Boys will be boys? Not here, your honor.

Tony, Tim, and Tom were three buddies who hung out together in high school.

The boys were considered class clowns; they frequently got in and out of trouble with teachers and coaches.  The boys all shared the innate ability to charm and lie their way out of tight situations. It didn’t hurt that all three had very wealthy, powerful dads who were big players in the city.

Tom invented a clever scheme where the three boys would enter a convenience store, Tony and Tim would go to the back of the store filling their pockets with whatever they could while Tom charmed the store owner while buying a hand full of candy bars and a magazine -all the while enthusiastically chatting up the owner.

Tom would turn on the charm spigot 100% telling joke, asking questions – removing all the attention from his shoplifting buddies in the back. Tom would pay $20 dollars for all of his loot while his two friends would slither out the door with their coat pockets bulging with beer, soft drinks and jerky.

The boys were very smooth and made a point of never returning to the same store.  As fate would have it- word spread about the three high school bandits and they were finally caught. Their fathers came to the rescue with the old ”Boys will be boys” excuse and got the boys off the hook. 

The trio laughed all the way to the park- where they bought up and got high.

There were a bunch of girls at the nearby all-girls school who thought Tim,Tom,Tony  were cute. The boys cruised by the girl’s school at least once a week, honking and waving.

The boys started having parties in the woods… the parties grew in size and infamy. Word got out that the parties got pretty wild. Alcohol was flowing  and weed was everywhere. They were finally caught by Rangers… not only did the parents hear about this law-breaking series of events, their school was informed, also.

Two girls who attended one of the parties had been ”Mauled by three of the very drunk boys.”  The girls went to their school counselor and told her about the parties in the park: the alcohol, the dope, and the boys who were overtly aggressive towards the girls.

Phone calls were made.  Father President spoke to Mother Superior. The Jesuit priest was acutely aware that the three boys came from families of major donors. The three dads readily reminded him of this…

Mother Superior, a Sister of Mercy (who dropped out of law school to enter the convent) was savvy, and did not suffer fools gladly. She had no qualms about protesting the behavior of the high school boys, the illegality of underage smoking and drinking and the use of drugs.

The two had several heated conversations regarding the events and the students involved. Mother Superior was livid- Father President was looking to fund raise for a new building on campus and his three top donors (the fathers) were on the chopping block.

How do you think this turned out?

From Cafeteria Catholic to Anna Quindlen Catholic?

  Are you changing pews?

Best selling writer, Anna Quindlen, spoke to Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air on

April 23, 2012 about her book, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

www.amazon.com/Lots-Candles-Plenty-Cake–Quindlen/

Of the many topics discussed during the interview:

Leaving The Catholic Church

“…In Lots of Candles, Quindlen frankly describes …. her reasoning for recently leaving the Catholic Church:

“The pedophilia scandals, the church’s reaction to them, and their constant obsession with gynecology — taken together at a certain point, it was probably two or three years ago, I said, ‘Enough,’ ” she says. “Every time I sit in the pew I ratify this behavior, and I’m not going to ratify it anymore.”

Quindlen says she realizes that she doesn’t need a service or Mass to get what she needs out of her faith.

“I think not going anymore made me realize how much of the good had been imprinted deep inside me, and how much of the rest I didn’t need,” she says. “I don’t have to listen to the Gospel on Sunday to know the stories of the New Testament. They inform so much of what I write that they’re practically like a news scrim that goes through my brain 24/7. And I don’t have to listen to a sermon to know what to think or feel about them. It’s almost as if I absorbed completely what mattered most to me, and the rest could go.”

But Quindlen says she still relies on her faith.

“I still walk around some mornings and look at the world and think, ‘Oh my God. This is so fantastic, and there’s so many opportunities to do good and to be happy,’ ” she says. “And I think that comes from some deep-faith place that started in religion and now transcends it.”

~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~

And I say:

The Old Boys Network in Rome

The Red Hat Society in Rome doesn’t care about me,

my mother, sisters, daughters, girl cousins or,

really, any of the Catholic Women in America.

We are not invited…included…involved.

We are the legions of women who volunteer, show up, answer the phones, pick up the clutter, administer to the sick, clean and decorate their parish churches, who distribute ashes and communion, who organize, support, give to …

who never have been, never will be – are never invited to the party.

The Old Boys Can Have Their  Roman Holiday

and

Legions of Ladies are Leaving

At first we were Cafeteria Catholics... we slid our trays around Church teachings, the past Pope’s inane or egregious edicts…  we picked – we selected – we decided what facets of the Church teachings and proclamations from Rome to ignore.

 Year after year, week after week, we bowed our heads and now open our eyes –

and loudly acknowledge, we are even more dis-heartened and disillusioned.

Do we turn away and become Anna Quindlen Catholics?

#.#

Many of us were Baptized, had our First Communions, were Confirmed and married in the same parish church.

We attended Catholic school and, at home, peppered our sentences with,   “Yeah, but, Sister said…”

In college, we dramatically “Fell away from the Church”  code for: We didn’t go to Sunday Mass, we skipped confession, took the Pill, and paid no heed to the old guys in dresses in Rome.

With marriage and kids, some of us circled around, looking again at the Church seeking out a smarter, hipper parish. A Herculean task.

Some of us paid the big bucks and sent our kids to Catholic school and eventually, watched them  ‘fall away.’

Guilty of highly deliberate mythmaking

Floods of news articles about Catholic priests and the pedophile scandal tainted the Church. Could it be true?  Daily stories about The Papal Attack on Women Religious sicken and dis-hearten us.

Ratzinger’s good friend, Levada in Portland and Mahoney of Los Angeles, knowingly turned a blind eye. Law in Boston, an egregious offender, hid behind his cassock – in full denial- while the list of the abused burgeoned. Cardninal Sins.

Rome looked the other way.

Websites with the names, dates, and parishes of the pedophiles multiplied.

Again, Rome looked away, looked around, would not admit fault in the ranks… although tens of thousands enraged Catholics protested.

And, we are Falling Away Again

.#*#.

“Every time I sit in the pew I ratify this behavior, and I’m not going to ratify it anymore.”

Anna Quindlen

Will we see Pink Smoke over the Vatican?

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