Remembering those who sacrificed at a time of national peril

Remembering those who sacrificed at a time of national peril

There are no reality TV civil wars. The Trump traitors are all talk-no action. There will be no well-funded MAGA nominees. That the current GOP caucus in the Senate fears them is pathetic spectacle.

This holiday, I feel for those lost in senseless civil-religious wars, whose allies are half-hearted and whose enemies are fanatic. Worse, total war against those fanatics is not allowed. Winning is impossible. They are the heroes I remember today. 

US bishops ignore Vatican letter on Communion in an astonishing way

US bishops ignore Vatican letter on Communion in an astonishing way 

Gomez and company are not too smart. I suspect they still believe that Adam and Eve were actual people. They are certainly ignorant of constitutional law and no one is willing to correct them. As I have been saying for years, it is on Biden to do so - first privately and then, if they persist in their error, publicly. 

If they want to discipline anyone with loss of Communion, discipline those Catholic employers who neglect to pay their employees a living wage (meaning that they supplement any child tax credit so that each child has the same basic standard of living as the boss' children). The bishops can start in-house on that one. No employee of the Church should have to drive an Uber to make ends meet.

One final point, if the bishops wish to show they are not up to the task of collegiality, Cardinal Advisor O'Malley should be given a more robust role, becoming a virtual Patriarch, if not the actual one.

Links: Biden-Floyd family meeting; overtime for farmworkers; Lesley Stahl's journalism

Links: Biden-Floyd family meeting; overtime for farmworkers; Lesley Stahl's journalism 

Police reform goes with mental health reform. Until they call ambulances before confronting mentally ill or intoxicated citizens, they should be held with minimum restraint - but should be held in hospitals for a much longer period of time. Defund jails when you defund police, and take away the tasers, night sticks, pepper spray and firearms (except when dealing with organized crime or right-wing insurgents.

Marjorie Taylor-Greene has taken the QAnon oath. Under the 14th Amendment, she should not be allowed to serve. Also Josh Hawley, and anyone who knew that the rally was going to be an insurrection ahead of time. That would include Gohmert.

The Times piece is paywalled, although it might not be Monday, June 1st. There is nothing banal about it. Scratch an insurrection supporter and you get someone who wants Roe (and gay marriage and the right of immigrant children to go to school, et al) to be overturned. Any "Democrat for Life" needs to be aware of who he or she is marching with. including those who would deny the rights of Trans people to medical care to change or restore their cis genders. This is also true of people on the left who think detransitioning is political rather than personal. Bishops who are Asexual need to identify with, rather than against, the rest of the LGBTQIA community.

Thomas Paine would agree with a bit of radicalism. Working Class Perspectives, however, need to differentiate between positive rights, which are enacted, and negative rights, which are inalienable and limit government action. The rights to a living wage and a domicile must be split into a minimum wage for workers, the freedom from filing taxes and a child tax credit which comes through employer-paid taxes on wages and profits. 

Training and education for anyone after sophomore year in high school must be paid the minimum wage as well to meet opportunity costs - and the positive right to be trained and paid to do it must be linked to the right of migrants to ESL and GED training, regardless of legal status. Farm workers can be trained off-season - or during the season if pay is inadequate.

St. Thomas More, in his Utopia, had the right idea about how to conduct warfare in dealing with tyrants. Revolutionaries know that making tyrants make things worse is the way to radicalize the population, and even turn the military against leaders who would fire on their own people.

Can the US church manage the synodal path?

Can the US church manage the synodal path? 

I don't think there is any meaning behind the delay of one year except the continuing crisis of COVID. While it is mostly over here, many parts of the world are just now getting their first wave.

If he is listening to the entire Church, there is hope of lay participation starting and eventually continuing throughout the Church. This should be interesting. The role of the Cardinal Advisors in all of this will also be interesting. The dysfunctional papal monarchy, which feared democracy, science and then sexuality, may be in its last gasp. Francis no longer uses the the royal We when he writes. The Magisterial language that demanded obedience has been replaced with truth and real religion.

Recently, I have been watching You Tube lectures at Gresham College by visiting professor Alec Ryrie. Much of what the Church is going through now was experienced a century ago by High Church Protestantism, especially regarding such matters as authority, scripture scholarship and dealing with science. From what I see,the Evangelicals are behind the Catholics by half a century. Any Ecclesiology that ignores this experience is not fully formed.

As for Chaput, he has no See and will never be a Cardinal. He is best ignored in his efforts to attract attention and be a relevant Republican. Strickland may be getting a visit from the FBI for the same reason.

