My job is too big for one man, says Archbishop of Canterbury
Pope Benedict XVI says “Tell me more about how a church with 80 million members and shrinking is too big for one man.”
While I totally understand the Church having only those with Holy Orders deliver the homily. Sometimes though I muse on the thought of having a homilist-pinch-hitter.
Too often I run across the monotone homilist or the homilist who gives almost a total deadpan delivery. The majority of the time I have found the text of the homily to be fairly decent and that it is the skill in delivery of the homily that I find deficient.
Protestant preachers seem to have paid a lot of attention to this skill set which is understandable since the sermon is pretty much the lynch-pin of a Protestant service. This emphasis explains why the preachers name is often prominently placed on the outside of a Protestant church and not at a Catholic Church. The charism of the individual preacher model though has it’s problems it that people will go preacher-shopping looking for the most entertaining preacher. The positive thing about the Catholic parish model is that having a good homilist transfer doesn’t mean that people will then go looking elsewhere. The parish model where the Mass is the focus reduces a personality driven approach.
Still I think many Catholic homilists could learn something from Protestants when it comes to delivery. Now this does not mean that we must succumb to the idea of the homily as a piece of entertainment. I’ve discussed the use of humor in homilies before in Humorlectics. What I have seen from the limited dataset of my own experience is often really bad presentation. The joys and mysteries of the faith come across as something boring since the preacher can’t seem to lift himself up to any excitement over it. There can be quite disconcerting to hear the disparity between the material and the way it is spoken. This disparity is funny in a talented deadpan comic, for a deacon or priest, not so much. The exuberance of a Cardinal Dolan is reflective of the other end – a well delivered homily. Trying to emulate his Eminence is not the goal as this would not be natural for most speakers. The speaking skills of the homilist are certainly of some importance and I do wonder how much attention is paid to this in seminary? If they are than I am encountering too many homilists that slipped through.
Though maybe what I really need is a pinch-hitter-homily-listener since instead of working harder to pay attention to even a poorly delivered homily I allow my mind to wander and compose blog posts on pinch-hitter-homilists.
In these sad days it is near impossible to avoid some form of cooperation with evil. To make matters worse it can often be deeply confusing to navigate the moral theology involved and choosing the best possible good when cooperation with evil is unavoidable. Sorting out the moral object, the intention, and the moral acceptability and ensuring that there is never formal cooperation with evil takes vigilance and understanding of the moral theology involved. Within the two main areas of formal and material cooperation it further branches off into active and passive and with passive material cooperation into immediate and mediate (which also branches out further).
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BOSTON (CBS Connecticut) — The National Atheist Party is canceling its secular convention due to a lack of funding. Troy Boyle, the party’s president, announced on its website won’t be holding NAPCON 2012 in Boston in October because it would bankrupt the group.
“After this year’s amazing Reason Rally, and flush with our successful recruiting and a spike in donations, we decided to hold our OWN secular event. NAPCON 2012 was supposed to be our biggest and best public event; our chance to show the U.S. that we could fund and organize a large, noteworthy and impressive ‘Secular Summit’ that would attract media buzz and even more interested members and donations. The reality is that we can’t,” Boyle said in the press release. “The donations simply aren’t there and if we went ahead with the event as planned, it would bankrupt us.”
The second annual convention was supposed to consist of several speakers and musical acts over two days, as well as giving away free prizes to fellow atheists.
Boyle blames a lack of donations and sponsors, along with several prominent people backing out of the convention.
There really should be an alliance between the Catholic Church and the National Atheist Party – we could call it CATNAP.
Via Al Kresta
It is hard not to laugh at this story about a Catholic Cathedral. Not only over the subject but the english translation of the story. Though the security concerns are no laughing matter.
The St Theresa’s Catholic Cathedral Church, Nsukka, Enugu State, has barred women from wearing big headgears and carrying hand bags to Sunday service. Rev. Fr. Uche Obodoechina, the Cathedral Administrator, who announced this during Sunday service in Nsukka, said that the ban takes effect from Sept. 9.
Obodoechina said the measure was being introduced to ensure the security of worshippers. According to him, the big headgears, in most cases, made the identification of persons during Sunday service difficult.
He said the headgears (popularly called canopy) turn to a ‘barricade’ when many women putting on big head gears stay on a roll during service.
“Please, in view of the present security challenges, the church has urged women to stop coming to Sunday service with big headgears and bags to enable security men know when bomb will be smuggled into the church. The church has directed security men at the church gate to seize big head ears and bags from Sept. 9. This measure is aimed towards enhancing the security of the faithful during Sunday mass.”
What they need is a more collapsible hat. I saw a video today demonstrating what you can do if your hat can cause difficulty when getting into a car.
Here we see two iterations of Elias Garcia Martinez’ Ecce Homo: the original painted nearly 100 years ago in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church near Zaragoza, Spain, and the pitifully botched restoration done over the original by some random yo they hired because she had an art degree from Frank’s College of Knowledge.
Zaragoza city councilor Juan Maria Ojeda had this to say about the situation:
“I think she had good intentions. Next week she will meet with a repairer and explain what kind of materials she used. If we can’t fix it, we will probably cover the wall with a photo of the painting.”
No doubt she will be getting calls from Catholic Churches all over the place and will be hired on by one of the groups of wreckovators where before and afters such as this are the goal.
