In an article in the July 11th National Catholic Reporter, News Director Tom Roberts reports on several controversies Archbishop Raymond Burke bequeathed to St. Louis June 27th as he left the archdiocese and took over a top Vatican court. The article focuses on ways Burke used his own interpretation of canon law to browbeat dissenters into submission, or in several cases to excommunicate them. I posted the following comment with the article on the NCR website, pointing out that Burke failed to follow the explicit directives of Pope Benedict XVI that bishops should not allow use of the Old Latin Mass to the exclusion of the newer rituals:
Until Tom Roberts' article I did not know that the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest existed, or that it uses the traditional Latin Mass exclusively, apparently with the blessing of 50 dioceses worldwide and about 10 in the United States, including St. Louis under Archbishop Burke.
It is quite remarkable that any bishop would allow a group to use the old Latin Mass exclusively, since Pope Benedict XVI explicitly outlawed that in his letter of July 7, 2007, to all Catholic bishops, accompanying the issuance of his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (on the use of the Roman liturgy).
In the sixth paragraph from the end of the letter, the pope insisted that both the post-Vatican II vernacular liturgies and the old Latin rite had to be respected. He wrote: "Needless to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness."
The English translation is at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/letters/2007/documents/hf...
Evidently Archbishop Burke is a stickler for canon law only when it suits his purposes. NCR would do the church a service if it would publish a list of all the dioceses that sanction this group that totally excludes the new rite, so that the Vatican could take appropriate corrective action.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Cartoonists' President and Analysts Say New Yorker Can't Distinguish Huh? from Duh
As soon as I saw the New Yorker's July 21st cover cartoon yesterday, my first thought was that its creators and publishers have watched too many episodes of Saturday Night Live. In recent years the NBC program, which used to epitomize the best of American satire, has all but lost the ability to distinguish good satire from self-important tripe that few knowledgeable viewers find satirical. I thought sadly: Not the New Yorker too!So it did my heart good this morning to read that Nick Anderson, the Houston Chronicle's editorial cartoonist and President of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, faults the controversial July 21st cover of the New Yorker magazine as at once too obvious and too unclear. He says the cartoon insulted readers' intelligence "by merely depicting what the whisper campaigns have been suggesting," and failed to clearly reach the level of good satire because "it's not sufficiently over the top."
In the same Houston Chronicle analysis, Larry Sabato and Garth Jowett, experts on mass media and pop culture at the University of Virginia and the University of Houston respectively, also say the satire fell flat. Both felt the cover could be seen as confirming the most negative stereotypes about Barack and Michelle Obama.
Said Jowett: "Ninety percent of the people looking at the magazine cover are not going to see the satire. I think the magazine staff made a mistake. They were too clever by half. They were so smart they out-smarted themselves."
In an ironic twist, the Muslim Public Affairs Council even got it right. In a protest letter to the New Yorker, they characterized the cover as "playing into the worst fear of voters" and said "the image is not thought-provoking, it's just hate-provoking or fear-provoking."
Friday, July 11, 2008
Pickens Plan for Energy Independence Is Short of Hot Air, Houston Analyst Charges
So what’s good for T. Boone Pickens is good for the USA? The veteran Texas oil billionaire certainly thinks so. His just-introduced Pickens Plan for U.S. energy independence would substitute wind power to generate the 22% of electricity now fueled by natural gas—and use the same natural gas to power vehicles instead of gasoline.
But a Houston Chronicle business columnist disagrees. Loren Steffy says the plan won’t work, because there’s not enough wind in the hottest months: “A recent study by Cambridge Energy Research Associates found that wind power is least available between June and September, the peak months for electricity consumption.”
Steffy also notes that Pickens is already heavily involved in businesses that build wind farms and provide natural gas for vehicles. He says he doesn’t begrudge him his profits and he credits Pickets with at least getting the country talking about energy policy.
Pickens has certainly made a big splash announcing his plan. Pickens is everywhere on the talk-show circuit. His TV advertising blitz has been as relentless as a presidential campaign—and it directly challenges both nominees to take energy policy seriously, as columnists like Thomas Friedman and Charles Krauthammer as been pleading for decades. It’s quite impressive when a businessman who has spent an entire career making money from oil says that the current emergency is not one we can drill ourselves out of.
The Pickens Plan website is spiffy and very user friendly. It includes videos that combine a Pickens lecture at a white board with slick animated graphics, like Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth, explaining that if we keep purchasing 70% of our oil from other countries at the current price per barrel it will cost $700 billion a year, making it the largest transfer of wealth in the recorded history of the planet.
Besides other videos, the website includes a video blog of daily pep talks by Pickens, information on promotional events scheduled nationally, ways for the public to join Pickens' "army," and a forum that at this writing has 61 pages listing discussion strings initiated by registered users (nearly 30,000).
I have no way of ascertaining if seasonal variations in wind are the fatal flaw Steffy thinks they are. His column has generated 90 comments on the Chronicle website so far. About five pages into the comments a reader with the screen name Xebec suggests that any conclusion reached by Cambridge Energy Research Associates should be taken with a grain of salt, because CERA is owned by IHS, whose clients are mainly fossil fuel industries. Few other comments address the wind issue directly, although another reader notes that wind turbines might also be located in the Gulf of Mexico, even in conjunction with oil rigs.
One of the discussion strings on Pickens’ website is entitled “What happens on a calm hot day?” It has five pages of comments that address that issue, but no one there seems aware of Steffy’s column. The bloggers express general agreement that there’s less wind from June through September, but they have ideas to get around that that might make Pickens’ plan workable.
They note, for instance, that the wind is always blowing somewhere in the United States, and they too suggest that turbines might be located in more places than the Texas to North Dakota swath that Pickens describes.
They also suggest that there are feasible ways to store the energy generated by wind power when the electrical grid is calling for less of it. One innovative plan would use it to pump compressed air into empty underground caverns and release it to power turbines when needed. Obviously the feasibility and cost of such ideas need to be researched.
Hopefully Pickens will find a way to address Steffy’s criticism directly and convincingly. It seems pretty clear that unless Pickens can show where the wind is coming from to generate electricity in the hottest third of the year, the whole basis of his plan is deflated beyond repair.
But a Houston Chronicle business columnist disagrees. Loren Steffy says the plan won’t work, because there’s not enough wind in the hottest months: “A recent study by Cambridge Energy Research Associates found that wind power is least available between June and September, the peak months for electricity consumption.”
Steffy also notes that Pickens is already heavily involved in businesses that build wind farms and provide natural gas for vehicles. He says he doesn’t begrudge him his profits and he credits Pickets with at least getting the country talking about energy policy.
Pickens has certainly made a big splash announcing his plan. Pickens is everywhere on the talk-show circuit. His TV advertising blitz has been as relentless as a presidential campaign—and it directly challenges both nominees to take energy policy seriously, as columnists like Thomas Friedman and Charles Krauthammer as been pleading for decades. It’s quite impressive when a businessman who has spent an entire career making money from oil says that the current emergency is not one we can drill ourselves out of.
The Pickens Plan website is spiffy and very user friendly. It includes videos that combine a Pickens lecture at a white board with slick animated graphics, like Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth, explaining that if we keep purchasing 70% of our oil from other countries at the current price per barrel it will cost $700 billion a year, making it the largest transfer of wealth in the recorded history of the planet.
Besides other videos, the website includes a video blog of daily pep talks by Pickens, information on promotional events scheduled nationally, ways for the public to join Pickens' "army," and a forum that at this writing has 61 pages listing discussion strings initiated by registered users (nearly 30,000).
I have no way of ascertaining if seasonal variations in wind are the fatal flaw Steffy thinks they are. His column has generated 90 comments on the Chronicle website so far. About five pages into the comments a reader with the screen name Xebec suggests that any conclusion reached by Cambridge Energy Research Associates should be taken with a grain of salt, because CERA is owned by IHS, whose clients are mainly fossil fuel industries. Few other comments address the wind issue directly, although another reader notes that wind turbines might also be located in the Gulf of Mexico, even in conjunction with oil rigs.
One of the discussion strings on Pickens’ website is entitled “What happens on a calm hot day?” It has five pages of comments that address that issue, but no one there seems aware of Steffy’s column. The bloggers express general agreement that there’s less wind from June through September, but they have ideas to get around that that might make Pickens’ plan workable.
They note, for instance, that the wind is always blowing somewhere in the United States, and they too suggest that turbines might be located in more places than the Texas to North Dakota swath that Pickens describes.
They also suggest that there are feasible ways to store the energy generated by wind power when the electrical grid is calling for less of it. One innovative plan would use it to pump compressed air into empty underground caverns and release it to power turbines when needed. Obviously the feasibility and cost of such ideas need to be researched.
Hopefully Pickens will find a way to address Steffy’s criticism directly and convincingly. It seems pretty clear that unless Pickens can show where the wind is coming from to generate electricity in the hottest third of the year, the whole basis of his plan is deflated beyond repair.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Catholic Websites Celebrate Templeton's Contributions to Religious Dialogue
Websites of two Catholic news outlets have articles that celebrate Sir John Templeton's contributions to improving dialogue among religions and science.
In a posting on the National Catholic Reporter website, Benedicta Cipolla and Daniel Burke add details to yesterday's annoucement by the John Templeton Foundation, and they note that this year's recipient of the Templeton Prize was Michal Heller, a Polish cosmologist and Roman Catholic priest, whose work connects theology and physics.
The Catholic News Service recalls comments Templeton made to them when he established the annual prize, Templeton's openness to learning from Hindus and Muslims, and his conviction that if humans would spend more on spiritual research, "we might find that God is ready to reveal a little more about himself."
