Today’s Gem from Renew America
You guys ever hear of Barbara Kralis?
Although she only posts articles at Renew America once every coupla months, her work is usually filled to the brim with grade-A hilarity. The best is when she re-prints sermons written by her crazy friend Archbishop Sheen (or as I call him, the Reverend Dracula):
Above: Archbishop Sheen says, “Bloooood, blooooood!”
OK, let’s see what wingnuttery’s dynamic duo are up to this week:
Archbishop Sheen Today! — Denying our sins (Part Two)
Barbara Kralis
October 18, 2005Many years ago, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen wrote a theological book in which he capitalized the word Hell.
“He also concocted a way to spell ‘invertibrate’ with a silent ‘q.’ He was quite the linguistic pioneer.”
His editor corrected it by putting in a small “h.” Sheen sent it back putting the capital letters in again. When asked why, he said: “Because it’s a real place!”
“And how do you know that?”
“BECAUSE IT’S WHERE I LIVE!!!! BWOOOO-HAAA-HAAA!!!”
“Blooooood, bloooood!”
(And incidentally, if we’re going to start capitalizing the names of all real places, does that mean I have to start referring to my ass as My Ass?)
Today, we need only look around us, even in our own families, to see so many people have lost belief in the place called Hell.
This is starting to sound like some crappy hair-metal song, doncha think?
“I believe in a place called Hell,
Just listen to my blood-curdlin’ screams!
There’s no chance that I’ll get out now,
It’s even worse than in my dreams!
I BELIEVE IN A PLACE CALLED HELLLLLLLL! OOO-OOO-OOO-OOO-OOO! HUH!”
OK, back to Babs:
Why? Because they have lost the sense of sin.
The greatest obstacle to man’s journey toward God is perseverance in and the denial of sin.
We may ask, “What does disbelief and the loss of the sense of sin in others have to do with me? I haven’t lost my faith.”
It has a lot to do with us. In fact, the Church teaches that every sin committed drags down with itself the Church and, in some way, the whole world. In other words, there is no sin, not even the most intimate and secret one, which exclusively concerns the person committing it.
Right, this is getting boring. Let’s skip down to Archbishop Sheen:
Friends: It used to be that people escaped admitting their own guilt by blaming it on capitalism, communism, lack of soft drink parlors, Grade B milk, and naughty ductless glands.
…
*eyes blink*
…
Can someone please explain to me what the hell Hell I just read?
Now a new psychology arises to blame the unconsciousness, or poor old Oedipus or wrinkled Electra.
Uh, don’t know what you’re implying here, Bishop Sheen, but I’m not really down with the whole incest scene.
It is now claimed that the fault is in that part of ourselves which is not responsible, namely unconsciousness.
Those escapists who deny personal guilt make all people ‘nice people,’ in the sense that they are without sin or guilt. By one magic stroke, the escapists rid the world of ‘nasty people,’ here understood as sinners.
Hey, it beats the Catholic Church’s past attempts to rid the world of “nasty people,” which, if I’m not mistaken, involved fun things like executions and torture.
The ‘nice people,’ according to the escapists, may be diseased, but they are not ‘sinners.’ We are going to maintain the contrary thesis that the increase of psychoses and neuroses and mental disorders is due to the fact that too many people think they are ‘nice’ or sinless.
Y’ever actually talk to people with mental disorders, Bishop Sheen? They don’t exactly have the highest self-esteem. In fact, I’d say most of them feel pretty shitty about themselves. Just sayin’.
In addition, there would be much more hope for the ‘nice people’ if they began to recognize they were not so nice at all, maybe even nasty; by nasty, we mean responsible for their guilt.
I guess old “love the sinner, hate the sin” doctrine is outdated, ’cause it seems like calling people names is all the rage now.
Never deny personal guilt; it has five serious effects in the soul:
It destroys character by eliminating responsibility and therefore freedom.
Just like Jesus said, “And your guilt shall make you free.” (Or something like that.)
It makes forgiveness impossible by denying there is a sin to be forgiven.
Of course, if you don’t feel guilty about anything, you’re probably not going to care that much about being forgiven for it.
Denial of personal guilt turns people into scandal-mongers, gossips, tale-bearers and violent revolutionists, because it makes them project their own guilt to others to escape their uneasy consciences.
