The Time Machine: Call To Action and WOC in perpective

A priest friend sent me a note about big puppets.  He found yet another connection between the big puppet thing and the Call To Action and ordination of wywmynysszzzz crowd.

There is a cameo of a Call To Action/WOC puppet at about 2:21…

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I don’t have a strong enough stomach to search for more clips of that moment in the movie.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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19 Comments

  1. APX says:

    Aaaah!! That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seeen. It’s uber creepy.

    I know where these big giant puppets originated from. I went to a Catholic fine arts school from grades 1-3 and every year we’d have this big hippie Mother Nature festival called “Chitauqua” with so many of those giant puppets. It was organized by a couple, who were very much still stuck in the 60s/70s. They still do it, only they’ve expanded to other annual events as well.

  2. St. Louis IX says:

    Somebody please yell

    CUT!

  3. digdigby says:

    The big puppets began in the U.S. in Vietnam War protests with ‘Guerrilla Puppet Theater’ – I remember them because I was there. 1970. They were inspired by giant Maoist caricatures of ‘capitalists as pigs’ and such. The originals were part of the (gag) ‘Cultural Revolution’ in China in the sixties.

  4. KAS says:

    I love puppets but they have NO PLACE IN THE LITURGY nor should they ever.

    People making crazy with the Mass is just so odd and wrong.

  5. AnAmericanMother says:

    You’d think these people would be embarrassed to have these giant effigies (they’re really not puppets in the usual sense) anywhere near a Catholic church, given not only their association with the Maoists, but their far earlier association with “Bonfire Night”, that classic English celebration of anti-Catholicism, mayhem, and fireworks which reaches its pinnacle in Lewes in Sussex. There’s always an effigy of Guy Fawkes, of course, but also effigies of the Pope, various bishops, and unpopular political figures.
    Mr. Fawkes
    a certain Exalted Ecclesiastical Dignitary
    paging the usual suspects (note the banner)
    The Call to Action/WOC crowd are as ignorant of history and tradition as anybody I’ve ever seen . . . which these days is saying a lot.

  6. Random Friar says:

    One of the movie posters for that film which included reviews called it, “The ‘Star Wars’ of Musicals!”

    Incredibly prescient and prophetic, since no one yet knew of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

  7. APX says:

    @AnAmericanMother
    You’d think these people would be embarrassed to have these giant effigies […]anywhere near a Catholic church, […] given their far earlier association with “Bonfire Night””

    I think they need to be re-associated with “Bonfire Night” . *cough* *cough* *wink* *wink*

  8. AnAmericanMother says:

    LOL! Works for me! Stuff ’em with bangers and fire ’em up!
    At least then they’d actually be pretty entertaining.

  9. RichR says:

    For those who may have missed the original video of puppets at Mass, here ya go…..

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh_nqtp3VrU

    Contrast that with……

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enWiFcsBqIE

  10. APX says:

    @AnAmericanMother
    No stuffing required. Papier mache is highly flammable, as was learned when we made papier mache candle holders during Art class once.

  11. Gabriel Austin says:

    I have often wondered about the origin of the “rhythmic motions” common before ceremonies in the Taj Mahoney. I thought they were escapees from a movie about sultans and harems. [Though the dancers in the movies were more professional]. Now will the dancers move on to nudity?

    As usual Fr. Z has cleared up a mystery.

  12. benedetta says:

    I almost missed it as I got stuck on the dancing group of Hare Krishna but then I saw it. What digdigby says is correct. Giant puppet heads have a history as a propaganda medium for Marxist revolutionary thought. It is really disturbing that Call to Action feels free and comfortable in their use, and particularly during Mass. If they regard themselves in that way, and then set up the Church as their target to be “overthrown” akin to, a political state, and are fine with agitating others to see things through that lens, during the sacred liturgy, then I think it is safe to say that they don’t recognize the Church with love and respect to begin with, think it is theirs to do as they please, and don’t really care what the faithful has to say about much at all. The Church is not perfection, is composed of humans, and there are real failings as with all human endeavors, but at the same time there is the presence of the Holy Spirit and I am not sure that turning the Church into a system of votes and lobbying and power struggles, so much the more, would be ultimately for the good for all even if certain groups’ desires win out in any given point in time.

