(Watch)Dogging the Atheists

It’s a battle of prayers in the Arizona House. Atheist Rep Juan Mendez on Tuesday:

Most prayers in this room begin with a request to bow your heads.  I would like to ask you not to bow your heads. I would like to ask that you take a moment to look around the room at all of the men and women here, in this moment, sharing together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people of our state.

…

In gratitude and in love, in reason and in compassion, let us work together for a better Arizona.

Full text here.

No bowing heads? That must have stung. Probably no squinched-up faces either: yay.

Next up, Rep Steve Smith yesterday:

When there’s a time set aside to pray and to pledge, if you are a non-believer, don’t ask for time to pray. If you don’t love this nation and want to pledge to it, don’t say I want to lead this body in the pledge, and stand up there and say, ‘you know what, instead of pledging, I love England’ and (sit) down. That’s not a pledge, and that wasn’t a prayer, it’s that simple.

I don’t think it would be more simple if a non-Christian (or non-Jew) were to offer something to Someone different. I was thinking about those California atheists who took over a town’s Christmas displays. What I don’t get: why one wouldn’t expect this to happen, and more often?

 

Narcissism in the Cathedral

Not a bishop breaking bad this time.

I heard about this news story on NPR while driving my daughter back to school on an errand. Maybe it was the setting of my day: a brisk cool morning and an early start to getting work done at the parish. Chatting with a few students, a prospective bride, and a few afternoon hours with a friend in a garden. My daughter’s missing book was in her backpack all the time. But though I was pretty tired from a long day, I relished the time in the car with the young miss. Picked up some groceries on the way home. Life is good. Really good.

The whole thing strikes me as annoying, and I don’t even find same-sex unions all that convincing a boogeyman. Not dangerous like the one percent, certainly. If he wanted to kill himself, maybe he should have done so in the name of the poor, the unborn, refugees, or someone who is actually suffering in life. So we have a 78-year-old going into a pout because his peaceful protest didn’t budge popular and political opinion. Then he offs and commits a desecration for people who, presumably, are his allies in the anti-gay department.

On the final blog entry from the suicide:

In the final entry in his blog, dated the day of his death, he wrote about the failure of peaceful mass protests to prevent the passage of the marriage law and talked of “new, spectacular and symbolic gestures to wake up the sleep walkers and shake the anaesthetised consciousness”.

“We are entering a time when words must be backed up by actions,” he said.

Whatever, dude.

The media label him as “far-right.” I suppose so, given his political history with paramilitary groups. But he strikes me as a self-indulgent, narcissistic boomer to me. Just not a liberal one.

It’s part of the culture of entitlement. a person thinks that strongly-held beliefs and deep-run feelings are stronger and deeper than one’s opponents. And that one deserves to win the argument, just by having a longish guest-list to the marriage law protest party.

But the reality is that nobody was forcing M. Denner to marry a man. Or sell a gay couple flowers, life insurance, or a loaf of crusty bread. He was a writer who made his daily euro from military history. The craft of guns and weaponry and such. So he decides to take the tools of the trades of people he writes about to commit suicide at the main altar of a revered church. In whatever afterlife he finds himself, I hope he gets over himself there.

As for waking up, maybe the world’s conservatives will have to face another incident that shows they are no more virtuous, honorable, or moral than the Left. People make sacrifices of life to save innocent people every day of the week. Suicides really do nothing. They are the triumph of despondency and, in this case, self-absorption.

 

A New Dictatorship

Pope Benedict’s “Dictatorship of Relativism” always struck me as a soft adversary. Relativism, as I understand the broad sense of it, is often used as an excuse by some people who otherwise have good intentions. Even the deeply religious Catholic. We explain away war by making it just. We dodge the excesses of hierarchy with encrusted excuses. Some nebulous greater good insulates prelates from consequences for common sins. And those same someones have the nerve to preach a lack of a sense of sin to the laity.

With Pope Francis, I detected in his address to ambassadors today, a new dictatorship. This is one that will be far less elusive. And it’s a cruelty and oppression which is very real for hundreds of millions in our world. If not more.

Consequently the financial crisis which we are experiencing makes us forget that its ultimate origin is to be found in a profound human crisis. In the denial of the primacy of human beings! We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old (cf. Ex 32:15-34) has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.