Violent revolutionists, eh? So that’s why Mao was such an asshole:
“I first got the idea for forced collectivization as a boy, when one night I was unrepentantly touching myself…”
The greater the consciousness of your own misery, the greater will be your confidence in the goodness and mercy of God.
So the more miserable you are, the more gratitude you’ll feel.
Does that strike anyone else as kinda peculiar?
For how could God show the attribute of mercy unless there was misery? God would have been infinite Goodness if He never made the world, but unless ‘nasty’ persons like me existed, He never could have shown His sweet mercy.
Yeeeah, Bishop Sheen! You NASTY, baby!
She totally looks like the hobo lady who was always hectoring me for cigarettes before I quit just to spite her. Also…umm…WTF is a “soft drink parlor”?
Also, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a reference to Bishop Sheen online. He was a creepy old bastard, wasn’t he? I remember reading some article about how he was this great, charismatic public communicator, and I’m thinking…Vincent Price? Vampires for Jesus?
Is that your ass’s name?
And I never doubted the existence of “nasty people,” I’ve known too many like the good bishop.
Is she and the late Sheen trying to bring back the idea that mental illness is caused by sin? Or do they think that mental illness in itself is a sin?
As far as I know, a “soft drink parlor” is where one holds the sock hop.
Freaky. That last was me, doubtless rendered invisible to the commenting software by Sin. Sin, and Nastiness.
Gossip mongers and violent revolutionaries…hmmm, I always thought Wonkette had a little Trotsky nose on her.
Is that your ass’s name?
What, My Ass? Yeah, what else am I gonna call My Ass? Fred? Steve?
When I was a little girl I saw something nasty in the wood-shed.
What, My Ass? Yeah, what else am I gonna call My Ass? Fred? Steve?
Pootie-Poot?
(P.S. I had a brilliant post that was held for approval, but it proves decisively that Archbishop Sheen is a blood fetishist. I’m not Marie Jon’, I swear!)
Fred? Steve?
I’d bet “Harry.”
I want to make sure that I got this straight…So we capitalize the word “ass” when we are referring to Brad’s Ass and at the beginning of a sentence. Do we capitalize it at any other time?
Why? Is there a Holiday Inn there or something?
Sheen was… an interesting individual (he kind of got more dated as he got older- and by the time of the cited works, he was like Ratzy. Probably a nice enough guy- unless you’re intent on discussing politics- but a bit senile and out there philosophically).
Kralis, of course, makes me want to bash my head against a wall.
Stop. :thump!: Making. :thump!: Us. :thump!: All. :thump!: Look. :thump!: Stupid. :thump!: God. :thump!: Damn. :thump!: It!
Sheen… well, his point actually works better these days with the proliferation of anti-depressants and whatnot than it did back then. I’m all for personal guilt for our actions… but psychological disorders kind of count as extenuating circumstance, no?
As for Hell… well, I suppose a better explanation for captitalization would be to use it as if it were a city or country or somesuch… Dumbass comments from a long time ago based on outdated science really come back to bite you in the (undead?) ass when used moronically by stupid people.
It’s already happening to Reagan and Goldwater- in 50 years, it’ll be Keyes and Buchanan.
I’ve got it! Their Agenda if to turn back the Clock on Capitalifation Ufage by Five-Hundred Yearf!
I’ve seen this Rev. Dracula guy on tv before. The “Jesus Channels,” one of them anyway, runs old programs with him late at night,say, 3am or later. He’s usually decked out in red with a matching red Pope hat. It’s not THE pope hat, but it’s quite pope-esque. He’s usually in front of a blackboard balthering on about genesis or craetionism related stuff.
Please don’t ask me why I watch the Jesus channels late at night. However, that tag-team Bible thumping couple, the Van Impe Hour, is pretty awesome if you want a good laugh.
CRAP!
balthering = blathering
craetionism = creationism
Yeah… that’s a pre-Vatican II Archbishop for you. :sigh:
uh. L4M3R, the thing you have printed as an “f” is a tall cursive “s” – it has no crossbar. In fact, the crossbar is there on the “f” specifically to differentiate it from the tall cursive “s”.
