Bishops' $2 Million Negative Ad Campaign

Money for Political
Campaigns?

Recently  I came upon the following open letter from Barbara Serving to Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

The letter reminded me that our church is called the "Catholic" Church for a reason. In so far as it remains true to its origins, ou church is "catholic" in that it is "all-inclusive, universal, and comprehensive." Jesus of Nazareth did not exclude people, he welcomed them.

Perhaps the Vatican and the hierarchy have lost sight of our origins, and maybe Barbara's letter will remind them.

To: His Eminence Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York

Your Eminence, 

I've been going to Catholic mass almost every week since I was a little girl. My aunts and uncles are nuns and priests. My husband was a member of the Knights of Columbus. We raised our kids in our parish community and sent them to Catholic schools. Catholicism is more than just a belief for me -- it's a deep seed of my identity.

And it has always taught me that God made us all, and loves us all the same. The same way I try to love all my kids. That's why, when my incredible son told me he was gay, it didn't change my love for him one bit.

He's always my child.

That's why I was outraged to learn that the leadership of our Church just spent $2 million on anti-gay marriage ballot campaigns. Think of all the positive things that $2 million could have accomplished. Think of the hungry fed, the sick comforted, the homeless sheltered. Instead you chose to use parishioners' donations like mine to divide and discriminate.

Catholicism teaches us to love one another -- not to attack our sons and daughters for simply wanting to make lifelong commitments and start families. You won't have to ever marry a same-sex couple, but it makes no sense to deny them the right to be married under the law. And your parishioners aren't going to stand for it much longer.

I think it's time we all got on the right side of history. I hope you do, too.

Sincerely,
Barbara Servino

Weapons of Limited Mass Destruction.

Glock 19: 9mm with 33 round magazine

Friday afternoon, I took a minute to check my email, and on my home page learned the following*:

"27 Killed in Connecticut Shooting, Including 18 Children" (NYT)

"Two Officers Shot,One Killed in Memphis Drug Bust" (ABC)

"One of Two Men Shot this AM in East Toledo Has Died" (TN)

"Fla. Man Indicted in Shooting Of Teen Over Loud Music" (USA)

"Details But No Answers in Oregon Mall Shooting" (CNN)

And last, but not least, from Michigan:

"State House Passes Bill Allowing Concealed Weapons in Schools, Day Care Centers, Stadiums, Churches" (Detroit Free Press) Interestingly, some of the GOP legislators who passed this bill argued that it was a safety measure! The same perverted logic they use in calling an anti-worker law a "Right to Work" law

I learned  of all of this gun violence in less than five minutes. If I had attempted to seek out cases, chances are I would still be reading of the many others which were not on my home page.

And all of this, a few weeks after the sports world was shocked to learn that Kansas City Chief's Jouvan Belcher shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend before shooting and killing himself. When Bob Costas and other sport writers questioned the role of guns in our society, the NRA and their puppets raised the usual uproar and responded with their favorite piece of bumper-sticker logic -- "Guns don't kill, people do."  If the issue were actually that simple, we could have Clint Eastwood explain it to an empty chair.

The problem is: there are guns and then there are guns. Some guns have no purpose other than to kill living beings. If you think you need a handgun to protect yourself, you are carrying it because it gives you a sense of confidence knowing that you have the ability to kill someone by squeezing the trigger. Thus it's purpose is still to kill someone or in a more fortunate scenario to maim someone.

And then there are automatic weapons, whose purpose is not only to kill living beings, but to kill as many as possible in the shortest period of time. In Newtown, Connecticut, 28 human beings (including 17 very young children) were killed in a very short period of time because Adam Lanza had automatic weapons that made it possible.

In the Jouvan Belcher case, there were some who maintained that if he did not have a gun, he would have killed his girlfriend with a knife, candlestick or a bow and arrow. In Connecticut, if Adam Lanza did not have access to automatic weapons, he may have still killed his schoolteacher mother, but he would NOT have been able to kill 24 or 25 other people. If he had a knife, a candlestick or even a six shot revolver, many of those murdered children might be alive today.

