Mentoring Seminarians And Hidden Agendas

I can't help but wonder how many of these seminarians will carry on in the long 'tradition' of mentoring. Not all of them will have the very subjective criteria that seems to attract a mentor.

There have been a lot of loose ends floating around in my head that have bothered me lately.  I felt as if there was some big connection amongst all those threads that I was just missing completely.  Two of those threads were Pope Benedict's need to conflate gay marriage with what ever ailed society and his promotion of Georg Ganswein to Archbishop with the additional title of Prefect of the Pontifical Household.  This is in addition to his first secretary duties.  Georg now has a lot of power.

I've written in the past that one of the problems with the clerical system is this form of 'mentoring'.  That is when an older cleric higher up the food chain takes on a younger man and keeps him at hand as they move up the ladder together.  On his website Richard Sipe makes the point the younger man is usually very good looking and selected for those reasons. It has proven to be the most secure way to procure personal advancement.  This is not to say that these relationships all involve a sexual content because they don't.  Many of them are more akin to father/son as I'm sure the one between Pope Benedict and Ganswein actually is.  I'm am sure of that for a number of reasons, not the least of which is if I personally were going to pick a son to mentor, I certainly wouldn't have rejected Georg Ganswein. Nothing subjective in that. LOL

Unfortunately there are too many of these relationships which do come with sexual activity.  Sipe uses Cardinal McCarrick as one case study. In this case there were known and proven accusations against McCarrick which didn't preclude 'Uncle Ted's' advancement up the curial ladder. This was similar to the treatment meted out to Cardinal Groer and Maciel Marciel whose known penchant for sexually grooming seminarians was ignored by both Cardinal Ratzinger and JPII. That is, until the outcry was such it could no longer be ignored. For whatever reason, McCarrick, like a host of other bishops, has been immune from any sanctions.  One of those others is San Diego's Bishop Robert Brom.  It was in reading his story on Sipe's website that some threads began to form a pattern and that pattern points to very powerful American cardinals doing many questionable things in order to keep a lid on this entire system of 'grooming and mentoring'.  What makes it even more interesting is that many of these players are actively involved in all the gay bashing.  

For instance, AB Sal Cordileone served as Brom's secretary, tribunal judge and adjunct judicial vicar. He received his episcopal consecration from Brom who was assisted by the then Archbishop Raymond Burke. Cordileone then served as an Auxiliary in San Diego before moving to Oakland and now San Francisco. Technically AB Sal has surpassed his mentor, but Sal only has an official DUI on his record while his mentor has a host of issues on his.

As Cordileone demonstrated in the Prop 8 campaign these men are willing to fight dirty. His mentor doesn't  play nice either. Brom has had a priest adversary laicized for what the priest claims were phoney charges and for which he could never defend himself with the CDF--a CDF then under Cardinal Ratzinger. This story is part of a series of articles Richard Sipe has in his report on Brom.  Maybe more interesting is that Brom has also put a priest convicted of a sexual abuse charge with a young adult woman back into ministry within months of his conviction.  Then Brom, along with Burke, are reputed to be the main reason the University of San Diego's president Mary Lyons was forced into the untenable position of revoking the fellowship of British theologian Tina Beattie for Beattie's mild statement endorsing civil gay marriage.  A move which resulted in the University's faculty senate voting to rebuke her.  

I just can't help but wonder why heterosexual activity, even criminal heterosexual activity, is shrugged off, but anything remotely gay is squashed pronto.  The more I looked into the circle of priests Brom was connected with the more mind numbing it all became.  Too many of them were accused, like Brom, of sexual activity with seminarians or young boys.  The connections went from Springfield IL, to Winona MN, to San Diego CA, and involved multiple American Cardinals and bishops, progressives as well as conservatives. Too many then turn out to be overt gay bashers.

It all makes me wonder how long these guys, including the ones in Rome, think this strategy of gay bashing to mask gay activity is going to last? I have no doubt they are all thankful that Pope Benedict is exactly where he is because the CDF under Ratzinger pursued none of these offenders and he hasn't while in office as pope.  Which leads me to wonder if it isn't somehow the presence of Georg himself that stops him from acting on Bishops like Brom or Cardinals like McCarrick.  In any case, this whole closed 'mentoring' system needs to go.  Anytime an organization promotes through this kind of subjective mentoring process it's lethal for the health of the organization.  In the case of the Church in the West, it's just another loop in the noose around the neck of Holy 'Mother' Church.

 

For Me, A Christmas Gift From Richard Sipe.

An old and tired looking pope gives an old and tired message.  One wonders if he will retire this year.

I was just saddened again this Christmas to hear the Pope once again castigate gays for most of the ills of the world.  Even though I've written a previous post about one of Benedict's droppings, it has left a bad taste in my mouth.  It's not like this is the first time he has chosen the Christmas season to throw lumps of coal at gays.  I happen to find this obsession of his pathological and hugely polluting for the spiritual energy of the Church.  I have never found it edifying to work for any leadership that can't admit to their own pathology because that pathology always plays out in the collective work force. It becomes the unstated underlying motivation for too many dysfunctional decisions.  In the case of Roman Catholicism, I firmly believe this is why so much time and energy is focused on dehumanizing gays and attempting to control women's reproduction through legislative means.  Call it the politics of pathology.  It's hardly surprising Catholicism leads the way in these endeavors since it's entire leadership core is carefully enculturated to both reflect and blindly accept the dysfunction coming from up the food chain, especially the dysfunction about human sexuality.

And then my mood hasn't been helped by some of the commenters now popping up and attempting a take over of the National Catholic Reporter website.  These men generally last a week or so, spew hundreds of comments, and then drop out to be replaced by other cohorts.  It's like they have a commander in chief who tells them engaging with apostates for more than a week is bad for their soul.  I have the hopeful delusion they disengage because it's bad for their lock step faith and leaves them with too many questions. Bill Lyndsey has an example of this kind of commenter over at Bilgrimage.  Droppings from the Catholic birdcage indeed. 

So all of this angst propelled me to check in with Richard Sipe's blog because if anyone could explain this bizarre need of Pope Benedict's to bash gays at Christmas it would be the world's expert on clergy and their sexuality.  He has a new post up in which he gives answers to the most frequently asked questions he receives on lecture circuits and in interviews.  I found the answers to the following questions balm for my soul.  I guess one could say, this was not a Richard Rohr Christmas for me, it was a Richard Sipe Christmas.

 
Why is the church against homosexuality when so many priests are gay? 
I wrote the article "Is The Pope Gay?" It focused on Pope Benedict XVI, but it was neither an attack nor an allegation of misbehavior. It was meant to provoke discussion of the topic so important for Catholic clergy and the whole church. The position of the Catholic Church about homosexuality is not only wrong headed it is unsupportable and hypocritical. Since official teaching considers homosexuality as intrinsically evil it is impossible for the Vatican to dialogue or explore its position. (This is other wise known as backing yourself into a dead end corner.)

