Does The Honduran Coup Hold Lessons For The Future Of The United States?

Clashes between the Honduran military and demonstrators have received far less press in the US than the clashes that happened with Iran's stolen election. Why is that I wonder?

The coup in Honduras, for which the US refuses to give the designation 'military coup', clearly points out the agenda of three conservative forces: unfettered capitalism and the wealthy, the military who support them, and ultra conservative Christian forces. The unifying principle is control of the populace by people who consider themselves the only ones with the correct solutions. Their rationale for force is the common good, and in the interests of their definition of the common good, the individual has no rights. This first article gives an overview of how the coup came to be, and their US connections. The second article tells the story of the coup's effect on Honduran women.

Honduran Coup: The U.S. Connection
Conn Hallinan August 6, 2009 Foreign Policy In Focus

While the Obama administration was careful to distance itself from the recent coup in Honduras — condemning the expulsion of President Manuel Zelaya to Costa Rica, revoking Honduran officials' visas, and shutting off aid — that doesn't mean influential Americans aren't involved, and that both sides of the aisle don't have some explaining to do.

The story most U.S. readers are getting about the coup is that Zelaya — an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — was deposed because he tried to change the constitution to keep himself in power.

That story is a massive distortion of the facts. All Zelaya was trying to do is to put a non-binding referendum on the ballot calling for a constitutional convention, a move that trade unions, indigenous groups, and social activist organizations had long been lobbying for. The current constitution was written by the Honduran military in 1982, and the one-term limit allows the brass-hats to dominate the politics of the country. Since the convention would have been held in November, the same month as the upcoming presidential elections, there was no way Zelaya could have remained in office in any case. The most he could have done was to run four years from now.

And while Zelaya is indeed friendly with Chavez, he is at best a liberal reformer whose major accomplishment was raising the minimum wage. "What Zelaya has done has been little reforms," Rafael Alegria, a leader of Via Campesina, told the Mexican daily La Jornada. "He isn't a socialist or a revolutionary, but these reforms, which didn't harm the oligarchy at all, have been enough for them to attack him furiously."

One of those "little reforms" was aimed at ensuring public control of the Honduran telecommunications industry, which may well have been the trip-wire that triggered the coup.

The first hint that something was afoot was a suit brought by Venezuelan lawyer Robert Carmona-Borjas claiming that Zelaya was part of a bribery scheme involving the state-run telecommunication company Hondutel.

Carmona-Borjas has a rap-sheet that dates back to the April 2002 coup against Chavez. He drew up the notorious "Carmona decrees," a series of draconian laws aimed at suspending the Venezuelan constitution and suppressing any resistance to the coup. As Chavez supporters poured into the streets and the plot unraveled, Carmona-Borjas fled to Washington, DC. He took a post at George Washington University and brought Iran-Contra plotters Otto Reich and Elliott Abrams to teach his class on "Political Management in Latin America." He also became vice-president of the right-wing Arcadia Foundation, which lobbies for free-market policies. Weeks before the June 28 Honduran coup, Carmona-Borjas barnstormed the country accusing Zelaya of collaborating with narco-traffickers.

Carmona-Borjas' colleague, Reich, a Cuban American with ties to right-wing factions all over Latin America and former assistant secretary of State for hemispheric affairs under George W. Bush, has been accused by the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization of "undeniable involvement" in the coup.

This is hardly surprising. Reich was nailed by a 1987 congressional investigation for using public funds to engage in propaganda during the Reagan administration's war on Nicaragua. He is also a fierce advocate for Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, both implicated in the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1973 that killed all 73 on board.

Reich is also a ferocious critic of Zelaya. In a recent piece in the Weekly Standard, he urged the Obama administration not to support "strongman" Zelaya because it "would put the United States clearly in the same camp as Cuba's Castro brothers, Venezuela's Chavez, and other regional delinquents." (The irony here is that if we continue our middle of the road policy we will put Honduras solidly in that camp, and foment more right wing military takeovers at the same time.)

One of the charges that Reich levels at Zelaya is that the Honduran president is supposedly involved with bribes paid out by the state-run telecommunications company Hondutel. Zelaya is threatening to file a defamation suit over the accusation.

Reich's charges against Hondutel are hardly happenstance, as he is a former AT&T lobbyist and served as Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) Latin American advisor during the senator's 2008 presidential campaign. McCain has deep ties with telecom giants AT&T, MCI, and Qualcomm and, according to Nikolas Kozloff, author of Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics and the Challenge of the United States, "has acted to protect and look out for the political interests of the telecoms on Capitol Hill."

AT&T, McCain's second largest donor, also generously funds the International Republican Institute (IRI), which has warred with Latin American regimes that have resisted telecommunications privatization. According to Kozloff, "President Zelaya was a known to be a fierce critic of telecommunications privatization."

When Venezuelan coup leaders went to Washington a month before their failed effort to oust Chavez, IRI footed the bill. Reich, as then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's special envoy to the Western Hemisphere, met with some of those leaders.

Republicans in Congress have accused the Obama administration of being "soft" on Zelaya. Sen. Jim DeMint (SC) protested the White House's support of the Honduran president holding up votes for administration nominees for the ambassador to Brazil and an assistant secretary of state. Meanwhile, Zelaya's return was unanimously supported by the UN General Assembly, the European Union, and the Organization of American States.

But meddling in Honduras is a bipartisan undertaking.
"If you want to understand who is the real power behind the [Honduran] coup, you need to find out who is paying Lanny Davis," says Robert White, former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and current president of the Center for International Policy. Davis, best known as the lawyer who represented Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial, has been lobbying members of Congress and testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in support of the coup.

According to Roberto Lovato, an associate editor at New American Media, Davis represents the Honduran chapter of CEAL, the Business Council of Latin America, which strongly backed the coup. Davis told Lovato, "I'm proud to represent businessmen who are committed to the rule of law." (This really means their definition of the rule of law, which means the law favors them.)

But White says the coup had more to do with profits than law. "Coups happen because very wealthy people want them and help to make them happen, people who are used to seeing the country as a money machine and suddenly see social legislation on behalf of the poor as a threat to their interests," says White. "The average wage of a worker in free trade zones is 77 cents per hour." According to the World Bank, 59% of Hondurans live below the poverty line.

The United States is also involved in the coup through a network of agencies that funnel money and training to anti-government groups. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contribute to right-wing organizations that supported the coup, including the Peace and Democracy Movement and the Civil Democratic Union.

Many of the officers that bundled Zelaya off to San Jose were trained at the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation, the former "School for the Americas" that has seen torturers and coup leaders from all over Latin America pass through its doors.
The Obama administration condemned the coup, but when Zelaya journeyed to the Honduran-Nicaragua border, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced him for being "provocative." It was a strange statement, since the State Department said nothing about a report by the Committee of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras charging 1,100 human rights violations by the coup regime, including detentions, assaults, and murder.

Human rights violations by the coup government have been condemned by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, the International Observer Mission, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protest Journalists, and Reporters Without Borders.
Davis claims that the coup was a "legal" maneuver to preserve democracy. But that's a hard argument to make, given some of its architects. One is Fernando Joya, a former member of Battalion 316, a paramilitary death squad. Joya fled the country after being charged with kidnapping and torturing several students in the 1980s, but he has now resurfaced as a "special security advisor" to the coup makers. He recently gave a TV interview that favorably compared the 1973 Chilean coup to the June 28 Honduran coup.

