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Wednesday, May 3, 2017

REASON # 1 AGAINST AD ORIENTEM!




NO PASTOR IN HIS RIGHT MIND WOULD WANT TO TURN HIS BACK ON THIS CONGREGATION! GOOD TO FACE THE CONGREGATION TO SEE WHAT IS COMING!

From the Macon Telegraph:

Brawl breaks out at Macon church
Punches were thrown and chairs toppled inside Greater Bellevue Baptist Church in Macon on Monday night after a disagreement about the pastor’s future escalated into a full-on brawl.
Church trustees had hired three Bibb County sheriff’s deputies to attend the meeting, during which the congregation was set to vote on whether the Rev. David Stephens would remain as pastor. Several members of the congregation took turns speaking, but it didn’t take long for things to get out of hand.
“I can’t handle this. This is church, though. They overdoing it, though,” one man said on a video he took with his phone.
A woman came on a microphone and said, “Us not having a pastor at all, is that going to make this a better church or worser?”
“Worser!” the man taking the video said. “We want Pastor Stephens. He a big help to the community, though. They trippin.’ ”
A woman can be overheard saying she told her son that, when it comes to church, “you don’t come for the people, baby, you come for the word.”
At one point, a deputy waved people away from the podium, saying, “One at a time!”
“If you keep talking, you won’t be able to vote,” a man at the podium told about 150 people in the church. “If y’all don’t vote, y’all just don’t vote.”
Deputies could see that some of the members were getting “irate” and that “this meeting was starting to take a turn for the worse,” a deputy noted in an incident report.
A little more than 20 minutes into the 35-minute video, church decorum decayed in a matter of seconds. The deputies called for backup.
Young men threw punches, and folks shoved each other among chairs that had been knocked over.
At the blow of a whistle, everyone left the church, and the fight dissipated about 8:40 p.m.
The deputy’s report mentions there was an altercation involving “a few different church members,” but deputies were “unable to determine the primary aggressor and also unable to re-contact parties involved once the crowd dispersed.”

27 comments:

Catechist Kev said...

So, is it a safe bet they did not end their meeting with a rousing rendition of
"They'll Know We Are Christians"?

Come on now! Everybody sing:

We are one in the spirit...

Oh, never mind.

Catechist Kev

Gene said...

An ethnic issue.

rcg said...

I saw this in the news and, of course, thought of you. This is as good an argument against ad orientem as can be made: you would not want to turn your back on that congregation!!

Anonymous said...

Well, it is Macon after all....a city which is dying before our eyes. Father M., much as you liked St. Joseph's there, I suspect you are glad to be on t he coast these days!

Anonymous said...

An ethnic issue?

Were it not for your past racist remarks, I'd ask if you were joking.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

The sad truth is that Macon is dying before our eyes and has been for the past 15 years or so with the loss of about 10,000 or more people in that period of time. For example when I arrived in Macon, we would have about 60 to 70 8th graders being confirmed each year. But that began a steady decline and tonight in Macon only 30 will be confirmed. The other two parishes have not had an increase of candidates, except for St. Peter Claver and their increase is from the Mexican community not from the African American or white community.

Much of it has to do with mentality, leadership and moving away from a closed, small town mentality to openness and willingness to change and be more cosmopolitan.

rcg said...

What ever you do, don't give on anything except expecting other people to do the right thing. You have to do it for yourself. Dayton went through the same cycle and the recovery is coming only from the grass roots. Really nice neighborhoods are being made from literal drug dens by young people who buy the property cheap and fix it up. Young people with skills close together in a city are a dream for growing businesses. We still have some of the old thinking, mainly in the city and county governments as well as real estate developers and the ethnic and local community leaders. But they are collapsing under their own weight and the good parts of the city are outshining the, frankly, dumb parts and good life is following the good neighbors.

The battle is far from over, but it is moving in our favor.

qwikness said...

Father, has confirmation proportionally increased in Warner Robins and those areas south of Macon? Warner Robins is due to surpass Macon's population any year now. It would not be surprising that those areas were pulling those potential Catholic families.
WR and surrounding areas are just more attractive than Macon. I believe that all is related to the bad reputation of the schools.

Anonymous said...