The Church's basic teaching on human sexuality is simply wrong. It is equally as false as its former belief that the sun moves around the earth. It ignores the scientific, psychological and socio-spiritual realities of sex and human relationships.

Homosexuality is a God-given orientation just as heterosexuality is. The church's position that it is an intrinsic disorder fails equally when it comes to understanding masturbation and birth control that it plasters with the same label. This is patently false and offers inadequate pedagogy.

When I posed the question about the pope's sexual orientation it was only to raise these areas for calm and rational discussion. Many informed people in Rome believe that Pope Benedict XVI has a homosexual orientation. This is neither an accusation of fault nor any implication of wrongdoing. But the official teaching of the church proscribes that men of homosexual orientation should be allowed to train for the priesthood or be ordained (Cf.1961 Directive).

The patent hypocrisy of church teaching and practice is a travesty. Many saints had a homosexual orientation and many good priests are gay and celibate. (Pope Benedict might be reaching new heights in hypocrisy in his castigation and persecution of gays. He is apparently oblivious to the fact many of his flock think he is exactly that state of being which he condemns.)

Homosexual orientation is neither an illness nor a perversion. To oversimplify: It is an inborn attraction and disposition to love persons of the same sex, even sexually - parallel to persons of heterosexual orientation and disposition. Homosexual persons can behave perversely and be ill just as heterosexually persons can.

Hypocrisy is the greatest religious sin. Although homosexuality among the clergy and in the general population involves difficult and complicated social and moral questions to confront it is one area of necessary discussion for serious Christians.

Why exclude women from the priesthood? Excluding women from the priesthood is based on a bad cultural habit and destructive tradition of degrading women and keeping them from equality and power. That stance has a long history and must be faced just as the practice of slavery was.

There are no solid theological reasons for keeping women out of ministry. There is a good deal of misogyny in clerical culture. Fear and loathing of women is deeply entrenched in the power structure of the church. The threat of women to this power extends even to a married clergy.

 (Yes, the threat women somehow pose to the Roman Catholic clerical system is so high, it precludes married priests, much less the ordination of women. We need to investigate why the idea of women is such a threat.)

 

Is Celibacy the cause of sexual perversion and should it be abolished? There is no question that Mandatory celibacy is untenable. No one can impose a charism (a grace). And the forced celibate obligation is without a doubt a factor in the abuse of minors as well other clerical sexual aberrations. Some scholars say that celibacy is a perversion in itself and a violation of God's original command to Adam,  "to increase and multiply".

I was present at an audience with Pope John Paul II in 1993 during which he said that he (and no (other) pope) had the authority to change the requirement for a vow of celibacy in order to be ordained to the priesthood. And he and other popes have acted in defiance of this proclamation. The same restriction on his power obviated the ordination of women to the priesthood. I do not believe either statement. (I don't either, it's nothing more than self justifying magical thinking.)

I agree that mandatory celibacy for ordination must be changed. It simply does not work. I do not agree that religious celibacy is a perversion nor that celibacy that is freely chosen and lived is a cause of perversion. Celibacy is a charism - a gift - and it cannot be forced or legislated. To attempt do so is a perversion. That is why it has never worked well nor been successful for a majority of priests and caused so much pain and destruction. (It's not just the forcing of a charism on people that makes forced celibacy a perversion, but the corruption it brings with it when celibacy is not followed.)

Is the church too focused on controlling sex? Yes, for two reasons: it has lost touch with its spiritual origins and it has failed to listen to the experience of married people. There was a perception during the early days of the church of a necessity to control the organization, discipline and material goods of this budding social and spiritual entity. The demand for celibacy that had some very real and deep regard for the spirituality of men who did give up everything to imitate Jesus (like the monks of the desert) was used to implement organizational control. Like the sower of seed in the Gospel weeds and wheat grew up together. Celibacy has had mixed results in the life of the Church. But the real question is one of control, power and money. The concentration of money and power in the church has been a constant source of its corruption.

Jesus, and the New Testament generally, offer no directives about celibacy and little about sexuality. The process of evolution continues to infuse knowledge and understanding of human development and also of biblical scholarship. We must respect our God-given capacity to learn and develop an informed conscience.

Does corruption proceeds from the top down? Yes. At the First National Conference for Victims & Survivors of Roman Catholic Clergy Abuse held in Chicago, October 1992 I said:  "the problem of child abuse now visible is the tip of the iceberg. When the whole story of sexual abuse by presumed celibate clergy is told it will lead to the highest corridors of the Vatican." 

Corruption in the Church comes from the top down. Many saints have held this position. Wherever one finds sexual abuse of minors on any level of the clergy there are inevitably men in authority above them who are sexually active themselves or who are tolerant of such behavior. If celibacy were truly and widely practiced on the highest levels of the Church there would be no room for the abuse of minors. (And no opportunity for blackmail, bribery, or need for 'omerta'.)

 

As I collected data on the behaviors of bishops and priests the systemic dynamic of celibate/sexual violations became more and more apparent. Bishops and priests are sexually active behind a veil of feigned abstinence. The sexual crisis of the Roman Catholic Church splashed in bold headlines across continents demonstrates the workings of their secret world. 

What is your religious commitment? People frequently ask if I am still a believer? Jesus Christ is the foundation and ground of my life and being. I believe in Who and What Jesus said He is. 

The two operational pillars of my theology and work are secured in two directives: Thomas Aquinas' dictum,  "grace builds on nature" and St. Irenaeus' belief that  "the glory of God is man fully human". These tie together my experience of religion and psychiatry and my existence at the interface of psychology and spirituality. (The 'glory of God is man fully human' is a truth for the ages.)

Like so many Catholics today I retain nostalgia for the comfort of ritual, the beauty and grandeur of music, gesture and vesture. But the current sexual and financial corruption of the Church renders churches and ritual unavailable and empty. This is a painful phase of a profound reformation precipitated by the definitions of the Second Vatican Council like those articulated in Gaudium et Spes. We, not the hierarchy, are the Church - the People of God. (Yes, exactly. For too many of us  the current level of corruption literally makes churches and ritual 'unavailable and empty'.)

The current crisis has moved many deprived Catholics to realize that our core spirituality and the truth of our religion is beyond the outward forms and prevails in communion with the living presence of Jesus. This is not a rejection of sacramentality, but a more profound awareness of its essence that will be realized more completely - beyond magic and myth - when this Reformation is formulated. Spiritual life like all life is a process. I think of the process in mundane terms like pealing an orange - the essence is there and more accessible once one removes the outside skin. (This is just a profound paragraph and expresses my own spiritual situation far better than I could. Truly, sometimes mere words are precious gifts.)