According to Greg Grandin, a history professor at New York University, the coup makers also included the extremely right-wing Catholic organization, Opus Dei, whose roots go back to the fascist regime of Spanish caudillo Francisco Franco.
In the old days, when the United States routinely overthrew governments that displeased it, the Marines would have gone in, as they did in Guatemala and Nicaragua, or the CIA would have engineered a coup by the local elites. No one has accused U.S. intelligence of being involved in the Honduran coup, and American troops in the country are keeping a low profile. But the fingerprints of U.S. institutions like the NED, USAID, and School for the Americas — plus bipartisan lobbyists, powerful corporations, and dedicated Cold War warriors — are all over the June takeover. (Click here if you would like the view of the Wall Street Journal. It's a somewhat different take.)

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Military Coup Reverses Honduran Women's Gains in Human Rights
By Margaret Thompson, Women's Media Center. Posted August 31, 2009.

Women have been front and center in all of the massive peaceful daily marches opposing the regime, and military and police have responded with ever more violent repression.

The military coup d’état in Honduras on June 28 has seriously eroded democratic institutions and hard-fought gains in women’s human rights and human rights in general. That was the finding of Feminist Transgressional Watch, a group of 22 journalists, human rights legal experts and activists from North and Central America and Spain. The group visited Honduras in mid-August during Women’s Human Rights Week to assess reported violations of human rights and observe feminist strategies to resist the military coup.

In one gathering, the delegation met with 18 women who were fired recently from the National Institute for Women (INAM) because they are feminists and opposed the coup. According to Gilda Rivera, director of CEM-H (Women’s Studies Center of Honduras), the coup resulted in the devastation and militarization of such democratic institutions as INAM, which was established in 1998 based on international agreements coming out of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women.

Feminists and other women have been front and center in all of the massive peaceful daily marches opposing the regime of Roberto Michelleti, and military and police have responded with ever more violent repression, including increased sexual aggression and torture of women, according to Honduran feminists and activists. "Women are playing a different role in society, breaking the traditional order," noted Daysi Flores, a young member of Feminists in Resistance of Honduras. "Since the coup we’re in the streets, we’re more visible, we call ourselves feminists, we occupy spaces and carry out political actions," a "serious breach" of traditional social norms. (Oh, Oh, a big buzz word for Opus Dei.)

Xiomara Castro Zelaya, wife of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, said she was surprised that more women than men are participating in many marches, and that "it’s hard to see people in the demonstrations repressed so brutally." The first lady was addressing an August 17 forum of the Coalition of Resistance in Teguciagalpa, Honduras.

One blatant violation of women’s human rights occurred on July 15, when several members of the Feminists in Resistance group staged a peaceful protest at INAM. They were speaking out against the loss of progress for women after decades of struggle—under a coup regime supported by the ultra right wing, including Opus Dei, a very conservative Catholic group that opposes many rights for women. The defacto Minister of Women María Marta Díaz called in security forces who chased the women protesters, hitting them with batons on their backs and buttocks, screaming verbally aggressive comments such as, "Whores! Go back to your homes!" Gilda Rivera of CEM-H noted that she had never heard of police hitting male protestors on the buttocks with their batons. Leaders of indigenous and Afro-Caribbean organizations who were staging their own peaceful march against the coup came to support the feminists in the attack. (Ms. Diaz, the de facto Minister of Women, is a card carrying member of Opus Dei.)

According to Kanya Irias, who was a technical director in INAM, Minister Diaz is a close associate of a military advisor to the new coup regime who was notorious for past brutality.

Feminist and human rights groups report that femicide and violence against women overall has greatly increased since the coup. Alda Facio, an international human rights lawyer from Costa Rica, calls it an undeclared war against women, something that often occurs in armed conflicts. During the month of July following the coup, 51 femicides were reported in the two largest cities, Tegucigalpa and San Pedru Sula, a 60 percent increase over a typical month in the year before. Yet women have filed few complaints of street violence or domestic violence during this time. According to Sara Rosales, a human rights lawyer with CEM-H, women believe it to be both dangerous and futile to report such violence to the police, who are in part responsible for the brutal repression. (In the interests of brevity I cut this article, but you can finish reading it here.)

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I don't suppose this should come as a shock, but the stated excuse for the involvement of Opus Dei and right wing Evangelical groups is that President Zelaya authorized the availability of 'morning after pills' for Honduran women. Hence the presence of Ms Diaz as Director of the Ministry for Women and her need to call in the military to put Honduran women back in their God given place.

As far as the official Catholic Church, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga gave a nation wide television broadcast on July 4th, two days after Zelaya was denied permission to land in Honduras. In it he told Zelaya: ‘I know that you love life…I know that you respect life, and until today not a single Honduran has died. But your return to the country at this point in time could lead to a blood bath. Please, meditate. Because afterward it would be too late’.

This is quite the statement if you think about it. First, at least two people had been killed by the military before this speech. One at the airport when Zelaya had tried to land, and the second, an oppositional leader, by kidnapping and dumping. Secondly Cardinal Maradiaga tries to make the the coup members the victims by blaming any blood shed on Zelaya's attempt to return. This is such a standard tactic by ecclesiastical authorities. This reversing the victim/perpetrator role is becoming repulsive in it's predictability.

What is also predictable is that progressive priests are being targeted by the military and that the Jesuits, Dominicans, and the clergy and bishops of two poor dioceses have come out against the coup and in support of Zelaya. This is in direct opposition to the official Church position, which is mostly silent appeasement. Can anyone say El Salavador?

In point of fact, there are two distinct forms of Catholicism. Those two forms are split on political/economic (social justice) grounds far more than moral grounds. The moral theological battles are all smoke screens. See American health care reform debate.

Honduras could be the start of other right wing military coups through out Central America. Obama's tepid response is most likely giving great hope for success where none should be given. Hilary Clinton is looking more and more compromised every day, and there are still too many Bush shills in Obama's government--especially the state department. Why is the state department still employing Blackwater?

Honduras also points to something else Americans don't want to deal with: we are not the democracy we like to think we are. It's looking more and more like we are a sham democracy. We have what international corporate interests, coupled with wealthy right wing social activists, let us be. The only real difference between the US and Honduras is the US still has a complacent middle class which is less vested in getting to the truth. That is changing, as more and more American citizens no longer have access to their token piece of the pie. The middle class is on a serious downward trajectory matched by the subsequent concentration of American wealth in fewer and fewer hands.

One picture of America's potential future can be seen in Honduras. We too have the same three pieces in place: Powerful international corporate interests backed by wealthy individuals, a vocal religious right perfectly willing participate with wealthy interests in order to acheive their regressive social aims, and a military which is becoming more and more evangelical.

If Obama is truly his own man, he needs to act in Honduras, call a spade a spade and declare it a military coup. Other wise there will be more right wing coups, and that's not good for what ever is left of democracy in the US.

When The Sheep Bleat Together It Could Be Powerful

The insightful little piece is from Fr. Z's blog. Fr Z is very traditional and very outspoken. The following perfectly demonstrates how this Church is being run over by organized groups of conservatives. This deals with a poll being conducted by the Cincinnati Enquirer which was measuring the amount of Catholic support for the ordination of women priests. The poll was being conducted in lieu of Archbisop Pilarczk's dismissal of Sister Louise Akers over her stance on women's ordination. It took Fr. Z and his followers very little time to completely skew the results of this poll.

