WebProNews

Tag: Catholicism

  • Nun Wins ‘Voice’ Contest in Italy

    One of the biggest goals of Pope Francis in his brief popedom thus far has been to get the Catholic Church closer to the average person, prompting church officials to “go out into the streets”. Francis’s message resonated with Sister Cristina Scuccia so much that she decided to do Pope Francis one better and take her talents to national television, where she was just crowned winner of Italy’s version of The Voice.

    Sister Scuccia won over audiences across the globe with her rendition of “Flashdance … What a Feeling.” At the end of the four-hour-long finale, Scuccia was named the victor over male rocker Giacomo Voli, capturing 62.3 percent of the vote.

    Scuccia first caught the attention of the judges on The Voice by singing Alicia Key’s “No One”, prompting Key’s to praise Scuccia’s performance via Twitter:

    It wasn’t long before the singing nun caught the attention of an entire globe, perhaps due to the cognitive dissonance of seeing one wear a full habit while belting out contemporary pop songs.

    Following the announcement of her victory, Sister Scuccia took her 15 minutes of fame to spread the word of Christ.

    “My presence here is not up to me, it’s thanks to the man upstairs… I’m not here to start a career but because I want to impart a message.”

    The message Scuccia wished to spread? The Lord’s Prayer.

    Perhaps not surprisingly at all, Sister Scuccia wasn’t always so religious. She admittedly turned away from religion during her teenage years, but found herself committing to Catholicism after auditioning for a role in a musical to play the founder of the Ursuline Order, Saint Angela Merici.

    While Scuccia has yet to take her final vows, she plans to keep her commitment to the church, stating that “I will continue to sing wherever the Lord wants.”

    For her victory, Sister Scuccia won a recording contract with Universal.

    Image via YouTube

  • Satanic Mass at Harvard Cancelled After Outcry

    The provocative “Black Mass” planned to take place at Harvard Extension School this week has been officially cancelled. The event had caused an outcry from Boston’s significant Catholic community.

    According to a WCVB Boston report, the event has now been cancelled. Event organizers had reportedly been unable to find a venue to perform the Black Mass.

    The Black Mass is a ritual of Catholic legend that is a perversion of the church’s Mass, which Catholics hold as sacred. No accounts of the specific ritual appeared before the mid-20th century, when the Black Mass began appearing in pulp novels.

    The reenactment of a Black Mass was to be performed by the Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club as part of a performance series exploring cultural rituals. The event was originally to have taken place at the university’s Memorial Hall.

    When the plan became widely known the local Catholic community began putting pressure on the University to cancel the event. The university’s Dean of Students, Robert Neugeboren, issued a statement saying that Harvard Extension School “does not endorse the views or activities of any independent student organization,” but also said it supports “the rights of our students and faculty to speak and assemble freely.”

    Controversy over the event continued to escalate with Catholic leaders characterizing the Black Mass not as a cultural event but as simply a mockery of Catholic beliefs. Harvard President Drew Faust stepped into the issue on Monday, releasing a statement condemning the Black Mass but backing the Cultural Studies Club on free speech principles. From the statement:

    But even as we permit expression of the widest range of ideas, we must also take responsibility for debating and challenging expression with which we profoundly disagree. The ‘black mass’ had its historical origins as a means of denigrating the Catholic Church; it mocks a deeply sacred event in Catholicism, and is highly offensive to many in the Church and beyond. The decision by a student club to sponsor an enactment of this ritual is abhorrent; it represents a fundamental affront to the values of inclusion, belonging and mutual respect that must define our community. It is deeply regrettable that the organizers of this event, well aware of the offense they are causing so many others, have chosen to proceed with a form of expression that is so flagrantly disrespectful and inflammatory.

    According to WCVB, the event had been moved off-campus at the last minute. The Black Mass was to have taken place at an off-campus restaurant before the restaurant’s management declined to host. The event was cancelled after the club’s organizers were unable to find a suitable venue.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • ‘Gospel Of Jesus’ Wife’ Papyrus Not Fake According To Scientists

    ‘Gospel Of Jesus’ Wife’ Papyrus Not Fake According To Scientists

    In 2012, Karen King, historian from the Harvard Divinity School, revealed the discovery of a papyrus fragment, dubbed the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” that suggests that Jesus had a wife. The announcement created an uproar among the Christian community, and academics from the Vatican immediately deemed the document a “clumsy forgery.”

    The badly-aged papyrus contained a message with eight legible ink lines on the front, and six faded lines on the back written in Coptic, an ancient Egyptian Christian language.

