Did you know?

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

The Catholic Church has an official position on Jesus' blood type. It is AB negative. The rarest blood type. Read about the science here...

https://sacredwindows.com/the-science-b ... lood-type/

Nothing in there says it's an official Catholic position.

[Doom]

The Church cannot possibly have an "official" position on this because it is not part of divine revelation, blood types were not even discovered until 1900.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

The Church also has no "official position" on the authenticity of the possible relics in question. Or, more accurately, the official position is that they are worthy of belief, but not that they must be authentic.

[gherkin]

I would have said O- was the most fitting blood type for Our Lord because it is the universal donor type, but the article makes the interesting point about AB being the universal receiver, which is also an interesting meditative point regarding fittingness.

[Stella]

I'll withdraw my comment that Jesus blood type is an official position of the Church being a result of my misinterpretation.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

[Stella]

St Ignatius of Loyola's autopsy.

Ignatius died in Rome on July 31, 1556. (He) probably died from "Roman fever", a severe variant of malaria that was endemic in Rome throughout medieval history. An autopsy revealed that he also had kidney and bladder stones, which may have contributed to the abdominal pain he suffered later in life. Anatomist Matteo Colombo was present at the autopsy of Saint Ignatius. He describes the results in De re anatomica libre XV as follows: I have manually removed countless stones of various colors from kidneys, lungs, livers, portal veins, etc. For I saw stones in the ureters, bladders, colons, hemorrhoidal veins, and navels. Stones of various shapes and colors were also found in the gallbladder. From the facts presented it is not possible to determine the exact cause of death. Stones in the kidneys, ureters, bladder, and gallbladder likely indicate nephrolithiasis and cholelithiasis. So-called stones in veins look like thrombosed hemorrhoids. Those mentioned in the colon, liver, and lung suggest the possibility of malignant gastrointestinal hyperplasia with metastasis to the liver and lung. Due to deficiencies in 16th-century protocols, a precise and definitive anatomical diagnosis of Ignatius' anatomy cannot be established beyond doubt.

https://academic-accelerator.com/encycl ... -of-loyola

[Stella]

St Catherine of Sienna had 24 siblings including her twin who died!

https://stcatherinepa.com/about-st-cath ... r%20family.

[Stella]

In the 13th century the Norse Church had a practice of baptising new Christians in Viking beer due to the lack of water in the region. Beer was safer and more abundant than water.

Eventually Pope Gregory IX sent a letter to the Archbishop of Nidaros banning Viking beer-baptisms. He stated “those who are baptized in beer should not be considered rightly baptized.”

https://ucatholic.com/news/when-the-pop ... -baptisms/

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Those crazy Norwegians!

I would have phrased it differently than uCatholic did, though. He didn't ban them in the sense that he just didn't like them. He said that they were invalid, so they should quit doing it.

If only we could get a pope to ban gherkin!

[Stella]

I wonder why gherkin is so crusty?

[Stella]

Another foible of 13th century Catholicism, this time in France, was the practice of venerating a dog.

Saint Guinefort was a legendary 13th-century French greyhound that received local veneration as a folk saint.

Guinefort's story is a variation on the well-travelled "faithful hound" motif, similar to the Welsh story of the dog Gelert, or the Indian story of the Brahmin and the Mongoose.

In one of the earliest versions of the story, described by Dominican friar Stephen of Bourbon in 1250, Guinefort the greyhound belonged to a knight who lived in a castle near Lyon.[4] One day, the knight went hunting, leaving his infant son in the care of Guinefort. When he returned, he found the nursery in chaos – the cradle overturned, the child nowhere to be seen and Guinefort greeted his master with bloody jaws. Believing Guinefort to have devoured his son, the knight slew the dog. He then heard a child crying; he turned over the cradle and found his son lying there, safe and sound, along with the body of a viper bloody from dog bites. Guinefort had killed the snake and saved the child. On realizing the mistake the family dropped the dog down a well, covered it with stones and planted trees around it, setting up a shrine for Guinefort. Upon learning of the dog's martyrdom, the locals venerated the dog as a saint and visited his shrine of trees when they were in need, especially mothers with sick children.

The custom was regarded as harmful and superstitious by the church, which made efforts to eradicate it and enacted a fine for the continued practice. Despite repeated prohibitions by the Catholic Church, the cult of this dog saint persisted for several centuries. Community memory of the practices was still present in the 1970s, with the last known visit by someone to Saint Guinefort Wood to effect a cure for a sick child occurring around the 1940s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Guinefort#

[Stella]

There are 10 'honorary' Harlem Globetrotters. One of those is Pope John Paul II who made the cut in the year 2000. He received jersey number 75 in honor of the 75th year of the teams existence.

