A man suing God in a Syracuse, New York, civil court has had his case thrown out. Donald Drusky, a 63-year-old from East McKeesport, Pennsylvania, blamed God for failing to bring him justice in his 30-year battle with his former employer, the steelmaker then called U. S. Steel. The company, now named USX Corp., fired him in 1968. Drusky was demanding that God to give him back his youth, grant him virtuoso guitar-playing abilities, and resurrect his mother and pet pigeon.
“Defendant God is the sovereign ruler of the universe and took no corrective action against the leaders of his Church and his nation for their extremely serious wrongs, which ruined the life of Donald S. Drusky,” the lawsuit said. It argued that, should God fail to appear in court, federal rules for civil procedure dictate that he must lose by default. Other defendants named in the suit included former presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the major TV networks, all fifty states, every single American, all federal judges, and the 100th through 105th congresses.
In early March U. S. district judge Norman Mordue found the suit frivolous and sent Mr. Drusky packing.
The diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, has taken the movie ratings issued by the u.s. Catholic Conference a step further. Many diocesan newspapers run the USCC capsule reviews with the ratings-A-I (general patronage), A-II (adults and adolescents), A-III (adults), A-IV (adults, with reservations), and O (morally offensive). Lincoln’s Catholic newspaper, the Southern Nebraska Register, adds the number of times the Lord’s name is used in vain during the movie. Such an “abuse” includes profanity and any time the Lord’s name is used other than in prayer or conversation regarding the Trinity. A recent rundown included the movies “Analyze This” (A-IV; fifteen abuses), “Cruel Intentions” (O; eleven abuses), “200 Cigarettes” (O; forty-seven abuses), “Jawbreaker” (A-III; twenty-five abuses), and “My Favorite Martian” (A-III; eight abuses).
Perhaps Lincoln’s bishop, Fabian Bruskewitz, could grant a plenary indulgence to the brave soul who has to sit through such stultifying cinema to compile these statistics.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence — described in the March 17 San Francisco Chronicle as “a flamboyant troupe of thirty gay, lesbian, transgender, and straight members who dress like nuns” — show up at events such as San Francisco’s annual gay Pride Parade, where they have used condoms as mock hosts. When Pope John Paul II visited their city in 1987, they conducted a theatrical “exorcism” in Union Square. They also raise occasional money for AIDS and homeless charities. The Bay Area press quotes these men, straight-faced, by names like Sister Missionary Position, Sister MaryMaye Himm, Sister Phyllis Stein, and Sister Ann R. Key.
This year the group wanted to shut down a street in the predominantly gay Castro Street area on April 4 to celebrate its twentieth anniversary. The San Francisco department of parking and traffic ruled not to allow the street closure, but when the board of supervisors overturned that decision the issue became an ideological football. Why? April 4 was Easter Sunday, and local Catholics took umbrage.
San Francisco diocesan spokesman Maurice Healy told the Chronicle that letting a group that “mocks the Catholic Church” close a public street on the holiest day of the Christian year was just as reprehensible as “allowing a group of neo-Nazis to close a city street for a celebration on the Jewish Feast of Passover.”
Healy’s analogy brought predictable howls. “The comparison is offensive not only to myself but to Jewish people everywhere,” responded “Sister” MaryMaye Himm. He added — doubtless without an inkling of irony — “The Catholic Church should be ashamed of itself for promoting such absurdity.” Supervisor Mark Leno, an openly homosexual member of the board of supervisors, said, “I think we all have to lighten up a little bit.” (The Chronicle‘s March 25 editorial cartoon showed a man with lipstick on, dressed in a nun habit, and standing in the midst of flames; a horned demon with a pitchfork watches him warily. “This isn’t funny!” the man yells. To which a voice from above responds: “Oh, lighten up.”)
The brouhaha gained momentum over the next two weeks. Hundreds of local Catholics called the offices of the supervisors and Mayor Willie Brown, demanding that the parking and traffic department’s original ruling be reinstated. On March 19 the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights weighed in, giving the city ten days to back down on the street closing before calling for a national boycott of San Francisco. “We would suggest that Catholic groups hold their meetings and conventions elsewhere,” said league spokesman Rick Hinshaw.
