Scary Coincidence #2

It’s the year 2001.

A jet liner leaves on a journey, one of whose terminii is Boston’s Logan Airport.

It’s filled with passengers.

Shortly after takeoff, it’s hijacked.

The goal of the hijackers?

Slam it into the World Trade Center and spark a war.

I’m talking about 9/11, right?

Wrong!

I’m talking about the pilot episode (no pun intended!) of The Lone Gunmen.

The Lone Gunmen, as you may know, were three conspiracy buff/lovable loser types who first appeared on The X-Files as a kind of background think-tank, research group on which Mulder (and later Scully) could draw.

The three provided not only impossible insights on cases Mulder and Scully were trying to crack, they also provided priceless comic relief, and in the end they proved so popular that they got their own series!

But it only lasted 13 episodes and ended with a cliffhanger that had to be tied up back on The X-Files (not entirely satisfactorily, to my mind).

Lonegunmen In the first episode of their series, they faced a situation that was eerily prescient of 9/11, just as Futilility–or–The Wreck Of The Titan was eerily prescient of the Titanic disaster (that was scary coincidence #1, btw).

When 9/11 happened, I went "Oh, wow! This is just like the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen!"

Except, of course, that in the TV show they managed at the last second to avert the plane so that it didn’t hit the World Trade Center (except for knocking over an antenna on the roof).

Also on the show, the event was engineered by a rougue group within the government rather than Osama bin Laden. (Though Daily Kos readers may think that is real life for all I know.)

The Lone Gunmen just came out on DVD, giving me the chance to re-watch the pilot episode and the rest (including the X-Files episode tying everything up, which is also included in the set).

Too bad it didn’t last longer.

GET THE SERIES.

Incidentally, something seemed to be buzzing around the collective Hollywood intellect about 9/11 in the year before it happened. Joe Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, had been working on a series tentatively called World On Fire, which was so similar in content to 9/11 and the events that followed that he scrapped the whole thing after those events unfolded. What he planned to be a dynamic, daring television series had now become the nightly news. (Maybe that was scary coincidence #3.)

Where Were You?

The passing of our beloved John Paul II was not unexpected, yet most of us will remember, I think, where we were when we heard that he had died. I would, perhaps, have chosen to be in my studio, or at Adoration, or any other place where I might have given his passing the attention it deserved and had time for prayerful reflection. As it was, our house was a flurry of activity as we prepared for my daughter’s birthday party later that day. Decorations needed hanging. Last minute tidying had to be done. One more trip to the store for this and that forgotten item. I caught the announcement on FOX News as I was getting in the shower. Life went on at a dizzying pace.

The party (a sleepover) was a big success. The last guest has gone. We have almost finished cleaning up. Before we attend Mass tonight we will gather in prayer as a family and reflect on the passing of our Papa. I will go to Adoration tonight at midnight and offer prayers for the repose of his soul, for his successor and for the cardinals who will gather to elect him.

Tomorrow the trees will continue to throw out their buds, our dogs will go on pestering the squirrels and I will get back to painting. Over the coming months the magnitude of this loss will soak into our awareness like a slow spring rain.

John Paul II, we miss you. Pray for us.

Some Dates

What I’m about to write will very quickly be overridden by events, but based on the apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis, which lays out what is to happen after the death of the pope, it’s possible to determine when certain things are likely to happen. There is some play in what dates they should occur on, though, and the fact that the pope died not long before midnight makes it a little harder to guess what they’re going to count as the benchmark day, but the Cardinals will be announcing the official plans soon.

In any event,

  • The pope’s funeral is to occur four to six days after his death. Since he died on Saturday the 2nd, that should place his funeral between Wednesday the sixth and Friday the nintheighth.
  • The conclave is tentatively set to start on the fifteenth day after his death, which would be Sunday the 17th, but since that is a Sunday they might start it Monday the 18th to avoid conflicting with liturgical celebrations of one of the Sundays of Easter. They have the flexibility to delay it up until the 20th day after his death, which would be Friday the 22nd.

Once the conclave begins, there is no way of knowing precisely how long it will last, though I suspect that it will last only 2-4 days, based on recent conclaves.

