A friend of mine once put to me an example concerning the orientation of hypothetical magnetic dipoles in a hypothetical box. From within the box, it appeared that the orientation of the dipoles was randomly shifting; from the outside of the box, it was apparent that no such thing was transpiring, as one could plainly see the small toddler with the magnetic toy playing on and near the box.

I tend to think of this example when people talk of evolutionary developments as being unpredictable products of mere chance. I do not contest that such things are unpredictable; I contest, very sharply, the notion that pure chance alone had a hand in the developments. We are inside the box; we cannot see if anyone is playing with a magnet outside of it. Perhaps, on that basis, we can be forgiven for reaching the wrong conclusion. Nevertheless, it's still the wrong conclusion.

I say this to preface a mention of this rather fortunate discovery of direct evidence of evolution in action, because while I lament the attribution of the event to purely random chance, I nevertheless acknowledge that it's an exciting discovery, and a bit of a shot in the arm for those who oppose the theory of evolution on some principle (especially my fellow Christians who do so):

A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers' eyes. It's the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait.

...

Twenty years ago, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski of Michigan State University in East Lansing, US, took a single Escherichia coli bacterium and used its descendants to found 12 laboratory populations.

The 12 have been growing ever since, gradually accumulating mutations and evolving for more than 44,000 generations, while Lenski watches what happens.

...sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations – the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use.

Indeed, the inability to use citrate is one of the traits by which bacteriologists distinguish E. coli from other species. The citrate-using mutants increased in population size and diversity.

...Lenski turned to his freezer, where he had saved samples of each population every 500 generations. These allowed him to replay history from any starting point he chose, by reviving the bacteria and letting evolution "replay" again.

...The replays showed that even when he looked at trillions of cells, only the original population re-evolved Cit+ – and only when he started the replay from generation 20,000 or greater. Something, he concluded, must have happened around generation 20,000 that laid the groundwork for Cit+ to later evolve.

Lenski and his colleagues are now working to identify just what that earlier change was, and how it made the Cit+ mutation possible more than 10,000 generations later.

In the meantime, the experiment stands as proof that evolution does not always lead to the best possible outcome. Instead, a chance event can sometimes open evolutionary doors for one population that remain forever closed to other populations with different histories.

Discoveries like this affirm my faith in God, I find, because they carry with them a profound sense of wonder and amazement at the subtle, yet profound, intricacies upon which all of creation is constructed. In a sense, I pity those who assert that God must have made things in the exact manner suggested in the Book of Genesis, because the God of such a literalist interpretation of the Bible is so much smaller, so less magnificent. The God who knows each created thing down to its tiniest detail, and (moreover) who envisioned and breathed into being each such detail is so much larger, and so much more personal as well.

And it is staggering, to me, to think that God still so loves the world that He is willing to again make the processes of His creation apparent in even the tiny bacteria of the lab; indeed, His love is poured out on them too, and they respond in magnificent ways to it.

Discoveries like this, to me, don't speak of chance; they speak of revelation -- natural revelation, to be specific. They speak of a God who continues to desire to reveal His ways and mysteries to an inquiring, open human mind. As David Warren and others have pointed out, the whole ideal of science -- that rational inquiry will be rewarded by way of evidence and discovery -- has at its core a very Christian sensibility, echoed in the words of Christ: "And I tell you, Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."

It serves to admit: yes, I wrote that.

Of course, that was history; at the time of my departure, it was a very -- ludicrously -- difficult thing to be an ardent Catholic in the Christian Union, and there was a lot of pent-up hostility to the faith that I and other Catholics encountered on an almost daily basis. Through the machinations of certain users, there was a time at which the CU seemed, to me, to fall far short of its Christian label.

I never stopped trying to rejoin the union, though, but in due course was invited to enter into the officer corps of another union professing to be a place for "believers" (meaning: Bible believers) to come, meet, and discuss. Like me, the members thereof seemed to be disaffected former denizens of the CU. And in them, I found a momentary kinship -- all of us still had a sour taste in our mouths over some chance encounter we had on the CU forums.

