MSW on Chicago | National Catholic Reporter

MSW on Chicago | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: I would hope that politics is not considered at all.  Rather, I would hope for consideration of a local candidate over transfering someone into was is arguably the most prominent Catholic diocese in the nation. I suspect that Francis will agree on putting in a sheppard, not a bureaucart, although if he does transfer someone in, lets us hope it is not Olmsted, Finn or Nienstedt (and Heaven forbit, not Rigali).  Tobin might make a nice choice.  Whomever is chosen, I would hope he knows that managing hospitals is not his job (especially if they get with the program and respect the rights of gay spouses as next of kin), nor second guessing the principal (in DC and suburban Maryland, six staff oversee all the schools).  Catholic Social Services also does very well on its own.  I suspect an issue that will get attention is the willingness and ability to execute the Dallas Charter - given that our Nuncio is known for his muckraking and this is the area, more than finance, where such talents are necessary.  Oh, hands of the universities as well, they are already top notch.

Winright & Tait on Gaza and Just War Theory | National Catholic Reporter

Winright & Tait on Gaza and Just War Theory | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: This analysis only holds up if you call Gaza a separate nation, which it is not.  While it is true the Hamas rockets caused concern - hyped up by Israeli civil defense, the fact that they did not kill but one person in Israel (and possibly more in Gaza) did not justify the response made, which is essentially trading live fire for fireworks.  The rocket launches were not the first part of this episode.  The sealing of Gaza's borders upon the election of Hamas (or was it earlier) ranks with the Siege of Warsaw in its violence to a captive population WITHIN a nation.  This may be a civil war, but it is not a war between nations (unless Israel and everyone else allows the recognition of Gaza or all of the Palesetinian territories as a separate state. Luckily for Gaza, there are tunnels which are more likely used to get the food in rather than do what would be suicide attacks.  The question is whether the blockade is meant to bring Gaza to submission (for what, I am not sure) or to just exterminate them so that the settlers can return.  Either way, starving your own population has to be a crime under some aspect of international law.  It is much more applicable than just war theory.

Boehner's Impeachment Dilemma | National Catholic Reporter

Boehner's Impeachment Dilemma | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: The attempt to brand Obama as illegitimate goes back to campaign 2008, when the GOP had to get messy because all the background research that had been done for the year was aimed at Hillary.  The internal e-mails in the campaign were did not border on racism, they were racist.  I was on a constitutional convention Yahoo group in those days and for some reason they thought we were all Republicans, which is the furthest thing from the truth.  That carried over into the meeting of the disloyal oppossition on Inauguration Day, when the GOP leades got together in McConnell's office and he stated that nothing would pass from the President's agenda.  Of course, quite a few things did pass, from Stimulus to Health Care to Financial Services Reform and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  Even after 2010, the President's tax agenda was passed by Boehner in the House by ignoring the Hastert rule - which further radicalized the Tea Party after being beaten on their signature issue - keeping all tax cuts in place, especially for the wealthy.  Several debt limits were passed as well, along with funding bills, mostly Omnibus ones, although the new budget act, which contains spending caps making the need to pass any annual budget optional, it also included a sequester - although those limits seem to hav been suspended, which is good because these things always destabilize the government.



Still, not much more has been passed, although many of the executive orders don't require legislation and many of the executive actions, like giving the EPA authority over greenhouse gases, were judicial in nature.  The one thing that did not follow that pattern was the suspension of the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act.  Opposition to this action seems strange considering the GOP has made its signature move constantly voting to repeal the Act.  The reason they have not is the Senate.  More about them later.  The actually issue is that during the comment period for regulation on the mandate, many in industry had objections to how the regulation would work - although the problems are probably with the law.  Indeed, the biggest fix would be to exempt young people who are covered under their parents plans from being considered in the count used to determine whether a business is complaint.  In those industries, such as fast food, retail and cinema, where most of the marginal workers are covered by their parents, such a change would eliminate most of the potential expense of the mandate.  While some adult workers, like me in a cinema, would have to be covered it would be a small price - although I am sure that there are those who would argue that no part time worker should get that kind of benefit.  Such a view is wrong-headed, because health care is a right, not something to be earned.  Marginal workers not otherwise covered are the reason we needed reform in the first place.  The reason there is a regulatory problem leading to the delay is because the House simply refuses to consider constructive changes in partnership with the President.  If they were to help with corrective legislation and promise to vote for it, delaying the mandate woujld not be an issue.



Does Boehner want impeachment?  No, not any more than Pelosi did on Bush and Cheney, even though getting the latter in the docket of the Senate would have been more than justified.  Still, there is a group of people who just have not gotten over the Nixon impeachment and resignation.  They are the group who did not like John Kerry throwing his medals into the reflecting pool and who went after him when he ran for President.  I am sure everyone remembers the Swift Vote Veterans for Truth (nice Orwellian name).  They were the right wing conspiracy that went after Clinton, with no luck in the Senate.  Does the name John Birch mean anything to you?  Yes, them.  They were lying in wait for Mrs. Clinton and were surprised she lost the nomination and were responsible for the nasty racist and close to racist e-mails (which you can still find in the NationalConstitutionalConvention06 group in Yahoo (although it might have been the Liberty Districts group - but it certainly flooded my in box and yes, Bircher was in the from line.  They were the core of the Tea Party, with funding by second generation Birchers, the Koch Brothers.  I suspect the whole Benghazi scandal that never was is laying the ground work for impeaching Mrs. Clinton, should she win the White House.  Why lay in wait for her?  She helped get Nixon.  That, and the Birchers want an impeachment for an impeachment, especially as they are in the process of getting old and dying (although I am sure there are young Republicans waiting in the wings, but they just won't have the history that the current crew has.



Why is this doing on?  As everyone knows, to rally the base.  Of course, the Virginia governors reace just concluded showed that the Democrats have a model to use this fall, provided they get the bodies and the money to put it into action.  It will likely overcome the GOP, so they need an edge.  Of course, the spectacle of Obama being tried in the Senate will likely turn out his normally mid-term shy base in droves - playing into the Democratic GOTV stragegy already in play.  They wish to try him for what is arguably settled law on his power to faithfully excute the laws passed.  It will likely not stand up in the lawsuit Boehner is filing, let alone the Senate (the votes are not there, just like in 1999).  Of course, the law suit will take time, so the GOP is betting on organizing for big wins in the Senate, but the math for a constitutional majority just is not there and they may still lose the ten or eleven votes in the House which would make the question moot.

Summa 2.0 | National Catholic Reporter

Summa 2.0 | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB:I don't think many study the Summa in its raw form in college or even minor seminary, although it is interesting to do so provided one is aware of its flaws, especially having to do with women as malformed males.  Moderns don't traditionally mention his discussions of Astrology either (his mentor was a white magician, Albertus Magnus - with magnus referring both to his greatness and his miractles). In other words, taking him at face value is risky unless one has an eye for anachronism.  I wonder how his work would fare a the hands of the CDF?  Still, not Catholic collegiate education is complete without Aquinas.  Indeed, it is really the only reason to go to Catholic school (aside from finding other marriage minded Catholics and the availability of Sunday Mass - or of course going on to study Theology at a Major Seminary).

CAP on Social Security Report | National Catholic Reporter

CAP on Social Security Report | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: The only out of control entitlement the right wing never seems to mention is interest on the debt, which is paid to their donors, as well as others who use it as a stable financial instrument.  Of course, they don't mention it because the appropriate remedy is higher taxes on the rich.  As for Social Security, some changes are needed.  The Employer contribution should be credited equally to all workers, not as a match to the employee levy (which might be better dispensed with) and it should be funded by a consumption tax (with no cap) - a Value Added Tax if we keep the same program and a Net Business Receipts Tax (on employers, not transactions) if we wish to have offsets for personal retirement accounts holding employer voting stock - not some kind of index fund which makes management less accountable to anyone while subsidizing brokerages who process the trades.  Selling internally means no fees to process and the eventual end of Capitalism as workers control the means of production - all without a revolution.

War, Then & Now | National Catholic Reporter

War, Then & Now | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: World War One was started by an anarchist from Serbia, so it became a war of nationalism.  Unlike the Americn civil war, it spread and unlike that war - and the wars and revolts that also happened in the 1860s, solidiers dug into trenches rather than bravely forming a line and shooting at each other.  That war gave us our first Marxian revolution (sort of - Marx would not have picked feudal Russia as the place most likely to achieve spontaneous industrial revolt of the Proletariat - and indeed, that revolution was not that.  It also saw U.S. troops in Russia fighting the Reds and losing when Russia opted out of the conflict because of its revolution.



Most importantly, it saw the destruction of the Ottoman empirie, leading to the Balfour Declaration and the possibility of zionism and the French expulsion of the Hashemites from Syria - a direct cause of the current middle eastern conflicts. ISIS is better understood as a revolutionary group, although their success seems limited to current territorial gains - although their goal of a global Caliphate is still delusional and will be until they recognize the hier to the Prophet as the legitimate Caliph - King Abdullah of Jordon who should rightly rule from the Lebanon to Iraq, as well as any Palestinian territory carved from the West Bank and Norhern Israel.  Such a Caliphate would end ISIS and Hezbollah or incorporate them into regular army rather than as milita forces currently filling the gaps in civil society (making them kind of a Muslim Tea Party).



