catholic tastes.

HOLY SON OF A GUN In late February, gun enthusiast John Michael Snyder, an ex-Jesuit and former lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, took his one-man crusade for the appointment of a patron saint of handgun owners to Rome. For several years now, Snyder has been lobbying the Vatican to declare Saint Gabriel Possenti, a relatively obscure 19th-century Italian saint, the "guardian saint of marksmen." Such a declaration, he told the Associated Press (Feb. 28, 2001), would show that the Vatican is "courageous enough to stick its neck out for the right of individuals to defend themselves against evil and tyranny." The Vatican press office meanwhile said naming a gun-toting patron saint was not opportune. Possenti is said to have saved a town from a band of marauders with a display of marksmanship.

GOOD-BOOK CROOKS According to John M. Hamilton's Casanova Was a Book Lover: Curiosities About the Writing, Selling, and Reading of Books (Louisiana State University Press), the most stolen of all books is the Bible. Many are taken from hotel rooms (placed there by the Gideon Society, which annually distributes 56 million copies worldwide). Comments the Times Literary Supplement, "The most intriguing thing about [stolen Bibles] is surely the dilemma facing the Almighty as he attempts to judge thieves who are also in search of salvation." (Context, July 1, 2000)

THE KA-CHINGDOM OF GOD? "Las Vegas is a realization of the kingdom of God on earth.... You can't understand America today if you don't understand Las Vegas. And you can't understand the world today if you don't understand America. So if you want to understand the world, you've got to come to Las Vegas." --Philosophy and religion professor Mark C. Taylor, plenary speaker at the recent convention of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy in Las Vegas (The New York Times, March 13, 2001)

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO HOMER "Everyone in this book is a sinner, except this one guy." --Homer Simpson, on the Bible

McEUCHARIST The new, "clean and sanitary," and "aseptically sealed" Celebration Cup, its Illinois-based distributor, Communion Source, boasts, "promises to revolutionize the way that churches around the world offer Holy Communion" (www.communionsource.com). The patented Celebration Cup (13 [cts.] per cup) "facilitates more efficient and less time-consuming distribution of the Holy Communion elements."

Mark Olson, writing in The Other Side (January-February 2001), describes his recent first experience with this fast-food Communion: "Everyone was handed their own little self-serve Communion kit. It featured a tiny, extremely flexible plastic cup, a mini version of what some fast-food outlets use to serve orange juice. It was filled with a pale, pink-colored liquid that might once have included a smidgen of grape juice among its other, largely insipid ingredients.

"The little plastic cup was covered with a pair of foil seals, each marked with the logo of the company that manufactures and distributes this Eucharist-on-the-run. Simply dig your fingernail between the seals and then pull them apart to reveal a paper-thin white-colored object, slightly smaller than a dime and about as thick as a corner torn from the front page of USA Today. Welcome to the Lord's body.

"By the way, while removing the foil seals, be careful not to squeeze the cup too tightly or you may reenact--in much too literal a fashion--the old hymn `There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.' Then again, the pale liquid might not leave much of a stain."

What's next? How about a "church with a `drive-up' sacrament window," Olson wonders. "These little self-serve Lord's Supper kits would be ideal for that. `Two bodies and bloods to go? Pull up to the second window, please.'"