ALERT! ALERT! Poll on ordination of women needs attention

On the website of the Cincinnati Enquirer there was an article about the disciplining of a woman religious who works in for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. She is in favor or, working for, the ordination of women. Archbishop Pilarcyck is telling her to knock it off. (Oh, come now, he did a little more than that.)

The Enquirer posted a POLL for readers to say if they think women should be ordained.
Never mind the fact that this is impossible. A woman can no more be ordained as a priest than an… eggplant, or giraffe. (Nice to know I'm the ordinational equivalent of an egg plant or a giraffe.)

The Church, faithful to Christ, has no authority to ordain women. This is the Church’s infallible teaching. At the time of this writing, the poll is leaning 75% in favor of ordination of women.

I ask you… do you WDTPRSers think that will be a good outcome?

So… do something about this! Read that article and then….
VOTE…NO! VOTE..NO! VOTE..NO!
CLICK HERE NOW!

Do you have a blog? Post on this. (I am Father. I'm posting on this---except maybe you might not have meant me.)

UPDATE 2223 GMT
This post has been up for about a half hour and the POLL has shifted to 66%!
Should the Church allow women to be ordained as priests? Yes (1256) 66.04% No (576) 30.28% I’m undecided (70) 3.68%

1902 UPDATE 2258 GMT
Yes (1513) 57.51% <--- Note... the heretical position is getting some support... VOTE! No (1044) 39.68% I’m undecided (74) 2.81% Total Votes: 2631

UPDATE 2310 GMT
The enemy position is getting traffic. So, it appears that the struggle has been joined!

Note the growing number of votes in the (heretical) "Yes" category, while the (correct) "No" is gaining ground much faster. Yes (1561) 55.65% No (1168) 41.64% I’m undecided (76) 2.71%Total Votes: 2805 (Someone is starting to have too much fun!)

UPDATE 2351 GMT
Okay… WDTPRS just shifted the poll. The truth is now winning. Yes (1634) 48.72% No (1640) 48.9% I’m undecided (80) 2.39% Total Votes: 3354
The false position still has support. The true position has more support.

UPDATE 3 Sept 0304 GMT

Keep the pressure on! Yes (2067) 39.73% No (3029) 58.23% I’m undecided (106) 2.04%Total Votes: 5202

UPDATE 0529 GMT

Yes (2166) 37.01% No (3577) 61.11% I’m undecided (110) 1.88%Total Votes: 5853

UPDATE 1417 GMT

And the morning report is….The heretical position gained: 440 The Christian position gained: 1242 Yes (2606) 34.49% No (4819) 63.78% I’m undecided (131) 1.73% Total Votes: 7556

UPDATE 1800 GMT

And the pressure continues. NB: I discovered this poll when there were 75% in favor of the ordination of women.

Look what YOU have done! Yes (3017) 34.14% No (5655) 63.99% I’m undecided (165) 1.87% Total Votes: 8837

UPDATE 2221 GMT

Yes (3287) 32.79% No (6560) 65.44% I’m undecided (178) 1.78% Total Votes: 10025

Note the gains since my last update: YES: 270 NO: 905

UPDATE 4 Sept 1445 GMT
The liberals have regrouped and are trying to take back the poll. Do not let them!

Yes (4876) 34.65% No (9004) 63.98% [Note the drop in the percentage of the lead.] I’m undecided (194) 1.38% Total Votes: 14074

God HERE for the page where you can VOTE NO and take back the poll! Vote "NO!", you do not think the Church should (futilely attempt) to ordain women.

UPDATE 5 Sept 0436 GMT
Yes (5615) 31.7% No (11896) 67.15% I’m undecided (204) 1.15% Total Votes: 17715
Also, CNA picked up the story. (YES THEY DID FR. Z. THEY ARE ONLY 3 DAYS BEHIND THE NCR! THAT'S BECAUSE CNA IS NOT A NEWS ORGANIZATION. IT'S A RIGHT WING POLITICAL FRONT. I CAN HAVE FUN TOO!)

UPDATE 5 Sept 1609 GMT

Note the over night gains. Yes (6044) 28.22% No (14864) 69.41% I’m undecided (506) 2.36% Total Votes: 21414 (Hooray Fr. Z wins---except the heretics weren't really playing. It was more of a forfeit.)

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For those who are wondering, WDTPRS stands for What Does The Prayer Really Say or in this case What Does The Poll Really Say? The answer to that question is it says a lot about the zeal of Fr. Z's followers and the reach of his blog. It also says the poll is worthless and that it will be cited somewhere by some conservative blog as indicative of how out of step the liberals are with the real Church. Fr Z also asked his WDTPRSers to flood Cardinal O'Malley's blog article on Ted Kennedy's funeral Mass. They did, but it was a respectful and polite onslaught. Cardinal O'Malley is a Cardinal after all, and not an egg plant or a giraffe. Now if only Fr Z could get his troops to flood Archbishop Chaput's in box on the Legion investigation. FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL is pretty simple to type and it looks good in caps.

For a long time I've been wondering how long the centrists, progressives, and left wing nuts were going to allow the theo cons, traditionalists, and right wing nuts free reign to control the voice of this Church. Our silence or indifference has let one unrepresentative faction of the Church control all the dialogue up to and including the decisions about what is discussed. They have forced a pastoral policy which uses the Eucharist as punishment, and blindly let predatory moneyed interests use Catholicism for their own ends. But things are changing--kind of.

On Tuesday the National Catholic Reporter ran an article by John Allen on a pastoral letter of Kansas Bishops Flinn and Naumann which dealt with health care reform. It was a hard sell job for the Republican tea bag party, and it wasn't even subtle. With in 24 hours it had generated well over 200 comments, 95% of which blasted the bishops for partisan politicking and betrayal of Catholic social justice values.

Many people wanted to know when the voice of the other moderate bishops

would be heard, or where were the bishops who would stand up for the Church's authoritative teaching on the right of people to health care. This is all good. These bishops need to hear they have some kind of support. If this article proved anything, it's that they do have support. But......

By Thursday morning the only way you could access this article was by searching the archives. You couldn't even find it by clicking on John Allen's profile and index of articles. Someone has maybe put a little pressure on the Kansas City based National Catholic Reporter. What's interesting to me is this suddenly closeted article was written by John Allen, not one of the usual suspects such as Sr Joan Chittister, Fr John Dear, or Bishop Gumbleton. I guess John Allen writing it makes it a whole lot more scarier to certain vested interests.

In any event, it was one of the first times I've seen the kind of response from the left that Fr. Z can routinely get from the right. The health care debacle and some of our Republican bishops blatantly political 'pastoral' musings, may just be the straw that broke the silence of the lambs on the left. But something else is happening.....

I have also written, that the moneyed interests which fuel the zeal of the right were getting too blatant, and that very soon some of the most pure hearted of these Catholics lambs were going to see they were getting fleeced. Today I find an expose of Tom Monaghan's little fleecing of the faithful, otherwise known as Ave Maria Town and Ave Maria University, being exposed by the Wanderer. The Wanderer agrees with me on what ole Tom was really up to, and it wasn't traditional Catholicism.

No one would ever confuse the Wanderer with the National Catholic Reporter. Had a reporter from the NCR asked for access to Monaghan and Healey they would have gotten exactly nowhere. The Wanderer's reporter was not just a reporter, but a purchaser of a house in Ave Maria Town. She got access and I don't think Tom is going to like her take on his little venture in Catholic living and Catholic education.

