tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83837016329270654672024-02-08T01:57:10.524-07:00Enlightened CatholicismA place for Catholics who don't find their Catholic identity in the standard definitions.
"He drew a circle that shut me out.
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in."
Edwin Markhamcolkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.comBlogger1284125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-48359745977621021742014-07-17T12:21:00.001-06:002014-07-17T12:21:26.233-06:00Jennifer Hasselberger Drives A Truck Through The Lies Of The Clerical Caste Of The Archdiocese Of St Paul and Minneapolis<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NI9anVwfxLo/U8gTr2irGtI/AAAAAAAABzs/jgYT_Wr5Rc4/s1600/neinstedt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NI9anVwfxLo/U8gTr2irGtI/AAAAAAAABzs/jgYT_Wr5Rc4/s1600/neinstedt.jpg" height="302" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">Archbishop Neinstedt gives the camera his best "I would never tell a lie" expression.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763;"> I just finished reading Jennifer Hasselberger's <a href="http://www.andersonadvocates.com/documents/Haselberger%20Affidavit%20-%20redacted%20(FILED).pdf" target="_blank">deposition released</a> by Jeff Anderson and Associates. The deposition was given for a civil suit against the Archdiocese of Minneapolis/St Paul and involves child sexual abuse by a priest known to have serious sexual issues, but was never the less, appointed pastor of the parish at which the abuse cited in this civil law suit occurred. Jennifer writes this at the very beginning of her deposition:</span><br />
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1. The statements made herein, unless stated otherwise, are only to be considered as reflective of the situation and circumstances of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. These statements should not be understood to be representative of the practices of other Catholic dioceses in the United States, of the universal Catholic Church,or of the Holy See.<div>
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<span style="color: #073763;">I'd love to believe the circumstances cited in her deposition were exclusive to the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, but after doing decades of research, I can no longer find it in my Catholic soul to believe the situations and attitudes she describes are unique to this Archdiocese. They are not the exception to the rule. They are the actual observed practice, and this in spite of all the recent rules written specifically to look as if these practices are no longer the rule. The real rule in operation, as Jennifer shows beyond a doubt, is now as it always has been: the welfare of the offending priest before any thought of any justice for a victim.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763;">I also know there really are dioceses where the unwritten rule does not hold sway, but these are the exceptions. The exception is not the level of duplicity and corruption in the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis. The only exception here is that a highly placed Archdiocesan individual refused to play the clerical game, and unsurprisingly she just happened to be a lay woman. As for religious women and lay men? They were complicit at least to the extent that information stayed in house that belonged in the hands of police.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763;">I don't know how many times I have written, here and in comments elsewhere, that the corruption and abuses will not stop until Catholics are released from the conditioning that God desires a magical celibate male priest as essential to the sacramental functions in the Church. The abuses of our clergy, both sexual and financial, will never end as long as all the power is in the hands of the very men who are causing all the problems. Pope Francis will not solve any of these issues by leaving the current theology of the priesthood as is. He has done nothing that demonstrates to me he has any desire to change one aspect of this theology. Even if it is eventually decided to let married men in the priesthood, that does not change a thing about the exclusive power held by the priesthood. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763;">I guess I would be more inclined to have some hope if our priests actually demonstrated some spiritual ability beyond that ascribed to them in Catholic ritual and the catechism, but those priests are so few as to be insignificant. In the meantime, actions like those described in Jennifer Hasselberger's deposition only serve to demonstrate our current priesthood relies on the power laity give to them and not on any power exclusively theirs that they have taught us God gives them. I wish the average rank and file would think about this the next time they drop cash in the collection basket.</span></div>
colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com432tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-47154696055544104202014-07-11T18:46:00.002-06:002014-07-11T18:57:21.918-06:00Women In The Clergy Doesn't Have To Be A Threat, But It Sure Is<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oz6Q1fiAulI/U8CEbaM9hOI/AAAAAAAABzc/ERVURU78t0I/s1600/female+hockey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oz6Q1fiAulI/U8CEbaM9hOI/AAAAAAAABzc/ERVURU78t0I/s1600/female+hockey.jpg" height="400" width="292" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">Forty years ago this was such a violation of gender roles women hockey players were unthinkable. Unfortunately Catholicism has not seen fit to open the limits of it's female gender expectations for quite a bit longer than forty years and it's truly harming the Church.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over at his blog Bilgrimage, Bill Lyndsey starts out a <a href="http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2014/07/droppings-from-catholic-birdcage-us.html#more" target="_blank">recent post</a> with a really important statement. I've been thinking a lot about this sentence for the past couple days, especially the last clause:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 20.285999298095703px; text-align: justify;"><i>"One of the most fateful (and evil) decisions made by the Catholic hierarchy in the 20th and 21st century has been to treat the movement of women around the world to claim full personhood and a full range of human rights for women as illegitimate, <b>and as a threat to the Catholic faith."</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.285999298095703px;">Bill's post goes on to ponder the recent Hobby Lobby decision and it's ties to the GOP attacks on women's reproductive rights, but my musing dealt specifically with why women's rights are treated by the Church as a real threat to the Church itself. It's not just women's rights that seems to be the threat, it's gender redefinition that is more and more becoming a major talking point in conservative Catholic circles. The attempt to circumscribe women's ability to access contraception and abortion are the most visible signs of the Church's discomfort with the advancement of women claiming full personhood, but my gut says this 'threat' is about way more than whether women have enough babies to satisfy the male God. There seems to be something more going on.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.285999298095703px;">Here's another example of the threat of gender redefinition in another area. This comment concerns <a href="http://ncronline.org/news/global/church-england-set-vote-women-bishops#comment-1481233597" target="_blank">the problems</a> the Anglican Church have with installing women bishops. On the surface the comment first struck me as frivolous and then I really thought about the point Tridentinus was making and I think he is absolutely right about a certain mindset:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">"Can you imagine the C of E with half of its bishops not recognising the other half as priests, let alone bishops? Can you imagine the problem for parishes in deciding whether their priest was validly ordained or not? Every priest will have to have a pedigree declaring that no woman was involved in his ordination nor in the ordination of the bishop who ordained him or the bishop who consecrated that bishop. Ok, for now but in twenty years?</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;" /><span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">The mind boggles.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;" /><span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">It doesn't really matter anyway as none of them are in Holy Orders but transpose it to the Catholic Church and the result is chaos."</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">What boggled my mind is thinking a given priest or bishop would have to have proof of ordination that didn't include women anywhere along the priestly pedigree. It's hard for me to think of a pedigree or lineage that excludes the female half, but that's what Roman Catholicism has bequeathed to the world...a spiritual ministry whose pedigree is free of the female. Is this supposed to be the most pure thing male humanity can imagine God wants, or is this just truly sick? </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">After much thought, I have come to the conclusion it's truly sick and that Bill Lyndsey is truly right, only in a sick system can the movement towards the full personhood of women be a threat to Catholicism. Pope Francis can talk all he wants about a deeper theology of women, but what Catholicism really needs is not a deeper theology of women, but to reflect on why so much of it's current theology, eccelsiology, discipline, and doctrine excludes the thought and presence of women and why that developed into the albatross it's proving to be for the post modern world. If this evaluation was done honestly and with integrity, I think we would find out it didn't start with Jesus.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">I think one thing that needs to happen is exactly what happened with women's athletics back about forty years ago. A lot of men back then thought women's team athletics was nothing more than a few 'wannabe men' or terminal 'tom boys' who were hell bent on forcing their way onto the masculine stage. Sports for women was almost exclusively individual sports like tennis, golf, swimming, gymnastics, and some track events. Those sports featured girls and women cavorting in skirts or short shorts or swim suits and for the most featured grace and elegance, but not too much power and muscle, and were to be given up immediately upon marriage and motherhood. Team sports like basketball and volleyball and softball and such represented some sort of gender busting magical line. Hockey was unthinkable..except by a few of us whose dads or brothers needed us to be puck fodder in a hockey goal and we were dumb enough to do it just to be included in the fun. We found out it was a lot of fun.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">Then came Title IX and everything changed for women. For my male contemporaries, some who really were upset with this legislation, I would laughingly tell them wait until you have a daughter and then suddenly realize you have another captive audience for your sport fantasies. It's amazing to me how many of these daughters went onto have great careers in sports. So I know change in gender roles and expectations can happen, be accepted, rejoiced in and bragged about--endlessly. Every time I watch a women's college basketball game between U Conn and Tennessee I have to pinch myself because back in my day we were lucky to get our parents and family to come and watch our games. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">The problem for the Church is priests don't have daughters and that means our lay men are going to have to do some 'mansplainin' to their clerical brothers about the fact there are no magic gender lines. There's only patriarchy and an unexamined expectation about gender roles--roles that women never had a lot of input in how they developed, but that input is precisely what today's woman expects to have....and that's probably the big 'threat' to Catholicism and the root to all the clerical angst about femi nazis and the evolution of gender roles. Women expect to be treated as intellectual and spiritual equals and will not accept a few token crumbs. Game on. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JQjBHq8Qp9o/U7cbyQRSPyI/AAAAAAAABzE/rSTHrpx1DFk/s1600/SupremesII.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JQjBHq8Qp9o/U7cbyQRSPyI/AAAAAAAABzE/rSTHrpx1DFk/s1600/SupremesII.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">Kudos to Bill Day for this cartoon image.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I spent part of my summer week reading the Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case. It had some interesting language. Some of that language was Justice Alito's and in spite of Justice Alito's attempt to allay the fears of Americans that the Supremes decision to give religious rights to corporations would not necessarily include other right wing religious causes, the facts are proving his words to be just words. Other <a href="http://religiondispatches.org/what-is-wheaton-colleges-theological-objection-to-contraception/" target="_blank">court decisions</a> handed down subsequent to the Hobby Lobby decision have now put all contraception up for grabs. It didn't even take 24 hours for the pleas to religiously discriminate against LGBT to land on President Obama's desk. With one 'narrowly defined' decision, the Catholic males on the Supreme Court have opened the door to Catholic sexual morality in the public as well as private sector. Humanae Vitae can now spread through out America, though not by conversion or the lucidity of it's reasoning, but by the time tested method of coercion. Happy 4th of July Americans. We can all celebrate the fact the just five men on the Supreme Court have seen fit to once again expand the rights of corporations as individuals, and this time over the rights of slutty American women. You go boys. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">I know I will sleep better at night knowing that if I owned a corporation like Hobby Lobby, I could profit from the things I object to, but not have to spend corporate money to pay for those. It would be really swell knowing that 'remote cooperation with evil' only extended to the expenditure side of my ledgers. Of course if I owned a company, I would be more likely to claim a religious exemption to ED drugs as too many men who use them are either single or past the point of being able to responsibly raise children. Four of those five male justices would not qualify for ED drugs under my religious scruples, but I also know that since ED drugs are Catholic kosher Judge Alito and company would probably not grant me such an exception under the belief that ED drugs serve a compelling public interest. After all boys will be boys and have a right to be chemically assisted boys. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">To go along with the Hobby Lobby decision, I also had the pleasure of reading the paper written for the bishops going to the upcoming Synod on the Family. It was a predictable read, a boring read, and also had some interesting if not very pastoral language. Apparently the Catholic flock involves a lot of sub species of sheep the Vatican considers 'those people'....as in Catholics who do not live the pristine Catholic sexual and relational life. It was predictable in the sense that 'this people' knew right from the get go that the failure of the Catholic laity to embrace Humanae Vitae was going to be all our ignorant self centered cherry picking fault. And so it was. As one of the ignorant self centered cherry pickers, I would suggest in the future that Catholic bishops demand Catholic parents not send their Catholic children to schools where science is taught. I would also suggest that our bishops would better use their time throwing science teachers out of their jobs rather than Gay or pregnant single female teachers..unless those people happen to be one of those science teacher people. It was those damn science teachers and their damned science that completely eroded my ability to accept Humanae Vitae and not become one of those people. Instead I became an ignorant self centered cherry picker of a Catholic, really and truly one of 'those people'. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: inherit;">It seems I have a lot of company. So much company that we should form a real company and demand our religious rights to celebrate our diversity and get on with living a very different form of Christianity. A Christianity that does not seek to meld itself with the American Corporate oligarchy, or American Exceptionalism, or American Military Interventionism, or is a paid for shill for some of our most wealthy American Catholic families. And I'm pretty sure any corporation called 'Those People' would have to be a cafeteria style restaurant where the line moves to the left, but still serves everyone.</span><br />
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colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com79tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-77520840411267109202014-05-31T11:46:00.004-06:002014-05-31T11:47:50.117-06:00About This Upcoming Meeting With Clerical Abuse Survivors<span style="color: #073763;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">SNAP will continue to be needed as long as enablers in the clergy keep their frocks....and their futile strategy to keep the laity as religiously immature as they were at ten.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763;">I took a break, again, because I had to put a huge amount of energy into my real job. After four weeks of top of the heap stress, there was a huge turn around and it now looks as if things are going uphill in a big way. I wish I could say the same for the clerical abuse crisis.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">There were a lot of Catholic stories in the past month I could have written about and didn't. It wasn't because I wasn't interested or they weren't important. Many of them were important. Many of them revolved around the Vatican and the CDF and the Vatican and the IOR and everywhere and always, Pope Francis. However one story kept changing spots and that story is still the most important story hanging over the Church: the clerical abuse crisis. I have lately been thinking this story won't go away because the Vatican is terrified of it's real solution and that solution is completely revamping the theology of the priesthood.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">I have spent the last day or so commenting on the National Catholic Reporter article written by Margaret Gail Frawley-O'Dea. She states in this article that she views SNAP as counterproductive in regards to the upcoming meeting Pope Francis announced on the plane as he was flying back from a highly successful trip in the Middle East. This was a trip in which he garnered great international press coverage for the Vatican and himself. His sudden turn around on meeting with abuse survivors struck me as an attempt to hide a change of tactics behind the fog of universal positive press coverage. As usual the Vatican's chief spokesman Fr Frederico Lombardi restated things the very next day. There will be a meeting between the Pope and survivors from around the globe but not in the next week. Maybe in a couple of months. At this time there are no American survivors invited and no date set. Cardinal O'Malley will work out the details.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">SNAP took an assertive and somewhat cynical approach to this meeting with the Pope. After all this is the same Pope who after the first less than positive meeting with the UN more or less stated that no other institution had done nearly so much as the Catholic Church on this issue, so why all the finger pointing? But now, after a second less than positive take down by the UN, a meeting in which the Vatican claimed it had no jurisdiction over any clergy outside the Vatican City States, the same Pope wants to meet with survivors and celebrate his daily Mass with them and claims that the impotent Vatican is never the less investigating three bishops for something related to abuse. Most Vatican observers think these three bishops are involved with clerical abuse themselves, and include the Polish diplomat Jozef Wesolowski, Scotland's Cardinal Keith O'Brien, and Chile's Cristian Molina....none of whom committed clerical abuse in the confines of the Vatican City States.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">It would have really been healing for some survivors if the name Bishop Robert Finn had been mentioned because it is very often the betrayal from the people and institutions who should have cared and did just the opposite that causes the most long term damage in survivors. I think this message is not getting out in any way that people are getting their heads around. Frawley-O'Dea's article did not help one little bit in helping the rank and file understand this fact. Every time a bishops acts as callously and deceitful as has Milwaukee's Listecki, or Minneapolis's Neinstedt, or Kansas City's Finn it destroys the kind of relational trust survivors need to forgive the enablers. It's one thing to forgive the 'sick' puppy who raped you, it's another entirely to forgive the supposedly healthy adults who wouldn't believe you and wouldn't act to stop the abuse.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">So I think SNAP is dead on with their cynicism about this upcoming meeting and right to caution survivors about the damage this meeting could do in the long term. There is one thing about Francis that truly has bothered me and unfortunately he keeps doing nothing but furthering my angst. He seems bent on keeping the laity religiously infantilized and dependent on the clergy. Allowing married clergy does nothing about the religiosity, much of it surrounding the priesthood, that keeps laity infantilized. Fixing the IOR does nothing about this, and his continual references about the devil and Holy Mother Church only serves to reinforce the infantilization. And I can't even let myself get started on the CDF.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">Sometimes I think the only really adult voices in the Church come from victims organizations like SNAP, the victims themselves and their few supporters. Unfortunately that doesn't say much for meaningful reform in the Church.</span>colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-19211882531603038422014-05-03T11:03:00.003-06:002014-05-03T11:03:45.555-06:00Cardinal O'Malley Talks About Bishop Accountability....And The Deep Denial Of Some Of Them<span style="color: #073763;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jy6Cu9_l6zk/U2UgiJ1m_2I/AAAAAAAAByQ/lnNIPdMf01A/s1600/O%27M+and+Bergolio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jy6Cu9_l6zk/U2UgiJ1m_2I/AAAAAAAAByQ/lnNIPdMf01A/s1600/O'M+and+Bergolio.jpg" height="287" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">A photo from back in the day when their friendship hadn't gotten quite as complicated as it is now and will be in the future if Cardinal O'Malley pushes the issues of clerical abuse victims.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">We have the first general reports about the just recently concluded meeting of Pope Francis's clerical abuse commission. Boston's Cardinal O'Malley gave a press conference which also included abuse victim Marie Collins. <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/03/vatican-sexual-abuse/2128958/" target="_blank">The AP report</a> included more back ground story about the commission than actual news from the press conference. The following is an excerpt which includes statements from the press conference dealing with the bishop accountability issue:</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"> </span><br />
......Briefing
reporters Saturday, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston,
said current church laws could hold bishops accountable if they fail to
do their jobs to protect children.<b> But he said those laws hadn't been
sufficient to date and new protocols were needed.</b><br />
<br />
"<b>Obviously our
concern is to make sure that there are clear and effective protocols</b> to
deal with the situations where superiors of the church have not
fulfilled their obligations to protect children," O'Malley said. That
could include an effort toward creating an "open process" that "would
hold people accountable for their responsibility to protect children...." <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(I'd love to know more about this 'open process'.)</i></span><br />
<br />
.....Marie Collins, a committee member and Irish
survivor of sexual abuse, said she came away from the inaugural meeting
of the commission "hopeful" <b>primarily because the issue of
accountability was addressed straight on.</b><br />
<br />
"I know there are many
survivors around the world who are hoping, and have great expectations
of this commission," Collins said. "<b>And what I can say so far is you
can't make concrete promises.</b> But as a survivor myself, I am hopeful
that we are going to achieve what is hoped for. It's very, very
important."<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">The AP article is upbeat and sounds pretty hopeful for the Church to finally have some accountability for bishops who failed miserably in protecting children. The <a href="http://www.religionnews.com/2014/05/03/cardinal-sean-omalley-sexual-abuse-crisis-much-denial/" target="_blank">coverage from Religion News Service </a>covered a different issue and does not come across quite so hopeful as both Cardinal O'Malley and Marie Collins have strong statements about curial denial of the extent of the problem.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>.......“Many don’t see it as a problem of the universal church,”</b> said
O’Malley who heads the Vatican’s new commission for the protection of
minors.<br />
<br />
“<b>In many people’s minds it is an American problem, an Irish problem
or a German problem,” he said. “The church has to face it is everywhere
in the world. There is so much denial.</b> The church has to respond to make
the church safe for children.....”<br />
<br />
........ Collins, who was sexually abused by a priest at age 13, <b>said she,
too, had been “shocked” by the denial she had witnessed among some
Catholic bishops about the extent of clerical sexual abuse.</b><br />
<b>
