Saturday, May 12, 2007

If you think that's crazy Romish tomfoolery. . . .

Francis Beckwith continues to spray Flit into the Reformational hornet's nest just by minding his own spiritual business and coming home to Rome . . . which, it seems, is about the only thing capable of giving scandal in a Christian universe of 20,000 different versions of divine truth and counting.

I can understand disappointment or even dismay. When someone you respect turns his back on your deepest beliefs, it hurts.

But at some point the s*** fit has got to stop, lest it utterly compromise one's own Christian witness. This is doubly true when one's tantrum is nothing more than an excuse for ignorant bigoted ranting.

Christopher Hitchens, as well as the Blasphemy Challenge folks, have the anti-Christian bigoted ranting market cornered, anyway.

THE LATEST DISTURBANCE in the intemperate zone of the Gulf of Luther (or, in this case, the Straits of Calvin) comes from the Riddleblog, run by Reformed minister Kim Riddlebarger. In a post titled "The Reality of Romanism," Riddlebarger proceeds to point out just how ridiculous we Catholics -- and our traditions and beliefs -- be, saying that:
". . . if you 'return home' to Rome, you get the whole ball of wax, including the beatification of saints who give out Tic-Tac size rice-paper pills which supposedly heal. And Pope Benedict XVI will be there to bless it all."
My first reaction: Hey, miraculous rice-paper pills are a definite technological step up from spitting in the dirt and rubbing the mud on a blind man's eyes.

On the other hand, rice-paper pills aren't quite as trouble-free as getting healed just because Peter's shadow falls on you.

Anyway, here's what so offends our dear Reformed brother (as reported by The Associated Press):

Holding up Friar Antonio de Sant’Anna Galvao as a model of rectitude and humility “in an age so full of hedonism,” Benedict said the world needs clear souls and pure minds, adding: “It is necessary to oppose those elements of the media that ridicule the sanctity of marriage and virginity before marriage.”

(snip)

Benedict pronounced the sainthood of Galvao, a Franciscan monk credited by the church with 5,000 miracle cures, while he sat on a throne of Brazilian hardwood, surrounded by Latin American bishops and choirs of hundreds.

Galvao is the first native-born saint from Brazil, home to more than 120 million of the planet’s 1.1 billion Catholics, and the 10th to be canonized by Benedict.

His canonization continues a push for saints in Latin America and elsewhere in the developing world that began under John Paul II, who sought role models as part of the church’s worldwide reach. John Paul canonized more saints than all of his predecessors combined.

“Do you realize how big this is?” asked Herminia Fernandes, who joined the multitude at the airfield for the open-air Mass. “It’s huge, this pope is visiting Brazil for the first time and at the same time he is giving us a saint. It’s a blessing.”

Galvao, who died in 1822, began a tradition among Brazilian Catholics of handing out tiny rice-paper pills, inscribed with a Latin prayer, to people seeking cures for everything from cancer to kidney stones.

Although doctors and even some Catholic clergy dismiss the pills as placebos or superstitious fakery, cloistered nuns still toil in the Sao Paulo monastery where Galvao is buried, preparing thousands of the pills for free daily distribution. Each one carries these words: “After birth, the Virgin remained intact. Mother of God, intercede on our behalf.”

After canonizing Galvao, the pope hugged Sandra Grossi de Almeida, 37, and her son Enzo, 7. She is one of two Brazilian women certified by the Vatican as divinely inspired miracles justifying the sainthood. She had a uterine malformation that should have made it impossible for her to carry a child for more than four months, but after taking the pills, she gave birth to Enzo.

“I have faith,” Grossi recently told
The Associated Press. “I believe in God, and the proof is right here.”

BUT METHINKS DR. RIDDLEBARGER aims too low if his point is to point out how bat-s*** crazy Catholics are. As a Papist insider, I know we dupes of the Whore of Babylon believe a lot crazier stuff than getting healed through rice-paper pills.

And as part of my striving to be helpful to one and all -- just part of trying to Eddie Haskell my way into Heaven by doing the works-justification shuffle for the Selection Committee (in other words, a bribe) -- I will save the good professor a lot of time and point out the A-No. 1 Most Insane Thing Believing Catholics Believe. I'll even quote directly from the utterly lunatic source material (John 6).