In a posting on the National Catholic Reporter website, Benedicta Cipolla and Daniel Burke add details to yesterday's annoucement by the John Templeton Foundation, and they note that this year's recipient of the Templeton Prize was Michal Heller, a Polish cosmologist and Roman Catholic priest, whose work connects theology and physics.
The Catholic News Service recalls comments Templeton made to them when he established the annual prize, Templeton's openness to learning from Hindus and Muslims, and his conviction that if humans would spend more on spiritual research, "we might find that God is ready to reveal a little more about himself."
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
"How little we know, how eager to learn:" Sir John Templeton Dies at Age 95
Queen Elizabeth II greets Sir John TempletonSir John Templeton has died at age 95. The prestigious Templeton Prize which he founded is awarded annually to recognize and promote achievement in advancing the mutually necessary relationship between science and religion. Below is most of the announcement posted on the website of the John Templeton Foundation.
John Marks Templeton, the pioneer global investor who founded the Templeton Mutual Funds and for the past three decades devoted his fortune to his Foundation's work on the "Big Questions" of science, religion, and human purpose, passed away on July 8, 2008, at Doctors Hospital in Nassau, Bahamas, of pneumonia.
As a pioneer in both financial investments and philanthropy, John Templeton spent a lifetime encouraging open-mindedness. If he hadn't sought new paths, he once said, "he would have been unable to attain so many goals." The motto that Templeton created for his Foundation, "How little we know, how eager to learn," exemplified his philosophy in the financial markets and his groundbreaking methods of philanthropy.
Templeton started his Wall Street career in 1937 and went on to create some of the world's largest and most successful international investment funds. Called by Money magazine "arguably the greatest global stock picker of the century" (January 1999), he sold the Templeton Funds in 1992 to the Franklin Group for $440 million.
A naturalized British citizen who lived in Nassau, the Bahamas, Templeton was created a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in 1987 for his many philanthropic accomplishments, including his endowment of the former Oxford Centre for Management Studies as a full college, Templeton College, at the University of Oxford in 1983.
In 1972, he established the world's largest annual award given to an individual, the £1,000,000 Templeton Prize, which is announced in New York and presented in London. The Prize is intended to recognize exemplary achievement in work related to life's spiritual dimension. Its monetary value always exceeds that of the Nobel Prizes—Templeton's way of underscoring his belief that advances in the spiritual domain are no less important than those in other areas of human endeavor.
Templeton contributed a sizable amount of his fortune to the John Templeton Foundation, established in 1987 and based in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. The Foundation currently has an endowment of approximately $1.5 billion and gives out some $70 million in annual grants. The Foundation's mission is to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for research on what scientists and philosophers call the "Big Questions." This vision is derived from Templeton's belief that rigorous research and cutting-edge science are at the heart of human progress.
Most of the Foundation's grant-making supports scientific research at top universities, in such fields as theoretical physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and social science relating to love, forgiveness, creativity, purpose, and the nature and origin of religious belief. The Foundation also encourages and supports informed, open-minded dialogue between scientists and theologians as they work on the "Big Questions" in their distinctive fields of inquiry.
Taking a less-traveled route in investing, Templeton provided advice on how to invest worldwide when Americans rarely considered foreign investment. While standard stock-buying advice is "buy low, sell high," Templeton took the strategy to an extreme, picking nations, industries, and companies hitting rock-bottom, what he called "points of maximum pessimism."
When war began in Europe in 1939, he borrowed money to buy 100 shares each in 104 companies selling at one dollar per share or less, including 34 companies that were in bankruptcy. Only four turned out to be worthless, and he turned large profits on the others after holding each for an average of four years.
After beginning his career on Wall Street in 1937, Templeton bought a small investment advisory concern in 1940 that became Templeton, Dobbrow and Vance, Inc. He entered the mutual fund industry in 1954 when he established the Templeton Growth Fund.
In 1956 Templeton joined with marketing consultant William Damroth to launch the Nucleonics, Chemistry, and Electronics Fund, a specialty fund that reflected Templeton's lifelong interest in science and technology. With investor interest in specialty funds rising in the late 1950s, Templeton Damroth's new fund grew dramatically. Hoping to raise capital to finance more growth, Templeton then made a bold move to accelerate his company's growth.
Templeton sold his stake in Templeton Damroth in 1962, and over the next three decades created some of the world's largest and most successful international investment funds. Each $10,000 invested in the Templeton Growth Fund Class A in 1954, with dividends reinvested, would have grown to $2 million by 1992 when Sir John sold the Templeton Growth Fund. This translates into an annualized return of 14.5% since inception.
During a career that included directorships on banks, businesses, and insurance companies, Templeton maintained a long association with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He was a trustee on the board of Princeton Theological Seminary, the largest Presbyterian seminary, for 42 years and served as its chair for 12 years. He also lent his business acumen to the Presbyterians' ministerial pension fund for more than three decades until 1993.
Although he was a Presbyterian elder active in his denomination and served on the board of the American Bible Society, Templeton espoused what he called a "humble approach" to theology. Declaring that relatively little is known about God through scripture and present-day theology, he once predicted that "scientific revelations may be a gold mine for revitalizing religion in the 21st century."
Templeton took a broad view of spirituality and ethics. He was influenced by the Unity School of Christianity, a movement that espouses a non-literal view of heaven and hell and a shared divinity between God and humanity. As he wrote, "We realize that our own divinity arises from something more than merely being 'God's children' or being 'made in his image.'" Templeton did not claim to be a theologian, but he was determined to support the work of those who might deepen our "knowledge and love of God."
The annual Templeton Prize grew out of the philanthropist's belief that an honor equivalent to a Nobel Prize should be bestowed on living innovators in spiritual action and thought. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was the first Templeton Prize Laureate in 1973, followed later that decade by the evangelist Billy Graham and the writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
In recent years, the Prize has been awarded primarily to physicists, cosmologists, and philosophers, including Freeman Dyson, Paul Davies, Ian Barbour, John Polkinghorne, George Ellis, Charles Townes, John Barrow, Charles Taylor, and Michael Heller. Representatives of all of the world's major religions have been on the panel of nine judges throughout the prize's history, and recipients have included Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus.
John M. Templeton was born Nov. 29, 1912, in the small town of Winchester, Tennessee. Though forced to support himself while studying at Yale University during the Depression, he graduated in 1934 near the top of his class. He was named a Rhodes Scholar to Balliol College at Oxford, from which he graduated with an M.A. degree in law. He married the former Judith Folk in 1937, and the couple had three children – John, Anne and Christopher. She died in February 1951. He married Irene Reynolds Butler seven years later on New Year's Eve 1958. She passed away in 1993 after 35 years of marriage.
John Templeton is survived by his son John M. Templeton, Jr., known as Jack, who retired as a pediatric surgeon in 1995 to become president of the John Templeton Foundation, his son Christopher, stepdaughter Wendy Brooks, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His daughter, Anne Templeton Zimmerman, died in 2004 and his stepson, Malcolm Butler, died in 1995.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
U.S. Catholic Bishops Reject Liturgical Language Changes Put on Hold in June
This is a follow-up to my post of June 13th (below). The Catholic News Service reports that the U.S. Catholic bishops have rejected a contentious 700-page English re-translation of part of the Roman Missal, even after mail-in votes from bishops who did not attend a June meeting in Florida. Since the rules required at least two-thirds of the bishops to approve the new version before it could be adopted, it is clear that over one-third of the bishops opposed it. As before, it is encouraging that that many of the bishops have taken ownership of the quality and effectiveness of liturgical English and have declined to let the Vatican bureaucracy bully them into slavish translations of mediocre Latin prayers. The CNS report follows:
After mail balloting of bishops who did not vote at the spring meeting in Orlando, Fla., a 700-page translation of one section of the Roman Missal failed to get approval from the required two-thirds of the members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The USCCB announced rejection of the translation of the proper prayers for Sundays and feast days during the liturgical year July 7 and said it would come before the full body of bishops again at their November general assembly in Baltimore, along with two other sections totaling about 500 pages. No vote totals were made public, but the translation would have needed 167 "yes" votes to achieve a two-thirds majority of the 250 active Latin-rite U.S. bishops. The rejected translation, in the works for more than two years, was the second of 12 sections of the Roman Missal translation project that will come before the bishops through at least 2010. The translation had come from the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, known as ICEL, but at the Orlando meeting in June many bishops expressed frustration that recommendations they had submitted to ICEL to clarify the sentence structure or revise archaic language had been rejected.
After mail balloting of bishops who did not vote at the spring meeting in Orlando, Fla., a 700-page translation of one section of the Roman Missal failed to get approval from the required two-thirds of the members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The USCCB announced rejection of the translation of the proper prayers for Sundays and feast days during the liturgical year July 7 and said it would come before the full body of bishops again at their November general assembly in Baltimore, along with two other sections totaling about 500 pages. No vote totals were made public, but the translation would have needed 167 "yes" votes to achieve a two-thirds majority of the 250 active Latin-rite U.S. bishops. The rejected translation, in the works for more than two years, was the second of 12 sections of the Roman Missal translation project that will come before the bishops through at least 2010. The translation had come from the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, known as ICEL, but at the Orlando meeting in June many bishops expressed frustration that recommendations they had submitted to ICEL to clarify the sentence structure or revise archaic language had been rejected.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Pontifical Scholar Calls Vatican II Liturgical Reforms "Overwhelming Success"
Jesuit priest Robert A. Taft, internationally recognized as an expert on the liturgies of Eastern Christianity after teaching at a Rome pontifical institute for almost 40 years, writes in the latest issue of America magazine that "the Roman Catholic liturgical renewal in the wake of Vatican II was an overwhelming success, returning the liturgy to the people of God to whom it rightly belongs."