</b><b>“…They truly believed it only happened in certain countries,” she said.</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">This commission has some serious work to do, especially if it has to mount a 'lets' face some truth' campaign for bishops who are in total denial about the extent of clerical abuse. No, it is not an Anglo/German problem. It is a systemic problem with in the global clergy. Just because there is still a deafening silence from some parts of the globe doesn't mean there was and is no abuse. Given the human rights abuses against women and children in these still silent areas, it is a sure bet that there is clerical abuse. One can double down on that bet when the clergy in these areas are trained by the same system that produced abusers in the older Anglo/European Church. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Clerical abuse is part of the clerical tradition because, and here comes the accountability issue, the clerical caste is way way more important to the Institutional Roman Catholic Church than it's laity. This is why the laity and our children always come last when it comes to accountability. We don't count in the sacramental scheme in which Grace, the fuel to propel us to heaven, is a virtual monopoly of the priesthood. It is on this system that the Church is now founded. Priests count. Laity pay.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Maybe it's time the laity got out of their own denial about this fact of traditional Catholic ecclesiology because this power differential is exactly the reason all the abuses are possible. In that sense this commission may have another 'let's face some truth' campaign, and this one, aimed at laity, will be much harder to manage if the whole idea of this commission is to keep the current clerical system in tact. </span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><b> </b></span><b><br /></b><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><b> </b></span><b><br /></b><br />
<br />
colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-72991406446665845532014-05-02T10:53:00.000-06:002014-05-02T10:53:13.730-06:00St John Paul II: The Pope Of The Family.....Really?<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5hdd0JSAaOU/U2PLmsYht1I/AAAAAAAAByA/rMCrktaiotg/s1600/jp2jokester.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5hdd0JSAaOU/U2PLmsYht1I/AAAAAAAAByA/rMCrktaiotg/s1600/jp2jokester.jpg" height="400" width="283" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">St JPII will be looking down from heaven on the Synod on the family....so says Pope Francis.</span></td></tr>
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<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">While I can't say that I was overwhelmed with last Sunday's dual canonization, I can say one remark from Pope Francis surprised me. It was about JPII and how he was the Pope of the Family. I was not quite sure how this particular designation was merited, but then found out it was merited because that's what St JPII himself wanted to be remembered as, and if there's one thing I know about JPII, he got what he wanted. Pope Francis obliged. He stated so in his short homily as excerpted below from the <a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/texts-speeches-homilies/4/362/dual-canonisations-francis-pays-tribute-to-the-pope-of-the-family-and-the-pope-of-openness-to-the-holy-spirit-" target="_blank">Tablet article:</a></span><a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/texts-speeches-homilies/4/362/dual-canonisations-francis-pays-tribute-to-the-pope-of-the-family-and-the-pope-of-openness-to-the-holy-spirit-" target="_blank"> </a><br />
<br />
In his own service to the People of God, John Paul II was the pope of
the family. <b>He himself once said that he wanted to be remembered as the
pope of the family. <span style="color: #660000;">I am particularly happy to point this out as we are
in the process of journeying with families towards the Synod on the
family.</span></b> It is surely a journey which, from his place in heaven, he
guides and sustains.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">I am not particularly happy that Francis felt the need to point this out. JPII is not my idea of a man who understood the contemporary family even though he was raised in a one parent family. He always appeared to me as a man who understood the importance of maintaining the traditional idea of family because it was useful in a geopolitical sense. The traditional family model underscored male authority, kept women open to pregnancy after pregnancy, was the backbone of the Church itself, and was the established form of enculturating children in their proper gender roles.</span> <span style="color: #073763;">I have always seen Theology of the Body as more of a social political treatise than a theological work, but then I've always thought JPII was far more interested in playing in the geopolitical field than the spiritual field. He was good at the geopolitical thing and not so good at the spiritual thing. How he suddenly becomes good at the family thing is too typical of his papacy. "I say I it is, therefore it is".</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">However, if one accepts the geopolitical bent of JPII's papacy, and also accepts that Pope Francis, as a JPII appointee, was a willing player in these geopolitical games, then it makes sense that Francis inform us all that JPII might now be the spiritual driving force behind the Synod on the family. That does not bode well for the transparency and dialogue needed for this synod. I can easily imagine JPII's Theology of the Body will be quoted endlessly, neck and neck with the soon to be beatified Paul VI's Humanae Vitae. There will be rejoicing in fascist family circles and groans from Catholic families who don't qualify either economically or in their actual makeup as a proper fascist Catholic family. And as Bill Lyndsey <a href="http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2014/05/pope-francis-on-john-paul-ii-as-pope-of.html" target="_blank">musingly points out,</a> gays as parts of heterosexual families or as parents with their own families, need not worry about being counted as families or members of families since the 'family' has been the flag behind which a great deal of anti gay crusading has been done by the Catholic powers that be that know everything there is to know about families. (I'm practicing really long sentences so I can be a translator of liturgical Latin.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">I should also point out that with in this past year, gay marriage has also become an excuse for Roman Catholic agitation about the 'war on gender identity'. This is especially prevalent in.....you guessed it, Poland. Which I am led to believe is not just gay men acting feminine (clerical men are immune to this charge), but women taking birth control pills while acting as if they have an intrinsic equality with men.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #073763;">This naming JPII the 'Pope of the Family and Patron Saint of the Synod on the family' is just one more red flag amongst many when it comes to this upcoming Synod. I figured things weren't going as planned when all of sudden bishops conferences like England's, which had been transparent and seriously attempting to get lay input, suddenly clammed up about the results of their efforts. The dust up between Cardinal Kasper and his cardinal detractors over different approaches to divorce, the sudden need of the CDF's Cardinal Muller to issue a thirty some page defense of Catholic marriage law, and the total silence from the Vatican on the inhumane laws targeting gays in Uganda and Nigeria, are just some of the red flags that lead me to believe this upcoming synod will not be a spectacular pastoral success. I see another potential Humanae Vitae written all over it. Should that come to pass, it will be another nail in the future of Roman Catholicism in the developed world and would very shortly be mirrored in the developing world. One need only look at the failure of the Bishops Conference of the Phillipines who lost a 15 year battle against reproductive rights for Philippine women and their families. My advice to those who will be attending this synod is not to look to JPII for inspiration the Catholic family, but to the lay women of the Philippines because it there the future of the Catholic family resides.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"> </span><br />
<br />colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-71347184563046602152014-04-25T10:48:00.002-06:002014-04-25T10:48:24.029-06:00Opus Dei Brings Out Their Best Spin Meister's To Defend Their Pope<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uI_tMVVk03I/U1qRTeqgKII/AAAAAAAABxw/EMTx3FtVHp0/s1600/navarro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uI_tMVVk03I/U1qRTeqgKII/AAAAAAAABxw/EMTx3FtVHp0/s1600/navarro.jpg" height="271" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">Greg Burke must have felt a strong need to pull his fellow OD member Jaoquin Navarro-Valls out of retirement on behalf of respinning JPII's dismal record on clerical abuse.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UO3AgYiMfqc/U1qQbzcRN7I/AAAAAAAABxo/LNVdBdYCm1Y/s1600/navarro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"></a><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;"></span></span><br /></td></tr>
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</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">I swore I wasn't going to write one more word on the upcoming Canonizations of JPII and John XXIII, but that was not to be. This morning Joshua McElwee <a href="http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/vatican-john-paul-ii-took-immediate-action-sexual-abuse" target="_blank">posted an article </a>for the NCR in which two very prominent JPII apologists attempt to convince us JPII acted with expediency on clergy sexual abuse. The two men are, American neocon George Weigel and JPII's papal spokesman Dr Jaoquin Navarro-Valls. Both are closely connected with Opus Dei. This is important because JPII decreed Opus Dei a Personal Prelature of the Papacy. This act essentially took OD beyond the control of any local bishop, gave OD a great deal of freedom to operate, and paid back some debts. (<i>For some reason, 'Lannister's always pay their debts' comes to mind.</i>) </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">John Paul II derived great deal of benefit from his association with Opus Dei....all the way to and through out his papacy. Now that their 'pope' has taken hit after hit in the major news outlets over his handling (mishandling) of the clerical abuse scandal, Opus Dei has brought out their best spinners to defend the soon to be Saint John Paul II.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #073763;">The following is an excerpt from McElee's article.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span>
.....Navarro-Valls said Friday that John Paul II was not able to act more
quickly in Maciel's case because the pope was dying while an
investigation he ordered was being concluded. As part of that
investigation, Navarro-Valls said, John Paul II had sent Charles
Scicluna, then an official at the Vatican's Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith and now an auxiliary bishop in Malta, to collect
testimony in places around the world.<br />
<br />
"The pope knew that the investigation was underway but was not
informed of the results" because it was only concluded as he was dying
in 2005, Navarro-Valls said. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(It hasn't gone unnoticed by some of us that as long as the Legion was in the news, Opus Dei wasn't. On the other hand, this is also a tacit admission someone else was running JPII"s papacy in it's final years. I wonder who that was?)</i></span><br />
<br />
The former spokesperson also said he met with Pope Benedict in the
"first days of his pontificate" to discuss the findings in the Maciel
investigation.<br />
<br />
Navarro-Valls said he pressed upon the new pope in that meeting the
importance of making <b>the results of the investigation public</b>, which he
said Benedict immediately agreed to, telling him to hold a press
conference the next day. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Navarro-Valls statement is true only in the sense that we were told Maciel was ordered to a life of penance. We were not told why he was so ordered, nor given any details from the investigation itself. Nor were any apologies issued to Maciel's victims.)</i></span><br />
<br />
Also speaking Friday at the Vatican briefing was American writer
George Weigel, who has written several biographies of Pope John Paul II.
He also defended the pontiff's record in responding to clergy sexual
abuse.<br />
During the time of reporting on sexual abuse in the Boston
archdiocese in 2002,<b> Weigel said, there was "an information gap" between
the news being made public in the United States and at the Vatican</b>. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Oh, that's right. This was all happening in that time frame when no one in the Vatican knew how to use the internet. Of course there was an information gap.....cough, cough.)</i></span><br />
<br />
"I think there was an information gap particularly between the United
States and the Holy See in the first months of 2002 <b>so that the pope
was not living this crisis in real time as we were in the U.S.</b>," Weigel
said. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(It's hard to function in real time when your handlers don't give you real time information.)</i></span><br />
<br />
<b>"But once he became fully informed in April of that year, he acted decisively to deal with those problems," he said. </b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(This would be precisely the time that Secretary of State Cardinal Sodano would have become aware of the fact that Boston's Cardinal Law suddenly needed a position with the Holy See.)</i></span><b> </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
In April 2002, John Paul met with 12 U.S. cardinals and bishops'
conference officers at the Vatican. <b>He told them he was "deeply grieved"
by news of clerical sexual abuse and said there was no place in the
priesthood or religious life for those who would harm children. </b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(And took exactly no meaningful action.)</i></span><br />
<br />
Weigel also said that John Paul II had been a "great reformer" of the
Catholic priesthood and had faced a "crisis" during the 1970s of "weak
seminary formation" of priests, a "small minority" of who were engaging
in sexual abuse....... <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(I can't wait for Bill Donohue to use these exact same talking points....except 'a small minority' will become 'gay priests'.)</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><i><span style="color: #660000;">***************************************************</span></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">The quick canonization of JPII and the coupling of same with the fudging of qualifications for John XXIII may not go down as high points in Pope Francis' legacy. All I've gotten out of this is that canonization has become a political process as opposed to a spiritual process. Personally, I wait for the day the Church begins to canonize people whose miracles happen in their lives and not after their deaths....and involve other areas than medical miracles. The truth is the placebo effect is far more efficacious than the efforts of either of these popes, but I would imagine that's not a truth pious Catholics want to believe.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">Now for a quick personal note. I was not able to do much with this blog for the last two weeks due to commitments at work. Between being down two full staff positions and compensating for mandatory training, all of us saw far more of work than we might have liked. Hopefully that's over for awhile and I can get back on a more regular writing schedule. </span></span><i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><i> </i></span><br />
colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-16282572257335436142014-04-12T13:04:00.003-06:002014-04-12T13:04:27.505-06:00Pope Francis On The Possibility of Married Priests<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-osPC6zAKEnk/U0mM6VN2f7I/AAAAAAAABxY/SdY3DRkelUE/s1600/Gap_Between_Priests_and_Catholics_in_USA.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-osPC6zAKEnk/U0mM6VN2f7I/AAAAAAAABxY/SdY3DRkelUE/s1600/Gap_Between_Priests_and_Catholics_in_USA.svg.png" height="301" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">For some reason when discussing the priest shortage, one rarely hears that one big reason is the increase in lay Catholics. That the increase in Catholic laity is mirrored by the decrease in Catholic priests makes for an interesting statistical picture....... and in a not good kind of way. </span></td></tr>
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<br />
<div class="news-title">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #660000;"> </span></b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="news-title">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-size: small;">Pope Francis has been in office for just over a year and finally he has given us an idea of what he meant when he suggested that Bishop's conferences should share in determining the direction of the Church in their own geographical areas. I am not surprised that a married priesthood is one of the first of these areas. The following is taken from the Tablet and is <a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/659/0/pope-says-married-men-could-be-ordained-priests-if-world-s-bishops-agree-on-it-" target="_blank">an excerpt of the article </a>by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="news-title">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #660000;"> </span></b></span></div>
<div class="news-title">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #660000;">Pope says married men could be ordained priests if world's bishops agree on it </span></b></span></div>
<div class="news-title">
</div>
<div class="news-title">
</div>
<div class="news-details">
<em><span style="color: #073763;">10 April 2014 15:23
by <a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/author/12/christa-pongratz-lippitt">Christa Pongratz-Lippitt</a></span>
</em></div>
<em></em>A bishop who met with Pope Francis in a rare private audience
on 4 April has said in an interview that the two men discussed the
issue of the ordination of “proven” married men – <em>viri probati</em> – in a serious and positive way.<br />
<br />
Bishop Erwin Kräutler, Bishop of Xingu in the Brazilian rainforest,
spoke to the Pope about Francis’ forthcoming encyclical on the
environment, and the treatment of indigenous peoples but the desperate
shortage of priests in the bishop’s huge diocese came up in the
conversation. According to an interview the Austrian-born bishop gave to
the daily <em>Salzburger Nachrichten</em> on 5 April, <b>the Pope was
open-minded about finding solutions to the problem, saying that bishops’
conferences could have a decisive role.</b><br />
<br />
“I told him that as bishop of Brazil’s largest diocese with 800
church communities and 700,000 faithful <b>I only had 27 priests, which
means that our communities can only celebrate the Eucharist twice or
three times a year at the most,” Bishop Kräutler said.</b> “The Pope
explained that he could not take everything in hand personally from
Rome. We local bishops, who are best acquainted with the needs of our
faithful, should be corajudos, that is ‘courageous’ in Spanish, and make
concrete suggestions,” he explained. A bishop should not act alone, the
Pope told Kräutler. He indicated that “regional and national bishops’
conferences should seek and find consensus on reform and we should then
bring up our suggestions for reform in Rome,” Kräutler said. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Every time I read a comment from a conservative Catholic that implies the priest shortage will be solved by conservative seminaries, I seriously wonder how informed their understanding of this shortage really is.</i></span> <span style="color: #073763;"><i>27 priests for <span style="font-size: small;">7</span>00,000 Catholics is not a shortage, it's a catastrophe. Bishop Krautler's diocese is far from alone in the global church.)</i></span><br />
<br />
Asked whether he had raised the question of ordaining married men at the audience, Bishop Kräutler replied: “The ordination of <em>viri probati</em>,
that is of proven married men who could be ordained to the priesthood,
came up when we were discussing the plight of our communities. The Pope
himself told me about a diocese in Mexico in which each community had a
deacon but many had no priest. There were 300 deacons there who
naturally could not celebrate the Eucharist. <b>The question was how things
could continue in such a situation. </b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(The better question is why things have been allowed to get to this point.)</i></span><br />
<br />
"It was up to the bishops to make suggestions, the Pope said again.”<br />
Bishop Kräutler was then asked whether it now depended on bishops’
conferences, as to whether church reforms proceeded or not. “Yes,” he
replied. “After my personal discussion with the Pope I am absolutely
convinced of this.”<br />
<br />
Last September the Vatican Secretary of State, then-Archbishop Pietro
Parolin – who was then Apostolic Nuncio to Venezuela – answered a
question put to him by<em> El Universal</em> newspaper by stating that
priestly celibacy “is not part of church dogma and the issue is open to
discussion because it is an ecclesiastical tradition”. “Modifications
can be made, <b>but these must always favour unity and God’s will</b>,” he
said. “God speaks to us in many different ways. We need to pay attention
to this voice that points us towards causes and solutions, for example
the clergy shortage.”.......<span style="color: #073763;"><i>(And this is just a nicer way of saying the solution will not include women.)</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #073763;"><i><span style="color: #660000;">********************************************</span></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">For those who don't know, Latin American bishops brought up the question of married priests during Vatican II. Pope Paul VI killed that notion. This was over 50 years ago. Since then the priest shortage has gone critical all across the global Church. If American Catholics think it's bad in the States, in South America and Africa it's much worse, and it doesn't help these areas that Bishops in the West are filling their depleted ranks with priests imported from the developing world. Demographic trends with in the priesthood project an even deeper crisis as the greater majority of today's priests reach retirement age in ten to fifteen years. But the truth is, in many dioceses there really isn't any such thing as a priest fully retiring as long as they can still walk and talk.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">The issue that has really mystified me is why the Vatican has allowed this situation to develop. The trends were available to see back in the late 60's and 70's. Paul VI's insistence on maintaining celibacy only accelerated the trends and while the Vatican lists about 69,000 priests as having asked for dispensation from the priesthood from 1965-2000, estimates which include those who left without asking for dispensation top 100,000. As ominous as those figures are, the real clincher was the 90% drop in seminarians from the unusual levels in the 50's and this drop has resulted in the closure of 2/3rds of seminaries in the US alone. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">It is beyond me, that knowing all these figures, there hasn't been a collective demand for changes to the discipline in the priesthood from our bishops. It is perhaps this issue that gives a real idea of the kind of 'yes sir, no sir' bishops bequeathed to us by the last two papacies. Apparently the current zeitgeist in the collective clerical Church is that it is much better to lose the flock than advocate for any change in the priesthood. I'm not sure there is a stronger statement about their lack of concern for the souls of the laity unless it is their dismal record with clerical abuse---and that was also motivated in part by the desire to protect the myth of the celibate priesthood.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">While there is hope in this latest sign of potential change from Pope Francis, there is also frustration. Ordaining <i>viri probati </i>would certainly help, but there are also tens of thousands of priests who left to get married who could be reinstated if they so desired. Many of them do. And then there is the whole question of ordaining women, but that probably won't happen until the last male priest has taken his last breath and there is no other choice. However, I think long before that happens, the Church will break out into intentional Eucharistic Communities who will not be tied down by mandates from Rome about who can or cannot say Mass. The People of God will find their own solutions long before Rome comes up with anything meaningful and maybe that's the answer as to why the Vatican has refused to act for so long. The answers don't reside in the Vatican. They reside in the hearts of the People of God where in resides the Holy Spirit. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;"> </span></span><i><br /></i></span>colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-32849611114166882532014-04-10T12:57:00.002-06:002014-04-10T12:58:17.624-06:00A Complicated Knot: Can Fr Francis Stay True To Himself When Acting As Pope Francis?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Xq1xZZUPazo/U0bozW-oBjI/AAAAAAAABxI/2LwgKuJQj1o/s1600/Undoer-of-Knots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Xq1xZZUPazo/U0bozW-oBjI/AAAAAAAABxI/2LwgKuJQj1o/s1600/Undoer-of-Knots.jpg" height="400" width="273" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">Mary the Undoer of Knots. Notice how she is not using scissors or swords to untie these particular knots. There are no shortcuts to those pesky spiritual knots.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span class="autore-girata"><span style="color: #073763;">One of the things I have to keep in mind about Pope Francis is that he seems to have two different modes of being Francis. First there is Fr Francis the elder pastoral traveler on an open ended spiritual pilgrimage along with all the rest of us, and secondly there is Pope Francis the titular monarch with a very different path he walks with the triumphant Magisterial Church and with his fellow global power brokers. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="autore-girata"><span style="color: #073763;">I always have to keep in mind which Francis is speaking and how far the speech will effect the interactions of the other Francis. The <a href="http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/santa-marta-33382/" target="_blank">following article</a> is by Vatican Insider's Andrea Tornielli. It covers the homily Francis gave this morning at Saint Martha's House. It's a great representation of the thinking of Fr Francis the fellow pilgrim---until one gets to the second to last paragraph and then there's a bit of the other Francis.</span></span><br />
<span class="autore-girata"><span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span></span>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #660000;">Francis: “Even today there’s a dictatorship of narrow-mindedness”</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<span class="autore-girata"><span style="color: #073763;">Andrea Tornielli</span></span><span style="color: #073763;"><span class="luogo-girata"> - Vatican Insider -4/10/2014</span></span>
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">Today there is a dictatorship of
narrow-mindedness that kills people’s freedom. This was the Pope’s
message at his morning mass celebration in St. Martha’s House. </span>
<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">In his homily Francis reflected on the attitude of
the Pharisees and how closed they were to Jesus’ message. Their
mistake, the Pope pointed out, was </span><span lang="EN-GB">"detaching the commandments from the heart of God.” </span>They
thought everything could be resolved by respecting the commandments.