As for Gaza, its a hot mess and has been for seven years, when the settler gang (stealing land from other people is a criminal activity) used public action to seal off Gaza after they were expelled.  Gazans should be treated as Israeli citizens and arrests should be made if necessary - however blowing up the houses of those arrested is not Kosher and is a violation of Torah.  So is the bombing of Palestinian civilians when the rockets that Hamas sends don't really kill anyone, except by accident.  You don't murder children when someone essentially sends fireworks in your direction.

ACA Hits 20 Million | National Catholic Reporter

ACA Hits 20 Million | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Numbers are never news, problems are.  Sadly, there are items that require legislative correction that won't be addressed because of the intransigence of the Republicans and their donors.  One of these is employer mandate - which needs language to exclude workers who are insured elsewhere,  say, through their spouses and parents or Medicaid.  That would limit the problem the low wage worker industries (restuarants, theaters, etc) who need coverage and give it to those who need it but still don't have the money for the individual exchanges. A second area is the language on subsidies for exchanges that is in legal dispute.  Third is the situation of families like mine, where one spouse gets health care for themselves and possibly the children, but who cannot afford adding the other spouse - due to money or their pre-existing condition or the imminense of divorce. In many cases (like mine), the total family income is too high to get a subsidy and the second spouse cannot afford insurance because they have no job or a minimum wage job whiled not being eligible for the subsidy.  The ability to split a family without making it official by one person moving out may not be feasible for the uninsured person would make it possible for more people to get insurance.

Coulter Slams Dolan | National Catholic Reporter

Coulter Slams Dolan | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Ann is an idiot.  Dolan speaks out BECAUSE he believes in God.  Coulter is afraid that this issue will take Catholics out of the GOP.  She wants the Republican bishops to behave.  The joke is on her.  Its on the bishops too, who need to look at whether they themselves are being used as useful idiots in the pro-life movement - which many believe is more about electoral politics than the unborn.

Michael Stafford on Immigration Crisis | National Catholic Reporter

Michael Stafford on Immigration Crisis | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: These are the usual quotes, although whether Jacob and his family turned into Cecil B. De Mille's cast of thousands or a large extended family who went to Mt. Horeb to worhip is a matter for archeology and the archeology says the latter.  As for Jesus' journey - that may be one instance which was put in for the symbolism - the fact that there is no evidence of the martyrdom of the innocents is telling.  Still, the right wingers may be convinced by such rhetoric but are more likely to be moved by how bad their little outbursts polled.  These little domonstrations are not spontaneous and I would hope that their funders are not entirely tone deaf.  Now is not the time to politicize this issue - although doing so has drawn attention to the fact that many of these children are being railroaded out of the country - even if their family is here.

Archbishop Chaput at Napa Institute | National Catholic Reporter

Archbishop Chaput at Napa Institute | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: I had been wondering when Archibishop Chaput would speak about Francis.  He seemed to be MIA.  That his speech was to Napa is no surprise nor is the last of an enthusiastic tone.  Still, it was honest.  Now, whether he honestly is coming out to show he is on-board in order to get his red hat or not was not discussed by MSW, although I would not doubt that. I suspect that cleaning up the the Archdiocese' abysmal performance on child sexual abuse (with one Monsignor now serving in jail) will have more impact on this question.

Julia Young: History of U.S.-Mexico Border and RC Efforts | National Catholic Reporter

Julia Young: History of U.S.-Mexico Border and RC Efforts | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Interesting bit of history, although I would have liked to have her call them Mexican-Americans, which they were from the second that New Mexico, Arizona and Texas were made part of the United States.  The immigrants were the white settlers.  The discrimination, which continues - though without legal sanction - is largely because of racist guilt that every colonizer exhibits - and we are a nation of not only immigrants, but also colonizer.  Sadly, the racism came about because the legal theory was that Mexican Americans were white, and therefor were not covered by the 14th Amendment equal protection clause.  It took a Supreme Court case and that start of the expansion of the meaning of that Amendment (the kind that Justice Scalia fights against) that in short order protected contraception and abortion - and later consenual sodomy and soon marriage equality.



The Pro-life Catholic Bishops have a mixed record on that issue - it would throw out all the privacy provisions and some of the equal protection ones (even though those same provisions give at least legal, if not physical protection to the Church in the Deep South - particularly in Alabama).  The Amendment has also helped undocumented immigrants, who have an equal right to assistance and education, despite numerous attempts to stop them.  At least there, the Church has been supportive.  Sadly, there are Catholic nativists now - including those who never quite accepted the American citizenship of Mexican-Americans - even though they likely call themselves pro-life.

Phil Lawler's Amish Culture | National Catholic Reporter

Phil Lawler's Amish Culture | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: I remember this issue - it involved services to immigrants under federal contract including referral to abortion services when human trafficking is an issue.  The Hyde Amendment does not apply here, becauce trafficked women who are pregnant are assumed to be raped.  This provision was not part of the old contract and the Church sued (and lost) when they did not get that particular human trafficking services contract, even though Catholic Charities was the best performer on all other measures. I've also hear of the Virginia Beach Catholic Charities office - probably on this contract - have an employee actually drive a refugee to an abortion clinic - which shows that the workforce and the hierarchy are not always on the same page and this is one area where ambiguity is not allowed. The answer, however, is not to get out of contracting in pursuit of social service (indeed, it should be expanded to include Catholic Charter Schools and Catholic Vo-tech Charter High Schools), but to instead be active during the comment period in stating that the abortion piece must be part of a separate effort.  Of course, the Church would still have to cooperate with that contractor or that contractor would have to devise some way of interacting with immigrant clients in another venue, say a medical exam (provided it is not at a Catholic hospital).  Its a serious issue, but it does not require disengagement - but active engagement on this issue.

Paul Ryan's Anti-Poverty Plan | National Catholic Reporter

Paul Ryan's Anti-Poverty Plan | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: If MSW means by wedge issues that Republicans are favoring the Democrats over gay marriage then that would be news indeed. Actually, the Log Cabin Republicans were in the vangaurd of this issue early on.



As for Ryan on poverty, any speech to AEI does not inspire awe. I am glad he is concerned for the poor (he has to be as a Catholic), but lets remembr that the EITC and enterprise zones are standard Repbulican proposals, although the former is way too complicated (as a boon to tax preparers) and the latter is one of the President's active proposals, which was news because Jack Kemp did it.  The real news would be Ryan supporting the Obama initiative.  Additionally, The idea of one stop for assistance is not old. Alexandria, Virginia and presumably the state have been doing it for years.



What would be revolutionary is to pay beneficiaries to make up deficits in education while paying them a generous child trax credit (and pay the same to workers through their employers) with that pay.  Ending TANF and Food stamps are good ideas, as long as they are replace by unencumbered payouts.  As for Mediaid, I would end it for the poor and instead fund the agency providing the training to add the clients to the same plan the employees get.  Now this would be anti-poverty according to the Golden Rule.



I also saw a part of the piece on the O'Donnell show.  The fact that he gave it a sympathetic hearing pretty much is all that needs to be said about how MSNBC is as biased as FoxNews.  While they are reflexively Democratic, they justify their positions with fact.  As far as engaging Ryan, the Democrats won't (except for the fact that Obama has done most of what Ryan is saying to do, I know, I filled out the form for aid) engage because Ryan is not brining anything forward - at least not this year.  I suspect that this speech was to remove the fear of thim becoming Ways and Means Chair after his disasterous Randian plan to cut Medicaid made such an appointment less credible.  If anyone is engaging him on the issues, it is I - and I'm a Green.  Perhaps this is where you should look for new ideas.  The Democrats are about to join Hillary Clinton in an embrace with the Democratic Leadersip Council (actually, she's already a member).



MSW, if you want to engage anyone with answers in the fight against poverty, then take a look at my paragraph starting with the words "What would be revolutionay..."

In Praise of Naps | National Catholic Reporter

In Praise of Naps | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: I work and blog at night, so I am not sure what is normal sleep or napping any more.  I guess I will find out when I go back to a real job.  I used to nap during my lunch break when I had a private office, but those days are long gone.  Maybe they will come back.  It used to be, when offices became non-smoking, that you would get a smoke break.  A nap break is not so far off and is essential for carbohydrate addicts and people who take meds with food (prozac nation strikes again).

Pope Francis Meets Sudanese Woman Spared Death Penalty for Apostasy | National Catholic Reporter

Pope Francis Meets Sudanese Woman Spared Death Penalty for Apostasy | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: For those waiting on the details of the meeting, they are, though originally meant to be private.  That all keep it private thing never worked for the Master either.