We must face facts.  In the name of the 2nd Amendment and the Norman Rockwell version of sport hunting, we are making it legal for Americans to stock pile automatic weapons --weapons of limited mass destruction. These weapons have no other function than to extinguish human life and that is why Jared Loughner (Gifford massacre) and Adam Lanza seek them out and are able to get their hands on them.

It's time for the reasonable people within the NRA  to admit that not all weapons are equal, some are weapons of limited mass destruction and should be banned.

As for the argument that the more guns there are out there, the safer we are, consider the last five years. Gun sales have been at record levels, and so has gun violence. (Last year, 10,728 people were killed by handguns in this country.) Also, if this argument were true, Mexico should be well on its way to being violence free.

As a country we should be able to reach a more reasonable and balanced gun policy. The NRA's all-or-nothing approach is neither.

* Some of the details of these headlines may have changed as more information became available, but basic story remained the same.

Bishop Blair Uses Linguistic Ploy

Bishop Leonard Blair

The Catholic bishop of Toledo and Northwestern Ohio, Leonard Blair, recently (12/08/12) wrote a letter to the editor of the The Toledo Blade in which he claimed that the Obama administration was undermining "the conscience protection of religious belief" as though a woman's or a family's access to contraception was somehow unconstitutional because a group of unmarried Catholic men had so decreed.

Let's recall recent history. Many of the Catholic bishops of the United States tried to use their tax-free pulpits to campaign against President Obama in the 2012 election. That was a fail. A majority of American Catholics voted for President Obama. This reminds one of the bishops' telling Catholics not to use contraception (no clear reason why), and nearly 90% of Catholics disagree.

Bishop Blair used his bully pulpit to prevent diocesan Catholic parishes from supporting the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Fund based on the logic that at some point in the future Komen Funds "might" be used for abortions. Or, some day in the future they might be used for frontal lobotomies?

And again, it was Bishop Blair whom the Vatican chose to investigate the wrong thinking of American Catholic nuns. Predictably  Bishop Blair found our nuns to be dogmatically challenged. They were too interested in carrying out the social justice message of the Gospels. (It is interesting that the Vatican felt the need to investigate American nuns, but never bothered to have a nation-wide investigation of clerical pedophilia or the attempts to cover up such perfidy.)

And now  in his letter to the editor  Bishop Blair writes, "the paramount concern of the Church has been her freedom to carry out her mission without undue interference of the secular state." In my seventy plus years of being a Catholic, I never knew that "the paramount interest of the Church has been her "freedom." Is that what the Catholic Church is all about? I was misinformed. I thought "the paramount interest of the Church" was to promote the christian principles of Jesus of Nazareth. And he was the Man who encouraged the separation of church and state. Although he lived in a politically-charged atmosphere, Jesus was preaching a gospel much more universal than the petty political concerns of the time.  Bishop Blair doesn't get it. When he talks about "freedom" he is more concerned with maintaining the Vatican's hierarchal, male power structure than he is about the gospels.

The real irony of Bishop Blair's letter is that he is appealing to the concept of freedom when in fact he and his colleagues are depriving their employees of the freedom to make up their own minds as to whether they use contraception. Obamacare is not forcing the bishops or their employees to practice contraception; it is simply saying that those employees who want to use contraception should have the freedom to make that decision for themselves.

Today Catholic hospitals are big money-making businesses. Gone are the days when Catholic nuns set up and operated hospitals to take care of the poor immigrants who needed health care. Today Catholic hospitals like the rest of the healthcare industry are about the bottom line. They compete in the industry for top physicians, nurses and staff, but now they want an "exemption" so that they do not have to provide contraceptive services to their employees -- only if the employee so chooses.

Bishop Blair's appeal for church "freedom" makes use of the same linguistic ploy the anti-unionists use when they use the term "Right to Work Laws."  The laws have nothing to do with the right to work; such laws in reality give employers to the right pay less and eliminate benefits and safety protections. Perhaps they should be called "Right to Slave Labor" laws. Bishop Blair's appeal to "freedom" makes use of the same reverse logic. He wants to deprive employees, Catholic, Protestant Jewish, Muslim, or atheist of their freedom and  right to choose.

Follow-up on Mayan Girls' School

The 12/08/12 blog, "Training Mayan Girls to be Leaders" included a not-so-subtle request on my part for readers to contribute to Sister Marife' Hellman's Guatemalan school for Mayan girls.

