Busted Halo: Website for Young Adults in their 20' s and 30's

What's New This Week? May 11, 2006


There's Something About Mary
The Saint of 9/11
Pure Sex Pure Love 25
Beyond the Gospel of Judas




There's Something About MaryFact, fiction and fantasy regarding Mary Magdaleneby Amy WelbornThe Da Vinci Code purports to tell us a lot of things about various subjects: Renaissance art, the ministry of Jesus, the Emperor Constantine and geography of Paris, among others.
It is, of course, wrong about most of these things, as it is deeply wrong about one of the figures central to the novel’s plot: Mary Magdalene.[more]



The Saint of 9/11The Community of Sant'Egidio invites lay Catholics to lives of prayer and social concernBy Christopher J. Devron, SJLast week a friend invited me to attend the world premiere of the film Saint of 9/11, a documentary that tells the story of Father Mychal Judge, Franciscan Friar, who served as chaplain to New York City Fire Department and died in service on September 11, 2001. On his death certificate, Father Judge was listed as “0001”—the first victim of 9/11.
While I knew some of the bare facts regarding his death and had seen the now-famous photograph of his body being carried, pieta-like, from the wreckage of the Twin Towers, I had no knowledge about his life prior to that terrifying disaster.
The film was a masterpiece…[more]



Pure Sex Pure Love 25An Anglican Wedding Prompts Questionsby Dr. Christine B. WhelanOn the Friday after Easter I attended the wedding of my friends Andrea and Simon in Oxford, England. Andrea and Simon are both studying to be vicars, so they have many friends and teachers within the Anglican Church. In fact, there were more than 150 priests in attendance on that Friday afternoon as the couple took the sacrament of holy marriage in a nuptial mass, and Andrea's father, a reverend, officiated. The Catholic Church has a long way to go before we'd see a similar wedding in our Church, but it was so high-church (lots of incense, formal hymns, etc.) I could envision it. It made me reconsider the importance of talking about marriage and Holy Orders as sacraments that might one day be considered complementary within our own faith.[more]

Beyond the Gospel of JudasNational Geographic announces their new special: Even More Gospels!by Grant GallichoThrough The Gospel of Judas, one of the greatest historical discoveries in the history of humankind, the world’s eyes were opened to a revolutionary view of the disciple traditionally known as Christ’s betrayer. No longer the traitor, Judas is portrayed in the new Gospel as carrying out Jesus’ command to give him up to the authorities.
Continuing in the spirit of this monumental discovery, the National Geographic Society has authorized the pre-release of several other newly unearthed manuscripts, or codices, that are certain to upend historical understandings held for centuries.
In order to authenticate the documents, the National Geographic Society subjected the extant papyrus pages to the most rigorous scrutiny possible, including radiocarbon dating, spectral analysis, paleodeontological retroviral imaging, and the smell test. Professor Nailee Gepals, of the Papal States, one of the world’s leading experts in newly discovered manuscripts, or codices, said, “This spectacular discovery of ancient, non-biblical texts, augments our knowledge of history and its major actors, and is worthy of study by historians, novelists, bloggers, and Ron Howard.” The new Gospels will be released incrementally over the next year, to culminate with a collected scholarly edition to be published next Easter. Here is a selection of what’s to come.[more]


Stay Tuned for:JC's Girls Girls Girls: sharing God's message of hope and forgiveness by reaching out to people in the sex industry.














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What's New This Week? May 3, 2006


Word on the Street: Immigration
The Sacrifice of Strangers
Monks in the City
Euphemistically Speaking




Word on the Street: Immigration
According to a proposed immigration bill in Congress, illegal immigrants found in the United States and any people who help them, including social service and church groups, could be arrested and charged with a felony. What do you think about this? Should illegal immigrants be permitted to stay in the United States? Should agencies and church be allowed to help them?Compiled by Brooke ThomasMarieme, 21 "There’s obviously a reason for people moving here. I’ve been [in the United States] for two months, and I’ve seen so many things on the news and it feels like America says it’s the land of the free but all of the politics here aren’t very welcoming. [In Switzerland], it’s really a socialist country. We have a democrat as head of state, and it’s very different here. The proposed immigration bill is really too harsh. It’s not a felony to leave your country to try to find a better situation for yourself and your family. That’s what human beings do to survive. When you ask people where they’re from, no one is actually Native American. Who gets to decide who’s American and who’s not American? I don’t understand why you call them immigrants because everyone is an immigrant here." [more]