Dolan Comes Out Swinging | National Catholic Reporter

Dolan Comes Out Swinging | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Good show to Cardinal Dolan.  The only way he could have improved it was to say that he was ashamed that any pro-life people were in the mobs shouting at scared women and children (just to be clear, wishing poor children ill is very anti-life - if legality is your thing then abortion is legal too) - and to really go over the top, if he is a Republican, to condemn them as well as a group.  The comments in disagreement were amazing.  It is sad how people cannot tell the difference between immoral and illegal - or that it is better to break the law when the law is an donkeys hind-end.  Also, kudos to the Maryland Catholic Conference, including Archbishop Lori - who could also do a little Republican condemning for effect.

Sen. Rubio at CUA | National Catholic Reporter

Sen. Rubio at CUA | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: I would not expect Rubio to offer proposals. That is not the job of a junior Senator of the minority party, even if he is testing the waters for President.  He has bought into the Kool-Aid that the people are buying his personality, not his future self (and, frankly, most of what a President does has nothing to do with his or her stated position - the job kind of throws itself at you - like the Ukraine crisis which was not on the horizon in 2008, or even 2012 or 2013).



Most issues are outside what a President can do.  Gay marriage is one of them.  With the exception of a few judicial activists on the right, no one a modern President appoints will vote to overturn Roe - not even Alito). Gay rights is another one of those. All of the federal courts which have looked at the issue have supported marriage equality.  Period. While a Republican president could reintroduce a constitutional amendment overturning it, it is unlikely to get much support - especially because the House Democratic Leader is from the Bay Area.  The only option is to support a call for a constitutional convention - although public opinion is shifting so fast on this issue I doubt that two-thirds of the state legislators will join the call (unless Citizens United is also on the menu - of course once it gets going, a lot of things could get on the menu, which is why state legislators never quite get a all complete).



The question is, how did the audience respond?  That is the most important thing in determining the success of this kind of meet and greet.  Was a web page announced so people could sign up to help online or to "connect'? or did somone take names and business cards?  (to be old fashioned).  That is how you know if these things did well.  If there was no such call for supporters, Rubio is a rank amateur raking in speakers fees.



As far as Obama, how he is doing depends on which echo chamber you are in.  MSW seems to be hanging with those who think Obama's term is all but over - which is almost never the case in year six of a presidency.  If the Democrats can win the House, which is possible depending on GOTV, then he will get much more done in the last two years than he did the middle four.  While those who exepct him to be a theologian might not like that, those of us who voted for him will.

A Solution on HHS Mandate? | National Catholic Reporter

A Solution on HHS Mandate? | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: I'm sure that the White House thought that Hobby Lobby would lose on standing issues.  Once they did not, it was really to late to address this further.  As you may recall, the web site launch was in process.  I am quite sure religiously includined employers in closely held companies will simply be treated like religious employers on this matter.  I doubt any "objection notice" will be required - the insurance companies will simply provided coverage automatically when told that the particular policy won't include contraceptive coverage.  I am curious, of course, as to whether Hobby Lobby's existing policy covered contraception with a co-payment.  I know CCUSA did because we used it.  The ironic thing is that the solution essentially says that after all of these objections, no blasocysts have been or will be saved by the Fortnight for Freedom and all of its related lawsuits.

Kate Gordon on Border Crisis | National Catholic Reporter

Kate Gordon on Border Crisis | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: A heart wrenching story that is undoubtedly repeated every day, although now Honduran children are added to the mix.  Unlike the tragedy of Isaac, there is now a law to at least consider the cases of these children, as signed by President Bush.  Still, more is needed, although I can't see this Congress (either side) doing it.  Sadly, the Democratic Senate bill is so draconian already that it does not include much room to make things worse.  The better answer is to simply drop all restrictions and get rid of right to work laws.  That will have the effect of Food, Inc. no longer hiring undocumented workers - because it can't keep them as slaves in the shadows of work camps or company trailer parks.  Immigration for work will decrease, but it will increase for humanitarian reasons - which is not a bad idea either.

Partisanship & the Courts | National Catholic Reporter

Partisanship & the Courts | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: If it were not for Republican blackmail in the Senate - and the lack of DC Senators, there would likely be no Republicans on the DC Circuit and certainly not enough of a majority on any panel that could have let this decision fly.  It will surely be reconsidered and therefore not rise to review by the SCOTUS (unless a more Republican Circuit, say the 5th, considers the issue).  It may get to the Court if there is not enough controlling law for the Circuits to use as precident.  Sadly, this case would not even exist (nor any potential cases on abortion) if the Republicans in Congress could proceed along tradition - which the Federalists venerated over liberty and equality but the Tea Party seems to have forgotten.  Corrective language on this issue and others, such as what is to be done when one worker in the household has insurance but does not cover the other spouse, who has a job that won't and a personal income that can't afford it, even though the combined income disqualifies any subsidy.  The judicial system may handle relief on errors to language, but only congressional action can fix subsidies in a divided marriage. While there is hope that few main stream Republicans were beaten in primaries, neither was there a wide-spread purge of sitting Tea Party reactionaries.  I would not advise holding ones breath until there is a change in the GOP.  Hopefully the general electorate will offer us relief.

Religious Liberty Abroad: Where is Obama? | National Catholic Reporter

Religious Liberty Abroad: Where is Obama? | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Let me warn you that this Journal is a bit of a right wing, anti-Obama, rag which I will not be joining the e-mail list of any time soon.  I did not spend too much time on what is a highly technical article, rather, this is a more free form piece on the need to have that post at all.  It is in the spirit of Jonathan Swift, except that none of my questions are satyrical.



Appointing a religious freedom ambassador is dicey for a mostly Christian nation with enlightenment roots (while God is mentioned in the founding documents, Jesus is not).  Would not such an ambassador have to stand up for the rights of the Muslim Brotherhood against the militarty and those in Egyptian society of a more, need I say it, Englightenment view?  Or are we only defending the rights of englightened Muslims who reciprocate by respecting the righs of Christians? Would a religious liberty Ambassador stand up for Gays being persecuted in Russia or the rights of the Patriarch of Moscow to initiate such a persecution?  What about the rights of the C Street Family to offer policy in Uganda to execute, or at least persecute, homosexuals?  Would the Ambassador stand for the freedom of the Oranges in Ulster to have marching season go forth as planned?  Or the rights of the IRA to bomb them? What about women is Saudi Arabia?  Do the Wahabi leaders deserve the religious support to keep them under the patriarchy?  One would think North Korea would be an easy case, but if the veneration of the Kim family is almost, if not entirely, religious (akin to Japanese Shintoism), should they have the right to persecute Christian interlopers - as Hobby Lobby has the right to not pay for contraception?  As you can guess, the answer is no.



We need to make sure that Americans are protected if they get into trouble, but even then, Christianity started as a religion of martyrs.  If our martyrs rely on CNN and the United States to not give their lives in witness to Christ, then maybe certain Wahabi are right, that Christians are really not longer able to witness for Christ with their lives.  If some people are expecting the Rapture at any moment - what sense is it to die for the Lord?  I suspect from reading my copy of Revelation that most, if not all, modern Christians will be subjected to that long period of trial and martyrdom if this really is the end times.  The Jews and Romany may be raptured, but the rest of y'all will have demonstrate your allegience to the Lord in ways a bit more uncomforatable than shouting down immigrant children (like that's not a mortal sin), gays, women and the President.

MSW on Marsden | National Catholic Reporter

MSW on Marsden | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: An interesting review of what is likely an interesting book.  Book reviews, of course, are dangerous because for some it is an invitiation to buy the book and for the rest it gives us enough information not to but to talk about it anyway.  That part of the Enlightenment - Encyclopedias, Journals and Cliff Notes lives on.  Indeed, every generation of political scientists, sociologists, historians and those who simply take those courses as an elective are exposed to the Enlightenment and will take from it what they find useful - especially if they study Grid Group Theory - which puts all political, social, economic and religious thought into perspective.  Indeed, the birth of sixties radicalism came in the fifties.  While some Evangelicals think of the Fifties as a Golden Age, I suspect that even outside of campuses, the roots of the Sixties were part of the Fifties.  Conservatives might have liked Ike, but Ike like the Autobahn - and when it was done the mobility of the Sixties were possible, as well as an expansion of the federal financial system that made Medicare and the Great Society possible.  FDR had a long run and he changed everything and Ike did not change it back.  Sadly Reagan tried is best in the 80s, but even those changes will not be permanent.  When Marxism was under attack under Senator McCarthy, his self-congratulatory witch hunts forever ended the chance of another Red Scare and made campus radicalism possible. More, not less, is possible on that front as we Occupy America.  As for Culture, let us not forget what was originally called "race music" and shortly became the dominant cultural form for self expression that we of a certain age call Rock and Roll.   Do I need to even mention that teens and collegiates really were having sex in the 50s?

