Catholic and Loving it!

Leona is nine months old today. We can't bleieve how the time has flown by and I will defnitely be showing you pictures of how she has grown later. In the meantime, as you may be aware, Leona is named for Leo XIII and I wanted to share some Leo XIII fun.

Firstly, did you know that Leo XIII was the pope who had the first electric lights installed in St. Peter's Cathedral? He was also the first pope to be caught on video! Here he is (they hadn't invented sound yet)...

While they hadn't invented sound with video yet, they had invented sound. Leo XIII is also the first pope to have been recorded and you can hear him chanting away here...

Fantastic stuff. Finally, you may recall my unhappiness with the Catholic Youth Service's choice of quote for this years Youth Sunday. They chose a quote from Ghandi who also once famously when asked if he was a Hindu he replied "Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.". Leo XIII has something to say about that...

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God.

Roar!