  13. AnAmericanMother says:

    benedetta,
    I think you’re on to something here. I made a similar observation on the Zagano Watch thread:

    I saw this up close and personal in the Episcopal church, my former home (such as it was). The denomination was destroyed by political agitation by those who wanted to deify the politically liberal/radical goals — feminism, ‘gay rights’, extreme environmentalism, abortion, and the nanny state as a substitute for actual Christian charity. Since the ruling body of that group is run by majority vote and lay delegates, they were able to remake the denomination — regardless of truth.
    They got what they wanted, but now the denomination is bleeding members, because truth is not subject to a majority vote and politics is not religion, no matter how you try to dress it up.
    I see the usual suspects are hard at work in the Catholic Church, but they’re not making as much headway as they hoped after their triumph over the Episcopalians.

  14. APX says:

    I regret ever watching that video. I’m trying to sleep, but everytime I close my eyes the image of that giant puppet pops up, except it has devil horns and it’s coming at me.

  15. NoraLee9 says:

    Looking at the Call To HooHa “Mass” as posted by Rich, did anyone else notice the diffident expression on the altar boy’s face? He had to be someone’s grandson, since I didn’t see any women of childbearing age in the video. Poor child. He looks as if he’d rather be at the Extraordinary Rite. At least the cassocknwould cover up his blue jeans!

  16. don Jeffry says:

    “I see the usual suspects are hard at work in the Catholic Church…” Then it is time to consecrate Captain Renault as bishop!

  17. Grabski says:

    Hair is a surprisingly reactionary movie; reaction against the hippy movement. Perhaps the puppets were meant as part of the lampooning

    As an aside, the director of Hair, Milos Forman, plays a Catholic pastor in the film “keeping the faith’

    In that film, he explains to a young parochial vicar how being a priest is a demanding vocation (he likens it to being a US Marine). And he gives his young assistant a talk about celibacy, and how each man (even married or clerical) has to continually embrace his individual choice.

  18. benedetta says:

    AnAmericanMother, Yes I read that the other day and thought it interesting. I know that we have all become very accustomed to the idea so much that we just think it natural and correct but really what why do we want to re-purpose the universal Church according to the American politics of this current time? Why not, the American politics, of, another time. There is nothing so special about the state of gridlock we have been in with our two party system for quite a while now. It is what it is, sometimes things work out and often people feel, whatever one’s viewpoint or party affiliation, that the system is broken down, in fact both parties candidates campaign on these very observations, whole platforms are developed in acknowledgment.

    And, marxism and communist experiments have not been better societies in terms of human rights so why imbue with marxist theory in an idealized, romanticized way? I really don’t think most of the people who take on the tactics and agitation of such envisionings would trade places with the people who have had to endure through those and in the last ten to fifteen years or so the citizens of those nations seem desperate to emigrate to a democratic nation and in huge numbers, leaving everything behind because the quality of life couldn’t be worse, or because religious freedom or other human rights are regularly violated.

    Wasn’t it Archbishop Sheen who said, I forget the exact quotation, but along the lines of, truth is truth no matter how popular, even if totally unpopular. And in fact the development of tradition, the deposit of the faith, the basis for canon law, has actually withstood the test of time, and interacts dynamically with all people regardless of culture, and granted no human endeavor is perfection, as compared to political city states and empires.

  19. John Nolan says:

    I can assure AnAmericanMother that the Catholics of Lewes take the Bonfire night celebrations in good part, unlike the ‘elf n safety’ fascists wno stopped them rolling burning tar-barrels down the streets.

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