The full article is available at www.americamagazine.org/, but only to subscribers. However, Notre Dame theology professor Richard McBrien covers the highlights in a glowing review in the latest National Catholic Reporter.
Taft says the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) was right to validate the Catholic liturgical movement that had been in progress for roughly 50 years. Paraphrasing him, McBrien writes: "Liturgical pioneers drew inspiration from Russian Orthodox emigres to France, who had fled from their homeland after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. These contacts proved crucially important because the Orthodox church...had preserved the liturgical spirit of the early church and continued to live by it. Liturgists in the West, however, did not attempt simply to imitate existing Eastern usage, but interpreted and applied it in the light of the needs of Latin Christianity."
Granting that the liturgical reform might have been handled better in some respects, Taft still believes "it was done as well as was humanly possible at the time." Noting that the bishops at the council aspired to restore the Western rituals "to the vigor they had in the tradition of the Fathers," Taft says their Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy had a single, guiding purpose: that the faithful might "be led to that full, conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebration which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy and to which the Christian people...have a right and an obligation by reason of their baptism."
Taft has a list of specifics which he believes the council did not handle well. However, it does not include any of the things Catholic traditionalists prefer, such as the old Latin mass or various paraliturgical eucharistic devotions.
One of the council's larger failings, Taft says, was not doing enough to rein in practices he groups under the heading of "communion from the tabernacle." I have critiqued some of them in previous postings here.
The full article is available at www.americamagazine.org/, but only to subscribers. However, Notre Dame theology professor Richard McBrien covers the highlights in a glowing review in the latest National Catholic Reporter.
Taft says the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) was right to validate the Catholic liturgical movement that had been in progress for roughly 50 years. Paraphrasing him, McBrien writes: "Liturgical pioneers drew inspiration from Russian Orthodox emigres to France, who had fled from their homeland after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. These contacts proved crucially important because the Orthodox church...had preserved the liturgical spirit of the early church and continued to live by it. Liturgists in the West, however, did not attempt simply to imitate existing Eastern usage, but interpreted and applied it in the light of the needs of Latin Christianity."
Granting that the liturgical reform might have been handled better in some respects, Taft still believes "it was done as well as was humanly possible at the time." Noting that the bishops at the council aspired to restore the Western rituals "to the vigor they had in the tradition of the Fathers," Taft says their Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy had a single, guiding purpose: that the faithful might "be led to that full, conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebration which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy and to which the Christian people...have a right and an obligation by reason of their baptism."
Taft has a list of specifics which he believes the council did not handle well. However, it does not include any of the things Catholic traditionalists prefer, such as the old Latin mass or various paraliturgical eucharistic devotions.
One of the council's larger failings, Taft says, was not doing enough to rein in practices he groups under the heading of "communion from the tabernacle." I have critiqued some of them in previous postings here.
Archbishop of Canterbury: Anglican Communion Will Not Be GAF-Conned
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has told 1,000 Anglican conservatives meeting in Jerusalem and boycotting the upcoming Lambeth Conference that their attempts to undermine the Anglican communion and his leadership of it are "problematic in all sorts of ways."
Some archbishops of the so-called Global South have threatened for several years to create an orthodox Anglicanism with themselves in charge, unless the communion drums out the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada for progressive policies on gay bishops and prayers for gay unions.
After trying to pacify them for about as many years--largely by shying away from upholding the historic theological diversity of the national churches of the Anglican Communion--Williams has finally told the conservatives that it is they who are departing from the fold. The report from the Religion News Service follows.
The archbishop of Canterbury said conservatives' plans to usurp his leadership in the Anglican Communion are "problematic in all sorts of ways," saying Anglicans must renew -- not dismiss -- their frayed connections.
Archbishop Rowan Williams responded Monday (June 30) to a Jerusalem summit of more than 1,000 conservatives who announced plans on Sunday to create a new council of top archbishops to oversee likeminded Anglicans.
In a direct challenge to both Williams and traditional geographic lines of authority, the conservatives also plan to build a new North American province for Anglicans upset with the liberal sway of their national churches. "It is not enough to dismiss the existing structures of the communion," Williams said. "If they are not working effectively, the challenge is to renew them rather than improvise solutions."
The head of the U.S. branch of Anglicanism, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, also criticized the conservative declaration on Monday.
"This statement does not represent the end of Anglicanism," she said, "merely another chapter in a centuries-old struggle for dominance by those who consider themselves the only true believers."
The conservatives' challenge comes just weeks before the Lambeth Conference, a once-a-decade meeting in England of some 600 Anglican bishops from around the world. Dozens of bishops, however, are boycotting Lambeth to protest Williams' leadership in divisive debates over homosexuality and biblical authority.
Several conservatives said their proposed council is a direct challenge to Williams. As head of the Church of England, the archbishop of Canterbury is traditionally considered "first among equals" by fellow bishops, and membership in the communion is granted by his recognition.
But more than 1,000 conservative Anglicans said Sunday that "we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury."
"Frankly, this is an admission that (Williams') leadership has failed," said Bishop Martyn Minns, a Virginia-based conservative appointed by the Church of Nigeria.
Williams fired back, saying that a self-appointed council of archbishops "will not pass the test of legitimacy in the communion." Moreover, he asked, "by what authority are primates deemed acceptable or unacceptable members of any new primatial council?"
Rather than wait for Lambeth, many conservative Anglicans instead attended the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem, which concluded Sunday. Organizers said GAFCON drew about 1,000 delegates -- including 280 bishops -- claiming to 35 million Anglicans in 29 countries.
As the world's third largest Christian body, the Anglican Communion counts about 77 million members.
The meeting in Jerusalem reflects not only conservatives' decades-long frustration with the liberalism of Western Anglicans, but also their eagerness to assume control of a communion whose center is quickly moving from Europe to Africa.
Conservative Anglicans said Sunday that they are fed up with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada "proclaiming (the) false gospel" of gay rights, and the reluctance of other Anglicans to stop them.
Their "Jerusalem Declaration" issued on Sunday outlines the orthodox tenets around which the new province and council would be built. While holding fast to traditional Anglican theology, GAFCON said the Anglican Communion, a federation of 38 national churches derived from the Church of England and spread by the British Empire, must change.
"Worldwide Anglicanism has now entered a post-colonial phase," GAFCON leaders said in a statement Sunday, adding that it's time to move past "the colonial structures that have served the Anglican Communion so poorly during the present crisis."
"In many ways it's like a traditional family where the children are growing up and taking responsibility," said Minns, who heads the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
Six Anglican primates who participated in GAFCON -- from Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, West Africa and the Southern Cone (South America) -- would initially form the new council. While Anglican churches in the West are losing members, churches in Africa are booming, according to reports.
But Williams said "emerging from the legacy of colonialism must mean a new co-operation of equals, not a simple reversal of power."
It's unclear how many churches would comprise the North American province. Minns put the number at about 600, though liberals and church officials say that's much too high.
Jefferts Schori said that though "much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission from GAFCON," the church's work will go on.
"Anglicans will continue to worship God in their churches, serve the hungry and needy in their communities, and build missional relationships across the globe," she said, "despite the desire of a few leaders to narrow the influence of the Gospel."
Some archbishops of the so-called Global South have threatened for several years to create an orthodox Anglicanism with themselves in charge, unless the communion drums out the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada for progressive policies on gay bishops and prayers for gay unions.
After trying to pacify them for about as many years--largely by shying away from upholding the historic theological diversity of the national churches of the Anglican Communion--Williams has finally told the conservatives that it is they who are departing from the fold. The report from the Religion News Service follows.
The archbishop of Canterbury said conservatives' plans to usurp his leadership in the Anglican Communion are "problematic in all sorts of ways," saying Anglicans must renew -- not dismiss -- their frayed connections.
Archbishop Rowan Williams responded Monday (June 30) to a Jerusalem summit of more than 1,000 conservatives who announced plans on Sunday to create a new council of top archbishops to oversee likeminded Anglicans.
In a direct challenge to both Williams and traditional geographic lines of authority, the conservatives also plan to build a new North American province for Anglicans upset with the liberal sway of their national churches. "It is not enough to dismiss the existing structures of the communion," Williams said. "If they are not working effectively, the challenge is to renew them rather than improvise solutions."
The head of the U.S. branch of Anglicanism, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, also criticized the conservative declaration on Monday.
"This statement does not represent the end of Anglicanism," she said, "merely another chapter in a centuries-old struggle for dominance by those who consider themselves the only true believers."
The conservatives' challenge comes just weeks before the Lambeth Conference, a once-a-decade meeting in England of some 600 Anglican bishops from around the world. Dozens of bishops, however, are boycotting Lambeth to protest Williams' leadership in divisive debates over homosexuality and biblical authority.
Several conservatives said their proposed council is a direct challenge to Williams. As head of the Church of England, the archbishop of Canterbury is traditionally considered "first among equals" by fellow bishops, and membership in the communion is granted by his recognition.
But more than 1,000 conservative Anglicans said Sunday that "we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury."
"Frankly, this is an admission that (Williams') leadership has failed," said Bishop Martyn Minns, a Virginia-based conservative appointed by the Church of Nigeria.