The worldwide financial and economic crisis seems to highlight their distortions and above all the gravely deficient human perspective, which reduces (a person) to one of (their) needs alone, namely, consumption. Worse yet, human beings themselves are nowadays considered as consumer goods which can be used and thrown away.

The dictatorship of an inhumane economy. Now that’s a real dragon.

Money has to serve, not to rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope has the duty, in Christ’s name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them. The Pope appeals for disinterested solidarity and for a return to person-centred ethics in the world of finance and economics.

Rock mentioned this was one of the few times the Holy Father has referred to himself as “the Pope.” That’s the kind of Pope we need today.

 

Retirement Bad?

Is retirement really bad, or is this a gentle nudge by our Corporate Masters to convince us that grinding away to our graves is a personally healthy thing? You’ll notice it’s on the BBC Business page. Not in the health and fitness section.

In my mid-fifties, I’m probably a little bit more than halfway to my retirement, which might take place in my 70′s. I can’t imagine not being active in some way. Many of the retired folks I see in parishes are quite active: serving at Mass, serving the poor. A few of them are as hard to pin down as students. Throw in frequent trips to see grandchildren, and these people are as active and seem as healthy as anyone I know.

Does this finding cast doubt on the pro-life cred in this diocese, for this initiative?

The question for the worker and employer is naturally: Will management be flexible to the needs of the older employee, and what is optimal for her or his health? This isn’t about seventy-somethings flipping burgers with teenagers at the supermall’s fast food joint. This remains a matter of making a substantive and positive contribution to society. Even if a corporation isn’t writing the check while making demands.

 

The Anti-Abortion Domino Effect

I’ve hesitated commenting on Cardinal O’Malley’s self-disinvite from BC’s commencement. He seems to be a smart guy. I don’t know why a supercardinal would resort to the tired old strategy of boycotting a college’s honorary speaker.

In the past, on these pages, I’ve wondered openly why a bishop doesn’t take the platform at prayer time to offer a few choice words about the sanctity of life. I mean: it’s not any more impolite than to suggest a booked speaker be disinvited or to decline to attend oneself.

I do appreciate Cardinal O’Malley’s frustration. We have forty years of frustration in this nation, and it hasn’t netted a whole lot of progress. That is, if we judge progress by the evolution to a tamped-down rhetoric in the culturewar. To my knowledge Enda Kenny has not had an abortion, or performed one, or paid for someone to have one performed. So he’s not in excommunication territory here.

I’m not sure that pro-lifers could say that about the people behind the Made-in-China products that stock their shelves and cabinets at home. There are alternatives to shopping Big Box Buy. But let’s leave that aside for the moment.

I observe a line of dominoes:

• We can’t convince women not to have abortions, so we make it difficult for clinics.
• We can’t convince clinics not to provide abortions, so we target doctors and other personnel.
• We can’t convince providers to stop, so we plant our hopes on politicians.
• We can’t convince politicians, so we go after voters.

Now we have a person three-times removed (at least) from the actual moral decision who is the target of a boycott. The boycott seems rather fussy to me. Archbishop Dolan is friendly enough to eat with pro-choicers. And since it’s highly unlikely Mr Kenny is going to trumpet on the virtues of unlimited abortion-on-demand, the whole exercise on the Cardinal’s part seems rather impotent.

No unborn child will be saved. But any way he moves ahead, ill will will follow. Too many pro-lifers have generated too much blood-lust on the issue, three or four times removed from a decision over which they have little to no influence.

A lack of influence is a terrible thing for a leader to suffer. But we can’t blame it on abortion, can we?

 

The Thirteen Percent Effect

Nate Silver analyzes the special election for the South Carolina seat in the US House.

He says the result was quite predictable. The former governor’s sex scandal gave his opponent a 13-point swing in the voting. Not enough to win, of course, in a strong GOP locale. This is consistent with a study on US Senate elections from 1974 to 2008.

I wonder how Catholic bishops caught up in cover-up scandals would fare–not in terms of electability of course, but simple assessment on how they’re doing their job.

 

Nobody In Newark Talking

More heat in New Jersey. And a question: is Archbishop Myers a liar? Mark Silk raises this question at RNS.

This is bad, bad, bad, and getting worse for the Newark archbishop. From the archdiocesan web page:

Following the Memorandum of Understanding, the Archdiocese did not assign Fr. Fugee to any post involving ministry with minors.  His assignments were supervised administrative positions located at the Archdiocesan Center in Newark.

