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I lurk the Catholic posts.

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I can never understand it either. Why wouldn't one wife/ girlfriend be enough? Who has the money and attention for more than one relationship? Who wants to be nagged by two or three women at once? I always think of the latter parts of "Goodfellas" where Henry Hill is getting heat from both the wife and the girlfriend.

And that doesn't even take into account the stress of keeping secrets.

I am a married Catholic, not a priest, so I can't speak first hand, but I can't see why there is so much talk about celibacy as if it is impossible. Sure celibacy is very very difficult. However, so is being a navy seal or a firefighter or a Nascar driver. Certainly I would think the drive to avoid pain or protect one's life is as great as the need to have sex/a family. However, for many people the risk of death or injury etc, while it exists, is dealt with by a stronger desire to serve one's country, fellow man, or achieve fame and fortune.

A priest has to have a desire to do God's work that is great enough to overcome the temptation. The difference is, I couldn't get anywhere near being a navy seal with a normal fear of pain and sense of self preservation. Unfortunately, the priesthood has not been as selective.

Despite understaffed parishes and the shortage of priests, clearing out this element of the clergy will in the long run benefit the church. Vocations will increase when priests are more likely to be true role models worthy of respect and admiration. And celibacy in our culture of sex is just a "brave" and "tough" a life choice in its way as being a firefighter. Parents have been faced with too many crooked, effeminant, ineffectual, greedy, etc. priests in the last 30 years, its no wonder none would encourage their sons to think about vocations.

When you start showing me priest after priest in parish after parish that are worthy of admiration (ie strong, intelligent, tough, honest, faithful, masculine, and protective of tradition), you will start to see parents who will be proud to see their sons enter the priesthood.

It may have to get worse before it gets better.

I've always believed that the Beach Boys are one of the most underrated of all time. My generation knows them only for incessant touring on the oldies circuit where they have become a parody of themselves.

The other thing that destroys them is the Orange Vibrations commercial from my childhood. Whoever was ultimately responsible for making that happen is/will be in hell for eternity I think for desecrating such a beautiful thing. They can say Hi to George Harrison, who I'm pretty sure is in hell for putting "Within You Without You" right in the middle of Sgt Pepper.

The Beach Boys have 5-6 songs that will stand up to the best 5 songs of any other pop artist of all time. My personal favorite right now is Heroes and Villains.

Had the entire band died in a plane crash in 1975 or something, they would be revered as the legends they are/were.

Life is a Rock

I love that song. I love all songs where people talk very fast, I don't know why.

I play that song for my 6 and 3 year old daughters regularly to try to see how many names they pick out. The more names they recognize, the better job I'm doing as a parent.

My three favorite.

"Just Like Me" by Paul Revere and the Raiders
"Son of a Preacher Man" by Dusty Springfield
"Sweet Child O Mine" by Guns and Roses

Hon mention: "New Mother Nature" by the Guess Who

Of course ask me tomorrow and it will probably be different. But if someone told me I had to listen to the same three songs none stop 24 hours a day for 6 straight weeks, I would choose these three, with a smile.

Thanks for having me on your list. My father and his family are originally from Rochester, and he considers the Diocese there among the worst in terms of it's "modernization" activities. He has spoken to other conservative priests in other parts of the country that agree with that assessment. I wouldn't doubt that female celebrants is the goal of this plan, rather than the necessity.

The thing is, obviously no one wants their church closed, but why would you rather keep your church, but without a priest? What's the point? Oh, wait, a church without a priest would be Protestant.

They are succeeding in turning most Catholics into Protestants.

Thanks. I've been a couple times, but I've just got to make the committment to make the drive every Sunday.

What is the CTNgreg email list?

I shouldn't complain too much, a lot of Catholics aren't fortunate to even have access to the Latin Mass, but mine is a good 50 minutes away. Of course, I know of people that drive hours to go every Sunday.

My most recent parish seems conservative in how they celebrate the Mass (at least relative to others), and the homilies are generally non-offensive. But like yours, the music is the worst. The responsorial psalm has had all pretense dropped as to be a psalm, and is now one guy singing his best improvisational blues. The other music is folk, or what I would expect to be in a Pentacostal church. It really is embarassing, and

It's really crazy in the South, the Catholic churches try so hard to be Protestant, that I don't even know why they bother. The inconvenient little thing called the Eucharist seems to be the only vestige of Catholic doctrine or tradition left, and I don't doubt they would eliminate that if they could think of a way.

When they pulled it in my parish last Lent, I had no idea what was going on. I hadn't seen it in all my years. They acted like it was always done, but I swear it was new.

