The Seventh Seal

Go on Scott Walker! You know it makes sense!

On All Saints Day, In Honour of My Patron

More All Saints Day Laughs: LMAO!

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused - Anonymous

Mary Clancy goes up to Father O'Grady after his Sunday morning sermon. She's in tears. He says, "So what's bothering you, Mary my dear?" She says, "Oh, Father, I've got terrible news. My husband passed away last night." The priest says, "Oh, Mary, that's terrible. Tell me, Mary, did he have any last requests?" She says, "That he did, Father." The priest says, "What did he ask, Mary?" She says, "He said, 'Please Mary, put down the gun...

Two young nuns are ordered to paint a room in the convent, and the last instruction of the Mother Superior is that they must not get even one single drop of paint on their habits. After discussing it, the two nuns decide to lock the door of the room, strip off their habits, and paint naked. In the middle of the project, there comes a knock at the door. "Who is it?" calls one of the nuns.

"Blind man," replies a voice from the other side of the door.

The two nuns look at each other, shrug, and, deciding that no harm can come from letting a blind man into the room, they open the door.

"Nice tits," says the man. "Where do you want the blinds?"

Two nuns are driving down the highway, when, out of nowhere, a Vampire lands on the front hood of their car and is facing them through the windshield. The two nuns begin to panic when one nun yells to the other, “Do something! Show it your cross!”

The nun in the passenger seat agrees, leans out the window in rage and yells, “Get the **** off the windshield!”

Catholic Song so Awful it is Good

All Saints Day Joke

A preacher wanted to raise money for his church and on being told that there was a fortune in horse racing, decided to purchase one and enter it in the races. However, at the local auction, the going price for horses was so high that he ended up buying a donkey instead. He figured that since he had it he might as well go ahead and enter it in the races. To his surprise, the donkey came in third!

The next day the local paper carried the headline, "Preacher's Ass Shows."

The preacher was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race again. The paper read: "Preacher's Ass Out in Front."

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the preacher not to enter the donkey in another race.

The paper headline read: "Bishop Scratches Preacher's Ass."

This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the preacher to get rid of the donkey. The preacher decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent.

The paper headline the next day read: "Nun Has Best Ass in Town."

The Bishop fainted. He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it on to a farmer for £10.

Next day the headline read: "Nun Sells Ass for £10."

This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey, lead it to the plains where it could run wild and free.

Next day the headline in the paper read, "Nun Announces Her Ass Is Wild and Free."

The Bishop was buried the next day.

Next day, the headline in the paper read: "Too Much Ass Responsible for Bishop's Death."

God Thunders, "This is a Child!"

Cardinal Justin Rigali on the forthcoming US Presidential Election.

For the full article on this click here.

Our own common sense tells us that not every issue is of the same importance. At various times in history, a people or nation is confronted with an issue that transcends others in importance and that demands a courageous response.The transcending issue of our day is the intentional destruction of innocent human life, as in abortion. We wish with all our hearts that no candidate and no party were advocating this heinous act against the human person. However, since it is a transcending issue, and even supported in its most extreme and horrific forms, we must proclaim time and time again that no intrinsic evil can ever be supported in any way, most especially when it concerns the gravest of all intrinsic evils: the taking of an innocent life.

We bishops of Pennsylvania quoted from the late Pope John Paul II’s Post Synodal Exhortation on the Vocation and Mission of the Lay Faithful and I quote him again here: “The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination” (Christifideles Laici, 38).

At this moment in our country’s history, defense of innocent human life is a moral responsibility for all of us. The same God who thundered from Mount Sinai: “Thou shalt not kill,” thunders still. When life in the womb is destroyed, God thunders: “This is a child!” When by the most barbaric means, unworthy of any civilized people, the brain of a child is sucked out of his or her head by a vacuum, God thunders: “This is a child!” When a baby is left to die of exposure on a shelf because of a failed abortion, and this is considered a “right” by any leader, God, the Source of all law and authority, thunders: “This is a child!” When we are faced with every modern means of education and communication, in addition to the law placed in our hearts at creation, no one, and most especially, no Catholic, can ever say: “I did not know.”

The human dignity that we proclaim works two ways: it affords us a great privilege but it also demands a responsibility. The feeble defense “I did not know” cannot be used by any responsible person in our time when confronted with the reality of abortion. We do know. We know because we can reason and think and see. Along with this position, which is confirmed by modern science, comes a command: “Thou shalt not kill.” It is not a question of politics but a question of the gravest of intrinsic evils; and just as the reality of what it is cannot be explained away, neither can our responsibility.

