WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER!!!!!

Hey! Whew! It's been a wacked-out day allright. For those of you outside of Knoxville who are following the historic events at Spirit of Vatican 2 Catholic Faith Community, I'll try to reconstruct the timeline:

Wednesday, May 30
9:00 AM: I had just settled a dispute between Todd & Ché regarding the disposition of some of Todd's musical equipment, when I heard a commotion from Fr. Juno's room in the rectory. Darting up the stairs, I threw off one of my Birkenstocks, and by the time I got up to Fr. J's room, everything had quieted down. I didn't think too much about this at the time.

10:00 AM: I had a fine tour of the Spirit Maze with the womyn from LifePeace. I really felt in touch with my inner wymon.

11:00 AM: I noticed a suspicious van making a pass in front of the northeast barricade. I was pretty sure that I saw one of those Knights of Columbus emblems on the bumper.

11:32 AM: I began an excellent lunch meeting with the members of EcoChurch who weren't manning the barricades.

1:15 PM: I settled down for a SpiritNap

5:00 PM: A number of parishioners had come to the church and were confused as to where to park their cars. It was a terrible scene - all those Infinit SUV's and Priuses parked along Dry Gap Pike. I mean, it made it look like our Church was a car lot. I ordered Ché to have the cars towed away.

7:00 PM: Maryann Mcgronk joined me for incense & green tea. We had a nice discussion about an email that I received from the Augustinian Order of St. de Mello, where they were very positive about us becoming a priory. Also we got a chance to look at a great 'blog by a brilliant theologian named Doctor O'Leary, which pretty much confirms everything we say here at SOV2. You have to check it out! This guy really lays one on that old pope. You can see the LifeSpirit working in him, and best of all, his 'blog is named SPIRIT OF VATICAN II! Super!

8:30 PM: I heard the noise again from Fr. Juno's room. This time I went up and checked, but he was still in his restraints. I turned up the Marty Haugen anthology and left him alone.

9:12 PM: I got a nice phone call from Cardinal Archbishop Pilarcyzk and we talked about making SOV2 an FC for the ADOC. He was very receptive. It turns out that he's a big fan of Sarah Maclahalan, so we had a lot to talk about. Did you know all of the priests in the ADOC are going to be wearing rainbow vestments next year! Neat! Also it turns out that C.A.P. and I came up in Dayton at the same time (I used to summer there with my family as a way to escape the oppressive Cape Cod weather). I remember those heady days in the Gem City, throwing rocks at the DP&L building, treking up to U.D. to listen to the latest Call to Action speakers, and most of all watching Don Wayne give the news in his inimitable way. Good times!

10:30 PM: I FINALLY got to bed.

11:30 PM: I was awaked by a horrible mumbling sound. I opened the window of the rectory and heard this really weird chanting kind of sound. Out on the lawn beyond the southwest barricade there was this big group of NON-PARISHIONERS all saying the rosary or something. That van was parked near them, so I knew that the K of C was taking action. In getting up I stumbled over one of those bells that the rad-trads use during the whole host communion thing. Some parishioner was trying to get me to use it so of course it ended up under my bed with all those gold cups and plates and whatnot. Anyway, I got a great idea and started ringing this bell, but all it did was make a tinkly sound. Fortunately it had a bad tone or something because Todd came running upstairs to see what was wrong. Then Maryann woke up and we all looked out the window. We could see a bunch of those Knight guys lined up across from the trench where we knew Ché was because of the red flags and the banner of Hugo Chavez. There was some sort of commotion in the trench. then at the same time, Eugene Kramer came running up the stairs yelling. I think he was saying that Britnee had given Ché some sort of herbal tea from one of Keith's favorite soft drinks (he kept saying something about "Tabs") and that Ché was really out of it. The other thing that happened at the same time was I saw the light flickering in Fr. Juno's room from the next floor up. It looked like he was flashing some sort of code. Not knowing what to do next, I ran downstairs and cut the main power switch for the rectory. Todd started blowing some sort of trumpet thing. Then all hell broke loose. People were running everywhere - Ché was running about disoriented yelling about miraculous metals, Maryann was on the roof of the church launching tear gas cannisters. I realized that the church was under assault, so I grabbed one of the banner poles (this one said "God is Other People") and I ran into the center of the church. Everything became really quiet.

Thursday, May 31:

2:00 PM: Todd & Eugene came into the Church and told me that they'd been looking for me all night. Maryann had declared herself interim Pastor. Fr. Juno was no-where to be found. I heard that Ché was missing too - he was last seen being carried away by the Knights of Columbus while he frantically typed on his Raspberry thing. Fortunately, the incursion by the forces of rad-tradism was only able to penetrate to the sacristy, and not into the church (good thing we moved the sacristy into the Spirit Maze). But apparently sometime while I slept, someone took the relic out of our altar. I have to admit that it was my mistake to put it into a glass casing, but I felt that showing off Dorothy Day's T-Shirt was better than hiding it.

So, here we are. I am firmly back in control of the parish. We have one of Maryann's Spirit Teams out looking for Fr. Juno. We are trying to track down Ché (I am very concerned about him). Eugene has taken over the leadership of the remnants of the Hugo Chavez battallion and is manning the trenches. All day long we've been getting reinforcements. The whole membership of Voice of The Faithful has turned out, and we welcome both of them. Some of Keith's friends came by and have set up shop in the rectory (they brought a huge amount of Sudafed with them though - I don't know if they think we're under assault from the common cold, ha ha!). So we're holding out here! Keep us in your energy-thoughts, we are with you in solidarity! This is our best hour! Never have so many done so little for so few (I've been reading the works of Neville Chamberlain for inspiration).