Totus Tuus Traditionalist homeschooling blog

[Cleopatra7]

Has anyone stumbled across this blogger before:

http://totustuusfamily.blogspot.com/?m=1

The blog is very top heavy with graphics and walls of texts, but it seems like the usual trad rhetoric that I remember: the goal of homeschooling is to get into heaven, not Harvard, mass in the vernacular is inferior and possibly heretical, "modesty" and "purity," heretics are under every bush, etc. She seems to go to a lot of conferences, which leads to me wonder how she can afford it.

 

[smittykins]

Including a prayer to St. Maria Goretti, who "chose death over impurity," teaching children that 1. rape makes you "impure" and 2. your virginity is more important than your life. 

 

[illinigal]

Far right Catholics..  Totus tuus was JPII We Love You's motto.  American Catholic fundies have really begun to look like their Protestant fundie neighbors.  I recommend clicking on the blog links on the right side if you want hours of entertainment.  

[feministxtian]

I knew quite a few families like this family when I lived in Indiana. The parents would go on a retreat and the next thing you know the kids are being pulled out of the parochial school to be homeschooled, they'd get rather isolationist, and have another baby within the year, with more following on a semi-regular basis. Prior to attending the retreat they were fairly normal Catholics. 

I left the RCC about 20 years ago, it's a long story.

[Cleopatra7]

1 hour ago, illinigal said:

Far right Catholics..  Totus tuus was JPII We Love You's motto.  American Catholic fundies have really begun to look like their Protestant fundie neighbors.  I recommend clicking on the blog links on the right side if you want hours of entertainment.  

I've noticed that far-right Catholics are borrowing the worst aspects of fundentalist Protestantism and vice versa. Some of the trad families I met in real life were so insular and bunker-like, I half expected them to be into home churching and fathers giving communion stuff that happens in FICs. Of course, trads are the biggest proponents of clerical celibacy and clericalism in general (at least, towards priests they like) so they wouldn't approve of lay men giving communion, but the patriarchalism and distrust of outsiders is such that I wonder if they might find some obscure text that would at least allow for home churching.

[hoipolloi]

So are these people the "Catholics" who hold their masses in high school gyms or storefronts less than a block away from functioning RC churches?

 

[illinigal]

42 minutes ago, feministxtian said:

I knew quite a few families like this family when I lived in Indiana. The parents would go on a retreat and the next thing you know the kids are being pulled out of the parochial school to be homeschooled, they'd get rather isolationist, and have another baby within the year, with more following on a semi-regular basis. Prior to attending the retreat they were fairly normal Catholics. 

I left the RCC about 20 years ago, it's a long story.

Opus Dei is one of the main culprits.  A friend's mother got involved with them as a child and became a fanatic.  Of course, Opus Dei has its own set of schools to indoctrinate the children of members (and take money from the parents.)

The homeschooling like fundie Protestants is a new phenomenon that seems to have popped up over the last decade.  I suspect the far right, we hate Vatican II drift of the Catholic Church under Pope Benedict encouraged the Catholic fundies to drift farther right.  

[feministxtian]

I had friends who got involved in Opus Dei...

The people in Indiana got involved in Cursillo, whatever that is...then they got weird

[illinigal]

45 minutes ago, Cleopatra7 said:

I've noticed that far-right Catholics are borrowing the worst aspects of fundentalist Protestantism and vice versa. Some of the trad families I met in real life were so insular and bunker-like, I half expected them to be into home churching and fathers giving communion stuff that happens in FICs. Of course, trads are the biggest proponents of clerical celibacy and clericalism in general (at least, towards priests they like) so they wouldn't approve of lay men giving communion, but the patriarchalism and distrust of outsiders is such that I wonder if they might find some obscure text that would at least allow for home churching.

As a Catholic, I would love them to home church!  They cause so much hatred and discord in Catholic parishes.  They are the ones who run to the bishop and tattle about the gay music director or the fact that the priest conducted a reconciliation service.   I cannot tell you how many times that I have been told to leave the Catholic Church by such types.  The tattling and nastiness of the Catholic fundies is the worst.  They are judgmental Pharisees.

It has gotten a bit better because the fundie set has decided that regular Catholic Massed are not valid.  Many of them will only attend Latin Masses.  Pope Benedict encouraged these types and their fanaticism. I suspect that this blogger is one of those types.

[feministxtian]

5 minutes ago, illinigal said:

It has gotten a bit better because the fundie set has decided that regular Catholic Massed are not valid.  Many of them will only attend Latin Masses.  Pope Benedict encouraged these types and their fanaticism. I suspect that this blogger is one of those types.

When Francis became pope, I had a few moments of considering going back to the RCC. Ratzie was known for being a hard-liner. 

