Back From the (Day of) the Dead, to Yet Another Correction From Poor Fr Lombardi

(No posting or polemics or presumptuous punditry, a day of fasting of a sort.)

When I read that yet again poor Fr. Lombardi had to make a statement, no he didn't say that, no he said that but what he meant was, yes he said that but it doesn't mean anything, no he said that but only to her not to you it doesn't count, yes that is what he said and I can't explain it...

It occurred to me, if Scalfari is publishing a book of his... fantasies? mistakes? whatever - shouldn't we all publish an anthology, "My Most Memorable Phone Call From the Pope"? 
(It would be too easy to debunk a claimed interview, since most of us have never met him, they could check passports and stuff, but who's gonna deny that he picked up the phone on a whim and gave me a ring? No, not on a Vatican account, the Holy Father used a burn phone.) 

We could invent anything we want, say that it's "fictionalized truth," or some such, in the Dunham/Scalfari makingcrapupandthenmakingexcusesonceyouarecalledonyourlies mold. 

I, for instance, remember well, (albeit not accurately,) that surprising day when Pope Francis got me on the horn, (sory, I dind't take notes or record it.)
The Holy Father told me not to worry about anything I might hear that he said, he's just stirring the pot but is planning to come out very soon with a three word, unequivocally magisterial encyclical -

 "Sin? It's Sinful." 

What did he tell you, when he called you?

Com'on, let's get these submissions in, there maybe be money to be made!

Barb Nicolosi, Prophetess

While looking for a picture of the simply adorable Anthony Andrews as Sebastian Flyte for that last post, I stumbled upon Barb Nicolosi's take-down of that horrid movie of Brideshead made in the last decade.

(After I finally saw the film, [certainly wasn't going to pay to,] I mostly agree with her.)

At the time, I don't think I even noticed this in her opening paragraph -

Imagine if someone did a new adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird and it ended up savagely racist?

Of course,  I'm not saying Set a Watchman itself is anything like, but it's almost as startling, (and to many lovers of Harper Lee's novel and its characters, sacrilegious,) that Atticus was originally portrayed as racist.
Isn't it?

Wishing You Well is Not the Same Thing As Endorsing Your Ideas

I get it, that the Holy Father thinks he should be able to say, or have someone say on his behalf something nice to any person who communicates on him.
He SHOULD be able.
Why is this even necessary?

But it is.

Francis has been popin' for a couple years now, and he knows, and everyone on his staff knows - It. Just. Doesn't. Work. That. Way.

Everyone else is working an angle, and he, or rather in this case, she doesn't mind skewing yours to work hers.

the Vatican Secretariat of State did not intend in any way to support “behavior and teachings which are not in accordance with the Gospel,” and using the Vatican response [to the author of a book about "gay" penguins talking care of a "Little Egg" as a couple] to imply otherwise “is completely out of place,” said Fr. Ciro Benedettini, deputy director of the Holy See Press Office...
The Holy See statement came in response to a media frenzy following reports that Francesca Pardi, author of a children’s book supporting gay adoption, received a letter from Pope Francis that allegedly encouraged her to keep up her work....
It includes the story of two gay penguins who adopt a baby penguin, among other non-traditional animal families.
Pardi is the author of a series of books supporting the notion of gay family, including “Why do you have two moms?” And “What is Dad’s secret?” [?]...
Pardi wrote a letter to Pope Francis, enclosing the catalogue of the books published by the publishing house “Lo Stampatello,” which she co-founded with her girlfriend....
Pardi said in a Facebook post that she had received “a private letter written by Msgr. (Peter) Brian Wells in the name of Pope Francis, on Vatican letterhead.”
She said that the letter was addressed to her and to her girlfriend, Silvia Maria Fiengo. She claimed that the Pope “had thanked her” for the “delicate gesture” and expressed wishes for “an always more fruitful activity in the service of young generations and the spread of genuine human and Christian values.”
Pardi added that the Pope gave her and Fiengo the Apostolic Blessing. Numerous media outlets covered the story by saying that the Pope was offering his support for Pardi and her book.
However, the Vatican says that the letter signed by Msgr. Peter Wells, assessor to the Secretariat of State, is not an indication of papal support.
Thanking people for their “delicate gesture” is part of the formula that is generally used whenever the Pope is offered a gift.
“(T)he Secretariat of State does not want in any way to back behaviors and teachings not in accordance with the Gospel,” Fr. Benedettini said. This is reflected in the letter’s wish for more fruitful activity “and the spread of genuine human and Christian values.”
He also said that the Secretariat of State addressed the reception of the letter “with a simple and pastoral style,” and later “clarified (that) it was a private response, and for this reason it was not intended for publication (as it unfortunately happened).”[and this was a surprise to anyone at the Vatican?????]
As far as the papal blessing, Fr. Benedettini clarified that “the blessing is for the person and not for (any) teaching against the Doctrine of the Church on gender ideology.”
He added that the Church’s position on gender ideology “has not changed, as the Holy Father reiterated many times.”

What IS Dad's secret????

