Catholic tastes.

ALTAR BOY STRIKE An interesting tidbit in the background of the recent baseball umpires' strike fiasco was noted by the New York Times (August 5, 1999): Richie Phillips, the combative and unpopular leader of the Major League Umpires Association, got his start in union organizing at church.

At the age of 13, the newspaper reports, Phillips "organized a strike of altar boys in his West Philadelphia parish, because, he said, a new priest was cheating them out of their tips."

In the end, according to Phillips, the priest backed off and said, "OK, keep the money."

JOYFUL MYSTERIES Italians have fallen head over heels in love with cell phones, which they affectionately call telefonini. "Beyond being a status symbol," writes Italian scholar Stefano Bartezzaghi in La Stampa, the cell phone "has a strong quality of a toy and a fetish, pleasant to touch, reconfigure, personalize the ring, and care for by recharging the batteries. The object attracts the same artificial attentions as the Tamagotchi [virtual pets], but also the periodic and structured devotion of the Rosary." (Quoted in the New York Times, August 5, 1999)

BUDDY AND SOUL "Music has a way of evoking awe in the presence of God; and heaven knows, when God is reduced to a kind of celestial buddy, we could use some awe. Music contributes to a sense of mystery.... We should never waste our time and our minds singing drivel."--Rev. Richard Fleming (quoted in the Dallas Morning News, April 24, 1999)

THE STAR THROWER Sister Marie Chin, R.S.M., Speaking at the recent Jubilee Justice Gathering in Los Angeles, recounted a story, originally told by the late anthropologist Loren Eiseley.

While staying in the seaside town of Costabel, Eiseley took a walk on the beach each morning. "He found people combing the sand for starfish, which had washed ashore during the night, to kill them for commercial purposes. It was, for Eiseley, a sign, however small, of all the ways the world says no to life."

But one morning he got up unusually early and saw a man who was also gathering starfish, but each time he found one alive, he would throw it far out beyond the breaking surf. As days went by, he Saw the man doing the same thing each morning seven days a week.

"Eiseley named this man the `star thrower,' and ... he reflects on how this man and his predawn work contradicted everything he, Eiseley, had been taught about evolution and the survival of the fittest.

"There on the beach in Costabel the strong reached down to save, not crush, the weak. And Eiseley wonders: Is there a star thrower at work in the universe, a God who contradicts death, a God whose nature (in the words of Thomas Merton) is `mercy within mercy' and who wants only life?"

WHEN THE LAMB LIES DOWN WITH THE ROCK "I finally learned how to keep time when we started the weekly broadcasts of our Mass for the Americas. During our first televised Mass, I had just said, `Behold the lamb of God' when they switched over to the World Wrestling Federation." --Father Virgil Elizondo (July 16, 1999, Jubilee Justice Gathering, Los Angeles)

HERO WORSHIP "It's almost like going to church, being here, isn't it? Nope, it's more religious than church, because half of the people here aren't faking it." --Gary Smith, describing Sports Illustrated's (July 26, 1999) favorite photo of the century, taken in the Texas Christian University locker room before the football team's 1957 Cotton Bowl.