I certainly hope there is not a whole lot of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll at this year's World Youth Day. Though, I think Rock and Roll is probably far better than the sappy contemporary Christian Music which may be heard there-- I'm not talking about hymns and liturgical music, which can be pretty uplifting and beautiful-- just the sappy stuff. I remember in college my sorority sisters loved that kind of music. It was the first time I ever heard that kind of music. In fact, it was the first time I was ever around more Non-Catholic Christians, than Catholics. Some of the girls in the sorority were still marginally Catholic, but had discovered Calvary Chapel, which I had no idea was a chain church. Whoa... I'm getting off the subject fast. Back to World Youth Day and Woodstock.
Anyway, can the title of this BBC article be anymore stupid? "Rows Surround Catholic Woodstock?" The title trying to compare WYD to Woodstock is not offensive to me, but it's a definite misnomer. Maybe they were trying to be ironic? I've never been to a WYD. I probably could have gone to Denver in 1993, had I been the sort of 20-Something-Catholic who went those those kinds of things. I'm seeing all sorts of mixed reactions about WYD and quite honestly, I don't have an opinion. I found the pope's visit to America in April fascinating. I was drawn to him and finally understood him and what he is trying to do for the Church. I was won over. In retrospect, I wish I'd paid more attention to Pope John Paul II, because, in the end he won me over too.
Now, I will try to get back on point. Honestly, I didn't expect to read a Catholic Friendly article either. It talks about the sex abuse scandal, the anti-Catholic protesters, victim's rights' groups. That ends up being more the scope of the article. I'm not looking for clappy, happy news, but I am starting to agree with those really conservative Catholics on the Internet that there is a mainstream media bias against the Catholic Church. It seems to me that whenever this is a big Catholic event, there always seems to be a mention of the big, bad wrongs of the Church. I can't defend the Church in the way it reacted to the abusive priests. It was wrong, but I'm getting tired of all the bashing. I definitely have strong opinions and have written and deleted a few paragraphs with my thoughts. I want to articulate my feelings on those subjects, but I just can't. Not right now. I get so mad when I try, then I get tongue tied and twisted and never get the words out.
Recently, I read the article about the kid who took the Host from his mouth, later put it in a baggie and saved it show his friend. Dumb, dumb, dumb. At least he returned it. If he was really threatened, that was shameful All he had to do to show his friend the true meaning of the Eucharist was to bring his friend to Mass. Of course, I get the impression that either the kid was naive or not really that strong in his faith, and so didn't really care about the significance of his actions. Then the blogosphere exploded-- both sides fuming at the reaction. I read the blog of the college professor who is dying to desecrate a consecrated host. His behavior is/was asinine. He's reveling in the attention and the commentaries left on his blog were equally hideous, crude and nasty as his own declaration. Blogs on the Pro-Catholic side had commentaries equally profane, but as a Catholic I understood why. (Google has plenty of links should you want to read more.)
All of this bashing is just stupid and pointless. I still contend there is an acceptable perception that it's ok to make fun of Catholics.
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