lördag 27 mars 2010

Får män ha kjol eller klänning?

Hur långt får "maskulinismen" gå? Finns det ens ett motsvarande manligt ord för feminism? Finns mansfrigörelsen?

Hörde om några män som ville ha kjol till vardags (utan att vara transvestiter) men de stötte på patrull. I en del miljöer går det ju bra, där det ingår i den folkliga klädseln - som den skotska kilten och katolska prästklänningar. Men på kostym-och-slips-arbetsplatsen?

Vad är skillnaden jämfört med när kvinnor började ha byxor? Nu är det accepterat. Men män får inte ha t.ex. en blommig kjol utan att riskera trakasserier... Vare sig kort eller lång. Kvinnor kan ju fortfarande få pikar om kjolarna är "för korta".

Är det mesigt att klä sig som en kvinna och tufft att klä sig som en man? Kan kvinnor lättare överträda mansgränsen? Förutom på de håll i världen där kläder används som symboler för mäns makt över kvinnor.

Nåväl, är ett stycke tyg verkligen så viktigt? Borde inte alla män själva få bestämma vad de vill ha på sig? Även om de vill ha vad som anses vara "kvinnokläder". Vad tycker ni?

Jag väntar på att den förste modige mannen i burka eller åtminstone nunneslöja ska dyka upp...

Kanske skulle män i kjol rentav kunna innebära ett slut på krig?

Möt några män som bär kjol här.

Läs mer här, här och här.

Och vad menar de egentligen här?

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torsdag 25 mars 2010

Irländsk präst ber om kvinnliga präster

Detta händer nu i kölvattnet efter de uppdagade skandalerna. Liknande röster hörs från Tyskland.

Hoppas kyrkan vaknar ur sin törnrosamardröm nån gång.

****

"Athlone priest Fr Shay Casey has said this week that it does his head in thinking about the abuse of children by Catholic priests and the fact that more wasn't done about it.

And he said the introduction of women priests would help to usher in a new era for the church."

/.../

"Speaking about the pope's letter to the people of Ireland which was read out at masses last weekend, Fr Shay said: "It's one of the many tiny steps that need to be taken."

He added that Pope Benedict XVI seemed to be engaging with the people on the issue.

"They're sending in the 'CAB of the Catholic Church' to investigate, it's a pity they didn't send them in 20 years ago," said Fr Shay.

"I hope it's not just dressage. We have to get back to being authentic and living the gospel and doing what we're supposed to be doing. Alongside that I hope it will bring about a shake-up in the Church," said Fr Shay, saying the whole organisation of the Church needed to be changed, saying there was a need for female priests.

"It's incredible in this day and age that you can deny a person the right to exercise a ministry because of their gender. It would make a big difference to the decision making process," he said. "We need a feminine influence. I pray for the day it will come, but I wouldn't hold my breath."

Fr Shay said there was a need for renewal in the Church, and said this shouldn't just be about painting buildings or statues, but a profound awakening in the Church."

Läs hela artikeln här.

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Har man rätt att dö?

Är det en mänsklig rättighet att säga nej till livsuppehållande behandling? Har den som är gravt handikappad eller svårt sjuk och inte vill leva längre, men inte har möjlighet att ta sitt eget liv, rätt att få sjukvårdens hjälp att avsluta det?

Socialstyrelsen uppmanas i ett brev att besluta om fallet nedan före sommaren.

Vad anser du?

***

"Fallet sätter fokus på frågan om patientens rätt att själv besluta om han eller hon vill fortsätta en livsuppehållande behandling eller inte.

Upprinnelsen är ett brev till Socialstyrelsen där kvinnan ifråga beskriver sin situation och varför hon inte vill leva längre.

Kvinnan lider av en medfödd allvarlig neurologisk sjukdom som gör att hennes tillstånd gradvist försämras.

– Jag kan inte andas själv. Inte ens ett enda andetag. Jag kan ej heller röra mig någonting, skriver hon i brevet som dikterats för två kuratorer vid Danderyds sjukhus.

Kvinnan vårdas i respirator men bor i eget boende med ständig assistenthjälp.

Hon säger att vill avsluta sitt liv på ett värdigt sätt "så länge jag ännu har kropp och hjärna i behåll", som hon uttrycker det.

