Dear Souls,

I have visited with this James on other message boards, for the better part of one year. I am found him to be a fool, and in the words of his former classmates, a "pathological liar". Please pray for his soul. Please pray also for Emerald, who will otherwise through in with this liar, soon, on this message board, that Emerald not be deceived.

Love, in Christ,

Tim

-- Buttinzki (Buttinzki@aol.com), November 28, 2002

Answers

pardon my deplorable grammar, yikes!

-- Buttinzki (Buttinzki@aol.com), November 28, 2002.

After several of Jame's former classmates discovered him online, making these rants, these otherwise charitable people howled with laughter. They pointed out that he was excused from at least two seminaries. A pathological liar, James cannot seperate truth from fiction, and any attempt at a relationship with James will reveal that he chooses to dwell mostly in his "make believe" world. Indeed, his personal diatribes against the Legion of Christ, I found put James in several various places and decades. Sadly, James is not even a good liar, and with any observation of his rants, my Catholic brothers and sisters, you will be forced to draw the same conclusion. He will attempt to cover this up by using different 'nom de plumes'. Pay attention, and you will find his trademark writing style surfacing under many fictional names, always ranting against the Church, the Holy Father, and the Legion of Christ.

-- Buttinzki (Buttinzki@aol.com), November 28, 2002.

Cool! I'm all over that. I would seriously suggest that all would pray for me. What more could a man desire?

In keeping with the good humor, I rewrote a most irritating song by Enrique Iglesias, you know, to make it a little more pertanant and religious. A little re-write of "You Can Be My Hero". If you've never heard it, it will be a little lost on you, but here goes:

(You Can Be My Hairshirt)

Would you post

If I asked you to post

Would you lurk

And never look back

Would you try

If you saw me trying

Would you save my soul tonight

Would you ramble

If I flushed your quips

Would you laugh

If I posted this

Now would you pry

Is it done out of love

Hold me in contempt tonight

You can be my hairshirt baby

You can expose all my sins

You can follow me forever

You can take my pride away

___

All in good humor, Tim. =)

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), November 28, 2002.

What a riot! Happy Thanksgiving, Em.

-- Buttinzki (Buttinzki@aol.com), November 28, 2002.

Happy Thanksgiving to you my friend too, and to all my cyber-buds... dig in!

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), November 28, 2002.

Stone upon stone,
Day after day
Sometimes a rock
Or simply the clay

Raising this house
Up to the sky,
Stone upon stone
Work till I die
Higher and higher,
This rock and that,

Diamonds and Emeralds
Rock it like that!
Hard not to like
An Emerald child--
Are you by chance
From the Emerald Isle???

By Gino ''Ruby-Lips'' O'Chavez

Better not quit our day jobs, Em.

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), November 28, 2002.

Ha! lol Chavez. I like it.

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), November 28, 2002.

However, Tim... however, go back and look at my position in the other threads on LC; I forget which threads there's so many now... one of the newer ones. I'm on solid ground because I have taken all my conclusions from in-person personal experience, strictly limited to what I personally know and can personally attest to in my non-cyber offline existence. I can lay it out but its already in the other threads. I rely on no online reading or 3rd party sources. In other words, I can't be persuaded to deny my own observations and experiences.

My position is not at all that heinous anyways, and has nothing to do with the founder. My reaction to what I've observed is not one that would lead me on an active crusade against them, but its simply one where if I had to make a decision to be associated with them, I wouldn't and I would refuse, and if I have an opportunity to persuade my family member to consider getting out, I will. I made up my mind on this long before the first day I stepped into this forum.

What cannot be said is that if Emerald is not truly a Catholic, or a bad Catholic, if he doesn't like the LC; someone seriously pushing this position will find themselves in contradiction or absurdity against the principles of Faith very quickly, very easily, and I could do the honors for them.

