"Far More Profound"

"I’m speaking here as an atheist. I don’t believe there is a God, but I respect every religion deeply. All the great world religions contain a complex system of beliefs regarding the nature of the universe and human life that is far more profound than anything that liberalism has produced."

Camille Paglia

"Over the Edge"

“We don’t even know how far we’ve gone, or if we’ve gone over the edge. There are tipping points, feedback loops. This is not some linear set of problems that we can predict. We have to take measures against an uncertain future which may well be something no one ever wants. We are talking about extinction. We are talking about climate regimes that have not been seen for tens of millions of years. We’re not there yet, but we’re on our way.”

Jerry Brown

"I Will Go Back to Praying"

"I read all the speeches of the pope, his commentaries, and if the pope continues this way, I will go back to praying and go back to the church, and I'm not joking."

Raul Castro

"Her Body"

“I feel that we have all sinned. None of us are perfect. No sin is greater than any sin. I don’t know why, other than that’s the only decision [abortion] that a woman could make. That’s her right to make that decision, because that’s her body.”

Callie Chatman, wife of Alabama pastor

"What's Happening Now"

"I was stunned that the president could say something so . . at once, banal and offensive. Here we are from an act shocking barbarism, the burning alive of a prisoner of war, and Obama’s message is that we should remember the Crusades and the Inquisition. I mean, for him to say that all of us have sinned, all religions have transgressed — it was adolescent stuff. Everyone knows that. What’s important is what’s happening now. Christianity no longer goes on Crusades. It gave up the Inquisition a while ago. the Book of Joshua is knee deep in blood. That story is over too."

Charles Krauthammer

"That Really Saved Me"

"I found God doing Fury. I became a Christian man, and not in a f***ing bullshit way - in a very real way. I could have just said the prayers that were on the page. But it was a real thing that really saved me."

Shia LaBeouf

"The San Jacinto Moment"

“This is the San Jacinto moment for traditional family. This is the place where we stop the LGBT assault on the freedom to practice our faith.”

Reverend Dave Welch

Executive Director

Texas Pastor Council

"The Cool Part"

“The cool part of living in a diverse community is that it’s not always comfortable. It’s a fascinating place with lots of opportunities for conversation. The city has to pay attention to a lot of factors while acting within what we can regulate.”

Katherine “Deac” Decarreau, Mayor of Winooski, Vermont

Sign taken down because a woman complained

"Sissy!!"

Public Meals/Food Banks/Pantries/Shelves - St. Johnsbury, Vermont

Public meals in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, include daytimes ones starting at 11am and going to about noon:

• Mondays: Grace Methodist Church, 36 Central Street
• Tuesdays: Mustard Seed, 178 Eastern Avenue
• Wednesdays: North Congregational Church, 1325 Main Street
• Tuesdays: Mustard Seed, 178 Eastern Avenue
• Fridays: South Congregational Church, Main Street
• Saturdays: Universalist Unitarian Church, 47 Cherry Street

Monthly evening meals take place:

• Last Tuesday of the month from 5-6pm: alternating St. John the Evangelist (49 Winter Street) and St. Andrew's Episcopal (Main Street) churches
• Last Thursday of the month from 5:30-6:30pm: South Congregational Church

Foodbanks are Tuesday, Thursday: 12pm -4pm and Saturday: 10am-12pm (closed first Saturday of the month). Portland Street noon-2pm Saturday, noon-4pm other days inside of the old Lincoln Street school.

All information being checked for accuracy and completeness. Please verify.

St. Andrew's Episcopal

Three Choices

"We offer them three choices: Islam; the dhimma contract* — involving payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword."

Islamic State on Christians

*an historic practice under which non-Muslims were protected in Muslim lands in return for a special levy.

"Oh No, It's a Twitter Hashtag"

'A Potemkin Village'

'Ignoring the magnitude of what is at stake in losing a major university like Georgetown to the well-organized efforts that are fundamentally anti-Catholic, some well-meaning friends or earnest Jesuit might want to point to the liturgies, the chaplains, the Knights of Columbus chapter, and so on. Georgetown administrators wish to assure us that they speak to the Archbishop and visit Rome regularly. We know the litany all too well. It describes a Potemkin village.'

William Peter Blatty
Georgetown University alum

FROM: letter to Cardinal Donald Wuerl wondering if it might become necessary to remove the label 'Catholic' and 'Jesuit' from the school based on its embrace of secularism.

GEORGETOWN ALUMNI PETITION CARDINAL TO REMOVE SCHOOL'S CATHOLIC STATUS; May 31, 2013

Am I Considered Christian?

"You basically have the Christians, the Catholics, and the Jews."

That's my friend Warren, answering a recent question regarding religious observance in the United States. He'd said something along these lines a time or two before, so I piped up, being born and raised Catholic myself.

