But when did that happen? I recall MASH’s Radar explaining the International Date Line to Henry. Was it today, yesterday, tomorrow?
Radar: Ooh, you wanted to make that phone call to your wife.
Henry: Oh, right, right. Now, let’s see, Radar. We’re a day ahead plus 14 hours, right?
Radar: No, sir. The States are a day ahead plus 14 hours.
Henry: Well, then, it’s yesterday in Bloomington?
Radar: Yes, sir.
Henry: Well, then, I should have called her yesterday.
Radar: Well, you didn’t even know about it then.
Henry: Why can’t everybody be on the same time?
Radar: Because the Earth is round, keeps rotating all the time.
Henry: Oh. I thought it was just an army thing.
I only add some humor with the epic saga of the great Pornchai Maximillian Moontri because – thanks be to God – Max has not lost his sense of humor after all the hell he’s been through. I know that as I’ve been speaking with Father Gordon about the progress of Max around the world. Take a look:
Meanwhile, we remember Book 11 of the Confessions of Saint Augustine, in which he spoke of how time separates us one from another as the future which is now present is already past. Augustine offers the solution with Him who draws all time to Himself when He is lifted up on the Cross: It is Divine Mercy which reaches through time and space and makes us all members of the Mystical Body of Christ.
Anyway, as I publish this, Father Gordon and Max are on the phone at the same time, not having to wait for a delay of hours or days either way.
It might be argued that a priest shouldn’t talk about unpleasant topics because that somehow besmirches him, but a priest would be besmirched in my opinion if he didn’t talk about the darkest of humanity’s existential peripheries so as to see about addressing the problem. You can’t solve the problem unless you can name it and address it, right? Saying that priests should just be wusses and stand on the sidelines is NOT the way to go about things.
It might be argued that a priest shouldn’t talk about politics, as he is likely to alienate people from much more important religious matters, and therefore he is risking their eternal salvation for the sake of few banal comments on a few banal matters. This Catholic priest thinks that he has the right to talk about purely banal matters, being a tax-paying citizen, about whether or not, for instance, a road needs repaving before hiring more police, what with arguments about car-size potholes ending lives or lack of police who could have been there to slow people down coming to the fore depending on one’s point of view.
But some matters are both political and moral and therefore belonging both to the natural law and also to religion, God having created nature, after all. Thus, the morality of genocide, for instance, while being supported by politicians on one side of the political spectrum (Democrats, as demonstrated in the video above), is also a topic that a minister can validly address. God will be the judge if one is for or against, campaigns for or against, facilitates or places obstacles over against, for instance, genocide.
Sometimes certain matters are so important that methods of teaching that are out of the ordinary are called for. For instance, read a classic teaching-by-way-of-baiting event in Mark 3:1ff or Luke 6:6ff, when Jesus purposely called into the midst the man with the withered hand, curing him and making the others absolutely livid, furious, inciting their willful murderous intent so that they could see just how bad and evil they already were. Hah! “Oh, but, Father George! Baiting like that is mean! Jesus is a meanie!” No. Jesus was teaching truly horrifically cruel people a lesson. Period.
Recently I wrote a post about the genocide of the Cherokee promoted by Democrat Andrew Jackson. I compared the praise he lavished on those who took the land compared to some of those who took the land, the Scots-Irish. I’m also Scots-Irish, as I’ve redundantly pointed out on this blog (redundant because the name and family clan of Byers is, like, the definition of what a Scots-Irish person is). The baiting was to get a reaction to whatever the reader thought might be important, because, truth be told, I’m quite afraid that the same Democrat Andrew Jackson kill-em-all attitude is still to be found in abundance in this region. But sometimes it needs a bit of baiting to bring it out for all to see, including the people who, even unbeknownst to themselves, are genocidal without knowing it. It’s important to know who’s who. Law enforcement agencies do this kind of thing all the time, say, detectives, say, the FBI, say, the DEA, et alii. All the time. But, hey! You can even bait the baiters…
I would have hoped that it would be agreed that Andrew Jackson’s call for genocide was a terrible mar upon American history. But I thought, rightly, that some might take the bait and, revealing who they are in a comment, demonstrate that the only important thing for them is not that genocide began here, but that some among the Scots-Irish might have been criticized, I mean, like, you know, even the point of name calling, and in their opinion, entirely wrongly. Oooo! Name calling! “You, you, you, human being you!” I need to put up a post I wrote long ago about the name calling wrought by Jesus and His cousin John the Baptist. They’re the biggest name callers of all time because, truth be told, they were right both logically and morally and with integrity and honesty and goodness and kindness of actually taking people seriously enough to tell the truth. I’m not as proficient at name calling as they were, but – hey! – one can try!
