Bishop David Konderla, newish Bishop of the Tulsa Diocese

Our Bishop, Bishop Konderla, was called to the fullness of the Catholic Priesthood a little over a year ago, to be a Successor to the Apostles, to transmit Sacred Tradition, to confirm and ordain, and to govern the faithful of Eastern Oklahoma as their Shepherd.

You may recall a year ago I discussed critically some changes in the diocese in light of the fact they occurred after the installment of our new bishop, and that later I apologized for any indiscretion in my blog posts, going too far.   The thing is we do not know certainly and publicly why those decisions were made, and the concrete circumstances.  I recall asking questions, not intending to assert an answer, yet some drew conclusions.

So instead, I would like to give some positive impressions of our newish bishop, which I think we can take as a good sign that Bishop Konderla has much to offer our Local Church.

1.  Bishop Konderla has a reputation of being very conservative, ie orthodox and following church law.  He is especially praised by the many college students he pastored, for many years, as the Catholic chaplain at College Station in Texas.  He oftened preached sermons explaining the Faith, the Lives of the Saints, and the call to holiness.  He helped endless young people know and continue to deepen their Catholic Faith.

2.  Bishop Konderla loves his priesthood.   His biography explains how he really took time to discern his vocation as a young man.  As a priest, he oftened mentored young men considering the priesthood, taking them on roadtrips to visit seminaries.  At one time he considered being a Trappist monk.   One layman reported that in all the many years he knew then Fr. Konderla, Father was always faithfully wearing publicly his priestly clerics.

3.  Bishop Konderla is a gentleman.  That was evident to me in a YouTube video in which he was showing some guys his country cabin retreat.  When I emailed him, he always emailed back and was friendly, caring, and polite.

The Catholic Church is in a Crisis.  It is difficult to not see how that is not caused in part by Ecclesial authority.  Yet thank God for bishops.  Without them there would be no priests.  And without priests, we would not have the mercy of Christ in the sacraments, especially confession and the Eucharist.
So thank God for Bishop Konderla.   We pray for him and all the priests every night.

Back in My Blogging Okie Armchair

Deo gracias.  I am resurrecting and normalizing.  My health condition is exponentially improving, and I'm back on track with progressing in work, career, personal pursuits, and this here little hobby.  Its been over a year since I signed up on blogger.  In the first six months I really picked up a lot of momentum and wrote about a lot of cool subjects.  But these last 6 months have been a semi-hiatus.  But thank God I now have the frame of mind and priority to refocus, but my health challenge it seems permanently shaped by perspective on life, including my own, for the better, so you might detect shifts in my style and focus as we go.

Sunday is almost over and time for the work week ahead, so I'll just list some topics I may blog about on the horizon.

The Society of St. Pius X in Tulsa
The Latin Mass community in the Tulsa Diocese
Summer outings I can now do
The Good Works of Bishop Konderla
The Good Works of Msgr. Brankin
Artificial Intelligence
100th Anniversary of Fatima
St. Padre Pio

Have a good week friends!

Health Club Experiences

Starting Week Three of my Hit-the-Gym phase of my Rehab.  Health is seemingly, slowly improving.  Since it's been since the second millenium since I signed up for a gym membership, I thought it might be interesting to catalogue some of my experiences with this new venture.

Considering myself still in the category of "young man," it's humbling to hobble down the the stairs from the parking lot to the entrance of the gym, as senior citizens bounce past me carrying their yoga mats.  I look up at the sky and think "Ok.  One day at a time.  Before I know it I'll be bouncing up these stairs after a workout.

When I enter the gym I hand my ID to the clerk who looks like a workout guru athletic trainer.  After a moment of cinversation, it becomes obvious that's who they are.  One of the clerk trainers is a wheelchair-bound paraplegic super muscly guy with a Ziploc bag of homemade energy bars on his lap. Power to him!

So I pass the racquetball courts and pools to the men's locker room.  Call me weird, but I've never been very comfortable in locker rooms.   Something about old men walking around airdrying with their family jewels just hanging out there.   The inviting aspect are the fine, wood lockers, wet spa, and dry spa which are good for stress release and detoxifying your body.

More to come tomorrow...

Okay, I'm back.  So, you know you're out of shape when you prefer to take the elevator instead of the stairs to the second floor, where there is one huge, open floor plan with weight machines, free weights, treadmills and bikes, and walking trek (where I spend most of my workout right now).  Sandwiched in the middle is an exercise classroom surrounded by glass walls, for yoga (dont get me started), zumba, and tai chi classes.  Maybe tai chi?

One upside of this health club is that it is part of a Catholic hospital, so the ethos of the place is quiet and conservative.  There's a few knuckle draggers and Jane Fonda fitness junkies, but the majority are seniors.

