Pro-life leaders decry Senate failure to pass 20-week abortion ban

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/pro-life-leaders-decry-senate-failure-pass-20-week-abortion-ban
MGB:_First of all, with Pence presiding, they could evoke the Nuclear Option and passed with 50 votes. This was choreographed, and Dolan is playing his part. The last thing the USCCB wanted was a win because a win would have ended the issue and forced the bishops to call poverty an intrisic evil (which it is). These procedures are incredibly rare, but if this bill is fixed correctly the issue could be ended with the right references to the Constitution.

Second, this bill could have been made constitutional by tying it to the enforcement power of the 14th Amendment and by including standard exceptions for rape, incest, threat to life (already in the bill) and threat to health when the fetus is doomed to be stillborn (needs to be added). It would also have to consider all abortions after 20 weeks to infanticide, with penalties on the mother as well. Equal protection under law requires it and those who don’t understand that need to find a new issue. One final thing, an excepted abortion must be limited to induction or Cesearean or required fetal pain elimination.

Third, a bill to settle the issue would need to increase the Child Tax Credit to $1000 per child per month, which is what the USDA says it costs to properly raise the child, although it could be varied if states paid part and only up to local cost. There few abortions in any trimester if the GOP acedes to this, of course, this is where they start talking about people taking individual responsibility. How is that pro-life if such a requirement causes three-quarters of all abortions?

The most divisive president in US history champions unity in State of the Union address. What?

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/most-divisive-president-us-history-champions-unity-state-union
MGB:_Fascists like to take credit for a sunny day, which explains most of the speech, which was likely written by Hope Hicks under the guidance of the Chief of Staff, with Trump allegedly throwing in catch phrases. It then got dark. Fascists like dark too because they can blame the dark on others, especially if they can find ”the other.” Trump cannot think supplely enough to know that immigration is a fight within the GOP between businesmen who want the labor honestly, businessmen who want undocumented labor they can exploit and his fellow fascists who like to have an enemy to hate. The Democrats just pick up the pieces whenever they can get the votes.

I thank MSW and the media for summarizing a speech I did not watch and compliment those members of Congress who boycotted. They have reason too. Not only is this President a fascist, but he is an international criminal with overwhelming evidence against him, which Trump of course did not mention but will be the main topic of the Union over the next year. The only question is will they remove him this year or wait for a change of party next year, and if so, will there be enough votes in the Senate to remove Pence too and make either Pelosi, Sanders or Clinton the next President (the House can pick a non-member as Speaker).

School vouchers are not a bail-out for Catholic institutions, proponents say

https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/school-vouchers-are-not-bail-out-catholic-institutions-proponents-say
MGB:_When I went to Catholic elementary school, half the teachers were sisters. We paid their expenses, they had little cash and they lived out their vocation by working for next to nothing and paying no rent. Tuition was obscenely low and no one was turned away. Any elite status the school had (and it did) came from the quality of the education provided and the talents of the students. Many were military brats or contractor brats, so we ranked pretty well. Actually, Mary Help of Christians was the number two Catholic school in the nation in terms of achievement. Not bad for $200 per year for families of 3 or more, and it was less when I graduated.

Catholic parish schools have the same commitment to excellence, including those that are charter schools (which has been, of late, replacing vouchers). Rich, white parishes likely won’t go charter, but perhaps they should. They have become hotbeds for elite education. A wealthier clientel also means a more entitled student body and more conservative parents, which sometimes affects the life of the entire parish. That is not necessarily a good thing if the Republicans are true to form and use of Knights of Columbus and Pro-Life Committees to try to enforce orthodoxy, not to Church, but to Party.

Vouchers, charters and preferably public funding (which is possible if the Church ever has the courage to challenge the Blaine Amendments in most states in federal court) would all be good things to bring a bit of ideological diversity to Catholic life. Having school parents insist on voicing the pro-choice position would help the pro-life committees hone their arguments and abandon their relationships to the local Republican committees. We should also see some compromises on unionizing Catholic Schools. Give the schools money, let the unions organize teachers. It seems like a fair trade to me.

Lind, Dreher's debate need not descend into grudge match

https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/distinctly-catholic/lind-drehers-debate-need-not-descend-grudge-match
MSW:_Not is it not MSW's place to referee such a match, it is not our place to read about it, as in why should we care about such obscure charachters who between them probably have fewer Google hits than the members of the Catholic Left who MSW ignores? I should leave it there, but I have a streak of masochism on Monday mornings. One thing to start. The Benedict Option should be explained in the first paragraph. It has nothing to do with the Pope Emeritus. It is seeking solace in communities seperated from the world because the world has fallen apart.

It is interesting to mention the French revolution, which is the touch stone of modern conservativsm and, yes, conservatives are as afraid of human rights for gays as they are of such upheavals, especially since they have largely lost the gay rights issue, will soon lose on employment discrimination (ENDA will soon be implied by the Second Circuit within the Civil Rights Act, including for the Church) and gay priests and the families of gays will make blessed sacramental marriage a real thing in due course. Conservatives love the reactionary position. Just wait until the bishops change the Mass translation again to see how much.

As for moral degradation in civic life, we no longer have Jim Crow, busting gays bars is no longer allowed and the Catholic Church can’t send the local police after a comedian who makes jokes about the bishops. If those days were not morally degraded, there is no such thing as moral degredation. A few million online dirty movies are not going to cast us all into Hell. To those who still think Masturbation is the key issue of our time, get thee to a Therapist.

