Catholic Tastes.

Now there's an idea!

Teresa McLean, who says she has struggled to reconcile her love for both cricket and Catholicism with those institutions' traditions of sexist discrimination, notes that sometimes "Change can find extraordinary ways forward."

"In December 1989 the staunchly male-only Lancashire County Cricket Club debated the issue of female membership at its annual general meeting. The minutes explain that one member, `Mr. Keith Hull (otherwise known as Stephanie Lloyd) advised the meeting that by a legal technicality he was the club's first full female member.' Because of his sex-change operation the club already had a female member. It was a fait accompli." (The Tablet, Oct. 17, 1998)

You too can be as chic as a pope

The Willis & Geiger catalog markets a $379 blazer with an ingenious hook. Called the Pope's Cloth Blazer, this jacket stands out as "a mortal attempt at perfection."

"The name is not a trick," the company assures its customers. "This cloth is exactly the same as [the one] the Vatican selects for the pope's vestments. And let's face it, with the church's ability to insist upon the best, that's no small praise." (Willis & Geiger Book No. 22)

Generation gaffes

"My generation was reacting against the tight, ritualized church of the '50s," Msgr. Timothy Dolan, rector of the Pontifical North American College of Rome, tells the New York Times (Oct. 13, 1998). "These kids are reacting against the '60s and '70s, the psychedelic vestments, the Coke and pretzels at Mass." Dolan was commenting on the trend toward greater conservatism among today's Catholic seminarians.

Pampering of the soul

Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan finds much in the current spirituality movement troubling. "People [are] uninterested in anything outside their own feelings. I've watched some of this new American spirituality fill itself with prideful psychobabble as it provides a sell obsessed inner focus for people who have `made it' but who don't care much about those who have not.

"Some of this spirituality is aimed at ... immunizing oneself against the misery of the streets. It was very upsetting to me to be in some spiritual retreat centers and experience this ... radiating affluence, self-satisfaction, and isolation from the suffering of others.... Too often some of the New Age people are seeking a soft world, which their affluence allows them to purchase, while turning their attention from the harsh realities of a world that needs healing and repair." (Tikkun, September/October 1998)

RELATED ARTICLE: Drink this [new and improved] cup

The Vatican is apparently considering new rules for the production of sacramental wine because Italian priests say it can be unfit to drink. According to the Chicago SunTimes (Sept. 23, 1998), certain Italian altar wines can be "rather nasty."

But at the Fourth International Altar Wine Seminar, held recently in the Italian town of Cocconato d'Asti, the focus was on the positive. Catholic News Service (Oct. 16, 1998) reports that a 16-member wine-tasting jury of priests and enologists (wine experts) awarded first prizes to Angelus, a British wine produced from French-grown grapes, and to the northern Italian wine Alleluja.

In a "manifesto" issued at the seminar, participants encouraged a more widespread practice of Communion under both species (bread and wine) and urged a return to the more traditional use of red wine on the altar. Until the mid 16th century, red wine had been the universally accepted choice. But at that time white wine became more prevalent in the Western church, in part because "spills on white altar linens were easier to clean."

The altar wine industry is big, with an estimated 12 million bottles consumed annually. But the best altar wines, such as the pricy Malvaxia Sincerum,"end up being sipped with fancy desserts, not on the altar."

RELATED ARTICLE: Holy Helpers for foot odor

With Holy steps insoles from the I.G. Harmony company in Jerusalem, you can now follow in Jesus' footsteps--and fight foot odor, too!

The bottom layer of Holy Steps Insoles "contains soil of holy Jerusalem," while the middle layer absorbs perspiration, and a top layer is perforated to let feet breathe. So far no information has been forthcoming about how these pieces of Jerusalem land may be affected by the Middle East peace negotiations about the status of the Holy City.

Quote-it Notes

The best sermon upon Christianity is a Christian.

--Isaac Thomas Hecker (founder of the Paulists)