Humor

There is a celibrity tribute to Pope John Paul II that includes
readings by: Deepak Chopra, Kirk Franklin, Vince Gill, Danny Glover, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Faith Hill & Tim McGraw, James Earl Jones, Monica, N’Sync, Edward James Olmos, Brooke Shields, Britney Spears, Steven Tyler & Joe Perry

Well since the universe didn’t explode from a massive irony paradox I guess Britney Spears did not read from the Wednesday Audiences that were the basis of the Theology of the Body. Though I am curious what Steven Tyler & Joe Perry from Aerosmith read?

As part of a new ad campaign Indra Nooyi, President and CFO of PepsiCo introduces a new product.

This analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents leaves the long, middle finger for North America, and, in particular, The United States. As the longest of the fingers, it really stands out. The middle finger anchors every function that the hand performs and is the key to all of the fingers working together efficiently and effectively. This is a really good thing, and has given the U.S. a leg-up in global business since the end of World War I.
However, if used inappropriately –just like the U.S. itself — the middle finger can convey a negative message and get us in trouble. You know what I’m talking about. In fact, I suspect you’re hoping that I’ll demonstrate what I mean. And trust me, I’m not looking for volunteers to model.

Discretion being the better part of valor … I think I’ll pass.

What is most crucial to my analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents, is that each of us in the U.S. – the long middle finger – must be careful that when we extend our arm in either a business or political sense, we take pains to assure we are giving a hand … not the finger. Sometimes this is very difficult. Because the U.S. – the middle finger – sticks out so much, we can send the wrong message unintentionally.

Unfortunately, I think this is how the rest of the world looks at the U.S. right now. Not as part of the hand – giving strength and purpose to the rest of the fingers – but, instead, scratching our nose and sending a far different signal.

Yes Pepsi One a Pepsi for the Michael Moore generation. In fact if you have the girth of a nation like Michael, only one calorie can only be seen as positive. This new political Pepsi tastes just like Kool-Aid for those who just love drinking the Kool-Aid given them through Democratic talking points. After a hard day of protesting nothing will hit the spot like Pepsi One. Your parched throat will sing for joy after the many repetitions of hey, hey – ho ho. And who knows one day you too can become the president of a large American company and slam the U.S. also.

One symbolizes a quest for a one world government with the hope for it being under the United Nations controls so that one day we might be as peaceful as the Dafur region of Sudan. This is a drink not only for America, but for the world – it goes great with cheese and after a busy day of signing appeasement treaties you will be glad to slake your thirst as it easily runs down your throat as fast a the French from an invading army.

If you love our new product you might also want to check out some of our other fine re-branded products. Tora Bora Mountains Dew and We-hate-Condoleezza Rice-a-Roni.

If you love our new products please email us at boardofdirectors@pepsi.com

A proud sponsor of Moveon.org

Update: Welcome Hugh Hewitt fans (and thanks once again for a link Hugh). For those who have asked the statement in blue is take directly from her speech.
We can be thankful once again to Power Line for originally breaking the story.
Hugh also has her apology written in corporate-speak which includes:

"Over the years I’ve witnessed and advised others how a thoughtless gesture or comment can hurt good, caring people. Regrettably, I’ve proven my own point. I made a mistake and, again, I’m very sorry."

So working on and crafting a speech targeting an audience at the Columbia Business School is only a thoughtless gesture or comment. Wow that is pretty good that you can preplan and write a thoughtless speech

The incomparable Dale Price wrote a post on his experience with Feeneyites shortly after he was confirmed. For those who don’t know, Feeneyites are followers of the late Fr. Feeny who held a rigorous view of the Church’s teaching that there is "No salvation outside the Church." They held that people physically had to be members of the Church to be saved.

This Rock covers what the Church Fathers said about it here and the late Fr. Most has a good article on the subject here..

I wrote a parody news story on this subject a couple of years ago.

