Priest Suspended After Refusing Lesbian Communion — But It’s Still Not Okay …

Maybe I’m being overly optimistic. Still, I can’t help but think it’s kind of a big deal that the Catholic priest who denied a lesbian communion (at her own mother’s funeral) is getting suspended. Even if the Catholic Church insists they’re not suspending him for that particular incident — according to a letter from an archdiocese official, “Rev. Marcel Guarnizo was placed on leave for engaging in intimidating behavior.”

Sure, sure. Whatever you say, guys. Of course the Catholic Church can’t admit to suspending a priest specifically for denying a lesbian communion. Given their whole stance on homosexuality and the like. I mean, we can’t expect them to come right out and say, “Hey, even we think it’s messed up to be mean to a lesbian at her mother’s funeral.” Can we?

Well, perhaps we can!

I’m convinced Father Guarnizo’s suspension is a small (okay, very small) but significant step toward something that might almost resemble progress. Seriously! Especially considering that before they suspended him, the archdiocese actually apologized for the funeral incident.

Honestly, I still can’t get over the fact that a priest said the word “lesbian” out loud.

I know, this doesn’t even begin to approach the territory of tolerance. But let’s say you’re looking at a timeline of the history of the Catholic church. On one end you’ve got the Crusades. Then all the way on the other end you’ve got a priest getting suspended for being mean to a lesbian!

See, progress! So what if it took hundreds upon hundreds of years?

Who knows, in another eight or nine centuries, the Catholic church might decide to let women become priests!

Why do you think the priest who denied a lesbian communion really got suspended?

Image via Rhian/Flickr

Inclusive ‘Old Catholic Church’ community formed in Saranac Lake

SARANAC LAKE – The Rev. Christopher Courtwright-Cox was at the heart of the Roman Catholic Church when he realized that he no longer could be affiliated with it.

It was at the height of the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal in 2004, and Cox was living in Vatican City. He had just completed his seminary training and been ordained as a priest.

“I had this growing sense of anxiety and depression while I was over there, and I couldn’t really articulate it,” said Cox. “But when (the sex abuse scandal) happened, to hear behind closed doors the amount of secretiveness and homophobia, and the amount of misogyny within the hierarchy of the church, it dawned on me why I was struggling so much.

“I started thinking about the place of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people in the church,” said Cox, who is gay. “I got to thinking about the place of women in the church, and about divorced people and how they’re not allowed to receive communion. All these things started coalescing for me, and I realized I can’t do this because it’s destroying me and it’s destroying people I care about. So I decided to leave active ministry.”

That decision marked the start of a journey that would eventually bring Cox to Saranac Lake, where he recently founded the Crossroads Catholic Community, billed as an “ecumenical, inclusive, non-judgmental and independent” religious community that still retains most Catholic traditions and practices.

Cox credits the Rev. Ann Gaillard, rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, where Crossroads is renting space for its services, for coming up with the Crossroads name.

“Crossroads worked because St. Luke’s is literally at the crossroads of the community, at the corner of Main and Church (streets), in the heart of the village,” he said. “But it’s also at the heart of what I’m trying to do and what the Old Catholic Church is about, and that is being an ecumenical bridge among all of the Christian denominations.”

The term “Old Catholic Church” refers to a number of Christian churches that originated with groups that split from the Roman Catholic Church over certain doctrines, primarily the belief that the pope can make infallible statements on church doctrine.

Cox’s connection to the Episcopal Church is what led him to try to learn more about the Old Catholic Church. About a year-and-a-half after he left active ministry, Cox was living in Plattsburgh and was approached by a friend who encouraged him to visit an Episcopal church.

“I started attending the Episcopal church to check it out, and I was like, ‘It’s Catholic-lite, but it’s also Catholic right,’” Cox said. “It’s kept all the things about Catholicism that I love: the scriptures, the Eucharist, the priesthood, the ritual, the community. But it got rid of a lot of the moralizing.”

Cox became a member of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Essex. He later moved to Saranac Lake, where he worked as the spiritual director of St. Joseph’s Addiction Treatment and Recovery Centers, a position he held for four years until he recently stepped down. During his time at St. Joseph’s he received his doctorate in pastoral counseling and started work on a master’s degree in theology.

“It was then that I realized, while I was writing my dissertation, the call that’s always really been in my heart, that I want to be in active ministry again,” Cox said. “It was at that time that I brought it up to my spiritual director, and he said, ‘Have you ever heard about the Old Catholic Church?’”

