catholic tastes.

FAMILY COURT

"The behaviour of His Majesty towards several of his wives has gone beyond acceptable bounds," declared England's top family law judge, Dame Elizabeth Butler Sloss, during a mock trial of Henry VIII, the 16th-century English king whose attempts to secure an annulment led to papal excommunication and was instrumental in splitting the Church of England from Rome.

The July trial, set up in London by the American Bar Association, heard the compensation claims of "the king's six battered, neglected, and acephalous wives," The Tablet (July 22, 2000) reports. "Anne Boleyn ... this week sought a quickie divorce, while Catherine Parr called on Henry to honour his prenuptial agreement. Catherine of Aragon's claim, brought by the Americans, for half of the abusive husband's property (including the crown jewels) was considered excessive by the British lawyers."

THROUGH OUR GLASSES, DARKLY Some 12 percent of Italians would like Pope John Paul II to wear sunglasses, Italian newspapers reported last summer. The revelation came to light in an Agence France-Press article that also claimed that "the sex appeal of the quintessential Latin lover is largely determined by his sunglasses." Actually, the survey (conducted by a Milan cosmetics firm for an international opticians fair) on which the article was based had merely suggested that famous people looked more authoritative in sunglasses. Some 22 percent of those polled had also wanted Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato to don shades. (New York Times, Aug. 15, 2000)

MOSHING AT ST. PETER'S "I was on point, it was insane.... It was like a mosh pit, except nobody was wielding chains."

--Jesse Randall, 16, of Seattle, speaking of attending the pope's opening of World Youth Day at St Peter's in Rome (The New York Times, Aug. 21, 2000)

FROM THE BOOK OF ACTS "A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle."

--Kahlil Gibran (quoted in The Living Pulpit, July-September 2000)

IF ANYONE STRIKES YOU on the right cheek, slam him to the mat, flip him through the ropes, or poke him in the eye. "We're just a church on the cutting edge," says the Rev. Harry Sewell, senior pastor of the Family Cathedral of Praise in Mesquite, Texas, which last May hosted the public debut of the Bible--and people--thumpers of the Christian Wrestling Federation (CWF).

"Wrestling can be a ministry," CWF founder Rob Vaughn, a.k.a. Jesus Freak, told the Dallas Morning News (May 12, 2000). "We do all the kind of wrestling you see on TV, but we leave out the parading women and all the negative stuff. We are a ministry first."

Modeled after the World Wrestling Federation, the Christian grapplers (with names like Apocalypse, Angel, Martyr, or The Beast) pull, slap, snarl, huff, and grunt their way through their matches, using garbage cans, tables, and baking pans to strike their fellow believers.

In the process, the group "hopes to express the love of God to youth all over the country in a new and dynamic way." (www.christianwrestling.com)

It's impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without scorching somebody's beard.

--Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (German satirist, 1742-1799)