Via I Fixed That
I’m not going to keep going on and on complaining about the Al Smith dinner. His excellency made a prudential decision that I disagree with, but it was his discussion to make. There has been a lot of hyperbole about how we can’t trust him anymore, etc. I just don’t join that camp.
So instead of griping I might as well have some fun concerning this. Creative Minority Report beat me to the fun part as they have “10 Suggestions for Obama at the Al Smith Dinner“. For example:
8) If President Obama doesn’t like what he’s served, the Cardinal should offer an accomodation meal which is exactly the same meal just served a little while later.
Now some think that His Excellency is being wily in the President Obama invite and will let-him-have-it at the dinner. The Cardinal is not so bad a host that he would resort to such a tactic and one that would just get overwhelmingly negative reporting. You just don’t sandbag guests regardless of the guest.
But that doesn’t leave off Matthew Archbold’s examples of demonstrative examples. I would suggest some of my own.
- Tell the President that there is a Al Smith Mandate where the price for the dinner is $1,000 dollars and the proceeds all go to a fully pro-life cause. Now if the president feels the money going to a pro-life organization violates his conscience, the Cardinal could just send him a bill of $100 a day until he gives in an pays the dinner mandate. If he still objects we will report an accommodation has been made and of course we still send him the same bill of $100 a day. After all if the $100 per day tax/fine is good enough for businesses it is good enough for the President.
- Provide a large silver basin full of water at the President’s table. If he asks what it is for “To wash your hands and recite ‘What is truth’.”
- Change the name of the event from the “Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner” to the “Alfred E. Neuman Memorial Foundation Dinner” We can go from “Be not afraid” to “What me worry?” The Mad Magazine mascot is really much more fitting and based on the President’s ears he might even be related.
- Have fun names for the menu items such as “Sensible Conscience Clause Chicken”, “1st Amendment Applesauce”, “Freedom of Religion Ricotta” , “Mints wrapped in condoms (every meal requires condiments)”, and the band can sing “Losing my freedom of religion”
- Sitting at the President’s table we could have people dressed up as St. Thomas More, St. John Fisher, and other martyrs of religious freedom.
Finally a barrier of entry is broken for some people concerning ebooks.
“The smell of a freshly printed book is the best smell in the world.” Karl Lagerfeld This tells the story of a passion and a twisting plot to put the particular bouquet of freshly printed books in a bottle. Gerhard Steidl was first alerted to the importance of the smell of a book by Karl Lagerfeld, prompting a passion for paper and the composition of a scent on the pages of a book. To Wallpaper* magazine the pairing of the publisher with the perfumer seemed a natural partnership and so the idea for Paper Passion was born. Wallpaper* magazine commissioned master perfumer Geza Schoen to create a fragrance based on the smell of books to be part of the Wallpaper* magazine Handmade exhibition in Milan.
This is an opportunity to celebrate all the gloriosensuality of books, at a time when many in the industry are turning against them. The idea is that is should relax you, like when you read a book, to a level of meditation and concentration. Paper Passion has evolved into something quite beautiful and unique. To wear the smell of a book is something very chic. Books are players in the intellectual world, but also in the world of luxury.
Just spray it on your Kindle, iPad, phone, etc.
So when are they going to have the car air fresheners version so you can drive around smelling a library?
MANILA, Philippines – Catholic bishops are sending their prayers for the eternal repose of Dolphy, with one bishop calling on God to appoint the Philippines’ comedy king as a court jester in heaven.
“We pray for the repose of his soul. His death reminds us that there is an end to our life. It is important that we discover and develop the talents the Lord had given us for the service of others and thank Him,” said Cubao Bishop Honesto Ongtioco in a report from CBCP News.
Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, former president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said Dolphy was an inspiration to Filipinos.
“We thank God for the gift of Dolphy who served the country with his more than 2009 films, making all kinds of viewers cry and laugh through their shared experiences in life. He was a classic entertainer. May he rest in peace,” he said.
Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes said: “I and many of my clergy are saddened by the death of the comedy king. We pray that the Lord will bring him soon to His kingdom and appoint Dolphy as His court jester to make heaven a merrier state.” [Source]
Boy do I want that job as Heaven’s Court Jester. After all my plans have been cracking up God for years.
That DC Comics went down the road of political correctness announcing the Green Lantern was actually same-sex attracted is no surprise. Though I wonder if homosexual activists will be offended they got only a B-list superhero? When will we get the Lesbian, Transgendered, and Questioning superheroes?
Though this slippery slope actually occurred quite awhile ago when we started allowing aliens to date our women. Yet there was no outrage at this when DC Comics first did this and made aliens dating our women mainstream. I am of course referring to Superman who certainly was an alien and even if humanoid had no business dating our women.
Putting on my speculative theology thinking cap it seems to me that since Superman obviously had non-human DNA he would not be able to successfully reproduce and thus would be incapable of marriage. Thus by nature he was incapable of marriage and had no business dating human women. Same-sex marriage has the same defect of alien-human marriage in that it not marriage at all. Though some might think it fine to compromise with alien-human unions as long as they don’t call it marriage, though I would not. There was another slippery slope when DC Comics also created a metahuman clone of Superman named Superboy. Though I shouldn’t just pick on Superman since Supergirl also dated humans. So should we be surprised that DC Comics who gave us cloning and human-alien romantic attraction would give us also the same-sex attracted Green Lantern?
Now of course this post is mostly tongue-in-cheek but of course our acceptance of Superman gave us Captain Kirk and his lusts for green-tinged women in bikinis.