CSotD: Theology you can sink your teeth into
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It's a tribute to fear how often You Damn Kid drags me back to my traumatic days of Catholic school, because I only had two years of it, and I barely remember kindergarten, which must mean it was okay, given how permanently first grade is engraved upon my psyche.
Most of what I remember about first grade involved attempting to avoid crossing Sister Theophilus. This included asking my parents for a crewcut without telling them it was because I'd seen her haul too many of my classmates out of their seats by the hair.
Today's Kid recalls for me one of the more benign memories from attending Our Lady of Perpetual Terror, when Sister told us about First Communion, which was on our agenda in the coming months.
In order to understand this, you have to appreciate the distinction between the (largely) Roman Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation and the (largley) Protestant doctrine of Consubstantiation. To oversimplify to an extent that would horrify theologians of both schools, Protestants believe that the communion wafer represents the body of Christ, while Catholics believe that it is the body of Christ.
The cartoon notes that Jesus said it represented his body, which sounds like Jesus was a Protestant, but he said that before whoever was on bells that night shook them, which is when it happens.
Anyway, in the semi-medieval world of the Pre-Vatican Church, it was essential that you not chew the host, because that would be biting Jesus. You were supposed to let it soften on your tongue until you could swallow it whole.
Context is everything: Sister had also told us that you must always pray with your fingers tented and pointing upwards, because, if you had them interlaced, the angels would not be able to take your prayers from your fingertips up to God.
Now she went on at some length about the importance of not biting Jesus, and I promise you that anybody who had asked about flavored hosts had better not only have a crewcut but no ears, either, and maybe some kneepads sewn into your trousers, because she was gonna fling you down in front of the Infant of Prague to beg forgiveness with a force that would shatter the floor tiles.
Anyway, at some point in her presentation, having made the importance of not biting Jesus crystal clear, she began to describe the process itself and I missed the part — if there was one — where she shifted from talking about the roughly inch-and-a-quarter diameter host the priest would be handing out to us and held up a replica of the roughly four-inch in diameter host he would be using himself.
That summer, we moved to the country where there was only a Protestant public school and where First Communion occurred about a year later than back in Pennsylvania.
So I spent an entire year contemplating the fact that, when I made my First Communion, Father was going to put a four-inch host into my mouth and, if I touched it with my teeth, I would spend eternity in the everlasting torment of Hell's unquenchable fire.
No crewcut was gonna get me out of that one.
And, on a related theme
Pros and Cons transubstantiates Sister Theophilus into a cop.
Oddly enough, my first teacher at my new school was the mother-in-law of the local State Trooper, and not only was she no Sister Theophilus but he was a lot more Andy Taylor than Dirty Harry.
Second grade was the year I exhaled.
On the Political Front
I said the other day that American cartoonists seem in a hurry to declare what the Panama Papers mean, and they're not the only ones. I'm seeing the argument that, since the papers don't name Americans, it's not a problem for us.
This would be a more persuasive argument if (A) the papers actually didn't name Americans and (B) the massive trove of papers had all been analyzed and (C) Mossack Fonseca were the only company in the world arranging this sort of thing. John Cassidy explains it all rather well.
While we wait for the rest of the cows to come home, or chickens to roost, Pat Bagley makes an emotional but reasonable commentary that could prove more persuasive than cries of "Did too!" and "Did not!"
Bagley comments that his argument is based on the "carried interest" loophole, which frees him from the nitpicking over who has been named in what papers, and focuses more on the 1 percent and their general refusal to give back.
Still, it's likely hard for the average reader to see this and not think about Mossack Fonseca, and it's impossible not to bundle it all under the general heading of Selfish Fat Cats.
Most of all, it should be hard not to see this as Bagley portrays it: An issue of patriotism.
That would seem to cut through a lot of nit-picking.
However, it doesn't look like this is going to be the election that tests American patience with inequality.
I like Scott Stantis's take on things, but establishment wagons are being circled: I also saw a cartoon from a progressive this morning attacking Sanders for being supported only by white people and another, also from a progressive, that flat-out called him a commie, and I've seen plenty of "Give up! You can't win!" cartoons from that side of the aisle, often from cartoonists I normally agree with.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and I've given up on Daniel Patrick Moynihan's idea that you're not entitled to your own facts. Apparently, these days, you are, because it doesn't take much research to see Stantis's point, that Clinton's delegate lead is not nearly as dependent on voter preferences as it is on party rules.
With 1,955 delegates left, 250 is not an insurmountable lead.
688 probably is, but then why bother with the dog-and-pony show?
Anyway, Moynihan has been gone from the Senate since the turn of the century, and his rule went with him.
I forget who took his place.
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