And so it goes...

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 I don't tend to watch a lot of news anymore as it can simply be too depressing.  I sometimes miss events that maybe I need to be aware of, or aware of violence affecting many peoples, or something messy in the political arena.  I admit that may not be the best thing for a priest to say, but I must be honest.  The world is very ugly at times (or rather, humanity is).

I just read a letter from a Church official whose diocese had to file for bankruptcy due to the seemingly constant litigation against the Church in the realm of sexual misconduct and abuse of minors.  It costs a lot of monies not simply in paying out settlements to victims when priests are found guilty, but the amount of money paid to the lawyers is astronomical.  As I have said in past homilies or articles I've written, it takes a special and creative mind to come up with new lows of evil for society.  Each time I've seen another lawyer ad that preys upon the emotions of people who MIGHT have been victims of abuse (and they are not as frequent as they once were), it turns my stomach and my blood pressure skyrockets because it's still a situation of "guilty until proven innocent."  It tarnishes the name of a priest who may be innocent for just casting suspicion in their direction.  Mucho sad!

As you can see from the paragraph above, I just don't need to be reminded constantly that the world is screwy.

Top all of that with the fact that I am at a point in my life that my parents' generation of friends and family are dying with more frequency is a position I never thought I would be in.  I was not ignorant to the fact that people die, but I am burying more relatives than I thought I should be, or being called to be the priest for former parishioners.  Relatives are one thing, but I cannot be the person to do all of the other things, as much as I may want to believe I should.

  

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