Vatican's chief astronomer states that belief in alien life does not conradict faith in God. Fr. José Gabriel Funes, a Jesuit preist and chief astronomer for the Vatican, stated in an interview in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, that, "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."
posted on May 14, 2008 - View this thread

After breaking the ice with his video message to all Americans, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Washington, D.C. this afternoon for the initial part of his first Papal visit to the United States of America. Watch it all live.
posted on Apr 15, 2008 - View this thread

"Ratzinger is an Evolutionist, which by definition makes one an athiest", is one of the reasons that this website, in which the "true" catholic faith (different [?] from the other catholic faith) is promoted, gives as to claiming Benedict XVI isn't the true pope. And to make their point they have elected a "real" pope themselves: Pope Pius XIII His real name? Lucian Pulvermacher (wikipedia) (previously)
posted on Jan 31, 2008 - View this thread

Sam Harris, an atheist, and Andrew Sullivan, a Catholic, debate whether moderate religion makes any sense. Harris: "Religious moderation is the result of not taking scripture all that seriously." Sullivan: "Blogger, please."
posted on Jan 25, 2007 - View this thread

A collection of American Catholic paraphernalia, including mysterious (for me, a non-Catholic) objects like; aspergills, clappers and Sick call sets. There are also more rosaries, medals and pins than you can shake a stick at.
posted on Oct 20, 2006 - View this thread

Some MeFites have expressed an interest in learning more about the Catholic Church's positions on abortion, the death penalty, and other issues. I hope you will all find these links interesting and enlightening. The people and the Church. But, what about how other Christians see Catholics? Can Catholics respond to these claims? Of course, some claims have to be taken with a very large chunk of salt. Some Christians are even changing their minds. Though there is no single kind of Catholicism. Finally, here is a source for further research.
posted on Jun 21, 2005 - View this thread

Mary, quite contrary The Christianity Today weblog offers a fabulously dense post (pegged to this recent UK news story) about the Protestant embrace of Mary. Lots of fascinating links - including one from the blog of the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary - will bring you up to speed on "the 'Protestants and Mary' deluge of the last three years." Hours of provocative reading for anyone interested in Christian sects.
posted on May 23, 2005 - View this thread

The conclave of cardinals will soon start the process of choosing a new pope. Have you filled in your brackets yet?
posted on Apr 6, 2005 - View this thread

Behzti (Dishonour) a play by sikh author Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti has been dropped because of violent protests from members of the birmingham sikh community.

Catholic archbishop feels that violation of the sacred place of the Sikh religion demeans the sacred places of every religion.

As an aside at least enoch was wrong.

Once again folks - in the right corner it's religion , erm.. running round in circles like a scared fool its freedom of expression.
posted on Dec 21, 2004 - View this thread

The real Vatican is in Kansas. "On July 16, 1990 the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church elected David Bawden as Pope Michael, ending an almost 32 year long interegnum."
posted on Sep 21, 2004 - View this thread

Catholic church invalidates girl's first communion because she used a gluten free wafer. Haley Waldman has celiac disease which prevents her from eating wheat. It will also prevent her from receiving one of the most important sacraments of her church. Apparently, this has happened before. According to church canons wafers must be made only from wheat. Despite the Catholic Church's apparent inflexibility, an extremely low gluten wafer has been approved, but still may not be safe for some celiac sufferers.
posted on Aug 13, 2004 - View this thread

Richard Roeper tells it like it is: Catholics are being persecuted. "And no other religious group gets bashed with such frequency."
posted on Feb 10, 2004 - View this thread

Patron Saints Index Topic List. Because you never know when you might need the Patron Saint of Haemorrhoids or Gravediggers. This actually is a very nice resource for the history of the Saints, their (known or presumed) backgrounds, and when and why they were beatified. Enjoy.
posted on May 19, 2003 - View this thread

The Vatican's publishing a new 900-page dictionary of "Ambiguous and Colloquial Terms about Family Life and Ethical Questions," such as "reproductive health" and "conjugal love." Some groups are looking forward to the tome...I personally would like to look up "pedophilia" in it.
posted on Apr 1, 2003 - View this thread

Hey, It's Not Enough We Die Of Obesity without having to go to Hell too? Some enlightened Frenchmen are bending the Pope's ear, trying to spring Gluttony from the Deadly Sins blacklist. Well, even clever old Thomas Aquinas did his damnedest to narrow the seven buggers down. So: which sins would you excuse today's poor sufferers from and which ones would you insist on keeping, if any? [Something tells me MetaFilter is ideally suited to put in a good word for Sloth. I wonder why? Speaking of which, NYT reg. is required but you can read about it here instead. Via Arts and Letters Daily.]
posted on Mar 12, 2003 - View this thread

