If Mary takes over your soul, does that make you a reconstituted virgin, Catholic style? Actually, that problem is already solved, if she’s only possessing nuns. What about the Sons of Mary?

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) — Six Catholic nuns have been excommunicated for heresy after refusing to give up membership in a Canadian sect whose founder claims to be possessed by the Virgin Mary, the Diocese of Little Rock announced.

The Rev. J. Gaston Hebert, the diocese administrator, said he notified the nuns of the decision Tuesday night after they refused to recant the teachings of the Community of the Lady of All Nations, also known as the Army of Mary.

The Vatican has declared all members of the Army of Mary excommunicated. Hebert said the excommunication was the first in the diocese’s 165-year history.

“It is a painfully historic moment for this church,” Hebert said.

The six nuns are associated with the Good Shepherd Monastery of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge in Hot Springs. Sister Mary Theresa Dionne, one of the nuns excommunicated, said the nuns will still live at the convent property, which they own.

“We are at peace and we know that for us we are doing the right thing,” the 82-year-old nun said. “We pray that the church will open their eyes before it is too late. This is God’s work through Mary, the blessed mother, and we’re doing what we’re asked to do.”

At a news conference, Hebert said the nuns “became entranced and deluded with a doctrine that is heretical.” He said church officials removed the Eucharist — which Catholics revere as the body of Christ — from the monastery on Tuesday night.

Hebert said the sect’s members believe that its 86-year-old founder, Marie Paule Giguere, is the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary and that God speaks directly through her. Excommunication bars the nuns from participating in the church liturgy and receiving communion or other sacraments.

The diocese said the action was taken after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a declaration dated July 11 that the Army of Mary’s teachings were heretical and automatically excommunicated any who embraced the doctrine.

Hebert said the diocese had known for years that the nuns were following the sect and said church officials in the past had encouraged them to come back into the fold.

According to the Catholic News Service, the Army of Mary was founded in Quebec in 1971 by Giguere, who said she was receiving visions from God.

Dionne said she does not know if Giguere is the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, but said she believes God communicates through the sect’s founder.

“She is doing only what God and Mary tells her to do,” Dionne said.

A spokesman for the Army of Mary called the excommunication of the nuns and the other members of the sect an injustice. Father Eric Roy said Giguere has not claimed to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, and said the 86-year-old Quebec woman “receives graces” from the Virgin Mary and God.

“The Virgin Mary took possession of her soul. I would rather say it that way,” said Roy, superior general of the Sons of Mary, an associated group.

I’ve got your soul, and I’m not giving it back!

“Every time I watch a network news show, I feel like I’m watching a Jon Stewart parody”

Hersh, out for an appearance at UCLA this Thursday, didn’t write it, but he said it in an interview with the LA Weekly’s Scott Thill, about the way our press fell all over General Petraeus:

Do you think the administration learned from the Vietnam War that their first priority was to co-opt the press?

Oh yeah, but I think co-opt is a weak word. I think it was more than that. The ability of this administration to spin the press is unbelievable. Just look at the surge, how the press was atwitter about the report from General Petraeus — or King David, as they call him. I mean, he’s a Ph.D. from Princeton and he likes himself. The White House and its press decided that this report would be some mystifying document that is somehow going to save the world. Well, guess what? You can spin it all you want, but we’re taking a pasting. Iraq is an unmitigated disaster, and the Bush administration is going to leave it for the Democrats to clean up. The point is that the White House must be ecstatic over its ability to spin the press so easily. Every time I watch a network news show, I feel like I’m watching a Jon Stewart parody.

His point about Petraeus is one I made earlier, and in perhaps more clumsy fashion:

Flash ahead a few years, and Petraeus has undergone a metamorphosis, from being a capable military commander who did a capable job in a difficult situation, to being — at least in the minds of the Bush Administration and the war’s supporters — an infallible oracle, an irrefutable authority on the direction which our nation must take in Iraq.

The new Petraeus, the Petraeic Oracle, is endowed with supernatural powers of judgment or cognition. No longer a mere mortal, he is the unchallenged seer who can peer into the future of Iraq.

King David, indeed.

The rest of the interview talks about journalism, and the administration’s plans for Iran. A good short read, so go do it.