The NRA Christmas Message: No New Gun Regulations. Also Some Thoughts On Certain Similarities With The Kof C

I like the short and succinct version.  Yes, let us turn our schools into OK Corrals.

Wayne LaPierre has given the American people the NRA answer to any new gun regulations.  Ain't gonna happen on his watch.  Instead he will fight for the US tax payer to hire rent-a-cops for every school in the land.  Easy for him to prescribe since such a plan essentially asks the tax payer to foot the bill for the consequences of his version of what the second amendment protects. Apparently that amendment protects the rights of mass killers to access assault weapons and hundred round cartridge canisters.

I have reprinted the first half of the following AP article from the Marietta Daily Journal.

NRA unwavering in opposition of any new gun laws

Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal - NRA unwavering in opposition of any new gun laws

Kevin Freking - AP - 12/24/2012
WASHINGTON — An unwavering National Rifle Association said Sunday that new gun regulations would not make children safer and that a White House task force on gun violence may try to undermine the Second Amendment.

The organization blasted “a media machine” that it said relishes blaming the gun industry for each new attack like the one that occurred just over a week ago at a Connecticut elementary school.

“Look, a gun is a tool. The problem is the criminal,” said Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the nation’s largest gun-rights lobby, in a television interview.

LaPierre hardly backed down from his comments Friday, when the NRA broke its weeklong silence on the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

LaPierre’s assertion that guns and police officers in all schools are what will stop the next killer drew widespread scorn, and even some NRA supporters in Congress are publicly disagreeing with the proposal. Rep. Chris Murphy, (D-Conn.) called it “the most revolting, tone deaf statement I’ve ever seen.” A headline from The New York Post summarized LaPierre’s initial presentation before reporters with the headline: “Gun Nut! NRA loon in bizarre rant over Newtown.” (I have to admit my first reaction to Friday's press conference was just exactly like Rep. Murphy's.)

LaPierre told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that only those armed guards and police would make kids safe.

“If it’s crazy to call for putting police and armed security in our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy,” LaPierre said. “I think the American people think it’s crazy not to do it. It’s the one thing that would keep people safe.” (Actually, I don't think the American public think putting armed security in our schools will make kids safe.  It didn't work at Columbine.)

He asked Congress for money to put a police officer in every school. He also said the NRA would coordinate a national effort to put former military and police officers in schools as volunteer guards.  (I would rather Congress authorized a significant buy back plan, but I don't have LaPierre's access to the 'media machine' LaPierre castigates even while he uses it.)

The NRA leader dismissed efforts to revive the assault weapons ban as a “phony piece of legislation” that’s built on lies. He made clear it was highly unlikely that the NRA could support any new gun regulations.

“You want one more law on top of 20,000 laws, when most of the federal gun laws we don’t even enforce?” he said.

LaPierre said another focus in preventing shootings is to lock up violent criminals and get the mentally ill the treatment they need.

“The average guy in the country values his freedom, doesn’t believe the fact he can own a gun is part of the problem, and doesn’t like the media and all these high-profile politicians blaming him,” he said. (See, here it is again, the gender thing. Wayne, I don't think your corporate sponsors would want you forgetting about the exploding women's market in gun ownership.  All that fear mongering is paying off for them.)

Some lawmakers were incredulous, yet acknowledged that the political and fundraising might of the NRA would make President Barack Obama’s push for gun restrictions a struggle..........

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The NRA is another example of what happens when right wing money buys the leadership of a given organization.  The same thing can be seen in the K of C.  Back in my day the NRA was known for hunter's safety instruction, promoting wild life husbandry, and vetting outfitters and tour guides.  But back then, the KofC was known for pancake breakfasts, small construction projects around the parish, charitable endeavors, and club houses with full bars.  Hmmm, things have certainly changed.  Now both groups are masters at promoting political division and increasing the fear level in the country.  The leadership of both groups have a visceral reaction to President Obama and share the same funding sources and think tanks. I do not think we will hear a Christmas message from Carl Anderson that contradicts Wayne LaPierre.

Maybe KofC councils can run gun shows and use the money to pay for armed guards in Catholic elementary schools because sure as Christmas means toys they won't use any of their extensive funds to promote gun regulation.

Sorry Pope Benedict, At Least In The US, We Do Need To Redefine Gender Expectations

"The bearer of this card has averted complete humiliation.  Today, he is a Man.  Fully entitled to all the rights and privileges duly afforded.  To belch without apology.  To leave the seat up without shame.  The way is before you."

Pope Benedict's recent splurge of talks condemning gay marriage, feminism, and gender as a 'new philosophy of sexuality' are in my estimation, particularly mistimed for the American public.  Particularly his idea that these somehow threaten world peace.  I suppose if you are the head honcho of an all male enterprise, grew up in male dominated culture, and think world peace is maintained by some form of approved male patriarchy and dominance, then these social trends would indeed, threaten your notion of a peaceful and correctly ordered society.  Unfortunately in the US, our peace and security are directly threatened by our arbitrary notions of the properly gendered male. In light of the Newtown massacre there are finally voices being raised about the fact that all but one of the mass shootings occurring in the last thirty years--60 some in all--were perpetrated by males, and this does not include the number of suicide/murders that are also almost always perpetrated by males.

Jackson Katz, writing for Huffington Post, lists seven reasons why Americans need to precisely look at how we are creating an arbitrary gender definition of masculinity, and how that definition is at the core of so much of the violence in American culture.  Rather than supporting Pope Benedict's plea to maintain the old status quo, Mr Katz is calling that whole idea into question precisely because it threatens peace and security, and guns make even the least macho male, utterly dangerous. I remember when I was ten asking my dad, who stood 6'2" tall and was really well built, what scared him the most.  He said:  "A small man with a big gun." For me now, I might say it's a small man with a global platform.

The following is the last part of Mr Katz's article and includes all seven of his reasons we might want to do exactly what Pope Benedict doesn't want us doing, changing the gender expectations for males.  Ironically, this is the exact same kind of thing Jesus attempted 2000 years ago.

Memo to Media: Manhood, Not Guns or Mental Illness, Should Be Central in Newtown Shooting

.....1) Make gender -- specifically the idea that men are gendered beings -- a central part of the national conversation about rampage killings. Typical news accounts and commentaries about school shootings and rampage killings rarely mention gender. If a woman were the shooter, you can bet there would be all sorts of commentary about shifting cultural notions of femininity and how they might have contributed to her act, such as discussions in recent years about girl gang violence. That same conversation about gender should take place when a man is the perpetrator. Men are every bit as gendered as women.

