The Sports Headlines Center on Morals These Days

This week two major sports stars have been on the back page more for their actions off the field. Michael Vick the NFL Quarterback has been given a second chance after serving time in prison for running a dog fighting ring. The Philadelphia Eagles have taken a chance on the man who was probably the most talented player in the NFL before his prison time was served.

As a dog owner myself, I found Vick's actions despicable. Harming defenseless animals is an act of cowardice and Vick served his time for a more than major mistake in his life. However, everyone does deserve a second chance. Vick, seems to be rehabilitated, say those in the NFL. How genuine his remorse is will be the real question that only Vick knows for sure in his heart. Judge for yourself in this 60 Minutes interview with James Brown.


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I think I believe him, I'd like to, but it is hard to say. He looked Brown in the eye and didn't seem to be lying. Tony Dungy also has nothing to gain by being his mentor and has everything to lose. I'll keep Vick in my prayers even though I still have a bad taste in my mouth about his past. Again, we are a religion of forgiveness, and I need to remember that. Hearing about him being exposed to dog fighting at 8 years old made me feel sorry for him, even though it's still not an excuse for his behavior.

The second person in the headlines is Coach Rick Pitino:

The AP tells the story:

In Rick Pitino's words, his equipment manager's wife was welcomed into Louisville's close-knit basketball family. Beneath the surface, however, was an explosive secret.

Pitino and Karen Sypher had sex at a restaurant eight months before she married the coach's confidant, Tim Sypher. Over the next few years, the three attended the same parties, took basketball trips and tailgated together, despite Pitino's past affair.
What happened over those years is a he-said, she-said story. Pitino recently denied to police Karen Sypher's contention that he raped her, and authorities declined to prosecute her claims, citing a lack of evidence.

Pitino acknowledged giving her $3,000 after she said she was pregnant and was getting an abortion, but didn't have health insurance. Pitino's lawyer said the money was for insurance and he never paid for an abortion.

I've interviewed Rick Pitino duing my days as a sports radio producer and field reporter and always thought he was a stand up guy. However, I've also encountered plenty of powerful men in sports who act in the way that Karen Sypher is stating Pitino acted towards her:

Karen Sypher has called Pitino, who has guided Louisville, Kentucky and Providence to the Final Four, a powerful man who "thinks he can do anything he wants to." She told police that she believes the coach told her future husband to arrange the abortion and accompany her to the procedure. She thinks Pitino paid Tim Sypher to marry her.

Louisville right to lifers believe that Pitino is responsible for a baby that would now be 7 years old had it not been aborted. Pitino, a Catholic, claims that the decision to abort was Sypher's alone--a contention that I find doubtful or it sounds at least like he was washing his hands of the whole thing.

Pitino may very well lose his job and he very well may deserve it. He's an excellent coach but a man who allegedly rapes someone or who at the very least has a sexual liaison with a woman (in a restaurant! Yuck! Remind me not to eat there!) and then gets an underling to marry her...that's pretty disgusting behavior.

I wish that players and coaches would act more responsibly so we can enjoy their antics on the field and not be disgusted by what they do off the field.

Let us pray for the fortitude that athletes need to make the right decisions in their lives. It's tough when things are offered to you at all turns and temptation is around every corner. May Our Lady help these men and women do the right thing and respect their bodies, other people and the defenseless in our midst whether unborn or a defenseless animal.

Amen.

Mary and Biology

Today's Question on BustedHalo is answered by moi.

What part did Mary’s biology play in the making of the person of Jesus Christ?

Mike Hayes Anwsers:
The mission of the Holy Spirit is always conjoined and ordered to that of the Son. The Holy Spirit, “the Lord, the giver of Life”, is sent to sanctify the womb of the Virgin Mary and divinely fecundate it, causing her to conceive the eternal Son of the Father in a humanity drawn from her own.” (CCC, 485)
The word “fecundate” means to impregnate. So the best explanation we have lies here that is was the power of the Holy Spirit that makes her pregnant.
That implanting of a divine nature with Mary’s female human egg that starts Mary on the cycle of pregnancy.
I hesitate to say that it was “divine sperm cells” that unite with the egg because that is how we might understand this scientifically in our human experience and indeed this may be how the Holy Spirit was able to impregnate Mary–but we don’t really know that for certain.
This is a miracle, something that confounds science and even goes beyond it into something of a mystery.

Read more here and contribute to the conversation.

Today's Question: The Moneychangers and Jesus

Joe Paprocki weighs in on the Question Box in the Googling God section of BustedHalo®.

John’s Gospel describes Jesus forming a “whip of cords” (John 2:15) and using it to drive out them out of the temple. How can we reconcile Jesus’ apparent anger with the notion of anger being a deadly sin? First, we don’t know that Jesus was angry. We do not have a description of his inner state of mind. What we do have is a description of bold behavior – fierce action.

Read the rest here

NCR: Young Catholics Accept the Church as It Is

An excellent piece by Tom Roberts in NCR's Emerging Church Series. He interviews 8 young Jersey City parishioners on their sense of being Catholic. The results seem to surprise him, but are no surprise to me.

"I think the church has to earn parishioners to come," said Bridget d'Souza, one of the young professionals who joined the conversation in May at Our Lady of Czestochowa parish in Jersey City, N.J.

She was describing a kind of free-market approach to parish selection that applies to groups across generational lines, but particularly to young people without permanent ties to a neighborhood or diocese. No longer can pastors be guaranteed a congregation because of geography. People go where they're both getting fed spiritually, said d'Souza, and where they can feel ownership of the parish and its activities.

It wasn't that way growing up in a place, she said, where people owned their homes for decades and where churchgoing was determined by parish boundaries.

The loss of those physical boundaries seems symbolic of deeper lines and categories that have become less distinct when it comes to deciding on the bigger questions: whether to be religious at all and, specifically, whether to be Catholic....

D'Souza and her husband, Devantin, have been members of Our Lady of Czestochowa for three years. Both are cradle Catholics. She grew up in New Jersey, and spent time in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps right out of college. He is from Bombay, India, arrived in the U.S. in 2001 and moved to New Jersey in 2005, they year they were married. They met in business school in Washington and at the time of the interview were working as consultants for the financial firm Deloitte and Touche in New York.

In college, she said, she struggled through a period when she asked herself, "Do I want to be Catholic? Do I want to go into a Protestant denomination?" She said she had felt frustration over issues like the sex abuse and financial crises "that you're not as empowered as you might be in other areas, like with your civic government for instance."

In the end, however, it was the tug of "a tradition that goes back 2,000 years" that "draws me in."

She perceives a certain power in the tradition, in the Mass and the Eucharist. "There is something there that his so powerful, and I think the church has nurtured that. I think for me the church embodies that." In the larger culture she mentioned, Catholic Charities and all the things that the church does. I don' think most people are aware o that. If they were aware of it, all of these other things that are perceived as negative, they wouldn't be as proportionally as negative in my opinion."

Read more here and think about the young people you know...and pray for them.

My reaction to the news "Your wife does not have cancer" went something like this:

Thanks to all for your prayers. Marion's findings were benign. Special thanks to the doctors and staff at Roosevelt hospital.

Deo Gratias!

