Humor

(REUTERS/Max Rossi)

Pope Benedict XVI kneels during a prayer at St John’s Cathedral in Warsaw (REUTERS/Max Rossi)

Darn that pectoral cross always sets off alarms! (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

Nuns cheer for Pope Benedict XVI as the ‘papamobile’ passes by in the old town of Warsaw (REUTERS/Katarina Stoltz)

‘papamobile’ – I like it. Though the second nun in the picture doesn’t appear to have had her morning coffee.

Even Jesus waves to the Pope.(AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

"Totus Tuba" (REUTERS/Max Rossi)

On a serious note Br Lawrence posted an excellent reflection by Blessed Jacobus de Voragine on the Ascension.

James talks about transferring Holy Days of obligation, so I don’t have to

Pope Benedict doing his Goldfinger Oddjob imitation flicks off
his steel Zucchetto at a dissenting theologian heckling him.

I was going to post more on The Da Vinci Code nonsense, but I had a visit paid to me by Silas the albino monkey assassin who threatened me. I figured he was from Opus Dei since he carried a copy of the The Way with him and said he would whip me with his own devotional Flagellum. So Dan Brown must have gotten this little detail wrong. Opus Dei definitely has no monks in their organization albino or otherwise, but I have heard no disclaimers about albino monkey assassins.

During the last couple of days the majority of Catholic blogs have linked to negative reviews of The Da Vinci Code movie, kind of a gloat bloat has appeared. It of course makes us quite happy that the film is a stinker since less people will be influenced negatively by it, or that the film makes Dan Brown’s propositions even dumber (if that’s possible).

I think something else is going on though. What if Methodist Ron Howard took one for the team? After all is he a quite capable, though not great, director. What if he purposely gave the movie the Springtime for Hitler treatment? That he purposely made the movie bad. By doing the movie himself he insures that no one else will make it anytime soon. He also has some great plausible deniability when it comes to doing this. After his remake of the "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" people are quite willing to accept that he is quite capable of a stinker. So thank you Ron Howard.

Update: I guess I wasn’t the only one thinking this. Amy Welborn posted a comment from Jules called "Springtime for Constantine"

CathCon really does find the most amazing pictures. This one is a from a "Find Fight Follow" youth Mass in Vienna sanctioned by the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna. Having seen Pink Floyd and Yes in concert I don’t mind light shows. But as a recall the light show at Calvary was everything going dark. Maybe they can borrow the giant floating pig from Pink Floyd’s Animal tour. It would be appropriate for the reading when Peter has the dream about nothing being unclean. Now if you are going to do the rock concert stick at Mass shouldn’t everyone pull out their lighters during the consecration? Of course instead of just holding out a lighter in front of them they should hold in above their heads in a Pentecost imitation. During the kiss of peace the priest could crowd-surf.

namespace DVC
{
class DaVinciCode : HolyBloodHolyGrail
{
// Set values, later to be overridden by Dan Brown method
bool monksInOpusDei = false;
bool jesusMarriedMaryMagdalene = false;
bool existenceOfPrioryOfZion = false;
bool bibleCollatedByConstantine = false;
bool nicaeaCreatedDivinityOfChrist = false;
bool gospelsLaterEditedToSupportClaims = false;
bool cupMissingFromLastSupper = false;
bool saintJohnNotInPicture = false;
public void Book()
{
while (peopleWillingToBelieveAnything && christianBashingAcceptable)
{
bookSales++;
movieHype++;
danBrownsBankAccount++;
historicalAccuracy--;
artHistoryAccuracy--;
skepticism--;
badWriting++;
if (asLongAsItIsNotTheVirginMary)
divineFeminineSupport++;
mainStreamMediaChallengeCredibility = false;
string excuse = "It's a fictional book";
string action = "Spend hours writing to debunking books complaining that "
+ excuse;
bool seeContradictionSpendingTimeDefendingFiction = false;
foreach (media outlet in mainStreamMedia)
{
bool freePublicity = true;
bool notPointOutObviousFlaws = true;
bool dontOffendMuslimsAtAllCosts = true;
bool christianBashingOkayThough = true;
bool misrepresentOpusDei = true;
bool askIsJusticeScaliaAMember = true;
}
}
}
}
}

It is nice to see Jesuits holding the line.

[See Roamin Roman for the rest of the story]

Gerald has found a story of a curious gift being given.

Since the start of 2006, the Austrian Diocese of Graz has begun sending a curious gift to all young people who celebrate their 18th birthday: a USB hard drive with information about the Catholic Church.

According to the Kath.net news agency, the portable hard drives contain information about the Diocese of Graz presented in a manner that is attractive to young people, as well as texts about the Catholic faith and a series of basic Christian prayers.

Gerald later updated his post to list the what the contents of the USB drive are. Judging by the limited comments the flash drive must require all of 512k. As one commenter said on his site "I’m curious as to what type of formation they provide for the first seventeen years." To say the least the contents are nothing beyond extremely basic information that should already be well-known by any truly catechized Catholic. Though judging from some of the wackiness that has occurred in this diocese before catechized Catholic are in short supply. St. Paul talked about "I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready," Though a diocese giving a lifetime supply of milk is not exactly spiritually nourishing.

I posted before about a Bible shaped thumbdrive and wished at the time for a Catholic version.

Now a Catholic version like the RSV-CE with the Catechism and the documents of Vatican II with a good search program would be pretty cool. Though maybe I will market a Spirit of Vatican II USB drive. I should get a good markup since it would consist of a connector and a case and I wouldn’t actually need any flash memory for VII documents since they wouldn’t know the difference.

Revisiting the subject I thought of possibly some cool specifically Catholic USB flash drives.

Introducing the St. Catherine of Siena USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Flash Drive!

The detachable head is a third degree relic since it has been touched to the relic of the head of St. Catherine of Siena.

Each statue flash drive comes with the Dialog of Catherine of Siena and many of her letters are included.

St. Catherine of Siena statue drives are available in 2, 4, and 8 gig enough to store all your documents including your Catechism, Bible, and Summa Theologica.

So whether you are a Dominican or just a geek with POD sensitivities you know you want the St. Catherine of Siena statue flash drive with detachable head for you collection!

You usually carry around Holy Water with you so why not also store all your data with only one device. Our Holy Water is especially formulated with water that won’t short out your keyboard or computer when you toss Holy Water on them after your computer has crashed once again or you need to exorcise some spyware.

The Bishop of Leeds, the Rev Arthur Roche, admitted defeat this week when he told teenagers from across the diocese that his attempts at composing and singing a rap song had come to nothing. He told hundreds of delegates to the ‘Plugged In’ series of Easter reflections that he had hoped to be able to inspire them through music, but after getting the thumbs down from his great nephews, had decided to write them a booklet on going out and spreading the Word of God in their communities instead.
[Via Relapsed Catholic]

Well if his nephew didn’t like it does that make his attempt a bum rap? Though it is a probably a good thing that it didn’t work out or we could possible see a strange budding career of a bishop wearing a pectoral cross along side his pectoral Mercedes Benz medallion. And how would you a address a rapping bishop? Your Eminemcence? Would rapping bishops be a sign of the end times invoking the Rap-ture?