The key difference is that because men represent the dominant gender, their gender is rendered invisible in the discourse about violence. So much of the commentary about school shootings, including the one at Sandy Hook Elementary, focuses on "people" who have problems, "individuals" who suffer from depression, and "shooters" whose motives remain obtuse. When opinion leaders start talking about the men who commit these rampages, and ask questions like: "why is it almost always men who do these horrible things?" and then follow that up, we will have a much better chance of finding workable solutions to the outrageous level of violence in our society.

2) Use the "M-word." Talk about masculinity. This does not mean you need to talk about biological maleness or search for answers in new research on brain chemistry. Such inquiries have their place. But the focus needs to be sociological: individual men are products of social systems. How many more school shootings do we need before we start talking about this as a social problem, and not merely a random collection of isolated incidents? Why are nearly all of the perpetrators of these types of crimes men, and most of them white men? (A recent piece by William Hamby is a step in the right direction. )

What are the cultural narratives from which school shooters draw lessons or inspiration? This does not mean simplistic condemnations of video games or violent media -- although all cultural influences are fair game for analysis. It means looking carefully at how our culture defines manhood, how boys are socialized, and how pressure to stay in the "man box" not only constrains boys' and men's emotional and relational development, but also their range of choices when faced with life crises. Psychological factors in men's development and psyches surely need to be examined, but the best analyses see individual men's actions in a social and historical context.

3) Identify the gender subtext of the ongoing political battle over "guns rights" versus "gun control," and bring it to the surface. The current script that plays out in media after these types of horrendous killings is unproductive and full of empty clichés. Advocates of stricter gun laws call on political leaders to take action, while defenders of "gun rights" hunker down and deflect criticism, hoping to ride out yet another public relations nightmare for the firearms industry. But few commentators who opine about the gun debates seem to recognize the deeply gendered aspects of this ongoing controversy. Guns play an important emotional role in many men's lives, both as a vehicle for their relationships with their fathers and in the way they bolster some men's sense of security and power.

It is also time to broaden the gun policy debate to a more in-depth discussion about the declining economic and cultural power of white men, and to deconstruct the gendered rhetoric of "defending liberty" and "fighting tyranny" that animates much right-wing opposition to even moderate gun control measures. If one effect of this tragedy is that journalists and others in media are able to create space for a discussion about guns that focuses on the role of guns in men's psyches and identities, and how this plays out in their political belief systems, we might have a chance to move beyond the current impasse.

4) Consult with, interview and feature in your stories the perspectives of the numerous men (and women) across the country who have worked with abusive men. Many of these people are counselors, therapists, and educators who can provide all sorts of insights about how -- and why -- men use violence. Since men who commit murder outside the home more than occasionally have a history of domestic violence, it is important to hear from the many women and men in the domestic violence field who can speak to these types of connections -- and in many cases have first-hand experience that deepen their understanding.

5) Bring experts on the air, and quote them in your stories, who can speak knowledgeably about the link between masculinity and violence. After the Jovan Belcher murder-suicide, CNN featured the work of the author Kevin Powell, who has written a lot about men's violence and the many intersections between gender and race. That was a good start. In the modern era of school shootings and rampage killings, a number of scholars have produced works that offer ways to think about the gendered subtext of these disturbing phenomena.

Examples include Rachel Kalish and Michael Kimmel's piece "Suicide by Mass Murder: Masculinity, Aggrieved Entitlement and Rampage School Shootings," Douglas Kellner's "Rage and Rampage: School Shootings and Crises of Masculinity," and a short piece that I co-wrote with Sut Jhally after Columbine, "The national conversation in the wake of Littleton is missing the mark."

There have also been many important books published over the past 15 years or so that provide great insight into issues of late 20th and 21st century American manhood, and thus provide valuable context for discussions about men's violence. They include Real Boys, by William Pollack; Raising Cane, by Michael Thompson and Dan Kindlon; New Black Man, by Mark Anthony Neal; Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft; Dude You're a Fag, by C.J. Pascoe; Guyland, By Michael Kimmel; I Don't Want to Talk About It, by Terrence Real; Violence, by James Gilligan; Guys and Guns Amok, by Douglas Kellner; On Killing, by David Grossman; and two documentary films: Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by Byron Hurt; and Tough Guise, which I created and Sut Jhally directed.

6) Resist the temptation to blame this shooting or others on "mental illness," as if this answers the why and requires no further explanation. Even if some of these violent men are or were "mentally ill," the specific ways in which mental illness manifests itself are often profoundly gendered. Consult with experts who understand the gendered features of mental illness. For example, conduct interviews with mental health experts who can talk about why men, many of whom are clinically depressed, comprise the vast majority of perpetrators of murder-suicides. Why is depression in women much less likely to contribute to their committing murder than it is for men? (It is important to note that only a very small percentage of men with clinical depression commit murder, although a very high percentage of people with clinical depression who commit murder are men.)

7) Don't buy the manipulative argument that it's somehow "anti-male" to focus on questions about manhood in the wake of these ongoing tragedies. Men commit the vast majority of violence and almost all rampage killings. It's long past time that we summoned the courage as a society to look this fact squarely in the eye and then do something about it. Women in media can initiate this discussion, but men bear the ultimate responsibility for addressing the masculinity crisis at the heart of these tragedies. With little children being murdered en masse at school, for God's sake, it's time for more of them to step up, even in the face of inevitable push back from the defenders of a sick and dysfunctional status quo.

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And unfortunately, one of those defenders of a sick and dysfunctional status quo, is Pope Benedict.  There is no way to get around that as he has consistently attacked any notion that would change the balance of power between the masculine and the feminine---whether that is in the Church, in the bedroom, or in relationships. If he could actually process what Jesus taught about relating to others, that it wasn't through dominance but service, he might have a different perspective on redefining gender roles.  Apparently he can't, but that doesn't mean Catholicism itself, through the laity and it's theologians have to remain silent, and more of us need to speak out.  

I asked my dad that 'what scared him question' almost fifty years ago, but he was right back then and with today's assault weapons, his message is even more true.  We need to seriously deconstruct what passes for masculinity in a culture that no longer needs old definitions for it's continued survival. It sure seems to me that Pope Benedict and his ideas about gender are a bigger threat to world peace than any gay marriage initiative.

The God Emperor Of Roman Catholicism Speaks To His Faithfiul Acolytes

Pope Benedict has an obsession with gays, feminists, and insisting on the literacy of Genesis. On these issues he truly seems to think he is the God Emperor of Roman Catholicism.