Not true. Let’s click them off: that hospital which pulled the plug on chaplaincy when they found out Michael Fugee’s history. Plus this comment from a Newark Catholic:

Fugee was also living at a rectory in Rochelle Park, Bergen County (“In residence”) and also saying Mass as a fill-in around the 4 counties of the AD. So yes, total, utter lies. They have so many stories going now, I don’t think they can keep their lies straight on this one anymore.

“Utter lies” from an archbishop. This story has no nice ending.

More from Professor Silk:

Yesterday, meanwhile, (Newark Star-Ledger‘s Mark Mueller) reported that Fugee had been engaged in youth ministry at a parish in Nutley. This time, Mueller could elicit no comment from Archbishop John J. Myers’ spokesman, Jim Goodness. Which, I suppose, is a step forward for the archdiocese.

Nobody in Newark talking: that’s an improvement?

Father John Bambrick, a Trenton priest, is harshly critical of the prelate:

Essentially, Archbishop Myers has erased 10 years of hard work by the church in the United States to ensure people are safe. He has called into question the integrity of all of us who work so hard to ensure the safety of children, and it’s really disheartening.

The person who caused all this upset is Archbishop Myers, and he’s still in office. It seems like the archbishop needs to take responsibility for his own actions, as everyone else has in this crisis.

I’m giving it another week. I don’t think the US bishops are up to the strain of another brother circling the drain. And taking 200 of them with him.

Legal machinery is in motion from the pre-Newark assignment in Peoria. This is a no-brainer, even for Archbishop Dolan. Somebody calls up Archbishop Myers and they tell him he takes one for the team. I’m sure the call has already been made. If somebody hasn’t done it yet, then we can likely chalk up the last fifteen-some years of episcopal appointments in the US as a near total loss.

 

Winners and Losers in the College

I think we’re getting a flow of truth from one area in the upper hierarchy. Rock‘s Twitter feed had this link to Cardinal João Braz de Aviz’s displeasure with the lack of communication in the LCWR-CDF dust-up. Another good example of a situation in which the burning question is to be put to prelates under fire: where’s the truth?

Saying that different Vatican offices will sometimes give the pope varying viewpoints on situations like the LCWR matter, Braz de Aviz said “there’s a sort of like ‘Who is going to win?’”

“This struggle of who is going to win is not good, he continued. “But Peter and Paul also had problems. The answer is: ‘the Holy Spirit’ will win.”

This statement is credible. And in the past, possibly more than just the recent past, we have a window onto a CDF that seems to have gone rogue on its brother cardinals. And the sisters, obviously. And on the Gospel itself, quite possibly. So I think we can rightfully ask: has careerism overtaken the Gospel in one of the Church’s most powerful agencies? The one, perhaps, with more baggage than all the others combined.

More from the head of Religious Life:

We are in a moment of needing to review and revision some things. Obedience and authority must be renewed, re-visioned.

Authority that commands, kills. Obedience that becomes a copy of what the other person says, infantilizes.

Infantilization also reflects on the perpetrators. And there’s no escape from it in this spotlight.

I’d have to say this sorry episoide has now bypassed the sisters. There’s little to no credibility left in the CDF case. The Sartain Commission is pretty much hanging out there like lame ducks. They are pretty much dependent on the grace and good will of the sisters to emerge from this with saved faces. And these guys have to be intelligent enough to know it.

I’m not a member of the LCWR. And I don’t need to be in order to be a faithful Catholic and servant of the Gospel. It’s entirely possible for the sisters, if they don’t like what the bishops are spooning out to just say, “no, thanks.” And leave the organization. Membership isn’t required for faithfulness, to serve the Church, or even to meet in conferences. The sisters of the alternative group, the CMSWR, certainly don’t.

And then it’s up to Pope Francis, the CDF, and the bishops to come, hats in hand, and ask if and when the dialogue may open again. That was the whole point of organizing this body in the first place. Maybe the CDF has lost track of why it was instituted.

 

Consequences

The Fugee fallout in the Trenton diocese hits a parish. And I offer these illustrative points of comparison:

1. Two lay people who were friends of Michael Fugee and who engaged his participation on a youth retreat: fired.
2. Pastor who employed the two youth ministers: sabbatical. (see link above)
3. Bishop who let admitted sex offender loose without much apparent supervision: the Donohue Defense.
4. Cardinal who admitted his role in a scandal of sex and power: exiled.

