Darkness and Light

I finally get to go back on my medication.  I went to the doctor this morning and found out that I should have been able to pick up the next phase in my medication but it wasn’t made clear to me.  It totally sucked to find that out.  It also sucked to find out that I needed to tell the pharmacy tech that I had a 90 day  supply and not a 30 day supply to pick up.  I was in tears most of the morning.  But at least I get to go back on the medication.  That should help because this past week has been Hell.

Up till this week, it had been years since I had any sort of suicidal thoughts but this weeks brought about those thoughts.  Thankfully, I didn’t have them long or act on them but they were still there and they still happened.   That’s a really fucked up week.

We have a real ass at work.  I already have to deal with chauvinistic pig (a “man” who sees women as objects to please him sexually) and a misogynistic pig ( “man” that sees women as less than and worthless than men and as property and not people) at work, now I’ve got another pig who is a misogynistic pig that is also a bully and a tattle tale.  I have to give this “man” a break in the morning but he refuses to leave (which is against state law, I think, and our post orders), talks down to me, treats me like I’m an idiot, and tells me how to do my job when I’ve worked there longer and know more than he does.  But I’m not the only one he does this to.  He’s also been a bully to other coworkers (male) and harasses our supervisors (though the one doesn’t care) but until he does something really egriguous he won’t be fired.  He’s taken the tactic of wearing us down so that it gets to the point that we are so tired of dealing with him that we won’t say anything so that he gets away with all this since all we want to do is do what we have to and then leave.

Thursday I got so fed up with his attitude that I told him that he needed to leave for his break (like I said this is the rule) and that if he didn’t leave then I was going to leave and he wasn’t going to get a break.  He whined at me that it was cold out.  Well, duh but if I have to work out in it and in much worse weather, he can walk out in it for a few minutes.  He has his jacket on but no, he whined.  I told him he needed to leave.  He told me I could call the supervisor and tell him that he wouldn’t leave.  I told him again that he needed to leave otherwise he wouldn’t get a break and I would leave.   He told me he wasn’t leaving and I told him fine, then he wasn’t getting a break and then left.  He then calls the supervisor to whine about me.  The supervisor then talks to me that I needed to give this asshole a break, in the future, and that if he didn’t want to leave that was okay.  He also said that if he didn’t want a break that was okay but I still needed to write it down in my log that he took one  (which is illegal since our logs are legal documents and that would be perjury and fraud and against the law because he legally has to take a break).  I felt that this asshole was being given all the consideration and I was the one being punished.  I hate how bad coworkers are rewarded and good coworkers are ignored or punished for their bad coworkers bad behavior.  I know all this will turn into something really bad but I’ll be the one hurt and the asshole will get off scot free.

Then there was this thread at CAF and all I wanted to do was give voice to the narcissistic, self-righteous, wrathful asshole that has become a voice in my head.  I wanted to log in under a fake handle and tell her that yes, her daughter is immodest, should be learning how to be a wife and mother not involved in worldly concerns and that these people were right in breaking off the friendship because not only was the daughter bad but the mother is horrible as well. That nasty voice wanted to tell her that her daughter needed to be in dresses all the time as well as her while wearing veils, that Facebook was of the devil, that they both needed to understand that being a wife and mother was the only thing a girl was good for, that they needed to stick permanently to the EF parish because OF parishes are hotbeds of immorality and heresy, and that her and her husband needed to find their daughter a husband fast and have her married as soon as she turned 18.  They also needed to spank her (so what if she is 16) and restrict all her outside access to just Mass and Adoration.  She should not be allowed friends at all.  Her family was all the friends she needed.  She was already in the devil’s clutches and that meant she was leading men and her friends into sin.  They needed to get back on the real Catholic track and things would be right.  Homeschooling wasn’t enough.  They needed to be completely cuff off from all evil influences.

I hate that voice but that voice is now there from the traditionalists, the whole quiverfull/patriarchy garbage that I have read and come in contact with.  What’s worse is that the quiverfull/patriarchy garbage has seeped into Catholic circles especially homeschool and traditionalist circles.  You can see some of it in these friends of the thread’s OP and in other threads on CAF.  I don’t know why this garbage is so exciting and enticing but it is.