Cox contacted Bishop Rose Tressel, head of the United Catholic Church, which describes itself as “an old Catholic heritage church for the church’s homeless.” After giving it a lot of thought, Cox reactivated his ministry in August 2011 and founded the Crossroads Catholic Community, a member of the United Catholic Church.

Its services – held Wednesdays and Saturdays at St. Luke’s – are almost identical to those of the Roman Catholic Church, Cox said.

“The only real difference is that in the Eucharistic prayer, the pope is not prayed for as such; he’s prayed for as the bishop of Rome,” he said. “And we have more freedom in our liturgy; it’s not as rigid. We can draw from Orthodox sources, Old Catholic sources, Roman Catholic sources, Celtic sources. But the basic structure is the same: There’s a gathering around the scriptures, a sermon and the liturgy of the Eucharist, where all believers gather around the table to receive the body and blood of Christ.”

Cox says he averages about a dozen parishioners at the Saturday service, but he said he isn’t measuring his success by the number of people who attend.

“If just one person finds healing or finds peace with their own struggles, then that’s enough,” he said.

Crossroads has also been taking its message to the street. Cox, Gaillard and several of the Crossroads Community’s parishioners provided “Ashes to Go” on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22, outside the Saranac Lake post office and in the Sears parking lot. About 60 people received ashes and blessings, Cox said.

Cox stressed that he’s not out to pick a fight with the Roman Catholic Church and its local parishes, like St. Bernard’s in Saranac Lake.

“What’s unique about this is you are free to come and go,” he said. “You can be a part of this community and still be a Baptist, a Methodist, an Episcopalian, a Roman Catholic – whatever you want. Our object is not conversion. It’s just a matter of belief and practice, and we want to return to what all of Christianity held in common.”

The Rev. Mark Reilly, pastor of St. Bernard’s, was reluctant to speak about the Crossroads group, although he said he is aware of it.

“To the degree that we may share some things as common as Christians, that’s one thing,” Reilly said. “To the degree that it’s another form of schism, that it appears to be, I need to be very careful.”

Gaillard called what Cox is doing “very exciting.”

“I think that the idea of that very specific ministry of reaching out the marginalized – it’s a very important one,” she said. “All churches seek to do that, but when you’ve got a different sort of ecclesiastical structure that supports it, that’s a new way of doing things, and that’s what he has.”

Crossroads parishioners like Angela Estes of Saranac Lake are just as enthusiastic. Estes said she grew up in the Roman Catholic Church but became dissatisfied with the church’s hierarchy in the wake of the priest sex abuse scandal and because she said she was “treated differently” when she got divorced.

Estes said she likes the Crossroads Community because “there’s no judgment at all, and the rules are not the same. You can be divorced, you can be gay, you can be a woman priest. It’s just church. It’s wonderful.”

Contact Chris Knight at 891-2600 ext. 24 or cknight@adirondack

dailyenterprise.com.

Church in Cuba doing Castros’ bidding

Why is it that the Catholic Church in Cuba is working hand in hand with the Castro dictatorship, even to the point of collaborating in the expulsion of dissidents from the island or of posting statements on its official website that support the current regime?

On the surface, it might seem that the church has taken a pragmatic approach, and one with a very long history: that of lessening overt persecution by any means possible. After all, the Catholic Church over the centuries has often sought to compromise with secular rulers, for one simple reason: Since it has no army, and is officially committed to turning the other cheek, the deck is always stacked against it in serious church-state struggles. The church knows this all too well.

Take, for instance, its experience in 17th-century Japan, where it was totally annihilated after making serious inroads and where believers were horribly tortured before being killed in ways that made crucifixion seem like a light punishment. Or take the case of merry old Elizabethan England, where Catholics were wiped out, too, after the pope excommunicated Good Queen Bess, and where every Catholic priest captured by the authorities was disemboweled, hung, drawn and quartered.

Given such a history, the compromising behavior of the Cuban hierarchy shouldn’t surprise anyone. But the fact is that it does shock many Cubans, because their church doesn’t seem to be turning the other cheek, or even a blind eye: It actually seems to support the ideology and repressive measures of the dictators. Nothing proves this more convincingly than a document issued in 1986 by the National Cuban Church Encounter, which, instead of calling for an end to human-rights abuses on the island called for “reconciliation” with the Castro regime and declared that socialism “helped us to have more regard for human beings . . . and showed us how to give, because of justice, what we used to give as charity.” Anyone with the slightest exposure to Catholic theology should have no trouble spotting all of the heresies crammed into that statement.