I might point out that the reason this union was formed was, in part, because The Christian Union became a very hostile and, frankly, un-Christian place (especially if you were unfortunate enough to be a Catholic).

Those were my words. I won't deny that I said them.

But what I will say is that in the final summation, I was wrong...and then in spades. For while the CU seemed, for a time, to be hostile and far short of its Christian label, it turned out to be a welcoming place again, and then one that was Christian both in composition and spirit. Conversely, the other union to which I briefly fled turned out to be the very thing I thought I was fleeing -- a hostile, unforgiving place, especially since I was Catholic.

I regret my statement above, especially in light of the fact that it applies not to the union I had left, but to the union I had fled to. As bad as things briefly did get in the CU, they pale in comparison to the raw bigotry and hatred poured out by members of the BBU. As as much as I thought that the CU had failed in its mission of witness to Christ, the union I came to afterwards failed much more substantially, and much more comprehensively, than I would have ever though possible.

The BBU was founded, in my opinion, on what was fundamentally a lie -- it was presented, to me at least, as a place which was open to all earnest Christians. It was only after I joined that I learned that the definition of who and what was "Christian" or not was not an open definition at all, but a very strict and unforgiving one indeed. And as much as I had tired of arguing about Catholic particulars on the CU forums, it was only when I entered the BBU that I entered the lion's den.

I'm glad to have come back to the CU -- it is the more Christian forum, and my previous views on the place were informed not by maturity but by frustration. I've been welcomed back in spades, mending old wounds almost immediately and even achieving a promotion to an officer's rank. The people of the CU have shown themselves to be very Christian in their attitude and response to a prodigal son returning to the fold. I'm glad I went back.

I'm equally glad to have shaken the dust of the BBU from my sandals, and while it shames me somewhat that my ill-chosen sentiments are now being used in the capacity in which they are, I do observe that ultimately, they are being used in an effort by members of the BBU to destroy Christian unity. Let that guilt be upon them, then. I denounce my former statement in the strongest terms, and turn its words over to those who would use it to advance their own hostile agenda.

One is used to a fair bit of nuttiness from those Evangelicals and non-denominational Christians who profess faith in the peculiar strain of pre-millenial dispensationalism that found its stride in the pseudo-Biblical, 19th century idea of "the Rapture." The Left Behind series of novels are one example, and the movies based on them slightly less forgiveable for how truly banal they tend to be.

But now, it seems, Rapture proponents have turned toward self-parody. Please note, however, that the following is not satirical, despite how it sounds:

Christians who believe they might one day be physically swept up to heaven in the Rapture will be able to send e-mails to loved ones left behind on Earth nearly one week after the apocalyptic event takes place, thanks to a new website.

YouveBeenLeftBehind.com lets subscribers send an e-mail message to up to 62 people exactly six days after they've disappeared from the face of the Earth, Wired Magazine's Threat Level reports.

The website, run by Mark Heard along with four other Christians, dispatches the e-mails when at least three staff members fail to log in for six consecutive days. Its main purpose is to give Christians one final shot at evangelism.

"You've Been Left Behind gives you one last opportunity to reach your lost family and friends for Christ," states the website.

The site is predicated on one interpretation of Christian theology that puts the day of Rapture as the beginning of The End Times or Armageddon. Believers, according to this viewpoint, would be physically lifted up to heaven while those who have not accepted Christ would be left behind to suffer seven years of Tribulation under a global government headed by the Antichrist.

In addition to the e-mail function, users of YouveBeenLeftBehind.com can also store personal and financial documents on the site. Up to 150 megabytes of information would be sent to up to 12 people after the presumed rapture.

But for the fact that I'm never personally embarassed to be Christian, I'd be embarassed by this on behalf of my Christian bretheren. As it is, my attitude is one of pity that such things as the above are said with straightforward seriousness.