But these commandments "are not just a cold law,” <b>because they are born
from a relationship of love and are "indications" that help us avoid
mistakes in our journey to meet Jesus, </b><i>Vatican Radio </i>says, quoting the Pope’s words.<span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Exactly, commandments, laws, and rules should be directional signs on the pilgrim's road, not final destinations.)</i></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">By doing so, the Pharisees close their hearts and minds to “all things new.” </span><span lang="EN-GB">"This
is the drama of the closed heart, the drama of the closed mind - the
Pope said - <b>and when the heart is closed, this heart closes the mind,
and when the heart and mind are closed there is no place for God</b>,” <b>only
for what <span style="color: #660000;">we believe <i>should</i> be done. </span></b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(And closed hearts and minds are concerned mostly with what they believe should be done by others.)</i></span></span>
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /> <b>“</b></span><span lang="EN-GB"><b>It is a closed way
of thinking that is not open to dialogue</b>, <b>to the possibility that there
is something else, the possibility that God speaks to us, tells us
about His journey, as he did to the prophets. These people did not
listen to the prophets and did not listen to Jesus. It is something
greater than a mere stubbornness. No, it is more: it is the idolatry of
their own way of thinking. 'I think this, it has to be this way, and
nothing more'. These people had a narrow line of thought and wanted to
impose this way of thinking on the people of God, Jesus rebukes them for
this: ' You burden the people with many commandments and you do not
touch them with your finger'.”</b></span><span lang="EN-GB"><b> </b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(For Fr Francis, the last sentence here is the heart of the matter. We must chance touching others.)</i></span><br /><br /> </span><span lang="EN-GB">Francis noted that Jesus “rebukes their
incoherence.” "The theology of these people becomes a slave to this
pattern, this pattern of thought: a narrow line of thought". "There is
no possibility of dialogue; there is no possibility to open up to new
things which God brings with the prophets. They killed the prophets,
these people; they close the door to the promise of God. When this
phenomenon of narrow thinking enters human history, how many
misfortunes. We all saw in the last century, the dictatorships of narrow
thought , which ended up killing a lot of people, but when they
believed they were the overlords, no other form of thought was allowed.
This is the way they think.”</span><span lang="EN-GB"> <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(It's the way they act as well.)</i></span><br /> </span>
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /> </span><span lang="EN-GB">"Even today there
is the idolatry of a narrow line of thought,” Francis said. "Today we
have to think in this way and if you do not think in this way, you are
not modern, you're not open or worse. Often rulers say: 'I have asked
for aid, financial support for this’, ' But if you want this help, you
have to think in this way and you have to pass this law, and this other
law and this other law…' Even today, there is a dictatorship of a narrow
line of thought and this dictatorship is the same as these people: it
takes up stones to stone the freedom of the people, the freedom of the
people, their freedom of conscience, the relationship of the people with
God. Today Jesus is crucified once again.”</span><span lang="EN-GB"> <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Here's another Fr Francis linguistic tool, depending on one's world view, this paragraph can be read as an attack on fundamentalist religious thinking or on the narrow agenda driven thinking of left wing progressives.) </i></span><br /> </span>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“The Lord’s exhortation "faced with this
dictatorship is always the same: be vigilant and pray; do not be silly,
do not buy" things "you do not need, be humble and pray, that the Lord
always gives us the freedom of an open heart, to receive his Word which
is joy and promise and covenant! And with this covenant move forward!"”
the Pope concluded this morning’s mass by saying.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #660000;">*********************************************</span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">Pope Francis is attempting to walk a very difficult path. It's a path that holds contradictory and even conflicting expectations. He is trying to do that which even did Jesus did not attempt, and in fact rejected. Francis is attempting to be a true follower of Christ while holding a position of unchecked power and huge global prestige. Francis has accepted the devil's final challenge to Jesus in the desert. Francis now has the whole world at his beck and call while he simultaneously attempts to call the whole world to become the penniless crucified Jesus. This is the exact challenge which overcame John Paul II, sent Pope Benedict into retirement, thwarted the papacy of Paul VI, and only served to rally the conservative clerical troops against the People of God vision of John XXIII. No wonder Pope Francis is enamored with the idea of Mary as the 'untier of knots'. This contradictory dual role will be a tough knot to untangle.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">Francis freely admits he failed at this task when he was the Jesuit provincial in Argentina. He was overcome by his authoritarian side. I appreciated his forthrightness in admitting this mistake because learning from mistakes is what we're here to do and why the Mercy of God is such an important a concept. The question for all of us is usually if the lesson sank in deep enough to protect us from repeating it under different circumstances. For Francis his current circumstances have vastly different consequences should he repeat his mistake and revert to authoritarianism. I can remember when John Paul II was actually something of a populist in the early years of his papacy but then the traditional papal environment got to him and he became all about authoritarian papal prerogative and very little about humble priestly service. From day one Francis created an environment around himself intended to deflect the papal temptations and reinforce the humble priest who needs people. I certainly have respected him for that because it shows he knows well his own tendencies. I have never thought all of his 'every man' acts were some sort of show. I've always thought they were part and parcel of how he understood his humanity....everyone urinates even if they do it in gold urinals. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">Unfortunately, indifference to the perks and trappings of high office do not necessarily protect one from succumbing the other temptations of such high office. We also saw in the last century a number of very powerful dictators who while eschewing the trappings of their position did not disdain to use and increase their very real authoritarian power over others.....and millions died. </span></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">What I really fear is that although Pope Francis sees his papacy as something of a mandate to bring the Church and it's clergy back into some semblance of compliance with Jesus' notions about service, compassion, mercy, and love, Francis will be thwarted in this mission because he doesn't have a clergy willing to suffer loss of status for this vision. The Pharisees, both clerical and lay, will not open their hearts or minds to a concept of Church which is open ended, poor, and merciful. That's just way too dangerous to closed minds secure in their knowledge of how the world<i> should</i> work. They will fight Francis tooth and nail to keep the world as they think it should be because they <i>know</i> this is exactly the way God wants it to run. I will continue praying that Francis doesn't succumb to that very temptation, which is of course the core truth of the final temptation in the desert....the single minded idolatry of globalizing one's own thinking.</span></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;"> </span></span> </span><br />
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<br />colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-66475669674622749552014-04-05T15:30:00.003-06:002014-04-05T15:30:33.610-06:00Pell: The Pastor Of Coins<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q-4oD3fjlrU/U0B1X1PxEMI/AAAAAAAABw4/x95cgldil4E/s1600/Cardinal+Pell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q-4oD3fjlrU/U0B1X1PxEMI/AAAAAAAABw4/x95cgldil4E/s1600/Cardinal+Pell.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">Before heading off to become the Vatican's financial boss, Cardinal Pell had a few rough days explaining how he handled clerical abuse as Australia's clerical boss. Not well.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763;">I have been following the sexual abuse inquiry by Australia's Royal Commission for weeks. It's been an eye opener, but nothing opened my eyes quite the way as did the testimony of Sydney's Cardinal Pell. The Commission put Pell through two and a half days of questioning. Days of questions for which Pell found all kinds of ways to pass the blame to subordinates, claim a faulty memory, and sometimes use a bizarre logic which seems part and parcel of a mind set removed from the reality of everyday life. I guess that's not too surprising since Pell has reached the pinnacle of a reality that is by definition removed from much of everyday life, especially if one has chosen to make one's life mission ascending to the heights of that reality. Cardinal Pell demonstrated in spades why clericalism, amongst some other trends, will be the death of this Church. Like many other failed pastoral leaders, he jetted out of Australia the very next day for a new position in Vatican City. Vatican City, where the clerical heart beats strongest, and where he will become the Pastor of Coins.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #073763;">The following excerpt is from the Australian <a href="http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=1438#comment-12065" target="_blank">blog Pearls and Irritations</a> and was written by Chris Geraghty, a retired New South Wales district court judge. Judge Geraghty watched the entire proceedings and his take is an honest expression of a Catholic truly saddened by what passed for Catholic pastoral leadership in a time of crisis for the Church of Australia. </span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span>
"George Pell, Cardinal Archbishop, sat there day after day, an image
of King Lear, a broken man, weary, slow and incompetent, a man who had
spent his life climbing the greasy clerical pole, now at the tail-end of
his life, being forced to answer questions and to confront his
conscience, summoning hollow logic to assist in his defence, thrashing
about blaming others, constructing academic distinctions, trying to
exculpate himself and deflect the load which will inevitably be heaped
upon him. His private secretary, Dr Casey, Mr John Davoren, the elderly
man and ex-priest who used to be in charge of the healing service of the
archdiocese, and Monsignor Brian Rayner, his former chancellor – all
muddlers, all incompetent and unable to provide an accurate version of
events, while he was macro-managing the show with his hands off the
wheel. The board of any public company would have long since called for
the resignation of its CEO.....<br />
<br />
......As the days wore on and the archbishop grew tired, I began to
understand a little of how the man’s brain worked. Slowly. Some
confusions. Circles and dead-ends. <i>Non sequiturs</i>. Fending off
blows, protecting himself. Appeals to trivial logic in the face of
catastrophe. I could see how he came to be a man-made climate change
denier, why over the years he had not given a lead on the many ethical
and moral issues which were confronting our nation, why he had led the
English-speaking world back to the old, fossilized and awkward formulae
of the Mass, why he had not even mentioned the name of Father Ted
Kennedy when he opened the Jesuit school for aborigines in Redfern, why
he was unable to comprehend that his placement of Neo-Cats in Redfern
had been a mistake and needed to be remedied, why he had not inspired
his Sydney brethren to faith and action, why he had failed to engage the
general community and had preferred to identify with the conservative,
reactionary forces of times now past. He was dull. Colourless. Distant.
Pugnacious. Yesterday’s man. Some might even say dumb. Now, for a few
days, we were able to look behind the figure on the plinth, observing a
king without his finery, seeing the man behind the frills and
furbelows. It was frightening to see how the system worked – and
riveting.....<br />
<br />
..... From his evidence, it was clear that Pell was desperate to regulate
the outflow from the Church’s financial dam of assets. He wanted to
remain in charge of the show. After all, the Roman Catholic Church was
different – powerful, independent, international. A history going back
centuries. Its own language, structures, legal system, customs and
practices. Tax exemptions and immense political influence. She has
always been treated as special.....<br />
<br />
..... Pell exposed himself before the commission as the prize muddler <i>par excellence</i>. A tragic figure. I positioned myself at the back row of <i> les arenes</i>,
and watched the commissioner and his cool, analytical counsel-assisting
teasing the witness, delivering wounding blows at will, drawing blood,
playing with their prey, delaying to the end their final thrust into
the very heart of an old bull already mortally wounded, standing beaten
and defense-less in the centre of the ring.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #660000;">******************************************</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #660000;"> </span> <br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Cardinal Pell managed to do a number of things while leading the Australian Church. First he brought in a very conservative mindset and supported 'new lay movements' that had power and connections in Rome. Especially those lay movements with direct connections with the two previous popes. These included Opus Dei and the Neo Catechumenate. Pell also led Vox Clara, the committee which over saw the new English translation of Roman Missal and which conveniently turned itself into a rubber stamp for blatant Vatican control of the translation. On this front whatever Rome wanted Pell gave them.</span> <br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">The second thing Pell managed to do was double the assets of the Sydney Archdiocese to some 1.2 billion dollars. This was a pretty nifty trick given the general world economy during his tenure. One of the reasons for this increase in assets is directly attributable to the outcome of the Ellis case--the very case for which Cardinal Pell was called before the Royal Commission to testify. The ruling in the Ellis case, which Pell took all the way to the Australian Supreme Court, determined neither the Roman Catholic Church in Australia nor it's Diocesan components were legal entities eligible to be sued in court. In other words, under Australian law, the Roman Catholic Church did not exist as a legal entity and could not be sued. Only individual bishops or priest perpetrators could be sued. Ask Cardinal Mahony recently of the LA Archdiocese what that kind of ruling would have meant to the coffers of the LA Archdiocese....billions saved. What that ruling meant for Australian victims was a kick in the teeth, but it ultimately resulted in the very Royal Commission which is now vindicating victims like John Ellis. For an in depth look at the Ellis case and the reasons why Pell is no longer allowed to pastor people, but just coins, I suggest<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/28/a-cup-of-tea-with-the-cardinal-what-george-pell-did-in-the-ellis-case" target="_blank"> this article </a>from the UK Guardian. It's long, but well worth reading for the portrait of Pell the as the compassionless competitor who not only ran roughshod over Ellis, but had no scruples about throwing his subordinates and legal team under the landing wheels of his soon to leave for Rome plane. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">I do not think Pell's appointment to Rome as what amounts ot number three in the Vatican behind Pope Francis and Secretary of State Parolin has all that much to do with his personal business acumen as it does with his connections to Opus Dei and members of the Knights of Malta. As Betty Clermont points<a href="http://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/pope-francis-increases-opus-dei-power/" target="_blank"> out in her latest </a>posting at Open Tabernacle, Pope Francis has appointed a lot of OD members or sympathizers to positions having to do with economic matters. I sometimes wonder if the real 'work' of Opus Dei isn't using Roman Catholicism as the entry point and front for creating an new form of conservative global corporate oligarchy. As long as the Holy See retains it's status as a Sovereign State, having all the rights and privileges minus any obligations, it's an exceptional place from which to engage in global empire building of the hidden sort. This is especially if true if one views the clergy as essentially a Trojan horse for access to governments and politicians. In short, I'm not enthused about Pell's appointment. I would have been more enthused if Pope Francis had appointed Cardinal Pell the Vatican Almoner and place the current Vatican Almoner Archbishop Konrad Krajewski in Pell's position as overseer of papal assets. Unfortunately, even in the Vatican money rules so Pell is where that rule says he should be....pastor of coins.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span>colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-65414264712118553802014-03-28T09:12:00.000-06:002014-03-28T09:12:34.277-06:00PO Meets With PF<span style="color: #073763;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GbrgnFt_NMk/UzWP9Coo_2I/AAAAAAAABwo/oW-ZOPGwMNE/s1600/president-obama-the-pope-article.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GbrgnFt_NMk/UzWP9Coo_2I/AAAAAAAABwo/oW-ZOPGwMNE/s1600/president-obama-the-pope-article.jpg" height="320" width="315" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">According to some really right wing outlets, these two are smiling over their plan to turn the entire globe into one big Marxist colony through wealth redistribution. Notice the red book?</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763;">President Obama met with Pope Francis yesterday at the Vatican. The Vatican still stands. The Earth still orbits the sun. The political scene has not dramatically changed. Most everything is exactly as it was before these two men exchanged gifts and shook hands....including the spin on what really happened. If you get your information from media outlets that tend to the right, PF dressed down PO over ACA, birth control and abortion, gay marriage, and trampling on the religious freedom of the USCCB and Hobby Lobby to control the sex lives of American women. If you get your information from the other side of the media equation, the culture war issues were an after thought compared to Syria, Lebanon, the Sudan, Palestine, other global hot spots, pervasive income inequality, and the human trafficking and slave trade. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">When I look at the issues that Pope Francis has stressed since his election just over one year ago, it's hard for me to believe he would concentrate on the ability of American corporations to exercise their supposed religious rights, when it is US based international corporations who are the prime movers in global income inequality. It's hard to believe PF would concentrate on gay marriage laws in the US when conversing with the man who is in charge of the world's biggest military industrial complex. I have a feeling that's why the one gift Pope Francis gave to President Obama that is not mentioned by the US press is a medallion of the Angel of Peace. There's a message here that the parochial culture war concerns of the USCCB are not the primary concerns of global leaders--religious or secular. I suspect this is a message the Cardinal Burke's of the USCCB are not going to hear.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">The real business was most likely exchanged between Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin and the less mentioned members of President Obama's team, Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Advisor Susan Rice. I would imagine the religious freedom measures discussed here had less to do with Hobby Lobby and more to do with Iraq, Syria, and other nations in which the numbers of Christians who are experiencing martyrdom is a real religious liberty issue unlike the politically contrived issues in the US. I have no doubt the US issues were brought up if only because US conservatives represent a large chunk of Vatican donations. US bishops, unlike their Northern European counterparts who enjoy tax subsidies, are beholden to their major financial donors and those tend to be affiliated with the one percent, meaning the USCCB's agenda too often appears for sale to the highest bidder. Pope Francis certainly has larger global concerns and recognizes that President Obama does as well. No matter how right wing news outlets wants to spin things, US politics took a back seat to these larger global concerns, and that is as it should be.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #073763;">While I certainly think yesterday was about more than a photo op, I do not think it was earth shaking either. It may be that the president and the pope exchanged phone numbers as well as gifts and that isn't a bad thing. Pope Francis has experience in global areas that President Obama does not, and vice versa. An open information exchange between these two men is a good thing. It's a much better thing in fact, the locking horns over birth control and gay marriage. It sets a needed example of dialogue over confrontation and that's something both men have said they firmly believe in. PO, in his remarks afterward mentioned one thing that I have written repeatedly. The issue of wealth distribution is becoming a serious national security threat. Pope Francis would certainly agree with this given his experience in Argentina. For this alone I am glad the two met. It is here that these two men have much to share....even if some folks think that sharing will lead to global Marxism.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;"> </span>colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com92tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-25542149700180179302014-03-22T09:13:00.003-06:002014-03-22T09:19:46.448-06:00The Arc Of Justice Has Curved Through Michigan<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fGUR8bahSos/Uy2oCO1ObmI/AAAAAAAABwQ/lRchk9F0hQI/s1600/Back+in+my+day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fGUR8bahSos/Uy2oCO1ObmI/AAAAAAAABwQ/lRchk9F0hQI/s1600/Back+in+my+day.jpg" height="400" width="333" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">So did every kid wish their parent's marriage was a little more gay and they took advantage of the 'complimentary' roles by playing one parent off against the other.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763;">Federal Judge Bernard Friedman issued a ruling which struck down Michigan's constitutional ban on gay marriage. Unlike other Federal judges, Friedman made his decision after allowing for a jury trial. I followed the day to day doings and often found myself laughing or just stunned with the testimony on behalf of the State. The testimony of Mark Regnerus was especially humorous, but the take down of his position by other witnesses was even better. I'll have more on that later, but first the following is the full editorial from this morning's Detroit Free Press. It's well worth reading.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #660000;">Editorial: A victory for marriage and children of Michigan</span></b></span></div>
