The Diakonia of Beauty

Continuing our exploration of the Cannes Festival we came to an event of spiritual nourishment.

The sacred festival of beauty. The "off" of the soul (!?)

This event is organized by the local diocese in conjunction with La Diaconie de la Beauté. At first I thought this was something to do with deacons, who are often beautiful creatures with beautiful minds, but in fact a Diaconie is better translated as Diakonia, which is concerned with the poor and needy.

Now, who are the poor and needy in this context? Well, as far as I could ascertain, they are actors. The sort of poor and needy actors you see at the Cannes Festival.

Brother Bosco blends inconspicuously with the beautiful people.

Indeed, one of the events (next Thursday if you can make it) features Michael Lonsdale, a.k.a. Sir Hugo Drax, the villain of the James Bond film Moonraker. Not poor, not needy, not even a poor actor.

Possibly not a saved person.

Another event that the church is organizing is a Concert inter-religieux "Les Trois Religions". Apparently the three religions - which seem to be regarded by some as interchangeable, equivalent, and all as good as each other - are Christianity (yay!), Islam (hiss!) and Judaism (somewhere in between on the Eccles "how saved is you?" scale). I guess that if a passing fakir had walked in and wanted to lie down on his bed of nails, he would also have been welcome.

Gratuitous cat-picture from Cannes to make the blog more popular.

We did drop in to one event of this festival; it was a concert called De Marie-Magdeleine à François et Claire d'Assise, which might reasonably be expected to have some religious content. However the bit we heard consisted of rock music and a man singing (if I understood it correctly) about Earth and Water. I guess the pagan wing of the Church would have appreciated it.

The angel of the diakonia.

Now, when we landed in Nice, I tried to emulate the great Father Z. and take a picture of the aeroplane seat in front of me - that sort of thing always makes a blog popular. However, by mistake, I was facing ad aquilonem rather than ad orientem, and so I took a liturgically-incorrect photo out of the window. Mea culpa.

Cannes, as seen from my plane.

Obama solves the Irish question

There was excellent news in Northern Ireland this week, when Barack Obama, a retired lawyer now holding an administrative job in Washington, announced the solution to the Irish question, which has evaded the greatest minds for over 200 years (or 500 years, by some accounts).

Now, are you guys Protestant Muslims or Catholic Muslims?

Said the sage of Honolulu: If Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs ... that encourages division.

Lord Bannside and Martin McGuinness agree on something - that Obama is a complete fool.

Thus, in brief, the Obama plan for peace is as follows:

1. Catholics and Protestants to combine their church schools
and teach exactly the same thing. 
2. Catholics and Protestants to share churches and have joint 
services.
3. Well, actually, the POTUS would like all churches to close.
4. Obama to become Pope and Moderator of the Free Presbyterian 
Church of Ulster. 
5. Catholics and Protestants to stop complaining about Obama's 
support of wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.
6. Not to mention abortion, same-sex marriage, etc.

We need more "Star Wars" Masses and fewer "Jesus Christ" services!

Obama later clarified his position: "Religion is fine by me, really, provided that you don't let it affect your behaviour. Model your conduct on that of my great friends Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi - they're pious, devout and humble Catholics, but also powerful voices against religion!"

"And you can take that cross down, for a start!"

Having solved the Irish question, Obama is moving onto the Middle East, where his simple recipe for peace will be: Why not just combine Islam and Judaism into one faith, and call it Judlam? Or better still, join the Catestants and Protholics and make one big religion called Obaminanity?

Finally, Obama faces his biggest challenge of all, to bring reconciliation between God and the Devil.

The Apocalypse. Could it be averted if God and Satan agree to worship Obama?