bald angry guyThere is a curious range of reactions to my blog posts that “attack” people.

Some progressives accuse me of being an angry, white, male reactionary, arch traditionalist who longs for a pre Vatican 2 church.

Meanwhile some conservatives accuse me of being a spineless shill, a “neo con” sell out, member of the Patheeos Francis Church club of pseudo conservatives.

Ho hum.

Fact of the matter is, (apart from Donald Trump) I try not to attack people, and I try not to attack groups of people, and I try to avoid putting people into big groups about who I can generalize. I don’t always succeed and sometimes fall into the trap of attacking individuals and generalizing about groups.

What I do attempt, however, is to attack lies, hypocrisy, idiocy, ignorance and arrogance, pride, self righteousness, cupidity and stupidity and sin.

To take aim at these things you have to take aim at where they appear in society and the church. Since there are a lot of these vices in the extreme fundamentalist side of the Catholic Church they sometimes get a few pot shots in their direction. Likewise, as there are a lot of these vices in the extreme progressive side of the Church and society they also get some of the pot shots.

I know, I know. It’s the pot calling the kettle black,

I’m the first to admit–like any preacher ought–that the first person I’m preaching to is myself.

Hypocritical, arrogant, ignorant, self righteous, stupid, greedy, proud person?

C’est moi.

I’m a work in progress too. Do all my pot shots hit the target? I don’t know, and quite frankly I don’t care.

Will what I write make any difference? Maybe. It’s not for me to say.

In many ways I regard my blogging as the dog barking at the train.

He doesn’t bark at the train because he thinks it will stop. He barks at the train because he’s a dog.