(Roto Reuters) A group calling themselves the Voice of the Feeneyites (VOTF) have chained themselves to the pews of a Catholic Church in Massachusetts. The spokesman for VOTF, Brother Yul B. Dammed, has stated that they have split from the Saint Benedict Center because of their liberal interpretation of Pope Eugene IV Bull Cantate Domino that outside of the Catholic Church their is no salvation. The group claims that only those who are physically inside of a Catholic Church will be saved and that those who go outside of a Catholic Church have lost their salvation. A statement from their spokesman reads "At the beginning of the Church they held Mass and were buried in the catacombs. The saints and many clerics have been buried in the church, so obviously they knew from apostolic tradition the true meaning of "no salvation outside of the Catholic Church". The new Cathedral in LA allows people to be buried in the Cathedral so obviously Cardinal Mahoney realizes the true meaning of this doctrine. We only want what is our right, to live and die in a church and thus gain our salvation". I contacted Brother Hugh Bris of the Saint Benedict Center for an official statement, he replied "VOTF is a lunatic-fringe group, obviously having such a narrow and rigorous view of this doctrine is ridiculous.

A reader sent me a link to the following story (which unfortunately is on a paid subscription site).

PAXTON— Praying to the east, the north, the south and the west while burning medicinal cedar on the podium, Sister Kateri Mitchell of the Mohawk Nation Turtle Clan sought the blessings of the Creator for graduates at the 56th annual commencement at Anna Maria College yesterday.

As the afternoon darkened with threatening clouds, parents and friends of the 300 graduates crowded under a huge white tent on a field next to the college and cheered on the members of the class of 2005.

President William D. McGarry told the graduates the day marked the end of an important part of their lives, but was the first step on an even more important journey. While the diploma they received would open doors to new careers, he said, “what you do from this day forward will determine what this diploma really means.”

Reflecting on the four years the students have been at Anna Maria, Mr. McGarry said the world has changed in many ways. In those four years, there was the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the explosion of the Columbia space shuttle, the attack on Iraq and the death of a pope.

“Pope John Paul II, the only pope many of you have ever known, taught us with his actions how to live and, when the time came, how to die,” Mr. McGarry said.

He urged the students to remember what they had learned at Anna Maria and to carry it with them.

“You will forever be a member of the Anna Maria College family,” he said. “No matter how far away you go, we expect to hear from you.”

During her Prayer to the Four Directions, in which she was joined by other Sisters of St. Anne, Sister Kateri had members of the audience stand and face each direction as the prayer was recited.

Facing east, the sisters said the rising sun reminds them each day to thank the Creator for his goodness.

Turning south, they said the soft winds and rains are like the goodness in our hearts and the gentleness of our speech.

Facing west, they noted that the brilliance of the setting sun shows beauty and harmony.

“We pray, Great Spirit, that our journey through life will know the harmony and peace of the setting sun,” they said.

Facing north, they said it is during the times of great storms from the north that we hear the Creator speak. It is then, they said, that the Creator calms our fears and anxieties and gives us strength and courage.

During much of her speech, Sister Kateri banged on an Indian drum in a slow, steady rhythm. The drumbeat, she told the graduates, signifies the beating of their own hearts.

“As we continue on our journey, our sacred journey of life, let us get in touch, let us get in tune with our own heartbeat,” she said. It is our heartbeat that connects us with Mother Earth and the sacred Creator, she said.

She also called on the graduates to share their faith throughout their lives.

“Call out to all, reach out to all, even those who do not feel they are part of the sacred circle,” she said.

Here is a picture of Sister Kateri Mitchell.from her site.

And an example of one of her poems.

Kateri Tekakwitha
Noble Turtle, Mother Earth
Gathers Her People
East, South, West and North

We can be thankful to Father Raymond Bucko, S.J. for managing her page and his own "Fr. Bucko’s Mighty Home Page". They seem to have got the opposite lesson from the life of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha a Mohawk Indian who became Catholic since they seem to be Catholics who are converting to Mohawk spirituality. And what is the fascination with compass directions and why aren’t they more inclusive towards for example the NE, SW, etc. Why should only directions 90 degrees apart get all the attention? Maybe they are part of the Compass Crusade for Christ.

