fight to life

Father Michael Woods commented on the influence of social media during his homily at today's 11:45 Mass at All Saints Church. He had just returned from visiting Ashley Reisser and her family at UT Medical Center. The Maryville High School senior was critically injured in a wreck on an icy Pellissippi Parkway last night.

The story in the Knoxville News Sentinel spells out some of the horrific details. Ashley and her friends got out of her car after a fender bender, as did the driver of the other vehicle. Two other cars, a Mitsubishi and a Honda, also slid on the ice and collided with each other. The cars in the second crash hit Ashley and her friends and then hit the other driver from the first crash as he tried to help the girls. The red Mitsubishi drove away. The men in the Honda got out and ran. Knoxville Police are looking for a red Mitsubishi Eclipse with Tennessee license plate 825-SQP. It should have a broken left rear taillight and damage to the passenger side.

I first heard about the wreck from Ashley's brother-in-law, who is a good friend of mine. I was his RCIA sponsor last Easter. He is a parishioner at Sacred Heart Cathedral and needed to know how to contact a priest at All Saints, where the Reissers go. I texted Fr. Michael Woods, who was able to visit the hospital after the 8:15 Mass.

I told Fr. Michael about a Facebook page that had sprung up overnight. By 10:30 a.m., 1,578 members had joined the group "Pray for Ashley Reisser and everyone involved in the wreck." As of this writing, the membership has climbed to 3,881. Fr. Michael mentioned the group in his homily and told how the family was touched by the outpouring of prayers online.

Some reporters from WATE saw my prayer requests on Twitter and Facebook and asked me to put them in touch with the family. The story just aired on tonight's 11:00 p.m. news. A reporter from The Daily Times in Maryville posted her phone number on the Facebook wall, inviting family members to call her for a story to be in Monday's paper.

I was impressed by the "retweets" of the prayer requests. Some were by a morning deejay at a Christian radio station and one was by an outfit called Prayer Network. At least two others helped spread the word too.

The family members have posted some encouraging news on Facebook. Her sister wrote that Ashley probably should not have survived the crash but instead is showing some improvement. Although Ashley has a fractured skull and several other broken bones, doctors are optimistic for her recovery. The power of prayer is strong.

disaster relief

The best thing to donate after a tragedy is money. Respected agencies like the American Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services and The Salvation Army can buy more with each dollar than we could at retail prices. However sometimes we feel more helpful by giving items instead of cash.

One Knoxville retailer is collecting now-worthless Lane Kiffin t-shirts for victims of the Haiti earthquake. Disgruntled fans of the Tennessee Vols were more than happy to be shed of reminders of the coach who jilted them.

Another organization I respect is accepting items. Remote Area Medical will fly their transport plane from Knoxville to Haiti on Friday. Here is the list of needs I received via email today:

Aspirin – as much as you can provide

Ibuprofen/ Tylenol – liquid for infants
Tablets for adults

Anti-diarrhea medication (like Imodium) tablets or capsules (not liquid or liqui-gels) – as much as you can provide

Anti-itch cream (Benadryl)

Vaseline (we can use up to 20 pounds)

Antibiotic cream (Neosporin) as much as you can provide

Ace bandages – as much as you can provide

Ziploc bags – all sizes

Fine tip sharpies - 20

Alcohol in plastic bottles up to 50 bottles

Wash cloths – will be lower priority so will be one of the last things packed

Dish towels (flour sack cotton, not washcloth type – basically those that would leave less lint) these are for use by doctors when treating patients

Empty bottles with multi-hole pop up caps various sizes (these can be filled with water to flush debris) you can find smaller ones in travel item section at Walmart

Crutches – If stoppers, handgrips and arm pads are in good shape.

Eye drops – non-medicated (saline, liquid tears) as much as you can provide.

Gauze pads – 2x2 and 4x4 sizes

Band-Aids – 20 to 30 boxes

Bandages

mid-season replacements

Two of Knoxville's biggest parishes will get new leaders on February 1. News of the changes was released today. Bishop Richard Stika acknowledged that the timing is unusual but necessary to accommodate a priest who needs to care for his mother and a convent that needs a chaplain.

At St. John Neumann, the ornate church that looks like a cathedral, Fr. Patrick Garrity replaces Fr. John Dowling. I imagine that one of his top priorities will be to get a rectory built on the parish property. A residence for the priests was somehow not included when the massive new church opened just over a year ago. Fr. Dowling goes to St. Francis of Assisi in Fairfield Glade.

At Sacred Heart, the cathedral that looks like an ordinary church, Fr. David Boettner replaces Msgr. Al Humbrecht as rector. Technically the title of pastor of a cathedral is held by the bishop. I suspect that Fr. Boettner will be in charge of building a new cathedral that looks like a cathedral in the big hollow space in front of the current structure. Msgr. Al heads to Holy Spirit in Soddy-Daisy.

Fr. Joe Brando comes out of retirement to become pastor of St. Mary in Gatlinburg. It doesn't sound like a bad gig, considering how many other people love to retire in the Smokies.

cold turkey

After playing holiday music for the last month, or in some cases two months, the all-Christmas radio stations across America will cut us off tonight. For one station in Knoxville, it's a good thing. For another, it's too soon for me. I even went so far as to suggest via Facebook that Love 89 keep Christmas hymns on the air for another twelve days, mixed in with their regular playlist. It might keep more seasonal listeners around for their "30 Day Challenge."

For Catholics like me, Advent, the season of anticipation, ended yesterday. The Christmas season started last night and runs until the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord. When the choir at All Saints Church wanted to repeat last year's Christmas Cantata during Advent, our pastor said no, it had to be during the Christmas season. You can come hear it for free on January 8 at 7:30 p.m. and January 10 at 2:30 p.m.

Love 89 normally plays Christian light rock. During Advent, they mix in a lot of secular tunes by Christian artists, which is how I discovered that I loved "Sleigh Ride" by Relient K and "Jingle Bells" by Denver & the Mile High Orchestra. Starting tomorrow those secular songs will get a rest until next year. I wish Love 89 would continue playing their versions of some traditional carols like a new favorite I heard for the first time this year, "O Holy Night" by Point of Grace.

Nationwide, Christmas airplay is dominated by non-religious songs. It's been that way for years. The list that ASCAP releases annually changes very little from year to year. The only religious entry on list of the top holiday songs of the decade is "Little Drummer Boy."

My love of Christmas music is connected to my enjoyment of cover songs. It's fantastic to hear an artist improve upon a previous recording. Even "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" can be re-done brilliantly, as it was by Poe. The Brian Setzer Orchestra regularly updates Christmas classics. The one good cover song I "discovered" on our local commercial holiday station this year was "Feliz Navidad" by Jon Secada. Yes, Mr. Deejay, that was me calling on the request line to ask for the artist's name.

Unfortunately, cover songs can also go horribly wrong. One of my favorite songs, "Baby It's Cold Outside" was ruined by the clash of Rod Stewart and Dolly Parton's voices. Porky Pig's version of "Blue Christmas" might be funny once but it does not hold up to repeated airplay. Because of the atrocious lyrics, I doubt any artist could salvage "The Christmas Shoes." Only Patton Oswalt's hysterical but very R-rated deconstruction is worth a listen.

man of the hour

When the parish council started planning a farewell reception for Fr. Ragan Schriver, he said he hoped that it would be fun. It was more than fun, it was hysterical. This afternoon's event at All Saints Catholic Church, was inspired by the old Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts.



I was asked to serve as roastmaster. In addition to the guest of honor, the dais was populated with three other priests, a local news anchor and me. Fr. Tony Dickerson and Fr. Michael Woods talked about the craziness of life in the rectory with Fr. Ragan. Former pastor Fr. Chris Michelson gave a different perspective on the story of hot candle wax spilling onto Fr. Ragan's head at the Easter Vigil. John Becker of WBIR often plays tennis with Fr. Ragan. He told a funny story about the priest's car smelling like a locker room because of all the sweaty workout clothes tossed into the back seat.



Like at the 2007 Adult Social, I did some of my own material before, between and after the other roasters. In honor of the three points in each of Fr. Ragan's homilies, here are three of the stories I told about him. I deviated from my script slightly but two of the stories are completely true!

Fr. Ragan has been at All Saints for a long time and maybe it is time to move on. After 12 years and 600 plus Sunday masses, he has officially run out of "3 Things." I hate to bust you on this but the sermon about the baby in Walmart? Heard it! In fact I heard it again last week when I went to Mass at Holy Family. I did a little research and found out that the little baby… is now 13 years old!

Last year there was a big tennis event at Thompson-Boling Arena called Rock N Racquets. They had Andy Roddick & Serena Williams plus entertainment by rock singer Gavin Rosdale. Gavin is well known in the music business for the alternative rock band he used to be in and he's fairly well known in the People Magazine world for being married to singer Gwen Stefani (she sings Hollaback Girl and a bunch of other songs you might know). Well Fr. Ragan doesn't know any of those songs. He's backstage waiting to meet the tennis players and finds himself standing next to Gavin Rosdale. He's trying to make conversation and the only thing he can think of to say is "so… you're married to Gloria Estefan?"



Fr. Ragan is well known in the community. It seems like everywhere you go, at least one person has a Fr. Ragan story. I was recently at a function with several local TV reporters. Two of them said they had interviewed Fr. Ragan in the past. One is a married woman with two kids who talked about how impressed she was with the work they do at Catholic Charities and how impressed she was with his enthusiasm about getting to know his new neighborhood in Seymour. The other reporter is a bit younger and single. She said "Oh Fr. Ragan! I could go CATHOLIC for him!" She went on but I'll stop there. Suffice to say, the phrases "if only" and "not celibate" were involved.

After the five roasters, Fr. Ragan made some remarks and thought we were finished. At that point, we told him to cut a cake that turned out to be an iced cardboard box. Under the lid was an assortment of fruits and nuts. The two ladies who organized the party closed out the festivities by singing a tribute to the tune of "We Love You Conrad" from "Bye Bye Birdie." During the song, Fr. Michael displayed props like a cup of yogurt and a box of Fiber One cereal. At the end of the song, all the roasters sprinkled soaked Fr. Ragan with some dish-washing sponges on wire handles, much the same way he overdoes it with holy water during the Easter season.

felix sit annus novus

Fr. Ragan Schriver received a birthday gift from his new congregation at Holy Family Catholic Church last night. They gave him a set of what they called "pastor vestments." The purple chasuble and stole were similar to the ones he wore to celebrate the first Mass of Advent, but the new ones were adorned with the Chi Rho symbol that looks like PX to us. I took a blurry picture with my phone.



Cantor Karen Burry could barely contain her excitement about the gift. The presentation would occur at the end of Mass. She told my wife about it as soon as we walked in the door of the church. Karen, like my wife, is one of the better cantors in the diocese. I recognized her from some RCIA ceremonies at Sacred Heart Cathedral.

There was no organist at Mass last night but there was music. I noticed that Karen carried a remote control to the ambo before the processional hymn. When she hit the button, the organ played a song that the previous pastor had recorded onto a floppy disk. Karen sang some parts of the Mass a cappella and changed disks for the offertory, communion and recessional hymns. The Holy Holy Holy, the Memorial Acclamation and the Great Amen were all sung to the tune of "O Come O Come Emmanuel."

The Byzantine items and iconography that I wrote about in August have been removed from the sanctuary. Fr. Ragan was able to get an ever-so-slightly damaged statue set of the Holy Family at a great discount from the Paraclete. He said that one of Mary's fingers was broken off but stared blankly when I said "just like Daryl Hannah."

Next weekend Fr. Ragan will concelebrate all the Masses at All Saints. Following the 11:45 service, I will emcee a roast in the parish hall. All are welcome.

friar consent

There was a high-level showbiz lunch meeting at Aubrey's today as Fr. Michael Woods and I started planning a "roast" of Fr. Ragan Schriver. The comedic tribute will take place at All Saints Catholic Church after the last Mass on December 6. Fr. Ragan has been appointed pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church after many years in residence at All Saints.

When I saw Kristin Farley at a charity event a couple of weeks ago, she asked if she and her daughter could attend. I said yes, because my jokes would be G-rated. That's not what she meant. She wanted to know if the event was open to everyone. Yes, as the hymn says, all are welcome.

Both Fr. Michael and I have several anecdotes about Fr. Ragan. I plan to contact Fr. Ragan's sister and his friend John Becker to see if they have any funny stories to share. Another likely source of material will be Fr. Ragan's mentor, Fr. Gary Braun. Let me know if you have any zingers about one of the most popular priests in the diocese.

forgive them, Father

The parishioners of All Saints Catholic Church received some disturbing news this weekend. Dozens of consecrated hosts were found stuck to the underside of the pews last Sunday. Fr. Michael Woods celebrated all the Masses this weekend so he could deliver a homily explaining that desecration of the hosts is punishable by excommunication from the church. The same message was conveyed to the students of Knoxville Catholic High School on Thursday morning during their Mass at All Saints.

There are some Christians who take the beginning of the Bible literally. They believe that creation happened in seven days, just like the book of Genesis says. As a Catholic, I was taught that the creation story was a nice way of explaining the world to early humans and that the process took considerably longer than a week. I summarize my belief in three words: "God created evolution."

There are also some Christians who take the words of Jesus figuratively, especially at the Last Supper. As a Catholic, I believe that Jesus meant what he said and said what he meant when he took bread and said, "this is my body. Do this in memory of me." To this day, Catholics believe that the bread and wine at Mass become the body and blood of Jesus. Just because I can't see the difference doesn't mean it hasn't changed. I once heard a priest draw an analogy between the transubstantiation and the exposure of an item to radiation. It looks the same as before but is now very different.

One of the people I sponsored in the RCIA program at St. Finbar Catholic Church asked me why Jesus would want us to eat his flesh and drink his blood. I responded that the Lord wants us to be one with him, to be in communion, on a cellular level. He becomes food that nourishes us spiritually. I believe that Jesus has the power to take any form he wishes, including that which appears to be bread and wine.

Because Catholics believe in the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the consecrated hosts and wine must be treated with the utmost respect. Those that are not consumed at Mass are kept in a tabernacle. During hours of adoration, a host may be displayed in a monstrance. The desecrated hosts at All Saints had to be disposed of in a sacrarium.

At St. Finbar, ushers were positioned to watch the communion lines. They made sure that the communicants consumed the hosts and did not take them outside. At the time, there was a rumor that Satanists were stealing the Body of Christ from local churches and desecrating it on their altars of evil. Somehow that is easier to understand than whatever compelled someone to stick the hosts to the underside of a pew.

suddenly Seymour

The news that is likely to disappoint many All Saints parishioners caused cheers of elation at Holy Family Catholic Church last night. They were having a dedication ceremony for their new Family Life Center when Bishop Richard Stika announced that Fr. Ragan Schriver is the new pastor of the Seymour parish. Fr. Ragan had been there on a temporary basis as parish administrator for the past couple of months. Schriver retains his full-time job as executive director of Catholic Charities of East Tennessee.

Even Fr. Ragan was surprised that the Bishop chose to break the news at the dedication ceremony. I told him that my wife and I were ready to help organize some sort of vegetarian-friendly farewell reception for him in West Knoxville. He responded that Fr. Michael Woods is already planning something. It'll be great. They certainly know how to throw a party at All Saints.

My wife and I went to the parish hoedown on Saturday to enjoy some BBQ and dancing. My first attempt at square dancing left me a little dizzy but I might have been overly tired from shooting stuff that day. The congregation from the Saturday night Spanish Mass came over when their liturgy ended. The hoedown organizers had to run out to Famous Dave's to buy more pulled pork to feed the new arrivals.

On Sunday morning I picked up a copy of the Spanish language bulletin. Even though I don't speak or read the language, I was amused by a few of the words advertising Saturday's event. Obviously my trail mix would have been an inappropriate dessert, not so much for the nuts but for the frutas secas dried fruits. Who knew?