This garbage promises control and power and the right path to God and holiness and being better and truly Catholic than Catholics.  You see it every time a new Michael Voris video comes out.  The traditionalists support his rhetoric and name calling and condemning of fellow Catholics and definitely priests and those that see Voris what his video and rhetoric really are are shot down, called heretics and liars and Protestants, and  doing all the same stuff that make Voris problematic to say the least.  Traditionalists don’t crave truth, they crave being right and public adulation for being right and true “Catholics” all the while demeaning and even hurting other Catholics for not agreeing with them.  This thread talks about this pretty well.  Traditionalists are extremely focused on the external thinking this is all that matters when it comes to determining the real Catholic from the Protestant.  They don’t care that the Church Herself allows a lot of variety in prayer and worship.  To traditionalists, external reality determines not only internal reality (which it rarely, if ever, does) it also determines the need for everyone to conform and  who is really a REAL CATHOLIC and who is not.  Actually, traditionalists want conforming and uniformity not unity.  They don’t understand that unity and uniformity don’t mean the same thing.  They don’t want them to be separate things.

For unity and uniformity to be separate things, then they would have to accept that there is more than the EF, more than prayers in Latin, more than living in 1960 with every family like that in Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best.  They are so stuck on externals that they don’t see the trees for the forest.  Uniformity means that everything is going the way they want it and doing what they want.  They want clones and automatons not real individuals.  Individuals are to be despised and forced into conformity not appreciated and grateful for being made individuals by God.  Traditionalists are trying to dictate to the Church and to God on how they want to run the Church, which is funny since this is what they accuse other Catholics of doing.

Reading how the rod verse means understanding and developing the child’s abilities and talents from this post by Elizabeth Esther had me in tears.  When all you were taught was fear and terror and pain, having your abilities and talents recognized is hard to handle or consider because that would mean that you were seen as a person worthy of love and respect not an object to be reviled and punished.  I have a hard time understanding or even accepting or even considering that I have talents and abilities.  I wasn’t encouraged to have dreams and the dreams I had very squashed and reviled.  Even right now I have no dreams for the future because the one dream I had and nurtured was dashed repeatedly.  What’s the point in having dreams when all they are going to be is destroyed.  I don’t have dreams.  All I care about now is surviving and getting through the work week.  I have no future.  No possibility of advancement or achievement, no possibility of doing anything useful with my life.

I was raised to fear everything which colors my life so much today.  I look at the things I’ve done like graduate with two different bachelor’s degrees or travel abroad and wonder how I even achieved those kinds of things because all I ever heard was that I was a failure and that I wouldn’t amount to anything.  I did everything to please my parents especially my mother but it was never enough.  I was never smart enough, pretty enough, athletic enough, good enough, helpful enough, etc.  I didn’t act exactly as she wanted.  I wasn’t a boy.  I wasn’t perfect though I certainly acted that way thinking it would help.  I was always afraid.  Always afraid to set her off.  Always afraid of doing something wrong and I would be punished and screamed at.  The spanking wasn’t nearly as bad as the screaming.  My mother loved to scream at me.  She loved to shame me and make me feel guilty for every little thing. I still feel that shame today.  I still heap that shame on myself.

I mess up and I blame myself, telling myself I am a failure, that I should have done better, that I knew better and shouldn’t have done it, that I shouldn’t eat that or I needed to lose weight because I am so fucking fat, that I am going to Hell for not being good enough, that God hates me and can’t love me because I’m such a screw up and that if I wasn’t such a horribly evil person things would be so much better, that all the bad stuff that happens like traffic are punishment for my screws up like getting up late and getting to work on time rather than twenty minutes early.  Any more I feel like I need to be punished.  That if I was punished then everything would be better.  That my mother would finally love me.  That I would have friends.  That God would finally love me.  That I would be acceptable as a person.

But I am not punished and I think that I so far gone that I can’t be saved, can’t be helped.  I feel that I need to be punished for God to really love me since that’s how my mother worked.  She spanked me and screamed at me therefore she loved me, right?  I ruined her life when I was sick as the age of six but she didn’t get rid of me like she always threatened.  She kept saying I was going to hell for being a bad girl but I’m already in hell so I’ll never be a good girl even though I was very much the good girl for a very long time.  I thought being the good girl would keep me safe from punishment but it didn’t.  I expect to be punished for every little screw up and sin so even as an adult I have to see bad things as punishments for my very bad decisions (I’m not capable of making good decisions) by God.  I only learned about a God who punishes, not a God loves, well a God who loves everyone else but me.  I’m not lovable.  I’m only good for being punished.  I need to be punished.  Why doesn’t God really punish me like I deserve?  Give me a terrible, incurable disease.  Cause me to be a horrible accident where I lose all physical function.  Kill me.  Punish me. That’s all I deserve.  Love is only for good people.  I am not a good person.  Never have been.  I deserve to die not to live.  Isn’t that what everybody wants?