Moral degrardation is electing a fascist liar as President of the United States and his party not removing him on their own, not sparring over a book review.  That our capitalist masters are trying to use small annual bonuses ($1000 is 50 cents an hour for a year) to make us feel good about them is the extent of our rot. And yes, Dreher is a straight up reactionary. This is not about his religious affiliations. Conformity is only enforced by donors and subscribers, which is the tragedy of modern journalism, both mainstream and in the intelligencia. They like catch phrases, like religious liberty, which does not mean what they think it means (to badly paraphrase Ignio Montoya). Sadly, gone are they days when you can invite an intellectual rival for a drink and a chat.

'Higher' wages soothe the masses, expose low expectations

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/higher-wages-soothe-masses-expose-low-expectations
MGB:_Apple did a good thing, depending whether the restircted stock is enough to affect board elections or not. The WalMart is good, but most announced actions have been one-time bonuses, which if they were related to the Tax and Job Cuts Act, were likely windown dressing to hide the eventual huge dividend payouts and CEO bonuses. This is hardly socialism in our time.

Economic growth is more related to tax policy than MSW admits. Higher taxes mean that more revenue causes growth. Lower taxes, especially on the wealthy, require higher budget deficits so-that investors don’t buy garbage like in the 2000s. The tax cuts look like garbage is about to go on sale. The Clinton capital gains tax cut, which was huge, had more to do with the tech boom and bust than new technology. Again, lots of garbage was offered and most was burned. The tax cuts for the vast majority of people were small, less than 50 cents an hour. Not even enough to buy lunch instead of bringing it. The cuts for rich were obscene. They were not an attempt to buy the rich, they were a rebate to the owners of the GOP.

To correct the record, the Mayflower was heading to Virginia but ran out of beer. Those who went to Virginia almost starved as well. The Natives should have kileld them all had they been less territorial. The expansion of slavery was dreadful, as was the expansion of capitalism in the north, but the Union Army, the Union movement and the Civil Rights movement intervened on the good side. The reactionary blowback wanted to Make America Great Again, starting with the tax giveaway to the wealthy while satisfying the nativists with immigration restrictions, as we are seeing now. Its all the same thing. Even the token consumerism of the small tax cut for most is to keep the masses from revolting. Its a capitalist feature, not a flaw. The reactionary impulse also resists environmental change. Of course, we would actually have to make real change for the capitalists to resist it.

Workers are entitled to more than just a living wage. They are entitled to decide on joint consumption of everything from housing to management hired to coordinate their efforts. As a reactionary movement itself, the Catholic hierarchy has ZERO facility in this matter. It needs to follow or get out of the way. Solidarity is a nice demand, but workers deserve control and this is not coming from either Trump or the Church. Indeed, the same spirit of worker control and customer control applies to Chruch governance as well. We don’t bishops as feudal lordlings, especially when they distract from the real issues by imagining that there is anything to do about abortion that Donald J. Trump can or will solve. If Marco Rubio was the best we could do to eek up the Child Tax Credit as the Bishops stayed silent, then we are in a sorry state indeed.

Abortion and the 'muddled middle'

https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/abortion-and-muddled-middle
MGB:_This is an interesting book, however the review says nothing about the logic of Roe v. Wade, the prospects for repealing it and the conservative movement having yet another lost cause with which to turn out voters to Republican candidates. I also saw nothing about supporting additional children born to families or teens, not just with public benefits but with significant tax credits. It is a sigficant question, because at least male pro-lifers object to this because they don’t want to pay for the fertility of other families, in essence they want to regulate fertility by regulating abortion, not protect life.

The other significant question is whether the mother should be punished. The PC answer is no, but the equal protection answer is that a fetus or embryo which is given the legal status of an infant is entitled to having everyone involved in its death punished, including the mother, regardless of why she has the abortion (or who influenced her or is profiting from it, as if abortion were a profitable practice. it is not). If a line on personhood, which could be drawn by Congress under its 14th Amendment power without overturning Roe, would be where that punishment is deemed acceptable. My bet is 25 weeks, but it could be 20.
I have spent quite a bit of time on these questions this year. See the following:
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2017/12/this-year-on-abortion-and-homosexuality.html
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2017/11/how-is-life-right-letter-to-pro-lifers.html

Links for 1/25/18

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/links-12518
MGB:_The Democratic base is angry, period, because Trump is President. It made little sense not to take SCHIP and run last time. As for dealing with the Dreamers, the whole fiasco still made Trump look stupid, but that takes little effort. McConnell was still his weaselly self. Schumer needs to get sixty votes to do the Dream Act on his own and seize the ground from Mitch. The Dream program, however, needs to go. Rather, eliminate the requirement of current legal status for Student Visa, Military Service, H-1B visas and Resident Alien Cards and let people qualify as they can. It makes sense and it will never happen. The part of the GOP that liikes slave labor will never allow the change.

The concern about global warming is antropoloigcal. The planet will be fine. I wrote a piece about AI. Machines can certainly learn to ”do human” in discussion, but the melding of minds as Kurzweil suggests in a recent book is too borglike for people to go for. Davos should talk about the madness of King Donald and what to do about it.

The American government is in the pockets of oil and coal. China needs to move some of its solar cell manufacturing here and Davos should hyper-fund fusion despite long term loss of U.S. funding. This is a matter of beating the Koch brothers personally and directly. Until they are bankrupted, they will fund mischief.

On Barros, the incident in question is rather blatant, which is the problem with story. What was the age of victim? Was this a forced kiss or were they ”together?” Was there alcohol involved? This is a point where more detail is needed just to establish what happened. I will grant that Francis is a bit more pro-bishop than we need him to be but remember that Barros was not a bishop at the time. More information is needed.

