The ACS of the U.S. Census Bureau is still visiting the blog, you know, from Suitland, MD – a real city, look it up in Google maps – and from Fort George G Meade. So, I’ll keep up my critiques. Here we go:
Question 34 LAST WEEK [That’s the ACS capitalization screaming at you, not me.] what time did this person’s trip to work usually begin?
Answer: The problem in answering this is that for a priest there is no “usually”. Once it was something like 4:30 AM. Another like 5:35 AM. Another 5:00 PM. Another like 11:30 AM. Another like getting on toward 7:00 PM. Sometimes it’s after midnight as there are trips to the emergency room anytime day or night. There are emergency last rites calls at any time of the day or night, and not just at the local emergency room, but in many hospitals including out of state. It is what it is. There are trips to the supermarket for Covid-comorbidity stricken people any time during the day or evening. On and on. A priest is to be man of service both religiously and for the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and that service isn’t timed to the minute and with a “usually” known perhaps only to those tender snowflake government desk jockeys who seem to think that can be done (because surely they think that everyone is just like them, right?). If they had a greater solidarity with their fellow man they might make such a question possible to answer for a man of service, right? I mean, do they not stop on the way to or from even their desks to get things for the Covid-morbidity people in their lives, in their neighborhoods, in their towns? No? No service needed from even these elite desk jockeys? Never gets more complicated making times really impossible to fall in a category of “usually”? Pity, that, that we have such a heart-less, soul-less, truly un-American ACS. Americans stick together, but, this?
Question 35 How many minutes did it usually take this person to get from home to work LAST WEEK? [That’s the ACS capitalization, screaming at you, not me.]
Answer: Same thing as above. My “work[place]” – for them, because they are desk jockeys, think that “work” must be a “work[place],” that is, in a fixed geographical location, like a Census Bureau desk. There’s no thought in the ACS for any priest who is a pastor in the… wait for it… pasture. I’m with the flock all the time. Today will be the same. About six hours of travel and more doing things only a priest can do. My parish spreads out in three counties, and, effectively, four, because of certain logistical logistics about which I have spoken with my higher-ups any number of times. Moreover, I have an apostolate in the diocese which carries me elsewhere, even outside the diocese. Moreover, I am still a Missionary of Mercy, and this can carry me far and wide. The problem in answering where work happens to be is that my “work” as shepherd is everywhere that the flock happens to be, you know, wherever that one stray sheep out of a hundred happens to be, where any dying sheep happens to be. So…. “work[place].” I get it. It’s impossible for a priest to answer this. Again, I am liable for not answering up to the tune of $5,000.00 and five years in prison. As president Trump would say, these are real beauties who come up with this kind of sheer self-centered idiocy. Today is one of those days wherein I will be five or six hours on the road to get to where I am going as the priest that I am to do up some priestly work that only a priest can do. Other days, with Masses in multiple counties and Communion calls in multiple counties, that count could be four or five hours minus the Masses and stops. If you include all that I can be running from, say, 2:00 AM to even 8:30 PM (once it was getting on to midnight), at which point I want to just drop from exhaustion instead of timing every minute for desk jockeys who know nothing other than their desks. If they want such an intimate account of everything in my life, they should come along with me for a “day in the life…” I get to choose the day! Other days, it might be like less than 10 minutes on the road, but even that depends. Often I stop to talk with people on the way. Does that count? Or am I not allowed to be a priest? I like being out and about with Jesus’ little flock. There is no “usually.” An average doesn’t account for the truth. And if an interrogator assisting me to fill out the form says to just write down anything because, like, who cares, because they themselves change the answers at will to get what they want, you know, for security reasons, as they themselves say, well then, I would still refuse to lie. Ain’t gonna happen. But instead of letting it go, the ACS threatens, again, to fine me up to $5,000.00 and put me in a Federal Penitentiary for up to five years, you know, for not answering even one question on their 48 page intimate questionnaire. At least they don’t [yet] use polygraphs about “work” and what “work” really is, you know, to prove it, by reciting what goes on in, say, spiritual direction or a Sacramental Confession, you know, on the fly, not at my desk. Happens everywhere. Is that work? You know, in an airport terminal, in a train, on the side of the road? It’s the chaotic life of a shepherd who is with his sheep, caring for them, out in the pasture, and away from the pasture, beyond even those highly touted peripheries.
In other words, the ACS is more interested in taking out a citizen in good standing, a man of service for the community, for those most in need, and stop him specifically from being a Catholic priest, with all their fines and imprisonment, just to check off another box on another form, but meanwhile causing a whole region to suffer for having no pastor for the flock. Do they care? They should have been at the epic funeral we had yesterday… Had they tender snowflake ACS crowd been there to hear the homily about death, I think they would quit the ACS and get a life.
If you think I’m being too harsh about this, know that these guys have already proven their specifically anti-Catholic malice. I’ve written on that recently, and about their opinion of all Catholic priests living in Catholic Rectories. Do I have to repeat it, taunting the ACS at the Census Bureau? I feel like doing up some litigation against these anti-Americans just to cast a light on their fraud, because it is that, isn’t it? Just a question. But a SCOTUS Justice like Amy Coney Barrett might be able to answer that for all of us.
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 