St. Francis and Sula, Parish Cat at Old Mission

In my last post, I referred to St. Francis as the "inspirator" of Sula, the parish cat at Old Mission. Perhaps some thought that was because St. Francis is the patron saint of cats. Perhaps others thought that that was because the Franciscans built Old Mission. I imagine no one, or almost no one, thought I meant it literally. But I wonder...take a look at the picture above of Sula, seeming to be taking her daily orders from St. Francis on the mission grounds. (Snapped by one of the docents.)

Sad Black Cat

I suppose it is time to share a brief update about our parish priest, whose dilemma I discussed in a post a while ago. Much has happened since that posting, some of it good, some of it frustrating, and some (most) of it hopeful.

At the time that I uploaded the post, all of us in our parish were in shock. A diocesan spokesperson had just told us at the end of Mass that our priest had been removed, accused of sexual abuse. None of us believed that the accusation was truthful. Not one person. However, the diocesan spokesperson had presented the situation as if it were fact.

Since then, we have developed a website for information purposes and have raised money to pay for our priest's legal expenses, a set of activities that attracted the attention and ire of SPAN, an organization that does not qualify for non-profit status, according to BBB and other information posted online, and that appears to be making its money from suing priests (or serving as the conduit for accusers to sue priests). Certainly, there are some accusations that are true, and none of us would want to see justice fail those victims. In California, however, about half of the allegations have turned out to be false. SPAN demanded that our bishop ask us to take down the website and support our priest only with words of encouragement -- no money and no public comments. Our bishop refused to ask us to do that, citing the First Amendment. In response to that, our humble website was mentioned anonymously in a post about civility in Internet discourse on These Stone Walls: Holy Hostility, Batman. (I would note that I have found this blog extremely informative about issues of false allegations; for anyone willing to look at the other side of the issue, i.e. the priest's position, there is much to be learned from the weekly postings at These Stone Walls.) The moderator encouraged us not to allow SNAP to bully us. Interestingly, about the same time, we received a piece of hate mail from someone self-identifying as a private citizen; however, when we googled him, we found that he was the director of a SNAP chapter on the East Coast.

In the case of our priest, the one and only allegation was from an accuser whose identity is not supposed to be known, but it is a small community, so we do know who it is. The accuser stalked our priest, following him from his previous parish to our parish, and has reasons for wanting revenge that have nothing to do with any wanton action on the part of our priest. In fact, the allegation is not of abuse but of a proposition only, an allegation that our priest denies and that would be very much out of keeping with his general deportment.

Since I uploaded the post, asking for advice about how to help our priest, our grassroots group has been encouraged by other priests in our diocese (they know our priest and know that the accusation is false) and in other dioceses. Fortunately, the police investigation and the diocese's investigation both determined the allegation to have no basis in fact. However, the lawyer for the accuser decided to file a civil lawsuit (which is why we have been raising money for our priest's defense). The lawyer appeared to hope that the diocese would cave in and cough up big money, frightened by the audacity of the accusation and wanting to avoid a public spectacle. Again, fortunately, our bishop decided to let the public spectacle happen. Our priest has been in this community 17 years. In the 11 months following the allegation, not one other person has stepped forward to substantiate that allegation or submit another allegation. Further, hundreds of letters of support have been sent to the bishop. Our priest has said that the community support has been very important to him as the months drag on, waiting for the case to make it onto the court's docket.

At Thanksgiving Mass, we were all sadly reminded of our priest's absence and dilemma. When he was removed from our parish, he was not allowed to take his devoted black cat with him. His cat used to attend Mass faithfully, sitting beside our priest quietly. At Christmas, he would often curl up in the creche. At the first Mass over which presided the priest who has temporarily replaced our priest, the cat walked down the aisle and jumped up into the priest's chair and would not get out. Everyone was moved by the cat's devotion, and the priest chose another chair. Since then, the cat has remained in the church gardens, and our parish continues to feed and care for him. On Thursday morning, for the first time in a long time, the cat once again entered the church. He walked up to the priest's chair: his father was not there. Then he began walking through one pew after another, as if searching for his owner. After exiting each pew, he would stand still for a moment and switch his tail back and forth in agitation. After walking through each pew, he walked back out of the church.

We were all spellbound by the cat, whose behavior expressed the feelings that all of us were feeling. Although we did have our annual parish-sponsored community Thanksgiving dinner, the real feelings of thanksgiving for us, including for the sad black cat, will be when our priest returns to us -- that is what we are all hoping for.

7 Quick Takes Friday

Now that I am back to blogging--at least a little bit--I am joining again with Jennifer Fulwiler's 7 Quick Takes Friday. Click here to see her quick takes and those of many other bloggers.