Fiesta en All Saints. El tema es Hoedown (danza típica del los americanos). Todos están invitados. Se servirá comida y se bailará. Se pide traer postre, por ejemplo: Pastel o tarta de frutas o galletas dulces, no traer nada que contenga frutas secas por razones de alergias.

middle class

Two weeks ago, I did a little church sightseeing in Norfolk. Last Sunday I did the same thing in Middleburg. My wife and I went to Mass with our friend Maureen at St. Stephen the Martyr Catholic Church. The colonial style structure was built with some special accommodations for President John F. Kennedy. According to "The Middleburg Mystique," the church had a special room with a direct phone line to the White House.



The Kennedys would often spend weekends in Middleburg. JFK probably attended Mass at St. Stephen's only two or three times before his death. The church opened in the Spring of 1963. An Associated Press article from late October described the First Family's initial visit to the church, complete with details of the fidgety children and which pew they used. "The Middleburg Mystique" says they last went to Mass there twelve days before his death. Their pew is marked by a small plaque.

handyman

During my most recent interview with Jon Jefferson and Dr. Bill Bass, I mentioned one of my family's favorite stories about our trip to Hawaii several years ago. We stayed on Molokai, which is where the Hawaiians go to vacation.

In addition to my wife and kids, my mother, my grandmother, my sister and her husband and his mother all made the trip. The whole group went on sightseeing expeditions to places like Tuddie Purdy's macadamia nut farm and a church built by Fr. Damien de Veuster. The older generation would stay back at the condo resort while my wife and I took our kids to the beach.

Fr. Damien was well on his way to sainthood during our visit. In fact, he was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI just this past Sunday. While we were off at the beach one day, my grandmother saw a news story about a relic of the holy man returning to the islands.

The hand of St. Damien was going to be somewhere in Honolulu on the same day that we would be flying home. Grandma wanted to see the hand before we left. Nowadays, it would be easy to Google the hand and find the news story Grandma had seen. Back then, I had no Internet access on vacation but I wasn't going to let Grandma down.

We flew from Molokai to Honolulu on a Sunday morning. We had gone to a vigil Mass the night before and had some time to kill before our flight to Los Angeles. I took the group to Hilo Hattie's and told Grandma that all I needed to find the hand was a phone and a roll of quarters. In those days, if you weren't at home and needed to make a phone call, you would look for a public phone and put coins into it to get it to work. Weird, huh?

The payphone had a phone book with it. I looked for listings that started with St. somebody or Our Lady of whatever. One church after another told me the same thing: the hand had been displayed there but had since moved to another church. I went through a bunch of quarters until I got confirmation that the hand was at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.

I got everybody to the cathedral before the next Mass started and eagerly went inside to see the hand. An usher pointed us toward a side altar where it was displayed. We were told that Fr. Damien wanted to be buried among the lepers he served on Molokai but that his superiors arranged for his body to be returned to his home country of Belgium. Many years later as a compromise, his body had been exhumed and his "healing hand" removed and sent to Hawaii. I guess I had been expecting to see something that looked like a mummified Thing from the Addams Family. I was disappointed that all I saw was a box, which they called a coffin.

Another relic will be touring the islands for the remainder of October. The Pope presented a bone from St. Damien's heel to Bishop Larry Silva. It was briefly on display in Detroit, San Francisco and Oakland this past week.

holy spirituals

The bellman said that the Catholic church nearest to our downtown Norfolk hotel was the Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception. He wanted to make sure I knew that it was a Black Catholic church and that the liturgy would have a Baptist feel to it. I've joked that my home parish in Knoxville, All Saints, is very Baptist-friendly because of all the converts in our congregation. Besides, how Baptist could it be if the church is named after the Virgin Mary? As it turned out, the experience of worshiping at St. Mary's was rather different from All Saints.



Besides the obvious reversal of the race ratio, I noticed that the last seven pews at St. Mary's were elevated on risers. My daughter noted the absence of a center aisle and my wife pointed out that there were no kneelers in the pews. The cover of the hymnals was designed with an African feel to it. "Lead Me, Guide Me" is from GIA Publications and had several informative essays about Black Catholic worship.



One of the terms I picked up from the hymnal was "dialogical preaching." During the homily by Deacon Calvin Bailey there were some exclamations of "amen" and the like. The congregation applauded after the sermon, as they did after most of the hymns. The choir swooped and swayed in their robes while they sang "I've Decided to Follow Jesus," "Amazing Grace" and "Let Us Break Bread Together" among others. My wife, who knew that last hymn, found it ironic that they sang "let us break bread together on our knees" in a church with no kneelers.



The congregation remained standing during the parts of the Mass when most American Catholics are kneeling. The sign of peace differed somewhat too as altar servers and congregants left their places to walk around the church and embrace their friends and loved ones. The readings and prayers were right out of the Roman Missal. No liberties were taken, which I've heard may happen at some other parishes in the Diocese of Richmond.



After Mass, a parishioner who introduced herself as Carol Swank approached us. Being white and all it was fairly apparent that we were visitors. She told us a little about the history of the building and took us to three areas of interest. From the choir loft we got a good view of the whole sanctuary and saw the area where African Americans had to sit in the 19th century. The old pre-Vatican 2 altar was turned 180° and moved forward, creating a space for a Blessed Sacrament chapel. Two pieces of the old marble altar rail were saved from the trash pile and placed there also.



The most interesting thing Carol showed us was something the hotel bellman had also suggested I see. The first church that stood on the adjacent plot of land was torched in 1856 possibly as a hate crime against Black Catholics. Only one thing was pulled from the flames of the burning building: a huge, hand-carved wooden crucifix. Next to it is a framed news article from the Virginian-Pilot telling the story of the crucifix.

gesundheit

The miracle of feeding the multitude was on my mind at All Saints Catholic Church this morning. In August, the Diocese of Knoxville put four loaves priests in the parish but now seems to be taking seven or eight out to serve thousands.

Few parishes are blessed with four priests to cover four weekend Masses. Since the beginning of August, the All Saints staff has been covering the Saturday evening mass in hell and back Helenwood. A few weeks ago, Fr. Ragan Schriver was sent to Seymour to cover their weekend Masses for three months. This weekend, Fr. Antonio Giraldo was sent to fill in for a sick priest in Greeneville. Deacon Tim Elliott is also sick, possibly with the dreaded flu. Fr. Michael Woods announced that All Saints has temporarily discontinued the Sign of Peace. Parishes all over the country have been doing even more than that.

Fr. Michael celebrated his third anniversary at All Saints today. Later this week, he will accomplish a goal he has been working on for a while when the parish adds a Spanish Mass on Saturdays at 7:00 p.m. Coincidentally, that's the same day as the Hola Festival downtown. Fr. Antonio won't be the only celebrant of la Misa en Español. He and Fr. Michael will share the duty, which gives the pastor an opportunity to speak directly to his new flock and to sneak in some English words.

add Jesus as a friend?

Going to church this morning brought to mind three things, much like one of Fr. Ragan Schriver's homilies. In fact, one of his three things is one of my three things. In today's homily, Fr. Ragan told of some Mormon missionaries who once attended a weekday Mass at All Saints Church. Afterwards, they wanted to talk to him about their faith. He realized they were trying to convert him and joked that there might be bonus points for bringing a Catholic priest into the Mormon fold. Fr. Ragan said he admired that they were proud of their faith and that they dared to be counter-cultural.

My wife and I were reminded of the homily we heard last weekend in St. Louis. Fr. Gary Braun asked the question, "do you identify as Catholic on Facebook?" Somehow Fr. Gary was ahead of the curve. Today's Washington Post has an article called "Soul Searching on Facebook." It also ponders how Facebook users reply to the question about their religious views. Rather than choose the more common "Christian - Catholic" option on Facebook, both my wife and I typed in the more specific "Roman Catholic." There are 22 Eastern Catholic Churches In addition to the Roman (Western) Church.



One of the Eastern churches is the Byzantine Catholic Church. Coincidentally, this morning my wife and I went to Mass in a church where local Byzantine Catholics used to meet. The members of the Holy Resurrection Byzantine Catholic Mission now meet at the Chancery in Knoxville. Previously they worshiped at Holy Family Catholic Church in Seymour. Fr. Ragan Schriver has been temporarily assigned to Holy Family while their pastor is recuperating at Cornerstone of Recovery.



The quaint church was visible from a scenic street called Overlook Drive. Once inside, we immediately noticed two Byzantine icons on either side of the altar. Below the images of Jesus, Mary, St. John and St. Nicholas were bins filled with sand. Someone had traced a Russian cross into the sand of each box.



After Mass, I spotted Fr. Ragan's three things still on the ambo. A parishioner introduced herself and suggested that I also visit the "jail room" as she called it. Just off the small narthex was a room with an iron gate that resembled the door to a jail cell. Inside was the unusual confessional and two shelves holding several more Byzantine items, including two expensive wedding crowns.

a matter of life and death

Capital punishment has been the main topic of discussion in Knoxville recently. The first of the trials of the accused killers of Channon Christian and Chris Newsom concluded today. The disgusting, horrific crimes have grabbed the attention of East Tennesseeans to such a degree that jurors had to be selected from the Nashville area. Letalvis Cobbins was eligible for the death penalty after being convicted of first degree murder. The jury sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Social networks are buzzing with news updates and opinions on the trial. I couldn't help but notice that many of my Facebook friends were very vocal about their desire to see Cobbins sentenced to death. On more mundane political issues, I usually agree with their views. However I was moved to post the following status update: "My unpopular opinion: glad for the guilty verdicts for Cobbins but still opposed to the death penalty. My FB friends want an execution."

I found out that not all my Facebook friends support capital punishment. While the jury was deliberating the sentence, I received several great comments from both points of view that are worth reading now and re-reading as each of the other defendants face their juries. I will refer to the author of each comment by first initial only. However if any of them contact me and ask that their names be used, I will happily revise the post to identify them.

A: The death penalty is not something to be taken lightly. I don't side with you on this one (well, glad for the guilty verdicts), but I can respect anyone with a different opinion on an execution. That's a touchy subject.

R: The government can't manage to run a car buy back program effectively. Why on earth should we trust them with the power of life and death?

N: The Government does not have the "power" to execute this trash, the jury and judge do. And they are us.
Frank, look at it from another angle, with children and good people going hungry, why waste the thousands upon thousands of dollars, housing this animal? Compassion is not "babysitting" this animal for the next 50 to 60 years, it is taking that needed energy and money and helping victims of them.

J: If a person commits a crime and is caught and convicted they forfeit their liberty. If the crime is truly horrific they forfeit their life. The state may be the instrument of their death but the responsibility lies with the perpetrator of the crime. That's how I see it and I think this crime certainly qualifies for the death penalty.

S: Count me among the FB friends that do NOT want an execution. Do you have a link for the back story on Cobbins? I don't know the case.

Frank: The details of this horrific case will turn your stomach.
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/news/local/channon-christian-christopher-newsom-murders/

R: Do judges and juries get things wrong? Do prosecutors engage in misconduct? Are cases pushed or dropped for political reasons? If the answer to any of these questions is "Yes," then our criminal justice system does not perform to the standard required to allow it to take a life.

N: No, the judge and jury did not get THIS case wrong!

T: Well, the problem with your argument is that it costs far more to exhaust the appeals process than to simply house a convict. Also, it's disingenuous to not recognize the jury and the judge are merely arms of the state.
The US Constitution, however, clearly contemplates the death the penalty ("no person shall be deprived of life ...."). Of course, the US Constitution is a floor, not a ceiling, so each state can decide the issue. Still, the death penalty is an ancient and barbaric practice that provides no deterrence and should be abolished.

S: No offense to N, I don't know you.... But one of the fundamental flaws with humanity is the ability to allow a desire for revenge to cloud judgment. If you didn't sit on the jury and hear all of the evidence in the case, you are making an opinion based judgment rather than a fact based judgment. While he hasn't stated such as yet, I would guess that Frank's opposition to the DP is that only God can truly judge the actions of man. Only God has all the facts and only God can claim the right to judge who should live or die.

R: I supported the death penalty for a long time. I reasoned that if I'm willing to take a life in order to defend my own, then the state should be allowed to do the same, take a life to defend the group.
Then I realized that was a flawed comparison. For example, I have the right to use lethal force to defend myself when attacked, or to defend another who is being attacked. I don't have the right to kill somebody because they attacked me yesterday, or might attack somebody tomorrow. And if I don't have the right, then why should I give it to the state?
Particularly when the state has not demonstrated the level of competence required to handle such an imposing responsibility.

N: Disingenuous? Lets read the rest of the sentence together. "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of the law". Also, Sometimes the appeals process is used to stop justice from being completed.
S, I am sorry that you think justice is revenge. I assume that like me you are not on this jury, correct? Then your opinion is also not a fact based judgment? That is why it is called a discussion. God? God did not take Channon's life, this man did.
I am not arrogant enough to suggest what Frank believes, I merely suggested another view. Frank is a good friend and I will stand by him.
What is breaking my heart is that there is more disdain for me in my beliefs than the monster that committed this unparalleled crime.
I must now go back to work so I can help feed this trash for the next 20 to 60 years, so I will be unable and unwilling to comment any further, so say what you will.

AB: The only reason I oppose the death penalty is because we cannot guarantee that no innocent life will be lost. As soon as one innocent person is killed, the whole system has/is failed.

S: I didn't say that justice was revenge. I said that the desire for revenge can cloud judgment (clear reasoning). I also didn't make a statement about the outcome of the case, you did. My point was that people who aren't involved intimately with the case don't have enough information to say if the defendant is guilty or innocent. Your statement that the jury didn't make a mistake was an overstatement because you didn't have the same information as they did.
As for Frank, I was merely extrapolating on his previously expressed Catholicism. I would never say that I spoke on his behalf. I was just pointing out that for some people (like PERHAPS Frank) this is a religious issue and should be respected as such.

T: The purpose of the appeals process is to, hopefully, ensure that the law, including procedural issues, is followed and applied correctly. You either agree to adhere to our civil liberties or you don't. I'm unclear why your being pissy with me. While I disagree with the death penalty, clearly, the US Constitution contemplates that someone can be put to death. What you were being disingenuous about was saying the "government can't put someone to death." Of course, the government -- more appropriately the State -- can put someone to death. The Constitution says so.

L: With the exception of self-defense or defense of another, it is not the province of man to mete out decisions of life or death. That said, I think those that perpetrated the horrific torture on those two kids deserve to have the same treatment done to them. But it is not our place to make it so.

Frank: I appreciate and respect all your comments, on both sides of the issue. Obviously my Catholicism is a big factor in my opposition to the death penalty. To me, capital punishment is the Old Testament way of thinking.
However, I used to feel differently. It changed when Ted Bundy was executed. I got a sick feeling in my stomach and realized that his death would do nothing to bring back the victims he killed.
The arguments about the cost of death row legal appeals and the possibility of executing even one innocent man are powerful to me. Ultimately I think killing is wrong, whether done by a criminal or by the government or by a doctor.

AB: The Catholic Church does not consider the death penalty to be intrinsically evil, nor limited to any particular era or dispensation. However, it does not support the death penalty in a society that has other means to effectively suppress the offender. So according to the Church, it isn't a proper option in the vast majority of cases, if not all cases, in the western world.

long division

Fr. Gary Braun was kind enough to visit with my wife and me when he was in Knoxville last March. He attended the ordination and installation of Bishop Richard F. Stika. In fact, when one of the local TV stations showed file footage of the ceremony during the Bishop's recent hospitalization, Fr. Gary's face turned up on screen.

We've gotten to know Fr. Gary a little bit over the past year. He seems as morbidly interested in the Body Farm and other aspects of death as I am. Knowing that I would attend his parish in St. Louis this weekend, I couldn't wait to ask him about an unusual funeral.

A young man in his 20s passed away unexpectedly. His body wasn't found for a few days. His parents, who are divorced, decided to have him cremated and to have a Catholic funeral. At the funeral, there were two regular size urns and two smaller ones. The deceased's ashes had been split amongst the four containers. Each parent was going to put an urn in a columbarium and keep a little one at home as a souvenir. I was curious to ask Fr. Gary about the Catholic teaching on such a case.

Fr. Gary was surprised that a Catholic priest would allow such funeral to take place. The remains are supposed to be kept together and given the same respect as a body. I speculated that maybe the priest didn't know about the separated ashes until after the funeral director showed up at the church with the four containers. I imagined a more strict priest going to get a big funnel to reunite the ashes before continuing with the funeral.