Then there is the Legion investigation in which all sides are appalled and starting to point fingers at John Paul the Great. John Paul's refusal to deal with the Legion, his penchant for surrounding himself with Opus Dei and Legion clerics, and his friendship with Neo Catechumenate leader Kiki Arguello, will make more sense when the money trail is uncovered. It will be uncovered. It will lead to some familiar names and faces. It will let us all know, just who and what really runs Catholicism. It isn't the sheep of either side of the pasture.

Real evil could care less about Latin Masses, women priests, or non negotiables. Real evil cares about power. It appears to me this is a lesson that both sides are starting to learn. The right is learning how they can be used by power, and the left is finally learning how to flex a little power.

Religous Cults And The God Gene--Not Exactly Compatible

Pillars of light, burning bushes, horse issues on the Road to Damascus, it maybe the God gene that lets us experience these things which totally change and transcend our world view.

I keep going over the same question in my head. This happens especially after I post on right wing Catholic cults. I keep wondering why did so many of them have their start up in Spanish fascism? Why are so many of them so successful at preying on well meaning Catholics whose desire is to find a more meaningful and spiritual expression of their faith?

The thought struck me that their leadership may have learned from what I see as Communism's really fatal mistake. Communism tried to drive out man's sense of religion, seeing it as a failing that left people open to manipulation by religious authority. Since communists weren't interested in a competing authority, they really went after religion. They saw religion as a power issue. Their mistake was confusing man's drive for spiritual meaning, which seems to be innate, with religious expressions of that drive. They may have stamped out the external expressions of spirituality, but they made no headway with the spiritual drive itself.

Seeing this, Spanish right wing religious leaders may have decided that the old ways are the best ways. Instead of working against the spiritual drive, they co opted it for their own purposes. They went right back to a medieval version of monastic Catholicism with it's stress on piety, ritual, and obedience, while adding a good dose of Vatican I infallibility. This allowed the word of charismatic leaders to be confused with the word of God. For good measure they added a huge dollop of fear.

They've been successful in putting very tight boundaries on a human experience which operates in the exact opposite direction. Unfortunately, when people leave these cults, they have pretty screwed up and thoroughly conditioned neuro chemistry. It's far more likely to pump out the adrenaline of fear than the peace of the transcendent relationship with God they sought.

The neuro chemistry of spirituality moves one to experience fewer boundaries around the perceived sense of self and towards experiences of more connections outside the self. Coercive religious practices work against this by rigidly controlling personal expression and focusing followers to strive to achieve spiritual progress by pursuing the permission of the leadership. They are taught spiritual progress is never something one accomplishes on their own. That's where the devil will get you.

Recent research from the National Institutes Of Health seem to have isolated a gene, VMAT2, which is very active in spiritually oriented people. This gene produces specific monoamine neuro chemicals which effect perception and emotion. (Another monoamine family member that most people would be familiar with is serotonin.) People experiencing the release of these specific neuro chemicals lose a sense of self, experience a sense of exalted peacefulness, and feel connected to the entire universe. They permanently drop the older more rigid boundaries of their perceived self and world. They never return to them. They and their brains are changed.

Here's an explanation from Dean Hamer who wrote the book "The God Gene". This is part of a more extended interview.

"So basically this VMAT2 gene, which you have been able to isolate, affects those brain chemicals--which in turn, you feel, affect people's sense of spirituality?

Exactly. That's the theory. The best interpretation is that the monoamines are affecting higher consciousness. By higher consciousness, I mean the way that we perceive the world around us and our connection to it. We see all of these sites and sounds and smells and data coming in. We make it into sort of a coherent picture like `that's a person', `that's a building', etc. Furthermore, we're able to place ourselves precisely in that picture at all times. We know where we fit and we know that we're the same person that we were yesterday. We know that we'll be the same person tomorrow. There's never any discontinuity in who we are. We never think we're somebody else.

Yet there are stories of holy people who do feel like their own personalities have evolved or changed.

Exactly, changed. Or they feel like they're not on Earth anymore or they feel like they've reached Nirvana, if you're more of an Eastern type.

All of those are examples of people's consciousness changing, and I don't mean that in a flaky way. I mean it very particularly. Their relationship to the universe is somehow changed, and that's a very deep spiritual experience. I would say that every great religious leader had that type of experience. (And additionally, their perception of themselves and how they relate to others also irreversibly changed. Once you have these spiritual experiences you are incapable of going back to the old self. If you try, in some vein effort to conform, you put yourself in a great deal of psychological trouble.)

Jesus went to the desert, Muhammad had all these flights, and Saul on the road to Damascus became Paul. Moses talked to the burning bush. Buddha spent a long time under a tree, contemplating. That's really the heart and soul of spirituality, changes in consciousness. Monoamines play a very important role in the brain, in connecting ourselves to the world around us."

A lot of the rules and rituals used by most cults prevent adherents from experiencing this sense of transcendence. Some push the notions of obedience and a form of scrupulousness. These will focus a follower on their subjective sense of self, and how they relate to the leadership and rule. This is great for the cult, but the truth is real spirituality strives for the loss of self, not an obsessive focus on the self. Losing a sense of self takes a different set of tools. While obedience and scrupulousness may be paths to religious success, they are not good paths to spiritual transcendence. This can be seen in the difference in how Jesus related to the world as opposed to how the Pharisees related to the world.

To finish this, the VMAT2 gene is all about acting from the spirit of the law, not necessarily obeying or enforcing the letter of the law. I guess you could say VMAT2 is not a gene which enables one to engage in blind obedience or adhere strongly to a particular religious identity. From the standpoint of religious authority, it's not user friendly. But from the standpoint of Jesus's teachings, it's probably what He was trying to activate.

More From Legion Leadership, And It's More Of The Same

For Fr Scott Reilly and the Legion, the apologies continue, and so does the recruiting.

Legion of Christ leaders express regret, take steps following Maciel revelations

CNA STAFF, Sep 3, 2009 / 11:24 am (CNA)

In a letter to Regnum Christi members and friends of the Legion of Christ, two territorial directors of the religious organization have expressed regret for the victims of their founder’s sexual misconduct and announced the recent steps taken to move forward.

The letter, dated September 1 was signed by Fr. Scott Reilly, LC, territorial director of Atlanta and Fr. Julio Martí, LC, territorial director of New York.

The authenticity of the letter was confirmed to CNA by Jim Fair, U.S. spokesman for the Legion of Christ.

The priests explain the purpose of their letter is to share the thoughts and recommendations of the Legion’s General Director, Father Alvaro Corcuera, for the future of the Legion and Regnum Christi.

“As priests,” Reilly and Marti write, “our hearts go out to all those who have been harmed or scandalized” by the actions of Father Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ who passed away in 2008. It was revealed last winter that Fr. Maciel lived a double life and fathered children. (I just love CNA. Let's just leave off all those other pedophile things and concentrate on those heterosexual things. Oh, by the way, those heterosexual things also involved under age children.)

“To all we extend a special apology on behalf of the Legion and our General Director, Father Alvaro Corcuera, who has, in fact, begun to reach out personally and in private to those he knows may have suffered most, offering his heartfelt apology and consolation, and will continue to do so.” (I'm waiting for him to tell us what he was up to while all that nasty stuff was going on with Maciel.)

In reaction to the announcement by the Mexican lawyer José Bonilla Sada that six more people in Mexico are claiming to be children of Fr. Maciel, the letter acknowledges “more recently, there have been allegations of other relationships and other children,” but it also says that “given the partial nature of the information available and the impossibility to evaluate immediately and in a definitive manner these complex allegations, the Legion of Christ cannot, at this time, make a statement regarding them.” (Is this kind of like you can't apologize to the eight men whose allegations of pedophelia finally brought down Maciel? Still evaluating are you?)