Interestingly, almost everytime I go to workout, I cross paths with a Monsignor of the diocese.   Outside of the confessional, I've never talked to him.  I want to go up and talk to him, break the ice, seeing that our paths will probably keep crossing.  How might he react that I go to the Latin Mass?  To the SSPX just blocks from where he serves as a priest?  Hmmm, I double dog dare myself to talk to him about the Traditional Movement!  Should make for an interesting update when I update my health club experiences.

Time for bed...next time the pool,  whirlpool, and deli! :)

Okie dokie.  Back once again.  Home from my evening workout.  Popping my knuckles...okay where was I?

The gym floor.  So today I put myself through quite the anaerobic workout, which given my current lack of cardiovascular fitness was actually also a good 20 minutes of aerobic exercise.  Met with "Tad" (the name sounds like an athletic trainer) assigned to all newbie members to start designing a workout routine.  Very friendly guy.  Looks like he's spent years inside a gym.


So as I later keep circling the walking track--every few laps passing an aging sister of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother who run the attached hospital--some inspiration starts swelling.  For months it was hard to walk for any length of time.  Maybe it was the music in the background, or the religious sister going full steam ahead, but the thought struck home that I'm going to get in shape.  In better shape than I ever was before.

Back down to the first floor locker room, I changed into my swim trunks and swam several laps, followed by a long, unwinding meditation in the whirlpool hottub.   Spoiling, but right now practically, therapeutically necessary.

Since starting to make the whirlpool a habit I've struck up a friendship with a regular, a black lady who comes for the "plus size" therapy pool exercise group.
Loves to tell stories and give pointers about making best use of the club.

Near Death Experience

I was sitting with my wife in the back of an SUV.  My mom was driving (she doesn't know how to drive) along a narrow, rocky path.  We were driving along the top of a bear mountain ridge, steep on both sides.  Mountains were in all directions.  I realized in that moment we were suppose to be having a leisure trip to the great outdoors, but may fall to our death at any moment.

Suddenly, the vehicle veared off the path to the right (thanks mom), and we flew off the side of the mountain plummeting thousands of feet.  The SUV was turned on its right side in it's free fall, and looking forward I could see the sky.  And in that last moment I was thinking to myself "Oh my God, I'm not ready to die.  I need to go to confession."

Then I woke up.

Reflection on my Dream:

Before my current health crisis, every month or two we took Saturday afternoon drives in the country, often to lakes or rivers for a picnic, and then stopping and museums or antique stores in historic towns back to the city.  I suppose part of the nightmare was grief or sadness we can't do those kind of things right now.

The other more obvious reason was that perhaps there is still dis-ease in my soul.   Serious illness will make you face the hard facts of existence, and the purgatorial flames of pain and discomfort it seems have not yet fully purified me.

As I've talked about recently, and probably will make more posts about, I've discovered an affection for St. Padre Pio, in particular because he is an excellent example of how to suffer, but also because the man was and still is a powerful healer of the sick.

Padre Pio recommended to his "spiritual children," ie members of prayer groups around the world attached to his counsel, that Catholics say the rosary every day, go to Mass and communion daily, and to go to confession once a week.

For me those counsels would take some special effort, but I'm thinking if God gives messages in dreams, in that dream last night He was probably saying to go to confession more often.

Which I am going to try to do.

TGIF!  Have a restful weekend.

Lunch on the North Side

My stomach growled as I darted across the impoverished "North Side" of Tulsa via the interstate.  The double arches caught my eye.  Ten minutes later I was sitting in the corner of McDonald's with my #1 meal--the Big Mac.  After a man asked for directions to the zoo, and the best I could offer were some sketchy directions, he mosied on over to what he called the "Old Timer group" for better help, which caught my attention.

For the next thirty minutes, while I polished off my hamburger, I observed this group of a dozen or so older Black men mixed with a few middle aged and young adults.  And I was struck by their group dynamic, something we rarely encounter in "Midtown" or other parts of T-town we frequent.  It was an impromptu gathering of seemingly random Black folk from the north side grabbing a dollar burger or a coffee.  Something you might encounter in a Black barber shop.

Which got me thinking about typical white society (or the lack thereof), including in your common traditional Catholic parishes and chapels, or in the online Trad forums.

Every other newcomer to this group seemed to be unknown, but gravitated together apparently by virtue of being Black and from the Northside.  A bit of a nod was all that was needed to indicate they belonged and could slide their tray of food next to everyone else's.

One man looked about 50.  He was decked out in all black, and a gold chain with a cross.  I couldn't make out what he was saying except in every other statement he used the said "God" or "Jesus."  Others responded shaking their head humming "Uuugh huh.  Uuugh huh."  Like the black soldiers in the movie Glory with Denzel Washington, humming in agreement to the Black spirituals song the night before battle.  Before long the man got a call on his cell, and told the group it was his church staff reminding him of a meeting. He must've been a minister.