Eftersom hon inte vill kvävas kräver hon att bli nedsövd innan respiratorn stängs av."

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onsdag 17 mars 2010

Prästcelibatet på tapeten

De nyligen avslöjade pedofilskandalerna i katolska kyrkan i Europa har väckt frågan på nytt.

***

"Hamburg Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke told the daily newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt on Saturday that coexistence between celibate and married priests should be possible. He added that while he saw no direct connection between the large number of abuse cases and priest celibacy, "the celibate lifestyle can attract people who have an abnormal sexuality."

The president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, Alois Glueck, also spoke out for dialogue on reforming the celibacy requirement.

"In other areas of society where celibacy plays no role, the problems [of sexual abuse] are ultimately not any less," Glueck told the regional daily Passauer Neue Presse. "But the issue of celibacy will come up in our debate for other reasons. We have to think of solutions to the lack of priests.""

Läs mer här.

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lördag 13 mars 2010

Kvinnliga rabbiner

Läste en mycket intressant artikel om judiska (även ortodoxa/konservativa) kvinnor som har vigts till rabbiner. De är inte många, men de finns. Och det som verkar vara mest kontroversiellt är titeln, inte uppgiften, utom för en del bakåtsträvare...

Någon som känner igen resonemanget nedan?

Är det inte lite underligt att judendomen förnyas smidigare och snabbare än katolska kyrkan? Om den religion som kristendomen har vuxit fram ur kan viga kvinnor - varför skulle då inte vi kunna göra det?

***

"In 1935, Regina Jonas of East Berlin was ordained a rabbi to serve the German Jewish community. But after the Shoah decimated the German Jewish population, no more women were ordained until the Reform movement began ordaining women in 1972. The Reconstructionists followed suit two years later. The second Jewish Renewal rabbi ordained by Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi was a woman (Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, in 1981). And the Conservative movement ordained its first woman in 1985. As of 2008, according to the Boston-based Jewish Advocate, women outnumber men in liberal rabbinic schools.

But in the Orthodox world, ordaining women remains a radical move; perhaps because Orthodoxy is a culture in which men and women assume divergent gender roles in largely separate social spheres. The mainstream Orthodox viewpoint holds that God created men and women to be different according to divine purpose. /.../ Within that paradigm, for a woman to choose a position of communal leadership serving people of both genders is seen as immodest at best, and at worst an inversion of the divine order."

Läs hela artikeln här.

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A true story

Try to hold back the tears if you can...

***

Father John Powell, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago, writes about a student in his Theology of Faith class named Tommy:

Some twelve years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our first session in the Theology of Faith.

That was the day I first saw Tommy. My eyes and my mind both blinked. He was combing his long flaxen hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders. It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with hair that long.. I guess it was just coming into fashion then. I know in my mind that it isn't what's on your head but what's in it that counts; but on that day I was unprepared and my emotions flipped. I immediately filed Tommy under "S" for strange... Very strange.

Tommy turned out to be the "atheist in residence" in my Theology of Faith course. He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father/God. We lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew.

When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final exam, he asked in a cynical tone, "Do you think I'll ever find God?"

I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. "No!" I said very emphatically.

"Why not," he responded, "I thought that was the product you were pushing."

I let him get five steps from the classroom door and then I called out, "Tommy! I don't think you'll ever find Him, but I am absolutely certain that He will find you! "He shrugged a little and left my class and my life.

I felt slightly disappointed at the thought that he had missed my clever line -- He will find you! At least I thought it was clever.

Later I heard that Tommy had graduated, and I was duly grateful.

Then a sad report came.I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out, he came to see me. When he walked into my office, his body was very badly wasted and the long hair had all fallen out as a result of chemotherapy.

But his eyes were bright and his voice was firm, for the first time, I believe. "Tommy, I've thought about you so often; I hear you are sick," I blurted out.

"Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It's a matter of weeks."

"Can you talk about it, Tom?" I asked.

"Sure, what would you like to know?" he replied.

"What's it like to be only twenty-four and dying?


"Well, it could be worse.


"Like what?

"Well, like being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being fifty and thinking that booze, seducing women, and making money are the real biggies in life..