USCCB response to LGBT nondiscrimination order worse than expected | National Catholic Reporter

USCCB response to LGBT nondiscrimination order worse than expected | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Let us be clear that this is not from the USCCB as a whole.  As far as we know, there was no national call-in or e-mail vote on this position.  It is the work of two staff and two bishops and I suspect the RNC was contacted before anyone else in the Church was involved.  MSW deals well with the culture was issues these bishops seem to be dealing with, so let me hit some additional points having to do with the press release.  The release first opposes executive power over the bureaucracy.  This is simply ignorant.  They talk of opposing this order, but it is in final form.  While they can, of course, challenge any adverse actions against Church agencies or institutions, there is no place for a general challenge.  The USCCB has no contracts with the Federal Government, so they have no standing.



As I mentioned yesterday, most Catholic organizations are in compliance with this order, including not raising a stink when a gay staff member gets married.  I suspect that usually there is a gift involved.  While Fr. Larry of CCUSA is the servant of diocesan Catholic Charities organizations, he has no policy control over them. Still, knowing many of the directors, they are not likely to go on a witch hunt for either closeted or openy gay employees - and this bridge was crossed by Catholic hospitals long age.  Schools may be a problem, but they get little in federal money aside from grants from the U.S. Department of Education.  This will most likely affect grants not given or even not applied for and if there is a problem, the Order may be modified to deal with it before a law suit can be filed.  Even if it is, it would be a suit under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (which can also be repealed), rather than the First Amendment.  It is as likely that by the time any case would get to the SCOTUS, there will be a Democratic Congress and White House - a more liberal one than the last time, and ENDA will pass, with amendments to RFRA, cutting any suit off at the knees.



On the Church's central comment about the order not distinguishing between sexual attraction and sexual conduct is a head scratcher unless they want government employers to be come the sex police.  Some suggest this may be about the eventual nationalization of marriage equality and the right to deny benefits to gay spouses.  This is totally indefensible, because Church employers have, to date, not denied benefits to heterosexual employees married civilly - marriages that the law recongnizes by the law but doctrine does not.  This is about bigotry, pure and simple.  Of coruse, the other possibility is that they are making this distictinction to allow gay clergy to be counted as not discriminated against while they continue to reserve the rigth (which they don't use) to discriminate against gay laity.



The last bit is about transgendered employees and bathrooms.  It is hardly enough of a reason to oppose the Executive Order.  Such matters are usually worked out with those using the bathrooms in question, not by a lawsuit by the bishops against the White House.

'Wake-up call for Catholic hierarchs' | National Catholic Reporter

'Wake-up call for Catholic hierarchs' | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: While Philadelphia and Kansas-City were clearly in violation of the Dallas Norms, this third strikes dots the i's and crosses the t's on whether they are enough or something more stinking is necessary.  Considering that Bishop Finn has not been fired (are they waiting for him to get a prison number?) and Cardinal Rigali seems to have disappeared, I think enforcement needs to probably start at the top.

On Immigration Crisis, Bishops Do Us Proud | National Catholic Reporter

On Immigration Crisis, Bishops Do Us Proud | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: They seem to be speaking with one voice and the correct voice - and at least those who dissent for their feelings on Obama remained silent our of respect for their brother bishops.

USCCB & LGBT Non-Discrimination | National Catholic Reporter

USCCB & LGBT Non-Discrimination | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: As promised, President Obama extended employment non-discrimination to gay employees of federal contractors. This is a Church issue because it gets contracts and grants from the Catholic Hospital to Catholic Charities to Catholic parish schools - although the last are a vanishing breed except among economically elite parishes - with poor parishes often becoming charter schools.  Also kept was the right of the Church to use religious membership in hiring decisions, although in hospitals and even Catholic Charities, it is not a right the Church often exercises.  I am hoping that the Church does not resist that form of employee non-discrimination - indeed, I doubt many hospitals and charitable organizations actively discriminate against gays and lesbians so this will change nothing on the ground.  Indeed, schools likely have their share of gay teachers and principles.  Indeed, some of them are priests and sisters.  It would be rather inconvient to reactively fire lay employees for a characteristic found among consecrated and ordained (they may even be dating).  I know that those who are reacting to the Church's child protection problems might look to a gay scapegoat - but that is simply not so.  Most abusers are, like most of the population, heterosexual.  I am amazed that MSW does not bring up the topic - however I suspect some in USCCB might.  That would be sad, because they have made clear for years that discrimination based on sexuality is wrong, from employment to housing (that would be the last frontier - but one the movement should work on harder). Its screed on gays being objectively disordered is hogwash, as was its teaching in the Council of Trent about concupescience (taking pleasure is sex).  If straigth and gay priests could marry, you would see both teachings quickly withdrawn.



As for the President's motives here?  I suspect this was written by the lawyers, who decided that repealing the Bush Order on religious hiring would be picking a fight.  Does the President care about the Catholic bishops?  Probably not so much, since he is not Catholic and because he has advisors from Catholic Charities, USA and Catholic Health Association whose members are much more directly impacted (the Bishops are titular heads of Catholic Charities - however these agenices are as much beholden for federal requirements and funds as they are to the Bishop - I for one would like to have the people in the pews demand that Charities organizations be indpendent - given how the bishops tend to mess up much of what they touch administratively). As for Obama on marriage - my bet is that he cares not at all what the Bishops think on this issue - constitutional law trumps that.  When he ran originally, he did not want to be seen as some Chicago liberal with a gay agenda, which would hurt his support with the black churches.  It was his Catholic Vice President who got him to publicly change his mind and it did not hurt that Mitt Romney was his opponent when it came time for black churches to turn out the flock for 2012.  Since the black churches have few federal contract dollars, this should keep their enthusiasm going for 2014 - else Valerie Jarrett would not have let him do this.  As for Obama replealing RFRA if the Democrats win the House?  I doubt it, although some corrective legislation might be in order.

'Moral Scandal of Hunger' | National Catholic Reporter

'Moral Scandal of Hunger' | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: That people are hungry is not the only problem - that the public solution gives both inadequate nutrition (especially for the obese who need to be off carbs, not forced to eat them, and that the process of seeking nutrition is humiliating and long goes to what the Church shoud be talking about in its social (ok, political) message.  Our society needs to make sure each child has an additional $1000 a month support over the base parental income - both for the poor and the better off.  Until then, hunger will have a stigma.

Wilton Channels Pope Francis | National Catholic Reporter

Wilton Channels Pope Francis | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: No, he is channelling Christ and has been as long as I have known him, way before Francis was elected.  He also has the same humility.  He is one who would be a good Cardinal - maybe Phili's former red hat.

Time For Nienstedt To Go | National Catholic Reporter

Time For Nienstedt To Go | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Oh, yes, Niestedt is a hypocrite on dealing with Brokeback Mountain (my Aunt Peg is an old lady in New Ulm and I think she suspect she liked the movie), but that is no surprise when he is hiding.  We'd all like to see him get in line behind Finn to retirement and unless the question of jail arises, there is no reason to move either man (although it does for Finn).  When Burke was on the Council for Bishops, I could see him taking a Sedanoist line about Church prerogative.  That neither has been removed is probably due to that as anything.  Maybe new appointments in the conference will act more quickly, because I cannot imagine the Nuncio dragging his feet.  The question is likely what do do with them.  Sending them to Rome would be sending them to to join the ongoing orgy in the Curia.  That is no punishment.  Hence the delay.

Mazzenga at CACG on Immigration | National Catholic Reporter

Mazzenga at CACG on Immigration | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Very comprehensive.  If you need source material, look here.

Great Profile of Richard Land | National Catholic Reporter

Great Profile of Richard Land | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: This is another one where I ask "Why?"  After that first paragraph on the Martin's murder by George Zimmerman, I found reading further to be a waste.  Unless he donates half his retirement savings to President Obama's library, there is nothing he can say that I wish to here - same for the folks he represented until they say Uncle on issues of equality and diversity.  When my ancestors helped found the Anabaptist movement, assuring him the right to continued error was not what they had in mind.

Meyerson on Anglo vs. European Economies | National Catholic Reporter

Meyerson on Anglo vs. European Economies | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Harold got it right, except for not noting the influences of W. and of Cameron on their fiscal houses, with Obama also embracing austerity - mostly because default was the other choice - and for not mentioning the influence of Social Democrats in Germany and Northern Europe and the occassional Socialist in France.  Workers have better compensation overall, as do families and the vacation is rather good.  Here, one whiff of socialism and the main steam media goes nuts, while FoxNews goes into full combat mode.  If we want the other changes, change this perception first.

The Pope Francis Haters | National Catholic Reporter

The Pope Francis Haters | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: The picture with the article says it all, with Mr. 1950s in his suit nursing a headache.  The Church does not look like that any more.  That according to Longenecker, some conservative prelates think that Francis is the false prophet of the end times demonstrates how widely St. Malachy is read in Rome.  They certainly don't see him as Peter the Roman, who is that false prophet - but Peter will lead a rump pontificate in counter-revolution and be killed as Rome crumbles (according to our Lady of Fatima's 3rd Secret).  Some are disturbed over Francis saying "who am I to judge?" while forgetting that the person he is not judging according the to reporters question, is a gay member of the Curia - who are legion at the Vatican.  So deep is their self loathing that they want aboslution, not understanding.