The letter also explains that the wide range of emotions, along with “the vast tangle of information, supposition, speculation and opinion, the different cultural sensitivities, and the Christian duty not to publicize the sins of others, have made it difficult to publish the sort of direct statement that many expected of us.” (Ted Kennedy should be so lucky, not to mention President Obama. CNA must not have gotten this memo.)

“Added to this,” Fr. Reilly and Fr. Martí say, “is the fact that we did not know the whole truth, we may not know it yet, and new information may well continue to come to light. What we do learn, we will address, respecting the privacy of those who request it of us.” (Good God, this could go on for even more decades.)

The Image of Fr. Maciel

“We wish to be close to anyone who has suffered in any way, and at the same time ask them to live the Christian virtue of pardon from the depth of their hearts,” the letter adds.

(Isn't this sort of like saying if you don't pardon us you will be committing sin? This is such the kind of spiritual and emotional blackmail that ties people in knots.)

Revealing that many Regnum Christi members “have rightly asked if the Legion has made or will make changes in its life,” the letter responds, “Yes…we have, we are and we will,” before listing some of the policies recently implemented.

“One of the questions that come to mind refers to the ‘safe environment and child protection.’” In this regard, the Legion is currently “in the process of accreditation by Praesidium, a risk management organization now helping a great number of religious institutions in North America.”

“Praesidium is conducting a full review of our internal rules and policies, as well as our training of all those who deal with minors. They will shortly be conducting on-site visitation of several of our institutions to verify that what is on paper is being applied,” the priests explain.

Fr. Reilly and Fr. Martí also reveal that in the U.S., the Legion has also “set up an external review board so that in the event of allegations of sexual abuse, we have the advantage of ‘outside eyes’ to weigh the evidence, issues and provide us with recommendations.” (The Legion is a little 'Johnny come lately' with this one. Dioceses and religious orders have implemented these programs years ago. The Legion in some dioceses, pulled out of education rather than conform to the Praesidium program. Hmm. I guess this is a step forward.)

On the financial side, the letter notes that in recent years, “due to the growth of our operations, we have put in place a still more professional system of business management through the services of Integer Group. Staffed by lay professionals, Integer has further improved our operating and management processes to ensure the integrity of all our operations.” (Nice try, but Integer can not ensure the integrity of your financial operations. They are completely dependent on the data you choose to give them. See Enron or Tyco.)

A critical area of adjustment, the letter explains, is “the way we refer to Father Maciel in the Legion and Regnum Christi.”

“While we cannot deny that Father Maciel was our founder and did much good,” the letter says, “neither can we deny the reality of what has recently come to light and his grave human failings.” (If the Legion thinks these are recent facts, they must take a really long view. Why is it that conservatives always have 'human failings' and liberals are 'willful sinners'?)

The priests then say that “progressive steps” have been taken to ensure “there is no inappropriate reference to Father Maciel,” by removing pictures of him from their center, editing the Legion and Regnum Christi websites and creating new editions of writings and brochures. (Actually, I see these as conservative steps, since an inappropriate reference isn't defined.)

According to Fr. Reilly and Fr. Martí, this is “an ongoing and difficult process given the need to discern his person from the solid Catholic doctrine that he transmitted and the legitimate institutional aspects of the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christ.”

Regarding the visitation ordained by the Holy See, Fr. Reilly and Fr. Martí say that “Archbishop Charles Joseph Chaput of Denver has been appointed as Visitor for the Legion in the United States and Canada. Archbishop Chaput will visit our seminaries and religious houses, see our life up close and interview whomever he wants.” (As long as they haven't been transferred before he gets there.)

“His mandate,” it continues, “will be to question, probe and assess with depth and objectivity. Legionaries are free to speak and write to him with all their comments and questions. He sets his own timetable and the points he wishes to probe, and he will present his findings and recommendations directly to the Holy See.” (I sure hope he gets to talk to a few Legion accountants and corporate lawyers.)

Changes in Legion Formation

Two other major issues are addressed in the six-page long letter. The first change involves the “private vow of charity” which was professed in the Legion. In their letter, the priests say that the vow was created “to ensure that the grievances one could have with his superior were brought to those who could resolve them and thus avoid irresponsible criticism or internal factions that degrade unity.” (Of course it was. It was never intended to foster a culture in which a supervisor would ever be questioned or held accountable. It was only a vow to protect the harmony of the simple faithful.)

The vow had been approved by the Church and had been in place since 1957, but, the letter explains, Pope Benedict XVI asked them to remove it two years ago – a request which the religious organization followed. (So what are you saying, it's taken almost three years to comply with Benedict's request? Apparently you do have a very long view of time.)

The letter also addressed the practice of superiors being spiritual directors or confessors of their subjects. This policy was also abandoned upon the request of Benedict XVI. “We are seeing positive fruits from this change of practice,” the priests report. (You neglected to mention this was always a direct violation of Canon Law.)

Though some members of the Legion and Regnum Christi have opted to separate themselves from the organization, others are evaluating whether or not they will stay following the Apostolic Visitation, and yet others have decided that they will remain part of the community.

Fr. Reilly and Fr. Martí called on members and friends of the Legion and Regnum Christi to “have great Christian understanding and respect for all. Each of us must presume the best and purest intention in the other, pray for each other, and recognize that each one of us suffers and recovers in different ways and at different times.” (Ooops, I've failed this test.)

“As tragic as the failings of our founder are, they should not cause us to diminish our efforts to bring souls to Christ, and to serve him and the Church selflessly in all our brothers and sisters,” the letter concludes, announcing that “we enter now into a new chapter of our history which must be focused on the pursuit of holiness and love for souls.” (I guess you could call them tragic failings. Outside in the real world, they are called criminal felonies and they put people in prison. Those who aid and abet these 'failings' are also put in prison.)

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Here we go again. Another attempt at white washing aspects of the Maciel story which for some reason the Legion just won't deal with. There is still no apology forthcoming for the original eight seminarians whose public complaints finally resulted in the Vatican's forced retirement of Maciel.

Why? Who is being protected? What Vatican supporter hasn't died yet, and still needs to be protected? Could it be Cardinal Sodano?

I loved the smoke screen on the transparency of their accounting practices. It's pretty hard to make an accurate transparent accounting if there are a bazillion front corporations in multiple countries operating out of multitudinous accounts and banks. Garbage in, garbage out. In addition, secular accounting firms aren't necessarily fluent in the accounting needs of a 501C3. They wouldn't be interested in where the money came from or what it's intended purpose might have been originally. Donors beware I guess.

As far as Maciel goes, I don't think removing his pictures or striking his name off of websites is going to have much impact on members who have been enCULTurated into the Legion. The biggest stumbling block is that the Legion built itself around a specific charism of charity in which negativity in thought, word, or deed was seen as a violation of charity and there for sinful. One can see this dynamic at work in the above communication. It desperately strives to minimize the failings of both Maciel and other legion issues. Striking Maciel's name and face from Legion houses and websites, is a charitable way of dealing with him because it's a silent way of dealing with him. It conforms to the rule to say nothing negative.

It's this dynamic which will be the biggest block in an honest and truthful assessment of the Legion by it's members. Legion and RC members are so conditioned to spinning things in a positive light, it's going to have a very hard time dealing with ugly raw truth. It's one of the reasons I fear Archbishop Chaput is going to have a hard time getting truly honest facts from current members.

