God: working in ever-mysterious ways
As you may be aware by now they’ve dug up Padre Pio, given him a bit of plastic surgery, and stuck him on display.
His face was reconstructed with a lifelike silicone mask of the type used in wax museums because it was apparently too decomposed to show when the body was exhumed.
“He seems like he is sleeping. Even if they had to re-do the face, its better remembering him this way than looking at a slab of cold marble,” said Domenico Masone, deputy mayor of Pietralcina, the town where Padre Pio was born.
You know, people say that Scientology is weird, but when you see something like this you realise it just needs time to settle in and become accepted as being as normal/weird as the older religions.
Although, it’ll have to up its game to corpse-digging levels if it truly wants to compete with the giants.
Why did they bother digging him up at all? Why didn’t they just put the silicon mask on a mannequin instead? Same difference, really.
I bet they dug him up hoping he’d be preserved and figured even though he wasn’t they should make the most of it.
Comment by Adam | April 25, 2008 at 10:42 amThat’s just plain wrong. Seriously, what’s up with these people?
Comment by Neill | April 25, 2008 at 10:44 amAnd isn’t he supposed to be a fake stigmata sufferer?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2739751.ece
Comment by Sinéad | April 25, 2008 at 10:52 amCheck out yesterday’s Liveline. Joe’s unwillingness to even question the disgusting nature of this exercise is sickening: http://www.rte.ie/radio1/player_av.html?0,null,200,http://dynamic.rte.ie/quickaxs/209-rte-liveline.smil
Comment by Brock Landers | April 25, 2008 at 11:00 amDawkins + Sledgehammer = Solution.
Comment by Steve K | April 25, 2008 at 11:04 amDawkins + Sledgehammer = Solution.
You know for someone intent on proving god doesn’t exist, Dawkins has done terribly well out of him/her/it hasn’t he.
Comment by Ivor | April 25, 2008 at 11:21 amYou know for someone intent on proving god doesn’t exist, Dawkins has done terribly well out of him/her/it hasn’t he.
Yes. He could probably afford his very own silicone mask at this stage.
Comment by Steve K | April 25, 2008 at 11:44 amYou atheists are everywhere, spreading your poisonous lies but it’s time for it all to stop!
I have been chosen to lead a one-pronged attack on your heathen ways.
Left hook!
Right hook!
You don’t even know what hit you.
Comment by Nat King Coleslaw | April 25, 2008 at 11:49 amLet us venerate Dawkins as a living god! Really piss him off…
Comment by Ivor | April 25, 2008 at 11:49 am“Seriously, what’s up with these people?”
Does it seem crazy, irrational, inexplicably unexplainable to you?
I mean to say: why can’t they all be rational like me.
Comment by 73man | April 25, 2008 at 11:53 amI mean to say: why can’t they all be rational like me.
We haven’t quite made it to your “post-rational” state yet. Are you guys much cooler there? Do you look benignly on the truly looney?
Post-atheism: Attack Dawkins instead of the logic of his arguments and make the idea of atheism out to be arrogant.
Comment by Steve K | April 25, 2008 at 12:08 pmOn the RTE News at One (Thursday 24 April 2008), Flora McCarthy presented a report on Padre Pio. In this report, she stated that Padre Pio “has cured people”. I would like to know what evidence this was based on, given that she stated it as if it were a fact.
Comment by athiest dub | April 25, 2008 at 2:49 pmHis face was reconstructed with a lifelike silicone mask
I have been wary of these advancements ever since John Travolta underwent surgery to change his looks and came out looking like Nicholas Cage.
Comment by JD | April 25, 2008 at 2:59 pmAthiest Dub - Well spotted. It can be seen, on the television news, here:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0424/1news_av.html?2366088,null,230
However, by the Six-One news it had been changed, so that he was now “credited with” cures:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0424/6news_av.html?2366219,null,230
Comment by Shane | April 25, 2008 at 3:01 pmHowever, by the Six-One news it had been changed, so that he was now “credited with” cures:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0424/6news_av.html?2366219,null,230
Do you think that was another miracle Shane?
Comment by Ivor | April 25, 2008 at 3:56 pmIvor, Editors work in mysterious ways too.
Comment by Shane | April 25, 2008 at 4:06 pmNat, banana I had seen, peanut butter I had not. Thank you. I’m now going to spread new life on toast.
Comment by Green Ink | April 26, 2008 at 10:05 amThat pillow is way too high.
Comment by Firk | April 26, 2008 at 11:32 amthis would make you cry with disbelief and disgust. The small village in Puglia which celebrates him is the second most visited ‘pilgrimage’ attraction after Quadalupe with over 7 million visitors a year! It is all in the worst ‘possible taste’ but what a money spinner. I hope it hasn’t set a precedent for city and town councils globally. Dig up a corpse, make a plastic face for it and put it on display. Sounds like easy money.
Comment by state diary | April 28, 2008 at 9:30 amThere was a bust of Padre Pio on our mantlepiece at home whn I was a kid. One of my friends comes in one day, sez “cool, where’d you get Obi Wan Kenobi?” Amazing likeness.
Comment by Obsessed! | May 1, 2008 at 2:19 pm