What exactly makes it so Holy, then?

As of late, Christians have been scurrying around trying to find ways to limit the risks of H1N1 (Swine) flu contagion during their beloved rituals. Now, an Italian man has come up with a solution for that pesky, potentially infected Holy Water: an automatic electronic dispenser!

These gadgets that operate with the help of an infrared "eye" that detects the presence of the faithful's hands and squirts out a bit of H2O that's been blessed by the bishop, first turned up in a Roman Catholic parish in the northern Italian town of Fornaci di Briosco near Milan.

Clever Catholic inventor Luciano Marabese created the electronic holy water dispenser -- a terracotta wall-mounted urn with a sensor-controlled spigot underneath -- after hearing that fellow Italians, wary of contracting the swine flu, were afraid to dip their fingers in the holy water fonts at the entrance of their churches.

"After all the news that some churches, like Milan's cathedral, were suspending the use of holy water fonts as a measure against swine flu, demands for my invention shot to the stars," Marabese told Reuters.

Marabese says he's now receiving orders from all over the world.

Just tell me one thing – if your Holy Water could potentially be full of earthbound germs that could leave you sick or dying, then what, exactly, makes it so special and different from normal water? If God can’t even provide sacred rituals that are free from such mundane threats as germs, he doesn’t sound all that powerful to me. Just sayin’.

(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
Technorati tags: Holy Water · religion · Swine Flu · H1N1 Flu