Humor

CLEVELAND — The Rev. Dan Smith uses an extremely unorthodox way to preach the Christian gospels. He wants to attract young people turned off by conventional churches.

NewsChannel5’s Ted Henry reported Smith will do almost anything to convince those turned off by religion that being spiritual can be cool. He wants to attract the unchurched.

"I have some people who haven’t been to church in 10 to 15 years or forever, saying man that this is cool," Smith said.

Another interesting element is where the church — Momentum Christian Church — is located.

The congregation meets at the Cinemark movie theater on Canal Road.

"A lot of time when you walk into a church it feels kind of solemn, but when you walk into a theater, it feels like something exciting is about to happen,” Smith said.

Momentum Church is new to Cleveland and people are finding a wide array of activities for kids, teens and adults.

"I am a younger person, I like a more upbeat type of church," one member said.

Another member said, "We’ve been here ever since it started. It’s different. It’s not like being at church."

…Some might consider this approach a bold church experiment because of everything — a movie house, video games, Hip Hop, comedy, plus the teachings of Christ. But Smith thinks it is his life’s passion to bring what he has to offer to both the unchurched and the disillusioned.

I wonder if they play trailers like "Jesus – Coming Soon! The Second Coming, the sequel we have all been waiting for, this times he’s here to judge."

John Allen Jr. writes on how the speech delivered to the press about the Pope’s talk with the Swiss bishops bore no relation to what the Holy Father actually said.

…The back-story to what happened is that on Sunday evening, the Secretariat of State sent the 2005 draft up to the papal apartment in preparation for Tuesday’s meeting. Hearing nothing, they presumed that Benedict intended to use it, and gave it to the Press Office and L’Osservatore Romano for distribution. In fact, however, the reason Benedict never replied with any corrections or amendments is because he decided to set aside the draft altogether. When the mistake became clear, copies of L’Osservatore Romano with the unused text had to be withdrawn, and the Press Office found itself in the awkward position of retracting its own bulletin.

If this were the White House, some of us might suspect that all this was on purpose. In the end, the criticisms of the Swiss church that Vatican officials wanted to make are now on the record, but the pope gets to look like a nice guy because he decided to go positive. In fact, however, the only realistic reaction to such a theory is the Italian word magari — if only the Vatican communications operation were that sophisticated! In fact, this is simply a classic instance of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing, an all-too-frequent reality of Vatican life.

I don’t think that this is a case that this was a mistake where first a more harsh speech is reported and then later corrected. I think maybe this could be a case, and perhaps the first, of them playing Good Pope/Bad Pope -a psychological tactic used for softening up wayward bishop conferences. Well I don’t actually believe that, but I do think it is a pretty funny idea especially if you contrast the two speeches.

Bad Pope: "it is a right and duty of everyone to ensure (the Mass) be celebrated in accordance with the rules laid down by the Church."

Good Pope: "This complete form of faith as expressed by the Creed, of a faith in and with the Church as a living entity in which the Lord is at work,"

With Good Pope/Bad Pope you can smack down about liturgical abuses and then go all pastoral and catechist on them. I guess this could also be called Pope-Rope-a-Dope.

Thinking further on Fr. Philip N. Powell vocation exhortation and the problems where some diocese seem to be spending most of their effort in creating pastoral associates to take over parishes and have priests to come in to "deliver" the sacraments instead of concentrating on praying for and encouraging vocations. I thought about the future of such an approach.

I have envisioned a couple of future dictionary terms that could be used when such practices become widespread.

Dieocease – A dieocease is an administrative territorial unit administrated by a bishop. The prominent feature of a dieocease is not necessarily a shrinking Catholic population, but a population characterized with both fewer priests and where as time goes by even less of the faithful live in accordance with Catholic teaching. A dieocease relies prominently on priests from other countries to fill their seminaries, though this starts to slowly diminish as potential seminarians see that there role will be just as SDUs (see entry under perish). Another prominent feature of a dieocease is heterodoxy or can’t-we-all-just-get-along-doxy where the attitude "Woe to me if I preach the Gospel" is prevalent. Those with Holy Orders become concerned that preaching what the Church teaches will make some people uncomfortable and that the idea of sin is highly intolerant to their flock’s self esteem. Another common parameter associated with a dieocese is that no matter how short of priests they get, they will never think of looking at a regular diocese that is filling their seminary and where vocations are flourishing and emulating what makes them successful.