I began to look through my mental file cabinet under "S" where I had filed Tommy as strange.(It seems as though everybody I try to reject by classification, God sends back into my life to educate me.)


"But what I really came to see you about," Tom said, "is something you said to me on the last day of class."(He remembered!) He continued, "I asked you if you thought I would ever find God and you said, 'No!' which surprised me Then you said, 'But He will find you.’I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time.

(My clever line. He thought about that a lot!)

"But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me that it was malignant, that's when I got serious about locating God.. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven. But God did not come out.


In fact, nothing happened. Did you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and with no success? You get psychologically glutted, fed up with trying. And then you quit.

"Well, one day I woke up, and instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a God who may be or may not be there, I just quit. I decided that I didn't really care about God, about an after life, or anything like that.

I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable. I thought about you and your class and I remembered something else you had said: 'The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them.'"

"So, I began with the hardest one, my Dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him. "Dad.”

Yes, what?" he asked without lowering the newspaper. "Dad, I would like to talk with you."

"Well, talk.

"I mean. It's really important."


The newspaper came down three slow inches. "What is it?"

"Dad, I love you, I just wanted you to know that. "Tom smiled at me and said it with obvious satisfaction, as though he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him.”The newspaper fluttered to the floor.

Then my father did two things I could never remember him ever doing before. He cried and he hugged me. We talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning. It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me."

"It was easier with my mother and little brother. They cried with me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping secret for so many years.

"I was only sorry about one thing --- that I had waited so long. Here I was, just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to.

"Then, one day I turned around and God was there. He didn't come to me when I pleaded with Him. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop, 'C'mon, jump through. C'mon, I'll give you three days, three weeks.'"

"Apparently God does things in His own way and at His own hour. But the important thing is that He was there. He found me! You were right. He found me even after I stopped looking for Him."


"Tommy," I practically gasped, "I think you are saying something very important and much more universal than you realize. To me, at least, you are saying that the surest way to find God is not to make Him a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love. You know, the Apostle John said that.

He said: 'God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him. 'Tom, could I ask you a favor? You know, when I had you in class you were a real pain. But (laughingly) you can make it all up to me now. Would you come into my present Theology of Faith course and tell them what you have just told me? If I told them the same thing it wouldn't be half as effective as if you were to tell it.

"Oooh.. I was ready for you, but I don't know if I'm ready for your class."


"Tom, think about it. If and when you are ready, give me a call."


In a few days Tom called, said he was ready for the class, that he wanted to do that for God and for me. So we scheduled a date.

However, he never made it. He had another appointment, far more important than the one with me and my class. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed. He made the great step from faith into vision.


He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man has ever heard or the mind of man has ever imagined.

Before he died, we talked one last time.

"I'm not going to make it to your class," he said.

"I know, Tom."

"Will you tell them for me? Will you ... tell the whole world for me?"

I will, Tom. I'll tell them. I'll do my best."


So, to all of you who have been kind enough to read this simple story about God's love, thank you for listening. And to you, Tommy, somewhere in the sunlit, verdant hills of heaven --- I told them, Tommy, as best I could.

If this story means anything to you, please pass it on to a friend or two.

It is a true story and is not enhanced for publicity purposes.

With thanks, Rev. John Powell, Professor, Loyola
University, Chicago

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måndag 8 mars 2010

I kyrkan är alla kärnfriska - eller...?

Man kan ju undra... Helandemöten och sakrament kanske gör susen, så att alla kristna mår jättebra och aldrig behöver stanna hemma från jobbet mer än max några dagar om året?

En intervju med svenska kyrkans ärkebiskop Anders Wejryd gör åtminstone mig fundersam (se nedan). Någonstans haltar resonemanget betänkligt.

Kyrkan värnar om flyktingar och miljö - med rätta - fast visst är väl även det i grunden politiska frågor som berör alla, åtminstone indirekt, genom att våra skattepengar går till detta?

Vad är då skillnaden jämfört med andra utsatta grupper som kyrkan startar ekumeniska upprop och protester för? Nya "sjukförsäkringen", som ironiskt nog innebär ett bortfall av försäkringen för de svårast sjuka, kommer att slå ut tiotusentals personer i vårt land bara under detta år, ställa dem utanför samhället, utan rätt att vara sjuka mer än ett visst antal dagar. Som om det vore ett brott att bli sjuk...