[illinigal]

19 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

So are these people the "Catholics" who hold their masses in high school gyms or storefronts less than a block away from functioning RC churches?

 

The blogger is more mainstream than that because she is using JPII We Love You's motto.  The storefront types think that JPII is the devil.  They are antisemitic and dislike JPII's embrace of ecumenism.  I do suspect that the blogger will only attend Latin Masses and might drive quite a way to attend such a Mass (but one sanctioned by the Catholic Church) .  Benedict coddled such types and encouraged them to become more fanatical.  

I will have to look at the blog some more but such types tend to hate Pope Francis despite still being loyal to the Catholic Church.  The blogger is linked to some blogs that are full of passive aggressive Pope Francis hate 

8 minutes ago, feministxtian said:

When Francis became pope, I had a few moments of considering going back to the RCC. Ratzie was known for being a hard-liner. 

Francis is far from perfect.  He definitely not a feminist and holds the same retrograde attitudes about women that many elderly Latin American men hold.  But he is a million times better than what came before him.  I live in Chicago and we have been blessed by Archbishop Cupich because of Francis.  

I continue to associate with the Catholic Church because Catholic fundies like the above blogger would like me to leave.  A pro gay marriage, birth control using feminist regularly receives Communion makes such bloggers shriek in horror.  I find it funny.

[feministxtian]

I left after my marriage blew up and the advice I got from my parish priest probably would have led to my death. My x was a violent, abusive man who tossed me and the kids out of the house...I went to my parish priest and his advice was to submit more, avoid angering him, control the children better so he wouldn't get angry. Yeah..whatever...I'm gone! The whole time I was homeless, with small children, not a single person in the parish that we had been so active in bothered to try to help us at all. My "salvation" was my one non-Catholic friend who went to her pastor and within 48 hours we had a place to live, furniture and a full pantry/fridge. They paid my rent and utilities for three months on top of it all. 

In my parish, the priests drove Mercedes and didn't give a damn 

[illinigal]

42 minutes ago, feministxtian said:

I left after my marriage blew up and the advice I got from my parish priest probably would have led to my death. My x was a violent, abusive man who tossed me and the kids out of the house...I went to my parish priest and his advice was to submit more, avoid angering him, control the children better so he wouldn't get angry. Yeah..whatever...I'm gone! The whole time I was homeless, with small children, not a single person in the parish that we had been so active in bothered to try to help us at all. My "salvation" was my one non-Catholic friend who went to her pastor and within 48 hours we had a place to live, furniture and a full pantry/fridge. They paid my rent and utilities for three months on top of it all. 

In my parish, the priests drove Mercedes and didn't give a damn 

How horrible!  The way Catholics treat divorced people is disgusting and has angered me to no end.  I personally know people who were abused and treated like you and have heard of more just like yours.  It angers me to no end.  What disgusts me the most is the hypocrisy and the fact that the rich and famous get annulments while the normal Catholics get screwed.  Newt Gingrich received two annulments despite cheating on his wives.  Pope Francis provided a small hand to divorced people in Amoris Laetitia but it is not enough.  It provides too much wiggle room for priests and bishops to encourage women like you to remain in abusive situations.  Recently the Archbishop of Philadelphia issued a repudiation of  Pope Francis that could be entitled men should be allowed to beat their wives.

Also, I think that the way that Catholics treat those who are hurting in parishes is wanting.  Evangelicals are very good at community.  I have never heard of a Catholic parish providing help and aid to hurting members.  Catholics do not provide casseroles for families with illnesses and new babies.  It has been difficult for my family to get a priest to administer final rites to family members.  

[feministxtian]

My mother's parish (where they'd been members for about 30 years) would NOT do my father's funeral. My mother had to get an Air Force chaplain to do it. I can't tell you what it took to get a parish priest to give my mother last rites..the excuse? She hadn't been to Mass in years. Even after I explained that she was housebound and disabled for that time, they still were utter assholes. Our pastor did the graveside service for her funeral since the priests were such assholes. 

[klynn]

On 7/15/2016 at 4:45 PM, smittykins said:

Including a prayer to St. Maria Goretti, who "chose death over impurity," teaching children that 1. rape makes you "impure" and 2. your virginity is more important than your life. 

 

What a great thing to teach children.  Not.  More like, what a bunch of assholes.

[louisa05]

My aunt died in a car crash while traveling between the home of her boyfriend and ex-husband where she alternated spending nights--along with a third boyfriend's home. The car belonged to boyfriend #2. 

This happened in a teeny tiny town where everyone knew very well that she was juggling three men. Including all three men and her six grown sons. 

She had a Catholic funeral mass. No questions asked. 