I hate that I am in this place.  These last few weeks have been hell and this past week pure hell, so bad that I have considered suicide.  Depression is no fun.  I don’t think it will ever get better.  This hell is where I will always live.  That’s what it feels like.

 

Why I Need to Get In Touch With My Inner Bitch: The Traddies are At It Again

After reading this post at The Church Fanatic (I am in the process of writing an article about it for this blog but I am doing a lot of research for it so it will be a while) and seeing this thread at CAF, it seems like the Traditionalists are trying to out-extreme the extreme fundamentalists.  What’s worse, is that they seem to be able to convince innocent people that their opinions are Church dogma and that if they don’t follow they are going to Hell.  To top that, I get persuaded that I am not being a good enough Catholic, I start thinking all these horrible thoughts that I need to dress in a burqa, consider myself leading men into sin if they see my wrist, and that I need to go to the Latin Mass because the Mass I attend isn’t good enough even though I wouldn’t want to go anywhere near those kinds of people and there isn’t one near me anyways.

Actually, traditionalists have had such an impact on me that my thoughts go towards thinking

-I am horrible just for being born a woman (not true) (what’s worse is hearing this kind of claptrap from women who hate themselves) God made me woman.  God doesn’t make junk therefore I am not horrible for being born a woman

-not wearing skirt/dresses all time means I’m not dressing right (I’ve gained so much weight due to my depression that I only fit into my pants)

-that I need to be a stay at home mom (I’m not married nor do I feel called to marriage and I have to stipulate that this thought is along the lines of I have to be a stay at home mom but everyone else that is other women can have careers and hobbies and such while I have to stay home and never go out except to Mass) ( it goes along with my depression and the thought processes that I learned/fell into growing up) I was taught/learned that I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t athletic enough, wasn’t pretty enough so the only thing I was good for was being a mother and staying home.  Yes, my mother used to tell me I was stupid, that I wouldn’t amount to anything, and that I was going to Hell.  Can we say screwed up?  Oh, she loved to tell me I was fat when I was a size 6.

-that I am going to Hell because I’m not getting it, not living the Catholic faith “right”, not praying the Rosary 24/7 (I actually pray three decades of it on the way home from work because the local Catholic radio station airs it when I get off in the morning but I have issues with the concept to mother and Mary as my mother when my own mother abused me.  Plus, I want a mother all to myself and not one I have to share.  I know that’s selfish but that’s where I’m at emotionally when it comes to healing from the mother’s abuse.  Again, this comes from the traditionalists who want conformity and uniformity and not the universality that is the Church.  Traditionalists are so focused on the external that Jesus and God are practically forgotten except as a hammer to beat people over the head with to force people to follow the “traditionalist’ way of doing things.

There are more and they are usually worse at work (I work graveyard security and the radio doesn’t work in my patrol vehicle so I’m left with my thoughts).  Suffice it to say, I need to get in touch with my inner bitch.  What I mean by that is accepting and being pleased with the fact that I am a woman, that I have power as woman, and that I can and do make things happen.  That I can and should stand up for myself.  That taking care of myself is okay.  That I matter as a person.  That I am worthy of love and respect, not because of what I do but because of who I am.

I am me and that is Good.

I do not need to be afraid of me as I was taught.  I am not a bad person because my mother said so or because I don’t adhere to some anonymous traditionalist’s ideal.

I am me and God is okay with that.  He loves me for me.  He created me.  Like I said,  He doesn’t make junk.

 

 

Warning: Traditionalists are Hazardous to Your Health

It’s true.  Reading “Tradionalist” material is seriously dangerous to your mental and physical health.

It will cause you to get angry because you start thinking you have been lied to, deceived, and that you aren’t a good enough Catholic.

It will cause you to get depressed because you start thinking you are a bad and horrible Catholic that will never be good enough, that you aren’t being heard or loved by God because you aren’t praying in Latin/veiling/not wearing skirts/homeschooling/praying the Rosary five times a day/attending only the EF and putting down and calling everyone else who attends the OF heretics and horrible Catholics and name calling priests and bishops because they aren’t forcing the EF on everyone and supressing the OF outright.

It will cause you to get angry because only you see how the world will be saved by going back to the EF and destroying the OF because it isn’t pretty enough Mass with horrible translations when you know that praying in Latin is the only way God will hear you and answer your prayers otherwise you are just babbling.

