The Catholic Bishops have a new enemy: Reiki

As if the Catholic Bishops don't have their hands full bashing gays, they've taken up a new cause: Fighting Reiki. An article in last week's Boston Globe reads like it's really from The Onion, but it's not. This is true:

Debbie Griseuk is a reiki practitioner and teacher who volunteered her time to elderly nuns in Manchester, N.H., and patients at St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua. In fact, she first became interested in the Japanese hands-on healing technique at St. Joseph, where she attended a lecture along with some nuns. She went through a training course at the Roman Catholic hospital, eventually becoming a reiki master.

But last spring the US Conference of Catholic Bishops announced that reiki - hailed by many as therapy, derided by others as quackery - would no longer be practiced in the church’s hospitals and retreat centers. Reiki, according to the bishops, is not grounded in science or Christianity and is therefore inappropriate for Catholic institutions.

At that St. Joseph's Catholic Hospital in Nashua, a "brochure on reiki called it one of 'the most popular forms of integrated therapies’ at the hospital." Good thing the Bishops are on top of this.

I'm going to suggest that if you've got a few minutes, you should read some of the comments. Hysterical. I posted several after the break.

Here are some of my faves:

dvdoff wrote:

And I wonder how the church feels about the healing benefits of all those beatings the nuns gave me at Sacred Heart in East Boston? Or the healing benefits of covering up for pedophile priests? A bigger bunch of hypocrites NEVER existed.

And:

pinopino wrote:

"Reiki, according to the bishops, is not grounded in science or Christianity and is therefore inappropriate for Catholic institutions."

LOL!!! It is OK to pray to the Healing Saints, but it's not OK to give a massage. What a bunch of morons.

And:

Celts2008 wrote:

It's a bit late for the Church to adopt an "everyone keeps their hands to themselves" policy.

No calming massage but OK on exorcisms?

And, this one nails it:

Rydal wrote:

The bishops seem to lack a sense of irony.