Williams fired back, saying that a self-appointed council of archbishops "will not pass the test of legitimacy in the communion." Moreover, he asked, "by what authority are primates deemed acceptable or unacceptable members of any new primatial council?"
Rather than wait for Lambeth, many conservative Anglicans instead attended the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem, which concluded Sunday. Organizers said GAFCON drew about 1,000 delegates -- including 280 bishops -- claiming to 35 million Anglicans in 29 countries.
As the world's third largest Christian body, the Anglican Communion counts about 77 million members.
The meeting in Jerusalem reflects not only conservatives' decades-long frustration with the liberalism of Western Anglicans, but also their eagerness to assume control of a communion whose center is quickly moving from Europe to Africa.
Conservative Anglicans said Sunday that they are fed up with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada "proclaiming (the) false gospel" of gay rights, and the reluctance of other Anglicans to stop them.
Their "Jerusalem Declaration" issued on Sunday outlines the orthodox tenets around which the new province and council would be built. While holding fast to traditional Anglican theology, GAFCON said the Anglican Communion, a federation of 38 national churches derived from the Church of England and spread by the British Empire, must change.
"Worldwide Anglicanism has now entered a post-colonial phase," GAFCON leaders said in a statement Sunday, adding that it's time to move past "the colonial structures that have served the Anglican Communion so poorly during the present crisis."
"In many ways it's like a traditional family where the children are growing up and taking responsibility," said Minns, who heads the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.
Six Anglican primates who participated in GAFCON -- from Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, West Africa and the Southern Cone (South America) -- would initially form the new council. While Anglican churches in the West are losing members, churches in Africa are booming, according to reports.
But Williams said "emerging from the legacy of colonialism must mean a new co-operation of equals, not a simple reversal of power."
It's unclear how many churches would comprise the North American province. Minns put the number at about 600, though liberals and church officials say that's much too high.
Jefferts Schori said that though "much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission from GAFCON," the church's work will go on.
"Anglicans will continue to worship God in their churches, serve the hungry and needy in their communities, and build missional relationships across the globe," she said, "despite the desire of a few leaders to narrow the influence of the Gospel."
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Americans See Diverse Ways to Interpret Their Faiths and Reach Eternal Life
It's very encouraging that a survey released June 23rd by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows that most Americans cherish views of religion and salvation quite compatible with the process philosophy and theology that I present here. Here are some important paragraphs from the summary on Pew's website:
A major survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that most Americans have a non-dogmatic approach to faith. A majority of those who are affiliated with a religion, for instance, do not believe their religion is the only way to salvation. And almost the same number believes that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion. This openness to a range of religious viewpoints is in line with the great diversity of religious affiliation, belief and practice that exists in the United States, as documented in a survey of more than 35,000 Americans that comprehensively examines the country’s religious landscape.
Most Americans agree with the statement that many religions – not just their own – can lead to eternal life. Among those who are affiliated with a religious tradition, seven-in-ten say many religions can lead to eternal life. This view is shared by a majority of adherents in nearly all religious traditions, including more than half of members of evangelical Protestant churches (57%). Only among Mormons (57%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (80%) do majorities say that their own religion is the one true faith leading to eternal life.
Most Americans also have a non-dogmatic approach when it comes to interpreting the tenets of their own religion. For instance, more than two-thirds of adults affiliated with a religious tradition agree that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their faith, a pattern that occurs in nearly all traditions. The exceptions are Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, 54% and 77% of whom, respectively, say there is only one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion.
A major survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that most Americans have a non-dogmatic approach to faith. A majority of those who are affiliated with a religion, for instance, do not believe their religion is the only way to salvation. And almost the same number believes that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion. This openness to a range of religious viewpoints is in line with the great diversity of religious affiliation, belief and practice that exists in the United States, as documented in a survey of more than 35,000 Americans that comprehensively examines the country’s religious landscape.
Most Americans agree with the statement that many religions – not just their own – can lead to eternal life. Among those who are affiliated with a religious tradition, seven-in-ten say many religions can lead to eternal life. This view is shared by a majority of adherents in nearly all religious traditions, including more than half of members of evangelical Protestant churches (57%). Only among Mormons (57%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (80%) do majorities say that their own religion is the one true faith leading to eternal life.
Most Americans also have a non-dogmatic approach when it comes to interpreting the tenets of their own religion. For instance, more than two-thirds of adults affiliated with a religious tradition agree that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their faith, a pattern that occurs in nearly all traditions. The exceptions are Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, 54% and 77% of whom, respectively, say there is only one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
"Trees for Houston" Fights Destruction of 126 Live Oaks That Are Twenty Years Old
Nearly twenty years ago Trees for Houston, a nonprofit that promotes adding trees to Houston's public places, got donations from the public and planted most of the 126 live oak trees that line Kirby Boulevard between Westheimer and Richmond roads. The trees are now worth upwards of $25,000 apiece, a public asset of about $3.2 million.
But today, for the second time in less than twelve months, Trees for Houston finds itself almost alone in crying out against the tree-forsaken wilderness that the City of Houston wants to put in place of the trees.
The city's plan is part of a project to install a new storm sewer on Kirby. A section of Kirby through the prestigious River Oaks neighborhood north of Westheimer has been completed, and work is wrapping up on another section south of U.S. 59.
But the endangered live oak trees line a six-lane thoroughfare at the heart of the Upper Kirby District, one of several business special taxing districts in the greater Houston area. It carries thousands of vehicles each weekday, with impressive traffic jams at every intersection during evening rush hours, and to a lesser extent in the mornings.
By 2009 the blocks just south of Westheimer will be home to a new 30-story residential high rise (including seven floors of parking), with another multiple-story multi-use development with more multi-level parking across the street.
After the storm sewer is installed, the benighted experts at Houston's Public Works Department think it would be a good idea to widen the six lanes on Kirby, replace the current left-turn suicide lane with a limited-access median, and destroy the 126 live oaks, planting new trees that will reach the current size in a mere 15 to 20 years.
This is not the idea that the Upper Kirby District started with. It's architect proposed a landscaped esplanade with four traffic lanes--which is what Kirby has for several miles through River Oaks and the West University neighborhood south of Bissonnet, more recently tony real estate. But for the more commercial blocks of Kirby the Public Works Department insisted on six, wider lanes, and Upper Kirby dutifully responded with a plan that would destroy all of the trees.
Last September, Trees for Houston thought they had hammered out a compromise with Upper Kirby and the city that would save at least half of the trees: the six-lane street would be expanded to 73 feet in general and 77 feet at the intersections, instead of the 81 feet the city wanted. But the city basically reneged: the construction plans approved by the Public Works Department applied the 73-foot width to only 4% of the street, again requiring all of the 20-year old trees to be destroyed.
Trees for Houston has submitted a new plan that would allow for somewhat wider lanes but still save the trees, in addition to the $400,000 cost of new landscaping. They have even agreed to replace any trees that do not survive if their plan is implemented. But with the sewer contract just out for bids, Upper Kirby is not willing to put the work on hold again and resubmit the new plan for city approval.
It is very sad to see Houston falling back into its infamous history, leveling the old to make way for the new--and preserving almost nothing of its heritage. It's also unfortunate that Mayor Bill White, who has taken the lead on environmental initiatives and limiting the size of high rises that would add too much population to existing neighborhoods, has been pretty much a guilty bystander on this episode of environmental destruction and neighborhood blight.
Meanwhile, Eric Dumbaugh, a traffic engineer and traffic safety researcher at Texas A&M, tells the Houston Chronicle in a letter today the city's plan for six lanes and no trees is really the least effective from a traffic-safety perspective. He says that several studies have found that urban street trees reduce speeding, increase driver attentiveness and enhance traffic safety.
Professor Dumbaugh argues that the safest road would also be the most aesthetic: four lanes with the existing trees, just as Upper Kirby's architect first proposed. Second best would be six lanes with the existing trees.
His final judgment? The city's six-lane plan is the preferred choice only "if one believes that moving the maximum number of vehicles at the highest possible speeds is a goal that should outweigh either life safety or neighborhood aesthetics."
Friday, June 20, 2008
Multiple Signs of the Times: Some Raise Hope, Some Call for Action
Several developments in recent days are note-worthy as significant signs of the times. The first three covered below are quite encouraging. The rest call for corrective action.
State sued over Christian license plates. On behalf Christian and Jewish clergy and a local Hindu group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has sued South Carolina over a new state law that instructs the state to produce and promote license plates that feature a Christian cross in front of a stained glass window and the slogan “I Believe.” The plate was approved over the objections of the ACLU and the American Jewish Congress. Charging that approval of the plate signaled that “Christianity is the preferred religion of South Carolina,” the suit seeks to prevent the state from even producing it. As usual, Americans United is doing a commendable job upholding Jefferson’s wall of separation between church and state.
Cardinals duel over prominence of old Latin mass. Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet has challenged a Vatican official who claims that Pope Benedict XVI wants to see the old Latin mass celebrated in every Catholic parish. Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, president of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei," which works with separated traditionalist Catholics, expressed his opinion at a press conference in London June 14. Initial coverage did not stress strongly enough that Castrillon was mainly trying to please separated traditionalist Catholics, who would really like the pope to declare the old Latin mass the best Rome has produced and the one by which all others should be measured. Cardinal Ouellet, by contrast, correctly understands that the pope explicitly did not do this when he made the old mass more available a year ago. In fact, the pope made post-Vatican II eucharistic prayers in local languages the standard by which the old Latin mass should be evaluated, and he said that no priest could refuse to offer the newer liturgies and give preference to the old Latin mass alone. Kudos to Cardinal Ouellet!