It will cause you to get angry that women have rights, can wear pants, work, drive, etc. when they should be confined to the home, barefoot and pregnant and if they get out of line, beaten to keep them in line because they are second class creatures that God created to serve men entirely and not to be individuals of their own.

It will cause you to start thinking that you are doing everything wrong because you not obeying these “wise and all knowing” “traditionalists” who seem to have it all together and are perfectly holy and even can read the mind of God.

It will cause you to beat yourself up, start starving yourself and calling it fasting since you didn’t go far enough during Lent, saying yes to everyone who asks you for a favor even though it will cause you great harm to agree, and allow everyone to walk all over you and abuse you because you’ve come to believe that this is what a “Good Catholic Woman” looks like.

It will cause you to start looking for all the sin in other people’s lives from not wearing skirts (which lead a man to damnation since it is a woman’s fault he sins), to sending their children to public schools which “traditionalists” all know are bastions of pagan homosexual anti-Catholic propoganda that will lead poor Johnny straight to Hell if you don’t perform an exorcism according the pre-Vatican II rite to using NFP which says that you are distrusting God and his command to be fruitful and multiply to women enjoying sex to talking about sex at all to women not submitting like a slave and doing whatever their husband commands and do it right now or you are going to Hell and taking the whole family with you.

It will cause you to start thinking of seriously beating yourself with a whip  show that you are sorry for all the mortal sins you committed just today (which since you are a woman means you commit more mortal sins and more horrible ones at that then men who are nearly perfect and women are demons from Hell) (women commit a mortal sin just by existing).

It will cause you to get very angry because you realize that no matter what you do or don’t do or dress or pray that you are going to Hell anyway, just like your mother always predicted.

I wish “Tradionalist” Catholics would learn that all they are doing is hurting people and the Church.  NO one wants to be hurt especially not in the name of Jesus.

Signs/Symptoms of a Radical Traditionalist

Having come across so many radical traditionalists in my time on CAF and even one or two in real life, I thought I’d come up with a set of diagnostic criteria for a radical traditionalist, not unlike the diagnostic criteria in the DSM-IV for psychologists and psychiatrists.  This isn’t perfect and I know I probably forgot things but this is what I have so far.

For a diagnosis of Radical Traditionalist, three or more of the following criteria may be met (OB is obscure):

-Believes the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, usually referred to as the Tridentine Latin Mass (TLM) is the only valid form of the Mass.  Everything else is inferior, heretical, or Protestant.

-Holds the 1917 Code of Canon Law above the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

-Believes Latin in the only language of the Catholic Church.  All prayers, private or public, are to be said in Latin.

-Believes God only understands Latin.

-Believes Palestrina and Gregorian chant that is sung by an all male choir is the only form of music, esclesial or secular, allowed.

-Believes the Rosary is the supreme and highest devotion.  It is the only prayer, besides the Mass, that is necessary for salvation.  Believes anyone who does not pray the Rosary is not a Catholic.

-Believes the Ordinary Form of the Mass, normally referred to the Novus Ordo and refuses to use the forms of the Church, in the vernacular is inefficacious, is invalid, does not present a valid Eucharist, is inferior, and Protestant.  Believe people who attend the OF are either Protestants or heretics.

-Believes communion on the tongue while kneeling at a communion rail is the only way to receive the Eucharist.  People who are unable to kneel are deemed irreverent.  Communion in the hand is considered heretic and pagan.

-Believes the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima is the only Marian apparition or at least the highest.   Believed to be the best Marian devotion and the only one worthy of belief.  Believe Catholics who do not believe it, follow what was said, or refuse to acknowledge it are heretics.  Requires automatic believe in this apparition as a criteria as to being a real Catholic.

-Believe Confession is required every week.

-Believe most things are a mortal sin, especially if they say so.

-Believe no woman is allowed anywhere near the sanctuary.  This even means the first pew unless they are a nun/sister praying the Rosary.

-Believe there is a strict dress code for every occasion.  This only applies to women and children.

-Believes women are required to veil at all times.  Mantillas only.  Hats and other forms of headcovering are not allowed.  No hair is allowed to show otherwise a woman will be inciting a man to sin.  She is at fault if a mans sees even one strand of hair.

-Believes women are required to wear dresses or skirts (dresses are the preferred option) down to the floor with full length sleeves and extreme high collars.  The prefered style is fundamentalist Mormon.

-Believes women who dress in pants or skirts above the toe are inciting men to lust and other sexual sins and just asking to be raped.