"Catholicism was the first Christian church," I protested. 

Warren stuck by his division and was not going to talk about it. He didn't "know what the f--k" we Catholics were.

Henry VIII established the Church of England¹ essentially so he could remarry after divorcing — he did not invent Christianity by so doing. Neither did Martin Luther when he nailed his 95 Theses² to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church, thereby kicking off the Reformation and Protestantism.

I would not allow us Catholics to be eradicated by the "protest-ants", the "schismatics", the "break-offs".³

When it's stated that 75% of Americans consider themselves to be "Christian", that number certainly includes Catholics. We make up 25% or so of the American population, after all. But many Christians in the U.S. do not believe Catholics should be counted with them.⁴

This may be a definitional thing. What means "Christian" in their minds? It could be the result of ignorance. Or was it historical?

Mayflower

In Europe, everyone knows the Roman Catholic church first spread Christianity, at least in the Western sphere. Martin Luther and Henry VIII came along later. But in the U.S., the English Protestants⁵ came first, at least in the Northeast. Catholic Spaniards stayed far to the south. 

The big Catholic waves came later — 1840s for the Irish, 1880s for the Italians. 

Warren, being from Massachusetts, home of the original landing of Puritans at the legendary Plymouth Rock, might very well see us Catholics as the bedraggled stowaways on ships manned by Protestants — as invaders not founders, upstarts not originals.

---

1. which, apart from breaking off from Rome and the matter of remarrying, did not substantially alter Catholic doctrine.
2. issues which have all been resolved since, save one.
3. I have also called them "splinter groups".
4. something I've observed most particularly in the South.
5. technically not "Protestant"?

Hidden Blood

A constant source of wonder and amusement, and no small amount of consternation, is the number of times I'm taken for Jewish even without being asked.  Often I'm told "I thought you were Jewish."  Or "I just assumed you were Jewish."

Their minds get set on this and it becomes a reality for them--no need to verify or confirm.

As a result of this phenomenon I've been the victim of anti-Semitism.  Once in college a friend reported that another student referred to me as a "jewboy".  How many times it's happened out of earshot, or affected my pathway in life, who can say.

The other night in a cafe, commenting on how differently northerners view male-female relationships than do southerners in this country, a college kid from New Jersey, who was born in Poland, took umbrage. To which I said "especially if they're from New Jersey, and especially if they're speaking Polish."

Depending on the audience, this could be handled humorously.  Instead, this kid came back instantly, and quite vehemently, with:  "And I suppose it's better when they're speaking Hebrew!"

What do you do with that? I did provoke him, in a way, but his response was based on a fallacy.  I was raised Catholic.

I've also visited Auschwitz in Poland, and know quite well their record on that score.  Most of the Jews exterminated during the war were done so on their soil, or so I've been told. When I was there in 1990, only 5,000 Jews continued to live in Poland.

So, do I respond out of righteousness for these atrocities against humanity? Do I protest proclaiming my actual religious allegiances? This seems a minor point against the former.

A complication does arise with my ethnicity.  On this my Polish friend may not have missed the mark by all that much.

The part of my ethnicity I believe I can vouch for is the one quarter Irish plus the one quarter Italian, both Catholic. The part that is somewhat questionable is officially one quarter French (from my father's side) and one quarter Lithuanian (from my mother's).

Actually, as I've been able to reconstruct it by various means, and through family denial and evasion, my paternal grandfather was a quarter Jewish ethnically and my maternal grandfather was a half.  So I consider myself to be three sixteenths Jewish ethnically.

Curiously, but perhaps predictably, the hidden blood on one side of the family found the hidden blood on the other.

I'm certainly not a practicing Jew, and have no real intention to convert. The whole concept of being "racially Jewish" is controversial in the Jewish community. And so, officially at least, I do not qualify as a Jew.

This doesn't change the way people see me, though, and short of wearing a priest's robe I see very little I can do about that.

"Excuse me, are you Jewish?"

Hasidic Jew

That's a strange thing to be asked walking down a busy sidewalk some morning in Washington, D.C.

Turned out an Hasidic Jew was looking for two Jews to meet a quorum for prayer service.

I replied that I was expanding my mind, did that count? 

"Not today", he said.

On noting the Nazi nature of profiling people on the street as to their ethnic appearance, he said

"Nazi-like would be telling you you're nothing."

Reminding him that the Nazis profiled as to Aryan-like features he claimed he couldn't tell what I looked like with my sunglasses.

I took the opportunity to ask him about the new Pope, "while we're on the topic of Nazis", I said, hopelessly prefiguring his response.

"What are you going to do, he was just a kid.  Let's see what he does now, that's more important," he replied dismissively.

He went back to his search for two more Jews, and I to my wondering at the impact of this new Pope on people of my faith.