July 2008 Archives
For anyone who is curious, this is how the desecration of the Eucharist by the professor at the University of Minnesota proceeded:
"However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus's tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel. My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt.
"By the way, I didn't want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur'an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet."
He seemed in his screed to take much delight in calling the Eucharist a "cracker", and even took swipes at Mark Shea's comment on the issue. Unfortunately there seemed to be no lack of wackos who wrote to the professor who he was only too delighted to cite in support of his point. He expressed amazement that Jesus could actually be hurt by a "third-rate professor at a third-rate university", but of course, I agree with him: He cannot. Only the professor can be hurt.
The oldest extant New Testament manuscript, a fourth century document whose pages are dispersed throughout the world, is being reassembled digitally, online.
I just got the following:
Please go immediately to the link www.firebillmaher.com and check the petition for Bill to be fired!!! We need everyone to do this! The American Life League already has over 30,000 signatures so far. Thanks. WHY DO THIS? ...
Consider just a couple of the following obscenely offensive quotes. There are many more...
#1. "The Catholic church's attitude is: We're here, we're queer, get used to it."
#2. "If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you pope."
#3. "The Catholic Church is: the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia."
He also called Pope Benedict a Nazi.
www.firebillmaher.com (It only takes a few seconds - and please forward it to everyone you know on behalf of the American Life League).
According to a little Habitat for Humanity missive I got yesterday, the only staple (out of milk, bread, eggs, gas, and health care) that has risen more in price than gas since last year is — eggs. Thirty-five percent. Weird. I wonder what the cause is. Are they particularly sensitive to fuel prices? (Diesel has risen 64% since last year.)
A Capuchin friar has become a heavy metal star. Now I have no problem with heavy metal as a style of music. I fully support Christian heavy metal and even have an album or two myself. But I support Christian heavy metal because it is evangelistic. This friar, by his own words, doesn't attempt to communicate the message of Christ at all. He says his goal is to get people to "live life to the full". Hmmm. I am reminded of a scroll on my icon of St. Isaac of Syria which says, "This life has been given to you for repentance, do not use it for vain pursuits." You say "live life to the full" to a bunch of metalheads, what are they going to think? Partying? Drinking? Drugs? Even if you take a more benign interpretation, it sounds like your goal is to enjoy the pleasures of this life, which I think is opposed to the Gospel. I don't picture St. Paul or any of the Apostles "living life to the full" in this sense. On the other hand, Jesus did say that he came that we might have life and "have it to the full." That's not quite "living to the full" but there is a sense one can live a spiritually fulfilled life. But in order to do that, one needs to be living in a deep relationship with Jesus Christ, and if he's not evangelizing these people, they aren't going to be able to live that kind of life.
Of course I haven't heard his lyrics so I have no idea what message he's actually sending so perhaps I shouldn't make too many assumptions. But for a priest to deliberately not speak of the Gospel in favor of "living life to the full" does not sound like something I can endorse.
(Thanks to Worm)
When can twenty obscure individuals command international attention? When they are gays, atheists, and environmentalists protesting the Pope at World Youth Day. You'd think they could drum up more support than that.
ZENIT reports that a TV ad campaign to bring fallen away Catholics back to the faith is seeing excellent results. Over 6,000 responded directly to the CatholicsComeHome.org web site. Non-Catholics also responded, many wanting to convert. What's interesting is that about "90% of those who left the Church can't give a good reason" why they left, and many can't express why they want to come back — they simply say they felt something was missing. This reflects my observation that Catholic roots go deep — once you are a Catholic, it sinks so deeply into you that even if you formally leave the church, you can't shake it. This is I think what causes ex-Catholics to be so much more bitter than erstwhile members of other churches (ever heard of an anti-Presbyterian?) — they are "kicking against the goads" and trying to fight that Catholicism that remains deep within them.
The pope sent a text message to World Youth Day pilgrims: "The Holy Spirit gave the Apostles and gives u the power boldly 2 proclaim that Christ is risen! - BXVI."
Too funny!