-Believes women are responsible for men’s sins, especially sexual sins.

-Believes the Church does not go far enough is legislating modesty and dress.  Believes the Church should dictate a strict dress code for everyone that must be strictly adhered to at all times.

-Believes women are to be minimally educated.

-Believes women should never work outside the home.

-Believes no one should go swimming do to the immoral form of dress required.

-Believes women are meant only to be wives and mothers, and occasionally sisters but nothing else.

-Believe Natural Family Planning (NFP) is contraception and goes against God’s will.

-Believes the number of children a couple will have is should be entirely left up to the providence of God.  Any abstinence, NFP, or any other method is contraception and a mortal sin.  A mother’s health, a family’s finances, etc. are irrelevant to family size and having children.

-Believes all children should be homeschooled.  All other forms of schooling are tools of the devil.

-Believes colleges, universities, high schools, elementary schools, public and Catholic are bastions of radical feminism, secular humanism, and atheism.

-Believes sheltering children from every interaction with the world and especially other people will make them strong Catholics.

-Believes TV, radio, movies, computers, and any other media that is not explicitly Catholics is immoral, a tool of the Devil, and never allowed in the home.

-Believes EWTN doesn’t go far enough.

-Believes most Bishops, priests, and Catholics to be outright heretics and have no knowledge of the faith.

-Believe Michael Voris is the second coming and like his in the face style and name calling of bishops and fellow Catholics.

-Believe Colleen Hammond is the go to authority for dress and follow her rules exactly.

-Believes if the book is not the Bible, the Early Church fathers, or one of  a select few writers then the books are immoral and advocating devil worship.

-Believe only young earth creationism.

-Believes they must call all behavior not exactly like theirs a sin and everyone who does not believe like them a heretic.

-Believes they are the only one on the right path to Heaven.  Everyone else, except for a select few, is going to Hell.

-Believes having fun is a sin.

-Believes contemporary music is immoral regardless of the lyrics.  Some classical music by some Catholics composers is acceptable.

-Believes the organ is the only instrument.  All other instruments, regardless of use, is profane.

-Believes that quoting documents from Vatican II is sinful and will only cite pre-Vatican II documents to support their arguments, even if they are off topic or have nothing to do with a topic or are out dated.

-Will ignore, put down, or trash Vatican II.

-Believes happiness and joy are useless and pointless especially in the spiritual life.

-Believes it is necessary to point out every little flaw and mistake a priest makes as necessary to stop liturgical abuse.

-Believes liturgical abuse is extremely rampant in OF/NO parishes and have never existed in EF/TLM parishes.

-Believes the Baltimore Catechism is the only necessary catechism.

-Believe the 1950s were the Golden Era of Catholicism in America.

-Believes the 1960s were the end of the Catholic Church in America.

-Believes Council of Trent trumps Vatican II.

-Wants all Catholics to be exactly like them.

-Believe unity is the sam thing as uniformity.

-Believe the EF/TLM would solve all the problems in the Church, including but not limited to sex abuse by priests, lack of vocations.

-Believe a college education is worthless unless you are going to be a lawyer or a doctor.

-Believe they are the only true Catholics and everyone else is a Protestant heretic.

(OB)-Believe women who dress in pants or in skirts above the toe are guilty for their own rape.

(OB)-Believes all Protestants are going to Hell.

(OB)-Believes Jews were abandoned or are ignored by God.

(OB)-Believe Eastern Catholics and the Orthodox are to be Latinized.

(OB)-Believe that is a person receives any sort of spiritual consolation, you are doing something wrong or are possessed by a demon.

 

This is not an exhaustive list but it does include what I have seen, read, and heard.

A Realization

Why I have problems with certain views espoused by certain types of Catholics:

Your personal preference/opinion is not Church doctrine.

I see this rather frequently especially in regards to topics such as women, the Ordinary Form of the Mass, private devotions, people who don’t bow down and worship at the poster’s feet for their opinion (this one comes up the most), evolution, altar servers, dress code, et al., etc.  At the end of the day, we all need God’s help and grace not our hand smacked away because we are asking for help.  I see so much of the hand smacking and not enough the hand grasping and lifting someone up.

The Internet is For Idiots

It’s true.  Consider this my rant of the week.  The Internet is for idiots, well at least for people who come off as idiots.  And CAF is the cause of my rant this week.  I really should ban myself from the Traditional Catholicism forum because it seems chock a block with people who label and malign people who don’t agree with them 100% as damned to Hell or are telling people what to do and advocating their opinion as Church dogma, which it definitely isn’t.