The best facebook response to the news came from my friend Barbara Baker:

"Alleluia (traditional) and w00t! (contemporary) responses in English. (srsly, wonderful news!)"

We now return you to regularly scheduled blogging.

Pope says "individuals" need to change in order to change cycle of poverty

Quote of the weekend:

Economy and finance … can be used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends. …we must adopt a realistic attitude as we take up … new responsibilities to which we are called by the prospect of a world in need of profound cultural renewal, a world that needs to rediscover fundamental values … it is not the instrument [the economy] that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.

Pope Benedict XVI's third encyclical, which focuses on the economy. Today he furthered this statement by denouncing the deplorable rate of poverty in Argentina.

And Protect us From All Anxiety...Even by using Facebook

This past week my wife, Marion received word of a small nodule that was found on a recent mammogram. It's tiny, less than a millimeter, but obviously it has shaken us up, especially since her mother died of breast cancer when Marion was in college. She had the needle biopsy on Friday and now we wait. Three to five business days of waiting.

Anxiety-filled waiting.

Friends and relatives have been praying and sending their best wishes for a clean bill of health for her. Even our dog has been nuzzling up to Marion more than me lately, which is unusual for him as he is very attached to me.

At mass today the words that are read after the Our Father ask God to "protect us from all anxiety" which I often find comforting, but today they took on new meaning...as we wait, we realize that anxiety is something that does indeed occur with life's many travails. The following line is the one that really is more important:

"As we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our savior Jesus Christ."

There's nothing like a medical scare to make you realize that indeed we all need God, that we are not God and therefore we are not in control. Try as we might to protect ourselves from anxiety, it often still finds us and those restless hearts will only rest easy once they rest in God.

Recently, I reported that a Bishop from Great Britain mentioned that Facebook was a considerable factor in the rise of teen suicide. He cautioned that all this technology keeps us alienated from one another. While the Bishop makes a good point about how technology can certainly alienate us greatly, it also connects us as well. With my wife's permission I asked my facebook friends to pray for her on my status update. Within a half hour something amazing happened over 30 people quickly jotted a simple word and maybe a few extra sentences as well. That simple word was "prayers" and it made me feel connected to people that I know well and to many that I haven't heard from in awhile. Friends from retreats and ministry circles, high school, college, family and even my old radio colleagues all weighed in with their own prayers. Some simply said "prayers" and that one word is more than enough to connect me and my wife to them in union with the whole church. Perhaps that's an experience that the Bishop hasn't had but it is one that is worth noting.

And it would not have happened without this technology.

As different as many of us might be religiously (even some of us who share a Catholic faith), nobody ever seems remotely offended when another asks for someone to pray for them or for someone they care about. Even those who might not believe in God don't find it an awful exercise to send a good wish or thought someone's way. We all like and need to pray for each other.

And quite often we don't. It often takes a tragedy for me to remember someone else in prayer or to even pray with someone else. A priest friend of mine always mentions names of people who have asked him to pray for them when we have a shared prayer of the faithful. That impressed me, so much so that I started keeping a log of people to pray for on my blackberry.

So God asks much of us when He asks us to be mindful of Him in prayer. We note how out of control we are and how we need God's help. But we also know that we need the help of others to show us God's care for us as well. It is in the others who become the face of God for us in our toughest moments...those moments of anxiety, that we often seek protection from ...it is in those others that indeed God helps us to find gratitude, when fear can easily take over.

I'm fairly confident that my wife will be fine. Whatever this is, it is tiny...less than a millimeter. So even in the worst case, this should be easy to defeat, especially for a strong woman like my wife. Others face things far worse and far more daunting than we are this week.

But perhaps it is in the others who have touched our hearts this week with their simple prayers where God is calling me to be most mindful.

And to become more like them as a person of prayer...who helps God protect us from all anxiety.

RIP John Hughes

The Breakfast Club was the big movie when I was in high school. In fact, I remember almost every time we went to my friend Karen's house, we'd pop it in her then-"new fangled" VCR. Ferris Beuller's Day Off was another favorite and I love that it is constantly on cable. I could watch that movie all day long.

John Hughes really understood Generation X, a generation I am part of and have written about in my own book. He certainly influences my own thinking and I am saddened by his death, especially since he had stopped making movies in order to spend more time with his son and apparently because of his disenchantment with Hollywood's greed after the death of John Candy who Hughes claimed was worked to death.

Today a colleague forwarded (or twittered really) me this blog article by a woman who was a pen pal with Hughes. It is well worth reading:

He made me feel like what I said mattered.

"I can't tell you how much I like your comments about my movies. Nor can I tell you how helpful they are to me for future projects. I listen. Not to Hollywood. I listen to you. I make these movies for you. Really. No lie. There's a difference I think you understand."

If just one person would write something that meaningful about me, I will die a happy, happy man.

Busted Borders: Our latest series on Immigration

Check it out. Moving stories of immigrants:

I Could See My Wife Doing This...Hence I am a Faithful Hubby

From Fox News

Four Wisconsin women are accused of tying up and assaulting a married man after allegedly finding out he was romantically involved with each of them.

The women are each charged with being party to false imprisonment, a felony with a maximum prison term of six years. One is charged with fourth-degree sexual assault.

Calumet County prosecutors say 48-year-old Therese A. Ziemann of Menasha lured the man to a Stockbridge motel last Thursday. Prosecutors say she was soon joined by 43-year-old Michelle Belliveau of Neenah; 43-year-old Wendy L. Sewell of Kaukauna; and the man's wife.

Authorities say Ziemann punched the man in the face and glued his penis to his stomach.

One word: Ouch!

Radio Prank Backfires...Seriously Backfires

In Australia a popular radio duo, Kyle & Jackie O, decided that it would be a great goof to hook a daughter up to a lie detector and let her mom grill her with questions. Then the most horrible thing happens:



As a former radio producer, I kind of feel for the hosts who got blindsided, and I have to say that the producer got lazy here. They should've had the participants one sign a waiver stating that they aren't under psychological treatment or been abused or anything else that they could have the legal team think of. And yet this is clearly a case of a mother who is just a moron and who put her daughter in harm's way and didn't get her counseling to begin with.

I had something similar happen to me. We had someone use a racial epithet during a live show with a 7 second delay. It wasn't the N-word but it wasn't acceptable either. My engineer didn't catch it because she was distracted by another staff member and I was on the phone with a caller and missed "dumping" the comment too (which means that we use our 7 second delayed signal to remove the comment from our airwaves).

Boy did we get calls and letters! Sometimes things just happen. I thought I handled it well. I was honest and told them the situation and that I thought it was deplorable what she said. They let me keep my job but they probably should've canned me and the engineer. Ultimately it was my responsibility. Sometimes things happen when you're doing things live--it's just the nature of Live TV and Radio.

Maybe that's why I podcast now.

Archbishop says Facebook causes uptick in Suicide

From the BBC

Archbishop Vincent Nichols said MySpace and Facebook led young people to seek "transient" friendships, with quantity becoming more important than quality.
He said a key factor in suicide among young people was the trauma caused when such loose relationships collapsed.
"Friendship is not a commodity," he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
He added: "Friendship is something that is hard work and enduring when it's right".

Archbishop Nichols said society was losing some of its ability to build communities through inter-personal communication, as the result of excessive use of texts and e-mails rather than face-to-face meetings or telephone conversations.
He said skills such as reading a person's mood and body language were in decline, and that exclusive use of electronic information had a "dehumanising" effect on community life.

Archbishop Nichols said that social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace encouraged a form of communication that was not in his words "rounded", and would not therefore build rounded communities.

I agree with some of his statements here but I seriously doubt that any sociologist or psychologist would say with any certainty that suicide can be linked with frequent use of social networking.

And they said it wouldn't last!

Dick and Betty Broussard have been married for 54 years, and haven't regretted a moment. So says the Dallas Morning News today.

By most predictions, Betty Sweitzer and Dick Broussard's relationship would never last.

She is gregarious and he is reserved. She's an only child and he's the oldest of eight. "I'm very German and he's French. I'm from a city and he's from a little bitty town. I went to college; Dick didn't." She was Protestant and he was Catholic.

And yet here they sit, 54 years later – married through thick and thin – with three children, six grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and another on the way.

Back in Baltimore in 1954, his priest said it would be a mistake. He told Dick, "You come down to the social next week and I'll introduce you to a nice Catholic girl."

Her minister said, "Betty, do not marry him. It won't last."

Betty says, "I came out of there crying and said, 'Let's get married by a rabbi.' "

It's very interesting how interfaith marriage has become the norm in today's day and age. Religion seems not to be such a stumbling block for the young and apparently, these folks led the way in this regard as pioneers long ago. Read more about this couple at the jump here but also take to heart that their lives have been far from easy. They've known and lives what I think I learned in marriage prep and has been at the forefront of my own marriage:

Marriage is not about happiness. Marriage is about commitment and that commitment sometimes leads to happiness.

But it always leads to knowing that someone else is always there for you...and that is always more than enough for me.

And apparently that is also true for the Broussard's:

"It takes love and commitment to keep a marriage together this long," Betty says.

Dick sums it up with one word: "tolerance."

"Give Us This Bread Always"

My wife makes me dinner often. She gets home much earlier than I do and she takes a lot of care to put together a meal for us to share in the evening hours. She never complains about doing this and I always try to appreciate her work and not take her for granted.

But I have to admit, sometimes I do.

Much like the Israelites who grumbled against Moses and the crowd at Capernaum who followed Jesus after he had fed the multitude, I don't always have the right intentions. The crowd showed up and found Jesus because they had been fed by him and they figured that if they kept following Him that they would always have plenty of food. in a society where the majority of people were extremely poor--you could only imagine that people became quite desperate and when Jesus shows up and provides a feast their natural inclination is to stick close to the meal ticket.

And I do the same thing to my wife. I take her work for granted, assuming that her good food will always be there if I just stick close and show up hoping to find dinner on the table.

But what makes those meals great? I've taken to saying to my wife that her meals are great because they are made with just the right amount of love.

And that is the point that Jesus is making as well. Like the Eucharist that we eat each and every week it is that little bit that goes a long way. It is not the feast that Jesus provides that He expects us to long for--but it is the love that God gives to us, the gift of His own Body and Blood, the self-offering of God for all of creation that is what Jesus wants us to remember.

It is the meal that is made with just the right amount of love.

It is in that offering for us that we need to recall. It is that offering that we often forget. We don't always become what we receive for others. Much like I don't always show gratitude for my wife's efforts how much more do I fail to show gratitude for what God has provided.

I sin and yet, God offers me not only His unconditional forgiveness but then offers His own Body and Blood that I may turn from my sin and offer myself for the sake of the world.

If I can't even show my wife how thankful I am for her dinner, what chance do I have of keeping God in mind--of being thankful for an even greater gift, the greatest gift?

And that is why my friends, that we need the Eucharist. And God knows it. We need a physical, tangible, intimate reminder of how much Jesus loves us. Jesus was more mindful of our brokenness than we are. He knows that we really need Him, that too often we are going to forget Him. Like the disciples, those closest to him we all abandon Him time and time again. It's so easy to forget what God has done for us, so easy to long for something more than what we perceive is a simple meal that we often take for granted.

We need to recall the words of the crowd today, "Give us this bread always." We long for simple bread and then God gives us so much more. "I myself am the Bread of Life" Jesus tells us. It is what lies beyond the simplicity of this bread that we share, that Jesus makes into Himself that we need to long for always.

The meal which is not just made with the right amount of love...but that God offers to us as all that He has.

May we offer God all that we can be in return.

Legionaries of Christ: Long road ahead

From Westchester's Local Paper: Lo Hud

As the Vatican begins an unprecedented investigation into the Legionaries of Christ, a once-powerful religious order whose late founder has been discredited for living a "double life," it remains to be seen how the order's local operations will be affected.

Lawyers for the Legion recently notified the town of Mount Pleasant that plans for a university in Thornwood will likely be scaled back.

In addition, the order hopes to expand activities at a retreat center in New Castle after last year withdrawing decade-old plans for a seminary.

Still, it is hard to know how the urgent and potentially debilitating challenges facing the Legion, an order known for its secrecy, might be coloring its day-to-day operations.

"I suspect they are scrambling to do anything that makes them look mainstream and not cultish," said Jason Berry, a New Orleans-based writer who first made public in 1997 accusations that former seminarians were sexually abused by the Rev. Marcial Maciel, who founded the Legion in Mexico in 1941.

Pope John Paul II, a strong supporter of Maciel and the Legion, would not address the allegations. But in May 2006, 13 months after the election of Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican announced Maciel would lead a "life of prayer and penance, renouncing every public ministry." Maciel died in January 2008.

Then early this year, word began to spread that the Legion had discovered Maciel fathered a child and led something of a double life. The Vatican announced it would begin a rare "apostolic visitation" on July 15 - assigning five bishops to investigate the Legion's worldwide operations.

Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput will look into the Legion's U.S. operations, based out of Cheshire, CT.

I've had few experiences with the Legion but I was very impressed by the guys I met from the Legion out on the West Coast in the Diocese of San Jose. Members of the Legion I've met in other places seemed to be less friendly and more hostile to anybody who was even middle of the road in their theology.

Today let's pray for these men who have dedicated their lives to God and that the truth about the Legion comes to light and helps them weed out those who are unhealthy and not suitable for ministry and that the good men amongst them will be able to recover from this difficult time. Pray too for those men struggling with who they are and perhaps with the lives they have been living.

Glad they didn't go to arbitration...

Deacon Greg points to a great spoof on the wedding videos we talked about last week. Hysterical.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Your Communion Isn't Good Enough

From Catholic News Agency

Lancashire, England, Jul 30, 2009 / 03:17 am (CNA).- An Anglican cathedral is trying to accommodate those of its faithful who do not accept female clergy by allowing parishioners to decide whether to accept communion bread blessed by its female canon or by a male priest. Blackburn Cathedral in Lancashire recently installed Rev. Sue Penfold as a residential canon. Cathedral canon Andrew Hindley explained the decision to This Is Lancashire, saying it was agreed by all the clergy that it was the best way to handle what they called a “mixed economy.”

