Catholicism in review, March- May, 2012

Under the heading of "it's been awhile"....

Empty suits, the lot of them.

Anyway, this is what's been happening since last I posted anything about my Catholic Examiner.com articles.

'Anonymous' shuts down the Vatican Website a group of hackers, who are probably six prepubescent delinquents in Europe, got busted. They had a temper tantrum that shut down the Vatican's public website ... because, obviously, they couldn't shut down someone important. File this under "display of impotence."

Pope's brother speaks out in new book. (video) -- you didn't know the Pope had a brother, did you?

Karina Fabian has a book on spirituality she wrote with her father the Deacon. I interviewed them about it for Lent.

Catholics beating Obama in polls -- Obama went after Catholics. Catholics win in polling data. Muahahaha.

'Reason rally' in Washington, DC, because atheists are more reasonable than you. -- seriously, atheists had a "reason rally" to improve their public perception. However, you could say they were screwed, from the start, since, oops, the title sounds like "we're better than yoo--uuu," which always helps.

And then Richard Dawkins, one of the High Priests of atheism, decided to call for mockery of Catholics at the 'Reason Rally' .... which is always a good way of curing the public perception of professional atheists as professional schmucks.

At which point, it was time to ask, Are Catholics stupid?

Then, at Easter time, I decided to have some fun. First, I answer, What happened on Good Friday? -- mostly looking at Jesus from the point of view of, well, everyone else, and answering theological reasons why he was nailed to a set of 2x4s, and why the men with the hammers nailed him.

He is risen: another way of looking at Easter -- okay, I was a little snarky here.

The science of resurrection -- with information from Doctor Who, and the man who wrote The Exorcist.

Interview with 'Live and Let Fly' author Karina Fabian... -- you may remember this. I also had a part one, part two, and part three. and a part four..

Catholic Bishops said they wanted to sue Obama. And then they do -- 43 Catholic orgs file religious liberty suits vs. Obama.  Shortly thereafter, Notre Dame President John Jenkins explained the lawsuit.  And, then, for a comedy portion, we had a note from Nancy Pelosi, as she declares it a fraud to protect religion.  Then the media coverage started by whining that the Catholic church was to investigate "nuns." -- who weren't nuns.  This is while they were busy not reporting the lawsuit for over 72 hours (and counting).

And, then, Catholics have started their own group, Fortnight for Freedom will occupy DC. Muahahaha.

Not long after, President Obama came out for gay marriage.  When Christians objected, Stephen Colbert decided to tell Christians what Jesus said, and missed the point altogether. Who could have guessed.

Then I posted reviews for Karina Fabian's "Live and Let Fly" and  "Neeta Lyffe: Zombie Exterminator.

Review: Live and Let Fly.

Karina Fabian has done some novels that could only be qualified as interesting. She's written theology, Catholic science fiction, rescue nuns, zombie exterminators, and those are just the ones that we'e taken a brief look at here.

And then there's Vern, the Dragon Private investigator.

Welcome to Los Lagos, Colorado, home of the Gap; in this case, the Gap is an inter-dimensional hole in time and space, and we can be grateful that this one isn't set in Cardiff.  The Gap has made Los Lagos home of plenty of interesting species from the Faerie dimension, a realm that is quite Catholic, and the original home to Vern, who was a dragon of some repute even before he had an encounter with a knight named George.

Now, banished to our world by the Duke of Pebbles-on-Tweed, Vern has made his living as a PI, along with his sidekick, the Vatican Mage Sister Grace.

Like every good PI story from Dashel Hammet to Jim Butcher, the story starts small, and spirals out of control quickly. What starts as the search for a missing ring after an assault, quickly turns into a murder mystery, with a kidnapping for a side dish, and it turns into race to stop the end of the world, dun dun dunnnnnnnn.....

But how do you stop a killer that leaves no trace? Not even a scent a dragon can follow?


Overall, the story is fun. There are some nice shots at Hollywood along the way(let's start with the chapter titles "Murky but Present Dangers," or "Gapraker").  And it includes the best take on Disney animatronics that I've seen since Peter David's Psi-Man series. The chapter titles were something else ("Seven Habits of Highly Defective Henchmen.")  In fact, the humor that works best is when Vern narrates events in term of cliche (see: excerpts here).  The satirical elements are possibly the funniest parts of the novel. I'm not sure if one of the villains was supposed to resemble Dilbert's Pointy-Haired-Boss, but it works.

Also along for the ride is the Bureau of Interdimensional Law Enforcement. ("BILE?" Vern thinks. "There's a name that must have been made in committee.")  With some entertaining parodies of James Bond thrown in, as well as one character who should be played by Marvel's Agent Coulson.

And, seriously, who can argue with a book where Shiva is a war correspondent?  Or where the Vatican has its own SpecOps team, giving a whole new meaning to the term "church militant"? It's right up there with John Ringo's Princess of Wands novel, that was based in the real world, with a little more strangeness attached.

There is also a wonderful sequence of negotiating with the kidnappers. It's only two pages long, but it's truly entertaining.

Live and Let Fly has some good solid action sequences. Like the attack of the killer animatronics, or a scene with an airship that was a cross between Final Fantasy VI and a John Nance novel.

And then, there's the line "I wanted the Holy Hand Grenades on standby in case all Hell did break loose."

Yeah, this was fun.