Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...

Saturday 6 December 2008

The Onion has hacked the NCR site

Or perhaps that is Stephen Colbert in a false beard and a bald cap....

We are told told while "catholic means universal [Catholicism is] one of the most exclusive religions on the planet" which purports to legislate and arbitrate ways people "can go wrong."

No! you mean She thinks that there are some actions which are sinful? and that we cannot perform those actions and consider ourselves free from sin?!!

(Gambling at Ricks!)

"When Latino Catholics look lovingly and beseechingly into the eyes of the Virgin of Guadalupe, they feel the same thing that Hindus feel when they look lovingly and beseechingly into the eyes of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi or Kali. The difference is that while we Catholics refer to Mary as a saint, Hindus refer to Lakshmi or Kali as a goddess."
Oh, so it's just a matter of semantics?

I am not saying that anything goes. True Catholicism will never give up what is fundamental to it: 1) God is our Father and Mother, our divine creator and parent; 2) in his fatherly aspect, he loves us enough to expect great things of us, but in her motherly aspect, she is patient with us, never giving up on us even though we fail; 3) we please God by freely choosing to control and eventually subdue our animal passions and grow our spirits, doing our best to love and serve each other; 4) God longs for us to cultivate the divine spark within us and eventually enter the divine realm, where joys, but also further challenges, await us that we cannot begin to imagine.

But that other stuff? the Incarnation, the Trinity? the "do this in memory of me" razzmatazz? superfluous, apparently, according to the Onio-, I mean, to NCR.

What a wonderful day it will be when the peoples of the world -- the world’s future Catholics -- will read the Bhagavad Gita and New Testament side by side on Sunday morning or will place pictures of Mary and Lakshmi side by side on their home altars.

You couldn't make this stuff up....

2 comments:

Mary Jane Ballou said...

Oy, Scelata! I had to lie down for 30 minutes after reading this. Does it ever occur to "professors of religion" that they are offending both Catholics and Hindus? Maybe most on both sides don't want to be part of one big happy syncretistic family? (I won't even get into how I'd take this if I were of Mexican Catholic origin.)

Scelata said...

I seriously thought it was an Onion spoof, it was so far out there.
And it's sad, (but a little funny, too, ) to think of how many would-be Catholics have drunk the National Catholic Reporter kool-aid.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)