Thursday, June 22, 2006

When Blasphemy Becomes Boring

If you've read the article in today's National Post (A14), feel free to skip this, but I found Father Raymond J. De Souza's article very interesting to say the least.
As you may know, Madonna is performing in Montreal this week. Her show includes a number where she appears on a cross wearing a crown of thorns. La Presse gave the tour front page coverage with the headline "Madonna L'Icone" and added an 8 page supplement.
De Souza says that most of her audience wouldn't even see the the blasphemy in her actions because in our culture blasphemy has become blase. He says that if Madonna had writhed provocatively over a Koran, the response in La Presse would have been entirely different.
"To blaspheme is to show contempt for the sacred. It means insulting the things of God. And when culture reaches a point where blasphemy is boring, it is an indicator that the sense of the sacred and an affinity for the things of God are severely eroded."
Listen to this...
"That is the implicit diagnosis of the Archdiocese of Montreal, which chose to provocatively drape it's cathedral as well as billboards and posters across the city with some of the more famous Quebecois curses.... What happens when religious faith recedes to the point where the words are only heard in their profane usage but never in the original sacred one?"
The church is undertaking to educate people as to the true meaning of the words that they use profanely as a form of evangelism.
Kind of brings to mind what Jesus had to say about salt... when the salt is no longer salty, it needs to be tossed aside...
Lord... have mercy!

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