It’s easy to make Holy Water. Start with regular water then boil the Hell out of it.
Crop dusters (or “aerial applicators” as they like to call themselves) spray a variety of different kinds of chemicals according to the requirements of whatever gig they are working. It may be bug poisons (what would probably be the first thing you would think of).
But when the orchards are in bloom and the bees are out pollinating, you wouldn’t want to do that. (In fact, the county agricultural regulators tell them what they can spray, and on what days.) But then, they spray some kind of fungicide to keep the newly-forming fruits from molding. At other times, they may spray fertilizers on the fields.
They also use crop duster airplanes to seed fields.
I should imagine the operators are very careful to clean out the tanks and such between applications.
In fact, I suspect that there aren’t really tanks. The hold of a crop duster plane is just a big cargo hold. I would expect that pesticides come in large plastic jugs, which are loaded whole into the hold and connected to the sprayers by tubes. So the tubes and sprayers and perhaps the pumps would need to be flushed, but the cargo hold itself might not.
Merely being sprinkled with holy water doesn’t baptize anybody, so no unless they want to get a very careful explanation.
Let’s call that a Freudian slip, shall we? And keep our penises carefully tucked into our slips in public, shall we?
I stand corrected. The good people of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, may have experienced a very light misting of–Yikes!–WATER as they stood in the grocery store parking lot. Why, how dare they? It seems like a silly undertaking to me, but it doesn’t sound like the church got a lot of complaints.
The concerns about pesticide residue are most likelyunfounded, however (bolding mine):
The Rev Matthew Barzare blessed 100 gallons of water that members of his congregation loaded on to the small plane at an airstrip near St Anne church in Abbeville, checking first that all pesticides had been flushed through.
For large quantities of holy water, I immediately thought of Chimayo, New Mexico, the “Lourdes of America”, whose sacred spring makes holy mud to cure whatever ails pilgrims. It also waters locally chili peppers, hung to dry in ristras from protruding vigas. Eating those holy peppers produces holy shit, no doubt. Alas, the spring’s flow isn’t really sufficient, so the priests truck in enough agua to mud-up the tens of thousands of pilgrims who stroll or crawl in. (Crawling is holier.) I sure hope they bless those tanks of water. Wouldn’t want damned mud, now would we?
It is possible that this operation violated Federal Aviation Regulations.
FAR Part 137 regulates agricultural aircraft operation, and at least some parts of it may cover the case of an aircraft spraying water.
137.51: Operation over congested areas: General
This applies to any vicinity with people around, or structures, or vehicles. Although there are rules in Part 137 defining and regulating the spraying of hazardous materials, this particular section does not mention that, and thus might apply to spraying to plain water as well (holy or otherwise).
Here’s an excerpt that looks relevant. The pilot is certainly expected to be aware of, and comply with all of this. One might wonder if he could have gotten, and did get, all the necessary ducks lined up:
The article I cite in the OP says they cleaned the pesticide out of the system. How well they did it, I don’t know, but it’s not as if they dumped the holy water in without getting the bulk of the previous load out. I doubt if it was significant.
I used to live down the road from Abbeville, and visited frequently to eat crawfish at Richards. If Abbeville isn’t 100% Catholic, it’s close. Those furriners from Texas and Oklahoma who moved to Lafayette for the oil business didn’t tend to reside there.
I wouldn’t be upset, except maybe from getting wet, and since there are thunder storms almost every day during the summer and the humidity is often around 90%, I’d be living in the wrong place if I wanted to be dry.
Anyhow, isn’t it a standard Catholic child’s prank to fill a watergun with holy water?
It seems pretty obvious to me that this is wrong. Forget the religious mumbo jumbo, that’s not the grounds for objection in itself. The problem is that a private individual is spraying crowds of people in public places without their consent. The only safeguard against the presence of harmful contaminants is the uncertain intent and diligence of that private individual. That’s not acceptable. If I were walking down the street and somebody deliberately sprayed an unknown liquid at me I’d be extremely concerned and call the cops. And I’m pretty sure that would be grounds for arrest for assault, whatever the liquid turned out to be. I don’t see how this is any different.