Longenecker would have the anti-Francis faction remember that the Pope cannot change doctrine or moral teaching.  We liberals would disagree.  We rather hope he would, in response to the moral sense of the faithful on certain issues.  Indeed, moral teaching is always for the moment - it is never exactly the same one generation to the next as the culture is always changing - even in Rome.  The current generation of educated Catholics do not concede that natural law is curial monopoly - indeed, it cannot be if it is the product of reason - which must change with new evidence - and the one thing that has changed the most is our understanding of ourselves.  Canon law must respond - as MSW notes that it has with time without admitting that change should probably be in the offing soon.



Longenecker's second point is to essentially insult Francis by saying he is not the equal to Benedict and John Paul.  Many of us on the left actually think Francis is superior.  It took a bullett and tumors to bring John Paul into the kind of personal holiness that is already apparent in Francis.  I suspect many conservatives gave Benedict a pass for his economic encyclical (or blamed it on staff) because of his remarks on gays being disordered while at CDF.  I suspect that many on the right, including in the Curia, really miss the time under both popes where they were infirm so that they had free reign to do things like move the goal posts on aid to the dying to try to back Jeb Bush's play to keep poor Terri Schaivo alive.  I don't think this Pope will stand for such nonsense - indeed, his group of nine (he counts himself as a member) is going to profoundly change curial authority.



Longenecker's thrid point is that Pope's come and go.  True, but changes to the Curia are permanent and the Curia will be changed by this Pope.



Longenecker's fourth point is that our faith is in Jesus, not the Pope.  I think Francis would agree. Which is what makes him truly dangerous to the egotists of the Curia.



Longenecker's fifth point is about the times - not the moral times but the Internet age.  He says that while some hide behind formal statements only, Francis does not.  A good thing.



Six, Longenecker reminds us of the media culture for our views on Francis to an extent.  Yes and no.  He needs to remember that he is part of the media too.  Luckily, much of the media speaks pretty acurately of Francis - which I suspect is why the right wing is going crazy.



Seven, he blames the Pope's origins in Argentia for his economics (I say that its about time) and about the Devil.  Yes and no on both - as his family of origin is from Turin, Italy.  This Pope is as Italian as most Popes in our history.  He also compares this pope's roiling of the hierarchy to Jesus. Interesting point in contrast to suggest number four.



Eight, Longenecker says we need not worry about everything Francis says.  This is true and applies to the other Popes as well - although the whole disorded thing about gays by Ratzinger is going to be hard to shake, but shake it we will.



Nine, Longenecker reminds us of the univerality of the Church - that it is a big place and the true Church.  Yes, but some will certainly feel the pressure when the Group of Nine concludes its deliberations and begins action.



Ten, Longeneecker asks conservatives where they are going to go.  Ironically, I know some liberal Catholics worshiping in living room Churches using the Norvus Ordo Mass in the old translation.  Egalitarian organizations are great at making sects and some likely will go elsewhere if we grow closer to Constantinople and adopt a more Orthodox governance structure.  There will be a rump Pontificate and that anti-Pope's name, again, will be Peter and that will be it for the Roman Church. But not because of Francis.

Ain't Nothing the Matter with Kansas | National Catholic Reporter

Ain't Nothing the Matter with Kansas | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Brownback at least understood that the revenue boom of 2013 had its genesis in the capital gains and dividend tax increases of that year, which had investors cash out their gains in 2012.  He even got away with it the first year.  He thought it would keep going - but that is never the case with booms.  Indeed, most Republican governors had the same idea - rather stupidly and I bet the American Legislative Exchange Council put the thought in their minds.  Brownback forgot who he works for and that is what is the matter with Kansas and the rest of the ALEC states.  No doubt he thinks if the jumps through enought hoops, he is presidential material in 2020 (no one will be running against Clinton, possibly except Palin and Christie).  We would hope that Kansas puts Brownback out of our misery, but as red as it is, I would not bet the farm on it.

Crisis: Immigration or Indifference? | National Catholic Reporter

Crisis: Immigration or Indifference? | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: This is an appalling situation, but it was created by Coyotes seeking money from families by lying to them about the decision not to repatriate children who would otherwise have qualified under the Dream Act, which languishes in Congress.  I agree that the Secretary was being unartful in his presentation and I am sure that children whose parents are already here WILL be reunited with their families. This is a situation, however, where recognizing ambiguity subjects more children to a long and dangerous trip and young women to rape as part of the fare.  For the sake of the children, the message should be do not make this journey alone or with a coyote.  Period.

In Alabama, Guns v. Bibles | National Catholic Reporter

In Alabama, Guns v. Bibles | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Voter intimidation is hard without a side arm, although I am sure that unless the pastor is also carrying, some of these parlor pinks might try to intimidate the messenger of the Lord.  Heaven help a  preacher who goes off message if the congregation comes loaded for bear.

Obamacare & the Tarheels | National Catholic Reporter

Obamacare & the Tarheels | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: This depends on who votes.  Granted, the GOP has put in obstacles, but there are many who are about to go into the breach.  I trust they will win, because it is too early to call it just yet.

Pope Francis, the Environment, & the U.S. | National Catholic Reporter

Pope Francis, the Environment, & the U.S. | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Actually, Einstein supplanted Newton on certain aspects of gravity (claiming it moves at light speed, while particle physics seems to have been found a particle that moves simultaneously with its mate, making instant faster than light communication possible.  The point is, no matter who believes what in physics or science, the answer is deeper.  The data makes it likely that global warming is at least in part man-made, and the same folks have models indicating bad times ahead, however there is also data that shows 1000 years ago the temperature was a lot warmer on both the planet and the northern hemispher, with Baffin Island, Newfoundland and Greenland all useful to my Norse ancestors for agriculture.



That there are still resistent factions on both gun violence and warming have to do with entire industries that will be adversely impacted once the dominant theory is more widely accepted.  The only thing American about that is Capitalism and the freedom to buy a microphone and use it.  Wheher it is a good or bad thing, it is a right.  (That First Amendment can be pain when not used to attach birth control).  That is not libertarian, it is liberty itself. The whole drivel about Americanism and libertarianism from MSW is getting rather old, as is anything he has to say about scientism (he seems to contradict himself).



The Pope recently spoke about exploiting the earth, with a quote from Senator Santorum witha  more dominionist bent.  MSW expects an environmental message to have the same reception among conservatives as the economic message.  Probably a good guess.  Pope Benedict raised both issues in Veritas in Caritate and the conservervatives either went nuts or ignored him.  Of course, the focus here is not as much what we do in the States as what we also do to our south.



The nasty thing about enviromental degradation (different than simple extraction) is that it is called a sin.  It is also a sin that we all share as consumers.  MSW calls for Divine grace in the face of sin.  I am all for that and for calling for Divine guidance in following an alternate path.



What MSW failed to do was detail the sin.  It is not against some vague principle of environmental wholeness or against some tree someplace.  It is against real people, always poor people, whose environment is directly poisoned by extraction (look at Appalacia and coal or the Chinese who live near where computers are deconstructed - who also do the decontructing - and who are poisoned by it).  Look also to those who live a simple life on the coast of the ocean who may have no high ground to escape to when the sea levels rise - or the poor of the Indian subcontinent who face similar dilemnas.  Now, the bright spot is there are rich people with beach condos who will also lose their vaction property - however, they are insured so they lose nothing.



My point is (and I'm sure Francis makes it too - or will) is that the victim is not the planet, its people and the crime is still capitalism, which puts getting rich before people where at all possible.



How do we get out of it.  Shift to better materials and processes and grow our own food and recycle our water indoors for each family, lest some idiot decides that birth control or abortion are solutions to our economic and environmental problems.

Virtuous Capitalism? | National Catholic Reporter

Virtuous Capitalism? | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: There are certainly plenty of the rich and shameless.  For every one of them, however, there are many who are quiet millionaires and billionaires who live quite lives, some in non-descript homes.  There simply are not 30,000 people living lavishly.  The issue of wealth may or may not be about Capitalism, by the way.  All those lovely rich people like the Kardashians and the headline performers, even if they have great homes, do not have an army of people working to produce products in their name (although some do if they are in fashion - although they likely license their approved designs - which may even be designed by others - to a capitalist companty that does all those nasty things that capitalists do to the poor.  Sadly, people can be personally frugal and still be cooperating in system that steal a portion of the wages that the workers should be getting, channelling through management to their own pockets.

Kudos to Governor O'Malley | National Catholic Reporter

Kudos to Governor O'Malley | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: He is correct - however Obama needs to send a message that they stop coming - as well as uniting the children here to their parents as soon as possible, irregardless of immigration rules on either deportation or due process for the kids.  Most importantly, he needs to find out how much his own government helped cause this crisis.  That O'Malley did not use this as an occassion to attack Hillary is both gentlemanly and may be quite stupid - he is now in the position that he must, if he is considering running, put together a crew to rival the CIA on intelligence on current affairs.

