{"id":2288,"date":"2008-02-11T21:58:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-11T21:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/aint-that-a-kick-in-the-head.html"},"modified":"2008-02-11T21:58:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-11T21:58:00","slug":"aint-that-a-kick-in-the-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/aint-that-a-kick-in-the-head.html","title":{"rendered":"Ain&#8217;t that a kick in the head?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>And I mean, a kick in the ashes.   <\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, it&#8217;s hard to know where reality ends and satire begins.  Evidently, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/main.jhtml?xml=\/news\/2008\/02\/12\/wlent112.xml\">this weird news<\/a> isn&#8217;t satire: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p> <a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R7EMXnv9KjI\/AAAAAAAAB9M\/0wnXuaEgTuw\/s1600-h\/wlent112.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer;cursor:hand\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R7EMXnv9KjI\/AAAAAAAAB9M\/0wnXuaEgTuw\/s320\/wlent112.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Dutch Catholics have re-branded the Lent fast as the &#8220;Christian Ramadan&#8221; in an attempt to appeal to young people who are more likely to know about Islam than Christianity.<\/p>\n<p>The Catholic charity Vastenaktie, which collects for the Third World across the Netherlands during the Lent period, is concerned that the Christian festival has become less important for the Dutch over the last generation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The image of the Catholic Lent must be polished. The fact that we use a Muslim term is related to the fact that Ramadan is a better-known concept among young people than Lent,&#8221; said Vastenaktie Director, Martin Van der Kuil.<\/p>\n<p>Three decades ago the Catholic Church was as strict as many Muslims are about Ramadan with a total ban on meat and alcohol during the 40-day Lenten period between Ash Wednesday and Easter.<\/p>\n<p>Most Dutch Catholics now focus on charitable work after the Vatican loosened fasting strictures for all but the first and last days of Lent back in 1967.<\/p>\n<p>Four million Dutch describe themselves as Roman Catholics and 400,000 people attend Mass every week but only a few tens of thousands still mark Lent by fasting, said Mr Van der Kuil<\/p>\n<p>Vastenaktie organisers hope that by linking the festival to Ramadan they can remind Christians who may be less observant than Muslims of the &#8220;spirituality and sobriety&#8221; of Lent.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The agreements are more striking than the differences. Both for Muslims and Catholic faithful the values of frugality and spirituality play a central role in this tradition,&#8221; said Mr Van der Kuil.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>And I mean, a kick in the ashes. Sometimes, it&#8217;s hard to know where reality ends and satire begins. Evidently, this weird news isn&#8217;t satire: Dutch Catholics have re-branded the Lent fast as the &#8220;Christian Ramadan&#8221; in an attempt to appeal to young people who are more likely to know about Islam than Christianity. The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","category-this-and-that"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ain&#039;t that a kick in the head? - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/aint-that-a-kick-in-the-head.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ain&#039;t that a kick in the head? - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"And I mean, a kick in the ashes. Sometimes, it&#8217;s hard to know where reality ends and satire begins. Evidently, this weird news isn&#8217;t satire: Dutch Catholics have re-branded the Lent fast as the &#8220;Christian Ramadan&#8221; in an attempt to appeal to young people who are more likely to know about Islam than Christianity. The&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/aint-that-a-kick-in-the-head.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-11T21:58:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/R7EMXnv9KjI\/AAAAAAAAB9M\/0wnXuaEgTuw\/s320\/wlent112.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ain't that a kick in the head? - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/aint-that-a-kick-in-the-head.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ain't that a kick in the head? - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","og_description":"And I mean, a kick in the ashes. Sometimes, it&#8217;s hard to know where reality ends and satire begins. Evidently, this weird news isn&#8217;t satire: Dutch Catholics have re-branded the Lent fast as the &#8220;Christian Ramadan&#8221; in an attempt to appeal to young people who are more likely to know about Islam than Christianity. 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