The congregation can choose whether to receive communion bread blessed by Rev. Penfold or bread blessed by a male priest at the main cathedral service on Sundays at 10:30 a.m.

After reading this story I have a feeling that in the Catholic Church there is an equivalent snubbing going on. There are a good deal of people who won't receive communion from a lay minister or a deacon and will go out of their way to receive communion from the priest.

Um, last time I checked we were all giving out Jesus.

I'd walk a million miles... for one of your smiles...

From the Washington Post:

They've been mistaken for Jedi-wannabes headed to a Star Wars convention. They've been investigated by police, approached by strangers, gawked at from cars and offered gifts of crumpled dollar bills and Little Debbie snacks. After trekking along more than 300 miles of dusty Virginia country roads and suburban highways, six Franciscan friars reached Washington on Tuesday, having seen it all during an offbeat modern-day quest for God.

For six weeks, the brothers walked from Roanoke with only their brown robes, sandals and a belief in the kindness of strangers to feed and shelter them.

The sight of six men in flowing habits, trudging single file on the side of the road, prompted many to pull over and talk, even confess. People on their way to work described their loneliness. College students wanted help figuring out what to do with their lives. Children, mistaking them for the Shaolin monks in movies, ran up to ask the friars if they knew how to beat up bullies.

"Dressed like we are in our habits, it's like a walking sign that says, 'Tell us your life's problems,' " explained Cliff Hennings, the youngest of the friars at 23...The pilgrimage was the idea of four young friars just finishing their training in Chicago and working toward taking lifelong vows. Seeking to emulate the wanderings of their founder, Saint Francis of Assisi, they wanted to journey together as a fraternity, ministering to one another and to strangers, while depending on God for every meal and place to sleep..

Interesting that they did this as a group. I'm always impressed as well with the Jesuit novices who get dropped off at some remote location with $35 and a bus ticket and told to figure out how to get back home. It's an opportunity to learn first hand how the poor--and perhaps even many of our working poor--spend their days.

Congrats to the Friars on their walk and may they continue to touch the lives of the poor. And check out their photo gallery here

A final significant snip from WAPO:

Just outside Harrisonburg, a woman in her 40s with a young daughter pulled over in her old Dodge sedan to talk to 25-year-old friar Richard Goodin.

She'd recently caught her husband cheating on her. He had kicked her and her daughter out of their house, she told Goodin. Now, like the friars, they were wandering through the wilderness, unsure of their next meal or their next move.

As they talked, the woman's daughter rummaged through the car and gave the friars a soda. Then she found a chocolate bar and offered that. As the conversation began winding down, the daughter said there was nothing more in the car. The woman reached for her purse and told Goodin, "I want to give you what we have left."

She pressed $3.52 into his hand, which he accepted reluctantly.

"I realized she wasn't giving this to us or to me," Goodin said. "I think she heard us talk about trusting in God and she wanted to try to trust in the same way. She was giving that money to God."

Track their journey on their blog, www.friarwalk.com

Inspiring, just a note, with the exception of their two superiors (who were probably brought along kicking and screaming) most of these guys are young. I don't hear of any baby boomer priests thinking about doing this.

I'm just sayin...

And we thought the clergy sex abuse scandal was bad...

but that's nothing compared to the stables! So says the NY Daily News

He's a repeat sex offender - who should be registered with the Humane Society.
A South Carolina man was busted for having sex with a horse, while on probation for having sex with the same horse.
Rodell Vereen, 50, was arrested Monday night in the throes of bestiality by the filly's shotgun-toting owner, who also has video surveillance of the perverse act.
"When they arrested him before I thought that was the end of it," said Barbara Kenley, who caught Vereen in the middle of his romp in the hay with her 21-year-old horse, Sugar.

Read more here And the Seattle Times adds this from the horse's owner:

"Police kept telling me it couldn't be the same guy," Kenley said Wednesday. "I couldn't believe that there were two guys going around doing this to the same horse."

So she installed a video camera and, lo and behold, her instincts were right. It was Vereen again. The next time he came by, she chased him down with a shotgun and called police. According to his brother, Vereen has mental problems but does okay when he takes his medication.

Whinny a prayer for the safety of helpless animals and hope this guy doesn't go for the trifecta.

Our Lady of Hope: Thanks, Bob for the Memories

A h/t to Deacon Greg and Mcnamara's Blog for this

Today also marks the death of Bob Hope, who converted to Catholicism (largely through the influence of his wife Dolores) several years before his death. Before his death, the Hopes funded the building of a new chapel at the National Shrine in Washington, D.C. The name of the chapel? Our Lady of Hope

Bob Hope has given me one of my most famous stories that I tell at a lot of the workshops I run:

When I was in radio the Program Director of one of the stations I worked at called some colleagues and I into his office. He asked what we thought was wrong with the radio station and how we could improve things.

A few of us took the news department to task, claiming that they were always behind. They never broke any stories and our competitors had a better reputation in news than we did. Mind you, some of the newscasters would just listen to the competitor's station to know what was going on.

Our solution was simple: We talk-show producers would no longer wait until the top or bottom of the hour to announce breaking news. Instead, we'd just type the information on the screen or let the host know the information in his headset.

So that afternoon, I walked in to produce a talk show and across the AP Wire came the news: Bob Hope is dead.

I told my host immediately who launched into a eulogy that had everyone in tears in the studio--really touching stuff.

Then the AP sent a second alert: Bob Hope not dead.

Turns out John McCain got bad information from someone and announced it on the senate floor.

It was also the one day our station was on top of the news.

I say this to emphasize the point that we live in a world of immediate gratification and we want what we want, when we want it. Sometimes that's short sighted of us--actually, it almost always is.

Recently, I wanted something to happen in my life really badly, and when it didn't, I became very angry--and to what end? Perhaps God is letting me know that sometimes I need to wait until the time is right for my desires to come to fruition.

And when we don't wait...we really screw things up.

So today, I pray to Our Lady of Hope who will undoubtedly keep me faithful to knowing that God knows all about timing things for our own benefit. And when things don't happen the way we'd like them to, it's not our time to be angry but our time to hope and to be excited about the new opportunity that God has ready and in store for us.

Dr. McCourt, PhD..."because I was a teacher"

A great video on Frank McCourt from NYU who gave him an honorary degree...

Frank McCourt: The Journey of an Ordinary Teacher from NYU Steinhardt on Vimeo.

A h/t to Paul Snatchko for this one.

Those Wedding Dancers..and The Spiritual Experience of Young People

Deacon Greg pointed me to the Today Show interview of the runaway viral video of the couple who danced down the aisle with their wedding party. Over at Facebook, I've seen a mixed bag of responses to the video from people who think it was awesome to others who found it disrespectful and even others who suggested that their marriage might not last because they're not pious enough!

Oh p'shaw!

None of these responses hit the mark in my opinion. Some people are projecting their own spiritual experience onto others here. Many paint younger people into a corner and expect them to conform to THEIR vision of what ritual is. Young people, in my opinion, seem to be striking back and saying that they have their own thoughts on the matter and that maybe we need to look more carefully at this to see some deeper wisdom in this?