I wonder what percentage of people realize that the cremation itself reduces you to brittle bones that still look a lot like a skeleton. As I learned in a lecture by Dr. Bill Bass, the bones are run through a pulverizer to create the dust we think of as "ashes."

At least the family in question used traditional receptacles. I recently read about some horrific urns shaped to look like the dead person's head, without hair. All they need is a couple of photographs from different angles. The eyes are disturbing. The sample shown online stares blankly through you. Perhaps most troubling is the obvious line that separates the lid from the rest of the cookie jar urn. If your dead loved one isn't attractive enough, you can put their bone dust into a replica of a celebrity's head.

prayer chain

Posts on social networking sites are requesting prayers for Knoxville Bishop Richard F. Stika. My wife saw Facebook status updates from a deacon's wife and from an employee of the diocese that said the bishop had a heart attack. While that may turn out to be true, we don't know for sure. Bishop Stika did have bypass surgery in 2004 when he was still a monsignor in St. Louis.

I did a few quick online searches and found a Twitter posting from Notre Dame High School in Chattanooga that said, "Please pray for Bishop Richard Stika. He had a medical emergency while traveling and is currently in intensive care, in stable condition." The Diocese of Knoxville sent a similar Twitter update.

Posts to a Bishop Stika fan page on Facebook offer unconfirmed details on his condition. Some make it sound more dire than the official word from the diocese. The man posting the bad news says Bishop Stika fell in while in Florida. However the schedule on the diocesan website has him in San Antonio most of this month for Spanish language training.

Fr. Christian Mathis, who occasionally posts comments on my blog, posted an email from the Chancellor on his own blog. I just sent a text message to another priest asking if he had any more information. If I learn anything, I will post it in the comments section of this post.

what happens in vagus…

Now that it's a month later, it's obvious that there were no lasting side effects. However three-and-a-half hours into our road trip, we almost called off our vacation to New England. I was riding in the back seat of our CR-V with my feet up on a cooler. When I shifted positions, my left leg cramped up. The pain was so bad that I couldn't speak. There wasn't much room for me to stretch my calf muscle. When the pain eased some, I told my wife and son that I felt lightheaded.

The next thing I knew, my son was saying "Dad, Dad can you hear me?" It was like he was trying to wake me from a deep sleep. I had passed out. By this point, my wife had already taken the next exit on I-81. We were somewhere in the vicinity of Radford, Virginia.

In addition to being lightheaded, I now felt nauseous . My wife called GOOG-411 to find the closest hospital. She couldn't tell them where to look because we didn't know exactly where we were. She had pulled into the parking lot of an office building with no visible landmarks. She called her brother, who was able to access the Internet and give her directions to the New River Valley Medical Center in Christiansburg.

While my wife was on the phone, I laid down on the back seat with both doors open. The cool air felt refreshing and I didn't want to get up. The late David Bloom was on our minds although I thought I had walked around enough at our last bathroom stop to prevent a deep vein thrombosis. I silently said a bunch of Hail Marys, with an emphasis on the line "now and at the hour of our death," just in case.

When we got to the hospital, I got into a wheelchair and was pushed into the emergency room. I was tired and thirsty and honestly thought I might get out of there with a diagnosis of "dehydration and exhaustion." They eventually gave me a bag of saline solution and some anti-nausea medicine that they normally give to chemo patients. The nurse didn't get it when I joked, "you don't mess with the Zofran."

They asked my wife and son if I looked pale when I fainted. It was hard to tell because I had gone to Sun Tan City the night before to get a VersaSpa treatment. Later, when they peeled the EKG electrodes off my chest, a layer of tan came off too.

When the doctor asked me what day it was, I confidently replied "Friday." Wrong. It was Thursday. In my defense, the last thing I did before leaving work on Thursday was to voice-track Friday’s midday shift. I recorded several announcements saying it was Friday and to meet the station staff "today" at a contest registration event.

The doctor diagnosed my incident as a vasovagal syncope. The intense pain caused my heartbeat to slow down. I wasn't getting enough blood to my brain and I passed out. Apparently something, possibly my swimming, has lowered my resting heart rate. The pulse oximeter showed my heart rate to be around 58 beats per minute. Reclining in the hospital must have gotten the blood flowing back to my brain because I thought of the title for this blog post while lying on the bed.

In talking with the doctor, we realized that this had happened to me once before. Several years ago I was trying to help my father-in-law replace the InSinkErator in our Dale City townhouse. We were about to put the house on the market for our move to Burbank. While trying to remove the old disposal, a shard of plastic broke off and punctured my right palm. There was very little blood but a lot of pain. I felt lightheaded and nauseous so I went into the bathroom to throw up. Instead I passed out. I woke up to the upside-down sight of Aunt Dee headed toward me on her walker to take my pulse.

By the time we left the hospital, it was too late to continue driving to my mother's house in Northern Virginia as planned. We went to a Denny's but I was nauseous again and had no appetite. A full night's sleep at the nearby Holiday Inn Express cured me and I was able to enjoy their complimentary continental breakfast. We re-routed our trip from there directly to Saugerties, with a stop for lunch in Hershey.

padres nuestros

Fr. Antonio Giraldo was introduced to the faithful at All Saints Church on Sunday. His arrival also means the addition of una Misa en Español on Saturdays at 7:00 p.m.

Fr. Tony Dickerson returned to All Saints after two years in Chattanooga. In his sermon at the 8:15 a.m. Mass, he joked that many parishioners like to come to the early morning service so they can get to Cracker Barrel before the Baptists.

For his first day on the new job, Fr. Antonio was actually in Kentucky Helenwood for the vigil Mass at St. Jude. The All Saints priests will take turns covering the 5:30 p.m. Mass each Saturday at the remote parish.

I thought it was funny that a Quinceañera Mass was celebrated at All Saints on Saturday night. Instead of Colombian Fr. Antonio, the priest was Irishman Fr. Michael Woods.

hear the drums echoing tonight

Today was the last Sunday before moving day for many priests around the diocese. The reassignments announced in May will take effect on August 1.

At All Saints Catholic Church, there was a farewell reception for Fr. Augustine Idra after the 11:45 Mass. He is going to be chaplain of Notre Dame High School and associate pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Chattanooga. They put his new mailing address in the bulletin for those parishioners who prefer to stay in touch via snail mail.

Fr. Michael Woods was the celebrant of the 11:45. At the end of Mass, he invited Fr. Augustine to come forward from the narthex while he made some moving remarks about his brother priest's birth during wartime in Sudan. Fr. Augustine sat down in one of the pews, right next to me. I gave him a nudge and whispered that he should step up to the altar and say something. His remarks were heartfelt and emotional. He repeated the joke he made on his first day at the parish, that all white people look alike.

The long receiving line in the parish hall reminded me of when Fr. Chris Michelson left the parish. They had cake and some other snacks. My friend Mike, who works for the Knoxville Symphony, brought his accordion and played the Chicken Dance in honor of Fr. Augustine. The beloved African priest is known for his rendition of the dance at many parish functions.



At the reception, I had a chance to visit with one of my favorite patient families from the annual Radiothon for Children's Hospital. Many listeners were moved to tears when their little Lindsey Ann said that the doctors took the cancer out and made her a princess. Lindsey was running around the parish hall until it was time to have her picture taken with Fr. Augustine.

A parishioner named Jane, whom I had met a few years ago, came up to me and said she had recently met my aunt and uncle. Wondering how that could have happened, I asked if she had confused me with someone else. No, she was sure it was me. Jane and her husband Ken were on a Mediterranean cruise aboard the Noordam and had dinner with a couple from Virginia. When the subjects of Knoxville and Catholicism came up, the man from Virginia asked the lady from Tennessee if she knew his nephew, which turned out to be me. She did.

do you believe in magic?

To get ready for Harry Potter Day, my wife and son planned ahead. On our road trip two years ago, it didn't occur to us to buy a CD copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" until we got to a small town in Illinois. This year they went to the Knox County Public Library and reserved an audio copy of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

We listened to Jim Dale's narration as we drove to Maine and back. I have the same complaint with the sixth book as I did with the seventh about the way Dale voices female characters, especially Ginny, Luna and Hermione. The only woman's voice he gets right is Professor McGonagall. As I heard the climactic scene, I couldn't help but think of the fake ending I wrote four years ago.

The detailed plot was fresh in my mind as we watched the excellent movie adaptation this afternoon. I was okay with the stuff they had to leave out. Both Harry and Hermione are dealing with their changing feelings toward a Weasley. It was fairly true to the book although there are brief scenes I might not have understood had I not read the novel. Specifically, I thought they did not do a good job of explaining the Room of Requirement. Of course most of the moviegoers will have seen "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which explained the Room fully.

A listener called to challenge something I said on the air this morning. I mentioned that there were two more Harry Potter movies to come. She said there was only one film left. I tried to get her to understand that one book was being divided into two movies but she kept insisting that it was one movie divided into two parts. I finally won the argument when I asked her if she thought she could see both parts with one ticket or if they would make her buy tickets to two movies.

I saw an awkward live segment at the end of the late local news Tuesday night. The reporter interviewed fans who could not get tickets to one of the sold-out midnight shows at the Regal Pinnacle Stadium 18. Most were young and dressed in costume and one guy was dressed as Dumbledore. The awkward part came when the reporter didn't know how to react to a girl who said she didn't even like Harry Potter. Meanwhile, I heard that some local girls got ready for the movie by buying used neckties from Sacred Heart Cathedral School, which has the same colors as Gryffindor House.

higher than the sky, deeper than the ocean

The double funeral for Nancy and Peter Feist on Wednesday was one of the most impressive I've ever attended. One archbishop and three bishops were present in addition to dozens of priests and religious. Nancy was the executive assistant to both the current and the previous bishop of Knoxville.

Nancy collapsed on Friday at the Concord Farragut baseball field while her son was at bat. The CPR they performed on her may be what kept her unborn baby alive long enough to be delivered at the hospital. Fr. Augustine Idra gave the child an emergency baptism. Little Peter died shortly thereafter. Fr. Ragan Schriver held Peter's body as the family dealt with the tragedy.

The Rose Mortuary was packed with people on Tuesday night. The line to get into the chapel snaked through every hallway. Inside the chapel, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz led a rosary service from a podium behind the open casket containing mother and son. There were pauses between decades for Archbishop Kurtz and others to offer reflections on Nancy's life. Fr. David Boettner told how Nancy would edit letters and speeches for the priests, always changing the text into the Footlight font. Fr. David said the font, like Nancy's editing, gave the text "a theatrical sparkle." Fr. Peter Iorio said Nancy had named him one of her "apostles of joy." He read some messages she had written on the religious calendar she gave him.

Bishop Richard Stika was the main celebrant of the funeral Mass. Archbishop Kurtz, Bishop James Vann Johnston of Springfield and Bishop David Choby of Nashville concelebrated. The highlight was a poignant, eloquent, articulate reflection by Nancy's daughter. Hope Feist brought almost every mother in the church to tears with her recollections of her Mommy. She spoke directly to her siblings, her father and her grandparents about the boundless love her mother had for all of them. She told each of them that "Mom will never stop loving you." Bishop Stika said it was the best eulogy he had heard in his 24 years of priesthood.

Considering how big a deal this was in the Catholic world, I was surprised that I didn't see any cameras or reporters from the mainstream media at the funeral home or the church. Deacon Patrick Murphy-Racey took pictures, which I hope will be posted online soon.

After Mass, Archbishop Kurtz told me that my blog entry about Nancy had turned up in the Google Alert he has for his own name. I told this to Bishop Stika and suggested that he too sign up for a Google Alert. I think it's a helpful tool for everyone in this day and age, but a necessity for public figures like them.

home to Your dwelling place

The sad news about Nancy Feist's death hit hard for my wife and many others throughout the Diocese of Knoxville as they helped to plan her funeral Mass. Nancy was Executive Secretary to the Bishop. The 43-year-old collapsed at a ballgame on Friday. Even more heartbreaking was the fact that she was seven months pregnant. Doctors delivered her son Peter but he died shortly after being baptized. Nancy and her husband David have five other children. David teaches at St. Mary's School in Oak Ridge.

I had heard that Nancy moved to Knoxville from Pennsylvania to work for then-Bishop Joseph Kurtz. When he was elevated to Archbishop of Louisville, Nancy and her family stayed in East Tennessee. In 2007, the East Tennessee Catholic published a photo of Nancy with Bishop Kurtz as he prepared for his farewell Mass. During the time we were without a bishop, Nancy worked for Diocesan Administrator Fr. Al Humbrecht. Archbishop Kurtz will lead a recitation of the rosary on Tuesday night at Rose Mortuary on Kingston Pike.

When I interviewed newly ordained Bishop Richard Stika, I made the arrangements with Nancy. She wanted to know what I planned to discuss and asked for some background information about the public affairs show. Bishop Stika will be the main celebrant for Nancy's funeral Mass at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday at All Saints Catholic Church. Archbishop Kurtz and Bishop James Vann Johnston will concelebrate, along with several other priests of the Diocese.

They have set up an online CareCalendar to organize offers of meals and housework for the Feist family. Thoughts and prayers can be expressed online too. Monetary donations for the children can be sent to the "Nancy Feist Fund" at the Diocese.

walk of life

An early Father's Day present from my daughter arrived via email today. She is giving me the day off by being my guest blogger. She recently returned from the real Holy Land (not the Holy Land Experience) and is willing to share some highlights with us:

If you ever crave an omelet in Nazareth, Israel, be sure to take a stroll through the market streets just outside the old city. On day one of my pilgrimage with Give Thanks and Remember, I walked down the limestone-paved roads of the marketplace and saw a stand selling really fresh eggs straight from the source and another where you could buy your own living hatchlings. I’m not sure if baby chicken is an ingredient in some Middle Eastern dishes or if most customers buy them to raise them to adulthood, but they sure were cute.



We walked to the Fontana di Maria restaurant, one of the many local eateries in Nazareth. The narrow roads were not sidewalks as I had first thought. No, they were two-way streets. It was a wonder to find any cars newer than a banged-up 1990 Fiat, so I had to document the spotless parked Mercedes taking up almost half of the road.



I ordered a Coke at lunch. Even though the label was written in Hebrew, I can assure you that the classic formula tastes just as delicious in Israel, especially when made with cane sugar.



After a huge three-course meal for lunch, we traveled by bus to Cana in Galilee where Jesus performed His first miracle at the wedding feast by turning water into wine when the bridegroom’s supply had run out. The three married couples traveling with us had the chance to renew their wedding vows for each other in the church built to remember the first miracle of Christ’s public ministry. There was not a dry eye amongst us. It was truly moving to see these couples, who combined have been married 100 years, once again vow before God to love each other selflessly and completely until death parts them.



For the next ten days I witnessed and experienced things that I never would have imagined. From the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to the Sea of Galilee, Holy Sepulchre, Garden of Gethsemane and to the place of Calvary, I walked in the steps of Jesus. As I prayed and reflected in all these holy sites, I grew in my faith and even started to feel at home. Looking back to that first day when I felt so far from home in a completely foreign culture, it seemed like I had lived two years instead of two weeks. Here I was in His hometown, visiting where He first spoke the message that has echoed to all the corners of the earth and I realized that when I go back to my hometown, He’ll be coming with me.

change for twenty

Fr. Eric Andrews of John XXIII University Parish has a great new job. He is headed to Los Angeles to become president of Paulist Productions. Like the epistler they are named for, the Paulist Fathers specialize in communication. Before becoming a priest, Fr. Eric interned with The Jim Henson Company. I interviewed him on the radio after reading about the "Muppet priest" in the News Sentinel. In a column to UT students, Fr. Eric wrote that the Paulists have nominated his replacement, subject to the bishop's approval. John XXIII and Immaculate Conception are parishes in the Diocese of Knoxville but are staffed by Paulist priests rather than by diocesan priests.

During the time that Knoxville was without a bishop, Fr. Al Humbrecht served as diocesan administrator. Only a very few priest reassignments are made by a diocesan administrator. Fr. Al was forced to make some decisions when Fr. Vann Johnston was named Bishop of Springfield - Cape Girardeau. Now that Bishop Richard Stika has arrived in Knoxville, a relatively large number of priests are getting ready to move on August 1.