Perish– A perish is a territorial subdivision of a dieocese. A perish does not have an assigned priest but a pastoral assistant instead. Priests knows as SDUs (Sacramental Delivery Vehicles) visit these perishes to deliver the sacraments from time to time and to consecrate enough hosts for Communion services throughout the month. The Entertainment/Worship (E/W) ratio of perishes is usually very high. The Holy Entertainment of the Mass is the dominant culture. Also the Relevant/Reverence (R/R) ratio is normally also in the same range E/W ratio and an E/W ration of 100/1 falls within a normal range for a perish.

Perish Mission -A annual retreat where perishioners are affirmed in their okayness.

Seminary – Empty building within a dieocease where seminarians used to be trained for the priesthood. In some instanced these buildings have been transformed into Feminaries where predominantly female Pastoral Associates are trained while waiting for a new Pope to allow women priests.

75 – A number looked forward to by some members of a diocese in that this number marks a year a bishop must offer their resignation in accord with canon law.

Pope Benedict XVI poses for the June page of his calendar called ‘Together, one year with the Pope’ in this photo released November 8, 2006. The Pope posed for this benefit calendar in the past summer during his retreat at Castelgandolfo, north of Rome. The calendar is made of 14 pictures, taken from the Famiglia Cristiana’s photographer Giancarlo Giuliani, and will be sold from November 23. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY REUTERS/Giancarlo Giuliani/Famiglia Cristiana/Handout (ITALY)

Being the Pope he of course posed in his loosey-whiteys not tighty-whiteys.

Power Station Mass via Gilibrand.

More pictures here including communion with Leavened bread (illicit not invalid).

I guess this is a version of the Domincan-can or perhaps Communion line dancing.

Previous versions here.

What are your captions?

With the impending election coming there is much talk about the selection of candidates. In some races you think of the phrase "choosing the lesser of two evils." A phrase I really don’t like. Even in cases where you a choosing between two candidates that might have views you don’t like; you are really choosing to limit evil and are not choosing evil but a good.

Some have spoken of sending a message by sitting out the election or voting third party instead. Well to be sarcastic – all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to vote third party or to sit out the election. Kevin Miller had a very good post on this subject today. If because people sit out and a Supreme Court nominee that could overturn Roe v. Wade doesn’t make it through the process – that will really send a message.

Unfortunately it is rarely the case that you pull the lever on a candidate and think wow this person is the perfect moral candidate. Unfortunately in are present system when you vote for someone there is no really good public way to mark your displeasure or that you are voting for them with reservations.

I do have a solution though to this problem. When you read message boards and some blogs you can see the use of emoticons for people to be able to mark the related emotion to what they are saying.

With the advent of so many LCD touch screens in the voting booth just how hard would it be to able to add emoticons with each of your votes? When the emoticons are tabulated politicians would see exactly what you really think of them. Right now a vote appears to them to be an 100 percent vote of approval. It would be great for their humility to get a 80 percent "yawning" and a 10 percent "grossed out’ along with other ratings.

Though the standard emoticons are really not expressive enough. I suggest a new category for voting machines – Voticons. Here are some possible Voticons.

Holding my nose while voting for you

You were the lesser of two devils

After voting for you I think I am gonna spew

I am embarrassed to have voted for you but you sucked less than the other person.

I voted pro-life, please don’t disappoint me

Used for politicians like Sen McCain where you are "split" between liking him one day and hating him the next.

Remember this is my wallet not yours, please vote accordingly.