The Sacrifice of Strangers
United 93 honors losses that are both national and personalby Mike HayesThe fact that we know how director Paul Greeengrass’ United 93 ends somehow makes the film all the more harrowing to watch. We know that the doomed September 11th flight out of Newark airport will be overtaken by terrorists and targeted for the U.S. Capitol. We also know that a group of passengers will rally and force the plane to crash in a field in Shanksville, PA with no survivors. Greengrass gives Americans the chance to re-live a piece of our national nightmare and nearly five years later the wound is still fresh; having known a member of the flight crew personally made an already difficult film to watch into an excruciating experience. [more]



Monks in the City
The Community of Sant'Egidio invites lay Catholics to lives of prayer and social concernby Eileen MarkeyMost of the great scenes in the Gospels are portraits of believers together. Jesus is almost always with friends, always with a crowd. The abiding Easter images of the newborn church are the disciples in the upper room together, the friends recognizing the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus only after a shared meal. Community is central to Church.But for many young Catholics, divorced from parish life or missing the strong faith communities they found on college campuses, living the communal aspect of their spiritual lives is difficult. The religious impulse becomes something personal and private.
The Community of Sant'Egidio, a Vatican II-inspired movement for lay people, was founded to share the benefits of a structured religious order with single and married people who are not priests, nuns or brothers.
It's a movement within the Catholic Church, founded in Rome in 1968 and supported by the Vatican that links lay people in a life of prayer, service and friendship. More popular in Europe, Sant'Egidio is beginning to grow in the United States. There are communities in five states and Washington, D.C., totaling approximately 100 members, according to Andrea Bartoli, who joined nearly 40 years ago in his native Italy. [more]

Euphemistically Speaking
Skunks, semantics and the art of spin by Doug DuBrinWith its mix of equal parts “The Bachelor” and “Jackass” with a spiritual twist, A&E’s new reality series, “God or the Girl” has people talking. The five-part show follows the lives of four young men who struggle with making a decision to pursue studying for the priesthood instead of staying in a relationship with a significant other.
The four “contestants” offer an accurate reflection of the diversity of young adult faith experiences, ranging from highly pious to the irreverent. While "God or the Girl" makes an attempt to honestly portray how these men struggle with their decision, it sometimes stoops to sprinkling in stupid antics that tends to tilt the show in the direction of an extreme sports version of spiritual exercises that has little to do with a real faith journey. [more]


Stay Tuned for:Marriage and Black America














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What's New This Week? April 26, 2006

Updating the Best of Pure Sex, Pure Love's First Year
Why the Sopranos Still Matters
Prayer for Peace
Extreme Spirituality


Pure Sex, Pure LoveUpdating the Best of Pure Sex, Pure Love’s First Year by Dr. Christine B. Whelan
For more than a year, I've been writing the Pure Sex, Pure Love column for BustedHalo. We've covered some big topics: When to bring up your faith in a new relationship, how to make sure you are being open to meeting the right person, and, of course, the thorny topics of sex - is premarital sex always a sin, and how far is too far when it comes to intimacy before marriage?
As a social scientist, I've used online polls to get a sense of what BustedHalo readers think about these topics. Through the answers I receive, I hope to take a snapshot of the opinions of the young-adult Catholic community as a whole.
Usually, the poll for the upcoming column is posted alongside the previous week's column. A few weeks later when I'm writing the next column, I tally the results that have accumulated and report my findings.
But the story doesn't end there. My columns—and those polls—remain posted on BustedHalo and continue to attract many new readers and numerous responders all the time.
Did more responses change the results? Absolutely, you'll be surprised by what I found. [more]



Why The Sopranos Still Matters
A Reality Play with Mobster Styleby Robert Anthony SiegelWill Vito get whacked for wearing leather? Will Paulie forgive his mother for being his aunt? Will Carmela ever succeed in building that million-dollar spec house out of cardboard and glue?
As the sixth season of The Sopranos passes the half-way mark, we need to momentarily disentangle ourselves from such pressing questions and address an even bigger issue: why is it that we still care?
It’s not because of the menace in Tony Soprano’s eyes when somebody crosses him, or the periodic explosions of violence when wise guys clash over money and respect—as fun as those things are. The answer, I believe, is that The Sopranos is not just wonderful storytelling but that it addresses moral experience and moral choice with a complexity and honesty that is rare in pop culture. [more]