Francis' comments on allegations against Bishop Barros make little sense

https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/distinctly-catholic/francis-comments-allegations-against-bishop-barros-make-little
MGB:_The accussation against Barros is a bit over the top. For it to be true, the three people who witnessed Barros witnessing an act of sexual abuse (which is not yelling at an altar boy) also had to witness the abuse. Did they come foreward at the time? The story is still too fantastic to not suspect bad intent by the so-called witnensses. I am usually hard on abusers, but not all incidents are true. If the victim said Barros was watching, that would be one thing, but four people in the room plus the victim and the abuser strains creduility, at least for Francis.When accusations start getting fantastic, the whole movement for openess is discredited.  Arthur Miller, call your office.

Links for 1/23/18

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/links-12318
MGB:_Massimo is mistaken. The modernists look at all tradition, which is why we don’t fetishize the era of Pius IX through St. Pius X. We study Paul, even though Paul was in error about the immediate return. Knowing that allows us to both appreciate and distill the truth from both his writings and the Law which he based many of them on (which came from the Exile, not the Exodus). We did not cause the anti-modernists to fetishize the late 19th Century. There were doing it anyway. Vatican II just gave them the focus that reform gives to any reactionary. We need to ignore this debate, not reexamine it and instead reexamine doctine where needed, especially regarding both Original Sin (whether is comes from disobedience or blame and what is the role in sexuality in transimitting it, if any) and salvation (whether it was punishment or vision quest). There are those of us that are examining these questions already. If any examination of concious is necessary it is in the matter of why these voices are being ignored for not having a doctoral degree or tenure. Christ had neither.
No, we have not excommunicated the anti-modernists, we let them stay in their 19th Century dream world. Technically, the entire West in Schism. Even though we are probably right about Filioque, it was not our place to declare it without a General Council including the East. Calling our Patriarch supreme is just another error, although both east and west indulge in the error of sacred continence, which is insulting to all women by implying that contact with them renders one impure to celebrate Eucharist, when in fact they should be celebrating it too. No wonder the West is rife with schism and protest, some of which is gravely erroneous, like denying the real Presence in Communion and other is just politics, like the Anglicans.

Bravo to the bishops for supporting the right to organize. Now let us see if they allow the NEA into their schools to support this right. Being on the Christian left is not just about economic justice and democracy in society. We must include the Church itself.

The ACLU is looking busy. I suspect someone with an ax to grind just got into the position where they can finally direct legal action. The law is clear so this will not go well for them. Like transgendered bathroom use, this item was supposedly settled in the 1970s.

Sister Carol is a good egg. She should be made an Archbishop. If Cardinal O’Malley can go from abbot to Cardinal, so should she. Neither being with a woman or being a woman renders one impure to say Mass. That was the essential argument. It is false. Ordain her now! Real leftists don’t just admire he leadership, they take the argument to the next level.

Thank you for mentioning the corruption of the local utility. The lack of progress is not all Trump or FEMA, much as it pains me to say it. See if you can get Maddow to pick up the story.

Roe v. Wade, 45 years later: Debate continues amid surprises, stagnation

https://www.ncronline.org/news/justice/distinctly-catholic/roe-v-wade-45-years-later-debate-continues-amid-surprises
MGB:_The March for Life is one of the reasons for stagnation in the right to life movement. Of course, there is no stagnation in Republican fundraising, get out the vote activities or in its relationship with a slim majority of Catholic bishops. They have the movement exactly where they want it, serving their interests so that they can continue to fight for the rich.

The movement itself is scherotic because it is based on the notion that Roe should be overturned and the issue returned to the states. That will never happen. The federal judiciary will never give up the power to review state legislation on due process and equal protection grounds, nor should it. While many Catholic conservatives don’t like what that means for gay rights, gay marriage and birth control, the days of Catholic power in public morality are gladly over BECAUSE of the right to privacy. No more Catholic mob rule.

State regulation would be convenient. The movement could mouth a right to life while punishing abortion as bad medical practice, rather than infanticide. Roe forces the right to life movement to accept the fact that punishing abortion as infanticide means women go to jail. That it won’t go there because of the optics shows the extent the movement is a sham.

The movement likes to pat itself on the back for what it does for women in crisis pregnancies, but the test of the movement is what it does once the pregnancy is over and people are faced with crisis childhoods because of poverty. It is here that a significant portion of the conservative men in the movement talk about being accountable for your own children and not picking their pockets to help fund the children of the poor, although popes from Leo XIII to Pius XI (who was very clear about it) to Benedict XVI that the state should do exactly that. Again, as long as movement men take that position, the movement is a sham.

Trump is just another Republican. He at least told the truth, before they caught him, about women going to jail if abortion were banned on personhood grounds. If Hillary had attacked the movement and his hypocricy rather than trying to justify partial birth abortion, which is illegal, she might not have done so poorly with the Catholic vote. Reactionaries are fine with their leaders ebracing the big lie and in looking the other way at his foibles, some of which may land him in jail. The movement has its share of reactionaries who like their King Donald, his madness and all.

While Archbishop Taylor’s commitment to a seemless garment is admirable, as well as his witness against a bloodthirsty Attorney General, his actions and remarks smack of sour grapes, which are unbecoming in any bishop but seem all too common of late. On capital punishment itself, if the alternative is solitary confinement for the rest of your life then the state is the cause of death for the convicted (and only dangerous sociopaths should ever get such a sentence). It matters not to me whether the state kills their sociopaths slowly or quickly, although prisoners like to get it over with.

Shame on the alderman who tried to use health care for the poor to pander to their bases. Sour grapes, even in response to sour grapes, is poor governance. The bad old days of Catholic hospitals excluding gay spouses are over and CHA is a force for good, especially in dealing with Bishops who pander.

I don’t oppose the unborn. I would give their families money, would ban all but induction abortions after the first trimester and all abortion save life and health at 25 weeks by having Congress declare them to be persons. I oppose the Republican party because they won’t do these things, largely because it would end the issue and ruin their fundraising and GOTV with the movement. I also oppose the Bishops who join their little game.