The bride suggested that they do this because “I danced growing up and was a dancer through college and loved dance as a way to express yourself and share joy. So it was something I always thought about doing.”

Dancing as a way to express yourself and share joy...

While slightly self-indulgent to be sure, there's a lot of deep seated meaning here. God created her as someone who is to be loved and she is expressing that--perhaps unconsciously--and also expressing how much she loves her friends and secondly I found the moment to also express how much her friends love and support her and her groom as well.

Here's the failure of the day. WE'VE secularized it...not them. From the Today Show's article:

The 28-year-olds floored their wedding guests by having their whole bridal party — including seven bridesmaids, five groomsmen and four ushers — boogie down the aisle in a choreographed dance more at home in a Broadway musical than in a somber church. (Emphasis mine)

Um...my church is hardly somber, first of all. Contemplative at times--but not somber, even at funerals. So let's just point that out.

However, I'm also not dumb enough to think that my church is the norm. I'm sure there are some that are really boring and staid--and therein lies another assumption--and one that the young people pictured took a lot of pains to avoid.

Church is supposed to be joyless.

Clearly these people did not want a joyless wedding and often the young think that they simply need to jump through the motions of the religious ritual to get to the party. These people smashed that myth--the wedding ceremony IS the PARTY. In fact it's the most important part of the party.

What if we felt that way every time we did ritual? What if we looked forward to the Eucharist with that much joy each week? More importantly, do we ever feel that enthusiastic about our own participation in parish life or even just attending mass at any random church?

I think if we're honest, we don't or it's rare--reserved for high holy days like Christmas or the Easter vigil (and that's a lot more sedate than what was expressed by the couple) but not for a random Sunday in "ordinary time."

Our assumption is that if it doesn't correspond to our usual experience of church it can't possibly have any spiritual meaning.

But perhaps the question goes deeper...

What these young people are expressing is very spiritual. In fact it is very spiritual and so alive with the joy that God has given to them in the love that they share now in marriage and that they have cultivated with their friends that they can barely contain it.

Our job is to awaken them to that fact. If i were the presider at the wedding I would start out with the following words:

"Clearly the Holy Spirit, the spirit who dances, who animates us into existance, clearly that spirit is alive here today! Clearly the love that is already being expressed by Jill and Kevin for each other is alive. Also the love that has been shared over the many years by their parents and their families and friends who have danced with them through life, that love has brought them to today--the wedding day. And here's the most important thing for all of us, not just Kevin and Jill, but all of us, need to remember. The love that is expressed by them for each other reflects the love that God has for each one of us. And because God has this great love for us, the greatest love, the love that forgives us of our faults, the love that Jesus shows us by becoming one of us and then entering into the experience of our own human death and going beyond that experience into new life, a love that is completely unselfish and in fact, self-emptying--that is the way God loves us.

Kevin and Jen, today as you come before us in marriage, know that this love you feel for one another is not merely self-indulgent but rather it compels you to understand just how much God loves you both. As a husband loves his wife so too does God us in the same way. Kevin would do anything for Jen and Jen loves Kevin so much that she cannot help but express that by dancing joyfully. And that is contagious! God too, always wants to go that extra yard for all of us and in your marriage may you continue to be aware of that same joy and see God in the love that makes you dance!

Amen?"


(a h/t to the good deacon and to the Today show for the pic)

OK, Now I'm Addicted to Wedding Videos

The dreaded best man speech...

Here are two guys that really knocked it out of the park:

Another Wedding video

This is more silly...but still great...

Brian & Eileen's Wedding Music Video. from LOCKDOWN projects on Vimeo.

Coming up...a play by play of my own wedding--- no video but maybe a picture or two.

St. Frank of Limerick

"The happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests, bullying schoolmasters; the English and all the terrible things they did to us for 800 long years.”

These words, written in the Pulitzer Prize winning tome Angela’s Ashes, recount the unhappy childhood of Frank McCourt. After surviving typhoid as a child, the severe poverty of Limerick’s lanes brought on by the drunkenness of his father and teaching in the New York City School system for years, McCourt’s voice was silenced (today) at the age of 78 after complications from meningitis.

I got to know Frank McCourt briefly during my radio career after working on his brother Malachy’s program. Malachy would tease him constantly and vice-versa.

Frank: So you’re a vegetarian now?
Malachy: I am. And I smell that rotting flesh on that sandwich that you have there.
Frank: So I’m to become a vegetarian now simply because you are.
Malachy: Are you too good to be a vegetarian, now, Mr. Big Pulitzer Prize star?
Frank: I’m not saying that and let’s not forget that YOU were a much bigger star for years, on the Tonight Show saying all kinds of malarkey for years. And anyway, you’ve written a book, riding on my coattails now which I’m all too happy to help you promote.
Malachy: And I’m working on a second one now, don’t you know? Ask me what the title is...
Frank: I know I’ll regret this but what’s the bloody title.
Malachy: I’m going to call it “I read your brother’s book.”
(Entire studio breaks up laughing)
Malachy: Sure to win a pulitzer! Don’t ya know?

Frank took his brother’s good natured ribbing in his more quiet and eloquent style. His book, written from the unbiased and uncensored viewpoint of a child’s experience within the dank poverty of Ireland held a similar kind of simple class. “Children tell it like it is.” he once told me, “and I had the thought that if I wrote about my experience as my own childlike thoughts, that it would allow me to tell the story in a way that I hadn’t been able to express it as an adult.”

That child’s voice also filled McCourt’s book with humor amidst the pain, which is what he always claimed kept him alive in the midst of poverty. Irish melancholy filled with a self-deprecating touch of “well, it wasn’t all bad” led him to write one of the most touching and yet aggravating portraits of Irish life. Many Irish resented the book because of its rawness--a bit too close to home for them perhaps. My own cousin, an Irish native, often said that the book was filled with exaggerations and outright “lies.” In truth, my thoughts often thought that McCourt had captured the Irish all too well and we often hate that which reveals what we most despise about ourselves.

His third book, Teacher Man, covered his years of teaching in New York City Schools including a Vocational High School in Staten Island and then later the more famous Styvesant where he was often noted as “the best teacher I ever had” by a plethora of students (12 of my friends from college went there and they all reported that McCourt had indeed captured their hearts and more importantly, their imaginations). McCourt often lamented that “I create too many lawyers” in his years as an English teacher but his lilting Irish brogue charmed the girls and allowed him to become one of the boys as he endured their taunts and fired back some of his own. On day one in Staten Island, a young man assumed that he wouldn’t be around on St Patrick’s Day because he’d be drunk in some gin mill. “I’ll be here,” McCourt retorted and never missed school on that day to honor his heritage as more than a bunch of drunks, the too-oft used stereotype. When one student hit him in the head with a sandwich in class, McCourt shockingly picked it up and ate it and began to tell stories of the days when he longed for a sandwich, embarrassing the assassin.

But in all those years of reclusiveness, his students often suggested that he write a book, that his stories needed to be compiled together and be told to the world. McCourt tried but nothing would come. Even hanging out in pubs with the likes of Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin brought him no closer to penning a book and it wasn’t until the age of 66 after his mother had passed that he revealed the whole story of that miserable childhood. A childhood where his mother was a savior by sleeping with his cousin so they didn’t get thrown out into the streets--a more than embarrassing moment for her but one that kept him alive and healthy and a roof over their heads. Not surprisingly, the words came once his mother passed, and they spilled off the pages as a homage rather than a bit of inappropriate self-disclosure.