The list of new assignments was released this past week. There must have been quite a backlog. I wondered if the many changes were made entirely by the new bishop or if they were the recommendations of Fr. Al and other diocesan officials. A little bit of both, was the answer I got from a parish priest I saw Saturday. He also told me that a domino effect was set in motion by the retirement of Fr. Joe Brando from St. Jude in Chattanooga.

My parish, All Saints Church loses one priest but gains two. Fr. Augustine Idra is leaving All Saints to go to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Chattanooga. He will also be chaplain of Notre Dame High School. He will be greatly missed both for his spirituality and his fun-loving Chicken Dance at parish functions.

Fr. Tony Dickerson leaves NDHS to make a welcome return to Knoxville. He made a good impression on Bishop Stika as the master of ceremonies of the bishop's ordination in March. His new duties are three-fold: associate pastor at All Saints, co-chaplain at Knoxville Catholic High School and master of ceremonies for the bishop and diocesan events. All Saints pastor Fr. Michael Woods will be the other KCHS co-chaplain. All Saints is just across the parking lot from the high school, making it easy for Fr. Michael to minister to the students when Fr. Tony is traveling around the diocese with the bishop. From what I know of Bishop Stika and Fr. Tony, they are both regular guys who will probably get along great, especially at sporting events.

Fr. Antonio Giraldo, a native of Colombia, comes to All Saints from St. Thérèse of Lisieux in Cleveland. Since the parish town hall meeting, I have been anticipating the arrival of a Spanish-speaking priest. I think a Spanish Mass will be added fairly quickly after his arrival. The luxury of having four priests (the three I've mentioned plus Fr. Ragan Schriver) at one parish comes with a bit of a price. The priests of All Saints will have to take turns making the long drive to Scott County each Saturday to celebrate the 5:30 p.m. Mass at St. Jude in Helenwood.

A couple of other priests I know have new jobs too. When Bishop Johnston left for Missouri, Fr. Al appointed Fr. David Boettner as moderator of the curia. Fr. David described it as being a pastor to those who work for the diocese. At the time, Fr. David retained his position as pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle in Lenoir City. Bishop Stika has now reassigned Fr. David to be a priest in residence at Sacred Heart Cathedral, which is conveniently located right next door to the Chancery. Fr. Michael Maples leaves Sacred Heart to become associate pastor at St. Thérèse of Lisieux, replacing Fr. Antonio.

Fr. John Arthur Orr is known for wearing a cassock almost everywhere he goes. He is also known for celebrating Mass in Latin at his current parish, St. Therese in Clinton. His affinity for the more traditional makes me think he will especially enjoy his new assignment at Holy Ghost Church, which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year.

angels 1, demons 0

"Angels & Demons" is better at being an action movie than "The Da Vinci Code" was. I started to remember a few things from the book as the movie unfolded during a preview screening last night. It's been several years since I read all of Dan Brown's books. The filmmakers changed enough plot points to keep me guessing. Fortunately they omitted a ridiculous scene in the book in which Robert Langdon uses his blazer as a parachute. The story conveniently calls for the lights to be turned off in sectors of the city, always just as Langdon arrives to investigate. The darkness covers the fact that they couldn't use the actual locations portrayed.

It didn't feel like an anti-Catholic movie to me. Granted there are bad guys attacking the Vatican but there is also respect shown to Catholic ceremonies, such as a papal conclave. They try to make you think that the church is anti-science because of the way they treated Galileo in the 17th century. In reality the modern Catholic church is known for its education system from kindergarten through college. At least one character in the movie points out that science and religion can co-exist. I'm one of those people who believe that God created evolution and that science will ultimately prove the existence of God.

parable in progress

Do you believe in forgiving or forsaking? The reaction to the news that Daniel Hood has received a football scholarship from the University of Tennessee makes it clear that some are ready to forgive and many still want to forsake.

Hood was a star player and excellent student at Knoxville Catholic High School. He was admitted to KCHS after being in the custody of the Department of Children's Services and completing a rehabilitation program. At age 13, Hood was convicted for his role in a disgusting sexual assault upon his 14-year-old cousin by her 17-year-old boyfriend. He helped restrain the girl with duct tape, retrieved other objects and then stood by during the worst of the attack. He now wishes that he had stopped the older male. At the time he was afraid that the other man may have had gang affiliations and may have been armed.

Columnists and bloggers partial to other SEC teams were quick to write that the University of Tennessee had signed a convicted rapist to their football team. I wonder if their motivation is fueled more by a dislike of the Vols than by any compassion. One writer points out that Hood's age at the time of the offense is the only thing keeping him from wearing an orange jumpsuit instead of an orange jersey this fall. Even fans of the Vols have their doubts about Hood.

If your child got into serious trouble, how might you react? Would you send him to a military school or a parochial school to get straightened out? In the nearly six years since the assault, Hood has become someone that KCHS principal Dickie Sompayrac is proud of. Hood credits his Christian beliefs for making a different person out of him. Mr. Sompayrac says he is willing to stake the school's reputation on its recommendation of Hood. As a parent of two KCHS graduates, I know Mr. Sompayrac and trust his assessment.

The victim herself is for Hood's redemption, not for revenge. She wrote a letter to UT on her cousin's behalf. I guess it all comes down to whether or not you believe that someone can truly change for the better. We often hear about people who change for the worse. Why shouldn't it work the other way?

take a look at that centerpiece

Chef Walter is celebrating his 20th anniversary at WVLT. I happened to be doing some grocery shopping at the same time as he was returning that day's featured arrangement to the floral department at Food City Bearden the other day. When I said hello, he said it had been a while since he saw me last. It was at a March of Dimes gala last fall.



I was pretty happy about my shopping that day. I wanted to get as much food as I could without going over a certain amount. It's like my own private game of "The Price Is Right." On Sunday I had purchased a Community Cash card worth $50. My total spent at the store was $49.63. Woo hoo!



Chef Walter wasn't familiar with the Community Cash cards. I suggested that he give them a plug during his daily cooking segment. The cards are sold at many area churches, including All Saints. The churches buy the cards at a discount from the grocery stores and sell them at face value to their parishioners. All Saints makes a 5% profit on their sales of Food City, Kroger and Fresh Market gift cards. It's a painless way to help support the parish.

very expressive

Several of my dance sponsors were at church this morning. They wanted to know how things went on Thursday night at "Star 102.1's Dancing With the Knoxville Stars." The event had sold out before any of them could get tickets. I promised to let them know when video is available online. I also told them that Richard Bull from Academy Ballroom has expressed an interest in possibly staging an encore performance next month, assuming the details can be worked out.

In the meantime, you can see some outstanding photos posted by Expressive Moments Photography on their blog. I am thinking about buying copies of a picture of me in black tie and a shot of Emily and me in the middle of our routine.

As I alluded in the first paragraph, a number of donations to Children's Hospital came from parishioners of All Saints Catholic Church. In addition to those I mentioned in earlier posts, thanks go to Mary K and Michael, Sandy and John and Susan Hoffman. Hank Stevens from the RCIA team at Sacred Heart Cathedral donated too.

Adrienne Thies Albers was editor of the Broadside when we were both at GMU. She read about my dancing and decided to sponsor me. So did my pal Stephanie, who donated as "Frank's publicist" after I let her come to the dress rehearsal.

The team of Frank & Emily (Framily? Emilank?) also received sponsorships from Jeff and Stacey of Garde Bien Spa Salon, Ryan of JealousBrother.com and Children's Hospital president Keith Goodwin who says he has two left feet too. My friend Maureen of Fox Chase Farm, made a generous contribution. This fall she is hosting a benefit for Susan G. Komen for the Cure at the Farm. One of the participants is Deb Lamberton of WETA-FM, whose fundraising page is here.

All these donations to East Tennessee Children's Hospital came through my page at FirstGiving.com. My sincere thanks also go to Michelle Clark, Ken & Nancy Cross, Bob and Sylvia Goodyear, Carol Seip, Karen and Buford, Kristen, Liz L, Lori (from the radio station sales team), a very generous morning show listener and from Anonymous, who leaves all those blog comments.

one for you, one for me

One of the items on Rich and Lissa's wedding gift registry appealed to my wife and one appealed to me. We gave them a set of four little trifle dishes and an ice cream scoop. We threw in a jar of Mrs. Richardson's hot fudge and a package of Oreo crumbles.

My wife made a chocolate trifle for Father's Day last year. This year she wanted to make two fruit trifles for Easter, one for the choir at All Saints Church and one to have at home. That meant she needed another large trifle dish. We looked up Rich & Lissa's registry again so she could get the same style at Bed Bath & Beyond. She got both the large dish and a set of four smaller ones.



The recipe is simple. She layered angel food cake with thawed-out frozen berries and topped it with a mix of cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk. It sat in the refrigerator overnight to allow the cake to soak up the juice. She's talking about making it again when we have to bring a dish to a reception with the Bishop after the Rite of Missioning at Sacred Heart Cathedral. It's part of my responsibility as an RCIA sponsor.

alleluia time

This year's Lenten season was especially meaningful to me. In January, I was asked by a friend to be his sponsor in the RCIA program at Sacred Heart Cathedral. As a child he had been baptized into a Protestant denomination. The Catholic Church recognizes that as a valid Christian baptism. After completing the necessary classes, he was ready to be received into the Church and to receive the sacraments of Confirmation and First Holy Communion.

Even though my wife was singing at All Saints on Thursday and Friday, I chose to attend all three parts of the Triduum at Sacred Heart. Bishop Richard F. Stika was the main celebrant each night. My wife joined me at the Cathedral on Saturday evening. She even walked through the rehearsal as my proxy on Saturday morning because I had to work.

The Easter Vigil starts outside the church with the blessing of the new fire and the lighting of the paschal candle. Bishop Stika and the other priests and deacons waited under the dogwoods by the rectory while Fr. Al Humbrecht lit the fire. Unfortunately it didn't take right away. One of the parishioners stuffed a couple of newspaper pages into the woodpile and the second attempt worked fine.



One eager sponsor, who reminded me of Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean character, tried to light his handheld candle from the bonfire. He was told to stop. The Bishop used a brass candle lighter to transfer a flame from the fire to the paschal candle. Once the candle was carried into the cathedral, the flame was passed to each of us.

The bilingual service reminded me of trilingual masses I would attend at St. Finbar Church. As I stood with my hand on my friend's shoulder and the Bishop anointed him with chrism, I was also reminded of the two times I served as an RCIA sponsor in Burbank. The Easter Vigil usually runs about three hours. We had already passed the three-and-a-half-hour mark when I thought that the Bishop saw me check my watch. I must not have been the only one. As he ended the Mass, Bishop Stika said that he had seen people checking their watches to see not what time it was but what day it was.



Afterwards they had cake! I gave myself a little bit of a sugar buzz from the icing, which made me feel like I needed some protein. We took my friend and his wife out to IHOP at midnight for a very early Easter breakfast. My wife and I almost ordered omelettes until we remembered that we have 16 hard boiled Easter eggs waiting for us at home. I'll show you some of those tomorrow.

hosanna hey sanna

The theme of my interview with newly ordained Bishop Richard Stika was, "what is the mission of the church outside of the church?" I wanted to know how the Bishop saw his role in the community at large. In the program, which airs Sunday morning, we discuss the interfaith community in East Tennessee, the homeless, last year's church shooting and other local issues.

Obviously there is plenty of church chat too. We talked about Bishop Stika's ordination and the brand new cathedra that made its debut at that Mass. I also wanted to know what the Bishop thought of the fancy new building at St. John Neumann parish, which was the subject of a recent cover story in the Metro Pulse. So, would he consider making that building his cathedral? Probably not. Bishop Stika said he likes the location of Sacred Heart Cathedral and drops a subtle hint that he might someday be open to a new building on that site.

To celebrate Palm Sunday, I have posted a podcast of the half-hour interview. I think cradle Catholics and converts alike will enjoy the lightning round at the end of the interview when I ask the Bishop, "bells at the consecration, yes or no?"

what brings us together today

Because my wife's birthday always falls during Lent, the loophole in our Lenten observance is celebratory cake. This year we expected to find cake at the Bishop's ordination but did not. However there was plenty of cake his past Saturday at the marriage of Shots Across the Bow and Oh... Really? er, I mean Rich and Lissa.

Our Lenten Friday Forbidden Treat consists of both the German chocolate wedding cake and the red velvet groom's cake. The former was beautifully covered in fondant, the latter was decorated with the banners of the lovebird bloggers. Both were homemade. Before the cake was cut, Rich responded to his best man's toast by quoting an Impressive Clergyman.

nice middle name

There was no celebratory cake at the reception for newly ordained Bishop Richard Frank Stika. The reception was actually anticlimactic after the uplifting Mass of Episcopal Ordination and Installation. The News Sentinel has several great pictures including some from behind the scenes.



WBIR phrased it well: "the Knoxville Convention Center was transformed into a cathedral Thursday afternoon." The carved altar was on loan from Holy Cross Catholic Church in Pigeon Forge. One deacon told me that the bishop would continue using the brand new wooden chair as his cathedra back at Sacred Heart.



Before the Mass began, I saw dozens of new ciboria on the credence table. I was told that after today's ceremony, the sacred vessels would be distributed to the parishes of the diocese. Any leftover consecrated hosts would also be sent to the churches, where parishioners could receive communion from the ordination Mass.



The Mass was webcast live at dioceseofknoxville.org. My two kids were able to watch and to hear my wife sing a brief solo during "Veni Sancte Spiritus." The video is supposed to be available on demand for a limited time. I am curious to hear the color commentary by Dr. Jerry Punch, who described today's Mass before heading off to cover the Bristol race for ESPN.

Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz and Archbishop-elect Timothy Dolan topped a list of notable names in attendance. I counted 27 bishops, 3 archbishops and the cardinal. There were scores of priests, deacons and other religious. The laity like me numbered in the thousands. At the cake-free reception, the new bishop greeted his flock.

there better be cake

Security will be tight for Bishop-elect Richard Stika's ordination on Thursday. Officially the event is known as the Mass of Episcopal Ordination and Installation. In this case the word episcopal refers to a Christian bishop, not the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Musicians and choir members have to be in place at the Knoxville Convention Center five and half hours before the Mass begins. The early call time is partly so they can get in one last rehearsal and partly so police dogs can sniff search their musical instrument cases and other bags. The singers have been told they cannot bring their own water bottles to the ordination, as they normally would to a service that will run for three hours. They will need to purchase bottles of water for $2.75 each once they get past the security screening. Guests attempting to bring in their own food or drinks will have the items confiscated by the guards. Also, the use of cameras by anyone other than credentialed media is strictly prohibited.

The extreme measures might be because of the attendance of Catholic bigwigs such as His Eminence Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia and Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States. Or law enforcement officials might be taking steps to prevent a tragedy like the one that occurred in Knoxville last summer.

Bishop-elect Stika already had an impressive resume as an administrator in the Archdiocese of St. Louis when he was transferred out of the Catholic Center and into the role of pastor of the Church of the Annunziata in ritzy Ladue. The move gave him the the pastoral experience that most recent Bishop appointees have had. The parish had a farewell reception for him last Sunday after the 11:00 a.m. Mass. Their rectory will be closed Wednesday through Friday so the parish staff can attend the ordination. Many people from St. Louis, including Fr. Gary Braun, will travel to the nation's most vibrant diocese for the ceremony.

In an interview with the News Sentinel that was published yesterday, Bishop-elect Stika said he would be moving to Knoxville on Saturday (yesterday). He also said he is using the Rosetta Stone software to learn Spanish, which is probably a prerequisite of all Catholic bishops nowadays. The ordination Mass will be mostly in English, with perhaps one of the Bible readings in Spanish. Translation devices will be available for Spanish-speaking parishioners.

