My Life: April 2005 Archives

The leader of my Assemblies of God bible study actually offered to pray for the Pope today. (It wasn't entirely spontaneous; he prays for whatever petitions we bring up, and last week I asked to pray for Benedict. However, he remembered it and on his own offered to pray for it this week as well.)

The folks in the bible study are adjusting to their Catholic brother. I've had a number engage me in friendly questions about the papal election and other issues. Hopefully they will come to recognize me as a genuine brother in Christ (not that I suspect someone doesn't, but one never knows). And I can grow in my faith as well.

I clicked on a LarkNews ad — LarkNews is an Evangelical news parody site like The Onion — for a site called "Busted Halo", which is billed as a site for "seekers in their 20s and 30s" (kind of a magazine-type site). Well guess who runs it? The Paulist Fathers! (No wonder it's called "Busted Halo"!) The first article I read was an interesting article about gay priests, though fortunately he was speaking of celibate ones. Interesting that they are using this mode of outreach. I can't say I've ever heard of a Catholic organization advertising in an Evangelical periodical, though I suppose the New Oxford Review comes close.

In reading an article about Ratzinger's rise to favored bet for the papacy, I saw an interesting advertising link called "Ask a CPA". Since I have a tax problem right now that one of my colleagues solved by going to a CPA, I thought I'd patronize the ad and check it out. I saw on the site a reference to "MSCPA".

My first thought, thinking of "MCSE" and various other certifications, not to mention MSNBC, was that Microsoft had managed to buy some subset of the CPA industry and had their own degree: "Microsoft Certified Public Accountant"

Not to be confused with the Massachusetts Society to Prevent Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA). I'm not dyslexic but I do occasionally find myself thinking in dyslexic-like ways. I wonder if MSPCA hires people from MSCPA and people with MCSEs.

I still don't know what MSCPA really stands for but I'm guessing, given the source, that it is Massachusetts (I started to write "Microsoft" again) Society of CPAs.

Ah, the brain works in marvellous ways.

I got the weirdest spam today. Well maybe not technically a spam, being non-commercial, but an unsolicited message nonetheless. It was from "Karol Wojtyla " (that was once a valid email address for the Pope), and the subject was "Last rites declaration of Ioannes Paulus PP. II" It contained a bunch of links to the Vatican website (which appeared invisible to me, probably because my browser refuses to load externally linked images in emails) and then this strange proclamation at the bottom:

Ioannes Paulus PP. II
Karol Wojtyla
16.X.1978
 

"The unforgiveable sins this earth must confront and overcome are Nationalism, capitalism, and hoarding. The idea of every nation should be forgot, price should be struck from the commons, and princes should be seen for the devils they are. The sins include our church, secret societies, and other religions which make of the spirit of God a divide." &mdash The Holy Father's last rites declaration - 2nd April 2005

Now if you ask me this does not sound at all like anything our Holy Father of blessed memory would proclaim. Sounds like something communist to me.

There were no links anywhere else (save a search engine link at vatican.mondosearch.com).

Very weird!