Are there any conservative-minded Catholics in the Atlanta area that have found a Novus Ordo Mass that is not out and out offensive? I don't mind going to the Novus Ordo, as that is what I grew up with, but the presentation gets worse and worse all the time and more disrespectful of Christ, no matter how many parishes I try.

It looks like its Latin or nothing for me at this point.

I know it is fun to look things up on Google and see what crazy things turn up. Here is something I've found. It looks like some kind of gaming club, but I can't figure out what the heck it's all about. Certainly has a violent edge to it.

http://www.geocities.com/l33tw3rkz/dj-members.html

Look partway down under the picture of the guy giving the middle finger. In what ever game they play, he is a sniper and calls himself God.

Also on some page there is a freaky looking picture with described as "my current state of mind."

Looks like a bunch of harmless goofballs that take themselves too seriously, but I thought you might find it interesting. Forgive me if someone threw this up here already.

If nothing else it further confirms that God is a name for a sniper, and this may have no religious overtones whatsover.

Please add me to the list.

Thanks.

He's taking time to enjoy the action. He knew the card would really get things going. I don't think he planned another one to go soon.

I wouldn't be suprised to see several days go by, as long as he is still a big story. As the story dies down, then watch out!

I understand two shootings were at a Michaels and one at a Mobil gas station and one at a school. Is there a list of the locations of each shooting, as far as the store the victim was at? I gues at this point I'm interested in playing word games with the names to try to make connections. I don't think there is a connection between the selection of the victims, but maybe to the selection of locations. By that I mean in a symbolic way, not as such that they provide easy escape, cover, etc.

I agree that there still could be two. I would think of them less as a team, though. It would probably be a very dominant personality, and a "lackey" of some sort. If the shooter thinks he is a god, then the other person would probably be convinced he was some sort of servant of a god. I would imagine that the shooter would be above average intelligence, while the lackey to be far below.

I agree that it seems like it would never work. But whenever these guys are loose, everyone thinks they are some kind of geniuses or criminal masterminds, and that's how they are getting away with it. But when they are caught it turns out they are just devious and damn lucky.

I bet that a lot of this talk about him being a ballistics expert or military trained or otherwise brilliant will turn out to be false.

And when I say tip his hand, it may be as simple as the perp making a comment to a friend or neighbor, like "I can't tell you how I know, but this guy is NOT a religious nut," or something along those lines. Because the false leak further erodes his estimation of the ability of the police, such a off-hand comment becomes a little more likely.

I doubt it will work, but I think thats what the cops are hoping.

Excellent thought. The mapping thing intrigues me. Here's why:

Yesterday, looking at the locations, #7 was far away, and then 8 was closer in, but still further out from the first ones. I thought that he had decided to expand his base of operations, both to widen the terror and to get out from under the most intense scrutiny. I speculated that when he did #7, something spooked him, something happened as a result of him being so far from his most familiar area. Maybe he got lost, maybe traffic was worse than expected, something.

So for the next one, he moved back into more familiar territory.

Now, if I lived in the area, if would run Yahoo driving directions from a site near the first shootings, assuming that this is close to his base of operations, to the site of #7. Then I would drive it, and see if the directions matched up, or whether the average person might have gotten lost trying to use them (you know how sometimes they are not exactly accurate- street name's been changed or something).

It seems incomprehensible to me that he would not drive it first to make sure he knew it, but as you know these guys can feel very superior, maybe he thought he was getting so good he would be ok. And then he ended up the wrong way on a one way street or something. Enough to scare him back closer to home.

Another thought: have they definitively linked that September shooting to this yet? If not, that may explain why so many shootings in such a short period of time. That was what was most baffling to me, normally I wouldn't expect such an organized killer to risk so many attacks in such a short period of time, without taking time to enjoy his work.

But if the earlier attack was his first, maybe he was disappointed in his coverage. Maybe he even left a note that was never found. That would mean that in his quest to make a big publicity splash, he knew he would have to do something "special", and this is why so many shooting in such a short period.

I think we will see a lull eventually, and then see it start up. These guys truly enjoy what they do, and I think he is going to want to take some time to enjoy it, watch the coverage, discuss it with people on the street, call in some tips, maybe even send some letters.

Then, just when things seem to be calming down and he's off the top page, he will start again. I bet it will be less frequent, I think he has made his initial splash, and now he will just want to do enough to keep himself top of mind. A killing every other week would more than do that.

Nice call, I made the same call on another thread yesterday that I thought we would begin to see contact from the shooter. This morning when I heard the news, I thought I was special, but you were on the same track!

In the past I've heard of police leaking that murder victims had been sexually assaulted when they hadn't been, prompting "offended" perpetrators to tip their hand, like tell a neighbor that they knew that it wasn't true. I can see how that might be pretty effective.

I don't know that they have enough info on this guy to really get under his skin but I think they might be trying.