VVell, I think it’s abovt time fomebody took a ftand againft liberal orthographie. They ftole the cvrfiue S off ovr keyboards right vnder ovr nofes & bvilt a vvall of feparation betvvixt U & V.
Life fuckf, fometimes. Bvt I haue a dream that one daie the cvrfiue S vvill retvrn in its fvll glorie & vve fhall liue to fee it proclaim’d acrofs the land: “Miffion Accomplifhed.”
See, I always got a much different image when I saw the good Reverend Sheen. If that man had swished any harder, he would’ve broken something.
I’ve been to the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas before (I didn’t make a special trip to go there or anything – I used to live there). If you stay there long enough, you will invariably find yourself standing in front of one of Liberace’s costumes in its display case – say, the fuschia sequined hotpants outfit with the pink ostrich feather cape fastened by two huge maribou feather deedly-balls – and you’ll be standing behind two old blue haired ladies. And one of the old ladies will turn to the other one and say in a quavering voice “I don’t know why people thought he was a homosexual.”
And then you’ll laugh so hard you’ll have to go down to the gay bar that’s in the same strip mall as the Liberace museum and get a beer to stop laughing.
I have actually been in a Bishop Sheen “museumette.” Apparently, he hailed from El Paso, Illinois, and there is a former train depot slash rustic art gallery slash community theater slash miniature golf course there that also happens to have a Bishop Fulton J. Sheen Reading Room, loaded up with his writings, some photographs and a bunch of memorabilia. It’s kind of a Sheen Shrine, if you will.
In case you’re wondering — and I know you are — El Paso is about 30 or 40 miles due east of Peoria, straight out Route 24.
Jade, I’m a big fan of Dr John Dee, the Elizabethan Mage, and he writes like this : The mighty sownds haue entred in ye 3th Angle and are become as oliues in ye oliue mownt, looking wth gladnes vppon the earth and dwelling in the brightnes of the heuens as contynuall cumforters. vnto whome I fastened pillers of gladnes 19 and gaue them vessels to water the earth wth her creatures: and they are the brothers of the first and second and the beginning of their own sea which 69636 whose numbers are as the first, the endes, and ye contents of tyme. Therfore come you and obey your creation: viset vs in peace and cumfort: Conclude vs as receiuers of yor mysteries: for why? Our Lord and Mr is all One.
All the Dee manuscripts are actually written by his assistant Edward Kelley, who was a complete ne’er-do-well, yet even he has the most beautiful handwriting, which you can see in tiny jpg’s at:
The Magickal Review
Maybe the good Bishop had this place in mind.
Or this one.
Rowan: a character which exists neither on my keyboard nor in any HTML/ASCII code of which I am aware. Therefore, my liberty.
Crimony — lighten up!
“These unbelieving denominations now freely embrace abortion, sodomy, contracepting, and euthanasia…”
-Dictionary.comNo entry found for contracepting.Did you mean contraception?
“it is encouraging to know that people who have been taught the Faith well are not leaving the Church but are, in fact, becoming more resolute.”
-Read- crazier.
There are excellent catechetical books with absolute moral content available to us. We must study the true faith ourselves to insure our salvation. The eternal life of our soul depends upon it.
-So buy all these books or go to hell!
“The greatest refinement of pride, the most contemptible form of escapism, is to refrain from examining oneself, lest sin be discovered within.”
-Unless of course you’re me, archbishop chocula and then instead you get on the internets and critisize everyone else.
And seriously, B grade milk and NAUGHTY DUCTLESS GLANDS?
Soda parlors? I was so curious about this I googled it.
“Ductless glands are glands that secrete their product directly onto a surface rather than through a duct. Examples are the goblet cells in the epithelial surface of the digestive, respiratory, urinary and reproductive systems. Many endocrine glands are also ductless glands, as they secrete the hormones they produce directly into the blood or lymph system so it will be circulated to the entire body.”
How this has anything to do with anything I have no fucking clue… but there it is
What a strange person. Does anyone know why the former Ramon Estevez took the good Archbishop’s surname as his stage name?
what res said. The Vampire Sheen.
I always had to do a double take to make sure it wasn’t Dark Shadows.
I happen to think the good Bishop quite beautiful, cape and all. Make of that what you will. Discovered him summer of 2005, after John Paul II died, and now I can’t turn away and don’t want to try, and I am no Catholic.