Granted, not everything has shaken out to a final result. But if you’re keeping score, it’s an interesting card to consider.

On the lay employees’ part, a pretty bone-headed move to be allowing such a priest contact with teens. On the other hand, they didn’t seem to be any less guilty than Archbishop John Myers. So maybe I’ll change my tune regarding his resignation. To be fair, it would seem that the Newark archbishop should be defrocked and laicized. That would about even it up, possibly. And as far as the investment in his education, the Church can wash its hands and say we’ve gotten our money’s worth, eh?

Comments on this one?

 

Two More Weeks

June 21st will be the start of another run on freedom. It will be the start of the Fortnight For Freedom, 2013 edition.

During the Fortnight, our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power—St. John the Baptist, SS. Peter and Paul, the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome, St. John Fisher, and St. Thomas More. Through prayer, study, and peaceful public action during the Fortnight for Freedom, we hope to remind ourselves and others all throughout the United States about the importance of preserving the fundamental right of religious freedom.

Religious freedom is indeed endangered in many places on the planet, though probably not the United States so much. The USCCB seems to believe that financial entitlements are part of a so-called freedom. I’m a skeptic on much, but not all of this. The institutional church itself has not had a lily white record on religious freedom. Women, including women religious, have been targets of bishops and clergy and even the laity who misunderstood or just simply opposed their service to the Church and the world.

I was heartened to learn that the “Nuns” are gassing up the “Bus” again. And this year, they’re inviting the bishops to hang with them, at least at the bus stops.

Many U.S. bishops also opposed Network’s lobbying on behalf of Obama’s health care reform plan, while others did not look kindly on Campbell’s social justice views and her activism during the presidential campaign.

But Campbell said Wednesday that she and the American bishops are on the same page on immigration reform, and she has invited them to join her group at stops along the way later this month and in June. “They don’t have to ride on the bus,” she said. “They can come stand with us at the events.”

I like that.

Starting June 21st, we’ll join in the chorus for both freedom and our sisters in faith. I’ll do another Two Weeks of Worthy Women, and I’d like to invite interested readers to write up some favorites from history. Last year, we walked with these worthies: Maude Petre, Teresa of Avila, Mary MacKillop, Marie-Anne Blondin, Thea Bowman, Jeanne d’Arc, Juana Inés de la Cruz, Hildegard of Bingen, Mother Théodore Guérin, Anne-Marie Javouhey, Louise (Mother St Andrew) Feltin, Gertrude of Helfta, Mary Ward, and Marguerite Porete. I’d like to go with fourteen different women. I’d like to find women who have experienced harassment from religious institutions, not necessarily Catholic. Nobody living. Guest writers welcome. And your suggestions to give us fourteen worthy reads starting fifty-one days from today.

 

“Unblocked”

Interesting choice of words, for a mainstream Catholic outlet like CNS:

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family and the official promoter of the sainthood cause of the late Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, said the process to beatify and eventually canonize the slain Salvadoran archbishop has been unblocked.

Good.

My own archdiocese has its martyr, too: Father Ray Herman. Go here to learn about his heroic witness for the Gospel. He still inspires people today. He was at my parish sixty years ago as an Iowa State student.

 

Rights

I read a lot of fussing back and forth about the Boston bombing suspect’s situation. Read/don’t read him his rights? It’s a serious thing, but silly at the same time.

He’s accused of a crime. Read him his rights. Then book him, or however that is done when a suspect is in the hospital. Politicians and pundits don’t get to make exceptions when the tide of passions are high. Above all, don’t do something silly that will harm the prosecution. The individual is a naturalized American citizen and as such, has rights, whether they are read to him or not. Or he’s given a piece of paper. In the 21st century, really: it’s not like everyone doesn’t know them already. Above all, there is no need to create a side show over this. The focus should be on bringing an alleged criminal to justice, preserving the common good, and mantaining the America way.

The ordeal is over, but people will start to question matters like why a whole metro area was in lockdown if the suspect was in Watertown all the time. Other questions about “pajama-investigators” stirring up suspicion on the innocent. All those discussions need to happen, and happen openly. These are good matters to hash out in the public sphere.

Professionals focus on their procedures in difficult times. They know you don’t rewrite the rulebook for casual reasons. Otherwise, who’s to say Wall Street bankers weren’t economic terrorists for bilking the nation’s investors out of hundreds of billions? Maybe they were too big to be read their rights.

