Archives for December 2005

La Therese, c’est arrive…

Therese Susan Lickona was born in the wee hours of yesterday morning, December 30, the feast of the Holy Family. Mother and baby are fine. Huzzah!

The NAB a Monumental Farkleberry

Let’s not mince words. The New American Bible really is a monumental American Catholic Fuck Up — and now we are (and have been for a few years now) stuck with it as the mandatory translation for American Catholics. It merits a rare instance — on an otherwise family-oriented and clean-mouthed blog — of the F-word followed by the vertically-oriented modifier. F-U-C-K-U-P.

Check out Richard John Neuhaus’s “Public Square” column in the January First Things for a much more eloquent assessment of the embarrassing piece of shit that is the NAB. Neuhaus doesn’t come right out and say it, but he could have ended each paragraph with: “What a monumental fuck up!” Instead, he takes a philosophical view: “And yes, I know that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. But sometimes it is necessary to curse the darkness as well, just to prevent our getting used to it.”

As an anonymous commenter pointed out (under Word of the Week, below), it is amazing how the Church persists despite our best efforts to fuck it up. In fact, as Walker Percy mentioned on more than one occasion, this is one proof of the Church’s divine mandate. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it, etc. I wonder if in this instance God might have allowed the American bishops to fuck it up so badly in order that it (the NAB) could turn out to be a common enemy against which faithful Catholics of all stripes could form a united front. At the same time, getting riled up about the Holy Bible might incline some of us to actually go back and read it again. (Try the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition.) Why must we live with this piss poor bastardization of scripture and tradition? Yes, it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, so let’s light a whole bunch of candles — in prayer and in the form of letters and petitions and phone calls and emails — right under the butts of the American bishops.

See also this and this and this and this and this and that.

[A couple of side notes: 1. The January issue of First Things also has an article written by none other than Pope Benedict XVI. 2. Consult The Japery over at The New Pentagruel (thanks to Godsbody for the link) for additional provocative ruminations on the current state of First Things.]

KSRK: Guilty?/Not Guilty? (January 20 Morning)

Word of the Week

remainderman : Someone who will inherit property in the future. For instance, if someone dies and leaves his home “to Alma for life, and then to Barry,” Barry is a remainderman because he will inherit the home in the future, after Alma dies.

[From Nolo Legal Glossary]

NFP = New Favorite Place…

Hieronymus Blog. A traditionally-minded guy who promises:

“I will not complain on this blog, and I will not allow anyone else to complain. I will not gripe about the stupidity and ugliness of OCP music and wreckovation, or about the deficiencies of the Novus Ordo Miss? and the postconciliar liturgical reform. I have strong opinions on these matters, but they are hardly original. Everything that needs to be said about them has been said. Instead, I shall discuss what is good and beautiful.”

And he does. I’m kind of a sucker for medieval art. Go, behold.

KSRK: Guilty?/Not Guilty? (January 17 Midnight)

Top News Stories of 2005


News from Around the World

Space Shuttle Launch Delayed

You Be the Judge

Iowa Dad Accidentally Throws Baby Out With Bath Water

EU to Erect Jude Law Statue

You are Loved

Attached Earlobes and Criminal Tendencies

Mulemen March on Washington

‘Turnipy’ Priests to be Sent to Boot Camp

Vatican SWAT Team Deployed to U.S. Seminaries

Labrador Takes First Game in Long Bowls World Series

Umbilical Gas Linked to Global Warming

Bishop Skylstad Reduced to Whiskey Barrel

Jarod Getting Fat Again, Experts Say

Ouch.

A while back, friend Michael sent me David Brooks’ Bobos In Paradise, which included this spectacularly depressing tidbit:

“In making his first book topic selections, a writer can select which audience he will spend the rest of his career flattering.”

Sigh.

Not with a bang…

…but with a whimper.

Blogging will be even lighter than usual this week, because this guy is so mean. Kidding. Blogging will be even lighter than usual this week, becasue I have to go to Chicago and make a fool of myself in front of a bunch of college students. And because the wife is slated to give birth any day now. And because of an uptick in professional responsibilities.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by Godsbody in 2005!

Peace in This Peaceless World


Christmas Message from Medjugorje

Dear children! Also today, in my arms I bring you little Jesus, the King of Peace, to bless you with His peace. Little children, in a special way today I call you to be my carriers of peace in this peaceless world. God will bless you. Little children, do not forget that I am your mother. I bless you all with a special blessing, with little Jesus in my arms. Thank you for having responded to my call.

Michael’s Sermon

On Christmas eve you stepped outside and preached
A sermon from the parsonage to church.

The words spread out their syllables and reached
An owl alone atop a piney perch.

The owl was blinking thoughtfully and pondering
What manner madman down below was wandering.

You paused and in the evening’s radiant chill
He snatched your sermon notes with owlish skill.

Away he flew (with you, dismayed, in chase)
Above the landscape at an owlish pace.

You followed till the owl was lost from view
And, turning round to find your way back home,

You preached again the sermon that you knew,
The word made flesh beneath the starry dome

Blogging Kills

Christmas Carol

I was hoping to catch you under the mistletoe
At the Christmas party but you didn’t show.

I was wishing I could be with you,
With your nose ring and your blue tattoo.

I thought I might find you somewhere
So I roamed the streets and sniffed the air.

And when I saw you coming out
Of the movie house, I didn’t shout.

I said, “Funny meeting you here, I was just on my way
To see that new Nativity play

They’re putting on at Our Lady of Hope.
Would you like to come? Nope?”

You said something about wanting to go home.
Your lips were shiny as chrome.

Funny, Elsewhere, ‘Tis the Season Edition

Because nothing says “holidays” like despair

This is one of my favorites. This one is good, too, and so is this. But really, they’re all good.

Merry Christmas!

T-Shirt of the Day…

In my dreams, everyone wears this.

Funny, Elsewhere, Classics Edition

So First and Second Sons finally saw Episode III the other night. Which, naturally, made me think of this, which is parody of near-Spinal Tap brilliance.

Word of the Week has the week off

Funny, Elsewhere, etc.

Specifically, here. We really like this one.