I can’t help thinking of Terry Pratchett’s hilarious Diskworld series when I see Noble Turtle, Mother Earth. Sister Mitchell might make a fine character in one of his novels.

Brooksville, Florida – It looks as though a A Florida resident has posted a potato for sale on eBay. The seller claims it looks like the Sacred Heart of Jesus. What do you think? Click on our poll and tell us.

On the eBay listing – it says:
" The interesting thing about this potato is that it came to us we feel as an answer to prayer, and to let us and the world know that Jesus loves us and that all things are possible to those who believe." [Source]

Via Domenico Bettinelli is a story about Harvard hiring a secular humanist chaplain and I am sure it will come as no shock to my readers that this chaplain is an ex-priest who left the church over contraception. Now this story opens up a rich vein of possible comedy of which I will try to tap a bit.

I mean a secular humanist chaplain at Harvard is the epitome of overkill. The secular equivalent of preaching to the choir. I wonder how much call there is for a SH Chaplain though? Not exactly comforting for those who are terminally ill "Cheer up you will soon be in oblivion. You will cease to exist, kaput, that’s it. You will no longer feel pain, in fact you will no longer feel or be anything. All that you are will vanish forever just like all the other flukes of the universe that have accidentally come into existence. Now I am not just saying all of this to cheer you up – I really believe it!"

A SH Chaplain could counsel students about the importance of not having faith and to absolve them of ‘sins’ like not buying a product in a biodegradable container. Console and counsel students who have fallen into faith, have doubts about secularism, or have experienced dryness in confidence that government and other human institutions can lead to a perfectible human society. Help them to pick courses that won’t be detrimental to secularism or challenged their belief system. To give a proper respect for scientists and to emphasize that while not all are called to be scientists that everyone is called to the labhood of the lack-of-faithful. That we are a scientific people. To have faith in reason.

The article talked about how Roméo Dallaire gave a sermon in an auditorium to a group of agnostic and atheist students. They could decorate the auditorium to make sure it was a cold sterile and very rational looking place that would never make you look up or to get down on your knees. In fact they could not go wrong using NCCB’s Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy document "Environment and Art in Catholic Worship" In fact all they need to do is black out part of the title and use the contents verbatim to achieve the cold sterile effect. This stark effect seen in many Catholic Churches might be too much for even the most austere secularist and some more traditional secularists might prefer retaining some stained-glass windows of Voltaire and Frederick Nietzsche. They could have inter-communion with the Democratic Party when it comes to the sacrament of abortion. Of course country-club materialistic Republicans would also be well received as long as they weren’t one of those social-conservatives.

It might be difficult trying to determine where to send secular humanist missionaries. Though there are still some backward places where the message of secular humanism has not yet prevailed. They could work with the natives and do things like translate the New York Times into their language and perhaps smuggle american textbooks across the border. To provide staples like condoms and the pill. After all the best way to teach the message that humans are basically decent is to make sure that there are not to many of them getting into each others hair.

This story also makes me wonder about the opposite scenario where secular humanist parents send their kid off to a secular school and their kid ‘s come back home religious.

Mom: I was going through Johnny’s room to gather up his laundry and I found something extremely disturbing.

Dad: We told him in the past he doesn’t have to hide recreational drug use from us, so what is the problem?

Mom: It’s not drugs, I found a, how can I say this, well – a bible.

Dad: What! Well maybe it was for some literature class where they deconstruct all those silly myths.

Mom: That’s what I had hoped it meant at first. But no, there are highlighted passages and he has handwritten notes in the columns that weren’t about deconstruction, but were actually devotional!

