Ah, back to Politics!

Our Fearless Leader (hereinafter OFL): "If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."

Thanks for clarifying that, Mr. President. I take it from that that sending a White House limo to pick up staffers on work release from the big house is out. If I could, though, there are a few points I'd like to clarify. For instance, what about ankle bracelets? Are they OK? No, I don't mean as a fashion statement; you know, house arrest. After all, it's the People's House, right? So maybe some of those people are on suspended sentences. Yes, it is a big house, a very big house. Another thing, we were all worried, before you made that bold and forthright declaration, you know, that maybe there'd be nothing to stop you from hiring Eric Rudolph as Special White House Assistant for Women's Health. Which brings up the next point. What about pardons? Would that make someone eligible again? When could Secretary Rudolph start then? I know this has been a whole bunch of questions; how about just one more? Where does this leave Admiral Poindexter?

Update: further questions have emerged, specifically regarding when a member of the administration will be judged to have committed a crime. Is it when an indictment is handed down, an arrest is made, a guilty verdict is returned, or when all appeals have been exhausted?

Don't Make Me Choose, Benny!

So it turns out that when he was a mere cardinal, Joey Rat was not so high on the Boy Who Lived. Here's part of his reply to a German author critical of HP: "It is good that you shed light and inform us on the Harry Potter matter, for these are subtle seductions that are barely noticeable and, precisely because of that, deeply affect and corrupt the Christian faith in souls even before it could properly grow,"







Well, Benny, I'm callin you out, and yes, I am talkin to You! Cause Benny, when you messin with my man Harry, you are really messin with my shit. You got that? [I don't even know what that means, but it sounds edgy, you know?]
So, one last time,
Don't Make Me F-in' Choose, Benny!
Cause if I choose, You Lose!

There they go again...

Geez, I never meant for this blog to be all-Catholicism, all the time, but oy vey, it just gets worser and worser. As I've said elsewhere, one of the few things I've found to be proud of in my nominal, self-serving cafeteria catholicism is that at least Rome learned something from the Galileo experience, even if it took them 500 years to get around to acknowledging that, hey, he was right, and the Inquisition was wrong. Now comes Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the lead editor of the friggin' Catechism (Yes, I believe that is the official title.), with this op-ed in the NYT saying, well, scientists are wrong and we're right.

I'm inclined to agree with bitchphd, commenting in Pharyngula, that this, more than pedophilia, misogyny, and all the rest, is likely to make me overcome my inertia and up and leave the house I grew up in (up in which I grew?). However, I'll wait for official clarification from the immediate past head of the Inquisition, BXVI.

Late update: in today's letters in the NYT, there's this word of hope:

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn is hardly the person to state an official position because he was outside the mainstream of Catholic thought when as the chief editor of the official Catechism of the Catholic Church, he accepted the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis.

(Rev.) Sebastian L. Muccilli

Back to the Future with BXVI

Latest wisdom from the head of the Inquisition vicar of Christ:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Presenting the new "Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church," Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholics around the world to memorize the most common Catholic prayers in Latin.

Learning the prayers in Latin as well as in one's own language "will help Christian faithful of different languages pray together, especially when they gather for special circumstances," the pope said June 28 as he distributed the Italian version of the compendium, which included an appendix with the Latin texts of many traditional prayers, including the Sign of the Cross, the Gloria, the Hail Mary and Come, Holy Spirit.

My initial reaction? Gawd, how reactionary! But after a little thought I'm not sure it's a bad idea. Latin is, after all, the lingua franca of catholicism, if you will. Don't get me wrong; I love the mother tongue, and years of various choirs and 2 years of high school Latin only served to reinforce my feelings. I'm not sure it would mean the same to my kids, though, and certainly not my (non-papist) wife. The thing is, without the whole liturgy existing in Latin in any meaningful way, these few prayers are more like fossils in a museum, lifeless and with meaning only for the experts. And how often is the average catholic kid from any nation going to be involved in a multinational catholic "do" and be able to show off his/her all-but-forgotten mumbled Paternosher?