McCourt was no fan of the church to be sure, and when you read how poorly the church treated him you can hardly blame him. By the same token he also didn’t denigrate an individual’s practice of it either. When he found out I was Catholic he asked me about my favorite saint and when I replied that I had two, St Peter and St Ignatius he smiled and said, “Ya can never just have one favorite saint, can you? I read the Lives of the Saints all the time and still pray to my favorites. Lord knows we need lots of prayers.”

And now I firmly believe that McCourt walks amongst those saints that he considered friends. And I will include him as one of the newfound favorites to intercede for me.

Dancing in the Aisles is permitted..at least in this church

Now I know how I'm celebrating the renewal of vows ceremony on my 10th anniversary! A HUGE hat tip to Deacon Greg for forwarding me this. It actually made me cry to see a couple this enthusiastic about getting married.



Now go dance with your partner! You know you wanna...

Once in a while...I still have some sports thoughts

I guest columned an item on the Mets Police retiring #8 for Yogi Berra and Gary Carter.

Retire #8 on 8/8
Two Hall of Famers have worn #8 for the Mets and yet that number has not been retired. It’s not a stretch to think that the Mets could retire #8 for both Gary Carter and Yogi Berra the prolific manager of the 73 “Ya Gotta Believe” pennant winners.
Berra was an astute manger for 4 years with only the 1974 season being a blight on his record. He brought the team back from a huge deficit and got the players to believe in themselves with a little help from Tug McGraw’s rallying cry. McGraw often said that it was really Berra’s managing style that enabled the players to believe in themselves and led them to that pennant. To top matters they spanked the Reds in the playoffs and in a crazy world series he took the mighty A’s to 7 games--all an almost impossible feat to accomplish for any manager. We forget he was also a coach with Hodges on the 1969 Miracle Mets (in fact he was a coach since 1965), so you can’t say he wasn’t involved or around long enough with the Mets to merit inclusion. While more well known as a Yankee, Berra deserves to be acknowledged as someone who contributed much to the Met franchise as a coach and manager.
Carter was the missing piece to the 1986 World Series Champions. The young Mets pitchers needed someone to be a leader within those 60 feet 6 inches. Carter led them well for 3 years until his career began to wind down. He helped spark that team into the cocky bunch of players who never felt they were out of a ballgame even when things looked bleak. In game 6 of the 86 World Series Carter started the rally with a single that led to the improbableMookie Wilson grounder through the legs of Bill Buckner.

I love this Mets Police blog because it has a good take on all the stupid stuff that the Mets do as an organization--a big reason why I can't root for them any longer. Read the rest here and then agree or disagree.

Tonight on Net TV...Once Again...

is me.

I did an iWitness segment with them on my ministry to young adults. I was quite moved by some of the questions so check it out by going to NetTV.net. And if you didn't see our cast of characters from the Busted Halo Cast and our editor in chief Bill McGarvey check out this episode from a few weeks back.

What a Surprise- VOTF..going broke

Voice of the Faithful, the reform and advocacy group that emerged in 2002 in the wake of the clerical sex abuse revelations in Boston, has announced that it may be forced to close its national offices unless it receives a quick infusion of cash.
In an e-mail sent to members and media representatives, the organization said it was “at the crossroads of financial survival” and is looking to raise at least $60,000 by the end of July in order to continue operations.

You want to know why their funds are low...?

No people in their 20s and 30s belong to voice of the faithful. It is a baby boomer organization at best.

Why is that the case? You would think that they would find the cause of supporting those who have been abused laudable, no?

Well...

I would offer a few thoughts here.

1) Most of the younger adults I know don't really have a problem with the church, rather the church isn't even on their radar. It's simply not part of their life and when they see all the infighting that happens with their older compatriots--many of whom are their own parents, the church looks even less attractive, much less an organization that calls the irrelevant organization to task.

2) Younger people simply don't have the time for an organization like this. As an example, a young man I know was asked by his baby boomer mother why he wasn't more of a voice for change in his own parish? His response was simple:
"Mom, I just don't have that kind of time. It's just not worth it to me. I'm going to do all this work and NOTHING is going to happen because, pastor, bishop, etc is going to do what he wants anyway."

Can't say I disagree with him.

3) Lastly, I think there's clearly a perceived agenda with Voice of the Faithful that goes beyond the scope of the sex abuse scandal and into other issues like women's ordination, optional celibacy, and a more democratic decision making process in different areas. Younger people tend to see more value in religious organizations that actually do good work in the areas of social justice, global change and even prayer and sacraments--the so called passing along of the tradition. When they see infighting that is the clear death knell and simply is translated as a waste of energy.

I wish VOTF well. I know that these people are faithful Catholics for the most part who see the challenge of today in developing priests that we can depend on as trusted sources and not suspects. It's an area that they have little control over however and the fact that many Bishops have outsided them from their diocesan property doesn't help either.

But their lack of success, financially at least is not a surprise to me. Everyone is struggling and VOTF is not just one more struggling religious organization. They are one more organization that seems to raise the level of suspicion past the point of something to which young people can see a value to contributing their time.

Would You Care for Someone Passed Out on the Sidewalk?

As I walked my dog last night I happened to pass my local parish in Woodside only to find a young man passed out cold on the sidewalk. My dog, Haze started to bark wildly as if he sensed something was wrong. I too, had a strange feeling about this. The man didn't appear to bre breathing by my observation. The guy didn't flinch when Haze barked pretty close to him and he didn't respond to me yelling "Dude, are you OK?" So I called 911.

After a brief wait of about 15 minutes, the cops, fire department and paramedics arrived. They awakened the inebriated man and put him into their truck. A beer can casually rolled into the gutter after he stood up. Somewhat relieved, I began to walk home with Haze.

I wondered if anyone else bothered to consider what had happened to this man. The 911 operator asked if it looked like he had been assaulted. I replied no but that he wasn't responding to any of my verbal cues and wasn't moving.

The young man looked hispanic or perhaps Native American, I wondered if he was just drunk if I would be getting someone who may possibly be undocumented in trouble. On the other hand, if he were hurt or dead, he'd want someone to call the cops.

I was amazed at how many people never gave him a second look. It reminded me of the ABC show "What would you do?" And this clip in particular.



I say all this not to toot my own horn but rather because I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one who called 911. What if it were me and I just passed out on the sidewalk suddenly. Would anyone care?

I'm always amazed not at the fact that people pass by other people on the street but that they even have to think about what they should do here. In my case this evening I waited for the 911 cops to arrive and they didn't seem to want to involve me nor know that I had tried to wake him up--they just walked past me and said "Thanks".

While this seemed to be a case of someone just being young, drunk and stupid. What if it wasn't? It seems to me that the story of the Good Samaritan is alive and well.

And perhaps that is Jesus' point. We forget about people and relegate them to our own compartmentalized notions of who we think they are. He's a drunk. He's no good. He's homeless, etc.