If you contributed to the Holy Mary of the Most Precious Blood School, you may be interested in reading the following "thank-you" email I received from Sister Marife'. The letter contains information about several of the young Mayan ladies in the photographs.

If you did not contribute but would like to do so, please scroll down to the 12/08/12 blog for details.

Dear Ron,
Thanks you so much. Your information is all true and very well said. The pictures are from the first year when the community council CPPS had recommended that I just start with 9 young women. I'm sure glad I listened to them. Now, six years later, there are 30 young women. 
When your sister, Joyce, comes in Feb. we are going back to that Mayan ruin where the fotos you show, were taken. Maybe Joyce can take a foto for you showing the girls that will be studying there at that time.
Of the young women shown in the foto, one is now a bilingual teacher in an Q'eq'chi village, one is working in a pharmacy, one is studying Psychology and working two afternoons weekly in a clinic in her village. Three of the girls returned home and married very young, however, one of the three did finish her studies.
Thanks for what you are doing for the girls. Later on I can write you more specifically  how the funds are used, if you wish.
Your sister's sister, Marife

Thanks to all who have contributed to this worthy endeavor.

Training Mayan Girls to be Leaders

        
        Photos of Sr. Marife' Hellman and  her Mayan students.

It has been a our Christmas custom to provide gifts or a small  amount of money to a particular family who are experiencing difficult times and are in need. We try to do this at Christmas time and in as direct a manner as possible, i.e. without going through a large fund-raising organization like Heifer International or Doctors Without Borders. We try to do this anonymously when possible, and sometimes it is difficult to decide on a recipient(s).

This year our decision was easy. We heard of the ambitious project of Sister Marife' Hellman, a Precious Blood Catholic nun, in the mountains of Guatemala.  She has established and operates a boarding school for indigenous Mayan girls. Her primary goal is to provide them with a well-rounded education, but in addition she is hoping to instill leadership skills in these young women so that they are not just self-reliant but also become leaders and agents of change.

I mention this because at this time of the year, others may also be searching for a worthy cause which will benefit directly from every dollar donated.

In the benefit of full disclosure, my sister, Joyce Langhals, is a Sister of the Precious Blood and is the one who informed us of the work of Sr. Marife' Hellman. Also, we have a six-year old grandson who is Mayan and was born in Guatemala.

If you are interested in supporting Sr. Marife' Hellman's work, you can do so by sending a check to:

Sisters of the Precious Blood
4000 Denlinger Rd.
Dayton, OH 45426-2399

Please indicate on the check that the donation is for Sr. Marife' Hellman's school --Holy Mary of the Most Precious Blood School. The donation is a tax deduction.

Stop the Judicial Charade

The Ohio Supreme Court on November 26 ruled along party lines (4-3) to uphold the gerrymandered redistricting plan written by the Republican legislature.

This reminds one of the Republican justices on the  U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision choosing
George W. Bush as the winner of the 2000 presidential election. In that case the five Republican justices ignored the States Rights issue which they had claimed to support in their testimony before Congress. That decision will go down in history as the most politically-motivated decision of the US Supreme Court. As a result, we will never again believe in the myth of an apolitical Supreme Court.

Now the Ohio Supreme Court has re-demonstrated the political bias of  justices.

Perhaps it's time we stop the charade and require justices to declare their political affiliation when they run for office. Their political philosophy is the best predictor of their behavior on the bench. Presumably, most voters already know a judicial candidates political preference, but for those who don't and in the interest of openness, require them to reveal their politic

(Unfortunately, according to a recent study, Ohio voters know so little about Supreme Court candidates that they vote based on name recognition even if the candidate they vote for is not the person whose name they recognize.)

Pope De-mythologizes Nativity?

Presumably before Christmas, Pope Benedict XVI is coming out with a new book about the infancy of Jesus.  In the Vatican's pre-publication attempt to promote Jesus of Nazareth - The Infancy Narratives, it is leaking details suggesting that the Pope is de-mythologizing the Nativity story

It seems the Pope has discovered that a sixth century monk made a mistake and placed the birth of Jesus either two year too soon or two years too late. In addition, the Pope is going to tell us there were no cattle ( cows, donkeys, sheep, whatever) at the nativity. And finally, he is going to tell us that there were no angels singing the Lord's praise  when Jesus was born.

