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Sunday, September 4, 2016

Facebook & Religion - Not a Great Pair

Sometimes I just love what I find on Facebook.  It's often the only way I find something fun to blog about. It was a fairly quiet day in my neck of the woods with not much interesting to discuss - unless you count errands, shopping, and lovely weather super exciting. Then all of a sudden, a Catholic Register story pops up in my feed and I've got a great story to write (in my opinion anyway : ) 

As someone who went to Catholic school, I have lots of friends on Facebook who fall into the "Super" Catholic boat.  They like to post a lot about faith and the church.  That's really not me but more power to them.  However, today's postings were just slightly more over the top than most. The Catholic Register posted an article asking St. Teresa of Calcutta - after her canonization this morning - to pray for "the conversion and complete healing of the great physicist Stephen Hawking."

While this is a lovely sentiment - after all this man has done for the universe, I would agree that he deserves to be healed, here's where I lose the thread.  What does Stephen Hawking have to do with St. Teresa of Calcutta?  Why hasn't the Catholic Register been praying for him before today?  Did they have to wait until St. Teresa was canonized to ask for his healing?  

And here's where I really lose it - the comments section.  Isn't it always the comments section?  In one comment, a good Catholic that follows the Catholic Register, disagreed with the healing of Stephen Hawking because he's an atheist.  Just because he doesn't believe the same thing as they do apparently means he's doomed.  In another, the user decides that Stephen should be healed and completely transformed from an atheist to someone who completely believes in God.  And in the last - my most favorite of the set - the user wants him healed ironically. It would seem since he's a man of science that can't be cured by science, wouldn't it be hilarious if he were healed by faith instead?  Huh?  Ironic healing?  I'm pretty sure St. Teresa of Calcutta didn't work her entire life for the people to have people ironically healing people in her name.  She'd be ashamed!

I'm sure she's in heaven wondering why can't people just send good wishes to everyone, without all the hemming and hawing and wanting to change them?  She did this all her life, and we can definitely too...

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