Got your notepad? Great. Here goes:

27
Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal."
28
So they said to him, "What can we do to accomplish the works of God?"
29
Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."
30
So they said to him, "What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do?
31
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"
32
So Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
33
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."
34
So they said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."
35
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.
36
But I told you that although you have seen (me), you do not believe.
37
Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me,
38
because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.
39
And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it (on) the last day.
40
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him (on) the last day."
41
The Jews murmured about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven,"
42
and they said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, 'I have come down from heaven'?"
43
Jesus answered and said to them, "Stop murmuring among yourselves.
44
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day.
45
It is written in the prophets: 'They shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.
46
Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.
47
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
48
I am the bread of life.
49
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
50
this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.
51
I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."
52
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?"
53
Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
54
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
55
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
56
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
57
Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
58
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever."
59
These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
60
Then many of his disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?"
61
Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, "Does this shock you?
62
What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
63
It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
64
But there are some of you who do not believe." Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.
65
And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father."
66
As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.
67
Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?"
68
Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
69
We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."

PRETTY WACK, HUH? We're cannibals. And not even run-of-the-mill, ordinary cannibals who put jungle explorers into pots and boil 'em until they're melt-in-your-mouth tender and delicious.

Hell, no. We eat God. The Big JC Himself. Drink His blood, too.

We're Dracula cannibals. And we don't mess around with the small stuff.

If Marty Haugen gets his way, your average parishioner at Our Lady of Sam's Club will, by next summer, be singing "Yummy, yummy, yummy, I got God in my tummy, and I feel like a-lovin' Him. . . ."

We even have a Big Chief Medicine Man who can conjure up a tasty-delicious, heapin' helpin' of Jesus at every Mass. Yep, Father Oogabooga can do a standard incantation, and ordinary bread and wine turn into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Been doing it for 2,000 years, almost.

AND KIM RIDDLEBARGER THOUGHT prayer-inscribed, rice-paper pills were a scandal and a joke. How slow on the uptake can one get?

Now, I am sure that if the Riddleblog got wind of the truly nefarious and nutso things Catholics believe and do, the entire world -- or at least 257 people (372 on Sundays) would see such screaming headlines as "BLASPHEMY!" and "SCANDAL!" Not to mention "KILL THE ROMISH HORDES . . . IT'S THAT SERIOUS!"

Before I am hauled off and disemboweled for being a grave threat to the Reformation, however, allow me to ask a simple question. If it's no gigantic scandal for rock-ribbed Fundamentalists to interpret Genesis as saying God created the heavens and the earth in six 24-hour periods some 6,000-odd years ago, and for them to believe that every shred of scientific evidence steering one toward a more figurative reading of that book is bogus . . . why, then, is it horrific for Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, etc., to be totally Fundamentalist about John 6?

I mean, if you ask me, the author of the Gospel of John is being a heck of a lot more explicit about what Jesus said -- and what Jesus meant about what He said -- than the author of Genesis is about the Creation story.

The Jews murmured about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven," and they said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" . . .

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?" . . .

Then many of his disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?" . . .

As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and
no longer accompanied him.
IS THIS THE REACTION of folks who thought that Jesus meant anything other than what He said, that the Lord was speaking figuratively . . . or symbolically . . . or that He was just yanking their chain?

How come Catholics, for one, can't be fundies about something that seems pretty plain as written? Why isn't it reasonable to believe that the meaning of John 6 was exactly what Jesus says in John 6?

And if accepting that we must eat the Body and drink the Blood to have everlasting life, and that (re: Jesus' words at the Last Supper) the bread and wine become His Body and Blood, given up for us . . . if that is a reasonable position for a Bible-believing Christian, what the hell is the big deal about God's grace flowing through rice-paper pills with prayers inscribed upon them?

HONESTLY, it's amazing that the Almighty can get anything done while locked in that box the Reformational hardliners threw Him in.


HAT TIP: Boar's Head Tavern

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Where has your blog been my whole life!?! You write like I wish I could!

Fearsome Pirate said...

So do the little pills actually heal?

The Mighty Favog said...

Pirate,

That's what the excerpt from the wire story said -- that the Church has determined that, indeed, they HAVE healed.

I wouldn't presume to say, nor would the Catholic Church, that they always heal -- not anymore than a doctor would tell you penicillin is 100 percent effective on everything.

But we worship a God who, frankly, sometimes is a little weird. I'm sure if we were all much smarter, He would seem a lot less odd, though.