The Liturgy Wars

in Language, Liturgy 1 Comment Tags: ,

The liturgical wars continue over the new proposed new translation.  

I have noticed that the current translation is marked by a preference for general language which obscures the biblical references. The Roman liturgy is a tissue of quotations and allusions to the Bible, and biblical language tends to be concrete rather than abstract: how beautiful are the feet of them that bring the Gospel of peace. 

In an attempt to eliminate the hated word “man” from the Scripture readings, the translators have substituted “one.” But this is at best a Briticism; Americans do not use “one” to refer to a person in general. They might say someone or anyone, or possibly man, but “one” leads the American mind to wonder “one what?” 

The current translation tends to the general: “And also with you” really grates on me, because it eliminates the reference to the spirit, a word so important in Paul’s trilogy of body, soul, and spirit. “I am not worthy to receive you” obscures the reference to the centurion, who said to Jesus “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.” “Dominus Deus Sabaoth” becomes “Lord God of power and might,” rather than the more literal and concrete “Lord God of angelic hosts.” The reference to Malachi’s “and from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun a clean offering shall be offered to your name” is muddled in the translation “from east to west,” which changes a reference to the arc of time to a spatial reference, an important change, since the temporal reference implies that the sacramental sacrifice will endure as long as time endures – but  with the end of time, sacraments will cease. 

The translators seem either to have missed the biblical references (which I find hard to believe) or assumed that biblical references would be lost on Catholics – possibly true, but we are supposed to be encouraging biblical literacy, not adopting the liturgy to the biblically illiterate. A more literal translation would preserve the biblical references.

 

 

 

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The Secret Refined Lives of Rock Stars

in Uncategorized 2 Comments

This pays the bills

But his heart is here

Once we were in the Ritz-Carlton in Montreal while a Bar Mitzvah of spectacular bad taste was going on. Workmen carried 12 foot models of the Oscars through the lobby. While we were waiting to talk to the concierge, we overheard the conversation between the concierge and black rapper who was the highlight of the evening’s entertainment. 

The rapper was instructing the concierge to have the town car sent around so he could escape this noise and go to the most elegant French restaurant in town after he had had a stroll through the Botanical Gardens. 

My wife informs me that Sting lives in a Scottish castle where he raise old roses. A friend of my niece’s informs me that when he was in the boys’ choir at Downside Abbey, they sang a program for Sting’s fortieth birthday: Handel and Gregorian chant.

I just purchased a CD of Spanish Renaissance songs, Luz y Norte. It came with an extra CD, Amores Pasados, which contains new songs in the style of the Spanish Renaissance, accompanied by baroque harp and viola de gamba. The composer is John Paul Jones, who played electric bass guitar for Led Zeppilin.

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Narco-Evangelicals

in law enforcement, Mexico 2 Comments Tags: , ,

The New York Times has described the new cooperation between the Unites States and Mexico in combating the drug trade. What the Times (perhaps wisely) did not mention is that the narcotraficantes are popular in Mexico, at least in some areas. 

Popular Catholicism, as Arturo Vasquez reminds us in his blog Reditus, has some unusual saints. I earlier blogged about Santa Muerte, and he has a selection from Time about the veneration of Ismealito, a “holy” thug. Like many Latin countries, Venezuela suffers from violence.

Many Venezuelans have responded by entrusting themselves to a group of dead “saints” who had lived delinquent lives. Ismaelito and other santos malandros such as Petroleo Crudo (Crude Oil), El Raton (The Mouse), La Malandra Isabelita, Machera and countless others were petty criminals in the 1960s and ’70s. Most, if not all, are said to have died brutally at the hands of the police. But, like sinful ghosts trying to escape purgatory if not hell, they are all believed to have gained some form of redemption through favors and deeds attributed to them by their believers.

snip

There is no doubt in his devotees’ minds, for example, that Ismaelito, the king of the holy thugs, was a thief and one of the most wanted crooks of his time. Still, among many who knew him when he lived, he’s considered more of a Robin Hood than a criminal. In El Guarataro, a shantytown in southeastern Caracas, those who knew him remember the time he raided a meat delivery truck and shared the bounty among his neighbors

La Familia in Mexico, according to La Prensa (Buenos Aires) is following in his footsteps.