Shawn Fanning - Patron Saint of the Internet? Fed up with hackers, a flood of spam and lousy connections, a group of Roman Catholics have launched a search to determine the Patron Saint of the Internet. Actually, I vote for Danni Ashe. I can't wait to see what her miracles are like...
posted on Jan 31, 2003 - View this thread

Christians become aquainted with the Almighty. "When the Wheat Ridge man got laid off from his computer-programming job in June, his friends and family asked what they could do to help. He asked them to pray for him and offered a daily reminder: an automated text message on cellphones and pagers. Now, Wostenberg, a devout Catholic, is offering that same technology to anyone who wants a psalm sent to him each day at 3 p.m. He's selling the service online at PsalmWeaver.com He charges $19.95 a year, plus a $4 setup fee."
posted on Dec 16, 2002 - View this thread

Hail Mary, full of.... um.... what was that, again? The only Pope many of us have known, John Paul II, has decided that a millenium is long enough to change a prayer. Odd that two millenia are not enough to revisit female and married priests.
posted on Oct 14, 2002 - View this thread

Know-Nothings, Bible Riots and the Catholic Church Take a break from priest abuse news with this detailed history of anti-Catholic bias in the United States. In 1834, an angry Boston mob burned down a convent after Harriet Beecher Stowe's father preached that Catholic immigrants were a threat to democracy. In Philadelphia, the 1844 Bible Riots lasted for days, destroying Irish-Catholic churches and neighborhoods. In 1855, Louisville Know-Nothings went on a "Bloody Monday" rampage that left dozens of Catholics dead. Even telegraph inventor Samuel Morse got into the act with a series of anonymous anti-Catholic letters. Fascinating stuff, but oops, break's over. We now return to our regularly scheduled program.
posted on Jun 13, 2002 - View this thread

Catholic church plays hardball in the courts. [NYTimes link, login metafi/metafi] "The dioceses have on the whole acted little differently from commercial institutions confronted by explosive litigation risks. They have tried aggressively to limit exposure to claims by setting up parishes as individual corporations, invoked the statute of limitations, subjected plaintiffs to days of grueling depositions and settled claims in secret." Should the church be behaving just like any private company? What would Jesus do?
posted on Apr 14, 2002 - View this thread

Jesus! In The Raisin Bread? What Kinda Holy Communion Is That?! Better read Helen Hull Hitchcock's fascinating column on Catholic.net to find out: "In recent months Catholics from around the country have been reporting with increasing frequency that their parishes are using "real" bread (i.e. table bread) instead of Communion hosts. Many are concerned that the validity of the Mass is affected. "Have I really received Christ?" is a frequent question. Are they right to be concerned? You bet...So, have progressive Catholics gone too far? And what does the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani, known to all as IGMR, have to say about that?
posted on Apr 2, 2002 - View this thread

Speaking of religion causing nightmares, these just don't feel 'right'. Maybe it's the idea of 'reinforcing' the idea that Jesus is your friend, in all activities. Last i checked, forced friendships don't work well. And sandals aren't conductive to track and field.
posted on Mar 16, 2002 - View this thread

Vatican might name Saint Isidore of Seville the patron saint of Internet users and computer programmers. The world keeps getting weirder, doesn't it?
posted on Feb 6, 2001 - View this thread

Catholic Church to Kid: "Drop dead"! She wanted to take Holy Communion, but had a disease where she couldn't eat the bread. When she asked for a substitute, the Catholic church refused.
posted on Feb 2, 2001 - View this thread

Our religion is better then yours, Naa, Naa! “The truth of faith does not lessen the sincere respect which the Church has for the religions of the world, but at the same time, it rules out...a religious relativism which leads to the belief that ‘one religion is as good as another’,” it said.
posted on Sep 5, 2000 - View this thread

Just what the church needs... More excellent publicity. Two churches using the quarters that Catholic schoolchildren put in the collection plate to have a legal pissing contest over who has the right to use the name of a woman who spent her entire life trying to feed poor people one cup of rice at a time. I wonder how much rice each of those quarters would buy?
posted on Aug 19, 2000 - View this thread

Orange you glad I didn't say shamrock? Uhm... don't the catholics and protestants worship relatively the same diety? And didn't this diety say something about ..you know, uh, being nice to each other and stuff? Something like that? And by the way, when is the sequel to The Commitments coming out?
posted on Jul 5, 2000 - View this thread

I went to Catholic high school for two years, and being the incredibly geeky type, I wondered, given the Pope is the Bishop of Rome, how he ran the whole church and his provincial diocese. This site is a good snippet that answers the question, for those people like me who have academic interests in theology.
posted on Oct 18, 1999 - View this thread