At the All Saints Church town hall meeting last night, Fr. Michael Woods made it clear he is aware that Knoxville's largest parish is not currently serving the Spanish speaking members of our faith. Instead, they go to Sacred Heart Cathedral, where Fr. Manuel Perez has recently gotten stricter about those who come late to Mass and let their children roam in the aisles during the service. Fr. Michael said he was going to ask the new bishop to assign an additional priest to All Saints. I would not be surprised at all if he asked for a Spanish-speaking padre in order to add a Misa en Español to the schedule.

a favorite mistake

Last Friday's post started with Lenten dinner and ended with a picture of a cake. Along the way, we took a detour through a fish fry or two in St. Louis. Today I'll post a photo of another delicious thing that I gave up for Lent.

St. Louis is almost as famous for gooey butter cakes as it is for toasted ravioli. My wife's family used to get theirs at the old Lake Forest Bakery. That place has closed but the cakes are plentiful enough to warrant a category on the "Best of St. Louis" list. On a recent visit to the Gateway City, I was impressed by a supermarket display of gooey butter cakes made by Park Avenue Coffee.



The ooey gooey goodness was invented by accident when a baker used ingredients in the wrong proportions. Fortunately, gooey butter cakes are no longer just a St. Louis thing. I gave high marks to a pumpkin gooey butter cake at a dessert cook-off last fall and my wife made a peanut butter gooey butter cake to bring to our son on parents' weekend. Both recipes probably came from Paula Deen. I'll keep an eye out for something delicious and worth photographing (but not eating) for next Friday.

cod is good

On Fridays during Lent, many Catholic churches offer a meatless supper before or after the Stations of the Cross. My wife and I plan to partake of the meal at All Saints Church tonight although we don't know what is on the menu. Different parish groups take turns serving the Lenten suppers. Each week brings something different. In the past we've had pizza, fish sticks, soup, salad and a baked potato bar.

Sacred Heart Cathedral has a Friday fish fry during Lent. For the health-conscious, the cod can be had baked or fried. Side items include french fries, coleslaw and macaroni & cheese. Their event seems more like those in St. Louis, where the local newspaper maintains a list of churches hosting a fish fry on Fridays. A local radio station does a "Fish Fry World Tour" which includes a live broadcast from a different church each week. A TV station has an interactive Fish Fry Finder map that is easy to use. I unexpectedly discovered a Facebook group for St. Louisans who socialize at the events, regardless of whether they are Catholic or not. Considering that Knoxville's Bishop-elect Richard Stika is a St. Louis native, maybe we can eventually have a Fish Fry World Tour of our own.

Like a lot of Catholics, I'm giving up sweets again this year with the probable exception of a slice of celebratory cake after the bishop's ordination and installation. Maybe he'll give us all a dispensation and it will be a moot point. However just because I'm on a diet doesn't mean I can't look at the menu. Here's a photo of the delicious cakes that were served a couple of weeks ago at the World Marriage Day dinner at All Saints. I was told that they came from Rita's Bakery in Fountain City.

force of habit

In an effort to see at least some of the Oscar nominees before the awards ceremony, my wife and I watched "Doubt" this afternoon. The story takes place in 1964, before people became aware of the failings of an organization which is built on the forgiveness of sins but exists in a society that requires justice and demands vengeance.

The film is set at a fictional parish in the Bronx within walking distance of the Parkchester neighborhood where my mother grew up. Most impressive was Meryl Streep's perfect accent. She sounded exactly like my Aunt Marion, with maybe a dash of Aunt Grace thrown in. The parish school is run by the Sisters of Charity, an actual order which has put information about the movie on their website.

The first time Father Flynn did the sign of the cross during Mass, I absentmindedly crossed myself along with the onscreen congregation. In that scene, Sister Aloysius hits a disruptive child on the back of the head. I wanted to her to do the same thing to a disruptive audience member at the Regal Downtown West Cinema 8.

My wife said that they used the modern arrangement of "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" instead of the old-school version of the tune. Also, they had the priest deliver his sermons following a hymn instead of right after the gospel proclamation. Several scenes are so theatrical that you can't help but be reminded that the film was adapted from a stage play. There were also a couple of times when the camera is tilted on an angle, just like when a villain's lair was shown on the old "Batman" series.

I hope Viola Davis wins for Best Supporting Actress. There was one emotional scene that should clinch it for her. It's the one where her nose starts running. I may feel differently after I see "The Wrestler," but for now I'm pulling for Viola.

I came out of the theater whistling "Blame it on the Bossa Nova," which is featured during a small scene in the film. It reminded me of an interview I did with Emily Procter when I had a show on the Comedy World Radio Network. At the time, she had a part on "The West Wing." I was rather smitten with her Ainsley Hayes character because of a well-known bathrobe bossa nova scene. I tracked down a copy of the song, which wasn't quite as easy then as it is now, and played it for her during the interview.

or else it gets the hose again

The security crew at the promotional screening of "The International" made it very clear that no cameras or cell phones with cameras were allowed into the theatre. They looked into purses of female filmgoers and once the movie started, they used night-vision goggles to scan the crowd in search of anyone recording it.

If someone were trying to pirate "The International" last night, their copy would be easy to spot. The first few minutes of the film on were out of frame, similar to a television with a vertical hold problem. The bottom of the picture was on the top of the screen and the top was on the bottom. The problem got fixed but then returned at the start of the second reel. Two weeks ago, at a promo screening of "New in Town," the first few minutes were out of focus and the pre-show music continued playing in the auditorium. Could these problems be Hollywood's latest anti-piracy measure?

Former News Sentinel critic Betsy Pickle sat in front of me at both screenings. She told me that her reviews are now available on the Alliance of Women Film Journalists website.

I asked Betsy if she had attended the memorial service for photographer Clay Owen this week. It was held at St. Mary's Hospital in the room that St. Albert the Great parish uses for Sunday Mass while their church is being built. She was there and described to me the priest who spoke. It could only have been Fr. Ragan Schriver, which made sense. I recently found a Fr. Ragan fan club on Facebook and was touched to see that Clay had joined the group before his death.

it's fun to pray at the RCIA

The concept of Wednesday nights as church nights is something I didn't learn about until after I moved to Tennessee. Many of the Baptists I know attend some sort of meeting on Wednesdays, often after a nice dinner. As a Catholic, I don't have to go to church on Wednesdays, however that is when my wife goes to choir practice at All Saints Church.

Things have changed for me, at least until Easter. Tonight I attended my second meeting for the RCIA at Sacred Heart Cathedral. A former co-worker asked me to be his sponsor as he joins the church. The meetings are on Wednesday nights. The lively discussion tonight focused on the death penalty, abortion, stem cell research and euthanasia. Last week I had a previous commitment and missed the conversation about sins so heinous that they result in automatic excommunication. When my candidate contacted me with questions, I had to research the topic, which was only recently revealed by the Vatican.

I was asked to be a sponsor in the RCIA program twice while living in St. Finbar parish. One of the guys I sponsored in Burbank recently wrote to tell me that he was still active in the music ministry at the church. He's also writing pop songs using the words of Jesus from the Gospel of John. I can't wait to hear them and maybe even share some samples if possible.

extended dance mix

When Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson come in for an interview to promote their Body Farm books, I don't want the conversation to end. As the show we taped on Tuesday neared the half-hour mark, I decided to just keep going, knowing I could edit it later. The program that aired this morning was exactly thirty minutes long however the version I'm posting here is fifty-five forensic-filled minutes of fun.

The focus of the first half-hour is the science behind the new book "Bones of Betrayal." We talked about DMORT disaster drills, radiation sickness and Big Ed's Pizza. We also discussed Dr. Arpad Vass and his decomposition sniffer, which I called an electronic cadaver dog. Vass was featured in a very interesting News Sentinel article in mid-December.

When the conversation turns to the Incorruptibles, you'll know that you are hearing web-only content. A recap of the Big Bopper case led to talk of exhumation. If there is any question about the circumstances of my death, I want my body to be exhumed as many times as necessary, unlike the recent case of a former district attorney general, whose exhumation was denied. When we talked about dismembered hands, I related the story of my search for the relic of Fr. Damien of Molokai who will soon be canonized as a saint.

Jefferson and Bass begin a month-long promotional tour on Tuesday with a benefit event at the Y-12 New Hope Center. Tickets are $25 in advance or $35 at the door. Advance sale tickets can be purchased by calling Knox Heritage at 865-523-8008 or by sending an email to info@knoxheritage.org. They'll make the rounds of local retailers too. You can get a book signed at Borders Books on Wednesday, Sam's Club and Hastings Books on Saturday, Books-A-Million in Oak Ridge on Sunday and Hargreaves Books next Monday.

As usual, you can right click here and save the mp3 file to your computer or click the play button below.

the backwards robe

This hasn't been the best week for me. I've been fighting a cold, which started with a sore throat the night before the second performance of the cantata at All Saints Church. Plus I was saddened by the anniversary of my father's death on Wednesday and by the news today that a co-worker died after a long illness. There were a couple of other things too. On the plus side, I was asked to sponsor a candidate in the RCIA at Sacred Heart Cathedral and I got to go to the circus.

Late Tuesday night, my wife and I went to Walgreens to buy me some more decongestant. While the pharmacist was checking our driver's licenses, I was looking at the "As Seen On TV" shelf. I decided to buy the item my wife has been wanting since she first saw the commercial. And although it's hers, she let me try on her brand new Snuggie.



It reminds me of a choir robe, a hospital gown and an airline blanket. It's fairly thin, which became obvious when I held it up to a light. Apparently there is also a product called the Slanket, which claims to be thicker and is considerably more expensive than the $14.95 we paid for the Snuggie at Walgreens. Unlike the TV commercial, we only had to buy one Snuggie and didn't have to pay an extra $7.95 each for shipping and handling. We still got the bonus book light, as promised on the box.

promises fulfilled

Bishop-elect Richard Stika was in East Tennessee most of this week. He was introduced at a press conference on Monday. Lori Tucker interviewed him on Tuesday morning for a piece that aired on WATE Thursday night

While he was in town, Stika traveled around the diocese to get acquainted. He went to Catholic Charities to meet their less fortunate clients, including two elderly men who asked him, "Why did the Pope cross the road?" I'm not exactly sure what their punchline was, but it might have been "because he crosses everything."

Bishop-elect Stika returned to St. Louis today. He'll pack up his belongings and his dog Rosie and get back in time for his installation as Bishop on March 19 at the Knoxville Convention Center. I found out the other day that the ordination Mass will start at 2:30 p.m. and last for at least three hours. Plans are being made to webcast the ceremony. I think I would rather be there in person, especially since there will be a reception afterward. The Bishop-elect hopes that all the local Catholic school children will attend too.

If his visit to Tennessee had lasted a day longer, the Bishop-elect could have come to hear the "Journey of Promises" cantata at All Saints Church tonight. Someone from the chancery did check to see if there might have been a rehearsal that he could have attended last night but there wasn't. However they have been practicing for months.

The performance went well and got mentioned on WBIR's late newscast. My friend Kathy had emailed all the TV stations to request that they consider sending a camera, since they would likely have crews right next door to cover the Webb at Catholic basketball game. The publicity will help fill the seat's for Sunday's performance. Admission is free but they do take up a collection for Catholic Charities.

The All Saints choir was joined by members of the Knoxville Symphony Youth Orchestra and a few adult parishioners who can play instruments. I read one of the three spoken word parts. Look closely and you can see Fr. Ragan Schriver and me at the podium in the background of the photo below. We'll play it again on Sunday at 3:00 p.m. I hope to see you there.

rich it is

As rumored yesterday, the next Bishop of the Diocese of Knoxville was introduced at a press conference this morning. Bishop-elect Richard Stika is moving to Tennessee from a parish in St. Louis where one of his parishioners is Stan "The Man" Musial.

Three local television stations covered the event. WBIR and WVLT each sent a cameraman. WATE also sent reporter Kristyn Caddell who remembered me from our recent encounter with the Christmas penguin.



I also saw reporters from the News Sentinel and the Farragut Press. After breaking the news at 6 o'clock this morning, the Catholic blog Whispers in the Loggia linked to a profile of the Bishop-elect from the St. Louis Beacon.

The best photos of the press conference will probably be the ones taken by Deacon Patrick Murphy-Racey. He also had the best position for his video camera. I hope to see his work on either the Diocese website or his own site. I couldn't find any of his pictures tonight.

Many of the priests of the Diocese were in attendance as well as the Bishops of Nashville and Memphis. Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz was warmly received by his former staff. It was his first time back to the chancery since his elevation to Archbishop.

I introduced myself to Fr. John Dowling of St. John Neumann parish and asked him the question I had about his new building and the Bishop's cathedra. Fr. Dowling said that yes, the Bishop could theoretically choose to move his chair to another building, thereby making it the new cathedral. However, Fr. Dowling is not pushing for that. He agreed that the Bishop would probably want to leave the cathedral right where it is, next door to the chancery, which has seen some improvements since Archbishop Kurtz left for Louisville. I also asked Fr. Dowling about the mosaic Stations of the Cross in his new church. He bought those from a clearing house in Atlanta that sells fixtures from closed churches in other parts of the country. Because he had those first, he was able to design the width of the windows so that the Stations would fit perfectly underneath them.

I found it interesting that the Bishop-elect has had to keep the news of his appointment a secret since December 16. And that he is allowed say Mass in Aramaic when celebrating with the Maronite Church.

isn't it rich?

Phone calls and text messages started flying around the Diocese of Knoxville this afternoon. Somebody spread the word that the name of our new bishop could be announced as early as tomorrow. Of all the current U.S. vacancies, Knoxville has been waiting the longest for a bishop. Upon hearing the rumor, one of the priests I know immediately used the web browser on his Palm Treo to see if anything was posted on the blog Whispers in the Loggia. There wasn't then, there is now. My priest friend was surprised that the name being bandied about is someone he knows. It doesn't always work out that way. Over the past several months of waiting, I have gotten in the habit of checking Whispers in the Loggia daily and searching the site for the word Knoxville. I'll have to begin checking two or three times a day until the official news comes out.

twelfth night

Depending on the culture, the twelve days of Christmas end tonight or tomorrow. Some start counting on Christmas Day, others on Boxing Day. Either way, happy Epiphany Eve, even though my church celebrated the feast yesterday. Or maybe I should say merry Armenian Christmas Eve.

On New Year's Eve, my wife and son and I arrived downtown early for First Night Knoxville. The cold air was making my wife's nose a little runny. I thought that we could probably get a pack of tissues at J's Mega Mart, the combination wig shop and convenience store where I got the unusual Santa Claus figurine that I sent to my friend Bean. I was also curious to see if anyone had purchased the other dusty Santa that was still on the shelf when I did my shopping on December 10.

We walked into the store, peeled off our hats and gloves and started looking for tissues when, what to my wondering eyes should appear but three miniature Santas and possibly six more in boxes behind them. They all appeared to be brand new which means that the store must have had a supply of them somewhere. Since they're going out of business, I doubt that they ordered more just because I bought one. Each had a slightly different pose. Do they intend for someone to collect the whole set? There are many more black Santas available online. The one on the left in my photo has an open hymn book glued to his chest. His hand is in the wrong position to be holding it.



On another shelf, I saw lots of Little Debbie products, including the S'mores that I wanted to try last May. I probably should have spent the 46 cents but I was put off by the fact that they were not labeled for retail sale.

prayer palace

The beautiful new church building at St. John Neumann parish opened on Christmas Eve. WBIR got it right in their report however the anchors on WVLT mistakenly called the building a cathedral. I dashed off an email to a couple of people there but unfortunately the same script was used in the 7:00 p.m. newscast that night. A cathedral is the building that houses the bishop's chair, which is called a cathedra.



After seeing the new building with my own eyes today, I wondered if our next bishop could decide to pick up his cathedra and move it to Farragut. Although it's probably just as likely that they would continue to spruce up Sacred Heart Cathedral, which is right next door to the diocesan offices. The religious artwork in the new place looks much better in context than it did in the photos I saw online in August. The more contemporary looking figures inside the ceiling dome are complimented by classic-looking paintings of saints and Stations of the Cross that look like mosaics. They must be relieved to have made the deadline on the cornerstone. I had read that the church was supposed to open last January.



The former chancellor of the Diocese of Knoxville was elevated to bishop this past Spring. Bishop Vann Johnston now shepherds the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau. The Knoxville native was home for the holidays and celebrated the 10:30 Mass today at St. John Neumann. The bishop told me that the pastor, Fr. John Dowling, was inspired by the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis. Coincidentally, that is where my family and I went to Mass a week ago. I told Bishop Johnston that my wife and I had briefly been in his new diocese when we went to Branson this summer.



