Right now, the massive rock festival “Rock in Rio” is going on in Brazil. The New York Times sent a reporter there, and as if to illustrate the almost metaphysically tortured relationship between rock and roll and religion, the reporter, Simon Romero, chose to open and close his report with a (humorous) Christian contestation of the event, including the choice quotation you see up above. The story is here.

Can it be twenty years since Guns N Roses played Rock in Rio? Kurt Loder’s report shows why there is indeed reason to declare a pastoral emergency at the festival: Slash is playing Morris Albert’s “Feelings” backstage.

I have trouble filing this one under “secular liturgy”. A sign I am getting old?

Tommy Beaudoin, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY