For most, cracking open the champagne is the start of a raucously good time. For others, it is the final few seconds of healthy eyesight.  Incorrect popping of champagne corks is one of the most common holiday-related eye hazards, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the Eye M.D. Association.  "It's a sobering thought, but many revelers forget that popping the cork on a bottle of champagne is a dangerous activity if done incorrectly," said Andrew Iwach, M.D., Academy spokespers...

Dennis Taylor- I'm gonna tell you something. Somebody messes with me, I'm gonna mess with with him. Somebody steals from me, I'm gonna say you stole.  One more thing, you have an all out prize fight, you wait until the fight is over, one guy is left standing. And that's how you know who won.

Cliff Thorburn:  Well he's still not borrowing my cue extension again.

Wrigley's:  We were very proud to be one of the principal sponsors at today's funeral.  St Anne's is a great venue and having Stephe...

Have you been following the, sometimes, nasty debate on the Theology of the Body that has been exercising the Catholic ether for the last year?   Chistopher West has been delivering a popular course of lectures for some time but was attacked for his views by Alice von Hildebrand, who seems to have taken his arguments as a personal attack on her husband.  My wife has links to the main elements of the argument here.

If you want a quick summary - well:

Venerable Pope John Paul:  Sex is good.

Alice ...

This is a funny story.  This is a true story.  This actually happened.

It was the late 1990s, the years of the Drumcree protests, the years when the region was regularly brought to a standstill by Loyalist hoods, the years when three little boys could be burnt in their beds to protest not being allowed to walk on a road.

It was a time when ordinary people did their best to get out, when the road from Belfast to Letterkenny was was nose to tail with fleeing Catholics.

And ordinary Protestan...

I was very surprised to see this story in the Manchester Guardian:

A media lynch mob is bent on destroying Pope

Fresh reports about the Pope's past just don't add up. But facts matter little in an issue that has become so politicised.


Oh wait, I misread.

One takes a certain vicarious pleasure in the success of one's class-mates.

In particular it is always good to follow the careers of those who had posts of responsibility in Maynooth.  Micael Ledwith, now a successful new age guru, with his Orbs and Hamburger Universe.  Doubtless we'll hear more of him in the coming months as the Apostolic Visitation of Maynooth gets under way and the trustees/bishops try to explain everything that went on.  I, of course, will be only too glad to make myself a...

During his homily and urbi et orbe address on Easter Sunday and blessing of his new Popemobile, Pope Benedict XVI failed to condemn the recent spate of ATM thefts that have plagued border counties;  he also failed to condemn the torture of frogs by small boys, genocide, adultery, fornication and any programme George Jones or Pat Kenny hosts;  he also failed to mention child abuse.

Commentators have concluded that he supports all of these crimes and doesn't take the issue seriously.

A Vatican sp...

...just go go go I don't care how
you can go by foot, you can go by cow
Irish bishops will you please go now.

You can go on skates, you can go on Skis
You can go in a hat but please go please
I don't care, you can go by bike
you can go on a zike bike if you like

If you like you can go in an old blue shoe
Just go go go, please do do do
Irish Bishops I don't care how
Irish Bishops will you please go now!



Just looking at a round up of the news on abuse.  We have the person who is suing Cardinal Brady c...

Fr Brian D'Arcy and Grima Wormtongue

How do you know Fr Brian D'Arcy is betraying the Church and undermining the faith?

His lips are moving.

Here's a site specially designed for the paranoid priests of Down and Connor who live in continual fear of catching something from a cough or a sneeze or some type of contact with the faithful.

Several people have been phoning , emailing and texting madly wanting to know what on earth this story is about.  Well they'll just have to do their research and figure it out.

But be assured it is really funny.

Did you know this?  You know the zucchetto, the skull cap worn by prelates?  Well the word comes from "zucca", the Italian for pumpkin.  I wonder who first made the connection between bishops and pumpkins.

This nugget is from the Catholic Dictionary published by Our Sundary Visitor, a book I recommend for all.  And cheap too - €6.40 new in book shops.

So the Holy Father is on a pastoral visitation to the Holy Land.  The first day he's at the Wailing Wall, kneeling.  A child asks him what he's doing.  "I'm praying for peace between the Jews and the Arabs".  "And who are you talking to?" asked the child.  "To God the Father" replied the Pope.

The next day the Pope is back at the Wailing Wall again.  "What are you doing?" asks another child.  "I'm praying for peace in Sudan".  "And who are you talking to?" asked the child.  "To God the Son" re...