As a Democrat Catholic, this seems a strong position. I need not indulge the pro-life movement in their attempt to use the unborn in an argument about federalism just because it makes regulating abortion easier. If they wish to talk about the unborn people, they need to face the equal protection implications. Pick a date where abortion is infanticide and there is a willingness to apply the appropriate penalties, knowing that any time before that the unborn are not legal people and state regulation of abortions is interfering with women’s health care. There are better ways to protect life, just as there are better ways to help alcoholics and addicts than criminalizing drugs. That the pro-life movement is unwilling to dialogue on such ways is the extent of its irrelevance. It is not my job to save them from themselves, even though I have tried.

Cardinal O'Malley: Pope caused 'great pain' for abuse survivors in Chile/Francis tells Peru's bishops to have 'episcopal spirit of prophecy

https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/cardinal-omalley-popes-defense-chilean-bishop-caused-great-pain-abuse-survivors
https://www.ncronline.org/news/world/francis-tells-perus-bishops-have-episcopal-spirit-prophecy
MGB:_The allegation against Barros is that he actually witnessed an act of abuse and said nothing. That is pretty fantastic, since usually abusive priests do a better job of hiding such abuse. There is a difference between chewing out an altar boy (which is not abuse) and chewing on one. One naturally believes that someone whose feelings got hurt is claiming something worse, because I doubt Barros is voyeur.

Without seeing the file, I cannot know and the Pope probably does. Part of dealing with this crisis is not honoring false claims. This Pope has done more than most to fire bishops who did not report when they should have. Has he done everything he could? No. He is known as being as protective of bishops as any other pope. He certainly has not done anything to modernize church leadership to move beyond the medievalism of the hierarchical episcopacy nor has he acknowledged that bishops are papal appointees, so that the patrimony of the Vatican museum should be at risk in settlements with abuse survivors. Of course, if this were true, the Church would fight that much harder to keep settlements small. We certainly don’t need more legal hardball, so making these assets available must be a gift rather than an imposition, even though the logic of doing so is patently obvious.

In Peru, it is all well and good for bishops to speak out against the powerful in the spirit of prophesy, but that spirit was originally given to the people to speak out against the shepherds when needed, like in Chile. The bishops themselves need to speak out against Rome for not backstopping sexual abuse payments, as the bishops are as much of Rome as they are of Peru. Indeed, they should speak out for a change in that arrangement so that the people elect them rather than the pontiff. That would be the Spirit in action. From that would come the courage to speak against governmental tyranny rather than to co-opt it to cover the truth.

Fr. Cessario's Edgardo Mortara essay is inexcusable

https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/distinctly-catholic/fr-cessarios-edgardo-mortara-essay-inexcusable
MGB:_Relitigating the kidnapping of the Mortara boy is silly on both sides. The solution to doing so is to ignore Fr. Cesario and anyone who still carries a torch for probably the stupidest pope in the last 200 years. The good Father likely has tenure anyway, so he can’t be fired. This would have been a better day to exercise a little self-criticism of the pro-life movement and its dark alley of opposing Roe. Like it or not, you cannot repeal Roe without repealing gay marriage, et al. While reactionaries would like to go after the whole list of el als, those of us who stand against tyranny (like kidnapping a Jewish kid and making him a ward) will not stand for it. No more blind alleys, if you please.

President Trump to address March for Life crowd live via satellite

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/president-trump-address-march-life-crowd-live-satellite
MGB:_Still_valid:_http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2010/01/stop-march-for-life.html

Links for 1/18/18

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/distinctly-catholic/links-11818
MGB:_It would take a lot for the generals here to let Trump attack Korea. He would likely be removed. The situation of North Korea is for some general to gather enough courage to put a bullet in Kim’s brain, possibly in retaliation for Kim murdering a relative or friend. Neither of these ”great leaders” should be allowed to go on much longer.

As long as Wilbur Ross lets the Census run itself, things will be OK. If not, lawsuits should be filed. Better a delayed Census than a partisan one.

Dominicans usually have better sense than to write non-sense in First Things defending Pio Nono about one of the greatest stupidities of his reign. I am begining to like The American Conservative, as they don’t seem to be as reactionary as the term usually would imply.

The Deep State is code for a belief in a cabal in the permanent government that acts regardless of political direction. Those who believe in it have know knowledge of how much rotation there is in the military, civil service and government contractors or how impossible it is to keep a secret. Just looking at the public bios of the members of the Mueller team show a great number of short term jobs, including U.S. Attorney or Deputy U.S. Attorney in both Democratic and Republican administrations. The reality is that the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee are afraid of primary challenges should they do the right thing when the Mueller report is released to them for action. They are not intellectually supple enough to know that their main worry is from the left and that if they wait to remove Trump, a Democratic Speaker Pelosi will impeach both Trump and Pence, or maybe a Speaker Clinton.

The law on transgender bathrooms and abortion is pretty much set. All the Democrats need to do is mention that fact and blame the issue on Republican pandering. Sadly, it is to late to try to remove Governor Walker again, which changing the Senate in Wisconsin could open up the possiblity of. I don’t think it is all Trump. The entire GOP as been behavign stupidly of late, including regarding transgender bathrooms and abortion. Without social issues, they have no game, as by cutting taxes on corporations and high incomes, they have unmasked themselves and the picture is not pretty.