As you can see the blog software has been updated. The bug with preview, which caused you to get a strange error message when you attempted to submit a comment after a preview, has been fixed. I'm not sure what all the user-visible new features are but take a look around. I get a few new features and I'm happy about that. :-)
The Fresh Air Fund, a charity that helps inner city kids and gives them a summer-camp-like experience, is looking for host families and I've been asked to solicit them. They have 200 children who need to be placed by August, and they need to screen the families first, so time is of the essence. If you have a family please consider hosting a child this summer. The URL is http://freshair.smnr.us/. There you can find out whatever you need to know about the organization.
The pope is weighing in on climate change more, saying "We have to give impulse to rediscovering our responsibility and to finding an ethical way to change our way of life." These are probably the strongest statements yet he has made on the subject. He also spoke on the sexual abuse crisis.
The priest who died on a helium balloon flight officially won a Darwin Award. The writeup has new details; apparently he couldn't provide a rescue team with his location because while he had a GPS, he did not know how to use it.
Darwin Awards are given to those who through their own stupidity remove themselves from the gene pool. Of course, being a celibate priest he had already voluntarily removed himself from the gene pool, but this time it was permanent.
The good news: The student returned the Host because of many e-mails that he received from people around the world concerning the matter—including some that threatened to break into his dormitory room to rescue the Host. Armed university police now stand guard at Sunday Mass to prevent a similar incident.
The bad news: In reaction to the student's action, a University of Minnesota professor on his blog on the university's website has asked for anyone to get him a consecrated Host or Hosts so that he can publicly and blatantly desecrate the Host(s). In reply to a news release from the Catholic League (because the professor singled out Bill Donahue, the Catholic League's director, for his role in publicizing and criticizing the Florida university student's action), the university has removed the link to the professor's blog from its website. (See Catholic League articles 1, 2 and 3)
(Thanks to Tom S. for the update)
A Michigan woman is claiming to channel Padre Pio and other spirits. She has a daughter who communicates with angels. She is an award-winning Catholic catechist but somehow missed the part about mediumship being a sin. As far as I'm concerned she's communicating with demons and merits reproach for channeling anyone. I'm surprised the reporter didn't ask the diocese what they thought. I hope they do something about her and warn her of the dangers she is engaging in.
(Thanks to Tom S.)
The Church of England is one step closer to ordaining women bishops. I hate to pronounce this "good" but it will have the glad effect of precipitating more converts to Catholicism. I wonder if the Pastoral Provision allowing married priests to convert to Catholicism and be ordained keeping their wives is in force in England?
A student at the University of Central Florida stole a communion host, upset that student fees for the public university are going to support religious institutions. When he tried to take it without consuming it at communion, he was stopped (he says forcibly), but he put it in his mouth and recovered it later.
I'm not sure the student understands the seriousness of what he's done. Basically, he's desecrated the Eucharist. And a secular person (which I assume he is) is not going to appreciated the magnitude of that. Even a religious person who is not Catholic might not fully understand.
Of course, such disrespect falls on his own head and hurts only him; Jesus is not helpless, nor can he be harmed by sacrilege. Well, I suppose the community can be harmed by the bad example, but it can also be edified by gaining an increased appreciation for the Eucharist and rallying around the cause.
I am reminded of Uzzah in 2 Sam 6:7 who touched the Ark of the Covenant when he wasn't supposed to and was struck dead. How much more do we need to be mindful of the Holy Eucharist and maintaining respect for it. "A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep." (1 Cor 11:28-30) The Eucharist is serious stuff. (Perhaps there is a lesson here to all of us not to take it so cavalierly.)
So the big concern here is for his soul and convincing him to give it up and stop committing sacrilege.
(Thanks to Amy M.)
(See good news/bad news followup)
The body of the balloon priest who went up on a chair affixed to helium balloons has been found about 100 km off the coast of Brazil.
Requiescat in pace.
(Thanks to Greg)
YouTube, without explanation, pulled a pro-life video exposing an ostensibly unbiased documentary as a tool of the pro-abortion agenda. This is the first I've heard YouTube pulling a video for political content. It met their terms of service, the creators claim. This is not the first pro-life video to be taken down by YouTube, apparently. I find it interesting that you can find nearly every other type of video on YouTube but they censor pro-life videos.