I read Pope Benedict's annual message to the Vatican curia with zero expectations of finding anything hopeful or uplifting in his words.  Consequently I was not too disappointed. I am however, wondering how much longer we will have to live under a pope who inflicts the entire global church with his own unresolved issues under the guise of 'teaching' or 'instructing the faithful'.  I am tired of, and sad about, constantly reading this kind of instructing in which Benedict castigates Western culture for all of his personal woes while exhorting the developing world to ignore how population density is directly related to poverty and the ills associated with same. Men must dominate, women must be pregnant, and gays must return to the same deep closet he himself is so familiar with and all of this is God's will.  

I've broken up two extended paragraphs in his speech to illustrate my belief that Pope Benedict has some issues he himself has never addressed. Pope Benedict never comes out and mentions gays specifically or feminists directly.  Instead he uses innuendo and code words and hides behind the thinking of a Jewish Rabbi. He strings together observations which we are then to take his word for that they are linked in the way he links them. Well, OK, but some of these linkages are not all that logical.  But I guess when you are giving a speech to the lock stepping acolytes you don't have to make a whole lot of logical sense. Especially if you hold the very ontologically superior position of God Emperor of Roman Catholicism.


The great joy with which families from all over the world congregated in Milan indicates that, despite all impressions to the contrary, the family is still strong and vibrant today. But there is no denying the crisis that threatens it to its foundations – especially in the western world. (Benedict seems to have zero faith in the strength of the family.  How is it an institution, which he teaches us has been God's will from day one, is now so weak it can't stand under the assault from a relatively few gay marriages?  Or is it that it's the Roman Catholic clerical system that can't stand under the assault gay marriage represents to that culture?)


.... So it became clear that the question of the family is not just about a particular social construct, but about man himself – about what he is and what it takes to be authentically human. The challenges involved are manifold. First of all there is the question of the human capacity to make a commitment or to avoid commitment. Can one bind oneself for a lifetime? Does this correspond to man’s nature? Does it not contradict his freedom and the scope of his self-realization? Does man become himself by living for himself alone and only entering into relationships with others when he can break them off again at any time? Is lifelong commitment antithetical to freedom? Is commitment also worth suffering for? Man’s refusal to make any commitment – which is becoming increasingly widespread as a result of a false understanding of freedom and self-realization as well as the desire to escape suffering – means that man remains closed in on himself and keeps his "I" ultimately for himself, without really rising above it. Yet only in self-giving does man find himself, and only by opening himself to the other, to others, to children, to the family, only by letting himself be changed through suffering, does he discover the breadth of his humanity. When such commitment is repudiated, the key figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child – essential elements of the experience of being human are lost. (I understand this is a translation from Italian, but if you go back and read this it's expression is not gender neutral or inclusive and it could have easily been made so.  This is Benedict talking about humanity as if it's all about men and only about men and the male inability to make lifetime commitments.  For him this may be true, as this inability to make lifetime commitments has certainly impacted the number of male celibate clergy.)

The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question. He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: "one is not born a woman, one becomes so" (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term "gender" as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. (In these sentiments biological sex equals gender equals gender roles equals male dominance/female submission and it is all God's plan and patriarchy has nothing to do with it because patriarchy is the natural expresson of our male God's will.)

The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. (Exhibit number one of this process is the Church's demand for celibacy in it's male and female religious. Talk about denial of one's nature and forcing a contrived dualism on the nature of humanity.)

According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: "male and female he created them" (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. (The biological difference between men and women is not being called into question.  What is being called into question is the social roles which have previously been socially ascribed, somewhat arbitrarily, based on whether one was born male or female.  This is not so much a threat to society, as it is a threat to the structure of Roman Catholicism.)

From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. (This is because the nuclear family is not a product of creation, it's a product of the last couple of centuries. The long term historical social unit was the tribe, not the nuclear family. Plus if there is no God given pre ordained duality, there is no theological justification for excluding women from leadership on the basis of their sexual chromosomes.)

Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man. (This last part is really a series of not well linked statements purportedly ending in the notion that gays adopting children somehow winds up making objects of children and denying man and denying God.  It makes me wonder what goes on in Benedict's head that it's impossible for him to see that he himself is objectifying gays and feminists by defining them as 'threats' to the whole of creation.)

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Pope Benedict then goes on to describe three areas of dialogue that the Vatican needs to be concerned with: dialogue with nation states, dialogue with society, and dialogue with other religions.  Note the absence of dialogue with his subjects. God Emperors do not dialogue with their subjects.  Never have and never will.

So as 2013 approaches and 12/21/2012 passed without a whimper,  Catholics of the progressive variety are left confronting the last dregs of very old energy.  Like all 'last dregs' the stench is pretty powerful and the taste bitter.  I have great hope that 'this too shall pass' and we will move into a much more humane and compassionate future where the personal dysfunction of one man will not be allowed to dictate the spiritual and religious experiences of one billion people.

It's Not Just About Guns, It's Also Got To Be About Autism

I've had a difficult time reading some of the coverage on the Newtown mass killings.  Part of it is my heart is torn between the parents of all the murdered children, the heroic deaths of the female staff who tried to stop or mediate the carnage, and then finally, Adam Lanza and his mother.  I've found myself getting really frustrated with commenters and pundits who seem to think Adam Lanza was a product of video games, or goth interests, or demonic influence.  I've been just as frustrated with all the talk about gun control when in point of fact too many of these mass shootings are equally products of poor mental health services and the stigma surrounding mental illness and the increasing prevalence of autism.  Maybe it's just too soon after the event for people to start thinking productively.

I did come across one powerful piece of writing that I want to share with readers.  Call it part of my campaign to get some compassion moving about a mental health issue that is not going away, is getting worse and is truly a parent's worst nightmare.  Originally written for The Anarchist Soccer Mom, I found it on Huffington Post.  It's brilliantly written by Liza Long.

"I am Adam Lanza's Mother"

 By Liza Long
Three days before 20 year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants.

“I can wear these pants,” he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises.
“They are navy blue,” I told him. “Your school’s dress code says black or khaki pants only.”
“They told me I could wear these,” he insisted. “You’re a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!”

“You can’t wear whatever pants you want to,” I said, my tone affable, reasonable. “And you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. You’re grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car, and I will take you to school.”
I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.

A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan -- they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.

That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn’t have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist.

We still don’t know what’s wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. He’s been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work.

At the start of seventh grade, Michael was accepted to an accelerated program for highly gifted math and science students. His IQ is off the charts. When he’s in a good mood, he will gladly bend your ear on subjects ranging from Greek mythology to the differences between Einsteinian and Newtonian physics to Doctor Who. He’s in a good mood most of the time. But when he’s not, watch out. And it’s impossible to predict what will set him off.