Columnist questions McCain’s attack on Supreme Court ruling that Guantanimo detainees have the right to request habeas corpus hearings. Since Will generally rails against judicial activism, it is quite significant that he disagrees with McCain’s claim that the 5-4 decision was “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” Will notes three other decisions he considers much worse: Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), which concocted a constitutional right to own slaves; Plessy v Ferguson (1896), which endorsed legally enforced segregation; and Korematsu v. United States (1944), which approved of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Will says the question of the detainees’ rights, and the government’s, is one intelligent people of good will can debate. But Will says habeas corpus took centuries to achieve before it was finally enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. He agrees with “the conservative and libertarian Cato Institute (which) argued in its amicus brief in support of the petitioning detainees” that when and whether habeas corpus can be suspended is a separation of powers issue between the executive and the judiciary, and that “the executive cannot be the only judge of its own judgment.” It’s not often that Will stands against the position of Justices Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia. In this case, it’s refreshing that he did.
Hispanic workers in U.S. are at highest risk of heat related death. The Centers for Disease Control reported June 19th that it reviewed 423 heat-related deaths in the United States from 1992 to 2006, and that 71 percent of the dead were Hispanic in the period from 2003 to 2006 (the only timeframe when it knew the nationalities of all the workers). The most heat-related deaths were in construction, which of course is increasingly dominated by Hispanic workers. The highest rate of heat-related deaths was among crop workers: .39 percent per 100,000 workers annually, vs. .02 percent for other U.S. workers. North Carolina was worst with a death rate of 2.36 percent, then Florida at .74 and California at .49. There are no federal regulations to protect workers from heat and California is the only state to do so. It is evident that effective federal and state controls are needed urgently, before employers exploit any more Hispanics to death.
Earth adds a billion more people in 13 years. The U.S. Census Bureau says the world’s population will reach 7 billion in 2012, despite the planet’s inability to provide basic necessities for the 6.7 billion people already plundering it today. With 304 million people, the U.S. ranks third behind China and India. By comparison, the earth did not reach 1 billion inhabitants until 1800, nor 2 billion until 1930. But by 1999 it was 6 billion, and it’s taken only 13 years to add a billion more. I have commented on the planet’s birthing disorder in several previous posts.
Martin Luther King sculpture improved? The second model of a 28-foot statue of Martin Luther King Jr., planned for a monument in Washington D.C. next to the Tidal Basin and across from the Jefferson Memorial, won Juneteenth approval from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. Last April the commission criticized the first model, by Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin, as too confrontational and too much like political statuary in totalitarian regimes. The new model has “a less furrowed brow, a softer mouth and more detailed rendering of the hands.” The sculptor, refuting critics who said King never stood with his arms folded across this chest, gave the commission a photo of King in that position. Personally, I’d say the sculpture still needs work. The artist has transformed a statue reminiscent of Mao or Lenin into what looks a lot like a slightly weightier Ray Nagin! That just won’t do.
Friday, June 13, 2008
U.S. Bishops Surprise Catholics by Declining New English Translation of Mass Readings
National Catholic Reporter columnist John Allen Jr. reports that at a meeting in Orlando, FL this morning enough U.S. bishops voiced opposition to a new English translation of readings for daily masses to derail the approval process indefinitely.
The vote was taken on the proposed revision of the English text of the Proper of the Seasons, the second of twelve sections of the Roman Missal being retranslated and the source of priest's prayer near the beginning of the mass, the prayer over the offerings, and the prayer after communion for the masses of the Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter seasons as well as the Sundays of Ordinary Time and holy days of obligation.
The bishops approved the first section of the Missal, the Order of the Mass, in June of 2006, but only after lengthy and often acrimonious battles over some of the wording. I addressed that outcome in my first posting on this blog, July 17, 2006. The wording that won out generally removed a lot of inclusive language that the English mass had contained for several decades and made the English text much more slavishly dependent on the existing Latin version, even when the earlier wording often made much more sense to English-speaking Catholics.
Allen writes: "Heading into the U.S. bishops’ spring meeting in Orlando, it didn’t seem likely that a proposed new translation of the Proper of Seasons, part of the prayers and other texts for the Catholic Mass, would stir up much dust. Following a decade and a half of impassioned argument over such texts known colloquially as the 'liturgy wars,' many bishops privately expressed fatigue and a desire to move on – suggesting to most observers that approval of this text ought to be more or less a given."
But that changed today when a lone bishop rose to voice objections to the new translation. Bishop Victor Galeone of Saint Augustine, a former Latin teacher who still reads Thomas Aquinas in Latin, said the proposed translation is too unclear and awkward to be effectively used in American parishes. He found it too slavish to the Latin and too little concerned with communicating accurately and effectively in English.
Galeone's views were seconded by Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba of Milwaukee, Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, PA and Bishop Robert Lynch of Saint Petersburg, FL. Lynch reported that when he asked the 26 priests on his presbyteral council to review the translation, two were in favor of it and 24 were opposed.
Other bishops voiced the "let's move on" sentiment that was thought to be dominant going into the meeting, including recently installed Cardinal Daniel diNardo of Houston.
The remarkable upshot of the discussion was that the meeting was too poorly attended to vote the translation up or down. The rules of the bishops' conference require a two-thirds vote to adopt such changes--which currently means 166 to approve or 83 to reject. With only 178 bishops at the meeting, neither side could reach the count need to prevail.
The group agreed to mail ballots to any bishop who was not in attendance. They also decided that if the translation isn't approved after the ballot process, there will be another opportunity for all of the U.S. bishops to submit additional observations and proposals for revision.
I find today's developments encouraging: first, because at least a few of the bishops have declared themselves stakeholders in a decent English translation and have had the courage to voice their concerns about a deficient draft when it was thought to be a done deal; and second, because by taking their stand they at least kept open the possibility that a better English translation will be crafted, even if it is not the one the Vatican thinks is best; and most importantly, because their stand upholds the truth that they, not the bishop of Rome, are primarly responsible for the quality of the liturgy celebrated in U.S. Catholic churches, and it's about time they took that responsibility more seriously. All of that is much more edifying than what they have done in the past, which has mostly been to let Rome steamroll pretty awful translations of very generic Latin prayers.
The vote was taken on the proposed revision of the English text of the Proper of the Seasons, the second of twelve sections of the Roman Missal being retranslated and the source of priest's prayer near the beginning of the mass, the prayer over the offerings, and the prayer after communion for the masses of the Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter seasons as well as the Sundays of Ordinary Time and holy days of obligation.
The bishops approved the first section of the Missal, the Order of the Mass, in June of 2006, but only after lengthy and often acrimonious battles over some of the wording. I addressed that outcome in my first posting on this blog, July 17, 2006. The wording that won out generally removed a lot of inclusive language that the English mass had contained for several decades and made the English text much more slavishly dependent on the existing Latin version, even when the earlier wording often made much more sense to English-speaking Catholics.
Allen writes: "Heading into the U.S. bishops’ spring meeting in Orlando, it didn’t seem likely that a proposed new translation of the Proper of Seasons, part of the prayers and other texts for the Catholic Mass, would stir up much dust. Following a decade and a half of impassioned argument over such texts known colloquially as the 'liturgy wars,' many bishops privately expressed fatigue and a desire to move on – suggesting to most observers that approval of this text ought to be more or less a given."
But that changed today when a lone bishop rose to voice objections to the new translation. Bishop Victor Galeone of Saint Augustine, a former Latin teacher who still reads Thomas Aquinas in Latin, said the proposed translation is too unclear and awkward to be effectively used in American parishes. He found it too slavish to the Latin and too little concerned with communicating accurately and effectively in English.
Galeone's views were seconded by Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba of Milwaukee, Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, PA and Bishop Robert Lynch of Saint Petersburg, FL. Lynch reported that when he asked the 26 priests on his presbyteral council to review the translation, two were in favor of it and 24 were opposed.
Other bishops voiced the "let's move on" sentiment that was thought to be dominant going into the meeting, including recently installed Cardinal Daniel diNardo of Houston.
The remarkable upshot of the discussion was that the meeting was too poorly attended to vote the translation up or down. The rules of the bishops' conference require a two-thirds vote to adopt such changes--which currently means 166 to approve or 83 to reject. With only 178 bishops at the meeting, neither side could reach the count need to prevail.
The group agreed to mail ballots to any bishop who was not in attendance. They also decided that if the translation isn't approved after the ballot process, there will be another opportunity for all of the U.S. bishops to submit additional observations and proposals for revision.
I find today's developments encouraging: first, because at least a few of the bishops have declared themselves stakeholders in a decent English translation and have had the courage to voice their concerns about a deficient draft when it was thought to be a done deal; and second, because by taking their stand they at least kept open the possibility that a better English translation will be crafted, even if it is not the one the Vatican thinks is best; and most importantly, because their stand upholds the truth that they, not the bishop of Rome, are primarly responsible for the quality of the liturgy celebrated in U.S. Catholic churches, and it's about time they took that responsibility more seriously. All of that is much more edifying than what they have done in the past, which has mostly been to let Rome steamroll pretty awful translations of very generic Latin prayers.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Mary Quite Contrary: Monster Monstrance Promotes Mariolatry and Wafer Madness
“Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” These words from Golgotha, among the last that scripture attributes to the earthly Jesus, are all too apt for the object pictured above.Take a close look at it. Never seen anything like it? You’re right. There’s never been anything like it. It’s a statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus, that’s nine feet tall and 700 pounds. But it’s not just the height and weight that make it special. It’s that round niche cut into most of the torso between the heart and the uterus. The niche is meant for displaying a 12-inch consecrated communion wafer. That technically makes the statue a monstrance, and it’s said to be the biggest in the world.
