The Phantom Scribbler

I wrote this several decades ago.  I'm posting it today because a) it's Fr. Sean's birthday and b) tomorrow is Father's Day.   In the years after Bishop Dwain traveled the path of St. Brendan, and further, into the lands to the West, he settled into the place called The City of Angels and there preached the Good News by his love and by the sacraments. It happened that a young man bearing the name of the great saint and Apostle, Andrew, heard this Gospel and followed the Bishop in his journey to Christ. This young man, also called Sean, studied, read and learned the way of the Church from the Bishop for many years. In this manner, he became a deacon. And it came to pass that the Bishop and the people, moved by the Spirit, raised their voice and made motions to lay hands upon Sean, and anoint him, and make him a priest. As a deacon and assistant to the Bishop, Sean knew what it meant to be priest. It meant hearing the sins of others and offering the forgiveness of God. It...

On Father's Day 15 years ago, I wrote a blog about my dad , comparing him to some of the more accomplished fathers of history like Ghandi, John Lennon and Billy Sunday.  The general thesis was that they were respected but sucked as fathers and, thus, they are failures.  My father has little of the kind of respect they had, but put his family before everything and, thus, is a success.  Now, this conclusion can be questioned, especially since his less than stellar exemplar of a son is writing this.  But my failures aren't due to his parenting, so I'd rather he not be judged by me.  Plus, his other kids are veritable paragons of success and awesomeness, so ... you know ... 4 out of 5 ain't bad, right?  Why, then, am I revisiting this? I recently watched a (throws up in my mouth a bit) PragerU video about parenting.  I saw a review and decided to watch it to see if the review was fair.  So you don't have to watch it, he claims that children and paren...