One last note, I tried to find out if this communication was strictly a US phenomenon. Apparently it is. The Mexican and South American members are not getting the same information as their American counterparts. I recognize there are cultural differences, but I would hate the see Archbishop Chaput hand the Pope a summary of his activity which is significantly different from his fellow visitors. The kind of report which could too easily be dismissed as typical American bitching. That would be terribly ironic given American nuns are more or less under their own investigation for too much American style bitching.

Cardinal O'Malley Has Some Apologetics For Catholic Zealots

On Senator Kennedy’s Funeral

September 2, 2009 by Sean Cardinal O'Malley

Saturday was the 39th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood, at St. Augustine’s Church in Pittsburgh by Bishop John B. McDowell, who is still going strong today. In the Church’s calendar, the feast day for August 29 is the Beheading of John the Baptist. People usually take note when I tell them that I was professed to religious life on Bastille Day, July 14, and ordained on the feast of the Beheading. Not that I am superstitious. (There were more than a few people whose anger over the Kennedy funeral, seemed to imply they wanted your head.)

On Saturday morning I attended the funeral Mass for Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Father Donald Monan, S.J., former president of Boston College, celebrated the Mass and Father Mark Hession, pastor of Our Lady of Victories in Centerville, preached the homily.

The music was outstanding with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus enriching the liturgy along with mezzo-soprano Susan Graham who later sang an absolutely striking rendition of Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” Cellist Yo-Yo Ma graced us with his beautiful solo performance of Bach and later joined Placido Domingo, who sang the “Panis Angelicus.” Placido has a superb voice. I told him how much I like the Zarzuela, the Spanish classical musical theater productions. His family had a troupe that presented Zarzuelas in Mexico and he promised to arrange a performance.
The venue for the funeral Mass was Mission Church, the magnificent Redemptorist Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

Senator Kennedy prayed often in this church when his daughter, Kara, was stricken with cancer. It is a church where countless faithful have gone to pray and ask for healing, grace and forgiveness.

In light of these themes, I wish to address our Catholic faithful who have voiced both support and disappointment at my having presided at the Senator’s funeral Mass.

Needless to say, the Senator’s wake and Catholic funeral were controversial because of the fact that he did not publically support Catholic teaching and advocacy on behalf of the unborn. ­­­Given the profound effect of Catholic social teaching on so many of the programs and policies espoused by Senator Kennedy and the millions who benefitted from them, there is a tragic sense of lost opportunity in his lack of support for the unborn. To me and many Catholics it was a great disappointment because, had he placed the issue of life at the centerpiece of the Social Gospel where it belongs, he could have multiplied the immensely valuable work he accomplished.

The thousands of people who lined the roads as the late Senator’s motorcade travelled from Cape Cod to Boston and the throngs that crowded the Kennedy Library for two days during the lying in repose, I believe, were there to pay tribute to these many accomplishments rather than as an endorsement of the Senator’s voting record on abortion.

The crowds also were there to pay tribute to the Kennedy family as a whole. On the national political landscape, if Barack Obama broke the glass ceiling of the presidency for African Americans, Jack Kennedy broke it for American Catholics.

As a young lad, I saw photographs of both Pope John XXIII and President John Kennedy hanging in the thatched cottages of County Mayo and heard the Gaelic greeting, “God and Mary be with you.” Three of the Kennedy brothers died in service of our country in the prime of life. And Eunice Shriver, who died just a few weeks ago, was an outspoken defender of the unborn and an apostle of the Gospel of Life. She taught us all how to love special children and to make room for everyone at the table of life. In 1992, Eunice petitioned her party’s convention to consider “a new understanding” of the issue, “one that does not pit mother against child,” but instead seeks “policies that responsibly protect and advance the interest of mothers and their children, both before and after birth.”

Much of what is noble in the politics and work of the Kennedys had its origins in the bedrock of the faith of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. As a young woman she had a profound experience of God’s love that transformed her life. She strove to communicate that faith to her large clan. Since the time of her funeral Mass I have kept her memorial prayer card, inscribed with Rose Kennedy’s own words:

“If God were to take away all His blessings, health, physical fitness, wealth, intelligence, and leave me but one gift, I would ask for faith – for with faith in Him and His goodness, mercy, love for me, and belief in everlasting life, I believe I could suffer the loss of my other gifts and still be happy – trustful, leaving all to His inscrutable Providence.”

There are those who objected, in some cases vociferously, to the Church’s providing a Catholic funeral for the Senator. In the strongest terms I disagree with that position. At the Senator’s interment on Saturday evening, with his family’s permission, we learned of details of his recent personal correspondence with Pope Benedict XVI. It was very moving to hear the Senator acknowledging his failing to always be a faithful Catholic, and his request for prayers as he faced the end of his life. The Holy Father’s expression of gratitude for the Senator’s pledge of prayer for the Church, his commendation of the Senator and his family to the intercession of the Blessed Mother, and his imparting the Apostolic Blessing, spoke of His Holiness’ role as the Vicar of Christ, the Good Shepherd who leaves none of the flock behind.

As Archbishop of Boston, I considered it appropriate to represent the Church at this liturgy out of respect for the Senator, his family, those who attended the Mass and all those who were praying for the Senator and his family at this difficult time. We are people of faith and we believe in a loving and forgiving God from whom we seek mercy.

Advocating for the dignity of life is central to my role as a priest and a bishop. One of my greatest satisfactions in my ministry thus far was helping to overturn the abortion laws in Honduras. The person who answered my call for help with that effort was Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who had been a prominent leader in NARAL and the abortion rights movement. His own change of heart led Dr. Nathanson from a practice of providing abortions to becoming one of the most eloquent exponents of the pro-life movement.

Helen Alvaré, who is one of the most outstanding pro-life jurists, a former Director of the Bishops´ Pro-life Office and a long standing consultant to the USCCB Committee for Pro-Life Activities, has always said that the pro-life movement is best characterized by what it is for, not against. We are for the precious gift of life, and our task is to build a civilization of love. We must show those who do not share our belief about life that we care about them. We will stop the practice of abortion by changing the law, and we will be successful in changing the law if we change people’s hearts. We will not change hearts by turning away from people in their time of need and when they are experiencing grief and loss. (We will impact the number of abortions by changing people's hearts, but we will never change the law. That is a lost battle. I believe it's a lost battle because we can not rely on the state to coerce women into making personal moral choices of this nature.)

At times, even in the Church, zeal can lead people to issue harsh judgments and impute the worst motives to one another. These attitudes and practices do irreparable damage to the communion of the Church. If any cause is motivated by judgment, anger or vindictiveness, it will be doomed to marginalization and failure. Jesus’ words to us were that we must love one another as He loves us. Jesus loves us while we are still in sin. He loves each of us first, and He loves us to the end. Our ability to change people’s hearts and help them to grasp the dignity of each and every life, from the first moment of conception to the last moment of natural death, is directly related to our ability to increase love and unity in the Church, for our proclamation of the Truth is hindered when we are divided and fighting with each other. (I wonder how many deaf ears this paragraph will fall on.)

President Obama and three former presidents attended Senator Kennedy’s funeral. I had the opportunity to speak briefly with President Obama, to welcome him to the Basilica and to share with him that the bishops of the Catholic Church are anxious to support a plan for universal health care, but we will not support a plan that will include a provision for abortion or could open the way to abortions in the future. The President was gracious in the short time we spoke, he listened intently to what I was saying.

