The Curt Jester

Considering that Pentecost is often mentioned as the birthday of the Church it is not surprising to hear a homily referencing the age of the Church. Today I heard the same and like I hear all to often it involves bad Pentecost math in that the Church is referred to as being 2,000 plus years old.

Now I can understand a bit of shorthand in referring to the Church as being 2,000 years old, but not 2,000 plus. The error seems to count the birth of the Church from the birth of Jesus and not Pentecost after his death. While there is some lack of precision on the year Jesus was born (theories ranging from roughly 1–7 BC) any such recalculation still does not make the Church 2000 plus years old in the year 2013. Now this is no big deal, just one of those little things that annoy me.

Still I wonder if in the years ahead if the Church will try to set some date as a 2,000 year anniversary of the Church? Jimmy Akin had an interesting piece this year exploring if we could know when Jesus died. He sets it with some precision as 3:00 p.m on Friday, April 3, A.D. 33. So in 20 years we really could be saying the Church was 2,000 years old.

The other bit of bad statistical math involved in the homily was the priest saying there were 2 Billion Catholics. The actual figure is somewhat over 1.2 Billion.

Since the priest wasn’t interested in precision of numbers I put in a donation envelope that said $20 on the outside, but contained a check for $5 inside. Well not really.

Speaking of math, here is something from post from 2006 The Mathsiah.

“Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division;”

“Be fruitful and multiply”

“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log of x+1 that is in your own eye?”

“Go and sine no more.”

Over a week ago Cardinal Dolan had blogged on the topic “All Are Welcome!”

My buddy Freddie from across the street and I were playing outside. Mom called me for supper.

“Can Freddie stay and eat supper with us?” I asked.

“He’d sure be welcome, if it’s okay with his mom and dad,” she replied.

“Thanks, Mrs. Dolan,” Freddie replied. “I’m sure it’s okay, because mom and dad are out, and the babysitter was just going to make me a sandwich whenever I came in.”

I was so proud and happy. Freddie was welcome in our house, at our table. We both rushed in and sat down.

“Freddie, glad you’re here,” dad remarked, “but … looks like you and Tim better go wash your hands before you eat.”

Simple enough … common sense … you are a most welcome and respected member now of our table, our household, dad was saying, but, there are a few very natural expectations this family has. Like, wash your hands!…

So it is with the supernatural family we call the Church: all are welcome!

…

So, for example, the Church loves, welcomes, and respects the alcoholic … but would not condone his binge;

The Church loves, welcomes, and respects a prominent business leader…but would not condone his or her failure to pay a just wage to a migrant worker;

The Church loves, welcomes, and respects a young couple in love … but would challenge their decision to “live together” before marriage;

The Church loves, welcomes, and respects a woman who has had an abortion, and the man who fathered the child and encouraged the abortion … but would be united with them in mourning and regretting that deadly choice;

The Church loves, welcomes, and respects a woman or man with a same-sex attraction … while reminding him or her of our clear teaching that, while the condition of homosexuality is no sin at all, still, God’s teaching is clear that sexual acts are reserved for a man and woman united in the lifelong, life-giving, faithful, loving bond of marriage.

The Church loves, welcomes, and respects wealthy people, while prophetically teaching the at-times-uncomfortable virtue of justice and charity towards the poor.

We are part of a Church where, yes, all are welcome, but, no, not a Church of anything goes.

The Cardinal did make some good points, although he constant use of elipses made his post confusing in parts and really could have been better written.

So of course the result of this blog post is that there were a group of protesters outside of St. Patrick’s.

Angry and greedy rich people were mad that the cardinal for talking as if greed was sin and equating them as having dirty hands. Oh wait that wasn’t the group.

It was alcoholics who were mad that the cardinal for talking as if alcoholism was sin and equating them as having dirty hands. Oh wait that wasn’t the group.

No of course it was an LGBT group with protest signs and hands dipped in ash.

Honestly my first reaction was “What a bunch of drama queens” although that thought was not intentionally pejorative and I don’t mean it in a pejorative sense here. Still those supporting homosexual acts are very good at staging events to get the media’s attention. In this case we are suppose to believe that for example that while the Catechism says the Church “has always declared that ”homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” it was the Cardinal talking about washing your hands that was so greatly offensive. This is just another staged controversy looking for coverage and rewarded by the automatic media coverage.

Of course we got headlines like Cardinal Dolan Denies Catholics Entry at Cathedral Because of Dirty Hands and Gay Catholic Group Threatened With Arrest During Silent Protest. The typical lack of concern for truth.

Apparently if you bring in protest signs inside to where the President is speaking it is fine if you are arrested, but if you do the same thing inside a Catholic church that is totally unreasonable. Although they did not in fact attempt this. This is all very much like the Rainbow Sash movement that use to (or still does?) make a sash of themselves on Pentecost Sunday.

It is sad how activists and the media totally distort this story. Still “What is truth” and the person who said that washed their hands of it.

See also:

• Pat Archbold at NCRegister on this.

Not from the Onion.

An anarchist group has targeted prominent Roman Catholics in Spain using bombs hidden in boxes of sex toys.

Two devices were sent by the anti-clerical Pro Sex Toys group, according to Spain’s EFE News One agency, concealed amidst vibrators.

They targeted the archbishop of Pamplona, Francisco Perez, and the headteacher of a private school belonging to the ultra-conservative Legionnaires of Christ movement in Madrid.

One bomb exploded in a postal sorting office, leaving a member of staff with slight injuries.

“Please accept our apologies,” the group said in an email sent to an anarchist website at the beginning of last month. “Next time we won’t fail.”