Several weeks into his new junior high school, Michael began exhibiting increasingly odd and threatening behaviors at school. We decided to transfer him to the district’s most restrictive behavioral program, a contained school environment where children who can’t function in normal classrooms can access their right to free public babysitting from 7:30-1:50 Monday through Friday until they turn 18.

The morning of the pants incident, Michael continued to argue with me on the drive. He would occasionally apologize and seem remorseful. Right before we turned into his school parking lot, he said, “Look, Mom, I’m really sorry. Can I have video games back today?”
“No way,” I told him. “You cannot act the way you acted this morning and think you can get your electronic privileges back that quickly.”

His face turned cold, and his eyes were full of calculated rage. “Then I’m going to kill myself,” he said. “I’m going to jump out of this car right now and kill myself.”
That was it. After the knife incident, I told him that if he ever said those words again, I would take him straight to the mental hospital, no ifs, ands, or buts. I did not respond, except to pull the car into the opposite lane, turning left instead of right.

“Where are you taking me?” he said, suddenly worried. “Where are we going?”
“You know where we are going,” I replied.
“No! You can’t do that to me! You’re sending me to hell! You’re sending me straight to hell!”
I pulled up in front of the hospital, frantically waiving for one of the clinicians who happened to be standing outside. “Call the police,” I said. “Hurry.”

Michael was in a full-blown fit by then, screaming and hitting. I hugged him close so he couldn’t escape from the car. He bit me several times and repeatedly jabbed his elbows into my rib cage. I’m still stronger than he is, but I won’t be for much longer.
The police came quickly and carried my son screaming and kicking into the bowels of the hospital. I started to shake, and tears filled my eyes as I filled out the paperwork -- “Were there any difficulties with… at what age did your child… were there any problems with.. has your child ever experienced.. does your child have…”

At least we have health insurance now. I recently accepted a position with a local college, giving up my freelance career because when you have a kid like this, you need benefits. You’ll do anything for benefits. No individual insurance plan will cover this kind of thing.

For days, my son insisted that I was lying -- that I made the whole thing up so that I could get rid of him. The first day, when I called to check up on him, he said, “I hate you. And I’m going to get my revenge as soon as I get out of here.”
By day three, he was my calm, sweet boy again, all apologies and promises to get better. I’ve heard those promises for years. I don’t believe them anymore.

On the intake form, under the question, “What are your expectations for treatment?” I wrote, “I need help.”
And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense.

I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am James Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do.

When I asked my son’s social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. “If he’s back in the system, they’ll create a paper trail,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you’ve got charges.”

I don’t believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael’s sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesn’t deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, and it continues to rise -- in fact, the rate of inmate mental illness is five times greater (56 percent) than in the non-incarcerated population.

With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally ill -- Rikers Island, the LA County Jail and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation’s largest treatment centers in 2011.

No one wants to send a 13-year old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, “Something must be done.”

I agree that something must be done. It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health. That’s the only way our nation can ever truly heal.
God help me. God help Michael. God help us all.


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First, I want to thank Liza Long for writing this piece.  It needs to be read by as wide an audience as possible.  This country will never truly understand what happened in Newtown and Aurora and Virginia Tech and on and on,  unless we are willing to go inside the families of these boys and inside the minds of the boys themselves.  Their brains do not function like our brains and because of that, they do not live easily in our world.  The mental health establishment can provide fairly safe environments but consistently applicable treatment is another story.  In the meantime families become prisoners of their children, they turn inward, they isolate, and they burn out.  By the time too many of these boys reach 18, if some form of therapy hasn't mitigated their symptoms, there aren't very many alternatives, especially if their families are burned out. They are now considered independent legal adults and with high functioning IQ's, quite able to buy guns, strategize with acumen, and yet they are far from adults in most meaningful ways.

In a very real sense, they don't have ego personalities.  They have avatars.  They are just as easily their video gaming personality as they are their 'social' personality, and for a minority of them, they are much more comfortable and secure in their video gaming avatar, in which they have a real sense of control and where their focus is strong enough to filter out external stimuli and where they succeed,  than they are in their 'social avatar' where an innate inability to filter out external stimuli makes them feel highly vulnerable, inclined to OCD behaviors, and where they need of a lot of repetitive structure.  It's like getting lost in the woods for a normal person, except for these boys, until a situation becomes totally and completely the same, they will continually be lost in the woods.  They act out in frustration and uncontrolled rage is just one second away.

Descriptions of Adam Lanza in high school illustrate some of this.  He was known to wear the same types of clothes buttoned up the same way every day.  He would walk down halls hugging the wall and carrying a brief case 'like and 8 year old carries a teddy bear'.  He was known to be unable to detect physical pain and in his high school that became a planned for safety issue.  Imagine not being able to detect physical pain because your can't focus on that particular perceptual stimuli.  The pain signals were probably there, he just couldn't filter out everything else to identify them.  His tech club coach also stated he would 'fly off', meaning Adam would go into a sort of catatonic state,  and they would have to call his mother to bring him out this state. This is sensory overload resulting in disassociation. I've seen this happen with adults that have high high anxiety levels. It's either full blown panic attacks or disassociation.

Adam was also at the age, late teens to early twenties,  where we generally see the onset of full psychosis in schizophrenia.  A childhood diagnosis on the autism scale can be a precursor to full blown adult schizophrenia.  This is the same profile shown by the Aurora shooter and the Gifford's shooter.  Pyschosis makes a great deal of internal logical sense to the person experiencing it and not much sense at all to outside observers.  Unfortunately there is usually enough survival skill in the psychosis that observers blow off a lot of strange behavior and don't connect the dots until after it's too late. Monday morning quarterbacking is pretty useless.

We need to get serious about tracking these kids because if they move into full psychosis how they will play out that psychosis is as idiosyncratic as they are as individuals.  We need to get very serious about giving their families some legitimate help because treatment is astronomical, especially when it involves meds whose cost can be one thousand dollars or more a month for one med, and most of them are on a cocktail of meds.  We need to explore other treatment avenues and spend serious bucks on researching why autism is becoming so prevalent.  1 in 88 kids are now diagnosed with some form of disability on the autism scale.  That's a 78% increase in nine years.  This story is not just a wake up call for gun control legislation.  It needs to be a wake up call for a serious mental health issue that keeps increasing in our children.  If we really care about our children and their families we need to put the same kind of intense effort into autism that we did for HIV/AIDS.  Or our mentally confused kids will keep killing our kids.
 

The Vatican Engages In More 'Popesplainin'--And It's Not Very Good 'splainin'

Funny how Sr Simone Campbell was not honored with a papal audience since she was also in Rome getting an award from the same group at the same conference for which Uganda's Rebecca Kadaga came to Rome specifically to attend.

