Tag: catholic church

Insidious and Dangerous

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Mary Valle: There’s a battle of miter-wearers today in the HuffPost. In one corner, we have Mary Glasspool, the first openly lesbian bishop ordained in the Episcopal Church of America. In the other, Pope Benedict, calling gay marriage “insidious and dangerous.” The American Episcopal church (most of it) is stepping up its support of gay rights, causing tension within the worldwide Communion, with warnings coming from Canterbury regarding American ordinations of gays. Papa Benedict, meanwhile, is trying in vain to deflect attention from Pontifigate (as the NYT calls for revocation of the NY state child-abuse statute of limitations), using some ill-chosen words to describe the activities of consenting adults who actually want to play by society’s rules. Point: America. Continue Reading →

Pope Suffers On Tour

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Mary Valle: Pope Benedict recently touched down at the shrine at Fatima, where the Virgin Mary appeared to children and advised them about hell, Russia and a white-clad figure who would appear in a field of martyrs. Pilgrims still flock to the shine to pray to Mary for help with their ailments. The Pope himself spoke to the gathered, urging them to “overcome the feeling of uselessness, of suffering which wears people down and makes them feel like they are a weight around the neck of others, when in fact suffering, lived through Jesus, leads to salvation.” Continue Reading →

Dogs Go To Church

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Michael Croland: Maryann Fuchs does not know why she takes her dogs to Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church year after year for the St. Francis Blessing of the Animals. The October 3 ceremony, which lasted less than a half-hour, drew a crowd of about 20 leashed dogs, two cats in carriers, and animal lovers from the surrounding Astoria area.

At first thought, Fuchs seemed certain that 9-year-old Pomeranian Patrick, 8-year-old Schnauzer Joseph, and 1-year-old Schnauzer Timothy do not understand what takes place at the ceremony. Fuchs said that her dogs do not behave better or become more pious after they are blessed. “No, because they’re dogs—they don’t have souls,” she said. “It’s nice, St. Francis—but they don’t know.” Continue Reading →

The Meaning of Relics

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If the Pope says it’s real… Pope Benedict XVI has declared the Shroud of Turin authentic. Writes Chris Armstrong at Grateful to the Dead:

This also seems a bold move by a pope–to declare something authentic that it is well within the realm of science to later declare a fraud (though so far no conclusive proof has been given).

I pulled out my copy of Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead by Peter Manseau, co-founder with Jeff Sharlet of our sister site, Killing the Buddha, to find this quote:

Even if an object is not genuinely what believers profess it to be — such as Chaucer’s feather of the angel Gabriel — it becomes the locus of belief for centuries. And it is in this belief that faith is made. For the faithful, to pray to a relic displayed in its reliquary — even to a blackened and shriveled tongue — is like shining sunlight through a magnifying glass. A relic concentrates the beliefs surrounding it until they can be seen: it is faith so intense it has, at times, set the world on fire.

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The Longevity Loophole

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We’ve seen how, in general, great crimes can go unpunlshed (a la George Monbiot) far more easily than the little ones. Here’s a new wrinkle in the annals of deviltry, so to speak. Apparently, you can rape your little, uh, heart out as a priest, as long as you make it to your golden years, at which point, you are just too old to be punished for your crimes. Continue Reading →

Everybody’s a Critic

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Conservative Australian columnist, Cliff Kincaid, warns that the American people should be paying attention to the Catholic Church’s other offense: facilitating the “foreign invasion” of the U.S. by supporting immigration reform. In a Beckian rant that proves Kincaid needs to spend more time doing his own thinking, he nonetheless cynically crushes any stereotypes about critics of the Catholic Church. Continue Reading →

Everybody’s a Critic

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Conservative Australian columnist, Cliff Kincaid, warns that the American people should be paying attention to the Catholic Church’s other offense: facilitating the “foreign invasion” of the U.S. by supporting immigration reform. In a Beckian rant that proves Kincaid needs to spend more time doing his own thinking, he nonetheless cynically crushes any stereotypes about critics of the Catholic Church. Continue Reading →