Between the people who malign priests (apparently, priests are supposed to be perfect and holy as soon as they are ordained instead of being the real men in need of a saviour like the rest of us motley sinners) who don’t preach what they want (hellfire and brimstone for everyone but themselves with a sprinkling of ‘you’re a heretic because you don’t eat/sleep/pray Latin 24/7′, veil (not headcover and there is a difference) 24/7, or are a woman who works instead of choosing to be a doormat and stay at home mom who is the slave of her husband and woman are the cause of all the problems in society (yes, there are Catholics and Christians who believe and preach that) and don’t condemn everyone but the one individual to hell, the people who hate woman and blame them for the ills in the world (and plain out misogyny ), and the ones that believe their opinion and view is better than the Church and what Jesus taught, it’s a wonder anybody stays Catholic.  There’s so much hatred and no love for fellow Catholics.  The need to smack people down and take joy in that hurting of people.

There is no honor is maligning priests.  By insulting priests you insult Jesus.  Yet people do it all the time on CAF and think they are being holy and righteous and doing God’s work.  NO, you’re committing mortal sin (calumny and gossip and slander and detraction and not loving you neighbor all come to mind) and being disobedient.  You have no authority to say or advocate such things and you will be held accountable, if not this life then the next.

That’s actually the biggest issue: no authority.  The Internet forum and knowledge of the truth does not give you authority to dictate how other people live.  You cannot give yourself authority.  That’s not how it works.  The Church has authority, given to Her by Christ, and She passes on some of  that authority to Her bishops and priests, and the heads of religious orders/congregations/etc.  But an anonymous poster on the Internet has no authority to claim or to tell someone how to live their live or what devotions to follow or what to believe or disbelieve or even to obey or disobey just because they don’t like something.  I can’t tell anyone how to live their life.  They can ask me for advice or suggestions or what not but they don’t have to take it or even listen to it.  They are their own individual person as I am my individual person.  Someone who needs someone to tell them how to live their life is in serious need of help because they aren’t living their life but letting others control them and that can be dangerous.

God did not create automatons and He doesn’t want automatons but there are sure a lot of people who want everyone to be automatons and clones instead of the individuals God created them to be.

Discussion this week: Modesty and how does it relate to men and women

Discussion this week:  Modesty and how does it relate to men and women

Have at it.

Discussion of the Week

Borrowing this idea from another blog, I’m going to start a discussion post/thread every week dealing with something that relates to this blog.  This largely to see what people think and hopefully get people who come to this blog to comment even if they normal do not or are afraid to.

Rules:

• Anyone is allowed to post a comment.
• I will delete any that use extremely rude or vulgar language or that do not relate to anything in anyway on this blog.  If you post a comment Friday through Monday, don’t expect it to be read until at least Tuesday because those are the days I work and have no computer access.  So it’s not a matter of me being rude, just busy with real life.
• Keep comments charitable and hopefully on topic (it happens that people start on one thing and go off on another).  I will be doing an off topic thread that will allow people to post anything (with respect to the rules) without fearing that they aren’t on topic or feel like they don’t have something to say.
• Off topic can be anything that may relate to things I cover in this blog to your favorite recipe or lolcat pics to venting about something and looking for an answer to links to other blogs that you think are just awesome and you think people need to know about.  There are no forbidden topics for the most part.  However, follow the rules.
• Have fun.

I will also take suggestions for post topics.

Dress Code Dictators

So I spend time on Catholic Answers Forums.  While there are a few sub-forums that I don’t visit on purpose or that I am not interested in, the Traditional Catholicism sub-forum is one I read to help understand people who make claims that sound “more Catholic than the Pope” especially about things like dress, Mass preference, etc.  There are times when I wish I didn’t because the sheer gall and hatred and need to dictate other peoples’ lives angers me.  How does someone on the Internet have the right to tell me how to live my life?

This thread really ticks me off because it lays the decline of American society solely at the feet of women and how they dress.  Tell me, when did men get a free pass from sin?  Because, honestly, I see this attitude and these types of posts a lot on CAF, especially in this sub-forum.  Men can’t and don’t have to control themselves because WOMEN are the ones making them sin.  It’s those bad, mean, immodest women who causing men to sin and end up in hell.  BS!  Men make a choice to sin.  They are just as responsible for the decline of American society as women are because some of them dress pretty immodestly too (though that is not the only reason American society is Culture of Death).  So it completely unfair and untrue that if women dressed in dresses and skirts then men wouldn’t sin and society would be pure and wonderful.  Get out of Fantasy Land!  It has never and will never exist.  A world where everyone is virtuous and there is no sin only happened once and look what happened there.

