But then she got religion, and after warning everyone that within 20 years Italian teachers would be vetted and chosen by the Vatican, she got to the punchline: “But then, within 20 years the Pope will be where he ought to be — in Hell, tormented by great big poofter devils, and very active ones, not passive ones.”

The joke may have gone done well with her crowd on the Piazza Navona in Rome, but not with Italian prosecutors. She is facing prosecution for “offending the honour of the sacred and inviolable person” of Benedict XVI.

Unfortunately, the story is from the London Times so the typical slant is written right into the story as though it’s news.  And unfortunately, the commenters are London Times readers…

Benedict’s been ridiculed even since his days as the leader of the CDF, and I am sure he really doesn’t care one way or the other about what an Italian Russell Brand says.  But, it is good to see a bit of parity…Muslim countries will string you up for saying something about Mohammed that they don’t like.  What’s good for the goose…

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Just imagine for a moment if anyone in the blogosphere or in right-wing talkradio had every used a comment about lipstick and Mrs. Clinton in the same sentence.  Heck, for that matter, consider what happened when David Schuster talked about the Clinton campaign “pimping” Chelsea…

Sadly I predict no MSM attention to this statement.

Oh yeah, here’s the video.

That xxxxx has the equivalent of a junior high school education in religion is glaring. He understands little about the history and function of the Catholic Church and even less about the place of the Eucharist in the lives of Catholics. When I told him that many have laid their lives on the line to protect the Blessed Sacrament, he recoiled in disbelief, saying, “Really? People really do that!?”

This is one of the interesting revelations from the interview.  He walked away from religion at 14 and it becomes clear he’s never taken any time to study it; in the Lutheran denomination, his heritage, there is certainly a history surrounding the Eucharist, even though that denomination’s understanding of the Eucharist is incomplete.  Yet he doesn’t know this.  He’s a scientist, but without studying something he has discounted it entirely (and don’t start on me…there are things I refect out of hand without studying them, but I never claimed to be a scientist.)

“Religion,” he continued, “has been selling everybody a bill of goods for so many years; it’s about time somebody spoke up and said that it’s a load of nonsense.”

I decided to call his bluff. “Has Christianity contributed anything to humanity?” I asked him.

“Well,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, “there is this general property of religion — it’s great at building community. Religion has been a good thing for many individuals; it has brought them together and given them comfort. But over all, religion … holds back humanity.”

What, I asked, about the Church’s role in founding the first Western hospitals, universities, banks and even many breakthroughs in science? He interrupted me, irate and incredulous:

“No, people made those contributions to Western Civilization.”

That the Church was involved in the very foundations of our Western culture is, according to Myers, irrelevant.

“That’s like saying,” he continued, “that because for so many years people got smallpox, smallpox is to be credited for all the virtue men have done.”

As I talked with Myers I was struck by an irony: For a scientist whose job it is to observe cause and effect, he has a poor understanding of the cause, Catholicism, and its effects on world culture. He does not see Christianity as an elevating force in the world, but rather as a strange superstition — akin to banging a pot to scare away the moon.

The Curt Jester has an excellent rebutt to this portion of the interview:

It really makes me sorry for him that his hatred of Christianity has destroyed any vestige of objectivity.  Say for example somebody asked me.

“Do you think science has contributed to humanity?  What about science’s role in developing medicine, technology, and helping us to come to a greater understanding of the universe?”

“No, people made those contributions to Western Civilization.”

I would deserve a good slap to my head for such an answer.

Perhaps the answer here is that there is not any true objectivity, although “science” has claimed the sole ownership of objectivity.

So, what to do. I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage…but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address.

Brilliant, he calls it a “communion ceremony.”  Truly he knows what he’s up against.  Also note how courageous and outspoken he is.  Doesn’t have the guts to try and get Communion himself but instead throws out hyperbole about the local Church having stakes already prepared for him.  Great publicity stunt anyway.  Bill Donohue has to get his say in, of course:

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded as follows:

“The…blog can be accessed from the university’s website. The university has a policy statement on this issue which says that the ‘Contents of all electronic pages must be consistent with University of Minnesota policies, local, state and federal laws.’ One of the school’s policies, ‘Code of Conduct,’ says that ‘When dealing with others,’ faculty et al. must be ‘respectful, fair and civil.’ Accordingly, we are contacting the President and the Board of Regents to see what they are going to do about this matter. Because the university is a state institution, we are also contacting the Minnesota legislature.”

Bill Donohue does a good job here of being measured and reasonable.  Not reacting with anger and hyperbole (as the prof did) but rather simply say it’s time to call the university system to follow through with their stated policies.

Meanwhile, I hope priests all over the country are aware of this and are reminding their EMHCs to make sure everyone consumes the hosts they’re given.  It’s a pipe dream, but it seems this would be a great time for the Bishops to temporarily stop using EMHCs altogether and instead have only ordinary ministers (priests, deacons, and acolytes, for you non-Catholic readers) distributing Communion.

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program – a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium – reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of “yellowcake” – the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment – was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam’s nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What’s now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad – using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

“Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq,” said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called “dirty bomb” – a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material – it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.

The yellowcake wasn’t the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.

Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a weapon, according to the official. Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.

Move along, nothing to see here.  A dictatorial madman just had the means to terrorize his own people or the people of another country.

The Eucharist is a small bread wafer blessed by a priest. According to Catholics, the wafer becomes the Body of Christ once blessed and is to be consumed immediately after a minister passes it out to churchgoers. Cook claims he planned to consume it, but first wanted to show it to a fellow student senator he brought to Mass who was curious about the Catholic faith.

