I would hate to miss midnight mass.

EBL better watch out!

Today was the gospel of the Prodigal Son. You know the one. Where one son took his patrimony and spent it on hookers and booze and having a fun time. When he was finally broke and homeless he decided to come home like all of these Generation X kids.

His Dad brought him in and embraced him and pissed off his dutiful son. But he did one other terrible thing.

He killed the fatted calf.

Be careful EBL.

This is America not Dresden in WW2

This is a photo of what Breezy Point in Brooklyn looks like after the hurricane. It is just as bad as New Orleans after Katrina. Lisa has a cousin-in-law who has a lot of family in Breezy. It is a big Irish community and is full of cops and especially fireman. So it is especially ironic that most of it burned down because of the combination of salt water and electricity. Hundreds of houses burned.

Also Staten Island got hit very hard. A lot of the house that were built were sub-standard units made by fly by night rip off artists. You see when thousands upon thousands left Brooklyn over the Guinea Gangplank they wanted to buy any house they could get. Staten Island was affordable. But many of them were developed by crooks tied into the Mob. So when this big wind came a bunch of roofs just flew off or house collapsed like a cheap suitcase.

Most of the businesses in Carroll Gardens are doing something for the people who lost so much in the hurricane. It is direct relief. Collecting and giving it right to the people who need it without the middlemen. We are planning an event in the store on Saturday. We just have to figure out how to get it directly to the people who need it.

More as it develops.

Hari Krishna baby......

In 1969 a lot things changed. The surety and the rock hard unity that was the basis of the church and neighborhood was starting to shatter. We didn't know it at the time but the process was begining where the kids riding bikes with baseball cards in the spokes were to be replaced by people with tattoos sipping $2 cups of coffee while walking a frou frou fucking dog on a leash would take over the place where Nunzio and Enzo and Guiesseppi used to hang out on the corner and sing Dion songs.

There was a convent on the corner of Kane and Henry Street that housed an order of cloistered sisters. The Nursing Sisters of the Poor. They worked in hospitals and hospices but had little contact otherwise with the outside world. Well quite of few of the sisters had decided to leave the convent and go out in the world of the wild and wooly 1960's. There weren't enough of them to make it worthwhile to maintain this big structure so the church put it up for sale. And it sold pretty quickly. To the Hari Krishna's.

Now this was long before we knew anything about cults or eastern religions or new age or any of that stuff. We just saw these people in orange robes banging tamborines. They would come and go from the house and didn't have much contact with the neighborhood. Of course there was a reason for that.

One day in one of the first weeks after the cult  moved in they had a couple of the Krishnas start to talk to some of the kids who hung out at PS 29's School yard which was across  the street from the Krishna's new temple. One of them went and told his father who was a connected guy. Now he wasn't connected to Con Edison if you know what I mean. So the next day this guy and couple of his friends from the Wimpy Boys Social club knocked on the door and asked to talk to the head freak. When they came downstairs Big Louie grabbed him by the neck and held him up against the wall. They politely informed him that tif any of the bald headed freaks talked to the neighborhood kids they would burn down the temple and everyone in it.

So the Hari guys sort of kept to themselves after that.

It was what you called neighborhood community policing as it were.

I miss those days.

I fit in then.

I don't fit in so much anymore.

Wait I have to go to the front of the store. Somebody wants to bring a frou frou fucking dog into the store.