Reparte Biblias a los pobres al pie de los cerros del estado de Michoacán, prohíbe el consumo de drogas, construye escuelas y cloacas y se declara protector de mujeres y niños. Pero no es un grupo religioso: es La Familia Michoacana, la más reciente de las bandas de narcotraficantes mexicanos que ahora reina sobre el comercio de metanfetaminas del país. Lo que empezó como un grupo de autodeclarados vigilantes que hacían “la obra de Dios”, es ahora el grupo delictivo más violento de la nación.

It gives out Bibles to the poor at the foot of the hills of the state of Michoacán, It prohibits the use of drugs, it builds schools and sewers and declares itself the protector of women and children. But it is not a religious group: it is La Familia Michoacana, the most recet of the bands of Mexican drug dealers who now reign over the traffic in methamphetamines of the country. It began as a group of self-declared vigilantes who did “the work of God,” it is now the most violent criminal group of the nation

snip

No son el cártel más poderoso de México pero posiblemente sean el más brutal. El grupo se hizo famoso en septiembre de 2006 cuando arrojó cinco cabezas de humanos en una pista de baile en Uruapan con un mensaje que decía: “La Familia no mata por dinero, sólo mata a los que merecen morir”.

It is not the most powerful cartel in Mexico but it is possibly the most brutal. The group made itself famous in September 2006 when it threw five human heads on to a dance floor in Uruapan with a message that said: “La Familia does not kill for money, it only kills those who deserve to die.”

Pandilleros de día, los miembros de La Familia deben seguir un estricto código moral cuando vuelven a sus casas. Se dice que obedecen a una biblia escrita por su líder, Nazario Moreno, apodado El Loco. Suelen reclutar jóvenes en los centros de rehabilitación para alcohólicos y drogadictos, y los ayudan a vencer las adicciones y convertirse en “buenos hombres de familia”. 

Gangsters by day, the members of La Familia have to follow a strict moral code when they return home. It is said that they obey a bible written by their leader, Nazario Moreno, nicknames The Crazy. They usually recruit young men in the rehabilitation centers for alcoholics and drug addicts, and  help them overcome addictions and change themselves into “good family men.”

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The People Strike Back

in Islam 1 Comment Tags: , ,

As Christopher Caldwell details in his Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West, the elites in Europe have long tried to convince the voters that there is no danger from Moslem immigration. The voters are not convinced. 

The Swiss run their country by referendum, to the horror of the elites, and the Swiss are not happy with Moslem immigration. In a surprise vote, 59% of the voters voted to forbid the construction of minarets in Switzerland, while polls had shown that 53% would reject this measure that had been proposed by “right-wing populists.” 

When they are given the chance, European voters vote against welcoming to their countries unassimilated and increasingly radicalized Moslems – which is why the elites try to make sure they are not given the chance. 

Le Figaro reports:  

Les Suisses se sont prononcés par référendum en faveur de l’interdiction de la construction de minarets, selon les sondages sortie des urnes annoncées par la télévision suisse romande (TSR). Les commentateurs de la TSR ont qualifié ces premiers résultats de “grande surprise”. Une heure après la fermeture du scrutin à midi , la TSR estimait à 59% des voix la part des votants opposés à la construction des minarets.

Une majorité des 26 cantons helvétiques serait également favorable à l’initiative de la droite populiste, permettant la modification de l’article de la constitution sur la liberté religieuse pour interdire la construction de minarets. Les commentateurs de la TSR ont qualifié ce résultat de “grande surprise” car il contredit les sondages qui prédisaient durant la campagne un rejet à 53% de la proposition de la droite populiste.

La droite populiste helvétique a donc convaincu les Suisses en accusant les minarets d’être le “symbole apparent d’une revendication politico-religieuse du pouvoir, qui remet en cause les droits fondamentaux”.

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The Truth That Is Too Hard To Bear

in clergy sex abuse scandal, Ireland 1 Comment Tags: , ,

The situation was similar in the U.S. Rudy Kos in Dallas thought the hierarchy would protect him as it had protected the other molesters with whom he shared rectories. 

Brendan O’Connor in The Independent: 

It is now clear that one of the functions served by the Catholic Church in Ireland was that of a club. It was a national club for paedophiles. Clearly, for decades in Ireland, those in the know were aware that if you had certain sick inclinations, the Catholic Church was the place for you. Not only would it offer you access to little boys and girls, not only would it put you in a position of trust with gullible families, but you would also be protected if anything went wrong. So you had the physical access. And you also had reasonable cover because of the special status innocent parents and God-fearing children afforded you. This meant you were unlikely to be questioned or complained about.

