Newsweek recently ran an item in Lisa Miller's Belief Watch column about online communion-the participation in communion over the internet. Apparently it works like this: After some preparation people watch a celebration of the Lord's Supper online and improvise communion at home. You can see an example at www.holycommunionontheweb.com, a ministry of Rev. Dr. Tom Madron of Nashville's Trinity United Methodist Church. The site makes a point of saying it "is something of an experiment with web-based worship."
Miller says this kind of thing is a manifestation of how the internet is redefining and creating community, even when it comes to worship. Some, like Christian musician and preacher Zeph Daniel, see online religious community as an alternative to institutional religion. "Leave religion," he says, "and find God."
Of course it's easy to see how this arrangement would not work for Catholicism. Consecration and communion comes from the hands of priests and then eucharistic ministers; there's no way (yet) to send it electronically. Another big issue is how you see community: Can you really have a celebration of the assembled body of Christ if you're not physically with other people?
Madron, a former CEO of a tech company, acknowledges this difficulty and does not see online communion as a substitute for attending a service and bringing your body along. "There's a communal aspect to the eucharist," he told Lisa Miller, "that's difficult to satisfy on the Web." But, he says, "There's a whole long list of people who just simply can't make it regularly to a church-for example, people in the military, or people whose I jobs require them to travel a lot, or students. . . . how we can provide authentic worship experiences through the Web for people who are not part of the institutional church?"
(BTW, Mass on TV has been around a long time-any Chicagoans of a certain age may remember the famed Mass for Shut-Ins program. The U.S. Catholic bishops even issued "Guidelines for Televising the Liturgy" in 1997. You can read that one at www.usccb.org/liturgy/current/tv.shtml). Also, I seem to recall a Vatican instruction on the issue of online liturgy from some time ago, but I cannot find it on the Net. So if anyone can track that down (unless I'm imagining it), please let the rest of us know.
-Joel Schorn
“Nuns in Italy restaurant brawl” ran the headline on the BBC News website. How could I resist?
Which leads me to another question: What would we do without the church in Italy? (As someone with major Italian heritage, I can ask this question without fear of offending.) The same country that brought us the priest who wanted to start an online beauty contest for nuns now gives us a priest and two nuns who allegedly beat up a restaurant manager in the village of Rutino near Salerno in southern Italy.
Apparently the community to which the priests and sisters belong own the restaurant property and had been leasing it to Antonio (in some reports Aniello) Esposito, 49. When they showed up at the premises to “discuss” the situation, they were not pleased to find a wall had been knocked down and seating installed. In addition, said Esposito, “I was giving out receipts, which didn’t suit the nuns, who wanted everything under the counter.” Then things got ugly.
“Passersby had called us,” said local police chief Antonio Tata, “because the three attackers were turning over tables and chairs and smashing plates as well as attacking the owner—it was like a scene from a Wild West saloon. We were called to the venue and inside found a group of people fighting—the restaurant boss, two nuns, and a priest.”
Esposito was taken to the hospital with neck and stomach injuries. “I was hit with a chair by the priest and then ended up on the floor,” he told authorities. “The next thing I knew the two nuns were kicking me and hurling unspeakable insults at me.” Authorities were investigating but hadn’t yet made any formal charges.
“My clients deny the allegations,” said Gaetano Di Vietri, lawyer for the three, two of whom—the sisters—are 83. “Let’s be realistic here. All three have a combined age of 160 [a little math problem here?] so it’s not very likely they are going to attack a 49-year-old man. What is more important here is that the premises are being occupied illegally by the restaurant and the police and the owner know that.”
Still, they say 70 is the new 50, so that would make 83 the new 63. Be that as it may, three on one, whatever the ages, doesn’t seem to me to be a fair fight, especially if tables and chairs were involved.—Joel Schorn, Managing Editor
For you political junkies wondering what to do once the election is over, or for all those preparing to settle into winter, you might consider making your way through the list of 45 “best films” chosen by the Vatican in 1995 in honor of the 100th anniversary of cinema. Although film buffs may argue with certain selections and omissions, overall it is an admirable compilation that shows a real appreciation for the art of movies and moviemaking.
In the months ahead I will offer some mini reviews and commentary as I delve into these film classics. I encourage you to offer your own reviews or comments. We can also begin to compile our own VISION list of Best Films that can include releases in the past decade as well.