For a better appreciation of the sheer size of the piece, the picture below shows how it dwarfs Deacon Michael McCloskey of Holy Name Cathedral as he places a consecrated host in it on May 31st.
That was the day the curtains parted in the sanctuary of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in Chicago to reveal the monstrance of Our Lady of the Sign, Ark of Mercy.
The archdiocesan newspaper and the Catholic News Service reported that Cardinal Francis George (an Oblate of Mary Immaculate) “was on hand to celebrate Mass and bless the new nine-foot, hand-carved and painted monstrance featuring Mary atop a gold-leaf decorated ark flanked by two kneeling angels, also in gold leaf, whose wings extend to shelter her.”
The desire to glorify Mary for her unique role in salvation history is biblically sound, especially her cooperation with God in bearing Jesus, bringing him into the world, keeping faith with him through his ministry and death, and being among the earliest to bear witness to his resurrection.
However, what is very dubious theologically is for the Catholic Church to procure and promote a physical image of Mary that in its monstrous size so towers over human beings that it could easily be confused for a pagan idol or an Asian Buddha. It leaves the church open to charges of Mariolatry, a term used in the past by Protestant critics who believed Catholics tended to denigrate worship of Jesus and his Father by idolizing Jesus’ mother.
And it muddies the theological waters all the more to turn this overwrought likeness of Mary into a monstrance, which misconstrues Mary’s relationship to the eucharist and promotes misunderstanding of the eucharist itself.
It was no accident that eucharistic devotions like exposition of the blessed sacrament (in a monstrance), 40 hours devotion before the exposed eucharist (in a monstrance), benediction with the exposed eucharist (in a monstrance) and Corpus Christi processions of the consecrated host (in a monstrance) became less frequent after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
The Council took seriously the concern of modern liturgists that with the emergence of large medieval cathedrals the original Lord’s Supper had become distorted from a shared meal to a mammoth exercise of visual adoration. A cult of sharing and eating the eucharistic bread and wine, “in memory of me” as Jesus asked, was replaced with a cult of looking at the consecrated bread and venerating it. As Catholic professors of sacramental theology told their students in the 1970s, in the decades before the Council the challenge wasn’t believing that the bread was really Jesus: the challenge was to believe it was bread!
The eucharistic devotions were never officially revoked. But they were officially downplayed in favor of reformed eucharistic liturgies that put greater emphasis on the altar as a table and the eucharist as a shared meal, Jesus’ transformation of the Passover seder into a celebration of his own deliverance, and ours.
Still, the conservative reaction against Vatican II included a renewed preference for the old eucharistic devotions. Pope John Paul II did not discourage them, and as recently as May 22, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI could be found kneeling before a monstrance driven through the streets of Rome on a canopied flatbed truck, on the way to a benediction service and eucharistic devotions.
But as with other issues discussed here, just because the pope thinks something and does something does not make it theologically correct or in this case sacramentally wise. And that is especially true of allowing one of his U.S. cardinals to help commission and encourage veneration of the largest monstrance in the world.
Two fans of the new monstrance described some of the devotions that accompanied its unveiling. They help explain the theological misgivings I raise:
“After Mass, many remained in Adoration. Some got out of their pews to walk close to the altar so they could get a better view of the monstrance, while others were prostrate on the ground, kneeling on the floor, or just standing in awe before the Eucharist. Many walked out of the church with tears in their eyes.
”Many families attended despite temperatures in the 90s. The ceremonies began at 6 p.m. eastern time. Long after Mass, people lingered. In fact, at 11 p.m., the church was still packed. People crowded near the front entrance to St. Stanislaus Church, talking about their personal experiences they had in the unveiling, Mass, and Adoration.
“‘It was almost as if you were away from the world,’ shared one pilgrim, ‘and Noble Drive [the location of the church in Chicago] had become a piece of heaven on earth.’”
If so, this particular heaven on earth is an ersatz one. These kind of devotions are not how Jesus asked his followers remember him. They detract from what he did request, that we share bread and wine in a ritual meal. By claiming to experience Jesus as more intensely present in these devotions than in the ritual meal, they misconstrue the meaning of the eucharist and trivialize Jesus’ presence in the eucharistic liturgy.
And by transforming Mary into a monstrance, they trivialize her actual role in salvation history and turn her into some kind of mystical ark of a mystical new covenant centered on veneration of consecrated hosts.
I know of nothing that will convince Cardinal George and Benedict XVI to stop pushing these devotions. But those who are truly devoted to the eucharist need to challenge them and affirm that nothing in Christianity should ever be given greater prominence than the eucharistic meal.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Creationists Evolve in Texas and U.S., Proving Darwin Factual Even If They’re Not
The Houston Chronicle had reports yesterday on two new strategies by creationists to make their fundamentalist anti-evolution teachings pass constitutional muster in public school science classes. Neither effort is unprecedented, but in the face of prior defeats the creationists have changed their tactics—proving evolution a fact of life, despite their claims to the contrary.
In one, a creationist school wants the state to authorize its proposed Master of Science degree in Science Education (MSE). The MSE is Texas’ certification of an individual’s competence to teach science in public schools. In April the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board denied the request by the Institute for Creation Research to offer the degree, on the grounds that the creationist content of the courses would not equip graduates to teach science in Texas public schools. Now the institute has appealed the board’s decision. That gives the independent Office of Administrative Hearings 180 days to hear the case. The institute plans to file a lawsuit against the state if the appeal does not reverse the board.
The other effort? Modify the criteria and content of the state’s science curriculum, which of course is what the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board relied on for its April decision. The creationists hope to convince the State Board of Education to re-interpret an existing rule that has never required mentioning creationism in a science class. The current rule requires teachers to present both the strengths and weaknesses of all scientific theories. The creationists would have the State Board of Education list the lack of ‘intelligent design’ as a weakness of evolution and require science teachers to address it in class.
Coincidentally, Alan Boyle, science editor at MSNBC.com, noted yesterday that these changes in tactics are not exclusive to Texas. Ever since 2005, when a federal judge ruled that intelligent design was a religious concept that should not be taught in science classes, the creationists have sought new ways to force public school science teachers to indoctrinate students with fundamentalist objections to evolution. The latest trend paints creationism as an academic freedom issue, contending that science teachers should have the right to express any questions they have about evolution, including religious ones. Hopefully the boards which decide science curricula will find this approach as bogus as intelligent design. If not, another federal court should.
Because Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy is grounded so thoroughly on the organic evolution of reality, including thought and God, the creationists are unlikely to give it a second thought. The more clever among them might eventually figure out they could claim his support for intelligent design. The claim would ultimately prove bogus. But, forewarned is forearmed.
Chapter 3 of my doctoral dissertation explains why Whitehead holds that every instance of novelty involves purpose, and that nothing in the givenness of past provides an answer to the question “What next?” After lots and lots of tortured research and analysis, Whitehead concludes that the ‘initial aim’ of each novel occasion of experience can only derive from God. This would square quite remarkably with the creationists’ insistence that natural selection as described by Darwin in not sufficient to account for novelty in evolution (although it would not help fundamentalists with salvaging the temporal chronology of Genesis and other biblical creation accounts as factual).
But Whitehead would never countenance the intrusion of this analysis into the high school science curriculum—or probably even science courses at the college or graduate levels. Whitehead was writing cosmology and metaphysics. The proper place to teach and address such thought is philosophy and theology classes.
Those, of course, are not much in favor in public education at any level. But if the creationists want to become serious about getting their feet in that door, they might try shifting their emphasis to the propriety of offering philosophy or religion classes in public schools.
That too can be debated. But unlike theocratizing science classes, it is not an idea that must be foreclosed constitutionally from the start. And if it could pass constitutional muster, it would at least be putting philosophical discussion in the curriculum where it belongs.
In one, a creationist school wants the state to authorize its proposed Master of Science degree in Science Education (MSE). The MSE is Texas’ certification of an individual’s competence to teach science in public schools. In April the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board denied the request by the Institute for Creation Research to offer the degree, on the grounds that the creationist content of the courses would not equip graduates to teach science in Texas public schools. Now the institute has appealed the board’s decision. That gives the independent Office of Administrative Hearings 180 days to hear the case. The institute plans to file a lawsuit against the state if the appeal does not reverse the board.
The other effort? Modify the criteria and content of the state’s science curriculum, which of course is what the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board relied on for its April decision. The creationists hope to convince the State Board of Education to re-interpret an existing rule that has never required mentioning creationism in a science class. The current rule requires teachers to present both the strengths and weaknesses of all scientific theories. The creationists would have the State Board of Education list the lack of ‘intelligent design’ as a weakness of evolution and require science teachers to address it in class.
Coincidentally, Alan Boyle, science editor at MSNBC.com, noted yesterday that these changes in tactics are not exclusive to Texas. Ever since 2005, when a federal judge ruled that intelligent design was a religious concept that should not be taught in science classes, the creationists have sought new ways to force public school science teachers to indoctrinate students with fundamentalist objections to evolution. The latest trend paints creationism as an academic freedom issue, contending that science teachers should have the right to express any questions they have about evolution, including religious ones. Hopefully the boards which decide science curricula will find this approach as bogus as intelligent design. If not, another federal court should.
Because Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy is grounded so thoroughly on the organic evolution of reality, including thought and God, the creationists are unlikely to give it a second thought. The more clever among them might eventually figure out they could claim his support for intelligent design. The claim would ultimately prove bogus. But, forewarned is forearmed.
