Funeral: The Telegram & Gazette reported yesterday on the funeral of Michael A. Cerrone in Worcester. Cerrone was killed by a car bomb in Iraq.
Godzilla: The Worcester Public Library will be screening “Godzilla, King of Monsters” Saturday at 2pm.
Oaxaca: Infamous Worcesterite ChaCha Connor is in Oaxaca. Indymedia has an interview with her about the situation there. MP3 (original post)
KNIMBY: The West Side’s anonymous author writes:
Now I know that most of the politically correct crowd is going to say that it is naive to believe that drug and/or alcohol abuse does not occur in our neighborhood. That may be so. However it would also be ridiculous to say that our area is riddled with substance abuse on par with other parts of the community.
(According to Technorati, we’re the first blog to link to The West Side. And we’re darn proud of it.)
Winslow Street Park:
schematic
Bad buildings: WoMag profiles the ten worst propeties in the city.
Indiana: The South Bend Catholic Worker is opening their drop-in center on Dec 2. Finally!
Thanksgiving: Not a fun day for turkeys:
[An] employee, who worked at the hatchery for three weeks in June and July, documented newly hatched turkeys suffocating in plastic bags, being mangled by machinery and being dumped into the same disposal system used for their discarded eggshells, said the group’s executive director, Erica Meier. “From the very first day of their lives, these chicks endured unimaginably abusive treatment,” she said.
There are some people, for example, who are so dumb they would ignore a report entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States†and there are some who wouldn’t. Turkeys are pretty much the same.
James Cromwell: Has a goofy hat.
Onion: “African Children Given 30,000 Unused ‘Save Darfur’ T-Shirts”
Catholic Worker Digest: Has moved. They summarize each issue of the New York Catholic Worker newspaper.
WikiJew: “The ethnoreligious identity that anyone can edit” –our friend Zack Berger
Anti-nuke nuns: They still owe a fine, which they’re trying to pay by collecting “cans of food for children of Air Force families who receive food stamps and are in need of assistance.” Also with bad, anti-war puns.
Hospitality: From Why I Am Not a Volunteer:
Our world consists of many voluntary associations. We distinguish our relationship to family from our involvement in voluntary associations. Matter of fact, the most common excuse given for not volunteering is not enough time due to family obligations. I would include work obligations for most people as a subset of family obligations. Therefore, how I view my participation in the church depends on how I view my relationship to the church. Is the church family, or is it another association to which I belong?
The conflict between family and non-family obligations is one reason why I am still in favor of priestly celibacy that I don’t think gets discussed enough. A priest can make commitments to poverty that I don’t know are appropriate for someone heading a household. A priest can be free to deny himself to spend as much time as possible tending to his parish and other people in need; I have trouble seeing how a family man could be as dedicated to other people.
As a kid growing up my parents were very involved in our parish. In many ways this was a blessing, of course, but at other times when I was a kid I just wished they wouldn’t keep us at church for so long while they tended to running the CCD or practicing music. Undoubtedly some of that was just childish immaturity, and it’s certainly better that my parents occupied their time with the Church rather than other things.
I think the question is, increasingly, would you rather have a pastor who only devotes some of his time to the parish, or no pastor at all?
Good point. I wonder how are perspective on this is affected by living in a country where the Church’s influence is fading, or, at least, isn’t growing like it is in places like Africa. Churchwide, I know we’re facing a crisis of lack of clergy; I wonder how much of that can be alleviated by new converts in the developing world. Ireland seems to be doing pretty well economically over the past 20 years or so; I would guess the Emerald Isle’s status as a priest-exporting nation are probably over.