But on top of all that you had a whole structure in place that would protect you at all costs, that would move you out of any situation that became dangerous for you or where anything threatened your ability to access children. You would be sent to fresh hunting grounds if there was any hint of trouble or if word got around that people should keep their kids away from you. And the icing on the cake was that this structure, this hierarchy that would protect you above all other considerations, inspired fear and awe among everyone from gardai to government. So your habit was fed and you were untouchable.

What wouldn’t a paedophile pay for a lifetime subscription to this club? No wonder the Church was a magnet for sickos. And you were surrounded by patsies in the form of good priests and good Catholics who gave your whole game a gilt-edged reputation.

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The Collapse of Church Discipline

in clergy sex abuse scandal, law enforcement, Moral Theology, sexual abuse, Voluntarism 4 Comments Tags: , , ,

As the Murphy Report noted, church discipline in Ireland was almost totally neglected in Ireland. In thirty years only two canonical trials were held, and these were held in opposition to the chief canonist. 

The Roman Catholic Church sometimes suffers from legalism, to which voluntarist moral theology and casuistry contributed. But law has a place in any society, as Paul explained in I Timothy:  “Now we know that the law is good, if anyone uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murders of mothers, for manslayers, immoral persons, sodomites, kidnapers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine.” In this category defilers of children certainly belong. 

Despite all the claims that bishops were only concerned with orthodoxy, there has been almost no action against either practitioners or preachers of sexual immorality such as Paul Shanley or the Catholic Theological Society, which has never disowned its infamous book Human Sexuality that advises that until society accepts the full range of sexual practices, “enlightened and well-integrated individuals might well free themselves of conflict by simply reflecting on the relativity of their society’s sexual ethic and proceed discreetly with their sexual project.”   Bishops may have been personally orthodoxy, but they never did anything to assure that only Catholic morality was taught under Catholic auspices. In fact (as I know from extensive personal experience) they deeply resented anyone who pointed out the gross heresy that was being taught under Catholic auspices. Not the preachers of immorality, but the ones who asked the bishop to act against those preachers, were the objects of the bishops’ ire. 

At best bishops issued documents that were quietly filed away; the bishops thought they had done their duty and let the chaos in the Church continue unchecked. Only annoying the bishop would provoke his wrath; raping children did not concern him. The children and parents who begged for justice were the ones the bishops disliked –  they inconvenienced the bishop, and there was no greater sin in the bishop’s mind than to inconvenience a bishop. This was as true in Ireland as in the United States.

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Is Anger Ever Justified?

in anger, clergy sex abuse scandal, Ireland 5 Comments Tags: , ,

The late Father Richard Neuhaus of First Things was upset by my book Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church. He thought that there was no justification for the level of anger I felt. He preferred the detached, scholarly approach that Nicholas Cafardi took in Before Dallas: The U.S. Bishops’ Response to Clergy Sexual Abuse of Children. Cafardi discussed the canonical approaches to handling abuse. 

The Irish people are getting a dose of reality as they are learning of the reality of the abuse that archbishops and popes let go on. I have read hundreds of cases like Mary Raferty reports in the Irish Times:

THERE IS one searing, indelible image to be found in the pages of the Dublin diocesan report on clerical child abuse. It is of Fr Noel Reynolds, who admitted sexually abusing dozens of children, towering over a small girl as he brutally inserts an object into her vagina and then her back passage.

That object is his crucifix.

The report details how this man was left as parish priest of Glendalough (and in charge of the local primary school) for almost three years after parents had complained about him to former archbishop of Dublin Desmond Connell during the 1990s.

And Neuhaus wondered why I was angry. Such matters are so distasteful. Matters of public policy are much more refined and suitable to be discussed by clerics who fo not like to be troubled by what has gone on in the church they serve.

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Are there Exceptions to the Law against Lying?

in clergy sex abuse scandal, Ireland, Moral Theology, Vatican, Voluntarism 3 Comments Tags: , , ,

The question of lying is a vexed one in moral theology. 

Lying is wrong. But in every situation? 

The classic modern example: the Nazis come to you and ask if you know where the hidden Jews are. You do, but you lie and save a life. 

But it is never right to do evil that good may come of it (see St. Paul). 

Are there exceptions to the moral law? Is the moral law simply a matter of God’s will from which he can exempt us? Are the voluntarists right?

 Or is lying like theft? 