Forget Trump's vulgarity, focus on protecting immigrants

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/forget-trumps-vulgarity-focus-protecting-immigrants
MGB:_The Senate deal should still go through, regardless of the Trump-Miller publicity stunt, which is a back track of Trump’s own remarks about Dreamers, who he thought was a larger univese than DACA. Whether he is really that much of an idiot or just plays one on TV to pander to his base is only known to his staff, but the latest book seems to indicate that he is that dumb, although his doctor’s note show he may just be badly informed. If he is not badly informed, he is simply evil. We should not let him get away with it and pass the Senate compromise anyway.

This whole issue relates back to MSW’s piece on Universalism last week and why going after identity politics issues is essential. Immigration is an identity politics issue. Again, see Leo Casey’s Article in Dissent Magazine for Winter. The link is posted on my wall. African countries are an identity politics issue. You can’t get the big stuff unless you address this stuff, because they are all part of the same authoritarianism. The fact is, DACA is a crack in the wall that keeps migrant workers illegal and therefore deportable if they insist on decent wages, safe working conditions and unions. It is all part of the same whole. Our chicken nuggets and orange juice may be a bit pricier with worker justice, but to accept the status quo for cheaper food is siply sinful.

Another crack in the wall were the Saldvadorans, Hondurans and Hatians, who had legal status so could not be exploited. Capitalism has no use for them and they were only admitted because the USA had messed up their nations in its anti-communism under Reagan. I suspect someone with a grudge is pushing this from below or from the outside. I wonder who? Even if we never know, God does. If that person is not an atheist than they are a fool because causing such injustice cannot gain one the kingdom of Heaven. The same goes for Trump and any of his supporters who have half a brain.

Links for 1/16/18

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/links-11618
MGB:_DACA should not exist as a separate program, simply allow any young person to apply for a student or H-1B visa regardless of their current legality. Of course, if you do that, chain migration will make everyone legal rather quickly as their parents take advantage of their status as they move toward citizenship. The other option is to simply open the borders, which would stop coyote trafficking. The reason that employers like undocumented workers is that they can’t protest wage theft or unsafe conditions. The right-wing likes the status quo, including right to work, because it allows virtual slavery, which scratches their reactionary itch.

Michael, abortion is not an issue unless someone introduces a bill to change the status quo. It is time to attack the view that Roe can or should be overturned rather than relying on the pluralistic position of not legislating sexual morality. Also, if Catholic politicians are going to hide behind Dignitas Humanae they should mention it by name.

It would be too much to ask Dolan to acknowledge the anti-war/anti-capitalist positions King adopted later in life. There is still work to be done. Lots of it.

While illegal, releasing secrets was necessary. What Manning and Assange did that was wrong was not scrubbing the data to make sure no one would be subject to reprisal. Of course, those that are would be stopped on the border by Trump. Chelsea should not start at Senate unless she has deep pockets. She should start with Montgomery County Council At-Large. We need one more progressive to run and she would likely get the nod. Unless she has something on Ben, running against him his grandiose, although starting big may quickly end her political career, which may be a good thing.

The left needs to shed cultish dogmatism, embrace universalism anew

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/left-needs-shed-cultish-dogmatism-embrace-universalism-anew
MGB:_The Founding Fathers believed in social and economic progress as part of the natural evolution of human society. We would one day be done with slavery (not just chattel slavery but what we would call capitalism) and sexism, but they allowed the interests of property and order to have a say in government so that this progress would not come too fast. Most leftists would say they overdid it on the brakes. Madison would not be at all surprised at how things at worked out, as the main change was the size of the nation and he helped Jefferson negotiate that, so he knew anything was possible.

Madison would quietly chuckle at the abortion debate, as there is really no underlying policy dispute involved so no one has raised any options. He would be more fascinated at how whites in the south have been allowed to live for so long and then be ashamed at his role in keeping them in power. The truth is that once you showed him the Internet, he would slap you if you tried to ask him any questions. Once he found Amazon, you would not see him for years. Hopefully he would find Corey Robin’s book on The Reactionary Mind and the books by Douglass and Wildavsky, et al on Cultural Theory, at which point he would tell MSW to quit looking for truth at the Manhatten Institute and then slap him again. He’d slap Haidt too.

Robin’s book shows clearly why conservatives do what they do. Social progress is not their desire. They justify themselves by refighting their last defeat and making it seem like there is a real issue to be waged, when abortion, gay marriage and transexualism, their current big three, are essentially settled. The purpose in doing this may just be to distract progressives from seeking the kind of economic solidarity needed to eliminate capitalism and the patriarchy that it sustains. Workers cannot be made to know that they can control the means of consumption, lest they realize that management is a consumable good. Jesus would ask the same question and is, through us.

Since you briing up the idiot, the Left is going to win Congress back because of him an merely has to chose between electing Pelosi or Clinton as speaker, depeding on how many conviction votes it can find in the Senate. The GOP should see this and deal with Trump before Novemeber. This is about stupidity and crime, not ideology.

See Leo Casey’s article in Dissent’s winter issue, which demolishes this view. The link is posted on my wall. In essence, he says that racial discrimination (et al) and capitalist attacks on workes come from the same place. Right wing racial politics are designed to have white workers accept their fate in the system. Authoritarianism must be attacked on all fronts (including when it co-opts the Church).
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/perils-of-universalism-race-class-democracy-defense-identity-politics

Transgender issues next battle in culture wars

https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/transgender-issues-next-battle-culture-wars
MGB:_The legal apects of this issue have been decided for decades. Any attempt to bring it up again is an attempt by the Reactionary Right, in both the Republican Party and the Catholic Church, to look busy for the masses, especially as they are about to start losing as the families of gay Catholics insist that the marriages of their children be blessed or publicly solemnized.

More likely, this is coming up because the Republicans have both the White House and the Congress and people (especially yours truly) are making noises about using this opportunity to come to some deal on when legal personhood begins during pregnancy. The GOP knows the 14th Amendment gives them the power to do so and suddenly Transgender Issues are at the forefront. This is no accident. If you are in the movement, you are being played by the people issuing this document. If you let this distraction stop real progress, the blood of the unborn is on you.

