The Pittsburgh Stealer

In Carson McCullers's story Sucker, Sucker is a naive, friend dependent follower. Sucker in Sucker is a naive 12 year old boy who lost his parents as a young child. Sucker is described as a kid who is in need a of a role model and a couple of friends. Throughout Sucker, Sucker and Pete start to become very close as they share a room and often talk at night. However, one night when Sucker asks Pete what’s wrong Pete snaps and says “Shut your damn trap!”(7) to Sucker and their relationship changes forever. Pete obviously displays his anger through harsh words rather than truly addressing his problem with Sucker. Then Pete follows up by saying “Why aren’t we buddies? Because you’re the dumbest slob I ever saw! Nobody cares anything about you!

One common theme between good and bad priests is that the vocation they were called to never seems to completely leave them. This is a common theme in Silence, by Shusaku Endo. In the beginning of the novel, the reader discovers that Ferreiera apostatized, giving up not only his roles as a priest but his faith in God as well. Although Ferreira abandoned the priesthood and gave up shepherding the few Catholics of Japan, he still continues “to be useful to others, [which] was the one wish and the only dream of one who had dedicated himself to the priesthood” . However, once he is reunited with Sebastian, “there flashed into his eyes a servile smile and momentary shame”. Here Ferreiera feels as though he has failed Sebastian because if he had not apostatized, Sebastian, acting as a good priest, would never have gone to Japan to save him.

Throughout the reading this week, the information presented in David Elliott and Bennett Reimer’s texts stressed the importance of music and more specifically, music education. “People everywhere find music rewarding, and everywhere we find people engaged in formal and non-formal efforts to teach and learn music.” (Elliott, 2014, p. 4)

“In the 60s, the Catholic Church in Massachusetts began hearing complaints that Father James Porter was sexually molesting children. Rather than relieving him of his duties, the ecclesiastical authorities simply moved him from one parish to another between 1960 and 1967, actually providing him with a fresh supply of unsuspecting families and innocent children to abuse” (Ericsson 162).

The importance of the said topic this week requires fervent prayer and humbleness to hear the Holy Spirit. Recall every person who makes a statement or speaks any word it is written down every jot and twiddle in which one will be held accountable for before Christ. I pray that the words digressed here are from Him only and only Him alone. So much as been read and digressed about Church history and forefathers and how the impact of one man can influence the entire church in the direction of power and authority that a bold statement must be made to shock one back into reality of who God is.

Even though he will not let himself be beaten for no reason, if he has made an inadvertent mistake, he will try to correct it, as he does with his grandmother, after accidentally embarrassing in church. “Later, I convinced her that I had not wanted to hurt her and she immediately seized upon my concern for her feelings as an opportunity to have one more try at bringing me to god. She wept and pleaded with me to pray... I promised; after all, I felt that I owed her something for inadvertently making her ridiculous before the member of her church.” (Wright 119) And he follows through with that. He prays, daily, for an hour. That hour is torture, but he keeps his promise, abiding by his moral code. He is different from the boys and girls of his church congregation, and class: they have been indoctrinated and do as they are told, docilely. One boy walks up to Richard, prompted by the congregation, who think that Richard is doomed to burn in Hell, and tries to convert him; it is obvious that the boy has no real conviction in God of his own, rather, the belief in God has been forced upon him by his parents and community. “Though older than I, he had neither known nor felt anything of life for himself; he had been carefully reared by his mother and father and he had always been told what to feel.”(Wright 116) Meanwhile, Wright, in stark contrast, resists the attempts of his Grandmother and extended family to indoctrinate him into religion, instead deciding to

“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is a story literally exaggerated to its limit by showing, in the near future, what it means to be equal in every way by having people not being able to show any form of intelligence or creativity whatsoever. When Harrison Bergeron breaks the chains of government oppression, he dies for his failed cause. He dies because he chooses not to conform to the rest of his oppressive society. His parents, George and Hazel, who are nothing more than two bodies under the government’s mind control, can do nothing to save their son or seek justice for his death. The story is not only a reflection of the author’s concern with controlling the masses through

Michael Galen Bruxvoort, the son of two missionaries, grew up in a household surrounded by love for God and Jesus Christ. However, the way religion was presented within his home differed from his parent 's upbringing. Both his mother and father grew up in very strict religious environment with legalistic traditions. Michael stated during our conversation that his mother 's background was structured on doing the right thing and behaving a certain way. However, she was not content with viewing the world in such a strict manner. She would ask the sorts of questions at Piedmont Bible that would nearly get her kicked out. She thought, "Christ came to set us free, not to add more chains and bondage." His father, who had a similar