My father had a Catholic funeral mass last September. He had not been a practicing Catholic since he was 15. He only formally returned to the church 3 weeks before his death. He was married outside the church, something that was never rectified (it could have been by the priest blessing my parents' marriage). There was no resistance from the parish in regard to having a funeral mass. We called the parish office and it was scheduled for us. 

For every bad story, there is a good one because the church is simply not a monolith. Some priests are jerks. Some are not. Just like in every walk of life. 

For the record, though, every baptized Catholic is entitled to a funeral mass regardless of anything they did or did not do in their lifetime. Absent actual excommunication, that is a right in the church. And excommunication is very rare. Had my father not returned to the church formally by meeting with the priest in his last weeks, we only would have had to get the parish he was baptized in to confirm the record to the parish where his funeral mass was held in order to have it.   

[feministxtian]

1 hour ago, louisa05 said:

or the record, though, every baptized Catholic is entitled to a funeral mass regardless of anything they did or did not do in their lifetime. Absent actual excommunication, that is a right in the church. And excommunication is very rare. Had my father not returned to the church formally by meeting with the priest in his last weeks, we only would have had to get the parish he was baptized in to confirm the record to the parish where his funeral mass was held in order to have it.   

It depends on the priest/bishop though...and when there's only 2 parishes in the entire city (I lived in the south), good luck. 

[Lady Grass Lake]

My uncle as well as my Mother and her other siblings went through Catholic schools through high school.  My aunt and Uncle had 12 kids but it was not a happy marriage and they divorced.  Both remarried.  When my uncle was in the hospital with an aortic aneurysm his 2nd wife, knowing how important the Catholic church still was to him,  went to the local church and asked if my uncle could get last rites.   The priest said absolutely not.  2 days later, she got a call, if she were to make a $5000 donation to the church, they could get a special dispensation and come to the hospital and give him last rites.  She told the priest to shove it up his  $%^#$%.  

Funny thing, my uncle's hospital roommate was a baptist minister and when my uncle asked him questions about his beliefs, the minister told him what the bible said about grace and forgiveness and my uncle died as a saved Christian.  

[paganbaby]

On 7/30/2016 at 3:21 PM, feministxtian said:

My mother's parish (where they'd been members for about 30 years) would NOT do my father's funeral. My mother had to get an Air Force chaplain to do it. I can't tell you what it took to get a parish priest to give my mother last rites..the excuse? She hadn't been to Mass in years. Even after I explained that she was housebound and disabled for that time, they still were utter assholes. Our pastor did the graveside service for her funeral since the priests were such assholes. 

Much the same happened in my family, for the ridiculous reason that my father chose to be cremated. My mother made a few phone calls and shortly had a service arranged at a funeral home with a priest from another parish officiating. I was angry for her sake. I was sure my father wouldn't have cared about anything except her feelings in the matter either. Her attachment to the church is strong and emotional even though she doesn't agree with many of its teachings.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

On 30/7/2016 at 7:09 PM, illinigal said:

Totus tuus was JPII We Love You's motto.

 

On 30/7/2016 at 9:33 PM, illinigal said:

The blogger is more mainstream than that because she is using JPII We Love You's motto.  

True question: where does the "we love you" interpretation comes from? In latin Totu Tuus just means "[I'm] all yours" and I heard that JPII chose it as a pledge to the Virgin Mary to which he was very devoted. Just curious.

[illinigal]

1 hour ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

 

True question: where does the "we love you" interpretation comes from? In latin Totu Tuus just means "[I'm] all yours" and I heard that JPII chose it as a pledge to the Virgin Mary to which he was very devoted. Just curious.

JPII We Love You is mocking on my part.  I am making fun of the papalotry of the EWTN set, George Weigel, etc. and their belief that everything JPII said was infallible.  The hypocrisy about that on the American right now the pope is a center-left Latin American pastor who sees economic inequality as a greater concern than pelvic issues is astounding. 

And I very much believe that JPII's papacy needs to be evaluated critically.  (See Spotlight for all the reasons why.)

[laPapessaGiovanna]

6 hours ago, illinigal said:

JPII We Love You is mocking on my part.  I am making fun of the papalotry of the EWTN set, George Weigel, etc. and their belief that everything JPII said was infallible.  The hypocrisy about that on the American right now the pope is a center-left Latin American pastor who sees economic inequality as a greater concern than pelvic issues is astounding. 

And I very much believe that JPII's papacy needs to be evaluated critically.  (See Spotlight for all the reasons why.)

Thank you. Sorry I hadn't realised the snarky tone . I call them the "santo subito" brigade from the banner that was displayed at his funeral. Anyway they obtained what they wanted: he became a saint in record time and this will preserve  his legacy from the possibility of a widespread critical evaluation. 