As I look over the list, of the ones I’ve already viewed, I’d have to say Babette’s Feast and Stagecoach top my list. I was happily surprised to see It’s a Wonderful Life on the list—it probably is my favorite Frank Capra film although I do love Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It Happened One Night. But for all around entertaining Christmas films A Christmas Story is one I can and do watch over and over.
I look forward to your comments. Happy viewing!
The Vatican Best Films List (1885-1995)
Religion
Andrei Rublev * Andrei Tarkowsky (1969, USSR)
The Mission * Roland Joffé (1986, UK)
La passion de Jeanne d’Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc) *
Carl T. Dreyer (1928, France)
La vie et la passion de Jésus Christ (Life and Passion of Christ) * Ferdinand Zecca and Lucien Nonguet (1905, France) Identified on the Vatican film list as La Passion Pathé
Francesco, giullare di Dio (The Flowers of St. Francis / Francis, God’s Jester) * Roberto Rossellini (1950, Italy)
Il vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to Matthew) * Pier Paolo Pasolini (1964, France/Italy)
Thérèse * Alain Cavalier (1986, France)
Ordet (The Word) * Carl T. Dreyer (1955, Denmark)
Offret — Sacrificatio (The Sacrifice) * Andrei Tarkowsky (1986, Sweden/UK/France)
Francesco * Liliana Cavani (1989, Italy/Germany)
Ben-Hur [A Tale of the Christ] * William Wyler (1959, USA)
Babettes gæstebud (Babette’s Feast) * Gabriel Axel (1987, Denmark)
Nazarín * Luis Buñuel (1958, Mexico)
Monsieur Vincent * Maurice Cloche (1947, France)
A Man for All Seasons * Fred Zinnemann (1966, UK)
Values
Gandhi * Richard Attenborough (1982, UK/USA/India)
Intolerance * D. W. Griffith (1916, USA)
Dekalog (The Decalogue) * Krzysztof Kieslowski (1987, Poland)
Identified on the Vatican film list as Il Decalogo
Au Revoir, Les Enfants (Goodbye, Children) * Louis Malle (1987, France)
Dersu Uzala * Akira Kurosawa (1974, Japan)
L’albero degli zoccoli (The Tree of the Wooden Clogs) * Ermanno Olmi (1978, Italy/France)
Roma, città aperta (Open City) * Roberto Rossellini (1946, Italy)
Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries) * Ingmar Bergman (1957, Sweden)
Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal) * Ingmar Bergman (1957, Sweden)
Chariots of Fire * Hugh Hudson (1981, UK)
Ladri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thief) * Vittorio de Sica (1948, Italy)
It’s a Wonderful Life * Frank Capra (1946, USA)
Schindler’s List * Steven Spielberg (1993, USA)
On the Waterfront * Elia Kazan (1954, USA)
Biruma No Tategoto (The Burmese Harp) * Kon Ichikawa (1956, Japan)
Art
2001: A Space Odyssey * Stanley Kubrick (1968, UK/USA)
La Strada * Federico Fellini (1954, Italy)
Citizen Kane * Orson Welles (1941, USA)
Metropolis * Fritz Lang (1927, Germany)
Modern Times * Charlie Chaplin (1936, USA)
Napoléon * Abel Gance (1927, Italy)
8½ * Federico Fellini (1963, Italy)
La grande illusion (Grand Illusion) * Jean Renoir (1937, France)
Nosferatu * F. W. Murnau (1922, Germany)
Stagecoach * John Ford (1939, USA)
Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) * Luchino Visconti (1963, Italy/France)
Fantasia * (1940, USA)
The Wizard of Oz * Victor Fleming (1939, USA)
The Lavender Hill Mob * Charles Crichton (1951, UK)
Little Women * George Cukor (1933, USA)
What would you add?
Films released prior to 1995?
Films released after 1995?
|Bill Sianis
and the infamous goat
Prayer and superstition are very different things. Sometimes, though, they seem to butt up against each other, so to speak.
The Chicago Cubs recent three-game-sweep departure from the baseball playoffs—a repeat of last year’s exit—once again raised the specter of a curse laid on the team, especially the “curse” of the billy goat.
Even if you don’t believe in a curse, you have to wonder. As everyone knows, the team hasn’t won a World Series since 1908—when Russia had a tsar and Wilhelm II was the German Kaiser; before widespread radio, not to mention penicillin and rural electrification—and haven’t appeared in a Series since 1945.