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<br /> <span style="color: #073763;">By The Detroit Free Press Editorial Board - 3/21/2014 </span> </div>
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Marriage had always commanded the law’s reverence and protection. Now, in a ruling that breathes new vitality into that venerable institution, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman has struck down the discriminatory Michigan law that excluded thousands of same-sex couples and their families from the advantages of wedlock.Friedman’s
carefully reasoned decision is a victory not just for plaintiffs April
DeBoer, Jayne Rowse and their three adopted children, but for thousands
of other Michigan children, including those currently languishing in
foster care.<b> Experts called by the plaintiffs testified that same-sex
couples are disproportionately likely to adopt such hard-to-place
children, and Friday’s ruling will make it easier for them to do so. </b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Pope John Paul I argued for gay adoption in Italy back in the mid 60's precisely for this reason.)</i></span><br />
<br />
The
ruling is also a humiliating defeat for Michigan Attorney General Bill
Schuette, who squandered hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars<b> to
mount a pathetic legal defense that demeaned his office and disserved
his constituents.</b> He would be well advised not to compound his bad
judgment by appealing Friedman’s decision. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Pathetic is actually a generous description of a defense that even included the 'expert' testimony that gays are going to hell.)</i></span><br />
<br />
This newspaper opposed
the state constitutional amendment that barred legal recognition of
same-sex marriages before voters enacted it in 2004, and we have
remained skeptical of the suggestion that it promotes any legitimate
public interest. Judge Friedman’s carefully reasoned opinion makes it
clear that our skepticism was well-founded.<br />
<br />
Friedman’s ruling
makes short work of the state’s specious arguments that the same-sex ban
was calculated to “promote responsible procreation” or assure that
Michigan children are raised in an “ideal family structure” headed “by
two biological parents.” The judge noted that Michigan has never
withheld legal recognition from opposite-sex couples who were unable or
unwilling to conceive, and said, “The overwhelming weight of the
scientific evidence” contradicted the state’s assertion that children
raised by heterosexual couples fared better than those raised by
same-sex couples.”<br />
\ <br />
The real threat to such children was a
discriminatory marriage ban that “undermines the very aim ... of civil
marriage, namely, family stability.”<br />
<br />
Friedman did not even address
the state’s contention that allowing same-sex couples to marry would
“dilute <b>the public socialization of young people into a marriage
culture” or “send a message to women that they have no significant place
in family life.”</b> <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Yes, the State did argue that gay marriage would send the message that women have no significant place in family life. This in a trial about the adoptive rights of two lesbians no less.)</i></span><br />
<br />
Ironically, DeBoer and Rowse never set out to
challenge Michigan’s dubious grounds for prohibiting their marriage;
they sought merely to secure their family’s future by cross adopting the
special-needs children they have been raising together for years.<br />
<br />
But
Michigan law permits only married couples or single people to adopt, a
policy to which Friedman recognized no obvious constitutional objection.
The real obstacle to the joint adoptions that DeBoer and her partner
sought, he reasoned, was the same-sex marriage ban that barred them from
obtaining the credentials required of adoptive parents.<br />
<br />
At the
judge’s suggestion, the plaintiffs amended their lawsuit, transforming
their challenge of Michigan’s adoption law into a frontal assault on the
Michigan Marriage Act (MMA) that voters adopted in 2004.<br />
The
state’s argument that the MMA was a designed to further the best
interest of Michigan’s children was a loser from the get-go. Even the
attorney general had to concede that DeBoer and Rowse’s children had
flourished under the couple’s care. A series of experts called by the
plaintiffs testified that a deluge of research established that children
raised by same-sex couples fared just as well across a broad series of
metrics as those of similarly situated opposite-sex parents. Friedman
said he found their testimony “highly credible” and “entitled to great
weight.”<br />
<br />
Whatever personal objections he may have to same-sex
marriage, Schuette should have recognized that the constitutionality of
Michigan’s 2004 ban was on shaky ground after the U.S. Supreme Court
struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act last year. The Windsor
ruling prompted attorneys general in many states to abandon their
defense of bans like Michigan’s, and Schuette might have saved a lot of
time and taxpayer dollars by following their lead.<br />
<br />
Instead,
Michigan’s messianic attorney general pressed on. Schuette insisted that
he was only defending the democratic prerogative of Michigan voters.
<b>But that was a political slogan,<span style="color: #660000;"> not a legal argument</span>, and Schuette’s
courtroom defense of the same-sex ban was paltry grab-bag of junk
science and religious chauvinism.</b><br />
<br />
The first of the so-called
experts that the state summoned to defend the marriage ban was
disqualified outright; the second was publicly censured by his academic
peers, and the third memorably ended his testimony by opining that
unrepentant gays and lesbians were doomed to burn in hell.<br />
<br />
<b>In his
ruling, Friedman dismissed the state’s experts as “unbelievable”
representatives of “a fringe viewpoint that is rejected by their
colleagues across a variety of social science fields.”</b><br />
<br />
The
attorney general has yet to disclose the tab for this parade of
incompetents, but it represents only a portion of what taxpayers will
ultimately for his Pyrrhic legal crusade; inevitably the state will be
ordered to pay a substantial share of the victorious plaintiffs’ costs,
too.<br />
<br />
Schuette’s ideological proclivities dictate that he will
appeal Friday’s ruling to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. But
the U.S. Supreme Court will have the final word,<b> and the extensive
record created in the DeBoer case has provided new evidence that bans
such as Michigan’s cannot be squared with constitutional principles of
equal protection and due process. </b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(This is precisely why Judge Friedman insisted on a trial, to get the point across that gay marriage bans are not grounded in legal reasoning, but in emotional and religious arguments.)</i></span><br />
<br />
We have no doubt that, before
the current decade is out, most Michiganders will regard their state’s
legacy of discrimination against same-sex couples as an indefensible
lapse of decency. Gay or straight, they can be grateful for a federal
judiciary that stands ready to defend the dignity and liberty to which
every citizen is entitled.<br />
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<span style="color: #660000;">****************************************</span><br />
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<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">I'm not going to rehash all the testimony in this trial. Judge Friedman pretty much stated the only conclusion a rational person could draw about the State's experts: "unbelievable" representatives of a fringe viewpoint that is rejected by their colleagues across a variety of social science fields". Mark Regnerus irritates me personally because he has<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/03/04/mark_regnerus_testifies_in_michigan_same_sex_marriage_case_his_study_is.html" target="_blank"> utterly compromised </a>the whole notion of objective scientific study. It galls me that he is getting paid as an expert witness in these kinds of cases through the use of tax payer money. It also galls me that he took 700,000 from the Witherspoon foundation, a right wing religious think tank, and then lied about this at the same time he is caught asking the Heritage Foundation what they 'expect' from his study. This is sadly reminiscent of the kind of research bought and paid for by the tobacco companies. It is nothing less than scientific prostitution. Unfortunately, Regnerus being the conservative Catholic he is, is also one of those conservatives who doesn't truly believe rules of engagement apply to him personally when he is on a crusade. The end justifies the means. Unfortunately for Regnerus and his other fellow 'experts', in this case their means most certainly justified this end.</span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Michigan's Tea Party Attorney General has asked for a stay on this ruling, which he will undoubtedly get based on the similar Utah decision which was stayed by the Supreme Court itself. I agree wholeheartedly that gay marriage needs to go to the Supreme Court and be decided once and for all. It's not equal justice for a gay couple, if in having to move from one State to another, their marriages or adoptions are nullified by having to do so. There is also the additional fact that many special needs kids are in foster care that could be in stable families if gays could adopt. The idea that keeping these kids from being adopted by gay couples who would provide for them is somehow protecting these kids from a less than optimum environment can only be seriously believed by people who are totally unfamiliar with the foster care system. In the foster care system the 'parents' are paid for taking these children. In most cases foster care parents do a wonderful job in difficult circumstances, but in others, these children are commodities and pay the price for that status.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Of course the Catholic bishops of Michigan <a href="http://www.micatholic.org/" target="_blank">have issued </a>their objections to this ruling in their usually galling form which always includes 'persons with same-sex attraction should not be judged, but rather accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity'. They never add, 'and given second class status as citizens'. Here is part of their statement: </span><br />
<br />
“Today’s decision from federal district court Judge Bernard Friedman
to redefine the institution of marriage by declaring Michigan’s Marriage
Amendment unconstitutional strikes at the very essence of family,
community and human nature. In effect, this decision advances a
misunderstanding of marriage, and mistakenly proposes that marriage is
an emotional arrangement that can simply be redefined to accommodate the
dictates of culture and the wants of adults. Judge Friedman’s ruling
that also finds unconstitutional the state’s adoption law is equally of
grave concern.<br />
<br />
“As this case will likely move forward through the courts, it is
necessary to state clearly that persons with same-sex attraction should
not be judged, but rather accepted with respect, compassion and
sensitivity...... <br />
......Going forward, we, the Catholic bishops of this state, working
through the Michigan Catholic Conference, will collaborate with those
who are upholding Michigan’s Marriage Amendment and adoption statute and
will assist to the greatest extent possible efforts to appeal Judge
Friedman’s most regrettable ruling.”<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">I feel sorry for Michigan's Catholics, not only will they get to see their tax dollars wasted going forward, they will also get to see their donations wasted in the same effort. They get double dipped. I certainly hope those married Michigan Catholics understand that their bishops think may of their marriages are about 'an emotional arrangement and their wants as adults'. They should at least begin to wonder why their bishops don't object to heterosexual marriages that are childless by choice or infertile because of age issues.</span> <br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">In the meantime the Arc of Justice continues on it's path to the Supreme Court Building in Washington DC and the wind behind it is getting stronger.</span></div>
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colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com128tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-67573845921536312152014-03-20T14:19:00.001-06:002014-03-20T14:19:31.317-06:00Does Pope Francis Really Want His Message For Clergy To Roll Down Past The Vatican Hills?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xi7uLzow5B8/UytMeb8X-ZI/AAAAAAAABwA/NkdGOe0j0rs/s1600/smell+of+the+sheep.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xi7uLzow5B8/UytMeb8X-ZI/AAAAAAAABwA/NkdGOe0j0rs/s1600/smell+of+the+sheep.jpg" height="224" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">Francis may have some logistical issues getting this sentiment outside the clerical culture of the Vatican....like to the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois for instance.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763;">One of the things I've appreciated about Pope Francis is his insistence on conversion with in the ranks of the priesthood. The whole 'taking on the smell' of the sheep concept. The problem I have with this idea is I have no idea how he is going to see that this gets done in any kind of meaningful way outside of the Vatican walls. A point made over and over again by a lot of Catholic commenters is that it's one thing for Francis to project such an image himself, getting lay Catholics all excited in the process, but it's an entirely different matter on the diocesan and parish level. Francis can open a hundred hearts to the Gospel message of Catholicism and the local Church can close 150.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an-illinois-parish-shows-why-pope-francis-cant-fix-the-catholic-church-by-himself/2014/03/14/bf04af18-a4a4-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html" target="_blank">following article </a>from the Washington Post by Melinda Henneberger is about one such diocese and one such parish. St Mary's Catholic Church in Mount Carmel, Illinois is a singular example of how to close 150 hearts.</span><br />
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<span class="entry-title"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;">An Illinois parish shows why Pope Francis can’t fix the Catholic Church by himself</span></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #073763;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7608" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;">By<span class="yiv4210558697apple-converted-space" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7607"> </span></span><span class="yiv4210558697author" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7605"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7604" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7602" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/melinda-henneberger/2011/10/13/gIQAqZQzhL_page.html" id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7603" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">Melinda Henneberger</a> - Washington Post - 3/14/2014</span></span></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;"></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;">Some members of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Mount Carmel, Ill., dare to hope that Pope Francis can save their parish after an awfully rough couple of years.</span></h3>
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<div id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7555" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 13.2pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; padding: 0px;">
<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7554"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7553" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Their beloved longtime pastor was forced out by the bishop in the summer of 2012 for improvising prayers during Mass. Just when things were settling down, his successor announced that he had met someone and was leaving the priesthood to “explore a relationship” with her.<span class="yiv4210558697apple-converted-space"> </span>For now, the bishop has appointed a newly ordained deacon to run the parish — except <i id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7557"><u id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7556">the deacon has been married four times</u></i>, and not everyone at St. Mary’s, the parish where I grew up, is comfortable with that.</span></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7563" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">“We feel if we can get through to the pope, we’ll get it cleared up,” said Jim Pohl, an usher at St. Mary’s who also tends to the flowers and funeral dinners there. “He’s got a lot of problems everywhere in the world. But “we know he would help us if he knew.” <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Given who the bishop is, it's not surprising they are appealing to Francis' pastoral sensibilities.)</i></span></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7565" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">For structural as much as practical reasons, the bishop of Rome is probably not going to involve himself in the workings of a parish in a town of 7,000 on a bluff overlooking the Wabash River. But the challenges facing St. Mary’s are the same issues Francis and his global flock of 1.2 billion are up against: the fights over liturgy, the isolation that can accompany priestly celibacy, the shortage of vocations to the priesthood in rich nations and, most of all, questions about divorce and remarriage.</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7567" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">That Catholics have such faith in Francis<span class="yiv4210558697apple-converted-space"> </span>is a tribute to his ability to make people across the planet feel the warmth of<span class="yiv4210558697apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7571" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><a href="http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/this-meeting-between-the-pope-and-a-badly-disfigured-man-will-warm-your-heart/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: purple; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">the embrace</span></a> he gave a disfigured man in St. Peter’s Square last November. But most of the challenges in Rome, Mount Carmel and everywhere in between play out locally, where the bishops are firmly in charge<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7570"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7569">. They are the men with the greatest power to shape the day-to-day experience of Catholicism. <b>And because more than half of the roughly 5,000 bishops in the world were chosen during John Paul II’s 26-year pontificate — including 143 of the 253 active bishops in the United States — it’s still very much John Paul’s church, led by men in his mold, and will be for years to come. </b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(It's also true that most of these bishops were raised as children in the Pre Vatican II church and ordained from seminaries that further refined their indoctrinated obedience to, and fear of, authority and authority figures.)</i></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7573" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">That’s certainly the case at St. Mary’s, a 150-year-old community of German farmers and townsfolk that’s come apart in the past 18 months. After<span class="yiv4210558697apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/karen-handel-and-the-other-side-of-the-catholic-coin/2012/02/07/gIQA39NBxQ_blog.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: purple; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Father Bill Rowe</span></a> <span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7572">was ousted for straying from the approved Missal and his successor, Father Trevor Murry, got up at a Saturday evening Mass — and every Mass the next day — to announce he was leaving the priesthood after a dozen years, the bishop of Belleville, Edward Braxton, had to find someone to run the parish. His choice of Deacon Steve Lowe, who had openly derided Rowe as insufficiently orthodox despite his own multiple marriages, <b>has struck some members as hypocritical. </b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(A google search of Bishop Braxton will quickly show one that his hypocrisy level has been called into question many many times.)</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">“How can I look up to [Lowe] when he’s been married three or four times?” asks the 78-year-old Pohl. “How can I go to church with him up there?” His voice cracks when he considers the alternative. “I’ve been a Catholic all my life.”</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7577"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7576" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><b>What seems to bother parishioners most is the apparent capriciousness of kicking one guy out for praising Jesus at the wrong moment, then installing as his replacement someone whose chief credential seems to be his loyalty to the bishop.</b></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> In a parish of 450 families, attendance at weekend Masses has slipped from a couple hundred to mere dozens. Rod Paille, a lifelong parishioner who owns a vitamin shop just a couple of blocks from St. Mary’s, has stopped going to Mass but still attends a weekly Bible study that Father Bill has led for many years — but that he must now hold in the basement of the local Lutheran church. “So many people are leaving,” Paille says. “It’s a sad situation.” <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(It's a predictable situation too.)</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><b>And one Francis is unlikely to take on, either by firing the bishop or the deacon. Power in the Catholic Church is far more diffuse than generally understood; despite all the focus on Rome, </b></span><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7580"><span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7579" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><b>most local decisions are made by local bishops, who are only rarely removed, whether for heresy, financial misconduct or on moral grounds. Even if Braxton, who oversees 116 parishes in Southern Illinois, is so unpopular that a majority of his priests signed a petition urging him to resign in 2008, the church is not a democracy.</b> <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(In short, this is the shoal on which the good ship Francis will run aground and sink.)</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">It simply isn’t organized to deal with modern personnel problems, either, says Tom Reese, a Jesuit priest and senior analyst for the National Catholic Reporter. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><b>“Our structure was created to deal with princes and nobles,” he said, “and the only way you can get rid of princes and nobles is by poisoning them.”</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> (And no, he doesn’t recommend it.) <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Shades of John Paul I)</i></span></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7582" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">“But,” he asks, “do we really want [Francis] acting like a CEO with the bishops as branch managers?” He wouldn’t have wanted such concentration of power under more-conservative popes, Reese said. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(No, but laity might like Francis to put more over site accountability on the hands of local laity.)</i></span></span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7584" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Francis is trying to address the problems felt so keenly in parish communities, where both the Gospel and the grievances are lived out, <b>but change in the church comes slowly, largely through the pope’s example and through the appointments he’ll make over time. </b>This October, church leaders will meet in Rome to discuss a range of family matters, including divorce. Recently, Francis preached with great compassion about failed marriages, even calling divorce a “misfortune” that should evoke caring rather than denunciation. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Francis' two predecessors also used the concept of rolling one head to send a pointed message to 1000 others.)</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">When a marriage fails, we must “accompany those people who have had this failure in their love,’’ the pope said. “Do not condemn; walk with them.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Deacon Lowe clearly does feel condemned for his multiple marriages, and he returns the sentiment: “They want to do nothing but piss and moan,’’ Lowe said of his new flock, adding that only about one in five parishioners, by his reckoning, are “stepping up instead of stepping away” at this time of crisis. Bringing up his marital history, he says, just shows how out of sync with Francis his critics are. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Hmmm, a certain Deacon also seems to have missed the 'Who am I to judge' message.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">“Yes, I’ve been married four times, but only once in the church,’’ meaning that the first three marriages were not considered sacramental unions. Lowe, who worked in a tool factory that closed down more than a decade ago and now has a car-detailing business, has been married to one woman for the past 20 years; she was married to another St. Mary’s parishioner when they met but later obtained an annulment. (Right or wrong, there’s a widespread impression among Catholics that annulments, which are granted on the diocesan level, depend more on favoritism than facts.)</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7586" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">“I am trying my damndest” to hold St. Mary’s together, Lowe said, despite his suspicion that “there’s a certain percentage of people looking for an excuse not to go to Mass.”</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7589" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">On the contrary, what’s so poignant to me is how much his unhappy flock does yearn to be in those pews. “My great-grandfather and grandmother and aunt have their names on the windows’’ of St. Mary’s, built in 1900, says another lifelong parishioner, Clare Kidd. “It’s<span class="yiv4210558697apple-converted-space"> </span><em>our</em><span class="yiv4210558697apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span>church.”</span></div>