The “sisters” acted aggrieved. “We don’t mock nuns,” said “Sister” Phyllis Stein. “We are nuns. We take vows of community service.” The “sisters” claim to have given $200,000 to charity during their twenty-year existence.
“We’re not having this event because it’s Easter,” added “Sister” Ann R. Key. “We’re having this event because it’s our anniversary.” (Diocesan spokesman Healy pointed out — with no rebuttal — that no one has offered proof April 4 is the exact day the “sisters” were founded.)
“The fact that the ‘sisters’ give a few dollars to charity is unimpressive,” Catholic League president William Donohue said. “So do lots of fascists.”
On March 21 Mayor Brown and three supervisors came out against the vote to close Castro Street on Easter. Supervisor Alicia Becenil offered a resolution to move the street closure for the “sisters” to April 11, one week later. But no one bothered to check with the Greek Orthodox, who celebrate Easter on that day. Finally, on March 30 the board voted nine to two to uphold the decision allowing the “sisters'” performance on Catholic Easter Sunday. More than three hundred people were in attendance, and the majority appeared to support the Catholic position.
“The sisters are a silly, campy, lightweight bunch, and quite frankly their act has worn about as thin as the veils on their hairy heads,” wrote Chronicle columnist Ken Garcia. “No one really pays attention to them anymore. So couldn’t they just have taken their nun habits and jack boots and crowed down Castro another day?”
A dispatch making the e-mail rounds recently caught our eye. It says if Jesus were alive today, he’d be wanted by:
The Food and Drug Administration for turning water into wine without a license.
The Environmental Protection Agency for killing fig trees.
The American Medical Association for practicing medicine without a license.
The local department of health for asking people to open graves, raising the dead, and feeding five thousand people in the wilderness.
The National Education Association for teaching without a certificate.
The Occupational Safety and Health Association for walking on water without a lifejacket and for flying without an airplane.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for allowing hogs to be infested by demons.
The National Organization for Women for not choosing a female apostle.
The National Abortion Rights Action League for saying that if someone harms children it were better that he had never been born.
The Interfaith Movement for condemning all other religions.
Bishop Dale Melczek’s diocese of Gary, Indiana, has banned General Mills’ Box Tops for Education program from all Catholic schools because of the company’s financial support of Planned Parenthood, the world’s number one killer of unborn children.
Box Tops for Education is available to all public, private, parochial, and military schools. Families save the box tops and labels from General Mills products and turn them in to their school. The school mails the box tops to General Mills, which then sends the school a check for an amount based on the number of items submitted. General Mills products include Cheerios, Chex, Yoplait yogurt, Hamburger Helper, Bisquick, and all Betty Crocker products.
“There is something perverse about a company that sends profits from selling kids’ grocery items to an organization that kills millions of babies every year,” said Katherine Halpern, a parent participating in the boycott.
General Mills offers on its web site a search by area code to see if your school is enrolled in the program. A quick check of our area (San Diego) showed several Catholic schools participating. Check and see if your parochial school is enrolled, and, if so, encourage it to withdraw. Write to General Mills at One General Mills Boulevard, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55440, or click the “Comments” button on the home page of the food company’s web site (www.generalmills.com).
Scary millennial goings-on in the quiet English countryside community of Gloucestershire: In a scene reminiscent of the film “The Omen,” the Benedictine monks of Prinknash Abbey have been under attack recently by a large black crow. The report from the abbey is that the bird flies up unexpectedly and pecks hard at the windows. “It’s quite alarming when he suddenly starts if you are in the room,” says Brother Giles Tarbuck. “You think someone is breaking the window.”
With scant regard for the Prince of Darkness symbolized by the crow in the movie, the monks have named the bird “Bonkers.”
Today’s liturgical language problem in a nutshell: The January 1999 newsletter from Assumption Abbey (Benedictine) in Richardton, North Dakota, contains this update: “Bro. Alban is continuing his work on the revision of the Divine Office, which involves the production of a new psalter and a new hymn book. We need a new psalter because our current one does not have inclusive language, and, Vatican or no Vatican, we feel this is a necessity in this day and age.”
