Catholic priest said that Jesus Christ died with an erection

A catholic priest in County Durham, UK, said in his sermon that Jesus died with an erection. There was uproar among the parishioners as they gasped in shock, murmuring to each other. A complaint was filed against him which was upheld but he kept his job.

Image: MikeB

He delivered his sermon on Good Friday. He is father Thomas McHale.

Father McHale, 53, is from the United States. There were between 75 and 100 Catholics in the congregation at the time.

His argument that Jesus died with an erection is an interesting one. He made the claim in his sermon because when Jesus was crucified his blood would have rushed to his lower body. And it's known that full or partial erections have been seen in the corpses of men who have been executed particular by hanging.

It's also been seen in men who died with fatal gunshot wounds to the brainstem or spinal cord.

The issue was first raised in a 2015 article in the magazine Premier Christianity which referred to the "strange physiological reaction, the final shame of a crucified man".

A spokesperson for the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle confirmed that a complaint had been investigated and upheld.

McHale has been a parish priest at Blackhill for more than 10 years. He is still working in the parish according to a local parish newsletter.

Comment: a lot of people would say that referring to Jesus having an erection was vulgar and inappropriate in a sermon. It probably was but perhaps McHale sees things differently. He sees things in a very realistic way by the look of it. He doesn't see the embarrassment of mentioning Jesus Christ having an erection. It sounds blasphemous and completely inappropriate but if you look at it from a practical, pragmatic and biological point of view it doesn't sound so bad.

The problem is that Christians who worship God and Jesus look up to Christ. He is perfect and not of this world. But of course he was of this world and he was a living man and I think Jesus himself would agree that he was imperfect. I'm sure of it. And I'm sure that he wouldn't mind a reference to an erect penis. I think he was a very honest, open and direct man. He must have been to have had the views that he espoused in his sermons.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

What the bible says about cats

The bible says nothing about domestic cats. Nada. Zilch. Some wild cats are mentioned. Dogs are poo-pooed.

A search for 'domestic cat' on the openbible.info website produced nothing at all. I know this from previous searches. The domestic cat is not mentioned in the bible at all. Other animals are. The dog is. The domestic cat, no. Wild cats are sometimes referenced but rarely; such as the leopard and lion below. P.S. The dog is mentioned over 40 times in the bible but nearly always in a derogatory and contemptuous manner.

What the bible says about cats. Image: MikeB

Genesis 1:26

Then God said, 

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

Search for 'domestic cat' produced no references in the bible as mentioned twice already!! A search for 'cat' produced the above. 'Cats' produced the following (a reference to the leopard):

Daniel 7.6: After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard, with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it.

 The lion mentioned on search for 'lion'. There are other mentions.

Psalm 104:21: The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God.

Why isn't the domestic cat mentioned in the bible? The Bible Research Today website says this:

"The most common explanation for the omission of the cat within Hebrew biblical texts is that it was a reaction by monotheistic Israel against the Egyptian practice of worshipping cats (or gods that were fashioned in the form of cats)."

In an earlier article I wrote years ago I suggested that the domestic cat was irrelevant to the topics discussed in the bible and was not mentioned as a result. A common-sense viewpoint.

When it comes to the bible forget about the domestic cat which was very much part of the lives of some Jews at the time of Christ (plausible and reasonable suggestion). Perhaps they were quite rare among Jews. 

The domestic cat existed at that time as the Egyptians had domestic cats for thousands of years before Christ. There were probably fewer pet cats than pet dogs among the Jews.  Today the Jews are generally very kind to stray cats. There are lots of them in Israel. Too many actually! Ironic that.

Remember too that the bible was written over the course of almost a century after Jesus' death. That's a factor. It is an historical account.