Give 'em enough rope

That's how I look at the NYT "are you still Catholic???" ads. Apparently designed to give tepid Catholics one last nudge out of the Church, they're more likely to backfire when those people see they're being told what to do by someone with less claim on them than the Church.

Or maybe I'm just thinking that to justify my not complaining more strongly about them -- for instance, to the NYT itself. 

I've edited a couple of articles that were obviously meant to provoke anyone who believed in any religion (always excepting Islam), but only drew a single mild comment from a Christian. And I think they alienated lots of readers who might not be religious themselves but are uncomfortable with contempt for religion.

Anyway, I can hope that's what's happening.

If only they COULD pay for it

With my tendency to misread headlines, at first I thought this said "Parishioners Pay for Return of St. Lawrence O'Toole's Heart". It seemed as if someone had announced they were holding it for ransom, instead of having taken it for God knows what purpose. If only it were known to be simple avarice.

There is an underground trade in relics, of course, but this is something too unique to show up in the classifieds. And eBay won't take human body parts; besides, they learned better than to list things like this a few years ago, when thousands of us threatened to close our accounts because someone was allowed to list a consecrated Host.

Praying is it, I guess.

Very well, they contradict themselves

I had not been aware of Pinterest; if I had, I probably would've set up an account and then not gotten around to doing anything with it. However, it seems to breed copyright issues, as Milehimama has learned.

Seems Pinterest tells you it's illegal to post anything that anyone else owns the rights to -- also it's rude to post anything you've made yourself. Which leaves . . . ?

A certain U.S. government form that shall be numberless tells you to fill the SSAN space with zeroes if the applicant has no Social Security number. Then it tells you to sign confirming under penalty of perjury that everything on the form is true.

I spent a few hours yesterday in a place where I overheard utterances like: "You're the ones who entered with the suspicious items . . . That's not what it says on your application . . . One person translating . . . Attention! The alarm was false." And where someone said to me, "Ma'am, let me see your hairpin." To which I replied, "It's plastic," and she was satisfied.

Vatican.va hacked

Anonymous took www.vatican.va for its latest victim,

"in response to the doctrine, to the liturgies, to the absurd and anachronistic concepts . . . This attack is not against the Christian religion or the faithful around the world . . . "

Faithful who, of course, don't believe in the doctrine, the liturgies, or the concepts, but stay faithful only because . . . remind me again?

Sorry. It's like NATO: an attack on one is an attack on all.

More absurdity:

In their statement, Anonymous went on to accused (sic) the Catholic Church of several historical wrongdoings including killing opponents, burning texts and harbouring Nazi war criminals.
The group also blasted the institution for "allowing its representatives to harass children."

Harass? Is that the worst word they could think of? Does that even begin to describe what happened? Don't tell me Anonymous chose this word out of libel chill.

(Merci a AFP)

 

Not giving Jesus a nose job

Ray Downing, who led the enormous task of building a 3D model from the Shroud of Turin, says "I didn't do him any favors on the nose." If by favor he means making the nose small, unobtrusive and inwardly curving, well, it looks as if God didn't do Mr. Downing any favors, either.

Seriously, it's fascinating. You can get the story on DVD.

"Take care lest any man steal thy crown"

The St. Louis Altar at Notre Dame de Paris.Of course, he was also a king of France . . . who used to invite poor people to dinner, then eat what they left.

Trivia

I like the vaguely grungy-continental style of my template of the moment, but light text on dark really isn't a good idea. By the time anyone reads this, it'll probably have changed.