It shouldn't be lost on anybody that I wasn't willing to touch this man. I called 911 but I didn't shake him or try to wake him with a nudge. My own concern needs to go deeper than that. And perhaps it is there that our fear restricts us from caring for people as well as we should.

Tonight let us pray for the ignored on the city streets and for the people who will die there tonight.

What gift would you give the Pope?

So Barack gave the Pope a stole and the Pope autographed a copy of his encyclical. If you were to meet the Pope what would you want to give to him?

I think I'd give his cat, Chico, a scratching post that looks like a crosier. =)

Australian Town Bans Bottled Water

From Mother Jones

Residents of Bundanoon, New South Wales, Australia have voted to ban the sale of bottled water in their rural town—probably the first in the world to do so. Only two voters opposed the ban. Why?

Bundanoon's battle against the bottle has been brewing for years, ever since a Sydney-based beverage company announced plans to build a water extraction plant in the town. Residents were furious over the prospect of an outsider taking their water, trucking it up to Sydney for processing and then selling it back to them. The town is still fighting the company's proposal in court.

In other words, bottling water wastes an incredible amount of resources—natural and capital. (Producing the bottles for the American market requires 17 million barrels of oil; three liter of water are needed to produce a liter of bottled water.) So officials in Bundanoon will install more drinking fountains and encourage residents to use them to fill reusable water bottles for free.

Interesting. I like the use of reusable water bottles and the large scale water cooler thingies or buying the big jugs.

A hat tip to my friend Eunice Park for pointing this to me on facebook.

Pope Presses Obama on Pro-Life Issues

From John Allen at NCR and in my opinion the right way to engage the debate with the President. Thanks to the Pope for taking the lead here.

When President Barack Obama came calling on Pope Benedict XVI today, the two men enjoyed a “truly cordial” encounter, according to a Vatican spokesperson, but at the same time there was no diplomatic silence from the pontiff about their differences over abortion and other “life issues.”

Not only did Benedict press his pro-life case with his words to the president, but he even found a way to make the point with his gift, offering the president a copy of a recent Vatican document on bioethics. According to a Vatican spokesperson, the pope drew a repetition from Obama of his vow to bring down the actual abortion rate.

Beyond the life issues, the Vatican’s statement indicated that Benedict and Obama also found “general agreement” on the Middle East peace process and other regional situations. The two leaders also touched food security, development aid especially for Africa and Latin America, immigration and drug trafficking, according to the statement.
Coming away from the meeting, however, it was hard to escape the impression that Benedict wanted to use it to deliver a clear pro-life message.

Read the rest and then think about the Pope's actions today. Did he embarrass the President? No. Did he yell at the President and call him a baby killer? No. Did he not show up for the meeting? No.

What did he do? HE ENGAGED THE DEBATE IN A HEALTHY AND CORDIAL MANNER.

My guess is that President Obama will read the book he gave him and start noting it in his plans to reduce abortions bringing us closer together on this issue.

Dying Well

From the NY TImes a few days ago on Sisters of St Joseph caring for their dying members at home rather than hospitals. A great model for us all:

As she lay dying, Sister Dorothy declined most of her 23 medications not essential for her heart condition, prescribed by specialists but winnowed by a geriatrician who knows that elderly people are often overmedicated. She decided against a mammogram to learn the nature of a lump in her one remaining breast, understanding that she would not survive treatment.

There were goodbyes and decisions about giving away her quilting supplies and the jigsaw puzzle collection that inspired the patterns of her one-of-a-kind pieces. She consoled her biological sister, who pleaded with her to do whatever it took to stay alive.

Even as her prognosis gradually improved from hours to weeks and even months, Sister Dorothy’s goal was not immortality; it was getting back to quilting, as she has. She spread her latest on her bed: Autumnal sunflowers. “I’m not afraid of death,” she said. “Even when I was dying, I wasn’t afraid of it. You just get a feeling within yourself at a certain point. You know when to let it be.”

A convent is a world apart, unduplicable. But the Sisters of St. Joseph, a congregation in this Rochester suburb, animate many factors that studies say contribute to successful aging and a gentle death — none of which require this special setting. These include a large social network, intellectual stimulation, continued engagement in life and spiritual beliefs, as well as health care guided by the less-is-more principles of palliative and hospice care — trends that are moving from the fringes to the mainstream.

For the elderly and infirm Roman Catholic sisters here, all of this takes place in a Mother House designed like a secular retirement community for a congregation that is literally dying off, like so many religious orders. On average, one sister dies each month, right here, not in the hospital, because few choose aggressive medical intervention at the end of life, although they are welcome to it if they want.

“We approach our living and our dying in the same way, with discernment,” said Sister Mary Lou Mitchell, the congregation president. “Maybe this is one of the messages we can send to society, by modeling it.”

Primary care for most of the ailing sisters is provided by Dr. Robert C. McCann, a geriatrician at the University of Rochester, who says that through a combination of philosophy and happenstance, “they have better deaths than any I’ve ever seen.”

A great breakdown on Catholicism's take on both Euthanasia and using extraordinary means and the difference between the two. A snip:

Laura L. Carstensen, the director of the Center on Longevity at Stanford University, says the convent setting calms the tendency for public policy discussion about end-of-life treatment “to devolve into a debate about euthanasia or rationing health care based on age.”

“Every time I speak to a group about the need to improve the dying process, somebody raises their hand and says, ‘You’re talking about killing old people,’ ” Dr. Carstensen said. “But nobody would accuse Roman Catholic sisters of that. They could be a beacon in talking about this without it turning into that American black-and-white way of thinking: Either we have to throw everything we’ve got at keeping people alive or leave them on the sidewalk to die.”

Often the Roman Catholic position on end-of-life issues is misconstrued as “do anything and everything necessary” but nothing in Catholic theology demands extraordinary intervention, experts say, nor do the sisters here, or their resident chaplain, Msgr. William H. Shannon, 91, advocate euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide.

“Killing somebody who is very, very old, with a pill or something, that isn’t right,” Sister Dorothy said. “But everybody has their own slant on life and death. It’s legitimate to say no to extraordinary means. And dying people, you can tell when they don’t want to eat or drink. That’s a natural thing.”

Indeed. We need these great women to teach us how to die well. Let us pray today for all those who are dying that they may die with dignity, peace and prayer.

Photo courtesy of James Estrin/The New York Times

Arrival: A Sweedish Abba Cover Band

OK, my wife is into Abba and dragged me to see Mamma Mia (the movie--which I kinda thought was goofy-funny). So I decided to treat her to this concert by these folks in Tarrytown (a tiny sleepytown in Westchester County which is the inspiration for Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow) along with a nice dinner by the water. I had low expectations but this was a pretty good show. They did a lot of the hits and they do sound like them and they are really proud to be Sweedish and of their country.

They finished the show without doing Dancing Queen which I was surprised at...but then came out for an encore and they did it then. It was cute when they invited all the little girls up on stage for the number and taught them a small routine to do with them in the midst of their number.

Also, plenty of places to eat on the water in Tarrytown. A nice quick trip from NYC.

Staycation continues hopefully by seeing Anne Hathaway tonight at Shakespeare in the Park. I'm on the virtual line.