If this is to happen, it should require a license, regulation and supervision from local government authorities. And when there is no beneficial purpose to spraying the liquid for anyone who doesn’t buy into a specific set of religious beliefs, that license should not be granted.
Ever hear of a comic book called Top 10, written by Alan Moore? He used pretty much that trick to take out an invasion of vampires in one issue. They blessed the city reservoir, turning the entire city water supply into holy water, then sprayed the vampires with fire hoses.
I’d like to imagine that, but generally, people aren’t careful with chemicals.
Aerial spraying is a widespread hazard. There’s a reason desperate soldiers in World War I stopped spraying poison gas into the air, even though it meant that more of them would be shot to death. You actually literally cannot control who you poison.
What are their qualifications for this check?
Would the cleanout method satisfy the standards of any organic certification agency that was certifying farms in the area? And was proper documentation kept of that, and made available to any farms that needed it?
My agency’s guidance on this issue reads:
“Dual use of spray equipment is strongly discouraged. The producer must be able to clearly prove that residue of a prohibited material does not remain in the sprayer before it is used on certified crops. Prior to use in organic production, a conventional or dual-use sprayer must be cleaned using an approved cleanout method (such as an allowed neutralizer followed by a triple water rinse) ensuring no chemical residue remains. Any removable parts where residue could collect should be identified and cleaned or changed. Clean-out must be documented.”
It’s rude and intrusive. It’s being told that you have been made to participate in my religious beliefs whether you like it or not, whether you consent or not, whether you are Catholic or not.
Rude as hell. Distasteful. Not at all surprising.
Reminds me of how the Mormons like to posthumously baptize Holocaust victims.
ETA: I too would be concerned about pesticides and would file a complaint. What would it accomplish? Hopefully it would prevent it from happening again - the more often something like this happens, the more likely that somebody will end up spraying contaminated water on a town even if it didn’t happen this time.
The RCC gets really upset if communion wafers are not properly taken care of. People used to be executed for stealing them and such in olden times.
What is their rule of the proper treatment of holy water? Can it be deliberately used in such a manner? I know a priest can shake some out on a plot of land to bless it, but some of this ended up in sewers and what not. Some cow patties and such may have gotten blessed. Are they now Holy Patties?
People got executed for a lot of bullshit reasons in olden times. The wafers are pieces of their god so they care a lot about them. Holy water is special but it’s not part of god any more so than any other thing participates in godhood. The priest sprinkles the congregation with holy water at certain masses, holy water is sold for people to sprinkle on their cars and their homes to bless them. Presumably holy water comes into contact with a lot of unclean stuff. My thought is if your god can’t make water holy enough to withstand contact with poop, maybe you need a better god.
If you have holy water that you don’t want any more, probably ideally, you’d take it to a church and they’ll dump it in the sacrarium for you. Spoiler: the drain leads to the ground. (So, dump it out in your backyard, you know, respectfully and save yourself a trip). Also spoiler: it’s water even after being blessed (because there is no god and the blessing is meaningless).
The risk of pesticides and the apparent ease by which some yahoo is able to dump stuff on people from the sky is concerning but the idea that you’re being harmed spiritually or philosophically by the water? Come on.
Of course it is Louisiana sighs in educated Acadian
To clarify - I don’t really give a shit about the religious aspect of it. But I’d have to imagine, as Senegoid pointed out above, that there are rules about aerial spraying over public and private property. If the spraying had only happened on farms at the request of the farmer, fine. But spraying any material, no matter how harmless, over public and private area without the consent or even knowledge of the owners and users of that property is a problem. So yeah, I’d report him to the FAA, and if it turns out he did in fact violate any regulations, I’d expect them to fine him/pull his license, as appropriate.
As to the typo - yeah, yeah, you get lured into the car with a promise of treats and maybe a trip to the park, next thing you know you wake up with a plastic collar around your neck and an ache where your nuts used to be.
They should do this in Fallbrook, California. I’ve always wanted some Holy Guacamole.
Wouldn’t it have been easier to wait for a rainy day and then bless the cloud?
Honestly, performing a ritual to tell an entire town that they’re OK with God is not the worst thing that organized religion has ever done. In fact I’d be fine if they quit doing everything except this.