antiquam

…from the diversity crowd:

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Standing firmly on the free speech ideals of its illustrious founder (Thomas Jefferson), the University of Virginia’s Cavalier Daily thinks portraying the Virgin Mary with a sexually transmitted disease is high comedy.

Alas, Mohammed with a bomb in his turban didn’t seem to pass the editors’ tickle test.

I guess, some sacred persons are just funnier than others…

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Worth a read:

- Fascists Under the Bed Pat Buchanan in the American Conservative.

- Preaching, Pondering and Predicting Col. Karen Kwiatkowski on Rumsfeld’s American Legion speech.

- Another Connecticut Marine dies in Iraq… Lance Cpl. Philip A. Johnson († 9/2/06), 19 of Enfield, is the second native of this tiny state to die in Iraq during the past two weeks.

[The full list of Joe Lieberman's constituents who have been killed in Mr. Bush's war can be found here.]

The next time you think that life couldn’t get any worse because the morning line at Starbuck’s is too long, remember this poor Boston family:

The devoted older brother of a dying Dorchester teen fulfilled a promise to join his little brother on his journey into eternal life when he died Tuesday in a motorcycle accident just hours before a brain tumor claimed his kin.

William Davulis, 26, the eldest of 10 children, was on his way to say goodbye to his younger brother, Dominic, 17, when he lost control of his motorcycle at the intersection of East First and O streets in South Boston at about 4:35 p.m.

“William wasn’t expecting to see God. He was expecting to see his dying brother,” said the brothers’ mother Terina, who hasn’t slept since she bid adieu to her older son at the city morgue only to return to Dominic’s bedside and hold his hand until he died at 12:50 yesterday morning. [Article]

When I read something like this I feel like a damned fool for complaining about…well, just about anything.

I really have to stop writing so much about religion. But, hey, it is Sunday.

I was trolling around this morning and was suprised to see the Prayer of St. Francis posted at Blogs For Bush.

I actually read B4B a lot. It’s neocon to be sure, but it’s not the racist/fascist garbage that you typically find at LGF. That said, it’s not exactly a peace blog either.

Everyone loves St. Francis but we were forced to say (and even sing) this prayer so often at Catholic grammar school that it’s almost become trite. Here’s the text for you pagans:

Lord, make me a channel of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Master, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Ok, my point…

This prayer isn’t a plea for a general state of peace. (As it seems the B4B folks are using it.) It’s a prayer of conversion. Peace at the individual or personal level. Or, rather, a prayer to be given the grace to become a peacemaker.

There’s no doubt about it, I’m heartened to see that the Bushies are big on St. Francis but could you ever imagine Dick Cheney — or Jerry Falwell, for that matter — actually reciting these words?

It always seems that the Christians who “wear it on their sleeves” (although it does get votes!) are the ones who miss the point entirely.

Ok, Reverends, et al, resume the bombing for Jesus’ glory!

The national media are obsessed with Mel Gibson’s drunken, anti-Semitic tirade. You can’t turn on a cable news channel without being affronted by “expert” panels meticulously dissecting Herr Gibson’s psyche every which way ’til Tuesday.

Yeah, let’s condemn it but can we drop the sanctimony? I’m sure that none of those talking-heads feigning breathless outrage have ever, even once, uttered a racial, ethnic, or religious slur. I sure haven’t! And neither, I’m certain, have any of you good people…

It’s ironic, though, that during the Gibson maelstrom — throughout which, we’ve unanimously agreed that religious bigotry and “hate” are to be condemned from the ramparts — Comedy Central chose to rerun its infamous South Park episode: Bloody Mary.

In a nutshell: a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary is found to be bleeding “from her ass” and rubes (including a caricature of Pope Benedict XVI) line up to have their heads signed with the anal blood.

So here we have a wildly successful, award winning cartoon on a major cable network — shored up by Corporate America’s advertising dollars — mocking the pope and dragging Jesus Christ’s Mother through the sewer. (For the second time. The show originally aired last Christmas…) And, predictably, there’s no outrage.

I’ve yet to see the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad aired on the Daily Show (another Comedy Central offering) and I’m sure the Gibson saga will be played until his career is boxed and planted but attacks on Christianity — from corporate boardrooms – will proceed with impunity.

You can freely assault the faith of billions, drag the most sacred feminine religious symbol in human history through the mud, and portray Pope Benedict with (farted) anal blood all over his face but never, ever forget that Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite.

I know that Evangelicals subscribe to a rather peculiar Christology, but their ability to (mis)use the Gospel to justify — and even to celebrate — war, without enduring even the slightest pang of conscience, leaves me at a loss for words.

Let’s face it, even Christians with a highly developed Theology of war (See Catholic Encyclopedia entry here) have to sense an uneasy contradiction between “justified violence” and the message of the Prince of Peace.

For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son—both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die. [Ezekiel 18:4]

War, and violence in general, may have to be tolerated but watching good “Christians” celebrate hostilities — even to the point of regarding innocent human suffering as nothing more than “collateral damage” (see the danger in “religious people” adopting statist/party terminology?) — and even viewing it as something to be amused by — then it’s all gone terribly wrong.

Pat Robertson, please call your office…

I’m neither a pacifist nor, for that matter, am I a very good Christian but stumbling upon these things on right wing blogs, sets alarm bells off in my inky black soul:

“Lord, please hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.”

Think Jesus is going to hear that one? I don’t know, but prayers like the one above, that seem to equate soldiers en masse with (potential) Holy Martyrs make me wonder if it’s the Soul of Islam or the Soul of Christianity that’s at greater risk these day

Here’s the MSNBC transcript on the Immigration bill:

It is a pig story! It’s animal farm all over again. And also make no bones about it, it’s the greedy Jews that were behind it because the people of America walked away from them and they need to bring in people from the Third World who are still gullible enough to sit there and listen to the Zionists…the Jews were behind this, the Jews started this a year ago. The neocons flooded the streets because they cannot get blind obedience anymore amongst educated white people who have caught onto the racket and instead they need to import dummies. That’s the story and it is not difficult for you to understand—I’m telling you the truth. It’s all about greed. It’s greed at the top of the Jewish establishment.

[snip]

Make no mistake about why this is happening. This has nothing to do with compassion for Mexican workers. This has nothing to do with fairness for Mexican workers—it has to do with the greed…. That’s all there is to it. And that includes the Zionist pigs. And if you don’t like it, don’t listen to the show—I really don’t care anymore. I’m not going to be duped by this sanctimonious garbage that all religions are good and that the institution itself is good. Bah humbug. Judaism is rotten from the top to the bottom.

Shocking? Disgusting? Sure, it’s both and then some. But it’s also something that I completely made up.

Well, I didn’t exactly “make it up” I just tampered with the original text. Pat Buchanan never spoke these words against Jews. The object of this diatribe was actually the Catholic Church and the words were spoken (spewed?) by neocon darling, Michael Savage during his nationally syndicated radio show.

Here’s the full text:

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