Pope to Obama: You're too conservative

From today's Washington Post and E.J. Dionne

When President Obama meets with Pope Benedict XVI tomorrow, there will be no right-wing Catholic demonstrators upbraiding the pontiff, as they did Notre Dame earlier this year, for conferring the church's legitimacy upon this liberal politician.

In fact, whether he is the beneficiary of providence or merely good luck, Obama will have his audience with Benedict just three days after the release of a papal encyclical on social justice that places the pope well to Obama's left on economics. What a delightful surprise it would be for a pope to tell our president that on some matters, he's just too conservative.

It seems that this Pope is indeed going to be critical of the Obama administration but just not in the manner that most people would expect.

To read the Pope's new encyclical on social justice click here

All You Heretics...COME ON DOWN...You're the next contestant on...OUR FAITH IS RIGHT!

OK so the game show is real and it's actually called Penitents Compete! A new game show where clerics compete for conversions...

Reuters has the details on a new game show that is based on conversion.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – What happens when you put a Muslim imam, a Christian priest, a rabbi and a Buddhist monk in a room with 10 atheists?

Turkish television station Kanal T hopes the answer is a ratings success as it prepares to launch a gameshow where spiritual guides from the four faiths will seek to convert a group of non-believers.

The prize for converts will be a pilgrimage to a holy site of their chosen religion -- Mecca for Muslims, the Vatican for Christians, Jerusalem for Jews and Tibet for Buddhists.

But religious authorities in Muslim but secular Turkey are not amused by the twist on the popular reality game show format and the Religious Affairs Directorate is refusing to provide an imam for the show.

"Doing something like this for the sake of ratings is disrespectful to all religions. Religion should not be a subject for entertainment programs," High Board of Religious Affairs Chairman Hamza Aktan told state news agency Anatolian after news of the planned program emerged.

The makers of "Penitents Compete" are unrepentant and reject claims that the show, scheduled to begin broadcasting in September, will cheapen religion.

"We are giving the biggest prize in the world, the gift of belief in God," Kanal T chief executive Seyhan Soylu told Reuters.
"We don't approve of anyone being an atheist. God is great and it doesn't matter which religion you believe in. The important thing is to believe," Soylu said.

The project focuses attention on the issue of religious identity in European Union-candidate Turkey, where rights groups have raised concerns over freedom of religion for non-Muslim minorities.

I hope that a Catholic gets into the Showcase!

Pope fires those responsible for SSPX fiasco

John Allen has the scoop as usual!

Rome
In what could be seen as another piece of fallout from Benedict XVI’s January decision to lift the excommunications of four traditionalist bishops, including one who is a Holocaust denier, the pope today restructured the Vatican office that handles relations with the traditionalist world -- and, in effect, gently fired the officials who presided over the earlier fiasco.

As a result of a document issued by the Vatican today, titled Ecclesiae unitatem, Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon-Hoyos, who had served as President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission since 2000, and Italian Monsignor Camille Perl, the number two official at Ecclesia Dei, are both out of work. The Ecclesia Dei Commission was created by the late Pope John Paul II in 1988 to manage relations with the Society of St. Pius X founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

Both men played key roles in the decision to lift the ecxcommunications, including that of Bishop Richard Williamson, the traditionalist prelate who denied in an interview with Swedish television that the Nazis had used gas chambers and that six million Jews had died in the Holocaust.

The so-called “Lefebvrites” rejected many of the reforms associated with the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Most prominently, traditionalists clung to the pre-Vatican II Mass in Latin, but many also have voiced objections to the council’s teachings on ecumenism, inter-faith dialogue and religious freedom.

In broad strokes, the restructuring announced today is seen by most observers as a sign that the Vatican intends to take a more careful, and perhaps a bit firmer, hand in its dealings with traditionalist Catholics.

Issued as a motu proprio, meaning an exercise of the pope’s personal authority under canon law, Ecclesiae unitatem brings the Ecclesia Dei Commission under the supervision of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s top doctrinal agency. That means ultimate responsibility for the church’s relationship with the traditionalists will belong to American Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the doctrinal congregation.

The Vatican also announced today that the new secretary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission will be Italian Monsignor Guido Pozzo, 57, formerly an official in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and deputy secretary of the International Theological Commission, an advisory body to the doctrinal congregation.

Levada released a statement today stipulating that as far as the Lefebvrite movement is concerned, “the doctrinal questions remain open. Until they’re clarified, Levada’s statement said, the ‘Society of St. Pius X’ cannot enjoy any canonical status within the church, and its ministers do not exercise in a legitimate way any ministry within the church.”

Although the Vatican issued a similar statement at the time of the controversy surrounding Williamson, today’s repetition from Levada makes clear anew that the lifting of the excommunications in January does not mean that the Lefebvrite bishops are fully “rehabilitated.”

Now for those of you offended at first glace at the Pope's attempt at reconciling these folks--shout this move just as loudly as you shouted your outrage.

Why do I have feeling that I'll only hear the words: "It's about time!"

How Many Major League Baseball Parks/Cities Have You Been To?

So I just went to the New Yankee Stadium and have been to the new Citi Field and I make it a point to try to go to a stadium when I get to a Major League City.

Here are the ones that I've been to. The names are the names of the park when I attended the game. These include only the parks that I've either seen a game or done a ballpark tour at:

New York (4): Old Yankee, New Yankee, Shea, Citi
Chicago (2): Wrigley Field (by far the best park in the Majors), US Cellular (White Sox)
Baltimore (1): Camden yards (orioles)
Boston (1): Fenway Park (Red Sox)
Seattle (1): Safeco (Mariners--and I took the ballpark tour there!)
Arizona (1): Bank One (Diamondbacks--and it was a no-hitter for Jose Jimenez of the Cardinals and Randy Johnson struck out 14 and LOST!)
Colorado (1): Coors Field (Rockies)
Houston (2): Astrodome (tour only), and Enron Field (!): Astros
Milwaukee (1): Miller Park (Brewers)
San Francisco (1) SBC Park (Giants)
Washington DC (1): RFK Stadium (Nationals)
Montreal (1): Olympic Stadium (Stade Olympique) (Expos)
GRAND TOTAL OF BALLPARKS: 17

Now most of my friends have been to close to this number and one of my friends has been to about 40 over his many years. So I asked a question of my friends:

Has anyone been to all the major league cities (with or without going to the stadium and I'll include Montreal in this for argument's sake)?

Here are the cities I've been to:

Baltimore YES
Boston YES
Chi White Sox YES
Cleveland YES
Detroit YES
Kansas City NO
LA Angels YES
Minnesota NO
NY Yankees YES
Oakland YES
Seattle YES
Tampa Bay YES
Texas NO (arlington)
Toronto YES
Arizona YES
Atlanta YES
Chi Cubs YES
Cincinnati NO
Colorado YES (Denver)
Florida YES (Miami)
Houston YES
LA Dodgers Yes
Milwaukee YES
NY Mets YES
Philadelphia YES
Pittsburgh YES (and I'd have another ballpark if I wasn't rained out of this one)
San Diego NO
San Francisco YES
St. Louis NO
Washington YES
Montreal YES

So I've been to all but 5.

How about you?