Är detta inte något som kyrkorna borde höja sina röster väldigt skarpt emot? Det är en inhuman ny lagstiftning - kan man se det på annat sätt?

Det verkar vara lättare för kyrkfolk att engagera sig i sånt som finns längre bort eller som passar bra i media. Som miljökatastrofer på andra sidan jordklotet eller ett och annat apatiskt flyktingbarn. Medan hemlösa fryser ihjäl på svenska vintergator och svårt sjuka hänvisas till arbetsmarknaden...

Och det är inte riktigt sant att denna fråga berör alla invånare i landet mer än övriga kyrkopolitiska frågor gör, så att det skulle göra detta till en särskild sak som kyrkan inte kan uttala sig enhälligt och skarpt om.

Det är trots allt en procentuellt sett ganska liten grupp i landet som är så svårt sjuka att de behöver få ersättning under längre tid än den nu tillåtna. Och med nuvarande regler förlorar de den - i mitt tycke - mänskliga rättigheten. Om jag var ärkebiskop skulle jag göra detta till en högt prioriterad fråga i nuläget. Och jag skulle utforma det som en ekumenisk manifestation.

Det handlar ytterst om att rädda liv! De som redan är i ett utsatt läge kommer inte att ha kraft att överleva detta. Bryr sig kyrkan inte om det?

***

"Sedan hösten 2008 har flera stifts diakoner tagit kontakt med socialförsäkringsministern för att visa på svårigheterna som människor hamnat i. Diakonerna vet vad de talar om. De har förstahandskunskaper, skriver han.

Men när det gäller politiska ställningstaganden svarar han att varken kyrkomöte eller kyrkostyrelse haft uppe frågan om sjukförsäkringen:

- Det kan bero på en grundläggande inställning att frågor som berör alla invånare i Sverige i första hand ska avhandlas i dagspolitiken.

Han konstaterar att i en rad andra frågor tar kyrkan ställning, till exempel asylpolitiken, biståndspolitiken, barns rättigheter och klimaträttvisefrågor, men att det i den här frågan inte vuxit fram någon gemensam opinionsbildning."

Läs hela artikeln här.

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Teresa - en kvinna för vår tid

På internationella kvinnodagen (som firar 100 år i år) kanske det kan passa bra att lyfta fram en kvinna ur kyrkohistorien... Inte okontroversiell. Varken då eller nu. Men spännande.

Läste just en artikel om Teresa av Ávila. Läs den gärna i sin helhet. Nedan några utdrag.

***

"At the time Teresa began to experience raptures, the church was highly suspicious of mystics, particularly if they were women. Most of Teresa’s spiritual directors dismissed her experiences as inauthentic or even demonic. In reaction to the Protestant Reformation, the church took a strong stand against the notion of personal, unmediated religious experience. Mystical enlightenment as described by Teresa seemed dangerously similar to certain ideas that were considered heretical.

In fact, by adopting a meditative-contemplative approach to spirituality, Teresa was reaching back to primitive Christian prayer practices. By Teresa’s time, Catholic prayer had become mechanical and often perfunctory. Devotional practices were largely dictated by letrados, male intellectuals or “lettered men” suspicious of the affective spirituality often practiced by less educated people, including women. They insisted that common people should limit their religious activities to vocal prayer and established rituals such as processions and ceremonial exercises. Although Teresa accepted the value of vocal prayer, she saw mental prayer as a means of seeking a more direct, personal, and authentic relationship with God.

/.../

Teresa’s situation was aggravated by the church’s attitude toward women, widely believed to be hysterical by nature (hysterikós means “related to the uterus” in Greek). Religious ecstasy was often seen as a manifestation of the natural mental instability of women. Teresa’s confessors hounded her to the point that she began to doubt the authenticity of her own experiences. However, with the help of other priests, among them supportive Jesuits, she found the self-confidence she needed to forge ahead.