Democrats and Republicans sat side by side in the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, praying for Senator Kennedy and his family. It is my sincere hope that all people who long to promote the cause of life will pray and work together to change hearts, to bring about an increased respect for life, and to change laws so as to make America a safe place for all, including the unborn.

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I'm sure Cardinal O'Malley is going to get hit with the zeal of the zealots. It seems the five non negotiable Catholic teachings: abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, human cloning, and gay marriage, are not just non negotiable, but also mandate the total denial of any form of Christian mercy, much less Catholic pastoral effort. In Ted Kennedy's case, the five actually include contraception and drop human cloning. In any event, Senator Kennedy should never have been given a Catholic funeral. Cardinal O'Malley should never have attended such, as it gives scandal and causes confusion in the Faithful.

Personally, I'm confused as to how we American Catholics have come to have five (or maybe six), non negotiable issues. I googled this and learned they were basically invented by the lay apologetics website, Catholic Answers, during the 2006 election. These were the core issues the CA group used in their pamphlet "The Voter's Guide For Serious Catholics". One was to judge one's Catholic vote in that year's election on how politicians stacked up on these five issues.

Then I wondered how the USCCB felt about this voter guide and learned they didn't like the idea of a competing voting guide. Especially because this competing voter guide seemed to be tilted to the Repbulican party platform and more or less ignored any other important Catholic issues like social justice, health care, economics, illegal wars, torture, and the death penalty. This kind of thing could seriously effect their tax exempt status. This was the official line. I have a sneaking suspicion most bishops weren't pleased a lay 'apologetics' group decided to usurp their authority and take on this voter guide thing themselves and completely distort the whole concept of a voter guide.

Apologetics is the big thing now in the 'letter of the law' Catholic. It's a major cottage industry in which certain lay apologeticists are making their mark. I find it interesting that many of these lay and clerical apologeticists are entangled with, the Legion of Christ, Opus Dei, EWTN, and Catholic Answers. Certain personalities seem to move from one to another until they finally start their own cottage industry. Where as human cloning may be a non negotiable, apparently Catholic cloning is not.

They are in fact, establishing a parallel Catholic Church in the United States, outside the authority of the USCCB, with the encouragement of select bishops who also have undisclosed ties to the same groups. Cardinal O'Malley will come under fire for attempting to apply a different standard of Catholicism. Exactly the way that Archibishop Sheehan of Santa Fe did for suggesting one issue Catholicism is a mistake which is counter productive.

This is born out in an article from Slate dealing with the Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion, and Supporting Parents Act. The article documents how vocal militant pro lifers will not compromise on a meaningful attempt at abortion reduction. This in spite of the fact all major components of the 'abortion industry' did, essentially cooperatively working for their own demise.

For two decades now I've watched American Catholicism split into two parallel churches. That split has been fostered by big money, hidden connections, and overtly political religious think tanks supported by a vocal cadre of like minded bishops beholden to the same interests. The latest 'pastoral' letter on health care from Kansas Bishops Finn and Naumann are just the latest example.

My hope is that the Vatican is seeing the bigger picture here. It isn't about orthodoxy or apologetics, it's about splitting the American Catholic church to the point it has no real voice in American politics. The silent majority of our bishops need to see the bigger picture. This isn't about isolated groups that just happen to be saying the same thing. This is about a covert and overt attempt to reduce the authority of the USCCB and make others the real voice of authority and orthodoxy in the Church.

The real threat to ecclesial authority isn't coming from progressives. They're not organized or loud enough, don't have the resources, certainly aren't openly supported, and are forced to operate externally. No, the real threat is coming from the right, and for all the reasons it's not coming from the left.

Cleveland's Bishop Says Final Mass For Parish Under Police Escort

When Bishop Lennon said the last Mass at St Procop, his ecclesiatical escort included Cleveland police in uniform, not chasubles and lace.



The Final Mass Is Held At St. Procop In Cleveland
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer

Catholics from all over Greater Cleveland packed St. Procop Catholic Church on Cleveland's near West Side Sunday to mourn the death of a parish founded 137 years ago.

On a gloomy, rainy day, worshippers streamed into the giant 110-year-old sandstone edifice on West 41st Street for the final Mass said by Bishop Richard Lennon, who ordered the church closed earlier this year.

Lennon, who is closing 50 parishes throughout the Cleveland Catholic Diocese, came to St. Procop's under police security, ignoring about 40 protesters who stood outside holding signs.

Inside, a standing-room-only crowd filled pews, side aisles, the vestibule and the choir loft. Many clutched tissues to wipe away tears.

"Today is a special day, a day of sadness, a day of wonderment and a day of anger for some," Lennon said in his sermon. "This is a story of God and men and women working together for over a century. May we rely on God in these days of darkness and sadness."

A few churches already have closed their doors. But the last service at St. Procop's marks the closing of a longtime West Side landmark. Lennon will be present at all of the final services at churches to be closed between now and next summer.

At St. Procop, the choir, accompanied by organ, trumpets, guitars and drums, filled the majestic Byzantine Romanesque structure, rich in sacred art, stained-glass windows and glorious ceiling medallions. The old church, with paint peeling from its walls and ceiling, hadn't seen such liveliness in decades.

"It's sad," said Gil Bachna of Fairview Park, who was baptized in the church 72 years ago. "But it just doesn't have the people. Not as many Catholics go to church like they used to."

Lennon, who has cited shortages of priests and a drop in collection-basket cash as reasons for closing parishes, has targeted mostly inner-city churches. Most of the 750,000 Catholics in the eight-county diocese live in the suburbs. (Gil Bachman in the previous line speaks a truth the Bishop won't. The Bishop says it's priests and money, the parishoner points to the exodus of Catholics from the Church.)

St. Procop's, once a bustling parish filled with Czechs who lived in the neighborhood, was down to about 370 parishioners.

In recent years, it didn't have a full-time priest. It was run by Sister Annette Amendolia, who on Sunday introduced former St. Procop's pastors to standing ovations.

Following the Mass, worshippers streamed into a parish social hall for food and memories. Lennon did not attend.

During the service, uniformed Cleveland police officers watched over the bishop. One followed him down the main aisle during the final procession. Then, flanked by officers, Lennon left the church and walked in the rain through a back parking lot, ignoring the protest signs - "Dis-Membering in Process," "This is Not God's Plan," "Keep Our Church Open."

Protesters Marta Fordos of Fairview Park and Hanna Gereby of Cleveland ran after Lennon, catching up to him. "I'm sorry you have to ruin our churches," snapped Fordos. "Judas!"

Lennon, his eyes downcast, did not respond, continuing his wet march toward his car.

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I can't imagine what must have been going through Bishop Lennon's head as he left this parish flanked by a police escort. That is some kind of statement. It's hardly surprising he didn't stay for coffee and cookies. I do admire him though, for making the effort to say the last Mass in this parish, as he plans to do for all the closed parishes. Lots of other bishops have not made this same effort. But it's got to be somewhat like presiding at your own funeral.

The city of Cleveland has experienced a dramatic loss in Catholic population since 1960. It is down from some 275,000 to 90,000. Part of this is the result of the exodus to the suburbs, part of it from people moving out of state for jobs, part of it is smaller families, and part of it because Catholics are leaving in the Church in record numbers. Given these facts I guess it's not surprising that the face of Catholicism in the East and Mid West is moving out of the inner city and into the suburbs. In the East and Mid West Catholicism is reserving itself to sacramentally caring for a Church of middle class whites.