Happy Bastille Day! | National Catholic Reporter

Happy Bastille Day! | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Was it that bad for the Church to treat them as part of the corrupt system they supported?  I am sure it was bad for the hierarchy and that they certainly laid down on the job the following century in taking the Church to the people with joy.  The real tragedy is that the legend of the revolution is still lost on most of the hierarchy, who still own their benefices rather than transferring them to some kind of modern non-profit structure that can still be tapped for paying for the sins of the Clergy.  The whole free thinking thing is also still lost on the Church, including many of its apologists like MSW.  Until natural law and free thought are always part of the same sentence, Church based natural law is a fraud.  As for Le Marseillaise, it should ideally be played with The International.

Religion & the Founding: MSW's Wrap Up | National Catholic Reporter

Religion & the Founding: MSW's Wrap Up | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: It is very true that there is no way to convert (not baptize, it is already baptized) the founding as a Catholic project.  Indeed, I an surprised that none of these authors mentioned Freemasonry.  Indeed, it is not like there is no source material - especially on Washington's membership in the lodge and their involvement in his funeral rites (the notion that he became a Catholic on his death bed, by the way, is absurd).  That there is an attempt to Catholicize it now over birth control is insane - there is no other word.  Indeed, the Church is still fighting ideas of free thinking - especially on natural law - rather than imposing a monopoly on it - on homosexuality and the role of women.  Indeed, their inability to take the impact on their own authority out of reversing themselves on contraception is what have us Humanae Vitae and its ugly sister Evangeliicum Vitae.  Frankly the Church should be afriad of the ideas of the founding - they would likely include the local appointment or even election of bishops (even the Anglican model would be an improvement) and a congregational view of Church property.  That fear that someone will take away their stuff - that they will be reminded that you cannot serve both God and Mammon, surely keeps them up at night - and will forever make them fear American ideals - which would improve them greatly.

This is big: Woelki to Cologne | National Catholic Reporter

This is big: Woelki to Cologne | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Interesting.  I suspect the Pope is getting some of the obstructionist Cardinals out of Rome until he can accept their resignations.  Of course, for the Cardinal to show up and begin working on tolerance issues (another Deistic and Masonic term) is an interesting sign indeed of the Pope's intentions.  I suspect the younger Cardinal may have a future in Rome one day.

2 More Views on Immigration Crisis | National Catholic Reporter

2 More Views on Immigration Crisis | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: The first article was the link to the previous post, which may be an oversight.  We will see if he posts it again. As for Dr. Charles K, I never read his drivel.  While pre-columbian America had its share of wars, so did pre-columbian Europe - one last 100 years and another for 30. What Charles refuses to acknowledge is that for the past 100 or more, the USA has been the author of most of the authoritarianism in the region.

MSW on Immigration at CACG | National Catholic Reporter

MSW on Immigration at CACG | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Intersting analysis of the current crisis.  A must read on how and why it evolved and the part our foreign and trade policy (past and present) is the cause - including the current administration (whether the President or even the Secretary approved is not mentioned).  Of course, I doubt Issa will hold hearings on that issue.

Religion & the Founding: Holmes' 'The Faiths of the Founding Fathers' | National Catholic Reporter

Religion & the Founding: Holmes' 'The Faiths of the Founding Fathers' | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: This seems to be an interesting book. I had not known my five times great-grandfather John Wing Allen's cousin Silas was a Deist.  Of course, John's great-grandfather, Ralph Allen, was one of the original Quakers.  John was not, however, as his mother was Rebecca Wing, who was descended from the founders of Anabaptism both here and in England.  The family religion, when it was created, were Disciples of Christ (First Christian Church - who even before Vatican II tried to emulate the faith of the disciples - the one before Constantine made Orthodox Catholicism an organ of the Empire. So, no, Elizabeth was not the first.  Indeed, many Catholic potentates of her time extracted from Rome the ability to appoint bishops - Phillip II of Spain being one of those.  That this happened in America is no shock.  The shock is that it stopped.



As for our Founding Fathers' Deism - it seems like a public face for membership in Freemasonry.  Unlike today's Shriners, there were mini-cars and hospals. Indeed, it could be argued that the Lodge was a way to operate covertly during the Revolution.  Of course, it was not only the leaders who were Masons.  My mother's family were, as you see, religious chamelions.  Indeed, before she met my father and become Catholic, my mother bounced around religions with her parents (that's what Protestants used to do, based on economic class - although now people usually stick to one faith).  What was constant, however, for the men, was the Lodge (and White Shrine for the women).  Deism borrowed from that as anything else.  I suspect that the Deistic first mover and master builder (sounds like Aquinas) was also the All Seeing Eye.  The question then arises, if they wish to invoke the founders, do the Bishops wish to join the Lodge? (0h, as for the terror, that was egalitarianism run amok, not Deism.  The killing fields of Camabodia are the same phenomenon).

NYTimes Ed Board Channels Emily's List | National Catholic Reporter

NYTimes Ed Board Channels Emily's List | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: I suspect that Wheaton College, Hobby Lobby, Catholic hospital and college employees will soon have a limited rider, possibly from the insurer they currently have, providing the with contraception coverage, from basic pills to IUDs and Plan B.  Whether taxpayers will have to kick in for these riders is TBD, but they will occur.  What Wheaton objected to, and probably sitll objects to, is the form of the opt out.  One could construe it as permission from having to fill out a form - knowing that this leads to coverage anyway.  You know what?  That is simply too bad.  There is no possible way that any of them can not be involved in the process and that the process will not lead to their employees getting contraceptive coverage.  They may take quick comfort from winning the case, but Wheaton is right - they are still a part of the process that such coverage is provided - and even if some way could be provided to soothe their consciences (about what is unclear, embryology is clear that they are wrong about the begining of individual development - which is still at gastrulation no matter how hard they scream, stomp their feet and have Fortnight's for Freedom) - the fact is that no Blastocysts were or will be saved for all this sound and fury.  None, Zero, Nil.



As for the countless businesses that might opt out - most won't and indeed, most are one person firms that are really employees (some retired) of their sole client. They will be covered as retirees or under the Exchanges and will have contraceptive coverage accordingly.

Hillary's (& the Dems') Identity Crisis | National Catholic Reporter

Hillary's (& the Dems') Identity Crisis | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: The Democrats ties to Wall Street are a function of wanting to get elected and have a healthy financial sector.  Obama reigned them in, but he did so in order to save them.  Whether they reward him with donations to his presidential library is an open question.  The rest of the country is a bit more restive and is taking up a much more socialistic train. The Republicans won't so at least some faction of the Democrats will.  They should be able to deal with the contradiction - unless the GOP's bumbling on immigration turns it into a minor party - which will cause its business sector to join the DLC Democrats and the Tea Party Sector to join the Libertarian Party, although the demographics are awful for them becoming a long term party.  Still, this will destabliize the Democrats, causing the true lefties to split off (and picking up some Greens and Libertarians).  Because it is a younger coalition, it will survive and become a second party - maybe even the winning party.  I don't suspect Hillary will be joining the younger party, although if she did it may prove victorious.  I doubt, however, that this will occur in 2016.  2020 is an entirely different story. I don't think HIllary has what it takes for two terms, so she will be spared the decision.

Religion & the Founding: Curran's 'Papist Devils'' | National Catholic Reporter

Religion & the Founding: Curran's 'Papist Devils'' | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: It is troubling that Catholics settled in West Indies during the period of slavery, Carroll's discrepancy in the number of slaves important and existing probably owes to a slave market and slave mortality.  That is being in for a pound rather than a penny.  That the Calverts set up manors in Maryland is equally troubling. It is no wonder that the anti-hierarchists included religion in their drive for freedom. The attacks on Catholicism were not so much against peasants as hierarchs - as well as any attempts to deny freedom of religion to non-Catholics in their employ.  As for Guy Fawkes, he was a revolutionary who wanted the freedom to persecute Protestants. That makes him no saint.It is interessting that Charles Carroll could enter public life only as part of the Revolution.  More evidence that the troubles Catholics had and have are cultural (due to their hierarchism) than theological.Indeed, had Fawkes succeededm, he would have been as murderous as Blood Mary.  This should prove a lesson to current Catholic bishops - however it falls on deaf ears.  Not every Catholic is or wants to be a hierarchist and it is past time to undo the hierarchy's feudalistic role over Church property.  While their teachings on birth control are still wrong, they would at least be less suspect.  That goes doubly so for ordaiing women to the priesthood and episcopacy.  That would improve the ability to preach the Gospel of Life, but the would probably have to do so without contraception.

Gay Groups Back Off ENDA, but Why? | National Catholic Reporter

Gay Groups Back Off ENDA, but Why? | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Agreed, it is failure to bring the case or insist on the law that has made this struggle go on far too long - both for ENDA and Marriage Equality.  The truth is, they could immediately initiate law suits in all states with a marriage protection law and amendment  and win them all - including and especially in Virginia.  Doing so would not strain their finances, because you get paid when you win.  Winning in all places forecloses any Supreme Court case tghat could undo it and would cut off at the knees the symbolism of a loss at SCOTUS that could be thei impetus for a constitutional amendment nullyfiying equality - which has no chance of passing anyway.  While some religious groups might benefiit from an ENDA exemption or use the RFRA to justify one, the Catholics probably could not do so with a "straight face" given its large population of gay priests (albeit mostly celibate ones).  Of course, the cynical argument is that victory on ENDA and Marriage essentially makes them an enforcement law firm or even ends their ability to keep their doors open.  Sad.