(Hat tip)

It never ceases to amaze me how such debates inexorably turn to the issue, sooner or later, of my Catholicism. It's as though the people I'm debating, absent any ability to engage me on the initial topics, turn to ragging on Catholicism as a sort of recovery method, perhaps hoping to sway sympathetic witnesses to their cause by playing to their deep-seated uncertainties. It's a rather predatory scheme, I note, and then one which also has a certain Pharasaic quality about it -- the implication seems to be that I, as a Catholic, am somehow "less" Christian than my opponent.

One of the more telling routes such digressions can follow, I've learned, is the issue of "accepting" Christ. Arguably, as a Catholic, I am down with the whole accepting Jesus thing, since I do in fact receive His flesh and blood as nourishment for my body and soul every Sunday. But practically speaking, sooner or later the issue comes down as to whether or not I accept Jesus Christ, personally, as my Lord and Saviour.

I rather enjoy being asked to affirm that I do, in fact, accept Christ in such fashion, in part because it means I can again confess my faith in the Lord. But in part, my enjoyment stems from the follow-up discussion to the statement. If my opponent says "okay then," I know he (or she) is being honest; if my opponent persists in attempting to state that Catholicism is antithetical to that very ideal, then I know he (or she) has an ulterior (and then, shall we say, "less than Christian") motive.

I see it's time for me to post this again.

It's always funny to me, when I get into debates with people who insist that my beloved Catholic Church is non-Christian, non-Biblical, pagan, corrupt, or some variant thereof.

Fortunately, there are ways to approach such issues light-heartedly.

The Rapture

Are you Pre, Mid, or Post? If you don't know how to answer that question, you're probably a Catholic. Most Fundamentalists and Evangelicals know that these words are shorthand for pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, and post-tribulation. The terms all refer to when the rapture is supposed to occur.

The Millennium

In Revelation 20:1–3, 7–8, we read, "Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended. After that he must be loosed for a little while. . . . And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth."

The period of a thousand years, the writer tells us, is the reign of Christ, and the thousand-year period is popularly called the millennium. The millennium is a harbinger of the end of the world, and Revelation 20 is interpreted in three ways by conservative Protestants. The three schools of thought are called postmillennialism, amillennialism, and premillennialism. Let's take a look at them.

Postmillennialism

According to Loraine Boettner in his book The Millennium (he also wrote the seriously defective anti-Catholic book Roman Catholicism), postmillennialism is "that view of last things which holds that the kingdom of God is now being extended in the world through the preaching of the gospel and the saving work of the Holy Spirit, that the world eventually is to be Christianized, and that the return of Christ will occur at the close of a long period of righteousness and peace, commonly called the millennium."

This view was popular with nineteenth-century Protestants, when progress was expected even in religion and before twentieth-century horrors were tasted. Today few hold to it, except such groups as Christian Reconstructionists, an outgrowth of the conservative Presbyterian movement.

Commentators point out that postmillennialism is to be distinguished from the view of theological and secular liberals who envision social betterment and even the kingdom of God coming through purely natural, rather than supernatural, means. Postmillennialists, however, argue that man is incapable of building a paradise for himself; paradise will only come about by God's grace.

Postmillennialists also typically say that the millennium spoken of in Revelation 20 should be understood figuratively and that the phrase "a thousand years" refers not to a fixed period of ten centuries, but to an indefinitely long time. For example, Psalm 50:10 speaks of God's sovereignty over all that is and tells us that God owns "the cattle on a thousand hills." This is not meant to be taken literally.

At the millennium's end will come the Second Coming, the general resurrection of the dead, and the last judgment.

The problem with postmillennialism is that Scripture does not depict the world as experiencing a period of complete (or relatively complete) Christianization before the Second Coming. There are numerous passages that speak of the age between the First and Second Comings as a time of great sorrow and strife for Christians. One revealing passage is the parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matt. 13:24–30, 36–43). In this parable, Christ declares that the righteous and the wicked will both be planted and grow alongside each other in God's field ("the field is the world," Matt. 13:3 until the end of the world, when they will be separated, judged, and either be thrown into the fire of hell or inherit God's kingdom (Matt. 13:41–43). There is no biblical evidence that the world will eventually become totally (or even almost totally) Christian, but rather that there will always be a parallel development of the righteous and the wicked until the final judgment.

