"Papist" in the news

Who's callin' us papists these days?!

RedlandsDailyFacts: "The Protestant reformers frowned on the pies, seeing them as a human tradition, not divine, and the Puritan regime forbade them as "papist." But a tasty treat defies religious laws, and the pies returned to England when good King Charles II replaced the stern Puritans and they have been a part of English cuisine ever since at Christmastide." {Lesson learned: Papists love pies.}

NumisBaster: "In any event, James had waged an unending campaign to bring the Kirk to heel, an effort culminating in the so-called "Black Articles of Perth" in 1618. These not only mandated such "papist" practices as kneeling to receive communion, but - much worse - reintroduced the office of bishop." {Lesson learned: Liturgical legislation is best not left to kings.}

ScienceBlogs: "The irony here is that America in 1787 was almost entirely Protestant and one of the arguments heard from many a pulpit in those days was that the ban on religious tests for office would lead - gasp - to a "Papist" ruling the country." {Lesson learned: Papists are the original outlaws.}

TheMorningCall: "The Puritans, a group similar to but distinct from the Pilgrims, were happy to celebrate Thanksgiving as their seminal annual celebration because it conveniently replaced Christmas, which they deemed decadent, unsupported by the Gospels, and entirely too papist." {Lesson learned: Papists know how to Christmas-it-up right.}

TheFirstPost: "Conrad had converted to Rome for his first marriage, and made much of his Papist propriety." {Lesson learned: ... actually, I'm stumped.}

A single observation about the movie Cloverfield

This afternoon I took a break from by preparations for this weekend's pro-life activities to unwind a bit by sitting in a darkened movie environment immersed in dolby digital surround.

I chose the movie Cloverfield, which currently sits comfortably at the top of the weekend box office. I don't have much to say about the movie, per se, because frankly there isn't much to say about it.

Without giving anything away, one little scene did strike me.

The movie is filmed from the perspective of a young man's home movie camera, with him providing a live voice-over narration. During an intense near-death experience, the young man begins blurting out a series of profanities, but tucked away within the stream of cursing is a single, very sincere remark:

"Oh God, I'm so sorry."

And that's it. But it got me thinking: what is it about human nature that causes us, in our moments of greatest fear and with the prospects of eternity proximately looming, to fixate on two things: one, God, and second, contrition.

The young man, in the drama, is not notable religious, he's your quintessential average joe. Neither are the producer, director or script writer, to my knowledge, particularly "religious." But that's the point: you don't need to be. They are simply acting as good artists, trying to capture an emotional moment vividly and realistically:

"Oh God, I'm so sorry."

B16 "dabbling in the hottest new religion"?

When the news first broke that the Vatican was trying to become the "world's first carbon-neutral state" I said it would be taken the wrong way by most people.

.... and here's one example of that happening.

Papist ponderings: U2 - The First Time

Listening to some lesser-known U2 tonight, I came across The First Time from the Zooropa album. Take a gander at the lyrics. Enterprising souls can probably find the sheet music easily enough.

Not a bad song, that.

A little thought on this years' American Cardinals Dinner

Why, exactly, is it being held in Las Vegas? And not only that, but "fabulous Las Vegas"?

The things that make Las Vegas "fabulous", at least in the minds of most Americans, don't strike me as necessarily being all that fabulous.

Hopefully the Cardinals actually met at "urgently-needs-to-be-evangelized Las Vegas."

There, that has a better ring to it.

A little thought about "that" cartoon

Taking a look at that cartoon again, a part of me can't help but gleefully observe the lost and distressed expressions of the four dissenting judges on the bench. I know, it's bad of me.