Anyway, I won’t approve that one particular comment or reveal who that person is, you know, unless it appears they are going to continue some violence on the Cherokee or anyone not themselves, like the Latinos.
I’ll have to write a post about someone here – super intelligent – who was seriously rationalizing with the most refined moral argumentation the gunning down of Latinos in Graham County just to do it. Think about that. It’s reminiscent of 1920s Germany, you know, the lead-up. But I digress. Though not really. Oh! What’s this:
UPDATE: At the request of both the Latino and Anglo communities, whether Catholic or non-Catholic, I went to have a chat with the heads of the various branches of Law Enforcement. All said that sobriety checks are now extremely rare since there are so very many hurdles and logistic difficulties to overcome. In my recollection, two of the three checkpoints I went through were sobriety checks. Anyway, there certainly are plenty of licence and registration checks which can easily result in drug busts or whatever. All said that up to this point, no local law enforcement in the State of NC has been deputized as also being agents for ICE, Homeland, or whatever. That said, if there is a criminal conviction because of a stop, that info will be passed along. If ICE or Homeland happens to be nearby, that’s convenient. That said, a “normal” DWI/DUI is not a criminal offense, but, of course, it can be depending on any aggravating circumstances. That said, there are relatively very few ICE agents in North Carolina. Since this is all about criminals and convicted criminals, the whole drama about Twitter recounted below is exaggerated and wrongheaded. Let it be said: no one in the Latino community wants murderers and drug dealers and rapists around. The Latino community wants murderers and drug dealers and rapists to be deported. Period.
=============== Original article ===============
A bunch of us priests got together the other night for an awesome Easter Week meal of rib eyes and salad. These priests were from a number of states. Some of the conversation centered on checkpoint dramas. While news sources deny it vociferously, here’s what’s been going on:
The police, sheriffs, ICE, DHS, whatever, sets up a checkpoint. They can overlap, so that the stop is a “sobriety check” or a “licence and registration” check or whatever. The primary players can be local law enforcement, but there can be Feds waiting in the wings, much more numerous, to haul away the undocumented and immediately deport them depending on the situation. This fact of a checkpoint with location is immediately tweeted out to the undocumented among themselves. But local law enforcement and the Feds are on that twitter feed as well. So… Either the location of the checkpoint is immediately moved, or multiple checkpoints are set up on roads used to avoid the original checkpoint. In my parish in the mountains these checkpoints are impossible to avoid as there are only a couple of roads that lead anywhere. I’ve been through three checkpoints already.
Undocumented immigrants do themselves no favors by participating in an upcoming protest on May 1 in Charlotte where demands will be made, such as decriminalizing theft and prostitution, crimes in educational facilities, and driving under the influence. Organizers are racists, of course, in that they claim that this is what black and brown skinned people do: they steal, flaunt sex for money, smash our young students in the schools, and endanger the roads by driving under the influence, so much so that this is such a way of life that they say it is racist to punish such things as anything serious. Because it’s about those who are black as well, even primarily, I’m guessing this is a racist Delinquents Lives Matter event. How cynical of them. They are using the difficulties of the undocumented for their own selfish ends of these individuals wanting to commit more crime with impunity. That’s like a crime against humanity, a hate crime. Such racism.
Again, I suggest to our Latino friends that they ought best to dissociate themselves from such an even and let the Brat Lives Matter crowd embarrass themselves. Otherwise, you will paint yourselves as being out of control criminals who have a licence to kill.
Saint José Luis Sánchez del Río, soldier and martyr, because “all those Mexicans are the same!” Oh, I forgot, I was supposed to pick on someone who wasn’t yet canonized, you know, someone undocumented and who, say, committed a non-violent crime years ago but was still in the system at the invitation of the system, so that we could kick all Mexicans in the face with impunity.
