Contradictions

Fence-All


Repeating The Obvious

I was out with a friend a couple of weeks ago at a popular local bar and grill. We arrived late, after a long work day, to have dinner around 930pm. Staff members were wearing masks. We were seated at a small table approximately three metres from two other tables of five patrons at each table, near the entrance to the restrooms. They, all, were very drunk, pawing each other, roving between tables, sharing appetizers and glasses. Not a lot of physical distancing being observed there. Washroom rules - one person in the washroom at a time - posted on the doors, were ignored. Two and three patrons often entered restrooms at the same time. There were several other groups present in a twenty-five by ten foot space, drinking heavily and shouting. Even in the dim light, it was easy to see the showers of spit spraying from people's mouths.

Meanwhile, Mass-goers keep neatly distanced and abide by health and hygiene practices. Churches are limited to a small percentage of capacity while bars and restaurants are crowded by comparison. Bars operate at 50% capacity in most locales. Churches? They are not accorded such generosity.

The point of this observation is to expose the weakness of government policies. Government policies are misdirected. Responsible people do not require as much micromanagement as politicians might think. Bar patrons, on the other hand... .

Do government officials really think that faithful Catholics haven't noticed the glaring contradictions? While politicians pretend at commonsense and health management, Mass-goers are marginalized.

The World Health Organization’s special envoy on COVID-19 Dr. David Nabarro in an interview stated lockdowns are not helpful as the primary means to control COVID-19. He advocated a middle path which means holding the virus at bay whilst keeping economy and social life going. It would require "high level of organisation by governments and remarkable degree of engagement of people" with robust infectious disease control services or public health. He emphasised on combining of several measures such as "physical distancing , face protection, hygiene, isolating the ill and protecting the vulnerable" as an effective method.

If smiles, affability and good manners are any indication, faithful Catholics are much happier than many people wandering about on Sundays (and the rest of the week, for that matter). Makes you wonder whether or not politicians and the unchurched notice that contradiction, the one where Christians are weathering the storm far better than others, even while being denied fair access to their community buildings and the sacraments.

State "churches", those that long-ago capitulated with the zeitgeist, are keeping a stiff upper lip while their buildings sit empty. Empty, like the souls of their followers whose lives have been rendered opaque to the action Holy Spirit by an embrace of zombifying ideologies.

Those same "churches" update their brightly lit marquees with empty-headed slogans that can be summarized as 'We are woke. Are you?'

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PSALM 37

Keep innocency, and take heed unto the thing that is right : for that shall bring a man peace at the last.

POPE LEO XIV

The right to freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, religious freedom, and even the right to life are being restricted in the name of other so-called new rights, with the result that the very framework of human rights is losing its vitality and creating space for force and oppression. This occurs when each right becomes self-referential, and especially when it becomes disconnected from reality, nature, and truth.

ST AUGUSTINE

The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.

SAINT PHILIP NERI

The greatness of our love of God must be tested by the desire we have of suffering for His love.

ANTONIN SCALIA

Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility. Liberal Education makes the gentleman. It is well to be a gentleman, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life. These are the natural qualities of a large knowledge, they are the objects of a university. But they are no guarantee for sanctity of even for conscientiousness; they may attach to the man of the world, to the profligate, to the heartless.

MARCUS AURELIUS

There is but one thing of real value - to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men.

MARK TWAIN

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.