A poll on "In God We Trust"

Here's your chance to let the media know where the people stand on our faith in God, as a nation.

Let the media know where the people stand on our faith in God, as a nation. NBC is presently taking a poll on "In God We Trust" to stay on our American currency.

Please send this link to every person you know so they can vote on this important subject.

Please do it right away, before NBC takes this off their web page. Poll is still open so you can vote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10103521/
0103521/

Let's Try It Again

Seeing as how I forgot to include many parishes when I put the poll up about "what parish do you attend," I rewrote it and posted it at right. Please feel free to vote. I included every Rochester parish, and only omitted some of the rural parishes, smaller worship communities, etc . . . Nothing against our friends in the southern tier, but I think that most of us will find our parishes in the list I have posted.

Poll Results

After several polls to the right of your screen, the following information is in:

• People prefer the Southern European polyphony of Victoria and Palestrina over the Northern European polyphony of Byrd and Tallis.
• An overwhelming number of people (85%) feel that Sr. Joan Sobala is the most notorious lay preacher in the diocese. Make that most notorious and not excommunicated lay preacher in the diocese.
• The vast majority of the readers here are from Our Lady of Victory, the Latin Mass Community and "liturgically neutral" suburban parishes (i.e. "my parish is not here").
• And, finally, evidently the sitcom "Friends" is to be avoided like the plague. My vote in the sitcom poll went to Frasier, but I am also quite partial to The Office.

So . . . that means that the ideal Sunday for a Cleansing Fire reader would include an all-day Office marathon, during which a reverent Novus Ordo (i.e. ad orientem and in Latin) would be said at a more centrally-located suburban parish, at which the Missa Brevis of Palestrina would be sung. Sounds excellent, presuming that you can wrench yourselves away from your blog-filled computer screens, away from the Office marathon and into the pews at "St. Whatever Church" for a most inspiring Mass. Maybe if we were at Spiritus Christi or Old St. Mary's, we could just watch The Office during Mass, thus alleviating the need for transit time.

A Poll For Your Musical Enjoyment

Where the conclave was previously will now be a running string of non-Dr.K polls. These new polls will not be dealing with the same subject matter, i.e. liturgy rubrics, bishops, administrators etc . . .

The first of these side-quizzes is "Which of the following is your favorite polyphonic Mass?" The options are as follows, and can be sampled by clicking the name of the Mass:

Byrd's Mass for Four Voices
Palestrina's Missa Brevis
Tallis' Mass for Four Voices
Victoria's Requiem Mass

Enjoy!

Conclave Finale

The two final candidates, Fr. Antinarelli and Fr. Bonsignore, have emerged in an almost perfect tie. Ideally, we would keep voting until we got 67% with one of the candidates, but something tells me that the 50/50 ratio will not change.

So what now? ideas for a resolution? Nominations for different "Cleansing Fire Cabinet" positions? Just post a comment! All ideas welcome.


PS: You may expect a Nod/Smack video this coming week.

Conclave: Part Four

Well, it looks as if Fr. McKenna has been eliminated. Now it is down to Fr. Antinarelli and Fr. Bonsignore. Who could have guessed? The next (last?) session is posted to your right. I would deeply appreciate it if we made this decisive, because we are looking for a 2/3 majority, plus 1. If it's a deadlock, we will start a little debate as to who should be bishop and why.

Happy voting.

Conclave: What Next?

There are, as I type, less than two hours left in Round Two. It looks as if Fr.'s Healy, Hart and Leone will be dropped from the ballot. Fr.'s Antinarelli, Bonsignore and McKenna will remain. The rules for election are simple: the "winning" priest must have a two-thirds vote, plus one. If after a third round no clear winner emerges, as per this guideline, I will simply drop the lowest candidate.

I am, personally, somewhat surprised by the third candidate. I was also pleasantly surprised by Fr. Leone's very high turnout on Day 1. It looks as if, no matter what way this election goes, we will have found a decent and worthy man.

I will begin round three as soon as I can. There may be a lapse of a few hours. But look on the bright side: I'm still marginally faster than Rome.

Conclave: End of Round 1

We now move on to the second round of the conclave. I have weeded out those who received two votes or less. Now, kindly start voting again in the new poll, posted to the right. If you voted in the first one or not, please vote in this one. While we aren't doing this 100% Vatican-style, I think we're doing it as closely as bloggingly possible.

The following is the list of the six front-runners:

Fr. Antinarelli
Fr. Bonsignore
Fr. Hart
Fr. Healy OCarm
Fr. Leone
Fr. McKenna

What? A Conclave? And We're Invited?

Yes, it's true.

I know we've had the "next bishop quiz" before, but we've never had an actual election. Who will win? Who will lose? It's up to you, the Cardinals of Cleansing Fire. Just select the priest whom you honestly think should be the next bishop. Is he loyal to the faith? Is he able? Is he liturgically inclined? What are his views on lay preaching and lay administrators?

Please vote. If you haven't seen it, go to the top of the page and look to the right. I'm very interested to see who wins this thing. Then again, I'm not entirely certain anyone would want to "win" the episcopacy of Rochester.