This last playoff appearance joins on a list of calamities: the slow death of 1969; the abrupt fall into the abyss against the Padres; being overmatched against the Braves and the Giants; and then what happened against the Marlins.
For the curse true believers, it all goes back to restaurant owner Bill Sianis and his goat. The linking of a curse with a goat is loaded with a good deal of legend, but the basic story is this. In the 1945 Series, when the Cubs played the Detroit Tigers, Sianis, the proprietor of the Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago (immortalized in the “cheezborger” bits on Saturday Night Live) bought a ticket for himself and a goat to one of Series home games in Wrigley Field—an attempt to both publicize his establishment and “give the goat” to the Tigers. While allowed in, he was eventually asked to remove the animal because it presented a hygienic challenge.
In retaliation Sianis reportedly said something to the effect of: “”Them Cubs, they aren’t gonna win no more,” and later, after the Cubs lost the Series, sent team owner P. K. Wrigley a telegram that read, “Who smells now?”
The “curse” was probably the creation of a sportswriter looking for a colorful story, but 63 years of futility and heartbreak, as well as several unsuccessful attempts to lift the curse, have lent it a certain credence.
Jump to 2008. Before the start of the Cubs’ playoff division series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cubs’ chairman Crane Kenney left a voice mail for Father James L. Greanis, a priest of St. James Greek Orthodox Church in Valparaiso, Indiana. “I’m a devout Catholic, and I’m not superstitious, but if there is anything there, I want to take care of it,” Kenney told Greanis.
The call lead to Greanis’ appearance at Wrigley Field a few hours before the game when he blessed the Cubs’ dugout with holy water—and event caught on camera by a TBS cameraman.
"It’s not for ensuring the Cubs winning,” Greanis said in Chicago Tribune story by Paul Sullivan, “but for being safe and protected. I’m a priest first, and a Cubs fan second.”
Apparently the Cubs’ hope, however, was a bit more on the superstitious side. They reportedly thought one Greek American could lift the curse of another. But, Greanis said, “It’s not unusual. In Greece, the priest blesses soccer teams, and they did it in the Olympics, too. It was not intended to be a PR stunt or anything. . . . I don’t want anything to be mocked, and neither did Mr. Kenney.”
Whatever the motive, it didn’t help. Cubs’ starting pitcher Ryan Dempster gave up seven walks, Dodger first-baseman James Loney hit a grand slam home run, and the Cubs’ bats went into the freezer. “Now,” Greanis said, “I guess I’m just another Cubbie Occurrence.” Join the club.
Putting a new face(book) on the vocation shortage
I'm a long way away from the days when Sister Firmina would test us third graders on our weekly catechism, but I remember learning the four marks of the church from her. She would be proud that I got question #7 right on the "What's your Catholic IQ" quiz I came across in the current issue of Catechist, www.catechist.com. However, none of my high school and college New Testament professors will be pleased to learn that I missed #3. Better get back to my scripture studies!
Anyway hope you enjoy it. Let us know what stumped you and what you learned. Or better yet send us some of your questions, and we'll create our own Vision Catholic IQ quiz.
You probably heard a couple of weeks ago the odd story of the Italian priest who was planning what news reports called an online “beauty contest” for Catholic sisters.
The story had two lives. The first reports had Father Antonio Rungi announcing that the “Miss Sister Italy” contest would begin this month on his blog. His purpose, he said, was to show how “nuns are above all women, and beauty is a gift from God.” He asked sisters in Italy to send him photos and profiles talking about their spirituality, social awareness, charity, and other virtues, for his blog visitors to judge.
"This contest,” he said, “will be a way to show there isn’t just the beauty we see on television but also a more discreet charm. You really think all nuns are old, stunted, and sad? This isn’t the case anymore.
“Nuns are a bit excluded, they are a bit marginalized in ecclesiastical life,” he added. “This will be an occasion to make their contribution more visible. We are not going to parade nuns in bathing suits. But being ugly is not a requirement for becoming a nun. External beauty is a gift from God, and we mustn’t hide it.” He also said that sisters themselves had the idea for the contest, which apparently made it OK.
It's the understatment of the year to say Rungi was sending out some mixed messages. On the one hand he seemed to be making the case that beauty isn’t skin deep—but then called external beauty a divine gift. He wanted to point out spiritual beauty, but then to seemed to be saying physical beauty was important after all, and he made that point by stereotyping sisters in general and slapping down "old," "ugly," and "stunted" sisters those who did not have the “blessing” of physical beauty.
