Vatican Rhapsody
May 7th, 2008 by Tom
In Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody Freddie Mercury muses:
Is this the real life-
Is this just fantasy-
This morning I stumbled on this headline on the Catholic News Service:
Vatican letter directs bishops to keep parish records from Mormons
Since I’ve been involved in earnest with family genealogy over the last half year or so I’ve relied, in part, on the considerable resources made available on microfilm through the LDS Family History Centers, both locally and out of state. The LDS’s catalog of microfilm records is not comprehensive so it is imperative that access to the documents that the Vatican urges individual parishes to withhold is critical to the continued improvement of the stores of genealogical indices and data. Not only is the issue involving proxy ancestral baptism a Quixotic theological matter undeserving the merit assigned to it by means of its mention in a statement from the Vatican, it echoes the elements involved in the Church’s most famous case of censuring: Galileo. I hesitate to make light of the theological urgency which must have precipitated the rupture of ecumenical truce between the Holy See and the Prophet but I think the poet Andrew Marvell offers us a sobering perspective on the matter in his poem, To His Coy Mistress:
The grave’s a fine and private place,
but none I think do there embrace.
During his recent visit to the US the Pope focused on and addressed a number of serious and challenging issues confronting the Church as well as the secular entities of governments. Sniping over questionable theological practices and connotations usurps much needed energy and effort in matters of infinitely greater importance both here and the hereafter.
Take us home Freddie!
Galileo,galileo,
Galileo galileo
Galileo figaro-magnifico-