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<span id="yui_3_13_0_ym1_1_1395340402551_7591" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">That is true, of course, whether or not our family names are etched in stained glass. It is our church. And in the end it will be up to us, and not just Pope Francis, to fix it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">I just don't see how laity are going to fix this problem short of doing exactly what the parishioners of St Mary's have done, and that's walk out the door. Nothing they do will move Deacon Lowe, much less Bishop Braxton. Both these men believe they have God's annointed authority and those sheep who won't follow their authority are self centered slackers, non believers, even anti Catholics. There is no middle ground here and consequently no pastoral solution short of Pope Francis rolling Braxton's head, and if that happened it wouldn't be because Braxton made a mess of St Mary's it would be because Braxton has a clergy revolt simmering in the Belleville Diocese.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763;">I think the more likely scenario for a solution will come when Francis announces his choice to replace Chicago's Cardinal George, who as Braxton's superior, has always had his back. The Chicago appointment is perhaps the biggest message Francis will be able to send US Catholics about how serious he is about pastoral leadership. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763;">I have a sick feeling that this appointment will not be in the Bernardin mode, but more in the Wuerl mode---a moderate political type who won't upset the 1% and threaten their cash flow into US church coffers. I hate to write that, but I can't help but notice how different Francis is with Northern European bishops whose flocks are taxed to support the Church. In this case Francis is supporting these bishop conferences, especially on the divorce issue. I expect that's because the agenda is not to antagonize</span><span style="color: #073763;"> the dollar base any further than it already is and a more pastoral approach with the laity will hopefully stem the tide of those who have renounced their Catholic tax status. The US is a different story where all such cash flow is voluntary and one multi millionaire is worth 50 St Mary's parishes. Francis has already started back tracking on some of his more pointed digs at unregulated capitalism, at least to the extent he hasn't bothered to correct some of the spin coming from Cardinal Dolan. Additionally, Francis has most certainly given the green light to continue the USCCB 'religious freedom' charade, whose consequences are far more important to certain wealthy Catholics than it is to the vast majority of parishioners in places like St Mary's.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763;">I hope I'm wrong about my speculation. I'd like to believe the "In God We Trust" that Francis preaches is not ultimately about a certain kind of paper those four words happen to be printed on. I'll have a better idea when he announces his choice for Chicago.</span></div>
colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-7423872024767649332014-03-13T15:19:00.002-06:002014-03-13T15:19:31.379-06:00Pope Francis' First Year Shines Light On Some Serious Catholic Issues<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RQeKe_wwJec/UyIgBH5yOTI/AAAAAAAABvs/n3MLj8mHNtw/s1600/FrancisSistine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RQeKe_wwJec/UyIgBH5yOTI/AAAAAAAABvs/n3MLj8mHNtw/s1600/FrancisSistine.jpg" height="248" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">One year ago today Pope Francis took the walk of a life time down the Sistine road and without a Toto.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763;">Of all the first year reviews of Pope Francis, the one that resonated most strongly with my own thinking is that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/11/pope-francis-revolution-even-started-catholic-church-vatican" target="_blank">of Paul Vallely</a> in the UK Guardian. Like Vallely, I think Pope Francis is an enigma. While I give him huge marks for changing the tenor of the papacy from Imperial Roman Pope to populist Bishop of Rome, for initiating reforms in the structure and financial practices of the Vatican, and for opening doors to real synodality and collegiality, there are other areas, mostly involving Church discipline and doctrine, in which Francis is like a chameleon...or the Vatican Press Office with all it's clarifications makes it seem as if Francis is a chameleon. I've found it fascinating that Catholic conservatives and Catholic progressives appear to be using Francis like a Catholic Rorshach test of some sort. One side maintains he's a revolution the other claims Francis is walking the exact same path as his two predecessors. Francis does nothing to clarify the fog. Vallely makes this point in the following observations:</span><br />
<br />
There is a carefully cultivated ambiguity about the man who is the
266th successor to St Peter. And it is producing a war of words between
conservatives and liberals, inside and outside the Catholic church, with
each trying to claim the pontiff for their side in a religious culture
war. The stakes are high. This is a pope who has attracted almost <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/28/pope-frances-rio-brazil-millions" title="">seven million visitors to papal events</a> in the 12 months since he took office – triple the number who turned out to see Benedict XVI the year before.<br />
<br />
A glance at his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis" title="">Wikipedia page</a>
reveals one side of the battleline. It has clearly been written
primarily by religious conservatives. Its entries seek predominantly to
accentuate the religious orthodoxy of the man who was born Jorge Mario
Bergoglio. Throughout his papacy, it insists, Pope Francis has been a
vocal opponent of abortion. He has asserted that he is a "son of
the church" and, therefore, loyal to <a href="http://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/churmenu.htm" title="">existing doctrine</a>.
He has maintained that divorced and remarried Catholics may not receive
holy communion (a totemic issue in the traditionalist v progressive
divide). The reason he does not sing Gregorian chant during mass is
because he had part of one lung removed as a young man.<br />
<br />
The casual
reader would be advised to take all that as a large dose of spin.
Francis's opposition to abortion has hardly been vocal; indeed, he has
proclaimed that the church has hitherto "obsessed" too much about it.
There is an artful inscrutability to what he means by "a son of the
church"; it is a statement about the past, not the future. He has
repeatedly hinted that he wants to end the policy of banning divorced
and remarried Catholics from communion. He does not chant in Latin
because he feels traditional styles of worship do not connect
with ordinary people in the wider non-European world.<br />
<br />
But what
about the other side of the argument? Liberal Catholics, like the new
pope's many enthusiasts in the secular world, look to the first
non-European bishop of Rome for 1,200 years and see something altogether
different. He is "a miracle of humility in an age of vanity", <a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/07/10/sir-elton-john-says-pope-francis-is-a-miracle-of-humility-in-an-era-of-vanity/" title="">to quote Elton John</a>.
He has shown his readiness to break with tradition by washing the feet
of women and Muslims. He has told atheists they can get to heaven so
long as they "obey their conscience". Most onlookers are attracted by
his demand for "a poor church, for the poor" and his letter scolding the
rich and powerful at Davos for neglecting the "frail, weak and
vulnerable".<br />
<br />
The world was taken aback when the head of a church whose key document on the pastoral care of gay Christians is called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Pastoral_Care_of_Homosexual_Persons" title="">Homosexualitatis Problema</a>
asked: "Who am I to judge?" Yet he has shown no such reticence in
adjudging the shortcomings of the medieval monarchy that is the Vatican,
describing its courtly Curia (officials) as the "leprosy of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-papacy" title="More from the Guardian on The papacy">the papacy</a>".<br />
<br />
All
of which, conservatives counter, <b>is a wish-fulfilment Fantasy Francis</b>.
It mistakes style for substance and ignores the fact that the new pope's
actual teaching demonstrates what the prominent US conservative George
Weigel, a biographer and confidante of John Paul II, has called a
"seamless continuity" with the German and Polish popes who preceded him. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Yes indeed, Francis the Catholic Rorschach test.)</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">In spite of all the spinning being done by both sides, Catholics have learned some things in this first year of Francis. One thing I've learned is that there are at least four different Roman Catholic Churches. There is the Latin American version, the Anglo/Euro version, the African version, and the Oriental version and some of these versions are very very different in their world view. When I looked at the <a href="http://www.univision.com/interactivos/openpage/2014-02-06/la-voz-del-pueblo-portada-en" target="_blank">results of the</a> Univision poll which tested the views of Catholics on sex and family issues in 12 different countries I was seriously shocked at how far apart Africa was from the rest of the global Church, especially the Anglo/Euro Church. I shouldn't have been surprised because the Anglican Church has been dealing with that split for decades. Catholicism's first chance to hash this split out will come in October at the Bishops Synod on the family. We'll find out if Francis is any better at dealing with this chasm than the Anglican Primate Rowan Williams because the Catholic results show this split is not the result of progressive Anglican theology, it's about different world views, most of them having to do with women and gender expectations.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">This brings me to the second thing I've learned this past year. Neither the Church nor Pope Francis has any idea of what to do with the problem of women in the Church. At least Francis recognized it's a problem, but his<a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/323/so-what-will-francis-do-to-boost-the-role-of-women-in-the-church-" target="_blank"> notions about </a>the Marian and Petrine Churches do not address the problem much less solve it. I understand that Francis is taking his concepts from Von Balthasar who had a great deal of influence on JPII. I suppose it's a nice concept if one wants to keep men in total control because it places the feminine as the heart of the Church with the masculine as the head of the Church...a nice complimentary situation which really appealed to JPII. Really, what woman could possibly be offended by being given the role of Mary in the scheme of things? Perhaps a woman who understands that in this particular scheme of things Mary is mythologized perfection and mere mortal women are neither perfect nor myths. I've often wondered why women have to emulate perfection but men get to emulate Peter who isn't exactly anyone's concept of perfect, but I digress. This idea of Von Balthasar's only flies if you accept the underlying assumption that women somehow embody empathy, relationship, and nurturing and men don't, won't or can't without sacrificing their masculinity on the altar of celibacy. I don't happen to buy any of it, but then I also happen to believe the clerical priesthood is the root and branch of all the Church's current scandal. Which brings me to the third thing I learned this year.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Pope Francis is a priest before he is anything else. I've written that before. His defense of the Church over clerical abuse must stem from how much of a victim he feels as a Catholic priest in today's climate. One wonders why he has empathy for every other form of human misery, but not victims of his own clerical class. He better get over it because there is more to come. He can speak all he wants about the cancer of clericalism but that cancer doesn't go away because someone calls it cancer. Cancers have to be cut out, not left in place to become the next miracle for the next saint from the Vatican saint factory. Clerical abuse stands as the most salient indictment of the whole Catholic clerical system and how abusive it is to the laity, to fellow priests, and to Jesus Himself. Francis can not let this one go. If he lives long enough to call another Vatican synod it should be on the priesthood because family aside, if change doesn't come to the priesthood even the Church in Africa is going to lose it's Catholic identity due to lack of sacramental access. Without meaningful change there is no doubt clerical sexual abuse will continue... and bishops will keep hiding it, especially in countries which do not have Anglo reporting requirements.</span>colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com130tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-69469170316314009032014-03-07T12:12:00.002-07:002014-03-07T12:14:01.710-07:00A Metaphor Worth A Thousand Words<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1ugKIJZFCtQ/UxoY_8VzDsI/AAAAAAAABvc/XqsqmXA0ZpQ/s1600/face+of+betrayal..png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1ugKIJZFCtQ/UxoY_8VzDsI/AAAAAAAABvc/XqsqmXA0ZpQ/s1600/face+of+betrayal..png" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #073763;">It is said that metaphors are really important in forming religious minds and hearts. The above photo is a metaphor for innocence betrayed. At first it's kind of funny, until you really look at the cat's face and eyes and then it isn't so funny. It's about experiencing something that is so instinctively terrifying at the hands of someone you trust in a place you can't escape.</span> <span style="color: #073763;">A certain pope I can think of might want to meditate on this photo. He might get why so many abuse victims feel betrayed....again by the Church.</span>colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-52897389650957514212014-03-06T10:41:00.003-07:002014-03-06T10:41:52.051-07:00For Francis It's All About Priests----Just Like Himself<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SmbLj3BbuyE/UxixgQDUsdI/AAAAAAAABvM/zX9O4CBYKhI/s1600/doves-screenshot.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SmbLj3BbuyE/UxixgQDUsdI/AAAAAAAABvM/zX9O4CBYKhI/s1600/doves-screenshot.jpg.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">The clerical caste under Francis is not about to let go of their grasp on the Holy Spirit. Although in this case the dove got away. There's a message there for Francis and his limited ideas of reform.</span></td></tr>
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<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">After reading <a href="http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/francis-marks-anniversary-interview-family-women-contraception" target="_blank">NCR's article</a> and a translation of yesterday's interview with Pope Francis in the Italian newspaper </span><span style="color: #073763;"><em>Corriere della Sera </em>I felt like a light had dawned on a dark area and some of my confusion cleared. I was also sick to my stomach. Pope Francis' take on the abuse crisis could have been written by Bill Donohue. Really, if I had not gotten so excited about Francis last spring, I should have seen this coming along time ago. None of the Cardinals on his group of 8 have stellar records when it comes to the victims of the abuse crisis and that includes Cardinal O'Malley. Cardinals Maradiaga and Pell are on record for statements that clearly indicate their concern was far more about offending priests than it was victims. Francis' record in Argentina also shows he put priesthood before victim. I'll get back to that point, but first <a href="http://www.gazzettadelsud.it/news/english/82625/Pope-says-he--shares-pain--of-wrongly-accused-priests.html" target="_blank">the following </a>is from the Southern Italian newspaper <i>Gazzeta del Sul</i> and gives yet more insight into where Francis' allegiances really lie.</span> <br />
<h1 class="titolo_articolo titolo">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #660000;">Pope says he 'shares pain' of wrongly accused priests</span></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #073763;"> 06/03/2014 <a href="http://www.gazzettadelsud.it/news/english/82625/Pope-says-he--shares-pain--of-wrongly-accused-priests.html" target="_blank">GazzetadelSudonline</a><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="font-size: small;">False claims of child prostitution ring hurt many, says Francis</span></span></b></div>
Vatican City, March 6 - Pope Francis told a group
of Rome priests Thursday that he "shared the pain" of priests
suffering "unjust wounds" caused by allegations against some of
them.
"Lots of people have been injured, by material problems, by
scandals, including in the Church," the pope said during a
meeting with priests inside the Vatican.
He was referring to an incident in March 2013 when former
priest Patrizio Poggi was convicted and sent to prison for five
years for pedophilia, and also denounced other priests, saying
they were involved in a child prostitution ring.
Police later said his claims were unfounded and Poggi was
charged with aggravated slander.
According to police, his accusations were driven by
"resentment tied to personal reasons".
<b>The pope said the case hurt many in the Church.
"I shared the pain of some of you, of the entire
priesthood, for the accusations made against a group of you,"</b>
Francis told the meeting.
<b> "I have talked to some of you who have been accused and saw
the pain of these unjust wounds, (this) madness, and I want to
say publicly that I am close to (you),</b>" he said.
Francis said he also apologized on behalf of the Church
because the false accusations came from within its ranks
His comments come following an interview published
Wednesday, in which Pope Francis defended the Church's response
to a long series of scandals about child sex abuse by clergymen.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">There is no longer any question in my mind that Pope Francis, like his papal predecessors of the twentieth century is a Roman Catholic priest first, last, and always and that in his mind the priesthood is the Church. For all his talk about service to the laity, he will never allow any changes to the priesthood he has completely identified with for his entire adult life. I suspect his cardinal electors were relying on that identification as the brakes on meaningful reform with in Catholicism. Given this mindset Francis is not about to identify with clerical abuse victims, as he is incapable of it, and will always put the priesthood above victims. I now find his choice of papal name more than interesting since the original Francis purposely refused ordination. I think there is a real message here. Until he can somehow set his priesthood aside, he can not identify with the concerns of the laity. This is true for amost all clergy, and is why I have very little hope the upcoming synod on the family will produce meaningful results for the laity. The best that will happen is it will produce meaningful results for the clergy. It might allow them a little more pastoral latitude on thorny issues.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">It seems to me what Francis is trying to do is to have his cake and eat it too. He wants just enough reform to keep the all male clerical priesthood untouched while engaging in some change. We've seen movement on financial issues, at least in terms of getting the Vatican financial interests in compliance with EU requirements, but the over all supervision is still firmly in the hands of Cardinal priests. (And more and more Opus Dei.) We have heard multiple statements on a wider role for women in the Church and multiple statements that this wider role will not include any form of ordination which only makes that wider role more widely subordinate to male clergy. We have heard statements about acting on the abuse crisis and seen very very little action. Check out this<a href="http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/fr-lombardi-church-is-committed-to-protection-of-minors" target="_blank"> pathetic statement</a> from Fr Lombardi, who is once again called into the breach to defend Francis. Here's a taste:</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"> </span><br />
"Regarding what has been described as the Pope’s “defensive” tone, Fr.