I hate it when people, especially women, dictate what others should wear.  As long as it’s modest, it’s okay to wear jeans and t-shirt, or a skirt, or capris.  Each women will have their own individual style.  They shouldn’t be made to be fashion clones just so a small but horribly vocal group can pat themselves on the back for being the most modest and not causing men to sin and making everyone follow their narrow version of their interpretation of Catholicism while looking down on everyone else for not being as holy and perfect as they are.  You never hear a dress code dictated for men (they also have their own individual style that as long as it is modest is fine).  The Church only calls for modesty, not a strict list of what is and is not allowed.

I’ve also added a New Link to The Catholic Fanatic, a blog about someone who is recovering from the extreme Traditionalists and Dress Code Dictators.

A Declaration

Yes, at 4:40 in the morning.  Well, it is what time it is here.

I am a feminist.  There.  I said it.  And being a feminist is a good thing.  However, there are forms of feminism that are bad: radical feminism, any form that supports abortion and contraception and “sexual freedom” and bashing men and supports the homosexual lifestyle.  Those are anti-women and anti-men.

Abortion is anti-women because it’s about choosing to punish yourself and a baby for existing as a person and being able to give life and for being a women.  It’s also anti-men because it doesn’t care about men as fathers or as people.  Abortion is anti-people because it is indiscriminate in who it kills: girls, boys, gays, straight, the innocent, the potentially successful, the potentially disabled, etc.  Abortion basically says that you aren’t good enough to exist because you don’t fit in some arbitrary category about who and what a person is.  Abortion isn’t a choice or a freedom.  It’s a death sentence for the baby and for the mother.  It puts the mother in a continuous cycle of sexual abuse and prostitution.  A women who uses abortion to “get rid of a problem” abuses herself.  No woman is free when they get an abortion.  NO woman is free when they have sex with anybody outside of marriage.  They are abusing themselves and selling themselves as prostitutes that aren’t getting paid to have sex.

Bashing men also bashes women.  Men can’t exist without women and women can’t exist without men.  It’s biologically impossible.  If there was only one sex, then they wouldn’t be women or men.  There would be no concept of male or female, man or women.  The words and concepts wouldn’t exist in our language because there would be no need for them.  While I’m certain there are people who would love to eliminate such words, it’s impossible and entirely impractical.   It just wouldn’t work.  We need men and women and we need them to be different.  Yes, there are people who are trying to do with mother and father and what they mean but they will fail.  Not only do we need them, to eliminate them would eliminate what makes humans unique.  Actually, it goes beyond that.  It would destroy society.  Society as a whole needs mothers and fathers and men and women.

I believe in equal pay for equal work.  Now, it has gotten better but there’s always room for improvement.  There is also room for improvement in how people are compensated for their work and how work is valued.  Value shouldn’t be based entirely on monetary value but on what that person brings to the company or whatnot and not how much money they can make for the company at the expense of that individual’s health and personal relationships.

I believe rape, abuse be it sexual, physical, emotional, spiritual, verbal, psychological, or mental and neglect are crimes against people regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation, creed, ethnicity, etc. and should be prosecuted as such.  A spouse has no right to rape their spouse or beat them because they are married or to verbally abuse them because they think they can.  Parents should abuse their children nor should children abuse their parents.  A gay partner can’t beat their partner and get away with it.  It’s a crime against a person.  While I have problems with the homosexual lifestyle, they are still people who should be treated with respect and crimes against them should be investigated and prosecuted.

I believe a woman has the right to choose what she wants to do with her life.  If she wants to be a wife and mother and work, I support that.  If a woman wants be a wife and mother and be a stay at home mom, I support that too.  If a woman wants to work but stay permanently single, I support that as well.  If a woman believes she is called to the religious life and chooses to follow that, I support that as well.  I don’t support people who dictate how other people should live.  I have no right to tell Woman A or even Man A what to do with their lives.  I can’t make them work in a particular field or make them get married and no one else should either.  They can seek advice and counsel from people they trust but should make their own choices about their life.  And I will defend a women’s right to determine her own life.