 

Cover-Up or Willful Ignorance?

I’m seeing the explosion of coverage and outrage on the Kermit Gosnall trial all over the web. Why isn’t the media covering this, I read. Why would they? The victims were poor. They were victims of predation, it seemed. Non-mainstream journalists and local people in Philadelphia have been covering this horror since 2011.

Why would the media cover this? It might not sell product. It does cast something of a shadow over abortion “services.” And abortion “services” have been mainstream since the AMA started lobbying via Republicans to decriminalize this gravy train in the 60′s.

By the way, wasn’t it a GOP push for deregulation in the Pennsylvania Governor’s office that loosened things up a good bit for abortion “services” several years ago?

Why isn’t this on your network nightly news? Deep down, this is about poor women, and desperate women. That kind of stuff doesn’t sell product. The victim would need to be a lot more attractive–someone who could sell a made-for-tv docudrama.

So, if the conservatives want to jump on the bandwagon three weeks into the trial, I say let ‘em. Take a few pokes at Governor Ridge. And offer a few shout-outs to the people who indeed were covering this story through a judge-imposed news blackout. Maybe buy a subscription so you can read real news like this bit from two years ago.

 

Gag

A funny thing happened on the way to self-excommunication. The Archbishop of Detroit got a gag order instead. Well, not a total quietude. Bishop Gumbleton spoke out.

Their conscience is the ultimate voice they have to follow. A person coming up to communion has a right to make their own decision about am I in a state of grace?… Am I ready to receive? Well, that’s for the person to decide not for the minister or not for any bishop.

Sounds about right.

But otherwise, everybody else, including the chancery has hushed up. An area Fox News reporter:

The archdiocese told me they respectfully decline further comment on this issue at this time.

In addition to reaching out to the archdiocese, I also attempted to contact several metro Detroit priests asking if they could speak out in support of the archbishop. They were either unavailable or did not grant an interview.

Essentially what we have in southeastern Michigan is public confusion. Unless, of course, those believers have well-formed consciences and don’t need the clergy to make the call on their behalf. Which is probably good, considering how nobody’s talking much about it these days. Oh wait: there’s this Austrian ex-papabile suggesting that civil unions might be fine.

I’m not quite sure of the distinction on this point. Some people are saying that marriage is, by definition, woman-man, and anything else is an imitation. If so, then does the Church care about how it’s defined legally? Nobody’s forcing clergy to witness same-sex unions. People can call whatever they have whatever they want, within their four walls and under a roof.

I still haven’t gotten a straight answer on my question. Same-sex unions do not legalize intercourse between people of the same sex. The sex thing is what the Church finds disordered, sinful, or whatever. If Archbishop Vigneron wants to zero in on what is gravely sinful, shouldn’t he be excommunicating people for not advocating the criminalization of sex outside the first woman-man marriage? Because otherwise, I don’t see what is contrary to church teaching among two people who are not having sex 24/7, but doing normal stuff, like cooking dinner, mowing the yard, paying bills, and watching Fox News. Well, maybe not the last item, there …

 

Some Advice

Ross Murray at the WaPo has some suggestions for Cardinal Dolan. As outlined here, I think it’s good advice:

1. (S)top talking about LGBT people and spend more time listening to them.
2. If Cardinal Dolan cannot talk about LGBT people without uttering words of condemnation, he should simply stop talking about LGBT people in general.
3. Cardinal Dolan could turn his stated love into tangible action that would help real LGBT people in their day-to-day lives.

The first one is always good–listen to people. Of course, it got Jesus in trouble, even amazing his own disciples. Of course, all the Jovial One needed to do was invite the wrong dinner guest to get on the Right hot seat.

Mr Murray is right. There are important issues confronting LGBT people that impact life and breath: homelessness is a particular calling out. Summing up:

God’s love is felt, not simply stated. When Cardinal Dolan makes such blatant attacks on LGBT people, it makes his “I love you and God loves you” in front of the media ring hollow. Such expressions of love need to be backed up with tangible action. Do something that demonstrates that church leaders view LGBT people as more than a threat or a curse.

Cardinal Dolan can keep saying that he loves us and God does too, but until he turns away from the camera to actually listen to the stories of our lives, these words will have no meaning.

Is there a bit of a thaw in the attitude of the Archbishop of New York?