In his attempt to make the case for inner beauty he actually reinforced youth and outer beauty as standards of a woman’s value. In his concern for the marginalization of sisters, he marginalized them himself. And let's not forget his statement that the sisters are "above all" women; funny, I though a commitment to consecrated life was the essence of a religious vocation. And somehow he thought all this was going to promote vocations to women’s religious life.
Beyond what he said, what’s really scary is that Rungi apparently is a moral theologian and teacher.
Then, the other shoe—or perhaps it was a high heel—dropped: the denials and Run
When it comes to sex, students at Catholic colleges apparently aren’t making choices that are much different from students at secular institutions, according to a new study. A large percentage of college students see no connection between their sexual behavior and their religious faith, says Boston University religion professor Donna Freitas in Sex and the Soul, published recently by Oxford University Press.
Despite the seemingly casual exterior, however, when given the chance to talk about their feelings many of students involved in the “hook-up culture” report feeling “awkward, used, dirty, regretful, empty, alone, miserable, disgusted, ashamed, duped,” Freitas said at a recent symposium. “They wanted to change the culture.”
Students at Catholic institutions, much like their counterparts at secular schools, seem to divorce their sexual practices from their spiritual life because they believe religious teachings on sex are outdated, potentially even laughable, said Freitas, a Catholic theologian and assistant professor of religion at BostonUniversity.
According to an article in the National Catholic Reporter (NCR), Freitas’ research grew out of a class she taught on dating at St. Michael’s College in Burlington, Vermont, in which students opened up with her and with each other about their dissatisfaction with the predominant “hookup culture” on campus. It eventually led her and five research assistants to survey 2,500 students online, read 500 journals, and individually interview 111 students.
“With the exception of evangelicals, American college students see almost no connection between their religious beliefs and their sexual behavior,” says Freitas. “This radical separation of religion and sex tells us important things not only about the power of the college hookup culture but also about the weakness of religious traditions in the face of it.”
Catholic voters—47 million strong—are being wooed by Democrats and Republicans alike in the upcoming election cycle. “The trick,” says Amy Sullivan in a recent Time article, “is figuring out what Catholics want.”
That is no easy task. But here are the issues that should be of concern to Catholics as they weigh and measure the candidates, according to the United States Conference of Catholic bishops’ website www.faithfulcitizenship.org:
The Right to Life and the Dignity of the Human Person: Human life is sacred. Direct attacks on innocent human beings are never morally acceptable. Within our society, life is under direct attack from abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, and destruction of human embryos for research. These intrinsic evils must always be opposed. This teaching also compels us as Catholics to oppose genocide, torture, unjust war, and the use of the death penalty, as well as to pursue peace and help overcome poverty, racism, and other conditions that demean human life.
Call to Family, Community, and Participation: The family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, is the fundamental unit of society. This sanctuary for the creation and nurturing of children must not be redefined, undermined, or neglected. Supporting families should be a priority for economic and social policies. How our society is organized—in economics and politics, in law and public policy—affects the well-being of individuals and of society. Every person and association has a right and a duty to participate in shaping society to promote the well-being of individuals and the common good.
Rights and Responsibilities: Every human being has a right to life, the fundamental right that makes all other rights possible. Each of us has a right to religious freedom, which enables us to live and act in accord with our God-given dignity, as well as a right to access to those things required for human decency—food and shelter, education and employment, health care and housing. Corresponding to these rights are duties and responsibilities—to one another, to our families, and to the larger society.
Option for the Poor and Vulnerable: While the common good embraces all, those who are in greatest need deserve preferential concern. A moral test for society is how we treat the weakest among us—the unborn, those dealing with disabilities or terminal illness, the poor and marginalized.
Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers: The economy must serve people, not the other way around. Economic justice calls for decent work at fair, living wages, opportunities for legal status for immigrant workers, and the opportunity for all people to work together for the common good through their work, ownership, enterprise, investment, participation in unions, and other forms of economic activity.
Solidarity: We are one human family, whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences. Our Catholic commitment to solidarity requires that we pursue justice, eliminate racism, end human trafficking, protect human rights, seek peace, and avoid the use of force except as a necessary last resort.
Caring for God’s Creation: Care for the earth is a duty of our Catholic faith. We all are called to be careful stewards of God’s creation and to ensure a safe and hospitable environment for vulnerable human beings now and in the future.
Responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation, the bishops tell us. So, above all, VOTE!