Leading off on this All Hallows Eve is Religion Dispatches’ exploration of the spirituality of horror. Don’t think I’ll be adding any zombie shows (such as AMC’s The Walking Dead) to my spiritual practice, but I think including zombies is a very Catholic thing to do. My attitude toward Halloween follows our own Angelo Stagnaro’s lighthearted take.
From actual horror to just horribly rude: The chair of the bishops doctrine committee, Cardinal Donald Wuerhl, issued a press release claiming theologian Elizabeth Johnson never responded to his request for a meeting regarding her book Quest for the Living God, which, Grant Gallicho points out at dotCommonweal, turns out to be dead wrong. The bishops look sillier and sillier on the Johnson situation every day. What would Zombie Jesus do?
Continuing with bishops who tell tales, PrayTell comments on a National Catholic Reporter interview with Bishop Edward Slattery of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s claim that the bishops at Vatican II didn’t really intend to change the liturgy. Anthony Ruff at PrayTell demolishes that claim, but I have a feeling that’s not the last we’ll hear of the “Vatican II didn’t mean it” canard. Sigh.
Finally, confirming Christian devotion to pilgrimage/tourism, archeologists in Israel have discovered a 1,000-year-old tiny prayer box with little icons in the current souvenir district of Jerusalem. I doubt anything you’d buy at Disney World would last that long.