Now in some situations I guess you could actually use one of the normal smiley emoticons, for example if you actually get to vote for someone like Sen. Sam Brownback

And here is one last one:

"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged." G.K. Chesterton

MELBOURNE will host the next world parliament of religions, "the Olympic Games of religion and spirituality", expected to draw 10,000 overseas visitors to the city in December 2009.

The city’s harmony between religions and commitment to inter-faith understanding helped it to beat Singapore and New Delhi, according to a spokesman for the Melbourne Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Mike Williams, the bureau’s general manager, sales, said the taskforce went to as many grassroots religious centers as possible during their week-long visit in September.

The bureau says the eight-day parliament, the world’s biggest multi-faith gathering, will bring visitors from 74 countries — including leaders of the world’s main religions and many less-known ones — and will be worth more than $75 million to the state.

The successful bid is subject to completion of the financial plan.

The Federal and State governments are each contributing $2 million.

RMIT Professor Des Cahill, head of the Melbourne bid committee, said: "It is a credit to our multicultural and inter-faith climate that the world’s religious leaders and their faith communities have chosen Melbourne for such an important event.

"It is like winning the Olympic Games of religion and spirituality."

A idea of a real Olympic Games of religion and spirituality does have some promise. You could have the Communion dash. This is where contestants receive Communion and then dash out to their car to get out and avoid the traffic in the parking lot. The of course there would be the mountain climb since so many claim there are many paths to the top of the mountain and all of them equal. Wrestling could be another sport considering the number of people wrestling with their conscience. But this at least would be a venerable sport going back to Jacob.

You could also have a teaching relay race. Churches pass on doctrine from generation to generation and the one to not drop doctrines wins. Though they might complain that it is only the Catholic Church that ever wins this one and that Orthodox churches usually come in second.

Incoming Bishop Martin Amos, newly chosen as the eighth man to hold that title with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport, has asked for a low-key installation service later this month, and the diocese is poised to deliver just that.

“No money is set aside for this event. All our assets are currently under the protection of the bankruptcy court,” diocese spokesman David Montgomery said Thursday.

A special collection is being taken throughout the church’s 22-county eastern Iowa region to pay for the pared-down celebration since the diocese declared bankruptcy last month. That was two days before the Vatican announced the appointment of Amos and that it had accepted the retirement of Bishop William Franklin.

The Amos installation is planned for 2 p.m. Nov. 20 at St. John Vianney Church, Bettendorf. The Bettendorf church was chosen over Sacred Heart Cathedral, Davenport, because it is larger and has more parking and other facilities, Montgomery said. The historic cathedral, also called the bishop’s church, holds 220 fewer people.

The diocese has no idea how well the special collection will go, but the funds are intended to provide travel expenses for a group of invited dignitaries. Amos is a bishop in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland.

“Bishop Amos wants a low-key installation,” Montgomery said. “He’s considering the financial situation of the diocese.”

Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States, will travel from Washington, D.C., to read a letter from Pope Benedict during the service. Nine other bishops also have been invited to take part, and some of them are paying their own expenses, Montgomery said.

Such a ceremony normally would include 28 invited bishops, he said. There also are costs involved with the reception to be held after the installation, but it will not include a dinner.

They should just have an episcopal pot luck afterwards.

Hell Pizza’s latest "condom" promotion has fuelled public anger and brought about 30 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority in a matter of hours.

The Advertising Standards Authority said today it had been inundated with complaints about Hell Pizza’s latest promotion.

The pizza company has included condoms in a mail-out to promote its "Lust" pizza.

The small pamphlet advertising the Lust pizza contains a condom, and explicit instructions on how to use the condom during sex.

Hell Pizza giving out condoms seems pretty appropriate to me. This being in New Zealand and the fact that Hell Pizza delivers I bet they have a problem with at least one city. After all I would hope Hell Pizza will not prevail against Christchurch. With a lust pizza instead of asking to be delivered from evil they deliver evil.

They also have a delivery promise. Now Hell being outside of time 30 minutes late is pretty subjective.

Fr. Roderick put together a very funny and well produced short Halloween/All Saints Day/All Souls Day movie.