Fr. Dowling made some announcements before Mass began. They are moving the Saturday vigil Mass from 6:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. He said it would take too long to explain why. After Mass I heard some parishioners speculating that the church could book more Saturday evening weddings after the change. My wife had heard months ago that some families were registering in the parish so their daughters could get married in the new building.



The other big announcement was that the parish would no longer serve communion in both species. Apparently they feel that parishioners sipping from the cup takes too long. Because of the acoustics, they have decided to start singing slower and preaching slower, which will make the Masses run longer. The cavernous space and the hard surfaces create lots of echo.

I've been to several other churches where the problem of slow communion lines was solved by adding more cups, not by removing them. To me, the lack of communion in both species and a few other things made it feel like they were trying to turn back the clock. They rang a bell at the start of Mass and during the consecration. Some parts of the Mass were sung in Latin. When I hear the "Holy Holy Holy" and the "Lamb of God" I know it's time to lower the kneeler. At this Mass they sang "Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus" and "Agnus Dei." I lowered the brand new kneeler only to find that it had a child's muddy boot prints on it, probably from Christmas Eve when the weather outside was frightful wet. After Mass, I brushed it off as best I could with my hand.



The pew where I sat was in one of the transepts, near the ambo. The last person to receive communion in our section was a man carrying a fidgety toddler. A moment or two after the man received the host, I thought I saw the child drop something. I wasn't positive because neither the parent nor the deacon serving communion reacted. The man carried the boy back to their seats and the deacon went off to help distribute communion in the main section of the church. I had an inkling of a suspicion about what had fallen to the floor so I got up from my kneeler to investigate. It was only a few steps over to the spot where the communicants had stood. I didn't see anything until I knelt down to look more closely at the beige marble floor and tilted my head at an angle to see it in a different light. Half a host lay on the floor, barely visible because it was almost the exact same color as the marble. I picked it up and reverently put it in the palm of my hand. I thought about my options for a second and realized that the best thing for me to do in this circumstance was to consume the partial host myself. It would have been terribly disruptive for me to bring the host to the deacon or the bishop and say "look what I found."



I don't know if the deacon had broken the host in half because he was running out of them or if the man had broken the host in half himself, which he shouldn't have done. Either way, the child should not have had the opportunity to take the host from his father or to knock it out of his father's hand. In a situation like that, the man should have received the host directly on his tongue instead of in his hands. I wondered if he was a non-Catholic and didn't know the rules. Catholics believe that Jesus is truly present in the host. We take his words at the Last Supper literally. A fancy church building like St. John Neumann's will attract tourists of all faiths. The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis has the following paragraph on the back cover of their weekly bulletin:

All visitors who are not of the Catholic faith are welcome to join us in prayer but not to receive Holy Communion. Reception of Holy Communion is a sign of unity of faith and full membership in the Catholic community. Together let us pray for the eventual unity of all believers.

After feeling discouraged about the muddy shoe prints and the behavior of the child at communion, I'm glad that as I left the church after Mass, I turned back to read the inscriptions above the three doors. One of them reminds us of Jesus' words in the gospel of Mark: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them."

on the first day of

Merry Christmas! I hope you've taken time to reflect on the true meaning of this holy day. I could try to write a thoughtful blog post (like Rich did) about how I am amazed that of all the ways God could have chosen to come to this earth -- as a fire-breathing dragon or a mighty warrior, for instance -- He instead became a fetus, born of an unwed mother.

But I want to get back to having a great time doing nothing with my family, so I'll just share some photos of Christmas treats that I've collected over the past week. Here are some reindeer cupcakes I saw at Food City, some Santas made by Nirvana Chocolates and some awesome gingerbread cookies made by my kids.

tennis-ee

There was a picture of my wife in this morning's News Sentinel. Actually it's her and about a hundred others in the seats at Thompson-Boling Arena on Sunday. A friend of ours had an extra ticket to the Rock n' Racquets exhibition starring Serena Williams and Andy Roddick.



My wife had a great time at the event. She said that Roddick was really funny, especially when he did impressions of other tennis stars like John McEnroe, Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova. He even stuffed towels in his shirt and shorts to impersonate Serena. My wife said she recognized a couple of the songs by Gavin Rossdale, probably from the days we saw him perform with Bush at various KROQ concerts.

While she was there she spotted WBIR's John Becker in the audience. She also saw Fr. Ragan Schriver, who had a court side seat (see photo) near Dane Bradshaw. Just the other day I was talking with someone about how the former Vol player rode a zipline from atop the Sunsphere in 2007.

perpetual light skype upon them

In this Internet era, everyone could benefit from having a Google Alert for their own name. I've had one in my name for a while and I've recently suggested that my wife and kids set up some for themselves. This past January, Stacy McCloud got a laugh when a Google Alert showed her name in my blog post titled "local news anchor on pot."

When I first set up my own Google Alert, I would get a lot of links to pages about the late politician and judge Frank Murphy and to news stories mentioning the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice. The famous Michigander turned up recently in a story on George Mason University's History News Network. Sometimes I got news of former NFL player Frank Murphy. Lately there have been even more Frank Murphys turning up on the Alert.

There's a Frank Murphy who is a "streetwise scrum half," whatever that means. In Florida, there's a Frank Murphy who is the president of Catholic Charities, Diocese of St. Petersburg. A Dr. Frank Murphy is vice-president of the South Carolina Animal Care and Control Association. However it was yet another Frank Murphy who gave me reason to write this post.

He's a funeral director in Salem, Massachusetts who has started using the Internet to help grieving families. He sets up video streaming to allow far-off relatives to view funeral services online.

The process requires only a single camera, a laptop and an Internet connection. There is a 40-second delay, but viewers are essentially watching the proceedings in "real time" through a link to a secure page or by logging in to a password-protected portion on the Murphy Funeral Home Web site.

The biggest challenge was practical, not philosophical. The church lacks an Internet connection, and Murphy is not ready to take the service wireless — at least not yet. Fortunately, a benevolent neighbor of the church allowed a cable to be run from his router, enabling the broadcast to happen.

As an aside, I thought it funny that the website for the local newspaper in Massachusetts is called WickedLocal.com.

full of grace

Several Baptist churches around the country present Living Christmas Trees but few, if any, do so in as spectacular a fashion as the Sevier Heights Baptist Church in Knoxville. Their presentation outgrew their sanctuary and then the Tennessee Theatre years ago. Five performances of the Knoxville Living Christmas Tree filled Thompson-Boling Arena this weekend.

My wife and I had never seen the LCT, as those in the know call it. It is actually a gigantic choir riser in the shape of a Christmas tree. A segment on the noon news one day last week got me interested in going although our previous commitments didn't make it easy. We already had plans for Saturday. Tonight, my wife and I went to Mass at our own church for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day of obligation and the national feast of the USA. It comes nine months before the celebration of Mary's birth. There was only one performance that fit our schedule, Sunday at 3:00 p.m. I went to the website to request a pair of free tickets only to find out that they were "sold out." I gave up my plans to attend and started thinking about going to the Knoxville Nativity Pageant next week instead.

After the Julianne Hough concert on Friday night, my wife and I went to Rita's Ice to share a dessert. As we paid for our Blendini, I saw tickets to the Living Christmas Tree on the counter. There were a few tickets for each of Sunday's two performances. Nancy, the store owner, told me that she had gotten the tickets through her church and that they were free for the taking. I grabbed a pair for the matinee. Call it fate, karma or good luck.

We got there about 45 minutes early. I dropped off Jere at the door and went to park the car. As I got out of my car, I realized that I had parked next to Matt Hinkin. He said that it had been a couple of years since he last saw the LCT. I found my wife in section 105 and sat down. I had brought my copy of "Thank God for Evolution" to read while waiting for the show to start. As the singers began to fill in the 16 levels of the tree, I noticed that their choir robes were just drapes that only covered their shoulders and upper bodies.

I went to the Living Christmas Tree expecting a musical performance. I didn't know it would also include a Nativity pageant, a Passion play, a sermon and a passing of the collection plate. The show was so entertaining that even I was moved to toss in a couple of bucks. In addition to all the other elements, there was a contemporary Christmas story, reminiscent of a schmaltzy TV movie. Hollywood producer Garrett returns to his hometown to expose what he thinks is the hypocrisy of their Christmas celebration. He has a change of heart after his assistant prays for him.



The best parts of the event were the singing and the sermon by guest speaker Scott Dawson. I could have done with slightly shorter talking scenes and more songs during the drama portion. However the show did have first class production values. In a way, it was like a slice of Pigeon Forge right here in Knoxville. In fact, the comic relief characters, Bobby Earl and Skeeter, were a lot like some I saw at the Dixie Stampede last year.

Before the performance, Shannon Leigh from Love 89 welcomed the crowd. She said that they were playing only Christmas music this month. On the way home, I switched back and forth between Love 89 and B97.5. The religious station beat the commercial station on each song I heard. The tunes that gave them the win were "Jingle Bells" by Denver & the Mile High Orchestra and "Sleigh Ride" by Relient K while the B was playing "Do They Know It's Christmas" yet again. You can compare the two station's playlists yourself here and here.

na na hey hey

The Olympics and our road trip to Branson and Arkansas must have distracted me from the interesting Catholic news that was released in mid-August. The two local priests I asked about it hadn't heard either. Maybe if the Diocese of Knoxville had a bishop, the information would have trickled down to us. My wife and I finally got tipped off when Fr. Gary Braun mentioned it after Mass last Sunday while we were in St. Louis.

The Vatican has decided that we are to no longer use the name Yahweh in prayers or songs during Mass. Or as one blog put it, "Ixnay on the Yahweh." The four Hebrew letters that represent Yahweh, YHWH, are known as the Tetragrammaton and are meant to be unpronounceable. Fr. Ragan Schriver explained to us tonight that the four consonants were combined with the vowels from "Adonai" to create the word "Jehovah" (or Jahovah).

Upon hearing the news, my wife immediately thought about all the times she sang "You Are Near" at funerals and other Masses. The hymn begins "Yahweh, I know you are near." That song was also part of my father's funeral all those years ago. As we walked to the car, we tried to think of a few two-syllable options to replace "Yahweh," including "Father" and "Abba." My wife soon came up with a better idea: "O Lord."

Dan Schutte, the composer of "You Are Near," has written about the process of revising his famous hymn. After he "jotted down pages of possibilities" and consulted with friends and colleagues, his official revision is... "O Lord, I know you are near."

The first verse of Schutte's "Sing a New Song" now says "Shout for gladness! Dance for joy!" instead of "Yahweh's people dance for joy." The change for his "Yahweh, the Faithful One" will be more challenging, if not impossible.

music that makes you feel good

The Christmas music playing in our car was there for a reason. We were driving through Kentucky and Illinois on our way to visit with several family members this past weekend. My wife was listening to the practice CD for a Christmas cantata called "Journey of Promises" by Joseph M. Martin. The choir at All Saints Catholic Church will perform the piece on January 16 and 18. My wife sings with the choir. I've been asked to read one of the spoken word parts.

When the CD ended, I scanned the FM dial for a station. The first one we heard was playing "The Chanukah Song" by Adam Sandler. It took a moment for this to register. It was October 23, two days shy of two months before the Jewish holiday. The next song was a Christmas standard. There were no deejays, just some sweepers identifying the station as Christmas 101.1 (although their website now calls it Holiday 101.1).

I eventually figured out that we were listening to WMVN, the former Movin 101.1 out of St. Louis. What was really surprising is that the station switched to the seasonal format back on October 10th. They're just biding their time until they go all-sports in January.

Sean Ross of Edison Media Research mentioned the format change in two postings. He writes that there have been far fewer stations making changes this fall than last. He also lists ten songs he heard the St. Louis station play on their online stream.

If you want Christmas music that goes beyond the same old versions of the same old songs, be sure to check out my friend Bean's site, Christmas Music Everyday.

in the pie hole

Which is better, cake or pie? It's an age-old dilemma that pits brother against brother. Or in my case, co-worker against co-worker. During my KROQ days, the morning show staff used to travel to New York for the MTV Video Music Awards. One year Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla posed the cake or pie question to the rest of us. The friendly argument continued during the award show as all the people sitting near us in the Radio City Music Hall balcony weighed in.

I had an opportunity to resurrect the debate in Knoxville at one of the now-defunct stations where I worked. Although I don't dislike pie, I argued convincingly for cake. I mean, who has birthday pie or wedding pie? I also opined that a cheesecake is actually a pie. I used to have an aircheck of the bit visible on my website but now it's stuck in a little-used subdirectory.

Last year I was asked to judge a cake decorating contest. I found out after I got there that there would be no tasting the cakes. Tonight it was pie's turn. When I was invited to judge a contest at the St. Joseph School Fall Festival, I made sure to ask in advance whether or not the judges would get to taste the pies.

St. Albert the Great pastor Fr. Chris Michelson, school booster Jim Humphries and I tasted small pieces of seven different pies. A very light pumpkin mousse pie barely edged out an excellent pecan pie as the winner. For third place, we had a very difficult time choosing between a chocolate chess pie and a Ritz mock apple pie that completely fooled us. After dessert, we had some of the festival's famous BBQ. I chose the chicken dinner over the ribs. Chopped pork gets added to the menu on Saturday.

horse and chariot

While the Pope and others have been reading the Bible aloud on Italian television, the Bible Across America vehicle stopped at the Cedar Springs Christian Store in Knoxville today. 31,173 volunteers will each write a single verse to help create a handwritten Bible. Actually, we wrote our verses twice to make two handwritten Bibles.



The people who showed up at noon were given a choice between Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus. Obviously we had to write the next verse in order. Three podiums were set up under a white tent. I was thinking of the movie "The Ten Commandments" when I got in the line for Exodus. The verse I got was "The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name." (Ex. 15:3) Had I chosen Leviticus I would have gotten a verse about infectious skin disease.



I'm hopeful that some of my friends and relatives will be able to write their own verse when the vehicle hits their towns. One of the Bible Across America team members told me that they will reschedule their Washington DC visit to a time when Congress is in session. They will try to get several lawmakers to participate.

To see some much better photos of Knoxvillians writing Bible passages, check the News Sentinel for the pictures taken by J. Miles Cary. He's the same guy who photographed my makeover a year and a half ago.

the good kind of tired

The other cast and crew members who I met this weekend on the set of "Fish Bait" are probably posting their personal snapshots to various social networking sites tonight. I will add a few minutes to my own personal sleep deprivation and put mine online here. Co-directors Jeff Joslin and Darby Totten filmed the movie on location at the very nice Flat Hollow Marina & Resort on Norris Lake.



Cinematographers Pierce Cook and Wes Halula used a Panasonic DVCPro HD camera to capture the action. They transferred the footage directly on to a computer and did some rough cut editing each day.



Former pro wrestler Kodiak Joe made a cameo appearance during a party scene filmed last night. He's also a former college football player who is now better known as Fr. Joe Campbell, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in nearby LaFollette. My wife and I went there for Mass this morning.



I had a great time as three of my fellow Einstein Simplified members and I played a group of fishing buddies. We did our fishing boat scene very late Friday night as the fog rolled in. Those shots were finished somewhere around 4:30 a.m. Saturday. Earlier today I spotted a pile of movie props that may or may not have anything to do with our characters' fates. You'll have to see the movie to find out. If you know any independent theater owners who might be interested in showing it, we wouldn't mind one bit.

of the faithful departed

The tragic story of Thomas Vander Woude's death brought my daughter to tears as I told her about it yesterday. Not because he drowned in a septic tank but because of the reason why.

If I had realized that Mr. Vander Woude lived in Prince William County, Virginia, I might have been quicker to read the details of his life. My wife and I lived there too when we bought a townhouse in Dale City. Like countless other deejays, I first read the news when I saw the following paragraph on Perry Simon's showprep page last week:

No, you may not laugh about this poor guy drowning in a septic tank, not after he died saving his son, who had fallen in before him. He was being heroic.