But then another comment came in that was ranting away, with the author apparently having skipped reading those comments, very much upset. Here’s part of a very long comment. Pardon my emphases and [sometimes sarcastic comments]. And if I’m a bit rough here, please know that this person is a friend who I think can take this reprimand.
“I have no sympathy here. There are plenty of people who desperately want to come here but wait to do so legally. [This is continuously more difficult, next to impossible as the years, months and days go by, with contradictory, complex laws, layers and layers of labyrinthine mazes. As one commenter put it, this is somewhat our fault. We should streamline the process without foregoing safety. The thing is, we bait people to be illegal by baiting them to skip the line but also nevertheless to be in the system, checking in with ICE, paying taxes, etc.] I also have issue with the number of mexicans who are setting up their lives here with no intention to assimilate. [So, you know all of them? Can you name them? Even one? Did they tell you they have no intention?] It makes me crazy [!] when I enter into commerce [When you’re at the cash register? Who says to the cashier: “May I enter into commerce with you?” While that’s English, no one speaks that way. It smacks of a foreign speaker. What are doing in this country? You foreigners are all the same. You should be deported! ;-) ] at a place where the staff is speaking another language while waiting on customers who speak English. [Did you try to speak English or were you just offended? Did you greet the cashier in English or just fume about it?] I complained at a big box store because the cashier spoke in another language to an employee [Esperanto? Latin? Swahili? French? German? Russian!?] who was standing around [as security because of the presence of crazy people? as a cashier manager? as someone giving lessons in laziness?] and also to a customer [who spoke the same language? That’s polite, isn’t it?]who was dressed in a similar manner [So, you’re a writer for Saturday Night Live? What does that even mean? What are you really angry with? Do “they” have better taste than you? Are they more stylish? More “with it”, “up to date”, “mod”, “hip”? You’re envious?]. She uttered not a word to me the entire transaction and was solely focused on her two compatriots. [I often go through a checkout on the phone, which is really annoying, I know, but sometimes things can’t wait. An accident has occurred and a priest is needed, etc. I might speak in whatever language. At any rate, maybe they didn’t say anything to you because you didn’t say anything to them because you were too taken at looking at them all aghast at your own lack of style. Did you look angry? Impatient? Were they talking about trying to arrange a welcoming party for, say, local Russians to the neighborhood? Maybe they were talking about signing up for classes to perfect their English? Our Spanish speakers here put on a number of events for the local law enforcement. They arranged that in their native tongue.]
That’s not how the typical transaction goes in this country. [Try smiling.] She was also moving very slowly [like all those damn Mexicans, right?] at a busy time of year [like, what, Christmas? Kwanzaa? New Year’s? The Feast Day of the great third century Bishop and Martyr Saint Valentine? The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes?] which was problematic because the long line wasn’t diminishing.” [Because they were having a good time speaking to each other and being human instead of fuming and crawling out of their skin? You’re just angry because you had to stand in line, right? Because no one else had a right to stand in line, right? Or are you really just racist? Or just a bad day? Lighten up. Jesus loves you too.]
Did I purposely write about Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos to guage reaction? Yes.
Don’t forget the purpose of this blog, noted by the title and blurb in the header:
“Arise! Let us be going!” which refers to Jesus’ command to the sleepy Apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane at the moment of the betrayal by Judas: “See, my betrayer is at hand.” That kind of sets the tone of intensity. But if anyone was mistaken about this, thinking that to just be pious piffle, the rest of it says:
Evangelizing the darkest of mankind’s existential peripheries that together we humbly thank the Lord. If you have good eyes, you can see a modern Hebrew script version of the motto of המוסד which is balanced by the death of our Lord and the Holy Spirit hovering over a scene of terrible violence between two societies.
There are some further words about goodness and kindness for the greater glory of God, something to do with the Jesuits, of which Pope Francis is one. I’m Catholic. And I’m a priest. I wan’t people to come to know Jesus, not just be comfortable in their mistaken ideas of who they think Jesus is.
