Shacking Up with God?

Now the showdown, the hoopla and $160, 000.000 Inauguration notwithstanding. What will the Big Zero do regarding FOCA?

He has met with, wined and dined with George Will, Charles Krauthammer, et al at George's place - impressing Krauthammer no end. But for Catholics who do not care about conservative issues so much as those espoused by the Magisterium of the Church - remember: 'right' and 'left' pigeon holes are secularist and Marxist - the snarky and ridiculous displays of balls and parades (so loved by 'stars' like Bono) mean nothing, absolutely nothing in Heaven's eyes.

By the way, I heard a regrettable 'sermon' this morning - more a dramatic reading - based on The Shack. It was all I could do to remain seated and not bolt from the proceedings, listening to the kind of "Oooh, I've discovered theodicy!" rantings in this regrettable tome. Dante would consider this best-selling phenom at best a "fraud" that will lead many, too many, in the wrong direction.

Gnostic overtones, gender-bending crisis of distinctions making God the Father an African-American mother ('Papa'???), God the Son a Middle Eastern man (okayyyy), and God the Holy Spirit an entity called Sarayu (oooh - I can make up a name!).

The Shack is another publishing bonanza like The Living Bible in the 1960's. Fine. Enjoy. We're in the Money - it must be God’s will.

But what maddens me is the exploitative manipulation. The protagonist, a father whose youngest daughter is abducted, tortured, and murdered (presumably - blood but no body is found) discovers the truth of self-sacrifice and God's supreme vindication in the giving of the Word made flesh, Jesus the Son. Yeah, fine. But what if I don't want to listen to this piece of imagination about an heinous crime laid at God's doorstep? I don't want to go up in your balloon of fiction, your piece of fraud? Do I have a problem? (You must - you don't CARE about a little abused girl?)

See what I mean?

Fine. But once again the non-Catholic world re-invents the wheel, as though the wrenching dilemma of theodicy just came to an author a couple years ago. And, of course, the Church's tradition and faith and language takes a major hit: God the Father becomes a politically correct entity: African-American. Woman. Non-male. Non-white. A-OK. Good to go!

In the midst of the $160M Inauguration and in light of this accurate-of-the-symptomology of the spirit of the age piece of .... fiction, I will go to Mass, imbibe the truth of the Catholic Church, and not succumb to despair.

So there.