“When I received the Eucharist, my intention was to bring it back to my seat to show him,” Cook said. “I took about three steps from the woman distributing the Eucharist and someone grabbed the inside of my elbow and blocked the path in front of me. At that point I put it in my mouth so they’d leave me alone and I went back to my seat and I removed it from my mouth.”

A church leader was watching, confronted Cook and tried to recover the sacred bread. Cook said she crossed the line and that’s why he brought it home with him.

“She came up behind me, grabbed my wrist with her right hand, with her left hand grabbed my fingers and was trying to pry them open to get the Eucharist out of my hand,” Cook said, adding she wouldn’t immediately take her hands off him despite several requests. Diocese of Orlando spokeswoman Carol Brinati said she was not aware of anyone touching Cook. She released a statement Thursday: “… a Catholic Campus Ministry student representative filed a complaint with the Student Union regarding the behavior of the two young men. A Student Government Representative called Catholic Campus Ministry to apologize for this disruption.”

Receiving the Eucharist on the tongue while kneeling before the pope will become the norm at papal liturgies, said the Vatican’s liturgist.

While current norms allow the faithful to receive the Eucharist in the hand while standing, Pope Benedict XVI has indicated a preference for the more traditional practice, said Msgr. Guido Marini, master of papal liturgical ceremonies.

Kneeling and receiving Communion on the tongue highlights “the truth of the real presence (of Christ) in the Eucharist, helps the devotion of the faithful and introduces the sense of mystery more easily,” he said in a June 26 interview with the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.

Pastorally speaking, he said “it is urgent to highlight and recover” these aspects of the sacredness and mystery of the Eucharist in modern times.

  If we’re going to highlight and recover it, shouldn’t that also be done at the grassroots level?

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merica remains a nation of believers, but a new survey finds most Americans don’t feel their religion is the only way to eternal life – even if their faith tradition teaches otherwise.

The findings, revealed Monday in a survey of 35,000 adults, can either be taken as a positive sign of growing religious tolerance, or disturbing evidence that Americans dismiss or don’t know fundamental teachings of their own faiths.

Among the more startling numbers in the survey, conducted last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: 57 percent of evangelical church attenders said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life, in conflict with traditional evangelical teaching.

…

Another finding almost defies explanation: 21 percent of self-identified atheists said they believe in God or a universal spirit, with 8 percent “absolutely certain” of it.

…

More than most groups, Catholics break with their church, and not just on issues like abortion and homosexuality. Only six in 10 Catholics described God as “a person with whom people can have a relationship” – which the church teaches – while three in 10 described God as an “impersonal force.”

“The statistics show, more than anything else, that many who describe themselves as Catholics do not know or understand the teachings of their church,” said Denver Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput. “Being Catholic means believing what the Catholic church teaches. It is a communion of faith, not simply of ancestry and family tradition. It also means that the church ought to work harder at evangelizing its own members.”

The Archibishop nails it…poor catechesis once agains rears its ugly head.

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Speaking this afternoon at a Planned Parenthood conference, Barack emphasized his support for a woman’s right to choose. He also criticized the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Gonzales v. Carhart to uphold a ban on late-term abortions.

Calling the decision a “concerted effort to steadily roll back the hard-won rights of American women,” Barack reminded the audience that with one more court vacancy, the conservative justices would overturn a woman’s right to choose.

As the New York Times Caucus blog reported, in one of his first acts as president, Barack would sign the Freedom of Choice Act – a bill that would guarantee abortion rights for women.

Barack also criticized the Senate’s confirmation process that allowed Chief Justice Roberts to sail to an easy confirmation.

“He loves his wife. He’s good to his dog,” Barack joked, referring to the fluffy answers the Senate Judiciary Committee allowed Roberts to give. We need to use a different standard to evaluate justices, Barack said:

We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.

US President George W. Bush arrived on Friday for a special audience with Pope Benedict XVI, who is returning the hospitality he enjoyed at the White House in April. Swiss Guards in their striped regalia stood to attention as Bush stepped out of a black limousine with his wife Laura and was warmly greeted by the head of the Roman Catholic Church outside the medieval St John’s Tower.

The US leader could be heard exclaiming “what an honour” as he clasped the pontiff’s hands in his.

US Ambassador to the Vatican Mary Ann Glendon, a Catholic, kissed the pontiff’s hand.

Bush and the pope then went into a tete-a-tete in the tower, a venue reserved for illustrious guests instead of the usual site for papal audiences, the pontiff’s private library.

The two, who also met at the Vatican last year, were later to stroll in the secluded Vatican Gardens.

Benedict’s trip to the United States coincided with his 81st birthday, which he celebrated in grand style at the White House on April 16, when he was greeted with a 21-gun salute and some 13,500 well-wishers filled the South Lawn.

Bush “is a huge fan of the pope and has full respect for him,” White House chief of protocol Nancy Goodman Brinker said.

The US leader “fully supports the (Catholic) Church and fully supports everything this pope is trying to do on behalf of peace, education and hunger in cooperation with world political leaders,” she told the ANSA news agency.

Bush, whose relations with pope John Paul II were strained because of the US-led invasion of Iraq, feels closer to Benedict, who appreciates the religious fervour of the president, a born-again Protestant.

The two see eye to eye on key social issues, as both are staunch opponents of same-sex marriage, abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, though they diverge notably on the death penalty.

Benedict has also voiced his concerns for the plight of Christians in Iraq and over harsh CIA interrogation methods.

On Friday, the two leaders will pray before a statue of the Madonna before bidding each other farewell.

The Italian press has been rife with speculation that Bush may convert to Catholicism as his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, did years ago, as well as former British prime minister Tony Blair. The latter two men are both married to Catholics.

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