Separation of Church

And Internet

There was a frightening announcement in the Catholic Standard recently- this Sunday is slotted for "we will collect all your email addresses this weekend." Really! I don't think so.
(Actually they already have mine, but that's another story.)

This weekend we had a visiting pastor from a sister parish in el salvador give a talk. He opened with "god is everywhere- in your heart, in the hearts of your poor brothers and sisters, in your church and even in the Vatican." At the last part everyone cracked up- because the perception is that- well, not so much actually. This wasn't a question raised at all with JPII- this Pope is having hard slog isn't he.

When you have people who call themselves Papists persecuting anyone who thinks that Condoms are known and statistically demonstrated to prevent the spread of disease one wonders if the official Vatican position is also firmly against insulin for diabetics, against sole inserts for fallen arches, and also against anesthesia for surgeries. That could afterall promote vanity in plastic surgeries and vanity leads to hot women which leads to sex which is evil as are all women unless under habits working for room and board. Sole inserts promote shoe comfort which promotes dancing which promotes lust which promotes sex also, didn't you know. Take that Dr. Scholls.

(from the FDA and the CDC below:)

http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/byAudience/ForPatientAdvocates/HIVandAIDSActivities/ucm126372.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/condomeffectiveness/latex.htm

The even more annoying feature of the announcement "ve vill collect all your emails" is that it emminated from a guy whose resemblance to a younger Grandpa Munster is striking and he is one of my least favorite cases of brother of a Bishop getting to throw his weight around recklessly. The explanation is that the emails are needed to 'help' people understand the position of the Bishops on various matters of public policy. Because what Bishop doesn't want to be powerful and influencing public policy and telling various Congress people where to get off leveraging their constituencies of massive email listserves of billions of faithful catholics.

The problem is that we don't all agree- we are not a monolith and we keep our own blog rolls, thank you very much of the things we find pallatable and the things we find off the wall- or just plain harmful and reckless. We are intelligent beings (even the female ones, heaven forbid) and we have a right to our own conscience. All of us don't think that, for example, Ms. Palin is the second coming of Mother Teresa nor that equal rights for all citizens, including gay ones is against the moral law.) On the gay marriage thing- all the church had to do (instead of wasting a fortune in lost litigation) was rename what it does sacramentally to make it clear that what it does is a sacrament and what the state does is the Equal Opportunity Act for Wedding Planners- like call it the Sacramental Marriage Bond (SMB) or (Wedded Sacramental Bliss-WSB)- someone can come up with a name that no gay person would want.

Then there is the "we won't sell your email to raise money for settlements" issue- I didn't see that disclaimer out there. We also won't hack your email, send out messages after appropriating your email address that sound like they come from you, we won't spam you with repeated requests for money, we won't violate IRS rules endorsing any specific candidates, and we won't punish you if you don't shun Nancy Pelosi. None of that was on there-

You can already sign up for email updates to a number of places controlled by the Archdiocese like the Shrine, the Catholic Standard newspaper, the Archdiocese blog- but no, they don't trust that you have the right or mind to decide for yourself. You Vil Give Us Your Email, Now!

Sorry, I was feeding masses of sheep at a picnic yesterday and missed the email cards- leave your name and number at the tone and I may return the call.