Author: Steve

I’ve been getting some email from fellow bloggers who are being squashed by some ninny moderator of the VOTF message boards. Apparently the Voice of the Faithful is only interested in being the voice of the “faithful” who agree with them. One of the links on the VOTF board says, “Tell Us How You’d Support VOTF’s Mission.” I guess demanding honesty and integrity in discourse and faithfulness to Church teachings is not the kind of support they want.

This seems like a great time to dig up our rather facetious orthodoxy rating system and put VOTF in their proper place.

This Blog and Cardinal Ratzinger’s office	Does not contain nuts
	May contain nuts
	Slighty nutty bouquet with fruity overtones
	Somewhat nutty and fruity
	Flaky and nutty
	Exceedingly fruity and nutty
	Nuttier than a cheese log
Voice of the Faithful

Update 8-04-2002 – VOTF says the message boards will be down for the month of August. Do you think they were paying by the post and ran out of DNC money?

A Catholic Lite friend of mine (formerly Catholic now Episcopal) mentioned to me yesterday that he and his wife saw the movie “Stigmata.” He called it “thought-provoking.” “Did you know that there was a Gospel that the Vatican hid from the world until 1940?” he asked. I told him that was a steaming pile of garbage and attempted to give him a short lesson in the tradition that the Scripture came from. He wasn’t buying it. He said the movie showed that we don’t really need the priesthood. A movie shows us we don’t need the priesthood? That’s just absurd. I’ve heard non-Catholics using Scripture to defend their position against the necessity of the priesthood, but a crappy movie? He didn’t see a problem with that.

I’ve known many people who have grown up in the Catholic Church and turned away from it by converting to an easier path or simply following a path of their own. I fell away from the Church in college and returned about four years ago. I’m continually reminded that the catechesis I received in my youth was woefully inadequate. “Jesus loves each one of us like there was only one of us. Have some punch and cookies.” Even adult converts to Catholicism have told me their preparation in RCIA lacked depth. I would welcome any readers’ comments about their experiences in RE or RCIA. If you have lengthy comments please email me and I will post them.

Jeff Miller writes Atheist to a Theist.

Sorry if you visited earlier this evening and didn’t see any pictures – I was having web server problems. Everything is a-ok now!

From a story on foxnews.com about the Pope’s visit to Mexico.

The service included readings in seven Indian languages and included unusual borrowings from pre-Catholic Indian religious ceremonies. An Indian woman brushed herbs over the pope and other clerics, a practice originally meant to cleanse one of illness and harmful spirits.

Why is something like this happening during a Mass?