Life Update 2021.05.08
Why Online Church Reform? I learned French, Spanish and Portuguese to go to the mission. Why now am I a hermit who prays several hours a day and now works at Church reform online? In my last non-Latin Mass assignment for my home diocese, I was hearing 10-40 hours of confessions a week, less than a golf shot from a large State University. Most of my penitents were University students and I'd sometimes hear confessions past midnight. I had no iPhone (only a flip-phone) and I had no FaceBook, Twitter, blog or podcast. I had no desire for social media. However, approximately one complaint per month against my orthodox doctrine (as well as me having called the police on an employee having a nervous breakdown with aggressive behavior to me) was my reason for removal from my last non-Latin Mass [...]
Life Update 2021.04.17
Jews vs. Catholic Basketball Game (10 Years Ago This Weekend) This weekend is the 10th anniversary of the Jews vs. Catholics basketball game that Rabbi Yisroel Wilhelm and I started as chaplains of University of Colorado in Boulder. (You can see how young I looked in my first year of my priesthood in 2011.) Catholic News Agency covered the story 10 years ago in Boulder: Although the idea began as a joke, and still elicits laughter from students, an April 17 “Jews versus Catholics” basketball game has a serious purpose for the priest and the rabbi who organized it as a form of outreach to their communities' non-practicing members. “These are the two main religions of the West, and there are a lot of people who left them,” said Fr. Dave Nix, parochial vicar at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center [...]
Life Update 2021.04.10
Resurrection Grace Just before my diaconate ordination about 12 years ago, I went with a seminary professor and about 50 older adults to the Holy Land. I was just a layman and I paid for myself via donors, not the seminary. My seminary professor wanted nothing to do with me (yes, even back then!) so I ended up wandering the streets of Jerusalem one evening. (Earlier that week, I had hoped for really cool graces at the location where Jesus was executed, but felt little consolation.) However, that evening of wandering old Jerususalem, I came into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and inside that Church is both the location where Christ died and where he rose. Where Christ rose is a now a chapel inside a Church (as seen in the above photo.) I went in there as the [...]
Life Update 2021.03.27
Vaccine vs. Ivermectin The 512th reason I won't take the Covid vaccine is because people are hawking it in front of supermarkets on a poster boards that look slightly less professional that what the Girl Scouts would use: I took this picture of a shady drug deal outside a Denver supermarket last week. Instead, I will be taking this if I catch COVID-19: Please be aware of four other things: 1. Don't take the horse medicines of Ivermectin. It might be too strong for the human liver. A nurse friend sent me the above ivermectin that I snapped it a picture. Notice: Made for humans, not horses. 2. The "ingredients" to the Pfizer vaccine can be found here. 3. A Yale University professor and renowned cancer researcher said here that “The bottom line is that ivermectin works." He continued: [...]
My Great Grand-Uncle: a Monsignor in Rural Illinois
When my father was only 10 months old, on the 9th of February 1942, my grandfather wrote him a letter that I found and saved to my Evernote. It begins: Just how to begin this, I do not know, but perhaps if I just write down the thought in my heart you shall see what I have in mind. To begin with, this idea of putting every day events into a sort of letter to you, our children, occured to me long before your Mother and I were married, for I did know that some day with Gods wish we would have you, and I your mother. Therefore I shall try to relate to you those events of this day that interest us now…As this is being written we are at war with Japan, Germany and Italy. Your history books [...]
Life Update 2021.02.27
Changing My Habits This is what I looked like in a Roman Collar for most of my priesthood: Here's an example of the vestments I wore when I was doing Mass in English (and other languages) in 2015: After Holy Mass in the Basilica of St. James of Campostella in Santiago, Spain after finishing the Camino in 2015. Here's an example of the vestments I wore after switching to the Traditional Latin Mass: After Holy Mass at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Jacksonville, Florida. This was my last active assignment (2018) before becoming a diocesan hermit. My first religious habit as a hermit was this. (A habit is worn under Mass vestments at Mass, but the habit is supposed to be worn all day.) A "habit" is what I wear in my hermitage [...]
Life Update 2021.02.08
Three things today: 1. My PO Box went down but it is now back in business. You can find it on my donate page. 2. Two unexpected diversions to my normal life of prayer was when a) a Catholic filmmaker invited several of us priests out for a super-charging retreat to his place in California... Mel Gibson, myself and Fr. Jim Altman spent four days in Southern California at Mel's place with a few other priests in January 2021. ...and b) after a wedding in Dallas I got to spend a morning (and later) an evening with Dr. Taylor Marshall: 3. Please note that even though I'll be off Facebook, Twitter and Gab for Lent, my continued goal on podcasting, videos and writing is: Monday: Podcast/video Tuesday: Blog Wednesday: Podcast/video Thursday: Blog Friday: Podcast/video Finally, even though I [...]
Life Update 2021.01.26
There's no way I can refute every calumniation of me found online. Thankfully, I am daily losing more and more bitterness and learning to pray for my enemies. So, I am writing this blog post about my past not as an act of bitterness to those pastors in my Rear View Mirror, but rather as something my readers might find interesting. As many of my readers know, there are rumors out there that I failed at parish life and that is why I became a hermit. There are rumors that I was kicked out of all these parishes for being mean to people. The email I discovered from 2012 disproves most of that. I was ordained in 2010. It is now 2021. I have been a priest almost 11 years. As the below email I sent to a bishop in [...]
Life Update 7: A First-Hand Look at Eugenics in 2021
I recently stopped by for confession at an old Capuchin parish just north of downtown Denver. It is traditionally a parish on the border of an African-American neighborhood and a Mexican neighborhood. Holy Mass is offered in English and Spanish. As I went inside to look for the older Capuchin who was going to hear my confession, I noticed that they were setting up for a funeral. I went up to the casket to pray and I saw it was an open-casket funeral. A young Mexican man, perhaps 18 years old, had died. I prayed for his soul. I then went to the back of the Church where the Franciscan was opening up the confessional door. I said "How did he die so young, Father?" He replied, "The same way as so many of them—suicide." To be honest, I thought [...]
Life Update 6: Hermit Credentials
St. Philip Neri used the ripped up pieces of his diploma as ribbons in his Roman Breviary. That is how much worldly-honors meant to him! However, his friend St. Ignatius of Loyola was much more astute in answering questions against his character. Alas, I am going to take St. Ignatius' approach in this blog post. Recently, a young woman on Twitter publicly tweeted to me: "Did you really go to BC? Which year did you graduate?" I answered her with a picture of my diploma. Now, it turns out she was very friendly to me, but I think many people out there wonder how I could have have been the product of a Jesuit High School and a Jesuit University. In fact, I'm sure some people are surprised I was ordained in a normal diocese at a Novus Ordo ordination [...]