/.../

There are certainly justifications for viewing Teresa as a proto-feminist. At a time when letrados devalued women’s spiritual experience, Teresa provided women with a space to pursue the perfection of the soul. She gave women an active role in combating Protestantism through prayer and gave them career opportunities (administrator, chronicler, accountant, pharmacist, teacher) not available to them outside the convent. She promoted women’s literacy by stipulating that all Discalced Carmelite nuns learn to read. Still, too much emphasis on Teresa’s defiance of sixteenth-century gender limitations can distort or obscure the spiritual wisdom she developed as a woman of her times.

The tendency to reconstruct Teresa is not a new phenomenon. Seventeenth-century Carmelite friars, embarrassed that their order had been founded by a strong, opinionated woman, invented an image of Teresa more in keeping with their requirements. Teresa wrote many business letters that show her to be a smart, savvy, strong-willed woman, but when Friar Juan de la Presentación undertook the compilation of her epistolary writing in 1654, he included only those letters that might have doctrinal or inspirational value. Furthermore, the collection, which was published by Juan de Palafox in 1658, contains apocryphal letters meant to portray Teresa as obedient and submissive. The visual image of Teresa evolved during this period as well. Christopher Wilson has demonstrated that early images of Teresa and John of the Cross depict Teresa as an imposing figure, sometimes towering over her friend. However, by the eighteenth century, John has become the dominant figure, and Teresa his diffident admirer.

In popularizing and politicizing Teresa today, some admirers likewise pick and choose segments of her teachings that reinforce their own beliefs, overlooking those elements they find inconvenient: her strong Catholic identity, her intolerance of other faiths, her respect for the sacraments, her misogynist rhetoric. But reconstructing Teresa as a New Age guru of spiritual love, unconcerned with the material world and the nitty-gritty of everyday living, devalues more than her Catholic faith and historical context. It also detracts from her humanity. Teresa was not an ethereal character who spent her life in a state of rapture. She was a flesh-and-blood woman, intelligent, shrewd, warm, funny, and sometimes temperamental. A story has it that an admirer once remarked on her voracious appetite: “For such a holy woman, you certainly pack it in.” “Listen,” Teresa retorted, “when I pray, I pray, and when I eat, I eat!”"

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söndag 7 mars 2010

Förre påven piskade sig själv...

Nyheten kommer från en biografi om Johannes Paulus II.

Själv tycker jag att det som är mest intressant är att det hävdas att det här inte har något med psykologi att göra. Bullshit - rent ut sagt. Det är verkligen sjukt att se kroppen som en fiende - så som bl.a. Opus-Dei-"helgonet" Escriva gjorde. Det är sjukt att piska sig själv. Inte värt någon gloria. Det är väl känt att förre påven hade ett särskilt gott öga till Opus Dei, men fenomenet att "tukta kroppen" på allehanda sätt är inte obekant i katolsk kyrkohistoria, så inspirationen kan han ha fått i princip var som helst ifrån. Under lång tid ansågs det helt normalt. Rentav föredömligt (bl.a. i 1800-talets Frankrike där lilla Thérèse växte upp - redan som treåring hade hon förstått det - men hennes helgonmeriter vilar inte på det). I vissa kretsar är det fortfarande något som anses positivt.

Har läst någonstans att smärta frigör kemikalier i hjärnan som gör att man blir beroende av den. Något knarkliknande alltså, ett lyckorus. Kanske "helgonens" självbestraffning inte gör så ont trots allt? Kanske "självförnekelsen" ger dem just det de försöker neka sig? Väldigt intressant, rent psykologiskt, tycker jag...

***

"Cognitive dissonance is the process whereby people believe two entirely different things at the same time, and see no contradiction in their beliefs. In this case the dissonance arises when we consider the Pope's behavior as applied to almost anyone else in the world. We would see it as a sign of mental illness, and hope the afflicted person would seek medical help.

According to Wikipedia Self-harm is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) as a symptom of borderline personality disorder. The motivations for self-harm vary and may be used to fulfill a number of different functions. These functions include self-harm being used as a coping mechanism which provides temporary relief of intense feelings such as anxiety, depression, stress, emotional numbness and a sense of failure or self-loathing. Self-harm is often associated with a history of trauma and abuse including emotional abuse, sexual abuse, drug dependence, eating disorders, or mental traits such as low self-esteem or perfectionism. There is also a positive statistical correlation between self-harm and emotional abuse."