Read on below for seven outtakes from real life -- that of yours truly -- in recent days:

1. One of those incomprehensible things...everyone in my family seems to be taking the "which Star Trek character are you" quiz. My sibs and daughter are getting very nice matches: Deanna Troi, Jean Luc Picard. So, would someone explain to me why I came out Worf??!! Moreover, would someone explain to me why my husband also came out Worf??!! (And people think we should be incompatible because we are so "different" from each other! Huh! We are not different from each other. After all, we both are Klingons -- and, ironically, the Klingon language was based on the Mutun Indian language, spoken here in San Ignatio years ago. Coincidence?) Lizzie says that she now has a good excuse for anything weird that she does from now on because, after all, she was raised by Klingons.

Try it: http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/startrek/index.html
 
2.  We spent some time in Yuba City this past week, staying at a small hotel. As I was coming up the stairs to the second floor, where our room was, I noticed some rather strange planning for landscaping. Although all the trees around the hotel were healthy (the picture does not show that because the tree was caught in a shadow, but, really, it was greenO. A poor tree, apparently quick to grow and full of energy, was trapped. "Help," it seemed to say. "I have no where to go. Who put this carport here??!"
 

3. We have ladder day every once in a while. What is ladder day? Chores that require the use of a ladder. Donnie cannot get up and down any ladder well because of his bad knees, so he waits until I have a day off from work, and we run around the house, doing all the chores that have been put off because they are "high up." One of those "high up" chores was replacing some light bulbs. For that, we got some help from one of our cats, Intrepid, who loves ladder day. 

4. Speaking of cats, we were outwitted by one this week. We are cat sitting Noelle's very smart cat, Tiger. Tiger was getting into scraps with our other four cats -- part of the getting acquainted process, but at night, cat scraps keep one awake. So, I put the four cats in the cat room and Tiger in our bedroom. As we were falling asleep, we heard "click!" Tiger had opened the bedroom door. I dragged him back into the bedroom, closed the door, laid down, and then "click!" again. So, I brought him back in, closed the door, and put the cat carrier (medium-size dog carrier because Murjan, our dog cat, is big); that should have taken care of that. Tiger got onto the top of the carrier, and "click" -- the door opened a crack but the carrier prevented the opening enough to get out. Then we heard click, click, click. The crack got a little larger, but not enough to get out. Tiger jumped onto the floor, and the next thing we hear is drag, drag, drag -- the cat was smart enough and strong enough to drag the carrier away from the door. Then, click, and out he pranced into the hall and straight across to the cat room. He reached up to the door handle. Click! He let out the other four cats! Outwitted! And sleepless in San Ignatio.

(note:  drawing by http://xcourtkneex.deviantart.com/art/Orange-Tabby-Love-39587527)

5.  Lizzie shared a post she found about 25 signs that you are a military brat. Yes, her mother did wear combat boots. Check it out here; it is pretty good. One example of a sign of being a military brat is listed as "
“The first song other than the National Anthem you learned all the words to was an inappropriate and pretty hilarious cadence call: Your ma! Your pa! Your mean-ole-granny-got-a-hole-in-her-panty, got-a-big-behind-like-Frankenstein, now sound off! One, two! Sound off! Three, four!”

6. I am still working on my next book, Raising God's Rainbow Makers, for MSI Press. Progress has been slow -- too many other things have been going on. In the interim, MSI Press has started a blog (not much action yet, but hopefully it will take off) and has been posting information about its various publications (which I have linked to 100th Lamb over the past ten days or so). I am waiting for my Blest Atheist and Believer in Waiting to pop up. In the interim, if you have time, pop on over, read excerpts from the books, and leave a comment if you want. Click here for the link.

7. The most important (or at least, surprising) thing that happened this past week was our accidental purchase of a new car. We went into the Toyota dealer to ask about a card we got in the mail. We left the dealer with a Prius C. I have driven it to work all week. What a dream! The best part is that I have not yet used up a full tank of gas--and I live nearly 40 miles (one direction) from my office. Truly cool to see the number 52 mpg (even one time it was 60 mpg.)

Have a great weekend, whatever speed you go!

Christmas and Our Cats

It has been a while since I have blogged about our cats, but come Christmas, they are always on our minds. After all, they definitively limit what we can and cannot do at Christmas.

For example, we cannot have a Christmas tree. Why? Because Intrepid, pictured below with a toy reindeer we bought for Nikolina eats anything with leaves, whether living or plastic. We found that out when we threw out all our denuded plants when he was a kitten and were given a plastic replacement, which he imbibed without our noticing, due to his swiftness, within just a few minutes. Later, with all that plastic inside him, he was in real pain. Thank goodness, we were living in Amman, Jordan at the time, and the vet, who knew us well, came immediately to our house and Intrepid's rescue. Since then, no plants and no trees, not even artificial Christmas ones.

So, we burn the yuletide logs and put up lights.