It is also a way to take their minds off of the troubles of Trump. I am not sure there will be enough culture war distractions for that to happen, especially after Mueller releases his report. Shame on anyone, including these four bishops, for giving cover to the Moron in Chief.

Oprah for president? Don't mistake celebrity for competence

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/oprah-president-dont-mistake-celebrity-competence
MGB: Running Oprah would be the ultimate pander, but when those being pandered too could stay home again and put or keep a reactionary in the White House, it might be worth doing.  We don't need another outsider.  That was Trump and she would be no better. I doubt she has any hidden knowledge, so Ross is full of it on Gnosticism.  Oprah dabbling in the concept of meta-physics, where ethics and physics meet, is no different than Thomism, so lets look in the mirror before we throw stones. As for houses, how many residences does the Pope (excepting Francis) usually have? It is also rude to criticize someone's housing when she just missed being hit with a mudslide.

I suspect she will demure unless she can put together a higher quality staff than Trump (real wonks, not PR types like Trump did), but if she can identify a candidate who will both win (with her endorsement) and govern well, I am quite happy with her in the roll of king maker for the Democratic Party, especially if whomever is chosen can marginalize the pro-life movement as a Republican scam.  Obama did, Clinton did not, which explains the shift in the Catholic vote.  The real fight should be on worker wages and tax policy, especially a large enough child tax credit and minimum wage so that people can tell their bosses to shove it if they don't behave.  That is where the battle should be and the cause that Catholic voters should fight for, not the unlikely event of Roe being overturned.

On the on/off switch, if we can just find Trump's Mute button we could all breathe a sigh of relief.

Links for 1/11/18

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/links-11118
MGB:_God is the only Truth. Dogma helps us get to God, but it is not God. It is also concerned with the things of belief, not the things of reason and natural law. Dogmatic claims must never be made in an area where reason alone can do the job.

Someone send Trump back to Queens and keep him there, preferably behind locked doors with 24 hour nursing. Sadly, his muddled thinking is followed by senior Republican lawmakers who should know better.

Bishop Gregory is a man of peace. He is one of those people who, when you meet him, he is totally present to you, as I had the opporunity to do just before he became USCCB President. He is a friend of my (ex) wife. She got the bishops in the divorce.

Until immigration is taken up by the Office of Pro-life Activities and immigration legislation is scored that way, this is a nice press release.

The Resurrection is the only essential belief. Everything else is philosophy. The Virgin birth, however is essential to get into how Jesus thought of himself and why he reached a state of abandonment on the Cross, so I would not cast it out so quickly. While not denouncing abortion, there are two instances in the Gospel where the abortion procedure for determining adultery was not used to then stone the woman. The first was when Joseph found Mary pregnant and the second was when Jesus wrote in the sand in front of the accusers of the adulterous woman. He did not denounce the practice, but he witnessed to it not being mandatory either.

Puerto Rico does not want statehood, but it is often thought of as being paired with the District of Columbia, which does want it and deserves it.

I suspect that the only advantage of a digital organ is volume control. You can only make a pipe organ so quiet, where a digital organ can whisper.

Cringe-worthy compliments to the president are depressing

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/cringe-worthy-compliments-president-are-depressing
MGB: We knew that Miller, like Bannon, was a bit of a "nationalist." Now we know exactly who is it that scratches Trump's fascist itch (much in the same way we suspected that Summers held Obama back from being a true progressive on the Great Recession response).  Miller is Wormwood to Trump's King Theodan.  If  Mr. Kelly knew what was good for Trump, he would banish this idiot into the wilderness, where I am sure David Duke will find him.

The thing is, Miller is right.  Trump can work a crowd and understand the P.R.  He is simply ignorant on government and he thinks this is a bonus rather than a down-check.  Miller will never tell him otherwise and his kids simply are not smart enough to know any different.

Trump can only run around in his new clothes for long.  Mueller wants to talk to him.  If Trump is lucky, Mueller will lay out the evidence and let Trump respond.  If Mueller wants to be wicked, he will simply let Trump talk, because by now, Mueller likely knows enough for whatever action is appropriate, which will be a big shock to FoxNews viewers if Trump somehow admits the truth and arranges Censure (assuming he made himself bullet-proof on money laundering and his kids agree to take the fall).  I don't think Trump will concede the point so easily, so we are in for an interesting year, unless Trump agrees to a 25th Amendment break in the action.  Let Miller and Fox spin that.

Links for 1/9/18

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/distinctly-catholic/links-1918
MGB:_Puerto Ricans who left are likely to be blaming Trump and the libertarians. If there are a few conservatives who came just because they had the money to do so, there is no keeping a moth from the flame of their choice. It strikes me that the Kochs may be getting desperate.

I will believe in Catholic bishops linking with Labor when the NEA is allowed in Catholic schools.

Arapaio is a criminal who pandered to his frequent voters, his donors and his ego. Talk is he may be running for the Senate. Maybe that will get Mark Kelly to run.

Welfare has turned into a training program for nurses aids. It is the new slavery. In the future, it will be an entry point into worker-owned cooperatives who give the rich all the green paper they could ever want to wipe their behinds with.

Father Murray and Arroyo are best ignored. Find some good individual Catholic Leftists who speak the truth, even without a sponsoring organization. Murray, like all priests, was educated for free at a Catholic college and seminary, else he should demand his money back. Or we should, since it is our money. Most Catholics simply ignore the bad proof texting on Corinthians 18. There was no teaching on mortal sin to relate to not recieving worthily in the ancient Church. I just read ANTIFA. We need to do something to disrupt EWTN as a platform for fascism.