Well, well, well! Does anyone care whether Jesus was born two year earlier or later?  We are happy to know that he was born in the Middle East at about the time Herod was King of Judea. Most Catholics never thought there were cattle looking on as Mary gave birth. We knew these were accouterments that St. Francis of Assisi added to the Nativity scene, but they were a nice touch and we like to envision them as being there. And as for Angels descending from heaven to sing as Jesus was born, most Catholics stopped believing that at about the same time as they learned the truth about Santa Claus.

Give us a little credit, Pope Benedict XVI. We don't need the Pope in Rome to clear that up for us.

In fact, Pope Benedict, that is your problem. You continue to treat Catholics as uninformed children who need you to tell us what to think.

And even more disconcerting than that is that you, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, apparently think these details are important. You obviously are reading the Gospels as exact literal, historical accounts of what happened when Jesus was born. And quite frankly, Your Holiness, your preoccupation with these details is a little scary.

The religious writing of the Middle East was a marvelous method of sharing knowledge in an entertaining and symbolic narrative. The message was the thing; the details were never intended to be literal. So, why are you fixating on the details?

We, Catholics and  other Christians, got the message. But we might also like the touch of St. Francis in placing animals at the Nativity. We don't actually believe they were there, but we like the symbolism of it.

Hoarding the Wealth

As our country approaches an artificially contrived "fiscal cliff," our leaders are telling us we need to reduce the deficit and yet generate growth. That's great; we can all agree on that. So what's the problem? Let's do it.

The problem is we want to do that without sacrifice. We want the "other" people to  make the sacrifice. We are not interested in doing our fair share.

George W. Bush tried to tell us that if we gave a "temporary" tax break to the obscenely wealthy, they would invest in America and create growth and jobs. The result was the "Great Recession". As a result the government had to infuse large amounts of money (probably not enough) to keep the Bush Recession from becoming the second Great Depression.

Now, the Republicans are trying to extend those very same tax breaks for the extremely wealthy. It should be obvious to everyone that this did not work and it's time to end this gift to the wealthy. It's time they pay their fair share. This is a no-brainer first step.

Then what?

I would suggest that Congress:

1) eliminate oil and gas subsidies. These companies are wallowing in profits; they do not need tax-payer support - welfare.
2) eliminate agricultural subsidies. As with oil and gas subsidies, they may have been a good idea when initiated, but now it is simply welfare for the wealthy. In fact, agricultural corporations receive a subsidy for the gas they use in their farming operations.
3) penalize corporations that move American jobs out of the country.
4) reward corporations that move over-seas' jobs back to the US.
4) institute a "Stock Transaction Tax" of .005% ( 1/2 penny per transaction). Tax based on the number of transactions -- only fair. Much like the fee on a toll road. Whether I drive a large Cadillac SUV or a Smart Car, I pay the same.
5) adopt Warren Buffett's proposal for a minimum tax on high incomes:
          30%     for $ 1 million to $ 10 million
          35 %   for anything above $10 million
6) refuse to fund military projects that the Pentagon does not want.
7) eliminate the mortgage-interest deduction for vacation homes. You can deduct mortgage-interest on only one mansion, the one you designate as your residence.

If these measures were taken, we would not need to talk about defunding school lunch programs, Social Security, Medicare etc. The wealthy would still be obscenely wealthy, and the middle class might have a chance, and the old, the disabled, the impoverished, the veterans and the children might a chance of sharing in the American Dream.

Our great country is not broke. The money is available, but it's being hoarded.  We have to require that the wealthy (and therefore powerful) stop hoarding and pay their fair share.

It has been said: "For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required." (Luke 12:48)


       
         

Chambliss Rejects Un-American Pledge

At no point did it ever occur to me that I would be writing in praise of Georgia's Republican Senator,  Saxby Chambliss. In addition to not being a fan of his chicken franchises, the number of issues we disagree on is prodigious. And yet today I find myself ready to applaud him on his recent act of breaking ranks with the conservatives when he said he is ready to throw overboard Grover Norquist's antiquated anti-tax pledge.