[Hane]

Re @feministxtian and @illinigal above:  I was a devout Catholic for the first 55 years of my life, then became a UU over social issues like feminism and marriage equality. Yes, some priests are jerks and some are stand-up guys. A former pastor helped us out when I wanted to remarry (I had years ago decided to get a church annulment for personal reasons; my fiancé hadn't yet). He advised us to have a civil wedding ceremony, to show the Archdiocese the strength of our commitment. True fact: An annulment doesn't cost a dime. After each of ours, the Archdiocese sent a letter asking for a donation of $400 (IIRC), to cover the costs of the psychiatrists/social workers who analyzed each case. The annulment is not rescinded if you refuse to or cannot pay.

Regarding "community" in Catholic vs. Protestant churches:. Yeah, Catholic parishes (which tend to be huge, at least around here) kind of fall down on the job in that regard: it's all show up for Mass weekly and get your spiritual ticket punched, and that's it.

I always was drawn to the sense of (forgive the word) fellowship in the Protestant churches I visited, with their post-service coffee hours and discussion groups. In my little UU church (about 100 members), we have coffee and discussion every Sunday, and a monthly potluck. When a new family joined our church and the wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, our (woman) minister called me and others to arrange to have meals sent over. When I was homebound with pneumonia, the minister called to see how I was and offered to visit and arrange folks to run errands for me. Nothing like that ever happened in my Catholic parish. The priest might be there if you were hospitalized, but that was about it.

[Cleopatra7]

I know my own experiences in this realm are extreme, as usual, but I've found that conservative and traditionalist Catholics are quite open about not caring about community. For them, "community" is almost a slur, something that came in with Vatican II to trump the need for solid religious formation. If you go on the Catholic Answers board, which trends conservative (the mods keep the traditionalists on a tight leash and won't tolerate discussions about sedevacantism or ones that encourage people to visit SSPX chapels like Fish Eaters will), posters will tell you that if you're unhappy at your parish because of "liturgical abuses" and there are no other options available, you should just keep going to mass but focus on your own personal devotions. Conservative Catholics believe that it's more important for someone to remain within the One, True, Holy, and Apostolic Catholic Church than to be outside of it, even if you feel alienated at your parish or you're being abused in some way (here I'm thinking specifically of spiritual abuse, but any kind of abuse is salient to make the point). Similarly, traditionalists would say that cultivating personal holiness is more important than making friends at a parish, which is probably why the Latin Mass parish I attended felt so alienating, since no one ever wanted to talk to anyone else; it didn't help that the SSPX sympathizing homeschoolers thought everyone who wasn't in their clique was a "heretic."

Now obviously most American parishes are neither conservative nor traditionalist, but somewhere in between, yet still struggle with community. Why is that? My own hunch is that the view that a parish is not a chosen community but a "sacrament dispenser" extends to more moderate Catholic parishes as well. One reason many otherwise disaffected Catholics remain Catholic is because of the belief that it's "the True Church" with sacraments instituted by Jesus, while Protestant churches do not. If you're mainly there for the sacraments, the other people in the pews are an afterthought. Many, perhaps most of the pre-Vatican II parishes were "ethnic parishes" where belonging was as much about being Irish, Italian, Polish, black Creole, etc. as it was religion as such. With the demise of many of these parishes by white flight, suburbanization, and just plain assimilation it's unclear how to "do Catholicism," especially in a country that is not just culturally Protestant but until recently saw itself as explicitly "not Catholic."

[Grimalkin]

On July 30, 2016 at 3:13 PM, illinigal said:

How horrible!  The way Catholics treat divorced people is disgusting and has angered me to no end.  I personally know people who were abused and treated like you and have heard of more just like yours.  It angers me to no end.  What disgusts me the most is the hypocrisy and the fact that the rich and famous get annulments while the normal Catholics get screwed.  Newt Gingrich received two annulments despite cheating on his wives.  Pope Francis provided a small hand to divorced people in Amoris Laetitia but it is not enough.  It provides too much wiggle room for priests and bishops to encourage women like you to remain in abusive situations.  Recently the Archbishop of Philadelphia issued a repudiation of  Pope Francis that could be entitled men should be allowed to beat their wives.

Also, I think that the way that Catholics treat those who are hurting in parishes is wanting.  Evangelicals are very good at community.  I have never heard of a Catholic parish providing help and aid to hurting members.  Catholics do not provide casseroles for families with illnesses and new babies.  It has been difficult for my family to get a priest to administer final rites to family members.  

     Funny you mention this. My two younger kids go to Catholic school. When Sister retired from being principle after over 20 years I feel like the inmates have taken over! One of the first things the PTO got rid of was Helping Hands that was an organized group that bought meals and helped out people in need. I signed up for it every year. Then poof it's gone. There was never evens vote on it. It still really bothers me, maybe more than it should. I hate that now it seems like the 'popular' families are the ones rallied around. I'm getting angry thinking about it.