Those 'Pro-Family Values' Republicans | National Catholic Reporter

Those 'Pro-Family Values' Republicans | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: People usually just have on partner go without.  My wife's insurance can cover two of us for her salary (sadly, no rules on that in the ACA).  I tried getting insurance through the exchanges and could not due to my wife's income.  Given my current income, I could probably get Medicaid if I left and lived in a shelter.  Of course, if I had a better job, which I likely will, the issue goes away.  Still, both problems need to be dealt with in the law.

A Rising Magenta Millennial | National Catholic Reporter

A Rising Magenta Millennial | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Good for Elizabeth for essentially defending the pro-choice position - or at least the middle position - that the most important factor in abortion is economic.  Sadly, her husband's simulation is not enough.  The amount in tax provided subsidies (including subisidiens through paid training or college) is two to three times that - at $900 a month.  A thousound wold be better.  Of course, when you get to these levels, you have conservatives responding with calls for personal economic and sexual responsiblity - but with abstinence, not birth control or abortion.  That is it the ugly side of the pro-life movement no one talks about.  We should.  Loudly.  Sadly, the Church has not been too useful in pushing hard on the economic side, demostrating that coalition politics and attempting to end the right of privacy through a SCOTUS ruling is actually more important to them than stopping abortion (since if economics make it rare or not, there won't be many clinics left).

Religion & the Founding: Bonomi's 'Under the Cope of Heaven' | National Catholic Reporter

Religion & the Founding: Bonomi's 'Under the Cope of Heaven' | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: I suspect that criticism of the middle colonies as faithless is the result of continued bigotry against the Society of Friends (why my family was part of in New England).  As far as the emergence of individualism in religious thought, it likely mirrored the economic individualism caused by the development of urban infrastructure.  Then, of course, you have the whole discussion of you did not build that!  The governmental infrastructure possible when you are not building log cabin homes, trying to find food and killing Natives is ot to be underestimated.  Suddenly, who holds the control of Connecticut is an actual issue.



The extent that reglious questions are important in that legislature is the extent to which they are part of the politicization of life - and because such questions are not really important for governence, the degree to which they are divorced from politics - making securarism a good thing which the Bishops fail to grasp, having not had that experience of the founding movements - including the link between Crown and Miter.  They certainly have blinders on the issue of how bishops from England raised the mentioned anti-catholicism. Of course, this wold ruin their baptism of the founding - which was baptized, but not by a Catholic priest.  Still, the starting of committees of correspondence was in interesting development - which now seems to be duplicated by the Internet.  This explains the religious wars of the web sites - and the bishops mostly ignoring it hoping it will go way.  Not a chance.  Nor wil they adopt the role of dissent in protestant religion - more is the pity.  The rejection of liberation theology is enough evidence of that on both the religious and secular sides.



An interesting book for those who are followers of American political thinking (hope it is included in such courses).  Still, without a book about the history of the Masons in America, the picture remains incomplete.

Our Feckless President | National Catholic Reporter

Our Feckless President | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: MSW's new line is certainly belies the belief that NCR is reflexively liberal.  Perhaps he is looking for a spot at the National Review.  Talking about opportunity rather than equality of results is a very American thing - although I doubt it will change the minds of many Republican members of the House, the Senate or their constituents who don't seem to be able to get beyond the whole black thing.  Abetting those fools is a scandal.  As for immigration, a hard line is probably what it will take to get the word out that the Dream Act does not include minors sent by coyote or on their own. What he should really do is first find out where their parents actually are and return them to them.  If the parents are here illegaly they probably need to leave to - unless we can pass an immigration reform bill that allows all to stay.  The point is, there should not be a process delay to return children to their families - family reunification should trump process here.  Of course, if things are looking really good for a new House with a new majority, perhaps a little caution might be nice.

Niebuhr on Divestment | National Catholic Reporter

Niebuhr on Divestment | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: This Tablet is hardly objective on this issue, as a quick look at the masthead will tell you.  Sadly, it adopts the false equivalence found in much of American Jewry that equates Judaism with the state of Israel.  When Rheinhold died in the early 70s, the extent of mischief by the IDF in the Territories was not well known and was probably regarded as the pains of settling in - possibly for something temporary. We know different no.  As I have previously written, there are many options for the West Bank and Gaza, ranging from full integration with what must be a secular Jewish state to partition (to include the North) to semi-partition under the current inertia where the Arab majority has lesser rights - with those in the territories having none.  That last bit sounds like apartheid to me.  The Presbyterians have offered Israel and its friends a wonderful opportunity to examine where it is going and do something different.  Defensiveness from either within and without does not help Israel at all.

Religion & the Founding: Bailyn's 'Ideological Origins of the American Revolution' | National Catholic Reporter

Religion & the Founding: Bailyn's 'Ideological Origins of the American Revolution' | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: It is interesting that Locke is still cited by followers of Henry George, who are also known as Geolibertarians (which also refers to their environmental bent).



I suspect the Whig language was not just for domestic consumption.  It likely carried the day in Parliament.  Indeed, it was a change in government from the Tories to the Whigs that ended the possibility of a new counter-offensive against the American army - which may have indeed succeeded and produced a real insurgency period.



There was not much room for Catholics in the phampletry, however their Navy helped secure the victory at Yorktown which ended fighting in the south and held it at bay in the north.



There is no libertarian heresy - heresy is a preversion of doctrine.  The libertarians could care less about such things, although they are not above speaking to the pro-life language of the rights of the unborn in order to sustain the Republican coalition. (Neither Rand Paul or Paul Ryan is pro-choice).  Of course, that is enough for the Bishops to glom onto the writing of the revolution - even though it does not apply to Catholicism.



The pity is that Masonic pamphletry does not survive or remains hidden - although I am sure many pamphlet authors listed were lodge members.  That fact alone would make the bishops run and hide from any association with the Revolution - though the fault is not in the Masons but in the Catholics who, like MSW, reject anything that glorifies people thinking for themselves.

Flores & the Consistent Ethic of Life | National Catholic Reporter

Flores & the Consistent Ethic of Life | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Democrats are quite willing to defend the unborn child by increasing wages and the child tax credit enough so that no woman would ever think of an abortion for other than health reasons.  Sadly, when this gets brought up, the Republicans start talking about personal financial responsibility.  Additionally, Democratic Catholics have been quite respectful to the hierarchy on this issue - rather than explaining exactly why Roe cannot be repealed on jurisdictional grounds (it would kill privacy and equal protection - which while the hierarchs would like that - America would not) - and on how the equal protection problems of passing a first trimester ban are largely insurmountable (having to do with making children doomed to be miscarried a legal person).  Sadly, the Democrats are not so good on immigration either.  All of the punitive measures in the Senate Bill need to be stripped out, with citizenship eligiblity (after taking the normal tests and being fluent enough in English) after seven years of residence.  Its a mixed bag either way.  Parties that take money will reflect the established interests - including and especially Food, Inc., which likes cheap labor that will work in bad conditions and has no option to seek out regulatory help without deportation.  A consistent ethic of life would take such deportations off the table.

Silk on Moral Equivalence in Israel & Palestine | National Catholic Reporter

Silk on Moral Equivalence in Israel & Palestine | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: One would hope that when someone, presumably a settler, gave evil for evil, everyone would take a step back and call for common humanity.  I don't see it happening yet - it is a gift to be prayed for.  Calls from the West for just the Palestinians to stand down are also unworthy of comment - unless they make the same calls to the settlers.  Sadly, the solution is not even close.

Libertarianism of the Left | National Catholic Reporter

Libertarianism of the Left | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: She was not making a liberty argument at all (except maybe about her sexuality).  She was making an equality argument.  Most private insurance covers abortion - of course in many of these cases, women still go to Planned Parenthood and pay their $480.  Indeed, you are more likely to subsidize an abortion by ordering a Big Mac than paying your taxes.  As far as mentioning the child, I doubt she thought the embryo inside her was a child just yet.  Expecting her to mention the child in such circumstances is silly - if it had been a child in her mind she likely would not have had an abortion.  I would not have expected such a mention unless the child was found to have bad chromosomes, could not survive until birth and she could not get an abortion anyway, even if she hypothetically did not want one, because Hyde has execeptions for mother's life but not mother's health.  (It is generally agreed that if a termination is necessary, earlier is better).  I can see why the pro-life movement would want to enlighten people on the humanity of a child in the first trimester (not necessary in the second) - however having that enlightenment include a ban on the procedure is not feasible, because during that time embryos spontaneously abort as well - you can't personify one without personifying  the other - and personifying the other is a legal nightmare (unless you are a right to life ambulance chaser).  Sadly, the people who want to criminalize the former never seem to talk about the woman.

