Humor

The attack on the Vatican website by Jihackists was unsuccessful. Kevin Knight posts:

Michael is the name of the firewall, or security computer, at the Vatican website. (They also have servers named Gabriel and Raphael. I think I detect a theme here.) According to a report from Catholic World News, it’s been busy lately:

Islamic computer hackers tried to disrupt the Vatican web site earlier this week, but failed, according to a report in the ANSA news service.

In an online forum for militant Muslims, a group announced plans for an assault on the Vatican computer network, which was said to be a form of retribution for Pope Benedict’s criticism of Islam in his Regensburg speech. Police later confirmed that there had been a concerted effort by hackers to penetrate the Vatican site, but computer-security experts were able to detect and repel the attack.

Vatican security personnel are remaining vigilant in case of another effort by the hackers.

On second thought, maybe the vanquisher was St. Michael the Archangel after all.

There is a legend that the Sister running the Vatican website collapsed after Mass one day. When she revive, she related a vision of Satan through his minions attacking the servers hosting the Vatican website. Following the vision she wrote this prayer.

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us against Denial of Service attacks.
Be our protection against the bots and packets of black hats.
May thy firewall rebuke them, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Hosting Provider-
by the Divine Power of God –
cast into digital hell, distributed attacks and all buffer overflows,
whose packets roam throughout the network seeking the downing of sites.

Today with the canonization of Saint Theodore Guerin so we now have a new American saint, though she was born in Brittany, France. There are in fact only two American born saints St. Katherine Drexel
and
Elizabeth Ann Seton.
Which means there are still no American born male saints. Face it guys we are being slaughtered in the American born saint category. I mean tow to zero is a wipe out. Is there a stained glass ceiling preventing American born males from being canonized here? Do we need an Equal Saints Amendment or affirmative action for American born male saints?

Sure I know we have some waiting in the wings such as Venerables Terence Cardinal Cooke, Fr. Michael McGivney, and Fr. Solanus Casey. None of the four male Blesseds was born in the United States so this is more proof of American born male discrimination. Sure they will let you be a Venerable just to tease us, but when it comes time to the big leagues we aren’t considered good enough.

Let’s not take this lying down, instead let us take it on our knees. Come on and get to interceding now. Pick a Venerable of your choice and start praying for his cause. Learn about him and ask for his intercession. For my part I select Venerable Solanus Casey who was the first American born male venerable. Since I was first introduced to his story I have found him fascinating. Father Groeschel was one of his altar boys and relates a story of coming into the church late one night to find Fr. Casey playing his violin in front of the Blessed Sacrament. There is also the cause for Bishop Fulton J. Sheen which was opened in 2002 and he is now a Servant of God.

Now don’t get me wrong I am not a misogynist when it comes to women saints or prejudiced against immigrant saints and of course this is written tongue-firmly-in-cheek. Just let us slide in one American born male saint.

Pope Benedict XVI narrowly avoids a planned water balloon attack.

Via Dwight Longenecker, Catholic or Protestant Heaven.

I remember seeing this episode when it came out last year and this was just one of the funnier bits.

Drew at Shrine of the Holy Whapping points to a Protestant site on Orthodox Catholic Idolatry. Drew describes it as “a fascinating collection of really cool photographs juxtaposed with barely-relevant Scriptural quotations.” The photo essay starts with “Roman Catholicism is of the Devil!” Examples of captions are “Little girl being forced to kiss an icon.” Though I couldn’t find the coercive device used to force this piety, it must be Orthodox mind control.

The dumbest example that Drew points out is a picture of Veronica holding the veil with Christ’s image that they confuse with Mary with the caption “Come on my son, kiss the Queen of Heaven! Ye worship ye know not what…” -John 4:22″ The irony is that they mock what thee know not. The saddest example is a picture of a women kissing a crucifix with the caption “People are worshipping Satan and Don’t Even Realize it.”

All I know is I would never buy a dictionary from the people who created this site. “Some of those icons are of mystics (meaning Satan-possessed)…”

Archbishop regrets Catholic Church ‘confessional competition’ in Eastern Europe, Russia

When I saw the above headline I imagined something quite different than the actual story. The story is about the intensified activity of some Western missionaries in Russia and the conflict over the Russian Orthodox Church over this.

I had a whole different idea of what a confessional competition could be. We are by nature largely competitive and having a real confessional competition could be fun. One competition could be where multiple families compete against each other. They set a fix starting point and stop at multiple churches where at each stop one member of the family goes to confession at that Church. Then they drive to the next church and repeat. Of course there is a time limit and it is the time confession is available at most churches on Saturday from around 5 to 5:30 pm. Now that would be a race!

Family members could compete for least number of Hail Mary’s assigned as penances. Though you have to find a parish where the same penance isn’t assigned for pretty much anything.

Parishes could compete for which ones have the longest lines for confessions. This though could be inconvenient for some people who have a limited time so maybe they can also offer a confessional line for 10 venial sins or less.

It would be pretty hard though to have competitions for most contrite, best examination of conscience, or most improvement since the last confession. You would have to have a priest like Padre Pio or St. John Vianney and they wouldn’t be allowed to say who won anyway.

Via Tim at The Catholic Church in the Internet Age.

Islamic hackers allegedly supporting al-Qaeda claim they will launch an attack on the Vatican’s official website on Wednesday night. Several internet sites which act as the mouthpieces of Islamic terrorism have launched an appeal in the past few days on hackers to attack the Holy See’s site. The appeal has allegedly attracted dozens of hackers. Under the plan publicised by the fundamentalist sites, hackers will sabotage the website at 8 pm local time and continue to block it for the following 36 hours.

36 hours? So I guess in three days it will rise again. Though it looks like so far these Jihackists have not been succesful. Surprisingly the term Jihackists has never been used before considering that this has become fairly common. Though luckily flying bots into servers isn’t going to kill anybody.

Another sourcereports:

Rome – Islamic extremists have tried to hack into the Vatican’s website, Italian police said Wednesday.

The hackers’ attacks began several days ago but caused no noteworthy damage, Ansa news agency reported, quoting the police.

Further details were not immediately available.

Police only said Vatican Radio’s website had also been affected.

Here is an Interesting article on a physician who became a Jesuit and is also Cardinal George’s personal physician. A priest doctor is a very cool combination. Though it could be disconcerting going in for a checkup. If he calls you back and says I have some news for you, but first let me get out my oil for Last Rites you know it isn’t good news. Though for some getting in an annual checkup and their Easter duty at the same time could be a real time saver.

For some reasons this picture just make me think of the Pope singing with his three backup singers all in a choreographed movement.

A reader, Kurt, comments on the picture of the heart of St. John Vianney.

Would it be morally permissible to clone this heart and then transplant it into a good number of the USCCB members?

Thinking about this I think this would make an interesting book. What if some mad scientists rounded up a whole bunch of relics. The head of St. Catherine of Siena, the heart of St. Vianney, the blood of St. Januarius, the hand of St. Peter along with an assortment of the bones of various saints. Could you make a St. Frankenstein? Instead of pillaging the countryside would St. Frankenstein instead volunteer at the local children’s hospital. Surely St. Frankenstein would attend Mass so instead of the Monster Mash we would have the Monster Mass. Though kneeling may be a problem with all of the stitches and such. Would a St. Frankenstein still be afraid of fire. Possibly if they used a relic of St. Joan of Arc or St. Lawrence. I can also imagine a group of angry ACLU villagers with pitchforks and lawsuits chasing poor St. Frankenstein.