Huzzah!  It's National Curmudgeons Day! 29 January, 2022 Yes, indeed, gentle reader, there is such a thing as Curmudgeons Day!  It is an annual celebration of all persons grumpy, grouchy, and cantankerous! Even curmudgeons enjoy celebrating once in a while. It is my opinion that most everyone has an inner curmudgeon, although there are those few, unfortunate souls who are not blessed with such a gift.  Today is a day to embrace the inner curmudgeon and let him have full reign.  Some celebrate the day by doing nothing, staying in, and avoiding humanity.  Others celebrate by engaging in curmudgeonly behaviour.  Whatever you choose, celebrate it - but not joyously.  Such a faux pas would immediately revoke your status as a curmudgeon. "Why today", you may ask, gentle reader, "is Curmudgeons Day celebrated?".  The answer is quite simple: it is the birth anniversary of one of the great curmudgeons of modern times, William Claude Dukenfield, bette...

 Peacemakers and Discord 28 January, 2022 Dear and gentle reader, this post may seem quite un-curmudgeonly, but in light of all the in-fighting in the Church today, it is, nonetheless, timely.  Far too many Catholics identify themselves not just as simply Catholic, but as "progressive", "traditional", "conservative", "liberal" and so on.  I don't like being referred to as a Roman Catholic.  I am a Catholic of the Roman Rite of the Church. Yes, I am under the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, but so are Catholics of the Byzantine Rites, and that doesn't make them Roman.  The moniker "Roman Catholic" was originally used pejoratively by the Protestant English to present the Catholics in their midst as foreign, and thus, suspiciously un-English. However, on to the meat of the matter.  I came upon this very eloquent statement made by an online friend in response to a rather judgemental and self-righteous comment left on his page, an...

 Tuesday, 18 January 2022 Cancel, cancel, and cancel some more. Dear and gentle reader, I thought it high time to get back to my blog.  I'm sure you're starved for the morsels of wit and wisdom which I dispense here. Yes, you may chuckle politely. I intend this to be brief, whether or not it ends up being so, has yet to be seen.  For whatever reason, the idea of the cancel culture we are currently enduring popped into my mind earlier this morning.  To what I can attribute that, I am not sure.  Yet it stuck. We see it more often than not on social (in reality anti-social) media.  It's easy to vent invective from the safety of a keyboard and behind the anonymity of a screen.  We can block, mute, unfollow, unfriend all with the greatest of ease.  Sometimes that is very necessary and even praiseworthy.  No one needs to endure vile abuse, whether by word or deed.  I think we can all admit, gentle reader, that there are some really nasty folk ...

 Wednesday, 12 January 2022 Good morning, gentle reader! I've recently taken to watching a certain kind of video on YouTube.  I've seen several "Day in the Life of a Priest", all by young priests.  Some of them are interesting, others are just downright annoying to me.  But all of them have a fatal flaw in my opinion. I'll expound on all of these facets below. Firstly, the vast majority of these vlogs are done by young priests.  We old veterans seem to eschew making videos in favour of writing, it seems. The videos I've seen thus far portray these young bucks as "cool" - whatever the hell that means.  They play guitars.  They skateboard. They ride motorcycles. They go to the gym and lift weights. They play sports.  In a word, they are "cool", unlike us old, uninspiring, frumpy old farts. Even as a child, I thought of being a priest.  I play-acted Mass at home.  I began serving Mass in third grade.  I began proclaiming the Scripture ...

 Dear and gentle reader: Some of you might be wondering what exactly is a curmudgeon.  I fear that I should have defined that in my first post, and thusly beg your pardon. A curmudgeon is defined as " a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man" , which fits me like a glove, although I am not so old.  The author, Jon Winokur, in his wonderful book The Portable Curmugdgeon, adds a modern definition to the word: "anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humourous fashion.". "But, wait", I hear you pleading, "aren't priests supposed to be nice?". If you mean caring, forgiving, and loving, yes.  However, I detest the word "nice".  "Isn't that nice?" is often said tongue-in-cheek.  It's a bland word, and I do loathe being described as bland.    Let's look at the etymology of the word "nice".  It's r...

 Tuesday, 11 January, 2022 Dear and gentle reader, welcome to my first ever blog.  I beg your indulgence, in that this is something new to me. This blog is as it is described, written by a cleric who is a bona-fide curmudgeon.  I would want you, gentle reader, to note that within this blog is expressed my own opinion, which I do endeavour to conform to the teachings of the Catholic Church, of which I am a member, and in and to which I minister as one of her priests. As far as myself is concerned, I am an insignificant secular priest of a Midwest diocese, which is mostly rural in character.  I however, was not raised in the hinterlands, but within a metropolitan area, and provided with an excellent education by my parents, the good Sisters of St. Joseph, and the secular priests who taught at my high school.  I am one of the rare creatures who entered seminary in high school - it was a day school, not boarding.  I continued on into college seminary where I wa...