Blogging Note

BTW, I want to apologize for the spotty blogging the last few days. It may last a few days more. Same goes for tardiness in answering e-mail that I’m getting.

The pope’s death has shredded my usual routine, and those late night appearances on Fox, particularly the first (which basically resulted in a five-plus hour period of wakefulness after midnight) has left me feeling quite zombified. I’m trying to get as much rest as I can and conserve my concentration for upcoming media appearances.

New Media Appearance

They’re telling me now that I’m supposed to be on Fox News again with Shepherd Smith between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern today.

UPDATE: I’m told the "hit time" for my appearance is approx. 7:40 p.m. Eastern.

UPDATE 2: Ed Peters, Mark Brumley, and Tim O’Donnell are supposed to be on Geraldo at Large (starts at 10 11 p.m. Eastern).

Scary Coincidences #1

It was the largest seagoing vessel of its time. Eight hundred feet long and capable of carrying 3,000 passengers, it was so large that its name evoked the Greek giants, the Titans of legend.

Hulled with steel, the British ship was regarded as "unsinkable," yet en route to New York, one April evening, it was struck by an iceberg on its starboard side around midnight and sank to the ocean floor, causing massive loss of life.

I’m talking about the Titanic, right?

Wrong!

As many readers may know, I’m talking about the Titan–a ship described in the 1898 novel Futility–or–The Wreck of the Titan by Morgan Robertson.

His novel eerily presaged the actual Titanic disaster that would occur in 1912.

After the disaster, Robertson revised the book to make it even more similar to the real-life disaster, but the above parallels were taken from the original edition.

They are only some of several, you can also

READ MORE PARALLELS.

READ ABOUT MORGAN ROBERTSON.

READ ABOUT THE TITANIC DIASTER.

READ THE NOVEL FUTILITY ONLINE.

or

ORDER THE NOVEL FUTILITY AS A CONVERSATION STARTER TO CREEP OUT YOUR FRIENDS AND LET THEM SEE WHAT IT HAS TO SAY FOR THEMSELVES.

Now just wait till I tell you scary coincidence #2!

Interregnum Questions

A reader writes:

Don’t take this the wrong way, I am very sad at the passing of John Paul II. He was a great, great man and leader.

I was just wondering how we are to refer to the prayers for the Pope in the liturgy and for indulgences. Will the church still include, "for our pope John Paul, our bishop N", or will it be generic? Also, when obtaining a plenary indulgence, you must pray for the Holy Father’s intentions. Since JPII is most likely in heaven, do we pray for his intentions? Since he probably is one of the church’s biggest advocates (along with all the former Popes) in heaven.

Just wondering. I have never gone through this before (at least at the age of reason), and was wondering since we will be without a Pope for a couple weeks. Let’s all pray for his successor. He will have HUGE shoes to fill, but I imagine the Holy Spirit will help him out there…

Indeed.

Regarding the two questions you ask, the Sacramentary does not provide a specific option for what to do in an interregnum (period between the reign of two popes). There may be an obscure directive on the books somewhere, but I suspect most priests don’t know it. As a result, I imagine that most priests will either omit the prayer for the pope in Masses in the interregnum or decide on their own backward- or forward-pointing modification.

As far as indulgences, it is not clear to me that plenary indulgences (except the indulgence for the dying) are available in the interregnum since the gaining of one requires prayer for the pope’s intentions. With "the pope" being a null set at the moment, it seems that the matter is ambiguous. It might be that this requirement is in abeyance until there is a new pope, that praying of the the intentions of the former or the coming pope might suffice, or that it is simply not possible to fulfill this condition until the new pontificate. I don’t know of any settled answer on this matter.

Wish I could be of more help.

Media Appearnces

UPDATE: Ed Peters is supposed to be on Fox & Friends at 7:45 a.m. Eastern Sunday.

I’m s’pposed to be on Fox News (by phone) at 3:00 a.m. Eastern Sunday, which will be warped in some time zones by the Spring Forward effect physicists have been saying os much about in recent years.

For those in California, I’m was on the local 24-hour CBS news radio station at 3:10 p.m. local time Saturday. I’m also told they’ll be re-running this interview periodically, but I don’t have info on when or how often.

LINK: http://www.knx1070.com/