Dad: How could this happen? We have done our best for him. Sending him to public school, keeping him away from the Boy Scouts, and then on to a fine Ivy League School. He certainly didn’t pick up this bad habit from our example. We’ve taught him to be tolerant and open minded so how could he do this to us? We spent all that money to send our son to get the finest in secular education and what happens? I feel so betrayed. I mean what kind of school allows this to happen. Is there no supervision of Freshmen there. Is there not enough schoolwork and parties that they find enough time to go – to go to a church? This is just plain criminal negligence on their part.

Mom: I should have seen the warning signs when he came home at the end of the semester. First he acted more respectfully to us and he also stopped swearing all the time.

Dad: I blame myself. I must have been in denial to have missed the danger signs. I just thought, or maybe it was wishful thinking, that going away to school had disoriented him and he was just getting his bearings. Who could have thought that after all we had done to teach and to reinforce secular humanism could be destroyed in only one semester?

Mom: I wish that was the end of it. I also found a Rosary.

Dad: Is this some kind of sick joke or the all-time worst practical joke? I mean ha-ha, please tell me yo are joking?

Mom: I wish I was. I could almost handle him having some nebulous belief in some kind of outside force, but Catholic in this day and age? What will the neighbors think? Perhaps some church he could go to on Sundays that make no demands on the rest of the week.

Dad: We have to do an intervention. We will get some of his professors and old friends together and confront him with what he is doing.

Mom: Maybe this is a rebellious stage where he is just rejecting are values. If we push him it might just drive him further into religion. Possibly we can take a softer approach. For example occasionally leave a Carl Sagan book in his room and reset his radio presets to just NPR

Dad: That might be a good idea, but if that doesn’t work we are going to have to do some tough love, like threaten to stop paying his tuition unless he kicks this religion habit.

OAKLAND — Houses of worship are turning to a new marketing tool in an effort to build church membership and give congregations a way to express their beliefs.

Avunda Ambers, a 39-year-old entrepreneur, has been busy selling "Faith Frames" — attractive plastic bordering for vehicle license plates. The name of a church appears across the bottom, and the motorist can select a few spiritual words for the top of the frame, such as "Jesus Saves Souls."

The frames come in various colors with bold lettering in chrome or brass.

Personalized frames are not new. Colleges sell alumni frames and Oakland Raiders fans often have Raider Nation frames on their vehicles.

Now, Ambers and pastors are tapping into church members who are equally passionate.

"I think it’s a great way to spread the good news about churches," said the Rev. John Cooper of Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church. "We can win souls."

Anita Ray, who attends services at First Morning Star Baptist Church, sees a fair amount of traffic as a bus driver for AC Transit. "(Faith Frames) get your attention. It makes you aware of churches, and that’s really needed today." [Source]

Here are some Faith Frames that I would like to see.

The Pope has now officially appointed Archbishop William J. Levada of San Francisco to be the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith so the rumor mill was correct. When I first heard the rumor I had thought "Can any good thing come out of Portland and San Francisco?" and then realized I don’t want to make the same mistake that Nathanael did. Maybe a Bishop who has had experience in dioceses not exactly brimming with orthodoxy is good experience for a head of the CDF. He certainly will not be bringing rose colored glasses with him to the job. So please pray for Archbishop Levada in his new role as a guardian of the Church’s doctrine. We should all be junior members of the CDF in this role.

Dom had a good post the other day on the some of the griping about, at the time, the possible appointment of Archbishop Levada and asked "If St. Peter himself came down from heaven to take up his office again, would we be happy with his curial appointments?"

I can almost imagine some posts if there had been blogs 2000 years ago about St. Peter becoming the first Pope.

First we had Cardinal Ratzinger’s old car sell for about a quarter of a million dollars and now Pope John Paul II’s car is for sale.

I just wonder how much Mary’s Fiat would go for?

I also posted about Bernadette Subaru before.

Jimmy Akin previously posted that VW was going to build the next popemobile which will be a pickup like vehicle. A papal pickup would be cool if it included a monstrance rack.

My latest parody piece about the Tith-O-Matic is up at Spero News.