    According to a recent paper published in the Harvard Theological Review that was published on Tuesday, the fragment is not fake. Scientists have been studying the papyrus for the last year-and-half to confirm its validity. Now, they are concluding that the fragment possibly dates back to as far as the fourth century.

    In the paper, King said that their new finding does not confirm that Jesus had a wife. “I’m basically hoping that we can move past the issue of forgery to questions about the significance of this fragment for the history of Christianity,” she said.

    King also said that the fragment suggests that women can also be disciples of Jesus. When the fragment was first released, it sparked controversy as there have been years of debates over marriage and sexuality in the religion of Christianity. The Catholic Church also believes Jesus to be celibate, and that is one of the main reasons why priests are not allowed to marry or have sex.

    Studies revealed that the lines from the papyrus fragment forms a conversation between Jesus and his disciples. When the fourth line was deciphered, it said, “Jesus said to them, my wife.” On the fifth line, the message reads, “… she will be able to be my disciple.”

    New Testament professor, Hal Taussig, said that the message on the papyrus fragment is “breathtaking.” He also said that the message supports the idea of Mary Magdalene being one of the prominent leaders in the Jesus movement.

    He also discussed the result of having a non-celibate Jesus, which will be a “huge shift” for the church, but said that it may make married people feel closer to Jesus.

    Reverend James Martin, a Jesuit who released a travelogue about the life of Jesus, also commented on the fragment, saying that there are several pieces of evidence that Jesus was never married. He also said that it if Jesus had a wife, the Gospel writers would have mentioned it somehow.

    Did Jesus Really Have A Wife?

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Justice Sotomayor Blocks Birth Control For Nuns?

    In a move that will surely make some people scratch their head, Justice Sotomayor has issued a reprieve a day before the Affordable Healthcare Act would be the law of the land. The government is temporarily prevented from enforcing contraceptive coverage requirements against (wait for it…wait for it…) a group of Denver-based nuns. The Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged for whatever reason expect that area of the Affordable Healthcare Act to apply to their organization.

    A statement released by the White House said that they, “…remain confident that our final rules strike the balance of providing women with free contraceptive coverage while preventing non-profit religious employers with religious objections to contraceptive coverage from having to contract, arrange, pay, or refer for such coverage.”

    In other words if you want to have condoms and birth control pills available to you, they will be. Meanwhile if you’re a nun who no one is expecting to require either of these items for a host of reasons, you won’t be forced to endure the nightmare of health care coverage for them either.

    But it’s not just the nuns who came forward and ask that the law be blocked. Other religious bodies such as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, the Catholic Diocese of Nashville, Catholic University and the Michigan Catholic Conference, have asked for the law and related fines to be delayed while they make their arguments. Government officials are expected to respond by Friday.

    Some individuals religiously and morally object to any form of birth control to the point that they do not want to be reimbursed for any of it; they simply want to avoid paying for it altogether. It should be noted that unwanted pregnancies will cost American taxpayers of all faiths about $11 billion dollars a year. This is apparently no small price to pay to do what you feel is right religiously.

    The idea that persons can opt out of American Healthcare Act by raising a “religious” objection might be a slippery slope. How many Americans who’ve never gone to church a day in their life can suddenly cite first amendment rights to avoid paying for the health care benefits of their employees? No doubt more sensible compromises will be reached. If not, it should set quite the precedent.

    What do YOU think: Was this reprieve given because the groups raise important legal questions or was it religious posturing over a secular law? How should the government respond to circumstances like this?

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Pope Francis: Capitalism Is “A New Tyranny”

    Pope Francis: Capitalism Is “A New Tyranny”

    Pope Francis carefully chose this moment to capitalize on his internet popularity with an even more radical statement: that uninhibited capitalism represents “a new tyranny,” and that global leaders are not doing enough to battle the growing income disparity.

    Pope Francis’ Twitter account, @pontifex, is the most talked-about thing on the internet, and Francis remains unafraid to discuss controversial issues in the spotlight. Reuters reports that Pope Francis’ latest apostolic exhortation, an 84-page document, directly attacks “the idolatry of money” and importunes the leaders of the world to make “dignified work, education, and healthcare” available to all citizens.

    His Twitter quote and reactions were popular, if not downright viral:

    “Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills,” Francis said in the document.

    Francis did not stop there. “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?” He questioned. “I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”

    Continuing, Francis wrote that “As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.”

    These comments are a radical step forward from the Pope’s previous remarks; he had said in September that “Where there is no work, there is no dignity,” adding that the root of the problem is “an economic system which has at its centre an idol called money.”

    [Image via Wikimedia Commons]