Or at least 23 facts that are interesting, which is much more important to me; I’ve gotten very little good out of looking smart on accident, much less on purpose.
One of the great joys being Catholic is that it’s neat, nifty and occasionally totally awesome. Truth is important, but interesting is fun, so why not both?
I’m not going to copy the whole list over here, I’ll just snag a few; my favorite is probably the translation of the Apostle Peter’s name:
1. “Simon Peter bar Jonah,” if taken in its literal meaning would mean that Peter’s name is actually “Rocky Johnson.”
But this, which I’m transcribing from an image, might be better:
Why, this Satan’s drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it. We shall cheat Satan by baptizing it. – Pope Clement VIII
There are some quibbles involved and mentioned in the comments– mostly just that I’d have phrased things differently and some folks have judgement calls that differ, and one I really like only works because English is so horrible with names that it’s entirely believable that the name meaning “Dove” could morph into the name meaning “God is Gracious,” especially via Bible-Latin where one is Ionas and the other is Iohannes. (I only know about this from trying to figure out how a guy named “Ivan” would have the nick-name “Jack.” They’re both forms of John.)
Check out the author’s backlog– I have a feeling that I’m going to be cribbing from his Anti-Pope post for research! (It will be after my Easter Special and the promised Saint of Death post. Just not sure how long after….)
And all these years I thought it was the US Navy that baptized coffee…
An understandable confusion; keeping the dead grounds in the boiling water for three days and coffee strong enough to walk out– with or without a stone in the way– is pretty close.