The Ark and The Dove

Attention potential combox witnesses

The Washington Post is holding an online discussion series entitled "On Faith," which has as the topic for this week the relationship between religion and sexuality.  Judging from the comments, they are sorely in need of your perspective should you have the generosity and patience to leave a comment.  I know the internet is perhaps not as congenial as face-to-face, but it is the modern agora.  I know that of course you will be very polite, but in terms of advice, I would suggest trying to avoid using too many technical terms of Catholic theology without explanation because most readers will probably have a different theological vocabulary than you are used to.

The format is that the paper selects a question from a reader and has a number of panelists write a short essay in answer, upon which readers can post comments, much like on a blog.  Here's the link.

I notice that Anglican Bible scholar Marcus Borg's essay has the fewest number of comments on it but a very interesting slant - he has brought the idea of sacramentality into it.

New fad for celebrities

While I suppose it's good that Hollywood celebrities are starting to recognize that they have spiritual needs, unfortunately the trend, according to this article, is that more and more of them are turning to Scientology.

How about praying for them to follow Sly's example instead?

Postscript: hm...why is it that I couldn't find a single MSM article on Stallone's return?  Maybe a religion that "at first glance appears to be a series of self-help courses but is based on the idea that we're all immortal, 75-million-year-old space aliens in transient human bodies" is just more along the lines of the sensationalistic sort of thing the papers are looking for.

Look at that -

I was flipping through my news sites on the internet and I happened to notice that Fox News has an article written by a priest explaining from a natural law (there's that again!) standpoint as well as a religious how pornography is bad (and reader responses, with Fr. Morris' comments).

Update: it seems that Fr. Jonathan Morris, L.C., is a regular contributor to Fox News.  What a welcome change from the priests and religious the cable news channels seem usually to tap.

We can rebuild him...

We have the technology.

Archaeology spiced up by chili pepper find

From the Post: Inhabitants of the New World had chili peppers and the makings of taco chips 6,100 years ago, according to new research that examined the bowl-scrapings of people sprinkled throughout Central America and the Amazon basin.

Upcoming questions on the research agenda -- and this is not a joke -- include: Did they have salsa? When did they get beer?

As a result of these findings, chili pepper use is known to date back further than that of any other spice used in the Americas.

Hey! I know him!

Better vocation news.  This is practically in my backyard, but I found it fairly circuitously, geographically speaking - from the Curt Jester.

Fr. Greg Shaffer says,

As you may or may not know, we started a basketball team of Washington priests and seminarians two years ago called “DC ‘Hood” (short for DC priesthood). We have played 11 games against 8 different parish teams of coaches, teachers, and teens. Thanks be to God, it has been growing and growing, averaging about 200 fans a game. The games have been great nights of fun for families while promoting vocations.

The Catholic Standard wrote an article about DC ‘Hood a few months ago. The sales manager of the Washington Wizards read the article and generously called the Archdiocese to see if DC ‘Hood ever wanted to play at the Verizon Center after a Wizards game. Umm, yeah! Thanks, Wizards!!

So DC ‘Hood will be playing at the Verizon Center (against CYO coaches after the Wizards 3:30 pm game versus the Chicago Bulls) on Sun., April 15. After our game, there will a game b/w CYO 11th and 12th grade co-ed all-stars; the winners of the two (16 minute) games will play in a “championship” game.

This event is intended to a) promote vocations, and b) raise funds for the CYO / OYM (Catholic Youth Organization/Office of Youth Ministry). We are helping CYO to sell tickets to the Wizards game; they receive a generous portion of the proceeds.

I personally will be purchasing a large amount of tickets the week of Feb. 11. Can you help me? The tickets are $ 25 (Upper Level B), $30 (Upper Level A), and $85 (Lower Level). Buying two $25 tickets, for example, would help greatly! Even if you’re not able or interested in going, can you make a donation to our cause? The more tickets we sell, the more we promote the priesthood and raise funds for our youth.

You can order tickets online at www.verizoncenter.com/cyo or, for donations only, mail a check to me directly at: Fr. Greg Shaffer, St. Andrew Apostle parish, 11600 Kemp Mill Rd., Silver Spring, MD 20902 (I will give your tickets to kids in the school or parish).

The Moon Rulz #1

Hahahahahaha

How come only in Boston did people flip out upon seeing shoddily constructed Lite-Brites appear in their city?  Even I recognized what this was.  But then, I am younger than 35 years old.

Insensitive sensitivity training

It wasn't this bad at Maryland.  At least not how I remember it.

More march digestion

At the risk of sounding like I'm having a case of march envy, what do we have to do to get noticed?

Perhaps if we had more has-been celebrities, stepped up our efforts in the giant puppet department, and tried to spray-paint anarchy symbols on the capitol.

On second thought, no.  Although M.C. Hammer is welcome to come to any pro-life march as far as I am concerned.

Mass for Life homily

Here is the homily, given by the University of Maryland Catholic Student Center's own Fr. Bill Byrne.  Thanks for the link, Therese.