Amillennialism

The amillennial view interprets Revelation 20 symbolically and sees the millennium not as an earthly golden age in which the world will be totally Christianized, but as the present period of Christ's rule in heaven and on the earth through his Church. This was the view of the Protestant Reformers and is still the most common view among traditional Protestants, though not among most of the newer Evangelical and Fundamentalist groups.

Amillennialists also believe in the coexistence of good and evil on earth until the end. The tension that exists on earth between the righteous and the wicked will be resolved only by Christ's return at the end of time. The golden age of the millennium is instead the heavenly reign of Christ with the saints, in which the Church on earth participates to some degree, though not in the glorious way it will at the Second Coming.

Amillennialists point out that the thrones of the saints who reign with Christ during the millennium appear to be set in heaven (Rev. 20:4; cf. 4:4, 11:16) and that the text nowhere states that Christ is on earth during this reign with the saints.

They explain that, although the world will never be fully Christianized until the Second Coming, the millennium does have effects on earth in that Satan is bound in such a way that he cannot deceive the nations by hindering the preaching of the gospel (Rev. 20:3). They point out that Jesus spoke of the necessity of "binding the strong man" (Satan) in order to plunder his house by rescuing people from his grip (Matt. 12:29). When the disciples returned from a tour of preaching the gospel, rejoicing at how demons were subject to them, Jesus declared, "I saw Satan fall like lightning" (Luke 10:1. Thus for the gospel to move forward at all in the world, it is necessary for Satan to be bound in one sense, even if he may still be active in attacking individuals (1 Pet. 5:.

The millennium is a golden age not when compared to the glories of the age to come, but in comparison to all prior ages of human history, in which the world was swallowed in pagan darkness. Today, a third of the human race is Christian and even more than that have repudiated pagan idols and embraced the worship of the God of Abraham.

Premillennialism

Third on the list is premillennialism, currently the most popular among Fundamentalists and Evangelicals (though a century ago amillennialism was). Most of the books written about the End Times, such as Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth, are written from a premillennial perspective.

Like postmillennialists, premillennialists believe that the thousand years is an earthly golden age during which the world will be thoroughly Christianized. Unlike postmillennialists, they believe that it will occur after the Second Coming rather than before, so that Christ reigns physically on earth during the millennium. They believe that the Final Judgment will occur only after the millennium is over (which many interpret to be an exactly one thousand year period).

But Scripture does not support the idea of a thousand year span between the Second Coming and the Final Judgment. Christ declares, "For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done" (Matt. 16:27), and "[w]hen the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. . . . And they [the goats] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matt. 25:31–32, 46).

The rapture

Premillennialists often give much attention to the doctrine of the rapture. According to this doctrine, when Christ returns, all of the elect who have died will be raised and transformed into a glorious state, along with the living elect, and then be caught up to be with Christ. The key text referring to the rapture is 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, which states, "For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord."

Premillennialists hold, as do virtually all Christians (except certain postmillennialists), that the Second Coming will be preceded by a time of great trouble and persecution of God's people (2 Thess. 2:1–4). This period is often called the tribulation. Until the nineteenth century, all Christians agreed that the rapture—though it was not called that at the time—would occur immediately before the Second Coming, at the close of the period of persecution. This position is today called the "post-tribulational" view because it says the rapture will come after the tribulation.

But in the 1800s, some began to claim that the rapture would occur before the period of persecution. This position, now known as the "pre-tribulational" view, also was embraced by John Nelson Darby, an early leader of a Fundamentalist movement that became known as Dispensationalism. Darby's pre-tribulational view of the rapture was then picked up by a man named C.I. Scofield, who taught the view in the footnotes of his Scofield Reference Bible, which was widely distributed in England and America. Many Protestants who read the Scofield Reference Bible uncritically accepted what its footnotes said and adopted the pre-tribulational view, even though no Christian had heard of it in the previous 1800 years of Church history.