One of the stories out of the Vatican from last week that utterly revolted me concerned the meeting between Pope Benedict and Uganda's Parliamentary President Rebecca Kadaga. Ms Kadaga promised the people of Uganda a Christmas present in the form of passage of the 'kill the gays' bill. Well, that's not going to happen. The bill has suddenly moved to the bottom of the priority list, but I'll have more on that after the following article. I too wondered what in the world the UnHoly See thought it was doing by allowing such a photo op as the one that leads this post. 

Needless to say the story became something of an internet sensation, forcing Pope Benedict's official popesplainer, Fr Lombardi to finally address the controversy, but through Vatican Insider, not Osservatore Romano. Interesting. I should warn readers I have a ton of comments with in the body of this article, but.... I just..... had to make them. 

“Why does Benedict XVI receive anti-gay politicians in audience?” 

"Tensions are high over the Pope’s meeting with the Ugandan parliament speaker who favours a law that would introduce life imprisonment as a punishment for “aggravated homosexuality”
Alessandro Speciale - Vatican Insider - 12/15/2012 As if the passage on marriage in the Pope’s Message for the World Day of Peace had not kicked up enough of a storm, another case has recently erupted on the Internet, rekindling hostilities between the homosexual community and the Catholic Church.
 
The woman at the centre of the row is the President of the Ugandan Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, who is in Rome for the 7th Consultative Assembly of Parliamentarians for the International Criminal Court and the Rule of Law, organised by the Italian Chamber of Deputies. During the assembly, a prize was awarded to American nun, Simone Campelle, leader of the “Nuns on the Bus” campaign against the Republicans’ cost-cutting budget plan. Kadaga kissed the Pope’s hand during the Wednesday General Audience on 12 December in the Vatican, which she attended as part of a group of Ugandan MPs.(Let's just throw in a sentence that has nothing to do with the story, but might make people feel less hostile since it refers to the most famous of the 'nuns on the bus' for how she and they defeated the 'Republican' budget plan. Nothing like using nuns you have specifically sent the CDF after like the Vatican has after Sr Simone's lobbying group NETWORK.  No shame, no shame, absolutely no shame.)
 
As speaker for the Ugandan Parliament, Kadaga publicly expressed her support  for the famous anti-homosexuality bill which, in its original version presented in 2009 by MP David Bahati, established the death penalty as punishment for those found guilty of “aggravated homosexuality”. According to the bill, a person commits this offence where “the person against whom the offence is committed is below the age of 18 years” or “the offender is a person living with HIV”. Ever since it was presented, the bill - renamed “Kill the Gay Bill” – has been at the centre of controversies and sharp criticisms on the part of the international community and human rights organizations.('aggravated homosexuality' is also defined as a long term relationship. Funny how that got left out.)
 
The provision is being discussed and it is unlikely it will be approved by the end of the year, despite Kadaga’s promises. In its current form, the bill no longer presents the death penalty as a punishment for “aggravated homosexuality”. Instead it stipulates life imprisonment for the offence, but the sentences for those who engage in relations with other people of the same sex – which are illegal in Uganda - have become tougher on the whole.(Either Vatican Insider is privy to information no one else knows, or this is really disingenous 'splainin'.  Every other source I've read, including Ugandan, says no one knows for sure if the death penalty statues have been removed. It's an assumption at this point. These details in the bill are very hush hush.)
 
The case exploded when certain elements of the Ugandan press made Kadaga’s brief meeting with the Pope - when the speaker kissed Benedict XVI’s hand and the two exchanged a quick greeting that lasted no more than 20-30 seconds –look by like a “blessing” from Pope Benedict XVI to the President of the country’s Parliament. According to Flavio Romani, president of the Italian LGBT association Arcigay, with “the blessing he gave yesterday in the Vatican to the Ugandan parliamentary delegation led by spokesman Rebecca Kadaga,  one of the arch promoters of the “Kill the Gay Bill”…he continues to present himself as an apostle of injustice, division and discrimination against gay, lesbian and transsexual people.”
 
Not so according to Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi who issued a statement to Vatican Insider: “relations with the delegation were not out of the ordinary and no blessing was given.” The group of Ugandan MPs greeted the Pope “just like any other individuals attending an audience with the Pope would” and this “is by no means a specific sign of approval of Kadaga’’s actions or proposals.” (Sure, and it would just be another day at the Vatican zoo if Benedict greeted any other individual who say....favored women's ordination. (as if they would get into an audience.)  Speaking of just another day at the zoo, how come no papal audience for Sr Simone Campbell and the nuns on the bus? After all, she and they actually got an award.  Ooops I forget, these audience things have nothing to do with making any political statements or giving any blessings to politicians, or lobbyists, or anti gay crusaders.)
 
Lombardi also reiterated the Catholic Church’s absolute opposition to the death penalty, regardless of the case or the country. (I hope all my right wing buddies picked up on 'absolute opposition' to the death penalty. No wishy washy cutting corners in the words 'absolute opposition'.  On the other hand, no mention of gays or treating gays with dignity and compassion, just the implication that it isn't OK to kill gays for being gays.)
 
A Wikileaks cable had shown how in 2009 the United States had been actively – and apparently successfully – committed to creating awareness among Holy See diplomats about Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill. In December 2009, when the debate over the “Kill the Gay Bill” was at its peak the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the UN, Mgr. Celestino Migliore, condemned “all forms of violence and unjust discrimination against homosexual persons.” A few weeks later, the Archbishop of Kampala, Mgr. Cyprian K. Lwanga, condemned the bill because it targeted “the sinner not the sin” and did not reflect a very “Christian caring approach” to the issue of homosexuality. (Again, some interesting 'splainin'.  What this fails to mention is that in 2008 Migliore caused another uproar by notifying France that the UnHoly See would be the only European state that did not sign onto the French UN resolution to decriminalize homosexuality.  Reasoning:  “it would create new and implacable discriminations against opponents of same-sex marriage".  The Vatican thinks it is better to imprison gays than discriminate against people (like the Roman Catholic Church) who don't like the idea of same sex marriage.)

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This entire Ugandan situation was a set up from the get go.  President Museveni got precisely what he wanted from the 'kill the gays' bill.  At the same time the Parliament under Ms Kadaga was blathering on about gays, they passed the Petroleum Bill which gives the entire over site of Ugandan oil production and exploration to one cabinet member under Museveni's control. It appears to me this was always the main prize and that gays were used as a distraction from this agenda.  It is not surprising then, why American C Street fundamentalists were the main instigating force in the attack on gays.  C Street is in the Koch brothers pockets.  Shock and awe, that all  of a sudden 'the kill the gays' bill is at the bottom of parliament's priority list.