Chapter 3 of my doctoral dissertation explains why Whitehead holds that every instance of novelty involves purpose, and that nothing in the givenness of past provides an answer to the question “What next?” After lots and lots of tortured research and analysis, Whitehead concludes that the ‘initial aim’ of each novel occasion of experience can only derive from God. This would square quite remarkably with the creationists’ insistence that natural selection as described by Darwin in not sufficient to account for novelty in evolution (although it would not help fundamentalists with salvaging the temporal chronology of Genesis and other biblical creation accounts as factual).
But Whitehead would never countenance the intrusion of this analysis into the high school science curriculum—or probably even science courses at the college or graduate levels. Whitehead was writing cosmology and metaphysics. The proper place to teach and address such thought is philosophy and theology classes.
Those, of course, are not much in favor in public education at any level. But if the creationists want to become serious about getting their feet in that door, they might try shifting their emphasis to the propriety of offering philosophy or religion classes in public schools.
That too can be debated. But unlike theocratizing science classes, it is not an idea that must be foreclosed constitutionally from the start. And if it could pass constitutional muster, it would at least be putting philosophical discussion in the curriculum where it belongs.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Founders Be Damned: Exxon Mobil Plans To Worship Crude Another 30 Years!
Despite pleas from the families of two of its founders, Exxon Mobil’s stockholders voted in Dallas yesterday by a 60% majority to retain as chairman and CEO a wealthy executive who actually believes the world can survive another 30 years with crude as king.
Descendants of John D. Rockefeller, 19th-century founder of Exxon Mobil predecessor Standard Oil Corp., sought to strip Rex Tillerson of the chairmanship role, because they think he has focused too much on short-term gains from soaring oil prices, when the company’s long-term viability depends on moving more quickly to sustainable alternatives.
The Rockefeller family members were supported by several influential proxy advisory firms, treasurers of California, Connecticut and Maryland, several British pension funds and other institutional investors.
Speaking for them before the meeting, William Thompson Jr., who as city comptroller oversees New York City’s retirement system assets, said “Exxon Mobil has long evinced a culture of defiance and indifferent to many important concerns of long-term shareholders.”
But the proposal got only 39.5% of the vote, down slightly from the 40% it got last year. This is the seventh year in a row the proposal has failed.
Tillerson also faced opposition from descendants of Robert Lee Blaffer, co-founder of Humble Oil, another Exxon Mobil predecessor. In an op-ed piece in last Sunday’s Houston Chronicle, his granddaughter Jane Dale Owen called on the shareholders to “Top off Exxon Mobil’s greed.” Owen wrote:
My family members and I are shareholders in Exxon Mobil, and many of us are very concerned about the devastating effect the largest privately held oil company in the world is having on the health of people living near our refineries and chemical plants, and on the planet.
In the Political Economy Research Institute's recent "Toxic 100" report released in April, Exxon Mobil ranks 10th among the worst corporate toxic polluters in the United States. This is unacceptable considering the company's huge profits.
My grandfather would also be dismayed by Exxon Mobil's long-standing denial of the industry's contribution to global warming and lack of efforts to diversify and move toward more sustainable energy solutions.
Other family members and I believe greed, arrogance and short-term thinking have led Exxon Mobil to jeopardize the company's reputation and put the planet, human health and our investments at risk.
We join with the Exxon Enough! coalition in calling on Exxon Mobil management to:
• Undertake health surveys of all the people living in communities where the company has facilities, on the Texas Gulf Coast and elsewhere, and to provide for relocation and on-going health care for people living near its facilities.
• Accept the necessity of a windfall war profits tax.
• Invest in alternative energy sources and alternative transportation systems as a way of reducing global warming.
My family and I are saying to Exxon: Enough of your pollution that harms the health of the people living near your refineries and plants; enough of your war-profiteering; enough of your excess profits while we pay outrageous prices for gas; enough of your denial that burning petroleum products fuels global warming; and enough of your lack of foresight, accountability and fiscal responsibility.
The founders’ families recognize that the greed of Exxon Mobil’s shareholders imperils not only the future of the company but the viability of the planet. But the shareholders still turn a deaf ear.
Of course they also decline to listen to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who warns almost weekly that our lack of a national energy policy will destroy the United States’ economy and political power before it destroys the globe.
The same day that the Exxon Mobil shareholders voted for more of the same, Friedman was applauding that with gas at $4 a gallon, oil was at last at a price that might make energy alternatives more economically desirable. He ridiculed those who would act as enablers of higher American oil consumption:
Cynical ideas, like the McCain-Clinton summertime gas-tax holiday, would only make the problem worse, and reckless initiatives like the Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep offer to subsidize gasoline for three years for people who buy its gas guzzlers are the moral equivalent of tobacco companies offering discounted cigarettes to teenagers.
I can’t say it better than my friend Tim Shriver, the chairman of Special Olympics, did in a Memorial Day essay in The Washington Post: “So Dodge wants to sell you a car you don’t really want to buy, that is not fuel-efficient, will further damage our environment, and will further subsidize oil states, some of which are on the other side of the wars we’re currently fighting. ... The planet be damned, the troops be forgotten, the economy be ignored: buy a Dodge.”
Friedman concluded:
We need to make a structural shift in our energy economy. Ultimately, we need to move our entire fleet to plug-in electric cars. The only way to get from here to there is to start now with a price signal that will force the change.
Words Exxon Mobil’s founders’ families have taken to heart. How great a catastrophe will it take to convince its shareholder profiteers?
Descendants of John D. Rockefeller, 19th-century founder of Exxon Mobil predecessor Standard Oil Corp., sought to strip Rex Tillerson of the chairmanship role, because they think he has focused too much on short-term gains from soaring oil prices, when the company’s long-term viability depends on moving more quickly to sustainable alternatives.
The Rockefeller family members were supported by several influential proxy advisory firms, treasurers of California, Connecticut and Maryland, several British pension funds and other institutional investors.
Speaking for them before the meeting, William Thompson Jr., who as city comptroller oversees New York City’s retirement system assets, said “Exxon Mobil has long evinced a culture of defiance and indifferent to many important concerns of long-term shareholders.”
But the proposal got only 39.5% of the vote, down slightly from the 40% it got last year. This is the seventh year in a row the proposal has failed.
Tillerson also faced opposition from descendants of Robert Lee Blaffer, co-founder of Humble Oil, another Exxon Mobil predecessor. In an op-ed piece in last Sunday’s Houston Chronicle, his granddaughter Jane Dale Owen called on the shareholders to “Top off Exxon Mobil’s greed.” Owen wrote:
My family members and I are shareholders in Exxon Mobil, and many of us are very concerned about the devastating effect the largest privately held oil company in the world is having on the health of people living near our refineries and chemical plants, and on the planet.
In the Political Economy Research Institute's recent "Toxic 100" report released in April, Exxon Mobil ranks 10th among the worst corporate toxic polluters in the United States. This is unacceptable considering the company's huge profits.
My grandfather would also be dismayed by Exxon Mobil's long-standing denial of the industry's contribution to global warming and lack of efforts to diversify and move toward more sustainable energy solutions.
Other family members and I believe greed, arrogance and short-term thinking have led Exxon Mobil to jeopardize the company's reputation and put the planet, human health and our investments at risk.
We join with the Exxon Enough! coalition in calling on Exxon Mobil management to:
• Undertake health surveys of all the people living in communities where the company has facilities, on the Texas Gulf Coast and elsewhere, and to provide for relocation and on-going health care for people living near its facilities.
• Accept the necessity of a windfall war profits tax.
• Invest in alternative energy sources and alternative transportation systems as a way of reducing global warming.
My family and I are saying to Exxon: Enough of your pollution that harms the health of the people living near your refineries and plants; enough of your war-profiteering; enough of your excess profits while we pay outrageous prices for gas; enough of your denial that burning petroleum products fuels global warming; and enough of your lack of foresight, accountability and fiscal responsibility.
The founders’ families recognize that the greed of Exxon Mobil’s shareholders imperils not only the future of the company but the viability of the planet. But the shareholders still turn a deaf ear.
Of course they also decline to listen to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who warns almost weekly that our lack of a national energy policy will destroy the United States’ economy and political power before it destroys the globe.
The same day that the Exxon Mobil shareholders voted for more of the same, Friedman was applauding that with gas at $4 a gallon, oil was at last at a price that might make energy alternatives more economically desirable. He ridiculed those who would act as enablers of higher American oil consumption:
Cynical ideas, like the McCain-Clinton summertime gas-tax holiday, would only make the problem worse, and reckless initiatives like the Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep offer to subsidize gasoline for three years for people who buy its gas guzzlers are the moral equivalent of tobacco companies offering discounted cigarettes to teenagers.
I can’t say it better than my friend Tim Shriver, the chairman of Special Olympics, did in a Memorial Day essay in The Washington Post: “So Dodge wants to sell you a car you don’t really want to buy, that is not fuel-efficient, will further damage our environment, and will further subsidize oil states, some of which are on the other side of the wars we’re currently fighting. ... The planet be damned, the troops be forgotten, the economy be ignored: buy a Dodge.”
Friedman concluded:
We need to make a structural shift in our energy economy. Ultimately, we need to move our entire fleet to plug-in electric cars. The only way to get from here to there is to start now with a price signal that will force the change.
Words Exxon Mobil’s founders’ families have taken to heart. How great a catastrophe will it take to convince its shareholder profiteers?