(Just to be clear, I like penguins. Just remember, penguins get cheated on and they're adorable. I’d like to apologize for possibly making penguins seem like jerks, because 99% of them are stand-up guys.)

"The Language of Isolation"

A very thoughtful piece from the Patheos, (which still induces St Vitus Dance in my compute,) pagan channel by Gus diZerega.
He writes about the Oxford Junior Dictionary, which, like any dictionary of a finite capacity, requires vigilance and judgment on the part of its editors as new editions and new words require the jettisoning of older words.
I get it.

But "hamster"?
"Minister"?
"Sin"?

The pointedly pagan Mr. diZerega notes that the natural world and religion lose out in favor of technology, (and what seems to me, trends in the style of communication, rather than substance requiring that communication - which is merely a tool.)

Words inviting relationships were replaced by words closed to them....
We can care about living beings in a way we cannot care about objects... technology refers to things deriving their meaning entirely from us. They are meaningless in themselves...
Pre-modern societies, especially Pagan ones, generally experienced their world as alive and inviting, even requiring, relationship....a number of prominent writers penned an open letter to Oxford University Press pleading the cuts be reversed. They wrote in part …

it is worrying that in contrast to those [words] taken out, many are associated with the interior, solitary childhoods of today. In light of what is known about the benefits of natural play and connection to nature; and the dangers of their lack, we think the choice of words to be omitted shocking and poorly considered. 

A world of things is a world of radical isolation as well as a world mediated by power. It separates us from others in any capacity but their existence as objects....
Childhood is a time for learning the basics about relationships, but our culture is strengthening their sense of being alone, impeding their awareness of perhaps the most basic human quality: the power to care for others beyond oneself.....
We are born powerless, and it is only through relationships that we are enabled to come into our own power.  [which is not so different from the Christian worldview, so long as we know that we grow powerful in the exact measure of the power and will and desire that we cede to the Almighty's]...
Care is a far stronger force for shaping behavior than is knowledge.[emphasis supplied.]

Amen.
Preach it, Brother.
Care.
Which is
Love.
Which is
God.

The Fragrance of Penguins

Paperbacks.
What did you think I was talking about?
From MentalFloss, interesting items about real paper and ink books, as sold in real brick and mortar stores, by real flesh and bone people.
This tickled me -

They want to help you find your book, but they can’t if you don’t know the book’s name, author, or what it was about. ... “One funny thing that happens with customers is they get the titles totally wrong... High school kids will say ‘I’m looking for ‘How To Kill a Mockingbird’ or ‘Angry Grapes.’”

This resonated with me -

 people come in waxing rhapsodic about the smell of books, the feel of books...Some booksellers can identify books by their smell. Especially used booksellers. “These Penguins have their own particular odor,” Cohen says. That odor? Vanilla. Others might smell like almond or coffee. 

And this confused me -

At The World's Biggest Bookstore in Toronto, “the Bible was the number one stolen book of all time.”

Stealing the Bible, that I believe, but "the world's biggest bookstore?"
I was sure that that title was held by something mostly underground in Cambridge or Oxford to which I'd been?

But things change, who knows?

I Am Staring at a Word

As one does.
It is odd, exotic... is it a name?
Someone seems to be calling herself by it.
I stare at it some more.
So, the name of someone foreign, whose native language requires transliteration for westerners?
Or perhaps one of those entirely fabricated words models give themselves and celebrities give their babies?
My mind sounds it out... jah-DEAD? or JAH-deed?

I realise I have had no caffeine, and that the writer is simply telling us that she is world-weary.

"Jaded" isn't the only word to flummox me. When I was a child and read voraciously, obsessively,  mostly historical fiction set in one era or another, I was forever encountering heroines and villainesses whose finery was elaborately embellished in a manner I heard in my head as "berry-boned."

I dunno, that could be pretty....

How Easily My Mind Wonders, and Why I Need Sanctus Bells

"Oh, gee, I forgot, Mr. D doesn't kneelI'll just slide over into the next section of the pew and lower the kneelerWhat was I thinking tailoring the legs on a pair of heavy duty mens' jeans there's no spandex so a skinny leg isn't going to have room to bend at the knee properlyWho left that hymnal thereWhat in the world were they thinking repairing the spine with packing tapeThat was a lot of wok taping up all the choir hymnals that timeI wonder if the rise of the e-book has hurt Demco's businessI ought to give everyone on my Christmas list hinge tapeIf we have fewer actual books it stands to reason that the ones we do choose to possess will be all the more precious and importantI love that red tape I used to fix the sacramentaryOh bells -- I'M AT MASS THIS IS THE CONSECRATION WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME!!!!!!!!"

Incidentally, everyone SHOULD get themselves a roll of this stuff, (I think the Tyvek tape may be in theory a cut above, but I really love the paper hinge tape.)

 

If you have it, don't wait until you beat up a book, when you acquire something that you know will get a lot of wear, such as a basic cookbook, or a hymnal, or a dictionary, give it a little reinforcement right off the bat.
If  you know yourself, and that you're going to jam a finger in the top of the spine to yank a heavy volume out a little on the shelf get some wings, I think they are called, too.