Religion & the Founding: Linda Colley's 'Britons' | National Catholic Reporter

Religion & the Founding: Linda Colley's 'Britons' | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Protestantism is not one religion - but several (even if the Curia calls them sects and not Church's - the kind of deliberate insult that keeps Protestants fired up).  That the religious change dovetailed quite nicely into rivalry with the French is a happy accident.  Britain had become mostly a republic and France was anything but.  Additionally, while the Church of England was tied up with the state, the French Church was part of the problem and supported the subjegation of the peasants.  While there were still lower class Brits, there was no longer an absolute monarchy.  Having freedom in politics and freedom in religion were thus tied together in Britain - although the freedom of religion had some problems, which is why my progenitor, George Allen, came to the Plymouth Colony and why his son, Ralph, became a Quaker.  As intersting was the participation of one of my family, the Earl of Arundal, in the Fawkes plot.  Probably another reason we are here.  An interesting battle in the Church of England was an English bible.  Until King James, you could be burned at the stake for such a thing.  Once the Bible was in English, however, Rome really began to fume and eventually followed suit.

Jobs Report Better Than Hoped | National Catholic Reporter

Jobs Report Better Than Hoped | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: The reports should simply say what is happening.  It is good that the economy is starting to get better - that work delayed due to the sequester is finally getting out.  These numbers, including the first quarter, track what I have been experiencing.  Of course, some of the poor jobs numbers in the first quarter have to do with fear of Obamacare and the prospect of giving insurance to workers who are seen as less productive than what the insurance would cost.  Of course, some of those firms hire people who are in school and covered under their parents insurance anyway.  If this loophole is put in, we won's see the same slowdown in hiring and employment we say earlier this year.

The Religious Leaders Letter to Obama | National Catholic Reporter

The Religious Leaders Letter to Obama | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB:I am all for religious exemptions that prohibit the state from requiring churches to perform gay marriages.  The Church as minister and the Church as employer are different things, however.  They must behave like other employers and that means offering the same benefits and hiring.  On the Catholic side, it would be pathetic for a Church where half the priests are gay to not hire staff because they are gay as well.  This comes from fear - fear of the hierarchy and fear of less enlighted public opinion.  Indeed, if the Church is serious about employment non-discrimination for non-religious jobs, it must practice it themselves.  Th really sad thing is that this may be Republican coalition politics - which makes a last minute desire for an exemption because everyone else wants one an act of extreme cowardice.  Indeed, unless the Church wants a religious exemption to hiring people in heterosexual civil marriages (which are against are doctrine), it cannot refuse to hire peopel in homosexual civil marriages without being wide open to charges of bigotry and hypocracy. Luckily, the Church may change from the bottom up - because most Church organizations do not care about the orientation of their employees or their marriages and most families will soon demand Church blessing on the marriages of their gay children, siblings and parents.  Unlike contraception, money is involved that the Church will geek.  Hopefully someone in the debate uses some of these points - as they will win the debate.

Happy July 4th: But Was the American Founding a Religious Event? | National Catholic Reporter

Happy July 4th: But Was the American Founding a Religious Event? | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Let's start with one thing first.  Religious freedom, essentially the freedom of groups to exit other sects, especially state sponsored ones (and Catholic ones) was the essence of the original settlement and is reflected in the founding.  However, the right to religious freedom started in the US with the Bill of Rights - which while a founding movement has nothing to do with July 4th.



There is one more factor in the American founding that bears mention and that evicerates the Church's attempts to Catholicize the founding.  It is fairly obvious if you ever go to the King Street Metro station.  It is Free Masonry.  Whatever he did on Sunday, George Washington was a Mason.  Indeed, everyone who was anyone was a lodge member.  In my own mother's family, who were part of the first generation, participation in the lodge or White Shrine carried down to at least my mother, who was a rainbow girl and only left the movement to convert to Catholicism and marry my father.  I know my grandfather was a Mason and if my mother was a Rainbow Girl, I suspect that her half brother, my uncle Kermit, was a Mason - although because of divorce he might not have been initiated.



While the enlightenment (some may say illuminated) ideas of the Masons were part of the founding, it was not some ruling cabal.  It was an is a civic and fraternal organization, like the Knights of Columbus.  Indeed, the reason for the nights to exist at all was Catholic fear of masonic ideals.  Despite the pseudo-Americanist language in the Fortnight for Freedom, their claim does not hold water - you cannnt catholicize something you condemn.  What has changed is that I suspect Catholic are joining anyway and not bothering to mention it in confession (in prior years, the distrust was mutual and Catholics could not be inititated anyway) and there is now an unholy alliance in the pro-life movement between  Catholics and Evangelicals - and the Evangelicals love that Americanist language - although they were not that much part of the founding either, with many having not yet immigrated to where they are today.  Indeed, neither had that Catholics.

LUV this pope | National Catholic Reporter

LUV this pope | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Apparently our Holy Father is as unpretentious as he appers.  I feel good at that prospect.  Sadly, Turkey is not in the mix for the Cup, or else they could have bet Venice on the outcome between Argentia and Turkey.  OK, hyperbole in our modern world - however the technical parameters on the books for their offices mean it could have once been a possibility - one that sould be talked about.  That this Pope might discuss that issue warms my heart and chills the blood of the conservatives.

Great Article on Hobby Lobby | National Catholic Reporter

Great Article on Hobby Lobby | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: This commentary raises some interesting questions that I had not thought about.  His last section on the ability of the legal education establishment to influence or predict the outcome of modern religious liberty and power cases was interesting.  It says as much about the Court as it does the legal establishment - of course, with rare exemptions, Supreme Courts are always a little more conservative - i.e. behind the times. If you don't factor that in, you will miss the prediction.  Note that this was not a Catholic decision, as there were Catholics on both sides - including the one in the middle.



What is not mentioned, or is mentioned so quickly you miss it, is that the medical field was ignored deliberately.  I suspect that the members of the majority do not accept the medical factoid that the inability of the blastocyst to attach because of Plan B or an IUD is not abortion (both technically or from the point of view of the begining of individual life.  Life begins at gastrulation - although doctors usually do not make conclusions on spiritual concepts of life.  Still, embryologists will tell you that whether or not you survive gastrulation is much more important than whether there is fertilization.  While one must be fertilized, it is necessary but not sufficient.  No gastrulation also mean no you.  Aftter that point, your loss is a death or miscarriage.  Before it means you were never really there.



The key to this case is the fact that the five who decided this case appear to be not quite decided on what the embryologists say - or actively reject it because the Church does (although they go at pains to not say the latter - because if they did they would have to recuse because they would be bowing to an outside authority theat they feel subject to - which goes beyond simply listening to experts.  They also allow Hobby Lobby to act on that propostion.  Of course, the action that Hobby Lobby can take is meaningless, because a third party will likely provide the absent coverage - which means that zero blastocysts will be saved by this victory.  Seems pretty empty to me.



The moral rule, which has nothing to do with the case, bears looking at.  There is a question put to Special Ethics students in Catholic Colleges in the standard tex, Fagothy's Right and Reason: Does a person have a right to not pay their taxes to a state that permits (and even funds) abortion?  I am sure members of the right to life movement would say yes!  The answer is not.  Whatever funding is provided in taxes is so small in proportion to the whole - as is the proportion of taxes paid by the objector - that the matter is morally trivial from a direct participation point of view and taxes must be paid.  This also applies to Obamacare and wars.  Perhaps we have allowed too much in the way of conscience objections.  Whether Hobby Lobby's owners deserve to make a purely religious power statement regarding their employees health choices falls on the same lines.  While they technically (though not really) pay for everything (their customers do), their payment for any one woman's IUD (yes, lets get back to the fact that this is also a women's rights issue) is trivial to them.  They were used by the Beckett fund, probably in the context of the larger Right to Life leadership, to make a larger point that turns out to be wrong and has not impact on their business.



Sounds pretty silly to me.  The Court has made themselves silly for taking the case as well.

The Hinge of Fate | National Catholic Reporter

The Hinge of Fate | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: Gettysburg was one of those turn about moments, as was the determination to at first accept and then emancipate first runaway slaves and then all slaves in Union control - which essentially made the south collapse economically.  Had that position been taken at the start of the war (by Lincoln and his commanders), the South may have fallen much faster, regardless of battle field gallantry.  As important were the solidiers left in the South after the war to threaten the Southern Aristocracy in those cases where they tried to reinslave the freemen.  Of course, because their labor was still essential, those who stayed were in danger.  The authors of the Fourteenth Amendment tried to hold those gains, but the loss of armed pressence eliminated them as the Gentry had no love of civil rights for any but themselves.  The Mississippi Democratic primary run-off just concluded shows that in that matter, nothing has changed in many Southern hearts - and military might cannot change that.  Indeed, while automated cotton picking freed the descendents of freedman, the need to pick organges quickly for juice and slaughter chickens and hogs has led to a new lower class of undocumented migrants and the resistance to any law tht will change their fate.  And that is how your breakfast is linked to Gettysburg.