Video: Call to Action's Closing Liturgy

Amy gives us the video (windows media player) from West Coast Call to Action's closing liturgy.

There's a good discussion at Amy's attempting to get deeper than the knee-jerk reactions to such fare.

If it wasn't a liturgical abuse of the Mass, I'd have found it a diversion from tonight's studying marathon.

Beliefnet poll: Should women be priest(esses) or deaconesses in the Church?

Beliefnet has a survey running as part of their coverage of the pope's visit.

I decided to take the survey to see what kind of questions they were asking.

I didn't get past this point:

5. What role should women play in the Church? (Select all that apply)

• Priests
• Deaconesses

When I tried to select neither option, I was greeted with this message: "*This question requires an answer."

That ended the survey for me.

U2's Tower of Babel?

U2 is trying to build the tallest building in Ireland, and the environmentalists aren't happy:

Who would have guessed that U2 would be the target of environmental protesters? In an attempt to spend some of their immense fortune, the rock band gone real estate investment firm is drawing up plans to build the tallest building in Ireland. The 'U2 tower' has quickly become a major bone of contention between the globally-conscious rockers and environmentalists in their hometown. - GreenDaily

More from Wikipedia. The design isn't finalized, but here are some search results.

Hopefully they won't get vertigo in the city of blinding lights (I couldn't resist).

"Cops: Man's wedding ring saved his life" (AP)

Just a friendly reminder to never take off that ring:

Donnie Register has a new reason to be thankful he's married — police say his wedding band deflected a bullet and probably saved his life.

Two men walked into Register's shop at The Antique Market on Saturday and asked to see a coin collection, police Sgt. Jeffery Scott said.

When Register retrieved the collection, one of the men pulled a gun and demanded money. A shot was fired as Register threw up his left hand, and his wedding ring deflected the bullet, police said.

"The bullet managed to go through two of his fingers without severing the bone," said his wife, Darlene Register. "A part of the bullet broke off and is in his middle finger. The other part is in his neck, lodged in the muscle tissue. But it's not life-threatening."

She said she gives God all the credit.

Police were searching for the robbers, who Scott said "stole a substantial amount of cash."

Video here.

What happens when you try to offend no one? You offend everyone.

Consider:

Row over women cancels Muslim-Christian clergy soccer match

An argument over the participation of women in a football match between Muslim and Christian clergy in Norway has led to the cancellation of the "friendly" encounter.

The BBC reports that Muslim Imams had refused to play against women because it went against their beliefs about close physical contact with the opposite sex.

But when the church decided to drop its women players, the priests' team captain walked out in protest.

The game was meant to be an enjoyable end to a day-long conference in Oslo.

[More craziness.]

Soccer, women clergy and Imams. Oh my. Only in Oslo, I guess.