[Stella]

St Brigid and the advent of leap year proposals.

While February 1 marks the fest day of the Irish saint Brigid, this year it’s also the beginning of a month where the normal tradition of proposing marriage is abandoned. And not many people are aware that according to legend — although it’s important to take these legends with a pinch of salt — St. Brigid had something to do with this little revolution.

As you may know, every four years February 29 rolls around and in the charming tapestry of Irish folklore, it allows for a quirky tradition. In old Irish custom, a Leap Year is the golden opportunity for a woman to take things into her own hands and pop the question on bended knee.

Incredibly this role reversal started in 5th-century Ireland, where St. Brigid of Kildare lamented the long wait for proposals. Legend has it that St. Patrick, ever the peacemaker, suggested that women could propose every seven years, according to My Irish Jeweler.

However, the persistent Brigid managed to negotiate him down to every four years, where Patrick declared a special day in February during Leap Years when women could take the lead in proposing. Quite the unconventional matchmaker!

The tradition hopped across the Irish Sea to Scotland, thanks to Irish monks. In 1288, the Scots went official, allowing women to propose during a Leap Year. Incredibly, declining a proposal on this day could cost a man a fine, ranging from a kiss to payment for a silk dress.

The five-year-old Queen Margaret, who reportedly initiated the law, was allegedly behind these punishments. The youngster also came up with a proposal dress code — a mandatory red petticoat.

Keep reading here... https://aleteia.org/2024/01/31/how-st-b ... proposals/

[Stella]

...

[Riverboat]

The tradition hopped across the Irish Sea to Scotland, thanks to Irish monks. In 1288, the Scots went official, allowing women to propose during a Leap Year.

And then made the jump to the cartoon pages in Lil Abner and Sadie Hawkins' Day.

[Stella]

St Callixtus' rise to become Pope in 217 AD was quite remarkable. At first a slave, then banished to the mines in Sardinia under torturous conditions. He and fellow Christian miners were eventually honored by the Pope in Rome as Martyrs and living confessors of faith in Jesus Christ. Pope Victor 1 ordained him a deacon and he was appointed to guard the catacombs on the Appian Way (now named after him). He then became chief adviser to the Pope and when Victor died in 217, Callixtus was elected Pope.

A bit like Pope Francis, Callixtus was criticised for perceived laxity regarding sins, especially sexual sins. In 217 he decreed that absolution and penance would be enough to re admit certain sinners to the Eucharist. Sins, which had been almost impossible to absolve previously. ie. murder, idolatry, fraud, apostasy, blasphemy, adultery, fornication.

Tertullian and Hippolytus rejected this laxity against sinners and Hippolytus set himself up as Pope in opposition to Callixtus. Hippolytus thus becoming the first anti pope. What is known of Callixtus primarily comes from his detractors but never the less His pastoral mercy was such that it lifted him to the rank of Saint back in those days.

"It has been said of Saint Callistus that if we knew more about his life from Christian sources, he might have gone down as one of our greatest popes. He suffered greatly in his early life but entered the service of the Church where he became a deacon and then pope. He taught about the importance of penance, evangelized, faced calumny and persecution with courage, and died for his faith. What little we know of his life remains an inspiration today, and his merciful commitment to repentant sinners shines forth as the law of Christ and the ongoing practice of the Church.

As we honor this ancient pope, ponder your own approach to mercy. Mercy is two-sided. We need to be convinced of God’s mercy toward us, and we need to show that same depth of mercy toward others. Pray to Saint Callistus today for a merciful and courageous heart so that you will follow in his footsteps."

https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-o ... pe-martyr/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Callixtus_I

[Stella]

One of Pope St John Paul II's first decisions upon election, was to appoint St Francis of Assisi as the patron Saint of ecological matters in 1979.

https://webpages.scu.edu/ftp/kwarner/Fr ... ieving.pdf

[Stella]

I didn't know this but it is no longer a rule to put two spaces after a full stop. I think I might be too old to train myself out of it now though.

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/two-spaces-after-period/

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I didn't know this but it is no longer a rule to put two spaces after a full stop. I think I might be too old to train myself out of it now though.

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/two-spaces-after-period/

Modernism. Sheer Modernism!