Learning to write in the tropics

Because of the synodal way in the German Church and the frank, open, and clear disobedience of a large percentage of the clergy (priest, bishops, and some cardinals) many catholics in other parts of world can't help but wonder and comment on it. The often repeated question of what do non-schismatic Catholics do in Germany to survive is a justified one. My perspective is far form unbiased on this hot topic as it is based on my own experience but I think people should know of this other side of Catholicism in Germany. Far from church politics and the papacy there is a hidden life, a community of faith that perseveres on in the middle of a Church in crisis. It is hard to put into words the life in that community, which runs parallel to the life of the dying diocesan parishes with their unorthodox practices, so I will be brief.  When I first arrived in Germany, to the city of Dresden in the east, I found it at first difficult to adapt to the German mass. The structure was the same but ...

 Most countries have some level of bureaucracy that plagues its citizens and any foreigner foolhardy enough to stay any length of time that might require an encounter with it. Most bureaucracy in most countries is slow and ineffective, working part of the time, if it does what it is meant to do it takes twice as long as it is predicted to, and as usual manages to extract inordinate sums of money from those that are trapped in its system. While I don't think the Prussians actually created it, in fact I very much suspect the little French sadist Napoleon is guilty of that particular deed, Prussia historically was very good at developing and maintain large amounts of "red tape" or at least that was its reputation. Bureaucracy of course is the long arm of the vigilant state, trying to know all that goes on with the people living in it. From charging taxes -its most lucrative and important function- to controlling who was actually working in the country, the official instituti...