Christ on a stick

Bouncy bouncy

The February 10, 2011, installment of “Catholic Answers” featured a pre-recorded interview with Cardinal Francis Arinze. Once considered among the papabili, Arinze is the African prelate whose puckish sense of humor prompted him to cleverly declare that he was “personally opposed” to gunning down all the members of the U.S. Senate, including those Catholic members who “personally oppose” abortion but decline to enact legislation to outlaw it for everyone. (Arinze's audience chuckled appreciatively as the cardinal equated the slaughter of a legislative body with a “pro-choice” decision to terminate a pregnancy. Never doubt that the cardinal and his admirers really see no difference between abortion and murder.)

Arinze was momentarily flummoxed during his “Catholic Answers” interview when host Patrick Coffin quizzed him about permissible practices during the celebration of mass. After a brief discussion of the unsanctioned (but not forbidden) custom of holding hands during the Lord's Prayer, Coffin indulged in a bit of hyperbole:

People say that receiving holy communion on a pogo stick or letting monkeys into the sanctuary is also not forbidden. I guess it's a matter of balance.

Balance? Yes, I would say that's pretty important in the instance of the pogo-stick eucharist. Catholic traditionalists should also be pleased that both hands are usually needed to maintain stability while bouncing about, so that pretty much settles the question of receiving the host in the hand or on the tongue. It puts a premium, though, on the priest's hand-eye coordination as he thrusts the wafer at the communicant's oscillating tongue.

I haven't quite wrapped my head around the monkeys-in-the-sacristy scenario (unicycles, perhaps?), but I have to admit that Coffin is a veritable font of ideas for resuscitating the entertainment value of the Catholic mass. I'd consider going back!

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God the abortionist

IOKIYAD

Colorado voters went to the polls in November 2010 and rejected Amendment 62, the Fetal Personhood Initiative, by 71% to 29%. The failed initiative was an effort on the part of extreme anti-abortionists to confer legal “personhood” on fertilized eggs (“from the beginning of biological development”) under the state constitution. Under Colorado's constitution, the rights of personhood specifically include “acquiring, possessing and protecting property,” ready access to the courts, and “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.” (Certainly it would be an injustice if a fetus were to purchase a choice piece of real estate and then lose it without due process of law.)

Personhood Colorado, the organization sponsoring Amendment 62, was quite forthright in its intentions: “It will make sure that children in the womb are treated exactly the same as children outside the womb.”

That is, abortion is murder.

I know that quite a few people purport to believe that. They accept that a legally entitled person exists before birth and want it recognized in law. And those legal entitlements supposedly exist from the moment of conception, when a human being exists as no more than a one-cell fertilized egg. The conceptus is supposed to be accepted as a full-fledged person.

Unless God kills it, of course. Which he apparently does at least one-quarter of the time. This is, of course, difficult to determine. Other estimates suggest that as many as half of all fertilized eggs perish.

That is, God aborts them.

But he never seems to get credit—or blame—for being the greatest abortionist of all.

It's odd.

A family member suffered a spontaneous abortion last year (and “suffered” is the right word). Early in her pregnancy, she lost the incipient twins she was carrying. The emotional impact was great. She praised God for helping her through the crisis.

This year she has a new pregnancy and it appears to be going better than last year's. She posted a note to family and friends:

we are very excited to announce that we saw a strong heartbeat and a perfectly healthy little baby this morning during our ultrasound. we are expecting a little blessing this summer! thanks for all the prayers, god is so good!

All the credit. None of the blame. It puzzles me. Abortion may be murder, but it's okay if you're a deity.

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The Club of Rome

Look what the pope dragged in

Jesus is criticized in chapter 15 of the gospel of Luke for hanging out with sinners. Given the company he's been keeping lately, Jesus may be in for some more negative publicity. Newt Gingrich has been born again as a Roman Catholic, having been received into Christianity's oldest sect on March 29, 2009.

By becoming a Catholic, the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives has joined the religion of his third wife. It's just a little bit complicated, now that Newt belongs to a church that does not recognize divorce. During his religious instruction, Gingrich was undoubtedly confronted with the necessity of regarding his first two marriages as retroactively nonexistent, as sacramentally invalid. The Catholic Church normally recognizes Christian marriages as binding, which could be a problem if Newt participated in church weddings. The details can be complicated. It would be much easier if Newt married his first and second wives in civil ceremonies, but I don't know if that was the case. If it wasn't, then the Church authorities had to determine that the first two marriages didn't count. Fortunately (by the grace of God and all that), they have ways and dispensations to deal with difficulties of this nature.

Presumably Newt's current marriage to the former Callista Bisek (who was also his mistress during his second marriage) has been regularized in some fashion. The sacrament of penance can come in very handy in such circumstances and I expect that the happy couple are now properly shriven and bathed in the light of forgiveness. One recalls that Jesus responded to the criticism of his keeping company with sinners by recounting the parable of the lost sheep and the shepherd's joy at bringing it back into the fold. It's a story with a happy ending, although Jesus neglected to comment on what the shepherd would have done if he had instead found a wolf in sheep's clothing. Gingrich is part of the flock now, but the pope might want to keep a wary eye on him. (I'm certain that Callista should.)

One hears that Gingrich is exploring the possibility of a presidential run in 2012. He may as well give it a try. He can run on a platform espousing traditional family values. Sure, it would take a miracle for him to win, but a sprinkling of holy water from Rome has already transformed him into a member in good standing of an anti-divorce religion. He's had one miracle, so why not two?

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