Lately, compromising with dictators has become the hallmark of Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino. To see this first hand, simply visit the website of the diocese of Havana, where he openly displays his commitment to Castroite notions of “social justice,” and defends the legitimacy of the current police state. In the summer of 2010, as he brazenly engineered the expulsion of dozens of dissidents from Cuba, the good cardinal decreed on this website that anyone who worked to undermine the status quo should have no voice in determining the future of Cuba. In other words, the cardinal routinely expresses his ideological commitment to the repressive policies of the Castro regime: all this in the name of “egalitarianism” and “social justice.”

The aims of Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming visit to Cuba are much harder to fathom. In the past five years, some Vatican officials have downplayed human-rights abuses in Cuba, but the Holy Father himself can’t be held responsible for their callousness. And he most probably has his own agenda.

Given his closeness to the late John Paul II, his dislike of liberation theology and his own experiences as a child in Nazi Germany (a “model” state consciously aped by the Castro brothers), he is undoubtedly opposed to the ongoing oppression of the Cuban people. Pope Benedict may be aiming to crack the foundations of the Castro palace through his visit, but may be underestimating the craftiness of the brothers within it, as well as that of his own man in Havana, Cardinal Ortega.

A recent Miami Herald article quoted a Cuba “expert”: “The church is now a partner with Raúl in the search for a more productive, more effective system, and creating a favorable atmosphere for a transition without violence.”

This quote needs some decoding for those who have never lived in Castro’s Cuba. A better way of summing up the current situation is this: The church wants to maintain the status quo, rather than to foster any genuine transition. The only transition they’re looking at is the inevitable death of Fidel and Raúl, and to them “without violence” means “without the two million exiles and without democracy.”

Carlos Eire teaches church history at Yale. A longer version first appeared on Babalublog.

Catholic Priest Disowns Santorum’s Satan Comments As ‘Not Catholic’ To Bill O …

» 47 comments

Perhaps because the topic is taking over so many headlines or perhaps because it is Ash Wednesday, Bill O’Reilly dedicated a segment of his program today to Rick Santorum‘s recent comments on religion, on Satan threatening America. For this topic, he had two men of faith on the program: Pastor Robert Jeffress and Father Edward Beck, and it was not the priest from Santorum’s church who supported his comments.

RELATED: Santorum Tells Romney He Doesn’t ‘Know What You’re Talking About’ In Earmark Scuffle

In fact, Father Beck seemed very concerned both for Santorum’s electoral prospects and his understanding of Catholic theology. “It doesn’t appeal to people more in the middle,” he explained, and crowned Santorum “more of an Evangelical Catholic, to the right of most Catholics.” O’Reilly asked whether he thought Santorum was “honest,” which he agreed on but “you can not agree with an honest person.” He counseled Santorum to take a more secular, Kennedy-esque approach.

“I don’t agree with Santorum on every social issue… but I admire a candidate that is willing to stand on principle,” Jeffress replied, adding to a comment from O’Reilly that Santorum was a “very judgmental guy” that the candidate’s theological comments were not even made recently or often. “He is not out on the stump giving policy speeches about Satan,” Jeffress noted, and said he was “in the mainstream of what millions of Christians believe” and not “some nutjob on the fringe.” Father Beck objected to this, but was cut off by O’Reilly when making a point about Catholic theology, redirecting instead his point to electability– most Christians, to him, did not agree with Santorum.

The discussion via Fox News below:

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• Why couldn’t they get Satan to speak for himself in this segment?

  I hear Roger Ailes is pretty tight with him.

• Moreover, they’ve never actually been photographed together.

  Coincidence?

• He counseled Santorum to take a more secular, Kennedy-esque approach.

  Wait, so he should have a bunch of affairs and drive woman off a bridge and leave her to drown? I don’t think that’s gonna work for him, Padre.

• So, the priest is counseling Santorum to moderate his religious views, in order to improve his electability?  THAT’S Catholic?  Maybe they should switch jobs.

• Now I’ve heard it all..an Evangelical Catholic..

•  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Catholic

• Why would Satan not take on the form of an overly-concerned activist Christian politician battling what he says to be society’s woes? Such a public figure would obviously get devotion from much of the evangelical base.