The world is given by God not to individual man but to mankind to support life. God respects the arrangements about property that we make, but it is not an act of theft for a starving man to take bread from someone who does not need it and refuses to give it to him. 

In 1946 German children were freezing to death. Was it allowed to steal coal from trains?

In his New Year’s Eve sermon, Cardinal Frings reassures a cold and hungry population that, in God’s eyes, there’s no real harm in stealing a bit of coal.

The Catholics of Cologne develop great fondness for their people’s cardinal. From now on his name enters the local dialect as a verb: “fringsen” means to steal coal. Ever since, the man of God is often invoked when the locals have to get the essentials of life by hook or by crook.

Frings applied the principal of the purpose of property and decided that to take coal to keep children from freezing to death was not theft.

What is a lie? Is it to utter a falsehood in any circumstance or is it to withhold the truth from someone who is not entitled to know it? Normally we are entitled to know the truth, but not always.

Archbishops thought that parents and police were not entitled to know the truth about abusive priests. They knew that the information would be used to protect children, but it would also hurt the careers and reputation of clerics. Nothing, in the Archbishops’ eyes, was more important than a priest. This is false. If the Archbishops had not told the truth to protect children from abusers, they would not have done wrong. But they told falsehoods to protect abusers who were hurting children.

 This is beyond comprehension, unless one has encountered the arrogant clericalism that sees the priest as the most important person in the universe, infinitely more important than the soul of an innocent child. That clericalism is still very much with us, despite all the public relations blather that bishop are pitting out at the insistence of their lawyer.

The Vatican did not bother to answer that the Irish Commission sent asking for clarification of official church documents. The Vatican bureaucrats couldn’t be bothered. The Irish Times reports

Letters sent by the Commission of Investigation to the Vatican and to the papal nuncio in Ireland seeking information were ignored, the report has disclosed.

The commission wrote to the Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, of which Pope Benedict had been head until April 2005, in September 2006.

It was asking for information on the document `Crimen Solicitationis’, which dealt with clerical sex abuse, as well as information on reports of clerical child sexual abuse conveyed to it by the Dublin archdiocese over the relevant period.

The Vatican did not reply. Instead it contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs stating that the commission had not gone through appropriate diplomatic channels.

The commission said that as a body independent of Government, it did not consider it appropriate for it to use diplomatic channels.

In February 2007, the commission wrote to the papal nuncio in Dublin asking that he forward to it all documents in his possession which might be relevant to it and which had not been or were not produced by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. It also requested that he confirm it if he had no such documents. The papal nuncio did not reply.

Earlier this year, the commission again wrote to the papal nuncio enclosing extracts from its draft report which referred to him and his office, as it was required to do. Again, there was no reply.

The silence of the grave.

 

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President Clinton and the Catholic Church

in clergy sex abuse scandal, Ireland, Moral Theology 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

President Clinton went to Georgetown Law. Apparently he picked up one element of Catholic doctrine and practice. 

About Lewinsky, he famously said “I did not have sex with that woman.”  But it all depends what you mean by sex. 

The Irish Times, in “Church Lied without Lying,” details the Catholic justification for and practice of such weaseliness, aka “mental reservation.”

Cardinal Desmond Connell had explained the concept to the commission as follows:

“Well, the general teaching about mental reservation is that you are not permitted to tell a lie. On the other hand, you may be put in a position where you have to answer, and there may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression realizing that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be – permitting that to happen, not willing that it happened, that would be lying. It really is a matter of trying to deal with extraordinarily difficult matters that may arise in social relations where people may ask questions that you simply cannot answer. Everybody knows that this kind of thing is liable to happen. So mental reservation is, in a sense, a way of answering without lying.”

Example of how they experienced the use of such ‘mental reservaton’ by Church authorities in Dublin were supplied to the commission by Mrs Collins and fellow abuse victim Andrew Madden.

In Mrs Collins’s case, the Dublin archdiocese said in a 1997 press statement that it had co-operated with gardai where her complaint of abuse was concerned. She was upset by it as she had reason to believe otherwise. Her support priest Fr James Norman made inquiries and later told gardaí he that when he did so, the archdiocese replied “we never said we co-operated fully” – placing emphasis on the word ‘fully’ – with the gardaí.

In Mr Madden’s case, Cardinal Connell emphasised he did not lie to the media about the use of diocesan funds for the compensation of clerical child sexual abuse victims.