Läs hela artikeln här.

***

"In Santo Subito (A Saint Now) by Andrea Tornielli, the Pope’s biographer and Vatican correspondent of Il Giornale, Sister Sobodka said: ”We could hear it – we were in the next room at Castel Gandolfo. You could hear the sound of the blows when he would flagellate himself. He did it when he was still capable of moving on his own.”

He must have been really going at it hard if they could hear him in the next room!

/.../

“As some members of his own entourage were able to hear with their own ears, both in Poland and in the Vatican, Karol Wojyka flagellated himself,” the book says. “…in his wardrobe, among his soutanes, he had hanging a particular belt for trousers that he used as a whip, and which he would ensure was always taken to Castel Gandolfo.”

/.../

Do religious self-flagellators receive a perverse sense of gratification of the flesh by causing it pain?

Not according to retired prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins. In the case of saints who subjected themselves voluntarily to rigorous penance, these practices had nothing to do with psychological imbalance, he emphasized.

He said: “The saints are in the first place very normal persons. If this wasn’t so they wouldn’t be able to be saints. There are many saints who did penance and saw this as a way to bring their body under control; it has nothing to do with psychology.”

One of our most recent saints, St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, didn’t shy away from pain: “Blessed be pain. Loved be pain. Sanctified be pain…Glorified be pain! (The Way, 208). “If you realize that your body is your enemy, and an enemy of God’s glory since it is an enemy of your sanctification, why do you treat it so softly?”

Future historians and investigative journalists may uncover what was Pope John Paul II’s connection to Opus Dei. How was he helpful to them? How were they useful to him? It appears he adopted their self-mortification practices.

But would Pope John Paul II been more “saintly” if he would have spent the time instead comforting a sick child in a hospital; stand outside an abortion clinic and offer his hand and financial support to an unmarried, pregnant woman about to enter; or make it known to the corps of elite Catholic business titans and government officials clean water for drinking, sanitation and agriculture was needed for all people, but especially the poor who have no other alternatives or place to go?

I think so. Sometimes it is much easier to beat yourself up than do the right thing."

Läs mer här.

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Gay-sex-skandal i Vatikanen

Den fina ytan börjar äntligen krackelera mer och mer....

***

"Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, was caught by police on a wiretap allegedly negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Vatican chorister, over the specific physical details of men he wanted brought to him.

/.../

In one conversation, Ehiem tells Balducci: "I saw your call when I was in the Vatican, because I was doing rehearsals … in the choir … in St Peter's." He then suggests Balducci meet a man who he describes is "two metres tall … 97 kilos … aged 33, completely active."

/.../

Since 1995, he has been a member of one of the world's most exclusive fraternities – the Gentlemen of His Holiness, or Papal Gentlemen, the ceremonial ushers of the papal household. In the words of a 1968 ordinance, they are expected to "distinguish themselves for the good of souls and the glory of the name of the Lord".

/.../

In January this year, the Carabinieri recorded an exchange in which Balducci and Ehiem discuss a seminarian, or student for the priesthood. Balducci is said to have asked: "Listen, have you spoken with the seminarian by any chance?" Ehiem says he is "probably at mass or something". On 11 January, Ehiem calls again to recommend "a colleague, a friend" of the seminarian because the latter is unavailable. He says the colleague is "better, taller, a bit taller than you". Later, Ehiem asks: "Can I send [him] around straight away?""

Läs mer här.

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lördag 6 mars 2010

Love at first sight...



Lite bling-bling är sällan fel... Och här är det äkta vara! :-)


It's said that diamonds are a girls best friend. If so, I think peridot stones are second best!

I just love the colour and shades of champagne yellow to olive green in different kinds of light. And it sparkles like the rainbow with various nuances...

This piece was found in an online store where you can also find other handmade pendants (really special crosses for example, but the nicest ones were out of stock when I looked), as well as rings and earrings.

P.S. I just found quite interesting info about peridot online. The stone is also called "evening emerald" or "crysolite", and it's said to have powers to drive away evil spirits, and if medicine is drunk from a peridot goblet, its supposed to get extra powerful. And as I sit here with a really nasty cold, I wonder where I could possibly get a peridot goblet... :-)

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