What's in a Name?

Quite a lot so it would seem. First there was this ruling made last summer that, in accordance with 2,000 year old Catholic tradition, the ancient personal name of God used in the Hebrew scriptures shouldn't be used in proclaiming the scriptures at Mass. The ancient Jewish tradition doesn't hold with using His name at all.

Now in this morning's WSJ we learn that the Arabic speaking Christian Malaysians by law cannot call Him "Allah" either. . .something that Arabic speaking Christians have done since before Mohammed was a twinkle in his father's eye. You can read about that here.

Aside from the correctness of that last issue, I am oddly pleased that somewhere reverence and decorum do matter and blasphemy is not a good thing.

Not here, of course. This is southern California where no-one knows what blasphemy is and "irreverent" is used as a compliment. But somewhere.