Throughout our history, Catholics have earned their right to call themselves patriotic Americans. Faithful citizenship not only includes dying for one’s country or working towards its prosperity, it also includes being faithful to a law which is higher than the expediency of the moment with the same generosity of body and heart, and the same courage that is given on the battlefield and in the workplace. We remind ourselves of this as we continue to be called to faithful citizenship and respect for life in the “earthly city” without forgetting that we are ultimately called to live as citizens of heaven forever.

Pope Benedict XVI: No Opposition Between Faith and Science in Evolution

There is no opposition between faith's and science's views of creation, Benedict XVI says. From Zenit

The Pope affirmed this today when he addressed members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences who were beginning their plenary assembly on "Scientific Insight Into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life."

The assembly, scheduled to run through Tuesday, has brought together a group of scientists and scholars to discuss facets of evolution ranging from the origin of the human species to what the insect world reveals about the evolutionary process.

The Holy Father recalled how his predecessors, Popes Pius XII and John Paul II noted "that there is no opposition between faith's understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences."

He then noted how early philosophy "proposed images to explain the origin of the cosmos on the basis of one or more elements of the material world," understanding this "genesis" not so much as a creation, but rather a "mutation or transformation."

"A decisive advance in understanding the origin of the cosmos was the consideration of being qua being and the concern of metaphysics with the most basic question of the first or transcendent origin of participated being," the Pontiff added.

And he explained: "In order to develop and evolve, the world must first be, and thus have come from nothing into being. It must be created, in other words, by the first Being who is such by essence."

Benedict XVI then considered what it really means to say that the foundation and development of the cosmos is "the provident wisdom of the Creator."

It is not, he explained, to say that creation has only to do with the beginning of the history of the world and of life.

Rather, the Pope said, it implies that the Creator "founds these developments and supports them, underpins them and sustains them continuously."

He added: "Thomas Aquinas taught that the notion of creation must transcend the horizontal origin of the unfolding of events, which is history, and consequently all our purely naturalistic ways of thinking and speaking about the evolution of the world. Thomas observed that creation is neither a movement nor a mutation. It is instead the foundational and continuing relationship that links the creature to the Creator, for he is the cause of every being and all becoming."

The Holy Father noted that the word "evolve" literally means "'to unroll a scroll,' that is, to read a book."

"The imagery of nature as a book has its roots in Christianity and has been held dear by many scientists," he said. "Galileo saw nature as a book whose author is God in the same way that Scripture has God as its author. It is a book whose history, whose evolution, whose 'writing' and meaning, we 'read' according to the different approaches of the sciences, while all the time presupposing the foundational presence of the author who has wished to reveal himself therein.

"This image also helps us to understand that the world, far from originating out of chaos, resembles an ordered book; it is a cosmos. Notwithstanding elements of the irrational, chaotic and the destructive in the long processes of change in the cosmos, matter as such is 'legible.' It has an inbuilt 'mathematics.'"

Because of this, the Pope said, humanity can engage not just in studying measurable phenomena but also in discerning the visible inner logic of the cosmos.

"We may not at first be able to see the harmony both of the whole and of the relations of the individual parts, or their relationship to the whole," he acknowledged. "Yet, there always remains a broad range of intelligible events, and the process is rational in that it reveals an order of evident correspondences and undeniable finalities: in the inorganic world, between microstructure and macrostructure; in the organic and animal world, between structure and function; and in the spiritual world, between knowledge of the truth and the aspiration to freedom.

"Experimental and philosophical inquiry gradually discovers these orders; it perceives them working to maintain themselves in being, defending themselves against imbalances, and overcoming obstacles. And thanks to the natural sciences we have greatly increased our understanding of the uniqueness of humanity's place in the cosmos."

Benedict XVI noted that the existence of beings capable of God points to the existence of the "intellective soul of a free transcendent subject."

Thus, he said, the Church has constantly affirmed that the immortal soul is created by God, not produced by parents.

"This points to the distinctiveness of anthropology, and invites exploration of it by modern thought," the Pope encouraged.

He concluded by thanking the scholars and scientists, recalling words from John Paul II: "Scientific truth, which is itself a participation in divine truth, can help philosophy and theology to understand ever more fully the human person and God's revelation about man, a revelation that is completed and perfected in Jesus Christ. For this important mutual enrichment in the search for the truth and the benefit of mankind, I am, with the whole Church, profoundly grateful."