catholic tastes.

PUT INTO PERSPECTIVE If you think church politics at this turn of the millennium may have gotten out of hand--too much polarization, too much name-calling and infighting--think again. The millennium edition of Harper's Index featured this entry from the end of the first millennium: "Number of popes stabbed, strangled, or poisoned to death in the last three decades of the 10th century: 5."

The same listing also included answers to long-debated theological quandaries. The Department of Applied Physics of the University of Santiago, Spain supplied these calculations: "Estimated temperature of hell, according to two Spanish physicists' interpretation of the Bible: 832 [degrees] F. Estimated temperature of heaven: 448 [degrees] F."

And the American Institute of Physics in College Park, Maryland claims to have solved another old scholastic puzzle: "Estimated number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin: [10.sup.64]." They even established the "estimated number that can dance in a row across a pinhead's diameter, `Rockettes-style': [10.sup.32]." (Harper's, January 2000).

CATHOLIC SEX When he came upon the "pithy summary of Pope John Paul II's theology of sex" in George Weigel's new, voluminous biography Witness to Hope (Cliff Street Books, 1999), Commonweal executive editor Paul Baumann says he "felt compelled to call my wife back into the room. Marriage, after all, is a `school where we become fitted.., to make a complete gift of self to the other.' I could not, in good conscience, spare her this.

"`Darling,' I said, my eyes alight in hopeful expectation, `would you say that our sex life "is an icon of the interior life of God"?'

"Honesty compels me to report that a moment of awkward silence followed. My wife then gave me what I can only describe as a pitying look.

"`Just let me explain ....' I protested.

"She smiled patronizingly, patted me on the shoulder in the spirit of `mutual self-giving,' and headed out of the room. `I don't understand how you can read that stuff,' she said, shaking her head." (Commonweal, Dec. 3, 1999)

IT'S THE REAL THING! "There's a new Christian soldier in the cola wars," reports the Interpreter (October 1999). "The first Christian soft drink" was launched last year by Knoxville, Tennessee entrepreneur George Jones. Although called Holy Cross Soda, the flavors are not wine mixed with gall or vinegar, but citrus and root beer. Profits, Jones says, "go mostly for the Lord." The colorful cans feature the cross and three Bible verses.

VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU... "A thousand years from now," a sidewalk preacher called "the Rev. Billy" tells the New York Times Magazine (Dec. 5, 1999), "we will not be measuring our lives by our time-distance from the birth of one Jesus Christ. We will be measuring our time from the birth of Mr. Mickey Mouse.

"Mickey is the most famous corporate logo in the world, and his power over us is accelerating at the present time. We must resist this .... Right now, Mickey Mouse and his handlers are in the ascendancy .... I have a vision of erasing Mickey Mouse's face. Nothing is left of it.

"Times Square again becomes a place where the sidewalks are populated by real people! Visionaries. Sex workers. Blarney Stone experiencers. People sagging in the doorways. Hallelujah. That's the future! Amen! Praise be! I'm going to get back to my Western omelet right now. Nice to talk to you."

OPTION FOR THE POOR "Jesus didn't say `Pick up your BMW and follow.' I see no obligation to take care of the bourgeois .... The people who need help are those who are sick, not those who are well."

--Rev. Joseph L Roberts, Jr., pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta (Utne Reader, November-December 1999)

THE GUILTY CONSCIENCE COMMITTEE "I'm not sure I'm in favor of repentance. Sinners are the ones who get the work done. A strong sense of personal guilt is what makes people willing to serve on committees."

--Humorist Garrison Keillor (quoted in The Living Pulpit, October-December 1999)