Eventually, a third position developed, known as the "mid-tribulational" view, which claims that the rapture will occur during the middle of the tribulation. Finally, a fourth view developed that claims that there will not be a single rapture where all believers are gathered to Christ, but that there will be a series of mini-raptures that occur at different times with respect to the tribulation.

This confusion has caused the movement to split into bitterly opposed camps.

The problem with all of the positions (except the historic, post-tribulational view, which was accepted by all Christians, including non-premillennialists) is that they split the Second Coming into different events. In the case of the pre-trib view, Christ is thought to have three comings—one when he was born in Bethlehem, one when he returns for the rapture at the tribulation's beginning, and one at tribulation's end, when he establishes the millennium. This three-comings view is foreign to Scripture.

Problems with the pre-tribulational view are highlighted by Baptist (and premillennial) theologian Dale Moody, who wrote: "Belief in a pre-tribulational rapture . . . contradicts all three chapters in the New Testament that mention the tribulation and the rapture together (Mark 13:24–27; Matt. 24:26–31; 2 Thess. 2:1–12). . . . The theory is so biblically bankrupt that the usual defense is made using three passages that do not even mention a tribulation (John 14:3; 1 Thess. 4:17; 1 Cor. 15:52). These are important passages, but they have not had one word to say about a pre-tribulational rapture. The score is 3 to 0, three passages for a post-tribulational rapture and three that say nothing on the subject.

. . . Pre-tribulationism is biblically bankrupt and does not know it" (The Word of Truth, 556–7).

What's the Catholic Position?

As far as the millennium goes, we tend to agree with Augustine and, derivatively, with the amillennialists. The Catholic position has thus historically been "amillennial" (as has been the majority Christian position in general, including that of the Protestant Reformers), though Catholics do not typically use this term. The Church has rejected the premillennial position, sometimes called "millenarianism" (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church 676). In the 1940s the Holy Office judged that premillennialism "cannot safely be taught," though the Church has not dogmatically defined this issue.

With respect to the rapture, Catholics certainly believe that the event of our gathering together to be with Christ will take place, though they do not generally use the word "rapture" to refer to this event (somewhat ironically, since the term "rapture" is derived from the text of the Latin Vulgate of 1 Thess. 4:17—"we will be caught up," [Latin: rapiemur]).

Spinning Wheels?

Many spend much time looking for signs in the heavens and in the headlines. This is especially true of premillennialists, who anxiously await the tribulation because it will inaugurate the rapture and millennium.

A more balanced perspective is given by Peter, who writes, "But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. . . . Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire! But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you wait for these, be zealous to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace" (2 Pet. 3:8–14).

NOTE: where present, a series of five * characters indicates either the word c-l-a-s-s or s-t-y-l-e. Please substitute mentally where appropriate.

If the Earth really is just 6,000 years old, as some fundamentalists insist, and if (presumably) the creation of humanity preceded or coincided with the creation of all other animal species, and if in fact the various layers of rock strata are proof positive of rapid sedimentation in the wake of the flood of Noah...

...then why aren't we finding human tools and human teeth (teeth are dense; they sink in water) right alongside the fossils of ancient creatures, like the dinosaurs? We've found plenty of remnants from human cultures long vanished, and have found both human teeth and human tools in such discoveries. But those discoveries are never made in the same strata as are e.g. dinosaurs or other, even earlier creatures.

What gives?*

Update: I see a certain other GS user still drops in from time to time, and has posted a related article.

I'll maybe address a few statements made.

First, fossils are rare. Not every living plant, animal, or human fossilizes after death. In fact, it is extremely rare for things once living to fossilize. Dead animals lying in a field or on the side of the road do not fossilize. In order for something to become fossilized, it must be buried rapidly in just the right place.