At this point in my life, I had become an altar server. The presiding pastor of my church was an old Brooklynite named Msgr. Dominick. In retrospect, if there was ever a pastor who had tragically lost his faith, it was surely Father Dom. Father Dom was the kind of man you picture with a scratchy voice and a pipe in his glove compartment. He was a sarcastic and cynical man, who would do everything in his power to mess with the congregation. When the choir would go on strike, he would use a tiny thrift shop speaker to play children 's choir music in spite of them. On occasion, Father Dom would pretend the altar servers were deaf to confuse the lectors. Every Sunday morning, he would tell me it was time to “wake up the Jews”, and would play the church bells as loud as he could.

In the Laramie project, the Catholic priest really showed how people could be forgiven even for a mortal sin- a sin that deprives the soul from grace. Both homosexuality and hate are not supported within the Catholic Church, but this priest found it in his power to show his forgiveness. Unlike McKinney, Shepard was never given a chance to be forgiven by God, which is a major reason why the priest wanted to involve all other ministers in this vigil mass. Most refused to take part in such an event, but that did not stop Father Roger Schmit, the Catholic Priest. Father Schmit believed Matthew Shepard deserved to have a vigil no matter what Matthew’s lifestyle was. Although the Catholic religion is against homosexuality, Father Schmit believed this needed to happen even though other Catholics were against the vigil. Father Schmit refused to ask the bishop “his permission doesn’t make it correct . . . And I’m not knocking bishops, but what is correct is correct” (Kaufman 63). Father Schmit was a religious leader Laramie really needed for change because he was willing to risk his job as well as what his other fellow Catholics thought to make sure Shepard received his rightful service. This priest did not seem like the typical Catholic priest who always followed his actions by the book, but also, acted for the good of Laramie. Even a man who is devoted to his religion was willingly to change his attitude about homosexuality after such a crime. Father Schmit truly followed the town’s motto “Live and Let Live”. He followed his beliefs, but still was able to accept how Matthew lived his

There is a sentence in the endnotes of the text that really hit home for me and it was “nevertheless, we can never fully rise above our own assumptions, and none of us can completely rise above our cultural and historical conditioning” (pg. 118). When I read this my mind went back to a time when I thought I could take no more of what life was handing me. I went to my chaplain with what felt like the world on my shoulders and anger in my heart because I thought that I had been stupid to give my boyfriend a second and third chance, he had hurt me just like ‘everyone else’ but my chaplain reminded me that it is my faith in god and my heart that is why I kept giving him new chances. He did so by having me recall one of my favorite passages from the bible “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the

    Mr. collins was willing to share some of his stories and experience with us. Not all of the stories were happy endings or the pretty picture we sometimes try to  portray to people.He stressed the importance of telling your own story. When you tell your own story, you are able to do it with passion and emotion. You can feel it out for those listening. I have always been somewhat afraid of telling people my whole  story, because I never know how they will react or treat me after. But, the reality is, my story has power, the power to influence. My story is my own,  and no one can change it. I was inspired by how transparent Mr. Collins was with telling his story, he was inspiring and motivational. As Christians,  it is our job to witness and love others, our stories have power and they are one of the  easiest ways to relate to others and build God’s kingdom.

This issue was doctrinal. In chapters 4 and 5, Smith takes boundless lengths to show that historically Baptists have detained that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and it alone stands as the principal authority in all substances of doctrine. This did not refute the use of confessions. Baptist associations did use confessions to express their views and differentiate themselves from other denominations. Though Baptists also contributed to the notion of soul liberty, this was not seen as a chance to advance from confessional ethics. (Pp. 11-12)

Father Michael Logan is an extremely holy character in I Confess as he discovers one night during an out of the ordinary confession that one of his parishioners (Otto Keller) has murdered a wealthy member of the community (Vilette). Keller is a desperate German

Next, McMinn (2007) acknowledges the Christian Theology perspective on confession. According to the author (2007), there are two kinds of relations to confession and Christian Theology, which are confession and the sacrament of penance and confession and Scripture. McMinn (2007) points out that the Christian church has constantly been engrossed in confession, but the way of confession has altered during the past two millennia (p 221). According to the author (2007), numerous Spiritual leaders, such as Saint Augustine and Saint Patrick writing of their confessions of faith and sin have severed as a partial foundation for scholasticism, which is a crusade that attempted to examine faith academically (211-212). As scholasticism grew thought out time it birth the doctrine and sacrament