Michael Pytleski | Catholic Hotdish

Still haven’t registered for the Archdiocesan Men’s Conference? No problem! Walk-in registrations are welcome. The event will be held from 7 a.m. to noon Saturday, March 31, at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. Cost is $15.

More information

Conference to give men ‘fresh perspective,’ speaker says

Did you have a good ‘O’Green Day’?

March 19, 2012

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What’s O’Green Day? It’s what you call St. Patrick’s Day when you live in a world that I’ll never understand.

Political Correctness Run Amok: School Replaces St. Patrick’s Day With ‘O’ Green Day’

European superstar, Tajci to sing in St. Michael

March 19, 2012

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This looks like valuable way to spend an afternoon in Lent.

St. Michael Catholic Church

Tajci to sing at St. Michael in St. Michael

Do 98 percent of Catholic women use contraception?

March 6, 2012

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Nope.

Let’s set aside the fact that the statistic has absolutely no relevance to the contraception mandate debate. It’s an unsettling number and most hearing it will recognize that something is wrong. I can’t think of the last time that 98% of anyone did anything.

The original White House statement was this:

According to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, most women, including 98 percent of Catholic women, have used contraception – Cecilia Munoz, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council

Which naturally degraded to statements like this:

98 percent of Catholic women, I am told by all of you (reporters), use birth control to determine the size and timing of their families. So again its a women’s health issue. – House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi

Just a quick glance at the people walking into Mass will tell you that can’t be true.

After looking at the study used to come up with this statement (brought to us by the Planned Parenthood-spawned Guttmacher Institute) you can say the following:

Of women who consider themselves Catholic, who are sexually active (in the past three months), fall into the 15 – 44 age group, and are not pregnant, not postpartum, not trying to achieve pregnancy or not having sex, 98% have at least one time in their lives used contraception.

Washington Post Blogs:

The claim that 98 percent of Catholic women use contraception: a media foul

Have 98 percent of Catholic women used contraceptives? Not quite.

LifeSiteNews:

White House claim that 98% of Catholic women use contraception a ‘damned lie’: Lutheran author

A quick shout-out to Pope Gregory XIII

February 29, 2012

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If you enjoyed the extra day today you can thank Pope Gregory XIII who reformed the Julian Calendar in 1582 mainly because it really messed with where Easter landed. That and the vernal equinox kept creeping backwards. The new calendar came to be known as the Gregorian calendar for obvious reasons. Leap years are explained by the United States Naval Observatory in this way:

Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100; the centurial years that are exactly divisible by 400 are still leap years. For example, the year 1900 is not a leap year; the year 2000 is a leap year.

And thus the extra day today. Which I spent a large portion of with a shovel in my hand.

Now trending on Google, “lint”

February 22, 2012

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At the time of this posting Google’s trending list of words most searched is as follows:

1.   kombucha tea
2.   ash wednesday
3.   brady quinn
4.   lent
5.   fat tuesday
6.    chris brown and rihanna
7.   king cake
8.   lint

Five of the top eight are Lent related. If you count “lint” which I am really hoping is just a function of typing too fast. It would ruin my day if millions of souls were going online to search out how to more prayerfully enter into “lint”.

Google’s customers are clearly interested in Ash Wednesday and Lent today. Google’s doodle? The 155th birthday of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, the discoverer of electromagnetic waves (see picture above).

It was a great blog controversy when the search giant chose Earth Day over Good Friday last year so I don’t think anyone expected them to put together a doodle of sack cloth, ash and fish today. But pulling out a 155th birthday anniversary of a little-know scientist feels like a stretch. Perhaps to have something in place to avoid the more obvious Christian holiday? This in spite of the millions of searches for Lent and other Lent-related topics. Mr. Hertz, with the help of the doodle, didn’t crack the top 20.

I have no standing whatsoever to tell Google how to run it’s business but I think the question is worth asking. What do you think?

“Is Google purposely avoiding Christian holidays?” Or maybe the better question is “Why is Google avoiding Christian holidays?”