The archbishop told EFE that he vaguely recalled receiving a package that contained powder that police removed. “We didn’t give it much importance, but later it was said to be a bomb,” he said.

The same group is believed to be behind a number of other attempted bombings.

Recently a bomb inside a pressure cooker left outside a public prosecutor’s office was detonated by bomb squad officers.

Another bomb containing a gas canister, shrapnel and explosive powder planted in Madrid’s Almudena Cathedral also failed to explode.

The anarchists, who use other names such as the Artisans Club for New Uses for Coffee, claimed to have made a bomb out of an espresso coffee machine packed with gunpowder and shrapnel that was planted at a bank branch, though they did not reveal where.

Police in Spain believe the group probably only has five members, but authorities have expressed concern that extremist groups could take advantage of widespread disillusionment as unemployment in the country hits 26 percent. (source)

Thankfully they are rather inept bombing anarchists.

Another story from last week.

BRUSSELS, April 23, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In an astonshing display of gentleness in the face of a vile attack, the head of the Catholic Church in Belgium, Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, remained calmly seated with eyes closed in prayer Tuesday as four topless women attacked him with shouts and curses and doused him with water.

It’s not the first time the bishop has been attacked for standing up for the Church’s teachings on homosexuality and expressing his concern for those who live the homosexual lifestyle.

The incident took place at the ULB University in Brussels where the archbishop was participating in a debate on blasphemy laws.

The four women, representing the pro-abortion and homosexual group FEMEN, took to the stage where they disrobed to reveal black-painted slogans on their bare chests and backs, such as ‘my body my rules,’ and ‘anus dei is coming.’ They also held signs reading ‘stop homophobia’. The women doused the archbishop with water from bottles formed in the image of the Virgin Mary.

For most of the attack, which lasted a number of minutes before the women could be forced off s>tage, Archbishop Leonard sat drenched with water with eyes closed in prayer. After the ordeal, the archbishop kissed the image of the Virgin Mary on one of the water bottles that was used in the attack. Le Soir reports that one of the interveners said of the archbishop: “He was very calm and maintained a position of prayer. I have to believe he was praying for us.” Story and censored photos

And to round out the other stories, one from today.

A female student at Carnegie Mellon dressed up as the Pope from the waist up and naked from the waist down passed out condoms to other students at an annual art school parade.

To make it even slightly more offensive, she shaved her hair down there in the shape of a cross. Now clearly, this was meant to be offensive and in your face.

The Diocese has asked CMU to take action against this kind of hateful behavior but CMU said they’re unsure if their community standards were violated.

Excuse me?

Bishop David Zubik said he understands that “when we’re growing up we do stupid things” but he added that the behavior of this young woman crossed the line.

CMU issued a statement saying they’ll continue to review the incident. This is purely hate-filled. There’s no other explanation. Can you think of what the college would do if this type of speech were aimed at Jews, Muslims, or any other group for that matter.

If this doesn’t fall beneath their “community standards” it’s because they perhaps don’t have any. Creative Minority Report

Wow I am going to have to dig more into St. Thomas Aquinas to learn how to refute screaming water-dousing topless lesbians and a half-naked condom-dispensing women dressed as the pope. Or remember “Eight feminists flashed their breasts in the heart of Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral on Tuesday to celebrate Pope Benedict XVI’s shock resignation announcement.”

Phil Lawyer posts at CatholicCulture.org.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Graham tells me something that I hadn’t heard about Boston Marathon bombing. As dozens of victims were sprawled across Boylston Street, many of them in danger of death, Catholic priests came running to the scene—and were turned away.

Doctors and nurses were welcome at the bombing scene. Firefighters and police officers were welcome. But Catholic priests, who might have offered the solace of the sacraments, were not.

”Catholics need not apply.” That slogan was familiar in Boston years ago, before Irish and Italian immigrants took over control of the city. Now, after decades of decline in Catholic influence , the attitude has returned. One priest who was barred from Boylston Street remarked that in the past a priest was admitted anywhere. “That’s changed,” he said. “Priests are no longer considered to be emergency responders.”

Unless police officers in Boston are uniquely hostile to priests (a distinct possibility), the tide has turned very quickly on this question. On September 11, 2001, there were Catholic priests at the staging areas near the World Trade Center, giving absolution to firefighters before they rushed into the doomed building: mass-producing saints!

Unable to provide spiritual help to those whose lives were endangered, the priests in Boston retreated to a nearby church, were they “set up a table with water and oranges and bananas to serve people.” Doesn’t that nicely capture what a once-Catholic, now-secular culture expects from the Church? It’s not essential for priests to administer the sacraments; in fact it’s unwelcome. But if they could just stay out of the way, and give people something to eat, that would be fine.

If true this is extremely sad but not surprising. Just another move into the “bodies without souls” direction. First responders now can not be last rite responders. I wonder how other clergy were treated? I remember that wonderful scene at the start of The Apostle with Robert Duvall involving this.

Jennifer Graham captures the problem well:

But it is a poignant irony that Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy who died on Boylston Street, was a Catholic who had received his first Communion just last year. As Martin lay dying, priests were only yards away, beyond the police tape, unable to reach him to administer last rites…

On a related note I would wonder about the “Catholics need not apply”, there is the semi-famous “No Irish Need Apply” that might well be a historical myth in America imported from experience abroad.

The fact that Irish vividly “remember” NINA signs is a curious historical puzzle. There are no contemporary or retrospective accounts of a specific sign at a specific location. No particular business enterprise is named as a culprit. No historian, archivist, or museum curator has ever located one; no photograph or drawing exists.

Still you don’t need physical signs to harbor that attitude as the Obama administration has shown.