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.
KaleJ at un-Muted Mumblings writes:
Saw on slashdot that the domain, Hell.com is for sale.
Now someone who buys Hell.com "has the opportunity to redefine what hell means, at least on the Internet," says Monte Cahn, Moniker chief executive.
Sorry, the catechists have already beat them to the punch on redefining hell. In geek speak, any "Faith Formation" document referring to Hell.com would come up with a 404 Error, Hell not found.
I guess this would be a real fire sale.
In my Naval career we repeatedly had training in putting out fires. After some disastrous fires at sea such as the one on the U.S.S. Forestall the Navy decided it was not a very good idea to limit training to a specific group and instead expanded fire fighting training to everyone. Besides learning to be competent on a hose team and using the various equipment in emergency situations we always had training on the fire triangle.
It is a good training model since it emphasizes that to stop a fire you just need to remove just one of the elements. Remove the fuel, reduce the heat, or remove the oxygen and the fire will stop. I always though that this was a good training aid and I started to think it could be an aid in other situations.
Many times on Catholic radio I have heard people ask questions about whether something is a mortal sin or not or what constitutes a mortal sin.
So the eternal fire triangle can be used to see the elements that lead to a mortal sin. By removing any element of the eternal fire triangle you can be guaranteed to not commit a mortal sin. Since mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law and causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the possibility of the eternal death of hell if one dies in this state it is a very good idea to teach and understand this correctly.
The Eternal Fire Triangle is proactive instead of reactive. By ensuring that these elements never come together in the first place you will not fall into mortal sin. If you need a good Powerpoint slide for CCD consider the Eternal Fire Triangle, though Powerpoint itself was surely inspired by one of the Devil’s minions.
One thing to remember that even when all the conditions are not met that there is still damage done and the consequences due to sin. Committing a grave sin even when you are invincibly ignorant does not let you off scott free from temporal punishments, just eternal ones.
Grave Matter. Obviously first and foremost is to be aware of what constitutes grave matter so that you may avoid it.
CCC 1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother."[132] The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.
Full Knowledge
CCC 1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge …. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law.
Complete Consent
CCC 1859 …It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart[133] do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.
Grace and following the universal call to holiness are the true eternal fire extinguishers. Just avoiding mortal sin itself can get you to fall into the minimum daily allowance trap. Fear of the Lord is the beginning, but not the end of wisdom.
As the old joke goes "Only you can prevent eternal fires."