"I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," he told WMAZ-TV. "If we do it his way then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that."

The 20 year-old pledge sponsored by Grover Norquist required that those who signed it "solemnly bind themselves to oppose any and all tax increases."  Many congressional  Republicans signed the pledge and Norquist has been holding the pledge over their heads ever since. (According to Norquist's website, 39 senators and 219 members of the House have signed it.)

As Saxby Chambliss' recent rejection of the pledge exemplifies, those who signed the pledge and were willing to abide by its requirement were acting in direct conflict with their oath of office. When those congressmen and senators were sworn in, they took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and that Constitution requires  among other  objectives, establishing Justice, and providing for common defense , "We the People...promote the general Welfare."

Congressmen and women who take a private "Pledge"  which could potentially conflict with their Constitutional oath  have crossed a dangerous line. Which is more important: their Tax Pledge or their Constitutional oath? Obviously a conflict of interests. Voters should have demanded that candidates value their constitutional oath of office as their primary obligation rather than some "Pledge" proposed by a guy who never stood before the voters.

Apparently, Senator Chambliss is one Republican who has chosen the welfare of the country above Norquist's  simple-minded, self-interested solution to governing this great nation. 

We can only hope that the senator from Georgia is really serious about serving the "general welfare" of the country and that other Republicans will honor their Constitutional oath more than Grover's irresponsible pledge.

Bishop Seeks Friday Abstinence

Last week in his opening speech at a meeting of US Catholic bishops in Baltimore, Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York, suggested that it might be time for the Church to return to pre-Vatican II practices. In addition to re-establishing "Confession" as an integral part of being a Catholic, he suggested the bishops should consider ruling that US Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays.

In case you have forgotten, prior to 1966 Catholics were forbidden to eat meat or meat products on Fridays. To do so was a sin that could result in eternal damnation Then in 1966, Pope Paul VI eliminated the requirement and suggested that Catholics fast and abstain voluntarily and suggested non-dietary practices such as prayer and works of charity. Since then most US Catholics abstained from meat only on the Fridays of Lent.

In a radio interview  after his speech, Cardinal Dolan suggested that the 1966 ruling was a mistake and that US Catholics should return to Friday Abstinence. When pressed for a rationale for Abstinence, the Cardinal said that  US Catholics need "identifiable markers," external signs that will identify Catholics as Catholics. In fact, he lamented the absence of other "identifiable markers" such as nuns wearing habits and the traditional genuflection, both of which have their origin in Medieval Europe. He thinks we need more external signs such as ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday.

This fascination with the need for external sign strikes me  as being contrary to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Did he not tell us that if we are going to fast, we should do it and not let others know that we are fasting? He also reminded us: "I repeat , you will be able to tell them by their fruits." (Matt. 7:20) True Christians and Catholics do not need "external markers" to identify themselves. If our lives and works do not identify us, then external markers markers are not going to do the job. A nun does not need a habit to proclaim her Christianity  her dedication to helping the poor and disadvantaged tells us more about her than a silly black dress. In fact, Jesus had an issue with the Pharisees because they flaunted external markers.

The Cardinal's concern about external markers is superficial  and insulting.

 In 1966 when Pope Paul VI presented the concept of penance, fasting and abstinence , he gave Catholics credit for being adults who were capable making decisions for themselves. Cardinal Dolan wants to go back to the days when the Church treated its members as children who need to be told how they are going to fast, abstain or practice acts of penance. US Catholics do not need their Cardinal to tell them when to abstain from meat; they are quite capable of deciding how and when they will abstain. Is the Cardinal going to suggest that a Catholic who observes a "meatless Monday" instead of abstaining on Friday is going to face eternal damnation?

It appears Cardinal Dolan and many other bishops of his ilk  are choosing to take the Catholic Church back to the Middle Ages when bishops were royalty and the people in the pews were their serfs.

Perhaps it is because of this autocratic and condescending attitude that a majority of American Catholics, 25% of the electorate, chose President Obama over the bishop's choice in the 2012 presidential election  (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, CNN)

P.S. And I am a  big fan of a  Friday Fish Fry.