A BLM FELLOW AND AN ANGRY OLD MAN IN A BOUT OF FISTICUFFS AFTER MASS

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" “Why are you wearing such an offensive t-shirt to Mass, you fool ?!!"” 

In this guest post, a correspondent I call my Angry Old Man (with apologies to John Osborne) describes the bout of fisticuffs he incited outside his parish church last Sunday, in an incident which illustrates how he earns his pseudonym and how our Catholic Faith, when truly believed and lived, evokes deep emotions.  

"Julia," the A O M continues, "I've mentioned in a recent email how I had to get my second youngest son to act as bodyguard for me in a previous parish while I handed out Parish Pumps (the A O M's satirical newsletter highlighting parish offences against canon law and the GIRM ), before Sunday Mass.



"Well, this morning after the 9:30am Mass here, I wished my son had been there.



"My wife and I were angered in the church just prior to Mass when we noticed a relatively new parishioner wearing a black t-shirt with bold white lettering back and front proclaiming BLACK LIVES MATTER. I’m assuming you know about the evil US mob that call themselves Black Lives Matter.



"Now, Cath (his wife, not her real name) and I are never happy with anyone using the Mass as a vehicle for political causes. Some political causes are virtuous. Black Lives Matter is definitely not.



"Anyway, I was almost dumbstruck when this fellow rose to do the Second Reading! But I called him out: “Why are you wearing such an offensive t-shirt to Mass, you fool?" He was momentarily put out, but carried on with the reading. When he came down from the sanctuary to his pew, I again called out: "Buffoon!”



"I received many scowls and wagging fingers from other congregants. And when this fellow got back to his pew, a couple conspicuously shook his hand in support.



"After Mass Cath and I went out quickly, to speak to our good parish priest. I asked him to remove this fellow from the reading roster, and he agreed that would be appropriate, and that he would do so. 

"Anyway, to cut a long story short, I asked this fellow why he'd worn the BLM t-shirt to Mass - and he and his wife attacked me with a frenzy of punches! I kid you not.



"He’s a big fellow, 6ft+, but mostly flab. His wife is approx 5’9”, but as round as she is high. They’re both powder puffs and, although a few punches hit my head, they didn’t do any damage. I’m quite proud that I resisted returning their blows – just not on to do so in such a situation – but I was sorely tempted. But, you wouldn’t believe it, I was hauled off by a couple of blokes who treated me as the villain !!



Of course, the blokes had no idea of what Black Lives Matter means. One told me he'd spent some time in South Africa, so understood the sentiment of the t-shirt! He was a little unbelieving when I told him BLM has nothing to do with South Africa.



"When I approached the fellow and began to question him about his t-shirt, his stance was belligerent and aggressive and a middle-aged woman bystander began to push me away.  I resisted her pushing, and it was then that the BLM fellow and his wife threw a frenzy of punches at me. Subsequently, the middle-aged intervener shouted that I had attacked her!



"She went on to commiserate with Cath about how bad it must be to be married to such an awful man. Cath put her in her place: “My husband," she said, "is a very good man!"



"I received no support from any parishioner. And what we’re dealing with here is the far left bias of the main stream media: most of the congregants have never heard of Black Lives Matter, and the rest have seen or heard only the far left gushing praise for this vile organisation.



"Rather than just let the matter lie, with this bloke thinking everybody supports his t-shirt and his violent assault, I’ve laid an assault complaint with the police.
I feel something of a wuss since I am not at all injured.  But there’s a principle, and as has been the case so many times in the recent past, we might have to rely upon the police rather than the clergy to deal with corruption and villainy.

"I’ve given Father this advice:  

• Instruct this fellow to repent and go to Confession for his serious public sin
• Instruct him to apologise to the parishioners at next Sunday’s Mass (I won’t be there - I'll be at the national March For Life)
• If he’s defiant, explain the situation to the congregation next Sunday, including the evil of Black Lives Matter. 

"If the villain makes an appropriate apology to the parishioners, I’ll withdraw my police complaint."

Now, in my little backwater parish I doubt anyone has heard of Black Lives Matter. Perhaps it's seen on the 'News' but I don't watch telly and because they've deteriorated so badly I hardly read the papers either, so I knew next to nothing about Black Lives Matter.

This exasperated my A O M, who reacted with the following links to enlighten me - and possibly you too, dear reader:

Black Lives Matter hypocrisy       Cheering violence



Dallas attack     The "pigs-in-a-blanket" crowd got what they wanted



Black Lives Matter threatens white reporter   I've got 800 black people behind me



Why-hasn't-black-lives-matter-been-classified-as-a-hate-group ?



Video   Black-Lives-Matter riots in London   Police attacked



So how did I react to this story - which threw into sharp relief the relatively humdrum nature, at exactly the same time last Sunday, of my escape from Mass through the flower-room, rather than run into the good Anglicans waiting outside our church for the Combined Advent Service?

Gosh, was my initial comment in reply to the A O M. But I could easily believe that he was treated as the villain of the piece. 

Because it reminds me irresistibly of the Hawera newspaper report, unearthed by my brother Karl, of our great-grandfather Charles Quin (Oirish to the bone), who on being accused by the PP from the pulpit at Sunday Mass of some malfeasance, stood up in his pew to defend himself and was hustled out of the church by burly parishioners - urged on from the pulpit by the PP - with enough violence to injure him. He took the parishioners to court and lost.



It's absolutely non-U to wear a political message to Mass, let alone when proclaiming the word. My reaction would have been to question him after Mass, not during, but then I’m not an A O M.



I asked for the name of his PP (save me googling it) so I could pray for him. 

Thank God, I said, that he has such a priest. Maybe that’s why his congregation is relatively politicised – a fracas such as he described is inconceivable here, where the congregation almost to a man is protestantized and nice to the degree that they appear to be sleepwalking their way to judgment and eternity. 

Good on him, I continued, for laying a complaint with the pleece. 

So far the good Lord has deprived me of the experience I’ve sought of presenting for Communion on my knees to Fr Joe Grayland, in the hope that he’d try to drag me to my feet, as he’s reportedly done to another woman and got away with it.

Like you, I think I'd go straight round to the police station and lay a complaint.