He explained to Mr Madden he had told journalists “that diocesan funds ARE (report’s emphasis) not used for such a purpose; that he had not said that diocesan funds WERE not used for such a purpose. By using the present tense he had not excluded the possibility that diocesan funds had been used for such purpose in the past. According to Mr Madden, Cardinal Connell considered that there was an enormous difference between the two.”

In May 1995, Cardinal Connell denied that diocesan funds were used in paying compensation to abuse victims. When it emerged on RTÉ in September that year that Ivan Payne was loaned €30,000 by the archdiocese to pay compensation to Mr Madden, Cardinal Connell still insisted this was not compensation by the archdiocese. He threatened to sue RTÉ, but did not do so.

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Kennedy and the Bishop

in abortion 6 Comments Tags: ,

Almost two years ago Bishop Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island privately asked Congressman Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island not to take communion because of Kennedy’s support for abortion rights. Kennedy has chosen to make this request public, and Tobin has responded.

What Tobin did was not exactly an excommunication, I would guess (does an excommunication require a formal decree?), but Kennedy has chosen to portray it as such.

The bishops are discovering that it is a lot easier to loosen disciple than tighten it. Any teacher who has taught middle school could tell them that. For over a generation a Catholic layman or priest could do anything from supporting abortion to raping children and it would have no effect on his standing in the Church.

A pro-life official whom I know once asked an archbishop to at least publicly criticize a strongly pro-abortion Catholic senator. The archbishop replied that he couldn’t do such a thing – why, the local newspaper would crucify him. Not the stuff of which martyrs are made, I thought.

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Response to Father Michael’s Questions

in clergy sex abuse scandal 9 Comments Tags: , ,

Father Michael asks some good questions. 

These is no psychological classification of “ephebophile.” An ephebophile is just a homosexual who likes teenage boys, just as there are many adult heterosexuals (such as Roman Polanski) who like teenage girls. The term ephebophile is a smokescreen to disguise the fact that some homosexuals have teenage victims. 

I do not know whether homosexuals are more youth-oriented than heterosexuals are. There is some evidence that I cite in my book that they, but it is not overwhelming. What is firmly established is that homosexuals have far more sexual partners than heterosexuals do, and this means more victims. 

Have the seminaries changed? I do not know. The bishops say they have changed, but the bishops also assured us there was no problem to begin with. I do not believe any fact that a bishop asserts until I have verified it.  

Also, remember that the reforms that costly legal settlements have forced bishops to make are limited to the United States; I must assume that seminaries and clergies in many parts of the world are similar to what they were in America at the highest level of abuse. A priest in an Hispanic country has told me that things are as bad there now as they ever were in the United States, and the government and the bishops collude to hide the problem

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Sexual Abuse and Homosexual Priests

in clergy sex abuse scandal 8 Comments Tags: , , , ,

Very few cases of clerical abuse of minors involved true pedophilia: the sexual abuse of pre-pubertal children. Pedophiles often claim not to be homosexuals, and they may well be correct is this claim, but pedophilia is not the main problem in clerical abuse.

Most cases involved children at or above the age of puberty, and the vast majority of the reported victims were male. Decades of studies by criminologists and psychologists have shown that boys are far less likely to report abuse than girls are, because boys fear the stigma of homosexuality and because males are supposed to suffer and not complain.

The John Jay report claims that is the abusive priests had equal access to females, they would have had equal number of male and female victims. This I doubt. I won’t go into the nature of the sexual acts that priest did with boys, but let us say that they were focused on the male genitals. Many abusers seem to have been initiated into the culture of abuse by other priests, often in the seminary.

The priesthood is not the equivalent of prison; most parishioners are female, and a heterosexual cleric who wants to can find many partners among young adult women, Homosexual priests have few young men at their disposal, since young men rapidly distance themselves from church. The only available males are, in general, married men and adolescent boys.

A homosexual priest may not be more likely to offend than a heterosexual priest. But when he does offend he is almost certain to have many more victims. Priest whose victims were males sometimes had scores, even hundreds, even thousands (Cardinal Groër) of victims. Again studies by psychologists have shown that homosexuals have far more partners than heterosexuals do, as one would expect, given the nature of male sexuality.

Political correctness should not prevent us from seeing the role that clerical homosexuality played in the abuse; but even more important was the failure of the bishops, including the bishop of Rome, to discipline criminal clergy and to protect children.

