Illinois Oblivion Gets a Splash of Holy Water

                                                      

          All Novelty is Oblivion - From Sir Francis Bacon On Life's Vicissitude

"and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary; and each one as he drank forgot all things." Plato - The Republic

The Greeks believed that there were five underground rivers in Hades and one of them was Lethe - Oblivion. This was forgetfulness. The dead were forced to drink waters from Lethe in order to forget the wisdom of Life.  The really stupid drank deeply of this river.

Illinois is Oblivion.

Illinois is the State , where a bloated billionaire, who hides most of his wealth in Caribbean tax shelters in order to fair tax his walking around money, was joyfully elected Governor over a Harley riding poser Republican Governor whose sole role in life was to hold the Governor's seat for the bloated billionaire, where infants are to be served up hot to the knife of abortionists, people already dazed and confused by reality can purchase marijuana cultivated and retailed by the bloated billionaire Governor and his family and celebrate the $.19 per gallon tax to the tank in their Lexi with night of expanded gambling.

This is Illinois - not a wide awake State.

You may have forgotten that Illinois was the home of the Illinois Confederation - Aboriginal tribes of folks ( the Ojibwa, the Pottawatomie, the Sac,  & etc. who welcomed the Black Robe from France and the message of Christ's Gospel that he brought with him and not scalps, cholera, or syphilis as Howard Zinn educated blowhards teach our children these days,

No, Pere Marquette was welcomed and heartily so and in 1645 the Jesuit priest and Illinois Confederation celebrated the Mass - The Eucharist near Starved Rock in present day Utica, Illinois.

Illinois Oblivion, or our Zinn trained educators and the Media have erased our collective memory in order that our elected officials, like the bloated billionaire for whom I cast a vote in order to help erase the memory of Bruce Rauner who would rubber stamp laws ushering in evil, folly and fun, just got splashed in the face with holy water by Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield.

Bishop Paprocki has denied the Eucharist, welcomed by the Illinois Confederation in 1645, to Illinois Speaker of the House Mike Madigan and Illinois Senate Majority Leader John Culerton, because" They have obstinately persisted in promoting the abominable crime and very grave sin of abortion as evidenced by the influence they exerted in their leadership roles and their repeated votes and obdurate public support for abortion rights over an extended period of time.”

Already the media is howling venomous outrage against Bishop Paprocki, but Catholics find comfort that at least one Catholic churchman is sticking his neck out to save lives.

I hope other prelates follow his example and refuse Communion to elected officials who support abortion.

Perhaps, Illinois may wake up altogether.

Bishop James Paprocki may have roused Illinois from its deadly slumbers.  Maybe not.

Chicago's Cardinal Blase Cupich has not been allowed by Rev. Michael Pfleger to stray from Democrat doctrine. Those two clowns drank very deeply from Lethe's waters, 

A Great Profile of a Great Catholic Priest - Bishop Thomas Paprocki

Bishop Thomas Paprocki has our backs, Catholics.

‘You’ll get no fable that’s told by me.

For Paul, in writing there to Timothy,

Reproves those who swerve from truthfulness,

Relating fables and such sinfulness.

Why should I sow chaff from my fist,

When I can sow wheat, as I would wish?

So I will say, that if you wish to hear

Of morality and virtuous things here,

And grant me of my speech an audience,

I will gladly do Christ full reverence,

Giving you lawful pleasure, as I can.

But in truth I am a southern man;

I cannot give you “rum, ram, ruf” by letter,

And, God knows, I hold rhyme little better.

Rhyme and alliteration I’ll dispose

With, and tell you a merry tale in prose,

To knit up all this game and make an end.

Parson's Prologue -Canterbury Tales.

The only real priest and honest Churchman in the Canterbury Tales is the Parson. Chaucer lived in a time when Church was identified more with clerical abuse than sanctity - Monks were slum-land-lords, Nuns were no better than Rush Street Cougars, Friars were sots on the make and Abbots were gang-banging Warlords. The Parson was Christ-like.

Yesterday, I read a wonderful profile of Springfield Catholic Bishop Thomas Paprocki, by Bruce Rushton in Illinois Times. Bishop Paprocki is a tough Polish kid from 'over-by there.' Paprocki is a priest's priest and a jock-strap: an very educated man who remembers that he walked in alleys and ran through gangways.

Like the Parson of Chaucer's poem, Bishop Paprocki gives Catholics hope.

Only Catholic clerics who cave-in to secular agendas get fair play with academics, media mouth-pieces and political opportunists in and out of office.

Abortion is unacceptable. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Sex outside of marriage requires a trip to the confessional box and not a plebiscite. Social justice should not require a public relations team.

Esse Quam Videri was stated by lawyer and orator Cicero - To be rather than seem.

The Catholic Church has seemed to be anything and everything for more than forty years. That is far too long. Bishop Thomas Paprocki lives what must be, for Catholics and other good people. Good people protect their children, their rights and their souls as best they can.

