Be Nice, Don't Judge The Diocese

I've been pondering this for quite a while now. It's been a hard one to pin down and organize in my head so instead of simply posting slop, I've sat back and thought. None of it was worked out with AI because I sometimes find my thoughts too influenced, too guided when I do that.

Aside: I heard someone recently say that public intellectuals (of which I am not one) who have podcasts never have the time to ponder and think deep thoughts once they start their podcast careers. The demands of constant content creation take away their quiet, ruminative time.

I went to our Diocesan synod meeting last weekend. I thought it was horrendous. I don't think the idea of synodal processes - listening to each other and having deep discussions within our parishes about this or that important topic - is a bad idea at all. It can lead to all kinds of good things. No, it was the overall zeitgeist of the event and the people that made my flesh crawl.

I'll need a few posts to assemble the whole argument and this is just the opening salvo.

The Diocese's Fake Virtue

Practically every aspect of the meeting and the discussions at our table were utterly saturated with "be nice, don't judge." There was a wildly exaggerated emphasis on niceness and forgiveness and kindness and kissy-kissy love-love.

It was all performative.

Thanks to the progs here in California, statutes of limitations and previous bankruptcies were ignored so we could undergo yet another round of lawsuits regarding the sex abuse scandal. Everyone who had committed those acts is now dead and there have been no new accusations, so this was simply gratuitous beating by the same progressives our bishops all worship.

Here's Matthew 5:38-42, a passage that is clearly influential in our diocese and should have been fundamental to our response to the lawsuit given our progressive nature.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well."

"If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow."

Emphasis mine.

When it became clear we were going to get sued again, the diocese pulled a stunt and separated the parishes from the diocese both legally and financially. When the suit  went through, the diocese declared bankruptcy and lost everything, but all the parishes were spared. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand your cloak to your cousin and tell everyone you've never seen it before in your life.

I thought it was a clever trick and perfectly reasonable given the treachery of the State of California. However, if you do that and then come and morally masturbate in front of us all about giving and love and not judging and be niceness, I'm going to need some Pepto.

They didn't mean a word of it. They were simply indulging in virtue pornography with each other. It wasn't real, but, by God, it felt real. It felt real, real goooooood.

God Doesn't Make Mistakes

The topic of LGBTQWERTY came up at our table in our discussions. Be nice, don't judge ruled here as well. "God doesn't make mistakes" so we should not even suggest that there might be sin associated with LGBTQWERTY.

I sat there wishing I'd brought a hip flask and trying not to rip some of the others to shreds verbally. Still, I had some questions.

I like to drink. I fight that every day. My family is shot through with drunks. I've become a firm believer that there is a genetic aspect to alcoholism. If God didn't make mistakes with the LGBTQWERTY crew, then he didn't make a mistake with me. I planned on having two double Old Fashioneds when I got home.

Hey, don't judge, man. Be nice.

And then there are the people (me, for one) who seem predestined to be judgmental and argumentative. Illogic drives me bonkers. If that's genetic, which it must be because it's strongly linked to an analytic nature, then being judgmental isn't a sin, either.

The entire structure of be nice, don't judge dissolves under its own weight. It's perfectly OK for me to judge because God made me that way, right?

Don't judge the judgmental people. 

Or maybe it's, "Don't judge, you probably aren't good at it. Leave that to the experts."

Random Meme

I'm going to stop here. I need to ponder a bit more before continuing. In the meantime, its memetime.

This seems apropos.
Also, sometimes liberal, white women include your bishop.