  Of course, such a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing politician would need to choose ultimately losing battles for Christian activists. This sweeps in shallow, uninformed loudmouths (many from the Tea PartieS). Ultimately, though, the game is to discredit Christianity. And Rick Santorum is full of loony, old-fashioned, impractical, unthought-out, naive plans. If that is the best game that Satan can come up with, he really sucks. But we would suck for harder to actually elect a President Santorum.

  All hail, Rick. Slick Rick. You’re our President Prick. Command us. Inseminate America with your religion. We open our arms and legs to you.

• BRAVO!!!!!

•  another account? wow!

• Billdo should ask the good Padre and the Pastor if raping drunk women is the proper xtian thing to do.

• Jeffy,

  Did you see how Pebbels licked my new account?

• Satan has media matters for that

• The Politics of Destruction by Neil Murphy
   Things are not as they seem America. Our enemies are among us, and its time to open your eyes or face destruction. The deocratic
  party has been coopted by Communists and are now actively working to destroy this country on every level. Paranoid? I will report, you
  decide. Lets begin with the jobs czar and the GM bailout. Mr Emelt is the CEO of General Electric, the single biggest recipient of federal economic stimulus dollars. On his way to posting
  an 18 Billion dollar profit at our expense not only has he outsourced thousands of jobs to China but he has manage to avoid paying one
  dollar in corporate tax. The recent deal with GM is even stinkier. Due to federal subsidies on green energy his company now makes a profit
  on every Volt they buy. Thats not a misprint, generally companies make money selling products not nuying them. General Electric could buy
  every single Volt produced and make money on every one. Expect Volt production to increase and another good year for both companies.
  Outsourcing jobs to China is not evil in principal, there are usually sound financial reasons for companies to do this, but with an 18
  billion dollar profit and zero income taxes, I have to call it like I see it. Mr Geithner, Treasury secretary is another good example. The treasury is empty and we have already been downgraged and he still
  cant come up with one single way to improve (not fix, just improve) the fiscal situation. His ten year budget is a straight 8% baseline
  growth growth of the federal government, even when questioned by Paul Ryan he cant even come up with a pretend answer.Im not a budget
  expert so lets just move on to homeland security. Janet Napolitano tells us the border is as secure as it has ever been, and deportations are up. This is true deportations are up,
  but not because the Mexico border is secure, its due to draconian tactics by Immigration Control on the Northern border. In the Pacific
  Northwest immigration control is an oppressive presence with agents stopping whole buses to check the ID of anyone looking hispanic. I
  approve of a secure Northern border, however its hard too argue that there is not a problem on the Southern border, the death toll is just
  too high. The Justice and  President Obama (I am trying not to even mention the president, but thats only 1 time so far) resist a law
  passed in Arizona even allowing police to check the immigration status of people who are ARRESTED. Moving along, it seems natural to look
  at the Justice Department and attorney general Holder. In 2009, the buraeu of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms received federal economic stimulus money used to initiate operation Fast and
  Furious. Fast and Furious, if you dont know, was a program whereby thousands of guns, mostly assault rifles, were deliberately sold to
  straw buyers and allowed to cross the border into Mexico and into the hands of cartel members. These are the admitted facts, and that would
  seem fishy enough. After Agent Brian Terry was killed by one of these weapons the operation was exposed publicyand to this day not only Mr
  Holder denies knowing anything about the operation. There is of course, mountains of evidence that not only suggest otherwise, but make a
  very strong case that he has perjured himself before congress. Its been over a year since Agent Terry (rest in peace) has been killed, and
  Mr Holder has yet to hold anyone in the chain of command accountable. His position seems to be, I didn’t approve the operations but I do
  approve of it and there is nothing you can do about it Mr Issa. (congressman Issa is the chairman of the judiciary commitee attempting to
  investigate operation fast and furious.) Lets move on to the Department of Energy and Secretary Steven Chu. Mr Chu personally helped to push through a loan guarantee for
  solar energy giant Solyndra which, of course went bankrupt. The more this investigation progresses the clearer it is that Chu knew the
  company was going bankrupt. Documents found in a typical friday afternoon document dump also reveal that Mr Chu spread federal money around
  to various companies to BUY the Solyndra porduct, at the same time Solyndra is recieving massive federal money to sell the product. Was
  this an attempt to keep Solyndra alive? Solyndra lost money on every unit sold and Mr Chu knew it. I report, you decide. many more examples
  from the Stimulus bill are out there but there isnt a big enough internet in the world to list them all. Find out for yourself. Its on foreign policy that this administration is the most dangerous, Im forced to call out the President himself on this. He
  claims to support Israel and yet the evidence suggests otherwise. Iran is within months of being able to make a nuclear bomb and the
  presidents only strategy seems to be stall, stall, stall. He supports the Egyptian government, the Venezuelan government, the Chinese
  government and the Pakistan. Look around people, I can’t do it all. Up and down the line if you are an enemy of our country you can count
  on the President Obamas support. Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius says “parents dont always know whats best for the child”, White House spokesman Valerie
  Jarrett says “unemplyment benefits stimulate the economy”. Obamacare. Media Matters. My hard drive isn’t big enough. Whos side are these
  people on? What are they trying to do? As Americans it is your duty to look beyond Obamas words. What if he is lying? Ask yourself, if you
  were in his position and wanted to destroy America, how would you do it? Can we afford to trust this man and these people? Listen  to Glenn Beck, he seems paranoid but nothing he says can be disproven. What if he IS right? Pray with me. “Please god, let America see through this bullsht before its too late, take care of Agent Terry and if I die before
  November DONT LET ME VOTE FOR OBAMA.