Women cannot be ordained to the diaconate because that would “represent a degree toward the priesthood,” according to Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy.
Speaking at the Vatican on March 25 as he presented the Pope’s Holy Thursday letter to the world’s priests, Cardinal Castrillon emphasized the “spiritual paternity” of the ministerial priesthood. Catholic World News reported that the cardinal’s comments may have been an indirect response to an article published earlier in March by the prestigious Jesuit review Civilta Cattolica, which had suggested that a female diaconate might be possible in the future.
The staff at Civilta Cattolica needs to study its catechism: “‘Only a baptized man [vir] validly receives sacred ordination’ [Code of Canon Law, 1024]. The Lord Jesus chose men [viri] to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry . . . The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible” (CCC 1577).
Cardinal Castrillon also observed that the vocational crisis of the 1970s and ’80s has abated. Today more seminarians are being drawn “from the professional world and people who have begun university studies.” These vocations, he said, could prove more durable.
For ten years the International Institute for Culture has organized a summer seminar on faith and culture in the Bavarian university town of Eichstatt. The program was established in response to the Holy Father’s call for the re-evangelization of culture. The participants spend three weeks reflecting on the ways our faith has shaped the cultures we live in. Since the Pope has dedicated 1999 to God the Father as part of the Jubilee preparation, the theme for this summer’s program is “The Fatherhood of God; Fatherhood Among Men.” Last year there were fifty participants from fifteen countries. The program is in English, but daily Mass and many of the devotional prayers are said in Latin. In Bavaria, public expressions of Catholicism are a way of life. There will be a three-day excursion to Prague and a one-day trip to Munich for High Mass with choir and orchestra. If you are interested in exact dates and cost, contact the Institute at P. O. Box 175, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, 19096; phone 610-658-3288; fax 610-658-3298.
Dana Carvey poked fun by portraying them as judgmental prudes on “Saturday Night Live.” Sigmund Freud thought they suffer from “obsessional neurosis” and repressed sexuality. Now “Revenge of the Church Ladies” is what one national newspaper is calling the results of a comprehensive sex survey by the University of Chicago. It found religious women experience significantly higher levels of sexual satisfaction than non-religious women. William R. Mattox, Jr. reported in the February 11,1999, issue of USA Today that “at least four factors” appear to be responsible for the link between spiritual commitment and sexual fulfillment.
First, church ladies appear to benefit from their lack of sexual experience prior to marriage. Several studies (including one of 100,000 women in the 1970s by Redbook) have found that women who engage in premarital sex are less apt to be satisfied with their sex lives than women who enter marriage with little or no sexual baggage.
Second, churchgoers-both women and men-appear to benefit from a commitment to marital fidelity and permanence. Sex therapist Mary Anne Mayo says this is especially true for women, since “their sexual responsiveness is greatly affected by the relational context in which lovemaking takes place.”
Third, religious women enjoy greater sexual freedom. They don’t worry about the scourges of promiscuity: AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, fear of rejection and out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and fear of getting caught. “Moreover,” writes Mattox, “church ladies tend to be free from the guilt associated with violating one’s own sexual standards-a factor that a University of Connecticut study found to hinder sexual satisfaction among unmarried college students.”
Fourth, church ladies appear to benefit from the belief that God created sex. Mattox cites the 1993 Janus Report on Sexual Behavior that concluded non-religious people “have a tendency to focus on the more technical or physical performance.aspects of sex, while the religious pay more attention to the mystic and symbolic dimensions of one’s sexuality.” Mattox points out that the Song of Songs celebrates marital intimacy in explicit terms, and he quotes Proverbs 5: 18-19: “Rejoice in the wife of your youth. . . . Let her breasts satisfy you at all times, be exhilarated in her love.”
“If one wants to know why church ladies are having so much fun,” writes Mattox, “my best guess is that their husbands are taking these biblical passages quite literally.”