It's "Merry Christmas" , Damn It All

Bah humbug and fa la la la! What do I despise? The dumbing down of holidays. Who started it all anyway? The Politically Correct Police or Big Box Mall Retailers?

If I can be congenial enough to recognize the holidays of those of other faiths and persuasion, why is it essentially illegal to wish someone a "Merry Christmas" ?

Don't you hate how someone will furtively wish you a "Merry Christmas" in a store, half mumbling and looking around nervously as if they are making a drug buy?

It's CHRISTMAS, they call them CHRISTMAS TREES, I call it CHRISTMAS in my neighborhood.



Bah humbug to all of you who can't say CHRISTMAS. I celebrate CHRISTMAS, I send CHRISTMAS CARDS, I bake CHRISTMAS COOKIES, I even occasionally attend CHRISTMAS parties...I even go to Church...I am not some crazy conservative zealot, I merely find it extraordinarily offensive that saying Merry Christmas, and even referring to the holiday season for what it is (The CHRISTMAS Season) is like parroting George Carlin's seven dirty curse words.

More importantly? I will correct every clerk in every store who wish me "Happy Holidays".

Why?

Because in my neighborhood, it's Merry Christmas. And if I can respect the holidays and holy days of others, they can all respect mine.

So, Episcopal Priests Have Inappropriate Relationships Too?

Oh how "divinely" delightful...once again "the Church of England" is not so far removed from Rome. Today's Philadelphia Inquirer features an article about the guy Philadelphia area Episcopalians love to hate and apprently, finally, they have found a way to rid him from their midst: apparently this pious priest has a bother with inappropriate inclinations? Like that is a shocker in the Episcopal Church, or Catholic Church, it's kissing cousin?

Seriously, What was Henry VIII all about anyway? But not since the news first broke on "Father Touchy Feely" as my BFF's hubby refers to him as, have I been as intrigued.

I thought it was bad enough that the Catholic Church dumps these perverts back into our communities and washes their hands of resopnsibility, and some of these creeps are now millionaires with gold two tone Rolls Royces, serious real estate holdings, vacation homes, etcetera... I thought life couldn't get any better - but no! I have been rewarded!

Well, apparently the Episcopal Church is doing an "outing" (otherwise known as full blown Bishop Exorcism)...stay tuned for fire and brimstone, but in the meantime, here is some reading:



Episcopal bishop suspended
The head of the denomination's Philadelphia diocese is accused of concealing his brother's sexual abuse of a minor.
By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

In a surprise move, the Episcopal Church USA has suspended Bishop Charles E. Bennison Jr., head of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, on charges that he concealed his brother's sexual abuse of a minor girl more than 30 years ago.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the denomination's leader, informed Bennison on Wednesday that he was formally "inhibited" and was to "cease all episcopal, ministerial and canonical acts" as of 11:59 p.m. tomorrow.

Schori's deadline for Bennison's departure will allow him to chair the annual diocesan convention, which begins tomorrow morning at the diocesan cathedral in West Philadelphia.....Bennison, 63, has been diocesan bishop for 11 years in the diocese, which has 80,000 members in Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties. A leading church liberal and scholar who supports gay clergy and gay marriage, he has been the target of conservative attacks almost since his arrival.

He did not return calls yesterday seeking comment......John Bennison, who had previously acknowledged the affairs, resigned as a priest in 2006 after a Los Angeles TV station reported on his abuse of the 14-year-old.

Last Nov. 1, Bishop Bennison apologized to the diocese for the "lack of action on my part" after several articles on the abuse and cover-up appeared in The Inquirer.

The diocesan standing committee, which is assuming the duties of bishop, has sought Bennison's removal for nearly two years on the ground that he misused diocesan assets.

On Nov. 8,, it filed a unanimous complaint with the presiding bishop's office asking that Bennison face a church trial for depleting millions of dollars in diocesan assets without proper authorization...

Well ouch! Hell hath no fury than Episcopalians scorned?

But wait...there's a blog option:

Virtue Online: Posted by David Virtue on 2007/10/31 PENNSYLVANIA BISHOP CHARLES E. BENNISON INHIBITED!
Special Report

The Bishop of Pennsylvania, Charles E. Bennison has been inhibited from ordained ministry and must cease all episcopal functions as bishop after November 3 diocesan convention. The Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori inhibited Bennison Oct. 31 from all ordained ministry pending a judgment of the Court for the Trial of a Bishop. The Title IV Review Committee earlier issued a presentment for conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy against Bennison on October 28.

The Committee found there was enough evidence to send Bennison to trial on two counts of the presentment centering on accusations that when he was rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Upland, California, he did not respond properly after learning sometime in 1973 that his brother, John, who worked as a lay youth minister in the parish, was having an affair with a 14-year-old member of the youth group. John Bennison was married at the time, according to the presentment.

The bishop is accused of not taking any steps to end the affair, not providing proper pastoral care for the girl, not investigating whether she needed medical care, taking three years to notify the girl's parents, not reporting his brother to anyone, not investigating whether his brother was sexually involved with any other parishioners or other children, and seeking no advice on how to proceed. The presentment says Charles Bennison reacted "passively and self-protectively."....The exodus of Bennison, from both the Diocese of Pennsylvania and the ordained ministry, ends a decade of gross incompetence, ineptitude, clergy mistrust, alleged fiscal incompetence, sexual cover-up, and theological obfuscation, which eroded his base among his liberal backers even as Bennison inhibited and deposed a dwindling handful of orthodox clergy in the diocese.

Events grew so bad between himself and the Standing Committee that they repeatedly asked him to resign. Bennison equally and steadfastly refused to go....In many circles, Bishop Bennison's pronouncements made him the brunt of laughter, disappointment, or anger. Bishop Bennison became the village idiot of ecclesiastical pronouncements. His list of theological heresies and apostasies guarantees him a place forever in Dante's Inferno, or as a cathedral gargoyle overlooking Philadelphia's Schuylkill River.

He wrote a Visigoth Rite for two (or more) persons of the same sex who wanted to tie the nuptial knot in Philadelphia's cathedral. He also could not affirm basic doctrines of the Christian Faith, when challenged to do so by Fr. David Moyer, Anglo-Catholic rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont.

Oh seriously...I should be more pious but I am not. I have my faith, my religion, but you know what? I don't foist it on anyone. I know who I am, I don't need everyone else to. Sometimes I think religion in this country is just the latest addiction - right up there with drugs and booze...