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Despite Improvements, New Orleans Canal Still Leaks; West Bank Lags Behind
With hurricane season just days away, MSNBC has posted two articles that highlight disturbing vulnerabilities in New Orleans' hurricane protection systems.In one the Associated Press reports:
Despite more than $22 million in repairs, a levee that broke with catastrophic effect during Hurricane Katrina is leaking again because of the mushy ground on which New Orleans was built, raising serious questions about the reliability of the city's flood defenses.
Outside engineering experts who have studied the project told The Associated Press that the type of seepage spotted at the 17th Street Canal in the Lakeview neighborhood afflicts other New Orleans levees, too, and could cause some of them to collapse during a storm.
The Army Corps of Engineers has spent about $4 billion so far of the $14 billion set aside by Congress to repair and upgrade the metropolitan area's hundreds of miles of levees by 2011. Some outside experts said the leak could mean that billions more will be needed and that some of the work already completed may need to be redone.
"It is all based on a 30-year-old defunct model of thinking, and it means that when they wake up to this one — really — our cost is going to increase significantly," said Bob Bea, a civil engineer at the University of California at Berkeley.
The 17th Street Canal floodwall collapsed on the day Katrina surged over New Orleans in August 2005, and the failure severely damaged Lakeview. It was one of the biggest of about 50 levee breaches that contributed to the deaths of about 1,300 people.
Fixing the 17th Street Canal has been one of the most expensive and laborious repair jobs since the storm and has served as something of a test case for scientists and engineers, who plan to apply the lessons learned there to the city's other levees.
Among other things, they repaired the wall by driving interlocking sheets of steel 60 feet into the ground, compared with about 17 feet before the storm. The sheet metal is supposed to prevent canal water from seeping under the levee through the wet, toothpaste-like soil that lies beneath the city, which was built on reclaimed swamp and filled-in marsh.
Over the past few months, however, the corps found evidence that canal water is seeping through the joints in the sheet metal and then rising to the surface on the other side of the levee, forming puddles and other wet spots.
Engineers said the boggy ground is a more serious problem than the corps realizes. Bea said there is a roughly 40 percent chance of the 17th Street Canal levee collapsing if water rises higher than 6 feet above sea level. During Katrina, the water reached 7 feet in the canal.
John Schmertmann, a retired University of Florida professor and a consultant on foundations, agreed with Bea that the corps "may still be embedding some of these not-properly-considered factors, so the new walls may not do what the corps expects."
Reducing such seepage might require the driving of sheet metal far deeper into the ground than is done now, or some other solution, said Bea, who was part of a team of experts sent by the National Science Foundation to do an independent study of the levee failures during Katrina.
In another MSNBC post, Reuters reports:
Post-Katrina New Orleans remains two separate communities as another hurricane season begins on June 1.
On the city's East Bank, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is raising levees and installing steel-reinforced gates on three drainage canals to block a surge in Lake Pontchartrain from pushing into the canals, as occurred in 2005.
Lt. Col. Murray Starkel, the Corp's deputy commander in New Orleans, said the reinforced gates will protect the canals against a surge during a Katrina-like storm that might occur once every 100 years.
That once-in-100-year-event has become the Corps' minimum standard for New Orleans' flood protection.
"I think the inner portion of the city of New Orleans is better protected than it has been in many, many years," said Jerry Sneed of Louisiana's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. "Is it at the 100-year storm level? Not yet, but it will be in the near future."
The other side of the river is a different story.
About $285 million in improvements on West Bank levees and floodwalls won't be completed for another year.
That system will only meet standards set more than two decades ago, said Gerald Spohrer, executive director of the West Jefferson Levee District. Reaching 100-year storm protection will take at least three more years, he said.
The West Bank, much of which lies south of downtown New Orleans, is at greater risk than the rest of the city because it is more exposed to the Gulf. It came through Katrina relatively unscathed only because the storm jogged eastward just before landfall.
"The West Bank is still vulnerable," Sneed said. "Our biggest fear is that people who live on the West Bank of New Orleans and didn't get flooded think that they are home free in the event of a storm."
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Republican California Supreme Court Declares Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional
CNN reports that California’s Supreme Court has voted 4-3 to overturn a ban on gay marriage approved by voters in a 2000 referendum dubbed the Defense of Marriage Act. CNN said the ruling was a surprise, because the court has a reputation for being conservative and six of its seven judges are Republican appointees. Subsequent to the 2000 vote the state legislature passed two laws which aimed to make it easier for gays to wed, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both. CNN quotes him as saying he will uphold the court’s decision and will not support a proposed constitutional amendment pending before the California Secretary of State which would overturn the court’s ruling. Excerpts from CNN's report follow:
The California Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage Thursday, saying sexual orientation, like race or gender, "does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights."
In a 4-3 120-page ruling issue, the justices wrote that "responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation."
"We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples," Chief Justice Ronald George wrote for the majority.
The ruling takes affect in 30 days.
Several gay and lesbian couples, along with the city of San Francisco and gay rights groups, filed a lawsuit saying they were victims of unlawful discrimination. A lower court ruled San Francisco acted unlawfully in issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said he is "profoundly grateful" for the decision and for the court's "eloquence" in its delivery.
"After four long years, we're very, very gratified," he said.
Shannon Minter, attorney for one of the plaintiffs in the case, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, called the ruling "a moment of pure happiness and joy for so many families in California."
"California sets the tone, and this will have a huge effect across the nation to bringing wider acceptance for gay and lesbian couples," he said.
Neil Giuliano, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, issued a statement saying, "Today's ruling affirms that committed couples, gay and straight, should not be denied the duties, obligations and protections of marriage. ... This decision is a vital affirmation to countless California couples -- straight and gay -- who want to make and have made a lifelong commitment to take care of and be responsible for each other."
A constitutional amendment initiative specifying that marriage is only between a man and a woman is awaiting verification by the secretary of state's office after its sponsors said they had gathered enough signatures to place it on the statewide ballot. The parties cannot appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Herrera said, as federal courts do not have jurisdiction over the state laws. "This is the final say," he said.
In a dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Marvin Baxter wrote that although he agrees with some of the majority's conclusions, the court was overstepping its bounds in striking down the ban. Instead, he wrote, the issue should be left to the voters.
In 2004, San Francisco officials allowed gay couples in the city to wed, prompting a flood of applicants crowding the city hall clerk's office. The first couple to wed then was 80-year-old Phyllis Lyon and 83-year-old Dorothy Martin, lovers for 50 years.
"We have a right just like anyone else to get married to the person we want to get married to," Lyon said at the time.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom called the ruling a victory not just for the city "but for literally millions of people. ... What the court did is simply affirm their lives."
CNN's Ted Rowlands reported that "huge cheers" went up in San Francisco when the ruling was announced.
"There can be no doubt that extending the designation of marriage to same-sex couples, rather than denying it to all couples, is the equal protection remedy that is most consistent with our state's general legislative policy and preference," the ruling said.
"Accordingly, in light of the conclusions we reach concerning the constitutional questions brought to us for resolution, we determine that the language of Section 300 limiting the designation of marriage to a 'union between a man and a woman' is unconstitutional, and that the remaining statutory language must be understood as making the designation of marriage available to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples."
Newsom compared the ruling to the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Virginia case overturning that state's ban on interracial marriage.
"This is about civil marriage. This is about fundamental rights," he said.
Episcopal Bishop Robinson Will Travel to the Lambeth Conference, Wecome or Not
In an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show, openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson says he will not be disuaded from voicing that God calls everyone to his table, even if it means still facing death threats for doing so.Robinson laments that the Archbishop of Canterbury has not invited him to the Anglican Communion's upcoming Lambeth Conference. But he confirms he will sit outside it to talk with anyone who's interested in speaking with someone who's unashamedly gay and unashamedly Christian.
Bishop Robinson says that one reason that he will enter a civil union with his male partner is that he wants to afford them and their grown daughters the full protections that the law allows, especially if anyone who wishes him dead should prevail.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Hillary Pilloried--Rightfully--for Tauting Support from "White Americans"
It took a few hours, but Hillary Clinton is now getting widespread criticism for her interview with USA Today on Wednesday crowing about how well she is doing among "white Americans."
Evidently the phrase was not Clinton's originally. At least she attributed it to an Associated Press article. If so, the Associated Press used bad wording for an even worse idea. For Clinton to make the words her own was a disservice to the country, not to mention her party and her campaign.
CNN posted the story on its website about noon yesterday. It attracted numerous comments there, most of them critical of Clinton; but it was hard to find any reaction in other media outlets.
Today that's changed. Almost 24 hours later, the story on CNN's site has almost 1,200 comments, still predominantly critical. But more significantly, MSNBC this morning posted a piece entitled "Clinton: Playing the Race Card?" It includes lengthy quotations criticizing Clinton's remarks from the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and conservative Republican Peggy Noonan.
Noonan's take is particularly scathing: "If John McCain said, ‘I got the white vote, baby!’ his candidacy would be over. And rising in highest indignation against him would be the old Democratic Party. To play the race card as Mrs. Clinton has, to highlight and encourage a sense that we are crudely divided as a nation, to make your argument a brute and cynical ‘the black guy can't win but the white girl can’ is -- well, so vulgar, so cynical, so cold, that once again a Clinton is making us turn off the television in case the children walk by.”
Noonan added: “‘She has unleashed the gates of hell,’ a longtime party leader told me. ‘She's saying, “He's not one of us.”’
This should be the last straw for any supporters Hillary had left. She needs to leave the stage before her desperation becomes any more pitiful.
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