Well, Secretary Rice promised a “full and complete review” of Blackwater’s security practices in Iraq, and here’s the first report:

The initial U.S. Embassy report on a Sept. 16 shooting incident in Baghdad involving Blackwater USA, a private security firm, depicts an afternoon of mayhem that included a car bomb, a shootout in a crowded traffic circle and an armed standoff between Blackwater guards and Iraqi security forces before the U.S. military intervened.

The two-page report, described by a State Department official as a “first blush” account from the scene, raises new questions about what transpired in the intersection. According to the report, the events that led to the shooting involved three Blackwater units. One of them was ambushed near the traffic circle and returned fire before fleeing the scene, the report said. Another unit that went to the intersection was then surrounded by Iraqis and had to be extricated by the U.S. military, it added.

~~~

Witnesses and the Iraqi government have insisted that the shooting by the private guards was unprovoked. Blackwater has claimed that its guards returned fire only after they were shot at. The document makes no reference to civilian casualties. Eleven Iraqi civilians were killed and 12 wounded in the incident. The report said Blackwater sustained no casualties.

Thus far, we’re talking about a “full and complete review” which ignores eleven civilians gunned down by Blackwater mercs.

Heckuva review, Condi. Nice jacket, though.

Funny how the wingnuts can spot slightly darkened smoke over a very real airstrike in Beirut, but fail to spot a completely fabulous “news” photo this:

Sadly, No! has more on the latest outbreak of wingnut madness.

Damn, I’m way off the beam with this one - it’s been up for a month already! From Ricky’s website:

Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90024
310-443-7000

CANCER, GEMINI AND AQUARIUS!

Hey, did you know you can find out who voted on what by astrological sign? I’m amazed I hadn’t heard of this before, but those handy folks at the Washington Post offer a number of vote total data options, including by party, state/territory, region, boomer status, gender, and astrological sign. Who knew?

Question: On Passage
Bill: H R 2693
Vote description: Popcorn Workers Lung Disease Prevention Act
Vote type: Yea-and-Nay (Help)
Result: Passed, 260-154, with 2 voting Present and 16 not voting.
Date/time: September 26, 2007, 2:49 p.m.
Republican majority opinion: No (Help)
Democrat majority opinion: Yes (Help)

Astrological sign Yes No Not Voting Present
Aquarius 22 14 1 0
Aries 20 8 0 1
Cancer 28 18 4 0
Capricorn 19 13 1 0
Gemini 25 24 2 0
Leo 19 13 3 0
Libra 23 14 1 1
Pisces 18 5 0 0
Sagittarius 19 10 2 0
Scorpio 20 12 1 0
Taurus 18 6 1 0
Virgo 29 17 0 0
Total 260 154 16 2

Gemini, as usual, is sharply divided over Orville Redenbacher-borne diseases.

Note the name of mother and son. I’m not making this up.

MAIDEN, N.C. (AP) - A man who bought a smoker Tuesday at an auction of abandoned items might have thought twice had he looked inside first.

Maiden police said the man opened up the smoker and saw what he thought was a piece of driftwood wrapped in paper. When he unwrapped it, he found a human leg, cut off 2 to 3 inches above the knee.

The smoker had been sold at an auction of items left behind at a storage facility, so investigators contacted the mother and son who had rented the space where the smoker was found.

The mother, Peg Steele, explained her son had his leg amputated after a plane crash and kept the leg following the surgery “for religious reasons” she doesn’t know much about.

“The rest of the family was very much against it,” Steele said.

Steele said her son, John Wood, plans to drive to Maiden, about 35 miles northwest of Charlotte, to reclaim his amputated leg, police said.

Swastikas are all over the news this week - purses, Google earth …

CORONADO, Calif., — The U.S. Navy has decided to spend as much as $600,000 for landscaping and architectural modifications to obscure the fact that one its building complexes looks like a swastika from the air.

The four L-shaped buildings, constructed in the late 1960s, are part of the amphibious base at Coronado and serve as barracks for Seabees. From the ground and from inside nearby buildings, the controversial shape cannot be seen. Nor are there any civilian or military landing patterns that provide such a view to airline passengers.

But once people began looking at satellite images from Google Earth, they started commenting about on blogs and websites about how much the buildings resembled the symbol used by the Nazis.

Source

This will probably be fixed before the Spector jury reaches a decision.

the party’s over.