This is true, but it's also irrelevant to the questions posed above. Teeth and tools don't "fossilize" in the ****c sense, but they are often preserved. With teeth, this makes sense -- essentially, teeth are rocks already. With tools, this also makes sense, because they're typically made of wood, rock, and/or metal. Bones were also used in tools and other objects, as evidenced by preserved examples from African and Native American tribes. It would stand to reason that dinosaur bones would probably have enjoyed more than a bit of use in early human society, given their size and presumable durability. And yet, no evidence of this exists in any excavated human villages that have been discovered (and there have been quite a number of those).

Fossils form from rapid burial, but tools and teeth can be buried gradually and still preserved.

But the fact that fossils are rare, and form only when rapid burial occurs, is perhaps the salient point here. If, as the creationists assert, the various rock strata we observe in geological studies were formed by rapid post-Flood sedimentation, we should expect to find a plethora of fossils almost anywhere we look -- the catastrophic global flood would have set up the ideal preconditions necessary for pretty much every creature that didn't make it onto the Ark to end up as fossil for us to find. It should be ridiculously easy, in that case, to not only find fossils, but to find evidence (e.g. teeth and tools, which aren't fossils per se but which are still often found in excavations) of human beings present in the earliest geological ages.

We also shouldn't find a progression of increasingly complex creatures through the different strata, but don't tell that to the young-earthers.

There's one other point to touch on here: flesh and tissue do not fossilize at all, and can only be preserved by artificial processes (e.g. mummification). It makes sense, then, that we can't find any evidence for, say, early invertebrates (or, really, any invertebrates) in the fossil record; being entirely tissue, they wouldn't have been preserved.

The money quote, I think, has to be this bit, though:

First, someone who might have found these bones in a quarry, could react by saying, "Hey look guys, it's a bunch of old bones. But quick, pass me another stick of dynamite so we can get the next ton of coal out of here." The proof that men and dinosaurs were fossilized together may have gone up in smoke years ago. Second, it may be possible that human bones have been found by scientists alongside dinosaur fossils, yet simply have not been reported widely. By saying this, we do not mean to accuse evolutionary researchers of dishonesty. Rather, we simply believe they are afflicted with presuppositions that have affected their judgment.

I'm fond of remarking that the further one gets from Rome, the closer one gets to Caesar. I may have to add "conspiracy theories" into that saying somehow.

Anyhow, one last thought:

Human footprints in coal veins that are allegedly 250 million years old, human artifacts buried in limestone dated at 135 million years old, clay figurines of dinosaurs from an ancient civilization in Mexico, ancient dinosaur petroglyphs, and much, much more, all point to a conclusion that evolutionists will not accept—dinosaurs and humans once lived on Earth together.

The rest of the article is meticulously sourced, and yet here there are no sources given for what are arguably the most important claims made in the piece. How very...suspect.

As much as I hate to quote Warren Kinsella: "The Flintstones was not a documentary!"

* * *

* don't worry, O Reader, I know enough about geology to know that the age of the Earth is on the order of 4 billion years. No, I don't see a conflict between that reality and my faith in God, nor do I think that it is logically sound to insist that a conflict must necessarily exist. I'm simply poking holes in a flawed theory.

Bishop Fulton Sheen:

There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church, which is, of course, quite a different thing.

Something some of my Protestant associates would do well to remember, methinks!

