Haiku #214


Written on 9:50 PM by Jack B.

Spreading the info
Passed my Italian test
One less thing to do

I think I've got it now...


Written on 9:47 PM by Jack B.

Haven't blogged much due to work & school commitments but also because I've been playing around with my template. I wanted to have 3 columns so I can have my blogroll all on one side and other links on the other. It was a bit difficult at first to get something that worked but I've tested this one with both Firefox and Internet Explorer and it hasn't gone screwy yet.

Celibacy, Milingo and the RCC


Written on 2:45 PM by Jack B.

Celibacy is a discipline, not a doctrine of the church. Since it's not a doctrine there is no need for a scriptual basis for it. Eastern-Rite Catholics (Ukrainians, Maronites, etc.) united to Rome have a married priesthood and the Vatican has allowed exceptions for Protestant pastors who convert to Catholicism and want to become priests to do so and remain married. However there are exceptions to both rules - if the wife dies, the husband cannot remarry, in the Eastern-rite you cannot marry AFTER being ordained a priest (only before) and married men cannot become bishops. Celibacy has a long and noble (and not so noble) history dating back to the early church but in the priesthood in the Latin Rite Church it became mandatory for clergy in the 11th Century or so in an attempot at reforn. The Pope could change it tomorrow - but he won't. Married priests are not a panacea - married men can become sexual predators as well as celibate ones and mainline Protestant clergy (Methodists, Anglicans) with married priests aren't exactly having a vocation boom.

Having said that Milingo deserves the heave-ho. These men he "ordained" are members of schismatic churches who don't recognize the Pope and have different doctrines. They are NOT Roman Catholic - and now neither is he.

Haiku #213


Written on 11:59 AM by Jack B.

Ahoy, me matey
It’s “Talk Like a Pirate Day”
Get out your best “Aaargh!”

Haiku #212


Written on 1:33 AM by Jack B.

Please excuse this blog
Template experimenting
Gonna take awhile

I Just Love My Pirate Name!


Written on 1:49 PM by Jack B.

My pirate name is:

Iron Jack Flint

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.

part of the fidius.org network

Link courtesy of Julie the Happy Catholic

Haiku #211


Written on 3:57 PM by Jack B.

Only day later
Yet memories start to fade
Mind protects itself

9/11 Five Years Later...


Written on 12:00 AM by Jack B.

Like many, I remember where I was 5 years ago, I can recall almost all of my movements from that day. I remember getting ready for school, listening to the radio, when the announcer suddenly said a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I turned on the TV to see the news, and saw the second tower hit. “This was no accident”, the thought crossed my mind instantly, as it must have done to so many others. I still went to school, classes were cancelled (big surprise, huh?), but it’s amazing what one’s priorities are even in times of trauma. I don’t think it had all sunk in yet.

I went to my grandmother’s house and watched events unfold on TV with my cousins - watched as the towers collapsed, one right after the other, like a house of cards, into dust and debris. The two tallest structures in New York City, two of the tallest building in the world, more than 3,000 human lives and countless thousands other changed forever - and all at the hands of a literal handful of cold-blooded fanatics. Not to mention the hundreds of lives lost at the Pentagon and United 93 over Pennsylvania.

Maybe I’m naive but I don’t understand that kind of evil. I cannot fathom minds that can so cold-bloodily, so methodically kill other human beings. But such people do exist, such people continue to seek the end of civilization as we know it. For these people the event of September 11, 2001 were just the beginning but for rest of us it MUST be the end. It’s easy to forget , days, weeks can go by and I don’t think about it. Then something or another will bring me to downtown Manhattan and see the large gaping hole where Towers 1 & 2 once stood and the memories come back. Of my sisters picking up debris from the WTC miles away across the Hudson at her H.S. running track. At my father breaking down at his job because he thought my mother was in the area when it happened (she was but not that close), of the hours my family spent worrying about my uncle who worked in Tower 1 and waiting to see if he was OK (he was). Of watching the TV helplessly, knowing that just a few hours walk from where I was, thousands of my fellow New Yorkers were losing their lives.

At the time my greatest feelings were of loss, sadness and helplessness - and I wasn’t nearly as affected as others were. That’s why we can never forget 9/11, never stop commemorating its anniversary - so America never forgets. With our very lives and futures at stake, we don’t have that option.

Haiku #210


Written on 11:26 AM by Jack B.

Blogging is easy
But not when there is no time
My hours are full

5 Person Meme


Written on 5:17 PM by Jack B.

Another Meme, Via Carmel

If you could meet and have a deep conversation with any five people on earth, living or dead, from any time period, who would they be? Explaining why is optional. Name five people from each of the following categories: saints, those in the process of being canonized, heroes from your native country, authors/writers, celebrities.

1. St. Joan of Arc
2. St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)
3. St. Jerome
4. St. Catherine of Siena
5. St. Radegund

Those in the Process of Being Canonized:
1. Kateri Tekakwitha
2. Pierre Toussaint
3. Pope John Paul II
4. Pier Giorgio Frassati
5. Margaret of Castello

Heroes From Your Native Country:
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Teddy Roosevelt
3. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
4. Nellie Bly
5. Jimmy Stewart (yes, the actor)

1. Jane Austen
2. William Shakespeare
3. Lewis Carroll
4. G. K. Chesterton
5. Anne Frank

1. Orson Welles
2. Pope Benedict XVI
3. Robert Bresson
4. Harry Houdini
5. Doc Holliday

I tag everybody to do this - if you don't you shall surely feel the wrath of Great Caesar's Ghost