As he left, an older man maybe 60 walked in.  He was wearing the stereotypical decked out suit outfit of a 1970s "pimp."  He was fittingly proud of his threads and multiple, jeweled rings on his hands.  He joined the group too without hardly a word.

There was a quiet, seemless quality about the group, a close solidarity based on shared skin color and local ethnicity.  At any moment, most were silent, phlegmatically smiling and listening to one person at a time.  It was communal, respectful, and charitable.

Being a white, European-American traditionalist Catholic, first generation son of a German immigrant and an Irish Catholic American, I almost wanted to envy the spirit of this group.
When we eat at your average urban eatery, the atmosphere is something opposite--individualistic, cool, and lonely.

But is it much different in your average traditional Catholic enclave?  For as much incense and Latin and doctrine that we have, do we really enjoy this kind of communal spirit? For as saccharine as it can be, your urban, post-modern Faith Community Catholic parish, imo, has a One Up on us trads when it comes to fellowship and unity.  I know we sometimes have our coffee and doughnuts and pig roasts, but even in the best of my trad experiences across Traddom, the atmosphere often seems somewhat privatized and individualistic.  Am I alone in this experience?

If random people can gravitate together in McDonalds, based on the simple metaphysical principle of "Like attracts Like," and the common bond is the simplicity of skin color, then youd think having a shared love of the Tridentine Latin Mass and the richness of our Catholic Faith, would even more strongly unite us!

Which brings me to a more specific local subject for my fellow Okie Trads.  Several years ago the Tulsa Fraternity parish split.  One group bought their own church.  The other placed themselves under the traditional-bent of one diocesan priest who had learned the Latin Mass.   Sadly, this good priest is now recently gone to other assignments, and the future of the traditional Catholic community of Tulsa, Oklahoma seems to be shifting.

Will the diocesan Latin Mass group continue? Or will the two groups once united under the Fraternity one day reunite at the new Fraternity church? Will the Society of St. Pius X community of Tulsa survive?

Time will tell.  But my prayer is we come together in some way. Recognize what unites us.  Grow as a traditional Catholic community.

And as I will hypothesize in my next segment, perhaps if/when/as the Society becomes regularized, that it's Tulsa Masses will become filled to capacity, that the sons of Archbishop Lefebvre (Society + Fraternity folk + all Trads) will come together across our little sector of the Heartland.

"Uuugh huh!  Clap. Clapetee clap.  Uuugh huh!  Clap. Clapetee clap."

Criticizing the Hierarchy. Including Tulsa Diocese

St. Catherine of Sienna did it.  But Catholic in Brooklyn says we shant. Voris and the Remnant have built a business around it.  And I myself blogged about this once upon a time.  The inverted hiearchy post a year ago.  

With a hierarchy turned upside down, where the pope answers to bishops conferences, bishops to presbyteral councils, parish priests to members of the parish Faith community, and last but not least, actually now in a supreme place of authority, it is children, toddlers, and babies ruling their parents and thus in an inverted pseudo-collegial hierarchy, babies, nay Embryos take the place of Supreme Pontiff.

Is it any wonder then the Church is in crisis?  And it is logically impossible to recognize and actively respond in conscience to said crisis without criticizing the conciliar bishops or pope.

But lets be honest.  The traditional Catholic today commonly lives on three activities that fuel their zeal (a good thing):  the Tridentine Mass, studying high scholastic thought, and focusing the problem on bishops and priests.

I for one am burnt out on the last part.  The trad newbie naturally follows this line of traditionalism.  How can't he?  To cure a disease we need to know the root causes, but also the main vectors by which the virus entered the host.

But sooner or later the evidence is overwhelming and superfluous.  I've read about one too many doings and sayings from the present pontiff.  Its old.  Unless it's new to you or you dont have much firewood to stoke the fire of your inner zeal.

Bishop Konderla of my Local Church shut down two traditional religious communities.  I posted about it last Fall.  This March I apologized for going somewhat too far.  Truth be told it bothered not just my conscience but my psyche.  It was not promoting my much needed inner peace.  Is what it is.

Criticizing the hierarchy is a very delicate matter.  Its not just about distinguishing criticism of word and deed from criticizing the bishop or priest in question.  It requires a reverent reserve and careful choice of words which is very hard to do when you witness sacrilege and heresy coming from those representing Christ.

Its very late here in Oklahoma.  What I'm getting around to saying is, as I start making blog posts more frequent, my clerical criticisms will decidedly shrink, and at least when I ponder the happenings of my own Okie Local Church, my lens will be widening to focus on what I can see that is good, true, and beautiful, yet ever through the eyes of a traditional Catholic, ie committed to Catholic Tradition and defeating Catholic modernism.

Keep cool.  😎