Klotzbucher.com

Alain de Botton:

The tragedy of modern atheism is to have ignored just how many aspects of religion continue to be interesting even when the central tenets of the great faiths are discovered to be entirely implausible. Indeed, it’s precisely when we stop believing in the idea that gods made religions that things become interesting, for it is then that we can focus on the human imagination which dreamt these creeds up. We can recognise that the needs which led people to do so must still in some way be active, albeit dormant, in modern secular man. God may be dead, but the bit of us that made God continues to stir.

I was shocked to read this:

ROME (AFP) — An Italian bishop has told a young paraplegic he cannot have a church wedding because he is impotent, despite his fiancee being aware of the problem, media here reported.

Salvatore de Ciuco, spokesman for Bishop Lorenzo Chiarinelli of Viterbo in central Italy, told SkyTG24 television late Sunday: “No bishop, no priest can celebrate a wedding when he knows of admitted impotence as it is a motive for annulment” of the marriage.

The 26-year-old groom, who took part in a civil marriage ceremony Saturday in Viterbo, has been paraplegic since he was involved in a car accident. The curate of the parish who was banned from marrying the couple was present at the ceremony.

The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is God’s “way of showing love for those he created”.

So does this mean that “God” does not love paraplegics? Thank God (pun absolutely intended) I left the Catholic Church a long time ago…