politics and culture: April 2006 Archives

love me, I'm a liberal

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Another phil ochs song. I am not fond of labels like liberal, conservative, radical, reactionary - at least not the way these words are used in the contemporary USA. Labels can be useful, especially on canned food - but they can so easily get in the way of real conversation. Feminist is another label that gets my ire. Hippie, Yuppie, DINK, labels and categories and cubbyholes - I think that these can deny each of us our humanity. Things just get so very twisted.
Some one that I get email from has a signature line that is cited as a quote from Jack Kerouac "I am not a beatnik, I am a Catholic." But even that self-identification can get distorted. I would like to think that I am Catholic and that Frances Kissling is not. But the reality is that anyone who was baptised Catholic is Catholic, just some of us are bad Catholics and some of us are worse. We are all sinners, after all.
I remember hearing several times that the church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. I have to admit that in my pharisaical self-righteousness I get angry and upset with those who simply warm the pews at Sunday Mass, or worse yet, use the church I love as a bludgeon while openly defying her truths. But I've been there too.
What was it that Matthew said about whited sepulchers, hypocrites, etc? Here it is, Mt 23:13-39

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This page is a archive of entries in the politics and culture category from April 2006.

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