I believe women are the biggest oppressors of women.  They are the ones who watch others like a hawk and talk about people behind their back and pass judgement on them because they don’t live exactly as they do.  If a woman wants to dress like a Goth (does anybody still dress like a Goth anymore?), as long as she dresses modestly (this is predicated on her and the society she lives in) then she can dress like a goth.  Or a punk.  Or in jeans and a t-shirt.  Or dresses.  Or formal suits.  No one can dictate what she wears unless she works in a particular industry that requires a uniform for work (even the typical office has a “uniform” for how to dress).  Women are the biggest believers about the lies of women: that they are weak, inferior, support things that hurt women, uneducable, shouldn’t be allowed to work, shouldn’t be allowed to receive a college/university degree, that the only thing a women can do is get married and have children and stay at home, that women who don’t revolve their lives around men have something wrong them or are lesbians.

I believe people are individuals with their own unique life experiences. No one is automaton and people shouldn’t make people into clones of themselves just because it makes their lives easier or because they think they have the power to do so.

Now there are people who are going to have a problem with me, a Catholic, being a feminist.  Yet all that I posted doesn’t contradict anything the Catholic Church teaches.  Being a feminist isn’t anti-Catholic.  It’s pro-humanity.  The Catholic Church was the first feminist force in the world.  Now there were people in the Church, but not the Church Herself, that advocated beliefs and practices that were anti-women but they weren’t the Church.  They were sinners who got tangled up in the details and pushing their own agendas rather than focusing on Jesus.  Jesus is very pro-women as demonstrated in the Gospels.

Let the tomato and lemon throwing commence.

Sex Does Not Make You Free (While the Pill Turns You into an Unpaid Prostitute)

This article was linked on Patty Bond’s blog and after reading TWO, and yes I mean TWO articles about how the Pill “benefited” Mothers on Mother’s Day (what a load of tripe), I thought I would post a link and a response here.

The Pill didn’t benefit women.  It just made the ones who took it unpaid prostitutes.  Women used to be able to demand that men “man up” after they got pregnant from premarital sex (if they hadn’t waited because surprising to all those safe sex advocated, many did wait till marriage before having sex).  Actually, women used to be able to demand that men be men.  And men took responsibility. Not any more.  Now men and women have turned each other into sex toys that they can use and just discard with no care or concern about the other.  Men and women become objects that have no feelings, no responsibility, no life, no worth.  ”Carrie” can sleep with “Mark,” “Steve,” “Chris,” “Alejandro,”  ”Ling,” and “Sarah” while “Steve” could be sleeping with “Chris,” “Daniel,” “Ming,” “Victoria,” “Manuela.”   Neither “Carrie” or “Steve” realize, care to realize, or try to hide so that it is never acknowledged is that having sex with multiple partners is no way to have a relationship.  Sex is not and cannot be consequence free.  There are studies out there that show that the body actually releases hormones during sex to help the couple bond emotionally.

So by taking the Pill  or using a condom or using any other sort of contraception you already have the mindset that you will only have the physical connection but nothing else.  Guess what: our bodies aren’t made that way.  We are made to bond emotionally and physically.  And by inserting a wall in between one, you damage the other.  You’re probably thinking: hey that’s great, sex with no consequences.  WRONG!  Not only are you damaging the physical connection (you make think a little latex doesn’t mean anything but it does) but it also damaging the emotional connection.  By taking the Pill or using a condom or any other contraception you are saying to the other person that I am only using you to masterbate, to use you for my own personal sexual satisfaction.  The Pill makes it all about me and nothing about you.  Oh, you say that you help your partner reach climax but again it’s all for you personal satisfaction.  You can feed yourself all kinds of lies about how the Pill makes you free to love your partner but in reality it’s all about you.  You turn yourself and your partner into unpaid prostitutes for each other.  When “Carrie” takes the Pill, she’s saying “Steve” is only there to be used as a toy.  ”Steve” ceases to be a person in “Carrie’s” world and vice versa.  Dress it up in any language you want but it’s true.  ”Carrie” isn’t free, she’s just an unpaid prostitute and doesn’t realize it or doesn’t want to realize it.

Women gained rights NOT to become unpaid prostitutes but that’s what some feminists and society want you to believe, that by having sex whenever you want with whomever you want you are a free and liberated woman who’s on par with men.  Yeah, both are in the cesspool of garbage because they are using each other as objects and not treating each other as people worthy of dignity and respect.  That’s not rights or liberation: that’s oppression that we’ve willingly taken because we believe it sets us free.  Actually, it’s killing us and we go blindly to our deaths.  Sex isn’t everything.  Don’t believe society.  It doesn’t know what’s best for you.  It only knows what keeps people enthralled to it and away from God and responsibility and respect for others and respect for life.