Van Helsing: Gentlemen, we are dealing with the undead…

Scholar: Nosferatu…

Van Helsing: Yes, Nosferatu.

“This view is shared by noted religious theologian Mel Gibson.”

That’s Gibson’s view but it’s not the modern Church’s view. Church teaching since Vatican II flatly contradicts it. Gibson is speaking here as a member of an apostate sect that rejects Vatican II entirely.

“Even in the most strict interpretation, the statement by Jesus does not preclude Protestants from reaching salvation.”

Neither does Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement. Church teaching since Vatican II (Unitatis Redintegratio) has been that trinitarian churches other than the Roman Catholic Church are doctrinally and liturgically “deficient” (which is why the Pope’s Catholic rather than Baptist) but that they participate in the small-c catholic church of Christ and that members of them can be saved.

The brethren divided from us also use many liturgical actions of the Christian religion. These most certainly can truly engender a life of grace in ways that vary according to the condition of each Church or Community. These liturgical actions must be regarded as capable of giving access to the community of salvation.

It follows that the separated Churches and Communities as such, though we believe them to be deficient in some respects, have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church.

Ratzinger’s line in Dominus Iesus doesn’t contradict this; it repeats it. The emphasis is shifted to the deficiency rather than the grace, to be sure, but emphasis can shift depending on your purpose, and it’s important to note that in Christian theology saying a person can receive divine grace commits you to saying that they can receive salvation.

Not that I don’t think he’s wrong. I do. But I think he’s wrong because I think God doesn’t exist, not because I think there’s some antagonism here between Ratzinger and Jesus as we find him in the Gospels.

dadahead: “… having a laugh at the expense of 1,000 dumbass cult members doesn’t really bother me.”

Two metal buckets of grape Flavor Aid laced with Valium and cyanide were brought into the assembly hall and the mixture was dispensed in small paper cups. Babies and children were the first ones to ingest the mixture as it was squirted into their throats with a syringe.

…

Hours after news of the mass suicide [sic] got out, local authorities found 913 of the 1,110 inhabitants dead, including 276 children.

Yeah, all those “dumbass” murdered infants. What a laugh riot. Maybe we can replace it with a topical zinger about, say, Andrea Yates’s kids—“Don’t get in the bathtub!” Hardy har har.

Well, I’ll definitely second the call for putting “… drinks the Kool-Aid” on the blacklist for 2006. In fact, I’d vote for a permanent spot. I don’t know how many people don’t know and how many people just don’t care that their snarky little catch-phrase is joking about the senseless deaths of nearly 1,000 people in a ghastly mass murder-suicide, but whether it’s through ignorance or sheer callousness that the allusion persists, the shorter its time remaining in this world the better.

“Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?”

I’ve never seen any actual evidence that “Americans” hate Hillary Rodham Clinton (or, mutatis mutandis, Teresa Heinz Kerry, who got a lighter but still pretty sharp version of the same treatment). It’s obvious that Right-wing blowhards hate her with a passion, and it’s also clear enough that the personal loathing of Right-wing blowhards gets a disproportionate airing on Sunday morning news commentary and in other outposts of the cultural elite. But does that actually translate into anything outside of the commentary echo chamber and the dittohead legions? Is my experience atypical for never having noticed it?