Links: 'Big Lie'-believing election candidates; Koch on pandemic eviction prohibitions

Links: 'Big Lie'-believing election candidates; Koch on pandemic eviction prohibitions 

Everyone thought the Georgia Secretary of State would be a disaster. He was not. These officials due ministerial things and their actions are very public and very reviewable in federal court. There are many things to be concerned about, but this is not it. We need to bring back pre-clearance for every state which passes voting restrictions. They should make it automatic. Once a state loses a violation under section 3, they should go on a section 2 (pre-clearance) list for a certain number of federal election cycles. 

There is a threshold where we know a hot period occurs (1.5% CO2). We are not near that. There is a range where there might be effects. We are nowhere near the former and are not sure when the latter gets dire, although there is evidence that we may have passed it. In general, we are in an ice age between glacial periods. If man-made warming spared us a glacial period, then hurrah for warming. The question is, where is the line and what is really normal? We have not been keeping records for long enough to know (yet). That 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the last 200 years have occurred in the last 17 correlates with the growth in population since then, as well as the industrialization of China and India.

A sense of home has nothing to do with Apartheid in Israel. It is a sense of group identity on both sides. Ending legal discrimination is only the second step. Step one is to end asymmetric warfare. Step two is ending official discrimination (something the US only did in the 50s and 60s). Step three is social and economic equality. The U.S. is nowhere close. Demographics may or may not change that in the U.S. It has not helped in South Africa and won't help in Israel unless it is really serious about being a western democracy rather than claiming it is.

Trickle down is not at all plausible and both sides of the GOP (and the pro-life movement) are all about getting poor White people stirred up so that they vote against their economic self-interest. Reactionary social policy has always been the tool of conservative economic, religious and political power. The only answer is to make the wealthy realize that inequality is not in their interests (or their children's) or to make it impossible for them to justify it's extent. The key to this is to get agreement on who owes the debt and reveal who owns it at the class level.

Eviction moratoria cannot last forever. The injustice is letting the Federal Reserve buy up troubled bonds without directing landlords to start forgiving rent. Absent that, the government should have made it clear that rent delayed is not rent forgiven. Anyone with rent owed who did not sink both stimulus checks into getting current on their rent needs to start packing.

Bishop Pop Rocks probably still believes that Humani Generis is infallible dogma. You can't fix stupid. Catholic sexual teaching has been in the realm of Group Think since the fourth century.  Science recently decided that masking was more important than recognizing the first round of COVID symptoms because they did not want to say that the virus was a cold, even though it obviously started as one. As for Extraterrestrials, the recent 60 Minutes report has entirely upset the apple cart. We are not alone. I am sure Paprocki is probably freaking out about this. It upends his Adam and Eve world view.

Israel's critics should hold Hamas accountable, too

Israel's critics should hold Hamas accountable, too 

There are two options for Gaza, repatriation and annexation. Both are better than the status quo, but worse for Hamas. That part of Palestine is composed of ethnic Egyptians. Hamas would be put down by the Egyptian regime in the same way the Islamic Brotherhood was. Annexation by the current regime would lead to Apartheid. In this way, the Palestinians are like the Indigenous nations. In many parts of the West, there is plenty of Anglo colonialism still, so yes, Israel is much like America and South Africa as well. 

I believe in a Pan-Arab kingdom under the Hashemites and including what is now Northern Israel. If Israel does not want to give back land, then it should be a secular state. The reality is that the Ashkenazi (of which I am one) were not diaspora Jews, we were Khazars who converted. Of those who actually are descendants of the southern Kingdom, many were Canaanites or non-Monotheistic until after the return from the Exile. Most became Christians and then Muslims. If they really wanted to upset the apple cart, they would convert to Judaism. I wonder what the reaction would be. I somehow doubt that the Zionists and Neo-Cons who support them would rejoice.

Scandalized by 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous' Catholicism

Scandalized by 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous' Catholicism 

I doubt that the organizers are paying anything near the usual rate. Weekend group rates are quite a bit below what is offered to executives who are in town for business during the work week. For example, Catholic Charities USA had a silent auction to raise funds. The convention organizer got a comped suite for a weekend. Because everyone knew my then fiance needed a room on date certain, people begged off on bidding after a certain point and we got it for $300. The suite was $1,600 during the week. 

As for the campus crusade, unless MSW is going to be an irritant, the best strategy is to register then boycott loudly and publicly (with other potential fifth columnists). Missionaries should get a nice weekend. They will have a hard time evangelizing the Nones. College is a bit too early to get enough attention to Bishop Baron's brand of theology to be attractive. Even if it does reel in some students, the experience of life in their mid-20s will cure them of such nonsense until they start coping with having children and sending them to Catholic School.

As a Catholic author, I would actually like to go. I am sure that if my book sold better, they would invite me (or I would exhibit) and offer The Future is Calling: It Wants a New God. As effective as it might be in offering a humanistic vision of both morality and the Lord's Passion, I doubt the organizers would appreciate the content.