But now it can get even better. When Ugandans watch the Museveni family and his supporters get even richer off Ugandan mineral and oil wealth they will get to hear how it's all the fault of the gays and having had to capitulate to Western agitators on the 'kill the gays' bill.  This will happen after Museveni is nominated for the Nobel peace prize by Dick Cheney.  That last is a joke.....I think.

I bet Fr Lombardi wishes he didn't have to continually cover for Pope Benedict's machinations.  I bet he wishes the just made Archbishop Ganswein would have to do this kind of dirty work.  But it's not to be, and so he offered this incredible piece of 'popesplainin' for an act that is too obvious to 'splain' away and this is really really bad 'slainin'.  I wonder how he sleeps at night. Probably only with the help of a lot of sacramental wine or really good meds.

 

A Call For Compassion

Sometimes there just aren't words.  There is only compassion and connection.

Yesterday at work, I was unaware of the situation unfolding in Newtown, Ct and was stunned when I got home and watched the news.  It brought back very vivid memories of the Columbine tragedy and for personal reasons.  My daughter, had I not insisted she stay with me in Salt Lake, would have been attending Columbine High as her dad lived in Littleton.  He called me during that afternoon, almost hysterical, to thank me for not letting our daughter move with him to Colorado.  As he said, our daughter the debater, would have been in the library just like she was always in the library during lunch at her Salt Lake high school.  She might be dead had she gone to Columbine--a fact that didn't escape her attention.  It's a phone call I will never forget.  It ended a lot of acrimony between the two of us.  It was about a little healing in the midst of great tragedy.  It was about two parents who saw death for their child closer than they wanted and both reconnected with what's actually important, and it wasn't their egos. 

I have no idea what it must be like for the parents of the twenty children killed yesterday.  I only have a little idea of what it's like for the parents of the children who survived yesterday.  They will feel overwhelming relief and some guilt.  Death did not come for their child for no better reason than death came for the children who were killed.  It just is. It leaves one silent.  There is nothing but prayer and compassion and long hugs and connection with those we love and love us.

As I was watching the coverage I was waiting with some dread for information on the shooter.  In the back of my mind I already knew the answer.  As in so many of these mass killings the shooter would be somewhere on the schizophrenic, autistic, asperger's scale.  He would be socially inept, a loner, unable to connect or make friends and probably quirky smart, into video gaming where social skills are not an asset.  Fellow students would in retrospect say they weren't surprised he was the shooter- and it's always a 'he'- because he was so weird and isolated in high school.  And so I heard what I expected to hear. It wouldn't surprise me if in this killer's mind, he was acting out his anger and frustration around the very first place where he knew on a fundamental level and with out any doubt, that he was not going to fit.  It was an elementary school classroom and mommy kept insisting he had to go. Something in his current life triggered the emotion associated with this period in his life and he used all his adult skills to find a very tragic solution for his very real emotional pain.

Then began the calls for gun control, starting with President Obama.  Personally, I think it's a bit too late to expect gun control legislation to do much about the millions of guns already out on the streets. Maybe if we offered serious money to turn in guns we might get somewhere, but what happened yesterday is not the result of a truly criminal mind. Maybe American culture would be much better off if we began to put a real value on helping our kids learn about compassion and how compassion can positively effect so much with in it's radius.  We certainly spend a lot of time teaching our kids about the benefits of competition, but we teach them very little about the downside of competition.  We more or less leave them to deal with the downside on their own or demand they 'cowboy up' and get over it--especially our boys.  Some of our boys are just not put together to deal with competition or it's downside and they don't choose to get over it, they choose to kill it or themselves.  

Compassion has no downside and it breaks down a lot of barriers, even the barriers associated with cross wired brains.  Imagine our schools if compassion became as important an attribute as competition. If we actually meant, 'no child left behind'.
 
 

Is This All Just A Coincidence Or Is It Really About WHINESEC And Drones??

I kind of think this kind of protesting has more to do with recent disciplinary actions than women's ordination.

I find it somewhat beyond coincidental that three people associated with protesting the School of the Americas, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute For Security Cooperation (WHINESEC) have been disciplined by various parts of the Church since President Obama was re elected.  These three include Fr Roy Bourgeios on November 19th;  92 year old Fr Bill Brennan a Milwaukee Jesuit on December 5th; and earlier this week Dominican sister Maureen McDonnell.  The official reasons given were participation in the women's ordination movement in the case of the two priests, and the advocacy of 'new ageism' in the case of Sr McDonnell and three others associated with the spiritual center Wisdom's Well.  In the justification for the four women, amongst other issues, Morlino cited the New Age "paradigm shift away from the dominance of masculinity and patriarchy to a celebration of femininity, in individuals and in society.”  

On the surface these actions would seem to be about 'feminism' and attempts to equal the playing field between the genders within the Church.  At least on the surface.  I just can't stop thinking about the other issue they all have in common, and not so coincidentally so does Bishop Robert Morlino--WHINESEC.  Morlino was appointed by President Bush to the Board of Overseers in 2005.  Sr McDonnell engaged with others, in a 25 hour prayer vigil outside Diocesan headquarters shortly after Morlino's appointment. She called his appointment 'a real betrayal.' 

The Vatican has always had an interest in the SOA beginning with JPII and has cozy relationship with President Ronald Reagan and Reagan's CIA.  The mutual concern was marxism in Latin America, and neither partner seemed much interested in dealing with the on the ground poverty that was motivating the 'marxism'.  It is now known it was a graduate of the SOA who gunned AB Oscar Romero, just after JPII had publically snubbed Romero.  Apparently even a purple beanie is fair game if one espouses the wrong kind of Catholicism and that Catholicism sure better not be social justice type Catholicism.  Which brings me back to WHINESEC and all these disciplinary procedures against the wrong kinds of Catholics.

Fort Benning, where WHINESEC is located, is now a staging base for drones.  As more drones are released from the Middle East and Afghanistan, some are scheduled to be sent to the US Southern Command which includes all of Central and South America, but not Mexico. Mexico is covered by the Northern Command and drones have been employed extensively on the border and with in Mexico itself. Ostensibly these drones won't be weaponized, but it doesn't take much to change that, especially with the Israeli versions.  President Obama has not been the least bit forthcoming with any kind of drone policy, nor has he acted on his 2008 campaign promise to close WHINESEC.  Perhaps he's being sent a message by the Morlino type bishops of this country that he better not consider either action.  Anyone who doesn't think the Vatican is capable of sending this kind of message knows not of the history between militaristic right wing groups and the Vatican.  All one has to keep in mind is that right wing militaristic groups love patriarchal religions and will cede space for God and Holy Messengers.  Left wing groups, not so much.

So after all the verbiage, what I'm really saying is I don't think these disciplinary measures are about women's ordination or 'centering' prayer.  I think they are a message about WHINESEC and drones.