Oh dear. Looks like Sounding Board author Angelo Stagnaro does not have the ear of the Vatican in his October Sounding board, "Don't be scared of Halloween." The Vatican today condemned Halloween's infiltration into Europe in an article L'Osservatore Romano, according to the UK Telegraph.
Despite the cult of celebrity that he was the center of, all religions want a piece of Michael Jackson.
After avoiding the subject for a week, Michael Paulson at boston.com offers a good summary of the faith news around Michael Jackson's death. Rumors having been flying that Jackson was Muslim or that he accepted Jesus on his deathbed.
Start with one hour of Eucharistic adoration, follow that up with a party in a nightclub-like setting, and you get one hip ancient church.
That’s the model of Catholic Underground, a ministry started by Bronx-based Franciscan Friars of Renewal to take on Pope John Paul II's challenge to keep faith in dialogue with modern culture. It’s caught on among young adults and now has eight locations across the country.
At a retreat I was at a few weeks ago, a speaker talked about the great temptation of today of just “checking out” rather than engaging in the world and its problems. You sit on the couch and watch worthless, stupefying cable television programming late into the night. A symptom of this disease: You know about Snuggies, the blanket with arms, advertised on such programming.
Most of us at the retreat laughed sheepishly because, indeed, we had seen the commercials for Snuggies, the type of mail-order product that garners the label, “As seen on TV!” in stores.
A few random bits of odd religious news for you:
Twilight is getting attacked from all sides, but that hasn't stopped vampire-loving teenage girls from devouring the book and movie.
Some praise the book and movie as a morality tale. Author Stephanie Meyers is Mormon and brought her faith into the story by having the couple--human Bella and vampire Edward--refrain from sex before marriage.
It took Galileo nearly 400 years to get back into good standing with the Catholic Church. John Lennon should be thankful it only took him about 4 decades.
Lennon's famous remark about the Beatles being bigger than Jesus didn't sit too well with some Christians, though it didn't stop their popularity. Forty-two years after Lennon made the comment (1966), the Vatican got the joke, as L'Osservatore Romano called the comment in an article praising the Beatles.
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