• The economic Policies of Barack Obama and how he saved gmby Neil Murphy
   When Barack Obama took office in 2009, one of the first thing he had to deal with was the imminent bankruptcy of the big 3 automakers.The economy was dragging and unemployment was rising and President Obama acted to save auto industry in Detroit. All three companies are alive and well today. All  three companies are alive and well today, particularly GM who posted record profits in 2011. The auto bailout is touted to this day as a success with all credit generally given to Barack Obama, but underneath the surface this deal doesn’t look very good at all. Barack Obama campaigned in 2008 and spent the better part of 2009 passing the Affordable Health Care Act. Known by its oppenents as Obamacare its purpose was to provide affordable health care for all Americans includint the uninsured and the uninsurable. The Economic Recovery act was also passed in 2009, a plan designed to spur job growth stimulate the economy. All three bills are frequently lauded as a success by President Obama and his supporters, but upon close inspection all  is not as it appears to be. Cut to 2012, unemployment is still high, the economy is still sluggish at best, and no one has actually received and affordable health care. Each of these bills can be argued on a point by point basis as anything from resounding successes to abject failures. My view is that these bills are 3 of the worst laws in the history of the United States and heres why. Beginning with the auto bailout. Without getting into too much detail, a large amount of caash was infused into these companies in order to keep them operating. GM received 51 billion in federal money in exchange for partial ownership of GM. Subsidies were passed for the now famous chevy Volt a next generation green car. Tax credits were handed out some as part of the economic recovery act(stimulus). As a result of this GM paid no income taxes in 2011 on their way to posting the record profits mentioned. As part of the stimulus bill money was spent on grants, loan guarantees and tax credits for green energy programs including solar, wind, and electric cars. General Electric was a main beneficiary of this money recieving billions of dollars for many projects, depending on your source the total amount approaches 100 billion dollars. Because of the green energy tax credits and subsidies for large wind and solar projects, GE posted an 18billion dollar profit. More subsidies were passed in 2012 including a 10,000 dollar tax credit on each Volt sold. What does that have to do with GE, I will show you, but first. Cut to the Soviet Union, the largest communist empire the world has ever seen with millions of workers constructing widgets full time. What is a widget you ask? Its nothing, a product no one wants or need but is produced to keep the people working, back to 2012 and the widget of the 21st century. The Chevy Volt. An insidious situation has been set up under the guise of economic recovery and creating jobs. Between GM and GE a profit of over 25 billion dollars was posted in 2012 and no income tax was paid by either company. Recently a new deal was announced, wherby GE agreed to buy a fleet of Volts from GM thus completing the trinity. Under these rules GM is being paid in tax dollars to produce Volts that GE, also using tax dollars buys. With the newest subsidy in place both of these companies, 2 of the largest corporations in the world make a profit on every single one. How can you make a profit buying a car you ask? Well you use other peoples money, and thus our widget. How can this be considered good economic policy? Well its not its very bad economic policy, under these rules GE can buy as many widgets as they possibly can as fast as GM can make them and recieve an unlimited amount of tax dollars without ever giving anything back. Just buy them and park them on a lot somewhere. Is this deliberate or is President Obama incompetant? My opinion is deliberate. On to Obamacare a hugely expensive entitlement program reviled by some, loved by others. The bill is reviled on the right as everything from unconstitutional, to wasteful beauracracy, to free handouts. It is all of these things. Obama is not incompetant he knows exactly what hes doing. These policies are designed to suck the life from our economy and they are doing there job well. If you can accept the terrifying premise that Obama wants the economy to crash everything makes peerfect sense. Both green energy and obamacare are designed as a way to destroy money. An infinite amount of tax dollars will be poured into all 3 programs.  America needs to wake up and see. An infinite cycle of taxpayer dollars is now setup between GM and GE, with nothing of value being created. Obamacare is going to suck money from every american most if not all will go to beauracracies and give aways, its is a bottomless hole where money goes to die whit nothing of value ever created, unless you count federal employees as a product. The Stimulus bill was over 700 billion dollars and was also designed to destroy money. We have all heard of Solyndra and the bad loan, what not everyone realizes is that Solyndra knew it was going bankrupt at the time of the loan and so did the department of energy. Another thing not everyone realizes is that grants were given out to other, healthy, companies to buy Solar Panels from Solyndra who took a loss on every one sold until the money ran out and they went bankrupt. Leaving the taxpayer at the end of a long list of creditors and likely to recover nothing. By my estimate we have now spentwell over a trillion dollars on suicidal programs designed to harm our financial well being.  It is impossible for me to believe that POTUS, with all the infromation available to him could possibly imagine that any of this would work. My opinion is that his green energy programs and healthcare packages are a front for a communist/socialist agenda and its terrifying. Wake up Comrades. The widget factories are in full production and we need to act now or face a crash like none we have ever seen before.
  CORRECTION: FORD DID NOT TAKE ANY MONEY MY MISTAKE