Prayer for Peaceby Eileen Markey
In a day-long conference at Georgetown University this Thursday April 27, Christians, Jews and Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists and others are taking part in the 2006 International Prayer for Peace, entitled "Religions and Cultures: the Courage of Dialogue."
It is the 20th annual such event sponsored by the Community of Sant'Egidio, religious group dedicated to prayer, service and friendship.
The first gathering was convened by Pope John Paul II in the Italian city of Assisi in 1986. The International Prayer for Peace is the world's largest ongoing intereligious event, according to organizers. This is the first time it is being held in the United States.
"I think America deserves it. It is certainly a very religious country and a country of great diversity," said Andrea Bartoli, a long time Sant'Egidio member and conference organizer, who heads the Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University. "Religious people do need to grow in respect and dialogue. I think that is important at a time when the role of religion in culture is very much in the debate. We are saying there is a way in which we can dialogue." [more]

Extreme Spirituality
A Guide to the New Reality Show God or the Girl by Mike HayesWith its mix of equal parts “The Bachelor” and “Jackass” with a spiritual twist, A&E’s new reality series, “God or the Girl” has people talking. The five-part show follows the lives of four young men who struggle with making a decision to pursue studying for the priesthood instead of staying in a relationship with a significant other.
The four “contestants” offer an accurate reflection of the diversity of young adult faith experiences, ranging from highly pious to the irreverent. While "God or the Girl" makes an attempt to honestly portray how these men struggle with their decision, it sometimes stoops to sprinkling in stupid antics that tends to tilt the show in the direction of an extreme sports version of spiritual exercises that has little to do with a real faith journey. [more]


Stay Tuned for:Pride and Prejudice in El Salvador

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What's New This Week? April 18, 2006

Busted: Jonathan Englert, Author of The Collar
An Easter Reflection
Choosing Your Religion
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Busted:Jonathan EnglertAn interview with the author of The Collar: A Year of Striving and Faith Inside a Catholic SeminaryIntroduction by Renée LaReau. Interview by Bill McGarvey "The Collar chronicles the journey of five men who have left their careers and former lives behind to begin formation for the Roman Catholic priesthood. In his realistic, human, and at times, gripping account of seminary life, Jonathan Englert gives a fly-on-the-wall perspective on the faith journeys of these five individuals, including a recently widowed father of four, a blind violinist, and an avid hunter from Wyoming. Jonathan Englert: Someone asked the other day, “What was the target audience for this book?” And I was thinking: Catholics, non-Catholics who like a good story. But then I thought, “No, the real target audience for the book was me. Me before I wrote the book.” I was a Catholic, but I had a lot of questions that I think a lot of people share. Like, what would motivate someone to become a priest today? And once they were motivated to become a priest what would that process be like? What was the seminary like? Against that backdrop are diminishing numbers in vocations, fewer priests and of course the sex abuse scandals." [more]



An Easter Reflection:Living the New, Risen Life by Bishop Ken Untener (1937-2004)"Occasionally we hear about people who “come back from the dead.” The late Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross wrote extensively on their experiences. Lazarus in the Gospel was dead for four days, but then came back from death to this life.That isn’t what happened with Jesus. He did not come back from death to this life. Jesus went through death to the other side, to a new and fuller kind of life, a life that never dies. All those people who came back from the dead will die again. Lazarus died again. But Jesus went through death to a new life that never
dies. ." [more]

Choosing Your Religion:For some Muslims, changing faith traditions endangers their lives. by Kristin E. Johnson"Shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks I befriended a twenty-year-old Egyptian woman. She had recently moved to Birmingham, Alabama to marry the owner of a Mediterranean restaurant I frequented, and I wanted her to know people in Alabama accepted and liked her regardless of some of the prejudices that surfaced after September 11. She wore a fedora over her conservative Islamic hijab (headscarf) to camouflage her religious identity. Using halting English, we shared stories of each other's lives. She was amazed to learn I had chosen the Catholic faith in adulthood, and she asked me many times for clarification. Her husband interpreted my words for her in Arabic: “My family does not belong to the same faith tradition as me,” I said. “I used to belong to another faith community, but I chose a different religion.” She gasped, gripping the bottom of her headscarf with both hands and asked: “Nobody kill you? You not afraid someone kill you?” My young Egyptian friend asked repeatedly if I was in danger. “Of course not,” I told her. “I have never felt afraid to choose my own religious path.” ." [more]


Stay Tuned for:A&E’s "God or the Girl” and Dr. Christine Whelan looks back on the first year of Pure Sex Pure Love

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