At the time, I didn't click on the link to read the full story. I wish I had. When the Catholic blog Whispers in the Loggia picked it up, I saw the limitless scope of a father's love for his child. The blog quoted heavily from a very good Washington Post profile of the man.

An earlier piece in the Post described how the retired Mr. Vander Woude attended daily Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church and spent his days working around his property with his son Joseph, who has Down syndrome. When the cover to the septic tank collapsed under Joseph, Thomas jumped in and got under his son, pushing him up until rescuers could pull Joseph out. By the time they pulled Thomas out of the sewage, the father of seven was unconscious and could not be revived.

As Bishop Paul Loverde pointed out at the funeral, Mr. Vander Woude's sacrifice was "saintly." Rocco Palmo, the writer of Whispers in the Loggia, picked up on the fact that not only are people praying for the Vander Woude family but that an emailer to National Review found themselves praying to Thomas. Parents everywhere should be inspired by Mr. Vander Woude's example of selflessness.

it swings, it jives

The "canned food curse" almost struck again. For the past several years, Webb School of Knoxville collected more donations for the Second Harvest Food Bank but lost the annual football game to archrival Knoxville Catholic High School. At halftime of tonight's game, Lori Tucker and I announced that Catholic had finally won the High School Football Challenge. Moments earlier, Webb kicked a field goal as time ran out in the first half to take a 9-7 lead. They went up 16-7 in the third quarter. Several people in the stands worried aloud about Catholic's chances. However the Fighting Irish came back to win 20-16.

Lori and I were chatting about our respective kids as we waited for halftime. We each have a college freshman this year. While we were standing there, blogger Missybw of The House of Flying Monkeys came up and introduced herself to us. It was nice to finally meet her after all the nice comments she has posted on my site.

As riveting as our check presentation must have been, the true highlight of halftime was a performance by majorette Sarah Harris. Normally I don't care for baton twirling but Sarah won me over with her musical choice and excellent skills. She performed to "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" as covered by Michael Bublé. I know purists will find it ridiculous that "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" is my favorite Queen song, yet it is.

meant what I said

It's too early to think about Thanksgiving and Christmas. However a press release NBC sent yesterday got me doing just that. The release runs down the network's holiday programming for 2008. Maybe the timing is understandable. While at KROQ, I would experience a bit of a Christmas rush in September. I suspect that part of the reason my friend Bean put his blog on hiatus is because of the workload for the annual Kevin & Bean Christmas CD, which probably needs to be turned in soon.

NBC will broadcast the 82nd annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I remember reading over the summer that this year's parade would feature a new Horton (as in "Horton Hears a Who") balloon. I'm still waiting to hear what other characters will make their helium-filled debut in November.

In addition to the return of some traditional holiday specials, the NBC release lists several new shows. They will crank out three countdowns that sound similar to the stuff you see on Vh1 and elsewhere. I will watch at least one, maybe two of these:

"Greatest Holiday TV Specials and Movies" features clips from the most-loved holiday TV specials and films. From animated TV classics to the must see holiday films of the past and present, we'll rank the greatest holiday moments that ever graced the screen.

"Greatest Holiday Songs" will count down the best performances of both classic and contemporary Christmas songs. From timeless tunes from the great crooners to recent essentials from the more modern pop stars, we will recount the greatest songs of the season.

"Greatest Holiday Home Videos" goes home for the holidays as we count down the most hilarious and entertaining holiday moments sent in from families' home videos across the country. This special will be an hour of non-stop family fun where we choose from thousands of submissions, and rank the best America has to offer from holiday mishaps to memorable moments to classic Christmas season chaos.

Of the three, I'm most interested in "Greatest Holiday Songs" although it would be funnier to make a countdown show of the worst Christmas songs. I've mentioned several of my favorite Christmas songs in the past. Maybe I'll arrange them in a numbered list before the NBC special airs. I doubt our lists will be very similar. Except for "Last Christmas." Everybody loves that one. If you also enjoy Christmas songs, you should know that the aforementioned Bean posts some Christmas Music Everyday.

There was no mention in the NBC press release of "Christmas Eve Mass at the Vatican." However the Catholic blog Whispers in the Loggia revealed today that Cardinal John Foley will return as "the voice of Christmas." Foley had indicated that maybe it was time for him to step down but higher ups in the Church and at the network urged him to stay.

body of evidence

The church we normally attend in St. Louis is right across the street from the home of my wife's late Aunt Dee. Almost every time we go, our friend Fr. Ragan Schriver urges us to seek out a priest mentor of his and go to Mass at his parish instead.

In order to be ordained, Fr. Ragan needed someone to testify to his worthiness to be a priest. He asked Fr. Gary Braun to be that person. At the ordination, Fr. Gary addressed the Bishop of Knoxville by saying, "Is Ragan Schriver worthy to be a priest? I'm sure I won't be the last to ask that question." His unintentional joke received roars of laughter from the congregation.

Fr. Gary is the director of Catholic campus ministries for the Archdiocese of St. Louis. When we met him, we introduced ourselves as friends of his friend Ragan. With that credential, we got to talking quickly about dozens of subjects. We told him about the time Fr. Ragan spilled hot wax on his own head during an Easter Vigil. Fr. Gary said that Ragan did the same thing during an Easter Vigil in St. Louis when he was still a deacon.

As it turned out, Fr. Gary also knew my wife's late uncle, who was a priest in Missouri. That led us to the topic of my wife's late aunt (the priest's sister) and how we stay in her condo whenever we're in town. Fr. Gary asked if I was freaked out by staying in a dead woman's home. My wife and I laughed before I explained that I wasn't very squeamish about death, mostly due to my interest in the Body Farm. He started asking questions, so I started telling Fr. Gary about Dr. Bill Bass and the research they do at UT.

During our conversation about decomposition, Fr. Gary challenged me to learn more about the Incorruptibles (not the Incredibles) and to report back with my opinion. He mentioned Clare of Assisi and a few other Saints that I could research. Their bodies have not decomposed the way one would expect. I mentioned that my friend Bean had seen the remains of Pope John XXIII, which were still in remarkably good shape and on display in Rome. But I also read that the pontiff was at least partially embalmed, which would keep him off the list. Now that I'm back home in Knoxville, I'll make time to read more about the Incorruptibles. Maybe we all can have a group discussion.

what is your favorite noun?

The new church building at St. John Neumann parish in Farragut is both drawing people in and pushing some away. My wife and I had heard about a few parishioners who have tired of the constant fund raising efforts, especially within a homily. More recently, we've heard of some people joining the parish specifically because they want their daughters to get married in the new church.

Another person told me that the new place looks more like a cathedral than our actual cathedral, Sacred Heart. Of course, it’s not the building that makes a cathedral, it’s the chair. The bishop’s chair is called a cathedra. The building that houses it is a cathedral.

The Shopper-News recently ran a photo of the construction at St. John Neumann. The new church should be ready in October. The parish already sold its old building and has been holding Mass in the school gym for a few months. Some of the new church’s artwork is viewable online. To me, it looks like they were aiming for Rome but got Pigeon Forge. Something about the look of the faces reminds me of a coffee mug I have from the Miracle Theater.

My wife and I paused briefly on our current road trip to visit to the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville, Kentucky, where former Knoxville Bishop Joseph Kurtz now presides. In addition to his regular duties as Archbishop of Louisville, he is also the Metropolitan over all of Kentucky and Tennessee. The cathedral is just off Muhammad Ali Boulevard.



The first thing we noticed about the cathedral was not the chair for the archbishop but the chairs for the congregation. Instead of pews, they had row after row of red-cushioned chairs. A very nice docent told us that the choice to go pew-free was somewhat controversial when the cathedral was restored about ten years ago.

pretty woman

Here's one for the Urban Dictionary. A young lady attended a recent church ceremony wearing a dress that was more appropriate for a nightclub. At least I think it was a dress. It was closer to a teddy. I've seen swimsuits that were less revealing. My daughter's friends have a funny word to describe a girl dressed that way. They called her a "hookalike."

I had a couple of possible blog topics rattling around in my brain during my son's swim meet tonight. I settled on this one (and assembled the first paragraph in my head) as we sat in a restaurant afterwards. My wife and I were having a fun conversation with another couple about our experiences at different parishes. They laughed when we told them about the hookalike. In a cool coincidence, when I got home I discovered a comment on yesterday's post from the author of a blog called Wordlustitude. It's full of funny made-up words similar to hookalike. Forget the Urban Dictionary. Now I want to see hookalike on Wordlustitude.

hold you in parentheses

Thanks to Google, I now know that the song stuck in my head since Saturday is "I Love You Period" by Dan Baird. Dan who? Apparently he used to be in The Georgia Satellites. My wife and I enjoyed hearing it at a wedding reception as the mother of the groom danced with her son. Before the song ended, her other three sons joined them for a rollicking kick line.

Because my wife was the soloist at the wedding, I got to tag along with her to the rehearsal dinner on Friday. One of the groom's brothers got everyone's attention as he popped a VHS tape (remember those?) in the machine. Soon the big screen was filled with Bob Barker's face. It turns out that the groom was a contestant on "The Price Is Right" about seven or eight years ago. He didn't win. He didn't even come close. His bids were way lower than anyone else's. I told him he was guessing Knoxville prices in a Los Angeles world.

The next day we were at the church an hour before the ceremony. While my wife rehearsed with the excellent accompanist, I wandered around and chatted with Fr. Ragan Schriver. He hadn't heard about the groom's appearance on "The Price Is Right" but knew that he could use it. I filled in the few details I knew, which prompted him to revise his homily and make it the third of his famous three things. The groom turned a little red and dropped his face into his hands. The congregation loved it.

habit forming

In his homily this morning, Fr. Michael Woods quoted from Terry Mattingly's syndicated religion column, which was in yesterday's News Sentinel. It's not yet available online, but should turn up on Mattingly's site soon.

The headline of the column says it all: "Catholics, evangelicals see sins in different light." A survey by Ellison Research says that 100 percent of evangelical Protestants believe adultery is sinful but only 82 percent of Catholics agree. Similarly more evangelicals than Catholics believed racism (96% to 79%), premarital sex (92% to 47%), and abortion (94% to 74%) were sins. Naturally one must wonder which Catholics were polled. If you asked only the people I know, Catholics would have scored much higher.

The survey defined Catholics as someone who attends Mass at least once a month or more. Evangelicals were defined as Protestants who believed in statements such as "the Bible is the written word of God and is totally accurate in all that it teaches." I'm fine with the way the pollsters identified evangelicals but not so sure about the way they chose their Catholics.

Let's say that a survey respondent went to the minimum one Mass a month. That's 12 Masses and 40 misses per year or a 23% attendance record. A "passing grade" of 70% would require a churchgoer to show up at least 3 times a month. I think they would have gotten a more accurate idea of Catholic opinions if they had asked respondents to say whether or not they believed in Church doctrine like transubstantiation and the Immaculate Conception, etc.

I once won a small prize for knowing my Catholicism. My wife and I were at a performance of "Late Nite Catechism" in Los Angeles. "Sister" asked if any of us knew the meaning of the Immaculate Conception. I told the class audience that we celebrate the conception of Mary, not Jesus, on December 8. The conception of Jesus is marked by the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25. Both dates are nine months before the celebrations of the respective births. I got a little plastic statue of Mary. Thanks Sister!

faith of our fathers

Writing about my father's birthday yesterday got me wondering what he would look like if he were still alive. He would be about the same age as Ted Kennedy, Gene Shalit and Casey Kasem. Of the three, he would probably look most like Kennedy. On this Memorial Day weekend, I can make a virtual visit to the cemetery where my father is buried, thanks to a blog entry I posted two years ago.

A blog post I read this past week mentioned a priest named Fr. Michael Whelan of Australia. Seeing that last name reminded me that my father had a friend named Fr. Charlie Whelan (of New York). Like my father, Fr. Whelan was a writer. He worked for a Catholic magazine called America. A quick search revealed that Fr. Whelan retired from the magazine a year ago after 40 years of service. Best of all, they have posted a video of Fr. Whelan speaking about the first article he wrote for America. I can see and hear what one of my father's contemporaries looks and sounds like today. I didn't realize until now that Fr. Whelan was about five or six years older than my father.

In the video, Fr. Whelan mentions President John F. Kennedy and the relationship between church and state. That became his area of expertise both as a writer and as a professor at Fordham Law School. He successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court in 1971 on behalf of a Baptist church. The Fordham Law Review published a couple of tributes to him last May.

This morning at church I picked up a free copy of a newsletter called Catholic Update. The June issue deals with church and state too. It emphasizes that the Church does not endorse candidates or tell people how to vote. It merely reminds voters of the 7 key themes to keep in mind when making their own choices. Catholics are not single-issue voters. One sentence summed up my problem with politics:

In today’s environment, Catholics may feel politically disenfranchised, sensing that no party and few candidates fully share our comprehensive commitment to human life and dignity.

The newsletter directed me to a website on Faithful Citizenship that will warrant further reading on my part.

rote-o-tiller

The librarian at my grammar school was a 90-year old Christian Brother. Once a week we would go to a religion class with him. He showed us ancient glass slides of religious art and taught us several short prayers. I think he called them either aspirations or invocations.

As an aside, I was looking for those prayers online and found some at on a webpage maintained by Father John the Carnival Priest. His site says, he's been "serving the needs of the outdoor amusement business industry since 1969!"

Anyhow, one of the prayers I memorized long ago came to mind while I was taking a walk around the neighborhood. You can see why I thought of the Prayer to Your Guardian Angel. Or should it be the Gardenin' Angel?

behind the scenes

Fr. Augustine Idra brought home a special souvenir from the Papal Mass at Yankee Stadium. As one of the priests distributing the Eucharist, he received a commemorative stole.



I asked him about the safety video I had seen prior to the Mass. Fr. Gus said he was in the upper deck and did have to steady himself on a handrail. I wondered how they got the hosts from the altar to the far-reaching sections of the stadium in such a short time. The priests who were seen along the first and third base lines each held a ciborium full of hosts that were consecrated right there during the Mass. They served communion to people on the field and lower levels of the stadium. Fr. Gus got the hosts he served from a tabernacle that had been set up on the upper concourse in a specially decorated room. Several nuns stayed with the Blessed Sacrament in adoration. Those hosts had been consecrated the day before during Pope Benedict's Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Happy Ascension Thursday, I mean Sunday, by the way.

move 'em on, head 'em up

When there are changes to my blogroll or the sidebar, I try to make them on the first of the month. It's because I started my blog on the first of a month and somehow it makes sense in my mind.

I found Cupcakes Take the Cake when they posted entries about some local bakeries. They did it again today with a great story about a cupcake just like the one I tried last week except that it was mistaken for a bomb at the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge.

Slashfood is a site I've been visiting regularly for some time. Yesterday they showed us how to make cake-sicles, although they look more like cookie-sicles.

Amelia's Space often has a peek behind the scenes at WVLT. Today she posted about their coverage of the closure of I-40 through downtown. One day last month she took us to the farewell party for Jessa Goddard and Kim Bedford.

At last month's Blogfest gathering, I enjoyed visiting with Doug of Reality Me and his wife Cathy of Domestic Psychology. Her funny post about trying to find the bathroom that night made me want to check back periodically.

After the recent Papal visit, a friend reminded me to check Whispers in the Loggia for their intense coverage. When the Pope gets close to naming a new bishop for Knoxville, we will probably read about it first on their site.

Can anybody recommend a blog about improv? It would be great to find one that I like and to add it to the blogroll on June 1. That date has some improv significance to me.

fragility of life

A tragic car crash claimed the life of a woman whose son goes to school with my son. My wife and I accompanied our son to the funeral at Holy Ghost Parish on Saturday. Even though we didn't know Mary Lynn Hurley, we wanted to show support for her children, Jacob and Caitlin. Years later, I still remember which of my friends came to my father's funeral even though they didn't know him.

The News Sentinel's website has two versions of their article about the crash. The early version of the story was updated to be the same as the article in Friday's paper. As the story developed it was revealed that the other driver had a suspended license and a medical condition which may explain why he was seen slumped behind the wheel before the crash. What now differentiates the two postings are the comments that were left on Thursday vs. those left on Friday.