• http://teaparty.org/article.php?id=2545

•  Jeffy,

  Did you see how your pal Neil Murphy is going on a teabagged rant?

  I told you. Jeff Merrill aka teabagged. Murphy is one of your ilk.

• Republican primary vote totals state-by-state and nationally are at new lows.  Why?

  Because they have a choice between the following:

  * a Richie Rich who belongs to a cult of polygamists with a penchant for necrophilic rituals and who can be a liberal, moderate and conservative, all within the time span of 5 nanoseconds
  * a corrupt Yankee who pretends to be a southerner and wants to be president and who is a serial adulterer sitting in judgment of the adultery of presidents no less
  * an economic libertarian with a social agenda anything but libertarian who publishes racist, misogynistic newsletters and tries to deny having done so

  And who is leading this pack of creeps and weirdos?

  A former altar boy who in his boyhood was molested by one of those pedophilic priests who join the Roman Catholic clergy for the very reason of getting that criminal opportunity.  The twisted Sick RECTorUM does not belong on a candidate’s stage, but rather in some intense one-on-one or perhaps group psychotherapeutic regime so that he can lead some semblance of a normal life.

• The “evolved” priest from NY views Santorum’s universally catholic views as extremist?
   
  Just because the priest from NY City can belt out a “showtune” better than everyone on that panel,  that’s why he labels Santorum an extremist…
   
   

• I think we found Nancy Pelosi’s preist!!!!!!!  WTF is a evangelical Catholic?

• And proud to be an american, fact check it all you want

• I think he meant more on the lines of this,

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p0OMJbia4sfeature=youtube_gdata_player

• I’m pretty sure he meant JFK, not Teddy; but besides: his point didn’t go to personal behavior personal morality, it went to the role of religious in government. JFK drew a bold line – which Obama recently blurred, at the National Prayer Breakfast.

