I’ve returned from a brief sojourn in Columbus, Clintenville. Tula and I went to visit my daughter and Sullivan (my grandog). We had a most lovely time and adventure on the boat, visiting small beaches, swimming in Alum Park Lake, having sandwiches delivered to a dock for lunch. Pictures should have been taken no doubt, but weren’t. It’s difficult for me to take photos in the midst of things as it can take you so outside of the moment or moments you are enjoying. That means photos will have to come in some future to be named later. When we do a drive by on the way to other things. When the intention is to take photos and that itself is the purpose.
Meanwhile, photos from Artistic Nature as we move on in this summer of heat and shimmer, sun and shade.
The sun sets behind a church in the Pittsburgh Diocese, one of six dioceses mentioned in the massive report on sexual abuse among Pennsylvania clergy. Gene J. Puskar/AP
Over 300 priests in Pennsylvania, and yet the true number?—over 1,000. Guilty. Abuse, coverups, transfers, whole families, boys and girls. And this is one state. Are there any innocents left?
Why has the Catholic Church not been shut down? Doors closed? Priests, Bishops, Cardinals, Popes, if not tried in courts of law, stripped of their protecting garments?
Protection and propagation is offered from a church that exhumed a buried Pope in order to take him to justice. (Or injustice.) Pope Stephen VIII tried the dead Pope Formosus in the Cadaver Synod, 897 ce. The corpse played an actual part. Can we assume he was found guilty?
If anyone has not seen The Keepers, on Netflix, please do so. The Church is not above any act, including murder, to protect the Brotherhood of Abuse. All levels of government and the Church are involved.
“The findings [Grand Jury] revealed a pattern of abuse that occurred in hundreds of parishes in 54 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties going back at least 80 years. It detailed how fellow clergy members conducted shoddy investigations into sexual abuse allegations and how bishops often sided with abusive priests.”
Heard on All Things Considered
How is it that all Catholics are not rebelling? And yet, I’ve heard the retort, for the lesser crimes spoken by nuns in their dark habits, knees blistered from kneeling, hands scrubbed raw. Is it not difficult to get out that damn spot?
The Pope does not speak for God, as God, unless he speaks ex cathedra (from The Chair, the Papal Chair). Then, and only then, does the Pope represent God. God will not let him speak wrongly. They are the very words of God.
It is easy to say then, the abuse, the silence, the coverups, were not the acts of the true Catholic Clergy, the most Catholic and Holy Pope of the Catholic Church. Ergo, the Church is innocent.
And this is where Faith comes in. Reason will not get you there.
I am embarrassed to say that I raised my children Catholic. I said the rosary every night in bed. I prayed the souls out of Purgatory on All Hallows Eve. Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa.
I still regret not saving the beautifully illustrated Seven Deadly Sins.
Book Covers. The key to the within. I do believe that covers sell the book. Well that and good reviews and publicity about it. It’s all of a package. This has been well documented and substantiated.
Then along comes a cover such as the one above. Tantalizing to me, a Recovering Catholic. I am so drawn to the icons of my youth, the passions for my lost Saints. This cover pointed the way to a journey if not a pilgrimage. Naturally it required a lookup on Amazon. (Buying or not from the big A, it offers reviews, book information, and a look inside at the Prose.) Some of the book information—78 pages!—stopped me short. Not something I’m willing to invest in, considering the subject. So there you have it, the package. And no pictures! Covers alone just won’t do. Nice cover, no sale.
Once, many years ago, in a park, I left this world for another. I don’t know how I got to the park, why I was there. It may have been part of some event—a birthday, a picnic—something. I walked off by myself, following the chain-link fence that separated the park from the river flowing by on the other side. Perhaps I was looking for a break in the fence so that I could sit next to the water, dangle my feet in the current. I didn’t find a break in the fence, but I noted a duck nest and a mama duck, the dull mallard color denoting the female, blending with the undergrowth next to the fence. It was stepping down, bending past the nest, into it that left the waving air of ether that pushed me into itself. I don’t know how long I was there, inside that funnel of other, or what it meant. I just knew that I was there. I had a sense that I was invisible to the people standing outside, though I didn’t know for certain. I could not see out. I was just there. And then I walked out, the other end away from the duck nest. I tried to go back, to find the nest again, but I could not. I went back to the picnic, joined some others—strangers I knew. And then the day passed like any other, like thousands of other days in a park where we would eat sandwiches and laugh in the sunlight, spend those infinite high school days of summer.
Some weeks later, much later, I tried to find the park again. That was strange too, as I don’t recall ever being there before or since. I don’t know how I found it, but I did. I took the walk along the fence, watching the undergrowth as I went, willing the nest to reappear. But it did not. No matter how much I looked or how far I walked, I could find nothing. No nest, no doorway, no path. Nothing. Perhaps I had taken some flight of fancy, launched some capsule of time which only landed in memory. And then, on that day, it returned to the nothingness of disbelief.
After spending most of the last few days writing, some of which felt pretty good—until it didn’t—I picked up the purging again. The Purging is the sorting through of old boxes to see what should be kept, given, or tossed. Necessary but unfortunate is the box(es) with photos. Photos of days gone by and people lost. By lost I mean gone the way of the cycle of life and death, stopping at the latter. It sends the mind on a collision course with itself and torments the soul.
Then today a friend in Colorado Springs posted this photo of the Evergreen Lake. My brother and his family lived in Evergreen for years, and I visited upon occasion with whichever dog I had at the time. From Manitou to Evergreen only took around two hours, an easy drive even in early winter. There were some heart-stopping places in winter of course. Especially during a storm.
He is gone now too, and only one nephew and family remain in Colorado. The rest have moved on. No more visits where the elk stand outside your window waiting to be fed, where the wildflowers grow, and where you can ski down your driveway. No more drinking at The Little Bear, where all of the names are carved in the booths.
Writers Ink—Writing and Stuff 