Tag Archives: Pittsburgh

Waking the Sleeping Killer: B-Movie Horror, the Plague, and Two Flus

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"[Y]our scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should." – Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Scott Paulsen cracks me up. 🙂

"Fellas! Come in here! Look what I just made!"

"This week, government scientists awakened a sleeping killer, when they were successful in genetically recreating an influenza virus last seen in 1918. Using preserved lung tissue samples from two soldiers and a frozen Alaskan woman, each of whom succumbed to horrible, painful suffering deaths, the team of scientists brought one of the worst killers in the history of the world back to life from a dormant state."

"Gee. What could possibly go wrong? "

Read the rest.

Fulfilling Your Sunday Obligation

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On Friday, October 21 and Saturday, October 22, 2005, a Total Catholic Education Conference, will be held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, in downtown Pittsburgh. The conference is directed at at those who share in the teaching mission of the Church, including CCD catechists, campus ministers, priests, religious and other Catholic laity. The registration guidebook is impressive in terms of both content and packaging, and sessions feature heavy hitters like Bishop Bradley, Michael Aquilina, and Kimberly and Scott Hahn.

However, the full-page announcement for Eucharistic Liturgy on Saturday at 3.30 pm, features the legend, "This Mass fulfills your Sunday obligation" and that little line was more informative to me, than all the rest of the impressive text. The late Fr. John Baptist "JB" Fernandes, S.J., impressed upon me that ‘fulfilling an obligation’ is one of the least appropriate of reasons to go to Sunday Mass. The Lord wants us to attend Mass because He loves us, and we ought to be going, because we love Him. Surely the participating Catholic educators should understand this perspective. I dearly hope so, because it would be a shame if those in their charge, were only taught the ‘obligatory’ perspective.

Would it kill the participants to attend Mass on Sunday as well? Some, if not many, may actually do so, for reasons just highlighted. That begs the question, what is the understanding of the people organizing this conference, as regards Sunday Mass? Do they think of it primarily as an obligation? Further, do they believe, that the question of ‘whether or not the obligation is fulfilled’ would be uppermost in most participants’ minds? With the surfeit of contact information available in the guidebook, whoever (and I sincerely hope that would be, if not zero, a really small number) was concerned about that, could have find out that information for themselves. Maybe the organizers were anticipating a flood of emails/phonecalls and therefore decided to be proactive – pragmatism trumped spirituality.

2005 Chamber Classic 5K

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I ran the Chamber Classic 5K in North Park this morning. All in all, I’m pretty unimpressed. First of all, I’m unimpressed with my time, 29:42, which works out to a 9:35 mile pace. Ugh. I really should be doing 9 minutes or better for a 5K race. Perhaps I haven’t been training enough lately. Then again, perhaps my sweatshirt and sweatpants impeded my performance. I definitely don’t feel like I run as well when I have to keep warm with sweats.

That’s my personal stopwatch time, by the way. I don’t have my ChampionChip time yet, and I don’t know if I’ll trust it when I do. You see, the entrance to the registration and refreshments tent was right next to the 5K finish line and the 1/2 marathon lap checkpoint. When I finished, there was no "rancher" herding me to the guy with the clippers to remove my chip. Consequently, when I went into the tent to get goodies and ask about getting my chip removed, I set off the 1/2 marathon sensor. I’m very much not alone in that, either. I saw lots of folks do the same.

The refreshments, by the way, were just about the only really worthwhile thing about this race. The spread was ample and diverse with apples, oranges, bananas, cookies, bagels, and lots of beverages.

The race was really disorganized. Nobody really knew where the starting line was because there were no signs, banners, or arches. In fact, I didn’t even see chip sensor stuff, I’m sure my chip time will be artifactually longer because there was no differentiation between when someone said "go" and when I actually crossed the starting line, not there was really any to be seen. When we actually did start, it was at least 5 minutes late. Grr.

The organizers describe the course as mostly flat with a steep incline at the beginning. Well, the steep hill part is right. The rest is flat like Dolly Parton. It’s a series of rolling hills. None are as steep as the first, but the constant up and down screws with my stride. Also, the run was through a park, but we ran on park roads, not paths. For me, that kind of defeats the prupose of running in a park. Might any of my readers know of any good 5K or 10K races that use park trails? I love running on trails. I really think Schenley Park, where I do some of my training, would be an ideal location, but I’ve never heard of any races using it.

I’ve already mentioned some of the post-race annoyances. One that affected the 1/2 marathoners more than it affected me was, again, the location of the lap checkpoint. When the 5K racers finished, they naturally milled about, caught there breath, and sought refreshments. Meanwhile, the 1/2 marathoners are trying to continue their race. It was kind of chaotic. Not only that, but the route past the 5K finish line was poorly marked and I saw more than few 1/2 marathon racers accidentally cut a large corner as they existed the parking lot we were in.

Poorly planned, poorly organized, poorly executed. It was no thrill to run this race. I doubt I’ll be doing it next year. nor will I be running the Jingle Bell Run held in North Park.

Association of [Heterodox] Pittsburgh Priests

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Jeff Miller always seems to more on top of Catholic news in Pittsburgh than me. :/ Anyhow, he mentions an article at KDKA about a press conference held by the Association of Pittsburgh Priests. They want Bishop Wuerl to voice their desire for optional priestly celibacy and ordination of women to next month’s Synod on the Eucharist in Rome. Jeff makes some good observations about better ways for these priests to spend their energy (If the post weren’t so short I’d quote bits of it for you folks). One question that he didn’t ask immediately sprang into my mind as I read the story.

Why in Heaven’s name hasn’t Bishop Wuerl laid the smackdown on this heterodox organization yet?!

Here’s another article.

"In response [to the priest shortage], the Pittsburgh Association of Priests — a group of priests and lay people — is proposing a controversial conversation. Bishop Donald Wuerl goes to a three-week meeting with church leaders in Rome next month."

"When he’s there, some local priests want him to discuss two very radical ideas [optional priestly celibacy and women’s ordination]."

For the record, the idea of married clergy is not radical. Priestly celibacy in the Latin Rite is a discipline, not a doctrine. The ordination of women, however, is a theological impossibility.

Yet another article.

"Along with the priests’ letter to Bishop Wuerl the group also presented him with a petition signed by more than 28,000 Catholics backing their concerns."

*sigh* 28,000 poorly catechized Catholics. Please feed Christ’s sheep, Your Excellency.

Update 10/03/05: Apparently Australia has a similar problem with heterodox priests.