Author: Richard Chonak

He expressed remorse through his attorney, pledged to help plaintiffs in their suits against the archdiocese, and got twelve-to-fifteen in the Commonwealth’s maximum security prison.

“It’s clear in (the Gospel of) Luke that all generations will call Mary blessed, and we really haven’t done that,” [Professor Beverly] Gaventa said. “What we’re saying is that attention we have given Mary is very negative, rather than the positive attention she might deserve.”

Thanks to Mark Sullivan for spotting this article about Roman Catholics discovering the Eastern churches.

Even old slanders against Christianity. As you may know, back in Roman days, Christians were sometimes suspected of eating human flesh:

Under a veil of suspicion, the Christian Eucharist was rumored to be a covert cannibalistic feast. To the uninitiated, the transubstantiation of the body and blood of Christ into bread and wine seemed a metaphor for cannibalism, and consequently Christians were intermittently persecuted by officials, or accosted by mobs, for their “irreligion.” The worship of Christ was rumored to have been the cause of plagues, drought, or some barbarian invasion of the Empire.
(from an article on “Pagan Influences in Christian Culture”)

Now, Britain’s Channel Four television is going to give the broadcast audience a real-life counterpart of that old myth: some so-called “artist” from Beijing eating human flesh as part of his performance. (British TV is oh so liberated, don’t-cha-know.) And the guy claims to be a Christian too, so he seems to be fulfilling the old pagan slander himself. Fortunately, the prominent Catholic MP Ann Widdecombe was around to properly sum up this grotesquerie:

“Jesus Christ said suffer the little ones to come unto me, not that they should be eaten for public entertainment. This programme sounds hideous.”

It’s disturbing that this sick show is happening at a time when the regime in Beijing has been increasing its persecution of Christians. Is it thinkable that the whole episode might even be a setup arranged by the regime for propaganda purposes? We can expect that after the show airs in Britain, authorities in China will at least use it as propaganda against Christians and smear them as “dangerous cultists” as they did the Falun Gong followers.

Here’s a little grist for the speculation mill: a biographical article about apostolic administrator Bp. Richard Lennon in Boston’s The Pilot mentions that he studied Math at Boston College for two years before he transferred to the seminary. Does this tell us anything about him? As an old math major myself, I figure that at their best, math devotees can be patient and clear-thinking, moved more by principles than by personalities, musically inclined, and with a firm sense of conviction. (People who don’t agree will consider them stubborn and opinionated.) We shall see.