trying to balance the hysteria

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sort of a thoughtful discussion about his ideas.

I enjoyed it until the last five minutes, when one commenter started sprouting his clueless anti Christian cliches.

He repeats the myth of christians killing "millions" (over 2000 years? the complicated 30 years war? the crusades?): the regular meme of atheists who distort a superficial knowledge of history, while ignoring the 100 million killed by atheist regimes in the last century or the non theistic mass murderers of the past, like the Mongols, Tamerlane, the various emperors of China, etc.....

Too often their view of history is very superficial:  as Professor Bulliet points out in one of his lectures, the west laments the 30 years war, but ignores that at the same time, an even bloodier war was going on in Asia: the Samurai invasion of Japan that killed more than the 30 years war but is almost unknown to the west.

Admiral Yee, call your office.

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as for the crisis in the Catholic church: much of it is an "ain't it awful" hysteria. A lot of the "scandals" are 20-30 years old. Where were these guys back then, when we lay folk were in despair over our lax bishops?

I lived in Altoona, whose "expose" was the start of the second wave of hysteria (the first wave was Boston). I know people there who stopped going to church or stopped donating money in collection.  Yet even then, most of our priests were good people who tried to nurture their people. I am thinking of the wise priest who married Lolo and I, but there were other good priests out there too.

So as a heart cleanser, I am busy re reading some of Father Andrew Greeley's pg rated Blackie Ryan mysteries. I brought some of them with me (along with some of his R rated romances), but you can find them at Internet archives (free registration) or on Scribd.

Greeley tends to be on the left side of theology, stressing God's mercy, but not the present day left of liberation theology and green politics over prosperity... indeed, his novels satirize both the left (Virgin and Martyr satirizes liberation theology) and more commonly the rigid right. But he always stresses the love of God in our daily lives, and how Catholics see the good things of our daily lives, including good food and fellowship, as a foretaste of heaven, while he insists that story telling (parables, anyone?) is a way to tell us how God works in our daily lives.