  BillO said ‘the times were different’. BillO is right. JFK had going for him that Nixon was not seen as religious at all, while, if elected JFK would be the first ever Catholic president; point being, by proclaiming as policy his adherence to separation of church state, JFK got a two-fer: a reminder of his being Catholic, plus neutering the ability Nixon to exploit it, because the 1960 election was similar to the 2000 election in the sense that independent voters were tough to impress that Nixon JFK would be all that different in office.[After that loss, Nixon spent a lot of time effort resources over next 6 years trying to establish an image of himself as a sort of modern version of a philosophic "Quaker" through his mother's ancestors, expecting he could pull off the same game for Quakers against JFK's brother Robert, who he expected to meet in 1968. It was completely stupid - it's not as if there was this huge burgeoning Quaker consciousness burbing below the surface of American politics - but Nixon was a thoroughly unprincipled guy while didn't give a shit for religion still accepted his base of resentfuls for some reason did, so he tried to pander. This is actually how Nixon came to meet future Nixon White House communications office aide by the name of Roger Ailes. Ailes had been assigned to work on this pander, realized instinctively it was a waste of time, but went to the trouble of gathering polling to allow others to show candidate Nixon stuff to talk him of it, while the same polling also showed Nixon might be able to exploit a wedge opportunity in the South simply by running on the idea quite popular down there of HMC being the Whore of Babylong. Ailes actually got sent in to explain all this to Nixon, who was a quick study big in the ad business - both Erlichman Haldeman, his NSA his chief of staff, were ad guys - saw he could use such a ruthlessly unsentimental pollster in the White House, the rest, as they say, his hysteria. While Ailes was in the Nixon WH, he first pushed on Nixon the idea of a reliable pro-Republican TV news channel, and for the president to use the bully pulpit to manipulate the news cycle - the second getting implemented by Reagan the first becoming what we now know as FNC.] 

  Billo would say Obama opened this door of opportunity for Santorum, with the Islamic sounding name, the church in Chicago, Jeremiah Wright, the speech at the NPB. BillO is right again. 

  Bill would then say, but it only gets you so far, that justifies his inviting on Father Beck. BillO’s a real pro at this sort of messaging: he brings on Father Beck for a specific message, makes sure the two religios don’t stray off his reservation, treats Jeffiries with more respect, but actually aims all along to have his point made by through Father Beck, which he conditions his audience to accept by kind of dissing Father Beck. The message: Santorum’s success at this nomination stage is one thing, the general election is quite another, and indeed all indications are that Obama would kick Santorum’s butt even with Santorum’s supposed Catholic base. Beck made that point, made it well, from that point on, Billo wanted to filibuster the rest of the segment end it. Mission accomplished. 

  There’s still another dimension to BillO’s feel for messaging, in how this works with BillO’s demographic of largely oldies. By doing it this way, he gets to bob weave away from the fact that his demo thinks Mittens’ religion is a cult – which is why Jeffires was invited on. 

•  I see nothing wrong with GE deciding that its profitability will be improved by providing the Volt instead of some other car as a company car.
  That is the essential element in that article. GE provides cars and pays for the gas (or electricity) that the cars use as a business expense. This sort of thing is done by many large and small companies.
  If a bakery that has its own trucks decides to use “green” trucks, that is the bakery’s business decision. Same idea applies to GE and its company vehicles.

• Bravo!

•  John Kennedy drove off a bridge?

•  Look up Mel Gibson

•  Dude, NO ONE READS THIS!!!  It has nothing to do with their political stance it has to do with it being LONG.  Good rule of thumb, if your comment is longer than the actual article, then get your own blog and link it.

• Most Catholics don’t literally see Satan Rick

• Pablo has a knack for getting very basic facts wrong in his eagerness to slander various Democrats.

• Actually, they are fairly common.

• who’s the deocratic party?

• There are a number of evangelical parishes in Austin alone, and even more renewal parishes. Catholicism is not as monolithic as you imagine.

• I’m not at all sure there is a universal Catholicism. There are a variety of Catholic forms throughout the world, historically the Northern European, Irish and Southern European divides. They are pronounced. When Catholicism came to the US, early in the nation’s history, but after a Protestant foothold was firmly established, American Catholicism was initially shaped by the country of origin of its immigrants. We tended to be firmly in the Northern European style. That was fortunate as Northern European Catholicism already had a history of accommodation with Protestants, and it was rather firmly rooted in the capitalist or more properly mercantile tradition. Irish and Southern European Catholic traditions arrived much later. Because the American ethos was largely Protestant, however, this ethnic origins of the Church have never been fully integrated into a unique American Catholicism. As an American Catholic in the Northern European tradition, my Catholicism is markedly different in taste, tone, style and even ecclesiology than my fellow Hispanic worshipers who are more centered in the Southern European tradition. The differences often reach as far as marked differences in doctrinal emphases.

  Of course, the picture is even more complicated today with the emergence of African Catholicism and the reemergence of Middle Eastern practices.

