Catholics...

Catholic. most people are having a heart attack when I tell them that I am one. Yes GAY and CATHOLIC, and a DEMOCRAT and PRO CHOICE...I am all of the above. But that's not what this is about, although its important to note that I didn't "grow up" Catholic, I chose to join the Church. I made that decision myself.

So recently the Pope Benedict XVI decided that the Church would no longer allow homosexual men into the seminary, and that the priest-hood would be investigated for signs of homosexuality. Signs of homosexuality? What's this mean? I'm not sure. I think immediately of graphic things, like, God forbid.......Yes! THAT, exactly what popped into your mind popped into mine as well. Moisturizer!!! Ok...Ok...Ok... Maybe there are other signs of homosexuality.... Hmm... Maybe, just maybe, a particular dorm room at the local seminary has a Barbara Streisand CD! That's it. "People....People getting to know..."

This is ridiculous. I simply want to state that for anyone who hadn't figured it out. Now what I want to know is, if there was a shortage of Priests beforehand, what does the Vatican think will happen now? Is there a HUGE line of heterosexual men waiting to sign up to become priests that I don't know of? There is only one priest I can think of in my history of the church that I've met and thought ' now he's straight.'

I just think this is a bad move. And why is this important enough to talk about?
Well think of this..

First of all one must understand why I'm Catholic. Yes the religion appealed to me, with its rituals, and saints, and iconography etc... But it was something more.

The apostle Paul states clearly that "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us" (Titus 3:5). Soon after, Paul shows us the other side of the coin. He states: "This is a faithful saying ... That those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works" (Titus 3:8).

So my feeling is this, a Priest then is like a teacher for good Samaritans. Catholics are supposed to work to make things better, as much as pray to make their own lives better. Basic Catholic Theology. St Francis told us to not only pray for the poor, but to work for them as well. And so if we are supposed to do good works as Catholics, then our priests are there to help us achieve that.
Priests are in a sense, the teachers of good Samaritan-ism as I said.

So why would we turn away the people (gay or not) who are offering to help more people be more motivated to help others who are poor, or suffering?

Why would we turn down help for people in need for any reason? This is a big question I have.

The reason... Well that will lead to my next topic.

Blood...


See ya soon! And to the folks reading so far, Thanks!!!!

Vignettes....

Wow. I took a few days last week to think about this whole blog thing. It seems like making the time to do it is going to be a bit difficult. But I think I will manage.

Now, the first thing I wanted to talk about when I first started this blog unsuccesfully, was Blood. I have always been a Democrat, and not because my family members are Democrats. Yes they are Democrats, and proud, but because of the values that I learned from them. My mom taught me at a young age, when you have things, you share them, especially when others don't have them, or when others need them. My mother stopped outside of the Wal-Mart in Alamogordo everytime she went shopping, to give her change from her purchase to Fred, the local homeless guy who asked from change from folks. the rest of the town was angry at hime for being there, and always trying to get rid of him, by my mother would give him her change no matter what, telling me "son, we were blessed with many things, some people aren't as blesssed, God expects us to make up that difference."
So this is the basic lesson i learned as a child, kindess above all else is what matters. So when I came time to decide whether or not I was a Democrat or Republican or whatever I might be, I naturally looked to my family. The told me they were Democrats, because they grew up believing the same values they taught me, but that I had to choose for myself. So I did exactly that, here I am, a Democrat!

I have always been proud to tell people about my mother and that madn Fred outside the Wal-Mart because I think that is noble and worth being proud of. But also because a friend of mine (boyfriend at the time) once asked me what my most formitive moment of my childhood might be. We were having an intense conversation about him being a Republican, and me being a Democrat, and he told me his was one summer his dad telling him he had actually had to pay the equivalent of his annual earnings form work, in taxes that year. I found out this was because of investments etc, and so forth that he paid on. I didn't feel badly for him, because quite frankly he still had a lot of money and resources at his disposal, but my moment was equally as profound I thought.

I woke up one night to walk to the bathroom, I was a fairly small child, and My mom was talking on the phone. I assume she was either talking to my Grandmother (the best friend a person canhave) or her best friend. Anyway, she was crying, my mom, and telling the person on the phone she was broke. Not just broke, but so poor that she had written a bad check to buy groceries because we had no food in the house. She was worried that she might not have the money in the bank to cover the check in time, and was serioulsy distraught. I went back to my bed thinking a couple of things. First of all, wow My mama really woudl do anything to take care of me, (I have since learned mothers are just like this) and secondly, its a terrible world when your mama is at work over 9 hours a day, 5 days a week or more, and still you can't afford to feed your kid. My mom didn't work like most high school educated people in our town at that time. She was the assistant manager at a local grocery store. She was a hard working mother, who just needed help now and then.
Why are these vignettes important to share with you? Because they are who I am. These are the factors that helped to define who I am, and therefore what I'm writing in this blog is a direct result.

I wanted to share that with you... To come soon

Blood
Catholics
Much More...

Introduction

Well this is the second time I've tried this. For someone reason the first blog i created wasn't accepted correctly, and after much work I decided to just re-create it.
I have to say first of all that I owe this to Maggie Toulouse (Maggietoulouse.blogspot.com READ IT) because she insipred me to do this as well. I am going to use this occasionally to rant, like she does, but also because there are conversations I think we need to be having still. Example, the Katrina Hurricane has managed to bury everything else in the news: Rehnquist died, John Roberts Confirmation hearings, Bush Environmental Legislation, multiple other things that ought to be discussed. These are the types of things I want to discuss here, conversations that aren't on the statewide "big blogs", thing that are not on the news or if so, aren't getting much more than a 10 second bullet point brief. I will be talking immediately about things that I woul have liked to talk about a couple of weeks ago: Gay Men Not Allowed to Give Blood (a recent article in the Daily Lobo written about my experience trying to help folks in trouble, by giving blood.)

The short of it is this, There will be days I don't post, It's Hard to keep up, were the words of Maggie. There will be days where I write for hours, Its theraputic for me, and I sometimes write well enough to argue good cases for and against things. And there will be days where its all personal, shout outs to my friends, and rants about family and relationships. (those will all be in a political context as well, no frustrations about boyfriends who dont' buy dinner on here!!)

I hope you'll join occasionally and check it out, and PLEASE write back and let me know what you think! DIALOGUE is the only way humans will ever progress....