3/3/2025

 Monday, March 3, 2025

D+116

A day of profound losses

2020 Super Tuesday revived Joe Biden's campaign as he won nine states, while Bernie Sanders won four, including California

2022 Catherine Monica Clausen Reck, 8/19/1944 - 3/3/2022

In bed by 9:15 and up at 4:45. 28° outside, with a wind chill of 22°.  

Prednisone, day 316, 5 mg., day 27, Kevzara, day 13/14.  2.5 mg. prednisone at 4:55  a.m. and 3:15 p.m.  Other meds at 7:40 a.m., and it appears I forgot to take my other meds yesterday.

Kitty Anniversary.   It's been 3 years since Kitty died, leaving holes in the lives of her husband, her daughter, her son, her many friends, and me.  I have been so fortunate to have had such good, strong women in my life: my mother, my sister, and my wife.  I haven't deserved any of them but have been blessed by all of them.  There have been many times that I have thought that perhaps belief in a God derives simply from the emotional need at times to say "thank you" to Someone for undeserved blessings in life, what Catholics call "grace."  The simplest and greatest prayers: 'Thank you' and 'I'm sorry.'

IV

My fiftieth year had come and gone,

I sat, a solitary man,

In a crowded London shop,

An open book and empty cup

On the marble table-top.

While on the shop and street I gazed

My body of a sudden blazed;

And twenty minutes more or less

It seemed, so great my happiness,

That I was blessed and could bless.

V

Although the summer Sunlight gild

Cloudy leafage of the sky,

Or wintry moonlight sink the field

In storm-scattered intricacy,

I cannot look thereon,

Responsibility so weighs me down.

Things said or done long years ago,

Or things I did not do or say

But thought that I might say or do,

Weigh me down, and not a day

But something is recalled,

My conscience or my vanity appalled.

Thank You.  I'm so sorry.

Further thoughts on yesterday's post.    I ran out of available time to complete my thinkingg about that time of loss in my life, around 2003 when I left the House of Peace and Father Matthew, and the St. Francis community, including Hattie and the children, Troy Major, Fathers Niles, Paul, and Bob,, the St. Michael's connection and many others in the inner city, and our condo in the Knickerboker in that beauriful neighborhood that I had loved since 1963, 'Downtown East.'  It was that time when I truly retired from so much that had filled and enriched my life after I left the law school.  There were reasons for leaving the HOP and the Church, and they both related to the explosive revelations about clerical sexual abuse of children and the long complicity of the hierarchy.  In January 2002, the Boston Globe blew the lid off the Church's long-term practice of shielding priests who were pedophile predators from law enforcement and from public knowledge.  Bishops and their "vicars", or assistants, moved pedophiles from parishes or other ministries where the crimes were committed to other parishes or ministries, without informing the new ministries of the priest's prior 'problems.'    Once the Globe exposed the extent of the Church's crimes in Boston, disclosures followed disclosures in diocese after diocese, nation after nation.  To those of us "raised in the bosom of the Church," it was shocking, stunning, and faith-shattering (if you were truly faithful to begin with).  I worked in a very public ministry of an order of Catholic priests and brothers.  I should have been discrete in my comments about the scandal, but I wasn't.  I was later to learn that the two priests who resided at the HOP had some or, in the case of one, much involvement in the problem of religious misconduct.  I wrote about my friend Father Matthew in my journal entry on February 10th of this year.  The other resident priest was Al Veik, who was "Vicar for Religious" for Milwaukee's archbishop. I later learned that prominent among his duties was dealing with priests, brothers, and nuns with serious sexual problems.   At morning coffees after mass, he would occasionally disparage the Milwaukee Journal reporter who reported the archdiocese's coverups of priestly sexual abuses.  Once I was so candid about my view of the pedophile scandal, my days at the HOP were numbered.  I had become a persona non grata.  My multiple inquiries about future plans for the ministry were met by rude silence from the head of the province, Brother Bob Smith, and it soon became clear that I had to resign.  I stayed on until my successor arrived a couple of months later, Brother Mark Carrico, who was a licensed psychologist.  Brother Mark eventually resigned to devote his efforts full time to counseling members of the orders with psychological problems, including, of course, sexual problems.  Once my connection with the Capuchins at the HOP was severed, I also stopped attending mass at St. Francis and thus severed my connection with that community as well.    I had never been much of a believer to begin with, stuff like "the Real Presence," the ability of priests to forgive sins, the infallability of the Pope, virgin birth and the Assumption of Mary, and of course the big one: God as an All-Knowing, All-Loving, All-Powerful Father who bears no responsibilty for all the pain and suffering on earth.  That's on us.  I was, at best, a "cafeteria Catholic" who believed in the Good Shepherd, the Good Samaritan, love and forgive your neighbor, lama sabachthani, and Matthew 25:31-46.  In any event, 2003 was a turning point in my life.  We closed on our house outside Saukville on December 12th of that year, and instead of focusing much of my life on helping folks in the inner city, I lived in the counry and volunteered as a horse-handler in 'hippotherapy' sites in horse stables in Walworth and northern Ozaukee counties, and in various activities at Riveredge Nature Center.  Eventually, I became too hobbled with pain conditions and physical problems to engage in those activities, and I became something of a lump, seated in my recliner, writing in this journal, à la recherche du temps perdu.

A headline that brought a smile to my face this morning:  In this morning's NY Times: "Are the Giants Crazy Enough to Sign Aaron Rodgers?"  

Headlines that made me shudder or want to cry.  WaPo: "Washington now ‘largely aligns’ with Moscow’s vision, Kremlin says",  "Trump’s opponents see a sweeping crackdown on free speech", and "Wisconsin Supreme Court race puts Trump and Musk at center stage: The contest that will decide the political tilt of the swing state’s highest court is likely to be the most expensive state court race in U.S. history."  NY Times: "Can the Media’s Right to Pursue the Powerful Survive a Second Trump Term? New York Times v. Sullivan and other landmark Supreme Court decisions protect the press, but a growing right-wing movement seeks to overturn them".