Lombardi said that it was a recognition of the fact that while the
Church has been committed to repairing past failures, it has “not been
recognized objectively.”<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">The problem for Fr Lombardi and Pope Francis is the Church's efforts have been recognized objectively and they have been found seriously deficient. Not every Catholic lives reality wrapped in a clerical bubble.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">The one trait that makes<a href="http://ncronline.org/blogs/examining-crisis/pope-francis-abuse-disappointment" target="_blank"> Fr Tom Doyle so different</a> from his clerical bretheren is that he got out of his clerical bubble and put his priesthood on the back burner. He became a human being first, and this allowed him to really see the clerical abuse crisis for what it was, how much had to change to effect meaningful change, and gave him the compassionate heart to recognize this crisis is not about priests. It is about the victims of priests. The price for this spiritual maturation was sacrificing his priesthood. The price for cleaning things up in the Church will be sacrificing our current theological justifications for the Trentan priesthood. This pope, like Benedict, John Paul II, and Paul VI will not be able to climb on that particular cross. For them the price is to high. Instead, we Catholics will see them all canonized as martyrs to secularization. Go us. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;"> </span> <br />
colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-85970680772086924932014-02-28T10:42:00.002-07:002014-02-28T10:42:48.317-07:00Two Anniversaries, Two Different Men, One Real Evangelizer<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y11KCKOMpUg/UxDERXTGCiI/AAAAAAAABuk/Mfxre7HRu5A/s1600/Mr+Rogers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y11KCKOMpUg/UxDERXTGCiI/AAAAAAAABuk/Mfxre7HRu5A/s1600/Mr+Rogers.jpg" height="320" width="227" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">There was never a completely bad day in Mr Roger's neighborhood.</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jnWRr3xJwFE/UxDF5c59vaI/AAAAAAAABuw/wC4XagiREmI/s1600/360_pope_benedict_0523.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jnWRr3xJwFE/UxDF5c59vaI/AAAAAAAABuw/wC4XagiREmI/s1600/360_pope_benedict_0523.jpg" height="208" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">There were just way too many bad days in Pope Benedict's neighborhood.</span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></td></tr>
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<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Yesterday was the 11th anniversary of the death of Fred Rogers. No one, and I mean no one, had more impact on the formation of my daughter's early view of the world than Fred Rogers. She would sit riveted during his show, a firm believer in Mr Roger's neighborhood, a firm believer in treating all people just like Mr Rogers treated all people. He truly evangelized her into being the person she is today, and I am truly proud of her. I suspect this is true for a lot of her generation, that Mr Rogers had more to do with their outlook than any other early life influence. Whatever one may think about the millennials, one has to admit they have a pretty welcoming concept of neighborhood.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Today marks the 1st anniversary of the resignation of Pope Benedict. He had virtually no impact on my daughter's formation as a human being, except as a lightening rod for how the Roman Catholic Church did not function at all like Mr Roger's neighborhood. He was not one of her evangelizers. His was not a friendly inviting neighborhood and in the US, Catholicism is still not a very friendly neighborhood for a lot of people.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Pope Benedict was a lot of things but he did not have an ounce of the evangelizing impact of Fred Rogers. </span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Pope Benedict's resignation did finally result in what appears to be the election of Catholicism's version of Fred Rogers. One could say Benedict did lay the groundwork for cleaning up the neighborhood. I sure hope Pope Francis has his share of cardigan sweaters. </span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PisL3OdyK9E/UxDIuFQHDaI/AAAAAAAABu8/1jl4pvEej_E/s1600/Pope+Benedict+XVI+and+Francis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PisL3OdyK9E/UxDIuFQHDaI/AAAAAAAABu8/1jl4pvEej_E/s1600/Pope+Benedict+XVI+and+Francis.jpg" height="223" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">Pope Francis seems to have taken a lesson in evangelization from the same source as Fred Rogers....the teachings of Jesus, not the teachings of Augustine.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763;"> </span>colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-62151401520036318062014-02-22T13:58:00.001-07:002014-02-22T13:58:05.884-07:00Of Vatican Miracles And Mounting Frustration With The Vatican And Vatican Miracles<span style="color: #073763;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rZq3Ngjb8vU/UwkMrkxltuI/AAAAAAAABuU/wXe2h0_HH8k/s1600/rebellion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rZq3Ngjb8vU/UwkMrkxltuI/AAAAAAAABuU/wXe2h0_HH8k/s1600/rebellion.jpg" height="400" width="302" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">Paul VI never made the cover of Rolling Stone, but he made Time's cover more than once. This is the one for when he issued Humanae Vitae.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763;">I didn't intend to go two weeks without posting, but it looks like I certainly managed to do so. For some reason time just seems to be going ultra fast for me lately. I keep track of dates and appointments on a 5 week white board and today marks the end of five weeks. It seems like maybe two weeks since I last changed all the dates. Maybe this is God's way of packing more life in a short amount of time. I would hope I'm experiencing aging at the same rate. If I age two weeks for every five, I could be around a lot longer than I think. It's a miracle.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Speaking of miracles, the Vatican has <a href="http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/paolo-vi-paul-vi-pablo-vi-32232/" target="_blank">just announced </a>one for Paul VI. It involves the cure of an unspecified problem with a fetus who upon birth did not exhibit the expected birth defect. The Vatican makes no bones about this miracle validating Paul VI's issuance of Humanae Vitae: </span><span lang="EN-GB">"The Postulator of the Pope Paul VI’s cause said this
was an extraordinary and supernatural event which took place through the
intercession of the late Pope. It was in line with his magisterium and
the contents of the <i>“Humanae Vitae”</i> encyclical, i.e. the defence
of life, “but also the defence of the family, because that document
discusses married love, not just unborn life. This healing is in harmony
with Montini’s teaching.”" <span style="color: #073763;">I certainly hope this blatant politicizing of a miracle and the canonization process of a pope doesn't portend miracles for every contentious issue promulgated by any pope in the last two hundred years. I anxiously await the next PVI miracle. If there is any justice or honesty, it will be the full cure of AIDS in a gay man.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #073763;">Pope Francis has aslo been on my radar these past two weeks. I was hoping the latest meeting of the C8 would end with the announcement of the names on the commission on clerical abuse, and maybe more information concerning it's mandate. There was no such announcement. This commission is still a matter of one sound bite from Cardinal O'Malley and absolutely no walk. The <a href="http://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/for-the-sake-of-our-children-pres-obama-please-cancel-your-meeting-with-pope-francis/" target="_blank">voices for justice</a>, like Betty Clermont's, in this area are now getting louder and their arguments harder to refute the longer Francis fails to act. It's been almost a full year and Francis has yet to act in any meaningful way on clerical abuse. He is repeating the sad pattern he had with this issue in Buenos Aires. As Gerry Slevin also <a href="http://christiancatholicism.com/pope-francis-priority-rich-cardinals-or-poor-children/" target="_blank">points out,</a> so far the priority has been all about putting the Vatican's money in order rather than giving the victims of the Catholic priesthood some justice.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #073763;">Today Pope Francis installed 19 more Cardinals in the presence of his predecessor Emeritus Pope Benedict. To my knowledge this is the first major Vatican ceremony for which both popes have been present. Kudos to Benedict for not making himself a visible lightening rod for his flock of Vatican II reformers. However, in many ways Benedict really hasn't had to be very visible because Francis has gone to some length to assure us all he is in continuity with Benedicts' thinking and policies. Francis has not broken with Benedict at all. He has chosen to maintain his distance by emphasizing points of Benedict's writings which Benedict's vatican did not emphasize and by symbolic changes rather than disagreeing with the over all reform of the reform. For all the hand wringing on the uber right, Francis has not so far been some ogre out to target the Traditional Latin Mass crowd. He just hasn't emphasized it in his own practice.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #073763;">As his first year anniversary approaches, I have to admit I find Pope Francis something of an enigma. I was much more on board the first three or four months of his papacy and now find myself wondering more and more if he really knows where he wants to take the Church. Consultation is great, but action is better. He does things that I find confusing. First he is spending millions and millions on all kinds of outside big name consulting firms <a href="http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/vatican-starts-hiring-freeze-forbids-overtime-effort-cut-costs" target="_blank">while simultaneously laying off </a>Vatican staff and freezing their wages to save money. This is the behavior of a vulture capitalist, not a follower of Saint Francis.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #073763;">I'm also not understanding how the Vatican can release a statement stating this: </span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-GB">The Catholic Church, on her part, <b>in condemning every
form of violence perpetrated in the name of religious belief</b>, will not
cease in her commitment to peace and reconciliation, through
interreligious dialogue and the many charitable works which provide
daily assistance and comfort to the suffering throughout the world.”" <span style="color: #073763;">and yet not say anything to Nigerian and Ugandan bishops who are all on board with directing the exact kind of language at gays that was used against Jews in Nazi Germany. It's head scratching to me because I'm of the opinion that when one says they 'condemn every form of violence perpetrated in the name of religious belief' they actually mean it. Apparently not in the case of gays and lesbians, at least not in the Vatican under Pope Francis.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #073763;">Then finally, I have been frustrated with the Synod on the Family. This just doesn't include the multitude of ways various national bishops groups have interpreted the Vatican's request for information from a survey the Vatican designed--very poorly I might add--it also includes frustration with how many different groups of cardinals are getting their fingers in the pot before the bishops synod actually convenes. The reason I find this frustrating is this seems to be a circling of the big wagons in response to the fact what data has been released shows the laity is not on board with Catholic teaching, and most especially not on board with Humanae Vitae. And this brings me back to the new miracle attributed to Paul VI. Our powers that be can not seriously think this kind of appeal to piety is going to prompt 78% of global Catholics to stop using artificial contraception. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #073763;">Given this kind of dissent, maybe it is a good idea to circle the red hatted wagons before the purple ones have a say or bring with them evidence of a global rejection of a doctrine that neither the folksy talk of this Pope or the erudite defense of the retired Pope or the miracle of a dead pope is going to persuade laity to accept.</span></span></span> </span></span>colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-26011737869250309172014-02-08T13:42:00.002-07:002014-02-08T13:42:47.649-07:00Women And Pope Francis According To John Allen + Some More Vatican/UN Interaction On Women's Rights
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GlQMat2Yfk8/UvaV2ayIxjI/AAAAAAAABuE/ft61gH-6zS8/s1600/tumblr_mdn059OsDX1ru8za5o1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GlQMat2Yfk8/UvaV2ayIxjI/AAAAAAAABuE/ft61gH-6zS8/s1600/tumblr_mdn059OsDX1ru8za5o1_500.jpg" height="400" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">This last little factoid pretty much puts things in a brutally honest light. </span></td></tr>
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<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">I've been meaning to write on<a href="http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/women-old-guard-pope-v-pope-graffiti-and-all-things-catholic" target="_blank"> John Allen's final column </a>for the NCR for a while, but other things came up. Today I will. The excerpts below are from the first topic of that column and is a classic example of John's penchant to write prescriptive columns under the guise of descriptive journalism. <i>I want to give a shout out to Bill Lyndsey who pointed this out in one of his blog posts about four years ago.</i> In his final column John prescribes for us what Pope Francis really means about more space for women in the Church. When I've used red highlighting, it's because these are buzz words leading into prescriptive thoughts rather than objective reporting. I can get away with prescriptive writing because I don't claim to be an objective even handed centrist reporter on all things Catholic.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #073763;">Following the Allen piece are a couple of paragraphs from another Vatican interaction with a UN committee. This one happened yesterday at the UN's Eighth Session of the Open Working Group on the Sustainable
Development Goals on “Promoting Equality, including Social Equity,
Gender Equality, and Women’s Empowerment.” The suggestions from the Vatican about promoting gender equality and women's empowerment are far more concrete than the musings of Pope Francis on women in the church but probably indicate pretty much where Francis is really at. Given the prioritization of women's roles in the Vatican message to the UN, we can rest assured there won't be any pregnant priests on Pope Francis' watch.</span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span>
<br />
Given the through-the-looking-glass dynamic of the media today,
everything Pope Francis says or does is defined as news, however hard it
may be to pin down what it means and however often he may have said or
done precisely the same thing before.<br />
<br />
Thus <a href="http://ncronline.org/node/68986" target="_blank">a short talk Francis gave</a> to an Italian women's center on Saturday made headlines, in this case because of what he said about women in the church.<br />
<br />Here was the line: "I'm happy to see many women sharing some pastoral
responsibilities with priests in accompanying people, families and
groups, and also in theological reflection. I hope that the spaces for a
more capillary and incisive feminine presence in the church will be
enlarged."<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #660000;">Never mind </span>that Francis had issued some version of that line at least
half a dozen times before or that he added no new concrete detail about
what "more space for women" might look like. He uttered the words, so
reporters and analysts were obliged to swing into action.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #660000;">In truth</span>, it's easier to say what "more space for women" doesn't mean
in the mind of Pope Francis than what it does. <span style="color: #660000;">We know</span> he's taken women
priests off the table, and <span style="color: #660000;">we also know</span> he's not interested in naming
women cardinals. In his December interview with the Italian paper <em>La Stampa</em>,
Francis said anyone advocating women cardinals suffers from
"clericalism," <span style="color: #660000;">meaning the idea</span> that to be important in the Catholic
church, you have to be a member of the clergy.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #660000;">In fact</span>, Francis' conception of what "more space" means <span style="color: #660000;">seems to have</span> little to do with office-holding of any sort.<br />
<br />
During his trip to Brazil in July, Francis told the Brazilian bishops
that he wanted them to "promote the active role of women in the
ecclesial community" because "if the church loses its women ... it risks
sterility." That prompted a question on the papal plane about what
exactly he meant by "promoting an active role," to which he replied: "It
can't be limited to the fact that girls can be altar boys, or that
women can be the president of Caritas or a catechist. No! It has to be
more than that, profoundly more, even mystically more, and that's why
I've spoken about [the need for] a theology of women."<br />
<br />
<b>"Women in the church are more important than bishops and priests,</b>"
the pope insisted. "That's what we have to try to explain better,
because I believe we don't have a way of making that explicit
theologically."<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><i>(No doubt women are more important than bishops and priests in producing future generations of bishops and priests. I don't know how that fact is supposed to be more explicitly stated theologically since so much theology already insists women's role is first and foremost reproductive.)</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #660000;">Here's the key point:</span> When Francis talks about "more space" for
women,<span style="color: #660000;"> it's less about creating new roles and more a</span><b><span style="color: #660000;">bout assigning
greater value to the roles women already play</span>. <span style="color: #660000;">It's psychological,
theological and moral "space" he wants to enhance, not so much corporate
and institutional.</span></b><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><i>(I'm not sure John Allen has this right since he left out 'mystical' in his prescriptive statement about the intentions of Francis. If John is right, what he is saying is that Francis hopes to accomplish what is essentially a snow job to maintain the status quo between the sexes in the Church.)</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><i> </i></span><b> </b><br />
As a veteran of the pastoral front lines, <b>Francis grasps that if its
women were to walk away tomorrow, the Catholic church would come
grinding to a halt.</b> He knows it's women who raise kids in the faith,
women who make parishes run, women who keep alive popular devotions and
practices, women who mobilize the church's human resources when people
are in need, and on and on. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(It's also women who provide the 'space and time' men have in order to do what men tell women only men can do.....like exclusively running the very Church which would grind to a halt if women stopped being women the way male Catholic theology has traditionally defined women.)</i></span><br />
<br />
If the Catholic church is a "field hospital," as Francis has put it, he knows that women are its primary medical staff. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(But not the doctors.)</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #660000;">That's not to say</span> Francis won't create more "space" for women in the
conventional sense of the term.<span style="color: #660000;"> He could,</span> for instance, name a woman as
his spokesperson, a job that's generally the second most visible in the
Vatican after the papacy. As part of a restructuring of Vatican
finances,<span style="color: #660000;"> he could</span> create a new position of comptroller and assign it to
a woman, effectively entrusting her with the Vatican's power of the
purse. Or, if the much-rumored consolidation of several current Vatican
departments into a new "Congregation for the Laity" actually happens, <span style="color: #660000;">
the pope could</span> tap a laywoman to head it. <br />
<br />
(<b>That last suggestion might be a bit dicey, because assuming that the
new congregation will exercise delegated powers of the pope, some
canonists will say that anyone wielding those powers needs to be a
cleric</b>. However,<span style="color: #660000;"> if there's one thing we've learned </span>about Francis, it's
not to be too dogmatic about what he will or won't do.) <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(I think Pope Francis is well aware of the fact that clericalized men will not accept female leadership, and John should know this as well since <a href="http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/embattled-caritas-head-insists-dialogue-two-way-street" target="_blank">he interviewed</a> Leslie Anne Knight after it didn't work out so well for her.)</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><i> </i></span><br />
Maria Voce, head of the international Focolare movement, has also
suggested that Francis might create a council of lay advisers alongside
his Council of Cardinals, a body where women would play a key role.<br />
In the end, however, s<span style="color: #660000;">uch steps would be only symbols</span> of what Francis <span style="color: #660000;">seems to mean</span> by "more space for women."<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">The substance is a new way of explaining why women actually don't
need anybody to lift them up. If people saw the church in the proper
light, as Francis understands it, they'd realize that women are already
where the action is. </span> </b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(This last prescriptive paragraph is all OD. If all Francis intends to do for women is try to convince them that they aren't on the bottom of the pyramid, but really at the top, he's more a great manipulator than a real reformer.)</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><i><span style="color: #660000;">****************************</span> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">And now here's a more concrete insight into how women are to be valued. It's from the presentation given by Archbishop Francis A. Chullikatt, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent
Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, at the UN's Eighth
Session of the Open Working Group on the Sustainable Development Goals
on “Promoting Equality, including Social Equity, Gender Equality, and
Women’s Empowerment.” These excerpts are taken from <a href="http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/holy-see-at-un-on-promoting-equality-including-social-equity-gender-equality-and-women-s-empowerment" target="_blank">Zenit's coverage</a> of the presentation.</span><br />
<br />
....Yet it would be naïve to <b>conflate equality with sameness</b>. The
approach to women in the Sustainable Development Goals must acknowledge
and enable women to overcome barriers to equality without forcing them
to abandon what is essential to them. Women worldwide do not live in
isolation, but exist within the context of relationships which provide
meaning, richness, identity, and human love. Their relationships,<b>
<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: black;">especially their role within the family – as mothers, wives, caregivers</span> </span>–
have profound effects on the choices women make and their own
prioritization of the rights which they exercise across their
lifespans. </b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Notice how AB Chullikatt completely ignores the fact that women are culturally pressured into this prioritization and in many cases have no choice about their lives as mothers, wives, and caregivers.)</i></span><br />
<b> </b><br />
In formulating the Sustainable Development Goals, <b>the global
community must sidestep a simplistic assertion<span style="color: #660000;"> <span style="color: black;">that shortfalls in
women’s economic and public achievements can be</span> <span style="color: black;">remedied only by the
negation of their procreative capacities.</span></span> A truly rights-based approach
to women’s equality demands that societies and their institutions remove
unjust social and economic barriers that <span style="color: #660000;">interject a false dichotomy
between the relationships that enhance their lives and their
participation and gains across other human rights. </span> Development for
women will be truly sustainable only when it respects and enables women