They call him the Holy Goalie, the bishop who saves goals and saves souls. He is, according to Jeff Rocco, director of the Sacred Heart-Griffin hockey squad, the real deal in the net – you’d never know that he didn’t take up ice hockey until the late 1990s, when he was closing in on 50.

What possesses a man in mid-life to become a puck target?

“Why do you want to play goalie – it’s like, why do you want to be a priest?” answers Paprocki, who also runs marathons. “Part of it, I guess, is being at the center of the action. Being a goalie is like being a bishop: You’re at the center of the action.

Really, Paprocki says, it isn’t much different than playing goal in floor hockey, which he did back in the eighth grade while growing up on Chicago’s south side. There were no ice rinks, and so his six brothers and their friends played in a basement beneath his father’s pharmacy.

“The basic principle is, you play the angles,” he says. “You just want to position yourself in a way so the puck hits you.”

Plenty of pucks have hit Paprocki since his arrival in Springfield 18 months ago. He doesn’t shy from strong statements, which has earned him critics who call him divisive, arrogant, inflammatory – and worse.
. . . After passing the bar exam in 1981, Paprocki and Grossman founded the Chicago Legal Clinic, which still provides legal services to the poor. Grossman is executive director while Paprocki remains president. Grossman, who is Jewish, says the bishop has a keen sense of humor, the sort who enjoys stories that begin with “A priest and a rabbi walk into a bar….”

“He always tells those jokes,” Grossman says.

But Paprocki knows where the line is located.

“He is never not a bishop,” Grossman says. “It’s not a job for him. It’s a lifestyle. It’s something that permeates every aspect of his being.”

Paprocki entered law school three months after he was ordained – it was all part of a plan that made sense to him, he says, but perhaps not to others.

“That all fit for me,” he says with a chuckle. “I describe the law as a tool for ministry. Other people looking at that, ‘He was ordained a priest and now he’s studying to be a lawyer? He’s already so dissatisfied with the priesthood...’ . . .
Between explaining himself on high-profile matters, Paprocki leads the day-to-day life of a bishop, lawyer, marathon runner (he finished 531st out of 1,330 finishers with a time of 4:08:39 in the Kansas City Marathon last fall) and, Grossman says, a man who is making plans to earn a master’s degree in business administration. Somehow, he finds time for matters large and small.

“You can imagine a person in his position must get asked a favor or for something a million times a day,” Grossman says. “He always, always, always takes time for people.”

Including for members of the Sacred Heart-Griffin hockey team, which won its first-ever championship last season, when Paprocki served as the squad’s goalie coach during his first year in Springfield. The bishop attends about 70 percent of the team’s practices and games, says Rocco, the team’s director, and he commands respect by blocking 60-mph shots by college-bound players.

“He can play,” Rocco says.

You got that right, Rocco. Play is damned serious these days.

Bishop Paprocki Outs the Chicago Tribune's Neo-Know Thing-ism

The Chicago Tribune hides its anti-Catholic agenda with articles and yarns that really 'care' about people - who hate the Catholic Church, whether they claim to be Catholic or not. You never see heart-tugging tales about Planned Parenthood employees sickened by Abortion, or ACORN whistle-blowers who helped catch embezzler Wade Rathke. Progressives and Progressive Wannabees are as genuine as Joan Rivers' beauty secrets.


Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki outs the Chicago Tribune's Neo Know-Nothing-ism. With a strong and sensible letter that should be on the front page, Bishop Paprocki gives the not so subtle Tribune Editorial Board a much needed bit of schooling.

Anti-Catholic BiasApril 14, 2009
Anti-Catholic Bias

The Chicago Tribune became known for its anti-Catholic bias when it frequently ran xenophobic editorials that criticized foreigners and Roman Catholics as long ago as 1853. Apparently not much has changed, as the Chicago Tribune published an editorial on April 3 attacking Cardinal Francis George as being "deeply out of line" for upholding church teaching, and ran on March 31 an opinion piece by Don Wycliff, a former Tribune editor, urging the University of Notre Dame to "stick to their resolve" in defying Catholic bishops.

The twist in the Tribune's 21st Century approach seems to be to enlist dissenting Catholics to be the mouthpiece of the newspaper's attacks against the church's teaching authority, such as William Daley's column on April 3 asserting that Cardinal George's position on the Notre Dame commencement "continues a worrisome pattern in which the Catholic hierarchy in America is mixing religion with politics."

Similarly, in the front-page story "Faith or family? Some Catholic couples seeking kids struggle with church doctrine" (Page 1, April 5), the Tribune features Catholics who have acted against Catholic Church teaching on in-vitro fertilization.

I don't recall the Chicago Tribune ever running such stories and editorials against any other church or religion, let alone with such frequency or invective, so I can only conclude that the know-nothing views of the Chicago Tribune have not changed.

I am reminded, however, of Jesus' words as he was crucified:

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

—Rev. Thomas J. Paprocki, auxiliary bishop of Chicago, Archdiocese of Chicago

Forgive them, to be sure, but try not to forget them - or let them off the hook.