Hostility to Vatican II runs deep with Pope Francis' critics

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/hostility-vatican-ii-runs-deep-pope-francis-critics
MGB:_First, these doctrinal worriers seem to have found a hidden passage about Orthodoxy being essential to salvation. While it is important to understand the nature of salvation in order to appreciate it, there is no test on the subject. The statement from Christ about leading the little ones astray is about pederasty, since there was really little doctrine save the law when the Gospels were written. All else was in flux. By the way, salvation is divine vision-quest so that God can experience our hopelessness, not a bloody act of vengeance to which we can later add our penance, as if we could ever add anything to God.

Second, knowledge is not static, especially in biology, history and archeology, not to mention the kind of cultural theory that ably diagnoses the ills of the Church. These anti-modernists don’t just resist everything after Pius XII. They find it impossible to cope with what comes after Pius X, especially the family wage teachings of Pius XI. They want certainty. They know little of Church history because certainty has never particularly been a Roman Catholic trait. It is merely dreamt of.

Third, the only people deserving of a heavy hand are those who ignored abuse by clergy. While some bishops have been removed, not nearly enough have. I will not trust that everything is being done until the Vatican Museum and hallways are raided by opposing council. As for marriage, I still like the Orthodox formula, but mostly I don’t care, nor do most divorced Catholics. If Francis were persecuting resisters to Amoris, Archbishop Chaput would have been publicly chided or removed by now. The vandals in Rome are just juvenile. Is there a branch of Brietbart or the College Republicans there? Maybe some Knights of Columbus with too much vino?

I wonder how the Borgia Popes would have dealt with these fools. I am sure it would be entertaining, in a macabre way. I shan't pray for these idiots. Praying for others to think clearly never works, especially when they themselves are praying for the evil of doctrinal rigidity to again engulf the clergy and theologians. We are finally learning to breathe free and seek Truth again.

Links for 1/5/18

https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/distinctly-catholic/links-1518
MGB:_Gerald Ford went to Vail often, but I don’t believe he owned a home. Obama was a houseguest in Hawai’i and the Clintons did not own property on the Vinyard. I suspect Pence is either a renter or a guest. If not, Robert Muller, call your office! Either way, Pence could be tolerant in his personal life, although news accounts make that seem unlikely. Whether he is smart enough to know that this issue is running out of steam is another matter. While houses of worship will take some time until they all start celebrating gay marriage, it will eventually happen. Good show to the neighbors for highlighting the fact.

Nothing prevents other power companies or fire departments from sendning crews to Puerto Rico or Haiti just because no one is looking anymore. Eventually, aid formula will see them reimbursed, but it would be niced if they went without that expectation.

Brock was originanlly paid by the vast right-wing conspiracy that went after Clinton. I wonder if he has Gloria Aldred on his speed dial? Still, the chief accuser of Trump was his own bragging. We still have to ask what is wrong with his voters that they still support him, even after the latest book has his own staff proclaim him both insane and stupid?

I think the Cardinal probably voted for Chance.

Politico is a bit too self-conciously right-wing to be trusted to predict the left, although if I have y way, the winning candidate of the Democrats will we more leftist than you can imagine, even more than Sanders. A more likely option is that Pelosi will be running for re-election to President. I hope the Dems pay attention to Governor and I hope that current fundraising is not main basis for saying who will win state-wide races.

Monica Lewinsky was young but she was not a child. Women are attracted to powerful men and unless such men are forced to take a vow of chastity, it is not a public matter and is certainly not grounds to undo an election. It is not like Lewisnky was noticed in the intern pool and brought to the President in a revealing dress, which is different from what happens on the casting couch or the Executive Suite.

In transformational Senate races, every vote counts. The black vote turned out as if a black man had been on the ballot. That usually does not happen in special elections. Likewise, white Republicans developed a conscience about voting againt Moore rather than voting to cancel out black votes. The question is what is going to happen in the next election. In 2006 in Virginia, Jim Webb unexpectedly beat George Allen. All of us had that happen because the margin was so slim and we Virginians made Harry Reid Majority Leader. So far, Virginia has become reliably Blue to the extent we could get beyond gerrymandering. Will Alabama go down the same road? If it can, why not Florida and Mississippi?

The pension crisis did not have to happen. Analysts began requiring full funding of pensions when only PAYGO was necessary. You can fund PAYGO with expansion and your own stock issues. Pensions generate no fees for investment banks and financial advisors. The latter groups actually have that money that should have gone to retirees. We should seize it and distribute to them. Barring that, we must turn to employee-ownership, which will bring back pensions and will install governance systems to never let this happen again. This is one of those projects the Christian Left is working on.

Conservative Catholic dissidents attack Popes Francis and Benedict

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/signs-times/conservative-catholic-dissidents-attack-popes-francis-and-benedict
MGB:_I had quite a bit to say about the anti-modernists this year. Most of the ”errors” that troubled them have become main stream biblical and theological scholarship. My writings can be found at  http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2017/12/this-year-in-modernism-from-catholic.html

Neoplatonism is a tougher nut to crack, because it is the beating heart of most Catholic sexual teaching, from sacred continence to birth control. It is reinforced by a clergy that attracts people who have what used to be called an attachment disorder and is now called the Asexual Orientation. I have no problem with their participation in the priesthood, but their project to take what is natural for them and to make it natural for the rest of us must be ended, starting with Sacred Continence for gay and straight priests.  http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2017/08/is-clergy-objectively-disordered.html

There is much work to be done on Theology, from redefining Original Sin from a mythical act of disobedience to the real tendancy of humans to judge and blame others (The Knowledge of Good and Evil) and to shifting salvation from bloody vengence to a divine vision quest. Of course, the answer is not just with academic theologians. Anyone can seek the truth.  http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2017/04/my-god-my-god-why-have-you-abandoned-me.html
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2011/04/few-of-my-prior-good-friday-meditations.html

Look for the church to stand up to money, politics in 2018

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/look-church-stand-money-politics-2018
MGB:_The Christian Left is out there. We comment here every day, both here and on the Tax Policy Center. I a sume others work at or comment to other fiscal policy sites. Network is a strong voice and I am not chopped liver. Although I don’t write with a sectarian label at TPC, my solutions are obvious in support of Catholic Social Teaching. If Michael cannot find us, it is because Michael is not looking in the right places or refuses to acknowledge competitors. That, and we tell the truth on abortion and gay marriage. That MSW cannot handle the truth is why he does not comment on what we say.