Bishop Lennon's task was never going to easy or smooth. According to Tom Roberts of the NCR, one of the guiding parameters in choosing which parishes and how many were to close was that each parish must be served by a resident priest. There were to be no Sister Annette Amendolia's leading parishes, nor any parishes sharing priests. In Bishop Lennon's thinking a real parish could not exist without it's own 'Father' leading the flock. Unfortunately it's this Church model whose death he is presiding over.

Given the downward trajectory in ordained priests, ten years from now this process will be repeated, and this time the closings will hit the suburbs with the same ferocity it is now hitting inner city parishes. Ten years is a long time. Other things could happen in the meantime, and I'm not referring to a sudden massive increase institutionally ordained clergy.

It is entirely possible that between now and then, Catholics who treasure the sacramental life of the Church, will come to the sensible realization that ordained priests are not really necessary. They may come to the conclusion that it's better to be a Church of six sacraments and have access to all of them, rather than a Church of seven sacraments and have access to none of them.

It is becoming more and more obvious that maintaining the clerical status of the priesthood is vastly more important to the hierarchical church than maintaining access to the sacraments. Bishop Finn is taking the position that there can be no real Catholic parish without ordained priests. In his view, he seems to be saying there is no Church without priests. In my view that's putting the cart before the horse because there's no need for priests without the laity. The only priest Catholicism really needs is Jesus Christ, and He probably wouldn't pass seminary muster in this current Church culture. He wouldn't be orthodox enough.

It's a sad statement when a bishop needs a police escort to do what he sees as his pastoral duty. That's some kind of disconnect between a bishop and his flock, but it might just be the perfect metaphor for the disconnect between the institution and the flock. The hierarchy is now so disconnected it's actually afraid of the flock. Wow, I don't think this is what Christ meant by servant leaders at all.

The Hidden Costs Of Our Current Health Care

For the woman in the following story, wearing her wedding ring is a potential financial disaster.

The health care debate is driving me nuts. I suspect a lot of the national angst has as much to do with the bank bailout as it does 'death panels' and other right wing fear mongering.

Latest statistics show our four biggest banks are now bigger than they were before the bailout and enjoy a very unfair competitive advantage. This is because their creditors are aware of the fact that the government will bail them out again, should they once again over extend themselves. The smaller banks enjoy no such government guarantees. More than thirty smaller banks have gone under in the last four months. So much for reform on Wall Street. TARP has only made the original problem worse and consolidated even more power in the hands of fewer banks. Great. People have a legitimate right to wonder how badly the government can screw up health care.

Health care though is different. I don't have to put my money in any given bank, or any bank at all for that matter. I don't have the same kind of freedom with my health. The current system, which more and more people are being terrified into supporting, is already doing everything the fear mongers would have us believe the govenment will do under ObamaCare. The following is an Op Ed piece from the NY Times and clearly illustrates the level of real social problems in our existing health care.

Till Medical Bills Do Us Part Nicholas Kristoff, NY Times 8/29/09

My friend M. — you’ll understand in a moment why she’s terrified of my using her name — had to make a searing decision a year ago. She was married to a sweet, gentle man whom she loved, but who had become increasingly absent-minded. Finally, he was diagnosed with early-onset dementia.

The disease is degenerative, and he will become steadily less able to care for himself. At some point, as his medical needs multiply, he will probably need to be institutionalized.

The hospital arranged a conference call with a social worker, who outlined how the dementia and its financial toll on the family would progress, and then added, out of the blue: “Maybe you should divorce.”

“I was blown away,” M. told me. But, she said, the hospital staff members explained that they had seen it all before, many times. If M.’s husband required long-term care, the costs would be catastrophic even for a middle-class family with savings.

Eventually, after the expenses whittled away their combined assets, her husband could go on Medicaid — but by then their children’s nest egg would be gone, along with her 401(k) plan. She would face a bleak retirement with neither her husband nor her savings.

A complicating factor was that this was a second marriage. M.’s first husband had died, leaving an inheritance that he had intended for their children. She and her second husband had a prenuptial agreement, but that would not protect her assets from his medical expenses. (I don't think most Americans are aware of the power medical providers have to go after their assets. There are very few ways to protect assets. prenuptials are a classic case which work in some areas, but not medical debt collection.)

The hospital told M. not to waste time in dissolving the marriage. For five years after any divorce, her assets could be seized — precisely because the government knows that people sometimes divorce husbands or wives to escape their medical bills.

“How could I divorce him? I loved him,” she told me.

“I explored a lot of options with an attorney here in town,” she added. “The attorney said, ‘I don’t see any other options for you.’ It took about a year for me to do the divorce, it was so hard.”

So M. divorced the man she loves. I asked him what he thought of this. He can still speak, albeit not always coherently, and he paused a long, long time. All he could manage was: “It’s hard to say.”

Long-term care constitutes a difficult and expensive challenge in any health system. But the American patchwork, full of cracks through which people fall, has a special problem with medical expenses of all kinds bankrupting couples.

A study reported in The American Journal of Medicine this month found that 62 percent of American bankruptcies are linked to medical bills. These medical bankruptcies had increased nearly 50 percent in just six years. Astonishingly, 78 percent of these people actually had health insurance, but the gaps and inadequacies left them unprotected when they were hit by devastating bills.

M. still helps her husband and, quietly, continues to live with him and care for him. But she worries that the authorities will come after her if they realize that they divorced not because of irreconcilable differences but because of irreconcilable medical bills. There were awkward questions from friends who saw the divorce announcement in the newspaper.

“It’s just crazy,” she said. “It twists people like pretzels.”

The existing system doesn’t just break up families, it also costs lives. A 2004 study by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, found that lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths a year. That’s one person slipping through the cracks and dying every half an hour.

In short, it’s a good bet that our existing dysfunctional health system knocks off far more people than an army of “death panels” could — even if they existed, worked 24/7 and got around in a fleet of black helicopters.

So, for those of you inclined to believe the worst about President Obama, think it through. Suppose he is indeed a secret, foreign-born Muslim agent who is scheming to undermine American family values while killing off as many grandmothers as possible.

If all that were true, why on earth would he be trying so hard to reform our health care system? We already know how to prod families into divorce and take a life unnecessarily every 30 minutes — all we need to do is reject reform and stick with exactly what we have.

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When we talk about fear, the anonymous M in this article, lives with it daily. Her story underscores the reality that our current health care system holds us hostage to the profit driven health industry, and very much backs this up with the laws (guns) of the government.

This story is full of people violating their hearts and consciences. First you have members of the medical community telling M that the only way she can avoid being bankrupted by their medical community is to more or less fraudulently divorce her sick and confused husband. This is followed by her attorney, who is sworn to uphold the laws of the country, advising her to take the very same fraudulent step. Now that she's taken it, she's terrified she'll be caught before the five years expires and lives her marriage as some sort of covert sneaky thing. And we dare call this health care?

This is not health care, this is tyranny by profit driven capitalism supported by government law which enshrines the rights of the corporation over the individual. Why isn't this seen as government backed corporate fascism?

President Obama does not have a sterling record when it comes to cleaning up Wall Street. That record is undermining his ability to reform health care. He needs to face this fact and dump this whole notion of bipartisan agreement. TARP has clearly shown how effective bipartisan agreements are when it comes to actually reforming a major part of our financial system. It made things even worse. He can't let this happen with health care reform. If he does, his term in office will not exceed four years, and maybe it shouldn't.