Fr. Jim Martin Laughs with Stephen Colbert
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Observers around the world have grown weary of the images of starving children and desperate people gunned down while trying to collect bags of flour or boxes of food.
After four decades in education, both secular and Catholic, I have witnessed teaching models come and go. The moment before us, however, is not a passing phase; it is a threshold.
The relics of Blesseds Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis, who are set to be canonized later this year, will be displayed in Rome for the Jubilee of Youth.
The Irish government “has done nothing to reduce the numbers of abortions…and seems not to care why women choose abortion, or what happens to them afterwards,” Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin and Achonry said.
And the publisher of his new book must love all the free publicity.
The overall theme though is absolutely theological dynamite.If we are miserable then we have to give an account for our misery.
St Ignatius had a sense of humour and loved it when Ribineira would imitate him with his limp etc.
Those aspects of the great Saint are often missing from his bio.Pope Benedict also likes to hear the jokes that are told about him.
The joke about him telling the Romans congregated in St Peter's that when they go home they were to give their children a slap and tell them "that is from the Pope" is a wonderful parody of the great words of Pope Roncalli.
Humour is philosophy.It is a look at reality in a new way .That is why Chesterton is such a powerful writer because he is capable of laughing at life.Nietzsche is the same.The greatest philsopher since Plato is funnier than Groucho Marx.
Chesterton said about Tolstoy and his attack on Shakespeare that it stems from moralism."The puritan has enough strength to tense up but not, like the catholic, enough to relax".
The question is is this humour to be limited to religion?Many catholics feeled obliged to tell corny jokes ,corny catholic jokes.This is a sure sign that the culture has taken over from the faith.The self-reference involved in catholics telling catholic jokes makes me woozy.
St Josemaria spoke of the credulity of catholics when they believed that a certain saint had been known as a child to reject his mother's milk as a form of mortification.This is humour that informs and makes laugh.I suppose all humour informs.