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today we are celebrating the Solemnity of Pentecost, an ancient Jewish feast on which the Covenant that God made with his People on Mount Sinai (cf. Ex 19) was commemorated. It also became a Christian feast because of what happened on that day 50 days after Jesus' Pasch.
WereadintheActsoftheApostles that the disciples were praying all together in the Upper Room when the Holy Spirit descended upon them powerfully, as wind and as fire. They then began to proclaim in many tongues the Good News of Christ'sResurrection (cf.2:1-4).
This was the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" which had been foretold by John the Baptist: "I baptize you with water", he said to the crowds, "but he who is coming after me is mightier than I... he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Mt 3:11).
In fact, Jesus' entire mission aimed at giving the Spirit of God to men and women and at baptizing them in his regenerative "bath". This was brought about with his glorification (cf. Jn 7:39), that is, through his death and Resurrection: then the Spirit of God was poured out in superabundance, like a cascade capable of purifying every heart, extinguishing the fire of evil and kindling the flame of divine love in the world.
The Acts of the Apostles present Pentecost as the fulfilment of this promise and hence as the culmination of Jesus' entire mission. After his Resurrection, he himself ordered the disciples to stay in Jerusalem, because, he said, "before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:5); and he added: "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
Thus Pentecost is in a special way the Baptism of the Church which carries out her universal mission starting from the roads of Jerusalem with the miraculous preaching in humanity's different tongues. In this Baptism of the Holy Spirit the personal and community dimension, the "I" of the disciple and the "we" of the Church, are inseparable.
The Holy Spirit consecrates the person and at the same time makes him or her a living member of the Mystical Body of Christ, sharing in the mission of witnessing to his love.
And this takes place through the Sacraments of Christian initiation: Baptism and Confirmation. In my Message for the next World Youth Day 2008, I have proposed to the young people that they rediscover the Holy Spirit's presence in their lives and thus the importance of these Sacraments. Today I would like to extend the invitation to all: let us rediscover, dear brothers and sisters, the beauty of being baptized in the Holy Spirit; let us recover awareness of our Baptism and our Confirmation, ever timely sources of grace.
Let us ask the Virgin Mary to obtain also today a renewed Pentecost for the Church that will imbue in all, and especially in the young, the joy of living and witnessing to the Gospel.

I suppose it was inevitable, with the popularity of Stuff White People Like, that someone would start up a website devoted to Stuff Catholics Like.

Oh, this is good cheese, O Reader.

To wit:

I. Rome

…

1) Go to a Papal audience and get stuff blessed. If you let your friends know about your trip in advance you will find yourself needing an extra suitcase to carry all the rosaries and medals that they want you to get blessed by the Pope. Extra points if you can get past the ninja nuns and actually shake the Pope's hand.

2) Visit St. Peter's and stay for Mass. How could you possibly go to Rome and not see St. Peter's?

3) Stick your hand in the Mouth of Truth and scream. This isn't really a Catholic thing but Gregory Peck might have been Catholic so it counts.

4) Go to the bone church. This isn't something everyone does but you get a lot of mileage out of the stories you can tell.

5) Visit the Vatican Museums. Every. Last. Room.

6) Visit one of the catacombs. Ask if it's where they filmed the Indiana Jones movie.

7) Stop by the Opus Dei headquarters and ask to see the albino monk.

8 ) Throw coins in the Trevi Fountain. See number 3.

9) Visit the church of San Clemente and ask to see the basement.

10) Get your picture taken with a Swiss Guard. Extra points if he cuts off your head with his hauberk. Maybe they'll stick it in a box like the Church did with St. Catherine's.

Or how about:

VI. Babies

…

However, if a Catholic family has 5, 6, 7 or more babies, it is seen as a crime against nature and a sin against humanity. In fact, countless Catholic mothers, who have 5 or more babies, have often received flabbergasted looks after having responded "yes" to the question "Are all these yours?" This encounter normally occurs in public places such as supermarkets, department stores, malls, or any other place that makes it difficult for the mother to keep track of every behavioral happening of her babies. The question "Are all these yours?" commonly follows when another person sees a Catholic mother who, with two shopping carts spilling over with groceries, without makeup on, and hair is tied in a pony tail, has one baby in her arms, another in the shopping cart, a third gripped tightly in one hand, the fourth baby clinging dearly to his mother's dress, while the fifth baby has just knocked an entire shelf of canned peas onto the floor, which by chance startled the baby in the mother's arms causing him or her to wail like a banshee. She will unjustly be labeled a 'bad mother' by outsiders for not having the grace of being born with 5 arms.

Some good stuff at the site — who says there is no humour in Catholicism? Go thou and read it all!

Update: I might have suspected that the Curt Jester had something to do with this.