In 1970, Bibb had about 143,000 people to about 63,000 for Houston---about a 2-1 margin. By 2010, Bibb has only increased to about 155,000, while Houston was closing in on 140,000. Might see Houston County thus overtake (Bibb) Macon in the 2020 census---in fact, 2016 estimates have Bibb down about 3,000 from the 2010 census. Crime, poor schools and kids without fathers---all related and also problems faced by Augusta and Columbus among other Georgia cities.

I guess there would not be any way to relocate St. Joseph's brick by brick to Warner Robins in Houston County? And how does Bibb County support three parishes?

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Certainly the school system plays a role in new industries not locating in Bibb and many having closed. But there is more at work and it is a small town mentality in many who could be movers and shakers but prefer smallness. Macon is strategically located but does not have the desire or leadership to exploit its location.

George said...


Having lived in Macon a good long while now and observed what has transpired in the intervening years, has made me more aware that this earth is our home only for a short while. How this world does test our faith!

We are not long for this life. We must persevere in keeping our faith and in practicing Christian virtues, so that by the grace of God we can enter the Eternal heaven, where there will always be contentment, joy, and gladness, and no cause for discontent or sadness.

We should try to keep in mind that while we physically exist in some geographic place, we are part to of something much larger, which transcends and comprises more than just our physical selves, and that is the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ on earth; and thus we are joined to other souls, both those in the here and now, and those who have passed on from this life and have withstood the judgement of God and this because they were faithful and obedient to His Holy laws and beatitudes .

Gene said...

Anonymous@ 8:48...Hey...truth is the new hate speech. Live with it.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Gene. There's nothing "new" about racism. But, then, I bet all your educated buddies agree with you... So that makes it OK.

rcg said...

I will defend Gene in this instance.

When I retired from military service I took a job with a mechanical engineering company that specialized in heating and cooling industrial facilities. I was sent to attend a public information session on a large, pending, public school contract. I was one of only about five white people in attendence. The main focus of the hearing was to ensure that only a "local" company got the contract versus "out of towners". As each person was allowed to speak on the topic the crowd became more animated. Various elected officials, business owners, and investors took the podium to deliver their address. Brows became dotted with perperation, coats removed, ties loosened, and suspenders shifted to allow freedom of movement. And was there ever movement! Pacing back and forth, arms waiving, head bobbing movement. Glorious oratory peppered with rhyme and quote, voices eliding growls and squeals with an occasional song when the allusion was lyrical had the audience answering with "uh, HUH!, Yes, it is", "uh, uhn, NO!", and an occasional malapropious ""AMEN!" Afterwards, I was approached by a black woman, obviously a professional or important political figure, who asked me if I had ever seen such a thing and if I was prepared to work with black folks in this way. I had to think about what I had seen and try to understand how it related to the project in question. What I concluded is that a) it was a generous education in how that community felt and what they wanted from the project as a community aside from the engineering goals and b) that the people in the community were happy to be black and were eager for me to be comfortable with it, too. Their position, as a community was 'racist' but not unreasonable since the community needed both the schools and the jobs building them. There was plenty of money in it for me helping them do that efficiently.

So It is not a bad thing to acknowledge someone is acting to type if they are doing it to identify themselves as such. What is silly is when people act a certain way then want everyone else to pretend that it didn't happen.

George said...



I don't want to leave the impression with my comment at 7:17 PM that there are not of course good and decent people in Macon. Believe me, there are a good many.

What I have observed in our community as time has gone on though, is an increase in secular humanism and the loss of faith among a greater number, and the decline of civil virtue and what at one time were more widely held acceptable and expected standards of moral behavior. This of course unfortunately is the story in many other communities and in many other parts of the world as well. As Christians though our attitude is not to throw our hands up in frustration and despair, but to put them together in frequent acts of prayer, and perform whatever other good we can do to
contribute to the betterment of where we reside.

Gene said...

Anonymous @ 8:58. There is nothing racist about accepting the overwhelming anecdotal, as well as the statistical, truth about Blacks. Study after study (many recent and others long suppressed) indicates that Blacks of sub-Saharan descent have a mean IQ of between 70 and 80 (depending upon the study), are tribal and gregarious and given to immediate gratification, poor impulse control, and a high level of loud verbal activity. There is nothing new about this and it is supported almost every day in the news, on TV, and in many other venues. The only thing new is the white guilt that causes us to do back flips trying to deny or rationalize this stuff for fear of being called "racist." Take it as you will, I don't care.