to choose and prioritize their actions according to equal opportunities</b>
<span style="color: #660000;"><b>within the context of real family relationships that frame their lives,
not in spite of them. </b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(The Vatican's prescription for women's equality and rights means family first, and then solutions within that context. It is a prescription for a form of reproductive slavery not expected of men.)</i></span></span><br />
<br />
Sustainable Development Goals should provide the <b>opportunity to
confront inequality through the promotion of women’s engagement on an
equal basis in society without disregarding entirely the family
relationships in which women exist.</b> Labor policies should go beyond
facilitating equal job access and ensure reconciliation of paid work
with family responsibilities: through family and maternity policies, and
ensuring that equal salaries, unemployment benefits, and pensions are
sufficient for a sustainable family life. Access to equal education and
vocational training must accompany measures to accommodate family work
and care needs. Serious efforts are needed to support women in their
family choices. Civic participation should be designed to accommodate
the participation of all women, including those with family
responsibilities. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(This list of policies should most certainly pertain to men and their family responsibilities, but ABChullikatt does not mention men at all. I find this interesting because shared parental responsibilities is not just crucial to the enhancement of women's opportunities and rights, but to the sustainability of the modern family unit.)</i></span><br />
<br />
<br /><span style="color: #660000;">***********************************</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">I don't have any hope that the place of women in the Church is going to substantially change if Catholics look to the Vatican for that change. For all John Allen's semi optimistic prescriptive speculation, the truth is in Chullikatt's presentation to the UN. Catholicism places women's reproductive ability and family relationships ahead of any other aspect of their humanity. The men of the Vatican assure women that is what they are and what they want and how they must organize and prioritize their lives, and all this without even acknowledging in too many places on this planet women and girls don't even have a choice to make those choices----but of course even when a woman chooses to have a child, but does it wrong in the eyes of the Church, the Church will kick her out. Great.</span> </span>colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-6031559833581086492014-02-07T11:13:00.002-07:002014-02-07T11:13:57.662-07:00More Attention On My Home Diocese<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mnYZsP_fr0U/UvUhCQnKeII/AAAAAAAABt0/9XgeVa7hnac/s1600/scarlet+letter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mnYZsP_fr0U/UvUhCQnKeII/AAAAAAAABt0/9XgeVa7hnac/s1600/scarlet+letter.jpg" height="307" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">We have not 'come along way baby'. Not in Butte, Mt. Not in the Catholic Church.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Last week I wrote about the Helena Diocese declaring bankruptcy and it's use of mediation with the 362 abuse victims rather than the usual confrontational style of other dioceses. This week I get to write about another story that has generated a lot of national and international interest, that of the firing of an unwed pregnant teacher at<a href="http://mtstandard.com/news/local/diocese-stands-by-firing-decision-teacher-s-lawyer-won-similar/article_c12a5e44-8dc7-11e3-808b-001a4bcf887a.html?mode=comments" target="_blank"> Butte Central Catholic school. </a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">I found three things really interesting about this story. The first interesting thing is that the Diocese</span> <span style="color: #073763;">acted on an anonymous letter. Which tells me that even in my little diocese, the right wing morality police have all the leverage, even beyond the leverage of Pope Francis who has baptized the children of single parents, 'cold called' one who chose not to have an abortion, and has strongly suggested the doctrines of the Church are opportunities for pastoral action, not for condemnation and judgement. He's even made pretty strong statements about Jesus coming to save sinners--like himself--and not to create a Church of self righteous pious saints strictly for self righteous pious saints.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">The second thing I found hugely interesting was the statement from Diocesan School Superintendent Patrick Haggarty:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"> </span>“The Catholic moral teaching is that the sacrament of marriage is a holy
union between a man and a woman,” Haggarty told the Standard. “And we
certainly believe and we teach our children who attend our schools about
the sacrament of marriage. That’s as old as our church. Not only do we
teach that to the children kindergarten through 12th grade, but we’re
held to that standard as well.”<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">As far as I can tell, the teacher involved did not violate Church teaching on marriage. She violated Church teaching on sex outside of marriage. I think poor Mr Haggarty was attempting to defend the wrong Church teaching, but then most teachers fired from Catholic schools lately, have been violating Church teaching on marriage because they happen to be gay teachers getting married. Maybe Mr Haggarty just got a confused, or maybe he was attempting something else. That would be using an unmarried pregnant woman to help some of his fellow Catholic school administrators on the hot stove for firing gay married teachers. Now they can all say 'See, we fire other teachers for violating Catholic teaching on marriage. We aren't discriminating in any way at all.' Except of course they are, and they will be until some straight man is fired for masturbating, adultery, divorce, using pornography, getting his girl friend pregnant, carrying condoms in his wallet, or some other violation of Catholic sexual morality.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">The third thing I found interesting is the defense the teacher's attorney, Brian Butler, will use to get her reinstated. It worked in <a href="http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/jury-awards-christa-dias-120k-in-suit-against-archdiocese-of-cincinnati" target="_blank">Cincinnati in</a> the case where an unwed teacher who opted to get pregnant via AI was fired. This defense operates on the legal premise that no school or school contract can force a women to give up her constitutional right to have a child. The Cincinnati case had some other interesting facts that didn't factor into the actual legal case. The teacher was not Catholic and was also a partnered, but non married, lesbian. The salient point however, was that any contract which stipulates a person give up their constitutional rights, is not a legally binding contract in the USA or any of it's States. The Archdiocese of Cincinnati was ordered to pay their fired teacher $170,000. I suspect a similar outcome in Montana.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">There are also some things about this situation that I find just plain angering. One of those was the Church double speak about how wonderful it was that this teacher did not abort and opted to choose life--in spite of the fact it would cost her her job--but still, we have to kick her to the curb, throw her out, and say sayonara sinner. For me this totally proves 'pro life' is a secondary moral good to punishing sexual sins. Actually, I've known that for decades as it goes a long with that 'pro life' concept that it's better to have your child die of AIDS than use a condom.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Another angrifying issue is the sheer blindness of some of the editorializing on this situation. Deacon Greg Kandra <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2014/02/how-do-you-fire-a-pregnant-unwed-teacher-from-a-catholic-school-heres-a-suggestion/" target="_blank">waxes eloquently</a> about how this situation should have been handled--in a media sense--without ever questioning whether it needed to be a media issue at all. The problems the Church faces have been seriously exacerbated by limiting the discussion to media presentations instead of looking at the core problems. No matter how much spinning one spins, firing a pregnant teacher in mid term can not be spun in the Church's favor. It is not pro life. It is not charitable. It's operating like a field hospital whose sole treatment is amputation. It is unconstitutional. It is not about defending the sanctity of marriage, or of sexuality, or of life. It is about defending the hypocrisy of the Church. I've had enough of that. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"> </span> colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-21582873862876195612014-02-07T08:04:00.001-07:002014-02-07T08:04:41.906-07:00Fr Lombardi Defends Holy Father Church From The Clueless UN <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dCXp0oEvv9A/UvTx12WyFLI/AAAAAAAABtk/lEaaIXiExVg/s1600/Fr+Lombardi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dCXp0oEvv9A/UvTx12WyFLI/AAAAAAAABtk/lEaaIXiExVg/s1600/Fr+Lombardi.jpg" height="272" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">Fr Lombardi condescends to rebut the UN Report on the Rights of the Child. Apparently the adults of the UN don't have the brains to understand the machinations of the Holy See well enough to do such a thing.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">I'm almost impressed. Someone was working overtime in the Vatican--Greg Burke's Office perhaps--to read all the commenting on the UN Report and make up a talking points list for the Vatican's rapidly aging official spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi. He issued his communique with it's list of rebuttals this morning in Rome. More than a few of those talking points were intended to reestablish the proper order of things vis a vis Roman Catholicism and a puny UN Committee that is basically insignificant.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">Here's the proper understanding of the place of this committee in the greater global sphere of influence: </span><br />
<br />
<span id="content2" style="color: #282828; font-size: 12px; font: Verdana; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">"The
recommendations made by the Committee<b> are often quite sparse and of
relative weight. It is not by chance, that there is rarely heard a
worldwide echo of the recommendations in the international press,</b> even
in the case of countries where problems of human rights and [problems
regarding] children are known to be grave.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span id="content2" style="color: #282828; font-size: 12px; font: Verdana; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #073763;">Once Fr Lombardi has made the point this is an obscure committee, he then tells us the Vatican gave 'ample' written evidence to the committee and submitted to a whole day of questioning, (well two Fathers did) essentially implying the Vatican was doing this obscure UN Committee a favor. And then after all of this the Committee releases it's report, which apparently was supposed to pat the Vatican on the back for being the most important global force in children's rights because Lombardi then writes this:</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">What is there to observe in this regard? </span></span><br />
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /> <span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><b>First,
the Holy See 's adherence to the Convention was motivated by a
historical commitment of the universal Church and the Holy See for the
sake of the children.</b> <b>Anyone who does not realize what this [commitment]
represents for the sake of the children in the world today, <span style="color: #660000;">is simply
unfamiliar with this dimension of reality.</span> </b>The Holy See, therefore, as
the Holy See’s Secretary of State, Archbishop Pietro Parolin has said,
continues its efforts to implement the Convention and to maintain an
open, constructive and engaged dialogue with the organs contained
therein. [The Holy See] will take its further positions and will give
account of them, and so on, <b>without trying to escape from a genuine
dialogue, from the established procedures, with openness to justified
criticism –<span style="color: #990000;"> but the Holy See will do so with courage and determination ,
without timidity.</span></b></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: #990000;"> </span></b></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;">It is precisely that historical commitment that the UN was questioning by bringing up specifics such as the Magdalene Laundries, abuse in boarding schools and orphanages, baby selling schemes in Ireland and Spain, referring to and ostracizing children of single mothers as 'bastards', doing absolutely nothing about it's stated doctrine concerning discrimination against gays, expecting very young girls to carry pregnancies to term, official teachings based in notions of 'complimentary' which do no more than set in new double speak the dignity of girls and women as subordinate to their reproductive capabilities, refusing to teach or even consider condoms or other birth control for adolescents in developing countries---not even for HIV/AIDS prevention, and then of course, the issue that strikes at the heart of Holy Father Church's spiritual soul, the global clerical sexual abuse scandal.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;">The Holy See can 'dialogue' with courage and determination and without timidity of that I have no doubt. The real question is will it dialogue with transparency, without obstinancy and obfuscation, and with a desire to learn something from how the rest of the world views the actions of the Roman Catholic Church. Based on HISTORY, I doubt it.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;">Lombardi's very first point of contention is that the Committee doesn't get the unique structure of the Holy See. Of course, of course:</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"></span></span><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">"I</span><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">n
particular, the [Observations’] lack of understanding of the specific
nature of the Holy See seem serious. It is true that the Holy See is a
reality different from other countries, <b>and that this makes it less easy
to understand the Holy See’s role and responsibilities .</b> [These
particularities], however, have been explained in detail many times in
the Holy See’s twenty years and more of adherence to the Convention, and
[specifically addressed] in recent written responses. [<b>Are we dealing
with] an inability to understand, or an unwillingness to understand? In
either case, one is entitled to amazement.</b></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><b> </b></span></span></span></span><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><b> </b></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><b></b></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><b></b></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><b></b></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763;">Perhaps the poor Vatican is just dealing with a bunch of stupid women and hack third world academics, huh Father? But unlike Lombardi, the committee most certainly spelled out how they saw the specific nature of the Holy See. That's something Lombardi doesn't deign to do here, but then I suspect the idea of Lombardi's rant is not to correct misconceptions, but to belittle and demean the committee. After all it would be hard for him to admit the scope of the Holy See's responsibilities morphs depending on what court room or official investigation they are dragged into.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763;">Lombardi then goes on to list most of the other talking points used by Austen Ivereigh et al, and ends with a big fat Holy Father whine fest"</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"></span></span></span></span></span>The
way in which the objections [contained in the Concluding Observations]
were presented, <b>as well as the <span style="color: #660000;">insistence on diverse particular cases,
seem to suggest that a much greater attention was given to certain NGOs,</span>
the prejudices of which against the Catholic Church and the Holy See
are well known, rather than to the positions of the Holy See itself,
which were also available in a detailed dialogue with the Committee. </b><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(OOH how novel, the always useful anti-Catholic card. Except, those NGO's like SNAP and it's victim/survivors have a right not to see the Catholic Church as Holy Mother and to question it's commitment to Christian principles. They are not anti Catholic, they are anti Catholic hierarchy, and they are not alone.) </i></span><br /><div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><br /><b>A
lack of desire to recognize all the Holy See and the Church have done
in recent years,</b> [especially as regards] recognizing errors, renewing
the regulations, and developing educational and preventive measures, is
in fact typical of such organizations. Few, other organizations or
institutions, if any, have done as much. This, however, is definitely
not what one understands by reading the document in question. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Now we have the 'no one has done more than us' card. Except, Lombardi is leaving out a ton of somewhat recent history and the very important fact, <b>the Holy See would have done absolutely nothing if it hadn't been forced to by secular institutions.</b> It has never led. It was always dragged kicking and screaming.)</i></span><br /><br />Finally,
and this is perhaps the most serious observation: the Committee’s
comments in several directions seem to go beyond its powers and to
interfere in the very moral and doctrinal positions of the Catholic
Church, <b>giving indications involving moral evaluations of contraception,
or abortion, or education in families, or the vision of human
sexuality, in light of [the Committee’s] own ideological vision of
sexuality itself. </b>For this reason, in the official communique released
Wednesday morning there was talk of “an attempt to interfere in the
teaching of the Catholic Church on the dignity of the human person and
in the exercise of religious freedom.” <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(The committee asked that the Church consider the real life consequences of certain teachings regarding gender and sex and live up to it's stated belief in the dignity of the gay person. That's it. That this is being spun as the UN trying to interfere with Church teaching is at best projection, at worst deception. There are real life consequences from the absolutism of certain teachings.)</i></span><br /><br />Finally, one cannot but
observe that the tone, development, and the publicity given by the
Committee in its document are absolutely anomalous when compared to its
normal progress in relations with other States that are party to the
Convention. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(That's only because the Holy See is such a special and unique State.)</i></span><br /><br />In sum: if the Holy See was certainly the subject of
an initiative and a media attention in our view unfairly harmful, one
needs to recognize that, in turn, the Committee has itself attracted
much serious and well-founded criticism. Without desiring to place
[responsibility for] what has transpired “[on] the United Nations”, it
must be said that the UN carries the brunt of the negative consequences
in public opinion, for the actions of a Committee that calls itself [by
the UN name].<span style="color: #073763;"><i> (Oh, my god. puhlease. This paragraph is totally embarrassing, or it should be, but I forget I'm dealing the Holy Father Church. So of course the UN has more mud splattered on it that does the Vatican--at least in the minds of the boys at the Vatican.)</i></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763;"><i> </i></span></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763;"><i><span style="color: #660000;">*************************************************</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763;"><i><span style="color: #660000;"> </span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span id="content2" style="color: #282828; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">There is so much more I could write about this, but it would degenerate into a complete line of snark. No question the boys are circling the wagons. I just find it really instructive that Jesus didn't whine at all about being whipped and Crucified, but the boys in the Vatican who have earned their whipping and Crucifixion can't stop whining, can't stop making themselves victims, can't begin to own up to the fact there are serious serious issues within the priesthood and with some Catholic teachings. It's incomprehensible to me they expect adults to follow their spiritual leadership. Finally, I don't understand how it's possible to respect the rights of children when your knee reaction to criticism from adults is to demean and belittle them as if they were children. Just sayin'.</span></span><i><span style="color: #660000;"> </span> </i></span></span></span></div>
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colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-31750035568371015282014-02-06T13:32:00.000-07:002014-02-06T13:40:31.156-07:00Seriously Flawed Spinning Regarding The UN Report To The Holy See On The Rights Of The Child<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qrc5zyQo51s/UvPsYKwM3eI/AAAAAAAABtU/YLEoXaajdoE/s1600/Karen+Sandberg+UN.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qrc5zyQo51s/UvPsYKwM3eI/AAAAAAAABtU/YLEoXaajdoE/s1600/Karen+Sandberg+UN.png" height="273" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">Kirsten Sandberg, Chairmen of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child talks with Maria Herczog and Benyam Mezmur during the press conference releasing the draft of the UN response to the Holy See. Finally the men in the Vatican have to answer to some women. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I just finished reading the <a href="http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC/Shared%20Documents/VAT/CRC_C_VAT_CO_2_16302_E.pdf" target="_blank">UN's Report to the Holy See</a> on The Rights Of The Child. I read the full report from the perspective of defending the rights of children in all situations, not just clerical abuse. I came away with a m<span style="font-size: small;">uch different take than commenters like<a href="http://cvcomment.org/2014/02/05/how-the-holy-see-was-ambushed-by-a-un-kangaroo-court/" target="_blank"> Austen Ivereigh</a>, <a href="http://marksilk.religionnews.com/2014/02/05/u-n-smacks-vatican-handling-sex-abuse/" target="_blank">Mark Silk</a>, or <a href="http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/hell-un" target="_blank">Micheal Sean Winters</a>. I did not approach my reading of the report as if it I had to instantly defend Holy Father Church from another secular attack. In actuality, I was most edified to see that the report did in fact, deal with rampant gender discrimination in which girl's lives are not so valued as boys lives---at least not beyond the fact girls grow up to become mother's of boys. I have found it really really fascinating that the men of the Catholic world of commentary have somehow missed all the paragraphs in the report that deal with this issue in favor of taking a few other paragraphs out of context. On the other hand, it didn't surprise me because I was reveling in the fact that the men of Vatican were answering to the women of the UN and pretty much figured Holy Father's men would be out in full force.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;">My first really strong disagreement is that many of these commenters, including the Vatican's Archbishop Tomassi, imply the UN has somehow failed to comprehend how the Church effectively operates and how limited the Pope actually is in terms of responsibility for Church organizations. If that's true, then why does Section 3 of the Report go into detail as to how the UN Commission saw these very issues:</span></span></span><br />
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The Committee is aware of the dual nature of the Holy See’s ratification of the Convention as the Government of the Vatican City State, and also as a sovereign subject of international law having an original, non-derived legal personality independent of any territorial authority or jurisdiction.</div>
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<b>While being fully conscious that bishops and major superiors of religious institutes do not act as representatives or delegates of the Roman Pontiff, the Committee nevertheless notes that subordinates in Catholic religious orders are bound by obedience to the Pope in accordance with Canons 331 and 590. </b>The Committee therefore reminds the Holy See that by ratifying the Convention, <b>it has committed itself to </b></div>