You have to understand that for me, my position about LC goes for any Catholic sub-group across the board; I just personally don't go for Catholic sub-groups. It isn't my style; neither is being misled by anyone my style, even James here who, yes, does have my sympathies for whatever pain he feels, whether it is caused by others or self- inflicted. Makes no never mind to me.

At any rate, thank you for being gracious in your above posts; very much appreciated.

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), November 29, 2002.

Emerald,

Your antagonistic view of the Legion (and other Catholic sub-groups) seems benign, and I apologize, dear soul, for attacking you solely on that basis, on other posts.

Em, if it is enough to say that a person is 'uncomfortable' in or around such groups, and leave it at that, or even 'suspicious' of them, what harm is in that? Each individual approaches a religious commitment, even a commitment to a religious order with different degrees of intensity and a different sets of circumstances. In any case, it is a huge commitment. With the Legion, it requires a personal commitment to Christ, first and foremost. Without Christ, a vocation is as forlorn and empty, perhaps as embittered as any relationship you could imagine. The plus side, however, for people that truly discover a personal relationship to Jesus Christ, within one of these 'groups' is that they can be truly happy, and fulfilled. This can leave many of us others 'scratching our heads', uncertain as to how they could manage to be so happy, Believe me, Emerald, they are happy and fulfilled Christians. How I don't know, exactly. :)

What I find unfair, Emerald, are those others, who having failed at such a relationship or commitment themselves, instead, rail away at the others who remain commited and (shock) happy with themselves. For them, it becomes easy to listen to far fetched and outrageous accusations, rumors and suspicions. These are few and far between, in the case of the Legion, but the ones I have encountered seem ready to say anything to virtually slit the throat of this group that even our Holy Father, JPII has shown great fondness for.

Well, I gotta go, I realize I'm pontificating, but I don't mind different points of view, Emerald. I cannot stand the relentless, phony accusations against a group of men who made a huge difference and contribution to my life, is all. God bless.

Tim

-- Buttinzki (Buttinzki@aol.com), November 29, 2002.

My apologies too for being a whiner those months ago. This medium, the forum that is, has taken me a while to get used to.

Following a discipline, even a severe one, I actually have no problem with. Those monasteries 'of old'; I actually admire those. The reason why is because even when I was young, and a lot of other people have this experience too, you get this insight that 'nothing is important in this life' somewhere along the line. I dropped it for a while based on temporal concerns and whatnot, but it is back again and has to be dealt with. There is a temptation (a good one) to just throw in the towel on temporal happiness and pursue the singular goal of holiness... so you start off on this course, take a few steps, and find real quick that you are weak, weak, weak. The goal, however, is the correct and only goal. I'm pretty sure that whoever gets to the Great City has to go through this portal at some point or another; just speculating.

The point though, is that it is truly something that a person must choose; it must arise out of their own will and can't be coerced. Encouragement or formation or direction is good, but it seems that the will must be in place as a prerequisite.

My main concern, or root concern about LC from which probably every other complaint or discomforting thought stems from, has to do with that element of 'choosing' with adequate knowledge and consent. In other words, I would feel better about it if the candidates were fully aware of what they were getting into as opposed being surprised. Is there a way to call attention to this potential problem, and if it turns out to have some basis in truth, to save the organization and purify it? Why throw the whole boatload out when a problem can be admitted and corrected? Just musing.

As a sidenote, I have a theory that no one can miss their vocation... that truth will catch up with them one way or another, and if they are of good will, the things that will effect their salvation will come crashing down on their heads whether they like it or not. If you are a 'chooser' (of good will; willing to serve) then God imposes the rest on you whether you like it or not. Just a theory though. A man of good will, backing down from commitment to high perfection on a monastery for instance, still has a responsibility to attain high perfection seems to me... he may simply be forcing God's hand to provide the means for him.

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), November 29, 2002.

Hi Timothy whatever you want to call yourself Buttinski.

I forgive you for your harsh words. Again you have the wrong James but that's ok, that poor brother is not here to defend himself.

God Bless you!

James

-- james Xwing (James_xwing@hotmail.com), December 09, 2002.