Thursday's comments include several responses to a deleted comment that suggested the other driver should have died instead. Another reader felt it necessary to post the office hours of the deceased woman, which drew an angry reaction a few hours later.

On Friday morning someone posted a comment that will affect your emotions. It appears to have been written by Jacob Hurley about his late mother. It serves as a powerful reminder that the reader comments posted on local news sites will be seen by the families of the people involved in the corresponding article.

little lambs eat ivy

Thursday nights mean big crowds downtown. My wife sings with the Knoxville Choral Society and didn't want to be late for their performance with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra tonight. The show didn't start until 8:00 but we pulled into the State Street garage at 6:00. There was still plenty of time to walk to Market Square and get a big salad at Trio. Meanwhile, outside the restaurant, people were arriving for Smokedown Sundown in the City. Because Sundown is an open air event, the smokers come out in droves.

While we got to the Tennessee Theatre with plenty of time to spare, several audience members and two violinists took their seats well after the concert started. Tonight and tomorrow night the Symphony is presenting the "Requiem" by Berlioz. It basically follows the format of a Catholic funeral Mass. In fact, the piece was commissioned for a state funeral in Paris in 1837.

I was impressed that there was too much music for the stage to contain. The KSO brought in musicians from surrounding areas on a "per-service" basis. In addition to several extra tympani players, there were about 140 members of the Knoxville Choral Society (including my lovely wife) packed onto six rows of risers. A soloist named Andrew Skoog had a chair near Maestro Lucas Richman. Best of all, there were four brass choirs surrounding the audience, two on either side of the stage and two more in the back of the auditorium. Horns, trombones and tubas in the four corners of the theatre created a great surround sound effect.

The Berlioz Requiem will be performed again on Friday night. My wife will have to get there early because of the rescheduled Dogwood Arts Parade that runs right past the Tennessee Theatre starting at 7:00 p.m.

not done yet

"Enough already about the Pope," said the comment I received yesterday. That sentiment is mild compared to some of the remarks left on the News Sentinel's website (here and here). People who do not understand the Pope's role were quick to criticize him and his Catholic flock.

Pope Benedict's trip resonated with me for several reasons. I'm a cradle Catholic who grew up in the New York and Washington suburbs. When we moved to California, my wife and I missed our families. We were drawn to the church where we found comfort in the familiarity of our parish community. On this visit, the Pope is traveling to places that are significant to me. Yesterday he was in Yonkers, the city where I lived until college. Today he was at Yankee Stadium, where I've been several times, mostly for football games but for a few baseball games too. This morning he prayed at Ground Zero, where my cousin heroically perished.

I got an email yesterday from radio newsman Dave Schreiber, a former co-worker at WAVA. I haven't heard from Dave in ages but he was so moved by the Pope's visit to the Park East Synagogue that he had to tell somebody. I'm glad he thought of me.

While I watched the various Papal events, I thought of the people I knew who were in attendance. My daughter was at the White House on Wednesday. My mother and my sister were at Nationals Park on Thursday. Our friend Fr. Ragan Schriver was also at both D.C. ceremonies. Our parish youth minister led a group to New York for the Mass at Yankee Stadium. As I wrote on Friday, several priests we know represented Knoxville during the Pope's visit.

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, who provides commentary on EWTN, surprised me with his criticism of the Mass at Nationals Park. He expressed his displeasure over the multicultural exhibition, particularly in the selection of music. I was taught that the word catholic (with a small "c") meant universal. It seems xenophobic to expect a Mass of that magnitude to be all-English with only old-school hymns.

Fr. Neuhaus didn't care much for the music at Saturday's Youth Rally either. I have only seen bits and pieces of it on the Internet. I heard a version of "Ave Maria" sung by Kelly Clarkson; a song I remember from Burbank called "Pan de Vida" and a version of my favorite "Litany of the Saints."

The big Masses at St. Finbar Church were usually tri-lingual affairs. The parishioners who spoke Spanish and Vietnamese wanted to feel at home as much as I did. Aren't they entitled to the same feeling of comfort?

pope notes

Pope Benedict XVI traveled to New York today. One of his stops was at St. Joseph's parish in Yorkville, which is only a few blocks from my sister's apartment. Tomorrow he will be in Yonkers, my original hometown, to visit Dunwoodie.

At least three priests with a Knoxville connection will be in New York with the Pope. Fr. Eric Andrews will represent Knoxville at St. Patrick's Cathedral tomorrow morning. Archbishop Joseph Kurtz will concelebrate Mass at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Fr. Augustine Idra will help safely distribute communion at Yankee Stadium. One hundred Knoxville parishioners will be there too.

My blog got some traffic today from Digg.com (thanks Ralph!) and from people searching for "Papal Mass" on Sphere.com. Of all the links in tonight's short post I think my favorite is the "safely distribute communion" video.

disturb the sound of silence

After two days of watching CNN, I can't take it any longer. Pardon me while I borrow a formula from my friend Bean's blog, Strongly Worded Letter. Former radio deejay Tony Harris has the good looks to make it as a TV news anchor. He probably Googles himself regularly, therefore it shouldn't take him but a day or two to find this:

Dear Mr. Harris,

May I humbly suggest that you compare a tape of your coverage of today's Papal Mass with the coverage on EWTN, the Catholic network. Granted they have the advantage of already knowing the format of a standard Catholic service, however you will have to notice that you and your team were talking at the times they knew to be quiet and vice versa. More than once you chose to listen in to the proceedings at the wrong time. For example, your viewers heard a minute of silence after the homily and the Prayers of the Faithful read in multiple foreign languages. EWTN used those opportunities to explain what was happening. You completely obliterated the second reading, which was in English, and went to commercial during the Responsorial Psalm.

Furthermore, may I suggest that you spend some time listening to a good play-by-play announcer in your favorite sport. I can think of several baseball and football announcers who know how to be quiet and let the game happen. They may be in the middle of an anecdote about a player when then simply pause the story, let the game unfold and then pick up the story later. Unlike you, they do not spend 20 precious seconds explaining to the audience that they are about to stop talking to let us hear whatever it is that they are talking over.

Thank you for your attention,
Frank Murphy
Knoxville, TN

Now that we have that out of the way, let's move on to the photos my sister took at Nationals Park today. The Popemobile passed close by as she and my mother were walking to their seats. Once they got there, they had a pretty good view of the altar and of the Pope as he headed back to the dugout after Mass.

happy geburtstag

The ceremony to welcome Pope Benedict XVI to the White House was broadcast live on several TV networks this morning. I recorded two channels, hoping for the one in 13,500 chance that I might spot my daughter in the crowd. As you can see from the pictures taken by her boyfriend, they weren't too far back. She did say it was easier to see the Pope and the President when they were up on the balcony. She was pleasantly surprised to find that she happened be standing near our friend Fr. Ragan Schriver, the director of Catholic Charities of East Tennessee.



I chose to record EWTN for their complete coverage and CNN-HD for their high-definition picture. CNN was a disappointment. I wanted to see the White House in widescreen. Instead, they showed the ceremony in SD. On either side of the 4:3 image, they put pillars with the CNN-HD logo as if to rub it in. To make matters worse, anchor Tony Harris would not shut up. He must like hearing himself talk. Prior to the ceremony, he would restate his own question multiple times before letting his guest answer. Then he talked all the way through the Vatican anthem and part way through the Star Spangled Banner before realizing it and commenting on the fact that he was going to finally stop talking. It's no wonder that other bloggers have described him as "terrible" and "clueless."

As the newest U.S. Bishop, Knoxville native James Vann Johnston was chosen to read a question to the Pope at tonight's meeting at the National Shrine. EWTN carried the speech live. Bishop Johnston got his camera time at 7:15 p.m. The question was written by the USCCB and preselected by the pope as one he would like to answer. A local Missouri station only barely mentioned that their new bishop would be present. They also misspelled the word "speeches" and inserted a picture of Captain Kirk in the middle of the article.



Tomorrow I will record EWTN's coverage of the Papal Mass at Nationals Park. My mother and sister will be among the 46,000 in attendance. I don't expect to see them on camera. The Washington media have set up special pages on their websites for the Papal visit. Check out WRC, WUSA and WJLA as well as the Washington Post.

onward and upward you must press

The Catholic Charities Annual Dinner Gala took place last night in downtown Knoxville. My wife and I had a great time, mainly because there were so many people there that we knew, including Fr. Ragan Schriver who greeted everyone as they arrived. We said a brief hello in the hotel lobby to Bruce Hartmann. I found out today that Bruce is number 39 on BusinessTN's 2008 Power100 list. Had I known last night, I would have congratulated him. Before dinner we had a nice chat with Fr. Eric Andrews near the cheese tray. All three have been my guests on a public affairs radio show over the past two and a half years.

At seven o'clock the crowd moved into the ballroom at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Our seats were at table 26. My wife and I both thought we were losing our minds as we looked for our table. Tables 24, 25 and 27 were all lined up in a row as were the rest of the numbered tables. Eventually we found table 26, out of sequence on the far right of the room. The salads and desserts were already in place at each of the tables. The salads were all the same but the desserts alternated between cheesecake and chocolate cake. People all over the room jockeyed for position so they could sit in front of their preferred dessert.

The after-dinner entertainment was by the Smokyland Sound Barbershop Chorus. The singers walked right past our table on the way to their risers. As soon as I saw them, I secretly hoped they would sing "The Roses of Success" from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." While the senior members of the group sang their first couple of songs, two others stood against the wall near our table waiting to go on. My wife and I recognized one of them as Jim, a member of the All Saints choir. The two wore tuxedo shirts and bow ties but not the sequined vests that the others had on. At that same time, someone at our table wanted coffee. A helpful priest jumped up and asked Jim to serve our table. We could read Jim's lips as he explained that he was only there to sing.

Fr. Michael Woods interrupted Fr. Ragan's closing remarks to publicly thank him for all his hard work as director of Catholic Charities of East Tennessee. The thanks were delivered roast-style as Fr. Michael teased Fr. Ragan about his vegetarian diet and his casual attire. We learned that Fr. Ragan and several other priests got stranded in Atlanta when their connecting flight to Missouri was canceled. They were supposed to attend the ordination of Bishop Vann Johnston. Speaking of bishops and Knoxville's current lack of one, Fr. Michael jokingly put on a red skullcap during his remarks. When we spoke with him later, he was very relieved to hear that the Vicar General, Monsignor Xavier Mankel had gone home just before the comedy commenced.

heaven and earth are full of your glory

When Pope Benedict XVI visits Washington DC, security will be tight. One of my relatives who lives up that way told me today about some of the rules for the Papal Mass. It will be practically impossible to drive to the ceremony. Charter buses and handicapped drivers will have to park at RFK Stadium and catch a shuttle to Nationals Park. Everyone else is supposed to take the Metro. The WMATA needs to make another Peeps video for those going to the Mass.

Tickets are also in high demand to the April 20th Mass in New York. The Archdiocese of Louisville, headed by Knoxville's former bishop, gets a larger ticket allotment than others around the country because of its bicentennial. Archbishop Kurtz will be at the altar with the Pope in Yankee Stadium.

Tickets to both Masses are non-transferable. Everyone attending needs to bring a photo I.D. It sounds like there will be some sort of computer checkpoints to make sure the name on the I.D. matches the name of the registered ticket holder.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is using a blog format to post updates about the visit. The Washington Post has also started a Pope Watch blog which is where I read about some complaints over the liturgical music the Holy Father might hear in D.C.

The music in question is the "Mass of Creation" by Marty Haugen. It's used, some say overused, at parishes all over the country. The critics would prefer that liturgy organizers plan a Mass full of Gregorian chants and the same music used in Rome. What would be the point of that? Haugen's composition is not bad. I think the Pope should get to hear what Mass actually sounds like in America. If he doesn't like it, he can always make them change it in the future. However I wouldn't be surprised he turns out to be like Mikey in the Life cereal commercial. "He likes it! Hey Benedict!"

one and done

"If it weren't for bad luck, there would be no luck at all." That's what one of the announcers said about GMU with sixteen minutes left in tonight's debacle in Denver. The George Mason Patriots couldn't keep pace with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Many of their shots found the rim but not the basket. The game was so lopsided that CBS bailed out and switched to the Cal State Fullerton game.

The NCAA is offering live streaming video of all the tournament games over the Internet. When I was researching the links for my March 10th post, I saw that fans had to register in advance for the video feed. Thinking that there was a pretty good chance Mason's games would be on regular TV, I had not registered for the stream. I stuck with CBS for a little while tonight, hoping they would switch back to the GMU game on my HD screen. Nope. By the look of the scoreboard at the top of the screen, they weren't going to be returning any time soon. At halftime, I checked the March Madness on Demand website to see if maybe I could still register. After all, I was ready to root for my alma mater, even though the game started so late. I took a nice long nap today and I put on my GMU sweatshirt.

To my surprise, the website had a button that said I could watch without registering. The video player looked great on my computer. Unfortunately the Patriots did not. The second half was just as bad as the first. Game over, tournament over, 68-50. What did I expect on Holy Thursday?

ori-palm-i

For Catholics, being at Walt Disney World on a Sunday used to mean going to Mass at the Polynesian Resort. The service was held in the outdoor luau venue. I went to Mass there on my first visit during high school and on my second visit when my family and I attended the press junket for the opening of Disney MGM Studios, which as of 2008 is known as Disney's Hollywood Studios. By the time my wife and I returned with the Kevin & Bean show in the 1990s, the Polynesian Resort Mass had been discontinued.

On our more recent trips to Orlando, we've gone to Mass at the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe. Today was the second year in a row that my wife and I were there on Palm Sunday.



The woman sitting in front of me bent and tied her palm so that it resembled the PX symbol for Christ. The woman sitting next to me (she was from Michigan by the way) had a better angle to see the frond of the woman in front. My garrulous pew-mate then passed her palm frond up a row and asked the lady to please tie it the same way.

I was reminded of the palm artistry we used to see in Burbank every year on Palm Sunday. As the congregation gathered for the Spanish language Masses at St. Finbar Church some entrepreneurs would unfurl mats on the grass and sell palm fronds that had been woven into various religious shapes. My own kids were pretty good at making a cross from a frond or two.

A few moments of curiosity has revealed another subculture on the Internet that I never knew existed. There are enough websites about palm crafts to keep you busy until it's time to burn your palms for next Ash Wednesday.

eyes are smiling

The annual Women Today Expo happens this weekend at the Knoxville Convention Center. Wow. That means it has already been a year since my wife and I showed off our makeovers in the fashion show at that event. To promote this year's expo, the News Sentinel has a slideshow on their website. Look for me in photos 8 through 13. Those are the ladies from Garde Bien Spa Salon fussing over me in the first few pictures.

I think more than a few people will show up this weekend expecting to go to the Food City Food Show, which had been a part of the Women Today Expo for years. The line to get in to the Food Show was always so long, it made me think that more people came to it than to the main event. The Food Show's popularity has allowed it to be spun off into a separate event to be held in September. I guess that means Chef Walter has this weekend off for a change.

Food City sponsors Chef Walter's daily cooking segment on WVLT. Today he made an Irish Soda Bread that looked spectacular. It made me want a piece of my mother's soda bread, slathered in butter. I called Mom today to tell her about it and to ask if she would mind me putting the family recipe on my blog. Here it is, in time for the early celebration of St. Patrick's Day in some Catholic dioceses around the world.

My Great-Grandmother's Irish Soda Bread

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ cup butter
• 1 tablespoon caraway seeds
• 1 cup of raisins
• 1 heaping teaspoon baking soda
• 2 to 3 cups buttermilk

Mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in butter, dough becomes like pebbles. Coat caraway seeds and raisins with flour and add to mix.

Mix baking soda into 1 cup of buttermilk. Slowly add to flour mix, a little at a time. Continue adding buttermilk slowly, until the dough is moist and forms a ball (or pulls away from bowl). The amount of buttermilk needed depends on the weather.

Put a tablespoon of flour on a board and coat hands with flour. Knead dough a little and shape it into a loaf. Cut an X into the top.

Bake in two greased and floured 8 inch pans (or as one loaf on a cookie sheet) at 375° for 45 to 50 minutes, again depending on the weather. Test with a cake tester. Cool on a rack. Enjoy.