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<b>implementing the Convention not only on the territory of the Vatican City State but also as the supreme power of the Catholic Church <span style="color: #660000;">through individuals and institutions placed under it's authority</span></b>. </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Vatican City States, the bishops, and religious institutes that answer directly to the Pope seems to pretty much define the scope of responsibility this Report attributes to the Pope through the Holy See. This is not individual diocesan priests or individual nuns or the homeless shelter in the train station in Rome. This is not to say that there aren't paragraphs which babble beyond this scope, but if one takes into consideration institutions which answer directly to the Pope such as Cor Unum, which oversees Caritas Internationalis and works side by side with the UN, it's a little easier to understand how at times the Report appears to be demanding tasks the Vatican itself would not be capable of doing unless one gets beyond the confines of the Vatican and includes bodies like Caritas Internationalis which might have the ability to do so.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-size: small;">The other objection I have to too much of the male editorializing, is this report does not deal exclusively with clerical sexual abuse, but you would never know that from the commentary. MSW goes so far as to imply the Report blames the abuse crisis on homosexuality which is either a complete misreading of the report, or an intentional effort to reduce it's credibility in the eyes of people who will never read the report. What the Report does ask in it's section on discrimination is that the Church work to end discrimination against gay and lesbian children and actively work to decriminalize homosexuality. It is not asking for a change in Church doctrine, but for the Church to ACT on it's teaching about not discriminating against gays as people, something that is certainly not happening in the African Church and not being remarked on from St Peter's.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-size: small;">The sections that I really appreciated were the ones dealing with women and girls. I didn't come away with the idea that the Report was seriously asking for changes in Doctrine. What I did come away with was a notion that the Report was asking the Holy See to deal with the real life, on the ground, consequences of it's teachings. Consequences such as the 'never under any circumstances abortion' doctrine that condemns very young girls to pregnancies that can kill them. Pregnancies which in almost all circumstances result from rape or incest. As an illustration, the Report brought up the incident in Recife, Brazil where a nine year old was raped by her step father, aborted twins, and her mother, the doctors, and other direct care givers were excommunicated by the Church. The step father was not. As crazy as it seems, that the Church would not excommunicate the step father, that is the truth of the justice in Canon Law. A man will not be excommunicated for a sexual act capable of creating life, even if that act is rape, even if the resultant pregnancy from the rape kills a nine year old child. Justice for these acts can only be found in the secular criminal system, not in Catholic doctrine or Canon Law. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Unfortunately, it is precisely this same Catholic Doctrine and Canon Law which hamstrings the Church from assisting in creating secular laws which will deal with the real on the ground consequences of Church Doctrine--especially as those doctrines and laws effect the Church itself. This leads to things like the US bishops fighting tooth and nail against any initiative to extend the Statutes of Limitations in child sexual abuse. So much for defending the rights of children.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #073763;"><span style="font-size: small;">When I finished reading this report I came away with one very strong observation. It was about time a major secular body called the Church to account for the consequences of it's teachings and actions on powerless children. For all of Pope Francis' soaring eloquence about the importance of children and how precious life is, the Church he leads is both hugely hypocritical and strangely indifferent when it comes to the consequences children endure because of Catholic teachings--especially those little girl children who can never ever become leaders in one of the most gender discriminating institutions on the planet.</span></span></span></div>
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colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-35657656517836355912014-02-01T13:31:00.004-07:002014-02-01T13:42:39.789-07:00Diocese Of Helena Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3WF5QLbIgwk/Uu1ZLaK-BxI/AAAAAAAABtE/_vrmvLCIDAU/s1600/Helena_Cathedral.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3WF5QLbIgwk/Uu1ZLaK-BxI/AAAAAAAABtE/_vrmvLCIDAU/s1600/Helena_Cathedral.jpg" height="400" width="295" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">The Cathedral of Saint Helena is one of my favorite places in town. The stained glass is awesome.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #073763;">The Diocese of Helena is my home diocese. It's a small diocese in which someone always knows someone who knows the bishop personally. I can say I graduated from the same college Bishop Thomas did and I played softball with his sister---which in the normal way around here makes me highly connected. Although she was a very good first basemen, the truth is, while I met others in her family, I never met Bishop George Thomas and don't know him at all. This is in spite of the fact he was a senior when his sister and I were sophomores. I do however, know the chancellor of the diocese from back in those same college years. He probably wishes I didn't remember him quite so well. In any event, I give this information as a sort of disclosure. I may not be the most objective reporter on this bankruptcy--but on the other hand, I am also very familiar with the abuses that went on in the Native American boarding schools. I have met quite a number of those victims while participating in Native ceremonies across the State---and also as clients in therapeutic settings.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">This<a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-montana-diocese-bankruypcty-sex-abuse-20140131,0,1494388.story?page=1#axzz2s5XTQsCH" target="_blank"> LA Times article</a> gives a pretty good overview of the numbers. The Helena situation is not exactly the typical case of a diocese avoiding transparency or payouts by declaring bankruptcy--like Listecki in Milwaukee. In the Helena case most of the names came out in the settlement with the Northwest Jesuit Province, and the respective victims attorneys have listed others. It's also not exactly about reams of diocesan priests being hidden and transferred from one parish to another. In this particular settlement about 12% or just under 40 of the 362 victims, accused diocesan priests; a little over 20% accused one or another Ursuline nun, and the rest were victims of the Jesuits who ran the Native mission schools and parishes.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">Under Montana law, those victims who were compensated in the 166 million dollar Jesuit settlement, which included about 2/3rds of the plaintiffs in the Helena settlement, will receive money from the Helena settlement if their individual amount exceeds what they received in the Jesuit settlement.This helps explain why the mediated settlement was 15 million rather than a higher sum.</span> <span style="color: #073763;">However, the operative word in that last sentence is 'mediated'. This was not a confrontational process from the beginning. The National Catholic Reporter ran <a href="http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/transparency-marks-montana-sex-abuse-lawsuit-mediation" target="_blank">a story</a> about this mediation process. It is worth reading.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">The hang up in the mediation was not on the part of the Diocese or Bishop Thomas. It was on the part of the Ursulines who eventually opted out of the mediated settlement, and various insurance companies who kept going to court to lessen their liability. The Ursuline court case will be one of the very few that have involved religious orders of nuns in the US. That in itself is interesting in that the Ursulines were far from the only order that ran boarding schools or orphanages. The Ursulines may have felt that they were better off distancing themselves from the Helena Diocese settlement because they wanted to play the nun sympathy card and would rather take their chances with a jury. Good luck, I'm sure the media spotlight will be very bright once their case comes to trial this summer.</span> <span style="color: #073763;">I also have to admit I am glad they chose to go to trial because for once, Americans may actually get a glimpse of the day to day life in the Native American boarding schools. For those whites of Anglo or European descent who grew up in fear of ruler wielding nuns, the truth of the Boarding Schools should give them some perspective.</span> <span style="color: #073763;">Where as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have issued government apologies for the misery their boarding schools inflicted on their Indigenous populations, the US has not uttered a peep. If the Ursuline trial sheds some light on this very dark corner of US policy, some good may actually come from a truly horrible situation.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">The Diocese of Helena is a very small potato in the Church garden. Demographically Catholics are about 45,000 people in a Diocese covering half the State of Montana. If Montana follows the national trend, only about 1/3 of those 45,000 are practicing Catholics. Given those numbers and the lack of real capital assets, I am not surprised the Diocese wound up in bankruptcy. Scuttlebutt says the Diocese was heading towards bankruptcy before the law suits were filed, and that's scuttlebutt I can believe. One need only drive through Butte, which was the heart of Catholicism in this area, and count the closed parishes. It's a micro picture of the macro Church in the Anglo and European worlds. It may not be exactly what Pope Francis means by his 'poor church for the poor' concept, but it is a poor and shrinking church.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">In closing, I believe Bishop Thomas is genuine about his apologies and his desire to see as much justice as can be done for victims. I don't know anyone who hasn't been devastated when meeting victims face to face and really hearing what their lives were like in the Mission schools. The guilt and shame become personal if only because one is a white Christian. No one deserved the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse these kids went through and I truly believe Bishop Thomas cares. Another bishop might have fought tooth and nail since most of the plaintiffs listed religious order abusers as opposed to diocesan priests, but the truth is, it was the system and the culture itself that carries the blame and Bishop Thomas is one of the few bishop who acts as if he gets it. </span>colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-70417869359129760312014-01-31T10:08:00.000-07:002014-01-31T10:14:29.096-07:00Double Speak Or Deception?<span id="content2" style="color: #282828; font-size: 12px; font: Verdana; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #073763;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9D7_3LDNlPs/UuvXvR_9XpI/AAAAAAAABs0/lNvbJU2w43U/s1600/doves-screenshot.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9D7_3LDNlPs/UuvXvR_9XpI/AAAAAAAABs0/lNvbJU2w43U/s1600/doves-screenshot.jpg.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">One of the two doves released last S<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;">unday by two children during the Pope's Angelus talk is attacked by a crow. The other dove was attacked by a sea gull. Both doves survived, which is probably the real message</span>.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span id="content2" style="color: #282828; font-size: 12px; font: Verdana; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #073763;">Pope Francis seems to be taking the Barque of Peter on a rightward tack. Vatican Insider has two articles which have given me reason to seriously question whether Francis is a true reformer, or just a very good performer.</span></span></span><br />
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<span id="content2" style="color: #282828; font-size: 12px; font: Verdana; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #073763;">The first <a href="http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/santa-marta-31673/" target="_blank">excerpt</a> is about a sermon Francis' gave at his daily Mass on Thursday. He is reflecting on one of the daily readings involving King David, but it's in the middle of his sermon that Francis seems to be contradicting a number of previous Francis statements: </span></span></span><br />
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".....Francis then quoted Pope Paul VI: “This is why the great Paul VI <b>said
that it is an absurd dichotomy to love Christ without the Church, to
listen to Christ but not the Church, <span style="color: #660000;">to be with Christ at the margins of
the Church. It's not possible.</span></b> It is an absurd dichotomy. We receive
the Gospel message in the Church and we carry out our holiness in the
Church, our path in the Church. The other is a fantasy, or, as he said,
an absurd dichotomy." <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(This is an apparent direct contradiction of his statement in Evangelii Guadium that the Church must seek out it's mission on the margins, to get out of the safe center, and learn from the periphery.)</i></span><br />
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The "<i>sensus ecclesiae</i>" is "precisely to feel, think, want,
within the Church.” There are "three pillars of this belonging, this
feeling with the Church.”
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“The first is “humility”: “<b>A person who is not humble, can not hear
the Church, they can only hear what they like. We see this humility in
David, </b>' Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my home?' That realization
that the story of salvation did not begin with me and will not end with
me when I die. No, it's a whole history of salvation: I come, the Lord
will take you, will help go onwards and then calls you and the story
continues. The history of the Church began before us and will continue
after us. Humility: we are a small part of a great people that walks the
path of the Lord.” <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(David was far from humble. See today's readings.)</i></span><br />
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“<b>The second pillar is fidelity that is linked to obedience</b>. <b>Fidelity
to the Church, fidelity to its teaching; fidelity to the Creed; fidelity
to the doctrine, safeguarding this doctrine. Humility and fidelity.</b>
Even Paul VI reminded us that we receive the message of the Gospel as a
gift and we need to transmit it as a gift, but not as a something of
ours: it is a gift that we received. And be faithful in this
transmission. Because we have received and we have to gift a Gospel that
is not ours, that is Jesus',<b> and we must not - he would say - <span style="color: #660000;">become
masters of the Gospel, masters of the doctrine we have received, to use
it as we please.”</span></b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Again, this contradicts past statements in which Francis spoke about a hierarchy of importance in Church teaching. Here he conflates the Gospels with Church doctrine and Church doctrine with the Creed. Is this where he is really at, that there is no hierarchical difference and that to question doctrine is to lack humility and fidelity?)</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;"><i><br />********************************</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">Finally here's <a href="http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/world-news/detail/articolo/francesco-francis-francisco-31680/" target="_blank">an extract </a>from a statement Francis gave to the trustees of the University of Notre Dame. It could have been written by Cardinal Raymond Burke:<i> </i></span></span><br />
<span id="content2" style="color: #282828; font-size: 12px; font: Verdana; line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<br />
“In my Exhortation on the Joy of the Gospel, I stressed the
missionary dimension of Christian discipleship, which needs to be
evident in the lives of individuals and in the workings of each of the
Church’s institutions,” the Pope said, addressing the delegation in
Italian. “This commitment to “missionary discipleship” ought to be
reflected in a special way in Catholic universities (cf. Evangelii
Gaudium, 132-134), which by their very nature are committed to
demonstrating the harmony of faith and reason and the relevance of the
Christian message for a full and authentically human life. <b>Essential in
this regard is the uncompromising witness of Catholic universities to
the Church’s moral teaching, and the defence of her freedom, precisely
in and through her institutions, to uphold that teaching as
authoritatively proclaimed by the magisterium of her pastors. It is my
hope that the University of Notre Dame will continue to offer
unambiguous testimony to this aspect of its foundational Catholic
identity, especially in the face of efforts, from whatever quarter, to
dilute that indispensable witness. And this is important: its identity,
as it was intended from the beginning. To defend it, to preserve it and
to advance it!”</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;"><i>************************************************</i></span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">I freely admit I no longer have any idea what Pope Francis really thinks about much of anything. I think he might actually believe his statements about unfettered capitalism and global economic inequality and maybe, just maybe, his statements concerning ecumenism, especially with regards to the Orthodox. As far as financial reform, I have way too many questions about the people he has chosen to further the reform and links between specific individuals and the multitude of high end consulting firms he has brought in to further his reforms. Plus, I don't know that the curia can really be reformed as long as it is based in Italy. A real reform in this area would be to keep the ceremonial Church based in Rome and the operations/diplomatic end somewhere else far from Rome----like New Zealand. That would be meaningful reform, especially if the New Zealand end was composed totally of laity. I know this last is a fantasy of mine and that there is no way in hell such a reform will happen under this pope because I also read <a href="http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/santa-marta-31562/" target="_blank">this article</a> on Vatican Insider</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">Here's a paragraph to give the flavor of the linked article: </span></span><br />
<br />
"<span lang="EN-GB">Anointing brings bishops and priests closer to the
Lord and gives them the joy and strength “to carry [their] people
forward, to help [their] people, to live in the service of [their]
people,” the Pope said. <b>“Anointing gives the joy <span style="color: #660000;">of feeling oneself</span>
“chosen by the Lord, watched by the Lord, with that love with which the
Lord looks upon all of us.” Thus, <i><span style="color: #660000;">“When we think of bishops and priests,
we must think of them in this way: [as] anointed ones.”</span></i></b></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">For all his advice to the laity to take on humility, there's a certain lack of same in the above paragraph when it comes to the ordained priesthood. I can't say that I think of priests and bishops as 'annointed ones' any longer. I tend to think of them as self selected homophobic misogynists whose maturity level is too often suspect, whose spiritual maturity level is also questionable, and whose authority is constantly propped up by each other and ignored by those they supposedly serve and lead. Sorry, that's the just the way it is for me.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">I had some pretty high hopes for Francis when he first came on the scene, but in the back of my head was a little voice saying: "The original Francis rejected the priesthood and this Francis sits at it's pinnacle. This is not irony. This is deception." Hence the photo for this piece. </span></span><b><span style="color: #660000;"></span><i><span style="color: #660000;"> </span></i></b></span><br />
<br />colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-90481707035388380402014-01-24T11:16:00.001-07:002014-01-24T11:16:11.028-07:00Mike Huckabee: No GOP War On Women........LMAO<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;">I
get that the GOP has a 'woman problem' and are really trying hard to
respin the Democrats 'war on women' meme which was quite successful in
2012. But now I'm beginning to see that rather than having a 'woman
problem' the GOP has a 'dumb male' problem.....except that for some of
the faux politician type 'dumb males' like Mike Huckabee, pretending to
be a dumb male and directly appealing to the idiocies of other dumb
males enhances the donations to one's personal PAC. It's kind of amazing
how many GOP faux politicians are making a good living off personal
PAC's.</span> <span style="color: #073763;">Not so dumb after all.</span><br />
<h1>
<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="font-size: large;">Huckabee Doubles Down On Women Can't Control Libidos Comment</span></span></h1>
<span style="color: #073763;">Talking Points Memo - Livewire - 1/24/2014</span><br />
Not only is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) not apologizing
for saying Democrats think women can't control their reproductive system
without the help of the government, he's fundraising off those
comments.<br />
<br />
"I am apparently the worst conservative ever or at least the most
annoying one according to the left wingers in Washington today,"
Huckabee wrote in his regular MikeHuckabee.com email to supporters
Thursday night. "My remarks to the RNC today were immediately jumped on
and blown sky high by hand-wringing, card carrying liberals from coast
to coast, some of them in the media." <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Not just liberals Mike. A lot of women weren't too happy with you.)</i></span><br />
<br />
The email came hours after the former Arkansas governor, during a speech at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting, <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/huckabee-dems-tell-women-they-can-t-control-their-libido">said</a>
Democrats "insult the women of America by making them believe that they
are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a
prescription each month for birth control, because they cannot control
their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the
government." <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Mike, you just insulted the
intelligence and moral integrity of all women by insisting we are
blindly led around by liberals and cannot control our sex drive.
Personally, I would say it is conservative men who are blindly led
around by histrionics of white male conservative mouth pieces and whose
inability to control their own libido must be blamed on women. Just
sayin')</i></span><br />
<br />
In the email Huckabee also asks for donations to his political action
committee so his critics can look at the committee's fundraising and
"say see we told you so." <br />
"Guess what liberals? If you can't stand to look at yourself in the
mirror, then get ready for more of this talk, because conservatives are
going to continue to fight back against your destructive policies
towards women and families," Huckabee continued in the email. <span style="color: #073763;"><i>(Maybe Mike spends too much time looking at himself in the mirror.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><i><span style="color: #660000;">********************************************</span></i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #073763;"><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #073763;">I
don't know about anyone else, but I for one just can't wait for more
GOP talking points which purport to save us from the destructive
policies of the Dems towards women and families. Especially when the
GOP defense is all about demeaning the intellectual and moral integrity
of women. I guess I just don't have the intellectual capacity to see
how this male 'rational logic' works.</span> </span>Maybe it's a certain
type of male, one who is neither rational or logical, for this to make
sense. I'm sure Mike will continue to enlighten me.</span>colkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com24