 

 

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Ad Orientem

in Liturgy, Narcissism 5 Comments Tags: ,

As someone suggested in the comments, it might be better from a moral point of view to have the priest and the people facing the same way. 

I think that main problem with having the priest face the people is that it feeds narcissism to be aware that all eyes are on you, and too many priests (and other clergy) are narcissists. 

When the pope suggested that it might be a good idea to have the priest and people face the same way, the screams in America could be heard all the way to Rome. This indicated to me that it was not a disagreement about what might be pastorally better, but a question of denying priest the pleasure of being aware he was the cynosure everyone’s eyes.

————

In response to the query for a reference for Benedict’s comments, see http://www.adoremus.org/0500-Ratzinger.html or just google Ratzinger and Ad Orientem

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Weddings East and West

in Liturgy No Comments Tags:

The discussion over at dotCommonweal reveals at attitude toward marriage that it is private affair which the couple should be able to celebrate in their own way. 

In the Western Church, following Roman law, the essence of marriage is considered the mutual consent of the spouses. The priest is only a witness, and his presence was not even required until after the Council of Trent. In the Eastern Church, however, the priest is the minister of marriage. The couple does not marry themselves: the Church, through the priest, marries them. 

There are strong traces of this even in the Reformed Churches. As the Prayer Book has it:

Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this company, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony… 

The Catholic Church in the West, although it considerers the couple the ministers of the marriage, insists that if at all possible the marriage be performed in a church. Everyone seems to consider it a “private” wedding, but of course anyone can attend. At my wedding in St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington we had a bag lady (whom I had gotten to know) and a few bums at the mass, and probably some tourists as well. 

Standing before the assembled crowd and making my vows in the presence of the Holy Trinity made me take the whole affair very, very seriously. 

We also used the Prayer Book form of the vows, and the beautiful words With this ring I thee wed, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.   

Apparently some couples get married at a parish mass; this is an excellent idea, and it would end a lot of nonsense. It would also stress the marriage as an act not only of the couple but of the entire community.

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I Like This Guy!

in Music 3 Comments

My of my least favorite social duties is weddings. The normally low level of Catholic Church music plunges to new lows as “their favorite song” (sometimes schlocky-romantic, sometimes full of innuendos) is played during Communion. The bride has confused a ball gown and a wedding dress. A ball gown is daring and slightly immodest; a wedding dress – high collar, long sleeves – stresses the bride’s (devoutly wished by the father) virginity. Then the bridesmaids all too often look like they wandered in from Las Vegas, where they are working girls.

 The Las Vegas theme is repeated at the reception with a disk jockey introducing everyone like an MC before he begins torturing the guests with “music.” Then there is the drinking.  

St. Lambert’s Church has a “Dear Reverend Know It All” Column (pp. 3-5 of the bulletin). (Gratias to dotCommonweal) A few selections to tempt you to partake of his wisdom: 

The couple have been shacking up. 

They rent the hall and then go see the priest. He tells them there are four other weddings that day and they respond, “but we’ve rented the hall already.” Someone suggests a garden wedding if the church is occupied. The priest says we can’t do garden weddings. (More on this later.) The young couple begins to complain about how narrow minded the Church is with all these rules and regulations. They eventually pick a date. Then the bottom drops out. It seems the groom is not Catholic. He was baptized in the First Reformed Church of the Druids, though he never practiced. This means there must be a dispensation for the marriage, another irritating Catholic invention, and the wedding date cannot be confirmed until the dispensation is received.

 snip 

The special day comes, the best man is still drunk,the groom is hung over, no one knew about that interesting tattoo that the maid of honor had way low on her back, now revealed by the plunging back of her dress that is held up only by wishful thinking. Grandma, upon reading the logo of the maid of honor’s tattoo, has fainted. 

snip   

 

The music reaches levels that cause blood to drip from some peoples’ nose and ears. The joyousevent ends with the bride and groom being the last to leave the hall. They are slow to go up to the room they have rented in the hotel because nothing new or beautiful awaits them there. The groom promptly falls asleep, being heavily sedated already, and, as he snores away, with his shoes still on, our blushing bride, having shed her dress of virginal white, thinks back on this day, her special day, the most important day in her life, the day she has dreamt of since she was a little girl. They will stay an extra day at the hotel, but cannot afford the time or money to go on a honeymoon because on Monday they will both be back at work in order to pay off the colossal bill that their special day has incurred. For some reason, the bride is depressed.

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