  Saying many American Catholics don’t agree with Sanitarium is demonstrably true and of more general application than you suppose.  

• Neil. Step away from that bottle, man. I mean, it’s not like ever made any real sense.

• This priest is the poster boy for all that is wrong with Catholicism today. No wonder Catholics are confused about what the Church believes if they’re listening to guys like this.

• This alleged priest would fit nicely in San Fran in more ways than one.

• Interesting read.

  I understand there are regional differences in celebration of the mass, but always thought your definition of “Southern European” Catholocism (Roman Catholic) was the universal doctrinal one, coming direct from the Pope.

  However, look at the birth statistics in Italy and you’ll see even Italian Roman Catholics obviously use birth control as the population shrinks.

  So, even Roman Catholics have lost influence in Italy… 

• I observed this ‘priest’ during a panel discussion regarding the Obama mandate.  He was the only ‘clergyman’ on that panel of about two-dozen who was in lockstep with Obama.  Again, cheap politics before Faith… just like Keehan, Sebilius, Jenkins, Kmiec and Pelosi!

• There are some activist priests and sisters out there who support liberation theology, illegal immigration, homosexual activities and, yes,  even support pro-abortion politicians.  They put cheap politics above their Faith because they are entirely out of step with the Theology of the Catholic church.  If they were really ethical and honest they would walk away from the Catholic church and become liberal politicians and/or social workers. 

• Very crude.

• I believe in good and evil. If Rick Santorum referred to Satan, no doubt we are talking about evil.  How many of you out there think the morals of our country haven’t declined.  A disregard for God and country by many.  School children who use foul language, have sex as young as 12 years old, out of wedlock child birth, no respect for anyone, police, elders even their parents.  I would say those declines are the work of Satan and until we regain our love of God, Satan is winning.

• I disown the Catholic priest as not being Catholic.

  See, anyone can disown a disowner.

•  Did he say John? I thought he said “Kennedy-esque.”

• Good. Now I know I can paint with just as broad a brush.

•  Paragraphs…You jack*ss.

•  Well Rose…I’ll start out this way..In Sixth grade at our school we were taught sex education, not abstinence. When you teach abstinence you don’t allow the kids to learn just what “sex” is. And almost 100% of the time that kids have sex for the first time if they aren’t using Condoms (a strict no-no taught by the abstinence crowd) or using BC Pills…the inevitable happens they end up pregnant. I don’t know how it just is that way.

  We need to teach the Abominations to our children. But we cannot use Santorum as the example of someone who believes in them. True he is against homosexuality, but then you see him in his sweater-vests. Again if you learn the Abominations wearing a Cotton shirt while wearing a wool sweater means that he is guilty of an Abomination.

  How many times have you worn a Cotton Blouse/Dress/T-Shirt over your Latex Bra? An Abomination.
  How many times have your worn Spandex Panties with almost anything? An Abomination.
  How many times have you had a milkshake with a hamburger? An Abomination.
  How many times have you worn jewelry that is not a spartan wedding band? An Abomination.
  How many times has your boyfriend/husband/son worn underwear with an elastic waistband? An Abomination.

  How many times has your bf/husband/son worn a Cotton shirt while wearing a Polyester suit? An Abomination.
  How many times has your bf/husband/son worn a Silk or Poly-blend Tie with his suit an Abomination.

  How many times have you or your bf/husband/son worn a Sweatshirt or Sweatpants? Since they are usually a mixed blend of Cotton Polyester? An Abomination.

  Although I’m sure that your Church has selective amnesia when it comes to the Abominations. *(362) your Church only teaches you ONE. {Homosexuality}

  Oh I forgot about your boyfriend/husband/son watching sports on Sunday after Church.
  Football, Basketball, Baseball, Hockey and back to Football. Now have you taught them to go and smite the players? Since they are working on the Sabbath. Have you let them know that you will be visiting them while they do 25 to life for murder? or God forbid they kill the whole team. In that case they may be getting the death penalty.

  Have you taught them that they are not allowed to play football themselves since the football is made of pigskin? Again a big Abomination.

  But I should also mention…That since you are a Conservative Christian how many times have you taught your family the words of Christ? {a Red-Letter Bible is the easiest way to see just what he said} Please note that Christ never says anything about Homosexuality.

•  You are confusing your Kennedys (Ted with JFK) and exposing your total ignorance