As for needing an organizational home to be relevant, that is absolute non-sense. Catholic Leftists do not attract money from capitalists because we fight against capitalism. This makes it hard to fundraise. We are currently looking for other means, but that does not mean MSW should not engage some of our arguments. We no longer show up in the NCR comment section. Go to heymsw.blogspot.com to read our counter-arguments. Jesus had no funding and a rag-tag group of followers who were largely relatives. The same logic that excludes us would exclude him.

By the way, we have challenged pro-lifers to introduce a personhood bill in Congress. They have the votes. They need to put up or shut up. Just figure out at what point they are comfortable jailing mothers for infaticide and make that your ultimate limit, then go away.

I don’t believe for a second that the bishops will disengage from their wealthy donors or their authoritarian comrades in the Republican Party and the Alt-Right. The only thing what will drag them to the left is having to deal with a resurgent union and more democratically oriented employee-owned workers who would seek to divert their tax funds for social services and education to the Chruch rather than state bureaucracies. And yes, that will require a certain amount of Trusteeism. The Church was not meant to be authoritarian. Indeed, Jesus condemned such attitudes at the Last Supper at the washing of the feet. The way the Church operates has made that rite an empty ritual and a mockery. This is why MSW does not like the Christian Left, because we are not afraid to turn our fire on the Church itself.

Will President Trump's political luck hold in 2018?

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/will-president-trumps-political-luck-hold-2018
MGB:_The meme is growing that Trump was in this to overturn all things Obama. It appears that Trump really believes all of the Birther nonsense, which shows his capacity to ignore evidence. He will lead us to a George W. Bush economy, which was and will be a disaster, although it will take some time for the effects to be felt. There has to be a bubble for it to burst. If regulation on NYMEX oil futures is abandoned, expect oil to be one of these. Bitcoin will be another.

Abortion and gay marriage are rights questions, not political ones. That should be the Democratic argument. The Dems should offer the GOP a congessional debate on using 14th Amendment enforcment power to change personhood from viability to assisted viabiliy, with the provisio that this would be infanticide and that legal penalties apply to the mother. Any attempt to have it be otherwise shows that the Right to Life movement is all hat, no cattle. They theoretically have the votes and a POTUS who would sign such a bill. Put up or shut up.

As for cakes, that issue will be decided by June, taking it out of electoral politics except as backlash. It is not about religion, it is about regulation of speech and commerce. A ruling for the free speech rights of Masterpiece hurts Republicans.

Trump’s personal issues are more important than the policy issues. Any online discussion shows that he has a hardcore base that thinks Russia money laundering is fake news and that his reactions are no crazier than their own, since they all watch FoxNews. Still, Trump cannot dodge a physical much longer and it will surely deal with his mental state. A bad oucome will not be easy to explain away. There are some Republican Senators who will vote for removal due to impeachment or disability, even if they still control the Senate. If they move against Trump this year, they Pence as President. If they wait, they get a Democratic Speaker of the House, which would be Pelosi, but could be Clinton, as non-members can serve as Speaker.

What's coming up in the life of the US church in 2018?

https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/distinctly-catholic/whats-coming-life-us-church-2018
MGB:_The bishop could still remove objectional bishops before their retirement age and send them to Rome or to the diplomatic corps. How close are the Knights of Malto to needing a new chaplain? Bishop Naumann, pack your bags! Chaput was left with a mess in Philly. If he can follow the Dallas Accords and clean it up, as well as ending resistance to Amoris, he may get his red hat yet, however I don’t believe he has the self-control for that.

Sadly, we won’t get radical change, which would be to equate Bishop with Pastor and have no office higher than the latter save Patriarch. Of course, in all cases, pastors would be accountable to the people, not the Patriarch, and we could demsytify the Church in important ways. Some would call that Protestant. I would call it Ancient. Ancient is always good, especially if it stops a long-standing pattern of abuse.

I don’t see bishops working on the local power grid. The local government barely does that. The state public service commission does and will feel the heat when it does not. It is not a matter for the Church.

Libertarians at CUA are a self-correcting problem. Serious people ignore such foolishness, just as they began to ignore the Theology Department after Father Curran was disciplined for talking about masturbation realisticly. No one follows the old line anymore, save those who believe the Ascent of Man is heresy. CUA has always played second or third fiddle to Georgetown and American, and American does not even have a football team. That goes for EWTN, post Mother Angelica.

We will see if the Synod on Young People mentions masturbation. More importantly, we will see how it treats gay youth. I don’t expect much. The only question is whether what they say causes us to ignore it or actively resist it.

What needs to happen is for the Bishops to listen to the people about the translation of the Mass. Attendance has gone down because of the last neo-Latinist flag in the sand. It is time to bury that flag deep in the dunes and restore the prior translation or maybe find something better which has us actually speak modern English. How the bishops deal with that is the bellweather on whether they listen to Francis and more importantly to us.