When I was a kid, cults, particularly satanic ones, were the frequent subject of
after-school specials. My generation generally regarded them as we did the warnings
about LSD being given out in the guise of candy, that is as parental worrying gone
overboard.
I’ve conscientiously avoided blogging about the satanic cult phenomenon in Italy
until now. I thought it was overreaction to a bunch of troublesome teenagers. Honestly,
I’m still not entirely convinced that that’s not the case. However, the story, for
whatever reason, creeped me out and sent chills up my spine.
Alarm
in Italy as growth of Satanism creates “market” for consecrated hosts
ROME, Italy, Jul. 15, 2004 (CNA) – Fr. Aldo Buonaiuto, director of an “emergency
help line” that assists young people wanting to get out of satanic cults, expressed
alarm this week at the growth of Satanism, which has created a “market” for consecrated
hosts in Italy.
The New American Bible raises banality to an art form. The Good As New Bible is
a sin against the Holy Spirit.
A reader send me a link to the following story. By now I am sure many people have
seen the story about the “Good as New” Bible translation by a former Baptist
Minister. The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams is reportedly backing this
version and has said it is a “vehicle for thinking.”This version is pretty funny and I would have a hard time coming up with a better
parody then was achieved. The St. Paul quotes are strait from Bizarro world.
Here’s a completely different take on the current communion debate that’s all the
rage these days.
Staying
in the Pew at Communion Time
I’ve come to believe that part of the problem has to do with the unremitting insistence
on frequent Communion. I will pause for a moment as 90% of my readers emit gasps
of horror at what I’ve just written. I think we’ve hammered frequent Communion (a
wonderful thing, in itself) into the people’s heads so hard and have at the same
time failed so miserably to catechize them on the full richness of this Sacrament’s
meaning, that now we find Communion time resembling (as one of my scandalized Mexican
parishioners described the English-language Masses) a stampede of cattle, leaving
behind empty pew after empty pew as everyone surges forward to get a Host. And if
they can’t have a Host, you damn sure better give them a nice blessing because it’s
Communion time and, you know, everybody has to get something. I’ve had people go
to confession for not having gone to Communion even though they were present for
an entire Mass. It is not a sin not to go to Communion. But people have been led
to believe that it is. Together with the misunderstood insistence on frequent Communion,
a poor understanding of “active participation in the Liturgy” must shoulder
a fair share of the blame.
Ordination of actively homosexual priests is wrong, but at least it’s an issue that intelligent individuals can debate rationally. Having regular pet attendance at communion, however, is absolutely ridiculous. I wonder how widely this practice is considered acceptable by the Anglican hierarchy.
Houses of Worship Are Reaching Out To a Flock of Pets
Purr Box Goes to Communion At St. Francis Episcopal; A Group ‘Bark Mitzvah’
For the first time in 10 years, Mary Wilkinson went to church one Sunday in January. She sat in a back pew at St. Francis Episcopal Church in Stamford, Conn., flipping through a prayer book and listening intently to the priest’s sermon.