Anonymous said...

Oh, you care VERY much, or you would not work so hard to defend your position with pseudo-scientific IQ studies and "long suppressed" (my, doesn't that sound sinister! Was it the Illuminati, the Masons, or the World Dominion Jews doing the suppressing, hmmmmm?) evidence.

If no non-blacks took part in such behavior, you might have a case. Ever see soccer hooligans riot in every major European city? I have. All white.

Ever see well-to-do college students in the USA riot after their school wins? I have. All white.

Your thoughts and comments are racist and, as such, contribute to the continued degradation of our society.

Gene said...

Anonymous, the studies are out there, lots of them. Even accounting for the admixture of non-African blood in a percentage of the black population, the mean still holds. You may also want to check out, "The Bell-Shaped Curve," much despised by liberals. I know, bless your heart, the truth hurts. But, you can always call up somebody black and take them to lunch.

Rood Screen said...

I wish Catholics would settle our disputes through brawling, which produces much clearer results than does blogging or synods.

Anonymous said...

"The Bell Curve," not "The Bell Shaped Curve," has been widely discredited by those properly accredited to do so.

The dozens of resulting papers were presented by the Brookings Institute in a book, "The Black-White Test Score Gap," whose conclusion was summarized by [Christopher] Jencks in the forward: "Despite endless speculation, no one has found genetic evidence indicating that blacks have less intellectual ability than whites."
(https://www.brookings.edu/book/the-black-white-test-score-gap/)

The ethnicity/genetic gap in intelligence between blacks and whites is a popular myth, used relentlessly by those who seek to avoid the responsibility they bear for spreading lies and for racist words and actions.

The truth will set you free.

Gene said...

It is absolutely no surprise that liberals have gone out of their way to try to discredit the Bell Curve. Of course, there are countless British, French, and earlier American studies that show the same thing. But, I suppose you can choose whatever "truth" fits your PC mindset.

Anonymous said...

Countless? I doubt that. But I don't expect any evidence.

These studies are based on an erroneous understanding of the relationship between genetics (ethnicity) and intelligence. These earlier studies are also based on racially biased tests of intelligence.

"Though the tests are good measures of skills relevant to success in American society, the scores are only a good indicator of relative intellectual ability for people who have been exposed to equivalent opportunities for developing those skills - and who actually have the motivation to try hard on the test. IQ tests are good measures of innate intelligence--if all other factors are held steady. But if IQ tests are being used to compare individuals of wildly different backgrounds, then the variable of innate intelligence is not being tested in isolation. Instead, the scores will reflect some impossible-to-sort-out combination of ability and differences in opportunities and motivations."

From: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/why-people-keep-misunderstanding-the-connection-between-race-and-iq/275876/

Current genetic research: "Genes make a substantial difference, but they are not the whole story. They account for about half of all differences in intelligence among people, so half is not caused by genetic differences, which provides strong support for the importance of environmental factors."

"Recent studies of hundreds of thousands of individuals have found genes that explain about 5 percent of the differences among people in intelligence."

Both from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-intelligence-hereditary/

Anonymous said...

Liberals? No.

You have accreditation in sociology or genetics? No.

But you are VERY good at finding "data" that agrees with your racial prejudices and turning it into gospel.

I'll stick with the people who are trained in these areas before I make a rank amateur my source of information.

CHEERS!

Gene said...

All the tests I cited are from people "trained in these areas"...anthropologists, psychologists, genetecists, etc. So, you pick your truth and I'll take mine....I have heaps of anecdotal evidence to support mine.

Rood Screen said...

Now, let's discuss the intellectual and moral capacities of blonde women.

Anonymous said...

Gene has plenty of "anecdotal" evidence one that question, too, I'm sure.

Gene said...

A redhead goes to the emergency room and tells the Doc, "Everywhere I touch myself it hurts...look." She touches her leg with her finger and cries out, then she touches her arm, her face, and her stomach, screaming each time. The Doc asks, "You aren't really a redhead, are you?" She says, "No, I dyed my hair. I'm really a blonde." The Doc says, "I thought so. You have a broken finger."