Look. We’ve all crucified the Son of the Living God with original sin and our own personal rubbish. Smashing people down because they talk differently from you or just because they dress differently from you [more stylish!] won’t gain you many points at the final judgment. We’re hoping that people get to heaven, right? Eternity is a long time. Do you think they will want YOU there, ragging on them all the time, fuming about them? What if Jesus says “Shalom!” to someone else there, or to you? Will you throw a tantrum then?
And if you want to know my generalized impression of illegal immigrants, I’ll tell you, even though these are generalizations and therefore “racist”: I find that as a whole, these are the hardest working, most polite, piously Catholic, family oriented, peace loving, community minded, always but always helpful people I have known in my life. And I’ve been on so many continents and so many countries in so many cultures. And I also have an anecdote. Be warned of provocative language:
There was a young woman here who broke up with her white trash American boyfriend, who was always drugged up and always beating on her, leaving her a smashed up wreck continuously. Her father heard that she had started dating a Mexican and was planning on getting married to him. The father immediately was enraged and hunted down the Mexican so as to beat the living tar out of him. Of course, he instead got the living tar beat out of him, because he just kept up the attack, but he kept getting pummeled, rightly, in self-defense, until an ambulance had to come. The EMT guy reprimanded the father to say that his daughter had lived a living hell with her white trash boyfriend, but was treated like a queen by the Mexican guy, who, in fact, was born in these USA and is an American citizen in good standing. We just need to slow down a bit. Changing circumstances can show us a bit about ourselves, and that’s a good thing. It’s then an occasion to be closer to the Jesus, the Way, Truth and Life. And that’s a good thing. We’re not against each other! We’re against the devil who wishes to work havoc among us.
Lord Jesus, have mercy on us.
Saint José Luis Sánchez del Río, soldier and martyr, pray for us.
Anyway, I want a sombrero like our Cristero saint above. I’m envious. But no frills:
Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, her crime being that she is without proper papers, but having been here for decades, having raised a family (two now teen-aged children with a husband), who worked, paid taxes, stayed within the rules of checking in with ICE every six months, being totally within the present system of becoming documented, a productive, peaceful, contributing member of American society, was arrested when she followed the rules of checking in with ICE, and, without letting her even say goodbye to her family, was immediately deported, going to who knows where in Mexico, leaving her family with an uncertain future.
ICE said that they would “continue to focus on identifying and removing individuals with felony convictions who have final orders of removal issued by the nation’s immigration courts.” But, obviously, she was purposely chosen, precisely because she is totally innocuous, to be an example of what is now happening, again, not because of the refugee Executive Order, but because of the mostly southern border Executive Order, two different things altogether.
People are all a flurry about the refugee Executive Order, not mentioning that effectively the Obama Administration basically barred Christians from being refugees. That ban effects relatively speaking a tiny percentage of people. Meanwhile, the immigration Executive Order could effect tens of millions, who, mind you, are almost all Catholic.
Anyway, a Mexican priest friend, now an American citizen, told me that he is telling his Mexican countrymen to pack up and go back to Mexico. Perhaps they will have just enough time to sell their homes and immovables so that they don’t lose absolutely everything. He said that it’s still possible simply to load up a huge trailer and go across the border to Mexico. This is the way to avoid one’s family being split up. Think of the nightmare. Are they undocumented? Yes. But they work within the system at the invitation of the system, right? You just can’t say: “I heard that el Chapo is mean, so therefore the Mexicans are all like him.” Goodness. These are your neighbors!
One of our law enforcement officers with 25 years experience as a LEO, and a member of the parish here in Western North Carolina, told me a few days ago that if this Executive Order on immigration is actually enforced, he fears major disruptions in these United States.
Remember, it’s no longer the Priorities act (catch and release). Everything goes back to (1) the Secure Communities act under which Obama deported some three million Mexicans. Add to this (2) unlimited profiling and (3) the use of local law enforcement as directed by the Executive Order and you have a recipe for mayhem.
Some background on the Executive Order on Immigration:
Saint José Luis Sánchez del Río, soldier and martyr, because “all those Mexicans are the same!” Oh, I forgot, I was supposed to pick on someone who wasn’t yet canonized, you know, someone undocumented and who, say, committed a non-violent crime years ago but was still in the system at the invitation of the system, so that we could kick all Mexicans in the face with impunity.
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 