AmericanPapist Comments
Wow, that looks really good. Neat, thanks for the links.
Why buy that when you need only take a pic of one of the many Pancreators in your house or other environs and turn it into wallpaper?
1) Downloading it ensures higher quality.
2) It's a good way to support an organization that I respect.
3) ... I didn't think of it. :P
I also spent $2 to get a Boondock Saints Main Theme ringtone. I guess I'm just in a spending mood. :)
I don't know, something about turning Christ's image into a consumeristic good make me think this is profanity in the fullest sense of the word.
Henry, how exactly is purchasing a cell phone wallpaper different from purchasing a painting of Christ? Or is that a profanity as well?
Looks great! I couldn't get the ringtones to play via the computer, though, so I don't know what they sound like. And I'm not sure it works in the UK anyway. :-(
Oh, my dad has a RAZR, too. It gets dirty very easily and the menu interface is confusing. But hey, it looks stylish.
And nice wallpaper!
There is something virtual with the phone, and it ignores the discipline and integrity of the iconographic tradition. It turns it into a docetical approach vs an incarnational spirit which requires a real physical entity to embrace the spiritual reality in the icon.
I have the Liturgy of the Hours on my PDA and cannot bring myself to pull it out in a chapel if people are around to pray with it - guess people would think I am fooling with my schedule rather than praying.
Henry, I have not thought a great deal about this question but I'd have to initially disagree. The question of "corporality" vs. the so-called "incorporality" of a computer screen is mute, I believe.
For instance, at the Vatican they have huge telescreens. At Easter Mass 2004 (which I attended), they brought an Icon of Christ out for veneration. Because it was small, the great majority of people attending the Mass could not see it. They looked at the viewscreen instead. I don't think they "received less grace" for the fact that they were looking at the viewscreen instead of the actual icon. Sure, the viewscreen is a substitute, that draws its efficacy from the actually-existing icon. But it is not a "profane" substitute, that should be shunned or avoided.
An icon of Christ for your cellphone wallpaper is better than a picture of your dog... because it brings one in contact with the person of Christ.
Am I still missing something? Thanks I'm enjoying this discussion.
(btw I have a beautiful Icon of Our Lady of Chestahova which I aquired when visiting there, and many of my friends paint icons. I love them so much that the chance to have one "always with me" - in an anallogous sense - seems wonderful.)
Wouldn't it be better - and less expensive - just to download a nice hi-res pic (~65k) and email it to your phone? I've got an icon of St. Paul on mine, when I'm not rotating it with pics of my kids of screen grabs of Don Hertzfeldt's "Rejected."
Respectfully, AmP:
Czestochowa! :-) (Polish and proud...)
I'm not sure where I fall on the "cell phone image of Christ" bit...on the one hand it does seem a bit tacky and consumerist, but on the other hand I can't come up with a principled distinction between it and the picture on my wall. It's something to chew on, anyway (especially since CatholicMobile doesn't have Verizon compatibility anyway, so it's moot for me).
Clean up your desk. Dad.
I'm curious. Is it an X-box 360 in th' background!?!
Nope. Just my cable modem.
Commenting by HaloScan
